"Yes. And who has he--who have we all got to thank for that? Herbert, had you no thought for me, when you put yourself into their power again? If I could not get you out of it before, could I again, do you think?" "Darling, it was because I had every thought for you that I worried along at the official business for all I knew how. I wanted to straighten out the muddle they'd be sure to put down to me. And now I believe I have." "Yes, indeed, you have." "And the stir and work knocked me together again, and all that fever has cleared out of my system. I can never forget what an abject invalid I was, just when I ought to have been taking care of you." "Can't you? But I can, and have." She was standing beside him now, one hand toying absently with a button on his coat, a half-absent, half-serious expression in her large eyes that was very sweet. Her mind went back to the period to which he referred, when he was ill and fevered and fainting on the cloud-swept hill side. What a contrast! She saw him now, dominant, restored in every way, having ended the disturbance here in his own jurisdiction by sheer personal intrepidity and weight of influence--the calm, strong, cool-headed official, to whom all looked up. "Tell me about Cynthia Daintree," she said. "Just the very thing I've wanted to do. By the way, incidentally, she has hooked that young ass, Beecher. Whether she'll land him is another matter." "I know. I know, too, what you wanted to tell me that day we went to visit Sarbaland Khan. Well, we met with a very uncommon interruption then." "Hilda, Hilda. What a witch you are. Is there anything you don't know?" "Yes, plenty. But I won't bother you to go over all that again, because I know it already. In fact, I knew it on that very day, though not through you. Remember the _dak_ may bring me momentous communications as well as you. Oh, by the way, I have a little present here for you. Will you take it?" "Will I? Will I value anything from you! Darling, how can you ask?" She did not return his kiss. Her manner was constrained--almost awkward. Turning to the table she placed in his hands a document-- large, parchmenty, legal-looking. Then she turned away. "Why, what on earth is this?" he said as he read through it, and at length mastered how it set forth, amid infinite legal terminology, how shares and property and cash to the amount of thirty-seven thousand pounds was conveyed to "the said Herbert Raynier by his said cousin, the said Hilda Clive." "Great Scott! What does it all mean?"