"What?" Stephen asked, as Nevill broke off suddenly.
"Oh, nothing to fash yourself about, as the twins would say. Only—it would be awkward if she's there. Harder to get her out. However—time to cross the stile when we come to it."
But Stephen crossed a great many stiles with his mind before that darkest hour before the dawn, when he was called to get ready for the last stage of the journey.
Lady MacGregor was up to see them off, and never had her cap been more elaborate, or her hair been dressed more daintily.
"You'll wire me from the end of the world, won't you?" she asked briskly. "Paul and I (and Hamish and Angus if necessary) will be ready to rush you all three back to civilization the instant you arrive with Miss Ray. Give her my love. Tell her I've brought clothes for her. They mayn't be what she'd choose, but I dare say she won't be sorry to see them. And by the way, if there are telegrams—you know I told the servants to send them on from home—shall I wire them on to Oued Tolga?"
"No. We're tramps, with no address," laughed Nevill. "Anything that comes can wait till we get back."
Stephen could not have told why, for he was not thinking of Margot, but suddenly he was convinced that a telegram from her was on the way, fixing the exact date when she might be expected in England.
XLIII
Since the day when Victoria had called Stephen to her help, always she had expected him. She had great faith, for, in her favourite way, she had "made a picture of him," riding up and down among the dunes, with the "knightly" look on his face which had first drawn her thoughts to him. Always her pictures had materialized sooner or later, since she was a little girl, and had first begun painting them with her mind, on a golden background.