might account for it, to some extent, so he braced himself for the
effort to restore her self-control.

"I came here to have a good look at the desert by night," he said. "You
may be sure, Miss Fenshawe, that I had little notion you were searching
for me. It was by the merest accident that I was able to stow myself
out of sight in this particular locality."

She laughed softly again, and her manner became perceptibly less
constrained.

"A big man and a small ship--is that it?" she asked. "Tell me, Mr.
Royson, why did that officer of the Guards call you 'King Dick' on the
morning of the carriage accident?"

Had the girl racked her brain for a day to frame a question intended to
perplex Royson she could not have hit on one of more penetrating
effect. He was astounded not because she had heard Paton's exclamation,
but by reason of the flood of light which her recollection of it at
that moment poured on his own wandering thoughts.

"It is a most amazing thing that you should ask me that, Miss
Fenshawe," he cried.

"Sh-s-s-h. I have always imagined you to be a man who would smile in
the midst of earthquakes, yet here you are quite dazzled by a harmless
bit of feminine curiosity. Don't you wish me to know how you came by
that nickname? I suppose it is one?"

"There is no other in whom I would confide so willingly," he said.