"You have said it all, Eldred. I understand. I only want--more facts. Is it Gilgit? And when?" "Next year, I'm afraid. They want us to re-establish the Agency--Travers and myself. I was up there, you see, before I found you again. We should be quite alone, at the start, with just a doctor and our Kashmiri soldiers." "And I--it would be impossible?" He pressed her hands. "For the first few years--certainly. Everything would be raw; and the work incessant and absorbing. But later on, who can tell? We might see what could be done." "And the nearest I could get to you, so as to live more or less within reach?" "Srinagar. That's about twenty days' march from Gilgit. I could do it in ten, to get to you!" he added, smiling. "Spare time would be scarce, though; and in the winter we should be quite cut off by snow." "Oh, Eldred!" "I should hate that no less than you, be sure. But when things got a bit more settled, some sort of arrangement might be possible, at least for part of the summer; if you could really stand the isolation and the life." "Stand it? Of course I could. I should love it." His eyes lit up. "You have pluck enough for half a dozen! But you don't look as strong as you did. There's a fragile air about you that troubles me. I never saw it before." The faint colour in her cheeks invaded her temples. It was the given moment; long enough delayed in all conscience. Yet it found her palpitating--unprepared. "You mustn't be troubled." She plunged desperately; unsure of what would come next. "It will pass. I am growing stronger every day." "Stronger? Good Lord! You haven't been ill too, and I never knew it?" "No--oh, no! Not ill--that is . . . not exactly. I mean . . ." Confusion submerged her. His shoulder--the woman's legitimate refuge--was conveniently close; and she buried her blushes in it. At that a suspicion of the truth thrilled through him, like an electric current. "Quita--look up--speak to me!" he besought her; his voice low, and not quite steady. "Is it possible . . ?" "Darling, of course it is," she whispered back, without stirring. "Only--will you ever forgive me? I've saddled you with two women now, as if one wasn't bother enough!" For answer he strained her closer; and so knelt for the space of many seconds; stunned, momentarily, by that deep-rooted, elemental joy in the transmission of life, which, in men of fine fibre, is tempered with amazement and awe; a sense of poignant, personal contact with the Open Secret of the world. At last he spoke; and his words held no suggestion of the emotion that uplifted him. "When? How old . . . how long ago?" "Seven weeks ago. The second of October." "Great Heaven! The day I was nearly done for; the day I crossed the Pass. And I never dreamed . . . how it was with you." Then, very gently, she found her head lifted from its resting-place; his eyes searching her own with an insistence not to be denied.