d, were more
heart-stirring than tears.

He knelt down beside her and lightly caressed her hair.

"Ladybird," he said softly, "time to wake up."

His touch brought her back to life with an indrawn breath like a sob;
and at sight of him her arms went round his neck.

"Theo, darling," she whispered, drawing his head down close to hers.
"I--was dreaming--that you were gone. I suppose you are going very
soon now?"

"Yes; in about an hour."

She held him closer.

"I was bad and selfish to you last night, Theo. I didn't mean to be;
but--I was. Honor made me understand."

"Bless her brave heart!" he said fervently. "She comes of the best
stock I know. By the way, I am sure she never told you to spend the
night here."

"No. She thought I had gone to bed. But I was too unhappy to trouble
about that--and----"

"You thought I might turn up before morning,--wasn't that it?"

"Y--yes." She flushed softly on the confession.

"Poor dear little soul!"

He drew her to her feet, slipped on the fallen shoe, and put his arm
round her. "Come along to the dressing-room and help me to get into my
khaki."

She walked beside him in so strange a confusion of happiness and
misery that it was impossible to say where one ended and the other
began. In the semi-darkness she tripped and stumbled on the threshold,
and he caught her close to him, holding her thus for a long moment.
Then he began to dress.

At this point the long lean form of Amar Singh appeared in the
doorway. But at sight of the Memsahib, arrayed for dinner, he departed
as noiselessly as he had come; not without a lurking sense of injury,
since it was clearly his privilege to do those last offices for his
Sahib of twelve years' standing.

Evelyn, anxious to show that she could be useful on occasion, followed
Theo to and fro like a shadow; handed him the wrong thing at the wrong
moment with pathetic insistence; and hindered his progress by a host
of irrelevant questions. But some women can hinder more engagingly
than others can help; and in any case Theo Desmond was in no humour to
lose patience with his wife that morning.

Once her attention was caught and held by Desmond's sword and
revolver, laid ready on a small table. She regarded them with a kind
of fearful fascination. They were no longer mere ornaments of his
uniform, but actual death-dealers, going forth to do murderous work.
The short blue muzzle of the revolver had a sinister look, and a point
of ligh