Still, even he grunted satisfaction over the news that Britain was beginning to discover that all was not well with the Crimean expedition--that there was talk of sending out nurses and more doctors. So for nigh three weeks comparative peace reigned. There were no shambles, and Marrion had time to pick up many wrinkles of nursing from her patron; he taught her how to bring sleep for one thing, the first duty of those who tend the sick. She had time also for regret. Nothing had been heard of Andrew Fraser, though Captain Grant's body had been duly found. It seemed to her as if the last link with the old life had gone, and one day in sudden confidence she said as much to the doctor. Again he shook his head. "My dear good woman," he remarked, "no one ever gets away from their past. It is what the Easterns call '_karma_.' You have to dree your weird for it always." "Even if it is not bad?" asked Marrion, feeling hurt at the very idea that a life in which she was conscious of no self-seeking should be a curse to her. "I don't know," he replied, half-closing his strange eyes, "you may have done something shocking. It is quite possible." She wondered, afterwards, what had induced her to tell him what she had done; but these strange fits of confidence are one of the psychological puzzles of humanity. Tell him she did, however, while he sat looking out over the sea with his veiled eyes, for they were sitting on the heights and the whole panorama of Sebastopol, the Allied Fleets, and the investing forces lay before them. "What would you have done if Colonel Muir had lived?" he asked briefly when she had finished. She blushed a little. "I have often wondered," she began. "People who play Providence ought not to wonder. Well, I am glad he died happy. That, at any rate, is to your credit." So he rose and left her. The days passed rapidly, full to the brim of work, and every day brought her more and more admiration for the courage and cheeriness of the men, more and more resentment at the ghastly way in which they were treated by the authorities at home. Boots had already given out, none were available in store, and in a whole officers' mess only one subaltern had a holeless pair. And he was the son of a widow who had half-ruined herself by sending her darling the two separate boots of a pair by letter post. She would have held it worth more, could she have seen his face of pride among his comrades. On the night of the 18th of October a diversion arose which, when it was over, caused much amusement.