But shortly this movement ceased.

The recollection of the forlorn and loveless years--stirred into consciousness by the unexpected confrontation--bent her as the high wind bends the water-reed.
"My father!" she whispered.

"My own father!" Queerly the room and its objects receded and vanished; and there intervened a series of mental pictures that so long as she lived would ever be recurring.

She saw the moonlit waters, the black shadow of the proa, the moon-fire that ran down the far edge of the bellying sail, the silent natives: no sound except the slapping of the outrigger and the low sibilant murmur of water falling away from the sides--and the beating of her heart.

The flight.
How she had fought her eagerness in the beginning, lest it reveal her ignorance of the marvels of mankind! The terror and ecstasy of that night in Singapore--the first city she had ever seen! There was still the impression that something akin to a miracle had piloted her successfully from one ordeal to another.
The clerk at the Raffles Hotel had accorded her but scant interest.
She had, it was true, accepted doubtfully the pen he had offered.
She had not been sufficiently prompted in relation to the ways of caravansaries; but her mind had been alert and receptive.