ndage round the leg.
He stood up and turned to Durham.

"Who put on those bandages?" he asked sharply, as he looked up.

"I did, doctor. I plugged the bullet-hole with an iodoform wad and
stopped the bleeding. I put a pad on Mr. Durham's wound, but I fancy his
skull is injured."

"Where were you going to send them?"

"There are two single-bunk huts at the men's quarters. I was going to
have them taken there on that door until you came."

"We will take them there at once."

Under his directions the two were lifted and carried away to the huts
and made as comfortable as was possible in the rough timber bunks. With
Mrs. Eustace and Harding to assist him, he found and removed the bullet
from the old man's leg and quickly operated on Durham.

"I don't know what they would say in some of the swagger hospitals, if
they were asked to trepan a man's skull under these conditions," he said
as the operation was finished. "But he'll pull through, and thank you,
as the old man will when he knows, for saving his life. Aren't you Mrs.
Eustace?"

"Yes," she answered.

"I hardly had time to notice who you were before. You're a brave woman.
For your sake I hope your husband gets away."

The blood surged to her face, and then left it pallid. The shadow of her
sorrow had been forgotten during the strenuous moments she had gone
through; the tactless remark brought it back upon her with cruel
emphasis. She turned aside and slipped through the door at the back of
the hut while the doctor, oblivious to his blunder, went out at the
other.

Harding was about to follow her, when one of the troopers appeared at
the door through which the doctor had gone. He held a letter in his
hand.

"I found this where the lady knelt when she tied up the sub-inspector's
head--I fancy it's either hers or yours."

On the flap of the envelope Harding saw the bank's impress.

"It probably is hers," he answered as he took it. "I will give it to her
at once."

There was no sign of her as he passed out of the little door at the back
of the hut and, believing she had gone round to the other, he turned to
go back when, in a limp and dishevelled heap, he saw her lying on the
ground against the wall of the hut.

Her upturned face was white and drawn as he stooped over her.

"Jess!" he whispered. "Jess! Are you ill?"

She made no response, and he placed his arms gently round her and lifted
her till she lay in his clasp, her head drooped on his shoulde