She dropped her eyes, made a sign to the Moor, and swung quickly towards the nearest shop. And Aylmer, in the midst of the mental disturbance caused by the incident, barely repressed a smile. For the booth, it was little more, was stored with the coarse calicoes and prints which appeal to the dwellers in the desert; there was certainly nothing there to please the tourist or hunter of curios. No--hunted, she had turned instinctively to the nearest shelter. Undoubtedly she had fled from--him. He wheeled quickly and strode off down the hill towards the Bab-al-Marsa. Explanation eluded him; he felt baffled. At the same time he was conscious of a sense of relief. Instinct had brought him to a halt, the instinct which bids the normal man stop to offer help to the helpless even before that help is claimed. He had discovered, or thought he had discovered, fear in the girl's attitude, and almost inadvertently had stayed to rout it. And now? What fear could have a stable foundation which made him, an absolute stranger, its sudden focus? He shook his head regretfully. To what could not neurasthenia or some such fashionable derangement of the nerves bring a woman in these days of fashionable stress? And yet? Her bearing had not been that of a neurotic. And she was young, three and twenty at the outside. Her face was unlined, her eyes clear, yet, after a moment's scrutiny, she had fled from him. He could not dismiss the problem; he carried it with him out of the Marsa gate, along the wooden pier. Behind the toll bar he sat upon a timber balk and studied it. It gave him a sense of physical pain to remember the expression in those eyes, of which the sea was one vast reminder. A minute or two later, with a petulant shrug, he dismissed the matter--or tried to--from his thoughts. After all, mystery though it was, the affair had no real significance for him. He had, inadvertently, frightened a lady. But no real responsibility was his. He had looked at her keenly; too keenly, perhaps, but with no shadow of offence. She had chosen to interpret his scrutiny as menacing. They would probably not meet again--why, indeed, should they? And yet, this decision was mentally addressed to a possibly listening Fate to disarm it. Without defining the desire even to himself, he knew that it was there. He wanted to meet her again; he wanted it badly. It was with this desire still at the back of his mind that he turned his eyes seaward on the mission which had brought him to the harbor. The _Diomède_? Was she in? Would her commander, Paul Rattier, be in time to join him in riding out to the Tent Club that evening, or would they have to postpone their expedition to the early hours of daylight? He strained his glance northward where the gray bulk of Gibraltar was hidden by floating clouds of Mediterranean mist.