His Excellency's English Governess

It was just at the time when the fruit-trees were in bloom, and the watered gardens around Baghdad miracles of loveliness, that it entered Lady Haigh’s head to give a picnic. Some miles down the Tigris were the ruins of an ancient fort, situated on a bold bluff overhanging the stream, and surrounded by fruit-gardens, in one of which was a flimsy summer-palace, built of wood, and almost in decay. The spot was noted for its fruit-trees, which were supposed to flourish on the site of an ancient battle-field, and Sir Dugald was accustomed to rent the place every spring and summer as a refuge from the heat and miasma of Baghdad. There was plenty of shooting to be had on the neighbouring plains, and good fishing for any one that cared for it, so that a week or two at the summer-villa was a coveted treat to the staff at the Consulate. It was not yet time for the great heat which makes the city almost unbearable, but the fruit-blossom was particularly lovely this year, and Lady Haigh was fired with the desire to display Takht-Iskandar in all its beauty. She could not have all her friends out to stay with her, especially since the habitable part of the house was now exceedingly limited in extent, but she could at any rate give them a sight of the place, and therefore she sent out invitations for a picnic.

Of course Cecil and Azim Bey were invited. The latter, who was deputed by his father to represent him on the occasion, accepted the charge with huge delight, and kept his attendants hard at work for days beforehand in bringing all his equipments to the highest pitch of perfection. He felt that he was about to perform a public function, and his youthful heart beat high with pride. Cecil’s heart beat high also, but not with pride. She would see Charlie—nay, she would certainly, if Lady Haigh could compass it, get one of those long talks with him which were now a distinguishing delight of Sunday evenings at the Residency. In this hope she put on, under her great white sheet, the newest and prettiest dress she had, one which had just been sent out to her from England, and succeeded in mounting her donkey safely in the unwonted garb. The party from the Residency and most of their guests went down the river to Takht-Iskandar in a steam-launch, but the Pasha preferred the land journey for his son, and thus Cecil and Azim Bey jogged along soberly on donkey-back, followed by a motley group of servants, and preceded by a running groom.

The way was very pleasant, lying as it did across the wide plains of Mesopotamia, now gay with their brief verdure and studded with flowers of every hue. The start was made as soon as it was light, so that it was still quite early in the day when the frowning ruins which the Arabs called Alexander’s Throne came into view. Sir Dugald advanced to the gate of the garden to welcome his guests, and Lady Haigh met them at the edge of the great terrace of masonry, with its tanks and fountains, which supplied a site for the picnic in place of the non-existent grass-plot. Here tents had been pitched and carpets spread in the shade of the trees, and everything seemed to promise ease and rest. Azim Bey gave his arm to his hostess to conduct her to her seat, an honour which reflected much glory, but some inconvenience, on Lady Haigh, who was much taller than her youthful cavalier. Sir Dugald followed with Cecil, her pupil looking round sharply to make sure that she had not wandered away in more congenial society. Arrived at the encampment under the trees, the party reclined on gorgeous rugs and listened to the voices and instruments of a band of native musicians, refreshing themselves with sherbet the while. This style of entertainment was quite to the taste of the orientals among the guests, and the Europeans had learnt by long experience to tolerate it with apparent resignation, so that the time passed in great contentment. As for Cecil, she leaned back on her cushions and enjoyed the colour contrasts afforded by the gay hues of the carpets relieved against the yellow of the stonework and the dark shade of the trees, and by the twisting and crossing of the blossomy boughs against the blue of the sky, and wondered where Charlie could be.

After some time the calm of the party was broken by the arrival of a juggler, a most marvellous Hindoo, such a one as Azim Bey had often read of but had never seen, and the luxurious guests raised themselves and moved a little closer, so as to be able to see his tricks more easily. This left Cecil rather on the outskirts of the group, and before she could rise to go nearer a voice said in her ear—

“Come and see the ruins.”

With one glance at Azim Bey, deeply absorbed in the juggler’s tricks, under Lady Haigh’s guardianship, Cecil was up in a moment, scarcely needing the help of Charlie’s hand, and he hurried her round the nearest tent and into the wood. There were no footpaths, but they hastened, laughing guiltily, like two children playing truant, along the banks of earth left between the innumerable little canals by which each row of trees was irrigated, and finally came out on a grassy knoll set with pomegranate-trees, which were now gay with scarlet blossoms.

“Now we’re safe,” said Charlie. “We can take it easy. Do you see where you are? There are the ruins just in front.”

No one, as it happened, had observed Charlie’s sudden appearance and their flight. Even Lady Haigh, with heroic self-restraint, kept her eyes fixed on the juggler, lest she should by looking round attract attention to the pair, and the performance went on. When it was over, Lady Haigh invited Azim Bey to come and see a small plantation of English fruit-trees, belonging to several choice varieties, which Sir Dugald had lately imported. He complied with her request, but in the one glance around which he took before accompanying her, he had perceived and realised the fact that his governess had disappeared. His face showed, however, no trace of his having made this discovery. He escorted Lady Haigh from place to place, asked intelligent questions about the foreign trees, promised to recommend his father to try planting some, and kept his eyes open all the time for some trace of the truant. His manner was so natural, he seemed so deeply interested, that Lady Haigh was completely deceived; nay, more, the very thought of the need there was for watchfulness slipped from her mind, and when they returned to the rest of the guests, she entered into conversation with Denarien Bey, who was among them. Azim Bey saw and seized his opportunity. He removed his hand softly from Lady Haigh’s arm, and sheltered by her capacious person from the observation of Sir Dugald and Captain Rossiter, edged his way out just as Cecil and Charlie had done, until, when fairly hidden by the tent, he ran off at full speed in the direction of the clue he had discovered as he returned with his hostess from the plantation. It was a little strip of flimsy white stuff, which he had noticed clinging to the rough bark of a gnarled old apple-tree—only that, but he knew it to be a piece of the muslin veil Cecil was wearing, and it showed that she must have passed that way. Azim Bey followed the path she and Charlie had taken through the wood, and came out as they had done on the knoll where the pomegranate-trees grew; but here he was at a loss, for those whom he sought were not visible, and Cecil had not been so considerate as to leave another clue for his guidance. He spent some time fruitlessly in following paths that led nowhere, and in losing himself among the trees and the little canals, but at last he came upon an ascending track leading through a dense thicket of fruit-trees and shrubs. As he went on he heard the sound of voices, and he crept cautiously nearer, keeping in the shadow of the bushes, until he was able to see what filled him with rage and longings for vengeance, and made him swear the blackest oaths he could think of in any language.

And yet the picture before him was not an unpleasing one. In the heart of the thicket was a space clear of bushes, but occupied by the ruins of one of the ancient towers of the fortress, partly overgrown with grass. On a mass of fallen masonry sat Cecil in her blue dress, her veil thrown back. Above her were twisted boughs of apple and apricot, covered with bloom, and the thin smooth rods of the almond-tree, with pink and blush-coloured blossoms interspersed with tiny fresh green leaves. The branches bent and swayed in the light breeze, and swept her hair softly, and every wind scattered over her a shower of pink and white petals. But she was not studying the beauties of nature now. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted, her eyelids drooping, and beside her was Charlie Egerton, holding both her hands in his, his eyes passionately devouring her face. They were not talking. It was a moment of supreme content, such as they had not enjoyed for months, and they were too happy to speak. The unseen spectator perceived it all, and gnashed his teeth with rage.

Poor little Azim Bey! He knelt there, taking in every detail of the scene before him, and cursing one, at least, of the actors in it very heartily. If a loaded pistol had been put into his hand Charlie might have fared ill, but even Azim Bey did not feel impelled to test his dagger upon him before Cecil’s eyes. Therefore he only remained where he was, peering through the bushes, and listening eagerly when some chance sound disturbed the pair and they began to talk. Their talk filled him with amazement. It was by no means particularly deep, and it was undeniably disjointed; but the listener carried away with him ideas of love which differed widely both from those inculcated in his French novels and those engendered in his precocious little mind by the sensuous atmosphere of the harem in which he had been brought up. It gave him his first glimpse of the gulf which remained fixed between the most thoroughly Europeanised Turk and even an orientalised Englishman, who, with all his faults and follies, was still the heir of centuries of knightly training and Christian influence. Naimeh Khanum would have rejoiced if she could have known the thoughts which passed through her young brother’s mind in that half hour, for she would have hoped that the realisation of the underlying difference would lead him to make efforts to eradicate it altogether. But Azim Bey differed in many respects from his sister. His nature, like those of the men of his nation of whom she had spoken, was inclined to be satisfied with external resemblance to Europeans, and the discovery of the real unlikeness only made him hate all the more the individual through whom it was brought home to him.

“I really must go back to Lady Haigh now,” said Cecil, at last. “Azim Bey will begin to suspect something.”

Charlie’s reply was a remark not complimentary to Azim Bey.

“And I haven’t seen you really since Christmas,” he went on—“not properly, I mean. You keep me alive on very little crumbs of hope, Cecil, and when the time comes for fulfilment you just give me some more crumbs. I did think I should get a good talk with you to-day, but I haven’t told you anything of all that I wanted to say. Now don’t tell me I can say it next Sunday, for you know we get scarcely any time together then.”

“Poor boy! why don’t you talk faster, and get more into the time?” laughed Cecil, rising from her seat, and sending a little shower of petals falling as the flower-laden boughs brushed her head. “I am sure you have wasted a good deal of time to-day.”

“Because I wanted to look at you, and not to talk,” said Charlie, and they both laughed, much to Azim Bey’s disgust. Then Cecil’s veil caught in something as she rearranged it (it was a most inconvenient garment that veil, continually catching in things), and Charlie had to disentangle it—a lengthy process, which made the onlooker more angry still. Charlie caught Cecil’s hand in his once and kissed it, and Azim Bey made bitter remarks in his own mind on the foolishness of lovers.

“We must come,” said Cecil again. “Just think how very embarrassing it would be if Azim Bey took it into his head to come and look for me.”

“I don’t care,” said Charlie. “What does he signify?”

“I don’t think you would be able to get much talk if he was here listening to every word,” said Cecil. “Now, Charlie, please don’t, please! I have just made myself tidy, and I must get my gloves on.”

“I’ll put them on for you,” said Charlie, kindly, but the offer was declined with thanks. The pair passed out of the little cleared spot in the woods, so close to Azim Bey that Cecil’s dress almost brushed him as she went by, and when they were out of sight he rose and made a circuit through the grounds, so as to come upon the picnic-party from an opposite direction. Lady Haigh had discovered her charge’s absence by this time, and was in dire dismay about him; but his appearance and his unruffled demeanour reassured her, for she could not guess that his heart was so full of rage and fury that he could scarcely bring himself to speak civilly to any one. It was a triumph of oriental dissimulation which enabled him to keep cool, and no one ever suspected that he had done more than search the grounds for Cecil and had not found her. The rest of the day passed calmly enough, and Azim Bey kept close to Cecil’s side, and conversed graciously, and behaved like a civilised and well-brought-up young gentleman, while all the time he was planning vengeance in his mind.

The sun began to approach the horizon at last, and the party, hosts and guests alike, prepared to return to the city. Torches were lighted, the tents hastily taken down and rolled up with the carpets, and while these were being taken on board the steam-launch the donkeys belonging to the Palace party were brought round. Azim Bey was in a great hurry to start, being anxious to prevent long leave-takings. He mounted quickly, although this process was usually a lengthy and dignified one, and waited impatiently for Cecil. So impatient was he that he started before she was properly mounted, and she would have fallen had not Charlie caught her in his arms. Boiling over with rage, Charlie gave her into Lady Haigh’s care, and confronted Azim Bey, who had returned in some alarm.

“You did that on purpose, you little rascal!” cried Charlie, seizing the boy’s rein. Azim Bey’s face became pale with rage.

“You dare, monsieur? You venture to say that I desired to hurt mademoiselle? Go, you are a pig, a serpent—I despise you! Go, I say!” and he lifted his riding-whip, which Charlie immediately grasped.

“Don’t try that sort of thing on with me, young one,” he cried. “You’d better not, or I may be tempted to give you a thrashing, which would do you a lot of good.”

“How, monsieur, you threaten me?” screamed Azim Bey. “I will remember it, I will remember it well! You and I will meet, and you also shall remember this. Go, dog of an Englishman!” with a vigorous tug at the whip, to which Charlie gave a wrench that broke it between them. Azim Bey flung the fragments in his face, with a torrent of curses.

“Egerton!” said Sir Dugald, stepping between them, “what is the meaning of this?”

“He has insulted me, monsieur,” cried Azim Bey, trembling with passion. Sir Dugald cast a scathing glance at Charlie.

“I am sure Dr Egerton is willing to apologise if he has inadvertently said anything to offend you, Bey,” he said. “Egerton, you must certainly see that there is no other course open to you. It is impossible that you could have intended to insult the Bey.”

“He shall apologise for it—in blood,” growled Azim Bey, ferociously, while Charlie stood silent, nettled by Sir Dugald’s authoritative tone. “He said I meant to hurt mademoiselle. The rest is for him and me to settle alone.”

“Oh, Charlie,” said Cecil, coming up with anxious eyes, “you did not mean that, I’m sure. You must have known that the Bey would never think of such a thing. You will apologise, won’t you? You really ought.”

“As you say I ought, I will,” said Charlie, turning from the whispered colloquy with a defiant glance at Azim Bey and Sir Dugald. “I regret, Bey, to have wounded your feelings by a hasty accusation which was not justified by facts. I can’t say more than that.”

“If you have done enough mischief, Egerton, perhaps you will rejoin the rest of the party,” said Sir Dugald, in a low voice. “Allow me to assist you to mount, Miss Anstruther.”

Cecil complied in silence, feeling ready to hate Sir Dugald for his treatment of Charlie, and yet conscious that he had much to try him. Diplomatic complications had arisen out of incidents no more important than this one, and it was hard for her Majesty’s Consul-General to find his best-laid plans endangered by the imprudence of a hot-headed fool in love. And therefore he did his best to pacify Azim Bey, and succeeded so well that the boy talked quite graciously to Cecil as they rode back to the city over the short grass, lighted by the flaring torches of their escort.

CHAPTER XVIII.
GATHERING CLOUDS.

Azim Bey was now all eagerness to communicate to his trusted ally M. Karalampi the discovery he had made, which proved that he had been right all along in fixing upon Charlie as the person whose removal was necessary. But, as it happened, he did not succeed in meeting him until some days after the picnic, and by this time the boy’s anxiety to get rid of Dr Egerton had risen almost to fever-heat. M. Karalampi was able to pacify him by assuring him that now that the most important point was settled, Charlie should quit Baghdad within a month—a promise which seemed impossible of fulfilment to Azim Bey, who did not know that his agent had been secretly at work ever since his services had been first engaged. He worked with extreme art and delicacy, conveying to those he wished to influence slight intimations which seemed nothing when taken alone, but which became dangerous indeed when looked at in unison. At first he laboured chiefly to influence the Pasha. Ahmed Khémi had hitherto known very little respecting the doctor of the British Consulate, but for the space of about a month M. Karalampi dinned his name into his patron’s ears in season and out of season. Dr Egerton was a most dangerous man. He was accustomed to disguise himself and go among the people, deceiving even true believers. He was a spy, it was difficult to determine in whose pay, but indubitably a spy. He intrigued with the Armenians, the Jews, the Persians, the missionaries, the Russians, the Greeks. The Balio Bey did not like him, but was forced to tolerate him, knowing, no doubt, that he was employed by persons very high in authority. And so on, and so on, until the harassed Pasha, bewildered by the number and inconsistency of the charges, peremptorily ordered his too zealous agent never to mention the name of that English doctor to him again, on pain of his serious displeasure.

This was just what M. Karalampi had intended, and it closed the first act of the drama. He had gone upon the principle of throwing plenty of mud, and he was quite satisfied as to its powers of sticking, even though he himself had bowed respectfully and promised to obey his Excellency, averring that it was only zeal for the good of the Government that had made him so troublesome. His own work was over for the present, and it was the turn of his confederates. Each of them had only one thing to do, but they were all to be counted upon to do it. At some time or other, in the Pasha’s hearing, they were to throw a doubt on Dr Egerton’s honesty, hint at double-dealing on his part, or remark that he had been seen in company with suspected persons. To the last accusation Charlie’s inveterate habit of picking up disreputable acquaintances lent a good deal of colour, and this helped to establish the rest. The Pasha was staggered at last. He had silenced Karalampi, but here were all these independent witnesses giving him the very same warning. There must be something in it, and it would be foolish to disregard the testimony of so many unbiassed persons. It might be that Providence was giving him notice of some plot laid against him, while he had been obstinately rejecting the warning. He made up his mind to look into things very carefully in future.

M. Karalampi perceived this, and chuckled as he made ready for the third act of the play. Although his lips were sealed at the Palace, he had not been silent in the city. Not that he ever spoke against the English doctor, nor could any rumours be traced to him,—the only thing certain was that Charlie Egerton had become desperately unpopular. The shopkeepers with whom he had been wont to exchange a passing word withdrew into the inmost recesses of their dwellings so as not to be obliged to speak to him; children fled from before him, or were snatched up by their mothers, in dreadful fear of the evil-eye. There was one small boy who had once been brought by a still smaller Armenian friend to the Residency, to be treated for a cut finger or some other childish trouble, and who had been much impressed by the well-filled shelves in the surgery. Hitherto it had always been his delight to meet his doctor in the street and salute him with the cry of “O father of bottles, peace be upon thee!” but now he crept guiltily into a corner and hid himself if he saw him coming. This was the hardest thing of all for Charlie to bear, even though the loungers at the coffee-houses, with whom he had been something of a favourite, crowded together and looked at him distrustfully as he passed, muttering “Spy!” in ominous voices. The old women in the bazaars, privileged by age and ugliness to have a voice in public, reviled him roundly when they saw him, and then told each other in whispers that he was paid by foreign enemies to bring in new diseases and spread them in the city.

This change in public opinion perplexed Charlie extremely. At first he attributed it to another outburst of anti-English feeling, but this theory was dispelled on his learning from Captain Rossiter that no unpleasantness was displayed towards him. Then he set it down to some temporary crank or fancy of the people’s, and thought little more about it until, when he went one evening to call on Isaac Azevedo, the old man told him plainly, though with many apologies, that his visits were a source of danger to the whole Jewish quarter, and asked him not to come again for the present. It was this which first opened his eyes to the possibility of the approach of something more than mere unpleasantness, but it was not really brought home to him until one day when he had been to tea at the Mission-house, and Dr Yehudi took him aside at parting, and asked him earnestly whether he still carried a revolver, and whether it was ready for use. The danger of the situation became clear to him then, and it was just about the same time that M. Karalampi decided that matters were ripe for the completion of his plan.

Of the steps which led to this end Cecil saw only the last, and she was made aware of it one Sunday, when she arrived at the Residency to find Charlie looking out for her, with a doleful and even shame-stricken visage. She cast uneasy glances at him every now and then during the morning, but the gloom did not lift, and she waited anxiously for the quiet afternoon-time when they were wont to exchange their confidences. As soon as they were together in a shady corner of the deserted drawing-room Charlie told his story.

“I’ve been an awful fool, Cecil, and got myself into a nice mess.”

“Charlie! What do you mean?”

“It’s perfectly true. You know that I was to dine at the Farajians’ on Friday night? They are awfully nice people, and Farajian’s brother Ephrem was to be there,—the man who has been travelling in the mountains and looking for ruined cities. He was educated by some American missionaries somewhere, and he has picked up an amazing knowledge of antiquities. Well, I went, and found that all the guests were Armenians except myself and Stavro Vogorides, that Greek fellow who hangs about at the Russian Consulate.”

“I know. I have seen him with M. Karalampi,” said Cecil.

“We talked very pleasantly all dinner-time,” Charlie went on, “but at the end some one—I think it was Vogorides, but I can’t be sure—started the subject of Armenia. We were all friends, of course, but it struck me even then as rather a risky thing to do among such excitable people. You know that there’s no holding Armenians if you once get them on that subject, and one after another told stories of the most awful atrocities I ever heard. They made my blood run cold. I can’t conceive how people who believe that such things have happened, and many of them to relations of their own, can ever speak civilly to a Turk again, or bear to be anywhere near him, except rifle in hand, and I said something of the kind. It seemed to set them off, for they all stood up and drank the toast of ‘Free Armenia!’ solemnly.”

“And you drank it too? Oh, Charlie!” said Cecil, anxiously.

“That wasn’t all,” said Charlie, determined to free his conscience completely, “for I said afterwards that I was sure if they ever did rise, English people would help them with arms and men and money, just as we did the Greeks in the War of Independence.”

“Oh, Charlie!” groaned Cecil again, “how could you?”

“I don’t know. I was carried out of myself, I suppose. Well, in some way or other, I can’t imagine how, the thing has got to Sir Dugald’s ears. He sent for me last night, and gave me such a wigging! Of course I was a fool to say what I did, but he makes out that if the thing got known I should have to leave Baghdad at once. He said it was an unpardonable breach of diplomatic etiquette, an indiscretion he should have considered impossible. He said I ought to consider you, too, and not go imperilling my life and my prospects in the way I did. He also said a good deal more—in fact, I got it pretty hot.”

“But what did he mean about imperilling your life?” asked Cecil, quickly.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say that, but perhaps after all you had better hear it from me; you won’t be so much frightened. It may not have anything to do with it at all, but yesterday, when I was out riding with Rossiter on the other side of the river, a fellow potted at me with a long gun. It may have been only that he wanted something to shoot at, but the people round here do seem to have rather a prejudice against me just now. Anyhow, he missed, and we gave chase, but he got away.”

“But who can have told Sir Dugald about the Farajians’ dinner-party?” asked Cecil. “The servants?”

“There were none in the room at the time. No, he absolutely declined to tell me—said it was enough for me that he knew. I don’t know who it could be.”

“It may have been M. Vogorides,” mused Cecil. “Charlie, have you ever made an enemy of him or of M. Karalampi?”

“Would you have me make a friend of either of them?” he inquired.

“Well, there is a kind of distant civility you might employ towards them.”

“Not towards them, that is just it, any more than towards a snake, except with something between—bars or glass or something of that sort. I cannot stand these Levantines. There is something picturesque and romantic about a Jew, even if he does try to cheat you; and as for the Arabs and Turks, it makes you quite sorry to know the trouble they take to get the better of you, when you see through them all the time. But those Greeks, ugh!”

“That sounds as though you objected to them because they were clever enough to be able to cheat you,” said Cecil. “But if this is the way you regard them, no doubt you have hurt M. Vogorides’ feelings at some time or other, and he has tried to revenge himself on you by telling Sir Dugald. But do take care of yourself, Charlie. What should I do if anything happened to you?”

“I think you would do much better without me,” broke out Charlie. “I see that I ought never to have asked you to marry me, Cecil, such a heedless fool as I am, and I also see that I ought to give you up now, instead of worrying you with my misfortunes. I really mean it.”

“Happily, the decision doesn’t lie with you,” said Cecil. “Why, what a fair-weather friend you must think me, Charlie! Have I deserved it? Have I ever seemed worried by your misfortunes? I should have thought I had felt them too much for such a word to be applicable.”

“You are an angel,” said Charlie, and kissed her.

“I have only this to say,” went on Cecil, freeing herself. “You may give me up if you like, but I decline entirely to give you up. If you wish me to go through life in the ridiculous position of a girl engaged to a man who doesn’t consider himself engaged to her, I must bear it, I suppose.”

“You know I don’t,” said Charlie, and the conversation after this point became somewhat personal and lacking in coherence, until Charlie tore himself away to go and visit his patients. But Cecil was still anxious and uneasy, and at afternoon tea, finding that Charlie was still absent, she moved boldly across to Sir Dugald, determined to learn the worst.

“To what am I indebted for this unwonted honour?” was the question asked by Sir Dugald’s eyebrows as he rose and gave her his chair, but in words he only inquired whether she found the spot shady enough.

“I wanted to speak to you about Dr Egerton,” she said, breathlessly, too anxious about Charlie to answer his question politely. Sir Dugald’s eyebrows went up.

“Would it be rude to say that I have already heard rather too much about Dr Egerton lately?” he asked.

“That was just the reason why I wanted to talk to you about him,” said Cecil. “Were you in earnest in what you said to him last night?”

“I am not in the habit of playing practical jokes on the officials of this Consulate,” said Sir Dugald, rather stiffly. “If you mean to inquire whether Egerton has really endangered his prospects, I can only say that I fully believe he has.”

“But it seems such a little thing,” urged Cecil, “merely akin to talking politics in society at home.”

“Certainly,” said Sir Dugald, “in one way. It is as if a member of the Government, at some very important crisis, should take the opportunity of declaring, at a dinner-party of opponents, that he differed from his party as to the policy to be pursued, and meant to thwart it in every way he could.”

“But Charlie never meant that,” said Cecil, aghast.

“Probably not,” said Sir Dugald, grimly. “It was a momentary indiscretion, but such indiscretions are unpardonable. Support your agents through thick and thin, to the brink of war if necessary, so long as they obey orders and act with common-sense; but you must get rid of them and disavow their actions the moment you find they are swayed by enthusiasm, or fanaticism, or too much zeal, or anything of the kind.”

“But surely you must expect them to be either angels or machines,” said Cecil. “Have you no enthusiasms, Sir Dugald?”

“I have preferences, unfortunately, but I do my best to nullify them. When I find myself sympathising with one party, I make it a point to do the other rather more than justice.”

“But that is unfair to the first party,” objected Cecil. “Why should they suffer because they have your sympathy?”

“I don’t know—to show them I am not an angel, I suppose,” said Sir Dugald.

“But still,” said Cecil, returning to the charge, “I can’t quite see why it should be so very wrong and dangerous for Dr Egerton to have said what he did.”

“Simply for this reason, that what he said was calculated to foster in the minds of the Armenians the mischievous delusion that they will be supported, unofficially at any rate, by England if they rebel. News of such a kind spreads like wildfire, and is likely to make the task of Turkish government more difficult. Now we are here to bolster up Turkey, as these people put ropes round an old house to keep it together in a storm, and Egerton tries to spoil our work.”

“But is it right to bolster up Turkey?” asked Cecil, doubtfully.

“Oh, if we are coming to questions of morals, I shall have to take a back seat,” said Sir Dugald. “I will only say this, I conscientiously believe that if Turkey fell to-morrow, a far worse tyranny would ensue. You would not remember the Polish horrors, but we heard plenty about them when I was young.”

“And Dr Yehudi has told me of the persecutions of the Jews,” murmured Cecil.

“Exactly. So you see what we are doing. We are keeping up a bad state of things for fear of a worse. The Turks are sensible enough not to kick, but we can’t expect them to like our helping them, and they don’t feel inclined to give us any assistance. They won’t make the slightest attempt to whitewash themselves in order to spare our feelings, or make our proceedings look better to the world. We do what we can to put down atrocities, but changes of policy at home and changes of ambassador at Constantinople have succeeded in frittering away most of our moral influence, and we can’t descend to brute force. It’s inexpedient, and it’s ungentlemanly. We are the stronger party, and we can’t hit a State weaker than ourselves. Now do you see where the doctor went wrong? He let his feelings carry him away, and said just what came into his head, regardless of all this. His tongue has got him into trouble before, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” said Cecil, with a sigh. “Isn’t it wonderful that he can manage to keep safe when he disguises himself as a native?”

“I am afraid that it shows he has the power of silence, but does not care to exercise it except on great occasions,” said Sir Dugald, with a peculiar smile.

“But what do you think he had better do now?” asked Cecil.

“Lie low for a little, I should say. I am thinking of sending him and D’Silva out to Takht-Iskandar for a week or two’s shooting. Now that the Nausicaa is here, her surgeon can look after the hospital. But I give you fair warning, Miss Anstruther, that if there is any more foolishness on the doctor’s part he will have to pack. If you can impress that on him I shall be thankful.”

And Sir Dugald gave up his place to Charlie, who was approaching, and went away muttering, “She thinks he can keep quiet when he is disguised, so that the natives don’t find him out, does she? I believe they take him for a madman, and so let him go unmolested.” But in this he was unjust to Charlie, who, as he himself had once said, seemed to put on a different nature with his oriental garb.

Cecil returned to the Palace that night feeling nervous and depressed. It was as though a foreboding of coming trouble was hanging over her, and she tried in vain to reason herself into the belief that the depression was purely physical, and due to the fact that the weather was hot and thundery. The next day the storm came. It was unusually early in the season for thunder, but the Baghdadis said they had seldom known a more tremendous storm. It began about mid-day, when Cecil and her pupil were taking their usual rest, and Azim Bey was declaring his views on the subject of a book he had been reading. It was nearly time for dinner, but the sky became suddenly dark, and the trembling servants, leaving their work, crept into the lower part of the schoolroom and sat huddled together. Azim Bey was constitutionally timid on some occasions, and he exhibited now such fear as almost paralysed him. He crouched in a corner, shuddering at every fresh flash of lightning, and trembling violently when the thunder crashed, his face ashy white with terror. The wind howled and shrieked around the house, tearing off projecting portions of the ornamentation, and making such a noise that no one could be heard speaking. Cecil caught a glimpse once, by the glare of the lightning, of her pupil’s face, and its expression surprised her. Fear was portrayed there, as she expected, but also a tremendous determination. Azim Bey’s lips were locked together as though he were defying all the powers of the storm to force him to disclose something he was resolved to keep secret.

The thunder and lightning diminished in intensity at last, the wind ceased to howl, and daylight returned in some measure, but the rain continued to pour down, and the roof was discovered to be letting in water in streams. Azim Bey, whose courage had now returned, roused the servants from their lethargy of terror and set them to work to repair the leaks, finding himself in his element as he sat upon the divan and directed operations. When the roof was made fairly water-tight again, he despatched the women to bring in the long-delayed dinner, and when the meal was over, requested Cecil politely to bring her photograph-album and tell him about her brothers. Cecil complied, wondering to find him so agreeably disposed. Ordinarily, after such a display of timidity as that of the morning, he was wont to swagger and bluster a good deal in order to remove the impression. But this evening his behaviour was perfect. He was deeply interested, as usual, in the young Anstruthers, and particularly in Fitz’s adventures with his latest possession, the camera Cecil had given him, by means of which he had succeeded in sending out to his sister painful and most unflattering portraits of the rest of the family. In after-days Cecil looked back to this evening to try whether she could discover in her pupil’s manner any signs of compunction for the work he had in hand, but she could remember none. He was cheerfully polite, with the kind of politeness a magnanimous conqueror might show to a prisoner in his power. No youthful Black Prince could have been more courteous than he was.

The next morning, however, things were changed. Azim Bey was summoned by a message from his father to attend a grand State ceremony, the investment of Ahmed Khémi Pasha with the insignia of a very exalted order sent direct from Constantinople by the hands of a special functionary. The welcome to be accorded to the envoy of the Padishah, and the formalities of the investiture, would occupy the whole day, and Azim Bey resented strongly the command he received to be present. He grumbled for some time because Cecil could not come with him, and went off at last in a very bad temper, leaving her pleasantly occupied in writing her letters home.

It was Um Yusuf who first scented something wrong. Cecil could never discover whether her silent attendant had suspected that mischief was brewing, and had laid her plans accordingly, or not; but it is certain that she could not be found when Azim Bey desired to speak to her, and give her a few directions for her mistress’s comfort before he went out, and that she reappeared some time after his departure, with the excuse that she had met her cousin in the bazaar and had been having a talk with her. This she explained volubly in the presence of Basmeh Kalfa and old Ayesha, and then curled herself up on the carpet for her mid-day nap; but as soon as the other two had dropped off to sleep, she rose, and approaching Cecil with her finger on her lips, laid a note on the table before her. The handwriting was Lady Haigh’s, and Cecil tore the envelope open in alarm. The letter was short:—

“You go, mademoiselle?” asked Um Yusuf in a whisper, as she met Cecil’s terrified eyes. Cecil nodded, and rose from her table. They passed on tiptoe between the sleeping women (Um Yusuf had adroitly placed herself in such a position that they could not block the door) and gained their own rooms. Um Yusuf knew only that the note had been placed in her hand by a cavass from the Consulate, with a warning to deliver it secretly and at once, together with an intimation that the man would wait at a certain spot outside the Palace to escort Mdlle. Antaza to the Residency, if she decided to come. More she could not tell, and Cecil hurried into her riding-habit and arranged the sheet over it. They left the courtyard without remark, for Masûd was in attendance on Azim Bey, and at the great gate the guards knew them and let them pass. They met the cavass at the appointed place, and hastened through the streets to the Residency under his guardianship. At the gate they were met by Mr D’Silva, one of the clerks, who took them to Lady Haigh at once.

“O, Lady Haigh, what is it?” gasped Cecil.

“It is a great trouble, dear,” said Lady Haigh, taking her in her arms.

“Is it Charlie?”

“Yes, dear; it is Charlie.”

CHAPTER XIX.
“BETWIXT MY LOVE AND ME.”

“Is he—is he——” faltered Cecil.

“Not dead, my dear? oh no! how could you imagine that?” cried Lady Haigh, in great excitement; “nor hurt, nor even in danger, I hope, at present. But the horses are ready. Let us start at once, and I will tell you about it as we go along. Mr D’Silva is coming with us.”

They left the Residency and rode in single file through the narrow streets of the city; but once outside the gate, Mr D’Silva withdrew to a respectful distance with the cavasses, and Lady Haigh and Cecil were left side by side.

“Now, Lady Haigh, please tell me,” cried Cecil, whose brain had been busy conjuring up horrors the whole time.

“You must be brave, my dear child, and thankful—thankful that you are able to see Charlie once more, when it was just a chance that they didn’t succeed in keeping you from him.”

“Lady Haigh!” Cecil almost screamed, “they haven’t put him in prison?”

“No, my dear, no. Your imagination certainly dwells on horrors. Wait a little, and I will tell you it all. You know that for some time Charlie has been very unpopular in the city, and that the budmashes, as we should call them in India, have been shouting bad names after him in the streets? Well, it has been a great mystery why this should be, for he got on so very well with the Baghdadis in his first two years here, but now it seems that they have come to regard him in some way as a spy. Of course there has been mischief at work, somebody has been slandering him, but that doesn’t make it any better. Naturally I knew all this, but nothing more, and what has happened to-day has been a tremendous shock. Very early this morning Sir Dugald received a letter from the Pasha, brought by Ovannes Effendi. I don’t know what was in it, but Denarien Bey called just about the same time, and they were all three closeted together. Then Denarien Bey and the other man went away, and Sir Dugald sent for Charlie. I had no idea that there was anything wrong, or even out of the common, and you may conceive my astonishment when Charlie came rushing to me in a fearful state and told me that Sir Dugald had ordered him to proceed at once to Bandr Abbas, right away down the Gulf, and remain there until further orders. They have an outbreak of cholera there, and their doctor is overworked and has telegraphed for help. Of course Charlie didn’t mind the cholera, but he was to start to-day, by the steamer leaving this very morning.”

“Oh, Lady Haigh, he isn’t gone?” cried Cecil.

“You may well be astonished, dear. I assure you I laughed at the notion of such a thing. ‘My dear boy,’ I said to Charlie, ‘you have made some mistake. Wait here, and I will go and speak to Sir Dugald.’ And I went, Cecil, and it was true. Sir Dugald was very busy, getting ready to go to this wretched investiture, and I couldn’t make him tell me all I wanted to know, or else my brain was in such a whirl that it didn’t penetrate properly. All that I could make out was that the Pasha had sent to say that Charlie was a spy, and that he couldn’t have him in the city any longer—which, of course, is utter nonsense—and that he had better leave as soon as possible, for that the budmashes were crying out for his blood. That was true enough, my dear; there was a mob of them in front of the gate howling out the most dreadful things. I never felt so thunderstruck and so much at a loss in my life. It was as if the world’s foundations were shaking, or we were in a transformation scene at a pantomime. There has been absolutely nothing to account for all these extraordinary events, but yet they have happened, and Charlie must go. I begged and entreated Sir Dugald to let him wait for the next steamer, but he asked me whether I wanted to have his blood upon my head, and said he should see him safely on board before he started for this thing. Well, my dear, I saw that there was no doing anything with Sir Dugald, so I went back to poor Charlie. He was nearly wild, and I can tell you I was not much better, what with getting all his things packed in such a hurry, and everything. He wanted to force his way into the Palace and insist on seeing you, but it would have been throwing his life away to venture into the town, and Sir Dugald absolutely forbade it, and told him he would have him put under arrest if he tried it. Then the poor fellow and I managed to devise a plan. I wasn’t going to let him be driven away without saying good-bye to you.”

“Oh, thank you, Lady Haigh,” murmured Cecil, her eyes wet.

“So I made up my mind what to do,” continued Lady Haigh; “I just took the law into my hands, for I knew it was no use speaking to Sir Dugald, and if he is angry I don’t mind.”

“But he couldn’t help all this,” Cecil’s sense of justice impelled her to say. “What could he have done?”

“My dear,” responded Lady Haigh, in the true Jingo spirit, “he could have torn up the Pasha’s letter and sent him back the pieces. He could have said to those two poor wretched Armenians, ‘Go and tell your master, if he wants to get rid of Dr Egerton, to come and turn him out.’ And he could have called out the guard and armed the servants, and defended the Residency as long as there were two stones left on one another, and he ought to have done it, rather than get rid of Charlie at the beck of an upstart like Ahmed Khémi.”

And Lady Haigh paused for breath after this tremendous burst of eloquence.

“But the plan?” asked Cecil. “Where are we going now?”

“I was just telling you, dear. As I said, I took the law into my own hands. I saw the captain of the steamer, and I put the whole affair before him. Sometimes, you know, honesty is really the best policy. I said to him, ‘Captain Wheen, you are a sailor’—that flattered him, because of course his voyages are all confined to the river—‘and I want your help in a very delicate matter. You may have heard that my cousin, Dr Egerton, is ordered down to Bandr Abbas to help with the cholera there. Now he is engaged to the young lady they call Mdlle. Antaza, at the Palace, the Pasha’s English governess, and it will break her heart if he goes without saying good-bye to her.’ I could see that Captain Wheen was very much touched; but he pretended he wasn’t, and said very gruffly, ‘I can’t delay the sailing of the Seleucia for any Pasha or Resident’s lady on earth.’ I said, ‘Captain Wheen, I am sure you know that I would not on any account have you break your rules, or get into trouble with your owners. What I want to say is this. Dr Egerton was to start to-morrow for a little shooting at Takht-Iskandar, and his things were all sent there early to-day before we heard of this. Now I ask you, would it be possible for you to stop off Takht-Iskandar and allow him and his servant to go on shore for an hour or two, to pack up the things and bring them on board? That would give me time to send a note to the Palace, and come out to Takht-Iskandar.’ ‘I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘You see, if we took to letting passengers go on shore where they liked to fetch more luggage, it would sink the ship at last, besides doubling the length of the voyage; but I can tell you this, ma’am, in confidence—the engines of the Seleucia are wonderfully cranky. Now if anything was to go wrong with those engines, and we had to lie-to for an hour or so to set it right, I shouldn’t wonder if it was to happen just off Takht-Iskandar, and then of course the doctor might go on shore and fetch his togs. Now there’s just that chance, ma’am, and it would never surprise me if it was to happen. Engines are queer things,’ and I believe he winked at me. That was all that I could get out of him; but it did what I wanted, so I settled matters with Charlie. He was to make as long a business of his packing as he possibly could, and I was to bring you out to say good-bye to him. I didn’t know how to reach you, for I was afraid they wouldn’t admit me at the Palace; but I thought a note might get in. So I sent it off; but I don’t think it would ever have got to you if Um Yusuf hadn’t met her cousin in the bazaar and loitered talking to her.”

“But why do you think there would have been any difficulty?” asked Cecil.

“My dear, is it possible you don’t see that this is all a plot? There is some deep purpose behind these extraordinary events, and the only purpose I can conceive is that of separating you and Charlie. You tell me that Azim Bey dislikes him, and I can quite believe that he is capable of very strong childish jealousy. Mind, I don’t think he managed all the details. There is some older and wilier person behind—possibly the Um-ul-Pasha or Jamileh Khanum. At any rate, Azim Bey had taken his precautions very carefully, and if he had not been summoned away the note would never have got to you, and Charlie would have gone without your even saying good-bye to him. So, my dear, be thankful.”

“Oh, Lady Haigh!” remonstrated Cecil. She could say no more: the blow was too sudden, too dreadful. She rode along in silence, while Lady Haigh poured forth stores of comfortless comfort, and adjured her to be cheerful when she met Charlie. Cheerful! the very word was a mockery. The gloomy unsettled skies and muddy plain seemed to accord better with her mood than did Lady Haigh’s philosophy. They were approaching Takht-Iskandar now, and everything looked sad and sodden. All the glory of the white and pink and purple fruit-blossom was gone, and little green fruits alone represented the promise of a month ago. The palace, always flimsy and dilapidated-looking, was sorely battered and damaged by the storm of yesterday, and the trees were beaten down and in many cases stripped of their leaves. The riders approached softly along the sandy road, and paused at the corner of the house, where Mr D’Silva left his horse and went on to reconnoitre. Presently he came back, and, helping the two ladies to dismount, led them in at a side-door which was unfastened, and on through various passages and unfurnished rooms until they reached the dining-room, where Charlie, with his Armenian boy Hanna, was engaged in separating his shooting requisites from those of Mr D’Silva—their possessions having been sent on together.

“Well, Charlie,” said Lady Haigh, marching into the room, “doing your guns on this table, are you? Take them away into the smoking-room this instant, Hanna, and finish them there. How long have you been here, Charlie?”

“Hours, Cousin Elma,” groaned Charlie, with Cecil’s hands locked in his.

“Then you had better go back to the Seleucia at once,” said Lady Haigh, promptly.

“One hour, ten minutes, milady,” put in Hanna, as he carried off the guns.

“Then you can have half an hour, Charlie—not a moment more, and even that is trading on Captain Wheen’s kindness in a most shameful way. Mr D’Silva, if you will be so kind as to see that no one interrupts us for half an hour, we shall be eternally grateful to you. We can trust you for that, I think?”

“I am an Englishman, Lady Haigh,” replied Mr D’Silva, more in sorrow than in anger, as he withdrew, quite unconscious that he was saying the very thing which, as Lady Haigh remarked afterwards, when she remembered to be cynical, an Englishman would not have said.

“Now, Charlie,” said Lady Haigh, when he was gone, “make the most of your time. Never mind me,” and she sat down on the divan and composed herself as if for a nap, while Charlie and Cecil wandered to the other end of the room and enjoyed the luxury of being thoroughly miserable. For some time Cecil could do nothing but cry, with her head on Charlie’s shoulder, while he tried to comfort her, but found the situation so devoid of comfort that he failed miserably.

“Ten minutes more,” came in a sepulchral voice from the corner where Lady Haigh sat, engrossed now with a tattered copy of the Army and Navy Stores list. Cecil roused herself with a sob.

“Oh, Charlie,” she said, “what shall I do without you?”

“Look here, my darling,” said Charlie, energetically, struck with a sudden idea; “just listen to me one moment. I can’t bear to leave you here among all these wretches. Will you—could you—marry me at once? If you would, I——”

“Charlie!” was interjected sharply by Lady Haigh.

“I would come back to the Residency, and we could get Dr Yehudi to marry us. Then you would come with me, and we should not be parted after all.”

“I think, young man, you are forgetting that you would have to reckon with Sir Dugald,” said Lady Haigh, grimly. “I am astonished at your innocence. After knocking about the world for so long, can you really imagine that it is as easy to get married as to order your breakfast at a hotel?”

“Besides, I wouldn’t have you venture back into Baghdad for anything,” said Cecil.

“Then I will wait at Basra for three weeks, or as long as the regulations require,” said Charlie, eagerly, “and Cousin Elma will bring you down there. O, Cecil, my darling, do say yes.”

“Oh, Charlie!” sighed Cecil, but in a moment her face changed and grew firm; “I can’t do it—it would be wrong. Why, Charlie, you forget that I am pledged to stay here for more than two years and a half still. I can’t leave my post. My duty is here, and yours, I suppose, is at Bandr Abbas. When Azim Bey’s education is finished, then I shall be at liberty to leave Baghdad, and then——”

“Can’t you come now, dear?” he pleaded. “I don’t want to persuade you if it is really your duty to stay, but I think that Azim Bey’s conduct has not been so considerate that you need strain matters on his account. Think of our going home together, Cecil, and seeing all your people again.”

“Don’t,” murmured Cecil, brokenly; “you make me so miserable, Charlie. You can’t think how I want to see Whitcliffe again, and all of them. But I mustn’t go. It isn’t right. I can’t break my promise. You know you wouldn’t respect me yourself if I did such a thing. So I must stay, and you must go. Besides, there is another reason. If you resigned now, and stayed at Basra, and went home afterwards, instead of going to Bandr Abbas, they would say you were afraid of the cholera, and I couldn’t bear that any one should think that of you. No, I have some consideration for you, Charlie dear, though I have got you into such trouble. I was thinking as we came along that it might have been better for you if you had never met me at all.”

“Not a bit of it!” cried Charlie. “Never think that again, Cecil. Why, before I met you I was a regular loafer, just doing a spell of work in one place and then getting myself sent on somewhere else, and never settling down. But now I have something to work for, something to look forward to. I should have missed the chief good of my life if I had never met you. No, dear, knowing you has done everything for me, and I am as thankful as I can be for it now, and I always shall be. As for this trouble, no doubt it comes because otherwise I should be too happy.”

“Your time is nearly up, Cecil,” said Lady Haigh. “Don’t you want to give Charlie any cautions about taking care of himself at Bandr Abbas?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Cecil. “I know he will do his duty wherever he is, and I also know that he will remember me and not let himself be careless about taking proper precautions, and that sort of thing.”

“And every evening,” said Charlie, “I shall go up to the wind-tower and look in the direction of Baghdad, and imagine that you are standing on the roof of the Palace and looking towards Bandr Abbas.”

“When she will probably be having her tea with Azim Bey quietly in the cellar,” said Lady Haigh. “Don’t be sentimental, Charlie. I detest sentiment.”

“When you leave Bandr Abbas, do you think it possible that you will be allowed to come back here?” asked Cecil.

“I’m afraid not,” said Charlie. “It’s not likely, is it, Cousin Elma? No; I may be sent somewhere else in the Gulf, or to Aden, if Sir Dugald is kind enough to give me a good character, but this business with the Pasha will probably prevent my ever coming back to Baghdad.”

“But the mystery may be cleared up, and everything put right,” suggested Cecil, hopefully. “You would come back if you were asked, Charlie?”

“Rather! I would come back as bottle-washer to a Bengali babu, like the doctor they have at Muscat,” said Charlie, “but I’m afraid the Persian shore of the Gulf will be my nearest point.”

“But, Charlie,” said Lady Haigh, “do you really think of taking another post? You have not been home for a long time, and your property must be all going to rack and ruin. Why not resign when you have seen them through at Bandr Abbas, and go home to look after things a little?”

“I don’t want to go home until I can take Cecil,” said Charlie. “Besides, she prefers me to have something to do instead of loafing.”

“But if you have land and tenants at home, they ought to be looked after,” said Cecil. “I never realised it before.”

“What an unworldly young person you are!” said Charlie. “Yes, there’s all that, but Aunt Frederica looks after it for me.”

“By all means, my dear boy, go home and get the place ready for Cecil, and make acquaintance with her people,” said Lady Haigh. “But don’t let Frederica choose your carpets and curtains for you. Her taste is atrocious. And now, Cecil, you have had thirty-five minutes, so say good-bye and come.”

“Just one minute more, Cousin Elma,” pleaded Charlie.

“Not a second,” said Lady Haigh. “Now, Charlie, not another scene of misery,—I can’t stand it. Say good-bye quickly, my dear boy. If you harrow up Cecil’s feelings again, it will be too much for her.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr D’Silva’s voice at the door, “but the boat is waiting for Dr Egerton.”

“Now, Charlie, my dear boy,” said poor Lady Haigh, entreatingly, as Charlie still stood with his arms round Cecil. “You will get us all into trouble, you know, and we have really done all we could for you, and Sir Dugald will be so much vexed. Good-bye, my dear boy. Now let her go. Take care of yourself, and don’t be rash. No, you are not to come farther than this. I will look after Cecil. My dear child, don’t faint. I don’t know what will happen to us if you do. Charlie, I will not have you come any farther. Go back, and get on board. Mr D’Silva, please give Miss Anstruther your arm to the door. Charlie, go back. My dear boy, good-bye. Give Cecil’s love to her people.”

And Lady Haigh, reiterating her instructions and prohibitions in a voice choked with tears, followed Cecil and Mr D’Silva along the passage, turning suddenly to find that Charlie was following her stealthily, bent on getting another sight of Cecil. She drove him back again with one of her quick bursts of passion, and hurried to the spot where the horses were waiting. She and Mr D’Silva helped Cecil into the saddle, for she was in a numb, dazed condition, and he led her horse through the wood and into the road. Pausing only once, to see the Seleucia passing out of sight round a bend in the stream, they rode swiftly back to Baghdad, which looked dull and miserable under the clouded sky, with mud under foot and sodden palm-trees overhead, and a turbid, rapidly flowing river that could not reflect the mean houses on either side.

When Azim Bey returned that night from the ceremony of the investiture, he was surprised to find his courtyard almost in darkness. Going into the schoolroom, he found that the only light came from the glowing charcoal in the brazier, beside which Cecil was crouching, still in her riding-habit. The wind had risen again, and was howling round the house and in the beams of the roof, and the whole scene was one of desolation.

“Are you ill, mademoiselle?” asked Azim Bey, in the most natural tone he could devise, while one of the negresses followed him in, carrying a torch, which shed a flickering light on the darkness. Cecil said nothing, but looked up at him with eyes of such sadness that they haunted him in spite of his efforts to banish the impression.

“I do not understand you, mademoiselle,” he said, unblushingly, in reply to her unspoken reproof.

“You have driven Dr Egerton away,” she said.

“I ask your pardon, mademoiselle. How was I to know that you had any special interest in the English doctor?”

“But you did know,” said Cecil, wearily. She had not spirit to contend with her pupil that night.

“But, mademoiselle, that is impossible. You have never told me; you would not even let me approach the subject. How was I to know?”

“How can I tell?” asked Cecil. “I feel sure that you did know, and that all this is your doing. Well, Bey, you have won the victory; I hope you enjoy it. Good-night.” And he saw her no more that evening.

CHAPTER XX.
INTERCEPTED LETTERS.

In her own room that night, Cecil, in the first strength of her grief and desolation, took a solemn resolution never on any account to mention Charlie to Azim Bey again. He was jealous of him—well, he should have no more cause to be so. So far as her intercourse with her pupil went, all should be as though Charlie had never existed. In view of the armed neutrality which had hitherto subsisted between them on this subject, it was not, perhaps, quite clear in what way she could do more than she had already done, but it soothed her feelings to make these resolutions. She would never allude to her engagement in conversation with Azim Bey again, no, not if she were dying for a sight of Charlie. Even though all that had happened was to be ascribed to his malevolent interposition, she would never degrade herself and Charlie so far as to seek his help in setting things right, nor yet to recur to the part he had played in the events which had just occurred. After all, she had come to Baghdad to teach Azim Bey, and not to find a husband for herself, and it might be that her pupil considered himself justified in objecting to her interesting herself in such extraneous matters. At any rate, he should not have to complain of this again. She would devote herself more earnestly than ever to his education, but he should never be so far honoured as to have Charlie’s name mentioned in his hearing.

The plan seemed to work beautifully. Cecil laboured long the next morning in removing from her face the traces left by her tears and by an almost sleepless night, and appeared in the schoolroom as if the events of the day before had never occurred. Azim Bey understood the situation perfectly, and accepted it. He was very gracious, and he could afford to be so, for he had gained all he wanted. Nothing could well have been more delightful than his behaviour—it might almost be called chivalrous. If Cecil had not had the memory of yesterday to warn her, she might have been tempted to imagine that her young barbarian was becoming a gentleman; but her eyes were opened now, and she could only wonder and admire, without being convinced.

The days passed on. Sir Dugald received a telegram from Bandr Abbas to say that Charlie had reached that place safely, and found an extraordinary amount of work awaiting him. After that there came a long unbroken silence. From the Indian newspapers, and through official channels, they heard occasionally that the epidemic was running its course, and that the two surgeons were working heroically among the sick and dying, but there did not come one single message from Charlie himself. Cecil was astonished, but she never thought of blaming him. Possibly he would not write to her lest the letter should convey infection, and he was certainly overwhelmed with work, very likely with insufficient leisure even for needed rest. In this belief she bestowed all the more pains on her own letters, doing her best, by means of their fulness and tenderness, to bridge over the distance which separated her from her lover, so far as this could be done from one side only.

At last Sir Dugald received another telegram, which said that before resigning his position under Government, Charlie was making a tour of inspection, in company with a high medical official, of the British settlements in the Gulf. The cholera had been stamped out at Bandr Abbas, and when this tour was over, Charlie was going home. The telegram concluded with the words, “Letters all missed,” which seemed to shed a little light on the mystery of the sender’s long silence. No doubt he had written, but in some way or other all his letters had gone astray. It was strange, however, that even after this none arrived. Sir Dugald expressed it as his opinion that Charlie must go about looking for pumps in which to post his letters, under the impression that they were pillar-boxes; but Lady Haigh and Cecil held firmly to the belief that, moving about as he was from place to place, he was too busy to write. In vain did Sir Dugald, who had assumed quite a paternal authority over Cecil since their confidential talk on the Sunday preceding Charlie’s departure, urge her to bring her lover to a sense of his undeserved blessings by suspending her own letters for a time—she felt that this was impossible. The long journal-letters supplied the place to her of the Sunday afternoon talks which she had been accustomed to enjoy. A third telegram informed them that Charlie was going home, and gave his English address very clearly. “Letters still gone wrong,” it said again, and Cecil triumphed over Sir Dugald, although he told her that she was only saving Charlie’s character as a lover at the expense of his common-sense.

The news of Dr Egerton’s resignation of his post was now public property, and people began to perceive merits which they had hitherto ignored in the way he had performed his duties. His colleague at Bandr Abbas and the rest of the English community there were loud in their praises of his behaviour during the epidemic, and this caused his former adventurous journeys, undertaken for the purpose of investigating the diffusion of the disease, to be brought to mind. Even the fact of his having been instrumental in checking the spread of a cholera epidemic in his former post,—a success which had been followed, as he had told Cecil bitterly long before, by his enforced resignation,—was recalled, and one or two very hard things were said of the superior who had insisted on his removal. In fact, he was the hero of the hour among a certain set in India, chiefly consisting, it is to be feared, of those who had been disappointed and passed over, like himself, but numbering in their ranks some few who could command a hearing in the Press. The remarks of the Indian papers were balm to the souls of Cecil and Lady Haigh, and they read with avidity all that was said in Charlie’s praise, although Lady Haigh once remarked sadly—

“It all comes too late, Cecil. A little of this encouragement and appreciation, bestowed three years ago, would have saved this ‘valuable public servant,’ whose loss they deplore so feelingly, to the public service, for he would have stayed in India, and persevered in trying for a better post, instead of taking this as a forlorn-hope.”

“And then we should never have met!” said Cecil. “Well, Lady Haigh, I am sorry if you are.”

To which no answer could be made, and Lady Haigh ceased her lamentations. But time was passing on, and still there came no news from Charlie, with the exception of one telegram announcing his safe arrival in England. Things were becoming more and more mysterious. Why should four telegrams alone, all addressed to Sir Dugald, arrive out of all the missives which it was tolerably certain Charlie had sent off? Cecil felt sure that he could never have received her letters without answering them; what, then, had become of the answers? It was not until Christmas-time that the mystery was solved. Cecil was at the Residency as usual, and when the mail came in she looked eagerly to see whether there were any letters for her. Again she was disappointed; there was only one, and this was a bulky epistle from her stepmother. The appearance of the letter was characteristic of the writer. The many closely-written sheets were stuffed into a thin envelope much too small for them, and this had naturally resented such treatment by giving way, in consequence of which it had been “found open, and officially sealed.” The direction was blotted and irregular, and had evidently been written in a violent hurry; and the stamp, which was upside down, was of double the proper value. Cecil laughed at the appearance of the envelope, and mentally pictured little Mrs Anstruther writing in feverish haste to catch the mail, and scrambling the letter into the post just in time. As usual, the first page was dated about a fortnight earlier than the last, and Cecil hurried on to the end. Here at last was the news for which she had been longing.

“Oh, my dear Cecil,” wrote Mrs Anstruther, “we have had such a delightful surprise. Your friend Dr Egerton came to see us yesterday, and we talked about you for hours and hours. Your father and I are greatly pleased with him, and the little children love him already. He is staying at the Imperial Hotel, and his aunt is there too, but she has not her health here, and I don’t think this place suits her. They seem very well off, and Fitz says that one of the boys at the school told him that Dr Egerton has really an immensity of money, for it has been accumulating for him ever since he has been in the East. But, dear childie, why don’t you write to him? Indeed, indeed, I think you are not treating him well. He says he has never had one single line from you, though he has written to you every week. It is not kind of you, and we were so greatly astonished to hear it that we couldn’t think of any excuses for you. Sure the poor boy”—these four words were scratched out, for Mrs Anstruther flattered herself that both her literary style and her accent were extremely English—“Poor Dr Egerton is deeply in love with you, but he said himself he could not understand it. Indeed he was in a great state lest something had happened to you, but we were able to reassure him about that——”

Cecil read thus far, and then looked up with a horrified face.

“Lady Haigh!” she gasped, “every one of my letters has missed, as well as Charlie’s. What can it be?”

“Impossible, my dear!” cried Lady Haigh, briskly. “You must have mistaken what he says. Is his letter from home?”

“It isn’t from him even now,” said Cecil. “It’s from Mrs Anstruther. There must have been some dreadful mistake, and what can we do?”

“I think this concerns you rather than myself, Miss Anstruther,” said Sir Dugald, coming into the room. “I hope I haven’t read much of it, but I really did not see at first that the letter which I was desired under such fearful penalties to deliver to you was on the same sheet as my own.”

He held out a letter in Charlie’s writing, which Cecil almost snatched from his hand. As he said, the first page was occupied by an earnest request to him to give the letter into Miss Anstruther’s own hands, as the writer could not help thinking that there had been foul play hitherto with regard to their correspondence. The other three pages contained the letter proper, closely written, and overflowing with passionate anxiety.

“My darling,” Charlie concluded, “I am certain there must be something wrong, or you would never have left me without a line all these months. I heard from D’Silva the other day that that fellow Karalampi had been at the Residency a good deal lately, and I should not wonder if he had something to do with it. I do entreat you not on any account to trust him in the very smallest matter. The man is capable of anything. I am consumed with anxiety about you. I was talking yesterday about going out at once to see you and find out what was the matter, but your father said I should only bring you into trouble, and entreated me not to think of such a thing. Dearest, you know I would do anything rather than get you into trouble; but if I can be of the very smallest help or use to you, let me have a wire, and I will start at an hour’s notice. Only write, my darling, or I shall go mad.”