"Do not fail to arrive by the 31st," she telegraphed; and upon that took the train back to Roquebrune. She could do no more now; but the knowledge that she could do no more only aggravated her fears. Questions which could not be answered thronged upon her mind. "Would the telegram reach Tangier in time? What was Alan Warrisden doing at Tangier at all? What hindered them coming straight from Algeria to France?" Well, there were three weeks still. She sent up her prayer that those three weeks might bring Tony Stretton back, that Millie might be saved for him. She walked up the steps from Roquebrune station very slowly. She did not look up as she climbed. Had she done so she might, perhaps, have seen a head above the parapet in the little square where the school-house stood; and she would certainly have seen that head suddenly withdrawn as her head was raised. M. Giraud was watching her furtively, as he had done many a time since she had come to Roquebrune, taking care that she should not see him. He watched her now, noticing that she walked with the same lagging, weary step as when he had last seen her on that path so many years ago. But as he watched she stopped, and, turning about, looked southwards across the sea, and stood there for an appreciable time. When she turned again and once more mounted the steps, it seemed to him that the weariness had gone. She walked buoyantly, like one full of faith, full of hope; and he caught a glimpse of her face. It seemed to him that it had become transfigured, and that the eyes were looking at some vision which was visible to her eyes alone. Pamela had come back. Indeed, at the end of all her perplexities and conjectures, to the belief born of her new love, that somehow the world would right itself, that somehow in a short while she would hear whispered upon the wind, answered by the ripples of the sea, and confirmed by the one voice she longed to hear, the sentinel's cry, "All's well." The messages which Pamela had sent to Warrisden reached him at Tangier. He found them both waiting for him the day after they had been sent. He had twenty days in front of him. If Tony kept to his time, twenty days would serve. He hired a camp outfit, and the best mules to be obtained in Tangier on that day. The same evening he bought a couple of barbs, well recommended to him for speed and endurance. "They will amble at six miles an hour for ten hours a day," said one whose advice he sought. Warrisden discounted the statement, but bought the barbs. Early the nest morning he set out for Fez. CHAPTER XXVII "BALAK!"