ked up from it
as he tore off a leaf and slipped it into his breast pocket.

"It is a strange way of doing the thing," he said. "Who planned it?"

Ram Dass made a modestly apologetic obeisance.

"It is true that the first thought was mine, Sahib," he said; "though
it was naught but a fancy. I am fond of this child; we are both
lonely. It is her way to relate her visions to her secret friends.
Being sad one night, I lay close to the open skylight and listened. The
vision she related told what this miserable room might be if it had
comforts in it. She seemed to see it as she talked, and she grew
cheered and warmed as she spoke. Then she came to this fancy; and the
next day, the Sahib being ill and wretched, I told him of the thing to
amuse him. It seemed then but a dream, but it pleased the Sahib. To
hear of the child's doings gave him entertainment. He became interested
in her and asked questions. At last he began to please himself with
the thought of making her visions real things."

"You think that it can be done while she sleeps? Suppose she
awakened," suggested the secretary; and it was evident that whatsoever
the plan referred to was, it had caught and pleased his fancy as well
as the Sahib Carrisford's.

"I can move as if my feet were of velvet," Ram Dass replied; "and
children sleep soundly--even the unhappy ones. I could have entered
this room in the night many times, and without causing her to turn upon
her pillow. If the other bearer passes to me the things through the
window, I can do all and she will not stir. When she awakens she will
think a magician has been here."

He smiled as if his heart warmed under his white robe, and the
secretary smiled back at him.

"It will be like a story from the Arabian Nights," he said. "Only an
Oriental could have planned it. It does not belong to London fogs."

They did not remain very long, to the great relief of Melchisedec, who,
as he probably did not comprehend their conversation, felt their
movements and whispers ominous. The young secretary seemed interested
in everything. He wrote down things about the floor, the fireplace,
the broken footstool, the old table, the walls--which last he touched
with his hand again and again, seeming much pleased when he found that
a number of old nails had been driven in various places.

"You can hang things on them," he said.

Ram Dass smiled mysteriously.

"Yesterday, when she was out," he said, "I entered