“Drat men!” she said briefly and emphatically.

“Yes, drat ’em!” replied Maria Hobson, even more emphatically, as her memory leapt clear across the gulf of years to the time when she had walked out with a certain Sergeant of the Irish Guards.

Jane Coop dropped a curtsey to the gentry and stood just inside the door, up in arms, ready to fight anyone at the first word of condemnation of her young mistress.

“Come over here, Coop, please, and tell me everything you can about Miss Damaris.  I have an idea—­mind you, I am not sure—­that she has gone out alone, and we must be as quick as we can in finding her, because Egypt is no place for a white girl to be running about in by herself.”

Jane Coop took up a corner of the big white apron she insisted upon wearing, and pleated it between her fingers as she told her grace everything with a surprising lucidity.

“. . .  She came in here to fetch her fan, your grace, and in here somewhere she will have left me a message.  I’ve never known my baby to break her word, and I’ll look for it, if I may.  She’ll have written it on a bit of this block and with this pencil.  It’s been thrown down in a hurry.  Miss Damaris is that tidy, she can put her hand on anything she wants in the dark, which is more than most of the slipshod, take-off-your-dress-and-leave-it-there young ladies of the present day could do.”

The anxious maid hid her fear in a never-ending, sotto voce invective against the Pharaohs and their descendants down to the present generation, as they all hunted vainly for the bit of paper; then she stood helplessly in the middle of the room and apostrophised the dog: 

“You know where your missie’s gone to.  Why don’t you help us, instead of lying there growling?” She stood scowling at him, then suddenly walked across to where he lay.  “I wonder if she put it inside that book,” she muttered; then gave a little cry as she caught sight of the paper twisted in the steel ring of the spiked collar.  “I’ve got it!” she cried.  “I’ve got it!”

The duchess, who was quite near her, put her hand on her arm.

“Take care, Coop.  The dog is really angry.  Let me get it.”

“Not you, your grace.  No, not ever so, bless you.”

Wellington was standing on the book, great tusks gleaming, eyes glaring, a hideous picture of rage; but love casts out fear, even the just fear of a dog who would never let go until you or he were dead, once he got his teeth into any part of yon.

There was no haste about Jane Coop as she knelt beside him.  “Missie wants you,” she said.  “D’you hear?” The rose-leaf ears pricked at the sound of the beloved name, but the whole tremendous body shook with his growling response.  “You don’t love her, you brute, else you’d have picked up the book and been ready to start at the sound of her name.  I’ll teach you to be so slow.”  With a sudden lightning movement she caught hold of the loose skin just under the jaw, firmly, grimly, with her left hand, holding him amazed and for a moment helpless as she pulled the paper out of the ring; then she let go, and pointed to the book, just as the dog was about to spring.