"Thank God, if I have left you behind in that trying and false position it is with no Khalifa, no corrupt and concupiscent fanatic, but a man of the finest and purest instincts, who is too much occupied with his spiritual mission, praise the Lord, to think of the beautiful woman by his side, so I tell myself it was the will of Providence, and there is nothing to do now but to leave ourselves in the hands of fate.
"Good-night, dearest! _D.V._ I’ll write again to-morrow."
"Have just seen Hafiz. The dear old fellow came racing up here at six o’clock this morning, with his big round face like the aurora borealis, shining in smiles and tears. Heavens, how he laughed and cried and swore and sweated!
"He thought his letter about my mother’s death had brought me back, and when I gave him a hint of my real errand he nearly dropped with terror. It seems that among my old colleagues in Cairo my reputation is now of the lowest, being that of a person who was bribed—God knows by whom—to do what I did. As a consequence it will go ill with me, according to Hafiz, if I should be discovered, but as that is pretty certain to happen in any case I am not too much troubled, and find more interest in the fact that your boy Mosie is staying at the Agency and that consequently my father must have received your letter.
"My dear Helena, my ’mystic sense’ has been right again. The Grand Cadi continues to pay secret visits to the Consul-General. That much Hafiz could say from his intercourse with his mother, and it is sufficient to tell me that, by keeping a running sore open with my father, the scoundrel counts on destroying not only Ishmael but England, by leading her to such resistance as will result in bloodshed, and thus dishonour her in the eyes of the civilised world and leave Egypt a cockpit in which half the foreign Powers will fight for themselves, no matter who may suffer.
"What should I do? God knows! I have an almost unconquerable impulse to go straight to my father and open his eyes to what is going on. He is enveloped by intrigues and surrounded by enemies in high places—his Egyptian Ministers, the creatures of his own creation; some of the foreign diplomats, the European leeches who suck his blood while they pretend to be his friends, and above all this rascally Cadi, with his sleek face and double-sword game.