“Now, Lady Haigh, please tell me,” cried Cecil, whose brain had been busy conjuring up horrors the whole time. “You must be brave, my dear child, and thankful--thankful that you are able to see Charlie once more, when it was just a chance that they didn’t succeed in keeping you from him.” “Lady Haigh!” Cecil almost screamed, “they haven’t put him in prison?” “No, my dear, no. Your imagination certainly dwells on horrors. Wait a little, and I will tell you it all. You know that for some time Charlie has been very unpopular in the city, and that the _budmashes_, as we should call them in India, have been shouting bad names after him in the streets? Well, it has been a great mystery why this should be, for he got on so very well with the Baghdadis in his first two years here, but now it seems that they have come to regard him in some way as a spy. Of course there has been mischief at work, somebody has been slandering him, but that doesn’t make it any better. Naturally I knew all this, but nothing more, and what has happened to-day has been a tremendous shock. Very early this morning Sir Dugald received a letter from the Pasha, brought by Ovannes Effendi. I don’t know what was in it, but Denarien Bey called just about the same time, and they were all three closeted together. Then Denarien Bey and the other man went away, and Sir Dugald sent for Charlie. I had no idea that there was anything wrong, or even out of the common, and you may conceive my astonishment when Charlie came rushing to me in a fearful state and told me that Sir Dugald had ordered him to proceed at once to Bandr Abbas, right away down the Gulf, and remain there until further orders. They have an outbreak of cholera there, and their doctor is overworked and has telegraphed for help. Of course Charlie didn’t mind the cholera, but he was to start to-day, by the steamer leaving this very morning.” “Oh, Lady Haigh, he isn’t _gone_?” cried Cecil.