His windows were all open, and he could hear a stirring of wind in the crests of the taller trees. His reveries were disturbed by a stumbling of feet in the room beyond, and suddenly Valentine Hicks stood in the doorway. By the faint light Hemming made out the big, drooping shoulders and the attitude of weariness. He sat up quickly, and pushed his feet into slippers. "That you, Hicks?" he asked. "Don't talk to me, you damn traitor!" said Hicks. Hemming frowned, and tossed his cigarette into the night. "If you will be so good as to turn on the light, I'll get the quinine," he said. The secretary laughed. "Quinine!" he cried; "you fool! I believe an Englishman would recommend some blasted medicine to a man in hell." "You're not there yet," replied Hemming. He was bending over an open drawer of his desk, feeling about among papers and bottles for the box of pills. Hicks drew something from his pocket and laid it softly on the table. "Good morning," he said. "I intended to kick up a row but I've changed my mind. Hand over your pills and I'll go to bed." When he awoke next day, it was only to a foolish delirium. The doctor looked at him, and then at Hemming. "I suppose you can give it a name," he said. Hemming nodded. "I've had it myself," he replied. The President, followed by his daughter, came into the room. Hicks recognized the girl. "Marion," he said, and when she bent over him, "something has happened after all." She looked up at Hemming with a colourless face. Her eyes were brave enough, but the pitiful expression of her mouth touched him with a sudden painful remembrance. During the hours of daylight the doctor and Miss Tetson watched by the bedside, moving silently and speaking in whispers in the darkened room. The doctor was an Englishman somewhat beyond middle age, with a past well buried. In the streets and on the trail his manner was short almost to rudeness. He often spoke bitterly and lightly of those things which most men love and respect. In the sick-room, be it in the rich man's villa or in the mud hut of the plantation labourer, he spoke softly, and his hands were gentle as a woman's. Hemming had been working with his little army all day, and, after dining at the mess, he changed and relieved Miss Tetson and the doctor. Before leaving the room, the girl turned to him nervously. "Did you see Valentine last night?" she asked. Hemming told her that Hicks had come to his room for quinine. "Good night, and please take good care of him," she said. The Englishman screwed his eye-glass into place, and glared at her uneasily. "Hicks is a good sort," he said, "but he is not the kind for this country. Neither are you, Miss Tetson. But it's nuts for me,--this playing soldier at another man's expense."