remarked Quick, who was watching.
(I think he meant to say "variable.") "This one, for instance, comes up
that passage like a tired horse--shuffle, shuffle, shuffle--for I could
hear the heels of her slippers on the floor. But now she goes out like
a buck seeking its mate--head in air and hoof lifted. How do you explain
it, Doctor?"

"You had better ask the lady herself, Quick. Did the Captain take that
soup she brought him?"

"Every drop, sir, and tried to kiss her hand afterward, being still
dazed, poor man, poor man! I saw him do it, knowing no better. He'll be
sorry enough when he comes to himself."

"No doubt, Sergeant. But meanwhile let us be glad that both their
spirits seem to have improved, and if she brings any more soup when I
am not there, I should let him have it. It is always well to humour
invalids and women."

"Yes, Doctor; but," he added, with a sudden fall of face, "invalids
recover sometimes, and then how about the women."

"Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof," I answered; "you had better
go out for exercise; it is my watch." But to myself I thought that Fate
was already throwing its ominous shadow before, and that it lay deep in
Maqueda's violet eyes.

Well, to cut a long story short, this was the turning-point of Orme's
illness, and from that day he recovered rapidly, for, as it proved,
there was no secret injury to the skull, and he was suffering from
nothing except shock and fever. During his convalescence the Child of
Kings came to see him several times, or to be accurate, if my memory
serves me right, every afternoon. Of course, her visits were those of
ceremony--that is to say, she was always accompanied by several of
her ladies, that thorn in my flesh, the old doctor, and one or two
secretaries and officers-in-waiting.

But as Oliver was now moved by day into a huge reception room, and these
people of the court were expected to stop at one end of it while she
conversed with him at the other, to all intents and purposes, save for
the presence of myself and Quick, her calls were of a private nature.
Nor were we always present, since, now that my patient was out of danger
the Sergeant and I went out riding a good deal--investigating Mur and
its surroundings.

It may be asked what they talked about on these occasions. I can only
answer that, so far as I heard, the general subject was the politics
of Mur and its perpetual war with the Fung. Still, there must have been
other topics