"One of my secretaries shall make arrangements and see you safely aboard. Meantime have no anxieties. England will take care of your father's daughter."
Then he rose, and taking her ice-cold hand, he said—
"I think that is all. I'll come up on Saturday morning to see you off. Good-bye for the present." And then, in the same hoarse voice as before, looking steadfastly into her face for a moment, "God bless you, my girl!"
For some minutes Helena did not move from the spot on which Lord Nuneham left her. A sense of double bereavement had fallen on her for the first time with a crushing blow. That some day she would lose her father was an idea to which her mind had long been accustomed, but never for one moment until then—not even in the bitter hour in which they had parted at the door—had she allowed herself to believe that a time would come when she would have to live on without Gordon. It was here now. The past and the future alike were closed to her. A black curtain had fallen about her life. If Gordon could not return without the risk of arrest, what right had she to expect him to come back to her at all? He was gone. He was lost to her. She was alone.
The city, which had been lying hot in the quivering sun, began to grow red and hazy, and in the gathering twilight Helena became conscious of criers in the streets below. The black boy, who was always bustling about her, interpreted their cries. They were crying the funeral of the students who had fallen at El Azhar. It was to take place that night. Ishmael Ameer called on the people to gather in the great market-place of Mohammed Ali and walk up by torchlight to the Arab cemetery outside the town.
"Would lady like Mosie go and see? Then Mosie come back and tell lady everything," said the black boy, and in the hope of being alone Helena allowed him to go.
But hardly had the boy gone when a timid knock came to her door and the Army surgeon entered the room. The man's thin lips were twitching, and he was clearly ill at ease.
"Excuse me," he said, "but hearing you were soon to leave for home ... I thought it only fair to myself ... In fact, I have come to make an explanation."
"What is it?" asked Helena, without a trace of interest in her tone.
The surgeon gnawed the ends of his moustache for an instant, and then, looking uneasily at Helena, he said—