"She's there," said Shelah, pointing to what looked like a low, a very low mound of sand.
Harold hastily removed some of the sand, uncovering enough to ascertain that life was quite extinct.
"Dead!" he said in an undertone, but it caught the ear of Shelah.
"Dead!" repeated Shelah in turn. "The good lady is dead, and Robin, and now she is dead—I think it will be my turn next!"
"I hope not," said Harold gently.
"Would you mind?" asked Shelah.
The artless question touched Harold's heart. "Yes, I should mind very much, Shelah," he said.
The poor child, sobbing, threw herself into his arms, and clung to the only being near who cared whether she lived or died.
Harold had not a minute even to utter a prayer by Miss Petty's corpse. The Arabs, who had been already delayed in their journey by the simoom, insisted on his instantly joining the march, and, had Harold lingered, would have used force to compel submission. Gently young Hartley raised Shelah, so that, without dismounting, an Arab could place her before him on his camel. Harold himself had to go on foot.
The caravan moved slowly on, leaving the corpse of Miss Petty behind. There was a strange similarity between the fate of Grace Evendale and that of Theresa, both dying in an Arabian desert with but a single human being near, both left in unknown, unmarked graves. And yet the difference between them was as that between the convict and the conqueror; one going into endless exile, the other departing to receive a crown. The comparison suggests less of similarity than of contrast.