*CHAPTER XVII* As midnight had struck on the soft cathedral-bell of the clock in Lady Nuneham’s room the old lady had raised herself in bed and looked round with bright and joyful eyes. "Fatimah!" "Yes, my heart," said Fatimah, rising hurriedly from the chair in which she had been knitting and stopping up to the bedside. "Has he gone, Fatimah?" "Has who gone, O my lady?" The bright eyes looked at the Egyptian woman with a reproving smile. "Why, you know quite well, Fatimah. You saw him yourself, didn’t you?" "You mean his lordship?" "No, no, but——" The old lady paused, looked round again, and said— "Can it be possible that you didn’t see him, Fatimah?" "See whom, my lady?" "Why, Gordon." Fatimah made an upward gesture with her hand. "When, my heart?" "Just now—not a moment ago." Fatimah raised both hands and seemed for a moment unable to speak. "He knocked at the door—I knew his knock immediately. Then he said outside, ’Don’t be afraid’—I knew his voice too. And then he opened the door and came in, and I thought at first it was a Bedouin, for he wore Eastern clothes, but he whispered, ’Mother,’ and it was Gordon himself." "O my dear eyes, you have been dreaming," said Fatimah, whereupon the old lady looked reproachfully at her and said— "How can you say that, Fatimah? I clasped my arms around his neck, and he put his arms about me and kissed me, and then——" "Well?" The old lady thought for a moment. "I think I must have fainted," she said. "I cannot remember what happened then." "O my lady, O my heart, you have been sleeping for nearly an hour," said Fatimah. "Sleeping?" "Yes, but a little after eleven o’clock you were restless and threw out your arms and I covered them up again." The joyful gleam had now gone from the old lady’s eyes, and a troubled look had taken the place of it. "Do you say that Gordon has not been here, Fatimah?" "Alas, no, my lady." "Has nobody been?" "Nobody at all, my lady, since his lordship was up last." "But I could have been sure that——" She stopped; a smile crossed her bewildered face, and she said in a soft, indulgent voice— "My poor Fatimah! I wear you out. I wear out everybody. You must have dozed off at that moment, and so——" "Oh no, my lady, no! Wallahi! I’ve not closed my eyes since yesterday." "How strange!" "But Ibrahim ought to know if anybody has come upstairs. Should I call him, my lady?" "Yes ... no ... that is to say ... wait!" There was silence for a moment, and then, all the sweet illusion being gone, the old lady said in a sadder tone— "Perhaps you are right, Fatimah. But it was so dear to think that ... Hush!" She had heard her husband’s footsteps on the stairs, and she began to straighten her lace cap with her delicate white fingers.