But Noormahal had not discovered her loss. Khôjee had told her lie all too well for any doubt in the poor bewildered brain, which had more than it could compass in the hopeless effort to realise that Sa'adut was dead and buried. For the memory of that first day, when they had roused her at the last, and she had sate clutching at the little swathed bundle of white and gold till they took it from her, had happily gone from her also. She still lay, for the most part, in a stupor. Lateefa saw her so, when--the etiquette of a mourning house making it inconvenient for him to continue his trade of kite-making in the wide outer courtyard--he had gone to take away his materials. But Khôjee had told him it was not always so; that sometimes the Nawâbin had paroxysms of grief, for which there could be, there never, had been, but one remedy. And that was a most precious essence compounded out of the sweetest flowers in a King's garden. In the old days it had always been ready in the palace; but now whence was a poor old woman to get '_khush-itr_'? that' essence of happiness' which cost God knows how many times its weight in gold! As it was, she had gone the length of pawning Khâdjee's best pink satin trousers on the sly, in order to get cheaper specifics; and somehow or another, those precious garments must be redeemed before the mourning-parties began, or Khâdjee would die of chagrin also. Then there would be no one left, since even he, Lateefa, was going. She spoke, as ever, without a suspicion of blame, and when she hoped he had not forgotten his promise regarding the ring, her voice was an apology in itself. Lateefa, as he went out under the gateway with its plaster peacocks, told himself that he almost wished he could forget. As it was, the green gleam on Jehân's finger kept him on the strain in a quite unexpected way. He never saw it but Khôjee's kind wrinkled face, and her appeal for old Khôjee, ugly Khôjee, came back to his mind with a curious compelling force.