"Don’t think I am mad or that I am idly boasting, and please don’t despise my help because I am only a woman. In the history of the world women have saved nations even when kings and armies have failed. And if that has happened in the past may it not happen in the future also? It can, and it shall." Again the Consul-General dropped the hand that held the letter and he looked fixedly before him for a moment. "Dear Lord Nuneham, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that, if I am not mad and if I am not boasting, I am cruel and revengeful and vindictive. I am sorry if you are thinking that, sir, but if so I cannot help it. I have lost my father and I have lost Gordon, and I am alone and my heart is torn. Oh, if you knew how much this means to me you would not judge me too harshly. When I think of my father in his grave and of Gordon in disgrace—at the ends of the earth, perhaps—never to be seen or heard of any more—I feel that anything is justified—anything—that will punish the man who has brought things to this pass." The Consul-General removed his spectacles, wiped away the moisture that had gathered on them, put them back, and resumed the reading of the letter. "Sometimes I tell myself I might have saved Gordon if I had been less proud and hard—if I had told him more, and allowed him to feel that I could see things from his side also. But it is too late to think of that. I can think of nothing now but how to degrade and destroy the man who deceived and misled him, and is deceiving and misleading these poor Egyptian people also, and will end, as such men always end, in sowing the sand of their deserts with blood. "But don’t be afraid that I shall permit myself to do anything unwomanly, or that I shall ever be false for a moment to the love—the wronged and outraged love—which prompts me. Gordon is gone, I have lost him, but I can never do that—never! "I know exactly how far I intend to go, and I shall go no farther. I also know exactly what I intend to do, and I shall do it without fear or remorse. "Good-bye, or rather _au revoir_! You will hear from me or perhaps see me again before long, I think, and then—then your enemy and mine and Gordon’s as well as England’s and Egypt’s will be in your hands. "HELENA GRAVES. "Please don’t speak about this to Lady Nuneham. Give her my fondest, truest love, and let her believe that I have gone home to England. It would only make her unhappy to be told what I intend to do, and she might even think me a wicked woman. You will not think that, I hope—will you?" The letter dropped on to the counterpane out of the Consul-General’s hand, and again he looked fixedly before him. After a moment his wearied old eyes began to gleam with light and fire. "What did I say when I saw her first?" he thought. "This girl has the blood of the great women of the Bible—the Deborahs who were mothers in Israel; aye, and the Jaels who avenged her."