her hand lightly upon the ungloved paw that rested on the
turned-back 'rickshaw hood, and, looking the man full in the face,
said tenderly, almost too tenderly, 'I believe in you if you mistrust
yourself. Is that enough, my friend?'

'It is enough,' answered Otis very solemnly.

He was silent for a long time, redreaming the dreams that he had
dreamed eight years ago, but through them all ran, as
sheet-lightning through golden cloud, the light of Mrs. Hauksbee's
violet eyes.

Curious and impenetrable are the mazes of Simla life the only
existence in this desolate land worth the living. Gradually it went
abroad among men and women, in the pauses between dance, play,
and Gymkhana, that Otis Yeere, the man with the newly-lit light of
self-confidence in his eyes, had 'done something decent' in the
wilds whence he came. He had brought an erring Municipality to
reason, appropriated the funds on his own responsibility, and saved
the lives of hundreds. He knew more about the Gullals than any
living man. Had a vast knowledge of the aboriginal tribes; was, in
spite of his juniority, the greatest authority on the aboriginal
Gullals. No one quite knew who or what the Gullals were till The
Mussuck, who had been calling on Mrs. Hauksbee, and prided
himself upon picking people's brains, explained they were a tribe
of ferocious hillmen, somewhere near Sikkim, whose friendship
even the Great Indian Empire would find it worth her while to
secure. Now we know that Otis Yeere had showed Mrs. Hauksbee
his MS. notes of six years' standing on these same Gullals. He had
told her, too, how, sick and shaken with the fever their negligence