Once her attention was caught and held by Desmond's sword and revolver, laid ready on a small table. She regarded them with a kind of fearful fascination. They were no longer mere ornaments of his uniform, but actual death-dealers, going forth to do murderous work. The short blue muzzle of the revolver had a sinister look, and a point of light at the tip winked like a mocking eye.

"Theo," she said suddenly in an awe-struck undertone, "do you know what I was dreaming when you woke me? I dreamt that you were fighting with Afridis,—ever so many of them,—and you were all alone. I thought they were going to—kill you every minute. They were running after you——"

Here Desmond dispelled the tragic vision with a shout of laughter.

"They'll never get the chance to do that, Ladybird, so long as I have the use of my bare hands, let alone my sword!"

"But, Theo, just think, if you were all alone, and you were bound to get killed if you stayed, and there was me at home praying to get you back safe; wouldn't you be allowed to run away—even then?"

Desmond smiled; but he did not answer at once. The ludicrous suggestion, with its unconscious touch of pathos, hurt him more than he cared to acknowledge.

"It isn't a case of being allowed," he said. "I should never be left quite alone like that; and anyway, they don't lay down a code of morals for us in the Queen's Regulations. It is understood that a British officer will play the man, even in desperate straits."

She knitted her brows wistfully. "Yes, of course. Only—it seems rather hard on—the wives and mothers."

"You never said a truer word, little woman. That's why they need to have such good grit in them,—don't you see?"

"Yes—I see. But mayn't you just get out of the way of a bullet if you happen to see it coming?"

Desmond shook his head.

"One generally happens to feel it before one gets a chance of seeing it," he said. "But now, let's have done with nonsense. Buckle on my sword and we'll go to breakfast. The whole house is astir."

She set the leathern belt round his waist, and tried to fasten it; but her fingers trembled in spite of herself, and a mist blinded her eyes. He took the heavy strap from her very gently, and fastened it himself.

"You won't change and ride out a little way with us as the others mean to?" he asked.

"N—no; I couldn't. I don't want to make you ashamed of me, Theo."

For answer he held out his arms; and there was a long silence in the dimly lighted room.

Then he led her to the door of their room, and himself went out to the breakfast-table with a brisk elasticity of tread. He would not have been the man he was, if even the pang of parting could altogether quench his ardour to be gone.

In the dining-room he found Honor ready equipped for the start. She looked paler than usual, and there were blue shadows under her eyes; but she answered his greeting cheerfully enough, and busied herself with pouring out his tea.

"Ladybird is changing into a morning gown," he explained. "She never went to bed last night poor child!"

"Oh, I wish I had known that! I did my best to comfort her."

"So she told me: and you succeeded. You generally do."

He glanced at her thoughtfully, a shade of anxiety in his eyes. "You're not looking as fit yourself as you did a fortnight ago," he said.

"Don't talk nonsense," she answered with a touch of impatience.

"Well, I hope it may be nonsense. But I feel responsible for you. Take good care of yourself, please, while I am away; and—take care of my Ladybird as well.... Hullo, there's Paul!"

Wyndham entered as he spoke, wearing the undress uniform of station life: and Honor had seldom been so glad to see him as at that moment.

The two men stood facing one another for quite a long time. Then they smiled, and sat down to breakfast. Both knew that in that long look they had said all that need ever be said between them and it sufficed.

Evelyn came in a few minutes later, pale and subdued, but not uncheerful. Her real sorrow, and no less real determination to control it, gave a rare touch of dignity to the grace and simplicity that were hers by nature;—a fact which her husband was quick to perceive and admire. Both men, by a natural instinct, were a trifle more attentive to her than usual, without the least hint of intrusion upon the privacy of her grief; and it is in just such acts of unobtrusive chivalry that Englishmen, of the best type, stand unrivalled throughout the world.

The meal over, Evelyn accompanied them into the verandah, and stood smiling and waving her hand to them as they rode away, with a composure born of a stunned sense of the unreality of it all. Theo was just going down to the Lines, and he would be back to tiffin as a matter of course. Nevertheless, half an hour later the rims of her eyes were again reddened with weeping: and donning a sun-hat, she hurried out to a point where she could watch the little force move across the space of open country between the cantonment and the bastioned fort that stands at the entrance to the hills.

By the time Evelyn reached her coign of vantage, the cavalcade was already nearing the prescribed mile where the final parting would take place, to the strains of "Auld Lang Syne"; a piece of gratuitous torment, honoured by custom, which many would have willingly foregone.

The slowly retreating mass, half enveloped in dust, showed a few shades darker than the desert itself. A patch of vermilion indicated the Pioneer band, now blaring forth, with placid unconcern, "The Girl I Left Behind Me!" Lesser specks denoted officers, riding out, like the rest of the station, to speed the parting troops.

The cavalry riding in the van were a mere moving dust-cloud, followed by artillery, infantry, ambulance doolies, borne by half-naked Kahars; while a jumble of men and animals, camp-followers and transport, formed, as it were, a disorderly tail to the more compact body. Camels, groaning under tent-poles and heavy baggage, shuffled and swayed on the outskirts, with leisurely contempt; grass-cutters bobbed cheerfully along on ponies of no birth or breeding, that appeared oddly misshapen under vast loads of grass: and at the last came miniature transport carts, closely followed by the rear-guard, a mixed body of all arms.

While Evelyn still watched, the halt was called, and the disturbing strains of parting reached her where she stood. Hill, plain, and nearer objects lost their crispness of outline; and she went back to the silent house awaiting her,—the lively strains of the return march already sounding in her ears.

As she stood still for a moment, fighting against her emotion, Owen Kresney rode past. She barely acknowledged his greeting; and he had the tact to pass on without speech. For the man saw plainly that the coveted opportunity for striking a blow at Desmond, behind his back, was very near at hand; and he could afford to bide his time.



CHAPTER XX.

THE DEVIL'S PECULIARITY?

"This is the devil's peculiarity, he attacks us through our softest places." —SUDERMANN.

After the departure of the troops, life settled down gradually into its normal groove.

Frank Olliver had moved into the blue bungalow, at Desmond's request, an arrangement more satisfying to Honor than to his wife; and the Pioneer Regiment from Pindi had added a couple of ladies to the station. These were made welcome with the prompt friendliness which is India's distinctive charm; and the bachelors, in due course, made the circuit of Kohat's handful of bungalows. The station was a few degrees less cheerful, owing to the absence of its own particular men; but in India spirits must be kept up at all costs, if only as an antidote to the moral microbes of the land; and the usual small sociabilities flourished accordingly.

Evelyn took part in these at first with a chastened air. Not that she assumed what she did not feel; but that her grief, when it reached a less acute stage, gave her a soothing sense of importance; a kind of dismal distinction, such as a child feels in the possession of a badly cut finger or a loose tooth. The wind bloweth where it listeth; and such thistledown natures are entirely at its mercy. They cannot take deep root, even where they would. For them the near triumphs over the far. Like Esau, they will sell their birthright cheerfully for a mess of pottage; and they are the raw material of half the tragedies in the world.

Thus, with the passing of uneventful days, Evelyn began to find it rather uninteresting to be quietly and comfortably unhappy; and the aspect of subdued plaintiveness which she half consciously adopted was, in truth, singularly becoming. She was one of those favoured women who have the good fortune to do most things becomingly. Her very tears became her, as dewdrops do a rose.

Frank commented on the fact to Honor, in characteristic fashion.

"Sure, 'tis a thousand pities we can't all of us look so pretty when we put on a melancholy face! It makes me look such a scarecrow meself, that I'm bound to keep on smiling, out o' sheer vanity, even if me heart's in two!"

"That's one way of putting it," Honor answered, with a very soft light in her eyes. She had begun to understand lately that this brave woman was by no means so inured to the hardship and danger of the men she loved as she would fain have them and the world believe: and the two drew very near to one another in these weeks of eager looking for news from the hills.

It is not to be supposed that Kresney failed to observe the gradual change in Evelyn's bearing. The man displayed remarkable tact and skill in detecting the psychological moment for advance. He contented himself at first with conversations in the Club Gardens and an air of deferential sympathy, which was in itself a subtle form of flattery. But on a certain afternoon of regimental sports, when Evelyn appeared, radiant and smiling, in one of her most irresistible Simla frocks, with an obviously appreciative Pioneer subaltern in attendance, Kresney perceived that the time to assert himself had arrived.

After a short but decisive engagement, he routed that indignant subaltern; and with a quiet assurance which by no means displeased her, took and kept possession of Mrs Desmond for the remainder of the afternoon.

That evening he enjoyed his after-dinner cigar as he had not enjoyed it for many weeks. Mrs Desmond was obviously tired of her pretty pathetic pose; and he intended to avail himself to the utmost of her rebound towards lightheartedness. He flattered himself that he read her like an open book; that she would be as wax in his hands if he chose to push his advantage. But for all his acuteness, he failed to detect the one good grain hid in a bushel of chaff; or to perceive that it was not indifference, but the very burden of her anxiety, that drove Evelyn to seek distraction in the form of any amusement lying near to her hand.

Letters from the Samana were few and brief. The last ones had brought news that the expedition seemed likely to prove a more serious affair than had been anticipated. Unknown to Honor, Evelyn cried herself to sleep that night, and awoke to the decision that she would not be so foolishly unhappy any more. She would shut her eyes to the haunting horrors, and forget. Theo had forbidden her to make herself too miserable. Why should she not obey him? And she proceeded to do so in her own equivocal fashion.

After the first effort it was fatally easy to slip back into the old habit of accepting Kresney's companionship, and his frequent invitations to the house;—fatally easy to slip even a few degrees farther without the smallest suspicion of his hand on the reins. She took to riding with him—sometimes in the early mornings, sometimes in the evenings; and these leisurely rides—for Evelyn was no horsewoman—suited Kresney's taste infinitely better than tennis. By cautious degrees they increased in frequency and duration; till it became evident to the least observant that little Mrs Desmond was consoling herself to good purpose.

Honor watched the new trend of events with suppressed wrath and disgust. That a woman who had won the love of Theo Desmond should descend, even for passing amusement, upon such a travesty of manhood, roused in her a bitterness of rebellion which she had no right to feel; but which, being only human, she could not altogether banish from her heart. Nor were matters made easier by Frank Olliver's periodical outbursts on the subject. The hot-headed Irishwoman had a large share of the unreasoning prejudice of her race. She hated as she loved, wholesale, and without reason. She could make no shadow of excuse for Evelyn Desmond; and was only restrained from speaking out her mind by a wholesome fear of her own temper, and a desire to avoid a serious breach with Theo Desmond's wife. But with Honor it was otherwise. Honor, she maintained, had a right to speak, and no right to be silent; and goaded thus, the girl did at length make a tentative effort at remonstrance.

But upon her first words Evelyn flushed hotly.

"For goodness' sake, Honor, don't start interfering again!" she said, in a tone which effectually quenched further discussion.

Thus, without definite intention, they drifted a little apart. Honor, haunted by a sense of having failed Theo at a time of need, found what consolation she might in her growing intimacy with Paul Wyndham; while Evelyn went on her way unchallenged, blind to every consideration but the need of escape from the haunting dread that she would never see her husband again. The dissonance between her feelings and her actions troubled her no whit. Her notions of loyalty were peculiar and inconsistent, like herself; and it is probable that she never gave a thought to Kresney's interpretation of her conduct, or to the dangerous nature of the game she was playing.

The man himself was well content, and increasingly self-satisfied. He could be an intelligent and mildly amusing companion, when it served his turn; and he was beginning to lose sight of Desmond in keen enjoyment of the oldest pastime in the world. They fell into occasional spells of silence now as they rode—silence such as familiarity breeds, and which is not without a degree of danger at a certain stage of intimacy between a man and a woman.

They had been riding thus, for some time, on an afternoon of early March. Their horses' heads had been turned homeward; for the sun was near to setting, and on the Frontier it is unsafe to be out after dusk. Evelyn's reins lay loose upon the grey mare's neck and her long lashes shadowed her cheek. She seemed to have forgotten her companion's presence. Kresney's eyes rested speculatively on her finely chiselled profile. He found her, on close acquaintance, more charming than he had expected. She possessed an elusiveness that captivates more surely than beauty. A man could never feel quite certain of her. She had not been in a very "coming-on disposition" that afternoon. His interest was piqued in consequence, and he was in the mood to dare a good deal.

He would have given much to know what she was thinking of; and the knowledge would have administered a wholesome shock to his vanity. He decided to surprise her with the question, and read the answer in her too expressive face.

"What is the absorbing subject?" he demanded suddenly. His tone was a sufficient index of his progress during the past fortnight.

She flushed and laughed softly, without looking up; and he drew his own conclusions.

"I don't tell my thoughts! But I'm sorry if I was rude. I was thinking, for one thing," she added lightly and mendaciously, "that I wish it was nearer time to go up to the Hills."

"I don't wonder at that. You're wasted in a place like Kohat."

"That's rubbish!" she rebuked him. But her pleasure in the words was self-evident.

"And that's modesty!" he capped her promptly, enjoying the deepening carnation of the cheek turned towards him. "Will it be Murree again this year?"

"Yes; I suppose so." She spoke without enthusiasm.

"Wouldn't you prefer Simla?"

"Well, naturally—a thousand times."

"Then why not go there? I would come up too, like a shot. I can get a couple of months this year, and we'd have a ripping time of it. Shall we call it settled—eh?"

She sighed and shook her head.

"It's too expensive. Besides, there seems to be something wrong with Simla. My husband doesn't like it much; nor does Honor."

The implication in Kresney's laugh was lost upon Evelyn Desmond.

"Oh, well, of course Simla isn't much of a place for husbands," he explained loftily, "or for girls. It's the bachelors who have a good time there,—and the married women."

"Is it? How odd! I should think anybody who cared about dancing and acting, and all that sort of thing, would be bound to have a lovely time in Simla."

She looked him so simply and straightly in the face that he felt unaccountably ashamed of his questionable remark, and the laugh that had preceded it—a sensation to which he was little accustomed.

"Yes, yes; daresay you're right," he agreed airily. "But if you're so keen about the place, why not insist upon going? Wives don't trouble overmuch about obedience nowadays; most of them seem to do whatever they please."

"Do they? Well, then, I suppose it pleases me to go where my husband likes best."

"Very dutiful, indeed!" A shadow of a sneer lurked beneath his bantering tone, and she reddened again.

"It's not dutiful at all. It's simply because——" She broke off short. "Oh, I think you're horrid this afternoon. I expect people to make themselves pleasant when I let them come out with me."

"Well, I'm sure I do my best. But one can never tell where to have you. Goodness knows I've shown you plainly that I'm ready to be your friend—to any extent; and you've seemed to accept it readily enough——"

"Well, of course. I like men to like me. I always did——"

"Men?"

"Yes, men," she nodded, smiling. "I don't trouble much about women—except Honor; and she's worth all the men in creation put together."

"Desmond included?" Again the covert sneer lurked in his tone, and she drew herself up with a pretty air of dignity.

"That's not any concern of yours."

"But I tell you it is!" He pressed closer. "More than you've chosen to realise so far. D'you suppose you can go on indefinitely blowing hot and cold with a man; snubbing him one minute and drawing him on the next?"

"Oh dear! Oh dear! I never bother to suppose things! Haven't I said that if you want me to be nice, you mustn't plague me with stupid questions? At any rate, you're seeing a lot of me now. And you're riding a lot with me now—isn't that enough?"

"No. It's not enough, Mrs Desmond—Evelyn——"

"Oh, hush—hush! You mustn't say that!" she murmured ineffectually; but he paid no heed.

"You find this sort of thing pleasant enough while Desmond's away; but will you keep it up when he comes back? Tell me that——" He leaned closer; but she turned her head away, avoiding his gaze.

"Oh, I don't know. How can I possibly tell?" she answered, half plaintively, half petulantly. "Why are men so tiresome? They never seem able to enjoy things peaceably without making tragedies and getting too much in earnest——"

"But how if I am in earnest—in desperate earnest?"

He spoke with sudden vehemence. Something in his tone startled her into a recollection of the incident at Lahore. And there was no Theo at hand to protect her now.

Forgetful of the loosened rein, and of her insecure hold on the stirrup, she struck the mare more sharply than she knew. The astonished animal bounded forward, stumbled on a round stone, and came down on her knees, pitching Evelyn over her head into the dust of the metalled road.

Kresney stifled an oath. "What the devil did the little fool do that for?" he muttered between his teeth.

Springing to the ground, he shouted to a passing native child to hold the two horses, and hurried to Evelyn's side, reflecting as he went that, if she were not seriously injured, the accident might have its advantages. She was on her knees when he reached her, and was pressing both hands to her temples.

"Are you badly hurt?" he asked, anger banished by real anxiety.

"I don't—know. Oh—my head—my head!"

The words ended in a sob; she swayed as if she would fall, and quick as thought his arm went round her, pressing her close. But at his touch she recovered herself as if by magic; and pushing him fiercely aside, staggered panting to her feet.

Kresney stood regarding her for a moment, an evil expression in his eyes.

"Well, I'm damned!" he broke out at length. "I'm not a disease that you should shake me off in that fashion."

"I'm sorry," she said with quick-coming breaths. "You meant to be kind, I know, but—don't touch me again, please."

"I only wanted to keep you from falling in the dust," he retorted huffily.

"I know. But—I would rather fall in the dust."

She spoke almost in a whisper, yet with such obvious sincerity that he set his teeth viciously and answered nothing.

She remained standing before him, helpless, tantalising, unapproachable, in her childlike dignity. Her head was dazed and throbbing. Her knees shook under her so persistently that she gave it up at last, and sank down in the road, covering her face with her hands.

"Oh, how am I going to get home?" she moaned, more to herself than to him.

He came and stood near her again. He was surprised to find how keenly her distress hurt him, and now that his anger was past, her flash of independence made her more alluring than ever.

"If you won't let me lay a finger on you," he said in an altered tone, "I don't see how I can be any use. But if you will condescend to use me as a prop, I'll put you up on the mare, and walk beside you; then you can hold on to me if you feel shaky. We are not far off now, and the boy can take my pony on. Will that suit you?"

She looked up gratefully through a mist of tears.

"Thank you. It is nice of you to be so kind to me after—what I said."

"No man in his senses could be anything but kind to you." And bending down he once more encircled her with his arm, raising her to her feet, and taking his time over the proceeding. For an instant, in mere weakness, she leaned her light weight upon him; and his sense of triumph was complete.

"No hurry," he assured her gently. "You're very shaky still, you know."

But she stiffened at the cautious tightening of his arm, and stumbled forward, so that he had some ado to repress his irritation.

He lifted her to the saddle; and, seemingly oblivious that he had offered himself as a mere prop, took such full advantage of the permission to support her till they reached the bungalow, that she was vaguely troubled, though too dazed and shaken to attempt further remonstrance.

"May I come in?" he asked, as he set her on the ground.

"Yes, please come. Won't you stay to dinner?"

"I should like to, awfully."

"Very well then, do."

She managed to walk into the drawing-room; but as he laid her on the sofa, her head fell limply backward, and she fainted.

He stood watching her intently for a few seconds. Then he bent over her, low and lower, till his lips almost rested upon hers. But at this point something checked his despicable impulse—perhaps the purity of her face, or merely its unresisting stillness. Perhaps he chose to defer the pleasure till a more acceptable moment. He straightened himself with a jerk; and hastening into the hall, shouted for brandy and soda-water.

Very soon a faint colour crept back into her cheeks. She opened her eyes and smiled up at him.

"Drink some of this," he said. "It's very weak, and you need it."

She took a few sips and set down the glass.

"Better now?" he asked, and leaned over her again, his hand on the sofa back, his lips perilously close to her hair. At that critical moment, Wyndham's tall figure appeared in the doorway, closely followed by Honor Meredith.

Kresney's back was towards him; and the tableau presented by the pair was equivocal, to say the least of it. For an instant Paul stood still in sheer stupefaction; then he turned to the girl, his grey eyes ablaze with indignation, and she had never liked him better than at that moment.

As he stepped forward, Kresney started up with a stifled oath; and the two men confronted one another, in silent, undisguised hostility, while Honor hurried to Evelyn's side.

"What is wrong with Mrs Desmond?" Paul asked coldly, concealing his natural anxiety for Theo's wife.

"Oh, she has had a spill. The mare came down with her; and she fainted when I got her home."

Kresney's pronounced frigidity was more ludicrous than impressive; and the shadow of a smile lurked beneath Paul's moustache as he addressed himself to Honor.

"Wouldn't it be well to send for Conolly?" he asked. But Evelyn interposed.

"No,—no,—I don't want Dr Conolly. I'm all right now."

She raised herself on her elbow in proof of her statement.

"Mr Kresney was very kind to me. I have asked him to dinner. Won't you stay too?"

"Thanks. I'll go and change, and come back later. You will do the same, I presume?" And he looked directly at Kresney, who had wit enough to perceive that the situation was untenable.

"It's very good of you to want me, Mrs Desmond," he said, elaborately ignoring Wyndham's remark, "but I'd better not stop to-night. You won't be fit for much talking after that nasty tumble."

"Perhaps not. You must come some other night instead. I won't forget."

She held out her hand with marked graciousness, flashing a defiant glance at Paul, who, in sublime unconsciousness, followed Kresney out into the verandah, and remained standing on the steps till he had ridden out of sight.

No words passed between them except a mutually formal "Good-night." But Paul succeeded in conveying the impression that he regarded himself as Desmond's representative; and in making Kresney feel more acutely uncomfortable than he had felt for many a long day. If he had done no actual harm, the fault did not lie with him; and his conscience sprang painfully to life under the lash of Wyndham's contemptuous silence.

In the drawing-room, conversation fared little better.

"Why on earth was Major Wyndham so dignified and disagreeable?" Evelyn queried in a tone of frank annoyance. "It isn't his affair."

"You seem to forget that he is Theo's oldest friend."

Restrained anger quivered in the girl's low voice.

"He has news for you—from the Samana," she added. "There has been sharp fighting. Theo's squadron has done a very dashing bit of work;—Major Wyndham will tell you about it, if you care to hear. Now you had better lie quiet till you dress for dinner." And without waiting for an answer she left the room.

* * * * *

Next morning, while she sat at work, wondering how she could broach the forbidden subject, Evelyn herself came and stood before her with a purposeful air of decision.

"Honor," she said, "I don't want anybody to say anything to—Theo about my accident. Do you see? It is my business to tell him, and not any one else's. Will you let Mrs Olliver know that, please? I don't care to speak to her about it myself."

Honor glanced up quickly.

"No, Evelyn; it would be just as well not. She happened to be crossing this hill yesterday when you and Mr Kresney were on the lower road; and—she saw you together."

"Just the sort of thing she would do! I hate Mrs Olliver! Always spying on me; and I dare say she won't believe the truth even now. But I won't have her talking to Theo about me, whatever she may imagine."

"You know her very little if you think she could do that," Honor answered quietly. "She only spoke to me because she fancies I have influence with you. But that seems to be over now. You have chosen to go your own way. It is a very dangerous way. However, I can say nothing more on the subject."

Evelyn choked back her rising tears.

"Honor, can't you see that—that I'm frightened and miserable about Theo, and I must have something to help me forget? It's no use trying to make you understand how it feels to have him away up there—always in danger——"

Honor started and flushed. "Indeed, dear, I do understand," she answered, not quite steadily.

Evelyn shook her head.

"You think you do, but you can't really. I know you are great friends with him, and you'd be very sorry if—if anything happened. But it's ever so much worse for me, because I am—his wife. Now I must go and write to him about all this."

And Honor, left alone, leaned back in her chair, hiding her face in her hands.

"God forgive me!" she murmured. "How dare I find fault with her, blessed child that she is!"



CHAPTER XXI.

I AM YOURS.

"I knew thee strong and quiet—like the hills; I knew thee apt to pity, brave to endure." —R. L. S.

Paul Wyndham's hopes were on the ascendant at last. After a full year of waiting, he saw himself drawing steadily nearer to his hour of reward.

He studied Honor Meredith as a man only studies that on which his life's happiness depends; and during the past few weeks he had become aware of a mysterious change in the girl's bearing. Her beauty—which had seemed to him so complete—was now unmistakably enhanced by some transformation within. Her whole nature seemed to have become more highly sensitised. Her colour came and went upon the least provocation; her frank friendliness was veiled by a shy reserve, that had in it no hint of coldness; and, more significant than all, her eyes no longer met his own with that disconcerting directness of gaze which had sealed his lips when they were upon the verge of speech.

For all his modesty, Wyndham could not fail to interpret these signs according to his heart's desire; and when, on the night of Evelyn's accident, Honor promised him an early ride, prefaced by chota hazri[26] in the verandah, he told himself that he need wait no longer—that the great moment of his life had come at last.

[26] Early breakfast.

On the stroke of seven he mounted the verandah steps. A camp table, set with fruit, freshly made toast, and a tea-tray, awaited him in a shadowed corner. Two thick bamboo blinds, let down between the wide arches, converted that end of the verandah into a room, its low-toned coolness broken only by an arrow of sunlight, shooting through a gap in one of the blinds, like a streak of powdered gold. Wyndham's eyes lingered approvingly on every detail of the homely scene; and he caught himself wondering what his sensations would be half an hour hence; what words he should speak to her when the dreaded, longed-for moment arrived.

A light footstep reached his ears; and he turned sharply round to find her standing in the open doorway.

She did not come forward at once, nor did she speak. For the man's face was transfigured. She beheld, in that instant, his unveiled heart and spirit—foresaw the ordeal that awaited her.

Noting her hesitation, he came forward with unconcealed eagerness.

"Good morning," she murmured mechanically. There seemed nothing else that could be said.

Then a wave of colour surged into her face; for he kept the hand she gave him, and drew her towards the privacy of the tea-table. She would have sacrificed much at that moment for the power to speak to prevent the pain she was bound to inflict; but her heart seemed to be beating in her throat; and she endured, as best she might, the controlled intensity of his look and tone.

"You know—surely you know what I find it so hard to say—I love you,—Honor, with all there is of me. I want you—God knows how I want you! And—you——?"

He bent his head to receive the answer that need not be spoken in words. But all vestige of colour was gone from her face, and the unsteadiness of her beautiful mouth cut him to the heart.

"Oh, forgive me!" she pleaded. "I have been thoughtless, selfish,—blind. But you seemed so entirely my friend—I did not guess. I would have given the world to have spared you—this."

He straightened himself like a man under the lash; but he did not relinquish her hand.

"I can't let you reproach yourself," he said quietly, "because I misunderstood signs that seemed to tell me your heart was awake at last. But now—now you know how it is with me, at least you will let me hope——?"

"I wish I might," she answered, so low that he could scarcely hear. "But—it's impossible!"

"Am I so entirely unworthy—unlovable?"

"No, oh no. It is not that."

"D'you mean—I was not mistaken. Is there—any one else?"

"Yes."

It was impossible to lie to him, and the blood rushed back into her face at the confession.

"Is he here?" Paul demanded, with sudden energy.

"You mustn't ask any questions about—him—about it, please."

"Only this one. Shall you—marry him?"

"No. Never."

Sheer incredulity held him silent; and when he spoke there was rebellion in his tone.

"Your life and my own are to remain broken, unfulfilled, because of—this incomprehensible thing?"

"There is nothing else possible."

He relinquished her hand at that, giving it back to her, as it were, with a quiet finality of renunciation that shattered her self-control. She sank into a chair and hid her face in a vain attempt to conceal the tears that came in spite of herself.

He stood beside her for several seconds in a heart-broken silence; then gently touched her arm.

"Honor—Honor, is it really so impossible—as you think? I tell you plainly I can't understand——"

She uncovered her face and looked up at him.

"Can any one ever understand—this sort of thing? Isn't it a force outside the control of reason, of even the strongest will?"

"You are right," he answered gravely; and sitting down leaned towards her, his elbows on the table. "But there remains the fact that sooner than lose you outright, I am willing to marry you—on any terms. If you have no hope for yourself, could you not bring yourself to partially fulfil mine? Will you—in mercy to me—reconsider your decision?"

She looked up quickly with parted lips; but his raised hand enjoined silence.

"My suggestion deserves thinking over for a few minutes, if no longer. And in the meanwhile—" he smiled with a touch of his old humorous resignation to things in general—"we might do worse than have some chota hazri. What a brute I was to upset you before you had had a morsel to eat!"

She shook her head, with a faint reflection of his smile.

"I don't want anything to eat."

"Oh yes, you do! I suppose I must set you an example of common-sense behaviour."

He peeled two bananas with deliberate care, and set one on her plate. Then he lifted the cosy.

"That tea must be strong by this time; but the water's hot, and you can doctor it with that. Now—begin."

He himself began upon his banana, and she glanced at him in astonishment, not untinged with admiration, at his effortless transition from controlled passion to the commonplaces of everyday life. They got through the short meal after a fashion; and both were devoutly thankful when the demands of common-sense had been fulfilled.

Wyndham rose, and lit a cigarette.

"Now, I'll leave you to yourself for five minutes," he announced. "It is getting late. But before we go for our ride this matter must be settled once for all." He laid both hands on the table and looked steadily into her face. "You are the most just-minded woman I know. Look all round the question before you decide. Try to realise a little what it will mean for me to give up all hope. In losing you, I lose everything. There can be no question of any one else for me. Take me or—leave me, I am yours for the rest of my life."

He turned away to save her from the necessity of answering, and walked to the far end of the verandah, leaving her alone with the strongest temptation she had yet experienced—the temptation to trample on her own imperious love, and to accept this man's selfless devotion in the hope that it might one day conquer and monopolise her heart.

Had marriage with Wyndham entailed immediate removal from the atmosphere of Theo Desmond, hesitancy might have ended in capitulation. But life-long intimacy with him, as the wife of his closest friend, was unthinkable for a moment; and if by the wildest possibility Paul should ever suspect the truth——!

She shuddered and glanced in his direction.

"Major Wyndham," she said softly.

He hastened back to her at once. But one look at her face sufficed. The eagerness faded from his eyes, leaving them cold as a winter sky after sunset.

"It was wrong of me to keep you in suspense even for a few minutes," she said, her gaze riveted on the table. "Please forgive me that I am driven to hurt you so, and please believe that I do realise what I am losing——"

"The loss is—not yours," he said on a note of restrained quietness: and in the stillness that ensued, the impatient horses could be heard champing their bits.

He sank into his chair with a gesture of unfeigned weariness; and she glanced at his face. Its mingled pain and patience pierced her heart. But when at last he spoke, his voice was natural and controlled.

"I have only one word more to say. I confess I have not the courage to let you go altogether out of my life. Since nothing else is possible, will you at least accept me as your permanent and—devoted friend?"

She turned upon him in frank surprise.

"Do you mean that—really? Can you do it? Men always say——"

He smiled a trifle bitterly.

"Do they? No doubt they are right—for themselves. But I know I have the strength to accept what I ask, or I would not dare ask it. You won't refuse me that much, will you—Honor?"

"No, indeed, no," she answered, greatly moved. "I can deny you nothing that I am not forced to deny you—Paul."

"Ah, there is no woman in the world to compare with you! Let me say it this once, as I may never tell you so again."

He rose in speaking, braced his shoulders, and stood looking down upon her, a strangely glad light in his eyes.

"I have not lost you, after all," he said.

She rose also, and gave him both her hands. "No. You have gained me—for good. I—care now ever so much more than I did when I came out to you this morning."

"You do?"

"Yes—I do."

He drew her towards him. "Promise me this much," he said, "that if you should ever find it possible to—marry me on any conditions—even the hardest—you will tell me so at once, because after this morning I shall never open my lips on the subject again."

"I promise. Only—you must not let yourself hope."

He sighed. "Very well, I will shut out hope, since you command it. But I shall still have love and faith to live upon. You cannot deprive me of those—Honor. Now shall we go for our ride? Or would you rather go in and rest after all this?"

"No. We will have our ride. I can rest later if I need it."

"Let me put you up then. Come."

And she came without a word.



CHAPTER XXII.

THE CHEAPER MAN.

"No proposition Euclid wrote, No formulae the text-books show, Will turn the bullet from your coat, Or ward the tulwar's downward blow: Strike hard, who cares—shoot straight, who can; The odds are on the cheaper man!" —RUDYARD KIPLING: Arithmetic on the Frontier.

The second week in March found the little force from Kohat still skirmishing energetically through a network of ravines, nullahs, and jagged red hills; still dealing out rough justice to unrepentant Afridis in accordance with instructions from headquarters; or as nearly in accordance with them as Colonel Buchanan's pronounced views on the ethics of warfare would permit. For Buchanan was a just man of independent character, a type not ostentatiously beloved by heads of departments. He had a reprehensible trick of thinking for himself and acting accordingly—a habit liable to create havoc among the card-houses of officialdom; and like all soldiers of the first grade, he was resolute against the cowardly method of striking at the guilty through the innocent; resolute in limiting the evils of war to its authors and active abettors.

He had taken full advantage of his temporary rank to run the expedition on his own lines; and although his instructions included the burning of crops, he had kept rigid control over this part of the programme; giving officers and men free scope for activity in the demolishing of armed forts and towers, and in skirmishes with the wild tribes who harried their transport trains, rushed their pickets, sent playful bullets whizzing through the mess-tent at night, and generally enjoyed themselves after the rough and ready fashion of the hillsman across the Border.

The Afridis in truth were merely tired of behaving like good children. The unstained knives at their belts cried shame on them for their prolonged abstinence from the legitimate joys of manhood;—the music of bullets whistling down a gorge, the yielding of an enemy's flesh under the knife.

Therefore, when Colonel Buchanan and his little force started punitive operations, they were met by a surprisingly concerted and spirited resistance. The cunning tribesmen, having got what they wanted in the shape of excitement, were determined to make the most of it. Thus, the expedition had flared up into one of those minor guerilla campaigns which have cost England more, in the lives of picked officers, than she is ever likely to calculate; being, for the most part, careful and troubled about weightier matters.

The sweeping movement, organised to include all villages implicated in the raid, took longer than had been anticipated. The demolishing of Afridi watch-towers, manned by the finest natural marksmen in the world, and built on bases proof against everything but gunpowder, is no child's play; and at almost every village on the line of route the troops had found their work cut out for them. That they carried it out gallantly and effectively need hardly be said, since we are dealing with the pick of India's soldiers, the Punjab Frontier Force.

Their daily march led them along broken tracks or boulder-strewn beds of torrents, winding through a land where "the face of God is a rock";—a land feigning death, yet alive with hidden foes who announced their presence from time to time by the snick of a breech-bolt, the whing of a bullet, or a concerted rush upon the rear-guard from some conveniently narrow ravine.

Little interruptions of this sort helped to keep all ranks on the alert, and to make things cheerful generally; but they also took up time. And although the middle of March found them back within twenty-one miles of Kohat, there seemed little hope of quieting the country under another week or two at least.

On the evening of the 16th, after two days of skirmishing and a broken night under the stars, imperative need of water compelled them to encamp at the open end of a valley whose enclosing heights narrowed abruptly to the northward into an ugly-looking gorge.

Tents sprang up right and left; lines for horses and mules established themselves in less time than it would take the uninitiated to see where and how the thing could be done; and that eighth wonder of the world, the native cook, achieved a four-course dinner with a mud oven, army rations, a small supply of looted fowls, and a large supply of ingenuity. A party of cavalry, having reconnoitred the ravines branching off into higher hills, reported no signs of the enemy. A cordon of sentries was told off for duty; and the posting of strong pickets on the near hill-tops, and in the neighbourhood of the camp itself, completed the night's arrangements. Clanking of accoutrements, jangle of harness, and all the subdued hum of human life, died away into stillness; lights dropped out one by one; and the valley was given over to silence and a multitude of stars.

Touched into silver here and there by the ethereal radiance—for starshine is a reality in India—the scene presented a Dantesque mingling of beauty and terror,—the twin elements of life, which are "only one, not two."

At a little distance behind the clustering tents the ground sloped boldly upward to summits dark with patches of stunted forest; and beyond these again the snow-peaks of the Safed Koh mountains stood dreaming to the stars. Lower down, at rare intervals, dwarf oaks and the "low lean thorn" of the desert stood out, black and spectral, against the lesser darkness of rocks and stones. In the valley itself the stones had it all their own way;—a ghostly company, rounded and polished by the stream, which crept among them now a mere ribbon of silver, but in four months' time would come thundering through the gorge in a garment of foam, with the shout of a wild thing loosed from bondage. The triumph of desolation was reached in the savage peaks that almost fronted the camp and descended to the valley in a cataract of crags. Here even the persevering thorn-bush could take no hold upon a surface of bare rock, split up into clefts, and chiselled to such fantastic shapes that the whole might have inspired Dante's conception of the ravine by which he descended to the nether hell.

Absorbed in the requirements of earth, and untroubled by ghostly imaginings, officers and men slept soundly, with one eye open, as soldiers experienced in Frontier warfare learn to do; and when at last the earth, turning in its sleep, swung round towards the sun and the still air quivered with foreknowledge of morning, a sudden outcropping of life, where no life should be, amply justified the need for vigilance.

From the darkness of a ravine some distance above the camp, a shadowy mass of figures poured hurriedly, stealthily, into the valley—men of splendid physique, in loose dark draperies or sheepskin coats, carrying leathern shields and the formidable Afridi knife, bone-handled, with a two-foot blade that will halve a man's head as if it were a lemon.

By a preconcerted arrangement they divided into two parties, and keeping within the deepest patches of shadow, bore down upon the nearest pickets with a fierce, soundless rush,—the most disconcerting form of attack to sleepy sentries in the small hours, when life and courage are at their lowest ebb. But the picket sentries happened to be Sikhs; and they are ill men to tackle at close quarters or to spring on unawares.

Close upon the first determined rush came a scuffle, a smothered shout, the sharp crack of rifles in quick succession; and before the hills had flung back the volley of sound, the whole camp hummed with life from end to end, like a broken ant-heap.

A fusilade of shots rang out on all sides. Men hurried about among the tents, concentrating at the two points of attack. Here and there, amid the puffs of smoke that rose and vanished in the blue, a lifted sword or sabre gleamed like a flash of light.

A number of Afridis forced their way into the camp, lunging at every tent-rope within reach of their long knives, and in the dim light it was not easy to distinguish friend from foe. But the first sharp shock of encounter past, it became evident that the troops were getting the best of the affair; and the Afridis, whose valour is not always tempered with discretion, saw fit to beat a rapid retreat up the valley, hoping to reach the ravine before the cavalry started in pursuit.

The men in camp, meanwhile, had leisure to breathe freely, after their rough awakening; to look about and recognise one another, and exchange cheerful congratulations on the resolute stand made by the Sikhs.

"That you, Desmond?"

The Colonel's voice greeted Desmond as he emerged from his tent where his servant had been pressing on him a half-cold cup of cocoa; and the two men faced each other, bareheaded, in shirt and breeches, unmistakable stains upon their naked blades.

"The Ressaldar's falling in your squadron," Buchanan said briskly. "Lose no time, and follow 'em up like hell. They'll break away into the hills, of course. But the chances are they'll concentrate again in the gorge and try to catch the main body as it passes through. So if they give you the slip now, ride straight on and secure the defile for us. I'll send out a detachment of infantry at the double to crown the heights; and I can safely leave all minor details to your discretion."

"Thank you, sir." And Desmond departed to carry out his orders with high elation at his heart.

There is no compliment a soldier appreciates more keenly than one which takes the practical form of leaving details to his own discretion; and, coming from Buchanan, it was doubly acceptable. For, in Desmond's opinion, there were few men in the world like the Colonel, hard and uncommunicative as he was; and it never occurred to him that his strong, unspoken admiration was returned with interest by the reserve-ridden Scot.

During the next fifteen minutes he fully justified his sobriquet of "Bijli-wallah Sahib." Before the Afridis were out of sight a hundred and sixty sabres, headed by himself and Denvil, dashed along the rugged pathway in gallant style, the men leaning well forward, and urging their horses to break-neck speed. But the enemy were well ahead from the start, and in any case, they had the advantage on their own rough soil. The squadron overtook them—breathless and eager—just as the final stragglers plunged into a lateral cleft, which would hold the darkness for another half-hour at least.

Further pursuit was out of the question; and, by way of consolation, the foremost sowars were ordered to dismount and open rapid fire in the direction of the fugitives. Groans, curses, and the thud of falling bodies testified to its effect; and with laconic murmurs of satisfaction the men remounted, and rode on up the rapidly narrowing gorge.

By now, along the silver snows to eastward, the great change had begun. The sky was blue above them; and the last of the stars had melted in the onrushing tide of light, which had already awakened the sandstone peaks to the warm hue of life.

The party mounted the ascent at a foot's pace to ease their horses; and Desmond's eyes and mind, being as it were "off duty," turned thoughtfully upon the Boy who rode at his side, a very incarnation of good health and good spirits. It seemed that the outcome of his critical inspection was approval, for it ended in a nod that confirmed some pleasant inward assurance. During the past few weeks Denvil had proved himself thoroughly "up to the mark";—hot-headed but reliable; square and upright in mind as in body; a fine soldier in the making. He had not yet arrived at the older man's keen mental interest in his profession; but closer intimacy with Desmond had kindled in him an answering spark of that idealism, that unswerving subordination of self to duty which justifies and ennobles the great game of war. He coveted action, risk, responsibility—three things which the Staff Corps subaltern, especially on the Frontier, tastes earlier than most men; and which go far to make him one of the straightest specimens of manhood in the world. In Denvil's eyes the whole expedition was one tremendous spree, which he was enjoying to the top of his bent; and Desmond, remembering the good years of his own apprenticeship, could gauge the measure of that enjoyment to the full. He felt justified in expecting great things of the Boy, and decided to work him hard all through the hot weather;—in his eyes the highest compliment a man could pay to a promising junior.

"By the way, Harry," he said suddenly, as the defile, deep-sunken between towering rock, loomed darkly into view, "I've got a word of encouragement for you before we part company. You did an uncommonly gallant bit of work in that skirmish yesterday. The Colonel spoke of it; and congratulated me on having the smartest subaltern in the regiment. Of course I've known it myself this long while; and I don't think it will hurt you to know it too."

Denvil flushed hotly through his tan.

"I should be rather a poor sort of chap if I didn't manage to do pretty well—under you," he said, with awkward bluntness, looking straight between his charger's ears.

Desmond laughed. "Very neatly turned off, old chap. Now, I'm bound to call a halt till the Sikhs come up with us. Hope to goodness they'll be quick about it. Confounded nuisance having to wait."

Both men reined in their horses, and their consuming impatience. The squadron followed suit; and in an amazingly short time the Sikhs came into view, toiling lustily up the incline at their utmost speed.

Desmond turned in his saddle and raked the hillsides with his field-glasses.

"Looks empty enough, in all conscience," he remarked.

The words were hardly spoken when a single shot startled the echoes of the rocks, and instant alertness passed like an electric current through the squadron. The advance guard, which had already entered the defile, consisted of three promising young Pathans from Denvil's troop; and anxiety for the fate of his favourites pricked the Boy to keener impatience.

"I say, Desmond," he urged, "can't I take twenty men and push on to find out what's up. They'll be taking pot-shots at my men, unless I put a stop to it. For God's sake, let me go."

Desmond could not repress an approving smile at an impetuosity that matched his own. He glanced down the valley at the advancing Sikhs, and saw that he would not be long delayed in following on. Moreover, he shared the Boy's anxiety for his three picked men; and a shot fired, being tantamount to a declaration of hostilities, justified immediate advance to the scene of action.

"Go ahead then," he said. "Advance warily; and good luck to you."

The Boy needed no second bidding. Eagerly, yet with all due precautions, he went forward with his handful of Pathans; and was soon lost to sight and sound in the darkness of the giant cleft.

Desmond, left alone, could hardly contain himself till the infantry came up. Dividing into two flanking parties, they scrambled up the steep slopes into the full radiance of dawn; while Desmond, with his squadron ready drawn up, awaited the signal, "All's clear," before entering the defile.

In due time it came; and they moved on between the frowning cliffs at a pace as rapid as the exigencies of the situation would permit.

Here night fronted them, dank and chill. It was as if the clock had been put back four hours. Only a jagged strip of sky, between projecting crags, announced the advent of day. No living thing seemed to inhabit this region of perpetual twilight. At intervals a gnarled and twisted bush grew out of a cleft, lifting spectral foliage toward where the sun should be, and was not. Silence pervaded the dusk like a living presence; unseen, but so poignantly felt that the whisper of the stream and the crunch of shingle under the horses' hoofs seemed an affront to the ghostly spirit of the place; and the sowars, when exchanging remarks among themselves, instinctively refrained from raising their voices.

Desmond, closely followed by his trumpeter, rode ahead of the troopers, chafing at their leaden-footed progress. A hand-gallop would have been too slow for the speed of his thoughts, tormented as he was by anxious wondering what had become of the Boy; while his ears were strained to catch the first sounds of contest from the heights, which were already widening out a little, and beginning to slope towards lower ground.

Sounds came at length—harsh and startling;—the unmistakable note of the jezail; answering shots from his own men;—proofs incontestable that a sharp engagement was in progress up above.

"Ambuscaded,—by Heaven!" was Desmond's instant thought. Mercifully the exit was already in sight; and flinging brisk instructions to the Ressaldar to follow him closely with a hundred sowars, leaving the remainder to take charge of the horses, and hold the opening till further orders, Desmond made for it full tilt, spurring Badshah Pasand as he had never been spurred in all his days. On dashing out into the sunlight he was greeted by a rattle of musketry from behind a tumbled mass of rock; and a dozen bullets buzzed about him like bees.

One riddled his helmet, stirring his hair as it passed. A second struck his left shoulder, inflicting a flesh wound of which he was not even conscious at the moment; for Badshah Pasand lunged ominously forward; swayed, staggered; and with a sound between a cough and a groan, fell headlong, flinging his rider clear on to the rough upward slope.

Luckily for him, Desmond pitched on to his sound shoulder; and though bruised and shaken, was none the worse for his fall. The foremost of his men dismounted and opened fire upon the treacherous rock, without eliciting response; and quick as lightning he sprang to his feet, mad with rage and pain. A single glance showed him that his charger's wounds were mortal. Two well-directed bullets had entered the chest; and the great soft eyes were glazing fast.

With a swift contraction of the heart, Desmond turned away, and issued hurried orders for a hundred men to dismount and take the hill at full speed. Half a dozen of Denvil's Pathans—left in charge of the discarded horses—gave information that the Sahib had taken his sowars up some time before, commanding them to await his return.

Distracted by anxiety, Desmond awaited the dismounting of his troopers, revolver in hand. The instant they were ready he bounded over the broken ground, his trumpeter dogging him like a shadow, and a self-imposed bodyguard of six sowars following close upon his heel. Behind these again the mountain-side was alive with clambering men; and the small party left below enviously watched their ascent.

Only by the impetus of his spirit did Desmond manage to keep ahead of his men; for in general the native outstrips the Englishman in this form of mountaineering. One thought hammering at his brain goaded him to superhuman exertion: "Those devils shall not murder Harry before I reach him."

Breathless and resolute, he hurried on, stumbling now and again from sheer excess of haste, clenching his teeth to keep the curses back. A dull stain spread slowly across his left shoulder, where the blood was soaking through his khaki coat.

The slope ended in a twenty-foot wall of rocks, massed so as to form huge irregular steps, that led to an abrupt bit of level, whereon the fighting appeared to be taking place. Sounds came to him now that lashed him to a frenzy; the clash of knives and sabres, the thud of many feet; the fierce shouts without which it is impossible for primitive man to slay or be slain.

Desmond never quite knew how he climbed those formidable steps; and as he vaulted up the last of them, the whole dread scene sprang abruptly into view.

Denvil and his fifteen Pathans had been ambuscaded and outnumbered; and in the cramped space a sharp hand-to-hand encounter was in progress. A small party of Sikhs had already come up with him; but even so the odds were heavily on the wrong side. It was simply a case of "dying game";—of adding one more to the list of "regrettable incidents" which figure too frequently in the record of Border warfare.

A new risen sun smiled serenely down upon it all; and the awakened earth was frankly indifferent to the issue.

But amid the stirring confusion of a struggle at close quarters Desmond saw one thing only; and the sight struck at his heart like a sword-thrust.

Harry Denvil, hard pressed by four Afridis brandishing long knives and leathern shields, stood with his back against a rock, fighting for dear life.

Five of his men and several of the enemy lay dead or wounded around him. His left arm was disabled; his helmet gone; his hair gleaming red-gold in the sunlight; his young face, white and desperate, disfigured by an ugly cut across the forehead and cheek-bone, from which the blood trickled unheeded in a sluggish stream.

He had flung away his empty revolver; and was warding off blows right and left, using his sword with a coolness and dexterity which would have surprised him had he been aware of it. But he was aware of nothing except a fierce desire not to die yet—not yet; and to get a straight cut at one of the dark faces that pressed in upon him with such pitiless persistence.

At sight of Desmond a great cry broke from him.

"Desmond!" he shouted; "Desmond—thank God!"

For answer Desmond ran blindly forward, sheer lust of slaughter in his heart; trumpeter, bodyguard, and the foremost troopers following as closely as their captain's ardour would permit.

But an unreasoning sense of safety put Harry momentarily off his guard. He took a hasty step away from the rock, making it possible for the first time to strike at him from behind: and, in the same instant, Desmond fired. Before his bullet could reach its destination, the long knife had descended, swift and certain. And even as the man who wielded it dropped like a log, Harry Denvil stumbled forward; and, with a thick sob, fell face downward at Desmond's feet.

There was no time to stoop and ascertain whether the knife had completed its work. Striding across his subaltern's body, Desmond turned upon his assailants, all the natural savage in him lashed to a white heat of fury, and fired twice in quick succession, with deadly effect. But the knife of a third man bit into his flesh like fire, inflicting deep gashes on the left arm and hand, while another slipped behind him, his uplifted blade glinting in the sunlight.

By this time Rajinder Singh was behind him also; and like a lightning-streak, his tulwar whizzed through the air, cleaving the man's head from his body at a blow.

Desmond swung sharply round to find his reinforcements swarming over the plateau's edge.

"Well struck, Sirdar Sahib!——"

But the sentence was never finished. A puff of smoke from behind a distant rock, the boom of a jezail, and Desmond fell beside the Boy, stunned by a well-aimed shot on the edge of the cheek-bone, the slug glancing off perilously close to the right eye.

A shout of rage went up from his men. "The Captain Sahib,—the Captain Sahib!" But Rajinder Singh promptly assuming command, bade them turn upon the Afridi devils and smite their souls to hell; and, forming a protective ring about their fallen officers, they obeyed with right goodwill.

The arrival of supports, however, made it clear to the enemy that they themselves were now heavily outnumbered; and after a desultory resistance they broke up and fled, the sowars zealously speeding their departure.

The whole incident had passed in an incredibly short space of time; and now, with a low cry, Rajinder Singh sank on his knees beside Desmond, cold fear at his heart, his lean fingers trembling as they pushed up the watch-strap and pressed the smooth tanned wrist.

"He lives!—Parmeshwar[27] be praised;—the Captain Sahib lives!" the old man murmured ecstatically, shaking his head at the same time over the wound in the cheek-bone, which had an ugly look.

[27] God.

In Denvil's wrist no flutter of life was left. The Boy's soul had passed unstained to its account; and the Ressaldar's stern eyes softened as they rested on the bright, blood-stained hair.

Very gently, as though Denvil were merely asleep, he turned him over and closed the unseeing eyes. No shadow of pain marred the repose of the lips. They looked as if they had just left off smiling and meant very soon to smile again.

The Ressaldar sighed, and shook his head thoughtfully once again.

"Doubtless it was written, ... it was the will of God," he decided, with the pious stoicism of the East; and thereupon issued immediate orders to his signallers to open up communication with the main body of troops in the valley, enumerating casualties, and adding an urgent request for an ambulance party to be pushed forward at the utmost speed.

* * * * *

A short stab of pain jerked Desmond back to consciousness with a curse upon his lips. He found himself lying in a hospital doolie set in the shade on a slab of rock. Both flaps had been flung up, and James Mackay stood beside him, investigating the wound in his face with conscientious thoroughness. It was not a pleasant proceeding. Hence Desmond's protest, which brought a twinkle of satisfaction to the doctor's eyes.

"Curse away, old man. It's a treat to hear you," he said heartily, "Just take a drop of this now, to keep you all there," and he held a glass of brandy and water to Desmond's lips. "They've given you a nasty wound here. Wants looking to at once. I'm going to hurt you like hell, I know; but you must put up with it. Swear at me as much as you please, if it eases you at all."

He probed a peculiarly tender spot as he spoke. Desmond clenched his teeth and "put up with it" in silence. Free permission to swear had quenched the desire—a common trick of human perversity; and just as he began to feel that one minute more of it would stretch endurance to breaking-point—the thing was done. A sloping bandage encircled his head, eclipsing his right eye; and he discovered that the Colonel was standing by the doolie, tugging at his grey moustache—sure sign of mental disturbance—and listening attentively to the wiry little doctor, who spoke in an urgent undertone.

He turned when Mackay left off speaking.

"Bad business this, Desmond," he said laconically. "Thank God it was no worse, though."

And Desmond had but two words for answer, sharp and anxious.

"The Boy?"

"We've lost Denvil," Buchanan growled between his teeth. "And we could very ill spare him."

Desmond closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. Speech was beyond him. His mind, dizzy with pain and loss of blood, refused to grasp the truth. Two hours ago the Boy had been radiantly, vigorously alive. It was rank foolishness to expect a man to believe that he would never hear him speak or laugh again.

He was roused by Buchanan's hand on his arm.

"Look here, Desmond," he said, "we must be moving again now. I merely came to see how things were going with you before pushing on."

"Thank you, Colonel. I'm in the rear for the present, I suppose?" And he tried to smile.

"Not exactly. As we are within two days' march of the station and there's little left to do but sweep up the rubbish, I have told off a strong escort to return to Kohat with the wounded men,—Denvil, and yourself. You've been badly knocked about, and you need careful seeing to at once."

"Won't you leave me out of the programme, sir? You know I'm hard as nails; I'm sure I could manage to hang on to the saddle, and be fit for light duty in a few days' time. Give me the chance, anyway. I'll do my level best."

"Never knew you do anything else," Buchanan answered gruffly.

Then there was a short silence. Hard as he was, the man rebelled against the thing he had to say; and Desmond's unconquerable spirit put him in no better humour for his task.

"My dear fellow," he began, "I'm no hand at beating about the bush; I can only tell you straight that for the present you must give up all hope of getting back to duty, light or otherwise. Mackay is not satisfied about that wound in your face. The slug went too close to the eye, and may possibly—have injured the nerve."

Desmond started and clenched his hand.

"Good God, Colonel!" he broke out hoarsely. "D'you mean—blindness?"

The ring of open fear in a brave man's voice is not a pleasant thing to hear. Buchanan felt he had been too blunt, and regretted not having allowed Mackay to speak.

"Don't jump to hasty conclusions, man," he said quickly. "We have to recognise the possibility in order to prevent it,—that's all. Mackay returns with you. He'll get a second opinion, if necessary; and we've signalled the news to Wyndham in full. All you've got to do now is to knock under like a man, and give your eyes every possible chance; even if it means lying in the dark for a week or two; you understand?"

"Yes—I understand."

There was bitterness in the studied resignation of his tone.

Colonel Buchanan put out his hand and kept firm hold of Desmond's arm while he spoke.

"You'll be reasonable then, and—obey orders? You ought to find the coast clear going back and have no trouble. Young Spence commands the party, and Rajinder Singh takes thirty of your men. The old chap begged for permission to accompany you. See you again in a fortnight, if not sooner. Keep up a good heart; and take every possible precaution, for your own sake and—for the sake of the Regiment."

The final injunctions, jerked out brusquely, were in the nature of an achievement for this man of few words; and Desmond knew it. He wrung the iron-hard hand that held his own with all the force still left in him; and Colonel Buchanan returned to his waiting charger.

That afternoon, under a brilliant sky, the little ambulance party set out for Kohat—thirty cavalry and twenty infantry, with six swaying doolies in their midst. And among all the occupants of those comfortless conveyances, Harry Denvil was the only one for whom that journey was not a prolonged torment of pain and unrest.



CHAPTER XXIII.

YOU GO ALONE.

"It is poor work beating butterflies with a cart-rope." —LUCAS MALET.

On the morning of that eventful 17th of March, Evelyn and Honor left the bungalow directly after breakfast, bent upon such shopping as Kohat could afford.

The nearest approach to shops, in the accepted sense of the word, were the open stalls in the native city. But there could be no question of exploring these; and the manifold needs of Western womanhood were inadequately met by the regimental go-downs attached to each corps in the cantonment. These consisted of spacious buildings, shelved from floor to ceiling, and stocked with a fine medley of human requirements, ranging from bone buttons to champagne, from quinine and chlorodyne to rolls of silk for evening gowns. A new consignment from "down-country" came up every month or so; and it was quite one of the events of life in Kohat to go the round of the go-downs as soon as possible after the arrival of these, so as to secure the pick of the market while the goods were fresh and the choice comparatively varied. Herein lay ample scope for those small spites and jealousies that are more than bread and meat to women of a certain type.

Evelyn had actually sent for gloves and shoes by this means, from a cheap Calcutta firm, instead of despatching an order to Simla regally regardless of cost. They by no means satisfied her fastidious taste; but she felt exalted to a superhuman pitch of virtue as she bore them home in her dandy.

"I don't believe Theo will like these shoes one bit!" she remarked with a satisfied laugh to Honor who rode beside her. "He will tell me to order the next ones from Simla straight away, and I shall be ever so dutiful and obey him without any fuss—shan't I, you grave, wise Honor?"

"I should be an inhuman monster if I could keep grave and wise in your company!" Honor answered, laughing back at her. "You will go on buying expensive shoes to the end of the chapter, if that's what you are driving at. Why have your spirits gone up with such a run this morning?"

"I don't know. It's nice enough that they are up. I got a lovely letter from Theo—that's partly why, perhaps." Her eyes softened at the remembrance of that letter. "He'll be home again in less than a fortnight."

"Yes; in less than a fortnight," Honor repeated, and wondered where she should go when that time arrived. She had not yet found courage to face the idea in detail.

Evelyn kept up an unbroken ripple of hilarity till the verandah was reached, laughing as Honor had not heard her laugh since Theo had left.

"You're 'fey,' child," she said, as she helped her out of the dandy. "I shall have you in floods of tears before night."

"No, you won't; I don't feel as if anything could happen to make me cry to-day. Hullo! there's Major Wyndham's horse out there."

Honor started.

"What can he want over here so early? Come in quick and find out."

They hurried through the hall into the dining-room, Evelyn leading, a swift premonition of evil killing the laughter on their lips.

Paul stood by the piano looking at Desmond's photograph; his arms folded; his "February face" more eloquent than he knew.

"Good-morning, Mrs Desmond," he said; and his sympathetic hand-clasp sent her mercurial spirits down to zero.

"What is it?" she asked, blanching visibly. "You have brought bad news?"

Paul assented in silence.

"If it is very horrible—don't tell me—I won't hear it!" She held up both hands, as if warding off a blow. But Honor, coming quickly forward, put both arms round her.

"Hush, dear, hush!" she said soothingly. "That is nonsense. We must know what has happened, at once."

"Let him tell you, then; it won't hurt you like it hurts me." And disengaging herself, she went over to the verandah doorway, and stood there, looking out into the sunshine; her back to the room; her small hands clasped; every nerve strained to miss no word of what was passing behind her.

Honor turned promptly on Paul, an anguish of suspense in her eyes.

"Is it—the worst?"

"No—no—not that," he reassured her hastily.

"Tell me everything, please."

"I only know bare facts; the news came by helio. It seems there was a sharp hand-to-hand engagement. The Boy and some of his men were taken by surprise. Just as Theo reached them Denvil was—killed!"

A stifled sound broke from Evelyn.

"And—Theo?" Honor's low voice seemed to come from very far away.

"Theo has been badly cut about. Four wounds. The most serious is a bullet wound in his face—close to the right eye. They seem afraid that he may possibly—lose his sight."

"It is not true—oh, it is not true!" Evelyn's hands went up to her head with a desperate cry. Then she swayed, tottered backward, and fell prone among the sofa cushions.

"Honor—come to me—I'm frightened!" she moaned, without lifting her head; and in an instant Honor was bending over her, murmuring brave words of encouragement, removing her hat, and mechanically smoothing her hair.

"Is—he still here?" Evelyn asked under her breath.

"Yes, dear. Do you want him?"

"No—no; send him away. I want you—only you!"

Wyndham was already nearing the door and Honor followed him out into the hall.

"You see she's a little off her balance, poor child."

"Yes, I see," he answered wearily. "And I thank God with all my heart that you are here. Will you tell Mrs Desmond that an escort is returning to-day with Theo and—the Boy. They will reach Kohat to-morrow evening."

Honor straightened herself suddenly.

"I will tell her. To-morrow evening. Does Frank know too?"

"Yes; she was in when I came. It upset her very much. Not a soul in the regiment—officers or men—will have a minute's peace of mind till the result of this wound is known for certain. In all the misery of it, one is proud to realise that."

Something of his own grief showed in his voice for the first time, and Honor's heart contracted with too keen a sympathy.

"Ah, Paul! you speak of it so calmly—as if you were just one with the rest. But I, at least, can guess what the pain and suspense must be for you."

His face softened at the tender inflection of her voice.

"No," he said, "even you cannot guess that. Now go back to his wife. If I can be of any use at all send for me. I shall not come round otherwise till I bring him here to-morrow evening. I mean to ride out with a small escort and meet them on the way."

Honor found Evelyn rigid and tearless among her cushions. The strange mingling of coldness and terror in her eyes startled the girl. She hurried to the sofa and knelt down at her side.

"Don't look like that, Evelyn," she said. "It's horrible! Only think, Theo will be here to-morrow evening. Paul told me so just now."

"To-morrow—to-morrow? He will be here, in this house—to-morrow?" She repeated the word with stunned iteration, and there was no feeling in her tone, only an uncanny fear, that chilled the blood in Honor's veins.

"I never thought—it would be so soon. How can we manage about getting away?"

"Getting away—where—in Heaven's name?" Honor rose abruptly. She began to feel as though she were moving in a nightmare.

"Oh, anywhere, away from here. I can't—I won't see him, when he is 'badly cut about' and—half blind. I thought—if you would take me to Murree—Mrs Olliver would be quite glad to look after him. And when he is better, he could come up too. But if—if he is really going to be—blind——"

She closed her eyes and shuddered. No flicker of pity stirred in Honor's heart. It needed all her force of will to control her temper, even for a few minutes longer. But a grim curiosity urged her to discover how far it was possible to travel along such incredible lines of thought and feeling.

"Well, what then?" she demanded coldly.

"Then—I know I could—never come back to him—never!" Theo's wife answered slowly, without raising her eyes, or the look in Honor's face would surely have frozen the words on her lips. "To feel that he was always in the dark would frighten me out of my life. And he would never be left alone, I know. There are so many—others."

But Honor could bear no more. Bending down, she caught hold of Evelyn's shoulders and fairly shook her, as though she would shake her back to life and human feeling. Her blue eyes blazed with indignation.

"How dare you talk like that!" she said in a low note of concentrated wrath. "How dare you think such despicable thoughts! Of course there are others who would give their lives to save him from a minute's pain; and you would let them take your place,—yours? And you can actually expect that I—of all people—will back you up in your desertion of him? No indeed! If you go, you go alone; and I shall never have a word to say to you again. I may be speaking hotly, because I am furiously angry. But I mean every word I say; and my actions will prove it. What's more, I will not let you go. You shall stand by him, however frightened you may be. You talk of—loving him, and you would treat him as I should be ashamed to treat a dog! Evelyn! Evelyn!"—her voice broke suddenly, and tears started to her eyes,—"tell me you did not mean what you said; or I don't know how I am to go on helping you at all!"

There was more of command than of entreaty in the last words, and Evelyn looked up at the transfigured beauty of her face with a slow shivering sigh.

"You are very wonderful, and very—terrible, Honor," she said. "I never imagined you could be as terrible as that." Then her lips quivered, and she caught at the girl's skirt, drawing her nearer. "You must go on helping me, or everything will go to pieces."

"So long as you remain a loyal wife to—Theo, I cannot choose but do so, with all my heart."

She knelt down again now; and Evelyn, flinging both arms round her neck, broke into a passion of weeping.

"I think I was half mad," she moaned through her tears, clinging to Honor as a drowning woman clings to a spar. "And I am dreadfully frightened still. But I will do whatever you tell me. I will try to be a loyal wife, even if——"

"We won't think of that at all," Honor interposed hastily. "It cannot—it shall not happen!"

But Evelyn's tears flowed on unchecked. The fire of Honor's just anger had melted the morsel of ice in her heart; and in a very short time she had cried herself to sleep.

Then Honor gently unlocked the clinging fingers, and went straight to Frank Olliver's room.



CHAPTER XXIV.

I WANT LADYBIRD.

"So free we seem; so fettered fast we are." —BROWNING.

A low sun was gilding the hill-tops when two doolies, borne by sturdy kahars and escorted by Wyndham and Mackay, passed between the gate-posts of Desmond's bungalow. Honor stood with Evelyn at the head of the verandah steps; but as the kahars halted, and the officers prepared to dismount, she moved back a space, leaving her to welcome her husband alone.

The blood ebbed from Evelyn's face as she watched Theo mount the steps, slowly, uncertainly, supported on either side by Wyndham and the doctor—he who, in normal circumstances, would have cleared them at a bound and taken her in his arms. His appearance alone struck terror into her heart. Was this the splendid-looking husband who had ridden away full of life and energy,—this strange seeming man, whose face was disfigured and more than half-hidden by an unsightly bandage and a broad green shade; whose empty coat-sleeve, slashed and blood-stained, suggested too vividly the condition of the arm strapped into place beneath?

It was all she could do not to shrink back instinctively when the men moved aside, as Honor had done, to afford husband and wife some small measure of privacy, and Theo held out his hand.

"They've sent me back rather the worse for wear, Ladybird," he said, with a smile; "but Mackay will put the pieces together in good time."

"Oh, Theo—I hope so!—It's dreadful to see you—like that."

The hand she surrendered to him was cold as ice; and the attempt at welcome in her voice was checked by a paralysing fear and constraint. Thirty-six hours of severe pain in body and mind had failed to break his spirit; but the thing was achieved by a dozen words from his wife. He knew now what to expect from her; and for the moment he was stricken speechless.

"I am so—sorry," she murmured, "about——"

"Yes—yes, I know," he took her up quickly; and there was an awkward silence.

"Who—what—is in that other doolie?" she asked, in a hurried whisper.

"The Boy."

"But, Theo—you're not going to——"

"For God's sake shut up!"

He swayed a little in speaking, and promptly Paul was at his side. No one had heard what passed; and when Mackay, returning to his post by the wounded arm, gently urged Desmond forward, Paul signalled to Evelyn to take his place, while he went back to the doolie.

"Just a minute, Mrs Desmond," he said in a low tone.

Evelyn, startled by the request, stood irresolute; and since there was no time for hesitancy, Honor came forward and put her hand under Theo's elbow. She felt a jar go all through him at her touch, and knew that he had heard Wyndham's request.

"Ah, Honor," he said, by way of greeting, "I'm afraid I've come back a mere log on your hands."

An undernote of bitterness in his tone gave her courage to speak the thought in her mind. "We are only too thankful to have got you back safe—in any condition," she murmured.

He did not answer at once; and she moved away to make place for Paul, whose face was set in very rigid lines.

"Take me to the duftur," Desmond commanded curtly. "I'll not be put to bed."

"No, no, man; we'll settle you up in your long chair," Mackay answered soothingly. He perceived that by some means Mrs Desmond had jarred his patient, and was in high ill-humour with her accordingly.

At the study door, Amar Singh almost laid his head at Desmond's feet. Within the room they found Frank Olliver arranging pillows and a rug on the deck-chair, and on a table beside it a light meal awaited him.

The meal ended, they all left him with one accord, instinctively making way for his wife—who was crying her heart out in the next room.

Paul was the last to leave. He remained standing by Desmond, resting a hand on his sound shoulder. But there are silences more illuminating than speech; and Theo Desmond knew all that was in his friend's heart at that moment—all that could never be spoken between them, because they were Englishmen, born into a heritage of incurable reserve.

"You're going to pull through this," Paul said quietly.

"Am I? Ask Mackay."

"No need for that—I'm sure of it; and—in the mean while——" A tightening of his grasp supplied the rest.

"Thanks, old man. I know what you mean."

Then Paul went reluctantly out, and on into the drawing-room, where he found Mackay and Honor Meredith in close conference. The little doctor was laying down the law in respect of his patient with characteristic bluntness.

"Now, Miss Meredith," he had said, as he met her in the hall, and drew her aside into the empty room, "I'm a plain man, and you must put up with plain speaking for the next few minutes. It's no light matter to be responsible for a chap like Desmond. Not a morsel of use talking to his wife! She seems to have upset him already. The Lord alone knows how women do these things. Fools men are to care! But Desmond is what you call finely organised; and you can't handle a violin as you would a big drum. Frankly, now, his eyesight's in danger; and that wound in his cheek is an ugly one in any case. He wants careful nursing, and I refuse to put him into Mrs Desmond's hands. I'd deserve hanging for murder if I did! Remains Mrs Olliver, or yourself. 'Twould be awkward for Mrs Olliver to take his wife's place when there is a capable woman on the spot. So now, will you take charge of Desmond for me, and put yourself under my orders?—that's the real mutlub[28] of the whole matter. You're welcome to say I don't think Mrs Desmond strong enough, if you feel bound to tell a polite lie on the subject."

[28] Gist.

Honor had listened to the doctor's brusquely-delivered speech with a growing sense of helplessness, as of a mouse caught in a trap. His statement of the case was uncomfortably plain. He left her no loophole of escape; and by the time he fired his final question at her, she had decided on present capitulation.

"Yes, I will take charge of him," she said. "Only Mrs Desmond must have some share in the nursing—for his sake and her own."

"Oh, well—well, I suppose she must. The less the better for his sake; and you've got to consider Desmond before every one else at present. I insist on that."

Honor smiled faintly at the superfluous injunction; and it was at this point that Paul entered the room.

Mackay turned on him a face of open jubilation.

"Congratulate me, Wyndham! I've secured Miss Meredith's services for Desmond."

"Thank God," Paul answered fervently; and he thanked Honor also with his eyes.

"I shall move into the bungalow myself after the funeral, and give you what help I can. He will need a good deal of companionship to keep him from chafing at his helplessness. He wished the Boy to be brought here and buried from his house. I am making all arrangements; and we shall be round quite early in the morning. Can I see Desmond again to-night?"

Mackay pursed his lips.

"He'll do best with just the women-folk this evening. Look in after Mess, if you like—last thing."

"Was Evelyn with him when you left?" Honor asked suddenly, a flash of apprehension in her tone.

"No."

"I must go and see what has come to her," she said, visibly disturbed. "I shall see you both after Mess."

She hurried out, and listened intently at the study door. No sound broke the stillness; and with an aching dread at her heart she passed on to the next door.

The brief dusk of India was already almost spent; and finding Evelyn's room in semi-darkness, she paused on the threshold.

"Are you there, dear?" she called softly; and was answered by a stifled sound from the region of the bed, where Evelyn lay prone, her face buried in the pillows. At that Honor came forward, and laid a firm though a not unkindly hand upon her.

"Evelyn, this is childish selfishness. Get up and go to him at once."

The sole answer vouchsafed to her was a vehement shaking of the fair head; a fresh paroxysm of distress.

"My dear—my dear," she urged, bending down and speaking more softly, "you must pull yourself together. This is no time to think of your own trouble. He is wounded, anxious, and terribly unhappy and—he wants you. Do you call this being a loyal wife? Remember, you promised——"

Thus appealed to, Evelyn lifted her head, supporting it on one elbow, and showed a grief-disfigured face.

"Yes, I know. But—couldn't you go to him, just for now, Honor? You're not upset, like I am;—and say I—I'll come when I'm better."

Honor went white to the lips.

"No, Evelyn," she said, her anger rising as she went on. "There are things that even I must refuse to do for you. I have done all that is in my power; but I will not take your place with—your husband."

Astonishment checked Evelyn's sobbing, and a spark of unreasoning jealousy shot through the mist of her tears.

"I don't want you to take my place with him. He's mine!"

"Then don't ask me to go to him now."

The counter-stroke was unanswerable. Evelyn made a genuine attempt to still the uncontrolled quivering of her body, and actually got upon her feet. But abandonment to misery had so shaken her that, even as Honor put out a steadying hand, she fell back among her pillows with a choking sob.

"It's no use," she moaned. "Go, Honor—go now; and say I—I'm coming."

The girl set her teeth hard. A strange light gleamed in the blue of her eyes. She moved across to the washing-stand and poured out a stiff dose of sal volatile.

"Here, Evelyn," she said, all the tenderness gone from her voice, "drink this at once. Then get up as soon as you can, and make yourself presentable. I shall not be gone many minutes, and you must be ready to go to him the instant I come back."

Evelyn choked and spluttered over the burning mixture.

"Oh, thank you, Honor, thank you. Only—don't look so angry about it, please."

"I am angry—I am bitterly angry," Honor answered with sudden vehemence, and went quickly from the room.

Once outside, she paused; her whole soul uplifted in a wordless prayer for strength and self-control. It seemed to her that Evelyn's reception of Theo went far to make her own departure a matter of imperative necessity, cruelly hard though it was to risk being misjudged at such a crisis.

With heart and spirit braced for her ordeal, she entered the room.

But at sight of him, who was the incarnation of life, cheerfulness, and vigour, lying stricken in heart and body, her courage deserted her, and she could neither speak nor move. On the lower end of the long chair Rob nestled in an attitude of perplexed watchfulness; satisfaction and bewilderment contending for the mastery over his faithful soul; and Desmond's right arm supported his stunned and aching head.

As Honor paused on the threshold, he stirred uneasily. "That you, Ladybird?" he asked; and his tone, if listless, was unmistakably tender.

"No, Theo. It is I—Honor," the girl answered in a low voice without moving forward.

"Where's Evelyn, then?"

"She's coming soon—very soon."

"What's gone wrong with her? Has she fainted? You might come a little closer to a fellow, Honor. I feel cut off from everything and every one, with this damnable green wall in front of my eyes."

At that cry from the man's tormented heart all thought of her own pain, all doubt as to her own strength, was submerged by a flood-tide of pure human compassion; and she came to him straightway, kneeling close beside his chair, and laying one hand lightly on the rug that covered him.

"There, Theo—there. Can you see me a little now?" she asked tenderly. "You mustn't think hard things of—Ladybird—please. She let herself go so completely after seeing you in the verandah, and it was impossible for her to come to you while she was in such a state of collapse. I have given her a strong dose of sal volatile, and she begged me to explain things to you; so—I came. I can't tell you how sorry I was that it should be—only me."

He raised his head at that.

"You've the grit of all the Merediths in you, Honor," he said, and his changed tone assured her that she had, in some measure, fulfilled her purpose. "I can't have you talking about 'only me' in that deprecating fashion. Goodness knows what Ladybird would have done without you. No doubt she'll pull herself together when she has got more used to the hideousness of it all—myself included——"

"She will—I am sure she will," the girl declared with pardonable insincerity; "and I really believe that if—if I were not here, Evelyn might make more of an effort to stand on her own feet than she does now. Please don't misunderstand me, Theo,"—her brave voice faltered on the words—"please believe that I myself would far rather be here at a time like this. I would not dream of deserting my post if I were not quite sure that there are many others ready to look after you as carefully and willingly as I would do myself. Indeed, I am honestly suggesting what I think would be best for us all round—Evelyn especially. Won't you let me go, Theo, and at least try how it works?"

Desmond shook his head with cautious deliberation, since hasty movements had proved to be dangerous.

"My dear Honor," he objected, "you, who know Ladybird even better than I do, must surely know by now that nothing will force her to stand upon her own feet. To-day gives final proof of it. What's more, Paul will probably establish himself here. I can't have him criticising her, even in his own mind; and who but you can I rely on to prevent it, by keeping her up to the mark? You see, I am taking you at your word, and not misunderstanding you, and I ask you frankly to stand by us till this trouble is over, when you shall both go straight to the Hills."

"Very well, Theo; I will stay."

But her voice had an odd vibration in it. There was no refusing a request so worded; but she knew her decision was only deferred to a more seasonable moment.

"Thank you with all my heart," he said. "You'll not regret it, I feel certain."

During the pause that followed, the wounded man made a futile attempt to change his position. In an instant her hands were at his pillows, shifting them quickly and dexterously, supporting his shoulders with her arm the while.

"There, that's better, isn't it?" she asked; and the mother-note sounded in her voice.

"It's just beautiful, thank you. Now—I want Ladybird."

Honor's colour ebbed at the words, and she may be forgiven if a pang of rebellion stabbed her. All the hard tasks, it seemed, were to be hers; while for Evelyn was reserved the full measure of a love and tenderness which she seemed little able to rate to their true value. But there was no trace of emotion in her voice as she replied, "You shall have her at once; only she mustn't stay long. You have already talked more than is good for you."

"Talked?" he echoed, with a sudden outburst of impatience. "What else is there for me to do? I can neither read, nor write, nor move. Am I to lie here like a log, with my own black thoughts for company? I'm not ill, in spite of all."

"No, Theo, you are not ill now," the girl reasoned with him in all gentleness, "but with a wound like that so near your temple you soon will be ill, if you refuse to be moderately careful. Evelyn shall stay for a quarter of an hour. After that you must please obey me and lie quiet, so as to get a little sleep, if possible, after your cruel journey. Amar Singh shall sit here, and I will leave the drawing-room door open and play to you;—something invigorating—the Pastoral, to start with. Will that do?"

His prompt penitence caught at her heart.

"Forgive me, Honor," he said. "I was an ungrateful brute, and you're a long way too good to me. I'll obey orders in future, without kicking against the pricks. The music will be no end of a comfort. Just like you to think of it!"