Sentimental egotism will not rule me. Tell me,"
she added, "tell me one thing before I go. You said that your course was
set. What is it?"

"I remain here," he answered quietly. "I remain in the service of Prince
Kaid."

"It is a dreadful government, an awful service--"

"That is why I stay."

"You are going to try and change things here--you alone?"

"I hope not alone, in time."

"You are going to leave England, your friends, your family, your
place--in Hamley, was it not? My aunt has read of you--my cousin--" she
paused.

"I had no place in Hamley. Here is my place. Distance has little to do
with understanding or affection. I had an uncle here in the East for
twenty-five years, yet I knew him better than all others in the world.
Space is nothing if minds are in sympathy. My uncle talked to me over
seas and lands. I felt him, heard him speak."

"You think that minds can speak to minds, no matter what the
distance--real and definite things?"

"If I were parted from one very dear to me, I would try to say to him
or her what was in my mind, not by written word only, but by the flying
thought."

She sat down suddenly, as though overwhelmed. "Oh, if that were
possible!" she said. "If only one could send a thought like that!" Then
with an impulse, and the flicker of a sad smile, she reached out a hand.
"If ever in the years to come you want to speak to me, will you try to
make me understand, as your uncle did with you?"

"I cannot tell," he answered. "That which is deepest within us obeys
only the laws of its need. By instinct it turns to where help lies, as
a wild deer, fleeing, from captivity, makes for the veldt and the
watercourse."

She got to her feet again. "I want to pay my debt," she said solemnly.
"It is a debt that one day must be paid--so awful--so awful!" A swift
change passed over her. She shuddered, and grew white. "I said brave
words just now," she added in a hoarse whisper, "but now I see him lying
there cold and still, and you stooping over him. I see you touch his
breast, his pulse. I see you close his eyes. One instant full of the
pulse of life, the next struck out into infinite space. Oh, I shall
never--how can I ever-forget!" She turned her head away from him, then
composed herself again, and said quietly, with anxious eyes: "Why was
nothing said or done? Perhaps they are only waiting. Perhaps they know.
Why was it announced that he died in his bed at home?"

"I cannot tell. When a man