On the following afternoon, at a quarter to three, when Mr. Greyne came down to breakfast, he found, lying beside the boiled eggs, a note directed to him in a feminine handwriting. He tote it open with trembling fingers, and read as follows:—

He laid this missive down, and sighed deeply. How strangely innocent it was, how simple, how sincere! There were white souls in Algiers—yes, even in Algiers. Strange that he should know one! Strange that he, who had filled a Merrin’s exercise-book with tiny writing, and had even overflowed on to the cover after “crossing” many pages, should receive the child-like confidences of one! “I go now to the church.” Tears came into his eyes as he laid the letter down beside a pile of buttered toast over which the burning afternoon sun of Africa was shining.

“Monsieur will take milk and sugar?”

It was the head waiter’s Napoleonic voice. Mr. Greyne controlled himself. The man was smiling intelligently. All the staff of the hotel smiled intelligently at Mr. Greyne to-day—the waiters, the porters, the chasseurs. The child of eight who was thankful that he knew no better had greeted him with a merry laugh as he came down to breakfast, and an “Oh, lÀ, lÀ!” which had elicited a rebuke from the proprietor. Indeed, a wave of human sympathy flowed upon Mr. Greyne, whose ashy face and dull, washed-out eyes betrayed the severity of his night-watch.

“Monsieur will feel better after a little food.”

The head waiter handed the buttered toast with bland majesty, at the same time shooting a reproving glance at the little chasseur, who was peeping from behind the door at the afternoon breakfaster.

“I feel perfectly well,” replied Mr. Greyne, with an attempt at cheerfulness.

“Still, monsieur will feel much better after a little food.”

Mr. Greyne began to toy with an egg.

“You know Algiers?” he asked.

“I was born here, monsieur. If monsieur wishes to explore to-night again the Kasbah I can——”

But Mr. Greyne stopped him with a gesture that was almost fierce.

“Where is the Rue du Petit NÈgre?”

“Monsieur wishes to go there to-night?”

“I wish to go there now, directly I have finished break—lunch.”

The head waiter’s face was wreathed with humorous surprise.

“But monsieur is wonderful—superb! Never have I seen a traveller like monsieur!”

He gazed at Mr. Greyne with tropical appreciation.

“Monsieur had better have a carriage. The street is difficult to find.”

“Order me one. I shall start at once.”

Mr. Greyne pushed away the sunlit buttered toast, and got up.

“Monsieur is superb. Never have I seen a traveller like monsieur!” Napoleon’s voice was almost reverent. He hastened out, followed slowly by Mr. Greyne.

“A carriage for monsieur! Monsieur desires to go to the Rue du Petit NÈgre!”

The staff of the hotel gathered about the door as if to speed a royal personage, and Mr. Greyne noticed that their faces too were touched with an almost startled reverence. He stepped into the carriage, signed feebly, but with determination, to the Arab coachman, and was driven away, followed by a parting “Oh, lÀ lÀ!” from the chasseur, uttered in a voice that sounded shrill with sheer amazement.

Through winding, crowded streets he went, by bazaars and Moorish bath-houses, mosques and Catholic churches, barracks and cafÉs, till at length the carriage turned into an alley that crept up a steep hill. It moved on a little way, and then stopped.

“Monsieur must descend here,” said the coachman. “Mount the steps, go to the right and then to the left. Near the summit of the hill he will find the Rue du Petit NÈgre. Shall I wait for monsieur?”

“Yes.”

The coachman began to make a cigarette, while Mr. Greyne set forth to follow his directions, and, at length, stood before an arch, which opened into a courtyard adorned with orange-trees in tubs, and paved with blue and white tiles. Around this courtyard was a three-storey house with a flat roof, and from a bureau near a little fountain a stout Frenchwoman called to demand his business. He asked for Mademoiselle Verbena, and was at once shown into a saloon lined with chairs covered with yellow rep, and begged to take a seat. In two minutes Mademoiselle Verbena appeared, drying her eyes with a tiny pocket-handkerchief, and forcing a little pathetic smile of welcome. Mr. Greyne clasped her hand in silence. She sat down in a rep chair at his right, and they looked at each other.

“Mais, mon Dieu! How monsieur is changed!” cried the Levantine. “If madame could see him! What has happened to monsieur?”

“Miss Verbena,” replied Mr. Greyne, “I have seen the Ouled on the heights.”

A spasm crossed the Levantine’s face. She put her handkerchief to it for a moment. “What is an Ouled?” she inquired, withdrawing it.

“I dare not tell you,” he replied solemnly.

“But indeed I wish to know, so that I may sympathise with monsieur.”

Mr. Greyne hesitated, but his heart was full; he felt the need of sympathy. He looked at Mademoiselle Verbena, and a great longing to unburden himself overcame him.

“An Ouled,” he replied, “is a dancing-girl from the desert of Sahara.”

“Mon Dieu! How does she dance? Is it a valse, a polka, a quadrille?” “No. Would that it were!” And Mr. Greyne, unable further to govern his desire for full expression, gave Mademoiselle Verbena a slightly Bowdlerised description of the dances of the desert. She heard him with amazement.

“How terrible!” she exclaimed when he had finished. “And does one pay much to see such steps of the Evil One?”

“I gave her twenty pounds. Abdallah Jack——”

“Abdallah Jack?”

“My guide informed me that was the price. He tells me it is against the law, and that each time an Ouled dances she risks being thrown into prison.”

“Poor lady! How sad to have to earn one’s bread by such devices, instead of by teaching to the sweet little ones of monsieur the sympathetic grammar of one’s native country.”

Mr. Greyne was touched to the quick by this allusion, which brought, as in a vision, the happy home in Belgrave Square before him.

“You are an angel!” he exclaimed.

Mademoiselle Verbena shook her head.

“And this poor Ouled, you will go to her again?

“Yes. It seems that she is in communication with all the—the—well, all the odd people of Algiers, and that one can only get at them through her.”

“Indeed?”

“Abdallah Jack tells me that while I am here I should pay her a weekly salary, and that, in return, I shall see all the terrible ceremonies of the Arabs. I have decided to do so———

“Ah, you have decided!”

For a moment Mr. Greyne started. There seemed a new sound in Mademoiselle Verbena’s voice, a gleam in her dark brown eyes.

“Yes,” he said, looking at her in wonder. “But I have not yet told Abdallah Jack.”

The Levantine looked gently sad again.

“Ah,” she said in her usual pathetic voice, “how my heart bleeds for this poor Ouled. By the way, what is her name?”

“Aishoush.”

“She is beautiful?”

“I hardly know. She was so painted, so tattooed, so very—so very different from Mrs. Eustace Greyne.”

“How sad! How terrible! Ah, but you must long for the dear bonnet strings of madame?”

Did he? As she spoke Mr. Greyne asked himself the question. Shocked as he was, fatigued by his researches, did he wish that he were back again in Belgrave Square, drinking barley water, pasting notices of his wife’s achievements into the new album, listening while she read aloud from the manuscript of her latest novel? He wondered, and—how strange, how almost terrible—he was not sure.

“Is it not so?” murmured Mademoiselle Verbena.

“Naturally I miss my beloved wife,” said Mr. Greyne with a certain awkwardness. “How is your poor, dear mother?”

Tears came at once into the Levantine’s eyes.

“Very, very ill, monsieur. Still there is a chance—just a chance that she may not die. Ah, when I sit here all alone in this strange place, I feel that she will perish, that soon I shall be quite deserted in this cruel, cruel world!”

The tears began to flow down her cheeks with determination. Mr. Greyne was terribly upset.

“You must cheer up,” he exclaimed. “You must hope for the best.”

“Sitting here alone, how can I?”

She sobbed.

“Sitting here alone—very true!”

A sudden thought, a number of sudden thoughts, struck him.

“You must not sit here alone.”

“Monsieur!”

“You must come out. You must drive. You must see the town, distract yourself.”

“But how? Can a—a girl go about alone in Algiers?”

“Heaven forbid! No; I will escort you.”

“Monsieur!”

A smile of innocent, girlish joy transformed her face, but suddenly she was grave again.

“Would it be right, convenable?”

Mr. Greyne was reckless. The dog potential rose up in him again.

“Why not? And, besides, who knows us here? Not a soul.”

“That is true.”

“Put on your bonnet. Let us start at once!”

“But I do not wear the bonnet. I am not like madame.”

“To be sure. Your hat.”

And as she flew to obey him, Mr. Eustace Greyne found himself impiously thanking the powers that be for this strange chance of going on the spree with a toque. When Mademoiselle Verbena returned he was looking almost rakish. He eyed her neat black hat and close-fitting black jacket with a glance not wholly unlike that of a militiaman. In her hand she held a vivid scarlet parasol.

“Monsieur,” she said, “it is terrible, this ombrelle, when mamma lies at death’s door. But what can I do? I have no other, and cannot afford to buy one. The sun is fierce. I dare not expose myself to it without a shelter.”

She seemed really distressed as she opened the parasol, and spread the vivid silk above her pretty black-clothed figure; but Mr. Greyne thought the effect was brilliant, and ventured to say so. As they passed the bureau by the fountain on their way out the stout Frenchwoman cast an approving glance at Mademoiselle Verbena.

“The little rat will not see much more of the little negro now,” she murmured to herself. “After all the English have their uses.”