servant appeared with a tray.

"Ah, thank goodness, here are the cocktails. There's only one. Aren't
you having one, too? It will do you good. No?"

She sipped her cocktail slowly. When she had finished it she got up
from her chair, saying:

"I'll get ready to go to the Amusement Club. Will you wait for me here?
You needn't change--we won't play tennis to-day; for we've got this
dinner and dance on to-night and I don't want to tire myself. I shan't
be long."

As she passed his chair she tapped his cheek and said:

"Don't look so miserable, my dear boy. You'll soon get over the loss of
your jungle girl. There, you may kiss my hand as a sign of your return
to your allegiance."

But when she entered her bedroom she did not at once proceed to get
ready to go out, but unlocked her dressing-case and, taking out of it a
letter, sat down to read it for the tenth time since she had received it
that morning. Yet it was short and concise. It was from Rosenthal and
addressed from the Mess of the 2nd (Duke's Own) Hussars in Bangalore;
for, as it told her, he had returned to his regiment as his leave had
expired. It was the first that had come from him since she had left
Poona, although, as he said in it, he had obtained her new address from
the Goanese clerk in the Munster Hotel office on the day of her flight,
thanks to the persuasive powers of a fifty-rupee note.

He told her that although her abrupt departure had puzzled him and he
could not understand why she had tried to conceal her whereabouts from
him, he wished her to realise that if it were an attempt to escape from
him it was useless. He could bide his time, for sooner or later he would
get her.

Violet smiled as she read his confident words, although they caused a
little shiver of fear to run through her. Then she rose, locked the
letter away and put on her hat.

Not until after lunch next day was Wargrave able to find time to go to
the Oriental Hotel, not to see Muriel, he sternly told himself, but to
pay a visit to Mrs. Dermot. When he was shown up to her sitting-room he
had to wait for some time before Noreen entered; and he was struck at
once by the coldness of her greeting. It was evident that she was very
displeased with him. She said no word about Muriel; and Wargrave felt
curiously averse to mentioning her name.

At last he summed up courage to ask her. With as near an approach to
frigidity of manner as she could show to a man to whom she was so
inde