f on the steps below Westminster
Bridge, calling to Anne, as she sat in the boat. Anne! No more pictures,
but a jiggery of red and black splashes, and then a darkness, through
which I passed somehow into a pleasant place,--a garden where roses
bloomed and a fountain plashed, and Anne was beside me; I held her hand
in mine.

Now she was gone, she had vanished mysteriously. What was that man
saying? "The Fraulein has not been here at all!" Why, she was here a
moment ago; what a fool that waiter was! A waiter? No, he was a droshky
driver; I knew it, though I could not see him. There were other voices
speaking now,--men's voices,--subdued but distinct; and as I listened I
came back from the land of dreams--or delirium--to that of reality.

"Yes, he's been pretty bad, sir. He came to himself quite nicely, and
began to talk. No, I didn't tell him anything, as you said I wasn't to,
but he remembered by himself, and then I had to warn him, and he went
right off again."

"You're an ass, Harris," said another voice. "What did you want to speak
to him at all for?"

I opened my eyes at that, and saw Freeman and the other man looking down
at me.

"He isn't an ass; he's a real good sort," I announced. "And I didn't
murder Cassavetti, though I'd have murdered half a dozen Cassavettis to
get out of that hell upon earth yonder!"

I shut my eyes again, settled myself luxuriously against my pillows, and
went,--back to Anne and the rose-garden.

I suppose I began to pull round from that time, and in a few days I was
able to get up. I almost forgot that I was still in custody, and even
when I remembered the fact, it didn't trouble me in the least. After
what I had endured in the Russian prison, it was impossible, at present,
anyhow, to consider Detective-Inspector Freeman and his subordinate,
Harris, as anything less than the best of good fellows and good nurses.
True, they never left me to myself for an instant; one or other of them
was always in close attendance on me; but there was nothing of espionage
in that attendance. They merely safe-guarded me, and, at the same time,
helped me back to life, as if I had been their comrade rather than their
prisoner. Freeman, in due course, gave me his formal warning that
"anything I said with respect to the crime with which I was charged
would be used against me;" but in all other respects both he and Harris
acted punctiliously on the principle held by only two civilized nations
in the worl