He paused and passed his hand wearily across his brow.

"There was the usual scandal, divorce, damages and costs that plunged me into debt I'm not out of yet. We married. In a year we were heartily sick of each other—hated, is nearer the truth. She consoled herself with other men. I protested, we quarrelled again and again. At last we agreed to separate; and I insisted on her going to England and staying there. I couldn't trust her in India. Living in lodgings and Bayswater boarding-houses wasn't amusing—she got bored, but I wouldn't have her back. She took to drinking and ran up debts that I had to pay. Then—and I selfishly felt glad, but it was a happy release for both—she died. Drank herself to death. Now you know why I'd be sorry that another man should follow the path I trod."

He was silent. Wargrave felt an intense sympathy for this quiet, kindly man whose life had been a tragedy. He had guessed from the first that his senior officer had some ever-present grief weighing on his soul. He would have given much to be able to utter words of consolation, but he did not know what to say.

Major Hunt spoke again.

"You must dree your own weird, Wargrave. If the lady wishes to come here—well, I shall not prevent her; but the General, when he knows of it, will not permit her to remain. But you have to deal with Colonel Dermot. You had better tell him. You might go now."

Without a word the subaltern left the bungalow. He went straight to the Political Officer and repeated his story. Colonel Dermot did not interrupt him, but, when he had finished, said:

"I have no right and no wish to interfere with your private life, Wargrave, nor to offer you advice as to how to lead it. Your work is all that I can claim to criticise. Of course I see, with Major Hunt, the difficulty that will arise over the lady's remaining in this small station, where her presence must become known to the Staff. If you are both resolved on taking the irretrievable step it would be wiser to defer it until you were elsewhere. I don't offer to blame either of you; for I don't know enough to judge."

"Well, sir, I—perhaps you won't want me under you—and Mrs. Dermot—you mightn't wish me to——," stammered the subaltern, standing miserably before him.

"Oh, yes; you'll make a good political officer none the less," said the Colonel smiling. "And you need not be afraid of my wife turning away from you with horror. If she can be a friend to the lady she will. As for you, well, you saved our children, Wargrave"—he laid his hand on the young man's shoulder—"you are our friend for life. I shall not repeat your story to my wife. Perhaps some day you may like to tell it to her yourself."

Wargrave tried to thank him gratefully, but failed, and, picking up his hat, went out into the rain.

That was days ago; and no answer had come from Violet, so that the subaltern lived in a state of strain and anxious expectation. Indeed, some weeks had passed since her last letter, as usual an unhappy one; and, sitting staring out into the grey world of falling rain turned to flame every minute by the vivid lightning, he racked his brains to guess the reason of her silence.

A jangle of bells sounded through the storm. Glancing out Wargrave saw a curiously grotesque figure climb the verandah steps from the garden and stand shaking itself while the water poured from it. It was an almost naked man, squat and sturdy-limbed, with glistening wet brown skin, an oilskin-covered package on his back, a short spear hung with bells in his hand. It was the postman. For a miserable pittance he jogged up and down the mountains in fine weather or foul, carrying His Majesty's Mails, passing fearlessly through the jungle in peril of wild beats, his ridiculous weapon, the bells of which were supposed to frighten tigers, his only protection.

Wargrave opened the door and went out to him. The man grinned, unslung and opened his parcel. From it he took out a bundle of letters, handed them to the subaltern, and went on to knock at Burke's door with his correspondence. Frank returned to his room with the mail which contained the official letters for the detachment, of which he was still acting as adjutant. He threw them aside when he saw an envelope with Violet's handwriting on it. He tore it open eagerly.

To his surprise the letter was addressed from a hotel in Poona, the large and gay military and civil station in the West of India, a few hours' rail journey inland from Bombay. He skimmed through it rapidly.

She wrote that, utterly weary of the dullness of Rohar, she had gone to Poona to spend part of the festive and fashionable season there and was now revelling in the many dances, dinners, theatricals and other gaieties of the lively station. Everybody was very kind to her, especially the men. She was invited to the private entertainments at Government House, and His Excellency the Governor always danced with her. Her programme was crowded at every ball; and she had been asked to take one of the leading parts in "The Country Girl" to be produced by the Amateur Dramatic Society. She had two excellent ponies with which to hunt and to join in gymkhanas. She wished Frank could be with her; but probably he was enjoying himself more with his wild beasts and Tiger Girls. As to his proposal that she should go to him at once in that little station he must have been mad when he made it. For had they not discussed the matter thoroughly and decided that they must wait? She presumed that he had not suddenly come into a fortune. From his description of Ranga Duar and its inhabitants it could be no place for her under the circumstances. No; there was nothing to do but to wait. Besides, it was so very jolly now at Poona. Frank must not be an impatient boy; and she sent him all her love. His cheque she had torn up.

The subaltern whistled, read the letter again very carefully, folded and put it away. What had come to Violet? This was so unlike her. Still, he had to confess to himself that he was relieved at not yet having to cross the Rubicon. Perhaps she was right; it might be better to wait. He was glad to know that for a time at least she was away from the uncongenial surroundings of Rohar and again enjoying life. He went through the official correspondence, shoved it in his pocket, put on coat and boots and splashed through the water down the road to the Commanding Officer's bungalow. When they had discussed the official letters and drafted answers to them Wargrave told Major Hunt of the gist of Violet's reply. The senior officer nodded, but said nothing about it and went on to talk of other matters.

Next day the subaltern informed Colonel Dermot, who made no comment and did not refer to the matter again. His wife, ignorant of Mrs. Norton's existence, delighted to talk to Wargrave about Muriel, a topic always interesting to him, dangerous though it was to his peace of mind. His thoughts were constantly with the girl, and he sought eagerly for news of her when occasional letters came to Mrs. Dermot from her, touring their wide forest district with her father.

Frank had never been able to fathom Burke's feelings towards her. The Irishman's manner to her in public was always light-hearted and cheerfully friendly; but the subaltern suspected that it concealed a deeper, warmer feeling. He betrayed no jealousy of Frank's constant companionship with her when she took part in his studies; and his friendly regard for his younger brother officer never altered. On her side the girl showed openly that she shared the universal liking that the kindly, pleasant-natured doctor inspired.

The weary months of the rainy season dragged by; but the subaltern spent them to advantage under Colonel Dermot's tuition and, possessing the knack of readily acquiring foreign languages, made rapid progress with Bhutanese, Tibetan and the frontier dialects, his good ear for music helping him greatly in getting the correct accent. Another accomplishment of his, a talent for acting, was of service; for the Political Officer wished him to be capable of penetrating into Bhutan in disguise if need be. So he taught him how to be a merchant, peasant, nobleman's retainer or a lama Red or Yellow, of the country—but always a man of Northern Bhutan and the Tibetan borderland, for his height and blue eyes were not unusual there, though seldom or never seen in the south. Frank was carefully instructed in the appropriate manners, customs and expressions of each part that he played, how to eat and behave in company, how to walk, sit and sleep. But he specialised as a lama, for in that character he would meet with the least interference in the priest-ridden country. He was taught the Buddhist chants and how to drone them, how to carry his praying-wheel and finger a rosary to the murmured "Om mani padmi hung" of the Tibetans, and—for he was something of an artist—how to paint the Buddhist pictorial Wheel of Life, the Sid-pa-i Khor-lo or Cycle of Existence that the gentle Gautama, the Buddha, himself first drew and that hangs in the vestibule of every lamasery to teach priest and layman the leading law of their religion, Re-birth.

Colonel Dermot was helped in his instruction of his pupil by his chief spy and confidential messenger, an ex-monk from a great monastery in Punaka, the capital of Bhutan. This man, Tashi, before he wearied of the cloistered life and fled to India, had been always one of the principal actors in the great miracle plays and Devil Dances of his lamasery, for he was gifted with considerable histrionic talent. He delighted in teaching Wargrave to play his various roles, for he found the subaltern an apt pupil.

As soon as the rains ended the Political Officer began to take his disciple with him on his tours and patrols along the frontier. Alone they roamed on Badshah among the mountains on which the border ran in a confusedly irregular line. Sometimes with or without Tashi they crossed into Bhutan in disguise and wandered among the steep, forest-clad hills and deep, unhealthy valleys seamed with rivers prone to sudden floods that rose in a few hours thirty or forty feet. Wargrave marvelled at the engineering skill of the inhabitants who with rude and imperfect appliances had thrown cantilever bridges over the deep gorges of this mountainous southern zone. Among the dull-witted peasants in the villages he practised the parts that he had learned, speaking little at first and taking care to mingle Tibetan and Chinese words with the language of Bhutan to keep up the fable of his northern birth. He soon promised to be in time as skilfull in disguise as his tutor.

Colonel Dermot was anxious to investigate the activities of the Chinese Amban, reputed to reach their height in the territory just across the Indian border ruled by the Tuna Penlop and lying west of the Black Mountain range that divides Bhutan. This great feudal chieftain was reputed to be completely under the influence of Yuan Shi Hung and both anti-British and disloyal to his overlord the Maharajah or Tongsa Penlop. The close watch that his myrmidons kept on the stretch of frontier between his territories and India prevented Dermot from learning what went on behind the screen; for the spies of the Political Officer's Secret Service could not penetrate it and bring back news.

Wargrave was present when the last sturdy-limbed Bhuttia emissary reported his failure to cross the line. As the man withdrew the Colonel turned to Frank and said:

"We'll go ourselves. I wanted to avoid it if possible; for it wouldn't do for me to be caught. Not only because it would cause political complications, for I'm not supposed to trespass on Bhutanese territory uninvited, but also because fatal accidents might happen to us if Yuan Shi Hung and his friends get hold of us. I'm not anxious to die yet. Be ready to start at midnight."

"Do you really think we'll be able to get through, sir?" queried the subaltern. "How shall we do it?"

"Wait and see," was the curt reply.

Before the sun rose next day Badshah was deep in the forest, bearing the two officers and Tashi on his back. He moved rapidly along animal paths through the jungle in a direction parallel with the mountains. Jungle fowl whirred up from under his feet, deer crashed away through the undergrowth as he passed; but never a shot was fired at them, though rifles and guns were in the riders' hands. Little brown monkeys peeped down at them from the tree-tops or leapt away along the air lanes among the leafy branches, swinging by hand or foot, springing across the voids, the babies clutching fast to their mothers' bodies in the dizzy flights.

In the afternoon a distant crashing, which told of trees falling before the pressure of great heads and the weight of huge bodies, made Wargrave ask:

"Wild elephants, sir?"

Dermot nodded.

"Sounds as if they were right in our path. Shall we see them?"

"Yes. Don't touch that!" said the Colonel sharply; for the excited subaltern, who had never yet seen a wild herd, was reaching for his rifle. Wargrave obeyed, remembering Miss Benson's remark on the Political Officer's love of the great animals.

Soon unmistakable signs showed that they were on the track of a herd; and presently Frank caught sight of a slate-coloured body in the undergrowth, then another and another. As he was wondering how the animals would receive them Badshah emerged on an open glade filled with elephants of all ages and sizes, from new-born woolly calves a bare three feet at the shoulder to splendid tuskers nine feet ten inches in height and lean, ragged-eared old animals a hundred and thirty years of age. All were regarding the newcomer and their trunks were raised to point towards him, while from their throats came a low purring sound, which appeared to the subaltern to have more of pleasure than menace in it. Instead of seeming hostile or alarmed they behaved as though they had expected and were welcoming their domesticated brother. This was so evident that Frank felt no fear even when they closed in on Badshah and touched him with their trunks.

Dermot, smiling at his companion's amazement, said:

"This is Badshah's old herd, Wargrave, and they're used to him and me. I've come in search of them, for it is by their aid that I propose to enter Bhutan."

And the subaltern was still more surprised when the animals, which numbered over a hundred, fell in behind Badshah—cows with calves leading, tuskers in rear—and followed him submissively in single file as he headed for the mountains. When night fell they were climbing above the foot-hills under the vivid tropic stars.

A couple of hours before midnight the leader halted, and the line behind him scattered to feed on the bamboos and the luscious grasses, though the younger calves nuzzled their mothers' breasts. Badshah sank to his knees to allow his passengers to dismount and relieve him of his pad. The three men ate and then wrapped themselves in their blankets, for it was very cold high up in the mountains, and stretched themselves to sleep, as the great animals around them ceased to feed and rested. Badshah lowered himself cautiously to the ground and lay down near his men.

Before Wargrave lost consciousness he marvelled at Dermot's uncanny power over the huge beasts around them—a power that could make these shy mammoths thus subservient to his purposes. He began to understand why his companion was regarded as a demigod by the wild jungle-folk and hill-dwellers.

When at daybreak the herd moved on again, climbing ever higher in the mountains, the three men lay flat on Badshah's back and covered themselves with their grey blankets lest vigilant watchers on the peaks around might espy them. Thus do the mahouts of the koonkies, or trained female elephants employed in hunting and snaring wild tuskers, conceal themselves during the chase.

But darkness shielded them effectively when the herd swept at length through a rocky pass on the frontier-line between India and Bhutan, and with cries of fear and dismay armed men seated around watch-fires fled in panic before the earth-shaking host. The screen was penetrated.

Daylight found them on the banks of a broad, swift-flowing river in a valley between the range of mountains through which they had passed and a line of still more formidable and snow-clad peaks. The elephants swam the wide and rushing water, for of all land animals their kind are the best swimmers. The tiniest babies were supported by the trunks of their mothers, on to whose backs older calves climbed and were thus carried across. Without stopping the herd plunged into the awful passes of the next range, of which they were not clear until the evening of the following day. Then they halted in dense forest.

Next morning Dermot took from the pockets of Badshah's pad the dresses and other things that they needed for their disguises, and instead of replacing the pad concealed it carefully. Then he said:

"We'll leave our escort here, Wargrave, and carry on by ourselves; for we are not far from inhabited and cultivated country, and indeed fairly near the Jong (castle) of our enemy the Penlop of Tuna."

The wild elephants were feeding all around, paying no heed to them. The Colonel turned to Badshah and pointing to the ground said one word:

"Raho! (Remain!)"

Then he continued to Wargrave:

"We'll find them, or they'll find us, whenever we return."

An hour later two elderly lamas in soiled yellow robes and horn-rimmed spectacles, followed by a lame coolie carrying their scanty possessions, emerged, rosary and praying-wheel in hand, from the forest into the cultivated country.

For some weeks they wandered unsuspected through the Tuna Penlop's dominions and even penetrated into his own jong, where they were entertained and their prayers solicited by his cut-throat retainers. They learned enough to realise that the Amban was endeavouring by the free supply of arms and military instructors to form here the nucleus of a trained force to be employed eventually against India, backed up by reinforcements of Chinese troops and contingents from other parts of Bhutan.

Their investigations completed they returned safely to the forest in which they had left the herd; and, much to Wargrave's relief, they had not been many hours camped on the spot where they had parted with them when Badshah and his wild companions appeared. The spies returned to India as they had come, unseen and unsuspected.

This excursion was but the first of many that Wargrave made with the Colonel and the herd; and he soon began to know almost every member of it and make friends, not only with the solemn but friendly little calves, but even with their less trusting mothers. He was now thoroughly at home in the jungle and no longer needed a tutor in sport. His one room in the Mess began to be overcrowded with trophies of his skill with the rifle. Other tiger-skins had joined the first; and, although he had not secured a second bison, several good heads of sambhur, khakur and cheetul, or spotted deer, hung on his whitewashed stone walls.

Thus with sport and work more fascinating than sport Wargrave found the months slipping by. From Raymond he learned that Violet had returned to Rohar before she wrote herself. When she did she seemed to be in a brighter and more affectionate, as well as calmer, mood than she had been before her visit to Poona. But gradually her letters became less and less frequent; and Frank began to wonder—with a little sense of guilty, shamed hope—if she were beginning to forget him.

Christmas came; and with its coming Ranga Duar woke again to life. Besides the Bensons and Carter, who now brought his wife, Mrs. Dermot's brother—a subaltern in an Indian cavalry regiment—and five planters, old friends of his from the district in which he had once been a planter himself, came to spend Christmas in the small station. Major Hunt's bungalow and the Mess took in the overflow from the Political Officer's house.

Brian and Eileen had the gayest, happiest time of their little lives. Presents were heaped on them. Muriel and Frank initiated them into all the delights of their first Christmas tree, and Burke introduced them to a real Punch and Judy Show. On Christmas Day Badshah, his neck encircled with a garland of flowers procured from the Plains, was led up solemnly by his seldom-seen mahout to present Colonel Dermot with a gilded lime and receive in return a present of silver rupees which passed into the possession of the said mahout. Then he was fed with dainties by the children; and Eileen insisted on being tossed aloft by the curving trunk, to the detriment of her starched party frock.

The weather was appropriate to the season, cold and bright, and although no snow fell so low down, it froze at night, so that the Europeans could indulge in the luxury—in India—of gathering around blazing wood fires after dinner.

All, young and old, thoroughly enjoyed this almost English-like Christmas—all except one. Burke's attentions to Muriel became more marked and more full of meaning than they had ever been before; and it was patent that he intended to put his fate to the touch during this visit of hers. He did so without success, it seemed; for before she left there was an evident sense of constraint between them and they tried to avoid sitting beside each other or being left alone together, even for a moment. Shortly after the departure of the visitors Burke contrived to effect an exchange to another station, to the regret of all in the little outpost, and he was replaced by a young Scots surgeon, named Macdonald, his opposite in every way.



CHAPTER XI

TRAGEDY

The annual Durbar for the reception of the Bhutan Envoy and the payment of the subsidy had come and gone again. The Deb Zimpun, who had not been accompanied by the Chinese Amban on this occasion, had departed; and of the few European visitors only Muriel Benson remained. Colonel Dermot had been called away to Simla, to confer with officials of the Foreign Department on matters of frontier policy. Major Hunt was ill with fever, leaving Wargrave, who was still nominally attached to the Military Police, in command of the detachment.

It was delicious torture to Frank to be in the same place again with Muriel, to see her from the parade ground or the Mess verandah playing in the garden with the children, to meet her every day and talk to her and yet be obliged to school his lips and keep them from uttering the words that trembled on them.

A few nights after the Durbar he dined with Mrs. Dermot and Muriel and was sitting on the verandah of the Political Officer's house with them after dinner. He was wearing white mess uniform. The evening was warm and very still, and whenever the conversation died away, no sound save the monotonous note of the nightjars or the sudden cry of a barking-deer, broke the silence since the echoes of the "Lights Out" bugle call had died away among the hills.

Wargrave looked at his watch.

"It's past eleven o'clock," he said. "I'd no idea it was so late. I ought to get up and say goodnight; but I'm so comfortable here, Mrs. Dermot."

His hostess smiled lazily at him but made no reply. Again a peaceful hush fell on them.

With startling suddenness it was broken. From the Fort four hundred yards away a rifle-shot rang out, rending the silence of the night and reverberating among the hills around. Wargrave sprang to his feet as shouts followed and a bugle shrilled out the soul-gripping "Alarm," the call that sends a thrill through every soldier's frame. For always it tells of disaster. Heard thus at night in barracks swift following on a shot it spoke of crime, of murder, the black murder of a comrade.

The two women had risen anxiously.

"What is it? Oh, what is it?" they asked.

The subaltern spoke lightly to re-assure them.

"Nothing much, I expect. Some man on guard fooling with his rifle let it off by accident," he said quietly. "Excuse me. I'd better stroll across to the Fort and see."

But Mrs. Dermot stopped him.

"Wait a moment please, Mr. Wargrave," she said, running into the house. She returned immediately with her husband's big automatic pistol and handed it to him. In her left hand she held a smaller one. "Take this with you. It's loaded," she said.

Frank thanked her, said goodnight to both calmly, and walked down the garden path; but the anxious women heard him running swiftly across the parade ground.

"What is it, Noreen? What does it mean?" asked the girl nervously.

"A sepoy running amuck, I'm afraid," replied her friend. "He's shot someone——."

She swung round, pistol raised.

"Kohn hai? (Who's that?)" she called out.

A man had come noiselessly on to the shadowed end of the verandah.

"It is I, mem-sahib," answered Sher Afzul, her Punjaubi Mahommedan butler. He had been in her service for five years and was devoted to her and hers. He was carrying a rifle, for his master at his request had long ago given him arms to protect his mem-sahib. Before her marriage he had once fought almost to the death to defend her when her brother's bungalow had been attacked by rebels during a rising.

"It would be well to go into the house and put out the lights, mem-sahib," he said quietly in Hindustani. "There is danger to-night."

As he spoke he extinguished the lamp on the verandah and closed the doors of the house. A second armed servant came quietly on to the verandah and the butler melted into the darkness of the garden; but they heard him go to the gate as if to guard it.

"You had better go inside, Muriel," said Mrs. Dermot, but made no move to do so herself.

The girl did not appear to hear her. She was listening intently for any sound from the Fort. But silence had fallen on it.

"Muriel, won't you go into the house?" repeated her hostess.

"Eh? What? No, I couldn't. I must stay here," replied Miss Benson impatiently. In the black darkness the other woman could not see her; but she felt that the girl's every sense was alert and strained to the utmost. She moved to her and put her arm about her. Against it she could feel Muriel's heart beating violently.

Suddenly from the Fort came the noise of heavy blows and a crash, instantly followed by a shot and then fierce cries.

"Oh, my God! What is happening?" murmured the girl, her hand on her heart.

Presently there came the sound of running feet, and heavy boots clattered up the rocky road towards the Mess past the gate.

Then the butler's voice rang out in challenge:

"Kohn jatha? (Who goes there?)"

A panting voice answered:

"Wargrave Sahib murgya. Doctor Sahib ko bulana ko jatha"—(Wargrave Sahib is killed. I go to call the Doctor Sahib)—and the sepoy ran on in the darkness.

"O God! O God!" cried the girl, and tried to break from her friend's clasp. "Let me go! Let me go!"

"Where to?" asked Noreen, holding the frenzied girl with all her strength.

"To him. He's dead. Didn't you hear? He's dead. I must go to him."

She struggled madly and beat fiercely at the hands that held her.

"Let me go! Let me go! Oh, he's dead," she wailed. "Dead. And I loved him so. Oh, be merciful! Let me go to him!" and suddenly her strength gave way and she collapsed into Noreen's arms, weeping bitterly.

They heard the clattering steps meet others coming down the hill and a hurried conversation ensue. Noreen recognised one of the voices. Then both men came running down.

"It's the doctor," said Mrs. Dermot. "Come to the gate and we'll ask him what has happened."

"Mr. Macdonald! Mr. Macdonald!" she cried as the hurrying footsteps drew near.

"Who's that? Mrs. Dermot? For God's sake get into the house. There's a man running amuck. Wargrave's killed. I'm wanted"; and the doctor, taking no thought of danger to himself when there was need of his skill, ran on into the darkness.

"I must—I will go!" cried Muriel.

"Very well. Perhaps it's not true. We must know. We may be able to help," replied her friend.

And with a word to Sher Afzul to guard her babies from danger she seized Muriel's hand, and the two girls ran towards the Fort in the track that Wargrave had followed to his death, it seemed.

* * * * *

Pistol in hand Wargrave had raced across the parade ground. At the gate of the Fort he was challenged; and when he answered an Indian officer came out of the darkness to him.

"Sahib," he said hurriedly. "Havildar Mahommed Ashraf Khan has been shot in his bed in barracks. The sentry over the magazine is missing with his rifle."

Wargrave entered the Fort. Opposite the guard-room the detachment was falling in rapidly, the men carrying their rifles and running up from their barrack-rooms in various stages of undress. By the flickering light of a lantern held up for him a non-commissioned officer was calling the roll, and his voice rumbled along in monotonous tones. The guard were standing under arms.

"Put out that lamp!" cried the subaltern sharply. It would only serve to light up other marks for the invisible assassin if, like most men who run amok, he meant to keep on killing until slain himself. "No; take it into the guard-room and shut the door."

In the darkness the silence was intense, broken only by the heavy breathing of the unseen men and the clattering of the feet of some late-comer. Suddenly there rang out through the night the most appalling sound that had ever assailed Wargrave's ears. It was as the cry of a lost soul in all the agony of the damned, an eerie, unearthly wail that froze the blood in the listeners' veins. In the invisible ranks men shuddered and clutched at their neighbours.

"Khuda ke Nam men, kiya hai? (In the Name of God, what is that?)" gasped the subaltern.

The Indian officer at his side answered in a low voice:

"It is Ashraf Khan crying out in pain, Sahib. He is not yet dead."

"Subhedar sahib, come with me," said Wargrave. "Let your jemadar (lieutenant) take the men one by one into the guard-room and examine the rifles to see if any have been fired. We don't know yet if the missing sentry did the deed."

The Subhedar (company commander) gave the order to his subordinate and followed Wargrave to the barrack-room in which the crime had been committed. The sight that met the subaltern's eyes was one that he was not easily to forget.

The high-roofed chamber was in darkness save at one end where a small lamp cast weird shadows on the walls and vaulting ceiling. At this end and under the flickering light a group of figures stood round a bed on which a man was writhing in agony. He was struggling in delirious frenzy to hurl himself to the stone floor, and was only held down by the united efforts of three men. From a bullet wound in his bared chest the life-blood welled with every movement of his tortured body. He had been shot in the back as he lay asleep. The lips covered with a bloody froth were drawn back tightly over the white teeth clenched in agony, and red foam lay on the black beard. Out of the sweat-bathed, ghastly face the eyes glared in frenzy. The features were contorted with pain. Again and again the wild shrieks like the howl of a mad thing rang through the long room and out into the night.

With tear-filled eyes and heart torn with pity Wargrave looked down at him in silence. Ashraf Khan was one of his best men. "But where is the doctor sahib?" he asked the native officer suddenly.

The subhedar stared and shook his head. In the excitement no one had thought of sending for the medical officer. Wargrave turned to one of the men around the bed.

"Mahbub Khan, run hard to the Mess and call the doctor sahib. Here, stop!" He remembered that Macdonald did not possess a revolver. For all one knew he might encounter the murderer on his way. Wargrave thrust Mrs. Dermot's pistol into the sepoy's hand, saying, "Give the sahib that."

The man, who was barefoot, ran out of the chamber and went to his own barrack-room for his shoes, for the road was rocky and covered with sharp stones. The subaltern turned away with a sigh from the bedside of his poor comrade. He could do nothing now but avenge him. As he walked away from the group he trod on an empty cartridge case and picked it up. It had recently been fired. It told its tale; for it showed that the assassin had reloaded over his victim and intended that the killing should not end there. If he were the missing sentry then he had nine more cartridges left—nine human lives in his blood-stained hand. And as the subaltern crossed the verandah outside the barrack-room the jemadar met him and reported that all the rifles of the detachment had been examined and found clean except the missing weapon of the sentry, a young Pathan sepoy called Gul Mahommed. It was remembered that the dying havildar (sergeant) had reprimanded him hotly on the previous day for appearing on parade with accoutrements dirty. So little a cause was needed to send a man to his death!

The first thing to be done now was to hunt for the murderer. While he went free no one's life was safe. Wargrave shuddered at the thought of danger coming to Muriel or her friend, and he hoped that they were safely shut in their house. It was a difficult problem to know where to begin the search. The Fort was full of hiding-places, especially at night. And already the assassin might have escaped over the low wall surrounding it. As Wargrave stood perplexed another Indian officer ran up, accompanied by two men with rifles.

"Sahib! Sahib!" he whispered excitedly. "The murderer is in my room, the one next that in which Ashraf Kahn was shot. I left the door wide open when I ran out. It is now shut and bolted from the inside and someone is moving about in it."

The subaltern went along the verandah to the door and tried it. It was firmly fastened.

"Here, sahib!" cried a sepoy who ran up with a comrade carrying a heavy log.

"Shahbash! (Well done!) Break in the door," said Wargrave.

Other men, who had come up, seized the long log and dashed it violently against the door. The bolt held, but the frail hinges gave way and the door fell in.

"Stand back!" cried Wargrave.

It seemed certain death to enter the room in which a murderer lurked in darkness, armed with a rifle and fixed bayonet and resolved to sell his life dearly. But the subaltern did not hesitate. He was the only sahib there and of course it was his duty to go in. He could not ask his men to risk a danger that he shirked himself. That is not the officer's way, whose motto must ever be "Follow where I lead."

Wargrave sprang into the room unarmed. He was outlined against the faint light outside. A spurt of flame lit the darkness; and the subaltern, as he tripped over the raised threshold, felt that he was shot. He staggered on. A rifle lunged forward and the bayonet stabbed him in the side; but with a desperate effort he closed with his unseen assailant and grappled fiercely with him. Struggling to overpower the assassin before his ebbing strength left him he fought madly. The Indian officers and sepoys blocking up the doorway could see nothing; but they could hear the choking gasps, the panting breaths, the muttered curses and the stamping feet of the combatants locked in the death-grapple. They could not interfere, they dared not fire. In impotent fury they shouted:

"Bring lamps! Bring lamps!"

Then, groaning in their powerlessness to aid their beloved officer, they listened, as a light danced over the stones from a lantern in the hand of a running sepoy. The moment it came and lit up the scene they rushed on the murderer wrestling fiercely with Wargrave and dragged him off as the subaltern collapsed and fell to the ground. The glare of the lantern shone on his white face.

"The sahib is dead!" cried a sepoy, and sprang at the murderer who was struggling in the grip of the two powerfully-built Indian officers. Others followed him, and his captors had to fight hard and use all their authority to keep the prisoner from being killed by the bare hands of his maddened comrades. Only the arrival of the armed men of the guard saved him.

Frenzied with grief the sepoys bent over their officer lying motionless and apparently dead on the stone floor. They loved him. Many of them wept openly and unashamed. The subhedar knelt beside him and opened his shirt. The blood had soaked through the white mess-jacket that Wargrave wore.

The native officer looked up into the ring of brown faces bent over him. Suddenly he cried angrily:

"Mahbub Khan, why hast thou not gone for the doctor sahib as thou wert told, O Son of an Owl?"

The face staring in horror between the heads of the sepoys was hurriedly withdrawn, and Mahbub Khan, who had lingered to see the end of the tragedy, turned and pushed his way out of the crowd.

Macdonald found the subaltern lying to all appearances dead on the broken door out in the open, where they had gently carried him.

"Hold a light here," he cried as he knelt down beside the body.

By now a dozen lanterns or more lit up the scene. The doctor laid his ear against Wargrave's chest and held a polished cigarette case to his lips. Then he pulled back the shirt to examine his injuries.

"Oh, is he dead? Is he dead?" cried a trembling voice.

The doctor, looking up angrily, found Miss Benson and Mrs. Dermot standing over him. The sepoys had silently made way for them.

"You shouldn't be here, ladies," he said with justifiable annoyance. "This is no place for you. No; he's not dead. And I hope and think that he won't die."

"Oh, thank God!" cried the two women.

The sepoys crowding round and hanging on the doctor's verdict could not understand the words but saw the look of joyous relief on their faces and guessed the truth. A wild, confused cheer went up to the stars.

"Mr. Macdonald," said Mrs. Dermot bending over him again. "Will you bring him to my house? There is no accommodation for him in your little hospital, you know; and he'd have no one to look after him in the Mess. I can nurse him."

The doctor straightened himself on his knee and looked down at the unconscious man.

"Yes, Mrs. Dermot, it's a good idea," he replied. "There is nowhere else where he'd get any attention. My hands are full with Major Hunt. He's taken a turn for the worse. His temperature went up dangerously high to-night; and he was almost delirious."

He stood up.

"I can't examine Wargrave properly here. He seems to be wounded in two places. But I hope it's not—I mean, I think he'll pull through. His pulse is getting stronger. I've put a first dressing on; and I think we can move him. Hi! stretcher idher lao. (Bring the stretcher here!)"

Suddenly Wargrave opened his eyes and looked up in the doctor's face.

"Is that you, Macdonald?" he asked dreamily. "Never mind me; I'm all right. Go to poor Ashraf Khan. If he must die, at least give him something to put him out of his misery. I can wait."

His voice trailed off, and he relapsed into unconsciousness. Ordering him to be carried away the doctor, after a word with the Indian officers, entered the barrack-room. It was useless. Ashraf Khan had just died.

The crowd fell back in a wide circle to let the two hospital orderlies bring up the stretcher for Wargrave and, as they did, left a group of men standing isolated in the centre. All of these were armed, except one whose hands were pinioned behind his back. His head was bare, his face bruised and bleeding, and his uniform nearly torn off his body. It needed no telling that he was the murderer.

Miss Benson walked up to him with fierce eyes.

"You dog!" she cried bitterly in Urdu.

The man who had smiled defiantly when the hands of his raging comrades were seeking to tear the life out of his body and had shouted out his crime in their faces, cowered before the anger in the flaming eyes of this frail girl. He shrank back between his guards. The sepoys looking on howled like hungry wolves and, as Mrs. Dermot drew the girl back, made a rush for the murderer. The men of the guard faced them with levelled bayonets and ringed their prisoner round; and the sepoys fell back sullenly.

Suddenly a shrill voice cried in Hindustani:

"Make way! Make way there! What has happened?"

The circle of men gapped and through the opening came Major Hunt, white-faced, wasted, shaking with fever and clad only in pyjamas and a great coat and with bare feet thrust into unlaced shoes. He staggered feebly in among them, revolver in hand.

"Heaven and Earth! Is Wargrave dead?" he cried and tottered towards the stretcher.

Suddenly the pistol dropped from his shaking hand and he fell forward on the stones before Macdonald could catch him.

"This is madness," muttered the doctor. "It may kill him. I hoped he wouldn't hear the alarm."

"Bring him to my house too," said Mrs. Dermot.

Another stretcher was fetched, the Major lifted tenderly into it, and the sad procession started, the sepoys falling back silently to make way.

Major Hunt having been put to bed in one of the guest-rooms of the Political Officer's house, Macdonald, with the aid of the subaltern's servant, undressed Wargrave and examined his injuries, Noreen holding a basin for him while Muriel, shuddering, carried away the blood-tinged water and brought fresh. The shot-wound, though severe, was not necessarily dangerous, and the bullet had not lodged in him. The doctor was relieved to find that the bayonet had not penetrated deeply but had only glanced along a rib, tearing the intercostal muscles and inflicting a long, jagged but superficial wound which bled freely. Indeed, the most serious matter was the great loss of blood, which had weakened the subaltern considerably.

Wargrave did not recover consciousness until early morning. When he opened his eyes they fell on Muriel sitting by his bed. He showed no surprise and the girl, scarce daring to believe that he was awake and knew her, did not venture to move. But as he continued to look steadily at her she gently laid her hand on his where it lay on the coverlet.

Then in a weak voice he said:

"Dearest, I mustn't love you, I mustn't. I'm bound in honour—bound to another woman and I must play the game. It's hard sometimes. But if I die I want you to know I loved you, only you."

Her heart seemed to stop suddenly, then beat again with redoubled force. Was he conscious? Was he speaking to her? Did he know what his words meant? She waited eagerly for him to continue; but his hand closed on hers in a weak grip and, shutting his eyes, he seemed to sleep. The girl sank on her knees beside the bed and stared at the pale face that in those few hours had grown so hollow and haggard. Did he really love her? The thought was joy—until the damning memory of his other words recurred to her and a sharp pain pierced her heart. There was another woman then—one who held his promise. Who was she? He could not be secretly married, surely; no, it must be that he was engaged to some other girl. But he loved her—her, Muriel. He wanted to say so, he had said so, though he strove to hold back, in honour bound. He would play the game—ah! that he would do at any cost to himself. For she knew his chivalrous nature. But he loved her—she was sure of it. Then the doubts came again—did he know what he was saying? Was it perhaps only delirium that spoke, the fever of his wounds? The girl suffered an agony worse than death as she knelt beside the bed, her forehead on his hand. And Noreen, entering softly an hour later, found her still crouched there, weeping bitterly but silently.

Shortly after sunrise Macdonald entered the house, wan and haggard, for he had not been to bed all night. Besides the hours that he had spent with his patients he had been busy in the Fort all night. He had to make an autopsy of the dead man, and, as the only officer available, investigate the crime, examine the witnesses and the prisoner who calmly confessed his guilt, and telegraph the news of the occurrences to Regimental, Divisional and Army Headquarters. He found Major Hunt sleeping peacefully; but Wargrave woke as he tiptoed into the room and looked up at him, at first not seeing the women. He was fully conscious and asked eagerly for an account of what had happened. Noreen and Muriel shuddered at the delight with which he heard of the murderer's capture; for they were too tender-hearted to understand his passionate desire to avenge the cruel slaying of one of his men. When he turned away from Macdonald and saw Muriel his eyes shone eagerly for a moment, then seemed to dull as memory returned to him. He begged Mrs. Dermot to forgive him for upsetting her domestic arrangements by his intrusion into the house.

Later in the morning Noreen was sitting alone with him, having sent Muriel to lie down for a couple of hours. She had not been to bed herself, but after a bath and a change of clothing had given her children their breakfast and bidden them make no noise, because their beloved "Fwankie" was lying ill in the house. Yet she could not forbear to smile when she saw the portentous gravity with which Eileen tiptoed out into the garden to tell Badshah the news and order him to be very quiet.

Now, looking fresh and bright, she sat beside Wargrave's bed. Since the doctor had left him he had lain thinking. He felt that Violet must be informed at once that he had been hurt but was in no danger, lest she might learn of the occurrence through another source and believe him to be worse than he really was. As he looked at Mrs. Dermot the desire to ask her instead of Macdonald if she would be the one to communicate with Mrs. Norton grew overwhelming, and he felt that he wanted to confide to her the whole story, sure that she would understand. And she could tell Muriel—for he had been quite conscious when he had spoken to the girl in the morning. It was only right that she should know the truth, but he shrank from telling it to her himself.

So he opened his heart to Noreen; and the understanding little woman listened sympathisingly and made no comment, and undertook to explain the situation to Muriel. So, an hour or two later, when Macdonald was again with the subaltern, she went to her friend's room and told her the whole story.

The girl's first feeling was anger at the thought of Frank making love to a married woman.

"Seems to me it's the married woman who made it to him, from what I can gather," said Noreen, a little annoyed with Muriel for her way of receiving the story. "He did not say so, but it was easy to guess the truth. Now, my dear, don't be absurd. Men are not angels; and if a pretty woman flings herself at the head of one of them it's hard for him to keep her at arm's length. And you've seen yourself in Darjeeling how some of them, the married ones especially, do chase them." Her eyes grew hard as she continued, "I remember how Kevin once was——." Then she stopped.

"But Frank! How could he? Oh, how could he? And he loved her," sobbed the girl.

"Don't be silly, Muriel. I tell you I don't believe he ever did. He loves you now."

"Oh, do you think he does? What am I to do?"

"Nothing. Merely go along as you've been doing. Just be friendly. And don't be hard on him. He's had a bad time. I've always felt that there was something troubling him. Now I know; and I'm not going to let him ruin himself and throw away his happiness for a woman who's not worth it. He's the nicest, cleanest-minded man I've known after Kevin and my brother. He saved my babies, and for that I'd do anything for him. I feel almost as if he were one of my children; and I'll stand by him if you won't."

"Oh, but I will, I will," cried the girl. "But how can I help him?"

"As I said, by acting as if nothing had happened and just keeping on being friends. It oughtn't to be hard. See how he's suffering and think how brave he's been. Remember, he loves you; and you do care for him, don't you? I've an idea that he hopes that this woman is tiring of him and may set him free. Of course he didn't say as much, but——." She nodded sagely. Her intuition had told her more of his feelings in a minute than Frank had dared to acknowledge to himself in many months. "Anything I can do to help to bring that about I will."

The days went by; and Wargrave, aided by his clean living, the devoted nursing that he received, and the cool, healthy mountain air, began to mend. Major Hunt had recovered and returned to duty, relieving the officer sent from Headquarters to command during his illness. Colonel Dermot had come back from Simla with Frank's appointment to the Political Department as his assistant in his pocket. The murdered man had long ago been laid to rest by his comrades; but his slayer still sat fettered in the one cell of the Fort awaiting the assembling of the General Court Martial for his trial, and seeing from his barred window the even routine of the life that had been his for three years still going on, but with no place in it for him.

The period of Wargrave's convalescence was a very happy time for him. Muriel had remained a whole month after the eventful night; for Mrs. Dermot declared that, with the care of her house and children, she had no time to nurse the subaltern, and the girl must stay to do it while he was in any danger. So she lingered in the station to do him willing service, wait on him, chat or read to him, give him her arm when he was first allowed to leave his room, and did it all with the bright, cheerful kindness of a friend, no more. She never alluded to his words to her; but her patient somehow guessed that she had not been angered by the revelation of the state of his feelings towards her. And from the tenderness of her manner to him, the unconscious jealousy that she displayed if anyone but she did any service for him, he began to half hope, half fear, that she cared a little for him in return. But even as he thought this he realised that he must not allow her to do so.

At last the time came when she had to return to her father down in the vast forest; and bravely as she said goodbye to everyone—and most of all to Frank—the tears blinded her as she sat on the back of the elephant that bore her away and saw the hills close in and shut from her gaze the little station that held her heart.

Wargrave, however, was not left to pine in loneliness after her departure. All day long, if they were allowed, the children stayed with him, Eileen smothering him with caresses at regular intervals. They told him their doings, confided their dearest secrets to him and demanded stories. And "Fwankie" racked his brains to recall the fairy tales of his own childhood to repeat to the golden-haired mites perched on his bed and gazing at him in awed fascination, the girl uttering little shrieks at all the harrowing details of the wicked deeds of Giant Blunderbore and the cruel deceit of the wolf that devoured Red Ridinghood.

But the subaltern, had a grimmer visitor one day. The orders came at last for Gul Mahommed to be sent to Calcutta to stand his trial without waiting for Wargrave's recovery, the latter's evidence being taken on commission. The prisoner begged that he might be allowed to see the wounded officer before he left; and, Frank having consented, he was brought to the subaltern's bedroom when he was marched out of the Fort on the first stage of his journey to the gallows.

It was a dramatic scene. The stalwart young Pathan in uniform with his wrists handcuffed stood with all the bold bearing of his race by the bedside of the man that he had tried to kill, while two powerful sepoys armed with drawn bayonets hemmed him in, their hands on his shoulders.

The prisoner looked for a moment at the pale face of the wounded man, then his bold eyes suffused with tears as he said:

"Huzoor! (The Presence!) I am sorry. Had I known that night it was Your Honour I would not have lifted my rifle against you. The Sahib has always been good to me, to all of us. My enemy I slew, as we of the Puktana must do to all who insult us. That deed I do not regret."

Wargrave looked up sorrowfully at the splendidly-built young fellow—barely twenty-one—who had only done as he had been taught to do from his cradle. Among Pathans blood only can wash away the stain of an insult. The officer felt no anger against him for his own injuries and regretted that false notions of honour had led him to kill a comrade and were now sending him to a shameful death.

"I am sorry, Gul Mahommed, very sorry," he said. "You were always a good soldier, and now you must die."

The Pathan drew himself up with all the haughty pride of his race.

"I do not fear death, Sahib. They will give me the noose. But my father can spare me. He has five other sons to fight for him. If only the Sahib would forgive——."

Wargrave, much moved, held out his hand to him. The prisoner touched it with his manacled ones, then raised his fingers to his forehead.

"For your kindness, Sahib, salaam!"

Then he turned and walked proudly out of the room and Wargrave heard the tramp of heavy feet on the rocky road outside as the prisoner was marched away on the long trail to the gallows. Two months later Gul Mahommed was hanged in the courtyard of Alipur jail in Calcutta before detachments of all the regiments garrisoning the city.

The subaltern had long chafed at the restraint of an invalid before Macdonald took him off the sick-list and he was free to wander again with Colonel Dermot in the forest and among the mountains. Before the hot weather ended Raymond came to spend three weeks with him and be initiated into the delights of sport in the great jungle.

When the long imprisonment of the rains came Wargrave began to suffer in health; for his wounds had sapped his strength more than he knew and Macdonald shook his head over him. Nor was he the only invalid; for little Brian grew pale and listless in the mists that enveloped the outpost constantly now, until finally the doctor decreed that his mother, much as she hated parting from her husband and her home, must take the children to Darjeeling. And he ordered the subaltern to go too. Frank did not repine, after Mrs. Dermot had casually intimated that Muriel Benson was arranging to join her at the railway station and accompany her on a long visit to Darjeeling.

It was Wargrave's first introduction to a hill-station; and everything was a delightful novelty to him, from the quaint little train that brought them up the seven thousand feet to their destination in the pretty town of villas, clubs and hotels in the mountains, to the glorious panorama of the Eternal Snows and Kinchinjunga's lofty crests that rise like fairyland into the sky at early dawn and under the brilliant Indian moon.

As Mrs. Dermot could not often leave her children it was Muriel, who knew Darjeeling well, who became his guide. Together every day they set out from their hotel, together they scaled the heights of Jalapahar or rode down to watch the polo on the flat hill-top of Lebong, a thousand feet below. Together they explored the fascinating bazaar and bought ghost-daggers and turquoises in the quaint little shops. Together they went on picnics down into the deep valleys on the way to Sikkhim. They played tennis, rinked or danced together at the Amusement Club; and the ladies at the tea-tables in the great lounge smiled significantly and whispered to each other as the good-looking fair man and the pretty, dark-haired girl came in together when the light was fading on the mountains. Frank forgot cares. He ceased to brood unhappily—for it had come to that—on Violet, who, as her rare letters told him, had spent the Hot Weather in the Bombay hill-station of Mahableshwar and was now enjoying life during the Rains in gay Poona. She seldom wrote, and then but scrappily; and it seemed to him certain that she was forgetting him. And he felt ashamed at the joy which filled him at the thought. Was he always destined to be only the friend of the girl he loved, the lover of the woman to whom he wished to be a friend?



CHAPTER XII

"ROOTED IN DISHONOUR"

Government House, Ganeshkind, outside Poona, the residence of the Governor of Bombay during the Rains, was blazing with light and gay with the sound of music; for His Excellency was giving a fancy dress ball. Motors and carriages were still rolling up in a long line to the entrance where the gorgeously-clad Indian Cavalry soldiers of the Governor's Bodyguard—tall and stately back-bearded men in long scarlet tunics, white breeches and high black boots, their heads swathed in gaudy loongies (turbans) with tails streaming down their backs, holding steel-headed bamboo lances with red and white pennons in their white-gauntleted right hands—lined the approach. Inside, the splendid ballroom, ablaze with electric lights, was crowded with gaily-dressed figures in costumes beautiful or bizarre. The good-looking, middle-aged baron who was the King's representative in the Bombay Presidency was standing, dressed as Charles II., beside his plain but pleasant-featured wife in the garb of Amy Robsart, receiving the last of their guests, while already the dancing had begun.

Later in the evening a group of officers in varied costumes stood near one of the entrances criticising the dresses and the company.

"By George, that's a magnificent kit," said a Garrison Gunner just arrived on short leave from Bombay. "What's it supposed to be?"

"A Polish hussar, I think," replied a subaltern in Wellesley's Rifles.

"No, he's Murat, Napoleon's cavalry leader," said an Indian Lancer captain.

The wearer of the costume alluded to was passing them in a waltz. He was a young man in a splendid old-time hussar uniform, a scarlet dolman thick-laced with gold, a fur-trimmed slung pelisse, tight scarlet breeches embroidered down the front of the thighs in gold, and long red Russian leather boots with gold tassels. He was good-looking, but not in an English way, and the swarthiness of his complexion and a slight kink in his dark hair seemed to hint a trace of coloured blood. He was plainly Israelite in appearance; and the large nose with the unmistakable racial curved nostril would become bulbous with years, the firm cheeks flabby and the plump chin double.

"That dress cost some money, I'll bet," said the Gunner, cheaply attired as a Pierrot. "Just look at the gold lace. I say, he's got glass buttons."

"Glass be hanged, Fergie, they're diamonds. Real diamonds, honour bright, Murat wore diamonds. He was buckin' about them in the Club to-night," said a captain in a British infantry regiment quartered in Poona. "That's Rosenthal of the 2nd Hussars from Bangalore. Son of old Rosenthal the South African multi-millionaire. A Sheeny, of course."

"Who's the woman he's dancing with?" asked the Gunner. "Jolly good-looking she is."

"That's Mrs. Norton, wife of a Political somewhere in the Presidency. Rosenthal's always in her pocket since he met her at Mahableshwar."

As the dance ended the many couples streamed out of the ballroom and made for the kala juggas—the "black places," as the sitting-out spots are appropriately termed in India from the carefully-arranged lack of light in them. Mrs. Norton, looking very lovely as Mary, Queen of Scots, and her partner crossed the verandah and went out into the unlit garden in search of seats. The first few they stumbled on were already occupied, a fact that the darkness prevented them from realising until they almost sat down on the occupants. At last in a retired corner of the garden Rosenthal found a bench in a recess in the wall. As they seated themselves he blurted out roughly:

"I'm sick of all this, Vi. When do you mean to give me your answer? I'm damned if I'm going to hang on waiting much longer. I'm fed up with India and the Army. I mean to cut it all."

"Well, Harry, what do you want?" asked his companion, smiling in the darkness at his vehemence.

"Want? You. And you know it. I want to take you away from this rotten country. What's all this——," he waved his hand towards the lighted ballroom, "compared to Paris, Monte Carlo, Cairo, Ostend when the races are on? Let's go where life is worth living. This is stagnation."

"Oh, I find it amusing. You forget, we women have a better time in India than in Europe. There are too many of us there, so you don't value us."

"Better time. Oh, Law! What rot!" He laughed rudely. "You've never lived yet, dear. Look here, Vi. My father's one of the three richest men in South Africa; and all he's got will come to me some day. As it is he gives me an allowance bigger than those of all the other men in the regiment put together. I hate the Service and its idiotic discipline. I want to be free—to go where money counts. Damn India!"

"Doesn't it count everywhere?" she asked, fanning herself lazily. His rough, almost boorish, manner amused her always. She felt as if she were playing with a caged tiger. "Doesn't it here?"

"No; in the Army they seem to think more of some damned pauper who comes of a 'county family,' as they call it, than of a fellow like me who could buy up a dozen of them. I hate them all. And I mean to chuck it. But I want you to come with me, Vi. And, what's more, I mean to have you."

"But your father wishes you to stay in the Service. You told me so yourself. Will he like it if you leave—and will he continue your allowance?"

"Oh, I'll get round him. He's only got me. He's no one else to leave his money to. It'd be all right, Vi. Answer me. I mean to get you."

He grasped her wrist and tried to drag her towards him. She laughed and held him off.

"Take care, my dear boy. Darkness has ears. We're not alone in the garden, please remember. If you can't behave prettily I'm going back to the ballroom. Come, there's the music beginning again."

He tried to seize her in his arms, but she eluded his grasp with a dexterity that argued practice, and, rising, moved across the grass. He followed sulkily, dominated by her cool and careless indifference. When they reached the verandah one of the Government House aides-de-camp rushed up to her.

"Oh, Mrs. Norton, I've been hunting for you everywhere. I've a message from His Excellency. He wants you to come to his table at supper and save him from the Members of Council's awful wives."

"Oh, thanks, Captain Gardner, I'll come with pleasure," she answered, smiling prettily on him. An A.D.C. is always worth cultivating.

"I say, is it hopeless asking you for a dance now?" he said. "We poor devils of the Staff don't get a chance at the beginning of the evening, as we're so busy introducing people to Their Excellencies."

She looked at her programme.

"You can have this, if you like. It's only with some Indian Civilian in spectacles; and I hate the Heaven Born. They're such bores." She smiled and sailed off on the A.D.C.'s arm to the disgust of Rosenthal, calmly abandoned. But he could not help being amused when a round-faced young man dressed as an ancient Greek with gig-lamp spectacles rushed up to overtake Mrs. Norton before she entered the ballroom, and stopped in dismay to gaze after her open-mouthed and peer at his programme.

But the Hussar drove her back from Government House to Poona in his particularly luxurious Rolls-Royce with an English chauffeur and would hardly let her go when the car drew up before the door of the Munster Hotel where she was staying. Laughing, crushed and dishevelled, she broke from him and jumped out of the automobile, ran up the verandah steps and turned to wave to him as the chauffeur started off to take him to his quarters in the Club of Western India.

Still smiling Violet stumbled up the unlighted stairs and reached her sitting-room. When she turned up the lamp a letter lying on the table caught her eyes. She picked it up indifferently; but when she saw that it bore the handwriting of one of her Calcutta cousins and the Darjeeling postmark she tore it open eagerly and ran her eye rapidly down the pages. She came to the lines:

"I have seen the man you asked me about. He is always with a girl called Benson, rather a pretty little thing. She is popular with all the men; but Mr. Wargrave seems to be the favourite. They are staying at the same hotel; and everyone says they are engaged."

Then the writer went on to talk of family matters. But Violet read no more. Her eyes flamed with anger as she crumpled the paper up, flung it on the floor and stamped it under foot. She paced the room angrily, tearing the lace handkerchief she held in her hands to shreds. This, then, was Frank's loyalty to her, this was how he consoled himself for her absence. With this chit of a girl, with whom he probably laughed at her, Violet's readiness to give up reputation, good fame, home, for him. She almost sobbed with jealous rage at the idea. She forgot her own infidelities and want of remembrance and felt herself to be a deceived and much-abused woman. But she would not bear such treatment meekly. Frank was hers; no other woman had a right to him, should ever have him. She was resolved on that. She stopped and, picking up the letter, smoothed it out and re-read it. Then, frowning, she passed into her bedroom and tore off her costume. Not for an instant did she sleep during the remainder of the night, but tossed on her bed, revolving plans of vengeance.

Next day she was seated in the train on her way to Darjeeling, a journey that would take days. She had telegraphed fruitlessly for a room at the Oriental Hotel at which she knew from his letters that Frank was staying; but she had secured one at the larger Eastern Palace where her Calcutta relatives were residing. Only on the second day of her journey did she wire to Wargrave, bidding him meet her on her arrival.

As the train carried her across India her heart was still filled with anger, jealousy and almost hate of the man whom she had favoured above all others and who spurned her, dared to be faithless to her, it seemed. She did not know how much love she had left for him; for his image had grown dim in the flight of time and among the distractions of gayer stations than Rohar. Certainly she had flirted herself, flirted recklessly; but that was a different matter to his faithlessness. She might do it; but he must not. Did she want him? She hardly knew. But she was not going to be put aside for this tiger-killing young person, this jungle girl, who must be taught not to trespass on Violet's property.

Then her mind went back to Rosenthal; and in the solitude of the ladies' compartment she laughed aloud at the thought of the shock that his self-sufficiency must have received when he learned of her sudden and mysterious disappearance from Poona. For she had left him no word. It would do him good; he needed a lesson, for he was too sure of her. She had never troubled to analyse her feelings for him and did not know whether she liked or hated him most. She saw his faults clearly, his blatant conceit, his irritating belief in the supremacy of money, his arrogance, his bad manners. She knew that men deemed him a bounder. But his very boorishness, his savage outbreaks against conventionality, attracted her. Under the thin veneer of civilisation, he was simply an animal; she knew it and it appealed to her baser nature, the sensual strain in her. That he was beast, and wild beast at that, did not affright her; she felt that she could always dominate him when she would. Once or twice the beast had come out into the open; but she had driven it back with a whip—and she believed that she could always do it. The wealth, the life of luxury that he offered, appealed to her strongly; but she kept her head and remembered that he was dependent on his father's bounty, and she had no intention of compromising herself irretrievably under such circumstances. If he had the disposal of the old man's immense riches then the temptation might be over-powering; but until he had she would wait. And ever the memory of Wargrave obtruded itself, rather to her annoyance; but angry as she was with him she could not pretend to herself that she was indifferent to him.

Up in Darjeeling on the very day that she left Poona Frank sat with Miss Benson under a massive, orchid-clad tree in the lovely Botanical Gardens, gazing moodily down into the depths of the valley far below them. Turning suddenly he found his companion looking at him. Something in her eyes moved him strongly and he forgot his caution.

"Muriel, you know how it is with, me," he said impetuously. "I oughtn't to say anything; but—well, all the men here run after you, and I can't bear it. I'm a fool, I know, but I can't help being jealous. I'm always afraid that some one of them will take you from me. The other woman seems to be forgetting me completely. She hasn't written to me for weeks, months. Surely she's tiring of me. I don't suppose she ever really cared for me—just was bored in that dull station. If—if she sets me free would you—could you ever like me well enough to marry me?"

The girl looked away over the valley and a little smile crept into her eyes. Then she turned to him and laid her hand on his.

"Dear boy, if you were free I would," she answered.

They were all alone, no one to see them; and his arms went out to her. But she drew back.

"Not yet, dear. You're another woman's property still," she said.

He bit his lip.

"Yes, you're right, sweetheart. But—well, even if I weren't, I haven't much to offer you. I'm still in debt; and I'd be only condemning you to pass all your existence in the jungle."

"There'd be no hardship in that, dear. I love the forest better than anywhere else in the world. Life in it is happiness to me."

"But would you be content to live as Mrs. Dermot does?"

"Content? I'd love it better than anything else, if I were with you."

Then he forgot her reproof and she her high-minded resolves as his arms went round her and he drew her to him until their lips met in a long, passionate kiss. Afterwards they sat hand in hand and talked of what the future would hold for them if only Fate were kind. And Mrs. Norton, speeding across India to shatter their dream-world, smiled a little grimly as she pictured to herself her meeting with Frank.

Next day the blow fell. Wargrave was sitting at lunch with Mrs. Dermot and Muriel in the hotel dining-room when Violet's telegram was handed to him. His companions could see that he had received bad news; but he pulled himself together and said nothing about it until he was alone with Mrs. Dermot in her private sitting-room after tiffin. Then he exclaimed suddenly, handing her the telegram:

"She's on her way here."

Noreen understood even before she looked at the paper. When she read the message she asked:

"What's she coming here for?"

"I don't know. I haven't had a letter from her for a long time," he replied wearily.

"What are you going to do about her?"

"What can I?" he said with a gesture of despair. "It's for her to decide. If she wishes it I must keep my word."

"But Muriel? What of her? You know she cares for you. Has she no right to be considered?" demanded her friend impatiently. "Are you going to ruin her life as well as yours? This woman will only drag you down. She can't really be fond of you or she wouldn't forget you as she's been doing. You don't love her. Don't you see what it will all mean to you?—to be pilloried in the Divorce Court, made to pay enormous costs, perhaps heavy damages as well. And even now you say you're in debt. And then to be chained for life to a woman you don't care about while you're in love with another. Oh, Mr. Wargrave, do be sensible. Tell her the truth. Tell her you can't go on with it."

"I've given her my word," he said simply.

She pleaded with him passionately, but to no avail. At last, as Muriel entered the room, she rose, saying:

"Tell her. I'll not mention the subject again."

And she walked indignantly into her bedroom and shut the door almost with a bang; for the little woman was furious with him for what she deemed his crass stupidity.

"What's the matter with Noreen?" asked the girl in surprise.

Without a word he gave her the telegram.

"Oh Frank!" she gasped, and sank overwhelmed into a chair, letting the fatal paper flutter to the floor.

He did not go to her but stood by the window, the image of despair, gazing out with unseeing eyes.

"What am I to do?" he asked miserably.

"You must keep your word if she wishes it," answered the girl bravely.

But the next moment she broke down and, burying her face in her hands, wept bitterly. He made no move to her; and she rose and went quietly back to her own room.

In the interval that elapsed before Violet's arrival Mrs. Dermot did not abandon hope, and in spite of her words she attacked Wargrave persistently, trying to shake his resolution. But to her despair Muriel sided with him and declared that he was right. So finally Noreen gave it up and vowed that she would wash her hands of the whole affair.

When Violet reached Darjeeling Wargrave met her at the railway station. Face to face with him her anger died and something of the attraction he had had for her revived. So she greeted him effusively and all but embraced him on the platform. Other men seeing the meeting wondered why he looked so miserable when such a lovely woman evinced her delight at seeing him so plainly. She passed her arm through his with an air of possession and chatted volubly while he watched his servant help hers to collect her luggage. When she took her seat in the dandy, or chair carried on the shoulders of coolies, and was being conveyed towards her hotel she behaved as though they had not been parted a week, rattled on gaily about her doings in Poona and Mahableshwar and, with all the glories of the Himalayas about her, declared that the Bombay hill-station was far lovelier than Darjeeling. Wargrave was relieved that she showed no desire to be sentimental and gladly responded to her mood, detailing the forthcoming gaieties and promising to take her to them all.

When they reached the Eastern Palace Hotel and were shown up into her private sitting-room she put her hands on his shoulders as soon as they were alone and said:

"Let me look at you, Frank. You have improved. You've grown handsomer, I think. Aren't you going to kiss me?"

He did it with so little fervour that she made a grimace and thought "It's quite time that I came to bring him to heel. Not much loving ardour about that. I wonder if he kisses the jungle girl as coldly." Aloud she said:

"Now let's go down to tiffin. I'm starving. Will you please secure a table and I'll follow you in a few minutes?"

During the meal she chattered gaily, criticised the dresses and appearance of the other women in the dining-room and, chaffing him merrily on his want of appetite, ate a substantial meal herself. Mrs. Dermot, anxious to befriend him, had thought that she could help him by inviting him to bring Mrs. Norton to tea with her that afternoon. When during tiffin he hesitatingly conveyed the invitation Violet said:

"Oh, I don't want to be bothered with women, my dear boy. Take me out and show me the place and the shops and the Gymkhana—what do you call it here? Oh, the Amusement Club. No, stop a minute. Mrs. Dermot is your dear friend from Ranga Duar, isn't she? So she's here. And the other, the jungle girl, where is she?"

Frank flushed as he replied:

"I suppose you mean Miss Benson? She's with Mrs. Dermot."

"So you're all staying at the same hotel. How very nice for you! But, my dear Frank, doesn't it strike you that it'll be rather dull for me staying by myself here? You'll have to change to this hotel."

"I asked about rooms here; but they told me they're full up now."

"I'll see if I can't get round the manager and make him find a corner for you. Well, now for this tea-party. Yes; on second thoughts I'll go. I'd like to see the ladies who've been consoling you for my absence."

"Oh, nonsense, Violet. They haven't. They're just friends, that's all," he said irritably.

"Of course, dear; I know. Well, tell me what these 'just friends' are like."

She certainly derived little idea of them from Wargrave's lame attempt at description. And when later she and he were shown into Mrs. Dermot's sitting-room at tea-time Noreen and Muriel found his picture of her as a meek, long-suffering, neglected wife very unlike the radiant, condescending lady who patronised them from the start. She showed a tendency to address most of her conversation to the girl, despite the latter's evident disinclination to talk, or perhaps because of it; for the older woman seemed to take an impish delight in teasing her about her friendship with Wargrave and their relations as nurse and patient, although it was apparent that her malicious humour made the others uncomfortable. She paraded her authority over Frank and treated him like a hen-pecked husband. When finally she bore him away to escort her to the Amusement Club she left the two girls speechless behind her. But not for the same reason. Noreen was furious.

"What a hateful woman!" she exclaimed as soon as her visitor departed. "And I pitied her as a poor neglected wife! What do you think of her?"

Muriel only shook her head, as she sat looking despondent and thoroughly miserable. Mrs. Norton's malice affected her little, but her undoubted loveliness had made her despair. How could an insignificant little person like herself, she thought, hope to win affection from any man whom this radiant beauty deigned to favour? Frank could not help adoring so attractive a woman. He must have loved her in Rohar, although he said that he had not. Muriel felt that she could have resigned herself more easily to his keeping his word to Violet, if the latter had been less good-looking.

Mrs. Dermot broke in on her miserable thoughts.

"Come, dear, we'll take the children for their walk and then go on later to the Amusement Club."

"I couldn't go to the Club this evening, Noreen. I really couldn't. We'd only see that woman again—with Frank."

"Well, what of it? We're not going to let her think we're afraid to face her. I've no patience with Mr. Wargrave. Whatever he can see in her I can't think. You're worth twenty of her, darling. Shallow, conceited. She neglected? She badly treated? My sympathy is with her husband now. What fools men are!" And Noreen swept indignantly from the room.

Every moment of the hour that they spent in the Club that evening was a lifetime of torture to Muriel. She had faced a charging tiger with less dread than she did the crowd at the tea-tables in the rink. She fancied that every woman who looked at her was laughing in her sleeve at her, that every man who bowed or spoke to her was pitying her. Suddenly her heart seemed to stop beating, for she saw Frank sitting with Mrs. Norton and two other ladies, her Calcutta cousins, as well as a couple of men in the British Infantry regiment at Lebong. They were looking at her; and she felt that Violet was pointing her out as the deserted maiden. She tried to smile bravely when her rival waved her hand and called out a cheery "good evening" to her and Noreen, who answered the greeting with an almost defiant air of unconcern.

For days afterwards she saw practically nothing of Wargrave, who was obliged to be in constant attendance on Mrs. Norton. Violet had induced the manager of her hotel to find a room for him; and he was forced to transfer himself and his belongings to the Eastern Palace. She monopolised him, insisted on his taking her shopping in the mornings, calling in the afternoons or to Lebong to watch the polo, or else playing tennis with her at the Amusement Club. He dined with her every evening and escorted her to the dances, concerts or theatricals that filled the nights during the Season. He hardly recognised her in the gay social butterfly with seemingly never a care in the world; and she made him wonder every day if she had any love left for him or wanted him to have any for her. For she showed no desire to be sentimental and treated him very much as she had in the early days of their acquaintance. She never discussed their future. He had not the moral courage to ask her outright if she still wanted to come to him. She gave no indication of being happy only in his company; for she soon began to release him from attendance on her on occasions in favour of some one or other of the new men friends that she rapidly made. He took advantage of this to see something of Muriel again.

But this did not suit Mrs. Norton. Even if she did not want Frank herself that was no reason why the girl should have him. She tried being jealous and insisted on his breaking off the friendship; but, although he hated the scenes that ensued, he resolutely refused to do so. Then Violet adopted another plan. She pretended to be convinced by his assurances that it meant nothing and declared that she wished to be friends with Muriel. She went out of her way to be nice to the girl when they met in public and at last invited her to tea at the Eastern Palace Hotel on an afternoon on which she knew Mrs. Dermot to be engaged. Muriel accepted because she did not know very well how to refuse.

When she was shown into Mrs. Norton's private sitting-room she found Wargrave already there with her hostess, who received her very amiably. During tea the conversation flowed in safe channels at first. But suddenly Violet startled her guests by saying:

"Now, Miss Benson, that we three are alone I think it a good opportunity to speak very plainly about Frank's relations with you. I've just been giving him a serious talking to about the way he has behaved to you."

The girl drew herself up haughtily.

"What do you mean, Mrs. Norton," she said. "The way Mr. Wargrave has behaved——? I don't understand you."

"Oh yes, you do. It's best to speak plainly. I'm afraid Frank has been leading you to believe that he's in love with you——."

"Violet!" broke in Wargrave angrily. "Please don't go on. You've no right to say such things."

She smiled sweetly on him.

"Yes, I have, Frank. You know, my dear boy, that you've got pretty ways with women—I fear he's rather a flirt, Miss Benson—that you are apt to make some of them think you mean more than you do."

"What absurd nonsense!" he cried, more angrily still. "Please stop, I beg of you."

"No, Frank, it is only right that I should warn Miss Benson." She turned to the girl. "He hasn't told you, I'm sure, that he's not free to marry you or any other girl."

Wargrave sprang up.

"I've told her everything about us, Violet," he protested. "I ask you as a favour to drop the subject."

The girl sat as if turned to stone while Mrs. Norton went on:

"You are young, my dear, and can't know much about men. I suppose you've lived in the jungle all your life. Now, a little bird has told me you've let yourself get too fond of Frank—oh, he's very charming, I know, and this playing at nursing a poor wounded hero is a dangerous game. But I'm going to tell you plainly that Frank is pledged to me. He has asked me to leave my husband for him, and I've consented; so there's no use your trying to catch him, my dear. You're too late."

The girl sprang indignantly to her feet.

"I've done nothing of the sort, Mrs. Norton. How dare you say so? You've no right to speak to me as you're doing."

The older woman sat back coolly in her chair and laughed; but her eyes grew hard.

"Oh yes, I have, my dear girl. You two were the talk of Darjeeling before I came. Of course you're angry, naturally, at failing to catch him, but I'm going to put a stop to your trying, here and now. He has got to break with you."

"You are a wicked woman," began the girl; and then indignation choked her.

Mrs. Norton leant forward in her chair.

"Can you deny that you're in love with him?" she asked.

Wargrave tried to interpose; but the girl waved him aside and faced her rival.

"I'll answer you. I am. I love him as you could never do. I was willing to give him up to you—for he loves me, not you—so that he should not be false to his word. I didn't know what you were like, then. But now I don't believe you'd ever make him happy. You don't love him—you haven't got it in you. You wouldn't be content with any one man. I've watched you. You're absolutely heartless; and you'd only make Frank miserable. You're willing to disgrace him as well as yourself. You don't mind if you ruin him. Frank——"

She turned towards Wargrave.

"You said you loved me. Is it true?"

He answered firmly:

"Yes, I do."

"Then will you marry me? This woman will only wreck your life. Choose between us."

He turned in desperation to Mrs. Norton.

"Violet, you don't really want me, do you? You don't love me. I've felt for a long time that you're forgetting me. I love Muriel and she loves me. If you ever cared for me release me from my promise."

Mrs. Norton lay back calmly in her chair and looked with a smile from one to the other. Then she said deliberately:

"This morning I wrote to my husband and told him that I was never returning to him, that I was going to you, Frank. That is why I asked this girl here to-day to tell you before her that now I'm going to ask you to keep your promise. Will you?"

The girl looked at him appealingly and stretched out her hands to him.

"Frank, for your own sake, if not for mine, don't listen to her."

He stood irresolute, torn by conflicting emotions. Then with an effort he replied:

"Muriel, I must. I can't break my word."

Mrs. Norton gave a mocking laugh. The girl shrank from him and hid her face in her hands for a moment. Then she looked up and said, desperately calm:

"Very well, be it so. You've decided and there's nothing more to be said. You've shamed me before this woman; and I never want to see you again."

She turned and walked out of the room.



CHAPTER XIII

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

As Muriel passed through the door Wargrave started to follow her; but Violet cried peremptorily:

"Frank, stay here. Please realise that I come first now. Sit down."

He obeyed mechanically. She went on petulantly:

"These emotional scenes are rather exhausting. Do you mind calling the hotel 'boy' and ordering a cocktail for me? You ought to have one yourself. I suppose, like all men, you hate scenes. Then you should be grateful to me for saving you from that spiteful little jungle cat."

Going to the verandah outside the room he called a hotel servant and gave him the order, then returned to his chair and sat down wearily. He stared at the floor in silence. He had sent the girl that he loved away utterly humiliated; and he knew that, with her proud spirit, the shame of his rejection of her would cut her to the heart. He cursed himself for bringing this pain to her. It was all his fault. Not only had he had no right to speak of love to her while he was bound to another woman, but he ought never to have sought her society as he had done, never striven to gain her friendship, for by doing so he had unconsciously won her love. The harm was done long before he spoke to her of his feelings. What a selfish brute he was to thus cause two women to suffer!

Presently he remembered that his moodiness, his silence, were uncomplimentary, cruel, to Violet. She was right in saying that she came first. Indeed she was the only one to be considered now. The other had passed out of his life. It might be that they should meet again some day in their restricted world, but while he could he must try to avoid her. There was only Violet left.

He looked up to find his companion's eyes fixed on him with an undefinable expression. He roused himself with an effort that was not lost on the woman watching him.

"So you have told your husband," he said. "Well, now we must arrange what we are going to do."

"We won't discuss our plans at this moment," replied Violet. "I'm not in the mood for it." Then after a pause she added bitterly, "I must give you time to recover from the shock of the abrupt ending to your little jungle romance."

Before he could reply the servant appeared with a tray.

"Ah, thank goodness, here are the cocktails. There's only one. Aren't you having one, too? It will do you good. No?"

She sipped her cocktail slowly. When she had finished it she got up from her chair, saying:

"I'll get ready to go to the Amusement Club. Will you wait for me here? You needn't change—we won't play tennis to-day; for we've got this dinner and dance on to-night and I don't want to tire myself. I shan't be long."

As she passed his chair she tapped his cheek and said:

"Don't look so miserable, my dear boy. You'll soon get over the loss of your jungle girl. There, you may kiss my hand as a sign of your return to your allegiance."

But when she entered her bedroom she did not at once proceed to get ready to go out, but unlocked her dressing-case and, taking out of it a letter, sat down to read it for the tenth time since she had received it that morning. Yet it was short and concise. It was from Rosenthal and addressed from the Mess of the 2nd (Duke's Own) Hussars in Bangalore; for, as it told her, he had returned to his regiment as his leave had expired. It was the first that had come from him since she had left Poona, although, as he said in it, he had obtained her new address from the Goanese clerk in the Munster Hotel office on the day of her flight, thanks to the persuasive powers of a fifty-rupee note.

He told her that although her abrupt departure had puzzled him and he could not understand why she had tried to conceal her whereabouts from him, he wished her to realise that if it were an attempt to escape from him it was useless. He could bide his time, for sooner or later he would get her.

Violet smiled as she read his confident words, although they caused a little shiver of fear to run through her. Then she rose, locked the letter away and put on her hat.

Not until after lunch next day was Wargrave able to find time to go to the Oriental Hotel, not to see Muriel, he sternly told himself, but to pay a visit to Mrs. Dermot. When he was shown up to her sitting-room he had to wait for some time before Noreen entered; and he was struck at once by the coldness of her greeting. It was evident that she was very displeased with him. She said no word about Muriel; and Wargrave felt curiously averse to mentioning her name.

At last he summed up courage to ask her. With as near an approach to frigidity of manner as she could show to a man to whom she was so indebted Noreen replied:

"Muriel has left Darjeeling."

"Left Darjeeling? Where for? Where has she gone?" he exclaimed in surprise.

"To her father."

"But why? She wasn't to have left for weeks yet," said Wargrave.

Mrs. Dermot looked at him angrily.

"Why? Need you ask? I should have thought commonsense would have told you. I don't think we'll talk about it, please. As I said before, I've washed my hands of the whole affair."

Further conversation on the subject was rendered impossible by the irruption of her children, who rushed at Wargrave and reproached him for not being to see them lately.

During the next few days Violet baffled every attempt that Frank made to discuss their future course of action. The constant succession of gaieties, the balls, theatricals, concerts, races, gymkhanas, that filled every afternoon and evening of the Darjeeling Season, took up all her time. Whenever he tried to talk matters over with her she invariably replied that there was no hurry, even when he pointed out that Major Norton might arrive any day in consequence of her letter. That he had not already done so was inexplicable to Wargrave; and the subaltern could only believe her assurance that her husband accepted her loss with equanimity. It never occurred to Frank to doubt that she had written the letter.

But one morning matters came to a crisis. When Violet and Wargrave returned to the hotel from their ride before breakfast a telegram was handed to the latter. He found it to be an official message from Colonel Dermot, which ran:

"Please return forthwith to Ranga Duar. I start for Europe on sick leave to-day."

Frank stared at it in surprise. He had heard nothing of his superior officer being ill. It must be something very serious to necessitate his being sent to Europe. The news was an unpleasant shock to him; for he genuinely liked and respected the Political Officer.

Then it occurred to him that this order to return brought everything to a head. Violet saw that he was perturbed.

"What is it, Frank?" she asked.

"I'll tell you upstairs, dear," he said.

In her sitting-room he handed her the telegram.

"I must leave to-day. Will you be ready to come with me?" he asked.

"What? To-day? My dear boy, it's impossible," she replied.

"But I must go. You see, it's imperative. The Colonel's already gone."

"Yes, I see you must. But—well, I simply couldn't be ready," said Violet calmly. "Besides, I'm singing at the concert to-morrow night; and there's the dance at Government House the night after. I must follow you later."

"But that means your travelling alone," he argued. "Wouldn't it be much pleasanter for you to come with me?"

"Don't worry about me for goodness' sake, Frank. I'm not a helpless person. I came across India by myself to get here; and surely I'll be able to manage to do a twenty-four hours' journey alone."

"Very well, dear," he replied with an inward, unacknowledged feeling of relief that the decisive step had not to be taken yet. "I'll come down from Ranga Duar with an elephant to meet you at the railway station when you arrive. Now, while you're changing for breakfast, I'll rush round to the Oriental and see if Mrs. Dermot has more news."

When he reached the hotel he found Noreen busily packing. She was pale and evidently deeply distressed, although outwardly calm and collected.

"You have heard?" she asked, as he entered her sitting-room.

"Only that your husband is starting for England on sick leave and that I'm to return at once. What's the matter? I hope it's not serious."

"Mr. Macdonald wires that Kevin must go at once to England for an operation. He says I'm not to worry, as there is no immediate danger. But of course I can't help being alarmed. It's all so sudden. I didn't know that Kevin was ill. Mr. Macdonald is travelling with him to the junction on the main line where the children and I are to meet them. Isn't it kind of him? I'm so glad to know my husband will have someone with him until I come."

"We'll meet at the railway station after lunch, then," said Wargrave. "We'll be together as far as the junction."

Mrs. Dermot hesitated.

"Are you travelling alone?" she asked.

Frank flushed as he replied:

"Yes. She—Violet is to follow later."

Noreen made no comment; and having learned all that he could he returned to his hotel.

He dreaded the ordeal of the parting with Mrs. Norton, but when the time came for it he found his fear of a distressing scene quite uncalled for. She said goodbye to him in a pleasantly friendly, though somewhat casual, manner, and did not offer to accompany him to the station as she had a previous engagement. And long before the little train had zig-zagged down the seven thousand feet to the foot of the Himalayas she had dismissed him from her mind.

The truth was that the gay and admired Mrs. Norton, caught up in the whirlwind of social amusement in a lively hill-station, was not the woman who passed weary days of ennui in the company of a dull and unattractive husband in a small, dead-and-alive station. Nor was the dejected man who so plainly showed that he was pining for someone else the good-looking, heart-whole subaltern who had fascinated her in the boredom of existence in Rohar. Was he worth incurring social damnation for? Would his companionship—for she knew that she had not his love—make up for a life of loneliness, debt and poverty in a frontier outpost? If she were resolved on giving up her present assured position—and Violet felt that existence with Norton would be more than ever unendurable after the exciting pleasures of Poona and Darjeeling—would it not be wiser to do so for someone who could amply compensate her for the sacrifice? Love in a cottage—or its Indian equivalent, a subaltern's comfortless bungalow—did not appeal to her. Her statement that she had written to tell her husband that she was leaving for Wargrave was false. It had served the purpose for which it was made, and that was the defeat of her rival. So now, content with her victory, she put all burdensome thought from her and dined, danced and flirted to her heart's content in the gaieties of the Darjeeling Season.

When Wargrave reached Ranga Duar the little outpost seemed strangely forlorn without the Dermots and their children. Major Hunt and Macdonald welcomed him warmly. The latter informed him that he had insisted on the Colonel going to England for his operation because the Political Officer had not been out of India for seven years and needed the change, and besides he would receive more care and attention in a London nursing-home than in an Indian hospital. The trouble was intestinal but there was no immediate danger to his life.

Another familiar figure was missing. Before departing Dermot had released Badshah and left him to wander in freedom in the jungle, unwilling that his faithful companion of years should be servant to anyone else and confident that the elephant would come back to him when he returned to the Terai. Major Hunt placed one of the detachment elephants at Wargrave's disposal whenever he required it to take him on his tours along the frontier. And Frank needed it constantly. For, as soon as the news of Colonel Dermot's departure spread, the lawless spirits that for fear of him had not ventured for five years to disturb the peace of the Border, began to show signs of restlessness. The Political Officer's strong personality and the reputation of divinity that he enjoyed had kept them in check. But now that he was gone they thought that they could defy with impunity the young sahib who replaced him.

So the Assistant had not long to wait for an opportunity to show his mettle. Dermot had not been gone a fortnight before one or two raids were attempted on British villages by lawless mountaineers from across the Bhutan frontier. Wargrave soon proved that the mantle of Colonel Dermot had not fallen on unworthy shoulders. Single-handed he intercepted and faced a party of Bhutanese swordsmen swooping down from the hills on a tea-garden in search of loot, shot the leader and two of his followers and put the rest to flight. With a handful of sepoys of the Military Police he surprised a Bhuttia village in the No Man's Land along the border-line and captured a notorious outlaw who had plundered in Indian territory and had sent him a defiant challenge.