t over your fainting fit of
the other night. I quite expected to be sent for professionally the next
morning."

"Oh, yes, I have quite got over it, Doctor; I can't make out how I was
so silly as to faint. I never did such a thing before, but it was so
strange and mysterious that I felt quite bewildered, and the picture
quite frightened me, but I don't know why. This is the first chance I
have had since of speaking to you alone. What do you think of it, and
why should you be dressed up as a native? and why should?" She stopped
with a heightened color on her cheeks.

"You and Bathurst be dressed up, too? So you noticed your own likeness;
nobody else but Bathurst and myself recognized the two figures that came
out of the wood."

"Oh, you saw it too, Doctor. I thought I might have been mistaken, for,
besides being stained, the face was all obscured somehow. Neither uncle,
nor Mrs. Hunter, nor the girls, nor anyone else I have spoken to seem to
have had an idea it was me, though they all recognized you.. What could
it mean?"

"I. have not the slightest idea in the world," the Doctor said; "very
likely it meant nothing. I certainly should not think any more about it.
These jugglers' tricks are curious and unaccountable; but it is no use
our worrying ourselves about them. Maybe we are all going to get up
private theatricals some day, and perform an Indian drama. I have never
taken any part in tomfooleries of that sort so far, but there is no
saying what I may come to."

"Are you going to dine here, Doctor?"

"No, my dear; the Major asked me to come in, but I declined. I told him
frankly that I did not like Forster, and that the less I saw of him the
better I should be pleased."

The other guests turned out to be Captain and Mrs. Doolan and Mr.
Congreave, one of the civilians at the station. The Doolans arrived
first.

"You have not seen Captain Forster yet, Isobel," Mrs. Doolan said, as
they sat down for a chat together. "I met him at Delhi soon after I came
out. He is quite my beau ideal of a soldier in appearance, but I don't
think he is nice, Isobel. I have heard all sorts of stories about him."

"Is that meant as a warning for me, Mrs. Doolan?" Isobel asked, smiling.

"Well, yes, I think it is, if you don't mind my giving you one. There
are some men one can flirt with as much as one likes, and there are some
men one can't; he is one of that sort. Privately, my dear, I don't mind
telling you that at one time I