“Now, Charlie, my dear boy,” said poor Lady Haigh, entreatingly, as Charlie still stood with his arms round Cecil. “You will get us all into trouble, you know, and we have really done all we could for you, and Sir Dugald will be so much vexed. Good-bye, my dear boy. Now let her go. Take care of yourself, and don’t be rash. No, you are not to come farther than this. I will look after Cecil. My dear child, don’t faint. I don’t know what will happen to us if you do. Charlie, I will not have you come any farther. Go back, and get on board. Mr D’Silva, please give Miss Anstruther your arm to the door. Charlie, go back. My dear boy, good-bye. Give Cecil’s love to her people.”
And Lady Haigh, reiterating her instructions and prohibitions in a voice choked with tears, followed Cecil and Mr D’Silva along the passage, turning suddenly to find that Charlie was following her stealthily, bent on getting another sight of Cecil. She drove him back again with one of her quick bursts of passion, and hurried to the spot where the horses were waiting. She and Mr D’Silva helped Cecil into the saddle, for she was in a numb, dazed condition, and he led her horse through the wood and into the road. Pausing only once, to see the Seleucia passing out of sight round a bend in the stream, they rode swiftly back to Baghdad, which looked dull and miserable under the clouded sky, with mud under foot and sodden palm-trees overhead, and a turbid, rapidly flowing river that could not reflect the mean houses on either side.
When Azim Bey returned that night from the ceremony of the investiture, he was surprised to find his courtyard almost in darkness. Going into the schoolroom, he found that the only light came from the glowing charcoal in the brazier, beside which Cecil was crouching, still in her riding-habit. The wind had risen again, and was howling round the house and in the beams of the roof, and the whole scene was one of desolation.
“Are you ill, mademoiselle?” asked Azim Bey, in the most natural tone he could devise, while one of the negresses followed him in, carrying a torch, which shed a flickering light on the darkness. Cecil said nothing, but looked up at him with eyes of such sadness that they haunted him in spite of his efforts to banish the impression.
“I do not understand you, mademoiselle,” he said, unblushingly, in reply to her unspoken reproof.
“You have driven Dr Egerton away,” she said.
“I ask your pardon, mademoiselle. How was I to know that you had any special interest in the English doctor?”
“But you did know,” said Cecil, wearily. She had not spirit to contend with her pupil that night.
“But, mademoiselle, that is impossible. You have never told me; you would not even let me approach the subject. How was I to know?”
“How can I tell?” asked Cecil. “I feel sure that you did know, and that all this is your doing. Well, Bey, you have won the victory; I hope you enjoy it. Good-night.” And he saw her no more that evening.