CHAPTER XL. IN EGYPT. It was no wonder that Miss Strangemore’s and the lawyer’s efforts to find Talbot Strangemore had so persistently failed, for, following the bent of Oswald Ferris, he had penetrated the wilds of Egypt. Since that day when Talbot Strangemore had sternly accused him of the murder of Sibyl St. Alban, Oswald Ferris had been a changed man, to the one whom he had once denominated his friend. A terrible fear had come over him that was not dissipated by the efforts Strangemore constantly made to place him at his ease, and to obliterate from his mind the impression made by his rash and startling accusation. When they had first gone abroad, Strangemore hating himself for the evil he had wrought, remorseful, wretched, and heartbroken, unfitted by his incurable despair for the society of his fellow-beings, had longed with bitter impatience to forsake this self-imposed companion. Their positions were now reversed. Oswald Ferris under the impulse of a terrible fear that made the blood run coldly through his veins, was determined to fly from Talbot Strangemore’s suspicious companionship and hide himself in the remotest accessible spot on earth. He feared and distrusted the man who had so great an interest in finding out the real murderer of Sibyl St. Alban. “He cannot fool me now by his apparent cordiality and friendship,” he muttered, uneasily to himself, “I must go away from him, or he will track me to my doom. By my foolish outburst against Sibyl St. Alban that day I have roused his suspicion, and the instinct of the hound will never be diverted until he runs his prey to earth. I will not remain with him. I must find some plausible excuse for going on alone.” Talbot Strangemore on the other hand was equally determined not to lose sight of his companion. He had not a single doubt over Sibyl St. Alban’s murderer. He believed firmly that the hand of Oswald Ferris had struck that fatal dagger into the false breast of the woman who had played with his heart for pastime and flung it away like a broken toy. “He is the murderer, and in time I will bring it home to him. And to further that end I will never lose sight of him, never permit him to leave me, until I have obtained proofs of his crime. I will be like a blood-hound upon his track until the memory of my injured martyred bride shall be cleared from the foul blot cast upon it by Sibyl St. Alban’s falsehood and Oswald Ferris’ cowardly silence,” he swore to himself. In the meantime Ferris proposed all kinds of impracticable trips and plans in the hope that his companion in misery would desert his standard and leave him alone. He was tempted often to desert Strangemore and fly beyond his reach, but he dared not yield to the temptation for fear of confirming the suspicion he had already awakened. His sense of guilt made him a miserable coward.