He did not associate her with the girl for whom David Claridge had killed Foorgat Pey, and he sent his own carriage to bring her to the Palace.

No time had been lost, for it was less than twenty-four hours since she had arrived in Cairo, and very soon she would know the worst or the best.

She had put her past away for the moment, and the Duchess of Snowdon had found at Marseilles a silent, determined, yet gentle-tongued woman, who refused to look back, or to discuss anything vital to herself and Eglington, until what she had come to Egypt to do was accomplished.

Nor would she speak of the future, until the present had been fully declared and she knew the fate of David Claridge.

In Cairo there were only varying rumours: that he was still holding out; that he was lost; that he had broken through; that he was a prisoner--all without foundation upon which she could rely.
As she neared the Palace entrance, a female fortune-teller ran forward, thrusting towards her a gazelle's skin, filled with the instruments of her mystic craft, and crying out: "I divine-I reveal! What is present I manifest! What is absent I declare! What is future I show! Beautiful one, hear me.