"Every one to his taste," he said; "but from what little I have seen of Malcolm I should wager that nine out of ten letters addressed to the Mayne family would be intended for you, Miss Winifred. By the way, a word in your ear. General Inglis hopes to persuade our friend here to try his luck on a return journey to-night. Perhaps you may have a note to send on your own account. No one else must know. This is a special favor, conferred because Malcolm himself procured Ungud's services, but we cannot ask the man to act as general postman. Good-by." He hurried away. Winifred, after the manner of woman, fingered the unopened letter. "Kuch joab hai, miss-sahib?" asked Ungud. "There is no answer--yet. I will give you one later." The girl's Hindustani went far enough to enable her to frame the reply intelligibly. Ungud salaamed and left her, probably contrasting in his own mind the lady's frigidity with the fervid instructions given him by the officer-sahib. Then Winifred went to her own room and opened her letter, and her woman's heart gleaned the truth from its candor. Of course she cried. What girl wouldn't? But she smiled through her tears and read the nice bits over and over again. Not for twenty necklaces and a whole file of hieroglyphic passes would she doubt Frank any more. The reference to Chumru puzzled her and that was a gratifying thing in itself, for if Frank could be mistaken about her share in Chumru's departure from Lucknow, why should not she be wrong in her interpretation of the mysterious presence of the necklace? When her uncle came she wept again, being hysterical with the sheer joy of watching his face while he perused Frank's note. A man's bewilderment finds different expression to a woman's. A man trusts his brain, a woman her heart. "If there is one thing absolutely clear in this letter it is that Frank knows nothing whatever about the pearls you produced from his turban," said Mr. Mayne, with the frown of a judge who is dealing with a knotty point in equity. "There are--several things--quite clear in it--to me," fluttered Winifred. "Ah, hum, yes. But I mean that it is ridiculous to suppose he would knowingly leave such a valuable article exposed to the chances and changes of barrack-room life in a siege. Whatever motive he may have had in concealing the necklace earlier he would surely have said something about it now, given some hint as to its value, asked you to take care of his baggage, or something of the sort." "In my heart of hearts I always felt that we were misjudging Frank," said she. Mayne's eyebrows lifted a trifle, but he passed no comment. "By the way," he said, "where is the necklace?" "Here," she said, pulling a box out of a cupboard. The string of pearls was coiled up in the midst of the roll of soiled muslin and the badge was pinned to one of the folds. "That is a very unsafe place," said Mayne. "If I were you I would wear it beneath your bodice." "Would you really?"