Helga Tells You More About How She Met Edward Ware

    I sneaked into Edward's tent and woke him up as I was telling you yesterday. I told him I was an emissary from Lawrence of Arabia. I gave him a women's abaya and told him to put it on as a disguise, not letting on who I really was. Naturally if Mohamed found out what I was up to he would beat me mercilessly, but I was determined to carry it off as stealthily as possible.
    It took Edward and I longer to reach Deraa than Edward indicated in his letter to his fiancee, Dora Benley, who was thousands of miles away in Pittsburgh. We had an overnight that we spent together in the desert without the company of anyone except us two. I wanted to get right to the point. I pretended to sprain my ankle and asked him to look at it. I could tell by the way he handled my ankle that he was tempted to do more. He needed more encouragement. So when we slept on our mats next to the fire, I rolled next to him and let my leg touch his. Again he moved away from me. I was frustrated but determined not to give up. I was encouraged by the fact he let me sleep with my leg pressing against his for quite awhile first.
    The next day we rode into Deraa and rescued Lawrence. We parted company. I had to find a new way to insinuate myself into his presence. I had heard about his fiancee by the general gossip that went around the Syrian Desert. So I paid a forgerer to come up with a letter announcing her death. I bribed a British soldier to ride up to the camp with the letter.
    Edward was devastated. He stayed to his tent. He wept and railed against fate, blaming Mohamed, my husband, and the powers of darkness unleashed by Prince Ali, his patron. In other words, he thought she had been killed by a saboteur. That was, of course, very possible. Prince Ali had followed her to Pittsburgh himself and made her trolley jump the tracks.
    I made sure plenty of wine was delivered to his tent. He got drunk. I visted him late at night, pretending I was Dora. I vowed I would get revenge on the bitch. I don't like to approach the father of my son to be pretending I'm another woman. I don't need to tell you that he made love to me passionately. Nor did he know who I was until we woke up together early the next morning and he saw my naked body pressed against his.
    He thundered at me to get out of his tent. Only then did it occur to him that he'd been taken in by my cunning. But I thought I had accomplished my main aim of getting pregnant. As it turned out it wasn't so and I had to try again.
    If you want to hear what I did next, I will tell you more tomorrow.