The plan seemed to work beautifully. Cecil laboured long the next morning in removing from her face the traces left by her tears and by an almost sleepless night, and appeared in the schoolroom as if the events of the day before had never occurred. Azim Bey understood the situation perfectly, and accepted it. He was very gracious, and he could afford to be so, for he had gained all he wanted. Nothing could well have been more delightful than his behaviour--it might almost be called chivalrous. If Cecil had not had the memory of yesterday to warn her, she might have been tempted to imagine that her young barbarian was becoming a gentleman; but her eyes were opened now, and she could only wonder and admire, without being convinced. The days passed on. Sir Dugald received a telegram from Bandr Abbas to say that Charlie had reached that place safely, and found an extraordinary amount of work awaiting him. After that there came a long unbroken silence. From the Indian newspapers, and through official channels, they heard occasionally that the epidemic was running its course, and that the two surgeons were working heroically among the sick and dying, but there did not come one single message from Charlie himself. Cecil was astonished, but she never thought of blaming him. Possibly he would not write to her lest the letter should convey infection, and he was certainly overwhelmed with work, very likely with insufficient leisure even for needed rest. In this belief she bestowed all the more pains on her own letters, doing her best, by means of their fulness and tenderness, to bridge over the distance which separated her from her lover, so far as this could be done from one side only.