“Oh, Peter, you should have called me hours ago!” was all she found to say.

He set down the tray with a deep salaam.  “But the captain sahib would not permit me,” he said.

“He is better?” Stella asked quickly.

“He is much better, my mem-sahib.  The doctor sahib smiled upon him only this afternoon and told him he was a damn’ fraud.  So my mem-sahib may set her mind at rest.”

Obviously the term constituted a high compliment in Peter’s estimation and the evident satisfaction that it afforded to Stella seemed to confirm the impression.  He retired looking as well pleased as Stella had ever seen him.

She finished dressing as speedily as possible, ate a hasty meal, and hastened to Tommy’s room.  To her surprise she found it empty, but as she turned on the threshold the sound of her brother’s laugh came to her through the passage.  Evidently Tommy was visiting his fellow sufferer.

With a touch of anxiety as to Monck’s fitness to receive a visitor, she turned in the direction of the laugh.  But at Monck’s door she paused, constrained by something that checked her almost like a hand laid upon her.  The blood ran up to her temples and beat through her brain.  She found she could not enter.

As she stood there hesitating, Monck’s voice came to her, quiet and rational.  She could not hear what he said, but Tommy’s more impetuous tones cutting in were clearly audible.

“Oh, rats, my dear fellow!  Don’t be so damn’ modest!  You’re worth a score of Dacres and you bet she knows it.”

Stella tingled from head to foot.  In another moment she would have passed swiftly on, but even as the impulse came to her it was frustrated.  The door in front of her suddenly opened, and she was face to face with Monck himself.

He stood leaning slightly on the handle of the door.  He was draped in a long dressing-gown of Oriental silk that hung upon him dejectedly as if it yearned for a stouter tenant.  In it he looked leaner and taller than he had ever seemed to her before.  He had a cigarette between his lips, but this he removed with a flicker of humour as he observed her glance.

“Caught in the act,” he remarked.  “Please come in!”

Something that was very far from humour impelled Stella to say quickly, “I hope you don’t imagine I was eavesdropping.”

He looked sardonic for an instant.  “No, I do not so far flatter myself,” he said.  “I was referring to my cigarette.”

She entered, striving for dignity.  Then as his attitude caught her attention she forgot herself and turned upon him in genuine dismay.  “What are you doing out of bed?  You know you are not fit for it.  Oh, how wrong of you!  Take my arm!”

He transferred his hand from the door to her shoulder, and she felt it tremble though his hold was strong.

“May I not sit up to tea with you, nurse sahib?” he suggested, as she piloted him firmly to the bedside.