She wanted Gordon now as she had never wanted him before. She wanted the sound of his voice, she wanted the touch of his hand, she wanted to lay her head on his breast like a child, and hear him tell her that it would all be well. She found a hundred excuses for him in as many minutes. He was a prisoner—how could he leave his quarters? They might be keeping him under close arrest—how could he get away? Perhaps they had never even told him of her father’s death—how could he write to her about it? In the fever of her fresh thought, she decided that she herself would tell him, and in the tumult of her confused brain she never doubted that he would come to her. Regulations? They would count for nothing. He was brave, he was fearless, he would find a way. Already she could see him flinging open the door of her room and she could feel herself flying into his arms. Thus with a yearning and choking heart, in the vacant stillness of the early dawn, she sat down to write to Gordon. This is what she wrote:— "_Six o’clock, Sunday morning_. "DEAREST,—The greatest sorrow I have ever known—God, our good God, has taken my beloved father. "He loved you and was always so proud of you. He thought there was nobody like you. I try to think how it all happened at the end, and I cannot. "Forgive me for what I said yesterday. It seems you were right about everything, and everybody else was wrong. But that doesn’t matter now—nothing matters. "I want you. I have nobody else. I am quite alone. God help me! Come to me soon——" Unconsciously she was speaking the words aloud as she wrote them and sobbing as she spoke. Suddenly she became aware of another voice in the adjoining room. She thought it might be Gordon’s voice, and catching her breath she rose to listen. Then in a muffled, broken, tear-laden tone, these words came to her through the wall— "O Allah, most High, most Merciful, make lady sleep. Make lady sleep, O Allah, most High, most Merciful!" Her black boy had been lying all night like a dog on the mat behind her door. *CHAPTER V* Before Gordon opened his eyes that morning he heard the tinkling of cymbals and the sweet sound of the voices of boys singing in a choir, and he felt for a moment as if he were carried back to his school at Eton, where the morning dawned on green fields to the joyous carolling of birds. Then he looked and saw that he was lying in a little yellow-curtained room which was full of the gentle rays of the early sun, and opened on to a garden in a quiet courtyard, with one date tree in the middle and the façade of a Christian church at the opposite side. In the disarray of his senses he could not at first remember what had happened to him, and he said aloud— "Where am I?" Then a cheery voice by his side said, "Ah, you are awake?" and an elderly man with a good, simple, homely face looked down at him and smiled. "What place is this?" asked Gordon.