The experiment was perfectly successful; for when, preceding Trixy, the strange figure of the priest appeared suddenly in the compartment of the tent where the girls were at breakfast, they flew away with stifled cries, and Trixy had some little difficulty in persuading them that he was a friend in disguise. When they were all certain of one another it was decided that neither of their invalids should hear of the dangerous experiment until it was over. To Trixy fell the joyful task of taking in the precious letter to her parents. She found them better. Lady Elton had forgotten her painful dream of the night before, and the General was returning slowly to consciousness. In the midst of the deep depression that weighed him down, as the reality of what had for so many days seemed like a vision forced itself upon his heart, this news of Grace came like a single ray of sunshine. 'If I bring you all safe out of it,' he said to his wife, 'I shall perhaps be able to forgive myself.' Through the melancholy days which followed Bertie's departure, this was the burden of his cry--could he forgive himself? His wife and the girls reasoned with him. He had not, they said, been more deceived than others. That these Indians were inscrutable beings the curious inconsistency of their actions showed. One and another came in from outside to sit with him, and they spoke in a similar strain; but his answer was always the same: 'If I didn't know, I should have known. I am not fit for my post. I will lay it down.' Still more pitiful were his outbursts of wrath against himself for what he called his light-hearted folly, in taking his wife and five daughters from their quiet home, and exposing them to the danger and horror of this terrible time. 'I am a fool, an idiot,' he said to one of his friends one day. 'Think of it! Those six innocent creatures--so innocent and helpless, that they don't know the full horror of their situation--suffering for me, because I was a blind, credulous fool. God in heaven! It is almost more than a man can bear!' This from the stern, self-contained man who, only a few weeks before, had ridden boldly through a hostile country, commanding the respect of the fiercest enemies of his race, by his magnificent audacity, was infinitely pitiful.