Afterwards

He told himself, rather impatiently, that the notion was absurd. He had been dwelling for so long on the vision of Sir Richard's daughter that he had lost, for the moment, his sense of reality, and he turned aside to reclaim his baggage from the vociferous Arabs who wished, so it appeared, to appropriate both it and him, without casting another glance in the direction of Sir Richard's double.

Yet the hallucination persisted. He could have sworn he heard Sir Richard's voice raised in protest as the crowding natives impeded his progress towards the gangway of the boat; and at last Anstice turned fully round, with half-ashamed curiosity, to see what manner of man this was who wore the semblance and spoke in the tongue of Sir Richard Wayne.

As his black eyes roved over the intervening faces they were caught and held by another pair of eyes--grey eyes these, in whose clear and frank depths was a strong resemblance to those other wide grey eyes he loved, and in the next moment Anstice realized that a miracle had happened, and that the first person to give him greeting in this land of mystery was none other than Sir Richard Wayne himself.

About the gladness of the other's greeting there could be no two opinions. Utterly disregarding the touts and porters who swarmed round him Sir Richard came forward with outstretched hand, and his eyes fairly shone with joy and with something that looked like relief.

"Anstice! By all that's wonderful!" He wrung the younger man's hand heartily as he spoke. "How came you here--and are you landing for good, or just taking a look round this God-forsaken old iniquity of a town?"

"I'm leaving the ship for good. Want to have a look at Cairo ... interesting place, I've always heard." For a second Anstice faltered, feeling as though his friend must see through his pretence, and guess that it was because this land enshrined the one woman in the world that he was here. But Sir Richard gave no sign of disbelief, and Anstice was emboldened to proceed. "But you--what are you doing here? I thought you were somewhere in the desert with--your daughter."

"So I was, so I was." Sir Richard hesitated, then spoke rapidly. "Anstice, are you alone--and disengaged? I mean--could your stay in Cairo be postponed for a few days? I want--I came down here to look for a doctor--never thinking I'd have the luck to find you----"

"A doctor?" Beneath the spur of his quick mind Anstice grew pale. "Is someone ill? Not--not your daughter?"