nd something happened to him.
He could not describe it. It was like a thunder-clap, he
said, and then, dissatisfied with this, he said it was like a
revelation. Something seemed to twist his heart, and suddenly
he felt an exultation, a sense of wonderful freedom. He felt
himself at home, and he made up his mind there and then, in a
minute, that he would live the rest of his life in Alexandria.
He had no great difficulty in leaving the ship, and in twenty-four
hours, with all his belongings, he was on shore.

"The Captain must have thought you as mad as a hatter," I smiled.

"I didn't care what anybody thought. It wasn't I that acted,
but something stronger within me. I thought I would go to a
little Greek hotel, while I looked about, and I felt I knew
where to find one. And do you know, I walked straight there,
and when I saw it, I recognised it at once."

"Had you been to Alexandria before?"

"No; I'd never been out of England in my life."

Presently he entered the Government service, and there he had
been ever since.

"Have you never regretted it?"

"Never, not for a minute. I earn just enough to live upon,
and I'm satisfied. I ask nothing more than to remain as I am
till I die. I've had a wonderful life."

I left Alexandria next day, and I forgot about Abraham till a
little while ago, when I was dining with another old friend in
the profession, Alec Carmichael, who was in England on short leave.
I ran across him in the street and congratulated him on
the knighthood with which his eminent services during the
war had been rewarded. We arranged to spend an evening
together for old time's sake, and when I agreed to dine with
him, he proposed that he should ask nobody else, so that we
could chat without interruption. He had a beautiful old house
in Queen Anne Street, and being a man of taste he had
furnished it admirably. On the walls of the dining-room I saw
a charming Bellotto, and there was a pair of Zoffanys that I envied.
When his wife, a tall, lovely creature in cloth of gold,
had left us, I remarked laughingly on the change in his
present circumstances from those when we had both been medical
students. We had looked upon it then as an extravagance to
dine in a shabby Italian restaurant in the Westminster Bridge Road.
Now Alec Carmichael was on the staff of half a dozen hospitals.
I should think he earned ten thousand a year, and his
knighthood was but the first of the honours which must
i