"A woman sees something personal in a man’s fasting," she said with a trace of a smile. They laboured again that third night at the old subject—but all had been covered. Their eyes were weary. She would lift her eyes to him, saying that his mission awaited; and he could only reply that he would not leave her.... The fourth night something hard and resolute was in her eyes. He knew that she would speak when the tea was poured. He waited, more afraid than he had ever been before: "Do you know," she said steadily, "it is not just the thing for you to be here with me. I am alone. One does not live alone in a house with a man—" Her finger was tapping the table. She saw that he regarded it and dropped her hand to her knee. It was the hardest moment since their first trial together. It did not seem to belong to her. They had needed no laws. They were human adults. They were a universe apart in the same house. It hurt him to the core—such words from her. Many times of late the sense of his own smallness had come, but he had never fallen so little that he could not ignore a sham of this kind. "I did not think of that. We seemed to be under a law of our own—" "But the others," she said steadily. "You mean Nadiram?" "Yes—you see I have the office—" "Ah, yes—the office.... I shall go to the Rest House, of course. Shall I go to-night—or to-morrow morning?" "To-morrow morning." "Very well." She was whiter than ever. There was no word at all at breakfast. Bamban came for the bags. "Please," he said, as he was leaving, "don’t fail to use me. We are not enemies. Do you know—it is hard for us to remember—that all there is between us is a difference of opinion—each for the other’s good. We cannot go far astray that way. Please use me. The days are so long." Her lips moved. They moved again into a smile. It was one of the bravest smiles. "Of course, I shall try to think of something—" That night he came to her court a little before sundown. There was a stone there by the west wall, and he sat and smoked until long after full darkness. As a rule the hyenas were heard early in the evening, when they were near Nadiram. She came to the door several times before dusk, smiled and waved to him. When he turned away in the full night, it was as if there was some part of him that refused to leave; and when he pushed on, straightening his shoulders, this part tore loose from him with numbing pain. Bamban sat on the floor across the room at the Rest House. Bamban’s eyes gleamed. "Since there are no orders here, and to-morrow is the fifth day, it might be well for the messenger and his servant to push on to Wampli tomorrow."