Pretty Cissy Lawless looks decidedly dumfoundered, and begins to back out of her consent immediately. ‘I pity you,’ she answers, ‘and I pity myself too, for I expect we shall have to simmer together. I should like it of all things, as I said before, but Jack would never let me leave him. He is such a dear, useless body without me. Besides, as you know, colonel, I have business to keep me in Mudlianah.’ Business again! Ethel turns away in disgust; but it is with difficulty she can keep the tears from rushing to her eyes. However, there is no help for it, and she must go. Her child is very dear to her, and at all risks it requires mountain air. She must leave her colonel to take his chance in the plains below—only as he puts her and the child into the transit that is to convey them to the hills, and bids her farewell with a very honest falter in his voice he feels her hot tears upon his cheek. ‘Oh, Charlie, Charlie, be true to me! Think how I have loved you. I am so very miserable.’ ‘Miserable, my love, and for this short parting? Come, Ethel, you must be braver than this. It will not be long before we meet again, remember.’ ‘And, till then, you will be careful, won’t you, Charlie, for my sake, and think of me, and don’t go too much from home? and remember how treacherous women are; and I am not beautiful, I know, my darling; I never was, you know,’ with a deep sob, ‘like—like Mrs Lawless and others. But I love you, Charlie, I love you with all my heart, and I have always been faithful to you in thought as well as deed.’ And so, sobbing and incoherent, Ethel Dunstan drives away to the Mandalinati hills, whilst the good colonel stands where she left him, with a puzzled look upon his honest sunburnt face. ‘What does she mean?’ he ponders, ‘by saying she is not beautiful like Cissy Lawless, and telling me to remember how treacherous women are, as if I didn’t know the jades. Is it possible Ethel can be jealous—jealous of that poor, pretty little creature who is breaking her heart about her Jack? No! that would be too ridiculous, and too alarming into the bargain; for even if I can get the boy out of the scrape, it is hardly a matter to trust to a woman’s discretion. Well, well, I must do the best I can, and leave the rest to chance. Ethel to be jealous! the woman I have devoted my life to! It would be too absurd if anything the creatures do can possibly be called so.’