"We know how he would face death, Marjorie!"
She put her arms on the table, and hid her face with a stifled sob.
"He was your boy, and you'll miss him so," she went on. "There's no one like him, no one half so dear or half so brave. If I were only a boy I might try to be like him and make you happy—but I can't, it's no use."
She was looking up at him with those dark eyes of hers, just as his boy had looked at him when he said good-bye three months ago, and he could not trust himself to speak.
"I suppose you get used to things," she said with a sigh.
The Colonel put his hand on her head. "Poor child," he said in a husky voice, "don't think about me."
"Miles loved you," she answered softly, going up close to him. "I'm his sister. Let me love you, too."
He drew her to him in a tender fatherly manner, that brought instant comfort to her aching, wilful little heart.
"Your father was my friend, Marjorie," he said,—"the staunchest friend man ever had. I have often wondered why we failed to understand each other."
"You don't like girls," said Marjorie, "that's why."
The Colonel smiled grimly.
"I didn't," he said. "Perhaps I have changed my mind."
Lord Roberts had entered Pretoria, and the Colonel satin his quarters looking through the list of released prisoners. All at once he gave a start, glanced hastily around, and then looked back again. About half way down the list of officers, he read:
"Lieut. M. Weyburne (reported killed at Spion Kop)."
Miles was alive: there had been some mistake. The bugle sounded. It was a quarter past nine. He walked out on to the parade-ground with his usual firm step, smiling as he went. Miles was alive. He could have dashed down the barrack-square like a bugler-boy in the lightness of his heart.
People who met him that day hastened to congratulate him. He said very little, but looked years younger.
Three weeks later there came a letter from Miles, explaining how he had been left upon the ground for dead, and on coming to himself, had fallen unarmed into the hands of the Boers. He had never fully recovered from his wounds, and by the doctor's orders had been invalided home, so that his guardian might expect him about ten days after receiving his letter.
It was a happy home-coming. The Colonel went down to Southampton to meet him, and when he reached his aunt's house he found a letter from Marjorie awaiting him. "The Colonel's a dear," she wrote; "I understand now why you think such a lot of him."
Miles turned with a smile to his guardian.
"You and Marjorie are friends at last, Colonel," he said.
"Yes, my boy," he returned gravely; "we know each other better now."
Deborah Shimmin was neither tall nor fair, and yet Nature had been kind to her in many ways. She had wonderful eyes—large, dark, and full of mute eloquence—and if her mouth was too large, her nose too irregular, and her cheeks too much tanned by rude health, and by exposure to the sun as the village gossips said, I, Henry Kinnish, poetic dreamer, and amateur sculptor, thought she had a symmetry of form and a grace of movement which wrought her whole being into harmony and made her a perfect example of beauty with a plain face; and every one knew that Andrew, the young village blacksmith and rural postman, loved her with all the might of his big, brawny soul.
These two ideas of Deborah's beauty and Andrew's love for her, were revealed to me one day when, with Deborah's master, his lumbering sons and comely daughters, and my chum Fred Harcourt, an artist from "across the water," we were cutting some early grass in May, just before the full bloom of the gorse had begun to fade from the hillsides and from the tops of the hedges where it had made borders of gold for the green of the fields all the spring.
A soft west wind, which blew in from the sea, made waves along the uncut grass to windward of the mowers, and played around the skirts of Deborah, making them flutter about her, while the exertion of the haymaking occasionally let loose her long, strong black hair.
But the face of Deborah was sad; for the village policeman had laid a charge against her before his chief to make her account for her possession of a large number of seagulls' eggs, to take which the law of the Island had made a punishable offence, by an act of Tynwald passed to protect the sea fowl from extinction.
The eggs, all fresh, and newly taken from the nests, had been found on Deborah's dressing-table; but Deborah indignantly denied all knowledge of the means by which they had got there. There was a mystery about it to every one, for fresh clutches were seen there every morning, and the innocent Deborah made no attempt to conceal them. Where, then, could they come from but from some nests of the colony of seagulls which lived in the haughs that dropped down into the sea from Rhaby Hills? But no woman, young or old, could climb the craigs where the gulls had their nests. It was a feat of daring only performed by reckless boys and young men who were reared on the littoral, and who were strong and spirited craigsmen by inheritance and by familiarity with the dangerous sport of egg-collecting among the giddy heights of precipices on which, if they took but one false step, they might be hurled to certain destruction below.
When the mowers had made all but the last swath, and there were only a few more rucks of the early hay to be made in the field, Cubbin, the rural constable, came in from the highroad with Andrew, the smith. The hot and sweated mowers did not stop the swing of their scythes, but they talked loudly amongst themselves in imprecations against the new law which made it a criminal offence for a lad to take a few gull's eggs, which they, and their fathers before them, had gone sporting after in the good old times when men did what they thought right.
The bronzed face of Deborah Shimmin paled, her lips set into a resolve of courage when she saw Andrew in the hands of the police; and I learnt for the first time that Andrew was looked upon as the robber and Deborah as the receiver of the stolen eggs. I saw more than this, I saw, by one look,that the heart of Deborah and the heart of the tall, lithe lad, who now stood before me, were as one heart in love and in determination to stand by each other in the coming trial.
The big hands of the young smith were thrust into his pockets, and a smile played over his honest face; but Deborah looked at the constable with a hard, defiant look, and then bent over her work again as if waiting to hear him say something dreadful which she was resolved to throw back into his face, though her hand trembled as she held the fork, which moved now faster and stronger than before.
But Cubbin was a man of the gospel of peace though he was an officer of the law, and he only looked sadly on the face of Deborah as he asked her whether it would not be better for her to say where she got her supply of eggs from than allow him to get a summons against Andrew.
"I have told you before that Andrew never gave me the eggs!" cried the girl, her face flushed with the crimson setting of the sun, "and I don't know where they came from. I can't say anything different, and I wish you would not trouble me, Mr. Cubbin!"
Fred and I called Cubbin, the constable, to one side, and asked him to allow us a day or two to solve the mystery of the eggs—a little arrangement which may seem strange to dwellers in towns, but which was quite practicable at this time in this far-off place, and which he soon agreed to allow.
I had been out shooting corncrakes that day, and Fred Harcourt had come with me for a day in the meadows, as his brush and palette had wearied him of late, and he longed to stretch his limbs and to see my spaniels work in the weedy hedges and in the meadows, where the grass had stood the test of the dry spring. We had taken off our coats to help our neighbour with his sunburnt grass, and our guns were laid across them. The spaniels had fallen asleep—using the coats as beds. While conversing with Cubbin we had walked quietly to get our coats, and I saw that one of the sleeping dogs was still hunting in his dreams. There was nothing uncommon about this, for dogs will huntin their sleep; but some inner voice said to me that Deborah Shimmin, being a highly strung, nervous girl, might hunt in her sleep also, and that such things as somnambulists walking the roofs of high houses had been heard of, and I remembered a lad in my own boyhood's days who was awakened early one morning by the riverside with his rod in his hand and his basket slung over his nightshirt. But I did not communicate my theory of the solution of the mystery of the eggs to Cubbin, the constable.
When the policeman left the field I entered into a kindly talk with Deborah Shimmin, and was not long in learning what the girl herself had probably never thought of, that on the public reading of the Act for the protection of sea-fowl, on the Tynwald day of the previous year, she had been impressed by the thought that Andrew would now be forbidden to employ his agility and his courage in a form of sport she often tried to dissuade him from.
I knew before this that she had recently lost her mother, and had suffered a bereavement through a favourite brother being lost at sea one stormy night at the back-end herring fishing off Howth Head.
"Poor Deborah," I said to Fred, "she is all nerves, and the hand of life's troubles is holding her; surely she must be innocent of encouraging her lover in risking his life—the only precious life left to her now!"
"And the jolly Andrew," said Fred, "certainly looked the most amusing picture of innocence, as Cubbin trotted him along the grass! But your theory of the somnambulant business is a bit fanciful, all the same."
At ten o'clock that night Fred Harcourt and I were bivouaced within sight of the only door of the house where Deborah Shimmin worked as a domestic help in the family of her uncle. The night was not dark, it seldom is dark in thesenorthern islands so late in May, but there was a light of the moon at its first quarter, and a glint of some stars shone down upon us as we hearkened to the stillness of the air and to a frequent movement of a tired horse in the stable.
Our bivouac was a clump of trammon trees (elders) at the corner of the orchard which adjoined the farm buildings. Between us and the dwelling house there was a disused pigsty. At about a quarter to eleven o'clock a man, with a red setter dog at his heels and a fowling piece on his arm, came sneaking up, and crept into the sty.
Then there was another long spell of silence, not broken, but rather intensified, by the words which I whispered to Fred Harcourt that the fellow who crept into the sty was Kit Kermode, and that he could be after no good.
At midnight a cock crew at the far end of the village, and a dog barked. Then there was silence again, save that every now and again a sedge warbler, far away by the stream near Shenvarla, sang a faintly audible song. Our position on the slope of the foot-hill at Gordon House was between the village and the hills which girt the sea coast. This made my theory of the sleep-walking to the cliffs more plausible. But while we lay low in the clump of trammon trees the appearance of Kit Kermode, with his cat-like walk and his eyes that could wink slander faster than any old woman's tongue could wag it, gave me a theory, or at least a speculation, in another direction.
In soft whispers to Fred Harcourt, who was new to the village, I told him how the rascal Kermode hated Andrew the blacksmith. "He hates him," I said, "I do verily believe, for his good honest face, his manly outspoken tongue, his courage, and his power of arm, but most of all he hates him since Andrew, years ago as an innocent and unthinking lad, ran after him in the village street and handed him a reminder of some money which he owed his master."
"But what can that have to do with Deborah Shimmin's gulls' eggs?" asked Fred, whose mind never seemed to see anything but pictures of divers colours and inspiring outlinesin the happy dreamland he lived in, all unconscious of the world's cruelty, and hate, and love of evil.
I had just finished telling him that a man like Kermode might bribe a boy to get him gulls' eggs, and sneak up to Deborah's window and quietly reach in and place the eggs on her dressing-table, as a means of getting Deborah and Andrew into trouble. I had just finished giving this outline of the thought in my mind, I say, when the door of the farmhouse opened and Deborah Shimmin, clad only in her nightdress, stepped lightly forth and started up the hillside.
The next moment the man, his gun in the hollow of his arm and the red setter dog at his heels, crawled forth from the pigsty, looked round as if to make certain he was not watched, and followed the white figure of the girl as she glided up the zig-zag path in the direction of the haughs which formed the wild sea coast.
It did not take Fred and me very long to take off our boots and noiselessly follow, guided by the figure in white, rather than by the man who went before us, for the dim light of the moon and the northern night made his dark dress difficult to see in the shadows of the hedges and trees.
I knew that Deborah would take the usual path to the rocks, and bade Fred follow close behind me while I took a shorter route. In ten minutes we were again under cover when the girl passed close by us, her long hair knotted roughly into a mass of rolls about her large and well-formed head. Her eyes were open, and fixed in a glassy stare straight ahead. She seemed to move along, rather than walk, and had no appearance of either hesitation or haste; and Kermode, with his dog and his gun, stealthily followed in her wake not twenty yards behind.
While we were crossing the field bordering the Gordon haughs, keeping under the shadow of a gorse-clad hedge, Deborah disappeared over the cliff, and the man, watched by Fred and myself, crept up to the edge of the cliffs down which the poor girl had descended.
Before another minute had elapsed, Kermode had stretchedhimself out his full length on a craig which overlooked the precipitous rocks down which Deborah had disappeared. We then secured the cover of a mound not thirty feet away from him.
The dog gave a low whine when he saw the head of his master craned out to watch the movements of the white figure descending the rocks, and then all was quiet as before.
Fred's suspense and anxiety for the safety of the girl was apparent in his hard breathing; but my own were inconsiderable, for I knew that if undisturbed by any noise unusual to the night, or any interference by the fellow who now held the future happiness of Andrew, the smith, in his hands she would safely climb up the haugh and make her way home to bed, all unconscious of the awful position she had placed herself in.
Wicked as I knew the man to be, I did not now imagine that he had any other intention in watching around the house than to try to discover Andrew paying a nocturnal visit, with some gulls' eggs for his sweetheart. This would have been a mean enough act, but it seems a small thing beside the cruel and murderous deed he would have committed but for the providential presence and prompt action of Fred Harcourt and myself.
Fred and I lay low, with our chins resting on our hands, not daring even to whisper. The dog whined a little now and again, and we heard the subdued cries of seagulls as they flew off, alarmed in the darkness, over the sea. Still Deborah did not make her appearance on the top of the cliff. It seemed a long time that we lay and watched thus, but it could not have been so long as it seemed.
Then Kermode, without raising himself from watching the climbing girl, reached back for the gun which he had placed on the ground by his side. He raised it to the level of his face, resting his left elbow on the ground, and I heard the click of the hammer as he cocked it. Then I saw his thumb and finger go into his waistcoat pocket.
"Good God!" I said in a loud whisper, as I sprang tomy feet, for I knew in one awful moment that the villain was feeling for a cap to discharge a shot in the air above the head of Deborah, who would wake up at the shock, and fall to the base of the craig in her terrible fright. So intent was Kermode in his fell design of frightening the girl to her destruction that he did not hear me, or notice the growl of his dog, or feel the vibration of our tread as we both bore down upon him. We should have been too late if it had not been for the life-long habit of the wretch to secure himself from danger or suspicion. With his finger on the trigger, all ready to pull, he paused one moment to raise himself and look about. That moment saved the life of Deborah Shimmin, for the would-be murderer was the next instant under the knee of Fred Harcourt and his throat in his grip, while my hand was over the nipples of the gun. While we were all on the ground together, and the setter dog had a hold of Harcourt's leg, the tall form of Cubbin, the policeman, bent over us. I had lowered the hammers of the gun and thrown it to one side to grasp the dog, for Harcourt would not let go his hold of Kermode's throat lest he should shout and wake the girl.
"Gag Kermode," I said to Cubbin, as I hit the dog just above the snout with a stone, killing him by one blow.
Then Deborah Shimmin, holding something in a fold of her nightdress with one hand, and climbing with the other, came up over the edge of the cliff a few yards away from us.
She looked very beautiful as she stepped up on the sloping sward above the haugh, with the pale moonlight just lighting her airy dress, and her face all sad and careworn.
Leaving Kermode to the care of the constable, Fred and I noiselessly followed the girl home, and saw her step over the obstacles in her path as by instinct, turning her face neither to the right nor left.
We decided to awaken her before she reached the door of the farmhouse, so that, according to the popular notion, she might never again become somnambulent.
With this view I stepped before her as she approachedthe door, but was astonished to find that she paused as if my presence blocked the way before she yet saw me or touched me. But there was no misunderstanding the blank stare in her wonderful eyes.
I gently put out my hand and took hers, as she put it out before her to feel the influence of a presence she could not see.
She did not scream or faint. She awoke with a start, and let the eggs fall on the ground.
At first she could not understand where she was, and just thought she was dreaming; but by degrees it came to her that she was standing before me in the pale moonlight when she thought she ought to be in bed.
Then I softly told her where she had been in her sleep, keeping back all knowledge of Kermode's attempted revenge on Andrew, and how we had decided to awake her. Then, with a little pleasant laugh, we both told her that the mystery of the seagulls' eggs was solved, and that neither Andrew nor she would be troubled again.
She fell to sobbing a little, and for the first time seemed to shiver with the cold; then she lifted the latch and we bade her good night.
Nothing was done to Kermode, for the fellow swore he had no intention of discharging the gun, and we could not prove he had, though the case was clear enough in our eyes, and the deed would have been done had we not, in God's providence, been there to prevent it.
Cubbin, the constable, it transpired afterwards, had overheard me giving my theory of the sleep-walking to Fred in the hayfield, and he, too, had been in hiding at the farm, and had watched and followed us all.
So there was a wonderful story for him to tell of how Deborah had made good her defence against the charge he had laid against Andrew and her. And the beautiful Deborah with the plain face became the bride of the jolly Andrew, who was neither an artist nor an amateur sculptor, but only a village blacksmith who had an eye for beauty of form and character.
"Where is Rose?"
"Busy, as usual, with her mice and beetles, I suppose, father," answered Ethel; "we have not seen her all this afternoon."
"She will probably be with you at teatime," said Dr. Sinclair, "after which I should like you to ask her to come to me for a little while in the surgery."
"Very well, father, I won't forget."
Dr. Sinclair retreated again to his surgery, which was arranged also as his library, knowing that his willing helper would not fail to join him there.
"I cannot think," said Maud, Ethel's sister, "what that girl finds to interest her in all those horrid creatures—beetles and toads, and even snakes, when she can get one; the other day I saw her handling a slowworm as if it were a charming domestic pet. It was enough to make one feel cold all over."
"Well, there is no accounting for taste; Rose never seems to care if she is asked to a party or not," continued Ethel, "and she does not mind helping father with his work, which I always find so tiresome, for he is so dreadfully particular about it. Perhaps biologists are different from other folks; I sometimes think there is something uncannny and queer about them."
"I'm sure Rose is neither uncanny nor queer, she's just a brick," said Jack, a schoolboy of fourteen, who was enjoying aSaturday half-holiday at home with a new book, it being too wet to play cricket. "She is always willing to do anything to help a fellow."
"Which means," said Ethel, "that you always expect girls to be your slaves, when you are at home."
At this moment the door opened and Rose herself appeared.
"Well, Rose," said Maud, "have you pinned out a beetle, or taught your pet ants to perform tricks?"
"Not this afternoon," said Rose; "I have had a delightful time with my microscope, studying spiders and drawing slides for the magic lantern to be used at my next little lecture to the G.F.S. girls."
"That sounds dry and uninteresting," yawned Maud. "Ah, here comes tea. By the way, father would like you to go to his study afterwards. Poor Rose, I expect he has some more tiresome work for you."
"Oh, don't call it tiresome, Maud dear; I quite enjoy it."
"It's a good thing you do. I hate being shut up there; it's such a bore."
A quarter of an hour later a middle-aged man, whose snow-white hair made him appear at first sight much older than he was in reality, might have been seen busy over a manuscript, whilst a fair girl sat beside him, reading out to him the notes he had made, and which he was working into the book he was writing. The two seemed to work in perfect harmony.
Rose's father had been the rector of a remote country parish in Cornwall. Most of his friends said that he was lost in such a neighbourhood, and that it was a shame to have sent so able a man to such a parish; but Mr. Sinclair never complained himself; he may sometimes have thought it strange that other men were chosen before him to occupy positions which he felt conscious he might well have filled, but as his lot was cast in that Cornish nook, he had thrown himself heart and soul into whatever work he found to do. The affection he won from the rough fisherfolk, who regarded him as the father of the parish, whose joys and sorrows, cares and anxieties, were all well known to him, was as much to him as any brilliant worldly success.His means were small, too small for his generous heart. He wished to give as good an education as possible to his two children, Henry and Rose, and devoted much time and trouble to that end. For several years he taught the boy and girl together himself, Rose learning much the same lessons as her brother; this laid the foundation of the accuracy which characterised her in any task she undertook—a quality often lacking in feminine work.
Mr. Sinclair had been a good student of natural history, and had written books and magazine articles which had been well thought of. Rose tried to follow her father's pursuit; she would spend hours in reading about birds and butterflies, and in making little researches herself. One of her greatest pleasures had been to help her father, either by taking notes for him or by writing at his dictation. She hoped herself some day to add to her pecuniary resources by writing for biological papers or even by giving lectures.
But the happy home life in the Cornish rectory was to end all too quickly. Rose lost both her parents within a short time of each other; her brother was at Oxford, working hard; and Rose was left alone, and had to leave the home which was so dear to her.
It was then that her uncle, Dr. Sinclair, without a moment's hesitation, offered her a home in his house. He did not listen to warning voices, cautioning him against burdening himself with the charge of another girl, for his own means were not large, and his family made many demands upon his purse. He was a physician whose career might have been a brilliant one had his practice been in London; but a fanciful and invalid wife had rendered this impossible, as she declared she could only exist in the pure air of the country.
So he had reluctantly abandoned his cherished hope of working as a London doctor, and had settled near a small country town in Gloucestershire, where he soon obtained most of the practice round; but his scope was narrow. He nevertheless managed to keep in touch with his profession, a profession in which he had entered heart and soul, makingvarious scientific researches in his laboratory, and sending the fruit of them in clearly-written articles to medical papers. Now for this work, either in writing short articles from his notes, or from his dictation, a patient helper was of great assistance to him. His own daughters, as already seen, disliked the work, and showed their father no sympathy in it, whereas to Rose it was real enjoyment, filling, in a measure, the void she felt in no longer helping her father. Between uncle and niece a tacit sympathy had grown up. He encouraged her in her natural history pursuits, and helped her to start the lectures she gave to the G.F.S. girls in the neighbourhood. The suggestion had seemed little likely to interest them, but Rose had been so clear and explicit that the girls soon became eager for them.
Time went on in this way, when something happened which was again to change Rose's circumstances. Truly it is that often trifles light as air have an unknown weight of importance in them. One morning the letter-bag brought a circular announcing that some "University Extension Lectures" were to be given at C——, their nearest town, by a professor from Oxford, the subject chosen being "Spiders," with notes from the microscope.
When Dr. Sinclair had read it, he passed it, smiling kindly, to Rose.
"This is not for me," he said, "but I think I know some one whom it may interest."
"Oh, uncle! how delightful," said Rose, when she had looked at it; "the very thing I should enjoy!"
So it came to pass that Rose attended the lectures, entering very fully into them, and taking careful notes.
At the close of the course, the lecturer said he would like any of the students who felt sufficiently interested in the subject to write a paper, and send it in to him, giving a summary of the lectures, and asking any questions they might care to ask, at the end.
Rose and several others responded to the invitation, and wrote their papers.
For some time Rose heard no more about it, but one morning she was surprised to receive the following note:—
"Dear Madam,—I have felt much satisfaction in reading your paper, which I return, with a few notes and answers to your questions. It shows me with what intelligent interest you have followed my lectures."It may interest you to know that an examination for a scholarship at St. Margaret's Hall, the new college for women, is shortly to be held at Oxford; and if you care to pursue a subject for which you show much understanding, I would suggest your trying for it. I don't promise you success, but I think it is worth the venture. A friend of mine, a lady living in Oxford, receives lady students recommended by me, and would, I am sure, make you comfortable on very moderate terms. Yours truly,"B. Fielding."
"Dear Madam,—I have felt much satisfaction in reading your paper, which I return, with a few notes and answers to your questions. It shows me with what intelligent interest you have followed my lectures.
"It may interest you to know that an examination for a scholarship at St. Margaret's Hall, the new college for women, is shortly to be held at Oxford; and if you care to pursue a subject for which you show much understanding, I would suggest your trying for it. I don't promise you success, but I think it is worth the venture. A friend of mine, a lady living in Oxford, receives lady students recommended by me, and would, I am sure, make you comfortable on very moderate terms. Yours truly,
"B. Fielding."
Rose read the letter two or three times and then passed it to her uncle. Had she the means to go there—if, oh,ifshe could only get the scholarship, how delightful it would be!
"Come to my study," said Dr. Sinclair.
And as soon as the door was shut he said kindly,—
"I don't like you to lose this opportunity, dear child, so write and tell Mr. Fielding you will go up to Oxford, if he will introduce you to the lady he mentions."
"Oh, but, uncle," she said, "what Mr. Fielding may call moderate terms may really mean a great deal more than should be paid for me."
"Never mind, little Rose," said Dr. Sinclair, "I meant to give my kind little helper a birthday present, and this shall be it."
"Dear uncle, how kind of you. But remember, that whatever help, as you term it, I may have given you, has always been a pleasure to me."
"And so, dear, is anything that I may do for you to me."
Thus it was settled, and a few days later, Dr. Sinclair himself started for his own beloved Oxford with his niece. Jack and Maud went to the station to see them off.
"Keep up your courage, Rose," said Jack, "you're pretty sure to pass, for if any girl in England knows about creepy, crawley things, you do!"
When Rose returned some days later, she looked rather overstrained and pale, and, to the surprise of Ethel and Maud, never looked at her microscope, or at any of her treasures in the way of beetles and tadpoles, but spent her time in complete idleness, except when she helped them to do up some of their evening clothes for some forthcoming dances; and they were surprised to see how deftly a biologist could sew.
One Saturday, as the three girls were sitting working together, Jack, who was spending his half-holiday at home again, said, "Why, here comes the telegraph boy!"
"Run and see who it is for," said Ethel, who had lately shown much more sympathetic interest in Rose, and who began to realise that if Rose obtained what she was so keenly set on, she, as well as others, might miss the cousin who had been so kind and so unselfish an inmate of their home. "Run and see, Jack; and if it is for any of us, bring it here."
Rose looked very white, but did not look up from her work.
"Addressed to Miss Rose Sinclair," said Jack, who soon returned.
Rose took the telegram with trembling fingers, and then tore it open.
It announced the following:—
"Rose Sinclair passed first. Awarded scholarship St. Margaret's for three years."
"Oh, Ethel!" said Rose, "it is too good to be true."
"I knew you would pass," said Jack, "I always said you would, didn't I, now?"
"Well," said Ethel, "we ought to be very glad for your sake."
"Yes," said Maud, "I congratulate you, Rose—but, I am very, very sorry you are going away."
"Are you, dear?" said Rose; "I also shall feel lonely without all of you, in this my second home. But let us go and tell uncle, for I consider this his special birthday gift to me."
"So it is," said Dr. Sinclair, who appeared at that moment.
"Then your old uncle is much gratified in sending his niece to Oxford; but he will miss his little girl very much."
Rose distinguished herself even far above Jack's expectation. After she had concluded her college course, she devoted her time and knowledge to giving lectures, for which she received remuneration, also to writing articles for magazines, and subsequent events led to her settling in Oxford. Whenever Dr. Sinclair wants an especially enjoyable holiday, he goes to spend a few days with Rose, and the two compare notes on their work. When he expresses his pleasure at her success, Rose loves to remind him that she owes it greatly to his kindness that she was placed in the way of obtaining it, through the birthday gift, which was to be so helpful to her.
Jack Cameron's office was a handsome apartment. It was approached by a broad staircase, the balusters of which were impressive from their solidity and design. The office door had a species of ornamental pediment over it, and the room itself had panelled walls of a pale green, a chimneypiece of portentous size, and a highly ornamental ceiling.
Up the staircase tripped a little lady—a pleasant vision of a silk blouse, butter-coloured lace, golden hair, fawn gloves, and tan bottines, leaving behind her an atmosphere redolent of the latest fashionable perfume mingled with the more delicate scent of the Marechal Niel roses in her corsage.
She knocked at the door, and, as there was no response from within, turned the handle.
"May I come in, please?" she said laughingly.
A young man was standing in a corner of the room opposite the telegraphic machine, from which the "tape" was issuing with a monotonous click. On this "tape"—a narrow strip of paper seemingly endless, which fell on the floor in serpentine coils—were inscribed at regular intervals some cabalistic characters unintelligible to the general public, but full of meaning to the initiated.
He turned at the sound of the voice. "What! Dolly?" he exclaimed.
"Yes, Jack; didn't you expect me?"
"Of course—of course," answered Jack Cameron, rather confusedly.
The girl crossed the room, and, taking both the hands of the young man, looked into his eyes.
"You are worried," said she softly.
"Oh, only a little. One is bound to have worries in business, especially when the market's feverish. But I'm awfully glad you've come. I shall forget all my bothers now you are here."
His tone brightened, and the shadow that was beginning to steal over the girl's face disappeared.
They were engaged. The wedding-day was fixed for the following week; naturally there was much to do in the way of house furnishing, and the bride elect was happy. Shopping before marriage has a distinct charm of its own. The feminine mind attaches to each purchase an ideal pleasure. Then there is the special joy of being entrusted by her future husband with money, and the pride of showing him how well she can bargain.
Jack Cameron was a stockbroker, and had done fairly well in South Africans. But like a good many others he had kept his "Narbatos" too long, and he saw his way to lose some money; not enough to seriously damage his stability, but enough to inconvenience him at this especial time when he was thinking of taking a wife.
Dolly Hardcastle knew nothing at all about this. Indeed, she knew nothing about stockbroking. It seemed to her simply a pleasant, light, gentlemanly profession, consisting principally in standing in Throgmorton Street, with one's hat tilted backwards, smoking cigarettes, eating oranges or strawberries according to the season, and talking about cricket or football.
This was the first time she had been to Jack's office, and she was prettily curious about everything—especially the telephone. She was not satisfied until Jack had shown her how to work the apparatus.
The "ticker" was also an all-absorbing object of attentionThe continuous "click, click," and the issuing of the tape without any apparent motive power, had something of the supernatural about it. Dolly looked at the white strips with wonder.
"What does this say, Jack? N-a-r-Narbatos, 2½. What does it mean?"
Alas! Jack Cameron knew too well what it meant. Narbatos had gone down with a "slump." When Miss Hardcastle called he was debating whether he should sell. This quotation decided him.
"Dolly," said he hurriedly, "do you mind me leaving you for five minutes alone while I run into the 'House'?"
No, Dolly did not mind. Business, of course, must be attended to. Jack seized his hat, snatched a kiss, and vanished.
"Dear old Jack," said Dolly, seating herself at the office table and staring at the ticker. "I wonder whether he has many callers? Whatever shall I do if anybody comes?"
She was considering this matter, with the assistance of the paper-knife, pressed against her pretty lips, when the sharp ting, ting, ting, of the telephone startled her.
Somebody wanted to speak to Jack. It might be important. Hadn't she better go to the telephone? It was so nice to be able to help her future husband.
"I wonder whether I could imitate Jack's voice?"
She went to the telephone and did exactly as Jack had instructed her to do. She heard a sepulchral voice say, "Are you there?"
"Yes," said Dolly boldly.
"I have an offer of 5,000 Rosebuds. Will you take the lot, as you said you would when we were talking about them the other day? Wire just come."
"Five thousand rosebuds!" cried Dolly, with flashing eyes and cheeks like the flowers just mentioned. "Then Jack is going to have the church decorated after all. Darling fellow; he hasn't even forgotten the wire for fastening them."
The man at the other end was evidently impatient, for heshouted that Jack must decide at once. As the matter was one which concerned Dolly, she had no hesitation what answer to give.
"Yes," she declared, in as bass a tone as she could assume.
She felt half inclined to waltz round the room, but she was afraid of disturbing the occupant of the office below. Gradually she sobered down, and by the time Jack Cameron returned she was quite sedate.
Jack had sold his Narbatos, and had lost £500 over the deal. But it was no use crying over spilt milk. The immediate effect was that he would have to be very economical over his honeymoon expenses. However, he wouldn't say anything about the matter to Dolly that day. He would carry out his promise—give her a nice luncheon at Birch's.
And so, putting on a mask of gaiety to conceal his real feelings, he piloted his fiancée across Broad Street and Cornhill.
That luncheon took a long time. Basking in the smiles of his Dolly, he gradually forgot stocks, shares, backwardations, and contangoes. Then, when they came from Birch's, Dolly wanted to see the new frescoes at the Royal Exchange, and she had to be obeyed.
It was quite three o'clock when he bethought himself that, though wooing was very pleasant, he had several important letters to write, and must return to his office.
"Thank you, Jack, dear, for being so nice to me to-day," whispered Dolly, as they strolled towards the entrance of the Exchange; "and thank you especially for letting me have the church decorated. The roses will make the dear old place look sweetly pretty."
Jack stared. Had his Dolly taken leave of her senses?
"Decorations—roses!" he exclaimed, mechanically. "I don't understand."
"Ah, that's very clever of you," laughed Dolly, "pretending you know nothing about it. You wanted to surprise me."
"Upon my word I had no intention of having the church decorated. I should like to please you, of course, but——"
Well, he had already decided that the church decoration was one of the expenses he would do without.
"Come now, confess. Haven't you ordered a quantity of rosebuds? You must have forgotten. Anyway, it's all right, for while you were away from your office there came a message through the telephone asking whether you'd take 5,000 rosebuds you were talking to somebody about the other day and of course I said yes. Gracious! Jack, dear, what is the matter?"
"Rosebuds—telephone. Of course, I see what has happened," faltered the young stockbroker. "Oh, Dolly—Dolly."
"What have I done? Nothing very serious, I hope. If you don't want to have the church decorated, why, I—I—shan't mind very—very much."
"It isn't that at all," said Jack, looking very queer. "Of course you didn't know. Unluckily the message didn't mean flowers, but shares in the 'Rosebud Gold Mining Company.'"
"Oh!"
It was quite true that Jack had contemplated speculating in "Rosebud" shares, but he had heard some disquieting rumours about the mine, and had decided not to touch them. And here he was the prospective owner of 5,000! Only two days before the quotation was 10s., with a tendency to drop. To take them up was impossible, to sell would mean a loss.
"Dolly," said he hurriedly, "let me see you into an omnibus." And, after a hasty farewell, he packed the young lady into a Kensington 'bus, and rushed to the Mining door of the Stock Exchange in Broad Street.
"What are Rosebuds?" he inquired excitedly of a well-known stockbroker.
"15s.6d., buyers, 14s.6d., sellers."
And they were 7s.6d., 7s., when the market opened that morning. What did it mean, and at what price had he, or rather, had Dolly, bought them?
He knew from whom the telephonic message had come.He dashed into his office and rang up the man, a member of a West End firm of brokers.
"Eight shillings," was the reply. "Congratulate you. Your profit already will pay for your honeymoon and a little more besides. Of course you'll sell. It's a market rig, and I happen to be in the know."
Sell? Of course he would. A profit of over £1,800 would recoup him for his loss of that morning, and leave him a handsome balance in the bargain.
"Dolly, dearest," he whispered that night, "the rosebuds are all right. The old church shall be smothered in them from end to end."
And so it was, but like a prudent man he never explained that but for Dolly's unconscious assistance there might have been no roses and perhaps very little honeymoon. He was afraid Dolly might want to help him again!
There was a dinner-party that night at the lieutenant-governor's, and those of the governed who had followed him from his territory of Lahore up to Simla were bidden to the feast. In one of the pretty private sitting-rooms of the Bellevue Hotel three ladies were discussing chiffons in connection with that function.
"Elma doesn't care for dinner-parties," Mrs. Macdonald said regretfully.
Elma was her daughter, and this was her first season in Simla.
"Oh, mother, I like the parties well enough!" said Elma. "What I hate is the horrid way you have of getting to parties."
"What do you mean?" the third lady asked.
"Elma means that she doesn't like the jampans," Mrs. Macdonald explained.
"I am always frightened," said Elma in a low voice, and a little of the delicate colour she had brought out from England with her faded from her lovely face. "It seems so dreadful to go rushing down those steep, narrow lanes, on the edge of a precipice, in little rickety two-wheeled chairs that would turn over in a minute if one of the men were to stumble and fall; and then one would roll all down I don't know how many feet, down those steep precipices: some of them have no railings or protection of any kind, and in the evening the roads are quite dark under the overhanging trees. And people have fallen over them and been killed—every one knows that."
"Elma cannot speak Hindustani," the mother further explained, "and the first time she went out she called 'Jeldi, jeldi!' to the men, and of course they ran faster and faster. I was really rather alarmed myself when they came tearing past me round a corner."
"I thoughtjeldimeant 'slowly,'" said Elma.
"Well, at any rate you have learnt one word of the language," said Mrs. Thompson, laughing.
"I should not mind so much if mother was with me," said the girl; "but those horrid little jampans only hold one person—and mother's jampannis always run on so fast in front, and my men have to keep up with them. I wish I wasn't going this evening."
"She has the sweetest frock you ever saw," said Mrs. Macdonald, turning to a pleasanter aspect of the subject. "I must say my sister-in-law took great pains with her outfit, and she certainly has excellent taste."
"Didn't you ever feel nervous at first," Elma asked, "when you went out in a jampan on a dark night down a very steep road?"
Mrs. Thompson laughed. "I can't say I remember it," she said. "I never fancied myself going over thekudd—the 'precipice' as you call it. I suppose I should have made my husband walk by the side of the jampan if I had been afraid."
Then she got up to go, and Mrs. Macdonald went out with her and stood talking for a minute in the long corridor outside her rooms.
"She is a very lovely creature," said Mrs. Thompson pleasantly. "I should think she is quite the prettiest girl in Simla this year."
"I think she is," the mother agreed; "but I am afraid she will be very difficult to manage. She is only just out of the schoolroom, you know, and girls are so unpractical. She doesn't care to talk to any one but the subalterns and boys of her own age—and it is so important she should settle this year. You know we retire next year."
"It is early days yet," said the other cheerfully.
She had come out to India herself as the bride of a very rising young civilian, and she knew nothing of the campaign of the mothers at Simla.
Elma indeed looked a lovely creature when she came out of her room an hour or two later to show herself to her mother before she stepped into the hated jampan. Her dress was a delicate creation of white lace and chiffon, with illusive shimmerings of silver in its folds that came and went with every one of her graceful movements. She was a tall and slender girl, with a beautiful long white throat, smooth and round, that took on entrancing curves of pride and gentleness, of humility and nobleness. She had splendid rippling hair of a deep bronze, that had been red a few years earlier; and dark blue dreamy eyes under broad dark eyebrows; a long sweep of cool fair cheek, and a rather wide mouth with a little tender, pathetic droop at the corners.
"That frock certainly becomes you to perfection," said the mother. "I hope you will enjoy yourself; and do try not to let the boys monopolise you this evening. It is not like a dance, you know, and really, it is not good form to snub all the older men who try to talk to you."
Elma lifted her long lashes with a glance of unfeigned surprise. "Oh, mother," she said humbly, "how could I snub any one? I am afraid of the clever men. I like to talk to the boys because they are as silly as I am myself, and they would not laugh at me for saying stupid things."
"No one is going to laugh at you, goosey," said her mother.
"I wish I was not going," said Elma.
The ayah came out of the bedroom, and wrapped the tall young figure in a long white opera-cloak; and then they all went down together to the front verandah, where the jampans waited with the brown, bare-legged runners in their smart grey and blue liveries.
Mrs. Macdonald started first. "Don't call outjelditoo often, Elma," she called back, laughing: "I don't want to be run over."
And the ayah, hearing the wordjeldi, explained to the jampannis that the Miss Sahib desired, above all things, fleetness, and that she had no mind to sit behind a team of slugs.
Elma got in very gingerly, and the ayah settled her draperies with affectionate care. The dark little woman loved her, because she was gentle and fair and never scolded or hurried.
The night was very dark. The road was by narrow backways, rough, heavily shadowed, and unprotected in many places. The jampannis started off at a run down the steep path as soon as they had passed through the gate, and Elma sat trembling and quaking behind them, gripping both sides of the little narrow carriage as she was whirled along. Once or twice it bumped heavily over large stones in the road; and when they had gone some little distance a dispute seemed to arise between the runners. They stopped the jampan and appealed to her, but she could not understand a word they said. She could only shake her head and point forward. Several minutes were lost in this discussion, and when at length it was decided one way or the other, the men started again at a greater speed than ever, to make up for the lost time.
They bumped and flew along the dark road, and whirled round a corner too short. One of the men on the inner side of the road stumbled up the bank, and, losing his balance, let go the pole, and the jampan heeled over. Elma's startled scream unnerved the other runners, who swerved and stumbled, and in a moment the jampan was overturned down the side of thekudd. The white figure in it was shot out and went rolling down the rough hillside among the scrub and thorny bushes and broken stakes that covered it.
The jampannis ran away; and after that one scream of Elma's there was silence on the dark road.
It seemed to her that she was years rolling and buffeting down that steep hillside, which happily at that point was not precipitous. Then something struck her sharply on theside and stopped her farther progress. She did not faint, though the pain in her side gripped her breath for a moment. For all her delicate ethereal appearance, she was a strong girl, and, like many timid people, found courage when a disaster had really happened. She could not move. She was pinned down among the short, stiff branches of a thorny shrub; but she screamed again as loud as she could—not a scream of terror, but a call for help. Then she lay and listened. All about her there was no sound but the rustling murmur of the leaves and the tiny, mysterious noises of the little creatures of the night whose realm she had invaded. Now and again she tried to move and disentangle herself from the strong branches that held her; but they pressed her down, the thorns pinned her clothes, and her bruised side ached with every movement—and she was forced to lie still again and listen for some sound of the jampannis, who must surely be looking for her.
Presently, on the road above, there sounded, very faint and far off, the tramp of shod feet. She called again, and the tramp quickened to a run, and a man's voice shouted in the distance: "Hullo! Hullo!"
As the steps came nearer above her, she cried again: "Help! I am here—down thekudd."
In the leafy stillness her shrill young voice rang far and clear.
"Where are you?" came the answering voice.
"Down thekudd."
The steps stopped on the road above.
"Are you there?" the voice called. "I see something white glimmering."
"I am here," she answered; then, as the bushes crackled above her, she called a warning: "It is very steep. Be careful."
Very slowly and cautiously the steps came down the steep side of thekuddto an accompaniment of rolling stones and crashing and tearing branches, and now and then a muttered exclamation. Then she was aware of a white face glimmering out of the darkness.
"Are you there?" said the voice again, quite close to her.
"Yes, I am here, but I cannot move; the branches hold me down."
"Wait a moment. I will get a light."
She was lying on her back, and, turning her head a little, she could see a match struck and the face it illuminated—a strong, dark, clean-shaven face; a close-cropped, dark, uncovered head. The match was held over her for a moment, then it went out.
"I see where you are," said the rescuer, "we must try to get you out. Are you hurt?"
"I have hurt my side, I think," she said.
Without more words he knelt down beside her and began to tear away and loosen the short, sturdy branches; then he took her under the shoulders, and drew her slowly along the ground. There was a great rending and tearing in every direction of her delicate garments; but at last she was free of the clinging thorns and branches.
"I am afraid the thorns have scratched you a good deal," he said in a very matter-of-fact voice. "Will you try if you can stand up now? Lean on me."
Elma scrambled to her feet, and stood leaning against him—a glimmering, ghostly figure, whose tattered garments were happily hidden by the darkness.
"Do you think you can manage to climb back to the road now?" he asked; "there may be snakes about here, you know."
"I will try," said Elma.
"I will go first," he said. "You had better hold on to my coat, I think. That will leave my hands free to pull us up."
Very slowly and laboriously they clambered back again to the road above; there was no sign of the jampannis, and the jampan itself had gone over thekuddand was no more to be seen.
They sat down exhausted on the rising bank on the other side of the road.
"How did you get here?" he asked.
"My jampan went over the side, down the precipice," said Elma, "and I am afraid those poor jampannis must have been killed."
The stranger laughed long and loud, and Elma, in the reaction of her relief, laughed too.
"I have not the slightest idea what you are laughing at," she said.
"You have not been long in this country?" he asked.
"Why?"
"You do not know the jampanni. As soon as the jampan tilted they let go, and directly they saw you had gone over they ran away. Killed! Well, that is likely! I daresay they will come back here presently to pick up the pieces, when they have got over their panic: they are not really bad-hearted, you know. We will wait a little while and see."
There was silence between them for a few peaceful moments; then Elma said gently, "I thank you with all my heart."
"Oh, not at all!" said the stranger politely.
They both laughed again, young, heart-whole, clear laughter, that echoed strangely on those world-old hills.
"Words are very inadequate," said Elma presently.
"Oh, one understands all right without words," said he; "but where is the rest of your party, I wonder? I suppose you were not alone?"
"Mother has gone to a dinner-party," she answered. "Oh dear, what ought I to do? She will be so frightened! She is waiting for me. I must get some one to go and tell her I am all right. How could I sit here and forget how frightened she will be when I don't come!"
"We had better wait a little longer, I think," he said. "You cannot walk just yet, can you?"
"My shoes are all cut to pieces," she owned ruefully. "I suppose we must wait. It was very lucky for me you were passing just then."
"Yes, I had just cut the shop for an hour or two, andI came round here to have a quiet smoke. Lost my way, as a matter of fact."
"They must keep open very late at your shop," she remarked.
He hesitated a moment before he answered, "Very late."
"And I suppose you haven't dined?" she went on. "You must come back with me, and dine at the hotel. I cannot go on to the party now, at any rate; my clothes are in rags, and, besides, it must be quite late."
"Do you know your way back to the hotel?" he asked, as the time went on and the jampannis remained, to all appearance, as dead as ever.
"No, I have never walked down this way, and it is far too dark to attempt it now," said Elma very decidedly.
The time passed pleasantly enough while they waited, and more than once their light-hearted laughter rang out into the night.
At last they heard a pattering of bare feet coming down the road. The stranger hailed in Hindustani, and the natives stopped and began an excited jabbering all together, which the stranger answered in their own language.
"These are the jampannis who were killed," he announced to Elma. "If you wish it, I will send one of them with a message to your mother, and the others can fetch a couple of jampans to take us to the hotel."
"You seem to know Hindustani very well," she remarked, when the men had been sent on their various errands.
"Yes, I have been some little time in India," he answered, "though I have only been a few days at Simla. Will you allow me to introduce myself? My name is Angus McIvor."
"And I am Elma Macdonald. I hope we shall not meet any one at the hotel before I can get to my room. Oh! and will you let me go on in front, and get out before you come?—I am so dreadfully tattered and torn."
"I promise not to look at you at all until you give me leave," he answered gravely. "And what about me? I havelost my hat, and as yet I have no idea of the extent of the damage my garments have sustained."
"Then I won't look at you either," said Elma, and they laughed together again in the gayestcamaraderie.
Dinner was over at the Bellevue when they got back there; but they neither of them felt the want of other company. They had a very merry little dinner-party all to themselves, and Angus was able to look at the damsel errant he had rescued. Her beauty came upon him with a shock of surprise. He had seen many beautiful women in his time, but never anything so enchanting as the droop of her mouth, or the lovely curves of her throat, or the transparent candour of her sweet blue eyes.
What Elma saw was a tall, well-knit young fellow, with a dark, plain face, a hawk nose, and grey eyes. He was clean-shaven; no moustache or beard concealed the masterful squareness of his jaw or the rather satirical curve of his thin lips.
Directly dinner was over he left her, though she begged him to stay till her mother came home.
"Mother would like to thank you for what you did for me," she said.
"I will come and be thanked to-morrow morning, then," he said, laughing. "I shall want to know how you are after your accident, you know—that is, if I can get away from the shop."
Mrs. Macdonald came home rather early, and not in the best of tempers. She had been a good deal alarmed and upset when Elma failed to arrive at Government House; and even after the jampanni had brought the message that her daughter was safe at the hotel she was extremely annoyed at Elma's absence from the party. There were several bachelor guests whom she would have been glad to introduce to her; and when she thought of the radiant figure in the shimmering white robe that she had last seen on the hotel verandah, she was ready to cry with vexation and disappointment.
She listened with ill-concealed impatience to Elma's account of her accident. "And pray who is this Mr. McIvor who roams about rescuing distressed damsels?" she asked. "I never heard his name before."
"He said he came out of a shop," said Elma simply.
"A shop!" cried Mrs. Macdonald. "Really, Elma, you are no better than an idiot! The idea of asking a man who comes out of a shop to dine with you here! What will people say? You must be mad."
"But he was very kind to me, mother," said Elma, "and he missed his own dinner by helping me. And, you know, I might have lain in that horrible place all night if he had not helped me out. I don't see that any one here can complain about his shop; they were not asked to meet him: we dined quite by ourselves, he and I."
Mrs. Macdonald stamped her foot. "You are hopeless, Elma—quite hopeless!" she cried. "What was your aunt dreaming of to bring you up to have no more sense than a child of three years old?"
"He is very gentlemanly," said Elma, still gently expostulating. "You will see for yourself: he is coming to call on you to-morrow, and to ask how I am."
"Elma, I forbid you to see him again!" said the mother, now tragically impressive. "If he calls to-morrow, I shall see him alone. You are not to come into the room."
"I am afraid he will think it very unkind and rude," said Elma regretfully; "and I can never forget how kind he was and how glad I was to see him when he came down thekuddafter me."
But she made no further resistance to her mother's orders, having privately decided in her own mind to find out what shop in Simla had the advantage of his services, and to see him there herself and thank him again.
Angus McIvor duly called next morning, and was received by Mrs. Macdonald alone; but what passed between them at that interview remains a secret between him and that lady.
After lunch Elma strolled out for her usual solitary walk whileher mother was enjoying her siesta. She wandered idly along under the trees down the road along which the jampannis had whirled her the evening before, and so to the broken edge of thekuddwhere she had rolled over.
There, sitting on the bank, smoking serenely, was Angus McIvor. He threw away his cigar, and got up as soon as she saw him.
Her lovely face flushed, her blue eyes darkened with pleasure, as she held out her hand in greeting.
"I thought you would be sure to come here," he said, smiling down upon her.
"Oh, you expected me, then?" she said, and her eyes fell before his.
"Why weren't you there this morning when I came to be thanked?" he asked.
She turned her head away uneasily. "Mother did not wish me to come in," she said.
"Why not?"
No answer.
"Well, never mind that now," he said. "I will ask you again some other time. Now let us go up towards the top of Jacko; there are some pretty views I should like to show you."
And, nothing loth, Elma went with him.
"Why did your mother not wish you to see me this morning?"
"I cannot tell," said Elma lamely.
"Was it because of the shop?" he persisted. "Tell me. I promise you I will not mind. Was it?"
The fair head drooped a little, and the answer came in a whisper he could hardly hear: "Yes."
"And do you mind about the shop?"
She raised indignant blue eyes to his. "Of course not!" she said. "You ought to know that without asking me."
"Then will you meet me again to-morrow outside here?" he asked.
"No, I cannot do that."
"Then you are ashamed of the shop?"
"Indeed, I am not!"
"But I cannot meet you any other way," he urged. "I cannot come to see you, and you have not been to my shop yet since I came to Simla. So where can I see you? Will you meet me again?"
"Indeed, I cannot!"
"Then it is the shop?"
The blue eyes were full of distress, the tender mouth grew more pathetic. "I will come just once," she said, "to show you I care nothing about the shop. But you must not ask me again to do what I know my mother would not like. I cannot deceive her."
And on the next day they met again and walked together.
He did not ask her to meet him again, but on the third day he joined her at the gate.
"This is quite accidental, you know," he said, laughing down into her happy eyes.
And as they walked in the tender green shadows upon wooded Jacko, his eyes said, "I love you," and hers faltered and looked down.
And on the homeward way he took her hand. "I will not ask you to meet me again in secret, my sweetest," he said, "because I love you. I am ashamed that for one moment I doubted your innocent, unworldly heart. I will woo and win you openly as you should be wooed."
And without waiting for an answer, he kissed her hand and left her.
That evening there was a great reception at Government House, and the Viceroy's new aide-de-camp, Lord Angus McIvor Stuart, helped to receive the guests.
"This is my 'shop,' Mrs. Macdonald," he said. "It was a silly and slangy way to speak of it; but, upon my honour, I never meant to deceive any one when I said it first."