I do not think you are telling me everything, Mr. Quatermain, but
something seems to say that this is because it is not well that I should
learn everything."

"No," I answered, "you have been ill and out of your mind for quite a
long while; something gave you a shock. I think that you learned of your
father's death, which you have now forgotten, and were overcome with the
news. Please trust to me and believe that if I keep anything back from
you, it is because I think it best to do so for the present."

"I trust and I believe," she answered. "Now please leave me, but tell me
first where are those women and their children?"

"After your father died they went away," I replied, lying once more.

She looked at me again but made no comment.

Then I left her.

How much Inez ever learned of the true story of her adventures I do not
know to this hour, though my opinion is that it was but little. To
begin with, everyone, including Thomaso, was threatened with the direst
consequences if he said a word to her on the subject; moreover in her
way she was a wise woman, one who knew when it was best not to ask
questions. She was aware that she had suffered from a fit of aberration
or madness and that during this time her father had died and certain
peculiar things had happened. There she was content to leave the
business and she never again spoke to me upon the subject. Of this I was
very glad, as how on earth could I have explained to her about Ayesha's
prophecies as to her lapse into childishness and subsequent return to a
normal state when she reached her home seeing that I did not understand
them myself?

Once indeed she did inquire what had become of Janee to which I answered
that she had died during her sickness. It was another lie, at any rate
by implication, but I hold that there are occasions when it is righteous
to lie. At least these particular falsehoods have never troubled my
conscience.

Here I may as well finish the story of Inez, that is, as far as I can.
As I have shown she was always a woman of melancholy and religious
temperament, qualities that seemed to grow upon her after her return to
health. Certainly the religion did, for continually she was engaged in
prayer, a development with which heredity may have had something to do,
since after he became a reformed character and grew unsettled in his
mind, her father followed the same road.

On our return to civilisation, as it chanced, one of the first pe