no duty to consider, and as I have given up my practice, I have no patients to give me any concern. But how shall I get back to England later on?"
"I will arrange that you shall be sent down to Torres Straits, and you can go home via Australia, if that will suit yon. Never fear, I wall attend to that part of it when it becomes necessary."
"Then I will go with you."
"I thank you. Good-night!"
I bade her good-night, and she left me to go to her room. As, however, I was in no humour for sleeping myself, I stayed in the verandah, looking down the quaint lamp-lit street, along which only an occasional belated foot passenger, a Sikh policeman or two, and a few tired rickshaw coolies wended their way. I was thinking of the strangeness of my position. When I came to work it out, and to review the whole chain of events dispassionately, it seemed almost incredible. I could hardly believe that George De Normanville the staid medical man, and George De Normanville the lover of the Beautiful White Devil, and assistant in a scheme for abducting one of Singapore's most prominent citizens, were one and the same person. However, I was thoroughly content; Alie loved me, and I wanted nothing more.
Next morning, after breakfast, I discovered that Miss Sanderson and her companion were setting off for a day's pleasuring, and that Mr, Ebbington was to be their sole conductor and escort. It was noticeable that he had donned a new suit of clothes in honour of the occasion, and I saw that he wore a sprig of japonica in his buttonhole. From his expression I concluded
