"
The two young men looked at one another.
"Did she tell you her name?" Stephen asked.
"But yes; she was Mees Ray, and named for the dead Queen Victoria of
England, I suppose, though American. And she told me other things. Her
sister, she said, married a Captain Ben Halim of the Spahis, and came
with him to Algiers, nearly ten years ago. Now she is looking for the
sister."
"We've met Miss Ray," said Nevill. "It's on her business we've come. We
didn't know she'd already been to you, but we might have guessed some
one would send her. She didn't lose much time."
"She wouldn't," said Stephen. "She isn't that kind."
"I knew nothing of the sister," went on Mademoiselle Soubise. "I could
hardly believe at first that Ben Halim had an American wife. Then I
remembered how these Mohammedan men can hide their women, so no one
ever knows. Probably no one ever did know, otherwise gossip would have
leaked out. The man may have been jealous of her. You see, I have Arab
acquaintances. I go to visit ladies in the harems sometimes, and I hear
stories when anything exciting is talked of. You can't think how word
flies from one harem to another--like a carrier-pigeon! This could never
have been a matter of gossip--though it is true I was young at the
time."
"You think, then, he would have shut her up?" asked Nevill. "That's what
I feared."
"But of course he would have shut her up--with another wife, perhaps.
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