Sarah thought that it would be a brave man who thought he could impose upon Lady Westholme! She introduced Dr. Gerard who had just come out of the hotel.

"Your name is, of course, familiar to me," said Lady Westholme, shaking hands. "I was talking to Professor Clemenceaux the other day in Paris. I have been taking up the question of the treatment of pauper lunatics very strongly lately. Very strongly, indeed. Shall we come inside while we wait for a better car to be obtained?"

A vague little middle-aged lady with wisps of gray hair who was hovering near by turned out to be Miss Annabel Pierce, the fourth member of the party. She too was swept into the lounge under Lady Westholme's protecting wing.

"You are a professional woman Miss King?"

"I've just taken my M.B.."

"Good," said Lady Westholme with condescending approval. "If anything is to be accomplished, mark my words, it is women who will do it."

Uneasily conscious for the first time of her sex, Sarah followed Lady Westholme meekly to a seat. There, as they sat waiting, Lady Westholme informed them that she had refused an invitation to stay with the High Commissioner during her stay in Jerusalem.

"I did not want to be hampered by officialdom. I wished to look into things for myself."

"What things?" Sarah wondered.

Lady Westholme went on to explain that she was staying at the Solomon Hotel so as to remain unhampered. She added that she had made several suggestions to the Manager for the more competent running of his hotel.

"Efficiency," said Lady Westholme, "is my Watchword."

It certainly seemed to be! In a quarter of an hour a large and extremely comfortable car arrived and in due course—after advice from Lady Westholme as to how the luggage should be bestowed—the party set off.

Their first halt was the Dead Sea. They had lunch at Jericho. Afterwards when Lady Westholme armed with a Baedeker had gone off with Miss Pierce, the doctor and the fat dragoman to do a tour of old Jericho, Sarah remained in the garden of the hotel.

Her head ached slightly and she wanted to be alone. A deep depression weighed her down—a depression for which she found it hard to account. She felt suddenly listless and uninterested, disinclined for sightseeing, bored by her companions. She wished at this moment that she had never committed herself to this Petra tour. It was going to be very expensive and she felt quite sure she wasn't going to enjoy it! Lady Westholme's booming voice, Miss Pierce's endless twitterings, and the anti-Zionist lamentation of the dragoman were already fraying her nerves to a frazzle. She disliked almost as much Dr. Gerard's amused air of knowing exactly how she was feeling.

She wondered where the Boyntons were now—perhaps they had gone on to Syria—they might be at Baalbek or Damascus. Raymond. She wondered what Raymond was doing. Strange how clearly she could see his face, its eagerness, its diffidence, its nervous tension. . . . Oh! Hell, why go on thinking of people she would probably never see again? That scene the other day with the old woman—what could have possessed her to march up to the old lady and spurt out a lot of nonsense. Other people must have heard some of it. She fancied that Lady Westholme had been quite close by. Sarah tried to remember exactly what it was she had said. Something that probably sounded quite absurdly hysterical. Goodness, what a fool she had made of herself! But it wasn't her fault really—it was old Mrs. Boynton's. There was something about her that made you lose your sense of proportion.