udible.

"Oh, rats, my dear fellow! Don't be so damn' modest! You're worth a
score of Dacres and you bet she knows it."

Stella tingled from head to foot. In another moment she would have
passed swiftly on, but even as the impulse came to her it was
frustrated. The door in front of her suddenly opened, and she was face
to face with Monck himself.

He stood leaning slightly on the handle of the door. He was draped in a
long dressing-gown of Oriental silk that hung upon him dejectedly as if
it yearned for a stouter tenant. In it he looked leaner and taller than
he had ever seemed to her before. He had a cigarette between his lips,
but this he removed with a flicker of humour as he observed her glance.

"Caught in the act," he remarked. "Please come in!"

Something that was very far from humour impelled Stella to say quickly,
"I hope you don't imagine I was eavesdropping."

He looked sardonic for an instant. "No, I do not so far flatter myself,"
he said. "I was referring to my cigarette."

She entered, striving for dignity. Then as his attitude caught her
attention she forgot herself and turned upon him in genuine dismay.
"What are you doing out of bed? You know you are not fit for it. Oh, how
wrong of you! Take my arm!"

He transferred his hand from the door to her shoulder, and she felt it
tremble though his hold was strong.

"May I not sit up to tea with you, nurse _sahib_?" he suggested, as she
piloted him firmly to the bedside.

"Of course not," she made answer. The consciousness of his weakness had
fully restored her confidence and her authority. "Besides, I have had
mine. Tommy, you too! It is too bad, I shall never dare to close my eyes
again."

At this point Monck laughed so suddenly and boyishly that she found it
utterly impossible to continue her reproaches. He humbly apologized as
he subsided upon the bed, and turning to Tommy who, fully dressed, was
reclining at his ease in a deck-chair by its side said with a smile,
"You get back to your own compartment, my son. It isn't good for me to
have two people in the room with me at the same time. And your sister
wants to take my pulse undisturbed."

"Or listen to your heart?" suggested Tommy irreverently as he rose.

"Turn him out!" said Monck, leaning luxuriously upon the pillows that
Stella arranged for him.

Tommy laughed as he sauntered away, pulling the door carelessly after
him but recalled by Monck to shut it.

A sudden silence followed his