t was several days later before he spoke to me of it again. Hilda had
brought some food to the door of the tent and passed it in to me for our
patient. "How is he now?" she whispered.

Sebastian overheard her voice, and, cowering within himself, still
managed to answer: "Better, getting better. I shall soon be well now.
You have carried your point. You have cured your enemy."

"Thank God for that!" Hilda said, and glided away silently.

Sebastian ate his cup of arrowroot in silence; then he looked at me with
wistful, musing eyes. "Cumberledge," he murmured at last; "after all,
I can't help admiring that woman. She is the only person who has ever
checkmated me. She checkmates me every time. Steadfastness is what I
love. Her steadfastness of purpose and her determination move me."

"I wish they would move you to tell the truth," I answered.

He mused again. "To tell the truth!" he muttered, moving his head up and
down. "I have lived for science. Shall I wreck all now? There are
truths which it is better to hide than to proclaim. Uncomfortable
truths--truths that never should have been--truths which help to make
greater truths incredible. But, all the same, I cannot help admiring
that woman. She has Yorke-Bannerman's intellect, with a great deal more
than Yorke-Bannerman's force of will. Such firmness! such energy! such
resolute patience! She is a wonderful creature. I can't help admiring
her!"

I said no more to him just then. I thought it better to let nascent
remorse and nascent admiration work out their own natural effects
unimpeded. For I could see our enemy was beginning to feel some sting
of remorse. Some men are below it. Sebastian thought himself above it. I
felt sure he was mistaken.

Yet even in the midst of these personal preoccupations, I saw that our
great teacher was still, as ever, the pure man of science. He noted
every symptom and every change of the disease with professional
accuracy. He observed his own case, whenever his mind was clear enough,
as impartially as he would have observed any outside patient's. "This is
a rare chance, Cumberledge," he whispered to me once, in an interval of
delirium. "So few Europeans have ever had the complaint, and probably
none who were competent to describe the specific subjective and
psychological symptoms. The delusions one gets as one sinks into the
coma, for example, are of quite a peculiar type--delusions of wealth and
of absolute power, most exhilarating an