receive my thanks from her own lips, and I will claim it."

Proud, passionate, and exceedingly tenacious of purpose, Henry Fitzroy was a man of no ordinary type of character, and either by accident or intuition Margaret, in her study of his handwriting, had divined certain points in it with singular accuracy. It was a character whose faults were balanced by many good points, but all his qualities were fenced about with such an impenetrable wall of reserve that he was more respected than beloved, and there were few people who could feel that they really knew him. He was the sort of man who is known even to his most intimate friends by his surname only, and women were generally a good deal afraid of him. His boyish name of Harry had fallen from him in very early infancy, and his mother and sisters always spoke of Henry with high reverence and respect as the most important and distinguished representative of the family, though it is very possible that they felt more real affection for Jack, the foolish, fussy, and exceedingly fallible elder brother who had succeeded to the family estates, and who commanded no respect at all. The Fitzroys were refined and cultivated people, and the influences under which he had grown up, together with a natural fastidiousness of taste, had combined to make Henry Fitzroy a very polished and gentlemanly person, who felt that he had a right to think well of himself. He was accustomed to carry everything before him in society, and now, when his nature was stirred to its depths by a force that it had never known before, and his mind was set upon the gratification of what seemed to him an innocent desire, he was indignant and annoyed to find himself misconceived and opposed.

"I do not believe that my beautiful

lady herself would feel the slightest scruple about it," he said to himself. "It is only that mischievous little prig of a governess who is determined to make trouble. I will circumvent her, I shall have not the least compunction in doing so,-and as for the Pasha" It was clear from the contemptuous curl of his short upper lip that Fitzroy regarded the prejudices of a Turkish husband with small consideration. Indeed, in spite of the assurance he had received from Margaret, he thought of the Pâsha as a lazy, effete, self-indulgent representative of a race that would be far better wiped off the face of the earth; and in the plenitude of his prejudice and his ignorance he was prepared to plunge into an enterprise of which he knew not the perils.

If any experienced person had been at hand to advise him, he would have been told that a stab in the back in the crowded bazaars of Cairo, or a brief application of the bowstring in the back-room of some dingy coffeehouse, would very probably be the end of the adventure. And if he escaped these dangers, there were others; a pistol-shot from the marshes on the road to the Pyramids, a cup of coffee oddly flavoured,—there were many ways in which revenge could be worked out by an Oriental mind; he would disappear and be no more heard of, like so many others who had once played a part in this populous city, and no efforts of the English consulate would avail to discover his body lying quiet in the yellow mud at the bottom of the Nile.

Henry Fitzroy received no warning, and if he had, he would not have listened to it. He confided in no one. He kept the diamonds locked up in his dressing-case, and he breathed no word about the matter to any of his friends; but his mind was none the less firmly set upon his purpose.

CHAPTER XI.

MARGARET went up the marble steps of the grand entrance to the harim with a heavy heart. The ladies were all out driving, and the slaves, making holiday in their absence, were fluttering in and out of the palace doors like a flock of brilliant birds let loose from a cage. In their flowing robes of brightcoloured cottons they looked wonderfully picturesque as they leaned over the white marble balustrade, and they filled the air with merry laughter as they chattered with the black-coated negroes. Anâna, an old slave of between sixty and seventy, who had nursed three generations of the family, was a tyrant over the younger Circassians, and generally kept them in order with voice and hand whenever she thought they were up to mischief, but at this moment she was absorbed in the contemplation of the beauties of her fat legs. She had just emerged from a very hot bath, and with her hair, new-dyed to a bright vermilion colour, arranged under a brilliant blue head-dress, and her twinkling brown eyes freshly marked with black, she was very proud of herself. The slaves had been propitiating her with compliments upon a new pair of yellow and black striped stockings, and she sat on the red satin divan in the reception-hall, holding up her clean white cotton robes, and displaying with supreme satisfaction a pair of the thickest ankles that ever were

cacy of the Circassians was confined to their faces. They would shriek as they covered their heads in a hurry from the gaze of masculine eyes; but as to their legs they were absolutely indifferent. Most of them had extraordinarily thick ankles, and they displayed them carelessly on all occasions, looping up their draperies, and drawing forth with perfect serenity their pocket-handkerchiefs which they wore tucked into their garters. Conventionality has strange laws, however, and they are manifested in curiously contradictory fashion, concerning themselves with ankles in one society, and with the hair of the head in another. Margaret could perceive an analogy in the European ladies who feel themselves perfectly respectable in the bathing-costumes of Boulogne so long as their necks are safely covered, and are equally happy in the most décolleté of ball-dresses, provided the skirts are sufficiently long. At one end or the other it seems necessary that the laws of convention should assert themselves in order that the delicacy of feminine feelings may be vindicated; and Margaret reflected that, after all, the Circassians were more consistent than their European sisters in always keeping to the same standard.

The idiosyncrasies of the slaves had always interested and amused Margaret, and she did not in the least mind finding herself left to their society when the ladies went out. Invariably considerate and sympathetic with them, she had become a general favourite, and was a welcome spectator of the strange barbaric dances that they delighted in performing whenever Anâna's back was turned; but to-day she had no heart. to enter into their amusements, and she hurried away so soon as she could make good her escape. She was looking forward with despondency and misgiving to the inevitable explana

tion with Valda, and she wished that it were over. This was not the end then, as she had so confidently hoped ; on the contrary, it seemed but the beginning of complications. What would be the effect upon Valda? What would she say?

It was late in the afternoon when the ladies returned from their visits, and they brought back a party of friends with them, so that Valda was unable to escape to her own rooms; but about half-an-hour before dinner, she sent one of the slaves with a message asking Mademoiselle to come up to her, and she came half way down the grand staircase to meet her. She was dressed in a trailing Parisian teagown of blue-green velvet trimmed with silver lace; and with diamonds flashing in her hair and at her throat and ears, her magnificent Southern beauty had a strange moonlight effect that was almost startling. She was very pale, but her beautiful eyes, with the dark markings under the lashes enhancing their lustre, were brilliant with excitement; and so soon as she saw Margaret she held out her slim white hand with an eager gesture.

"I sent for you, Mademoiselle,” she said in a stifled voice; "I felt that I could not endure to wait all through dinner without knowing what has happened. Tell me,—oh, Mademoiselle, it is not good news that you bring I see by your face that it is not. Sit down and tell me,-tell everything."

me

She sat down on the wide flight of steps on which she was standing, and motioned to Margaret to take her place by her side. The richly carpeted staircase, forming a position of vantage which commanded a view of all the state apartments of the harim,-one leading into another with contrivances of glass doorways and great mirrors that gave a bewildering impression of space and perspective

was a favourite resting-place of the ladies. At this hour the great rooms were growing dark, and the dim light of a few wax candles, flickering here and there in the glass lustres hanging from the ceilings and projecting from the walls, did but add to the gloom and mystery of the great hall. With a disregard for appearances, even more remarkable in the Turks than in the Irish, the slaves were allowed to stick one candle here and another there, just where light was absolutely necessary, and the effect was apt to be desolate and disorderly in the extreme; but the ladies were accustomed to the combination of splendour and luxury with makeshifts and discomforts of all sorts, and they did not seem to mind it in the least.

Margaret sat down beside her companion under a branching lustre with one solitary candle in it, and felt that from some points of view this barbaric simplicity was not without advantages. The quietness and privacy of the place were complete; a sound of singing and dancing, going on for the entertainment of Turkish visitors in a reception-room far within the suite of the staterooms on the first floor, penetrated faintly through the glass doors, but there was no one anywhere near the stairs. The slaves were lazily preparing the table for dinner in the saloon down-stairs, and occasionally one of them would flit across the gloomy spaces of the hall; but even if they had come near enough to hear, they could not have understood a word of the low-voiced conversation in French going on upon the stairs.

"Well, you have seen him at least, and without running any risks,-that is something," said Valda. "And now tell me what he said and what he did; I want to know everything. Has he given you the diamonds?"

them with him, but he would not give them to me; he told me that he wished to receive his thanks direct from your own lips, and he said that he intended to keep the star until he could give it into your own hands.”

There was a note of despair in Margaret's quiet tones, but her face was calm and steady. It was Valda who looked aghast. "That is impossible," she said in a shocked whisper; "that can never, never be! Did you not tell him so, Mademoiselle?"

"Yes, I told him so, butMargaret paused for a moment. "He would not listen to me; I could make no impression upon him. I tried, but I did not succeed, and I am afraid that I may have done more harm than good. I had better tell you

all about it."

She gave a faithful account of the interview, and then Valda questioned and cross-questioned her until she was in possession of all the facts, and was able to form almost as clear a conception of the scene as if she had been present at it herself.

"I can see that you have been very cold and unkind in your manner to him, Mademoiselle," she said reproachfully. "Such a splendid cavalier, so brave and gallant and distinguished, how could you? He must have thought you very cruel and discouraging."

"I don't know," said Margaret hopelessly; "I don't care what he thought of me. If only he had been discouraged! But he was not. He was determined to see you, and he will try to do it. There will be trouble, I I know there will be trouble." "What trouble, Mademoiselle ? " asked Valda with dignity. "What can he do? Without your connivance, or mine, it is impossible for him to see me, and you know that

neither of us will help him. He can do nothing, poor man! He is destined to wear out his efforts in vain, and you will not spare him so much as a thought or a word of pity. Truly I think you English ladies are too hard-hearted."

Margaret was silent. She did not think any the less of Valda for being unlike herself in this respect, but she wished that she had been guarded by that most formidable of all defences for a woman, the love of her husband already entrenched in the stronghold of her heart. It was the weakness of her position in this respect, together with her total lack of experience in the ways of the world, that made Margaret tremble for her.

"I

"How you can possibly resist anyone so fascinating is a mystery to me," said Valda after a pause. have never seen anyone whom the Khedivial uniform became so well,but he was not in it to-day,-a suit of light gray you said he wore, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Margaret unwillingly.

"No doubt it suited him just as well; he would look like a prince in any dress," said Valda with a sigh. All the world admires him, and he is immensely sought after by the English ladies, I hear. Hamida Hânem knows all about him, and she says that he is considered to be the handsomest Englishman in Cairo."

"Hamîda Hânem,-have you told her about this?" asked Margaret in a tone of consternation.

"Not the whole story of course; she does not know a word about the accident to Djemâl-ed-Din and the loss of the star. Of course I should not think of telling her that; I only said that I had observed this handsome Englishman in the uniform of the Khedive, and that I admired him. And then she laughed, and said that I was not the only one. She does