Honor Bright paid several visits to the Mission after Elsie Meek's death, hoping to be of use in cheering the bereaved mother. After the funeral most of the ladies had called to sympathise, Joyce among them, tearful and tender; but having nothing in common with Methodists who held aloof from Station society, her visit of condolence ended the intercourse, so that, but for Honor, Mrs. Meek would have been much alone. The girl would cycle down for an hour or so and chat with, or read to the grief-stricken woman while she worked garments for the converted heathen, thus affording her the priceless boon of sympathetic companionship.
During these visits it became apparent to her how much the Padre had changed. He was hardly the same man. All his dictatorial ways were gone, his self-sufficiency vanished; he was, instead, bowed down with depression, he looked older than his years, and spoke with a new and strange humility.
Very shyly, as though unaccustomed to the rôle, he was becoming the attentive husband with an anxious eye for his wife's comfort, and seeking to show her by unobtrusive services that he understood and shared her grief and was suffering the pangs of remorse. It was not easy for Mr. Meek to confess that he now realised he had been a hard husband and father, but his manner was tantamount to such a confession, and Mrs. Meek was deeply touched. The passionate love and devotion of nineteen years ago had long settled into a natural affection for the father of her child, and now when she was stricken to the earth with sorrow, the void in her heart craved to be filled, and she could feel he was striving to fill it.
"You don't know how pathetic it seems to me," she confided in Honor, "his self-conviction and efforts to atone. He must have been fond of our child, deep down, though unable to show it, not being of a demonstrative nature. I think he feels he was narrow and bigoted not to have allowed her a few innocent pleasures such as girls enjoy among young people in a Station,—and it is too late now!"
"There is nothing I can imagine so painful as unavailing remorse," said Honor.
"It makes me sorry for him and though I have found it hard to forgive him, I have uttered no word of reproach. He is so altered. Although a good man and truly religious, he was yet growing unconsciously selfish and domineering—all that has now been swept away, and he is ready for any self-sacrifice—even to allowing me to visit my family in Scotland."
"Will you go?"
Mrs. Meek's work dropped in her lap while she gave herself up to thought. "No," she said at length. "I have lost touch with my people. Though they love me dearly, and I them, I don't feel as if I could leave my husband alone now that he is so broken and sad. We share the same bereavement, and need each other now more than ever before. Besides, he hardly realises how dependent he is upon me. I have done so much for him all these years that he will be utterly stranded without me. It would be cruel."
Honor smiled at her affectionately, thinking it was very sweet—this spirit of love and forgiveness springing to life after years of habitual submission. A truly feminine quality, upon which the masculine nature has never failed to draw, and which would continue as long as women remained womanly for the salvation of men.
While at Sombari, Honor heard news of Captain Dalton's doings in the District. His fame as a surgeon had spread far and wide with various results on the ignorant and enlightened. In the case of the former, he inspired more fear than respect, and Mr. Meek could tell of mischievous rumours afloat which he had done his best to dispel so far as his influence went. One of the tales in circulation was that Captain Dalton was an agent of the Government sent to cripple the youths of the District and otherwise render them helpless in the event of a revolution.
"And when is such an event likely to happen?" the Padre had asked.
Who can tell?—Weren't there mutterings and discontent in big towns?—All who travelled and went to the cities came back with news of great things to come if all that the people demanded was not granted by theSarcar.
"What are the people demanding?" Mr. Meek persisted in knowing.
That was best known to the highly educated. What did the poor agriculturist know of what was good for the country? He was like sheep led to the pasture by those in authority. But when theSarcarsent among the sheep a butcher with no stomach for the suffering of the helpless ones, it was time to protest and to see to it that he was recalled or driven away. Some were for even more lawless methods of ridding the countryside of this monster who disembowelled the sick and suffering, severed limbs, and robbed people of their rights.
Mr. Meek's inquiries elicited that the doctor had performed certain surgical operations in some cases of accidental injury, which the neglect of sanitary precautions had rendered necessary. An operation for appendicitis had resulted in death through bad nursing and failure to carry out instructions. The women of a zemindar's household had fed his son on solids too soon after the removal of his appendix, which act of ignorance and disobedience had produced inflammation, agony, and death. The doctor was regarded as his murderer, and evil looks followed him whenever he passed that way.
"What butchery!" one had afterwards exclaimed at a council of five called to discuss the enormity of the doctor's conduct and his growing record of outrages upon humanity. "To extract a portion of the intestines was madness and murder, for who can exist without intestines as God made them?—and his effrontery to put the blame upon the women who in the tenderness of their hearts had fed the youth ondhaland rice for the restoration of his strength—ai Khodar! What harm was there ever in plaindhaland rice? It was but an excuse, and now there is Gunesh Prosad without a son to inherit his estate, and all because of this man who is sent among us to cut up human bodies while they are yet alive!"
"It is a great danger to us. Someone must teach thisSarcaributcher of human flesh a lesson, or where might it not end?" another had remarked in complete sympathy.
"But," put in a third cautiously, fearful of making himself unpopular by repeating the tale with which he was fit to burst, "didst hear of that legend concerning the coolie of Paniparabustiwho went forth as a beater for the hunt, the time the Collector Sahib and others took long spears and killed wild boars? He was gored, and lay on the grass disembowelled, and as one dead. Quickly on hearing of the accident came the doctor Sahib in hishawa-ghari, himself at the wheel, and leaping out he knelt on the grass, and in a twinkling with strange gloves, and water in agumla[15], he washed the coolie's intestines and restored them where they belonged, after which with a needle, even as adarzisews garments, he stitched up the wound! Those watching turned sick of stomach, but not so the doctor Sahib. Even the Collector Sahib turned his back and called for a glass of spirits.Ai—Ma!—how he did it was a miracle, but the man is at the hospital in the Station, recovering, and these are true words; on the head of my eldest born I swear I have repeated it just as it was told to me."
"It is a fable; believe it not. More likely he is dead and his body already cremated."
"Not so. I was told I could see him, if I willed, with mine own eyes. Many have journeyed to the Station so that they might with their own eyes behold him. The doctor Sahib may be unfeeling, even bloodthirsty, but he is devil-possessed with cunning to work magic."
"Even so, he is a danger and should be removed. Who knows what excuse he might take to use the knife on thee and me and the little ones of our households?Tobah!he is a wolf, not a man. And this one theSarcarhas sent among us to mutilate, kill, and rob us of our comforts and rights. Soon, he will take away thejhilfrom Paniparabustiso that the people will be put to the labour of dragging water out of deep wells, and for the washing of their garments, they will have to walk manykosto the river!"
Mr. Meek had learned a great deal more from his converts of the sayings of the villagers and their feeling against Captain Dalton, all of which Mrs. Meek recounted to Honor in order that she might put the doctor on his guard. The latter, however, gave her no opportunity to speak to him, so she left it to Joyce to tell him of his growing unpopularity.
This Joyce did on one of their outings in the Rolls-Royce and only succeeded in bringing a smile of amusement to the doctor's lips. He had no apprehensions whatever for his safety and the subject, therefore, was speedily forgotten. Joyce learned how to drive, and one afternoon in December had the supreme satisfaction of motoring out to camp and back again in the doctor's car. Her pleasure in his surprise was so childlike and exuberant that Meredith had not the heart to show his disapproval of the means by which she had attained this end, and smothered his own feelings that they should not damp her spirits.
"It was very charming indeed of him to spare so much of his time to you," he said with reference to the doctor's tutelage. "But why should he take all that trouble, do you think?"
"Because he likes me, of course," she replied ingenuously. "People don't usually do things for those for whom they care nothing," she said perching on his knee and lighting his cigarette for him. Her engaging impulses of affection were most disarming to Meredith's suspicions.
"But—suppose I object to his liking you to such a remarkable extent?" he said with admirable self-control.
"But why should you? Aren't you glad?"
"Devil a bit! I am wondering whether or not I should consider it an impertinence, the way he places his leisure at your disposal."
"But you yourself say I am the Bara Memsahib of the Station. Isn't it expected of the men to show me plenty of respect and heaps of attention? You wouldn't like to see me left out in the cold?"
"So long as they remember the 'respect'——"
"Ah, now you're talking!" she said severely. "Have I ever done anything to make you doubt my right to the respect of everyone here?"
Meredith kissed away the frown, considerably lighter of heart than he had been for some time. No man looking into the sweet pure eyes could fail to respect her! A fellow would indeed be a rascal if he tried to lead such a perfect lamb astray!
So the drives continued even after the lessons were no longer necessary, Joyce often at the wheel with Captain Dalton beside her keeping strict watch over their safety and that of the car which he particularly valued, while listening idly to her prattle. The curve of her cheek and sweep of her eyelashes delighted his artistic love of beauty, so that though he had plumbed the shallow depths of her mind at the start, he was still entertained by such superficialities as artlessness and loveliness.
"When are you going to show me the ruins?" she asked once, when in full view of the tall minarets and crumbling dome of the ancient palace. "No one seems to have sufficient interest in them to show them to me."
"There is nothing much to see beyond jungle and brick-work," he said, bored at the bare idea of plodding over the ground he had already visited, which was interesting only to globe-trotters and lovers of antiquities.
"I am crazy to see some of the old enamel still to be found on the bricks if you look for it. They say it is a lost art. Are there any snakes and leopards?"
"Possibly snakes, but no leopards. They were gotten rid of long ago, I am told."
Joyce shuddered. "The thought of snakes gives me the creeps. Isn't it possible to see the place and yet avoid snakes?" she asked longingly. She looked so pretty that he relented.
"If we are careful the snakes won't trouble us. I'll take you there some day when I have a long afternoon to spare."
At this Joyce was delighted and gave him her sweetest smiles. "If it were not for you, I don't know how I should exist in Muktiarbad!" she cooed.
"Your husband would not like to hear you say that!" he remarked studying her curiously.
"He has to be away so much that I might have died ofennuiif you hadn't taken pity on me!" she pouted.
Dalton was not ready with pretty speeches; it involved too much effort to make up insincerities, but he acknowledged that the drives had given him a great deal of pleasure. It was so difficult to rouse him to enthusiasm, and he was so complacently cynical, that Joyce took a delight in probing his silences and getting at his thoughts.
"Don't you ever really enjoy yourself?" she roguishly asked, her head on one side and arch mischief in her eyes.
"I've just said so, haven't I?"
"But you don't mean it. I wish I could understand you and all there is behind that grudging smile—what you think of people—me, for instance."
"I think if I were an artist I should like to paint a picture of you—you are so amazingly good to look at," he returned daringly.
Joyce coloured. She had asked for frankness and could not quarrel with him for having answered her bluntly. On the whole she was rather pleased, than otherwise, that he should admire her, for where was the use of being pretty if one's friends did not show that they appreciated the fact. So she beamed on him wholly unconscious of flirting and rallied him still further on his reserve.
"I don't want to be your model, but your friend. You treat me too much as a child and never give me any confidence. Today, after all these months, what do I know of you?"
"You know at least that I am very much at your service. Isn't that so?"
"You are very kind—and all that, but friends talk openly to each other. I know nothing of you, and Idoknow everything you could say would be so interesting," she sighed. "For instance, why are you never really happy?"
"I have forgotten the way," he said coolly. "Perhaps I have learned too much of life and have lost interest in it. You don't laugh when you can't see the joke, do you?"
"No."
"Nor do I. I see no joke in life worth enjoying, so I have forgotten what pleasure is."
"Can't you tell me all about it?" She pleaded.
"It's an ugly story and not for your ears. But it played the devil with me for good and all," said he grimly.
"I am so sorry," she cried sincerely shocked and grieved. "I thought you must have had a bad time to look and act as you do. Poor you!" and one small hand rested for a moment on his. It was immediately captured and held close.
"Why should you care?" he asked, his expression curiously hardening.
"Because I like you so much."
"Onlylike?" he asked with a short, unpleasant laugh.
The necessity to avoid a goat tethered by the roadside prevented her from replying; Joyce recovered her hand for the steering-wheel and they discussed the narrow escape of the goat. To Joyce it was very flattering, this unbending to her alone of all in the Station, and the growth and development of their friendship. Some day she would learn what had "played the devil" with him for good and all. On the whole he was really quite a dear.
Meredith chafed during his week-ends at the Bara Koti when it became apparent how much his wife depended on the doctor for companionship; and now that Honor was supposed to have taken a dislike to the latter and to avoid encounters with him on their doorstep, there was little help for it. The only advantage to himself to be derived from the entertainment Joyce found in the doctor's society, was her healthier condition of mind and no further insistence on a passage home for herself and the child in the spring. He had a firm faith in her virtue and goodness, and applied himself to his winter programme with feverish haste that he might be at liberty to return to her the sooner and personally take over the care of her before her innocent partiality for the Civil Surgeon became common talk. That it was innocent he would have staked his life.
Honor Bright was less sanguine, though intensely loyal. The increasing intimacy between Joyce and the doctor weighed heavily on her; and it made her rage inwardly to hear her friend discussed openly at the Club by a clique that usually looked on at the tennis. While serving her smart over-hand strokes, scraps of conversation would float to her, demoralising her play and rousing in her a fierce inclination to speak her mind.
"Where is Mrs. Meredith this evening?" a voice was heard to ask on one occasion.
"Joy-riding as usual with Captain Dalton," from Mrs. Fox venomously. "It will be interesting to watch the result when Mr. Meredith awakes to what's going on."
"What's going on?"
"The doctor is a 'dark horse.' You don't suppose he would waste so much of his valuable time if he did not hope to get some entertainment out of Mrs. Meredith? She is such a coquette." This from Mrs. Fox, maliciously.
"She's a simple little thing," said the first speaker charitably. "I shouldn't imagine there was any harm in her."
"'Still waters run deep,'" quoted Mrs. Fox.
"There is another instructive proverb I could quote," cried Honor striking savagely at a ball.
"And what is that?" from Mrs. Fox.
"About 'glass houses and stones.'"
"If that is meant for me, thanks, awfully! But so many panes have already been broken, that I am most indifferent to stones," Mrs. Fox returned languidly as she smiled on the company, who laughed in embarrassment.
"So it would appear," murmured Mrs. Ironsides to a friend.
"Hateful creature!" Honor snapped in Tommy's ear as he handed her a ball.
Jack, playing on the other side with Mr. Ironsides for his partner, had deteriorated so much of late that Tommy and Honor, who had both a genuine regard for him, were much exercised in mind.
He had lost his frank look and easy good-humour; was rarely to be seen at the Club without Mrs. Fox, whom he usually drove down in a side car attached to his motor cycle, a recent purchase,—and was no longer the same man. A constraint had arisen between him and his chum who poured out his fears to Honor in the hope of receiving advice and comfort, but he had succeeded only in alarming her.
"Can't anything be done to save him, Tommy?"
"I can't think of anything, unless Meredith gets him transferred at once."
"But who's to suggest that?"
"His wife, I should think; otherwise some day there might be an unholy row. Fox is no fool. I dare say he is biding his time. He was fond of Bobby Smart and got him out of this while there was time, but he may prefer to sacrifice Jack."
"How terrible!" Honor was sincerely afraid for Jack. He was too young to be mixed up in such a bad business, and Mrs. Fox was clever enough to play him like a fish till he was landed.
Honor walked home at dusk escorted as far as her door by Tommy. It was her intention to call on Joyce after dinner with a proposition concerning the transfer of Jack from Muktiarbad. It seemed the only thing left to do. Incidentally, she would repeat her warnings to her friend concerning herself, for which she expected no thanks. Still, it had galled her badly listening to the coarse remarks of Station people at the Club. She would speak, however disagreeable the task.
At nine o'clock when she reached the Bara Koti she discovered that Joyce was not in. Usually, she returned from her drive at dusk, but as she had not done so up to that late hour, the Collector's servants had come to the conclusion that she was dining at a neighbour's in the happy-go-lucky way that sahibs took "pot-luck" at one another's houses without reference to their domestics.
It was odd in Mrs. Meredith's case, for never before had she failed to return to her baby that she might tuck him into his little cot herself and see that all was right. The ayah was not a little perturbed, but did not voice her feelings until speaking to Honor, fearing that they were foolish and unfounded. What did the Miss-sahib think?
Honor did not know what to say. The more she thought of it the less likely did it seem that Joyce would dine out without coming home to change into dinner things and kiss her precious infant good-night. She decided to return home at once and ask what her parents thought about it.
This she did without loss of time, and Mr. and Mrs. Bright took a grave view of circumstance.
"The car has either broken down somewhere, or they have met with an accident," said Mr. Bright.
Mrs. Bright maintained a stiff reserve.
The thought of an accident caused Honor's knees to give way beneath her and she collapsed into a chair. "How shall we know? Supposing they don't return—?" The bare idea was intolerable.
"I have never liked these constant motorings in her husband's absence. Mrs. Meredith is very foolish to court gossip in the way she is doing. Presently there will be a scandal," said Mrs. Bright shortly.
"Joyce is not a flirt, Mother."
"She goes far enough to earn the reputation of one, however innocent she may be."
Honor knew it was the truth and was silent with an indefinable dread. Was Joyce altogether safe with Captain Dalton?—Should he fall in love and grow intensely attracted by her beauty and childlike charm, was he the sort to consider morality and the law? Was he strictly an honourable man? None knew him; none trusted him; not even Ray Meredith who was afraid to betray his jealousy and incur his wife's resentment; or why had he said: "Take care of my wife—she is such a kid?"
"What had best be done?" she asked anxiously.
"We had better beat up the Station and see what has happened," said Mr. Bright, rising to put his suggestion into effect. "She might be stupid enough to be dining with the doctor at his bungalow."
"Oh, never!" said Honor indignantly. "She is not so foolish as all that!" A hot flush surged over her face at the idea. Joyce dining with the doctor at his bungalow,alone! It was too preposterous, yet—was it? She was "such a kid," and might be foolish enough to dare any folly so long as she felt sure of herself and the purity of her own intentions.
But the pain at Honor's heart was out of all proportion to her concern at Joyce Meredith's indiscretion.
She tortured herself imagining the possible scene in Dalton's dining-room—Joyce at dinner,tête-à-têtewith Captain Dalton!—on familiar terms with the man who rarely condescended to be agreeable to others! It was a picture inconceivably hurtful.
"You had better lose no time, Dad. If you find her—anywhere—tell her that her servants are alarmed—the ayah particularly. I shall see her in the morning," she said, resolutely shutting out the vision conjured up by imagination.
If Joyce were not dining somewhere, there must have been an accident, in which case they would have to send out search parties.
She watched her father leave in the dogcart and wondered what the upshot would be, her mind restless with forebodings.
It was fully an hour later that Mr. Bright returned home to report that Captain Dalton and Mrs. Meredith were nowhere to be found. Dalton's servants were waiting to serve him with dinner, and were growing anxious as his habits were usually automatic and punctual. He so far considered them that they were always informed of his plans. If he intended to dine out they were given liberty to spend the evening with their friends in the bazaar. As it was clear that something unusual had happened, Mr. Bright had called round on Tommy and a search was already in progress. Jack had taken the Sombari road on his motor cycle and Tommy had taken the main road in an opposite direction. It was more than possible that the car had broken down somewhere, in which case the stranded ones would probably find a bullock-cart to bring them ingloriously home.
Honor hung about on the verandah for news till midnight, and was almost speechless with alarm when both boys appeared, one after the other to report the failure of their quest. The car was nowhere to be seen.
To add to the difficulty, clouds which had gathered in the evening had discharged smart showers of rain at intervals, as is familiar to Bengal about Christmas time, and not a trace of wheel-marks could be discovered on the road.
By morning the excitement had spread all over the Station. Inquiries poured in on the Brights. The subject of Mrs. Meredith's disappearance with the doctor was discussed at everychota hazritable with and without sympathy, and even in the bazaar it was passed along from one to another. The Collector's memsahib had gone off with the doctor, leaving her little child to the tender mercies of an ayah! Alack! even to the homes of the mighty came shame and dishonour through a woman! And all through the European custom of giving women so much liberty! On the whole, the "black man" knew best how to protect his honour and his home!
Meanwhile, a mounted messenger had gone at great speed to inform the Collector, who arrived by midday looking dazed and ill from the shock. It was pitiful to see how helpless he had become in the face of such an appalling tragedy as the complete disappearance of his wife. Telegrams to various stations on the line had brought no information; mounted policemen had returned without having discovered a clue. The car had vanished with its occupants, though all who knew Joyce intimately, knew that she would cheerfully have given her life rather than have abandoned her child.
"One can scarcely believe that she has eloped," Mrs. Bright said to Honor. "She is so wrapped up in the child."
"Someone would have seen the car," said her husband. "It is an unaccountable thing."
Joyce eloped!—it was unthinkable.
Honor, who from anxiety, had not slept all night, mounted her bicycle and rode out into the fresh and brilliant sunlight on a forlorn hope. An idea had come to her as an inspiration which, though unlikely, was not an impossibility. In the search for the missing ones, every road in the District was being scoured without success. Since the rain had obliterated all tracks there had been nothing to guide any one in the quest, and nothing had been gleaned from villagers. No one had seen the familiar two-seater after it had passed the boundaries of the Mission, which was a circumstance as mysterious as it was unaccountable, for it must have gone somewhere.
Why not off the road? Not a soul had conceived it likely that Captain Dalton would have risked his fine machine over the bumpy side-tracks that formed short-cuts in various directions, notably one to the ruins which Joyce had often expressed a wish to see. They were not difficult of access by motor-car, although the road to them was almost covered by weeds and undergrowth. Supposing that the doctor had yielded to persuasion and taken Joyce to see the old Mogul Palace, and supposing that they had subsequently met with an accident, their plight might be truly pitiable. Very few natives found it necessary to travel by the jungle path so long disused, for the Government having constructed metalled highways in all directions, travellers had ceased to travel uncomfortably even if the old path was a short-cut between villages. Occasionally woodmen in search of timber prowled around the ancient pile and jackals gathered in packs to howl their grievances to the moon; otherwise, a stray tourist on a visit to the Station or a winter picnic party were the only visitors to the gaping halls and crumbling arches.
Just where the unused and overgrown track left the Sombari Road, Honor stepped off her bicycle and searched the ground again for a clue without success. None was to be found in the slush and puddles of the uneven way.
Nothing daunted, she led her bicycle over the ruts towards the jungle in which the palace lay buried, its dome and minarets visible through the tangled tree-tops. It was not easy going on foot, much less could it have been for a motor-car; moreover, Honor was not at all sure she liked venturing on her visit of exploration alone, but all who were capable of continuing the search were already occupied in its prosecution in different parts of the District, and there was no one she could have asked to keep her company.
It was when Honor came to shadowed glades where the undergrowth almost hid the track and obstructed her progress, that she found the first clue—snapped twigs and branches bent backward. These suggested the passage of a cumbrous body on wheels, for sodden leaves were pressed into the wet earth and creepers which had barred the way had been torn and flung on the path.
If it had been Captain Dalton's car, why had it not returned? Honor's heart grew sick with fear.
She pressed on. Presently, she came upon the car itself, beneath overhanging boughs and a dense entanglement of bamboos. It had been saturated by the rain, the hood lay back, and an empty luncheon basket lay open on the seat.
Evidently, they had left the car with the full intention of returning to it immediately, and were prevented by some unforeseen calamity. Honor quivered with alarm and misgiving. Where were they if not in the palace—killed, or injured and unable to help themselves?
Her mind flew to wild animals.
Though it had been a long accepted legend that tigers and leopards had been driven out of the neighbourhood, and had not been seen for years within a radius of twenty to thirty miles, it was still possible that a stray leopard or tiger had lately found a refuge in the neglected precincts of the ruins.
Honor was unarmed and terribly afraid. The fate that had overtaken her friends might easily be hers a few steps further. Prudence and self-preservation dictated immediate flight and a call for a search-party. At the same time, having come so far it seemed her duty to continue till she was convinced that she could do no more. There was the possibility that Captain Dalton had met with an accident and Joyce, unable to leave him, was in dire need of help. Honor felt she would cease to respect herself forever if she deserted her friends at the moment of their greatest need.
She hesitated no further, but stumbled forward over the uneven ground, desperately anxious and frightened, yet nerved to face any danger.
Another bend of the track brought the palace into view—a dark conglomerate pile of crumbling masonry which looked frowningly down upon her, its walls weather-beaten and scarred by time, and with rank vegetation sprouting from every crack. A pipal tree flourished aloft above its dome, its roots buried in the concrete and clinging to the walls; while festoons of wild convolvulus hung in profusion from the lower branches.
Moisture still dripped from the leaves, and the earth was sodden underfoot. Lofty arches yawned in the sunlight and a silence as of the grave reigned, broken only by an occasional caw from an inquisitive crow, or the intermittent chattering of apes.
Again Honor came upon signs of forcible penetration—wild creepers torn aside to make a path, and jungle hacked out of the way; no easy task. Her friends had evidently been determined not to accept defeat in their effort to reach the interior of the ruin.
It was a year since Honor had visited the spot and it seemed to her that the shape of the building had changed. One wing had partially collapsed; whether recently, or some months ago, she could not tell, but it did not look quite the same. Here and there, boulders of freshly fallen masonry strewed the path. There was no doubt that the edifice was slowly falling to pieces.
Raising her hands to her lips, she gave a loud, Australian "coo-ee!" and listened while its echo called back to her....
Was it an echo?
Honor held her breath to listen, and heard it again—a man's voice calling—"Hulloa!—coo-ee!"
Joyce had started out on her motor ride with the doctor as happy as a child on a holiday. Her baby was well and there was no cause for anxiety; in fact, all the world seemed smiling and kind. At last she was learning that a short absence from home made no difference to an infant in the care of so capable a nurse as her Madrassi ayah, trained in the way of infants by the remarkable "Barnes-Memsahib."
All things considered, there seemed no earthly reason why she should not be happy with the light-heartedness of youth helped by a kind friend to pass the time agreeably while she remained in India. In the spring——
But she would not look ahead. Why borrow trouble? When the hot, March winds began to blow, Ray himself would recognise the necessity of sending the little one home. No father could be so selfish as to allow his own son and heir to fade away under his own eyes, and neglect the only chance of saving his little life. As to the hills!—the innumerable infantile diseases incurred in the hills owing to the dampness of the climate made life a constant terror. No! It would have to be Home in March. Passages were usually booked long beforehand but people often dropped out at the last, and a passage for a "lady and infant" could easily be found at the eleventh hour.
Meanwhile, this was December, and she was capable of enjoying herself amazingly in circumstances that were innocent and harmless.
With a friend like Captain Dalton at her service, so to speak, and Honor to love her almost as a sister would, she was very lucky and could afford to be as happy as the season would permit.
Station gossip whispered that Dalton would not have spared so much of his precious time unless he were receiving some return by way of compensation; which was a logical deduction in estimating a masculine nature not governed by religious scruples; but with this Joyce was hardly concerned, having little comprehension of all that gossips implied. She was delighted to requite so much self-sacrifice on the doctor's part with all the geniality she could command.
As a matter of fact, Captain Dalton was finding a cynical amusement in the study of this—to him—new type of feminine creature: a married woman with the mind of a child, unawakened as yet to the deeper emotions, in whom the instincts of sex were still asleep. He was quite sure that, like most pretty women, she was vain and easily led, and, if it were not himself, it would be some other fellow who would undertake her awakening, since her husband was trustingly content to leave her mental development to chance and nature.
Having passed the stage of desperate infatuation for mere physical beauty, he could play at his leisure with the idea of encompassing her ruin, as he sat beside her in his car, watching the dimples come and go. Life had done him a bad turn at the beginning of his career, and he was envious of men who had escaped suffering such as he had known. Out of sheer devilry he would like to pull Meredith's house about his ears and teach him that no woman of extraordinary physical attractions was a safe asset as a wife. Sooner or later, vanity would be her undoing and she would join the ranks of the fast and free. His experience was fairly wide and his faith,nil. Already Joyce Meredith coquetted delightfully. In a little while she would be doing it dangerously; by and by, audaciously, and so on, till she developed into the accomplished flirt, the sport of men in the East. He had watched the evolution till he had arrived at the theory that, with time and opportunity, the generality of women could be brought to capitulate.
This afternoon they had set out with the intention of visiting the ruins, taking with them a rug and a tea basket for atête-à-têtepicnic. At first Dalton had thought of leaving the car on the high road and walking the rest of the way, but on second thoughts he decided to risk the tires and springs over the bumpy ground, forcing a passage through the obstacles in the way. Remembering the nature of the jungle, he came prepared with the necessary implements for hacking a passage through, so that he was enabled to take the car much farther than he had at first thought possible. After they had partaken of refreshment under the drooping boughs of a great banyan tree, with a screen of bamboos on the west sheltering them from the afternoon sun, they proceeded on foot to the ruins, he carrying the rug in case she should need to rest.
"How fairy-like and lovely it all is!" cried Joyce clinging to his arm and picking her way among the dead leaves. The speckled sunlight dancing through the leaves, the spreading branches overhead, the graceful foliage of the tropical vegetation, the beautiful birds, made the spot peculiarly fascinating. "It gives one such a sense of isolation," she added.
"We are completely isolated," he returned. "Hardly a soul comes this way. Some months ago when I wandered down here, a native who was chopping wood said the place was haunted, for which reason the people give it a wide berth."
"Haunted!" exclaimed Joyce fearfully, as she crept closer to his side.
"The natives are terribly superstitious and easily scared. The devil is said to be in possession of the palace, and ill-luck or disaster to overtake any who enter it. Are you nervous?"
"Not if you are not. You see, I have such immense faith in you," she said with charming flattery.
"Then we'll brave the fellow together." He hacked at the creepers and tore them aside, and having cleared a path, drew her towards the gloomy walls visible through gaps in the foliage. It was a friendly little hand that nestled confidingly in his. "These wild convolvuli grow with such amazing rapidity, that in a month of rainy weather the whole path is blocked. If you were put to sleep in the ruin by a wave of the devil's wand, the creepers would make a wall and shut you in, like the princess in the fairy tale. How would you like to sleep here for a hundred years walled in by creepers as high as the tree-tops?"
"And be awakened by a splendid prince?" she laughed, entering into the spirit of his raillery.
"I can picture him tearing his way through with the instinct to kiss you, so as to learn the true meaning of Life! You don't need enchantment to turn you into the Sleeping Beauty; you are that now. It would be interesting to see what would happen were the Prince to arrive."
"He arrived when I met Ray," she said colouring richly.
"You think he did, but that was in your dreams. You are not awake yet, so your experience has yet to come." He avoided her eyes while he spoke and left her puzzled to follow his thought.
"I cannot understand you. Why should you say I am asleep?"
"Because it is written in your eyes."
"Then I am a somnambulist?" she laughed.
"Yes. A dangerous one," and they laughed together.
"Who is going to wake me?" she coquetted with a pretty drooping of her lashes.
Dalton stole a look at her pouting lips, thinking he would defer the reply to her question for a while. She put him in mind of a child consciously playing with fire, yet expecting to escape unscorched. Of course, she would have to learn her mistake. She knew perfectly that nine out of ten men would be on fire with passion for her under such intimate circumstances, and reveal the fact without loss of time; she was not quite so sound asleep as not to be aware of her own beauty and its spell, yet she dared to experiment on men and rouse their emotions. Let her, then, take the consequences!
Soon, Joyce found herself in front of the ruined palace, standing on higher ground, its dome and minarets visible for miles in a setting of dense foliage and drooping palms. It had been built in the sixteenth century for heathen worship, and subsequently converted by a Mohammedan grandee into a residence for his own accommodation and that of his harem. To Joyce it looked an irregular mass of ruined masonry, roofless in parts and overgrown with jungle. The portion which had been reserved to the women formed a separate wing which at one time had been enclosed by a high wall, but which was now reduced to mounds of fallen brick-work and shattered concrete. "The place looks almost as though it had suffered bombardment," she said, "how desolate and weird!"
"I could tell you a romance connected with that wing which savours of theArabian Nights," said Dalton. "Want to hear it?"
"How do you know so much more about it than any one else?" she asked, accompanying him gingerly over the fallen masonry to gain a better view of the harem. All around them the undergrowth was dense and matted; date-palms reared themselves from thickets and mingled their drooping branches with tamarind trees, the pricklybabul, and the wildjamun[16].
"I make it my business to know all about every place I live in," he returned.
"Tell me the romance," she commanded.
Dalton spread the rug on a grassy mound, and when they had seated themselves, he began his tale in true Oriental fashion, with a charm of style that captured her fancy.
"Once upon a time, when the land belonged to those who could hold it by the sword, a rich Nawab built himself a costly residence out of a heathen temple. Behold the residence!"—with a wave of his hand. "And with him dwelt his retinue and his sycophants, his child-wife, and the women who contributed to her needs and his pleasures.
"Alas, for masculine confidence! In a moment of weakness, this great prince took into his service a young warrior of Rajputana as the chief of his bodyguard—a Hindu by religion and of exclusive caste—because of his great strength and the beauty of his youth and person. This one, tradition tells, conceived a burning passion for the favourite wife of his master, having seen her face by chance, unveiled, at the bars that protected her window;—a girl of extreme loveliness, and as slender as a wand, whom custom prevented from disclosing her features to the eyes of men who were not her near relatives. She had therefore been closely guarded within the harem walls in company with other women of her lord's establishment, and left to find entertainment for herself in the priceless jewels that adorned her person.
"Every day the Rajput, by name Ramjitsu Singh, would pass and repass below the high wall that enclosed the women's quarters, hoping again to see, by favour of the gods, this beauteous vision whose wondrous charms were the talk of the bazaars; their fame having been spread by her female attendants. Small was she, they said, with eyes like a gazelle's, and lips of the redness of ripe berries. Her hands and her feet were the hands and feet of a babe, so slender were they, and soft; and the hair of her head could have robed her.
"One day, the Rajput's patience was rewarded by a sight of the beautiful face which made his senses swim as in a sea of delight. She stood again, unveiled, at the bars of her window, and gazed down at him with great sadness and yearning. Like a bird in its cage she looked upon the free world with longing, and sighed. The foolish one!—The faithless one!"
"How can you call her foolish and faithless?" Joyce interrupted indignantly.
"That is how the Indian story-teller speaks of her."
"It was only natural. Think of her youth and the conditions to which she was obliged to conform!"
"Well, see what happened. Are you interested?"
"I am thrilled. Go on!"
"Thereafter, the Rajput neither ate nor slept till he had devised a plan for carrying her away; for what are laws to lovers? or bolts and bars? Neither caste nor creed can hold a man back whose soul is on fire for a woman." He paused to allow his words to take effect.
"How very romantic!" laughed Joyce, unmoved. "It is like a poem, as unreal as it is picturesque!"
"Don't you believe a man's soul can be aflame with love and desire for a woman?" he asked, picking up a stone idly and flinging it after a disturbing crow.
"Books tell one so, but how am I to know?"
"It must have been proved to you times without number!—but I said you were asleep!" he remarked with his inscrutable smile. "Know, then, that men have cheerfully risked hell for a woman's favours. They have broken every law for the transcendent bliss of lovers' kisses!—Anyhow, that's not the story.
"To proceed: Poor old Ramjitsu was ready to dare or die for his Love, as many another man has been since the world began, and will continue to be while the world lasts. Every night, when darkness covered the land, and the people within and without the palace slept, Ramjitsu Singh would climb the wall by means of a stout bamboo, and clinging to the sill, would wait for the gods to grant him the opportunity to plead his love.
"At last, one night, attracted by the silvery radiance of the moon, she came to the grating to gaze without, and hearing a quivering sigh, she turned and beheld her gallant lover. He looked like a god himself in the bright moonlight, and the words of his mouth, uttered with breathless passion, held her spellbound. With her flower-face pressed to the bars she received his caresses."
"Oh, poor little thing!" cried Joyce, her breath hurried with sympathy. "Did she love him, too?"
"She must have, in that moment, for nature at such times speaks loudly to youth. Listening to his impassioned vows, she, who was of a different religion, as apart from his as the East is from the West, was willing to place her destiny in his hands. Human nature, you will see, is stronger than caste or creed, and tradition is brought to naught by romance and passion.
"One night, when all seemingly slept, Ramjitsu, who had from time to time cautiously loosened the iron bars in their sockets, removed them altogether and received in his arms the form he coveted. Conceive that thrilling moment of ecstasy! Suddenly, however, a lightning stroke from a sword descended upon the faithless one from within, and she was slain in her lover's arms. The weight of her falling body, thus violently flung forward, unbalanced the Rajput whose foothold at the best was precarious, and together they were hurled to the paved court below, Ramjitsu breaking his neck in the fall.
"So ended the love story of the Palace—a tragedy which has remained an everlasting tribute to love, and serves as an example to the Indians of a just vengeance on the unfaithful. The spies of the Nawab had betrayed the young wife and her lover, and the husband had punished them both with death."
"Just vengeance!" repeated Joyce scornfully. "A brutal murder, I call it."
"The Mohammedans speak of it with pride."
Joyce brushed away the tears and laughed hysterically. "It is a horribly tragic tale and I wish you had not told me of it, for the memory of it will haunt me."
"Why do you mind?"
"I can't help feeling for that poor little prisoner who wanted to be loved and was killed! They had probably married her off as a little child to the Nawab whom she afterwards learned to hate."
"You wish she had escaped with the Rajput? That would have violated every law of their religion and tradition." He watched her keenly.
She looked distressed. "Why are laws so hard and fast? These poor women! Can they never choose for themselves who they will marry?"
"Never. Among Eastern races marriages are always arranged. So you don't condemn the Rajput for wanting to steal her?"
"Oh, no. How could he help it?"
"Or her for wanting to run away with him?"
"Not forwantingto run away. But laws have to be kept, I suppose, or no homes would be safe. Individuals have to be sacrificed to communities," she said thoughtfully. "Show me where it all happened."
He rose, and taking her by the hand, helped her to her feet, after which they passed together through a gap in the wall which led to a room on the ground floor from where a winding, brick stairway took them to the apartments above. Each step had to be carefully negotiated because of the mortar crumbling under foot, and the loosened bricks that threatened an accident. Presently, they were in a narrow corridor into which slits or loop-holes admitted the daylight. An arch at the far end from which the door had long since vanished, introduced them to a series of chambers, one leading into another. The walls were black with cobwebs and the dust of ages, while the concrete flooring was strewn with thedébrisof fallen plaster. Heavy cracks in the roof let in shafts of the fading daylight, and roots of weeds and pipal trees had penetrated and hung below. On the whole it was anything but a desirable spot in which to linger, but Joyce's desire to view the interior of the romantic chamber had to be satisfied.
"This is supposed to be the room, and that the window. You can see the holes in which the iron bars must at one time have been embedded. The story goes on to tell of great calamities befalling the fortunes of the Nawab; of battles fought in the neighbourhood between Hindus and Mohammedans, and the immediate withdrawal of the Moslems to another part of Bengal. Now let us get out. I am not at all sure the place is safe."
"Let me first take a souvenir!" she pleaded. An enamelled brick above the arch had attracted her eye. Its design and colouring were still fresh and clear despite the ages that had passed since it was fashioned. "Look at it!" she coaxed. "Isn't it wonderful? You would think it had come straight out of a jeweller's shop. How did they learn such work in those far-off days?"
"Italian workmen were known to have been imported by wealthy princes for the decoration of their temples and homes."
"Can't I have it?"
"Quite out of reach," he answered, stretching an arm upward.
"But I might try to punch it out with your knife, if you put me on your shoulder."
Dalton was sure that no effort of hers would dislodge the brick; moreover, he was doubtful of the wisdom of the experiment, considering its position in the arch; but the blue eyes lifted to his were undeniably bewitching, and the suggested method of the operation, too much of a temptation to be resisted. He would let her try till she admitted failure: the impulse to grant her the moon if she demanded it was strong at the moment, so he gave her his knife and without much effort hoisted her to his shoulder and allowed her to dig at will into the arch. Her delicate fingers would soon tire of forcing the brick from its solid bed. He, therefore, held her securely and closed his eyes not to be blinded by the fine dust that showered over them both.
"Look out!" he warned her once, when the sound of falling mortar was heavier than he had anticipated. "Don't bring the place about our ears."
"I don't want to be buried alive!" she replied. "It isn't as difficult as I imagined. See, it is already loosening."
But he could not look up out of regard for his sight. For a moment he had no actual concern with the work she was engaged upon, having allowed himself to suffer distraction. With his arms about her, his face at her waist, he was assailed with the temptation to bring matters between them to a crisis. He was done with philandering and desired to end her folly and his patience. What was easier than to draw her down to his breast that he might cover her tempting lips with kisses? Though he was not in love with Joyce after the manner of Ramjitsu, her mouth was alluringly sweet, and her possible response to his passion would reward his daring. There was the novelty, too, of acting the Prince Charming to her rôle of Sleeping Beauty; for her woman's nature was asleep and waiting only to be startled into comprehension. All the afternoon he had played with the idea till his desire for possession had mastered prudence. What right had she to imagine him a bloodless being, as passionless as a stone? He was a man, and a very human one at that. He would prove that to her without delay. What a fool he had been to have wasted so much time! He would kiss her till he infected her with his passion; which would not be difficult if she were like those of her sex who traded on a husband's trust and confidence!
The glamour of the moment intoxicated his senses: contact with her person, the perfume of her, her complete helplessness in that retired spot, assisted to turn him temporarily insane.
Just as desire was about to master reason and self-restraint, a shriek of terror from Joyce paralysed his nerves and suspended thought.
The arch, already heavily cracked and depending solely for stability upon structural pressure, being further weakened by the dislodgment of that particular brick, showed signs of collapsing.
On looking upward, Dalton saw their danger and had time only to spring backward to a far corner of the room before the arch subsided, bringing with it a portion of the roof. He stood stock still with Joyce clinging to his neck, watching the building crashing about him. The shock and vibration of the fall had brought about the collapse of precarious parts of the ruined edifice, till, roar followed roar, and the air was thick with dust.
Dalton momentarily expected the shaking floor to give way beneath their feet, or the roof to descend upon them and bury them alive. It was something to remember all his life: his impotence to help himself or his companion in the midst of the calamity, while believing himself face to face with the horror of a slow death by entombment.
After a while, when all was still and the dust began to settle, the spectacle disclosed to view beggared description.
Tons of material lay between them and the stairs up which they had come; the window was buried behind a dense mass of fallen bricks and mortar; a great hole torn in the roof showed the sky overcast with clouds. Possibly there would shortly be rain to add to their misfortune.
How was it possible to extricate themselves from their terrible predicament? Dalton cast his eyes about him towards an inner chamber, only to see that the roof there had also collapsed barricading the only other outlet.
In the midst of his anxieties he had to soothe the girl's fears. Joyce was shivering with terror and nearly speechless.
"Pull yourself together," he said shortly. "It is a devilish catastrophe, but we must face it. Just as well we are not killed!" He endeavoured to unclasp her clinging arms, but she only clung the closer.
"Oh, I am so frightened!—don't leave me!" she whimpered.
"I am not going to leave you," he said reassuringly, "but I must take a good look around." Releasing the rug from beneath a weight ofdébris, he induced her to sit down while he made a careful survey of the conditions of their prison, for that it undoubtedly was. They were as completely shut out from the outer world and as helpless as prisoners in a dungeon. Both rooms were isolated from the rest of the building; both were partially roofless and without means of exit.
Gad!—what a commotion there would be in the Station when it was discovered that they had not returned! Dalton wished with all his heart that he had left his car on the high road and not brought it into the wood. Who would think of looking for it there?
He was partly comforted by the thought of the wheel-marks left in the dust, but this source of hope was cut off when the rain began to descend later in the night.
In the meantime he had to make the best of the situation and not allow Mrs. Meredith to fret.
"You have to thank a special Providence interested in your fate that you are not buried alive," he told her cheerfully.
"And so have you," she said solemnly.
"Providence doesn't usually bother much about me; relations have long been strained. Possibly I have been preserved for your sake," he laughed.
"How can you talk in that irreverent way!" she said reproachfully.
"Sorry, if it offends you."
But Joyce fell to weeping. Was it possible that they would ever be found?—they would die of starvation—and what about her baby?
Dalton had much ado to allay all her fears. When it was discovered that they were missing, did she suppose that a stone would be left unturned to trace them? She was to cheer up and show how brave she could be.
"I am not like Honor Bright," she sobbed. "I cannot face such a horrible prospect as a night spent in this ghastly place all among snakes and creeping things!"
The mention of Honor seemed to silence the doctor completely. For some time he was moody and depressed; Joyce was allowed to weep into her hands till exhausted.
Only when it was getting dismally dark did he arouse himself from his abstraction and take up again the task of cheering her.
"Can't we dig ourselves out?" Joyce asked before the darkness descended wholly upon them.
"Without implements of any sort?" Even the knife was lost in the confusion, and in any case it would have been utterly useless.
"Do you think they are sure to find us?"
"I am confident of it—in the morning. It will be too late and dark for them to think of looking here tonight, but in the morning someone is sure to find the car and discover our whereabouts."
"How hungry we shall be!" she sighed, and Dalton laughed.
"How thirsty we shall be, is more to the point!—Poor child!" taking her hand in his and recalling how near he had been to madness. He was not too far from it even now with her hand resting confidingly in his, and the consciousness of their unique position.
"Anyhow, there is the sky and fresh air, and at least we are not quite alone. I have you!" she said with dangerous flattery.
"Yes. You have me," he returned eagerly. "And I—have—you!"
"What about snakes?" she asked, casting her eyes about her fearfully.
"They are more upset than we. At any rate, I don't believe we'll be troubled by snakes tonight. You will have to forget we are lost, so to speak, and talk till you are tired, and then try to sleep."
"Sleep—here?"
"On the rug."
"I couldn't. It is so uncomfortable!"
In the growing darkness, he was again mastered by the evil thoughts which had possessed him in the moments preceding the catastrophe. Their isolation produced a host of ungoverned impulses. As the evening advanced his manner changed, growing suggestive of possession; his manner became more tender.
"You will always remember tonight!—there will never be another like it in your life," he whispered, leaning towards her and stealing her hand. "You have been horribly frightened, haven't you?"
"I am more hopeful now, thinking of the morning," she returned, her soft breath on his cheek. "It is only the snakes I fear!"
Dalton drew her into his arms. "I shan't let you think of snakes, you pretty little thing! At last I have you close. You have tantalised me with your loveliness every day, till Fate has given you to me!" his lips found hers and pressed them roughly. "Wake up, sleeping Princess! see, this night is ours. Let me love you as I want to. Let me teach you how to love!"
Joyce seemed paralysed in his arms. She lay as still as death under his kisses as though mesmerised and dreaming. Emboldened by her silence Dalton continued to caress her with increasing ardour, till Joyce, coming suddenly to her senses, was seized with panic and horror.
"Who are you?" she cried in a frenzy of fear, struggling to escape. It seemed she was entrapped by some human monster in the doctor's likeness, against whom she was powerless to struggle.
"Why do you ask? You know me well—don't be foolish! Won't you let me love you?"
"Love me?—like this?—Do you forget I am married?" she gasped, still struggling to escape. "Let me go. I hate you for daring to touch me—to kiss me. I hate you! How dare you do it!" Joyce had never known such terrifying moments, even worse than when the building seemed falling about her ears. The horrors of the night were multiplying a thousandfold, now that the doctor had failed her and gone mad.
Dalton made several efforts to pacify her, thinking he had only to deal with a phase of childishness, but found her unmistakably determined to break away from him.
"Stop it, and listen to me," he said angrily. "You want it all your own way, but it is my turn now. Why did you lead me on and tempt me, if you meant to back out in the end? I could have kissed you twenty times, but refrained for reasons you would not understand. Now when those reasons are finally swept aside and I am ready to be your lover, you pretend to be surprised."
"Surprised! I am horrified! I thought so well of you—I believed you would respect me, not treat me as you might—Mrs. Fox for instance! Let me go, you coward and bully!—I have trusted you and treated you as a brother—for this?—you unspeakable cad!"
Dalton released her instantly, and she burst into tears, crying as though her heart would break. "Honor warned me, but I would not listen!" he heard her say amid her sobs.
"What did Honor warn you about?" he asked sternly.
"She said," Joyce sobbed, "to go 'easy with my favours'—that you were 'a man—like most——'"
"Did Honor say that? and why?"
"Because—she thought I was being foolish to—to become so—friendly—with you—when I am a married woman. She was right! I have been a fool!" A fresh outburst of weeping.
"Did she say that because of her contempt for me, or because you are a wife?" he pressed.
"I—don't know. All I know is that she was right and I should have listened to her warning; now I shall never, never respect myself again."
"I see no reason why you shouldn't," said Dalton, a sense of humour overcoming his wrath. "You've done nothing but tell me in polite language to go to the devil."
"You kissed me!"
"What of it? Many women in your position are kissed, and they are in no wise cast down," he laughed sardonically.
"I feel degraded—I feel unfit to kiss my own, dear little baby again!"
"You should have thought of all that when you were so anxious to charm me," he returned cruelly.
"You are a beast, and the most hateful man I know!" She made an attempt in the gloom to crawl away to some distance from him and his rug, but he ordered her to stay where she was, adding,
"I shan't trouble you again. You have nothing to fear from me."
"I don't want to share the same rug!—I wish I was a mile away!"
"The rug has done you no harm. If you prefer it, I'll shift off it. The best thing you can do is to go to sleep."
"I couldn't with this sin on my conscience."
"What sin?" he asked repressing his impatience with difficulty.
"This sin against my husband."
"You have committed none. If my kissing you was a sin, mine is the conscience to be troubled; but it was slain quite a long time ago," he added with a short laugh.
"I am not joking," she said angrily. "How do you suppose I can face my husband knowing that I have behaved so as to make another man kiss me?" What a child she seemed!
There was no doubting her distress, and Dalton exhausted every argument in his attempt to understand her attitude of mind. "What do you want me to do?" he asked finally. "If an apology is of any use, I apologise humbly for behaving as I did. I grant you, I am a perfect specimen of a cad. If it will do you any good, tell your husband all about it when you get back, and send him round to give me a horse-whipping. I promise I shall not injure a hair of his head."
"He is much more likely to shoot you."
"Even so. He is perfectly welcome to. I am not in love with my life. Only let him do it by stealth so that they don't hang him afterwards."
Joyce cried again hopelessly, till Dalton felt himself a sort of criminal.
"Please don't! I cannot tell you how sorry I am to have upset you so. I had no idea you would take it like this. There are so many women who——"
"Like Mrs. Fox?" she interrupted scornfully.
"Perhaps. I don't know much of Mrs. Fox. She doesn't appeal to me."
"You couldn't offer me a worse insult than to think that I might be like her!"
"I am sorry. Forgive me, will you?"
"I cannot forgive myself for my blindness and folly!"
Joyce spoke as though she were shivering, and Dalton was stricken with concern. "You are cold?" he asked anxiously.
Her teeth chattered. In December the nights in Bengal are often bitter, and Joyce had left her driving cloak in the car. Dalton immediately divested himself of his coat and made her wear it. His manner having returned to the professional, she was no longer afraid of him, so obeyed meekly.
"Now the rug," said he. And she was wrapped to her ears in the rug, after which he left her to herself for the night. Both listened to the patter of the rain as it fell on thedébrisaround them, and, eventually overcome with fatigue, Joyce dropped off to sleep.