“There is nothing I should like better, Quatermain.  Circumstances have put me in a certain position in this country, still to tell you the truth there is a great deal about the life of which I grow very tired.  But you see I am going to be married, and that I fear means an end of travelling, since naturally my wife will wish to take her place in society and the rest.”

“Of course,” I replied, “for it is not every young lady who has the luck to become an English peeress with all the etceteras, is it?  Still I am not so sure but that Miss Holmes will take to travelling some day, although I am sure that she would do better to stay at home.”

He looked at me curiously, then asked,

“You don’t think there is anything really serious in all this business, do you?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I answered, “except that you will do well to keep a good eye upon your wife.  What those Easterns tried to do last night and, I think, years ago, they may try again soon, or years hence, for evidently they are patient and determined men with much to win.  Also it is a curious coincidence that she should have that mark upon her which appeals so strongly to Messrs. Harut and Marut, and, to be brief, she is in some ways different from most young women.  As she said to me herself last night, Lord Ragnall, we are surrounded by mysteries; mysteries of blood, of inherited spirit, of this world generally in which it is probable that we all descended from quite a few common ancestors.  And beyond these are other mysteries of the measureless universe to which we belong, that may already be exercising their strong and secret influences upon us, as perhaps, did we know it, they have done for millions of years in the Infinite whence we came and whither we go.”

I suppose I spoke somewhat solemnly, for he said,

“Do you know you frighten me a little, though I don’t quite understand what you mean.”  Then we parted.

With Miss Holmes my conversation was shorter.  She remarked,

“It has been a great pleasure to me to meet you.  I do not remember anybody with whom I have found myself in so much sympathy—­except one of course.  It is strange to think that when we meet again I shall be a married woman.”

“I do not suppose we shall ever meet again, Miss Holmes.  Your life is here, mine is in the wildest places of a wild land far away.”

“Oh! yes, we shall,” she answered.  “I learned this and lots of other things when I held my head in that smoke last night.”

Then we also parted.

Lastly Mr. Savage arrived with my coat.  “Goodbye, Mr. Quatermain,” he said.  “If I forget everything else I shall never forget you and those villains, Harum and Scarum and their snakes.  I hope it won’t be my lot ever to clap eyes on them again, Mr. Quatermain, and yet somehow I don’t feel so sure of that.”

“Nor do I,” I replied, with a kind of inspiration, after which followed the episode of the rejected tip.