CHAPTER XVII

FALSE LIGHT

The way to the new Bazaar lay to the right of the mine through a

forest clearing, and was one of Marut's most beautiful roads. Of late,

increased traffic had held the English pleasure-seekers from their

once favorite haunt, and in this early evening hour the bullock wagons

had not as yet begun their journeyings to and from the residential

quarter to the Bazaar, and the road was pleasantly quiet and peaceful.

Hitherto Beatrice had kept her thoroughbred at a constant and

exhausting canter, but here, against her resolution, she pulled up to

a walk and let the cool scented air from the pines blow gently and

caressingly against her hot cheeks.

"This is one of the moments which Fate herself can not take from us,"

she said to her companion. "It is perhaps a very brief moment, but it

is unclouded. We are just glad and happy to be alive in such a lovely

world, and all the outward circumstances which make our lot hard and

bitter are forgotten. Great and little worries are put on one side,

and we can feel like children to whom the past and future is nothing

and the present everything."

"I know what you mean," Nehal Singh answered, "and the hours spent

with you are always those which no one can ever take from me."

She bent over her horse and stroked the glossy coat with her gloved

hand. Then she remembered that she would never ride him again, and the

thought pained her. It was _his_ horse, and this was their last ride

together, though he did not know it. She was going to tell the

truth--or something like the truth--now. No, not now--later on, when

they turned homeward. Then she would tell him, and it would be well

over. But there was no hurry. All that was still in the future. The

moment was hers--a happy moment full of unalloyed charm such as she

had never known in her barren, profitless life. She was not going to

throw it away unless he forced her, and hitherto he had made no

attempt to lead the conversation out of the usual channels.

It was the first time that they were alone together since the eventful

evening at the club, and in the intervening week enough had happened

to give them food for intercourse. By mutual consent, the accident of

the chandelier was not touched upon. Nehal Singh, though promising to

investigate the matter thoroughly, had shown a distress out of

proportion to his responsibility, and it was understood that for some

reason or another, the subject was painful to him. On the other hand,

he had shown a lively and warm-hearted interest in Lois' recovery. She

had sustained little more than a severe shock, and he had been

constant in his attentions, as though striving to atone for an injury

he had unwittingly done her. The accident had also served to deepen

his interest in Adam Nicholson.

"That is a man!" he had said to Beatrice, as they had spoken of his

presence of mind, and his enthusiasm had rung like a last echo of his

old boyishness. "I can not understand why Travers seems to dislike him

so."

Beatrice had made no reply. She had her own ideas on the matter,

having a quick eye for expressions, and she knew that the news of

Lois' engagement had been a shock both to Nicholson and to the

Carmichaels. Travers was one of those men whom the world receives with

open arms in society, but repudiates at the entrance to the family

circle; and of this fact Travers himself was bitterly conscious. And,

on the other hand, there was Nicholson, the accepted and cherished

friend, to whom the world looked with unreserved respect and deserved

admiration. It was not altogether surprising that the two men had

little in common, and on Travers' side there was added a certain

amount of satisfied spite. His instinct told him that he had won Lois

at the critical moment, and that another twenty-four hours would have

seen her safe under the reawakening influence of an old, only

half-forgotten friendship; and Nicholson, too, felt dimly that a

cunning and none too scrupulous hand had shattered a secret hope that

he had cherished from his first year in India. Altogether, there was a

stiffness between them which the world was quick to recognize without

understanding. But Beatrice had made her observations, and, as it has

been said, had come to a definite conclusion. Her interest in Lois was

now thoroughly aroused, and the vision of a dark, suffering little

face against a white pillow recurred to her as she walked her horse

beside Nehal Singh's. As they passed out of the wood, her companion

lifted his whip and pointed in front of them.

"Look!" he said.

She raised her hand to the rim of her helmet, shading her eyes from

the dazzling sun, and gazed in the direction which he indicated.

"Why!" she exclaimed, smiling, "a model world, Rajah!"

"Yes," he answered, "that is what I have tried to make it. I do not

think plague or disease will ever find firm foothold here, and one day

my people will learn to do for themselves what I do for them. They are

as yet no more than children who have to be taught what is good and

bad. There is the chief overseer."

A respectable looking Hindu, who stood at the door of his hut,

salaamed profoundly. It was as though he had given some secret signal,

for in an instant the broad street was alive with dark, scantily clad

figures, who bowed themselves to the dust and raised cries of welcome

as the Rajah and his companion picked their way among them. It was a

picturesque scene, not without its pathos; for their joy was sincere

and their respect heartfelt. Beatrice glanced at Nehal Singh. A flush

had crept up under his dark skin, and his eyes shone with suppressed

enthusiasm.

"Is their homage so precious to you?" she asked.

"It is a sign that I have power over them," he answered, "and that is

precious to me. Without power I could not do anything. They believe

that I am God-sent, and so they obey blindly. Otherwise, these changes

would have been impossible." He paused, smiling to himself; then, with

a new amusement in his dark eyes, he looked at Beatrice. "My people

are not fond of an over-abundance of clothing," he observed. "Do you

consider a change in that respect essential?"

Beatrice stared at him, and then, seeing that he was laughing, she

laughed with him.

"Certainly not! If the poor wretches knew what we poor Europeans have

to suffer with our artificial over-abundance, their obedience would

stop short at such a request. What made you think of such a thing?"

"It was Mr. Berry who spoke to me about it. He said I ought to insist

on them having what he called decent attire. It seems he had been

using his influence in vain, and was very unhappy about it. He said as

much that--that trousers were the first and most necessary step toward

salvation." He looked quickly at her to see if she was offended at his

outspokenness, but she only laughed.

"Poor Mr. Berry is a Philistine," she said. "He can't help thinking

absurdities of that sort."

"Would you mind telling me what you mean by a Philistine?" he asked.

"A Philistine is a person who sees everything in its wrong

proportions," she answered. "He mistakes the essential for the

unessential, and _vice versa._ He can never recognize the beauty in

art or nature, because he can never get any further than the

unpleasant details. One might call him a mental earth-worm who has

only the smallest possible outlook. Mr. Berry, for instance, has

never, I feel sure, felt the charm of India and its people. He is

always too overpowered by the fact that the clothing is too scanty for

his idea of decency. You must not take him as an example of European

taste, although you will find only too many like him."

"I am glad to have your reassurance," Nehal Singh replied. "Mr. Berry

angered me, and I can well understand that he has no influence among

my people. They are very innocent in their way, and they can not

understand where the wickedness lies. Nor do I wish them to

understand. It does not seem to me necessary." His mouth settled in a

new and rather stern line. "I shall order Mr. Berry to leave them in

peace."

She smiled at this little outburst of autocracy.

"You do not wish your people to become Christians?" she asked.

"I shall not interfere in their religion," was the quick answer--"or,

at any rate, I shall force nothing. If my people believe truly and

earnestly in their gods, I shall not destroy their belief, for then

they will believe in nothing. And the belief is everything. As for

me"--his voice sank and grew suddenly gentler--"I am different. I have

been led by a light which I must follow."

After a moment's thoughtful silence he changed the subject and began

pointing out to her the improvements he had brought about in the

native dwellings. Even Beatrice, who had seen little of the old

conditions, felt that the change was almost incredible. A

conservative, indolent and superstitious people had within a few

months been transferred from loathsome dirt and squalor into a "model

village" such as an English workman might have envied. Nehal Singh

showed her the houses at the end of the Bazaar which belonged to the

chief men, or those responsible to him for the cleanliness and order

of the community. Small, prettily planted gardens separated one low

dwelling from the other, and each bore its stamp of individuality, as

though the owner had tried by some new and quaint device to outdo his

neighbor.

"Of course," Nehal Singh explained to her, as they turned homeward,

"there are men with whom nothing can be done. They have spent their

lives as beggars, and can not work now even if they would. For such I

have made provision, although they, too, have been given small tasks

to keep them from appearing beggars. But they are the last of their

kind. There shall in future be no idlers in Marut. From thenceforward

every man shall work honestly and faithfully for his daily bread, and

I will see that he has no need to starve. The mine will employ the

strongest, and then, later, Travers and I intend to revive the various

industries suited to the people's taste and talent."

"You have already done a great deal," she said, moved to real

admiration. "I tremble to think what it has cost you." As she spoke,

the hidden irony in her casually spoken words came home to her, and

she felt the old fear clutch at her heart.

"I have given the best I have--myself," he answered gravely. "Of

material wealth I have only retained what is beautiful; for beauty

must not be sold to be given as bread among the poor. That would be a

crime--as though one would sell Heaven for earth. Travers wished me to

sell the old jeweled statues and relics, but I would not. They belong

to my people, and one day, when they have learned to see and

understand, they will thank me that I have kept the splendors intact

for them."

"You are wise," she said thoughtfully--"wiser than Travers and many

others."

"In my first enthusiasm, I meant to sell everything, and live as the

poorest of them all," he went on; "but I soon saw that that was wrong.

The man into whose hands wealth is given has a great task set him. He

has a power denied to others. He can collect and preserve all that is

beautiful in art and nature--not for himself, but for those who

otherwise would never see anything but what is poor and squalid and

commonplace. True, he must also strive to alleviate the sufferings of

their bodies, so that their minds may be free to enjoy; but he must

not sacrifice the higher for the lower task--that would surely be the

work of what you call a Philistine. And his higher task is to feed

their souls with all that is lovely and stainless. Has not the Master

said, 'A man shall not live by bread alone'? Is it not true? And

again, I have read: 'What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole

world and lose his own soul?' And is not the man who sits, fed and

clothed, in a low, flat, level world of mud-huts in danger, of

forgetting that there were ever such wonders as the minarets of a

high, Heaven-aspiring temple? Will he not grow to think that there is

nothing more beautiful than a mud-hut, nothing more to be desired than

his daily bread? I have thought of all this, and I have preserved my

palace and everything that it contains. I have preserved it for my

people. It shall be for them a goal and encouragement, a voice

speaking to them day by day from the high towers: 'See what the hands

of thy fathers have created! Thou people in the low dwellings, arise

and do greater things still, for the great and beautiful is nearest

God'!"

He stopped abruptly, shaken by his own passionate enthusiasm. His fine

head raised, his eyes flashing, his hand extended, he could have stood

for the statue of some inspired prophet.

"You are a modern Buddha," she said, smiling faintly. Inwardly she was

comparing him to Mr. Berry--Mr. Berry, whose highest ideal in life was

to bring everything down to a nice, shabby, orthodox level.

Nehal Singh's hand dropped to his side and he looked at her earnestly.

"That is what they say," he answered. "My people say that I am the

tenth Avatar. But I am not. I am only a man--scarcely so much. A few

months ago I was no more than a beggar in the Bazaar, an idler and a

dreamer. If I have thrown aside my false dreams and come out as an

untried worker into the light of truth, it is because I have been led

by God--through you."

Every trace of color fled from her face, and the clear eyes which met

his from beneath the broad helmet distended as though at some sudden

shock. In the course of their earnest but impersonal conversation she

had almost forgotten what was to come. This was the end of the ride,

this was the to-morrow, the inevitable to-morrow of those who

procrastinate with the inevitable.

"I--I have done nothing," she said, striving to hush down the rising

tide of suffocating emotion.

"Yes, it is nothing. I know it is nothing, but it may still become

something," he answered. "Or is it not already something? Is it not

something that you have led me to the feet of the Great Teacher? Is it

not something that I am awake and standing on the threshold of a new

Earth and Heaven, as yet blinded by the light, but with every day

gaining courage and strength to go forward? Do not say that this is

nothing--you to whom I owe all that I am and ever shall be!"

She threw back her fair head. Now was the time to call to her aid all

her cynicism, all the shallow, heartless skepticism which had hitherto

ruled her character. Now was the time to laugh and to throw into this

man's face what she had been glad and satisfied to throw into the

faces of a dozen other men--the biting acid of her mockery. But she

could not laugh--she could not laugh at this man. Her tongue cleaved

to the roof of her mouth, her throat seemed thick with a suffocating

dust, so that she could make no sound.

"God forgive me if I have boasted of my own progress," he went on

earnestly. "I know too well how much of the long road I have still to

travel. It could not be otherwise. I can not reach in a few months

what men have attained who have always lived in the light of truth.

But I have hope. I carry in my heart your image and the ideal you have

set me--the ideal of your race."

Then speech was given her.

"Cast that ideal out!" she said wildly and recklessly. "It is too low

for you. You have passed it. You never needed it. Choose your own

ideal, and forget me--forget us all. We can teach you nothing." She

caught her breath as though she would have called back her own words.

They were not the words she had meant to speak. They did not sound

like her own. They had been put in her mouth by a force within her

whose existence had been revealed to her, as a hidden volcanic

mountain is revealed, by a sudden fierce upheaval, which threw off all

the old rubbish loading the surface of her nature. It was only a

momentary upheaval. The next minute she was trying to save herself

behind the old flippant subterfuges. "I am talking nonsense!" she

exclaimed, with a short angry laugh.

"Then it is not true what you said?" He had urged his horse close to

hers, and she could almost feel the intensity with which his eyes were

fixed upon her face. That gaze stifled her laughter, drove her deeper

into the danger she was striving to escape.

"Yes, it is true!" she answered between her teeth.

His strong hand rested upon hers and held it with a gentleness which

paralyzed her strength.

"If it is true, then the time has come!" he said. "The hour has struck

which God ordained for us both. Beatrice, I may tell you now what you

have surely known since the day we stood together before the altar--I

love you. You are the first and last woman in my world." His voice

pierced through to her senses through waves of roaring, confusing

sound. Her heart beat till it became unbearable torture. "Do you

remember that second evening?" he went on. "The priest tried to stop

you at the gate of the sanctuary, but I spoke to him, and he let you

pass. You asked me what I had said, but I would not tell you--not

then. Now I may: 'This is the woman whom God has given me--'"

She flung his hand violently from her.

"You must not say that!" she cried, with desperate resolution. "You

must not say that sort of thing--to me."

"Why should I not? I love you."

"You must not love me. I--I am to be Captain Stafford's wife."

"Beatrice!" His cry of incredulous pain drove her to frantic measures.

"It is true. I swear it."

Then it was all over. He made no protest. He rode by her side as

though he had been turned to stone, rigidly upright, his hand hanging

lifeless at his side, his face expressionless. She felt that she had

struck right at his life's vitality--that she had killed him. Yet it

was not remorse that blinded her till the white road became a

shimmering blur--it was a frightful personal pain which was hers and

hers alone. Neither spoke. They passed a crowd of natives returning to

the Bazaar. They salaamed, but Nehal Singh made no response, as was

his wont. He did not seem to see them. Mechanically he guided his

horse through the bowing crowd. The silence became unbearable. She had

flippantly told herself that as long as he did not make a "scene" she

would be satisfied. He had not made a "scene." From the moment that

she had made her final declaration he had not spoken, and now she was

praying that he would say something to her--anything, she did not care

what, only not that terrible accusatory silence. At last, in

desperation, she began to make it up with him as she had planned--in

an incoherent, helpless way.

"I have hurt you," she stammered. "Forgive me--I did not mean to. It

has all been a cruel mistake. I looked upon you as a friend. How could

I tell that you meant more than that? If I have deceived you, I can

only ask you with all my heart to forgive me."

He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were dull and clouded,

as though a film had been drawn across them.

"Not you have deceived me," he answered quietly. "I have deceived

myself. I thought I was following a great God-sent light. It was

nothing more than a firefly glittering through my darkness. You are

not to blame."

He was already casting contempt at the influence which she had

exercised over him; he was cutting himself free from her--as she had

desired, as was inevitable. Yet, with a foolish, senseless anger, she

sought to draw him back to her and hold him, if only by the reverence

for what had been.

"Do not despise our friendship!" she pleaded. "If it has not been what

you thought it was, has it any the less opened the gates of Heaven and

earth, as you said? What I have given you is good--the very best I had

to give. The ideal was a high one. I helped you toward it with my

friendship. Is it bad because it was only friendship--because it

couldn't be more than that? You do not know," she went on, with a

forced attempt to appear cheerful and matter-of-fact, "you do not know

how much your trust and confidence has been to me. I have been so

proud to help you. If I had ever thought it would come to this--I

would have stopped long ago."

So she lied, clinging to his respect as though it had been her

salvation. And he believed her. His face relaxed, and for the first

time she saw clearly what he was enduring.

"I do not despise our--friendship, even though it must end here," he

said. "What you have given me I shall always keep--always. I shall not

turn back because I must go on alone. Your image shall still guide me

in my life. It is not less pure and noble because I can not ever call

it my own." She heard his voice break, but he went on quietly and

gently: "I pray you may be happy with the man you love."

She had conquered. She had kept her place in his life at the same time

that she was thrusting him out of her own. He would continue

undeterred along the road on to which she had tempted him--perhaps to

his destruction--believing in her, trusting in her as no other being

had ever done or would do. This much she had snatched from the

wreckage.

They did not speak again until they reached her bungalow. Then he

dismounted and, quietly motioning the syce to one side, helped her to

the ground.

"It is for the last time," he said. "Good-by, Lakshmi!"

"Good-by!"

She could not lift her eyes to his face, but from the top of the steps

she was tempted to look back. He stood where she had left him, his

hand resting on her saddle, his head bent, and there was something in

his attitude which sent her hurrying into the house without a second

glance.

She found her mother waiting for her in her room, whither she fled to

be alone and undisturbed to fight and stamp out the pain that was

aching in her heart. Mrs. Cary, wonderfully curled and powdered,

received her daughter with unusual rapture.

"My dear!" she exclaimed, kissing Beatrice on both cheeks, "I am so

glad you have come back early! Captain Stafford is here, and has

something for you--I shouldn't be surprised if it was a ring, you

lucky child! Did I not tell you he was the very husband for you? He

has been telling me all about Lois and Travers. Everybody is quite

pleased about it. Now hurry up and make yourself pretty. Why, what's

the matter? You look so--so queer!"

Beatrice pushed past her mother and, going to the table, flung herself

down as though exhausted.

"It's nothing," she muttered. "Tell--John I can't see him. I'm

tired--ill--anything you like."

"Beaty, I won't do anything of the sort. What has happened? Is it that

horrid Rajah? Did you tell him?"

"Yes."

"And he made a scene, my poor Beaty?"

"No."

"Can't you answer me properly? Tell me what happened."

"He asked me to marry him."

Mrs. Cary first gasped, and then burst into a loud, cackling laugh.

"He asked you to marry him! That colored man! I hope you laughed in

his face?"

Beatrice turned, one clenched hand resting on the table.

"No," she said, "I did not laugh--there was nothing to laugh at. I

have kept my promise to you." Then, unexpectedly she buried her face

in her arms and burst into tears.

Mrs. Cary stood there thunderstruck, her mouth open, her eyes wide

with alarm. For one moment she was incapable of reasoning out this

catastrophe. She had never seen Beatrice cry--her tears, because of

their rarity, were as terrible as a man's, and could not be explained

away by nerves or fatigue. This was something else. Mrs. Cary crossed

the room. She laid a fat, trembling hand on her daughter's shoulder.

"Beaty, what's the matter?" she asked uneasily. "What is it? Are you

ill?--or--or--Beaty!"--a light dawning across her dull face--"good

heavens! you don't love that man?" There was no answer. After a long

moment, Mrs. Cary's hand fell to her side. "You couldn't!" she

muttered. "It wouldn't do. Think of what people would say! Our

position!" Still no answer. She turned and stumbled toward the door.

"I will tell the captain--you are ill," she said.

Beatrice did not move.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

BUILDING THE CATHEDRAL

The pretty little drawing-room was already in half darkness. Travers

went to the window and, leaning his shoulder lazily against the

casement, began to sort out and open the letters that had been

lying on the tea-table waiting for him.

"One from the Colonel, Lois," he said, after a moment's perusal. "No

news in particular. He is down with a touch of fever, and the whole

regiment is camping out without him. Stafford's marriage still hanging

fire. Silly girl! What's she waiting for, in the name of conscience?"

Lois looked up from her duties at the table.

"They have been engaged over a year," she said.

"As long as we have been engaged and married," he answered with an

affectionate smile. "How long is that, little woman? About eighteen

months, eh? They don't either of them seem in much of a hurry."

He went on reading, only stretching out his hand mechanically as she

brought him his second cup of tea. Lois remained at his side, her eyes

fixed thoughtfully, almost hungrily, on the torn envelope which lay on

the floor at his feet.

"Why did you call Beatrice Cary a silly girl?" she asked at last. "It

never struck me that she was silly."

"She wasn't, but she will be if she doesn't hold Stafford fast."

A shadow passed over the face still turned to the floor.

"Is Stafford--so--so desirable?"

"His money is, dear child, and the Carys may need money in the near

future."

"I thought they were rich?"

"Their money is in the mine."

"But the mine is to be successful?"

He smiled in good-natured amusement at her persistency.

"Have you ever heard of a mine that wasn't to be successful? If you

wait a moment, I will tell you the latest news. Here's a note from the

Rajah."

He tore open the large square envelope, and went on reading with the

same idle interest. "There's been an accident with the blasting," he

observed casually. "Five men killed. Our native friend is, of course,

in a fever. Has pensioned all the families. I don't know where he will

land us with his extravagances. We shall want all the money we can get

for repairing the damage. Philanthropy is becoming a sort of disease

with him. Fortunately, I am not bitten so far." He laughed, and threw

the letter to one side. "I expect I shall have to run up north to put

things straight."

"Hasn't the mine brought in enough?" Lois answered innocently.

"Enough?" He looked at her with a twinkle in his bright eyes. "Dear

girl, it hasn't paid so much as a quarter of its expenses."

"But will it ever?"

"Heaven knows--or perhaps even Heaven does not. I'm sure I don't."

"You talk so calmly about it!" she exclaimed, aghast. "Surely you are

heavily involved--and not only you, but the Rajah and the people in

Marut?"

He patted her on the cheek.

"Don't worry on that score," he assured her. "Besides, it's not my way

to sit down and cry over what can't be helped. I dare say I shall pull

through somehow."

"Yes, _you_, perhaps."

He changed color slightly under the challenge in her eyes, but his

expression remained unruffled.

"You are not exactly a very trusting wife, are you, Lois? It comes of

letting a woman have a look into business. Never mind, we won't argue

the subject all over again. I know what you think of me. There,

good-by. I must be off again. Nicholson will be around shortly. I told

him he would find me at home."

"Had you not better wait for him, then?"

"Oh, no. I only told him I should be at home as a sort of _facon de

parler_. He only comes when he thinks I am there--admirable person--and

I know you like to have old friends about. Good-by, dear."

"Good-by." She accepted his kiss listlessly, and when he had gone went

back to the window.

The window had become Lois Travers' vantage-point of life. From thence

she could overlook the bustling Madras square into which four streets

poured their unending stream, and build her fancies about each one of

the atoms as they passed unconsciously beneath her gaze. Some of the

faces were well known to her. They always passed at the time when she

took her sewing and sat by the window, pretending to work by the

fading glow of evening light, and about each she wove a simple little

story, always, or nearly always, happy. She imagined the men returning

from business to their homes. If there was ever a cloud upon their

brow, she smiled to think how the trouble would be brushed away by

loving hands; if their step were more than usually light and elastic,

her own heart grew lighter with the thought that they were hurrying

back to the source of their happiness.

Lois lived on the real or imagined joys of others. She clung to her

air castles in which her unknown heroes lived, building them more

beautifully, fitting them out with more perfect content, as her own

brick dwelling grew darker and more desolate. She felt that if ever

she let go her hold on them she would lose faith in human happiness,

and thus in life itself. For between Lois Travers the woman and Lois

Travers the light-hearted, high-spirited girl there stretched a year's

gulf. Marriage had been to her what it is more or less to all women--a

Rubicon, a Book of Revelations in which girlish ideals are rarely

realized, sometimes modified, more often destroyed.

Clever and pliable women, women with the "art of living" do not allow

their hearts to be broken in the latter event, supposing them to have

relaxed their cleverness so far as to have had ideals at all; but

Lois was not clever or pliable, and her ideals had been destroyed. She

had loved John Stafford, and in some inexplicable way he had failed

her. She had given her life into Travers' hands in the belief that he

needed her for his progress, and that in helping him her idle powers

of love and devotion would not be wasted. Too late she realized--what

no woman ever realizes until it _is_ too late--that the man who needs

a woman for his salvation is already far beyond her help.

Beneath Lois' light-heartedness and love of gaiety there lurked a

spirit of Puritanism which had drawn her to Stafford, and now brought

her into violent conflict with Travers' fundamental frivolity. In the

first month of their marriage she had had to admit that she had

reached the bottom of his character, and found nothing there--not so

much as a deeply planted vice. He had pretended a depth of feeling

which was only in part sincere, and he was too lazy to keep up a

pretense when his chief object was gained. He really cared for Lois,

but he had wilfully exaggerated the role she played in his life.

Always good-natured and kindly, he never allowed her to ruffle or

anger him. She had never seen him rough or cruel to any human being,

and all these superficial virtues forced her farther from him.

A few significant incidents had revealed to her that his good nature

covered a cold-blooded indifference where his own interests were

vitally concerned. His apparent pliability hid a dexterity which

evaded every recognized principle. In vain she exerted the influence

with which he had pretended to invest her. The first effort proved

that it had never really existed. It was no more in his life than the

valuable ornament on his mantel-shelf--a thing to be dusted,

preserved, and admired in leisure hours, never set to serious use.

This last discovery, made shortly after their arrival in Madras, had

broken her. From that moment she had felt herself crippled. Her life

became a blank, colorless waste, all the more terrible because of the

mirages with which it was lighted. The world saw the mirages: the

good-looking, genial-tempered husband; the well-furnished house; all

the outward symptoms of an irrefutably satisfactory and successful

life.

Only one person perhaps saw deeper, and that was Nicholson. He had

been ordered for a year to Madras, and thus it came about that they

often met. Travers' first dislike for the officer had evaporated, and

he seemed rather to insist on an increase of their intimacy, inviting

Nicholson constantly to the house. And in those long evening visits

Nicholson had seen what others did not see and what Lois kept hidden

in her own heart. For she had told no one that the mirages were no

more than mirages--that her life still lacked all the vital elements

of reality and sincerity. She was proud, and not even the people in

dear old Marut suspected that she was stifling in the hot Madras air

and in the unhealthy atmosphere of small lies and loose principles in

which Travers was so thoroughly at home. Only Nicholson's sensitive

temperament felt what others neither heard nor saw.

So a year had passed, and every evening Lois sat by the window,

watching the busy crowd, and building up their lives as she had once

dreamed of building up her own. She scarcely thought of herself.

Memories are dangerous. The present was too real to be considered, and

the future too blank and hopeless.

The darkness increased. Twilight yielded to nightfall, and the yellow

lights sprang up in the shops opposite her window. She heard the door

open, but did not turn, thinking it was her husband unexpectedly

returned.

"Shall I light the lamp?" she asked.

It was not Travers who answered. A familiar voice struck on her ears,

like the memories, ringing out a dangerous response from her tired

soul.

"Forgive me, Mrs. Travers. I met your husband this afternoon, and he

told me to drop in unannounced, as he would be alone. It seems the

other way about. I am very sorry to seem so rude."

Lois rose quickly to her feet. She saw Nicholson standing in the

doorway, tall, upright, his face hidden by the shadow.

"I won't disturb you," he added, after a moment's hesitation.

The tone of formality hurt her. With a return of her old

impulsiveness, she began searching for the matches.

"You are not disturbing me," she said. "On the contrary, I--was

expecting you. Archibald told me you were coming, but I forgot to

light up. I was twilight-dreaming, if there is such a term."

She laughed with a forced cheerfulness, and he made no answer. The

little red-shaded lamp gave her some trouble, and when she looked up

she saw that he was standing opposite her, the light falling on a

broad scar across his forehead.

"How the burn shows to-night!" she exclaimed involuntarily. "Will you

never lose it?"

"Never," he answered. "I do not want to. When I am depressed, I look

at it, and remember that I have done one thing worth doing in my

life."

"I don't know," she returned. "You have done more useful things than

that."

"Not to my mind."

"Well, but to mine. There, when I have pulled the curtains and put the

lamp just at your elbow, you could almost imagine yourself back in

England, couldn't you? Imagine the street outside as a bit of London.

There could hardly be more noise. The idea may refresh you. You look

so tired."

He seated himself in the comfortable wicker chair by the table and

looked about him with a faint smile of content.

"Yes," he said, "it is homely, isn't it? The red light, and the pretty

little room, and you sitting there working. It might be a corner of

the old country--or of Marut. Your study was just like this, I

remember."

"Yes, I copied it. It made me feel less lonely. Only I flatter myself

that it is tidier here than it used to be in the old days."

He laughed, and the laughter sent the light shining in his eyes.

"Rather! When I first joined I had the chemical craze on, do you

remember? I thought I was going to discover some wonderful new

gunpowder, and we used to experiment together in your room. The

business came to an untimely end when I blew off part of the

ceiling--"

"And some of my eyebrows!" she interposed merrily.

"Yes, of course. I don't know which disaster upset Mrs. Carmichael

most, good soul. After that I forget what craze came about, but we

always had a new one on the list, hadn't we?"

She nodded, her head once more bent over her work.

"None of them lasted," she said. "Crazes never do."

There was a moment's silence. Their little burst of gay recollections

was over, and the restraint had regained its old ascendancy over them.

Unknown to her, Nicholson was watching his companion with keen,

anxious eyes.

"You look pale and tired," he said gently. "Madras is getting too much

for you. When is Travers going to take you for a change?"

"I don't know. Not just now. Besides, I am happier here. I like the

noise and bustle."

"You used not to. You were all for outdoor sports and beautiful

scenery."

"Yes, but now it is different. I could not stand the quiet. I must

have noise to distract me--I mean, I have grown so accustomed to it."

"Yes," he said slowly, "one grows accustomed to it." Then, presently,

he added, in another tone: "At any rate, my term in Madras is at an

end. I return to Marut next week."

She started. The start was almost a violent one, and her hands fell

limply in her lap.

"You are going back to Marut?" she said. "For ever?"

He smiled, but his eyes avoided hers.

"Not for ever, I hope. I am sick of pen-work, and want to get back to

the front among my men. There is a company of sepoys to be stationed

at Marut, and they have given me the command. It's a good post, though

of course I would rather be at the frontier, where there's something

doing. At any rate, I must get away from Madras as soon as possible."

"Yes," she said absently, "no doubt it is best."

She went on stitching as though nothing had happened, but her hands

trembled, and once she threw back her head as though fighting down a

strong emotion. But he had ceased to watch her. He was leaning a

little forward, one elbow resting on his knee, his eyes fixed

steadfastly in front of him.

"Can I be the bearer of any messages?" he asked at last.

"No, thank you. I write regularly. Or--yes, you might tell them that

you left me well and happy. That will please them. Will you be so

kind?"

"Will it be kind to give a message which is not quite true?--I mean,"

he added hastily, "you do not seem strong."

"Oh, I am strong enough. I do not think I shall ever be ill."

Another long and painful silence intervened. There was no sound, save

Lois' thread as it was drawn through the thick material. Nicholson

drew out his watch.

"You mustn't think me rude, Mrs. Travers," he said, with an abrupt

return to his old formality, "but I have any amount of work to do

before I leave, and among other things I wanted to see your husband on

business. He told me the other day that he had some shares in the

Marut Company going, and said if I would care for them--"

Her work dropped from her hand to the floor. She stared at him with a

face whiter than the linen she had been stitching.

"But you are not going to buy them?" she asked sharply. Something in

her tone forced him to meet her eyes.

"Oh, I don't know. Why not? I'm a poor business man, and your husband

always seems to come off well in his ventures. Without being in the

least a speculator, I should be glad to make a little money." He

smiled. "I have another craze on, you see--a gun this time--and it

requires capital to complete. So I thought--"

She leaned forward. One small hand lay clenched on the table between

them, and there was a force and energy in her attitude which arrested

his startled attention.

"I think you are mistaken, Captain Nicholson," she said. "My husband

has no shares to sell."

"But yesterday he told me that he had!"

"Yes, yesterday, no doubt. But he heard to-day from the Rajah. I

think, if you do not mind waiting, he will tell you himself that what

I say is true."

For a second they looked straight at each other without speaking.

Neither was conscious of any clear thought, but both knew that in that

breathing space they had exchanged a signal from those hidden chambers

which men unlock only in brief moments of silent crisis. The crisis

had come in spite of a year's defiant struggle. It had broken down the

barrier of trivial commonplaces behind which they had always sought

shelter; it had rushed over them in a flash, like a sudden tidal wave,

scorning their painfully erected defenses, driving them helplessly

before it. It had no apparent cause, save that in that moment of alarm

she had looked at him with her soul unguarded, and he, overwhelmed by

that silent revelation, had allowed his own sternly repressed secret

to flash back its breathless message. Nicholson was the first to

regain his self-control. He bent down and, picking up her work,

restored it gently to her hands.

"You must go on with your sewing," he said. "I like seeing you work.

It completes the picture of a--home--"

"Yes," she interrupted, in a rough, broken voice. "It is a perfect

picture, is it not? Just so, as it is--only, of course--" she laughed

as he had never heard her laugh before--"of course it's only a

tableau--it isn't real."

Once more her head was bent over her work. He saw how with every

stitch she was fighting stubbornly for calm--fighting with all the

dogged desperation of a high-minded woman who sees herself trembling

at the edge of a bottomless abyss. He knew now for certain that her

apparent happiness was a sham and an heroic lie--that she knew what he

knew of Travers' outside life, and suffered with the intensity which

honor must suffer when linked with dishonor. He saw, with a soldier's

instinctive admiration, that she was holding her ground against the

fierce and unexpected attack of an overwhelming enemy, and that he,

who had his own battle to fight, must hold out to her a helping,

strengthening comrade's hand.

"Lois!" he said quietly. "Lois!"

She went on working. The name had been a test of her strength, and she

had borne it. He knew that he could go on with what he had to say.

"Lois, we had our young enthusiasms in those old days--crazes, we will

call them--and of course, like all young enthusiasms, they are gone

for ever. But there were other things. Sometimes we used to talk very

seriously about life, do you remember? I dare say we talked nonsense

for the greater part--we were very young--but we were intensely

serious. We told each other what we thought life was, and what we

intended to make of it. It was then we had the idea of the cathedral."

She looked up earnestly at him.

"The cathedral? Haven't you forgotten?"

"No. I never forgot it."

"I thought you had. It is all such a long time ago. When I read about

you in the papers, and heard of all the wonders you had done, I was

sure you must have forgotten the chatter of your fifteen-year-old

playfellow. A man who spends his day as you did, in the saddle, and

the night in long, anxious watches, does not have time for such ideas

as we cultivated in those days."

"You are wrong, Lois. The idea is everything. It is the mainspring of

a man's life. If I did anything wonderful, as you say, it was for the

sake of the cathedral. There was, for instance, one night which I

remember very well. A whole tribe had risen. Half my men were down

with fever, and I felt--well, pretty bad. I was a bit delirious, I

fancy, and in delirium very often the foundations of a man's character

come uppermost. The cathedral was always in my mind. I saw your half,

and it was getting on splendidly. That goaded me. I felt I had to go

on, too. So I pulled myself together and went ahead. We pulled through

somehow, and I have always felt that in that night I laid the chief

stone."

The burning tears sprang to her eyes.

"So all that splendid work was done for the sake of our cathedral?"

"Partly, but not in the first place. Do you remember of what use our

cathedral was to be in the world? It wasn't merely to be a monument to

our own glory--it was to be a sheltering place for others, an example

to them, an inspiration. You said once, very rightly, that if every

here and there a human being made a cathedral out of his life, other

people would soon get ashamed of their mud-huts, and pull them down.

They would try to build cathedrals on a bigger and nobler scale than

the first one, and probably would succeed. Thus the work would go on

from one generation to another. It was an idea worthy to form the

foundations of a man's ambition. I made it mine, as I knew you had

made it yours. It strengthened me to think that every decent action

was a fresh stone to the building which in the end would stand

perfect--not to my glory, but to the glory of the whole human race."

He smiled, though his eyes remained serious. "As an Englishman, I can

not help wishing that cathedrals should be most plentiful on English

soil."

"Do you really think that one small human life can make so much

difference?" she asked, rather bitterly. "I used to think so, in my

self-important days, but I am beginning to believe that our little

individual efforts are hopelessly lost in a sea of rubbish."

"Our youthful conceit is more justifiable than such self-disparagement,"

he answered. "I often think that humility--at any rate a certain kind--is

a questionable virtue. In lessening our own value, we lessen our own

responsibility, and our responsibility is tremendous. One life can make

the difference of a cathedral spire in a town of low-built huts or of a

snow mountain in an ugly plain. I am sure of it--and so are you. So is

everybody who thinks about it. But people do not think. It is sometimes

much more convenient to believe that one is too insignificant to have

any responsibility. But to my mind there is not a vagabond in the street

who is not directly helping on our national decay, and who might not be

building up the Empire." He leaned toward her, lowering his voice. "You

know I am not just talking, Lois. It is my life's principle which I lay

before you--mine and yours. How long is it since we have spoken of these

things? Ten years. Since then we have been building steadily at our

cathedral. We must go on."

"How can we?" she answered wearily. "It is not our cathedral any more.

I thought you had forgotten, and--"

"My first day in Marut I sent a message to you--a little in fun, but

with an earnest purpose. I wanted to see if you had forgotten, and I

wanted you to know that I had remembered. I told you that the

cathedral still lacked its chief spire."

"I never got the message. It was that day Archibald asked me to be his

wife. When did you send the letter?"

"It was not a letter but a verbal message, by Travers."

"That afternoon?"

"Yes, that afternoon."

She covered her face with her hand.

"He--he must have forgotten," she said at last.

"Yes, he must have forgotten," he agreed quietly.

There was a long silence. She remained motionless, but he heard her

breath being drawn in quick, painful gasps. The battle for them both

was at its height. He bent forward and took the hand that lay clenched

in her lap gently in his own.

[Illustration: He took her hand that lay clutched in her lap.]

"Dear little Lois, dear little comrade! We are like two architects,

you and I. We were very young when we set out on our great task, and

no doubt we have made many blunders. In the beginning we each hoped

secretly that the time would come when we should be able to crown our

work hand in hand. It was that I was thinking of when I sent my

message. Well, things have turned out differently--perhaps through our

own fault. But the cathedral must go on. Instead of one spire, as we

had hoped, there will be two spires. You will build yours, I mine.

They will be far apart, and so we of necessity must be apart, too. But

the cathedral will go on; and in the end--who knows?--it may be more

perfect than as we saw it in our first great plan."

"But we might have built together, Adam!"

"Yes. We might even build together now--but then it would no longer be

a cathedral. It would be a mud hovel like the rest. And that would be

wrong--wrong to the world and wrong to ourselves. Have you understood

what I mean?"

He waited patiently, his hand still clasping hers. One single piteous

tear rolled down her cheek, but that was all, and when she looked up

at him her eyes were calm and steadfast.

"I understand quite well what you mean," she said, "and I know that

you are right. God bless and help you."

"And you, Lois."

They exchanged a firm pressure. Then Nicholson rose.

"I must be going," he said. "Will you tell Travers that I shall be

around at the office to-morrow morning? If by any chance he has any

shares going, I should be obliged if he would allot them to me."

Lois rose also. Her face was turned toward the door.

"If you wait one moment, you will see him yourself," she said. "I

think I hear him coming upstairs."

She was right. The next minute the door opened quickly and Travers

entered. Evidently something unusual had happened. In one hand he held

an open telegram. His face was crimson with excitement and his lips

parted as if with a hasty announcement. But as he saw the two standing

at the table watching him, he stopped short, looking from one to the

other with a flash of amused curiosity in his eyes.

"Hullo, you both here?" he said cheerfully. "How cozy you look. See

here, Lois, I've just had a telegram from the Rajah. He wants me to

come at once. Can you be ready to start in three days?"

"For Marut?" A rush of color filled her pale cheeks.

"Yes, of course. By the bye, Nicholson, that's your destination, isn't

it? We might travel together."

"I think not," was the quiet answer. "I have orders to start next

week."

"Well, there's no great hurry for us, I expect. Our friend, Nehal, is

of an excitable disposition. I hope you haven't had to wait long for

me, Nicholson. You said you had some business you wanted to talk over

with me."

"Yes, it was about those shares. But if you are busy--"

"Oh, that's all right. It won't take more than a few minutes to

settle. How much do you want to invest? I tell you, my dear fellow,

it's a splendid thing, and--"

He was unexpectedly interrupted. He had taken out a heavy pocket-book

and was busily looking through some papers, when Lois laid her hand on

his.

"I think Captain Nicholson is under a misapprehension, Archibald," she

said, in a low voice. "He said you had some shares to sell him, but I

remembered what you said about the mine, and I told him that there

must be some mistake. I was quite right, wasn't I?"

Every word she had spoken sounded emphasized as though she were

striving to convey a double meaning, and the second in which husband

and wife looked at each other was to the puzzled witness a painful

eternity. With a strong perceptible effort, Travers turned away.

"So my wife has broken the news to you?" he said, smiling. "Yes, I'm

awfully sorry. Everything good gets snapped up so confoundedly

quickly. Better luck next time. I was quite dreading disappointing

you, but Lois, as usual, has taken my disagreeable task from me." He

patted the hand which still rested on his own. "Stay and have a little

dinner with us," he added cordially, as Nicholson prepared to take his

leave. "I'd like to make up to you with a little of my best Cliquot."

Nicholson shook his head. The impression that he stood before a veiled

and unpleasant comedy increased his desire to get away.

"Thanks, I'm afraid I can't," he said. "I have work to do. Good

night."

"Good night. To our next meeting in Marut!" The two men shook hands.

"Good night, Mrs. Travers. You will be able to be your own messenger

now," Nicholson said.

She met his glance with quiet courage.

"They will be able to see with their own eyes that things are going

well with me," she answered simply.

When the door closed upon Nicholson's tall form she went back to her

husband's side. He was busy consulting time-tables, and hardly seemed

aware of her approach. Only when she touched him on the arm did he

look up.

"Well, what is it?"

"I want to know if you are angry?"

"What about?"

"The shares--and Captain Nicholson. I felt it was wrong to deceive

him. He is not rich, and you told me that the mine was a failure."

"Of course, you have every reason, no doubt, to consider your friend

before your husband," he said with a sudden outburst which he

instantly regretted. He had encouraged--nay, forced--her intimacy

with Nicholson. With what purpose? He himself hardly knew. Perhaps

somewhere at the bottom of him he was beginning to dread the honesty

of her character as an unspoken reproach. If she were less perfect in

her conduct, his own life would have seemed less blamable. Or perhaps

his motives had been more generous. He knew he had nothing to give

her--and Nicholson was a good fellow. At any rate, it was a mistake to

have betrayed even a moment's irritation. She had shrunk back from

him, but he put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her. "There! Of

course I am not angry. You've lost me a few hundreds, but you're worth

it, and I dare say it was all for the best. Run and write a note to

the Colonel and say we are coming, there's a good little woman!"

Lois turned wearily away. He had not understood her. She considered

him more than she had considered Nicholson. She had wanted to save

him from what she felt was a mean and treacherous step. But he had not

been able to understand. Nor could she have explained. Between certain

characters all real communication is an impossibility, and words no

more than sounds.

CHAPTER II

CATASTROPHE

The tea-room, usually the most animated portion of the Marut

club-house, had lost its cheerful appearance. The comfortable chairs

had been cleared on one side and replaced by a long green baize table

littered with papers; the doors leading on to the verandah were

closed, and a stifling atmosphere bore down upon the five occupants

who were ranged about the table in various attitudes of listless

exhaustion.

"I can't think what we have been called here for," Mrs. Cary protested

loudly; "and from the way we have been locked in, we might be in a

state of siege. I know I shall faint in a minute. Beatrice, pass me my

salts, child."

Her daughter obeyed mechanically, without moving her eyes, which were

fixed in front of her. Colonel Carmichael, who was seated at the far

end of the table, opposite the Rajah, smiled good-naturedly.

"If _you_ feel yourself justified in grumbling, what about me, Mrs.

Cary?" he said. "You at least are a share-holder, and I suppose there

are some formalities to be gone through, but what I have to do with

the business I can not imagine."

"Business!" groaned Mrs. Berry from his right. "That's the silliest

part of it all! What's the good of getting me to talk business? I

don't understand business; I never did, and never shall. Why doesn't

Mr. Travers come? I'm sure I have been waiting quite ten minutes."

"Perhaps the Rajah can give us a clue to the mystery," the Colonel

suggested. "Rajah, don't you think the ladies could be allowed their

liberty? I can not think that their presence is so essential."

Nehal Singh looked up. From the moment he had exchanged nothing more

than a brief salutation with the four Europeans, he had sat with his

head bent over some papers, reading, or pretending to read. The months

had brought a new expression to his face. Pain had cut her lines into

the broad forehead; anxiety met the Colonel's questioning gaze from

eyes which had once flashed happy confidence and enthusiasm.

"I am afraid I can give you no answer, Colonel Carmichael," he said

quietly. "Since Mr. Travers has returned to Marut all control over

affairs has passed out of my hands into his. For some reason, I have

been kept in ignorance as to the progress of events, and I wait here

to-day with you as completely in the dark as any one. No doubt he will

be here in a few minutes."

"With good news, I hope," Mrs. Cary sighed. "I also am no sort of a

business woman, but I understand enough to know that if one invests

money in an honest concern one gets interest sooner or later. And so

far the Marut Company hasn't paid me a penny piece."

Nehal Singh started slightly, and his glance wandered to the red face

of the speaker with an expression that was akin to fear.

"An honest concern!" he repeated. "Do you mean that--that it is not

honest?"

Mrs. Cary beamed with recovered equanimity.

"Good gracious! How could you suppose I should mean such a horrid

thing, dear Prince! Of course everything to which you put your hand is

hall-marked. Otherwise I should never have dreamed of investing my

money in the Marut Company."

There was a silence. The Colonel drummed with his fingers on the

table, watching the native sentry who passed stolidly backward and

forward in front of the closed windows. Mrs. Cary fanned herself and

exchanged whispered comments with Mrs. Berry on the opposite side.

Beatrice remained motionless. From the beginning of the meeting she

had once raised her eyes--on Nehal Singh's entry--and then it had been

for no more than a second. That second had been enough. She had seen

his face. She had seen--and it was not her imagination, but a real and

bitter irony--that of all the people in the room she alone had been

the object of his quiet greeting. She knew then--for her eyes had not

lost their keenness--that the eighteen months in which they had

scarcely met had made no difference to him. He still reverenced and

loved her. For him she was still "Lakshmi," the goddess of beauty and

perfection; for him she was still the ideal, the woman of goodness and

truth and purity. Her victory over him had been complete, eternal. She

had betrayed him and retained him. Of all her triumphs over men and

circumstances this was the most perfect. Yet she sat there, white and

still, not lifting her eyes from the table, and seemingly unconscious

of all that went on about her.

Presently a carriage drove up the avenue. They heard Travers' voice

giving some orders, and a moment later he himself entered, followed by

a Mr. Medway, his chief mining engineer. He closed the door and with a

grave bow took his place at the table. He seemed indifferent to or

unaware of the curious and somewhat anxious glances which were turned

toward him. There was something in his appearance which cast an

unpleasant chill over every one of the little assembly. Even the

Colonel, though an outsider, felt himself disagreeably impressed by

Travers' new bearing, and the good-natured banter which he had held in

readiness for the new arrival died away on his lips as he responded to

the cold, formal bow. For some minutes no one spoke. Travers was busy

arranging some papers which he had brought with him, and only when he

had laid these out to his satisfaction did he rise to address the

meeting. He held himself stiffly erect, his fingers resting lightly on

the table, his pale face turned toward the window as though he wished

to avoid addressing any one directly. The usual geniality was lacking

in his composed features.

"Colonel Carmichael and honorable share-holders in the Marut Diamond

Company," he began, "you are no doubt wondering why I have called this

private meeting. I do so because you are the chief partakers in the

concern, and because, as my friends, I wish to offer you an

explanation which I do not feel bound to offer to the other

share-holders within and without Marut. This excuse does not hold good

for you, Colonel Carmichael, and you must feel I am encroaching

heavily on your valuable time. Nevertheless, I assure you that your

presence will assist me considerably in my difficult task."

"I am sure I shall be delighted to do anything in my power," Colonel

Carmichael responded, "but I fear my knowledge of intricate business

details is not such as to make it of the slightest use to you."

"The business is not intricate," Travers went on. "Nor do I propose

drawing out this meeting to any tiring length. The heat must be very

trying for the ladies present, but my wish to keep what passes

between us, at any rate for the time being, entirely secret, makes it

essential to sit in closed rooms. I will be as brief as possible. Two

years ago the Marut Diamond Company first came into existence under

the protection of our friend, Rajah Nehal Singh. For some time

previous to this event it had been my great ambition to open out a

diamond field in which, thanks to favorable reports, I sincerely

believed. My position, however, and above all my lack of personal

means, made the scheme an impossibility so far as I was concerned.

Chance brought me the pleasure and misfortune of making your

acquaintance, Rajah. I say 'misfortune,' because, as events have

turned, I can not but feel that my casual observations led you to

enter into an enterprise before which another man, if I may say so,

with more experience and less impulse, would have hesitated.

"Your generosity and enthusiasm brought my half-conceived plans into a

reality almost before I had any clear idea as to whither we were all

drifting. You will remember, Mrs. Cary, I did my best to dissuade you

from any rash investment; and even there, as director of the company,

I felt that I was not acting with entire loyalty to the man who had

put me into that position. The responsibility of the whole matter

rested heavily on my shoulders, and grew still heavier as the circle

of share-holders without Marut increased. I felt that, should my first

hopes prove unfounded, my friends and many others would suffer losses

which they could ill afford to bear. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my

painful duty to tell you that the dreaded collapse has come. Mr.

Medway, here, the company's chief engineer and mining expert, informed

me yesterday that any continuation of the works was useless and a mere

waste of the share-holders' money. I therefore beg to announce to you

that the Marut Diamond Company Mine is definitely closed."

The Colonel clenched his teeth half-way through the first oath he had

ever allowed himself in the presence of ladies. He was not an

unusually egoistical man, but his first thought was one of unutterable

gratitude that in the moment of strong temptation his wife had held an

obstinate hand on the purse-strings.

The first person to speak was Mrs. Cary. She leaned half-way across

the table.

"And my money?" she said thickly and unsteadily. "Where's my money?

Where's my money? Tell me that!"

Travers shrugged his shoulders.

"I fear it has gone the way of mine and of the other share-holders',"

he said. "Nor can I hold out any hopes of its coming back. The

expenses of the mine have been terribly heavy, the workmen have been

extremely well paid--extremely well paid." There was a distinct note

of reproach in his voice, though he looked at no one.

Mrs. Cary sat down in her seat. It was a pitiful and almost terrible

sight to see her, all the florid, vulgar ostentation and sleek content

dashed out of her, leaving her with pasty cheeks and horror-stricken,

staring eyes to face the ruined future. Mrs. Berry burst into

ever-ready tears.

"Oh!" she sobbed. "What will my husband say! I told him it was such a

good thing--it isn't my fault. What will he say!"

The sharp, wailing tones broke through Mrs. Cary's momentary

paralysis. She sat up and brought her fat clenched fist down with a

bang upon the table.

"You!" she half screamed at the Rajah. "You--you black swindler--you

thief--it's you who have done it--you who have ruined us all with your

wicked schemes. You baited us with this clubhouse--you pretended you

wanted to do us such a lot of good, didn't you? And all the time you

meant to feather your own nest with diamonds and the Lord knows what.

Give us back our money, you heathen swindler! For you aren't a

Christian! You pretended that, too, just as a blind--"

Her flow of frightful coarse invectives came to an abrupt end. Colonel

Carmichael, who knew now why his presence had been required, leaned

forward and pushed her firmly down in her seat.

"For Heaven's sake, Mrs. Cary, hold your tongue!" he expostulated, in

a rapid, emphatic undertone. "You don't know what you are saying. You

are not in England. A little more of that sort of thing, and our lives

aren't worth an hour's purchase."

"I don't care," she retorted, with all the headlong brutality of her

origin. "It's true what I say! It's true!"

"It is true." The interruption came from the Rajah himself. He had

risen and stood before them, very pale, but calm and composed, his

eyes fixed with haggard resolution on the furious face of his accuser.

"It is true. I am a swindler. I have ruined you all. Why should you

believe it was done unwittingly? Yet that is true also. I, like my

poor friend here whom I used as my tool, believed that I was doing the

best for you all. But I have ruined you. I have done worse than

that--I have ruined my country, my people. You have friends who will

help you in your distress, but who will help my people? I pulled them

out of their miserable homes only to cast them into deeper misery. I

have taken their pitiful savings, meaning, without the use of charity,

to increase them tenfold. I have taken everything from them. I gave a

hope, and have left them with a deeper despair. Not all my wealth--and

not a stone, not a farthing piece shall be held back from your and

their just claims upon me--will fill up the ruin of those I wished so

well. It is true--I stand before you all a dishonored man."

There was a moment's petrified silence. Even Mrs. Cary's coarse nature

stood baffled before this pitiless, dignified self-accusal. Nor could

the Colonel find a word to say. He had been ready--knowing the native

character--to defend Mrs. Cary from the stroke of a revenging dagger.

His half-outstretched arm sank powerless before the stroke of these

few words, spoken with a calm which thinly covered a chaos of remorse

and broken-hearted grief.

"I have a question I should like to ask you, Mr. Travers."

There was a general uneasy start. Each shook off his brooding

considerations and turned with surprise to this unexpected speaker. It

was Beatrice, hitherto silent and apparently unmoved, who leaned

across to Travers. He himself felt the blood rise to his face. In his

absorbed state he had not noticed her presence, and now that he met

her cold eyes a curious discomfort crept over him--a discomfort that

was nearly fear.

"I will answer your question to the best of my ability," he said

quietly.

"The Rajah has spoken of you as his tool, and I think from your tone

that you think yourself aggrieved. In what way have you suffered? What

is your share of the losses?"

"I have lost all I have."

"All you have, no doubt. But your wife is very rich, and I believe has

grown richer within the last year. I am anxious to know if you intend

to follow the Rajah's generous example and meet your liabilities with

her fortune."

The Colonel, who had been staring vacantly at her, gave a start of

recollection.

"Yes!" he exclaimed energetically. "The settlement and Lois' own

money--what's become of it all? Has that gone, too?"

"Of course not." Travers' hand tightened instinctively upon the arm of

his chair. "I should never have dreamed of touching what was my wife's

personal property. Nor do I intend to do so now. I am no more than the

manager of the company--I am not responsible for its liabilities. Miss

Cary's suggestion is beside the mark, and I warn her, for her own

advantage"--there was a somewhat unpleasant note of warning in his

rough voice--"not to pursue her questions further."

Beatrice rose to her feet. She was calm and, save for the vivid color

in her cheeks, betrayed at first little of the seething storm of

indignation which rose gradually above the barriers of her self-control.

She did not look at the Rajah. She stared straight into Travers' face,

and once she pointed at him.

"You have been good enough to threaten me," she said. "It would be

best for you to know at once that your threats are quite useless.

There is nothing you can say about me which I am not ready to say

myself--and there is nothing you can do which will prevent me from

revealing the true facts of this case. You have feathered your nest,

Mr. Travers. That is what you told me to do, and now I understand what

you meant. You saw this ruin coming at the very time that you were

encouraging every one to partake further of the company's future

success. You honored me, as a sort of accomplice, with a private piece

of advice. Thank God, I did not take it, for then I should have been

your debtor.

"As it is, I owe you absolutely nothing--not even the wealthy husband

you promised me. There is a bottom to my depths. And even if I did owe

you something, I should not hesitate to speak. You can call me a

traitor if you like--I don't care. I am that--and I have been far

worse than that to a man who did not deserve it--and I have, anyhow,

not much reputation to lose. Besides, you have stood by without a

word and let an innocent man bear your burden, and for that alone

you have no right to claim loyalty from another."

She turned for the first time to Nehal Singh, and met his gaze boldly and

recklessly. "Do not stand there and call yourself a dishonored man!" she

exclaimed with increasing force. "You are not dishonored. Do not call

Mr. Travers your 'tool.' He is not your tool, and never has been. You

are his tool,--his and mine!" She paused, catching her breath as she saw

him wince. Then she went on: "Don't burden yourself with the consciences

of us all, for we have not got any; and what has been done we have done

knowingly and wilfully. Do you remember that evening when you found me in

the temple? You thought it was--chance--or--or the hand of God. Why,

Mr. Travers hired one of your old servants to slip me through by the

secret path, and I had on my prettiest frock and my prettiest smile and

my prettiest ways--as I told them all afterward at a dinner-party--pious

goodness, with a relieving touch of the devil--just to tempt you out of

your cloister and make you do what we wanted.

[Illustration: "Do not call yourself a dishonored man!"]

"You followed like a lamb. It took five minutes to wheedle the

club-house out of you--five minutes, I think you told me, Mr.

Travers?--and the other things went just as smoothly. Do you remember

that ride we had together after Mr. Travers' dance? He had broached

the subject of the mine, but the next day something or other seemed

to have shaken your implicit belief in our integrity and general

holiness. At any rate, you asked me for my advice--my honest advice. I

gave it you. I told you to go ahead--that Mr. Travers was an angel of

goodness and perfection. That was what he suggested I should say, in a

note he had sent me an hour before. So you went ahead. You did the

dirty work for him, and took his responsibility upon your shoulders.

You have ruined a few of us incidentally, but above all things you

have ruined yourself and your people. Mr. Travers is unharmed. He has

his wife's money."

She paused to gather her strength for a final effort. "So much for Mr.

Travers' and my partnership. I did my share of the work to shield

myself and my mother from a trouble which must now go its way. But

after that, I played my own game. I did not want to lose you--even

though I knew quite well that you cared for me, and that I should

never marry you. Months before I had made up my mind to marry a man

with a high position and money. It was just a game I was playing with

you. Even when you forced things to a head, I kept it up. I pretended

innocency and high motives--because I wanted to feel you at my

apron-strings always. We all treated you more or less badly, but I was

the worst. I fooled you--for--for--"

"For what?"

His voice burst from him, harsh and terrible as though it had been

torn from the bottom of a tortured soul.

"For the fun of the thing."

Among the seven present there was no movement, no sound. Scarcely one

seemed to breathe or be alive except the woman who stood there, her

breast heaving, a twisted smile of wild self-mockery on her ashy lips.

Nehal Singh turned and went to the door. There he stopped and looked

back at her and the little group of which she formed the central

figure. Then he made a gesture--one single gesture. He raised his hand

high above his head and brought it down, palm downward. In that

movement there was a contempt, a scorn, a bitterness so profound that

it seemed to mingle with a terrible pity; but above all there was a

final severing, a breaking of the last link which bound them. The next

minute the door closed behind him.

How long the silence that followed lasted no one knew. It was broken

by Mrs. Cary, who flung herself face downward on the table, and burst

into wild, uncontrollable sobs.

"Oh, Beaty!" she moaned. "Our reputations--our good name! How could

you have told such wicked stories about yourself and poor Mr. Travers!

How could you!"

Colonel Carmichael shook his head. He was overwhelmed by a cross-current

of conflicting emotions to which he could give no name.

"True or not true, your--eh--statement has got us into a pretty mess,

Miss Cary," he said. "You have played with fire. Pray Heaven that it

has not set light to Marut!"

She turned and looked at him. In that pale face upon which had sunk

the light of a sudden peace the Colonel read something which sent his

blunt instinct searching wildly for a solution.

"I did what I had to do, Colonel Carmichael," she said. "Come, mother,

we must go home."

CHAPTER III

A FAREWELL

John Stafford sat at his table by the open door which looked on to the

garden. The room behind him was bare of all graceful or even tasteful

ornament--a few native weapons, captured probably during small

frontier wars, hung on the wall, but nothing else relieved its blank,

whitewashed monotony. The one photograph of his father which had once

been fastened above the mantelpiece had been taken down months before

and the hole made by the nail carefully and methodically filled and

painted over. The room typified the man in its painful order, its

painful whitewashed cleanliness, its rigid plainness. But the garden

was the symbol of the hidden possibility in him, the corner of warm,

impulsive feeling which the world had never seen. The roses grew up to

the very steps of the verandah; they had been trained to clamber over

the trellis-work as though seeking to gain entrance to his room; they

spread themselves in rich, glowing variety over the little patch of

ground, and one of their number, the most lovely and fullest blown,

hung her heavy head in splendid isolation from the vase upon his

table.

He looked at the rose and he looked at the garden, on which lay the first

clear rays of the rising sun. In him stirred a rare wistfulness, a rare

melancholy. For to him all the gentler, softer forms of sorrow were rare.

In the last year he had suffered, but in his own way--rigidly, coldly,

unbendingly. His lips, even in the loneliness of his own room, had always

been tight closed over the smothered exclamation of pain. He had gone on

steadily and conscientiously with his work. He had never for one moment

"given way to himself," as he expressed it. But this morning he was in

the power of that strange "atmosphere"--call it what you will--which we

feel when still only half awake, and which, independent of all outward

circumstances, destines our day's mood of cheerfulness or depression.

Strangely enough, he had made no struggle against it--he had yielded to

it with a sense of inevitableness.

The inevitable compassed him about and numbed his stern, merciless

system of self-repression. Fate, irresistible and unchangeable,

obscured the clear path of duty which he had marked out for himself,

and held him for the moment her passive victim. It was no idle fancy.

He was not a man in whose thought-world fancy played any part. Nor was

it the gloomy impression which a lonely twilight might have stamped

upon a mind already burdened with a heavy weight of trouble. The young

day spread her halo of pure sunshine over a world of color; the red

rose upon his table bowed her head toward him in the perfection of a

mature beauty which as yet hid no warning of decay. But in the

sunshine he saw the shadow; the daylight foretold the night; his eyes

saw the withered petals of the rose strewn before him. In vain he had

striven to see beyond the night to the as inevitable to-morrow; in

vain he had pictured the rose which his careful hand would bring to

replace her dead sister. The future was a blank dead wall whose

heights his foresight could not scale.

Before him on the table lay a closed and sealed envelope. It contained

his will, which half an hour before he had signed in the presence of

two comrades. He wondered what the world would say when it was

opened--and when it would be opened.

Presently the curtains behind him were pushed quietly on one side. He

did not turn around. He supposed it was his native servant with the

cup of coffee which formed his early morning refreshment; but the soft

step across the uncarpeted floor, the rustle of a woman's dress

startled him from his illusion. He turned and sprang to his feet.

"Beatrice!" he exclaimed.

She came toward him with outstretched hand.

"May I speak with you for a few minutes, John?" she asked.

His first impulse to protest against her reckless disregard of

propriety died away on his lips. Something on her white earnest face

touched him--all the more perhaps because it linked itself with his

own mood. He brought a chair--his own, for the room boasted of but

one.

"Are you angry?" she asked again, looking up at him.

"At your coming? No. At another time I might have warned you that it

was not wise, but I feel sure you would not have run so much risk

without a serious and adequate reason."

She nodded.

"Yes, I have a very serious reason," she said. "Have you time to

spare?"

"All the morning."

"Were you on duty last night?"

"For the best part."

"Is that why you look so tired and ill?"

He smiled faintly.

"I might reply with a _tu quoque_. But that doesn't matter. You have

some trouble to tell me. What has happened?"

"You have heard nothing?"

"Nothing whatever." He drew a stool toward him and seated himself at

her side. "You know, I am not a person to whom gossip drifts quickly."

"It's not gossip--it's truth. The Marut Diamond Company is closed--for

good and all."

"You mean--it has gone smash?"

"Completely--and we with it."

He sat silent for a moment, his head resting thoughtfully on his hand.

"I suppose it had to come," he said at last. "Somehow, it always

seemed to me that the concern was doomed. The foundations weren't

honest. The Rajah was more or less beguiled into it--" He broke off,

turning crimson with vexation. "I beg your pardon, Beatrice. I forgot

that that was one of your--escapades."

She looked at him steadily, and he was struck and again strangely

moved by her pale beauty. He had never seen her so gentle, so free

from her cold and mocking gaiety.

"You must not apologize. And do not smooth over a mean, low trick with

the name of an escapade. It was not an escapade, for an escapade is

the overflow of high and reckless spirits, and what I did was done in

cold blood and with a purpose. I have come to tell you about that

purpose."

He could not repress a movement of surprise.

"Surely you have something more serious on your mind than that? If, as

you say, your--your financial position has been rendered precarious by

this failure of the Marut Company, would it not be advisable to hurry

on our marriage at once? Of course, in the meanwhile, if I can do

anything to help your mother--"

She touched him gently on the arm.

"I told you I had come on a serious matter," she said. "Won't you let

me tell you what it is?"

"Of course, Beatrice, of course. Only I thought that was the serious

matter."

"It is perhaps for my mother, but not for me. Things have changed

their value in my life. Just now I feel there is only one thing that

has any value at all, and that is freedom."

"From what? I do not understand. Do you mean from debt?"

She smiled sadly.

"Yes, from debt. John, I want to ask you an honest question honestly.

Why did you ask me to become your wife?"

He moved uneasily.

"Why do you ask? Surely we understand each other."

"We did, perhaps, but I have told you that things have changed. Won't

you answer me?"

"I asked you--because I wished you to be my wife," he returned

stubbornly.

"John, isn't that rather a lame equivocation?"

He stared at her with heavy, troubled eyes.

"Yes, it was. But the truth might hurt you, Beatrice."

"No, it wouldn't. Nothing can hurt so much in the end as lies and

humbug."

"Well, then, I asked you to become my wife because I believed that my

conduct had put you into a wrong and painful situation in the eyes of

the world."

"Nothing else?"

"I wished to prove to Lois that I could never be her husband."

"You were afraid that she would see through your pretense to your

unchanged affection for her?"

He started.

"Beatrice, how do you know?"

"Look in your own glass, John. Yours isn't the face of a man who has

shaken off an old attachment."

He rose and stood with his back half turned to her, playing idly with

the papers on the table.

"You are partly right," he said, after a moment's silence, "but not

quite. I have more on my shoulders than that; I have a heavy

responsibility--a debt to pay."

"You, too?" she asked, with a return of the half-melancholy, half-bitter

smile. "Have you also a debt?"

"Not of my making," was the answer. The voice rang suddenly stern and

harsh, and Beatrice saw him look up suddenly, as though instinctively

seeking something on the wall. "Beatrice, you must know that my

actions are dictated by motives which I can not for many reasons give

to the world. For one thing, I have given my promise; for another, my

own judgment tells me that it is better for every one that I should be

silent. But I am free to say this much to you--I am not a

dishonorable man who has played lightly with the affections of an

innocent girl. I have acted toward Lois as I believe will be for her

ultimate happiness--I have shielded her from a misfortune, a

punishment I might say, which would have fallen unjustly on her

shoulders. I have taken a burden upon my shoulders because I love

her--and I have the right to love her--but chiefly because it is my

duty to do so. Where there is sin, Beatrice, there must also be

atonement, otherwise its consequences can never be wiped out. I have

chosen to atone."

Beatrice made no attempt to question him. Her eyes fell thoughtfully

on the gaunt face, and for the first time she appreciated to the full

what was great and generous in the nature she had condemned all too

often as narrow and unbending. Whatever else he was, this man was no

Pharisee. If he was narrow, he allowed himself no license; if

unbending, he was at least least of all relenting toward his own

conduct. She pitied him and she respected him, even though she could

not understand his motives nor guess the weight of the responsibility

which he had taken upon himself.

"I can not reproach you with deception," she said at last. "You never

pretended that you loved me, and on my side I think the matter was

pretty clear. I intended to marry you for your position. Afterward

money added a further incentive. I saw the loss of our own fortune

coming. Travers warned me on the same day that we became engaged."

A dark flood of indignant blood rushed to Stafford's forehead.

"The man is an unscrupulous adventurer--no doubt he has safeguarded

his own interest carefully enough," he exclaimed bitterly.

"You are quite right. His wife has all the money, and he has taken

care that it should be well tied up and out of reach. That is what my

father did."

He turned to her again.

"Your father?"

"Yes, my father," she repeated, meeting his eyes gravely and

unflinchingly. "He tried to do what Travers did. But he wasn't quite

so clever. He ran too close to the wind, as he said himself, and they

put him in prison. He died there."

He stood looking at her with a new interest. He too, was beginning to

understand. The bitter line about the mouth was not the expression of

a hard, unfeeling heart after all, then, and the sharp, mocking laugh

which had jarred so often on his ears was not the echo of a shallow,

worthless character? They were no more than the deep wounds left after

a rough battle with a world that knows no pity for those branded with

inherited shame and dishonor. He had misjudged her. There were

unlimited possibilities of nobility and goodness in the beautiful face

lifted to his. But he said nothing of the thoughts that flashed

through his mind. In moments of crisis we always speak of what is

least important.

"And you managed to keep it a secret in Marut?" he asked.

"Yes, it was a marvel, wasn't it?"--her eyes brightening with a spark

of the old fun. "We lived in a constant state of alarms and

excursions. But Mr. Travers did what he could. He knew all about it,

and he helped us."

"On conditions, no doubt?"

"Of course, on conditions. But he said, quite truthfully, that he had

no idea of blackmailing me. It was just a fair bargain between us."

She paused a little before she went on: "Now, you understand what

brought us to Marut, and what made you such a desirable catch. We

wanted to get clear away from the past and build up a new life. But we

couldn't. One can't build up anything on a lie."

"That is true," he returned sternly, "and yet this is hardly a time

for you to talk of your failure. From the moment that you are my

wife--"

"But, John, that's what I never shall be." She laughed wearily. "Do

you think a clever woman would own up to an unpleasant past to the man

she wanted to marry? And if you want to hear more detestable things

about me, ask the Colonel, ask Mrs. Berry, ask the Rajah. They know

all about me, for I told them yesterday. You don't need to look so

white and haggard. I am not going to marry you. That is what I came to

say. And I wanted to explain everything, and to ask you, if you can,

to forgive me all the trouble I have brought upon you." She rose, and

held out her hand to him. "Will you shake hands, John?"

He stood motionless by the table, watching her with a last stirring of

the old distrust.

"I do not understand you," he said bluntly, and in truth he did not.

This pale-faced woman with the earnest eyes deep underlined with the

marks of sleepless nights was a riddle which his stiff, conventional

imagination could not solve.

"Is it necessary that you should understand?" she answered. "I have

not asked you to explain why, still loving her, you threw Lois over. I

believe that you had some grave reason. It could not be graver than

mine for doing what I am doing."

"Then you mean that--it is entirely over between us?"

"Yes, it is over between us. Your sense of justice will not have to

undergo the ordeal of forcing your sense of honor to link itself with

dishonor. To your credit, I believe you would have married me, John,

and I am grateful. But there's an end of it. I have come to say

good-by. I suppose it is absurd, but I wish we could remain friends."

This time he took her hand in his. Now that the artificial union

between them was done away with, their real friendship for each other

came back and took its rightful place in their lives.

"Why shouldn't we, Beatrice?" he said. "Heaven knows, we both have

need of friends."

"It is a strange thing," she continued thoughtfully, "that, though you

are so completely my opposite, I have always liked you. Even when you

most jarred upon me with your prunes-and-prisms morality, I was never

able quite to close my heart. I wonder why?"

He could not repress a faint amusement at the flash of her old self.

"It has been the same with me," he said. "Even when you trod on all my

principles at once, I haven't been able to smother a sort of

shamefaced respect for you. You always seemed more worthy of respect

than--well, some of the others."

"I suppose it is our sincerity," she said. "You are sincere in your

goodness, and I, paradoxical as it sounds, in my badness."

"I think not," he answered, looking her gravely in the face. "I think

it is because the hidden best in both of us recognized each other and

held out the hand of friendship almost without our knowing."

She smiled, but he saw a light sparkle in her eyes.

"Oh, practical John, you are making fast progress in the soul's world!

Who has taught you?"

He turned away from her back to the table and stood there gazing out

over the garden.

"No one. It is a mood I have on today which makes me see clearer than

I have done before. Go now--if any one saw you here, you know what

Marut would say."

"Yes, I know Marut very well by now. Not that it much matters.

Good-by. Please--I found my way alone; I can find the way out."

She had reached the door before he stopped her.

"Beatrice!"

She turned.

"What is it?"

"I have a favor to ask of you--or rather, I have a trust to put in

your hands. It is in a sort of way the seal upon our good

understanding. There is no one else whom I could trust so much."

She came back to his side. A new color was in her cheeks. Her eyes

looked less tired, less hopeless.

"A trust? That would make life worth living."

He took up the packet on the table and gave it to her.

"That is my will. I made it afresh last night. It was witnessed this

morning. In it I have made you my executrix, with half my estate. The

other half I have left to Lois."

"Now you must leave it all to her," she said.

"No, I wish it to remain as it is. Besides--" He broke off hurriedly,

as though seeking to avoid an unpleasant train of thought. "Beatrice,

the world won't understand that will. Lois won't, and I pray, for the

sake of her happiness, that she may never have to--but if the time

comes when this must be put into action, I want you to give her a

message from me. Will you?"

"Of course I will. But"--she faced him with a sudden inspired

appeal--"must you wait until you are dead to speak to her? Would it

not be better to go to her now with your message? I do not know what

has come between you both, but I know this much--all forms of pretense

are fatal--"

He stopped her with a gesture of decision.

"No," he said. "The secret must remain secret. It has overshadowed my

life. It has laden me with a burden of responsibility and shame which

I have determined to share with no one. I have taken it upon my

shoulders, and I shall carry it to the end. Tell Lois that I have

never once swerved in my love for her. Ask her to trust me and think

kindly of me. It is not I who have sinned against her--"

"Sinned against her! Who has sinned against her? Do you mean me?"

"No, not you. You also have been sinned against. I also." He sighed

wearily. "When I look about me, it seems as though not one of us has

not in turn sinned and been sinned against. It is an endless chain of

the wrong we do one another."

She laughed, and for the first time there rang in her voice a note of

the old harshness.