It was very soothing and restful up there on the saloon deck, with no sound but the gentle lipping of the water as it rippled against the sides of the steamer. The red after-glow was in the western sky, and it mottled the broad, smooth river with crimson. Dimly they could discern the tall figures of herons standing upon the sand-banks, and farther off the line of riverside date-palms glided past them in a majestic procession. Once more the silver stars were twinkling out, the same clear, placid, inexorable stars to which their weary eyes had been so often upturned during the long nights of their desert martyrdom. “Where do you put up in Cairo, Miss Adams?” asked Mrs. Belmont at last. “Shepheard’s, I think.” “And you, Mr. Stephens?” “Oh, Shepheard’s, decidedly.” “We are staying at the Continental. I hope we shall not lose sight of you.” “I don’t want ever to lose sight of you, Mrs. Belmont,” cried Sadie. “Oh, you must come to the States, and we’ll give you just a lovely time.” Mrs. Belmont laughed, in her pleasant, mellow fashion. “We have our duty to do in Ireland, and we have been too long away from it already. My husband has his business, and I have my home, and they are both going to rack and ruin. Besides,” she added slyly, “it is just possible that if we did come to the States we might not find you there.” “We must all meet again,” said Belmont, “if only to talk our adventures over once more. It will be easier in a year or two. We are still too near them.” “And yet how far away and dream-like it all seems!” remarked his wife. “Providence is very good in softening disagreeable remembrances in our minds. All this feels to me as if it had happened in some previous existence.” Fardet held up his wrist with a cotton bandage still round it. “The body does not forget as quickly as the mind. This does not look very dream-like or far away, Mrs. Belmont.” “How hard it is that some should be spared, and some not! If only Mr. Brown and Mr. Headingly were with us, then I should not have one care in the world,” cried Sadie. “Why should they have been taken, and we left?” Mr. Stuart had limped on to the deck with an open book in his hand, a thick stick supporting his injured leg. “Why is the ripe fruit picked, and the unripe left?” said he in answer to the young girl’s exclamation. “We know nothing of the spiritual state of these poor dear young fellows, but the great Master Gardener plucks His fruit according to His own knowledge. I brought you up a passage to read to you.” There was a lantern upon the table, and he sat down beside it. The yellow light shone upon his heavy cheek and the red edges of his book. The strong, steady voice rose above the wash of the water.