I would say to John that she had brought a new element into our lives--she had indeed!--and John would reply, 'I know what you mean,' and go on to prophesy that she would 'bind us together.' We didn't need binding together; we were more to each other, there in the desolation of that arid frontier outpost, than most husbands and wives; but it seemed a proper and hopeful thing to believe, so we believed it.

Of course, the real experience would have come, we weren't monsters; but fate curtailed the opportunity.

She was just five weeks old when the doctor told us that we must either pack her home immediately or lose her, and the very next day John went down with enteric.

So Cecily was sent to England with a sergeant's wife who had lost her twins, and I settled down under the direction of a native doctor, to fight for my husband's life, without ice or proper food, or sickroom comforts of any sort.

Ah! Fort Samila, with the sun glaring up from the sand!--however, it is a long time ago now.