Not a thing in the world the matter! A mare's nest--just as he had prophesied to Miss Jeffries. Why in heaven's name hadn't Jack the decency to send that over-anxious young lady a card when he abandoned town so suddenly?... Not that McLean blamed Miss Jeffries. Given the masquerade and Jack's disappearance and a zealous feminine interest her concern was perfectly natural. But McLean had left a busy office and taken an anxious and uncomfortable excursion, and his voice had no genial ring as he shouted his friend's name down the dark entrance of the tomb shaft. In a moment he heard a voice shouting hollowly back, then a wavering spot of light appeared upon the inclined floor and Ryder's figure emerged like an apparition from the gloom. "I say! That you, Andy?" Evidently he had been snatched from sleep. His dark hair was rumpled, his face flushed, and he yawned with complete frankness. McLean knew a sudden yearning to put an arm about him.... Dear old Jack.... Dear, irresponsible scamp.... His reaction of the irritation vanished.... It was so darned good to see the old chap again.... He muttered something about being in the vicinity while Ryder, rousing to hostship, called directions to the cook boy to bring a tray of luncheon. "It's cool down here," he told McLean, leading the way back. It was cool indeed, in the Hall of Offerings. It was also, McLean thought, satisfying a recovered appetite, a trifle depressing. They sat in a small island of light in an ocean of gloom while about them shadowy columns towered to indistinguishable heights and half-seen carvings projected their strange suggestions. It seemed incongruous to be smoking cigarettes so unconcernedly at the feet of the ancient gods. But McLean's feeling of depression might have been due to his renewed awareness of catastrophe. For though Jack was here, safe and sound enough, although a bit unlike himself in manner, yet Jack _had_ been at that confounded reception in a woman's rig and Jack had seen the girl and talked with her--apparently on terms of understanding. And if Jack had left Cairo that night, as he said he did--claiming delay on the way due to a tired horse--then Jack knew nothing in the world of the palace fire, and the girl's sudden and tragic death. And McLean would have to tell him. He would have to tell him that the girl he was probably dreaming of in some fool's paradise of memory and hope was now only a little mound of dust in an Oriental cemetery. That a shaft of temporary wood already marked the grave of Aimée Marie Dejane, daughter of Tewfick Pasha and wife of Hamdi Bey.... And however much McLean's sound senses might disapprove of the whole fantastic affair and his sober judgment commend the workings of Providence, he loved his friend, and he feared that his friend loved this lost girl. He had to end love and hope and romance and implant a desperate grief.... He thought very steadily of Jinny Jeffries. He cleared his throat. "Jack, old man--"