She saw, as if in a vision, the Emir spring from his seat and come hastily forward to where she stood shrinkingly at Captain Dove's shoulder. He was tall and stalwart on foot, a fine figure of a man even in his loose, shapeless garments, with a bronzed, hook-nosed, handsome face of his own, a heavy moustache, the brooding, patient, predatory eyes of a desert vulture. And, as he confronted Captain Dove, over whom he seemed to tower threateningly, the hood of his selham slipped back, disclosing a flaming shock of red hair.
Her own veil had slipped to her chin, but she had been unconscious of that until his blazing eyes had shifted from Captain Dove's unconcerned face to hers. She pulled it hurriedly back into place, and he, turning to the curious onlookers, rid himself of their company before he called, in a caressing voice, on some one within the big, white tent that was the heart of his stronghold. And there came forth a woman, veiled as she herself had been, but clad in silk instead of cotton, who bowed submissively to what he had to say, and then held out a slender, bloodless, burning hand to her....
It all came back to her memory, as if in a lightning-flash that left her stunned and helpless to face the appalling present again. She knew now who the Emir's wife had been—a girl of her own age, but grown old before her time and weary of the little life that had been left in her then. She knew that Farish M'Kissock was speaking the truth now, and that she must bear witness to it at whatever cost to herself. It made no difference that Captain Dove's expression was a mute and none the less dreadful threat of what she might look for at his hands if she dared to do so. The helpless horror of the position in which his cunning intrigue had left her broke on her mind like a thunderbolt. She covered her shamed, white face with both hands, and turned, swaying on her feet, and would have fallen had not the duchess thrown both arms about her and held her there in a close, warm clasp, while Justin Carthew and Lord Ingoldsby, who had both darted forward to help her, glared at each other vindictively.
"It can't be true!" said the duchess, half to herself, but Sallie heard, and stood upright again, dizzily, letting her hands fall, prepared to do public penance for her innocent and unwitting part in the shameless fraud that had been perpetrated. She did not give a thought to the fact that all her own fair dreams of the future were finally shattered and past repair. But she wondered what the poor folk she had befriended about the village would have to say when they heard that she was no better than a common impostor, and the duchess, who had befriended her, and Justin Carthew, whom Mr. Jobling had treated as a trespasser there!
"It is true," she asserted, desperately, in a tone which might have touched even Captain Dove, "though I didn't know till now—" She almost broke down under the dire humiliation she was enduring, but the duchess would not let her go when she would have drawn away from the arm at her waist, and she forced herself to go on with her unspeakably hurtful confession.
"The locket was given me by the girl who died in the desert—who was that man's wife," she said so that all might hear, her face aflame now under the others' blankly believing glances. "I didn't want to take it at all—but she believed she would not live long, and I felt that it would be unkind to refuse."
Farish M'Kissock looked round, in baleful triumph, at Captain Dove, whose hopes he had thus thwarted and brought to nought. But Captain Dove's evil eyes were fixed on Lord Jura.
"Did she tell you nothing at all of herself—or her history?" the duchess asked very gently.
"Not a word," Sallie answered with transparent honesty.
"But there's another here that knew who she was," said Farish M'Kissock, and pointed to Justin Carthew, who could only nod most unhappily, avoiding Sallie's sudden, incredulous glance.