Lenox himself had suffered more from loss of blood than from the flesh wound in his shoulder, which was not a serious affair; and to Desmond's broken wrist had been added a disfiguring slash across his cheek. No doubt orders and commendation awaited them: but their elation at the prospect was hushed by the very present shadow of death. For the soldier, inured as he is, does not count death a little thing. He cannot, any more than the rest of us, 'go out of the warm sunshine easily.' And the thought of Montague's wife and children, of Unwin's 'No more dancing attendance on Waziris,' intruded unsought, breaking the thread of common speech.

No doubt, also, Desmond and Lenox were thinking, manlike, of their own wives; and thanking God for wounds that would only let loose the woman's divine reserves of tenderness, her passion for 'mothering' the man she loves. Once during the evening they exchanged a glance of comprehension,—the freemasonry of those who love,—and the same question sprang simultaneously to their minds. "How about poor Norton? Would the news bring that wife of his back to Dera Ishmael in the last week of March?" And Desmond decided that if it did not, Norton must be persuaded to put up with them, and submit to Honor's ministrations, in whose power to soothe and bless he had the faith of a little child, or of a great man; for the two are so nearly allied as to be almost identical.

As for Norton himself, he was too much engrossed in the painful task of 'hanging on to life' to trouble his head about any other matter. The news of his serious hurt spread through the neighbouring villages as news only speeds in India, without help of post or wire: and when, on the following morning, a deputation of friendly Khans waited upon the Burra Sahib, to express their sorrow and shame at so flagrant a breach of the great Border law of hospitality, and to offer help with the bringing in of dead bodies, Norton insisted on receiving them, propped up on a chair: a broken, but unconquered remnant of the man whom they had feared, and loved, and obeyed, with that mixture of independence and loyal allegiance which is perhaps England's greatest triumph in India.

But all his courage could not conceal the truth from their eyes: and with one accord, these hardened men—who had no regard for death in the abstract, and an unlimited veneration for strength in any form—bowed themselves at the Englishman's feet, and wept like children.

"Oh, Sahib, . . Father of the District, . . this is an evil thing that hath befallen," the oldest among them wailed, in deep-toned lamentation. "How will it be with us who have so long been ruled by your wisdom, when the light of your Honour's countenance is withdrawn? And whom will the Sirkar[6] send us in thy stead?"

"In less than a month the Sirkar will send fire and sword," Norton answered sternly. "Smoking villages, and blackened crops. A gift for a gift, a blow for a blow, is straight dealing. But for one life taken yesterday the Sirkar will exact ten: of that ye may rest assured."

"Nay, but let it not be forgotten, Hazur, that we, who are present, be men of one word, true to our salt; not as those murderers, upon whom the wrath of Allah will be poured out like water, even upon the man-child at the breast, for yesterday's black work."

Which comfortable prediction Norton received with rather a bitter smile. It did not square with his own experience of the ironical tangle men call Life. But for all that, it is possible that, in his extremity, he envied these savage Sons of the Prophet their faith in the rough justice of Allah's dispensations.



[1] Hill.

[2] Tribal council.

[3] Meaning.

[4] Chopped straw.

[5] Fanatical slaughter.

[6] Government.



CHAPTER XXIX.

"The man was my whole world, all the time, With his flowers and praise, and his weeds to blame; And either, or both, to love." —Browning.

The Father of the District never saw his unruly children again; nor did Mrs Dudley Norton ever return to Dera Ishmael Khan. The telegram he despatched to her on arrival, made light of his wound, and its possible result; perhaps because pride urged him to take the initiative rather than submit to the culminating proof of her total detachment from him; perhaps because he shrewdly guessed that she could not reach him in time.

It had needed all the reserves of strength that are the reward of clean and temperate living, to keep him alive throughout the return marches. Yet the feat was accomplished, and his official report—a lucid, vigorous bit of work—drawn up in full; with the result that, in leisurely course of time—a mere trifle of seven months or so after the event—there appeared in the 'Army Gazette' the names of Major Desmond, V.C., Captain Lenox, C.I.E., and Lieutenant Richardson, as officers on whom her Majesty had been graciously pleased to bestow the Distinguished Service Order. The principal Native officers, whose gallantry had been so notable a feature of that grim day's work, received the coveted Order of Merit; Hira Singh and his brother being gazetted, though killed, that their widows might draw a larger pension. For England is rarely unmindful of her heroes; notwithstanding her superb dilatoriness in honouring the men who risk death and disablement for the maintenance of her scattered Empire.

With the completion of the report, on which his heart was set, the will to live deserted Dudley Norton. To drop in harness was, as he had said to Quita, a kinder fate than the dismal disintegration of a loveless old age; and the loosening of his grip on life brought reaction sharp and sudden, from which he never rallied again.

His death, following close upon that of the two Sikh officers, cast a temporary gloom over the station; and on the occasion of its announcement, the two chief papers of Upper India broke out into journalistic eulogies on the notable qualities of the man's work and character; extolling his strength and breadth of purpose and of view; his daring disregard for red-tape and all the paraphernalia of mechanical officialdom; and above all, his remarkable hold upon the Frontier tribes; administering, too late—with true human perversity—the praise that had been so grudgingly dealt out to him when ambition was at its height, when a word or two of generous recognition would have atoned in some measure for the failure and embitterment of his private life. Finally, they commiserated with the man on whom would devolve the insuperable task of replacing a Dudley Norton.

He arrived in due course:—a stop-gap from an obscure down-country station; a man of hide-bound conventionalism, who brought with him three children and a washed-out, subdued-looking wife, and who spoke magnanimously of Norton as "a clever fellow, of course, but deplorably casual officially." With such haphazard shifting of pawns on the chess-board is the momentous game of Empire played. Yet long after Dudley Norton's name had been almost forgotten by the overtasked, fluctuating world of Anglo-India, it still remained a household word among the Mahsud Waziris, whose brothers in blood had so treacherously taken his life.

And while Norton lay dying at the Desmonds' bungalow, Richardson was established under his friend's roof as a matter of course. For this is India: the land of the Good Samaritan, as those who have lived there longest know best. It has been well said that "an Englishman's house in India is not his castle, but a thousand better things—a casual ward, a convalescent home, a rest-house for the strayed traveller; and he himself is the steward of it merely." That this is no exaggeration but simple fact, Quita had already seen; and now, when she herself was called upon to obey the unwritten law of her husband's country and service, Lenox noted, with a throb of pride, that for all her artist's tendency to shrink from pain and suffering, she rose to the situation like a high-mettled horse to a fence.

On their first evening together, when Dick, under the merciful influence of morphia, had forgotten pain in sleep, Lenox spoke to her of the thought that troubled his mind.

He was lying back luxuriously in his deep chair—the wounded shoulder and left arm scientifically bandaged—while Quita hovered about him, or knelt at his side; her every tone and gesture, and the misty shining of her eyes, enveloping him in so exquisite an atmosphere of tenderness that, like Stevenson, Lenox felt inclined to vote for separations (not to say wounds) when they were both safely over!

"Come here a minute, darling," he said at length, drawing her down beside him. "I want to tell you about Dick. There's no getting at the rights of it, of course. He won't say a word himself; and I went all to pieces for the moment. I only know that when the firing was hottest, he managed to cross in front of me; that the bullet in his leg ought by rights to have gone into mine; and it's quite bad enough to know that."

Quita's eyes swam in sudden tears. "I always thought him a dear fellow," she said softly. "Just a dear fellow; not much more. But now—one begins to admire your 'Dick.'"

Lenox nodded. "You never quite know what stuff a fellow's made of till he gets his chance."

But Quita, crouching lower, had bowed her forehead upon his hand.

"What is it, lass?" he asked; and when she looked up, not only her lashes, but her cheeks were wet.

"Eldred, am I hideously wicked?" she faltered. "I was—I was thanking God that he did take his chance. Think—if it had been you! Am I wicked?"

He drew her close, and kissed her. "Hardly that, dearest. Only very human."

"But there's no danger, is there? No permanent damage done?"

"No. Mercifully the bullet only grazed the bone. He may have a week of fever, and a slow convalescence; but you'll not grudge the trouble of nursing him, after what I've told you."

"I'd never have done that. And now,"—she rose to her feet, her eyes kindling,—"now it will be a privilege. Oh, I'll be ever so good to him," she added under her breath.

And for the next three weeks—being, as she had said, a creature of extremes—she was so uniformly and enchantingly 'good to him' that those long days of fever, pain, and enforced idleness were among the most delectable Max Richardson had ever known, or ever wished to know; that, in truth, each landmark on the road back to health and duty could no longer be regarded with that unmixed satisfaction common to the masculine invalid.

But Richardson was too little capable of analysis to be troubled by this wrong-headed state of things, or to detect the hidden seed from which his flower of contentment sprang. Mrs Lenox was astonishingly kind to him, and quite the most charming companion a sick man could desire: that was all.

His sharp bout of fever once over, she sang to him, read to him, argued with him on a quaint variety of subjects, enlarging his mental horizon, drawing out thoughts and opinions at whose existence he had never guessed till now. But for him the hidden charm of their intercourse lay less in what she said or sang, than in the vibrations of her voice; in the quick response of lips and eyes to her April changes of mood; and more than all in her unfailing spirit of humour, which broke up the monotone of days spent in a long chair as a prism breaks white light into a band of brilliant colours. For Quita's genius was not of the highly specialised order. It did not inhabit an air-tight compartment of her brain where pictures grew. It pervaded her whole personality. It was not merely a genius for art, but for living, for being vital, for seeing and feeling and doing all that it is possible to see and feel and do in the sum of man's threescore years and ten. Small wonder then if Max Richardson enjoyed his convalescence, and was in no hurry to complete the process.

As for Quita, she was unconsciously slipping back to her favourite pastime, to that alluring compound of friendship and etherealised flirtation which she had likened to fencing with the buttons off the foils. The outcome of her last fencing-bout might have awakened glimmerings of caution in a less reckless offender. But Richardson was not to be named in the same day with James Garth; and in his case it was less a matter of fencing than of 'two heads bending over the same board till they touch, and the thrill passes between them'; a dangerous variation of the same amusement. The two heads had not touched as yet. In all probability they never would. But prophecy is unsafe where the human heart is in question: and as the month slipped by, and Eldred's reabsorption in the Battery and the hated articles left them constantly alone together, Quita grew genuinely fond of this big, fair man, with his unruffled sweetness of temper, and lazily smiling eyes. He satisfied the lighter elements in her nature as completely as her husband satisfied its deeper needs; and in truth, so little did one man's sphere of influence trench upon the other's, that she had almost been capable of loving both at once; each with a different set of faculties:—an achievement only possible to that bewildering creation, the artist woman!

Not that Quita had yet achieved anything so remarkable. But her feeling for Richardson, founded upon gratitude and built up by sympathy, was a real thing; and being singularly free from the taint of baser clay, she frankly acknowledged the fact, not only to herself but, on more than one occasion, to her husband, thinking to please him by her appreciation of his friend.

But man is born to perversity as the sparks fly upward; which is more than half the reason why he is born to trouble. Also, perversity apart, it was early days for a husband, endowed with the normal man's desire for exclusive possession, to stand the strain of a triangular household. Therefore, when Quita, extolling Richardson's patience and gratitude, remarked for the second time with unguarded fervour, "One really grows much too fond of the dear fellow," Lenox turned upon her a straight glance of scrutiny.

"Great luck for him. Have you ever told him so, I wonder?"

The undernote of sarcasm in his half-bantering tone brought the blood to her cheeks. But her manner froze in proportion to her inward heat.

"Am I given to making promiscuous declarations of that sort?"

"Not that I am aware of. But you have rather original ideas on the platonic question; and one can never quite tell where you draw the line."

"I draw it at telling a man I am fond of him," she answered, with a slight lift of her head. "Even a man so little likely to misunderstand one as your Dick."

"Is that what you call him now?"

"I won't answer such a question. You may think what you please."

Then, in defiance of dignity and pride, her lip quivered, and she came closer to him.

"Eldred, what makes you say such detestable things? I thought you wanted me to be good to him. Are you—angry with me about it now?"

The touch of hesitancy, so rare in her, disarmed the man, reawakened his better self; and slipping an arm round her, he crushed her against him with a force that took away her breath.

"I'm a selfish brute, Quita. That's all about it," he said bluntly. "And Dick's the best chap in the world."

She hid her eyes a moment against his coat. Then straightened herself, and stood away from him. "You exaggerate the selfishness, I assure you," she said, smiling at his gravity of aspect. "And even if you didn't, I could forgive that; but not that you should so misunderstand my whole nature. Honestly, Eldred, I would almost rather you struck me."

"Struck you? Great Scott!"

The amazement in his eyes brought a sparkle into her own.

"Yes, exactly. That's so like a man! D'you fancy I don't know that if you laid your littlest finger on me roughly, in a moment of heat, you'd never forgive yourself? Yet you struck something much more sensitive than my mere body, when you said you couldn't tell where I drew the line. I may not have been reared upon copy-book maxims, but I have my own ideas about the fitness of things; even if they don't coincide with yours, at least I think I may be trusted not to disgrace you."

"Do you really need to tell me that, Quita?"

"It seems so—after what you said just now."

He frowned. "You can wipe out what I said just now, lass. It was spoken in annoyance."

"Well, please don't say such things again, even in annoyance; or there will never be any peace between us. Besides, my dear, they are quite, quite unworthy of you, and no one knows that better than yourself."

She came closer now, and laying both hands upon him, lifted her face to his. Then she left the study, with the seal of reconciliation upon her lips, and revived assurance in her heart.

But Lenox, drawing out pipe and tobacco-pouch, as he watched her go, was discomfortably aware that his first attempt at remonstrance had ended in strategic surrender. Not only had he failed to dispel the nameless cloud that hung upon him, but he had managed matters so ill that now the whole subject must be labelled 'dangerous'; not to be reopened except under special stress of circumstance.

"She needs riding on the snaffle," was his masculine reflection, arising from the natural conviction that in all matters of moment the mastery must rest with him; which was not Quita's view by any means; and her husband was just beginning to recognise the fact. He noted, in spite of her genuine devotion, a curious detachment, mental and moral, a certain airy evasion of common, womanly responsibility, the free attitude of the good comrade rather than the wife; inherent tendencies, fostered and established by the dead years that took their toll at every turn.

Each week of living with her deepened his conviction that the winning of the entire woman would be a matter of time and trouble; of acquiring knowledge in which he was still sadly deficient. And how infinitely she was worth it all! He reminded himself that the first year of marriage was proverbially difficult; that two pronounced individualities could not be expected to fuse without a certain degree of turmoil; and having lighted his pipe, he flung himself into a chair, and closed his eyes.

For his trouble of mind had a physical basis of which his wife knew nothing. His wound, though only keeping him on the sick-list a week, had given him a good deal of pain, intermittent fever, and broken nights, which he had made light of that Quita might feel free to devote herself to Richardson, whose first bout of fever had been severe. But when pain and heated blood had subsided, the broken nights remained. A crushed habit—let it be never so sternly trodden under—retains its vitality for an amazing length of time. Lenox fought the threatened return of insomnia with every legitimate weapon; spent the greater part of each night in his study, writing doggedly, or pacing the long room with mechanical persistence,—to no purpose.

Then, with a stunned incredulity, he realised what was happening. Stealthily, insistently, the old craving was reasserting its dominion over him. He had been prepared for the possibility of its recrudescence once or twice in the event of illness or mental strain, before he could count it conquered for good. But that it should have come so soon, and upon so slight a provocation, knocked all the heart out of him; blackened for the time being his whole outlook on life. In ordinary circumstances, he would have found it an unspeakable relief to share the trouble with his wife; to give her the chance she had once so desired of helping him to fight against it. But now they were rarely alone together for long; and her lightly detached attitude tended to establish rather than dispel his native instinct of reserve. Moreover, she was so happily absorbed in ministering to his friend, that he shrank from shadowing her bright nature with the cloud that darkened his own;—a mistake arising from his rudimentary knowledge of women. For an appeal to her deeper sympathies might have wakened her undeveloped mother instinct; and by drawing them into closer union might have averted much. But in the last event, it is 'character that makes circumstance, and character is inexorable.'

Thus Lenox, lying back in his chair, was still far from recognising his fundamental error. He was simply pondering Quita's last words to him, and endorsing their truth with characteristic honesty. He had put himself in the wrong by his manner of broaching the subject; but the belief in his right to speak of it remained. He was prepared to put up with a good deal for Dick, but not for others; and it was beginning to dawn upon him that Dick was in all likelihood the first of a series; that only so could her need for varied companionship be satisfied. An idea that suggested disturbing contingencies. His mind reverted to Garth, to Sir Roger Bennet, and to the nameless unknowns who had probably bridged the space between. Since her frank confession of loyalty at Kajiar, he had refrained from expressing curiosity on the subject. But a man cannot always keep his mind from straying into forbidden places. "If only she would not treat the whole crew as if they were her brothers; and favourite brothers at that!" had been his thought more than once during the past few months. It was all very well with Dick,—a gentleman through and through, without a grain of conceit in him; but there were scores of others who would not understand. Garth, for instance, had clearly not understood; and for her sake, as well as his own, Lenox did not choose that she should multiply mistakes of that kind.

With a sigh, he drew out his watch, remembering that he had consented to be one of the judges at the Punjab Infantry sports, in which some of his own men and Native officers were taking part. Perhaps Quita would drive down with him: but he would not press the point.

Her infectious laughter seemed to challenge and rebuke his black mood, as he opened the drawing-room door to find her taking her patient for a walking tour, his hand resting on her shoulder; her face alight with encouragement, looking up into his. For it was this big man, with his dependence, and his simplicity of character, who had wakened the mother spirit in Quita after all; though she was not yet alive to the fact.

They stood still when Lenox appeared, Richardson a little breathless from some recent effort.

"He tripped over your bear's head, and I saved him from falling!" Quita explained triumphantly. "I wanted him to try without the crutch, because Dr Courtenay takes him in to dinner to-night; and he hardly had to lean on me at all!"

"I told Mrs Lenox you'd be down on me if I turned her into a walking-stick," Richardson added in half-laughing apology. "But she insisted. And you know how much chance a fellow has when she insists!"

"Yes—I know," Lenox answered, such depth of conviction in his tone that Quita laughed again.

"Mon Dieu—listen to the man! One would think I spent half my time insisting on his doing what he hates; which is a rank libel! Now, Mr Richardson, back to your chair, please. You've done enough for one while."

Lenox put out a hand to steady him across the room.

"He's going to beat me at picquet now, by way of gratitude," Quita remarked, shaking out his pillows and settling him in. "Are you off anywhere, mon cher?"

"Yes: to the P. I. sports. I'm one of the judges."

"Then it would be quite useless to go with you. But I'll ride down, if you like."

Lenox hesitated. He had seen the shadow of disappointment in his subaltern's eyes.

"N . . no," he said at length. "Better stop and play with Dick. When I come back I'll get you up into the trap, old man, and take you for a drive before dinner. Who's coming, Quita? Just the Desmonds and Courtenay?"

"Yes; and the Ollivers."

"I'm glad. She's good company."

"Which is more than I can say of him," Quita remarked, as the door closed behind her husband. "And he takes me in. Poor me! But you'll be on the other side; and you must be very kind to me to make up."

He smiled gravely upon her, without replying. She had established herself on a low stool fronting him; elbows on knees, hands framing her face, her fearless eyes searching his own.

"What are you smiling at?" she asked.

"The notion of a great buffer like me being 'kind' to you. It's you and Lenox who are a long sight too kind to me. You're spoiling me between you. Why didn't you go to the sports with him just now?"

"Because I didn't choose!" she answered sweetly. "And as for spoiling,—what else did we have you here for? The only thing I ask in return is that you will give up this nonsense about not letting me paint your portrait. Will you, please?"

He was silent a moment, tugging at his fair moustache, his eyes avoiding hers. Then:

"It wouldn't be worth all the work you'd put into it," he objected with an uneasy laugh.

"I'm the best judge of that. Inspiration's been dead in me for months; and now that you have set the spark ablaze, it's hardly fair or gracious to fling cold water on the poor thing. But of course if the sittings would bore you, now you can move about a bit——"

"Bore me? Mrs Lenox!" He looked straight at her now, emphatic denial in his gaze; and she nodded contentedly, knowing that her point was gained.

"That's a mercy," she said. "Put on your service kit to-morrow morning, and we'll start in earnest. I'm longing to begin. But in the meantime you are generously permitted to beat me at picquet!"

The dinner that evening was, as Quita explained, "Just a family affair," to celebrate Richardson's good progress, and drink success to the punitive expedition, which on that very day was filing through the Gomal Pass into Mahsud territory, to take toll, not only in men's lives, but 'in steer and gear and stack' for that day of treachery and black disaster, whose hidden motive still remained a mystery even to those most intimate with the tribes of the district.

Honor, who had not seen Lenox for nearly a week, was struck by a change in him, whose significance she understood too well. The lurking shadow in his eyes, the bitterness in his tone,—recalling 'bad days' last hot weather,—so troubled her that she found surface talk and laughter an effort, and felt grateful to Frank, who could always be counted upon for more than her share of both.

She rallied him on his gravity, in happy ignorance of the cause.

"Sure ye're just in low water, Captain Lenox," she declared with her big laugh, "because your dapper little screw guns have been left out of the show. You want to be hitting the scoundrels back with your own shells, eh?"

To which Lenox replied in an undertone of savage conviction that puzzled Honor.

"You never made a straighter shot, Mrs Olliver. I'd give five years of my life to be taking the Battery through the Gomal to-day."

But if Lenox had little to say for himself, Quita was not in the same dilemma. In fact, it seemed to Desmond that she talked a little too daringly, a little too much; and for the first lime he found his appreciation tinged with criticism.

He had gathered from Lenox that she knew little or nothing of his hidden trouble; but it struck him that a wife of the right sort (Honor, for instance) would have guessed the truth by now. He knew how little Lenox appreciated the constant influx of men to tea and dinner; and one or two people—of the social vulture species—had already spoken to him of her friendship with Richardson in the tone of voice which made Desmond clench and pocket his fists, lest he should knock them down out of hand. He took advantage of his seat next the Gunner to mention, under cover of general conversation, his anxiety about Lenox's health; and managed also to take part in most of his talk with Quita throughout the meal.

She redoubled her friendliness to Richardson by way of flinging down her gage; whereupon Desmond with admirable insouciance retired from the lists. Once or twice her eyes challenged his, half-puzzled, half-defiant. Her quick perception detected his critical attitude, and in her present mood the undernote of antagonism acted as a spur rather than a check upon the dare-devil strain in her, which was responsible for her odd mingling of folly and heroic self-devotion.

Before the ladies left the table, the success and thoroughness of the expedition was proposed with cheers; followed by a second toast, drunk in silence, to the memory of the three men who had been alive in their midst less than a month ago: and later in the evening—when the Ollivers, Richardson, and Courtenay were absorbed in whist, and Honor had gone out with Lenox into the garden, where a late moon was rising—Desmond lured Quita to the piano at the far end of the room by asking her to sing.

At the close of the second song, he leaned his elbow on the top of the instrument, and stood so, searching her face with such discomposing directness that a burning wave of colour submerged her, and she dropped her eyes.

"I don't believe you ever criticised me till to-night, Major Desmond," she murmured, striking soft chords at random with her left hand.

"Not since I really came to know you," he answered in the same tone. "You have never given me cause."

"Well—I don't like it."

"Few of us do. You prefer indiscriminate admiration?"

The flush deepened, but she looked up.

"I prefer your approval to your disapproval," she said, still moving her hand over the notes. "But I have always gone my own way; and I warn you that nothing rouses the devil in me like being scolded or dictated to."

"My dear Quita, I have no right nor wish to do either. I only want to ask you a question or two—if I may?"

"What about?"

"Your husband. He won't consult Courtenay; and I am getting anxious. Would you mind telling me about how much sleep he has had this last week?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"As far as I know he hardly ever comes to bed at all."

"Quita, you are exaggerating!"

"I only mean, it's no use asking me for accurate information."

"But do you know that insomnia's a serious thing—especially for him?"

"Yes. I made a fuss when he first began working late. It's bad for him and a nuisance for me. But I have given that up now. He's as obstinate as I am about going his own way. It's almost the only quality we share in common."

"Don't you feel it might be worth trying again?"

"Possibly. If you think I ought."

Desmond's eyes twinkled at the implied compliment.

"I do think it."

She sighed.

"Oh, well,—I don't promise, and we've had enough of the dismal subject for now. One never seems allowed to enjoy one's self in peace. D'you want more music, or—would you prefer whist?"

"I'm to cut in, and leave Richardson free. Is that it?"

The blush that still burned in her cheeks spread slowly over her neck to the soft lace at her breast; and the man felt that in his momentary vexation he had struck too hard. Then her eyes flashed fire into his.

"Major Desmond, if you begin saying things like that to me—I shall hate you."

"No, Quita. It'll never be that between us. I apologise. But you know I care immensely for your husband, and it angers me to see you—apparently indifferent . . ."

"Indifferent? How dare you . . . ?" she breathed low and passionately, her breath coming in small gasps.

"I understand. But I'm not sorry I roused you.—Here comes Honor. I know she wants to get home early. Good-night to you. Am I forgiven?"

"No. But you will be—to-morrow morning. I believe one could forgive you almost anything."

"I'll not be base enough to take advantage of such a generous admission," he answered, smiling and grasping her hand.

Lenox, with a keen glance at his wife's face, followed the Desmonds into the verandah, and helped Honor into her seat.

"You'll keep your promise, won't you?" she pleaded. "And go straight to bed without even looking into your study. Never mind if the lamp burns there all night. You can charge me for the kerosene!"

"That's a bargain then," he answered, laughing. "It's like old times to have you laying commands on me again!"

"Not only to-night, remember: a whole week of nights and more."

"Trust me. I have promised. Good-night, Mrs Desmond, and thank you."

As the dog-cart turned into the open road, Honor spoke: "Theo, if she lets him go to pieces again . . . I shall never, never forgive her."

There was a break in her low voice, and Desmond slipping a hand through her arm, pressed it close against him.

"You dear blessed woman, no fear of that. She cares,—with all her heart. But there are faults and difficulties on both sides; and I'm afraid they have still a lot of rough ground to get over before they settle into their stride."

And Quita, the perverse, Quita, the inconsistent, cried herself to sleep that night upon her husband's shoulder.



CHAPTER XXX

"Hearts are like horses; they come and go without whip or spur." —Native Proverb.

"Only ten minutes more; a bare ten minutes. Then you shall 'ease off' and stretch your legs a little. I'm sure by this time you must be wishing all artists at the bottom of the sea!"

"N-no; I haven't got quite as far as that yet," Richardson answered with lazy good-humour, flicking the ash off his cigar.

"You will, though, before I've done with you! I know I have been exacting to-day, for the eyes are the crux of a portrait. Unless the individual soul looks out of them, it's a dead thing. D'you know, I once told Eldred that yours were like bits of sea water with sunbeams caught in them; and the effect isn't easy to produce on canvas. But I'm succeeding—I'm succeeding a merveille. That's why I must get the effect while my hand is in; and you've not once hampered me by looking bored or impatient. How is one to reward you for such angelic behaviour?"

"There are ways and ways. Am I allowed to choose?"

"Perhaps,—within limits! But we'll discuss that when I can give my mind to the subject. Now, your head a little more to the right, please. That's better. You get out of position when you talk."

"Sorry. I may lean back though, mayn't I?"

"Why, of course! I only wonder you don't get up and throw the chair at my head!"

He laughed and leaned back accordingly, blowing an endless chain of smoke-rings, and watching her face, her supple slenderness, the deft movements of her hand, with a contentment whose vital ingredients he either could not or would not recognise—yet.

For a full week he had spent many hours of each day in smoking and watching her thus; and the fact that he had never yet found the occupation monotonous was a danger-signal in itself. But your comfort-loving man is singularly obtuse in the matter of danger-signals: and loyalty apart, Richardson was too genuinely devoted to his friend to admit the possibility of that which was almost an accomplished fact. The man was not built for high tragedy; and, in truth, the sittings were an equal pleasure to him when Lenox joined them, as he often did; the two men smoking and talking horses or their beloved 'shop,' while Quita worked and listened, and interrupted without scruple whenever the spirit moved her.

Yet beneath the smooth-seeming surface of things Lenox was more than ever aware of her curious detachment, of a disturbing sense that his hold over her was still an imperfect thing. Nor was he altogether mistaken. Quita had not yet learned to give herself royally. The fact that she had put her heart and life into the hands of the man she loved did not prevent her from going her own way; from feeling—as she had always felt—responsible to herself alone for her words and actions.

And the past week had seemed to emphasise these idiosyncrasies; because, at the first mysterious breath of inspiration, the submerged artist in her had risen again with power, had, for the time being, dominated her,—body and soul: and she may surely be forgiven if the 'world-lifting joy' of creation swept her off her feet; if she had eyes and thoughts for little else save the picture coming to life under her hand. Perhaps it needs an artist, one who has felt the Divine breath stir a spark into a flame, rightly to understand and make allowance for such spiritual intoxication. Michael,—shallow-hearted egoist though he might be,—would have understood: because he was an artist. But Lenox, being simply a man and a soldier, found it difficult to distinguish between her absorption in the picture and in the subject of the picture; difficult to realise her momentary freedom from the personal equation.

What with incessant sittings, and equally incessant people to tea and dinner, he had little intimate speech of her in the daytime; and in the long hours of wakefulness as he lay beside her listening to her even breathing, he faced the fact that his growing irritability was due to jealousy;—not the jealousy that doubts or suspects,—of that he was incapable; but the primitive man's demand for exclusive possession of his own. Probably Desmond, in such a case, would have lost his temper and cleared the air in half an hour. But temperament is destiny: and Lenox was not so made. He merely shut the door upon the evil thing; and tried—not very successfully—to ignore its existence. And with three evil spirits in possession of him, it is not surprising if at times he gave place to the devil.

Of all this Quita was airily unaware. Since he had given up coming to bed at unearthly hours, she concluded that he slept. Mixed motives had held him silent in regard to the threatening shadow of opium, even during her moment of collapse and self-reproach after the expedition dinner; and of his dawning jealousy he was at once too ashamed and too proud to speak.

This morning his repressed irritability had been more marked than usual; and Quita had decided that once free from her enthralling picture, she must devote herself definitely to 'cheering him up.' But for the present she discouraged troublesome thoughts; and now, while Richardson sat smoking and watching her, she was conscious of nothing on earth save the exhilaration of success.

She let fall both hands at last, with a sigh of supreme satisfaction.

"There! I can do no more to it—for the present. You are released. You may come and look."

He obeyed; and stood beside her lost in uncomprehending admiration of her skill.

It was Quita who spoke first. "We have achieved a rather remarkable bit of work between us, you and I."

"We?" he echoed in amaze. "I don't quite see where I come in."

"No: you wouldn't: and I'm afraid I can't enlighten you. But the fact remains. Would you mind if I sent it to the Academy, just as a Portrait of a Soldier?"

"The Academy? Good Lord! I should be proud."

"Thank you. I believe they'll hang it; and hang it well. That will be my reward. But what about yours?"

She looked up at him now, letting her eyes rest confidently in his: and the glad light in them held him, dazzled him, so that he forgot to answer her; forgot much that he ought to have remembered, in the flashlight of a revelation so simple yet so astounding that it took him several seconds to understand what had befallen him.

"Well?" she asked, smiling. "Is it so tremendous?" And the spell was broken. But reality remained.

He felt something in him throb strangely; the pain of it melting into a glow more startling than the first shock; and with an awkward laugh he turned abruptly away from her;—too abruptly, as a twinge in his left leg gave warning, so that the laugh ended in an involuntary sound of pain.

"Mr Richardson, do be careful," she reproved him gently. "What has come to you? And why do you go off like that without answering my question?"

For he had crossed to the mantelpiece; and a photo of her portrait of Lenox seemed to be absorbing his attention. Nor did he take his eyes from it in speaking.

"Because—well, because it struck me that perhaps you wouldn't be so keen about rewarding me,—if you knew . . . ."

"What? Is there anything to know?"

"Yes: worse luck. I ought to have spoken sooner. But I shirked it, especially after what you said out driving. You remember—that letter—long ago?"

"Am I likely to forget? What about it?"

This time he faced her deliberately, though the blood mounted to his forehead.

"I am the chap who wrote it. I'm the man you have been hating all these years; the man you hate still."

She came a step closer and stood gazing at him blankly, reorganising her sensations.

"You wrote it? You?"

"Yes; I."

"But did you really know anything about me, or about Sir Roger Bennet?"

"Nothing on earth. I was simply repeating idle gossip."

"Oh, how could you! And look what came of it. The years of bitterness and estrangement——!" He winced under her passionate reproach.

"It was done in ignorance, remember; though, as you reminded me not long since, that doesn't soften facts. Slang me; hate me for it, if you must. It can't be helped."

"But I don't hate you, mon ami; I couldn't if I tried for a month."

This was disconcerting. He had thought to snap the cord of their friendship, and so make it easier to see less of her in future.

"Not even now you know?" he persisted desperately. And she shook her head.

"Yet you told me distinctly that you could never forgive that unlucky chap."

"But then I never guessed it was you," she retorted with true woman's logic. "How could one hate you, after what happened last month. Eldred told me."

"That,"—he shrugged his shoulders,—"that was a mere nothing."

"Excuse me, as men go now it was a good deal. But still—I am puzzled. If you shirked telling me all this while, what made you tell me to-day?"

This also was disconcerting. But he did his best.

"I don't know. Perhaps it was talking of rewards. Besides—I'm one of those clumsy fools who never feel quite comfortable until he has blurted out the truth."

He tried to laugh, but her direct look broke the sound in his throat.

"I rather admire that kind of fool," she said, with quiet emphasis. "And you have lost nothing by your folly,—nothing."

"Does that mean you have quite forgiven me?" For the life of him he could not stifle the exultation in his tone.

"Quite—quite. Will that do for your reward? Shake hands on it,—please: and I promise never to speak or think of it again."

Before their hands fell apart Lenox entered, and a slight shadow crossed his face.

"A note for you, Dick," he said quietly. "The man wants an answer."

Richardson's relief was evident.

"Thanks. I won't keep him waiting." And he departed without opening the envelope.

"Don't be too long; and don't change your coat," Quita called after him. "There's some detail work that I might get in before tea." Then conscious of gathering storm, she turned hurriedly to her husband.

"What were you and Dick shaking hands about at this time of day!" he asked as the door closed upon his subaltern.

She had meant to tell him as a matter of course. But something in his tone roused her fatal spirit of perversity—and up went her chin into the air.

"We were striking a bargain. Have you any objection?"

"No. Not the smallest. Would it be any use if I had?"

She paused, weighing the question.

"I don't think it would. Petty tyranny of that kind is the last thing I could put up with; the last thing one would expect from you."

"Quite so. At the same time—marriage means compromise. You understand?"

"When a man says that he usually implies that the woman will do most of the compromising, in order that he may have his own way."

"Within limits, a man has a certain right to his own way in his own house."

"And generally gets it!" she answered lightly.

Lenox shrugged his shoulders, and going over to the easel, contemplated in silence the living likeness of his friend: while Quita, watching him, was increasingly aware of slumbering electricity that might at any moment break into a lightning-flash of speech.

"It's good. Don't you think so?" she asked on a tentative note of conciliation.

"Of course it is. Damned good," he answered gruffly.

"Eldred! Even if you are in a bad mood, you might control your language."

"I beg your pardon. It's exceedingly good. But you've had it long enough on hand. Shall you finish it to-day?"

"I don't think so. Why?"

"Because, though Dick isn't quite up to duty yet, he's fit to be back at mess again and in his own bungalow."

"Has he said anything about it?"

"No."

"And do you propose to tell him outright that he has been here long enough?"

"What I propose to say to him is my own affair. You needn't distress yourself on his account. Dick and I understand one another perfectly."

"No doubt you do. But after all, I am his hostess, and though you may not object to being flagrantly inhospitable, I do—very strongly. Besides, why should you be in such a hurry to turn him out? Are you annoyed again because we happen to be good friends and enjoy one another's society? I thought you were above that sort of thing."

The suggestion of scorn in her tone pricked him past endurance. He turned upon her sharply; and his eyes took on their blue of steel.

"I am not above the natural passions of the natural man. You may as well know it first as last. And I do not choose that Dick and half the men of the station shall practically live in my house because I happen to possess a very attractive wife."

"In fact, you imply that the attractive wife is bound over not to go beyond correct platitudes with any of them but you. Is that it?" she demanded, the red of rebellion staining her cheeks.

The man was sore rather than angry; and the least touch of tenderness or hesitancy would have melted him to generous contrition. But her manner hardened him, and he set his teeth.

"I imply nothing of the sort; and you know it. It would never occur to me to set limits, general or particular, on your conduct with other men; and as for your intimacy with Dick, if I didn't believe in you both absolutely I wouldn't live with you another week. But I want to make it clear to you that, having accepted the fact of marriage, you cannot in reason be as independent and daringly unconventional in your dealings with men as you were when you had no one to consider but yourself. I know India better than you do. We live in glass houses out here: and I know the sort of remarks that are made about a young married woman who is never seen without half a dozen men at her heels . . ."

"But, my dear man," she broke out impatiently, "who cares one grain of dust what their remarks may be? Men are my natural-born companions. Always have been. Always will be. And it's no use asking me to cramp and distort my whole nature because bourgeois people take a low view of the matter."

"No use, is it? That's pretty strong, Quita. Not that I am asking anything of the kind: only that you should show some small consideration for my point of view; that you should make some effort to adapt yourself to a new relation."

"I do make an effort, Eldred," she answered unappeased. "But individuality and temperament are stubborn things, even in a woman; and I can't sacrifice mine because I happen to be your wife. Marriage doesn't change one into an invertebrate creature of wax and pack-thread to be moulded or pushed into any shape a man pleases; especially if one happens to be an artist as well as a woman. We have our own devils inside us; our own minds and bodies as well as you. It wouldn't be the least use my promising to walk discreetly and weigh my words and actions; because I shouldn't keep the promise for five minutes. Besides . . ." Returning steps sounded without, and Lenox held up his hand.

"That's enough," he said decisively. "Here's Dick. You're simply telling me, in roundabout language, that you intend to take the bit between your teeth. Well, I intend to keep a firm hold on the reins for your sake as much as my own."

She flushed hotly.

"Mon Dieu, what a detestable similie!"

"Quite so. But it expresses the position. If you will make it a case of mastery, what else can a man do?"

And as Richardson entered from the dining-room, Lenox went out; by way of the verandah into his study.



CHAPTER XXXI.

"When the fight begins within himself, The man's worth something." —Browning.

Lenox, back at his writing-table, automatically took up his pen. But five minutes later he still sat thus, looking straight ahead of him into a future darkened by the encroaching shadow of opium, and complicated by this new factor of open discord, which—apart from the pain of finding division, where he had looked for unity—set all his nerves on edge.

Hitherto, his distaste for friction, coupled with an almost unlimited power of endurance, had inclined him to let matters slide. But now his conscience—the accusing, spiritual thing that was himself—warned him that if marriage meant compromise, it also meant responsibility; that having been goaded into decisive speech, he stood pledged to decisive action, for her sake, even more than for his own. Yet, at the moment, he felt physically and mentally unfit to grapple with the complex situation, hampered as he was by the experience of all that may spring from one false move, one instant of unguarded speech; and the knowledge that his insight, his judgment, were clouded by the insomnia, grinding headache, and renewed wrestling with a power stronger than his will. For there was no evading the truth, that, in the past weeks, the drug had gained fresh hold upon him; had resuscitated the old paralysing pessimism and dread of defeat, so that he asked himself bitterly what right had he to sit in judgment upon any one, least of all upon the dear woman who was the core and mainspring of his life?

Yet, fit or unfit, the need for action, for the rightful assertion of authority, remained. He laid down his pen, planted an elbow on the table, and covered his eyes; struggling for clear unprejudiced thought; tormented by the consciousness of a certain small box hidden away in a locked drawer within easy reach of his hand.

Suddenly he sat upright. The lines of his face hardened; a cold moisture broke out upon his forehead; and the desperate look in his eyes was an ill thing to see. Yet his movements had a strange mechanical deliberation, as he opened the drawer, found the box, helped himself from its contents, and, locking it up again, leaned back with the long exhausted sigh of a man released from tension.

For several minutes he sat thus, arms folded, eyes closed; yielding himself to the luxury of relief that stole over him, while the great magician plucked the pain from throbbing nerves, unravelled the tangle of thought and feeling, soothed brain and body like the touch of a woman's hand.

But relief, as always, brought revulsion; this time sooner than usual; because for many days he had held his own against the evil thing, and had almost begun to believe himself on the upward grade.

"Damnation!" he broke out fiercely, and, the key being still in his hand, flung it haphazard right across the room. It fell between a heavy bookcase and the wall; and with a savage laugh of satisfaction, he took up his pen, and began to write rapidly, without pausing to select words or phrases. He tore it all up next morning, but for the time being it served to distract his thoughts.

Presently he heard Quita's voice at the door.

"Eldred, aren't you coming to tea?"

"No," he answered, without looking round.

"Shall I bring you some, then?"

"No, thank you."

He turned his head just in time to catch sight of her as she closed the door; then went on writing with less regard than ever for the matter in hand.

In less than half an hour, Richardson's uneven footstep, betraying the slight limp, sounded without. He paused so long on the other side of the door, that Lenox's brows went up in surprise.

"That you, Dick?" he called out. "Come along in."

Richardson obeyed; and Lenox removed three or four books from an adjacent chair.

"Sit down, old chap. You've not been in here often enough lately. Chained to my wife's easel, eh?"

"Partly . . . yes," the other answered, absently fingering some loose sheets of manuscript and ignoring the proffered chair.

"Wasn't sure, either, if you cared about being interrupted. I came in now to say I thought of dining at mess to-night, and clearing out into my own bungalow to-morrow. You've been uncommonly good to me, you and Mrs Lenox. But I think I've been quartered on you long enough; and I shall probably get back to duty next week."

He spoke rather rapidly, as if to ward off interruption or dissent; and Lenox started at finding the initiative thus taken out of his hands. It was not Quita's doing. He felt sure of that. But Dick's manner puzzled him, and mere friendliness made acquiescence impossible.

"Well, you seem in a deuce of a hurry to be quit of us," he said, with a short laugh. "Might as well stop till you do get back to duty; and you might as well sit down and have a smoke, now you're here, instead of standing there like a confounded subordinate, making havoc of my papers!"

At that Richardson sat down rather abruptly, and helped himself from his friend's cigar-case. He had small talent and less taste for subterfuge; and, his pulses being in an awkward state of commotion, he took his time over the beheading and lighting of his cigar. In fact he took so long that Lenox spoke again.

"What do you suppose my wife will say to your bolting in this way, at a moment's notice! Have you spoken to her yet?"

"No. I was afraid of seeming . . . ungracious; and one could speak straighter to you."

"Does that mean you really won't stop on?"

"I think not, thanks. It's awfully good of you to suggest it. I can look in, of course, if Mrs Lenox wants any more sittings. But I may as well stick to my arrangement and go before she gets sick of having me on her hands."

"You're a long way ahead of that, I fancy," Lenox remarked, with an odd change of tone.

For a statement of that kind Richardson had no answer. He could only acknowledge it with a rueful smile that did not lift the shadow from his eyes. There were no sunbeams caught in Quita's 'bits of sea water' just then; and for a while silence and tobacco-smoke reigned in the room. Richardson, who appeared to be reading the closely written sheet of foolscap at his elbow, was casting about in his mind for the best means of saying that which must be said; while Lenox, watching him keenly, arrived at the masculine conclusion that Dick had 'come a cropper' over something, and possibly needed his help.

"Anything on your mind, old chap?" he asked bluntly, when the silence had lasted nearly five minutes. And Richardson, taking his resolution in both hands, looked up from the meaningless page.

"Yes, that's about it. Don't misunderstand me, Lenox. I'd sooner work with you than with any man in creation; but—there are difficulties . . . I can't put it plainer—and I'm thinking of applying for a Staff appointment. My uncle in the Secretariat would give me a helping hand, if you'd forward the thing with a decent recommendation. But if you think me too much of a duffer for Staff work, I must try—for an exchange——"

He could get no further; and Lenox, leaning across the corner of the table, scrutinised his face with eyes that penetrated like a searchlight.

"Well . . . I'm damned!" he said slowly. "Am I to understand that after all we've pulled through together, you want to get away from the Battery at any price?"

"It's not a question of what I want to do; it's what I've got to do," the other answered, averting his eyes.

"My good Dick, you're talking in riddles. Have you taken temporary leave of your senses? Or is it a case of 'urgent private affairs'?"

Lenox's tone had an edge to it. Of course the man was free to go where he chose. But it had grown to be an understood thing between them that they would work together as long as might be, and he could not conceal his disappointment. Richardson knew this, and looked up quickly. It was the worst quarter of an hour he had ever known. Facing Waziri bullets was a small matter compared with this despicable business of disappointing and deceiving his friend.

"It's urgent enough, God knows!" he answered desperately. "I can't say more than that, Lenox. I swear I can't."

He looked straight at Lenox in speaking. And this time the older man's gaze held him, in spite of himself, till the blood burned under his fair skin; till he perceived, between shame and relief, that his secret was his no longer; that Lenox had seen, and understood. His first instinct was—to escape. Such knowledge shared was enough to strike any man dumb.

"You will recommend me, won't you, old chap?" he asked all in a breath, with a forward movement, as if to rise and depart.

But Lenox reached across the table, and a heavy hand on his shoulder pressed him back into his seat.

"No need to hurry away, Max. We've settled nothing yet."

The assurance of unshaken friendship in his altered manner, and in the sudden use of Richardson's first name, automatically readjusted the situation, without need of so much as a glance of mutual understanding, which neither could have endured.

"I'm afraid I can't recommend you for Staff work," Lenox went on quietly, as though dealing with a mere official detail, submitted for his approval. "Not because you are a duffer, but because I can't spare my right-hand man. I'm not an easy chap to work with, as you know. But we've learnt one another's ways by now, and, unless political work claims me, we can't do better than run the Battery together till you get a command—and that's not far off now. As for your urgent need of a change, if six months at home would suit you, I'll do my best to square it. We might manage sick-leave, on the strength of your leg, eh?"

Richardson breathed deeply.

"Thank you, Lenox. It's splendid of you. I'd be awfully glad of the change."

"That's all right. And I tell you what, Dick," he paused, and smiled upon his friend. "Hope I'm not taking an infernal liberty! But if you can afford it—and if you can hit on the right girl—you might do worse than bring a wife back with you. You're the sort that's bound to marry some time, and you may take my word for it, thirty's a better age to start than thirty-five."

Richardson laughed, and coloured again, hotly.

"It takes two to make that sort of start," he said, "And if a fellow hits on the wrong one, it must be the very devil."

"Yes, by Jove, it must!" Lenox answered feelingly; adding in his own mind that even with the right one, it could be the very devil, now and again. "Think of poor Norton. But you'll have better luck, I hope. About stopping on for the present, of course you must please yourself. You'd be very welcome; and if you're afraid of taking up too much of my wife's time, you can easily give me more of your company than you have done so far. See how you feel about it to-morrow."

"Thanks, I will."

He rose now unhindered; and stood a moment hesitating, fired with a very human wish to express his gratitude. But Lenox had accepted and dismissed the whole incident in a fashion at once so impersonal, so chivalrous, that his aching sense of disloyalty and unworthiness seemed to have been tacitly wiped out, leaving one only course open to him—to act as though that culminating hour of madness had never been.

"See you again before I start for mess," he said, as Lenox looked up. And the dreaded interview—that should have broken up everything, yet had altered nothing, save his own estimate of life—was over.

Lenox, left alone again, bowed his head upon his hands, and sat a long time motionless, while the white flame of anger leaped and burned in his brain; anger such as he had never yet felt towards his wife. The spirit of his formidable uncle still so far survived in him that instinctively he blamed the woman; blamed himself also because pride and a strong distaste for self-assertion had inclined him to an attitude of masterly inactivity. In this fine fashion, between them, they had rewarded Dick for an unrecognised act of gallantry that might well have cost him his life; and nothing now remained but to make such inadequate atonement as the case admitted. Strange as it may seem, he had never come so near to loving his friend as at that moment.

As for Quita—was there even the remotest chance that she also . . . ? His brain refused to complete such a question. The thing was unthinkable. But in any case his own duty stood out crystal clear. When he had mastered his anger sufficiently to risk speech, he and she must come to terms upon this thorny subject once for all. And he must take his stand upon the bare rock of principle. Let her brand him bourgeois, Covenanter, what she would. Dick's secret must be kept—at any cost!



CHAPTER XXXII.

"Love's strength standeth in Love's sacrifice, And he who suffers most has most to give." —Hamilton King.

Dinner that evening was an oppressively silent affair. The man's white Northern anger still smouldered beneath his surface immobility; while Quita, who could not bring herself to believe in the spontaneity of Richardson's engagement at mess, was instinctively measuring and crossing swords with the husband, whose personality held her captive even while it forced her every moment nearer to the danger-point of open defiance.

Both were thankful when the solemn farce of eating and drinking came to an end; and Quita rose with an audible sigh of relief.

"Are you coming into the drawing-room at all?" she asked, addressing the question to his centre shirt-stud.

"Yes—at once. I have a good deal to say to you."

She raised her eyebrows with a small polite smile, and swept on before him, her step quickened by the fact that his words had set the blood rushing through her veins. The dead weight of his silence pulverised her. Speech, however dangerous, would be pure relief.

Before following, he locked up spirit tantalus and cigar-box with his wonted deliberation; and on reaching the drawing-room found her absorbed in contemplation of Dick's portrait, hands clasped behind her, the unbroken lines of her grey-green dress lending height and dignity to her natural grace; the glitter of defiance gone out of her eyes.

Lenox set his lips, and confounded the advantages nature and art conspire to bestow upon some women, more especially when they know themselves beloved. The mere man in him had one impulse only,—to take instant possession of her; to conquer her lurking antagonism by sheer force of passion and of will. But he had sense enough to know that such primitive methods would not shift, by one hair's-breadth, their real point of division; would, in fact, be no less than inverted defeat. The heart of her was secure:—that he knew. It was her detached, elusive mind and spirit that were still to win; and a man's arms had small concern with that form of capture.

Quita vouchsafed him a glance as he entered. Then her gaze returned to the picture.

"One misses him," she said, presumably to the tall figure on the hearth-rug. "I think I have never known a man so uniformly cheerful and sweet-tempered. But it is selfish to grudge him a little change of atmosphere. And no doubt he is having a livelier evening than we are."

She was facing her husband now; but something in his aspect made her feel suddenly ashamed of using small weapons against a nature too magnanimous to retaliate. And, without giving him time to answer, she went on, a little hurriedly, "Eldred, if this intolerable state of things means that you really imagine I am—how does one put anything so detestable?—growing . . . too fond of Mr Richardson, you can set your mind at rest. Morality apart, you are much too masterful, too large—in every way—to leave room for any one else in a woman's heart, once she has let you in."

"Thank you," Lenox answered, in a non-committal tone. But a shadow passed from his face, and she saw it.

"Of course I know it has been rather marked this last week. But that was simply because for the moment he and my picture were the same thing. Being absorbed in one meant being absorbed in the other. To produce a living portrait, one needs to get inside the subject of it as far as possible. At least, I do. And on the whole, I think my method is justified by the result!"

But Lenox, as he stood listening, experienced fresh proof of man's innate spirit of perversity. For many days past he had been angered by the suspicion that in this affair of portrait painting, the subject counted for too much;—and now, when he ought to have been relieved, he found his anger rekindled to white heat by Quita's frank confession that his friend—whose heart had been wrenched from him by her so-called 'method'—counted for nothing at all. For one ignoble instant, he was tempted to break through every restraining consideration and lash her with the truth.

The fact that he did not answer her at once puzzled Quita.

"Do you understand now, mon ami?" she asked, coming a step closer. "I was absorbed in an interesting subject. It is over—voila tout."

"No, Quita; I do not understand," he answered, repressed heat hardening his voice and face more than he knew. "To a mere soldier it all sounds rather inhuman; and I can only say that if you find it so necessary to 'get inside' your subjects, as you express it, you had better make women and children your speciality, and let us poor devils alone."

"Women and children? But, my dear—what a suggestion! One does not choose one's subjects to order. Women and children don't interest me. I have always preferred to paint men, and always shall."

"Then I'm afraid it may end in your having to drop portrait painting altogether."

That touched the artist to the quick. With a small gasp—as if he had struck her—she sank upon the arm of his big chair; her hands clasped, so that the knuckles stood out sharp and white; two spots of fire burning in her cheeks.

"Do you seriously mean—what you say?" she asked, pausing between the words.

"Certainly. I am not given to speaking at random."

"You mean—you would insist?"

"I hope it would never come to that."

"Mon Dieu, no. It never would!" She flung up her head with a broken sound between a laugh and a sob. "Because—if it ever did——"

She hung on the word a moment; and in a flash Lenox saw how near they were to repeating the initial tragedy of more than six years ago.

"Quita," he broke in sharply, "listen to me before you say unconsidered things that we may both of us regret. Are we going to make havoc of everything again at the outset? Tell me that."

"How do I know? It depends on you. I think I told you then, that you might as well expect me to give up seeing or hearing as to give up my art. And that is truer—ten times truer—to-day, even though I am . . . your wife."

He saw her vibrating like a smitten harp-string; saw the quick rise and fall of the lace at her breast; and it was all a man could do to keep his hands off her. He had to remind himself that she was no child to be comforted with empty kisses; but very woman and very artist, torn between the master-forces of life.

"See here, lass," he said quietly, laying aside his half-smoked cigar. "As this is a big matter for us both, we may as well get at the root of it straight away. You said this afternoon that you could not give up your individuality because you had accepted marriage. Very well. Neither can I. That still leaves us two alternatives. Either we must give up the notion of living together; or we must be prepared to make concessions—both of us. That is why I said that marriage means compromise. If we go on much longer as we have been doing lately, seeing next to nothing of one another because the house has been converted into a surplus club for half the fellows in the station; and if you are going to spend your time 'getting inside' other men with a view to painting their portraits, we shall simply drift apart as the Nortons did. Conditions of life out here make that sort of thing fatally easy to fall into. But I tell you plainly that if there is to be no attempt at amalgamation, if we are each to go our own way, then—we must lead separate lives. I would not even have you in India. It would be a case of going home."

The two spots of fire had died out of her face, and she turned wide, startled eyes upon him.

"I don't—quite understand." Her voice was barely audible, "Are you telling me—to go?"

"My dear—can you ask that? I am only pointing out the conditions that might make such a catastrophe—inevitable. Looking things in the face may prevent future friction and misunderstanding, which are the very devil. What's more, I never realised till lately what a very big factor your art is in your life. I believe it is the biggest thing of all. Am I right?"

"I don't know. I can't tell—yet."

He straightened himself, and his face hardened.

"You can easily find out by putting the matter to practical proof. In fact, I am going to make a proposal that will not leave you very long in doubt. You have genius, Quita. I recognise that. And I want you to think seriously over all you said this afternoon about not cramping or distorting your individuality to suit my 'prejudices.' If you feel that your art must come before everything, that marriage will only hamper its full development, without making good what you lose,—in fact, if you think that the purely artist life will be better and happier for you in the long-run, I would sooner you said so frankly, I would indeed."

"Eldred!" she gasped, between indignation and fear. But he motioned her to silence.

"Hear me out first. I told you I had a good deal to say; and as I am not often taken that way, you must bear with me, for once. You know now something, at least, of what it means for a man and woman to live together, as we do. I warned you that I should prove a sorry bargain; and—take me or leave me—I cannot pretend that any amount of compromise will make me other than I am. You think me hard, narrow, conventional, in some respects, no doubt. But in a matter so vital conventional moralities go for nothing. I want the truth. If you believe, as I said, that art must stand first with you—always, I shall respect your frankness and courage in telling me so; and I will give you—such freedom as the circumstances admit."

"Mon Dieu!" she breathed, and for a second or two could say no more. She had touched the bed-rock of granite in the man at last. Then the fear that clutched at her found words, in her own despite.

"Have I killed—your love, so soon? Surely you could not make such a suggestion—in cold blood, unless—I had."

"You are simply shifting the argument," he answered without unbending. "You know whether—I love you. In fact, if it comes to that, it is you, my dear, who have not yet grasped the full meaning of the word, or you would not need to be told that the free choice I am offering you of compromise with me, or independence—without me, is the utmost proof one can give that you and your happiness stand absolutely first——"

At that she made an impulsive movement towards him, and her fingers closed upon his arm. But with inexorable gentleness he unclasped her hand, and put it from him.

"No, no," he said, and there was more pain than hardness in his tone. "Better keep clear of that form of argument, for the present. Passion settles nothing. Contact is not fusion. We have proved it,—you and I. It is not a question of what we feel. That may be taken for granted by now. It is a question of what we are, individually, intrinsically; of how much each of us is ready to forego for the sake of the one essential form of union that counts between a man and woman who are not mere materialists; and we are neither of us that. I don't want my answer to-night, nor even to-morrow. I have not spoken on impulse; and I want you to think very thoroughly over all I have said when your brain is cooler than it is just now."

"But suppose—I don't want to think it over?"

A half smile dispelled his gravity. "Knowing you intimately, I should not suppose anything else! In the two big crises of our life, remember, you were ruled purely by impulse and emotion, and you brought us very near to shipwreck in consequence. But this time, you will do what I ask, and give my slower methods a chance; because this time your decision will be final. If we are to separate again, we separate for life. That much I have decided. The rest—I leave in your hands."

She stood very still, like one magnetised, her gaze riveted on the carpet. His steadfast aloofness had chilled her first headlong impulse of surrender; and she knew now that he was right:—that, dearly as she loved him, independence in thought, word, and act were still the breath of life for her and for her art. He had put the matter to practical proof with a sledge-hammer directness all his own; had opened her eyes to the humiliating truth that never in all her thirty years of living had she given up anything that mattered for any one. And now——

She raised her head with a start, Zyarulla had brought in a telegram, and Lenox stood reading it with a transfigured face, an eager light in his eyes.

"What is it?" she wondered, not daring to ask. "He is going away somewhere—he is delighted. And he says I come absolutely first."

Then Lenox raised his eyes, and a lightning instinct told her that for the moment he had forgotten her existence.

"Well, Quita," he said, unconscious elation in his tone, "I think the Foreign Office must have known we had got to a difficult corner, and decided to give us a helping hand. They want me to undertake an exploration north of Kashmir, and remonstrate with a small chief who has been misbehaving up there. I am to report myself at Simla ek dum,[1] to receive detailed instructions of the mission, and we shall have time enough to think things out very thoroughly before I get back."

"Time? How long?"

Her colour had ebbed; but the change in him had steeled her to unreasoning hardness of heart.

"Six months, certain. Possibly more."

"And you are as glad as you can be. One sees that quite plainly."

Her tone stung him to sharp retort.

"Yes, I am glad—since you insist, and since I am no hypocrite."

Pride would not suffer her to remind him of his assurance, "You stand absolutely first." Instead she asked him in a repressed voice—

"Doesn't it occur to you, after your eloquence about what each of us should give up, that this is precisely where your share of the compromise comes in?"

"It occurred to me nearly a year ago," he said simply. "After our talk at Kajiar, I faced the fact that there was an end of my exploring as a hobby;—at least on the big scale that appeals to me most. It was just the price one had to pay for getting you back again; and I paid it—willingly. In fact, I should never have mentioned it, if you hadn't dragged it out of me."

The quiet of his tone, and the kindliness in the blue eyes that challenged her own, brought the blood into her face. He shamed her every way, this big husband of hers. He had counted the cost and paid it—willingly. He would not even have mentioned it. There you have the essence of the man. Her lids fell, and her incurable instinct for comedy set a faint dimple in her cheek. Here he was at his old trick of dragging her on to higher ground; and the perverse spirit of her loved and hated him for it in one breath.

"But you are going now?" she whispered, without looking up.

"Certainly. That is quite another matter. When Government needs my services for work which I have made a speciality, it would be neither right nor possible for me to refuse; and, frankly, I am glad, because I love the work, fully as much as you love yours; and because the opportunity could hardly have come at a better moment."

"And I—go back to Michael?"

"Yes. For six months you will be free to travel, paint—what you will; and for six months I shall have my mountains to grapple with." Again the light sprang to his eyes. "By the end of that time we shall know once for all how much we are ready to forego for the sake of spending our lives together. That is the ultimate test of a big thing, Quita—what one will give up for it. Marriage is a big thing; and if ours is built on the right foundations, it will stand the test. Now, I shall have a good deal to see to this evening, and I think you had better go to bed early. You look tired."

"I am tired." She realised suddenly that all the spring had gone out of her. "When do you leave?"

"To-morrow, most likely. You had better write to Michael."

"Very well. I suppose—one will be able to write to you?"

"Yes. Now and then. But for a great part of the time I shall be beyond the reach of posts."

Though his surface hardness had melted, his voice had an impersonal note that crushed her, making her feel as if she were dealing with a cosmic force, rather than a human being;—one of his own detestable mountains, for instance. But for that, it is conceivable that there might have been something approaching a 'scene'; that she might have obeyed her unreasoning impulse to plead with him, and exhort him not to push his test of her to such pitiless lengths. As it was, she sank into a chair without answering; and he turned towards the study with a new lift of his head, a new elasticity of step that struck at her heart.

For, in truth, until he read that summons from Simla he had scarcely known how irresistibly the old free life drew him; how the white silence of the mountains called to him as friend calls friend; and the whole heart of him answered, 'I come.' 'As the dew is dried up by the sun, so are the sins of mankind by the glory of Himachal.' The words of the old Hindoo worshipper sprang to his brain, and for him they were no fanciful imagery, but a radiant truth. Six months of the Himalayas, six months of freedom from brain work, and headache, and strain,—for though loyalty denied it, the past month had been a strain,—would suffice to break the power of the hideous thing that was sapping his manhood; to dispel the great black something that shadowed his mind and spirit—to set him on his feet again, a free man.

But since he had kept the deeper source of his trouble secret from Quita, she did not hold the key to the deeper source of his joy. And now, lying back in his chair, her eyes closed, violet shadows showing beneath the black line of her lashes, she saw herself, momentarily, as a trivial thing—a mere tangle of nerves, perversity, and egotism—flung aside without hesitation, perhaps even with relief, at the first call of the larger life, the larger loyalty. Two tears stole out on to her lashes, and slipped down her check. Mere concessions to overwrought feeling, and she knew it; knew, in the depths of her, that she was no triviality, but a woman into whose hands power had been given; the power of things primeval that are the mainspring of life.

For Quita also had her secret—at once mysterious and disturbing; since to your highly-strung woman motherhood rarely comes as a matter of course—a secret that brought home to her, with a force as quiet and compelling as her husband himself, the awful sense of the human bond. He had told her she was free to choose; to take him or leave him as she saw fit. But the dice were loaded. They were bound to one another now by a far stronger power than mere law; by the power of action and consequence, which transcends all laws.

She had guessed the truth, and rebelled against it, on that day when Honor had unwittingly spoken the right word at the right moment, as those who believe in Divine transmission through human agency are apt to do. She had faced and accepted it during Eldred's absence; but had not found courage since his return to put it into words; had, in fact, with the revival of inspiration, thrust the knowledge aside, and deliberately tried to forget.

Now it came back upon her, unrebuked; and while she lay thinking over all that had passed between them, one insistent question repeated itself in her brain, "Can I tell him? Shall I tell him before he goes?" And after much debating, she decided on silence. In the first place, he would be saved anxiety if he should not return in time; and in the second place—though this consideration stood undeniably first with her—she preferred that he, at least, should believe in the fiction of their freedom; that nothing should weigh with him, or draw him back to her but his unalterable need of herself. How far her secret was her own to hide or reveal, how far she had any right to withhold such knowledge from the man on the eve of a perilous undertaking,—the man to whom insight told her it would mean immeasurably much,—were questions that simply did not enter her mind. The artist's egotism, and the woman's love of dominion, left no room for fine-drawn scruples of the kind. Never till to-night had she realised how the mountains claimed and held him; and in her sudden fear of losing him, either through misadventure or through the reawakening of the explorer in him, she lost sight of the original point at issue; of the fact that it was her own work, not his, which had threatened to stand between them.

An hour later she went into the study, where Lenox, his brow furrowed into deep lines, bent over an outspread map. A glance showed her that already in spirit he was miles away from her, planning the exploration of passes and glaciers guessed at in former journeyings, engrossed, mind and heard, in the possibilities ahead.

She came and stood beside him. "I am going now, Eldred," she said, a touch of listlessness in her tone.

He looked up and nodded. "That's right. You do look rather fagged this evening."

"Only a headache," she answered, flushing and avoiding his eyes. "I shall be all right if I sleep well."

"Do you ever sleep badly?" he asked, with the quick sympathy of the sufferer.

"Oh dear, no." She hesitated. "Are you coming?"

"Yes—later."

Still she stood irresolute. Caresses had become rare between them of late; and now pride as well as shyness checked her natural impulse. In turning away, she allowed her left hand to swing outward, ever so little, merely by way of experiment. "He won't see it," she told herself. And, as if in mute denial, his own hand met and grasped it, close and hard.

On the threshold she paused and looked back. He was miles away again, hopelessly out of reach. A sudden thought seized her, tempted her. Half a dozen words would suffice to snap the chain that held him; to bring her into his arms. Yet now it seemed impossible to speak them, even if she would; and she went out, leaving him in undisturbed possession of his maps and his mountains.

She lingered long over her undressing; and when it was over could not bring herself to put out the lamp; but lay, waiting and listening for his coming. Then, as the night slipped away and the silence became a burden, a dead weight upon brain and heart, the old haunting dread of those days in Dalhousie came back upon her, and she shivered. The Pagan in her leaned too readily to superstitious fancy, and her dread shaped itself finally in a definite thought. "If he comes to me now, I know I shall conquer the mountains in the end. But if he doesn't come, they will be too strong for me. They will take him from me for good."

And he did not come; till one of the morning, when he found her fast asleep, the lamp still burning beside her.



[1] At once.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

"Ledge by ledge outbroke new marvels, now minute, and now immense: Earth's most exquisite disclosure, heaven's own God in evidence!" —Browning.

"Sahib, dinner is ready."

"I also am ready. More than ready!" Lenox answered, a twinkle in his eyes.

Zyarulla responded by a gleam of teeth as he followed his master to the camp fire of roots and scrub, on whose summit 'dinner' was served steaming hot; a delectable mass of mutton and rice; eaten straight from the copper cooking vessel, lest the ice-bound breath of the mountains freeze it before it could reach its destination. The fire itself was small, and gave out little heat: for in the heart of the glaciers, sixteen hundred feet up, fuel is scarce, and even more precious than food.

The five human forms, crouching close to it, had been Lenox's sole companions through three months of hardship and danger, sweetened by the exhilaration of conquering such difficulties as brace a man's nerve and fortitude to the utmost. Four of them were Gurkhas,—a Havildar and three men; short, sturdy hill folk of the Mongol type, with the spirits of schoolboys and the grit of heroes. The fifth was a Pathan from Desmond's regiment, told off to act as orderly and surveyor; a man of immovable gravity, who shared but two qualities with the thick-headed, stout-hearted little soldiers from Nepal:—courage of the first order, and devotion to the British officer, for whom any one of them would have laid down his life, if need be; not as a matter of sentiment or heroism, but simply as a matter of course. The Gurkhas had, in fact, settled it among themselves before starting, that if any harm came to the Sahib none of them were to disgrace the name of the regiment by returning without their leader.

Now, as he neared the fire, looking bigger and broader than usual in his sheep-skin coat and Balaklava cap,—his jaw and throat protected by a beard black as his hair,—all five stood up to receive him: and the quivering light showed that they also were muffled to the eyes.

"It is a burra khana[1] to-night, Hazur," the Havildar informed him with a chuckle; his slits of eyes vanishing as his teeth flashed out. "In a treeless country, the castor-oil is a big plant! And the cook, having three handfuls of flour to spare, hath made us three chupattis; one for your Honour, and one to be broken up among ourselves."

"No, no, Havildar; fair play," Lenox answered, smiling. "We will divide the three."

But seeing that insistence would damp their childish spirit of festivity, he accepted Benjamin's portion; and satisfied his conscience by sharing it with Brutus, the inevitable, who snuggled contentedly under a corner of his poshteen, and thanked his stars he was not as other dogs, a mere loafer round clubs and cantonments. It was bad to be cold and hungry; to plunge shoulder-deep through snow, and slither across hideous slopes of ice; but it was uplifting to share your master's dinner and your master's bed; and there are few things more sustaining than a sense of one's own importance in the general scheme of things!

The fire was their mess-table, round which they dined together, to save time and trouble in cooking; and also because community of hardship and danger links men to one another with hooks of steel; dispels all minor distinctions of colour and creed; reveals the Potter's raw material underlying all.

And while they so sat, enjoying their one-course dinner as no gourmet ever enjoyed a city feast, night and frost crept stealthily, almost visibly, over the stupendous snow-peaks and pinnacles of opaque ice that towered on all sides, breathing out cold; and contemplating, as if in silent amazement, these atoms of 'valiant dust' who dared and were beaten back, and dared again; who day by day pushed farther into their white sanctuary of silence, in search of a pass whose existence was guessed at rather than known. At sunset there had been a brief burst of colour,—green and opal and rose; but by now the mountains shimmered grey and hard as steel under the tremulous fire of the stars; and every moment the grip of frost tightened upon half-melted glacier, upon man and beast. For behind the little group of servants, who sat apart, enjoying their own meal in their own fashion, stood twelve apathetic Kashmiri ponies,—unconsidered martyrs to man's lust of achievement,—who endured to the full the miseries of mountaineering, and reaped none of its rewards.

Dinner over, the fire must be allowed to die down. A pipe over the embers, and a sheep-skin bag shared with Brutus, was the evening's unvarying programme on this detached expedition into the hidden core of things; tents and lesser luxuries having been left with the heavy baggage in charge of two Gurkhas at the foot of the pass.

While Lenox sat smoking, and encouraging the fire to keep alive as long as might be, his men vied with one another in discovering sheltered corners for the night. The Havildar was in high spirits after his morsel of chupatti, washed down with a mouthful of rum; and the laughter of his comrades echoed strangely among the ghostly peaks.

"You seem to be in great form, Chundra Sen," Lenox called out at last. "What's the joke now?"

"We are seeking soft stones to sleep on, Hazur; and betting, like the Sahiblog, which of us shall find the softest!" [Transcriber's note: the "o" in "Sahiblog" is o-macron, Unicode U+014D.]

Lenox joined in the laugh that greeted this sally,

"Good men," he said. "Hope you find a few! First-rate joke of yours, Havildar."

"By ill fortune, it was not I who made it, Hazur! But an officer Sahib, up in Kabul; one who knew that it is good to laugh even when the knife is at the throat." And the search went forward with renewed zest.

Apparently soft stones were forthcoming: for one by one the men rolled themselves up in their blankets and sheep-skins, and slept soundly on two hundred feet of ice under a freezing sky; leaving Lenox alone with his pipe and his thoughts, and the silence that dwelt like a presence in the eerie place.

As a rule a hard day on the glaciers left him so over-powered with sleep that he could scarcely finish his smoke: but to-night his brain was alert and active; stimulated by the knowledge that two more days of climbing ought to bring him at last to the Pass of his dreams:—the Pass that must be found and crossed in the teeth of all that Nature might do to hinder him!

That discovery would close the first phase of his journey: and to-night, looking back over it, from the day of his departure for Simla, he saw that it had been good.

Sir Henry Forsyth, Foreign Secretary, and an old school friend of his brother's, had instructed him to work his way up to Hunza, a small independent state north of Kashmir, hidden among lofty mountains and impenetrable valleys, whence robber bands—secure from retaliation—had for long amused and enriched themselves by flying descents upon neighbouring tribes, and upon caravans passing from Asia to India. And now, after an unusually daring raid, the peace-loving Kirghiz of the district had appealed to the Indian Government for protection and help.

Lenox, with his little escort of six Gurkhas and one Pathan, was to enter this stronghold of brigands; reason with their chief, and bind him down to good behaviour for the future. In addition, Sir Henry suggested that instead of going to Hunza direct, he should strike out eastward from Kashmir, working his way round through the great Mustagh Mountains, and exploring as he went, also that he should finally push on northward, and penetrate as far into the Pamirs as the approach of winter would permit.

"There will be no difficulty with the authorities. I have arranged all that; and you need not be back at Dera till October or November," the great man had concluded, in a tone half question, half command.

"No, sir. I may as well do all I can while I'm up there."

Whereat Sir Henry had eyed him thoughtfully from between narrowed lids. For all his great brain, he was a man of one idea: and that idea—"The North safeguarded." Mere men, himself included, were for him no more than pawns in the great game to be played out between two Empires, on the chess-board of Central Asia. But . . there are pawns, and pawns: and Sir Henry had had his eye on Lenox for some years; recognising in him a pawn of high value; a man to be sent to the front on the first opportunity, and kept there as long as might be. The news of his marriage had been a shock to the Foreign Secretary: and it is conceivable that he had wished to test Lenox by asking him to undertake such a mission within a year of the fatal event. He was speculating now, as he watched him, how far the 'woman complication' was likely to count with this impenetrable Scot. With Sir Henry, after the first year or two, the woman had not counted at all; and, unhappily for her, she knew it.

The pause lasted so long that Lenox shifted his position: but Sir Henry only said, "I was relieved when I got your wire."

"Surely I could not have answered otherwise?"

"I am glad you think so. But frankly, when I heard of your marriage, I was half afraid I had lost one of my ablest men."

Lenox smiled. "Not quite as bad as that, sir, I hope."

"Well then . . what about Gilgit?"

Sir Henry spoke carelessly; but his eyes were on Lenox's face, and he saw him flinch.

"Is that likely to be an immediate contingency?" Lenox asked quietly.

"Next, year, I should say, as things are going now."

"Well, I hope it may be possible. But . . one would have to think it over."

"Talk it over, you mean . . eh?"

Something in the tone angered Lenox.

"Yes, sir . . talk it over. That is what I meant," he had answered, looking straightly at the other: and they had returned somewhat abruptly to the matter in hand.

But Lenox had dined with the Foreign Secretary that night, and they had parted good friends, as ever: Sir Henry begging the younger man to ask him for anything that might serve to lessen the hardships and dangers ahead of him, adding, as they shook hands: "I assure you, my dear fellow, we who sit in Simla fully realise how much the country owes to men of your sort; and grudge no money spent in making the way smoother for you."

But Lenox, knowing well that hardships and perils loom larger in an easy-chair than on the slope of a glacier, had asked for little, beyond permission to depart, and that speedily.

A few days at Pindi had sufficed for the collecting of stores and equipment. Then he had pushed northward in earnest, picking up his escort of Gurkhas from their station in the foot-hills: and so on through Kashmir, where spring had already flung her bridal veil over the orchards, and retreating snow-wreaths had left the hills carpeted with a mosaic of colour,—primula, iris, orchid, and groundlings innumerable: over the Zoji-la Pass, into the shadeless, fantastic desolation of Ladak; and on, across stark desert and soundless snow-fields, to Leh, the terminus of all caravans from India and Central Asia. Here Lenox had spent two days with one Captain Burrow of the Bengal Cavalry, who, with a handful of half-starved Kashmiri soldiers, upheld the interests of the British Raj on this uttermost edge of Empire. Here also he found a letter from Quita; read and re-read it, and stowed it away in his breast-pocket, trying not to be aware of a haunting ache deep down in him, which must perforce be ignored. The old charm of the Road, the 'glory of going on,' that works like madness in the blood, was strong upon him as ever. But whereas, in former journeyings, he had been one man, he was now two. The whole-hearted ecstasy of travel would never again be his. He had given a part of himself into a woman's keeping; and let him put the earth's diameter between them, she would hold him still. Every week, every day that drew him farther from her did but bring home to him more forcibly the mysterious, compelling power of marriage, its large reserves of loyalty, its sacred and intimate revelations, its inexorable grip on life and character.