But at times there was a look in her mistress’ eyes and a certain atmosphere radiating from the frail little person before which Hobson quailed, so that she said quite gently, “Tea and one letter, your grace,” when she found her sitting at the open window, looking out at the morning sky.

But although she spoke gently and tucked an extra shawl about the bent shoulders with a tender hand, she was thinking viciously all the same over her mistresses leniency towards her god-daughter.

“I wish the young lady could be safely married to that proper English gentleman.  One can see he wants her, but she doesn’t seem to know her own mind.  Too pleased by half she is, to my thinking, with this country and the silly nonsense of their nasty, heathen ways!”

And she left the room with a swish of starched petticoat, when Damaris, who had just returned from her desert ride, entered to greet her godmother.

She knelt at the side of the chair and, encircling her in her strong young arms, laid her cheek against the old lady’s, and knelt without movement, looking out to the desert, whilst one wrinkled old hand stroked her head and the other turned the pages of the letter.

A piteous letter of appeal from a woman whose love had brought forth the bitterest of bitter fruit.

“. . . Is there a way out, Petite Maman?” wrote Jill, the English wife of Hahmed Sheikh el-Umbar.  “Will you undertake the long journey and come and see me, for who knows if together we could not find a way to ensure my boy’s happiness?  I would come to you, only Hugh is near you, and our men in the East tolerate no interference from their women-folk.  My messenger will wait for your answer.  I am overwhelmed with foreboding for Hugh my first-born.  If you can, come to me.  JILL.”

And as the sun rose the old lady still sat near the window, trying to come to a decision.

Could she turn a deaf ear to the woman she had known as a girl almost twenty-five years ago?  Could she, on the other hand, go to her and risk leaving the girl at her side exposed to the indescribable appeal of the East?  Should she send her back to England, or take her as far as Luxor and leave her there under the social wing of Lady Thistleton?

“Have you learned any more about the Arab who follows at a distance when you ride in the morning, dear?”

Damaris nodded.

It seemed she had overheard Lady Thistleton talking about him; his palaces in the desert and at Cairo; his stables and falcons.

The girl stopped for a moment, then continued: 

“He has an English name and seems to be a millionaire, and something else which I could not catch, but by the sound of the Prickly-Thistleton’s voice it seemed to be something awful!”

“This”—­the old lady touched the letter in her lap—­“this is from his, mother, dear, asking me to go and see her.  If I do, I will tell you the whole story when I come back.  Don’t ask me anything until then, dear.”