about what I was saying last night. I was mad to think what
might happen to you while I should be down there, but I've been thinking
it over since and I've come to the conclusion that if their is anything
to God He can be trusted to look after you without any help from me, so
when we meet again before I go away we'll never say another word on the
subject--that's a promice.

"I can't go until your better though, so I'm just sending the jaunting
car into town with a telegram to London telling them to postpone the
expedision on account of illness, and if they think it's mine it won't
matter because it's something worse.

"But if you are realy a bit better, as your maid says, you might come to
the window and wave your hand to me, and I shall be as happy as a
sand-boy.

"Yours,

"Mart."_

To this letter (forgetting my former fears) I returned an immediate
verbal reply, saying I was getting better rapidly and hoped to be up to
dinner, so he must not send that telegram to London on any account,
seeing that nobody knew what was going to happen and everything was in
the hands of God.

Price took my message with a knowing smile at the corner of her mouth,
and a few minutes afterwards I heard Martin laughing with Tommy the Mate
at the other end of the lawn.

I don't know why I took so much pains with my dress that night. I did
not expect to see Martin again. I was sending him away from me. Yet
never before had I dressed myself with so much care. I put on the soft
white satin gown which was made for me in Cairo, a string of pearls over
my hair, and another (a tight one) about my neck.

Martin was waiting for me in the boudoir, and to my surprise he had
dressed too, but, except that he wore a soft silk shirt, I did not know
what he was wearing, or whether he looked handsome or not, because it
was Martin and that was all that mattered to me.

I am sure my footstep was light as I entered the room, for I was shod in
white satin slippers, but Martin heard it, and I saw his eyes fluttering
as he looked at me, and said something sweet about a silvery fir tree
with its little dark head against the sky.

"It's to be a truce, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes, a truce," I answered, which meant that as this was to be our last
evening together all painful subjects were to be put aside.

Before we sat down to eat he took me out on to the balcony to look at
the sea, for though there was no rain flashes of sheet lightning with
low rumbl