“I wish you would not say that kind of thing before these new young men, Dugald. They don’t know how kind you were to the missionaries at Baghdad, and they may think you mean it,” a charge to which Sir Dugald offered no defence. It was by means of rebukes of this kind that Lady Haigh kept up the fiction dear to her soul that she ruled her husband with a rod of iron, and guided him gently into the paths it was well for him to take; whereas those who watched the pair were of opinion that Sir Dugald’s was emphatically the ruling spirit, and that his mastery in his own household was so complete that he could afford to allow his wife to think otherwise without making any protest. In spite of Dick’s careless and positive words to Lady Haigh, it might have been observed that he lingered on the hotel verandah later than any one else that night, and that he appeared there again at a most unearthly hour in the morning, wearing the haggard and strained aspect characteristic of a man who has slept only by fits and starts, owing to the fear of oversleeping himself. One who did not know the circumstances of the case might have said he was there watching for some one, but that would have been manifestly absurd. Whatever might be the cause of his unusual wakefulness, he was occupying his place of the day before when the creaking and groaning of wheels, gradually coming nearer, announced an arrival. A few minutes later, as Georgia, tired and exhausted, descended from the missionaries’ bullock-cart, which was wont to convey Miss Jenkins and Miss Guest, in company with a miniature harmonium, a stock of vernacular gospels, and occasionally a native Bible-woman, on their itinerating tours among the villages around, she discovered him waiting to receive her. She was so tired that she had dozed unconsciously in the bullock-cart, in spite of the rough music of the wheels and of the appalling jolts; and now, awakened suddenly by the cessation of both sound and motion, she stood shivering and blinking in the grey twilight, a sadly unimpressive figure. Dick mercifully forbore to look at her as he took the bag from her hand and helped her up the steps, then settled her in his chair and shouted to the servants to hurry with the doctor lady’s coffee. Georgia tried to protest feebly, but he was adamant. “You must have something to eat before you go to bed, or we shall have you down with fever this evening. You will allow me to know something of the climate of Khemistan, I hope, though I am not a ‘professional’ man.”