Audley cared not to say that, by his lady-mother's orders, the dog had been destroyed as a nuisance--the last legacy of his comrade, poor Delamere, who died in the jungle. "Ah, if my dear Denzil had lived to see this day!" said the happy girl, after a pause that was full of thought. "Sybil, God knows how for your sake, even at the time when I never, never, hoped to see you more, I sought to protect and love your brother; but he repelled, avoided, and seemed to loathe me. Yet he saved my life in the Khyber Pass. It was through sorrow for his mother--and--and, perhaps, love for Rose Trecarrel; for he would be jealous of me, among other things, poor lad!" "And she--she?" "Rose was very heedless, Sybil; but, after all Bob Waller has written, let us not talk of the past now. You will learn to love her well, I know." "I hope so: I must--I shall, for Denzil's sake." "My sweet little love!--my Sybil, so tender and so true!" exclaimed Audley, pressing her with ardour to his breast. But a short time ago, Sybil had been hoping that she would forget him; hoping, while journeying towards the land where he was--the land of the Sun--she who long since should have been his wife. She had striven for forgetfulness, hopelessly, yet with something of earnestness in the desire; and now that she had heard his voice again, the old spell was upon her--the spell of past hours, of remembered days--the spell of her lover's presence; and to be with him, the girl acknowledged in her heart, was to be in heaven again! But now, we fear that we have intruded upon them quite long enough. And so, till the time came when they should be joined by Waller and the Trecarrels (for companionship, it had been arranged that they should all take the journey by dawk and river-steamer, and then the overland route home together), the days passed pleasantly and swiftly at delightful Simla, in rides and drives among its wonderful scenery; where the netted bramble, the great strawberry, and giant fern covered all the rocks; the soft peach, the dark plum, the rosy apple, and the golden pear grew wild; and the dark-green pines, vast in proportion as the stupendous Himalayas, from whence they sprang, cast a solemn shadow over all, making deep and leafy recesses where the monkey swung by his tail, the buffalo browsed at noon, the leopard and the wild hog lurked for their food; by mountain villages that clustered near the fortified dwelling of the chieftain whose tower was built like the cone of an English glass house; by hill and vale, rock and stream, where flocks were grazing, watched by shepherds, quaint and savage-looking as their rural god, the son of Mercury, and by Thibet mastiffs, that reminded Sybil of her lover's four-footed friend, the Rajah of past days; and ever and anon, as they drove, or rode, or rambled, they talked, as lovers will do, of their future home in Cornwall, with all its associations so dear to them, and now so far away, and so they would marvel