he brain of the invalid a door
long closed. A sleeping memory stirred. "Wait! It is all coming back!
Give me time!" he pleaded.

It was no place for a crowd. I took Zura by the hand, pulled Jane's
sleeve, motioned Kobu toward the door, and together we went softly away.

* * * * *

An hour later, when Mr. Hamilton came in, the happiest spot in all the
Flowery Kingdom was the little living-room of "The House of the Misty
Star."

Page was asleep through sheer exhaustion, and the father, with lowered
voice and dimmed eyes, told the story.

The explanation was all so simple I felt as if I should be sentenced for
not thinking of it before. For had I not seen what tricks the heat of
the Orient could play with the brain cells of a white man? Had I not
seen men and women go down to despair under some fixed hallucination,
conjured from the combination of overwork and a steamed
atmosphere--transforming happy, normal humans into fear-haunted
creatures, ever pursued by an unseen foe? In such a fever-racked mind
lay all Page's troubles.

For the last four years he had held a place of heavy responsibility
with a large oil concern in Singapore. His duties led him into isolated
districts. Danger was ever present, but a Malay robber was no more
treacherous an enemy than the heat, and far less subtle. One day, after
some unusually hard work, Page turned in his money and reports, and went
his way under the blistering sun.

It was then that the fever played its favorite game by confusing his
brain and tangling his thoughts. He wandered down to the docks and
aboard a tramp steamer about to lift anchor. When the vessel was far
away the fateful disease released its grip on his body. But in the many
months of cruising among unnamed islands in southern seas, it cruelly
mocked him with a belief he had purloined the money and taunted him with
forgetfulness as to the hiding place.

When Page left the ship at a Japanese port memory cleared enough to give
him back a part of his name, but tricked him into hiding from a crime he
had not committed.

My remorse was unmeasurable as I realized the whole truth, but my heart
out-caroled any lark that ever grew a feather. The boy's soul was as
clean as our love for him was deep.

[Illustration: "Oh! boy, boy, I thought I'd lost you"]

"You see," continued Mr. Hamilton, "Page's mother died when he was
only a lad, and my responsibility was doubled. When his regular l