d magnificent. I think myself
a millionaire or a Prime Minister. Be sure you make a note of that--in
case I die. If I recover, of course I can write an exhaustive monograph
on the whole history of the disease in the British Medical Journal. But
if I die, the task of chronicling these interesting observations
will devolve upon you. A most exceptional chance! You are much to be
congratulated."

"You MUST not die, Professor," I cried, thinking more, I will confess,
of Hilda Wade than of himself. "You must live... to report this case for
science." I used what I thought the strongest lever I knew for him.

He closed his eyes dreamily. "For science! Yes, for science! There you
strike the right chord! What have I not dared and done for science? But,
in case I die, Cumberledge, be sure you collect the notes I took as I
was sickening--they are most important for the history and etiology of
the disease. I made them hourly. And don't forget the main points to
be observed as I am dying. You know what they are. This is a rare,
rare chance! I congratulate you on being the man who has the first
opportunity ever afforded us of questioning an intelligent European
case, a case where the patient is fully capable of describing with
accuracy his symptoms and his sensations in medical phraseology."

He did not die, however. In about another week he was well enough to
move. We carried him down to Mozufferpoor, the first large town in the
plains thereabouts, and handed him over for the stage of convalescence
to the care of the able and efficient station doctor, to whom my thanks
are due for much courteous assistance.

"And now, what do you mean to do?" I asked Hilda, when our patient was
placed in other hands, and all was over.

She answered me without one second's hesitation: "Go straight to Bombay,
and wait there till Sebastian takes passage for England."

"He will go home, you think, as soon as he is well enough?"

"Undoubtedly. He has now nothing more to stop in India for."

"Why not as much as ever?"

She looked at me curiously. "It is so hard to explain," she replied,
after a moment's pause, during which she had been drumming her little
forefinger on the table. "I feel it rather than reason it. But don't you
see that a certain change has lately come over Sebastian's attitude? He
no longer desires to follow me; he wants to avoid me. That is why I wish
more than ever to dog his steps. I feel the beginning of the end has
come. I a