Travers watched the tall, white-clad figure pass out of the brightly lighted tent into the darkness. From beginning to end, his plans had been crowned with unhoped-for success, and yet he was puzzled. "I wonder why in two days?" he thought. "Why not tomorrow? I wonder if by any chance--!" He broke off with a smothered laugh. "It is just possible. I'll make sure and send her a line." Then, as the band began the first bars of a second waltz, he hurried back into the crowded room in time to forestall Stafford at Lois' side. CHAPTER XI WITHIN THE GATES Nehal Singh's servants stood with the horses outside Travers' compound and waited. Their master did not disturb them. Glad as he was to get away from the crowd of strangers and the dazzling lights and colors, it still pleased him to be within hearing of the music which, softened by the distance, exercised a melancholy yet soothing influence upon his disturbed mind. For the dreamy peace had gone for ever--as indeed it must be when the soul of man is roughly shaken into living, pulsating life, and he fevered with a hundred as yet disordered hopes and ambitions. To be a benefactor to his people and to all mankind, to be the first pioneer of his race in the search after civilization and culture--these had been the dreams of his hitherto wasted life, only he had never recognized them, never understood whither the restless impulses were driving him. It had needed the pure soul of a good woman to unlock the best from his own; it had needed the genius of a clear brain to harness the untrained faculties to some definite aim. The soul of a woman had come and had planted upon him the purity of her high ideal; the genius had already shot its first illuminating ray into his darkness. Henceforth the watchword for them all was to be "Forward," and Nehal Singh, standing like a white ghost in the deserted compound, shaken by the force of his own emotions, intoxicated by his own happiness and the shining future which spread itself before his eyes, sent up a prayer such as rarely ascends from earth to Heaven. To whom? Not to Brahma. His mind had burst like a raging tide over the flood-gates of caste and creed and embraced the whole world and the one God who has no name, no creed, no dogma, but whom in that moment he recognized in great thanksgiving as the Universal Father. Thus far had Nehal Singh traveled in two short weeks--guided by a woman who had no God and a man who had no God save his own ends. But he did not know this. As he began to pace slowly backward and forward, listening to the distant music, he thought of her, and measured himself with her ideal in a humility which did not reject hope. One day he would be able to stand before her and say, "Thus far have I worked and striven for inner worth and for the good of my brothers. I have kept myself pure and honest, I have cultivated in myself the best I have, and have been inexorable against the evil. Thus much have I attained."