The letter was to a young man whose gray eyes she remembered as very kind and whose chin as very vigorous.  He would do things, she thought.  And he would understand—­he was an American.  And dimly she felt that she didn’t want him to think she had utterly forgotten her promise of the evening before last, and she didn’t want him to be filled with whatever dismal impression the Evershams were giving out.  So she dwelt very lightly upon her annoyance at being detained, and asked him please to see the consul or the English Ambassador or somebody in power and hurry matters up a little, as her rightful caretakers had taken themselves off to the Nile.  And she said nothing stupid about the strangeness of her writing to him after only speaking to him twice and never being really presented.  She merely added, “Please hurry things—­I hate being a prisoner,” and sealed and addressed it with a flourish to William B. Hill, and sent it off by the maid, and felt oddly comforted by the memory of Billy’s vigorous chin.

The heat of the rose-and-white room was stifling now as the slant sun of afternoon burned through the closed blinds and drawn hangings.  Languidly she curled up upon the sofa and pillowed her heavy head on the scented silk, and so, drowsing with fitful dreams, she lost the sense of the lagging hours.

She roused to find the maid at hand with more water jars, and, when she had bathed, the girl reappeared and beckoned her to follow.  Perhaps the doctor was below, thought Arlee; perhaps the consulate had sent for her!  With flying feet she followed down the dark old stairs and across the anteroom into the dim salon, only to find a candle-lighted table set for dinner in the middle of the room and Captain Kerissen bowing ceremoniously beside it.

In the blankness of her disappointment she scarcely grasped what he was saying about the dinner hour being early and his sister being indisposed.  She interrupted with a breathless demand for news: 

“And my letters—­surely there has been time for answers!”

“Answers, yes,” he replied, “but not such as I could wish for your sake.”

“You mean——?”

“The English have written to me and request that I cease to trouble the department with my importunities.  For I myself had written to them again, that I might find grace in your eyes by accomplishing your desires.  They say to me that it is useless.  The plague is more serious than the convenience of my visitors, and all must be done according to rule.  When there is no danger you may depart.”

The crash of hopes went echoing to the farthest reaches of her consciousness.  But pride stiffened her to dissemble, and she tried to smile as she mechanically accepted the Captain’s invitation to be seated at the little candle-lighted table.

“There was no word to me personally?” she asked.

“None, but the telegram which came this morning.  I judged that it was not of a significance, for you did not send me a report.”