that would be very injurious. But I thought good news would be
better than medicine."

"Thank you, Legs. You're a great doctor," was all that Nevill answered.
But his temperature began to go down within the hour.

"He'll get the girl, of course," remarked Lady MacGregor, when Stephen
told her. "That is, if he lives."

"He will live, with this hope to buoy him up," said Stephen. "And she
can't hold out against him for a minute when she sees him as he is.
Indeed, I rather fancy she's been in a mood to change her mind this last
month."

"Why this last month?"

"Oh, I think she misunderstood Nevill's interest in Miss Ray, and that
helped her to understand herself. When she finds out that it's for her
he still cares, not some one else, she'll do anything he asks."
Afterwards it proved that he was right.

The day after the arrival at Touggourt, the house in its garden near
the oasis was very quiet. The Arab servants, whom Lady MacGregor had
taken with the place, moved silently, and for Nevill's sake voices were
lowered. There was a brooding stillness of summer heat over the one
little patch of flowery peace and perfumed shade in the midst of the
fierce golden desert. Yet to the five members of the oddly assembled
family it was as if the atmosphere tingled with electricity. There was a
curious, even oppressive sense of suspense, of waiting for something to
happen.

They did not speak of this feeling, yet they could see it in each
other's eyes, if they dare to look.

It was with them as with people who wait to hear a clock begin striking
an hour which will bring news of some great change in their lives, for
good or evil.

The tension increased as the day went on; still, no one had said to
another, "What is there so strange about to-day? Do you feel it? Is it
only our imagination--a reaction after strain, or is it that a
presentiment of something to happen hangs over us?"

Stephen had not yet had any talk with Victoria. They had seen each other
alone for scarcely more than a moment since the night at Toudja; but now
that Nevill was better, and the surgeons said that if all went well,
danger was past, it seemed to Stephen that the hour had come.

After they had lunched in the dim, cool dining-room, and Lady MacGregor
had proposed a siesta for all sensible people, Stephen stopped the girl
on her way upstairs as she followed her sister.

"May I talk to you for a little while this afternoon?" he asked.

Voice and e