"Almost surely I shan't be allowed to see Ourïeda again, and if I can't help her any more I might as well beg father to send for me at once," she told herself, when Ben Râana, formally taking leave of her, with hand on forehead and heart, had gone. She went slowly and miserably to her own room to await developments, and while she waited, hastily wrote the message to Colonel DeLisle which three days later found him at Touggourt.
In writing, she feared that her letter might never be allowed to reach her father; but she wronged Ben Râana. He had spoken no more than the truth (though he spoke to hurt) in saying he would rather die than betray a trust. At that time he still kept his calmness, because the plot arranged by the two girls had not succeeded. His daughter was still safe under his own roof, and it was not an unexpected blow to him that she should have wished to escape from Tahar. He knew in his heart that Ourïeda was more to blame than Sanda, and seeing shame on the young, pale face of the Roumia he had no fear of anything George DeLisle's daughter might report to her father. Her letter went by the courier, as all her other letters had gone. Mabrouka's advice to keep it back, or at least to steam the envelope open and see what was inside, was scorned by Ben Râana; and to Sanda's astonishment she was actually sent for to visit Ourïeda.
This was in the afternoon of the day whose dawn had seen the girls' defeat. Ourïeda was in bed, and Taous sat by the open door with an embroidery frame. But Taous understood neither French nor English. In exchange for the lessons Ourïeda gave Sanda in Arabic, Sanda had given lessons in English; therefore, lest Aunt Mabrouka might be listening, and lest she might have picked up more French than she cared to confess, the two girls chose the language of which Ourïeda had learned to understand more than she could speak.
"How thankful I am to see you, dearest!" cried Sanda. "Didn't you think, after what your aunt said, that I should be sent away this morning? Would you have dreamed, even if I stayed, that we should be allowed to meet and talk like this?"
Ourïeda answered, slowly and brokenly, that she had not believed Sanda would be permitted to go. Aunt Mabrouka had not stopped to reflect when she had made that threat, or else she had hoped to part them, and to make Ourïeda believe Sanda had gone. "You see," the girl explained in her halting English, "they—my father and my aunt—shall have too much of the fear to let you go till after all is finished."
"Finished?"
"When the marrying has been over thou canst go. Then it too late. My father shall be sure, thee and me, we know where M—— is, that our plan was for him. I say no, but he not believe. That is for why they keep thee here, so thou not tell M—— things about me. But my father, he shall not be mean and little in his mind like my aunt. He not listen to the words she speak when she say not let us meet together. My father know very well now we shall be finded out, it is the end for us. He not have fear for what we do if some person shall watch to see I not kill myself."
"What has become of poor Embarka?" Sanda asked.
Ourïeda shook her head, unutterable sadness in her eyes. "I think never shall I know that in this world."
Ill, without feigning, as the girl was, the wedding was to be hurried on. The original idea had been for the week of wedding festivities to begin on the girl's seventeenth birthday; but now Ben Râana said that, in promising his daughter the delay she asked for, he had always intended to begin the week before and give the bride to the bridegroom on the anniversary of her birth.