Heideck
addressed in English to the terrified maid brought her back to her sense
of duty to her mistress.

With her assistance, Heideck carried the fainting woman to a couch, and
perceiving one of the little green flasks of lavender water, which are
never wanting in an English house, on the table, he employed the strong
perfume as well as he was able, whilst the Indian maid rubbed the soles
of her young mistress' feet, and adopted divers other methods, well
known among the natives, of resuscitating her.

Under their joint attentions, Edith soon opened her eyes, and gazed with
bewildered looks around her. But on seeing lying on the floor the corpse
of the Indian whom Heideck had shot, her consciousness returned with
perfect clearness.

Shaking off the last traces of faintness with a firm will, she got up.

"It was you who saved me, Mr. Heideck! You risked your life for me! How
can I thank you enough?"

"Solely, madam, by allowing me to conduct you at once to the Colonel's
house, whose protection you must necessarily claim until your
husband's return. Whoever may have been the instigator of this hellish
plot--whether these rogues were common thieves or whether they acted on
orders, I do not feel myself strong enough, single-handed, to accept the
responsibility for your security."

"You are right," Edith replied gently. "I will get ready at once and go
with you--but this man here," she added, shivering, "is he dead, or can
something be done for him?"

Heideck stooped down and regarded the motionless figure. A single look
into the sallow, drawn face, with the dilated, glassy eyes, sufficed to
assure him that any further examination was useless.

"He has got his reward," he said, "and he has no further claim upon your
generous compassion; but is there no one to help me get the body away?"

"They are all out," said the maid; "the butler invited them to spend a
jolly evening with him in the town."

Edith and Heideck exchanged a significant look; neither of them now
doubted in the least that the audacious attack had been the result of
a plot to which the Indian servants were parties, and each guessed that
the other entertained the same suspicion as to who was the instigator of
the shameful outrage.

But they did not utter a syllable about it. It was just because they had
been brought as near to each other by the events of this night as fate
can possibly bring two young beings of different sex, that each felt
almo