The Doctor listened silently until he heard of Isobel’s being taken to Bithoor. “The atrocious villain!” he exclaimed. “I have been lamenting the last month that I never poisoned the fellow, and now--but go on, go on. How on earth did you get her away?” Bathurst told the whole story, interrupted by many exclamations of approval by the Doctor; especially when he learned why Isobel disfigured herself. “Well done!” he exclaimed; “I always knew that she was a plucky girl, and it needed courage, I can tell you, to burn herself as she has done, to say nothing of risking spoiling her beauty for life. No slight sacrifice for a woman.” Bathurst passed lightly over his fight in the courtyard, but the Doctor questioned him as to the exact facts. “Not so bad for a coward, Bathurst,” he said dryly. “There was no noise,” Bathurst said; “if they had had pistols, and had used them, it might have been different. Heaven knows, but I don’t think that then, with her life at stake, I should have flinched; I had made up my mind they would have pistols, but I hope--I think that my nerves would not have given way then.” “I am sure they wouldn’t, Bathurst. Well, go on with your story.” “Well, how did you feel then?” he asked, when Bathurst described how the guard rushed in through the gate firing, “for it is the noise, and not the danger, that upsets you?” “I did not even think of it,” Bathurst said, in some surprise. “Now you mention it, I am astonished that I was not for a minute paralyzed, as I always am, but I did not feel anything of the sort; they rushed in firing as I told you, and directly they had gone I took her hand and we ran out together.” “I think it quite possible, Bathurst, that your nervousness may have gone forever. Now that once you have heard guns fired close to you without your nerves giving way as usual, it is quite possible that you might do so again. I don’t say that you would, but it is possible, indeed it seems to me to be probable. It may be that the sudden shock when you jumped into the water, acting upon your nerves when in a state of extreme tension, may have set them right, and that bullet graze along the top of the skull may have aided the effect of the shock. Men frequently lose their nerve after a heavy fall from a horse, or a sudden attack by a tiger, or any other unexpected shock. It may be that with you it has had the reverse consequence.” “I hope to God that it may be so, Doctor,” Bathurst said, with deep earnestness. “It is certainly extraordinary I should not have felt it when they fired within a few feet of my head. If we get down to Allahabad I will try. I will place myself near a gun when it is going to be fired; and if I stand that I will come up again and join this column as a volunteer, and take part in the work of vengeance. If I can but once bear my part as a man, they are welcome to kill me in the next engagement.”