This was no boarding school girl lingering beyond hours.... This was a high-born Moslem, risking more than he could well know.
The escapade was suddenly serious, tremendously menacing.
She answered faintly, "I have no idea—the thing is so impossible! But of course," she rallied her spirit to protest, "I do not think they would sew me in a sack with a stone and drop me in the river, like the odalisques of yesterday!"
She added, her voice uncertain in spite of her, "I meant only to stay a moment."
"Which is the way?" said Jack briefly.
With caution he opened the gate into the black canyon of the lane. Silence and darkness. Not a loiterer, only one of the furtive starved dogs, slinking back from some rubbish....
The girl moved forward and keeping closely at her side he followed; they crossed to the other wall, and turned towards the right, stopping before the deeper shadow of a small, pointed door set into the heavy brick of the high wall. From her draperies the girl drew out a huge key.
She fitted it into the ancient lock and turned it; carefully she pressed open the gate and stared anxiously into the gloom of the shadowy garden that it disclosed.
Relief colored her voice as she turned to him.
"All is quiet.... I am safe, now.... And so—good-bye, monsieur."