"By all means," agreed Dana, very close to tears. "I want everything possible done for him."
The doctor smiled sympathetically. "Be sure we'll do all we can," he assured her. "Now, if you'll have some one fetch a basin of water, boiled, I'll get at this dressing."
Close to dawn, after the doctor had departed and Alan was conscious, Dana went to her room to dress. At the doorway she paused—for the blue turban-cloth lay coiled upon the threshold where she had tossed it. Incidents of greater importance had crowded the remembrance of it from her brain. Now she stooped and picked it up, rather gingerly. Queer. For imitation pearls!
She lowered her eyes, suddenly, involuntarily—as though in obedience to a subconscious command.
On the spot where the turban-cloth had lain was a small scrap of paper.
Thus, having jested with a puppet at Indore and given a thread into the hands of Dana Charteris, Destiny, capricious as the winds, turned toward the officer of the empire upon whom a chalk-mark had previously been placed.