“I always knew that Stratford was a clever fellow. This is the best news you could have brought me, Miss Keeling. But we ought to be thinking of returning to Khemistan if we have secured the treaty. How long do you give me to get well enough to mount a horse again?” “You mustn’t be in too great a hurry. We might carry you in a litter.” “No, thank you. It would be too much like my dreams. I have suffered agonies through imagining that I was in a trance, and about to be buried alive, because they thought I was dead. It seemed to me that I could see people moving about all round me, but I could not move, or speak, or feel. Then I was put in a coffin, and carried off to be buried. It always ended there, but it came over and over again. It was the horrible helplessness--my absolute powerlessness to make any sign to show that I was alive--which was the worst thing about it.” “Oh, Dugald!” cried Lady Haigh, in a strangled voice--and kissing him hastily, she hurried out of the room. “Lady Haigh has been very much frightened about you, Sir Dugald,” said Georgia. “She has watched over you night and day, and I have often wondered that she did not break down.” “Please look after her,” he said, anxiously. “She has wonderful pluck, but sometimes she is obliged to give way altogether, and I’m afraid from what you say that she must be quite overdone.” Georgia left the room, and found Lady Haigh sobbing on the divan outside, with her face buried in a cushion that Sir Dugald might not hear her. Sitting down beside her, Georgia began to cry too, out of pure sympathy, until Lady Haigh suddenly choked back her sobs, and throwing her arms round her, cried-- “Oh, Georgie, Georgie, you have given me back my husband, and it has cost you Major North!” “You mustn’t think of that. There ought to be a change in Dick’s state before long.” “Georgie, I will nurse him night and day--every moment that I can spare from Sir Dugald, that is. And if I can’t put things right between you when he is better, I’ll--I’ll----” “But what if he doesn’t want things put right?” asked Georgia, sadly. * * * * * * When Dick recovered consciousness, after a very long and fatiguing dream, in which many people and events had played more or less inappropriate parts, he found himself in bed with a cold bandage on his forehead, and a feeling all over him that he had lost more strength than he had ever possessed. There was some one in the room, and he gathered that it was Lady Haigh. She was speaking to some one else at the door. “I will leave him to you, then, Georgie. He is beautifully asleep still, and I have just changed the bandage.” The door closed softly, and Dick was aware that Lady Haigh had gone out and that the other person had come in, and was sitting just out of his sight as he lay in bed. That was not what he wanted, and he tried painfully to turn his head in her direction. She was at his side in a moment.