burlesque the Boy had played in
during the winter:

"My name it is Abanazar
If you want me you needn't go far;
I'm sure to be found, if you'll only look round,
Number Seventy, Suddar Bazaar."

Denvil's deep baritone, distorted to a guttural travesty of itself,
rose to a shout on the ascending notes of the last line. Then, without
pause for breath, came the voice of speech--hurried, expressionless,
heartrending to hear.

"Safe for an encore, that--what? Should ha' been Desmond, though. See
him in tights you'd think he could slip through a wedding-ring. Done
it too, by Jove! Better than horses that, in the long-run.--How about
Grey Dawn?--Confound your luck! Always a dead cert till I lay anything
on. Hold hard, though.... I'm done with all that now.... Wouldn't go
back on Desmond--not for a mine of gold. _You_ don't know
Desmond;--wait till you're in a hole! Eight hundred rupees, I tell
you--more than his month's pay! Said I was to keep quiet about it too.
Not mail-day to-morrow, is it? Where's the use of writing to her?
She'd never understand. Look out--some one's coming,--there by the
door. Great Scott! It's--it's mother!"

The voice broke into an unnatural sound between a laugh and a sob, and
Frank, who was already praying for the lesser evil of silence, bent
over the Boy, soothing him with tender words and tone, as though she
were his mother in very deed.

The delusion was strong upon him. He clung to her fiercely when she
would have risen to fetch milk, overwhelming her with a rush of
disjointed questions varied by snatches of enthusiasm for Desmond,
till exhaustion reduced him to incoherent mutterings; and she was free
at last to grope for milk and brandy and a fresh packing of wet
sheets.

He grew quieter after a space, and sank into a more restful sleep,
leaving Frank Olliver to face another spell of whispering silence; her
ears strained now to catch the dread sound of a single horseman
returning from the hills.

The first white streak of dawn found her still at her post, with hands
quietly folded and unclosed eyes; found Amar Singh wide-eyed also, his
lean face and figure rigid as a stone image, a bared sword lying like
a flash of light across his knees.

And with the dawn came also the far-off mutter of the footsteps that
night had stolen from her; an inverted repetition of the same sounds
in a steady crescendo that rang like music in her ears--a sound to
lift the heart.

The