,
bent over, lifted her. "You are not hurt, Miss Roscoe?" he questioned
anxiously, deep concern on his kindly face. "The damned swine didn't
touch you? There! Come back into the palace. You're the bravest girl I
ever met."

He began to help her up the steps, but though she was spent and near
to fainting she resisted him.

"That man--" she faltered. "Don't--don't let him go!"

"Certainly not," said Bobby promptly. "Here, you old scarecrow, come
and lend a hand!"

But the old scarecrow apparently had other plans for himself, for he
had already vanished from the scene as swiftly and noiselessly as a
shadow from a sheet.

"He is gone!" wailed Muriel. "He is gone! Oh, why did you let him go?"

"He'll turn up again," said Bobby consolingly. "That sort of chap
always does. I say, how ghastly you look! Take my arm! You are not
going to faint, are you? Ah, here is Colonel Cathcart! Miss Roscoe
isn't hurt, sir--only upset. Can't we get her back to the palace?"

They bore her back between them, and left her to be tended by the
women. She was not unconscious, but the shock had utterly unstrung
her. She lay with closed eyes, listening vaguely to the buzz of
excited comment about her, and wondering, wondering with an aching
heart, why he had gone.

No one seemed to know exactly what had taken place, and she was too
exhausted to tell. Possibly she would hot have told in any case. It
was known only that an attempt had been made upon the life of the
British Resident, Sir Reginald Bassett, and it was surmised that
Muriel had realised the murderous intention in time to frustrate it.
Certainly a native had tried to help her, but since the native had
disappeared, his share in the conflict was not regarded as very great.
As a matter of fact, the light had been too uncertain and the struggle
too confused for even the eye-witnesses to know with any certainty
what had taken place. Theories and speculations were many and various,
but not one of them went near to the truth.

"Dear Muriel will tell us presently just how it happened," Lady
Bassett said in her soft voice.

But Muriel was as one who heard not. She would not even open her eyes
till Sir Reginald came to her, pillowed her head against him, kissed
her white face, and called her his brave little girl.

That moved her at last, awaking in her the old piteous hunger,
never wholly stifled, for her father. She turned and clung to him
convulsively with an inarticulate murmuring t