After some weeks it came about that Bhavani recovered his strength and went again to the water-palace, where, by degrees, the old relations were resumed. For this was possible, in that neither of the two entertained any suspicion of the other’s feeling. In these new days Oman was, by common desire, much with them. And nothing, probably, could have made the lonely creature happier than this. With these two people he found entire satisfaction. The two sides of his nature got sustenance; and he experienced for the first time the delights of true companionship:—a full and complete companionship, such as few normal people have the happiness to find. From the first it was plain that there was little danger of betrayal between the man and the woman. Oman watched their self-possession, wondering. Zenaide was no less steady, no less impenetrable, than the Rajah. Not a look, not a gesture, not a tone, ever conveyed to Bhavani her feeling for him. And Oman began to believe that she was really conquering her nature. The three spent many hours in the discussion of problems political, judicial, or philosophical; and, their minds being in harmony each with the others, these periods became the fullest in their lives. To Oman, especially, had come the deep joy of unbreakable tranquillity. His life was flowing smoothly, in chosen ways. He had the assurance that his living was not in vain; and he knew also that he had succeeded in conquering himself. Bhavani, loving and honoring him, would have loaded him with gorgeousness. But Oman’s sense of fitness did not desert him. He had no desire to go unkempt; but he accepted only the state that a lower official of the royal house was entitled to hold. Gifts of precious metals or gems he refused. But, early in his coming to Mandu, he took the Asra ruby from its concealing box, and caused it to be set in a thin, golden chain which, henceforth, he wore about his neck; till it became known to all the plateau as his badge. The story of how it had come to him—from a mendicant who had died in his cave—he told, readily enough, to Bhavani. But anything further, the mendicant’s name, or the strange powers possessed by the stone, he kept to himself. The matter of reawakened memory, indeed, had come, little by little, to be a constant part of the secret understanding that was always with him. He knew that it had been decreed that he should learn something of the vast scheme of life and progress; but he knew also that this inner knowledge must not be taught to men.