Tommy was in a bad temper with everyone—a most unusual state of affairs. The weather was improving every day; the rains were nearly over. He was practically well again, too well to be sent to Bhulwana on sick leave, as Ralston brutally told him; but it was not this fact that had upset his internal equilibrium. He did not want sick leave, and bluntly said so.
"Then what the devil do you want?" said Ralston, equally blunt and ready to resent irritation from one who in his opinion was too highly favoured of the gods to have any reasonable grounds for complaint.
Tommy growled an inarticulate reply. It was not his intention to confide in Ralston whatever his grievance. But Ralston, not to be frustrated, carried the matter to Monck, then on the high road to recovery.
"What in thunder is the matter with the young ass?" he demanded. "He gets more lantern-jawed and obstreperous every day."
"Leave him to me!" said Monck. "Discharge him as cured! I'll manage him."
"But that's just what he isn't," grumbled Ralston. "He ought to be well. So far as I can make out, he is well. But he goes about looking like a sick fly and stinging before you touch him."
"Leave him to me!" Monck said again.
That afternoon as he and Tommy lounged together on the verandah after the lazy fashion of convalescents, he turned to the boy in his abrupt fashion.
"Look here, Tommy!" he said. "What are you making yourself so conspicuously unpleasant for? It's time you pulled up."
Tommy turned crimson. "I?" he stammered. "Who says so? Stella?"
There was the suspicion of a smile about Monck's grim mouth as he made reply. "No; not Stella, though she well might. I've heard you being beastly rude to her more than once. What's the matter with you? Want a kicking, eh?"
Tommy hunched himself in his wicker chair with his chin on his chest. "No, want to kick," he said in a savage undertone.
Monck laughed briefly. He was standing against a pillar of the verandah. He turned and sat down unexpectedly on the arm of Tommy's chair. "Who do you want to kick?" he said.
Tommy glanced at him and was silent.
"Significant!" commented Monck. He put his hand with very unwonted kindness upon the lad's shoulder. "What do you want to kick me for, Tommy?" he asked.
Tommy shrugged the shoulder under his hand. "If you don't know, I can't tell you," he said gruffly.
Monck's fingers closed with quiet persistence. "Yes, you can. Out with it!" he said.
But Tommy remained doggedly silent.
Several seconds passed. Then very suddenly Monck raised his hand and smote him hard on the back.
"Damn!" said Tommy, straightening involuntarily.
"That's better," said Monck. "That'll do you good. Don't curl up again! You're getting disgracefully round-shouldered. Like to have a bout with the gloves?"
There was not a shade of ill-feeling in his voice. Tommy turned round upon him with a smile as involuntary as his exclamation had been.
"What a brute you are, Monck! You have such a beastly trick of putting a fellow in the wrong."
"You are in the wrong," asserted Monck. "I want to get you out of it if I can. What's the grievance? What have I done?"
Tommy hesitated for a moment, then finally reached up and gripped the hand upon his shoulder. "Monck! I say, Monck!" he said boyishly. "I feel such a cur to say it. But—but—" he broke off abruptly. "I'm damned if I can say it!" he decided dejectedly.
Monck's fingers suddenly twisted and closed upon his. "What a funny little ass you are, Tommy!" he said.
Tommy brightened a little. "It's infernally difficult—taking you to task," he explained blushing a still fierier red. "You'll never speak to me again after this."
Monck laughed. "Yes, I shall. I shall respect you for it. Get on with it, man! What's the trouble?"
With immense effort Tommy made reply. "Well, it's pretty beastly to have to ask any fellow what his intentions are with regard to his sister, but you pretty nearly told me yours."
"Then what more do you want?" questioned Monck.
Tommy made a gesture of helplessness. "Damn it, man! Don't you know she is making plans to go Home?"
"Well?" said Monck.
Tommy faced round. "I say, like a good chap,—you've practically forced this, you know—you're not going to—to let her go?"
Monck's eyes looked back straight and hard. He did not speak for a moment; then, "You want to know my intentions, Tommy," he said. "You shall. Your sister and I are observing a truce for the present, but it won't last for ever. I am making plans for a move myself. I am going to live at the Club."
"Is that going to help?" demanded Tommy bluntly.
Monck looked sardonic. "We mustn't offend the angels, you know, Tommy," he said.
Tommy made a sound expressive of gross irreverence. "Oh, that's it, is it? Now we know where we are. I've been feeling pretty rotten about it, I can tell you."
"You always were an ass, weren't you?" said Monck, getting up.
Tommy got up too, giving himself an impatient shake. He pushed an apologetic hand through Monck's arm. "I can't expect ever to get even with a swell like you," he said humbly,
Monck looked at him. Something in the boy's devotion seemed to move him, for his eyes were very kindly though his laugh was ironic. "You'll have an almighty awakening one of these days, my son," he said. "By the way, if we are going to be brothers, you had better call me by my Christian name."
"By Jove, I will," said Tommy eagerly. "And if there is anything I can do, old chap—anything under the sun—"
"I'll let you know," said Monck.
So, like the lifting of a thunder cloud, Tommy's very unwonted fit of temper merged into a mood of great benignity and Ralston complained no more.
Monck took up his abode at the Club before the brief winter season brought the angels flitting back from Bhulwana to combine pleasure with duty at Kurrumpore.
Stella accepted his departure without comment, missing him when gone after a fashion which she would have admitted to none. She did not wholly understand his attitude, but Tommy's serenity of demeanour made her somewhat suspicious; for Tommy was transparent as the day.
Mrs. Ralston's return made her life considerably easier. They took up their friendship exactly where they had left it and found it wholly satisfactory. When Lady Harriet Mansfield made her stately appearance, Stella's position was assured. No one looked askance at her any longer. Even Mrs. Burton's criticism was limited to a strictly secret smile.
Netta Ermsted was the last to leave Bhulwana. She returned nervous and fretful, accompanied by Tessa whose joy over rejoining her friends was as patent as her mother's discontent. Tessa had a great deal to say in disparagement of the Rajah of Markestan, and said it so often and with such emphasis that at last Captain Ermsted's patience gave way and he forbade all mention of the man under penalty of a severe slapping. When Tessa had ignored the threat for the third time he carried it out with such thoroughness that even Netta was startled into remonstrance.
"You are quite right to keep the child in order," she said. "But you needn't treat her like that. I call it brutal."
"You can call it what you like," said Ermsted. "I did it quite as much for your benefit as for hers."
Netta tossed her head. "I'm not a sentimental mother," she observed. "You won't punish me in that way. I object to a commotion, that's all."
He took her by the shoulder. "Do you?" he said. "Then I advise you to be mighty careful, for, I warn you, my blood is up."
She made a face at him, albeit there was a quality of menace in his hold. "Are you going to treat me as you have just treated Tessa?"
His teeth were clenched upon his lower lip. "Don't be a little devil, Netta!" he said.
She snapped her fingers. "Then don't you be a big fool, most noble Richard! It doesn't pay to bully a woman. She can always get her own back one way or another. Remember that!"
He gripped her suddenly by both arms. "By Heaven!" he said passionately. "I'll do worse than beat you if you dare to trifle with me!"
She tried to laugh, but his look frightened her. She turned as white as the muslin wrap she wore. "Richard—Dick—don't," she gasped helplessly.
He held her locked to him. "You've gone too far," he said.
"I haven't, Dick! I haven't!" she protested. "Dick, I swear to you—I have never—I have never—"
He stopped the words upon her lips with his own, but his kiss was terrible. She shrank from it trembling, appalled.
In a moment he let her go, and she sank upon her couch, hiding her quivering face with convulsive weeping.
"You are cruel! You are cruel!" she sobbed.
He remained beside her, looking down at her till some of the sternness passed from his face.
He bent at last and touched her. "I'm not cruel," he said. "I'm just in earnest, that's all. You be careful for the future! There's a bit of the devil in me too when I'm goaded."
She drew herself away from him, half-frightened still and half petulant. "You used to be—ever so much nicer than you are now," she said, keeping her face averted.
He answered her sombrely as he turned away, "I used to have a wife that I honoured before all creation."
She sprang to her feet. "Dick! How can you be so horrid?"
He shrugged his shoulders as he walked to the door. "I was—a big fool," he said very bitterly.
The door closed upon him. Netta stood staring at it, tragic and tear-stained.
Suddenly she stamped her foot and whirled round in a rage. "I won't be treated like a naughty child! I won't—I won't! I'll write to my Arabian Knight—I'll write now—and tell him how wretched I am! If Dick objects to our friendship I'll just leave him, that's all. I was a donkey ever to marry him. I always knew we shouldn't get on."
She paused, listening, half-fearing, half-hoping, that she had heard him returning. Then she heard his voice in the next room. He was talking to Tessa.
She set her lips and went to her writing-table. "Oh yes, he can make it up with his child when he knows he has been brutal; but never a single kind word to his wife—not one word!"
She took up a pen with fingers that trembled with indignation, and began to write.
For two months Tommy possessed his impulsive soul in patience. For two months he watched Monck go his impassive and inscrutable way, asking no further question. The gaieties of the station were in full swing. Christmas was close at hand.
Stella was making definite plans for departure in the New Year. She could not satisfy herself with an idle life, though Tommy vehemently opposed the idea of her going. Monck never opposed it. He listened silently when she spoke of it, sometimes faintly smiling. She often saw him. He came to the Green Bungalow in Tommy's company at all hours of the day. She met him constantly at the Club, and he never failed to come to her side there and by some means known only to himself to banish the crowd of subalterns who were wont to gather round her. He asserted no claim, but the claim existed and was mutely recognized. He never spoke to her intimately. He never attempted to pass the bounds of ordinary friendship. Only very rarely did he make her aware that her company was a pleasure to him. But the fact remained that she was the only woman that he ever sought, and the tongues of all the rest were busy in consequence.
As for Stella, she still told herself that she would escape with her freedom. He would speak, she was convinced, before she left. She even sometimes told herself that after what had passed between them, it was almost incumbent upon him to speak. But she believed that he would accept her refusal philosophically, possibly even with relief. She restrained herself forcibly from dwelling upon the thought of him. Again and again she reminded herself that he trod the way of ambition. His heart was given to his work, and a man may not serve two masters. He cared for her, probably, but in a calm, judicial fashion that could never satisfy her. If she married him she would come second—and a very poor second—to his profession. And so she did not mean to marry him. And so she checked the fevered memory of passionate kisses that had burned her to the soul, of arms that had clasped and held her by a force colossal. That had been only the primitive man in him, escaped for the moment beyond his control—the primitive man which he had well-nigh succeeded in stifling with the bonds of his servitude. Had he not told her that he would have given all he had to forget that single wild lapse into savagery? She was sure that he despised himself for it. He would never for an instant suffer such an impulse again. He did not really love her. It was not in him to love any woman. He would make her a formal offer of marriage, and when she had refused him he would dismiss the matter from his mind and return to his work undisturbed.
So she schooled herself to make her plans, leaving him out of the reckoning, telling herself ever that her newly restored freedom was too dear ever to be sacrificed again. In Mrs. Ralston's company she attended some of the social gatherings of the station, but she took no keen pleasure in them. She disliked Lady Harriet, she distrusted Mrs. Burton, and more often than not she remained away. The coming Christmas festivities did not attract her. She held aloof till Tommy who was in the thick of everything suddenly and vehemently demanded her presence.
"It's ridiculous to be so stand-offish," he maintained. "Don't let 'em think you're afraid of 'em! Come anyway to the moonlight picnic at Khanmulla on Christmas Eve! It's going to be no end of a game."
Stella smiled a little. "Do you know, Tommy, I think I'd rather go to bed?"
"Absurd!" declared Tommy. "You used to be much more sporting."
"I wasn't a widow in those days," Stella said.
"What rot! What damn' rot!" cried Tommy wrathfully.
"There is no altering the fact," said Stella.
He left her, fuming.
That evening as she sat on the Club verandah with Mrs. Ralston, watching some tennis, Monck came up behind her and stood against the wall smoking a cigarette.
He did not speak for some time and after a word of greeting Stella turned back to the play. But presently Mrs. Ralston got up and went away, and after an interval Monck came silently forward and took the vacant seat.
Tommy was among the players. His play was always either surprisingly brilliant or amazingly bad, and on this particular evening he was winning all the honours.
Stella was joining in the general applause after a particularly fine stroke when suddenly Monck's voice spoke at her side.
"Why don't you take a hand sometimes instead of always looking on?"
The question surprised her. She glanced at him in momentary embarrassment, met his straight look, and smiled.
"Perhaps I am lazy."
"That isn't the reason," he said. "Why do you lead a hermit's life? Do you follow your own inclination in so doing? Or are you merely proving yourself a slave to an unwritten law?"
His voice was curt; it held mastery. But yet she could not resent it, for behind it was a masked kindness which deprived it of offence.
She decided to treat the question lightly. "Perhaps a little of both," she said. "Besides, it seems scarcely worth while to try to get into the swim now when I am leaving so soon."
He made an abrupt movement which seemed to denote suppressed impatience. "You are too young to say that," he said.
She laughed a little. "I don't feel young. I think life moves faster in tropical countries. I have lived years since I have been here, and I am glad of a rest."
He was silent for a space; then again abruptly he returned to the charge. "You're not going to waste all the best of your life over a memory, are you? The finest man in the world isn't worth that."
She felt the colour rise in her face as she made reply. "I hope I am not going to waste my life at all. Is it a waste not to spend it in a feverish round of social pleasures? If so, I do not think you are in a position to condemn me."
She saw his brief smile for an instant. "My life is occupied with other things," he said. "But I don't lead a hermit's existence. I am going to the officers' picnic at Khanmulla on the twenty-fourth for instance."
"Being a case of 'Needs must'," suggested Stella.
"By no means." Monck leaned forward to light another cigarette. "I am going for a particular purpose. If that purpose is not fulfilled—" he paused a moment and she felt his eyes upon her again—"I shall come straight back," he ended with a certain doggedness of determination that did not escape her.
Stella's gaze was fixed upon the court below her and she kept it there, but she saw nothing of the game. Her heart was beating oddly in leaps and jerks. She felt curiously as if she were under the influence of an electric battery; every nerve and every vein seemed to be tingling.
He had not asked a question, yet she felt that in some fashion he had made it incumbent upon her to speak in answer. In the silence that followed his words she was aware of an insistence that would not be denied. She tried to put it from her, but could not. In the end, more than half against her will, she yielded.
"I suppose I shall have to go," she said, "if only to pacify Tommy."
"A very good and sufficient reason," commented Monck enigmatically.
He lingered on beside her for a while, but nothing further of an intimate nature passed between them. She felt that he had gained his objective and would say no more. The truce between them was to be observed until the psychological moment arrived to break it, and that moment would occur some time on Christmas Eve in the moonlit solitudes of Khanmulla.
Later she reflected that perhaps it was as well to go and get it over. She could not deny him his opportunity, and it would not take long—she was sure it would not take long to convince him that they were better as they were.
Had he been younger, less wedded to his work, less the slave of his ambition, things might have been different. Had she never been married to Ralph Dacre, never known the bondage of those few strange weeks, she might have been more ready to join her life to his.
But Fate had intervened between them, and their paths now lay apart. He realized it as well as she did. He would not press her. Their eyes were open, and if the oasis in the desert had seemed desirable to either for a space, yet each knew that it was no abiding-place.
Their appointed ways lay in the waste beyond, diverging ever more and more, till presently even the greenness of that oasis in which they had met together would be no more to either than a half-forgotten dream.
The moon was full on Christmas Eve. It shone in such splendour that the whole world was transformed into a fairyland of black and silver. Stella stood on the verandah of the Green Bungalow looking forth into the dazzling night with a tremor at her heart. The glory of it was in a sense overwhelming. It made her feel oddly impotent, almost afraid, as if some great power menaced her. She had never felt the ruthlessness of the East more strongly than she felt it that night. But the drugged feeling that had so possessed her in the mountains was wholly absent from her now. She felt vividly alive, almost painfully conscious of the quick blood pulsing through her veins. She was aware of an intense longing to escape even while the magic of the night yet drew her irresistibly. Deep in her heart there lurked an uncertainty which she could not face. Up to that moment she had been barely aware of its existence, but now she felt it stirring, and strangely she was afraid. Was it the call of the East, the wonder of the moonlight? Or was it some greater thing yet, such as had never before entered into her life? She could not say; but her face was still firmly set towards the goal of liberty. Whatever was in store for her, she meant to extricate herself. She meant to cling to her freedom at all costs. When next she stood upon that verandah, the ordeal she had begun to dread so needlessly, so unreasonably, would be over, and she would have emerged triumphant.
So she told herself, even while the shiver of apprehension which she could not control went through her, causing her to draw her wrap more closely about her though there was nought but a pleasant coolness in the soft air that blew across the plain.
She and Tommy were to drive with the Ralstons to the ruined palace in the jungle of Khanmulla where the picnic was to take place. She had never seen it, but had heard it described as the most romantic spot in Markestan. It had been the site of a fierce battle in some bye-gone age, and its glories had departed. For centuries it had lain deserted and crumbling. Yet some of its ancient beauty remained. Its marble floors and walls of carved stone were not utterly obliterated though only owls and flying-foxes made it their dwelling-place. Natives regarded it with superstitious awe and seldom approached it. But Europeans all looked upon it as the most beautiful corner within reach, and had it been nearer to Kurrumpore, it would have been a far more frequented playground than it was.
The hoot of a motor-horn broke suddenly upon the silence, and Stella started. It was the horn of Major Ralston's little two-seater; she knew it well. But they had not proposed using it that night. She and Tommy were to accompany them in a waggonette. The crunching of wheels and throb of the engine at the gate told her it was stopping. Then the Ralstons had altered their plans, unless—Something suddenly leapt up within her. She was conscious of a curious constriction at the throat, a sense of suffocation. The fuss and worry of the engine died down into silence, and in a moment there came the sound of a man's feet entering the compound. Standing motionless, with hands clenched against her sides, she gazed forth. A tall, straight figure was coming towards her between the whispering tamarisks. It was not Major Ralston. He walked with a slouch, and this man's gait was firm and purposeful. He came up to the verandah-steps with unfaltering determination. He was looking full at her, and she knew that she stood revealed in the marvellous Indian moonlight. He mounted the steps with the same absolute self-assurance that yet held nought of arrogance. His face remained in shadow, but she did not need to see it. The reason of his coming was proclaimed in every line, in every calm, unwavering movement.
He came to her, and she waited there in the merciless moonlight; for she had no choice.
"I have come for you," he said.
The words were brief, but they thrilled her strangely. Her eyes fluttered and refused to meet his look.
"The Ralstons are taking us," she said.
Her tone was cold, her bearing aloof. She was striving for self-control. He could not have known of the tumult within her. Yet he smiled. "They are taking Tommy," he said.
She heard the stubborn note in his voice and suddenly and completely the power to resist went from her.
She held out her hand to him with a curious gesture of appeal, "Captain Monck, if I come with you—"
His fingers closed about her own. "If?" he said.
She made a rather piteous attempt to laugh. "Really I don't want to," she said.
"Really?" said Monck. He drew a little nearer to her, still holding her hand. His grasp was firm and strong. "Really?" he said again.
She stood in silence, for she could not give him any answer.
He waited for a moment or two; then, "Stella," he said, "are you afraid of me?"
She shook her head. Her lips had begun to tremble inexplicably. "No—no," she said.
"What then?" He spoke with a gentleness that she had never heard from him before. "Of yourself?"
She turned her face away from him. "I am afraid—of life," she told him brokenly. "It is like a great Wheel—a vast machinery. I have been caught in it once—caught and crushed. Oh can't you understand?"
"Yes," he said.
Again for a space he was silent, his hand yet holding hers. There was subtle comfort in his grasp. It held protection.
"And so you want to run away from it?" he said at length. "Do you think that's going to help you?"
She choked back a sob. "I don't know. I have no judgment. I don't trust myself."
"You believe in sincerity?" he said. "In being true to yourself?" Then, as she winced, "No, I don't want to go over old ground. We are talking of present things. I'm not going to pester you, not going to ask you to marry me even—" again she was aware of his smile though his speech sounded grim—"until you have honestly answered the question that you are trying to shirk. Perhaps you won't thank me for reminding you a second time of a conversation that you and I once had on this very spot, but I must. I told you that I had been waiting for my turn. And you told me that I had come—too late."
He paused, but she did not speak. She was trembling from head to foot.
He leaned towards her. "Stella, I'm not such a fool as to make the same mistake twice over. I'm not going to miss my turn a second time. I loved you then—though I had never flattered myself that I had a chance. And my love isn't the kind that burns and goes out." His voice suddenly quivered. "I don't know whether you have any use for it. You have been too discreet and cautious to betray yourself. Your heart has been a closed book to me. But to-night—I am going to open that book. I have the right, and you can't deny it to me. If you were queen of the whole earth I should still have the right, because I love you, to ask you—as I ask you now—have you any love for me? There! I have done it. If you can tell me honestly that I am nothing to you, that is the end. But if not—if not—" again she heard a deep vibration in his voice—"then don't be afraid—in the name of Heaven! Marriage with me would not mean slavery."
He stopped abruptly and turned from her. From the room behind them there came a cheery hail. Tommy came tramping through.
"Hullo, old chap! You, is it? Has Stella been attending to your comfort? Have you had a drink?"
Monck's answer had a sardonic note, "Your sister has been kindness itself—as she always is. No drinks for me, thanks. I am just off in Ralston's car to Khanmulla." He turned deliberately back again to Stella. "Will you come with me? Or will you go with Tommy—and the Ralstons?"
There was neither anxiety nor persuasion in his voice. Tommy frowned over its utter lack of emotion. He did not think his friend was playing his cards well.
But to Stella that coolness had a different meaning. It stirred her to an impulse more headlong than at the moment she realized.
"I will come with you," she said.
"Good!" said Monck simply, and stood back for her to pass.
She went by him without a glance. She felt as if the wild throbbing of her heart would choke her. He had spoken in such a fashion as she had dreamed that he could ever speak. He had spoken and she had not sent him away. That was the thought that most disturbed her. Till that moment it had seemed a comparatively easy thing to do. Her course had been clear. But he had appealed to that within her which could not be ignored. He had appealed to the inner truth of her nature, and she could not close her ears to that. He asked her only to be true to herself. He had taken his stand on higher ground than that on which she stood. He had not urged any plea on his own behalf. He had only urged her to be honest. And in so doing he had laid bare that ancient mistake of hers that had devastated her life. He did not desire her upon the same terms as those upon which she had bestowed herself upon Ralph Dacre. He made that abundantly clear. He did not ask her to subordinate her happiness to his. He only asked for straight dealing from her, and she knew that he asked it as much for her sake as for his own. He would not seek to hold her if she did not love him. That was the great touchstone to which he had brought her, and she knew that she must face the test. The mastery of his love compelled her. As he had freely asserted, he had the right—just because he was an honourable man and he loved her honourably.
But how far would that love of his carry him? She longed to know. It was not the growth of a brief hour's passion. That at least she knew. It would not burn and go out. It would endure; somehow she realized that now past disputing. But was it first and greatest with him? Were his cherished career, his ambition, of small account beside it? Was he willing to do sacrifice to it? And if so, how great a sacrifice was he prepared to offer?
She yearned to ask him as he sped her in silence through the chequered moonlight of the Khanmulla jungle. But some inner force restrained her. She feared to break the spell.
The road was deserted, just as it had been on that dripping night when she had answered his summons to Tommy's sick bed. She recalled that wild rush through the darkness, his grim strength, his determination. The iron of his will had seemed to compass her then. Was it the same to-night? Had her freedom already been wrested from her? Was there to be no means of escape?
Through the jungle solitudes there came the call of an owl, weird and desolate and lonely. Something in it pierced her with a curious pain. Was freedom then everything? Did she truly love the silence above all?
She drew her cloak closer about her. Was there something of a chill in the atmosphere? Or was it the chill of the desert beyond the oasis that awaited her?
They emerged from the thickest part of the jungle into a space of tangled shrubs that seemed fighting with each other for possession of the way. The road was rough, and Monck slackened speed.
"We shall have to leave the car," he said. "There is a track here that leads to the ruined palace. It is only a hundred yards or so. We shall have to do it on foot."
They descended. The moonlight poured in a flood all about them. They were alone.
Stella turned up the narrow path he indicated, but in a moment he overtook her. "Let me go first!" he said.
He passed her with the words and walked ahead, holding the creepers back from her as she followed.
She suffered him silently, with a strange sense of awe, almost as though she trod holy ground. But the old feeling of trespass was wholly absent. She had no fear of being cast forth from this place that she was about to enter.
The path began to widen somewhat and to ascend. In a few moments they came upon a crumbling stonewall crossing it at right angles.
Monck paused. "One way leads to the palace, the other to the temple," he said. "Which shall we take?"
Stella faced him in the moonlight. She thought he looked stern. "Is not the picnic to be at the palace?" she said.
"Yes." He answered her without hesitation. "You will find Lady Harriet and Co. there. The temple on the other hand is probably deserted."
"Ah!" His meaning flashed upon her. She stood a second in indecision. Then "Is it far?" she said.
She saw his faint smile for an instant. "A very long way—for you," he said.
"I can come back?" she said.
"I shall not prevent you." She heard the smile in his voice, and something within her thrilled in answer.
"Let us go then!" she said.
He turned without further words and led the way.
They entered the shadow of the jungle once more. For a space the path ran beside the crumbling wall, then it diverged from it, winding darkly into the very heart of the jungle. Monck walked without hesitation. He evidently knew the place well.
They came at length upon a second clearing, smaller than the first, and here in the centre of a moonlit space there stood the ruined walls of a little native temple or mausoleum.
A flight of worn, marble steps led to the dark arch of the doorway. Monck stretched a hand to his companion, and they ascended side by side. A bubbling murmur of water came from within. It seemed to fill the place with gurgling, gnomelike laughter. They entered and Monck stood still.
For a space of many seconds he neither moved nor spoke. It was almost as if he were waiting for some signal. They looked forth into the moonlight they had left through the cave-like opening. The air around them was chill and dank. Somewhere in the darkness behind them a frog croaked, and tiny feet scuttled and scrambled for a few moments and then were still.
Again Stella shivered, drawing her cloak more closely round her. "Why did you bring me to this eerie place?" she said, speaking under her breath involuntarily.
He stirred as if her words aroused him from a reverie. "Are you afraid?" he said.
"I should be—- by myself," she made answer. "I don't think I like India at too close quarters. She is so mysterious and so horribly ruthless."
He passed over the last two sentences as though they had not been uttered. "But you are not afraid with me?" he said.
She quivered at something in his question. "I am not sure," she said. "I sometimes think that you are rather ruthless too."
"Do you know me well enough to say that?" he said.
She tried to answer him lightly. "I ought to by this time. I have had ample opportunity."
"Yes," he said rather bitterly. "But you are prejudiced. You cling to a preconceived idea. If you love me—it is in spite of yourself."
Something in his voice hurt her like the cry of a wounded thing. She made a quick, impulsive movement towards him. "Oh, but that is not so!" she said. "You don't understand. Please don't think anything so—so hard of me!"
"Are you sure it is not so?" he said. "Stella! Stella! Are you sure?"
The words pierced her afresh. She suddenly felt that she could bear no more. "Oh, please!" she said. "Oh, please!" and laid a quivering hand upon his arm. "You are making it very difficult for me. Don't you realize how much better it would be for your own sake not to press me any further?"
"No!" he said; just the one word, spoken doggedly, almost harshly. His hands were clenched and rigid at his sides.
Almost instinctively she began to plead with him as one who pleads for freedom. "Ah, but listen a moment! You have your life to live. Your career means very much to you. Marriage means hindrance to a man like you. Marriage means loitering by the way. And there is no time to loiter. You have taken up a big thing, and you must carry it through. You must put every ounce of yourself into it. You must work like a galley slave. If you don't you will be—a failure."
"Who told you that?" he demanded.
She met the fierceness of his eyes unflinchingly. "I know it. Everyone knows it. You have given yourself heart and soul to India, to the Empire. Nothing else counts—or ever can count now—in the same way. It is quite right that it should be so. You are a builder, and you must follow your profession. You will follow it to the end. And you will do great things,—immortal things." Her voice shook a little. "But you must keep free from all hampering burdens, all private cares. Above all, you must not think of marriage with a woman whose chief desire is to escape from India and all that India means, whose sympathies are utterly alien from her, and whose youth has died a violent death at her hands. Oh, don't you see the madness of it? Surely you must see!"
A quiver of deep feeling ran through her words. She had not meant to go so far, but she was driven, driven by a force that would not be denied. She wanted him to see the matter with her eyes. Somehow that seemed essential now. Things had gone so far between them. It was intolerable now that he should misunderstand.
But as she ceased to speak, she abruptly realized that the effect of her words was other than she intended. He had listened to her with a rigid patience, but as her words went into silence it seemed as if the iron will by which till then he had held himself in check had suddenly snapped.
He stood for a second or two longer with an odd smile on his face and that in his eyes which startled her into a momentary feeling that was almost panic; then with a single, swift movement he bent and caught her to him.
"And you think that counts!" he said. "You think that anything on earth counts—but this!"
His lips were upon hers as he ended, stopping all protest, all utterance. He kissed her hotly, fiercely, holding her so pressed that above the wild throbbing of her own heart she felt the deep, strong beat of his. His action was passionate and overwhelming. She would have withstood him, but she could not; and there was that within her that rejoiced, that exulted, because she could not. Yet as at last his lips left hers, she turned her face aside, hiding it from him that he might not see how completely he had triumphed.
He laughed a little above her bent head; he did not need to see. "Stella, you and I have got to sink or swim together. If you won't have success with me, then I will share your failure."
She quivered at his words; she was clinging to him almost without knowing it. "Oh, no! Oh, no!" she said.
His hand came gently upwards and lay upon her head. "My dear, that rests with you. I have sworn that marriage to me shall not mean bondage. If India is any obstacle between us, India will go."
"Oh, no!" she said again. "No, Everard! No!"
He bent his face to hers. His lips were on her hair. "You love me, Stella," he said.
She was silent, her breathing short, spasmodic, difficult.
His cheek pressed her forehead. "Why not own it?" he said softly. "Is it—so hard?"
She lifted her face swiftly; her arms clasped his neck. "And if—if I do,—will you let me go?" she asked him tremulously.
The smile still hovered about his lips. "No," he said.
"It is madness," she pleaded desperately.
"It is—Kismet," he made answer, and took her face between his hands looking deeply, steadily, into her eyes. "Your life is bound up with mine. You know it. Stella, you know it."
She uttered a sob that yet was half laughter. "I have done my best," she said. "Why are you so—so merciless?"
"You surrender?" he said.
She gave herself to the drawing of his hands. "Have I any choice?"
"Not if you are honest," he said.
"Ah!" She coloured rather painfully. "I have at least been honest in trying to keep you from this—this big mistake. I know you will repent it. When this—fever is past, you will regret—oh, so bitterly."
He set his jaw and all the grim strength of the man was suddenly apparent. "Shall I tell you the secret of success?" he said abruptly. "It is just never to look back. It is the secret of happiness also, if people only realized it. If you want to make the best of life, you've got to look ahead. I'm going to make you do that, Stella. You've been sitting mourning by the wayside long enough."
She smiled almost in spite of herself, for the note of mastery in his voice was inexplicably sweet. "I've thought that myself," she said. "But I'm not going to let you patch up my life with yours. If this must be—and you are sure—you are sure that it must?"
"I have spoken," he said.
She faced him resolutely. "Then India shall have us both. Now I have spoken too."
His face changed. The grimness became eagerness. "Stella, do you mean that?" he said. "It's a big sacrifice—too big for you."
Her eyes were shining as stars shine through a mist. She was drawing his head downwards that her lips might reach his. "Oh, my darling," she said, and the thrill of love triumphant was in her words, "nothing would be—too big. It simply ceases to be a sacrifice—if it is done—for your dear sake."
Her lips met his upon the words, and in that kiss she gave him all she had. It was the rich bestowal of a woman's full treasury, than which it may be there is nought greater on earth.
Bhulwana in early spring! Bhulwana of the singing birds and darting squirrels! Bhulwana of the pines!
Stella stood in the green compound of the bungalow known as The Grand Stand, gazing down upon the green racecourse with eyes that dreamed.
The evening was drawing near. They had arrived but a few minutes before in Major Ralston's car, and the journey had taken the whole day. Her mind went back to that early hour almost in the dawning when she and Everard Monck had knelt together before the altar of the little English Church at Kurrumpore and been pronounced man and wife. Mrs. Ralston and Tommy alone had attended the wedding. The hour had been kept a strict secret from all besides. And they had gone straight forth into the early sunlight of the new day and sped away into the morning, rejoicing. A blue jay had laughed after them at starting, and a blue jay was laughing now in the budding acacia by the gate. There seemed a mocking note in its laughter, but it held gaiety as well. Listening to it, she forgot all the weary miles of desert through which they had travelled. The world was fair, very fair, here at Bhulwana. And they were alone.
There fell a step on the grass behind her; she thrilled and turned. He came and put his arm around her.
"Do you think you can stand seven days of it?" he said.
She leaned her head against him. "I want to catch every moment of them and hold it fast. How shall we make the time pass slowly?"
He smiled at the question. "Do you know, I was afraid this place wouldn't appeal to you?"
Her hand sought and closed upon his. "Ah, why not?" she said.
He did not answer her. Only, with his face bent down to hers, he said, "The past is past then?"
"For ever," she made swift reply. "But I have always loved Bhulwana—even in my sad times. Ah, listen! That is akoïl!"
They listened to the bird's flutelike piping, standing closely linked in the shadow of a little group of pines. In the bungalow behind them Peter the Great was decking the table for their wedding-feast. The scent of white roses was in the air, languorous, exquisite.
The blue jay laughed again in the acacia by the gate, laughed and flew away. "Good riddance!" said Monck.
"Don't you like him?" said Stella.
"I'm not particularly keen on being jeered at," he answered.
She laughed at him in her turn. "I never thought you cared a singleannawhat any one thought of you."
He smiled. "Perhaps I have got more sensitive since I knew you."
She lifted her lips to his with a sudden movement. "I am like that too, Everard. I care—terribly now."
He kissed her, and his kiss was passionate. "No one shall ever think anything but good of you, my Stella," he said.
She clung to him. "Ah, but the outside world doesn't matter," she said. "It is only we ourselves, and our secret, innermost hearts that count. Everard, let us be more than true to each other! Let us be quite, quite open—always!"
He held her fast, but he made no answer to her appeal.
Her eyes sought his. "That is possible, isn't it?" she pleaded. "My heart is open to you. There is not a single corner of it that you may not enter."
His arms clasped her closer. "I know," he said. "I know. But you mustn't be hurt or sorry if I cannot say the same. My life is a more complex affair than yours, remember."
"Ah! That is India!" she said. "But let me share that part too! Let me be a partner in all! I can be as secret as the wiliest Oriental of them all. I would so love to be trusted. It would make me so proud!"
He kissed her again. "You might be very much the reverse sometimes," he said, "if you knew some of the secrets I had to keep. India is India, and she can be very lurid upon occasion. There is only one way of treating her then; but I am not going to let you into any unpleasant secrets. That is Bluebeard's Chamber, and you have got to stay outside."
She made a small but vehement gesture in his arms. "I hate India!" she said. "She dominates you like—like—"
"Like what?" he said.
She hid her face from him. "Like a horrible mistress," she whispered.
"Stella!" he said.
She throbbed in his hold. "I had to say it. Are you angry with me?"
"No," he said.
"But you don't like me for it all the same." Her voice came muffled from his shoulder. "You don't realize—very likely you never will—how near the truth it is."
He was silent, but in the silence his hold tightened upon her till it was almost a grip.
She turned her face up again at last. "I told you it was madness to marry me," she said tremulously. "I told you you would repent."
He looked at her with a strange smile. "And I told you it was—Kismet," he said. "You did it because it was written that you should. For better for worse—" his voice vibrated—"you and I are bound by the same Fate. It was inevitable, and there can be no repentance, just as there can be no turning back. But you needn't hate India on that account. I have told you that I will give her up for your sake, and that stands. But I will not give you up for India—or for any other power on earth. Now are you satisfied?"
Her face quivered at the question. "It is—more than I deserve," she said. "You shall give up nothing for me."
He put his hand upon her forehead. "Stella, will you give her a trial? Give her a year! Possibly by that time I may tell you more than I am able to tell you now. I don't know if you would welcome it, but there are always a chosen few to whom success comes. I may be one of the few. I have a strong belief in my own particular star. Again I may fail. If I fail, I swear I will give her up. I will start again at some new job. But will you be patient for a year? Will you, my darling, let me prove myself? I only ask—one year."
Her eyes were full of tears. "Everard! You make me feel—ashamed," she said. "I won't—won't—be a drag on you, spoil your career! You must forgive me for being jealous. It is because I love you so. But I know it is a selfish form of love, and I won't give way to it. I will never separate you from the career you have chosen. I only wish I could be a help to you."
"You can only help me by being patient—just at present," he said.
"And not asking tiresome questions!" She smiled at him though her tears had overflowed. "But oh, you won't take risks, will you? Not unnecessary risks? It is so terrible to think of you in danger—to think—to think of that horrible deformed creature who sent—Ralph—" She broke off shuddering and clinging to him. It was the first time she had ever spoken of her first husband by name to him.
He dried the tears upon her cheeks. "My own girl, you needn't be afraid," he said, and though his words were kind she wondered at the grimness of his voice. "I am not the sort of person to be disposed of in that way. Shall we talk of something less agitating? I can't have you crying on our wedding-night."
His tone was repressive. She was conscious of a chill. Yet it was a relief to turn from the subject, for she recognized that there was small satisfaction to be derived therefrom. The sun was setting moreover, and it was growing cold. She let him lead her back into the bungalow, and they presently sat down at the table that Peter had prepared with so much solicitude.
Later they lingered for awhile on the verandah, watching the blazing stars, till it came to Monck that his bride was nearly dropping with weariness and then he would not suffer her to remain any longer.
When she had gone within, he lit a pipe and wandered out alone into the starlight, following the deserted road that led to the Rajah's summer palace.
He paced along slowly with bent head, deep in thought. At the great marble gateway that led into the palace-garden he paused and stood for a space in frowning contemplation. A small wind had sprung up and moaned among the cypress-trees that overlooked the high wall. He seemed to be listening to it. Or was it to the hoot of an owl that came up from the valley?
Finally he drew near and deliberately tapped the ashes from his half-smoked pipe upon the shining marble. The embers smouldered and went out. A black stain remained upon the dazzling white surface of the stone column. He looked at it for a moment or two, then turned and retraced his steps with grim precision.
When he reached the bungalow, he turned into the room in which they had dined; and sat down to write.
Time passed, but he took no note of it. It was past midnight ere he thrust his papers together at length and rose to go.
The main passage of the bungalow was bright with moonlight as he traversed it. A crouching figure rose up from a shadowed doorway at his approach. Peter the Great looked at him with reproach in his eyes.
Monck stopped short. He accosted the man in his own language, but Peter made answer in the careful English that was his pride.
"Even so,sahib, I watch over mymem-sahibuntil you come to her. I keep her safe by night as well as by day. I am her servant."
He stood back with dignity that Monck might pass, but Monck stood still. He looked at Peter with a level scrutiny for a few moments. Then: "It is enough," he said, with brief decision. "When I am not with yourmem-sahib, I look to you to guard her."
Peter made his statelysalaam. Without further words, he conveyed the fact that without his permission no man might enter the room behind him and live.
Very softly Monck turned the handle of the door and passed within, leaving him alone in the moonlight.