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"To the mosque precisely, monsieur," returned the guide, with complete self-possession. They stepped out at once upon the pavement, where a carriage was in waiting. "Where are we going?" inquired Mr. Greyne in an anxious voice. "We are going to the heights to see the Ouled," replied the guide. "En avant!" He bounded in beside Mr. Greyne, the coachman cracked his whip, the horses trotted.
"Eustace!" cried Mrs. Greyne, leaning for support against an oleograph. Her husband turned. "Eustace!" she cried again. "It is I!" He stood as if turned to stone. Mrs. Greyne hesitated, started, moved forward to the dais, and stared upon the Ouled, who had also ceased from dancing, and looked strangely surprised, even confused, by the great novelist's intrusion. "Miss Verbena!" she exclaimed.
"In his study, ma'am, pasting the last of the cuttings into the new album." Mrs. Greyne smiled. It was a pretty picture the unconscious six-footer had conjured up. "I am sorry to disturb Mr. Greyne," she answered, with that gracious, and even curling suavity which won all hearts; "but I wish to see him. Will you ask him to come to me for a moment?"
The most frantic search, the most frenzied inquiries of officials and total strangers, failed to elicit his whereabouts, and, finally, Mr. Greyne was flung forcibly upward into the wagonlit, and caught by the contrôleur when the train was actually moving out of the station. A moment later he fell exhausted upon the pink-plush seat of his compartment, realising his terrible position.
"Some thief, knowing it priceless, must have stolen the diary. It will be published in America. It will bring in thousands but to others, not to us." She began to wring her hands. It was near midnight. "Think, my love, think!" cried Mr. Greyne. "Where could you have taken it? You had it last night?" "Certainly.
Eustace Greyne. "You are surely not going to betray anything of that sort now!" "If she does we shall soon have to move off to West Kensington," was his secret thought. "No. But in book six of 'Catherine' I have to deal with sin, with tumult, with African frailty. It is inevitable." She sighed once more. The burden of the new book was very heavy upon her.
Bring your notes to me, and I will select such fragments of the broken commandments as suit my purpose, which is, as always, the edifying of the human race. Only this time I mean to purge it as by fire." "That corner house in Park Lane, next to the Duke of Ebury's, would suit us very well," said Mr. Greyne reflectively. "We could sell our lease here at an advance," his wife rejoined.
She wired this terrible fact at once to Africa, adding, at an enormous expenditure of cash: This will never do. You are too innocent, and cannot see what lies before you. Obtain assistance. Go to the British consul. Mr. Greyne at once cabled back: Am following your advice. Will wire result. Regret my innocence, but am distressed that you should so utterly condemn it.
As he was finishing these frantic enjoyments the head waiter a personage bearing a strong resemblance to an enlarged edition of Napoleon the First approached him rather furtively, and, bending down, whispered in his ear: "A gentleman has called to take monsieur to the Kasbah." Mr. Greyne started, and flushed a guilty red.
Gazing with terror-stricken eyes over the crumbling rampart of the Kasbah, she saw the city far below her, the lights of the streets, the lights of the ships in harbour. She heard the music of a bugle, and wished she were a Zouave safe in barracks. She wished she were a German-Swiss porter, a merry chasseur anything but Mrs. Eustace Greyne.
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