'Come with me, then, but softly; this way,' said the surgeon, and, taking her hand, he led her across a corridor, where hospital orderlies, men of the Army Hospital Corps, nurses, and others were hovering, and where Olive narrowly escaped the shock of seeing a fever-stricken and attenuated corpse carried out, and into a plain, white-washed room, where on a camp-bed--one of those brought from Arabi's camp--Allan lay asleep. Olive, in obedience to a mute sign from the doctor, made no nearer approach, or attempt to touch or wake him, but she restrained her heavy sobs with difficulty, for the sight of how wan and worn, hollow-cheeked and pale he was, and how every way wasted, wrung her loving heart to the core. Kneeling down by his bedside, she lightly touched with her lips his thin white hand that lay upon the coverlit, a mute action which, in one so charming as she looked, stirred even the heart of the staff-surgeon, and then she stole softly away. 'Is there any hope?' she asked, in a choking voice. As the doctor did not speak, she looked in his face and seemed to see her answer there. 'He cannot recover, you fear?' said she. 'I fear not, Miss Raymond,' said the doctor, in a low voice. She leant for a moment against the table, and felt giddy. Then, bowing to the staff-surgeon, she drew her veil close over her face, took the arm of Clairette to steady her footsteps, and quitted the sad place in a tumult of grief and horror. Night came on--the hot Egyptian night--and Allan as he tossed restlessly on his pillow, all unconscious of who had visited him, as he looked wearily round his bare and strange-like apartment by the subdued light of a shaded lamp, pondered doubtfully whether it had been a dream or a reality that he had that forenoon spoken with and seen his father, Lord Aberfeldie, and, in the weakness and confusion of his mind, he was somewhat inclined to think the whole thing was the effect of fevered fancy. Ere long Olive was to have him all to herself! In a beautiful little villa near the Lake of Timsah--one built for the famous Toulba Pasha, the friend of Arabi--in view of all the fleet that lay anchored there, Allan, after a little time, found himself in a luxurious apartment, furnished in European style, yet fitted up and decorated in the Egyptian manner, with gaily-painted arabesques. The windows opened upon an arcaded verandah, the slender pillars of which were rose-coloured marble, with quaint capitals of purest alabaster, from which sprung horse-shoe arches elaborately carved and inscribed with verses from the Koran.