"I see what it is—you are angry with me for going to El Azhar last night," said Gordon.
"No, it isn't that, though I think you might have kept faith with me," she answered. "But we have no time to lose, and I have something to say to you. In the first place I want you to know that Colonel Macdonald, your Deputy Assistant Adjutant, has been ordered to stand by. He will be only too happy to take your place if necessary."
"He's welcome!" said Gordon.
Her brows were contracted, her lips set. She fastened her eyes on him and said—
"Then there is something else I wish to tell you."
"What is it, Helena?"
"When my father asked me if I could marry a man who had disobeyed and been degraded, I said ... But it doesn't matter what I said. My father has hardly spoken to me since. It is the first cloud that has come between us—the very first. But when I answered him as I did, there was something I had forgotten."
"What was it, dearest?"
"I cannot tell you what it was—I can only tell you what it comes to."
"What does it come to, Helena?"