During the homeward journey, he had laid plans for the irrigation of the Sahara, and with his assistant, in his private office, he discussed the making of these plans for a scientific irrigation system, to take the place of the French plan for flooding the Sahara by means of a canal from the ocean.
With this work thus auspiciously commenced, Carl was at liberty to give more careful consideration to his private matters, including that stack of mail. On second thought, however, he waited until the evening when the office force had left before he sat down to the task.
The contents of the letters were practically all alike, only that the meaning in each was differently expressed, some were clever, some witty, some downright dull. But Carl was used to that. Among them were invitations to affairs that were already numbered among the annals of the past and others of a future time, which he made note of in anticipation of attending them, if circumstances permitted.
He had started his plans for the Sahara irrigating scheme, but with Sana gone there was not the same enthusiasm and initiative as there was prior to that fateful trip into the desert when they had been trapped by Amshied and when he had so utterly failed to play the hero, the rescuer of his beloved one. The spur was gone. Again, there came to him Sana’s promise that she would give anything a woman could give to the man, who of course was Carl, who saved her homestead at the Gurara Oasis. But now she was dead and his desire to work on the Sahara plan was likewise dying.
He cursed the hour when Sana and he, on the pretense of requiring refreshments—while in reality it was Sana’s desire to listen to the music, came to the spot destined to prove so fateful. And after all, it was but the monotonous tones issuing from the flute of a snake charmer.
The minute attention Grace paid Carl in her first week in the office, was not, in her mind, sufficiently reciprocated—so she thought, although she realized that she was but an employee. But had she not done her level best to bring him back to health, when he was lying prostrate in the hospital? That this was her duty as a nurse, did not occur to her. She loved Carl and was determined to secure his love. In what way she secured it, did not matter to her. Well she knew that Carl in paying her passage home had unconsciously stepped into a trap, from which he would have difficulty in extricating himself once the meshes of the net had enfolded him. The Mann Act deals severely with any offender, whose offense comes within its provisions and Grace knew how easy it would be to lend color to the story of her passage home, even though it were an act of charity on Carl’s part.
She did not care to entertain this thought, yet it occurred to her mind time and time again when Carl busily engaged appeared to be paying no attention to her. His seemed an iceberg attitude, which made her shiver. But she was ready to dig the flame out of the ice.
For some time Grace had become anxious, fearing that Carl knew or might come to know of the cablegram she had withheld from him. Yet, how could he learn of it? Did she not receive it early in the morning, just after she had unlocked the office and when she was entirely alone?
It was her duty to open the mail, telegrams and the like. Thus she reasoned she had done no wrong, insofar as reading the cablegram was concerned. But to withhold it from her employer, even though she considered him more in the light of a friend and even though it came from a woman she felt to be her rival, equally if not more in love with Carl—was this not a wrong of a hideous kind? Was it not even branded with the name of crime?
BELOVED CARL. I AM HOME AGAIN. NOTHING SERIOUS HAPPENED. LETTER WILL FOLLOW. YOUR LOVING AND LONGING SANA.