Kate was sympathetic. “Go on, then,” she replied. “I’ll hint to the others that you’ve got a stomach-ache or something, and have ridden on. And let me see more colour in that old mug of yours when you get back.”
She leant forward in her saddle, and struck her companion’s horse with her cane, so that he went off at a gallop across the sand.
Bearing off to the left, Muriel soon described the head of rock which overlooked the camp; but approaching it thus from the south she knew that the tents would not come into view until she had rounded this ridge.
She had no idea what she was going to say. She thought only that she would go into his tent, where she would probably find him writing at his table; and she would put her arms about him, and tell him that she could not live under his displeasure.
At last she reached the rocks; and, as she rode round them, she drew up her reins and prepared to dismount. Then, with horrible suddenness, the truth was, as it were flung at her. Where she had thought to see the tents, there was only a patch of broken-up sand, a few bits of paper and straw, and innumerable footprints.
She uttered a little cry of dismay, and, with wide, frightened eyes, gazed about her. The footprints of the camels passed in a thin line out to the west, and she could see them winding away into the silent desert.
[CHAPTER XXIII—THE NATURE OF WOMEN]
Kate Bindane had just gone up to her room and was standing there alone, examining herself disapprovingly in the long mirror, when Muriel staggered in, her face white, her knees giving way.
“Kate!” she cried. “He’s gone!”
She threw herself down on the floor in front of a low arm-chair, and spreading her arms across its seat, buried her face in them.