Edwards’s high colour fled. He spoke huskily. “Hullo, Barry! Don’t get mad. It was only fun.” Barry was murderously pale. For ten--fifteen--twenty beats of the library clock, he stood, quivering; then: “Get out!” he said. “Get out while I can remember you’re in _my_ house.” Monty Edwards bandied no words with the speaker. He knew when a man was seeing red. Head lowered and lips unsteady, he passed Barry and walked out of the library. Zalithea stood up, breathing quickly. But Barry never moved, never stirred a muscle of his tensed-up body, until the closing of the front door told him that Monty Edwards had left the house. Then he turned to Zalithea. She was dressed as he had seen her earlier in the evening. She was pale but more utterly desirable than any woman in all the wide world. Her long, dark eyes were fixed upon him in a sort of wonder--questioningly--doubtingly. He unclenched his fists. No word was spoken. But Zalithea stepped forward as if bidden. His arms went around her like steel bands. He uttered a queer, pent-up cry. He kissed her lips breathlessly, her hair, her eyes, her smooth, creamy neck. He was in the throes of a veritable madness. His long-repressed passion swept him away.… When, at last, he released her, she fell back, raised her hands to her eyes for a moment; then, giving him one long look of indescribable intensity, as though she would imprint his image indelibly upon her mind, she ran out of the room. Standing as she had left him, his back to the lobby, he heard the light patter of her footsteps as she raced upstairs. Somewhere, above, a door closed softly. And to that sound Barry found himself listening with a strained intensity. It seemed in some way to be an answer to a question--to a subconscious question that his mind was incapable of framing. Exhausted by the fiercest emotions he had ever known, he dropped into a big padded rest chair in which, evidently, Monty Edwards had been sitting. A still-smouldering cigar lay in the little Oriental tray attached to the chair arm. Mentally, he was depressed. But his heart was singing. His former experiences might have led him to doubt Zalithea’s sentiments. But he could not forget that she had returned his kisses. For an hour he waited, hoping yet not expecting that she would come back. He lived again through the strange days and nights he had known since that evening when Fate had steered the Rolls into a private road--and he had seen a vision of Zalithea. Imagination led him on. Once more he talked with Danbazzar and the others in the tent in the _wâdi_ and walked beside Hassan es-Sugra through those silent halls of the Great Temple. So walking in spirit, with gods and Pharaohs beckoning secretly from moon-touched walls, he fell asleep.