Circumstanced as they were, Rose, no doubt, in time past had talked a great deal of nonsense, and, seeing how necessary she was to Denzil's happiness, Shireen Khan had relinquished much of her society at chess in his favour; but who ever scrutinises very closely all that a pretty girl talks about, or what male listener, or lover especially, would care to analyse the logic thereof? The parting of charming lips is ever pleasant to look upon, and the music of a sweet English female voice is ever pleasant to hear, and never so sweet or so seductive as when far away from home. And so thought Denzil, as he lay upon his pillow, with heavy eye, with aching temples, and throbbing pulses, listening to the prattle of Rose Trecarrel. Some books, picked up in the burned cantonments, had also been brought to Rose by the Khan, though he suggested that the Koran, with its hundred and fourteen chapters, ought to suffice for all the literary, legal, and medical necessities of mankind, and womankind too. Among those stray volumes was a copy of "Lalla Rookh," with poor Harry Burgoyne's autograph on the fly-leaf, and with this she had read Denzil asleep, reading steadily on afterwards, and kindly fearing to stop, lest by doing so she might awake him; but now, without her ceasing, he had restlessly stirred and roused himself. He grudged, even by necessary sleep, to lose by day a moment of her society; for they could converse silently, eye with eye, without speaking; for to lovers there is a dear companionship, an eloquence even, in silence; and now the girl gazed upon her care with her eyes and her heart full of love and tenderness, all the more that he, by perfect isolation, was so completely her own, and that she could minister unto him, as only a woman, a loving and tender one, can tend and minister to the suffering. It was very strange, all this!