Two days after, with an ambulance waggon, Sergeant Farquharson, and some of his men, Allan went along the line of the old railway from Matarieh to the place where they had left the body--a place marked in their memory by the presence of two large stones and some shrubs near the embankment--but of these they could find no trace, though they searched for hours, believing they might have passed them or miscalculated the distance. Nothing was to be seen about the real or supposed spot but sand, smooth and drifted sand everywhere. Thus Allan could but come to the sorrowful conclusion that some species of sand-storm must have swept from the desert south-eastward between the mountain ranges, and buried every trace of the hastily-made grave. CHAPTER VII. HURDELL HALL. 'Welcome to Hurdell Hall! My sister Lucretia--Lady Puddicombe and Sir Paget, Lucretia--Sir Paget, our mutual friend Poole, you know.' Thus did Sir Harry Hurdell introduce Eveline and Sir Paget, with much _empressement_ and effusiveness, to his home in Hampshire, when the carriage duly deposited them, with Mademoiselle Clairette, Sir Paget's valet, and 'no end' of trunks and boxes in a van, at the porte cochère. Situated in the northern district of the shire, where the woods are chiefly hazel, birch, alder, and willow, where flocks of deer scour the coppice, Hurdell Hall is a fine example of the old Tudor architecture, and, as Eveline saw it for the first time with the rays of the evening sun casting dashes of golden light upon its ogee gables, mullioned bay-windows, its long gravelled approach, and stately terrace, she thought what a charming picture it would make, with its background of oaks, which in Hampshire seldom rise into lofty stems, but have branches that are usually twisted into picturesque outlines. Below the terrace lay a kind of pool, in which a couple of swans were floating lazily, each with one leg tucked up under a wing, and where the snow-white water-lilies gleamed in the sunshine. Nor was the inside of the Hall--which was to be associated with events never to be forgotten by Eveline--any way inferior to the outside. There were stately apartments furnished with every modern luxury in the way of upholstery, and others where the furniture spoke of an old, old past, and of generations of Hurdells who had long since been gathered together in the old family vault; panelled corridors adorned with busts of Roman emperors and gods; stuffed tropical birds and horns of gigantic size; cabinets, swords, daggers, helmets, and armour; and where portraits were hung of knights and dames in brilliant colours; one of Sir Harry, who accompanied the Royal Bluebeard to the field of cloth of gold; another who had been the comrade of Sir Horace of Tilbury in many a field in Flanders; and the Hurdells of later times in powdered wigs, toupees, and long stomachers.