Yet at the soft opening of the door, he did look up for an instant, a gleam of expectancy upon his face that died immediately.

“All right, Sammy, directly,” he said, returning without pause to his work.

Sammy, butler, bearer, and general factotum, irreproachable from his snowy turban to his white-slippered feet, did not take the hint to retire, but stood motionless just inside the room, waiting with statuesque patience till his master should deign to bestow upon him the favour of his full attention.

After a little Will Musgrave realised this, and with an abrupt sigh sat back in his chair and rubbed his hand across his forehead.

“Well?” he said then.  “You needn’t trouble to tell me that the mail has passed, for I heard the fellow half an hour ago.  Of course there were no letters?”

The man shook his head despondingly.  “No letters, sahib.”

“Then what do you want?” asked Will, beginning to eye his work again.

Sammy—­so dubbed by Daisy long ago because his own name was too sore a tax upon her memory—­sent a look of gleaming entreaty across the lamp-lit space that separated him from his master.

“The dinner grows cold, sahib,” he observed pathetically.

Will smiled a little.  “All right, my good Sammy.  What does it matter?  I’m sure if I don’t mind, you needn’t.  And I’m busy just now.”

But the Indian stood his ground.  “What will my mem-sahib say to me,” he said, “when she comes and finds that my lord has been starved?”

Will’s face changed.  It was a very open face, boyishly sincere.  He did not laugh at the earnest question.  He only gravely shook his head.

“The mem-sahib will come,” the man declared, with conviction.  “And what will her servant say when she asks him why his master is so thin?  She will say, ’Sammy, I left him in your care.  What have you done to him?’ And, sahib, what answer can her servant give?”

Will clasped his hands at the back of his head in a careless attitude, but his face was grim.  “I don’t think you need worry yourself, Sammy,” he said.  “I am not expecting the mem-sahib—­at present.”

Nevertheless, moved by the man’s solicitude, he rose after a moment and laid his work together.  He might as well dine, he reflected, as sit and argue about it.  With a heavy step he passed into the room where dinner awaited him, and sat down at the table.

No, he was certainly not expecting her at present.  He had even of late begun to ask himself if he expected her at all.  It was five months now since the news of her severe illness had almost induced him to throw everything aside and go to her.  He had only been deterred from this by a very serious letter from Dr. Jim, strongly advising him to remain where he was, since it was highly improbable that he would be allowed to see Daisy for weeks or even months were he at hand, and she would most certainly be in no