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“Oh, the price!” murmured Dicky, and he seemed to study the sleepy sarraf who pored over his accounts in the garden. “The price is ‘England, home, and beauty.’ Also to prop up the falling towers of Khedivia–ten thousand pounds! Also, Gordon.”

Kingsley Bey appeared, as he was, mystified, but he was not inclined to spoil things by too much speaking. He looked inquiry.

At that moment an orderly came running towards the door–Dicky had arranged for that. Dicky started, and turned to the lady. “You tell him. This fellow is coming for me. I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour.” He nodded to them both and went out to the orderly, who followed his footsteps to the palace.

“You’ve forgiven me for everything–for everything at Assiout, I mean?” he asked.

“I have no desire to remember,” she answered. “About Gordon–what is it?”

“Ah, yes, about Gordon!” She drew herself up a little. “I am to go to England–for the Khedive, to ask Gordon to save the Soudan.”

“Then you’ve forgiven the Khedive?” he inquired with apparent innocence.

“I’ve no wish to prevent him showing practical repentance,” she answered, keenly alive to his suggestion, and a little nettled. “It means no more slavery. Gordon will prevent that.”

“Will he?” asked Kingsley, again with muffled mockery.

“He is the foe of slavery. How many, many letters I have had from him! He will save the Soudan–and Egypt too.”

“He will be badly paid–the Government will stint him. And he will give away his pay–if he gets any.”

She did not see his aim, and her face fell. “He will succeed for all that.”

“He can levy taxes, of course.”

“But he will not-for himself.”

“I will give him twenty thousand pounds, if he will take it.”

“You–you!–will give him–” Her eyes swam with pleasure. “Ah, that is noble! That makes wealth a glory, to give it to those who need it. To save those who are down-trodden, to help those who labour for the good of the world, to–” she stopped short, for all at once she remembered-remembered whence his money came. Her face suffused. She turned to the door. Confusion overmastered her for the moment. Then, anger at herself possessed her. On what enterprise was she now embarked? Where was her conscience? For what was she doing all this? What was the true meaning of her actions? Had it been to circumvent the Khedive? To prevent him from doing an unjust, a despicable, and a dreadful thing? Was it only to help the Soudan? Was it but to serve a high ideal, through an ideal life–through Gordon?

It came upon her with embarrassing force. For none of these things was she striving. She was doing all for this man, against whose influence she had laboured, whom she had bitterly condemned, and whose fortune she had called blood-money and worse. And now…

She knew the truth, and it filled her heart with joy and also pain. Then she caught at a straw: he was no slave-driver now. He had–

“May I not help you–go with you to England?” he questioned over her shoulder.

“Like Alexander Selkirk ‘I shall finish my journey alone,'” she said, with sudden but imperfectly assumed acerbity.

“Will you not help me, then?” he asked. “We could write a book together.”

“Oh, a book!” she said.

“A book of life,” he whispered.

“No, no, no–can’t you see?–oh, you are playing me like a ball!”

“Only to catch you,” he said, in a happier tone.

“To jest, when I am so unhappy!” she murmured.

“My jest is the true word.”

She made a last rally. “Your fortune was made out of slave labour.”

“I have given up the slaves.”

“You have the fortune.”

“I will give it all to you–to have your will with it. Now it is won, I would give it up and a hundred times as much to hear you say, ‘Come to Skaw Fell again.”‘

Did he really mean it? She thought he did. And it seemed the only way out of the difficulty. It broke the impasse.