disgraceful, abominable, that he
should have made the occasion, or, to put the matter at its best, have
taken advantage of the occasion, when you were alone and, in a sense, at
his mercy, to tell you this most unhappy thing."

"No, no," Damaris cried, in her generous eagerness catching back the
curtain and looking at him nobly unselfconscious, nobly zealous to defend
and to set right. "You mustn't think that. He didn't start with any
intention of telling me. He fancied I might have lost my way among the
sand-hills, that I might be frightened or get some harm, and so came
straight to look for me, and take care of me. He was very beautifully
kind; and I felt beautifully safe with him--safe in the same way I feel
safe with you, almost."

Her mouth was soft, her eyes alight--dangerously alight now, for
her pulse had quickened. As she pleaded and protested her
temperature raced up.

"It happened later," she went on, "when we were in the boat, and it was
partly my fault. He wrapped my feet up in his coat. They were very cold.
And he believed I was asleep because I didn't speak or thank him. I was
so tired, and everything seemed so strange. I couldn't rouse myself
somehow to speak. And as he wrapped them in his coat, he kissed my feet,
thinking I shouldn't know. But I wasn't asleep, and it displeased me. I
felt angry, just as you felt when you condemned him just now."

"Ah! as I felt just now!" he commented, closing his eyes and, just
perceptibly, bowing his head.

"Yes, Commissioner Sahib, as you felt just now--but as, please you
mustn't go on feeling.--What he had done seemed to me treacherous; and it
pained as well as displeased me. But in all that I was unjust and
mistaken.--And it was then, because he saw he'd pained me, displeased and
made me angry, that he told me in self-defence--told me to show he wasn't
treacherous, but had the right--a right no one else in all the world has
over me except yourself."

"And you believed this young man, you forgave his audacity, and admitted
his right?" Sir Charles said.

He leaned back in the angle of the chair, away from her, smiling as he
spoke--a smile which both bade farewell and mocked at the sharpness and
futility of the grief which that farewell brought with it. For this was a
grown woman who pleaded with him surely, acting as advocate? A child,
compelled to treat such controversial, such debatable matters at all,
would have done so to a different rhythm, in a different