Sorely perplexed, Masûd yielded the point, and opened the gate for them. Ayesha and the other women were looking out curiously from the doorway of their room, but on catching sight of Cecil they drew back, and she passed on with bowed head. Mounting the steps of the _lewan_, she entered her own room, and dropped on the divan with a wordless moan. At present she did not in the least realise the full horror of the news she had heard; she only knew that a sudden blow had fallen upon her, blotting out all recollection and deadening every feeling. All night she lay where she had sunk down, deaf to Um Yusuf’s remonstrances and entreaties; and when she allowed herself to be raised from the divan in the morning, it was only to return to it again, leaving her breakfast untasted, and to sit crouched in a corner, staring before her with stony eyes. In vain Um Yusuf pleaded and entreated; her mistress did not even seem to hear her, and noticed her presence as little as she did that of the other women, who crowded round the door of her room, looking pityingly at her. They had no idea of the instinctive desire for solitude of one in deep grief; their notion of showing sympathy was to assemble together and discuss all the circumstances of the case in the mourner’s hearing, and Um Yusuf was too much harassed, too anxious for help and advice, to drive them away, as she would ordinarily have done. That Mdlle. Antaza had gone mad was the general opinion, and this was confirmed by the fact that she took no notice of the intruders, and seemed neither to see nor hear them. Um Yusuf was at her wits’ end. She knew no more of mental pathology than she did of comparative anatomy, but she had the help of long experience to guide her, and she knew that this deadly calm must be broken.