; not to see them fall away
from his with a shrinking expression foreign to them.

Joyce offered her cheek.

"Your lips," he commanded.

But Joyce fell to weeping broken-heartedly. Meredith kissed her cheek
with a pain at his heart, and turned away.

"Won't you tell me everything?" he asked another time, studying her
intently. Normally, he imagined she would have babbled childishly of all
her experiences, and have been insatiable in her demands for petting.
Why did she seem crushed and silent as to details? Honor had said the
shock would account for her shaken and hysterical state; but it did not
explain her strange aloofness.

"You know it all," Joyce returned listlessly, the tears springing to her
eyes at his first question as to the experience she had undergone.

"I know the barest outline--and that from Honor Bright. You wanted a
particular stone for a souvenir, and in digging it out, the arch
collapsed, which brought down a large bit of the roof and a lot more
besides. What happened after that? How did you manage to spend the
night? It must have been horrible!"

"Some day I may be able to talk about it, but not now," she cried with
quivering lips. "It is cruel to question me now."

Meredith leaned back in despair. "I hope Dalton was properly careful of
you?" he asked, devoured with jealousy.

"He gave me his coat and his rug, and made cups out of pipal leaves to
catch the raindrops as they fell. We were so thirsty," she said
monotonously.

"Rather a brainy idea!"

"Please don't recall all that to me. I don't want to think of it!" she
cried; and that was all Meredith could learn of the events of that
night.

The following day it was discovered that the doctor was suffering from a
feverish chill and was confined to bed. By nightfall, it was reported by
Jack who had been to visit him, that he was in a high fever, and that
the Railway doctor had been called in by the Civil Hospital Assistant
for a consultation.

The next day it was known that Captain Dalton was seriously ill with
pneumonia; a _locum_ arrived from headquarters, nurses were telegraphed
for, and for some days his life hung in the balance.

Joyce, who still kept her bed with shaken nerves, incapable of
interesting herself in her usual pursuits, was startled out of her
lethargy at the news. "If he dies, it will be my fault," she cried. "Oh,
Honor! I was so cold that he gave me his coat as well as the rug, and
did without them himself till