He went over to his quarters happy as a king. As for Gwen, the personal influence his immediate presence had over her passed away quickly, and that which his real absence from her life invariably produced did not come to soften the curious dread with which she recognised, that in her trouble of the day before, her first thought had indeed been for him. How foolish she had been in letting him re-enter her life at all! but he had come back in her first loneliness when the future had seemed very black. Now it was different, now it was once more that choice between poverty and comfort which she had made in her girlhood. With what pain, none--save Dan, who, alas! always understood--would believe. And if the choice was necessary then, what was it now with her acquired habits, her knowledge of the world? They would both be miserable if they married without money. Then the thought of the bills came, as it always did to remind her of the tie they imposed. Even if Lewis, whom she liked and respected, were to make up his mind to marry, she could not accept him without dismissing Dan. Yet how could she dismiss him, even for his food, until that money was repaid? Poor Dan! he loved her dearly, and in a way she cared for him as she had never cared for any of her other lovers. Yet the decision which had turned out so comfortably ten years before was still the right decision. Many of those lovers had been as devoted to her; and yet they had recovered from their rejection. Then the remembrance of George Keene's admission that he had been out watching the stars made her smile. He was a nice boy, who already deemed her an angel; but Lewis objected to wings, and of the two that was the most convenient view for the woman. While she was coming to this conclusion George had been looking after her interests, for on his return to the bungalow he had been startled by the sudden uprisal of a veiled female from a shadowy corner of his verandah. 'I am Azîzan's mother,' said a muffled voice. 'The Mirza sent me. I have been waiting the Huzoor's return. There is the pot if the Huzoor will give ten rupees for it. It is much, yet the pot brings luck.' 'Ten!' echoed George in delight, taking it from her. 'Yes! you shall have that; then I owe Azîzan also. Shall I pay you?' 'My daughter is as myself,' replied the voice. 'It is ten for the picture, and ten for the pot.' George fetched the money and counted it carefully into the shrouded hand. 'That is all, I think?' he asked. 'Huzoor, that is all. May the blessing of the widow and the fatherless go with the merciful Protector of the Poor.' But while he was thinking, as he undressed, how pleased Mrs. Boynton would be, the veiled figure was pausing in the moonlight to speak to the factotum.