"It must therefore be Number Four, so I packed up my writing things and set off to rejoin my servant at Number Three. How childish we are! As I trudged along I caught myself smiling more than once over the recollection of Dot's mischievous face at the door. My servant was patiently awaiting my arrival beside the dinner he had cooked for me. Supposing I had not turned up--according to my original plan--he would have waited calmly all night long, keeping his '_clear soup, chikhun cutlet, custel pudden_' hot for a dead man. I must have been less mad, for the humour of the idea struck me at the time, and I laughed. He gravely asked why I had not brought on my pillow and sheets, and I laughed again as I told him I meant to do without them in the future. Everything was clear now. Fate had settled on Number Four, so there was nothing to worry or hustle about. I bade him call me early, determined this time to have all the day to myself. Then I fell asleep to dream the night long of Dot and the revolver. Indeed my thoughts were so full of her, that even when I woke I fancied, more than once, that I heard her voice in the verandah, though I knew it could only be a trick of fancy, for the bungalow was a perfect wreck, and even the room I occupied had but half a roof.
"It must have been about eleven o'clock ere I reached Number Four, which stood off the road a little and was much smaller than any of the other bungalows. Indeed it consisted of but two rooms opening the one into the other. It looked the very picture of desolation, planted square in the open with a single _kikar_ tree struggling for life in one corner of the enclosure. Yet it was the best preserved of all the patrol-houses; perhaps because of its smaller size and greater compactness. Anyhow it needed little to fit it for habitation, and as I found out afterwards it was constantly used by the civil officers when on their tours of inspection. At the time, however, I was surprised to find signs of recent occupation about it in the shape of earthen pots and half-burnt sticks in a mud fireplace. Going into the outer room I found it contained, like Number Two, a few bits of furniture, and feeling weary I sat down by the table without looking into the other room, only a portion of which was visible through the half-closed door.