He had done largely more than the average Englishman, of his age and station, towards the making of contemporary history.  Yet it occurred to him now, sitting at Damaris’ bedside, those intervening years of strenuous public activity, of soldiering and of administration, along with the honours reaped in them, had procured cynically less substantial result, cynically less ostensible remainder, than the brief and hidden intrigue which preceded them.  They sank away as water spilt on sand—­thus in his present pain he pictured it—­leaving barely a trace.  While that fugitive and unlawful indulgence of the flesh not only begot flesh, but spirit,—­a living soul, henceforth and eternally to be numbered among the imperishable generations of the tragic and marvellous children of men.

Then, aware something stirred close to him, Charles Verity looked up sharply, turning his head; to find Damaris—­raised on one elbow planted among the pillows—­holding aside the dimity curtain and gazing wonderingly yet contentedly in his face.

“Commissioner Sahib,” she said, softly, “I didn’t know you’d come back.  I’ve had horrid bad dreams and seemed to see you—­many of you—­walking about.  The room was full of you, you over and over again; but not like yourself, frightening, not loving me, busy about something or somebody else.  I didn’t at all enjoy that.—­But I am awake now, aren’t I?  I needn’t be frightened any more; because you do love me, don’t you—­and this really is you, your very ownself?”

She put up her face to be kissed.  But he, in obedience to an humility heretofore unfelt by and unknown to him, leaning sideways kissed the hand holding aside the curtain rather than the proffered lips.

“Yes, my darling, very surely it is me,” he said.  “Any multiplication of specimens is quite superfluous—­a single example of the breed is enough, conceivably more than enough.”

But to his distress, while he spoke, he saw the content die out of Damaris’ expression and her eyes grow distended and startled.  She glanced oddly at the hand he had just kissed and then at him again.

“It seems to me something must have happened which I can’t exactly remember,” she anxiously told him, sitting upright and leaving go the curtain which slipped back into place shutting off the arm-chair and its occupant.  “Something real, I mean, not just bad dreams.  I know I had to ask you about it, and yet I didn’t want to ask you.”

Charles Verity rose from his place, slowly walked the length of the room; and, presently returning, stood at the foot of the bed.  Damaris still sat upright, her hands clasped, her hair hanging in a cloud about her to below the waist.  The light was low and the shadow cast by the bed-curtain covered her.  But, through it, he could still distinguish the startled anxiety of her great eyes as she pondered, trying to seize and hold some memory which escaped her.  And he felt sick at heart, assured it could be but a matter of time before she remembered; convinced now, moreover, what she would, to his shame and sorrow, remember in the end.