'I gave what messages I could think or speak; but the numb faintness grew on me, and seemed to gather up all my senses. I did not seem able to care about anything when I felt myself in his hands.'

'Edgar!' repeated Wilmet, still slow to believe. 'Did you call him by his name?'

'I cannot tell; I think I did. I know I no more doubted of its being he than I do that you are Wilmet. Ah! I remember struggling between a sense that I ought, and the growing disinclination to speak, and wanting to tell him to go home, for you were all very unhappy about him. Did I get it out? Did he answer? I cannot tell! No, dearest, I know no more, nor why he is not here. Zadok must know; where is he?'

The Hindoo was summoned, and it was elicited that the English gentleman had watched over the Sahib day and night, sent the telegrams, called in the doctor from Malta, and had acted as if the patient had been his brother, only going away by the last train before the arrival of Mr. Harewood, and then leaving with him a packet only to be given up in case the Major should die without recovering the power of speech. It was claimed, and proved to contain a record of all that poor John had endeavoured to say, but written in a disguised hand, though merely in the spelling of the names betraying that the scribe had been no stranger. It was plain that he had so entirely thought Major Harewood a dying man, as to have made no attempt at concealing his own identity from him, but he had kept it carefully guarded from every one else; and Wilmet's heart smote her as she questioned, 'Would he have fled if it had been Felix or Cherry who had been coming?'

Questions were asked, and both M. Chenu and Madame Spiridione testified that the gentleman who had attended on Major Harewood had been un jeune homme extrêmement beau—grand et blond, but they had no guess as to his name, and merely knew that he had gone away towards Alexandria. Both there and at Cairo did Mr. Harewood write to make inquiries, but always in vain; and the trains were so few and so slow, that he could not go himself without a longer absence than seemed fitting to propose in his son's precarious state, when the very efforts that nature was making towards restoration might so easily result in fever, or in fatal changes in the wounds.

The sight of him seemed to be only less precious to John than that of Wilmet. When in comparative ease, it was almost a basking in their presence. After his long years of foreign service, no one could guess, he said, the delight it was to look at them; and when he meditated on the journey they had taken for his sake, he would break out in wondering gratitude, not to be checked by Wilmet's simplicity of protest, 'Of course she had come; she could not help it.'

The pleasure and comfort she gave him were really serving to bear him through. Not only was her touch unusually light, firm, dextrous, and soft, but pain from her hand was not like that given by any one else, when each dressing was tortured; and when his nerves were strung to an acute misery of sensitiveness, her look and touch, her voice and gesture alone were endurable. His first powers of being entertained were shown when she talked, or sang, not indeed as her brothers could sing, but in a low, sweet, and correct voice, that had an infinite charm of soothing that weary sickness. He might strive not to be exacting; but his face showed in spite of himself that when she quitted the room the light of his life went with her, and there was nothing left him but tedium, helplessness, and sore suffering.

She only did leave him for sleep, which she could usually time while he was lulled by the anodyne, and for hurried meals at the table d'hôte, which collected almost every European in the place. Mr. Harewood likewise made a great point of taking her out every evening for a sandy walk on the boulevard under the palm trees, as a preservative of her health, much to the perplexity of the observers. She saw no necessity for leaving John, to plough her way in the hot sand; but it relieved the Librarian's mind, and was besides their opportunity for discussing questions not intended for their patient's ear.

Here it was that Mr. Harewood communicated his difficulty. He had exchanged one course at the cathedral, but could not arrange for the next, and it was imperative that he should be at home by the end of the second week in the New Year. John, though they dared now to call him better, was still immovable, and what could be done? 'Shall I,' said the Librarian, 'telegraph to William to bring out Lucy or Grace?'

'Would that be of any use?' said Wilmet, thinking only of their scatter-brained recklessness in Lance's case.