Gordon had been standing aside in the torment of a hundred mixed emotions, and now he and Helena spoke in whispers.
"He is determined to go into Cairo," she said.
"Quite determined."
"Oh, is there no way to prevent him?"
"None now—unless——"
"Unless—what?" she asked eagerly.
"Let us ... Let us wait and see," said Gordon, and then Abdullah came in to lay the table.
CHAPTER XX
As soon as the mid-day meal was over Gordon escaped to his room—the room he shared with Ishmael—and throwing himself down on the angerib with his hands clasped across his face, he tried to think out the situation in which he found himself, to gaze into the depths of his conscience, and to see where he was and what he ought to do.
So violent was the state of his soul that he sat there a long time before he could link together his memories of what had happened since he arrived in Khartoum.