Some one was coming back to the garden. The next instant, through the open door, he saw two figures running; an Englishman, an English girl in a pink dress. The man's arm was round her as he ran; he looked back fearfully, then seemed to whisper something in her ear, and she gave answer back. "What was it?" they said to each other. Hushmut knew by instinct. He was thinking of the roof of the palace pleasure-house, of the winding stair that led to it, down which it would at least be possible to fling a foe, before the end came; and She was thinking of the marble plinth below, where, when that end came, a woman might find safety from men's hands in death. So they came on through the growing shadows. Hushmut shuffled to the door and watched the figures calmly, indifferently, as they neared him; for the way to the winding stair lay up the steps which rose just beyond the low door of his distillery in the plinth. Perhaps the dusk hid him from those two; perhaps even in broad daylight they would not, in their fierce desire to reach not safety but resistance, have seen him. They did not, anyhow; but as they passed the door the girl's muslin flounce caught hard on its lintel hasp, and as in frantic haste she stooped to rip it free, the scent of those rose-leaves Hushmut had given her, still lingering in the ruffles at her breast, seemed to pass straight back into those same rose-leaves in his own. That was all, nothing more. But it brought back his last words to her: "May He who knows the secret of the rose protect the bride." Strange! The same instant his long-fingered brown hand was on her white one as she tugged at her dress. "This way, _Huzoor!_" he cried in a loud voice, for the man to hear. "There is a secret passage here; it leads to safety." Safety! That word, better than resistance, not to the man himself, but as sole guardian to the girl, arrested him in a second, tempted him. He looked, hesitated, then dragged his charge on--dragged her from anything with a dark skin to it. But her white one touching this dark one, found something in it to give confidence; or perhaps that fragrance of the flower from His still which "He sends to many blossoms," had passed from Hushmut's breast to hers, as hers had to Hushmut's. He knows, who knows the secret of the perfume of the rose. Anyhow she hung back, and she called pitifully, clamorously-- "No! No! Let us trust him--let us take the chance." There was no time for remonstrance. The next second they were in the cool, scented darkness of the vault, with those pink air-holes showing like shadowy roses among the low arches, the squat pillars. "At the farther end," came Hushmut's voice, amid his shuffling, till the latter ceased in the rasping of a chain unhasped. "Here, _Huzoor_, it leads to the Summer Palace beyond the garden wall. So by the mango groves to the Residency. May He who knows the secret of the perfume of the rose protect the bride."