"As if I could have believed your tongue, unless you had shut your eyes! So Esmé is married, and off your hands?"
"Not off my hands, I'm afraid. This may be visited on me. They must have known of her meeting Tom Halloran at St. Martin Vesubie, last summer. They find out everything, sooner or later. Probably they thought I'd whisked her off to Egypt with me (helped by my rich friend Miss Gilder, for whom they took Rachel Guest) in order to let her meet Tom Halloran again, and marry him secretly. Well, she has married him secretly. When they discover what's happened, they're sure to put the blame on poor me. And indeed, it is a shocking thing for the son of that man in prison, and the daughter of the man who sent him there, to be husband and wife."
"I don't see that at all," I argued. "Why shouldn't their love end the feud?"
"It can't, for strong as it may be, it won't release prisoners, or bring back to life those who are dead."
"Anyhow, don't borrow trouble," said I. "If Esmé's married the more reason for us to follow her example. After Khartum, when Miss Gilder—"
"Who's taking my name in vain?" inquired the owner of it, at the sanctuary door.
"Oh, then you have come, Monny!" Brigit exclaimed. "I—I'd given you up."
"I haven't come for the reason you thought," returned the girl promptly. "I was sure you meant to head me off. And I've learned without asking, that Antoun Effendi didn't write that note."
"I told you so! Who did?"
"He's trying to find out. Probably it was a silly practical joke some one wanted to play on me. There are lots quite capable of it, on board! Antoun Effendi said the sunrise was much finer really, from on top of the great sandhill, so we climbed up. And it came out that he hadn't asked me to meet him here. If any one not on the boat wrote the letter, some steward must have been bribed to sell a bit of writing-paper, and allow a stranger to come on board, while we were away at Kasr Ibrim. There was a steam dahabeah moored not far off, if you remember, with Oriental decorations; so we fancied it must belong to an Egyptian or a Turk."