He felt it hard to breathe in the desolation. A desire full-formed and upstanding, in spite of the mockery of it, vanquished him for a moment. It was to keep on with her--riding, journeying, sailing--with her, through the gates of Charing Cross, to Southampton, New York, San Francisco, Yokohama, Nagasaki, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Calcutta--up the Ganges to its source in the Hills, and there among the mystic people of his heart, to dwell with her, adoring in the stillness of starlight, in the morning glow. “I shall be nameless, and a wanderer----” “And my bravest man!... This is not unwomanly, Routledge-san. This is farewell. The girl is torn from me--and the woman speaks her heart.... No one but you could understand. Always I have been strange.... I cannot leave it unsaid. I shall come to find you when I am free! It is not--not that I shall ask you to marry me. It is not that--but to be with you! I think--I think that you are so noble that my being a woman would not complicate.... Routledge-san! It is Charing Cross!” Swiftly she drew tiny scissors from a pocket-case, snipped from her temple a lock of hair, tied it with a strand of its own, and thrust it into his hand. It was light, living, warm like a bird in his palm. Her last words intoned through his dreams for many days: “Remember, I am Noreen Cardinegh--who believes in you always--before all men--for all time. And I, too, must be brave and enduring until my work is done--and I may cross the world to find you!” ... He was standing at the curb before the great station. The carriage had turned away. There came to him out of the throng--a cry, not to his ears, but straight to his breast, a cry wild with desolation, which his heart answered.... He purchased his ticket, and rechecked his baggage, and then passed through the gates to the gray, smoky yards. From the deck of his steamer at Southampton that night he caught a last glimpse of the White Mustache, a satisfied smile on the keen, hard face. In a cold, distant fashion, Routledge marvelled that he was allowed to leave England alive. NINTH CHAPTER MR. JASPER IS INFORMED THAT MOTHER INDIA CAUSED NAPOLEON’S DEFEAT, AND THAT FAMINES ARE NOT WITHOUT VIRTUE “J. J. Jasper, Syracuse, New York,” was being inscribed in the hotel registers along the travelled-lines around the world. Mr. Jasper was making no haste. “I have been rushed all my life until now,” he explained. He was a sincere, hard-thinking, little man of fifty, who had manufactured road-carts for thirty years, and had succeeded remarkably well in emancipating himself from business--a high-ranged achievement for only the few Americans.