ive litter stood a few yards from the foot of the
steps. Tommy guided her to it, Major Ralston walking on her other side.

She turned to the latter as they reached it. "Where is Hanani?" she
said.

He raised his brows for a moment. "She has probably gone back to her
people," he answered.

"She was here with me, only a minute ago," Stella said.

He glanced round. "She knows her way no doubt. We had better not wait
now. If you want her, I will find her for you later."

"Thank you," Stella said. But she still paused, looking from Ralston to
Tommy and back again, as one uncertain.

"What is it, darling?" said Tommy gently.

She put her hand to her head with a weary gesture of bewilderment. "I am
very stupid," she said. "I can't think properly. You are sure everything
is all right?"

"Quite sure, dear," he said. "Don't try to think now. You are done up.
You must rest."

Her face quivered suddenly like the face of a tired child. "I
want--Everard," she said piteously. "Won't you--can't you--bring him to
me? There is something--I want--to say to him."

There was an instant's pause. She felt Tommy's arm tighten protectingly
around her, but he did not speak.

It was Major Ralston who answered her. "Certainly he shall come to you.
I will see that he does."

The confidence of his reply comforted her. She trusted Major Ralston
instinctively. She entered the litter and sank down among the cushions
with a sigh.

As they bore her away along the narrow, winding path which once she had
trodden with Everard Monck so long, long ago, on the night of her
surrender to the mastery of his love, utter exhaustion overcame her and
the sleep, which for so long she had denied herself, came upon her like
an overwhelming flood, sweeping her once more into the deeps of
oblivion. She went without a backward thought.

CHAPTER X

THE ANGEL

It was many hours before she awoke and in all those hours she never
dreamed. She only slept and slept and slept in total unconsciousness,
wrapt about in the silence of her desert.

She awoke at length quite fully, quite suddenly, to a sense of appalling
loneliness, to a desolation unutterable. She opened her eyes wide upon a
darkness that could be felt, and almost cried aloud with the terror of
it. For a few palpitating moments it seemed to her that the most
dreadful thing that could possibly happen to her had come upon her
unawares.

And then, even as she started up in a wild horror, a