"The Son of a King!"
The title fitted the picture, and reminded the girl of something in Khesroo which had struck her yesterday and which was absent to-day. She turned over the page, but beyond it all was blank. Those words were the last in the diary.
"I think I remember something about it now, my dear," said her father, taking his hand away from the book gently; "it may have been the last she took, for I was camping round here as assistant just before--before you were born. And she was always taking children and giving pictures to the mothers; not that I remember that particular one--you see it must be fifteen years ago--at least."
"Nearer five-and-twenty, dear," she said, softly, and as she realised the impotence of what the world counts as time to touch the smallest thing that once has been, the utter irrelevance of days and weeks and years in connection with a single thought, the photographs before her grew dim to her eyes, the fine feminine writing with its verdict, "The Son of a King," became invisible.
So through her tears she saw only--blurred and indistinct--the wondering face of Khesroo the goatherd.
"Look!" she said, in sudden impulse. "The sun must have held two pictures of you."
He stared at the duplicate stupidly. "I did not steal it," he began, uneasily.
"Of course you didn't," she replied, smiling now. "It was my mother who took the picture, and gave it to yours--she was the mem-sahiba you spoke of--perhaps you remember her?"
A look almost of relief came to the goatherd's haggard, anxious face. "Yes! Perhaps your slave remembers, and that is why he thought he recollected the graciousness of the queen-lady and the gold crown of her hair. That will be it, and your slave did not lie to the Huzoor." He looked apologetically towards the young Englishman; but the latter had once more an aggrieved tone in his voice as he said shortly in English:
"Whether he did or did not doesn't much matter. There isn't anything to be got out of him apparently, so perhaps you had better tell the orderly to take him back to the tent and see that he takes the quinine you send--as I suppose you will."