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Show back, she saw Achmed standing in the aperture. He stared at her with his one eye, but said nothing, and she hurried past him softly, up the stairs, and into her bedroom. She had dreaded finding Sir Claude there. But there was no one. She gently locked the door and sat down on the little chair by the bed. Had her husband visited her room or not? That was the vital question she was asking herself. He must have been terribly tired by his long ride across the desert and the day's hunting. He must have been longing to sleep. Nevertheless, knowing him as she did, felt almost certain that he would have gone to bed without trying door. And she had left it unlocked when she went out to see the sunrise with Benchaalal. She had feeling perfectly safe '34 , in the thought that Sir Claude was miles away. Why had he come back? Mechanically she began to undress. Her hands trembled, and she was not accustomed to undressing herself; but at last she was ready for bed, and she stepped in and drew the clothes up to her chin. Why had he come back? It was his own idea to stay away all night. She had never suggested such a thing, had never even thought of it. When she had read the note telling her he was going to sleep out, she had been full of a sort of ironical pity for his folly, for his short-sightedness. And now he had come back, travel- . ling through the night. /·// She could not understand it. ';/ Presently, as she lay quietly there,f 4 and her husband did not come, she heard no movement in his room, she began to think that perhaps |