"Yes, on Saturday."
"You must take good care of yourself, dearest. It is hot in Cairo, but it may be cool in Alexandria and even cold on the sea. Put some warm clothing on, dear—some nice warm underclothing, you know."
She was sure to meet pleasant people on the steamer and they would see her safely into the train at Marseilles. It would be such an agreeable break to travel overland, through Paris, and when she reached London——
"Have you anybody to meet you in London, Helena?"
Still drawing the hem of her handkerchief through her fingers, Helena shook her head.
"I'm sorry for that, dear, very sorry."
Arriving in London was so trying, so bewildering, especially to a woman. Such crowds, such confusion! It always made her feel so helpless. And then she had the Consul-General to look after her, and once Gordon had come to meet her too. He was at the Staff College at that time, and before she alighted from the carriage she had seen him forging his way down the platform, and he kissed his hand to her——
But the sweet old thing could bear up no longer, and while Helena pressed her handkerchief to her lips, she said—
"O Helena, how happy we might have been! It's wrong of me, I know it's wrong, but I can't reconcile myself to it even yet. 'Why is my life prolonged?' I have often thought, and then I have told myself it was because God intended that I should live to see my dear children happy. Ah, my darling, it would have been so beautiful! My children and perhaps my children's children. If I could only have seen them all together once! It would have been so easy to go then. But now my son is gone—I don't know what has become of him—and my daughter—my sweet daughter that was to be——"
Helena sank to her knees. "Mother!" she said, and burying her face in Lady Nuneham's shoulder, she felt, for the first time in her life, that a mother's heart was beating against her own.