you that."

She sighed faintly, and made room for him beside her on the rough seat.

"That is settled, then. And now, just for this last half-hour, let us
pretend that we are in no danger, that we are waiting for our friends,
the friends we ran away from at the picnic--yesterday."

Something in her own words startled her, and she broke off abruptly.

"Well?" He smiled at her. "Let us pretend. How shall we begin?"

"Was it only yesterday?" Her accent thrilled him through and through.
"Did we really start out from my uncle's bungalow yesterday morning? How
gay we were, weren't we--all the twenty of us ... you and I leading
because our horses were the best and I knew the way...."

"Yes--and all the smart young officers looking daggers at me because I
had carried you off!" His tone was admirably light.

"Nonsense!" Hilda Ryder actually laughed, and in the dim and gloomy hut
her laughter sounded almost uncanny. "I'm sure no one was in the least
envious! You see, we were new friends--and it is such a treat to meet
someone new out here!"

"Yes. By Jove, we'd only met twice, hadn't we? Somehow I was thinking we
were quite old friends, you and I! But as you say, I was a new-comer,
this was my first visit to the East. Rather a change, India and the
snows, from a slum in Shoreditch!"

"Shoreditch? Did you really live in a slum?"

"Rather--and quite enjoyed it!" He laughed at her incredulous face. "It
was experience, you see--disease flourishes in many and divers forms
down there, and although I couldn't contemplate staying there for ever,
the time wasn't wasted."

"And then--you left your slum?"

"Yes. I wanted more time to myself." He threw back his head as he
talked, and swept the curly black hair off his brow with an impatient
hand. "You see I had visions--oh, purely futile ones, I daresay--but I
had a great idea of finding a cure for a certain disease generally
considered incurable----" He broke off suddenly.

"Well? You have found it?" Her tone was eager.

"Not yet--but I shall!" In his enthusiasm he had forgotten the present,
forgotten the horror which was coming nearer with great strides as the
morning brightened in the sky. He saw only the future--not the immediate
future--death, with his back against the wall of the courtyard, his face
turned to the rising sun; but the splendid, strenuous future, when after
good years of toil, of experience, even of suffering, he should make the
great discovery which shou