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“I must go!—really must,” she whispered, “even if I have to make the circumstances.”

“Oh, ye who may survive me when the spring returns,

Remember how I loved its loveliness.”

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IT was at the Club, only a few days later, where the Doctor met Professor Cultus. The usual preliminaries of greeting had hardly passed from hearing before the Professor seemed unusually anxious to know certain details about the Far East, details about modes of travel and such things,—in fact, asked so many questions quite unlike his usual mode of conversation, that the Doctor pricked up his ears with delight, evidently having some suspicions, and finally asked the direct question: “Why don’t you go and see for yourself?”

Professor Cultus laughed, and then frankly acknowledged the situation: “Mrs. Cultus and Adele are so bent on seeing the Orient before it becomes civilized, as they evidently expect, that I have no peace. Mrs. Cultus is reading ‘O. K.’ between the lines of ‘The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney,’ as if one ought to throw some light upon the other. She says she wants to make the acquaintance of some of those Khidmatgars and Maharajas while they yet stand upon their native heath. I’ve told her they don’t wear kilts like MacGregor, but ’twas no use. She immediately wished to know what they did wear. I suppose I’m in for it. They’ve been talking the matter over at intervals all winter, but now! now! O now! we have it from thin soup to thick coffee.”