beautiful hair close to her head, and as she laid the great tresses away she thought once more of Marmaduke. She must find out about him when she had time, but that day and the next she had her work cut out for her. "Maryam Effendi" they had already learnt to call her, and old Achmet, with a daily stipend of so many piastres, was content to let her have her way. But there were other places besides the mosque hospital where some fifty men groaned and died, or groaned and got better, that were surcharged with misery and death. Hovels where babies tugged vainly at their dead mother's breasts and old women sat starving silently. It was among these that after a day or two Maryam Effendi was busiest. She settled to her work bravely, increasing her stock of Turkish rapidly and gaining for herself sufficient friends and aid to enable her to enlarge her sphere of usefulness. One of these was big fat "Heart's Darling," as her solitary servant was called, who, transferring domestic duties to an unspeakable drudge she produced, took up the duties of interpreter on the strength of some slight knowledge of French. And Fate was so far kind to Marrion that she had little trouble in finding out the news she desired to hear. A sort of local rag in French and English was published in which, for equivalent of a penny, she learnt that Marmaduke's regiment was still camped six miles out among the hills and that he was still in command. From her verandah she could actually see the very place where he must be. Once, indeed, as she was hurrying along the quay in the ordinary dress of the Turkish gad-about woman she caught a sight of Andrew Fraser, tall, gaunt, serious as usual, looking on distastefully at one of the many drunken rows that occurred every day. The temptation to go up and speak to him was great, but she stuck to her plan and passed on. When she had really done something she would write and tell Marmaduke she was at hand, but not till then. Possibly, had she seen him instead of Andrew Fraser she might not have been so firm; for a glance would have shown her that she could have been of use. In truth, the inaction, the constant fret of feeling that all initiative is of no avail, was beginning to tell on Marmaduke Muir. He also looked down of an evening on the white pall that covered the Lake of Death, and wondered--without one shadow of fear, but from simple curiosity--whether the levels of life would meet his eyes again. And they seemed such low levels now! Yes, he had missed something in his life! What was it? These, however, were very secret thoughts. To the little coterie of careless men of which he was the centre, he was, as ever, the mainspring of everything. Even the divisional commander sought his sympathy as day after day the orders for the front tarried, and day after day the regimental chaplain grew busier and busier. For cholera was rampant in the camps as in the town, and every evening the