here; a look such as her children might have seen, had she
been so blest.

Among acquaintances Mrs Olliver passed for a masculine woman,
boisterous and good-humoured, though somewhat lacking in the lesser
proprieties and affectations which passed for delicacy of feeling. But
with all her angularity and mannish ways, she was a fine mother
wasted: and in her heart she knew it. There are too many such among
us. A mystery of pain and unfulfilled hope which there seems no
justifying, save that at times the world is the gainer by their
individual loss; and Frank Olliver, being denied the blessedness of
children, mothered all the men of her regiment, the formidable Colonel
not excepted.

Having charmed her patient into a light sleep, she made a noiseless
tour of the room, smiling at the revelation of Paul Wyndham's hand in
the exquisite neatness wherewith all things had been set in order. A
towel pinned to the punkah frill brought the faint relief of moving
air nearer to Denvil's face. In the hasty manner of its pinning Theo's
workmanship stood revealed, and the smile deepened in her eyes. She
knew each least characteristic of these her grown children; knew, and
loved them, with a strong unspoken love.

Her next move brought her to the thermometer. It registered 95 deg. A
long while after sundown the mercury might drop three degrees,
certainly not more. She cast an anxious glance at the sleeper, and her
quick eye caught the lagging of the punkah, broken by fitful jerks,
which denotes that the coolie--squatting on his heels in the
verandah--is pulling the inexorable rope in his dreams.

Opening the outer door and letting in a blast as from the mouth of
hell, she reasoned with that much-enduring human machine in a forcible
Irish whisper, that set the towel flapping and billowing like a flag
in a wind. The room was none the cooler for his exertions, but in such
intensity of heat mere movement of the air serves to prevent
suffocation.

Mrs Olliver sat down beside her patient and her mind reverted to her
own domestic calamity. She wondered with a simple practical
wonderment, devoid of fear, whether or no she had a case of cholera in
her compound. To-morrow it would be well to ascertain the truth; and
in the meantime she dismissed the matter from her mind.

Before tiffin was over at the station Mess, Wyndham made his
appearance, and with a friendly nod of welcome took the reins out of
her hands. But by seven o'clock she was