"Twice before," Elma answered, not pretending to misunderstand. "Once I gave way. That was the very first time, you see, and I didn't know yet exactly what it meant. The second time I knew, and then I resisted it." Somehow, before Miss Ewes, she hardly ever felt shy. She was so conscious Miss Ewes knew all about it without her telling her. The elder woman looked at her with unfeigned admiration. "That was brave of you," she said quietly. "I couldn't have done it myself! I should have HAD to give way to it. Then in YOU it's dying out. That's as clear as daylight. It won't go any farther. I knew it wouldn't, of course, when I saw you resisted even the Naga dance. And for you, that's excellent.... For myself I encourage it. It's that that makes my music what it is. It's that that inspires me. _I_ composed that Naga dance I just played over to you, Elma. But not all out of my own head. I couldn't have invented it. It comes down in our blood, my dear, to you and me alike. We both inherit it from a common ancestress." "Tell me all about it," Elma cried, nestling close to her new friend with a wild burst of relief. "I don't know why, but I'm not at all ashamed of it all before you, Miss Ewes--at least, not in the way I am before mother." "You needn't be ashamed of it," Miss Ewes answered kindly. "You've nothing to be ashamed of. It'll never trouble YOU in your life again. It always dies out at last; they say in the sixth or seventh generation, and when it's dying out, it goes as it went with you, on the night you first fell in love with Cyril. If, after that, you resist, it never comes back again. Year after year, the impulse grows feebler and feebler. And if you can withstand the Naga dance, you can withstand anything. Come here and take my hand, dear. I'll tell you all about it." Late at night Elma sat, tearful but happy, in her own room at home, writing a few short lines to Cyril Waring. This was all she said-- "There's no reason on my side now, dearest Cyril. It's all a mistake. I'll marry you whenever and wherever you will. There need be no reason on your side either. I love you, and can trust you. Yours ever, "ELMA." When Cyril Waring received that note next morning he kissed it reverently, and put it away in his desk among a bundle of others. But he said to himself sternly in his own soul for all that, "Never, while Guy still rests under that cloud! And how it's ever to be lifted from him is to me inconceivable." CHAPTER XXXIV. A STROKE FOR FREEDOM. In Africa, meanwhile, during those eighteen months, King Khatsua had kept his royal word. He had held his two European prisoners under close watch and ward in the Koranna hut he had assigned them for their residence.