It has no place in this narrative.

Speaking personally, I have to record that I was rendered incapable of
performing my professional duties in less than a week from the time when
the mission reached its destination. We were encamped outside the city;
and an attack was made on us, under cover of darkness, by the fanatical
natives. The attempt was defeated with little difficulty, and with only
a trifling loss on our side. I was among the wounded, having been struck
by a javelin, or spear, while I was passing from one tent to another.

Inflicted by a European weapon, my injury would have been of no serious
consequence. But the tip of the Indian spear had been poisoned. I
escaped the mortal danger of lockjaw; but, through some peculiarity in
the action of the poison on my constitution (which I am quite unable to
explain), the wound obstinately refused to heal.

I was invalided and sent to Calcutta, where the best surgical help was
at my disposal. To all appearance, the wound healed there--then broke
out again. Twice this happened; and the medical men agreed that the
best course to take would be to send me home. They calculated on
the invigorating effect of the sea voyage, and, failing this, on
the salutary influence of my native air. In the Indian climate I was
pronounced incurable.

Two days before the ship sailed a letter from my mother brought me
startling news. My life to come--if I _had_ a life to come--had
been turned into a new channel. Mr. Germaine had died suddenly, of
heart-disease. His will, bearing date at the time when I left England,
bequeathed an income for life to my mother, and left the bulk of his
property to me, on the one condition that I adopted his name. I accepted
the condition, of course, and became George Germaine.

Three months later, my mother and I were restored to each other.

Except that I still had some trouble with my wound, behold me now to all
appearance one of the most enviable of existing mortals; promoted to the
position of a wealthy gentleman; possessor of a house in London and of a
country-seat in Perthshire; and, nevertheless, at twenty-three years of
age, one of the most miserable men living!

And Mary?

In the ten years that had now passed over, what had become of Mary?

You have heard my story. Read the few pages that follow, and you will
hear hers.

CHAPTER VI. HER STORY.

WHAT I have now to tell you of Mary is derived from information obtained
at a date in my life