'Let me
go, Jack, let me go.' There was the crowd about us. It was evident that
Harry had some reason for secrecy; it might have been shame, for all I
knew, shame at his downfall. I said, 'Come up to my quarters in Halfa as
soon as you are free,' and I let him go. All that night I waited for him
on the verandah, but he did not come. In the morning I had to start
across the desert. I almost spoke of him to a friend who came to see me
start, to Calder, in fact--you know of him--the man who sent you the
telegram," said Durrance, with a laugh.
"Yes, I remember," Ethne answered.
It was the second slip she had made that night. The receipt of Calder's
telegram was just one of the things which Durrance was not to know. But
again she was unaware that she had made a slip at all. She did not even
consider how Durrance had come to know or guess that the telegram had
ever been despatched.
"At the very last moment," Durrance resumed, "when my camel had risen
from the ground, I stooped down to speak to him, to tell him to see to
Feversham. But I did not. You see I knew nothing about his allowance. I
merely thought that he had fallen rather low. It did not seem fair to
him that another should know of it.
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