"Good-by," he echoed; then, holding her hand still, a sudden resolve seemed to come to him. "But--I should like to tell you something first, please."--
She felt her heart beating everywhere but in its proper place.
--"Not that it matters, but I'd like you to know it. I had some news by the mail this morning--bad news."
She felt her blood everywhere but in its normal course, now, in sheer shame at her own imaginations. "I'm sorry," she murmured.
"So am I," he went on thoughtfully; "though it isn't bad in a way for me. Do you remember my telling you about my cousin? a weedy chap, six-four. Well, they sent him round the world for his health, and he died two months ago, it seems, in Australia. And the shock was too much for my uncle; he was an old man, and this was his only son. So--so I am Sir Lancelot now. It doesn't make any odds, of course, but I thought I should like you to know, first."
She looked up at him as he stood beside her, so tall, so strong, so young, so kind; and though she only said, "Thanks, Sir Lancelot, it won't make any difference to--to our friendship, I'm sure," she knew in her heart of hearts that it did. Though how, she had not yet had time to discover.
[CHAPTER XIV]
MIRACLE MONGERS
Roshan Khân flung his cigarette away, and walked up and down his quarters in the Fort like an Englishman; he felt rather like one, also, in his vague distaste for something which refused to fit in with his previous experiences.
"So she will see my grandmother," he said, at last. "That is a step, certainly, but--" he turned quickly to Akbar Khân, "it seems impossible!"