"Nev--il! Nev--il! Are you there?"

The voice was Leslie de Winton's; and Sinclair felt the small shiver

with which his wife released herself.

"Go now. They are wanting you," she said hurriedly, as the call came

again.

"Yes, yes--I'm coming," he answered impatiently. Then, to her: "No

quiet time, after all, I'm afraid. But remember, little wife, you're

not to brood about me. I'm in no hurry to share you with anyone; and

quite content with things as they are."

He was gone; and she stood alone beside the open casket, his final

reassurance sounding ironically in her ears.

Nine months married, and neither thought nor desire of fatherhood had

been his! That which was, for her, the sum and crown of marriage,

was for him a mere side-issue. He was in no hurry for that greatest

gift it was her one desire to give. With no Indian husband could it

have been so. It was the first time she had compared him thus with

one of her own race; had recognized with piercing clearness that on

this supreme subject they must needs speak and think in different

tongues, spiritually; be their hearts never so close entwined. True,

the Hindu sees in his son not merely the torch of life passed on, but

the prime factor in that complex transaction, the future welfare of

his own soul. Yet even an English husband, for whom wife and son

have less of spiritual significance, must surely crave the certainty

of an heir to carry on his name; the more so when there are broad

lands and an ancestral home, that must otherwise go elsewhere----.

At this point memory flashed a paralysing sentence through her

brain--a sentence branded there six months ago, and lightly overlaid

with happier things: "A native mistress at Bramleigh Beeches!

Half-caste sons to carry on the name of which we are so rightly

proud----"

It was as though a scorpion had stung her. Could it be--that he, her

King, shared, even in a small degree, his sister's racial recoil from

mixed blood, even of the best? In the deep of his heart did he dread

rather than desire the price of possession? It would be like him to

feign jealousy of that other, sooner than let her guess----.

Dismay flowed over her like the waters of a cold and bitter sea. All

strength seemed to go out of her. Outlines wavered. She swayed a

little where she stood. And yet--she could not, she would not so

much as harbour the thought. Loyalty forbade. Nonetheless, did she

foreknow that the hideous thing would return again and yet again to

torment her, whenever the way of life was hard or the wheels of being

low.

Already it shadowed her joy in this great festival of

children-worship. And as she closed the casket two tear-drops

splashed the Baby image of Him on whom all things are threaded "as

gems on a string": that Blessed One, too preoccupied, it seemed, with

the troubles of the orthodox to heed the secret cry of her heart.

CHAPTER VII

"Life is stronger than a single soul."--HERRICK.

Rain and wind; wind and rain; rattling at blurred casements, lashing

and battering the patient trees.

Lilamani Sinclair, sick in body and soul, lay listening to the

unwearied rush and patter of it in the premature dusk of a February

afternoon; till it seemed as though the downpour beat upon her bared

nerves, and the wind blew chill through her heart. Now and again the

hard dry cough--born of that first cold and never quite

dispelled--shook her unmercifully, and drove shafts of pain through

her head. Otherwise she lay motionless, with closed eyes, acutely

aware of alternating cadences in the storm without; while images and

sensations drifted to and fro in her brain scarce coherently enough

for thought.

Nominally, she was resting in obedience to doctor's orders, enforced

by Nevil. But true rest implies peace of mind--a condition neither

doctor nor husband could ensure: and true rest had been far from

Nevil Sinclair's wife these many weeks. Morning and night she felt

unaccountably tired--mind, body, and soul; unable to feel strongly

about anything, even about the pictures, her one supreme link with

the artist and the man. They were nearing an end now; the last one

already on the easel; the private view fixed for the first week in

March. Rejoice though she might in this his great consummation, for

her it meant a break beyond which she could see nothing plain, save

that he must needs embark on others in which she would probably have

no share. And she--with no life of the Inside, and small taste still

for the mixed social life of the outside--how would it be with her

then----? Unless--unless----?

But no beacon of promise gleamed in that direction. Nor could she

hope and pray with the same whole-hearted fervour since the cruel

instant of illumination in her shrine. Loyally though she strove

against that haunting suspicion, the pain and dismay that had

engendered it still acted like a bruise under the skin. How long ago

it seemed, viewed across the grey stretch of half-hearted illness and

yet more half-hearted convalescence that lay between.

Yet, pain or no, that Christmas fortnight showed like an oasis in the

winter's uphill stretch of effort, that seemed to progress at the

rate of three steps forward and two steps back: effort to play her

part as Lady Sinclair, more especially at the dinner-table; effort to

ignore sudden sharp attacks of nostalgia; to still the mother-longing

with its attendant fear; to conquer her jealous hate of Leslie de

Winton and the seemingly established antagonism of Jane. For Nevil's

appeal had been over-long delayed; and though his wife religiously

kept her word, such shy tentative advances as she could bring herself

to make had, as often as not, passed unregarded. Nor were matters

made easier by a disturbing spell of friction between George and

Phil, which Jane shrewdly guessed to be less unfounded than it

seemed. That episode of the mistletoe had rather stimulated the

man's admiration than otherwise. But, since Phillippa had her pride,

and he his modern remnant of chivalry, Lilamani's name was tacitly

avoided by both. Lady Roscoe did not doubt for a moment that the

disturbance would fizzle out in time. Phillippa's reasonableness and

George's good sense were surety for that. None the less she hardened

her heart against the unconscious offender; and Lilamani's reluctant

hand knocked, almost unheard, upon a closed door.

Happily, after Christmas, meetings had been less frequent. The

obsession of the pheasant gave place to the obsession of the fox, and

the three carried the light of their countenances elsewhere. But

there seemed no evading the malice of the gods. Less of Jane brought

more of Leslie de Winton, who infuriated Lilamani by an almost

proprietary enthusiasm for a subject peculiarly her own. The

intrusion of Janes and Phils, Uncle Bobs and Aunt Julias was as

nothing to the renewal of an intimacy so clearly congenial to Nevil

that his wife could only keep the door of her lips and suffer the

more.

January and February had been months of strenuous work, interspersed

with Bohemian week-ends that had brought Mrs. Lunn near to despair.

But for Leslie weekends had not sufficed. While the Ordeal scene was

in progress she had frankly begged leave to stay "the clock round,"

and her critical, conversational presence in the studio had made

this--the crowning picture of the group--an ordeal indeed. Above all

things Lilamani enjoyed the atmosphere of quiet while her husband

worked. How could she lose herself in Sita and Sita's tragedy, as

she loved to do, while the slow, strong voice jarred on her nerves,

and the deliberate gaze brooded now on her, now on her lord? If the

physical energy of her sister-in-law had made her feel ineffectual,

how much more so did this artist woman's breadth and vigour of brain,

that matched and challenged the brain of the man; that also, in some

subtle fashion, made the things of the heart seem childish, the

things of the spirit shadowy and unreal. Worse than all, the dread

conviction grew in her that here was her lord's true mate of his own

race. Did he not guess it now--yet, at any moment, there might come

the knowledge that would wake him from his "foolish passion outside

control of judgment." And then--then? An end of Lilamani. That was

certain. She would not survive, by so much as five minutes, the

death of his love.

So passionate a drama of jealousy and pain at work within; and

without a smiling acquiescence that did not altogether deceive her

husband. At the week's end he had apologized, half in jest, for the

infliction, adding: "I know you're not quite in tune with Leslie; but

it's been a real help having her. I find her extraordinarily

stimulating. Always did."

And she--marvelling how he could stand so blindly on the threshold of

knowledge: "If help to your work, you must not trouble for me."

"I must and I do," he had answered gravely. "Though you did have

Ronald to balance things a bit!"

The words were ordinary enough to be scarce worth noting, save for

the veil of constraint, new as it was unwelcome, that too often of

late had hovered between them: so slight a thing, that natures less

sensitive had hardly felt it. The trouble was that neither seemed

able to brush it aside. Perhaps Lilamani had yet to learn that

overmuch self-suppression, however heroic, is good neither for man

nor wife, in the more equalized marriage of the West. She could and

did hide from her husband her remittent attacks of home-sickness, her

secret jealousies. But she could not altogether hide their effect

upon her spirits; and at this time an underlying sense of discord

jarred their daily life; saddening her, irritating him. For in the

last white-heat of inspiration the artist dominated the man; a

passing dominion essential to true creative achievement.

Now it was he who would fain have recaptured the conditions of their

life on Como; and behold a tired, listless Lilamani--at moments even

a little fretful; her inner self seeming to keep _purdah_ from her

lord. Small wonder if he gravitated toward the only other woman in

any degree able to supply his need. At this time all thoughts, all

interests that did not concern the pictures were apt to be ruthlessly

swept aside. Only deep down, even in the most strenuous hours at his

easel, lurked the ache of anxiety about his wife's health.

Her first winter in his country without a climate had been a

singularly unlucky one. A drenching November and open December had

given place to bitter weeks of black frost with interludes of snow;

and now February seemed determined to outvie March in the matter of

gales. That early morning escapade and the severe cold which

followed it had left seeds of chest trouble, unnoticed at the time.

The excitement of Christmas, following upon over-much zeal in Clara's

service, had culminated in a fresh chill. Pneumonia supervened; and

slight though the attack was, she had never quite rallied. Doctor

Ransome, fussy and good-hearted, if not a brilliant specimen of his

kind, wrinkled his brow in growing puzzlement over this child of an

alien race, who would have none of the stethoscope, obviously

resented his questions, and in secret watered the evergreens under

her window with his favourite tonic. His faith in that tonic was

invincible as his faith in the British Constitution; and seeing it

fail, he had muttered vaguely of hysteria and nervous depression,

change of air and scene.

This morning he had spoken straightly to Sir Nevil in his wife's

hearing, bidding him get her out of England as soon as might be, and

keep her out of it till spring's smiling treachery was overpast.

Lilamani's heart leapt at the words. She forgave the old man his

questions and his chest bogey forthwith. But the worried frown on

her husband's brow held her silent. Just at present, he had said,

leaving England was impossible. He would see what could be done.

Now, while she lay listening to the swish and patter without, their

talk came back to her, and a sudden conviction glowed in her like a

star. India--India! There lay the one certain cure for mind, soul,

and body. To her own home and people she could not go. But India

was a great land and a wide. The mere sight and smell and feel of

the country would instil new life into her veins. Only ten days now,

and her father would be with them for three little weeks. Then--if

they could all return together----! If Nevil would but allow----!

She started. His step was on the stair; his hand on the door. Now

for courage to broach her daring request. The coincidence of

inspiration and opportunity lit a spark of hope in her heart.

But at sight of his face it went out. The clear blue of his eyes had

the veiled, tired look not uncommon after long hours at his easel;

and the set of his brows bespoke irritation near the surface.

Listlessness flowed over her again like a Dead Sea wave; and she

waited for him to speak. He came close and stood looking down at her.

"Well, little wife, it strikes me you've been mooning up here quite

long enough. Rested--are you?"

"Yes. A little."

Disappointment lent an added weariness to her tone; and he sighed.

"Only a little. What's come to your natural sparkle, Jewel of

Delight? Sometimes I think you're overdoing the sofa business. Do,

for my sake, try and pull yourself together instead of drifting

limply like a bit of seaweed. You must know how it spoils everything

to have you lying here day after day, a mere shadow of your true

self. Here's the great end we've both been working for almost in

sight; and really sometimes it's hard to believe you care----"

"Oh Nevil--dear lord!" she broke in, her lips a-quiver. "Your heart

_must_ know, how I am caring. Only some days there seems no life in

me--for anything. You said once not ever to think--I am useless

wife. But now----"

"Look here, Lilamani--I've told you that's all nonsense, and you must

believe it. If you let yourself be hag-ridden by such foolish

notions, you'll end in becoming worse than useless."

"Oh, forgive! It is only--I am ill----"

He caught the appealing hands held out to him and knelt at her side.

"Yes. You _are_ ill, in some vague mysterious way. I'm hanged if

old Ransome seems to know what's wrong. Perhaps a specialist----"

She shrank into her cushions.

"No, no. Not any more doctor-people, please!"

"But, my dear, you must be reasonable. How can there be any peace of

mind for me till we get you right? And your father--what will _he_

say if he thinks I've married you only to kill you by inches----"

"He is too wise to think any such thing. He will understand how it

is difficult at first for Indian-born when all is so cold--so grey.

Oh Nevil----" the concern in his eyes gave her courage to speak.

"There is one thing that can make me a new Lilamani, better than all

doctors and medicines. It is--when father is going back to

India"--she caught her breath--"if--if we could only go too----"

"India--India?" he repeated the word in amazed iteration. The idea

was more than a surprise. It was a shock. It recalled too vividly

that one experience of the East which he had no desire to repeat. It

also awakened a new fear. His grasp on her hands tightened.

"Lilamani, tell me truthfully--is home-sickness at the root of it

all?"

He did not see that the question was a temptation hard to resist.

"If--if it is ... then _can_ we go?" she breathed, scarce able to

hold eagerness in check. But the set of his lips gave answer before

he spoke.

"My dear little wife, can you seriously ask that? Heaven knows it's

hard to refuse you anything, especially at present. But just

consider--with this great house on my hands---- I thought I made my

position pretty clear to you before Christmas."

"Yes--yes." She bit her lip to steady it. "Only I was hoping--money

from that picture----"

"Most of it went to help clear the mortgage. The rest to meet

Christmas expenses and the cost of starting our little exhibition."

She hesitated; then spoke without looking up. "But for such a thing

as this--my own money----"

"You've been spending that too freely, as it is, on Clara's

children--to say nothing of your own expenses. You don't realize

what it costs to dress a Lilamani in mother-o'-pearl and night-sky

_saris_, still less what it would cost to take her out to India----"

She sighed. "Then--then father? He would so gladly----"

"My darling, you are tantalizing yourself to no purpose," Nevil

checked her with a touch of impatience. "India's impossible--for a

dozen reasons. You must just be plucky and accept the fact."

"You mean--you do not wish----"

She could get no further. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and sobs

shook the whole of her slight frame.

In a moment her husband's arms were round her, his lips on hers. "My

little one--my poor little one! Is it as bad as all that? Didn't

you realize, when we married, that most probably--you would never see

India again?"

"Y--yes."

"And did you mind so terribly--then?"

"N--no."

"Yet now--has England, and the whole life here, been such an utter

failure?"

"No--no!" she clung to him, quivering. "Only--I could not help for

hoping. But--if you do not wish----"

"I wish above everything to get a well and happy Lilamani back again.

I'm so hedged around at present. But the first minute it's possible

we'll get you out of this."

Her light fingers caressed the hair at the back of his neck.

"Perhaps--Egypt?"

"No. I think not. Give me time to turn things over in my mind, and

I'll do the best I can." He kissed her again with lingering

tenderness. "Now I'm going to dry your eyes, and carry you down to

the studio. I've done with Rāma for the present, and

Broome's there waiting to lift you out of the flames." Broome had

volunteered his services as fire-god, to the delight of both. "It's

an ordeal by water that my Sita has to win through--eh?"

She laughed and nestled closer, while he dabbed her eyes with his own

handkerchief.

"Your Sita is not worthy for going through fire. She is not enough

heroine-made."

"Quite enough to suit her husband! So she need not trouble her

foolish head about that. Now then--ready?"

"Yes. But--will he have to hold me in arms again?"

"Once more. I haven't got all the lines right yet. You mustn't

mind. He's as old as your father."

"I am willing for anything to help your pictures. It is only ... I

don't like ... other kind of arms."

"No more do I. We're agreed on that point!" And he gathered her up

in his own.

Outside the studio door she insisted upon being set down; and Broome,

looking keenly from one to the other, decided that a plain fact or

two must be submitted to Sir Nevil Sinclair before they parted that

night. Ronald had gone home after another dream-week in the paradise

that held his Peri. But not until the Peri had been carried off to

bed did the novelist get his chance.

Nevil, returning to finish the evening in the studio, found his

friend standing squarely on the hearth-rug; pipe between his teeth,

smiling determination in his kindly eyes.

"Light up, my son, and don't use language if I touch you on the raw,"

said he without preamble. "Broome on the Responsibilities of the

Married State may prove worth listening to."

"Oh, Lord!" groaned the other, only half in joke. "Responsibilities

were never my strong point. How the deuce have I been shirking them

now?"

Said Broome, shifting his pipe to the corner of his mouth: "Thy

question bewrayeth thee. It tacitly admits a prick of conscience.

As for mine--the Puritanical thing will give me no peace till I've

said my say."

"Fire away, then."

Nevil sank into a chair and opened his cigar-case with a leisured air

of detachment less deceptive than he believed. The shock of that one

word, India, and his wife's unusual paroxysm of grief had so deeply

perturbed him that he had no mind to speak of it even to Broome,

unless in self-defence.

"Well?" he queried, looking up and throwing his match into the grate.

"_Is_ it well, Nevil--there's my question? Is it well with that

exquisite, porcelain wife of yours, who has sacrificed all that

really counts for her on the altar of marriage, and has given you,

not herself only, but"--he waved a hand round the studio walls--"a

new kingdom? Have you asked yourself yet, point-blank, how it seems

likely to work out, this unique experiment of translating a love-bird

from the tropics into a British barn-door fowl?"

Nevil frowned. "No. I've not," he answered bluntly. "First,

because I've no use for a British barn-door fowl; second, because

even the amount of adaptation that is essential must take time.

Though I admit things don't look as promising as they might."

"My impression exactly. The obvious dissonance with Lady Roscoe is

more than unlucky. And how about the good folk of the neighbourhood?"

Nevil shook his head.

"I thought not. Between religion and the Island Pharisee business

there's little hope, in the country, for a human product not measured

in our own workshops and cut out to pattern. London's another

matter. Fish of every shape and colour have a chance in her seething

ocean of nationalities and types."

"Yes. If the fish can live out of water. In London, I believe

Lilamani would die outright."

The older man brooded a moment over that statement. Then: "Hasn't it

struck you, Nevil," said he, "that the same process may possibly be

going on here--at a reduced rate?"

Nevil Sinclair started and paled as if under a blow. "Good God,

Broome! you don't think----?"

Broome's hand closed firmly on his shoulder.

"Forgive me, old man. I didn't mean to give you such a shock. But I

see now it's just as well I spoke. You've been blinding yourself to

the obvious; metaphorically bidding everyone and everything stand

aside till the last touch is laid on, the white fervour of

inspiration spent. Oh, I know it all down to the ground, my dear

chap. I've sinned in much the same fashion myself before the birth

of every blessed book that bears my name. The Lord our God is a

consuming fire, jealous of every impulse but the impulse to

create--and all the rest of it. I don't deny we're bound to feel

that way if the divine spark is alight inside; and our belongings too

often pay the price. But yours is a very special case, Nevil. Your

love-bird of the tropics is dependent on you for almost everything,

in a way that no English girl would be; and ... well ... May I say

what I think?"

Nevil nodded, without looking up; and, while Broome spoke on, the

formation of a glowing cave between two blocks of coal photographed

itself upon his brain.

"I think," said the novelist with a quiet deliberation not devoid of

feeling, "that of late your wife has grown too light and too

transparent even for a porcelain Princess. Dr. Ransome must know

better than I can the state of her lungs. But it's my belief that in

spite of a devotion to yourself that is little short of worship, she

is eating her heart out, in secret, for the light and warmth and

colour which are quite as essential to her health of mind and body as

fresh and cold water to yours. I may be wrong----"

Nevil looked up quickly, decision in his eyes.

"Quite the reverse, old man. You're most confoundedly right."

He paused; shirking further speech; then went resolutely on. "I

suppose you saw that she seemed rather upset when I brought her down.

Well--she had just told me, for the first time, that the one certain

cure for her would be a spell of India. Seems she had a notion we

might go out with her father. I can't tell you the shock it gave me

to know the craving was there."

Broome brought his teeth together with an audible click. "And you

refused?" he asked quietly.

"My dear chap, could I do anything else?" Unstrung by the

recollection, he rose and paced the room. "Look at my position.

This exhibition just coming off. The estate on my hands and that

millstone of a mortgage round my neck!"

"Quite so. Yet--on the other hand, there's your wife's health in a

precarious condition. The trip she craves would be a certain cure;

and the house difficulty's not insuperable. You could let for the

summer."

"At a month's notice! And--the deuce of it is I've not the smallest

wish to leave the old Place just now. I never guessed what a grip it

would get on me once I handled it myself. But that's beside the

mark. The truth is"--he swung round sharply, hands plunged in

pockets--"there's a bigger obstacle behind. I never meant to speak

of it to a living soul. But you've such a confounded way with

you----!"

For half a minute their eyes held silent conference. Then Broome

spoke.

"Well--what is it now? Sit down, my son, and keep yourself in hand."

Nevil obeyed to the letter; and it was Broome who paced the room with

meditative deliberation, finally coming to a standstill before the

first picture of the nine--Sita clinging to her lord, imploring

devotion in her gaze.

When all was said that Nevil Sinclair could bring himself to say, of

Egypt, of that nameless alienation, and the struggle to win free of

its insidious taint, Broome came slowly back; laid an extinct pipe on

the mantelpiece, and sat down opposite his friend.

"I see," he said gravely. "And--in a measure--I understand. Poor

Lilamani! It's a serious complication. You're really afraid a

repetition of that might wreck everything?"

"I'm hanged if I know. I can't picture such a thing. All I'm

certain of is that--as yet, I shirk the risk, for both our sakes."

Broome nodded feelingly. "But the fact of her ill-health remains.

If it can't be the East, it must be the South, and that speedily."

"Yes. She has my promise."

"Good man. As for the Beeches, a highly desirable 'let'--for whose

respectability I'll go bail--is sitting not ten feet from you at this

moment."

"By Jove, Broome! D'you mean it--honour bright?"

"As bright as you please! Name your terms."

"Oh, as to that--a nominal sum----"

"Nonsense! I intend to pay a good fair rental. Since, by some queer

accident I managed to catch the long ear of the public, I've been

raking in more than one man has any right to possess."

"Glad to hear it. As for me, I'd be thankful to hand over to you at

any price, instead of to a stranger."

"So I thought! And the sooner the better. Why not Antibes? Miss

Hammond's there. Get her father to go too; and you add to the sweet

influences of light and warmth the greater one of happy association."

"Capital! We'll tell her to-morrow. I want to see her looking

different before Sir Lakshman arrives----"

"M--yes. It would be advisable."

Something in his tone made Sinclair eye him closely. "What are you

thinking now?"

"Merely wondering what he will say to it all. When fathers love as

he and I do their intuitions become extraordinarily keen."

"I don't know about saying. But if he really thought she was

unhappy, I believe he'd be capable of knifing me straight."

At that Broome's big laugh broke out. "No fear, my dear boy! But

melodramatics apart, I anticipate some plain speech between the two

of you if she looks like this. In fact, the way things are going

now, it strikes me you will soon have to consider seriously how far

you are prepared to vindicate your great experiment by meeting

sacrifice with sacrifice on a bigger scale than you have contemplated

yet. It's the ultimate test; and in your complicated case, may prove

a severer one than you realize."

Nevil watched the roof of his glowing cavern crumble. Then he drew a

long breath. "I'm beginning to realize it now," he said slowly; and

the coals fell together with a soft crash.

Broome reached for his pipe. The artist rose, and going over to his

unfinished picture stood before it lost in thought.

CHAPTER VIII

"Love leaps higher with her lambent flame

Than Art can pile the faggots."

E. B. BROWNING.

The seventh of March in the year of grace 189- stands out as a

red-letter day in the annals of the house of Sinclair. For on that

day Sir Nevil--long tacitly written down failure and renegade from

historic traditions--made triumphal entry into the kingdom of his

choice. Not the type of kingdom precisely befitting a Sinclair.

But, before the day was out, Jane, Lady Roscoe, could perceive that

her brother stood on the threshold of a unique success. And success

is the golden calf of the West; worshipped indiscriminately whether

it spring from an inspired group of pictures or a patent hair-wash.

All practical arrangements for the private view had been made by

Cuthbert Broome, that Sinclair might not be obliged to leave his

wife, or bring her to town a moment sooner than need be. It was

Broome also who offered house-room to Sir Lakshman, Martino, and

Leseppes; Nevil and Lilamani feeling bound--sore against their

will--to accept the dutiful invitation of Jane. On such an occasion,

her brother's rightful place was in Grosvenor Square. Mr. Broome,

whose unwarrantable offer to "rent" the Beeches still rankled, was

welcome to do all the rest. The which he did. A small gallery in

Leicester Square had been chartered; Ramayāna pamphlets

printed, and invitation cards dispatched to a picked number of

artists, art-critics, relations, and friends, bidding them to the

said Gallery, where Sir Nevil and Lady Sinclair would be At Home,

from three to five.

They were At Home there now. Eighty or so of London's social and

intellectual elite sauntered, paused or sat about in groups; the

low-toned murmur of talk merged in the subdued harmonies of an

invisible string band. Those who had ears to hear discerned in the

music--carefully chosen by Nevil himself--a subtle fitness to the

epic drama present before their eyes: a drama that evolved from the

heart of a nation not yet arrived at self-consciousness; and for near

two thousand years has retained its power to mould the characters and

ideals of a race still unpractical enough to set soul before body,

heart before head.

Straight out of the thin, fugitive spring sunshine and keen wind, the

unresting clamour of London streets, they had stepped, these complex

men and women of the West, into an atmosphere charged with the

idealism and the passion, the subtlety and barbaric simplicity of the

ancient East. Individuals, egoists, products in varying degree of

the modern competitive struggle for existence, they found themselves

drawn into the core of India's greatest love-story, builded upon a

twofold ideal of duty, fulfilled to the uttermost; of the Queen to

her lord; of the King to his people. For although no magic of line

and colour could portray the mutual recrimination, the spiritual

tragedy of the aftermath, Lilamani had recounted it in the pamphlet,

writ by herself, in her own quaintly characteristic English;

desiring, above all, that none might miss the typical Eastern

culmination, wherein every silent hour of Sita's undeserved

banishment speaks, louder than words, the wife's acquiescence in her

husband's will.

Along the western wall were ranged six full-size panel pictures, the

more arresting for their simplicity, for the entire subordination of

effective superfluities to one supreme idea--the proving, through

ordeal upon ordeal, of a pure and noble soul.

One only, of all the six, held more than two figures; and in

each--whatever its outstanding qualities of emotion, workmanship,

colour--the eye rested inevitably on Sita's face. Sita regally

arrayed, pleading for her rightful share in the fulfilling of the old

King's vow: Sita (Princess no longer) in primitive coat of bark,

stepping with subdued elation through Dandak forest; Rāma,

the path-finder, going before; Lakshman, soul of chivalry, following

after. Sita, alone in the forest hut, amber-robed and lotus-crowned,

awaiting the brothers' return; all her listening, longing soul in her

eyes, while the stealthy ash-smeared figure creeps near through the

dusk. Sita, terror-struck, yet fighting for dear life, in the

ogre-king's embrace. Sita prostrate in the fiend-haunted garden, "a

pool with all her lilies dead": and at the last Sita, revived in

heart and hope, bestowing on the monkey-general her token of

unsullied wifehood--the jewel that was her father's wedding-gift.

In these six scenes, linked together by Lilamani's printed record one

phase of the Epic stood revealed; while upon the eastern wall three

larger and fuller canvases portrayed the culmination of Sita's

proving after the defeat and death of Ravān. In these three

scenes--poignant, terrible, triumphal--played out against the living

background of Rāma's victorious army, Nevil Sinclair proved

himself master of the more complex grouping, the larger theme, while

yet the queenly, appealing figure of Sita remained supreme. Here,

too, the subdued colouring of the earlier pictures gave place to an

appropriate effulgence of barbaric splendour, an orchestration of

regal harmonies, red and purple and gold.

It was the first of these three--the meeting of husband and wife

before two assembled hosts--that drew and held the elite of the art

world among Sinclair's guests. Here, murmurs of criticism, or

appreciation, died into the higher tribute of silence; and here

again--for all the fine portrayal of Rāma's mute

denunciation and Lakshman's pain, the tense expectancy of waiting

hosts--it was the figure of Sita, royally dight in crimson robe and

wreath, that stirred heart and imagination and checked the futilities

of speech. Unveiled for the first time,--proud yet visibly

shrinking--she stood, one woman alone in a world of men, with eyes

for none but Rāma; and in those eyes the dawning of a tragic

recognition that here was no kingly welcome, but insult such as no

true Indian wife could endure and live.

"Believe it or not, _mon ami_, that one canvas alone would suffice."

It was the voice of Leseppes, low and confidential, in Sir Nevil

Sinclair's ear; and grasping his arm, the great man drew him away

from the charmed circle of silence. "Did I not tell you--I, myself?

I am not one that looks through tinted glasses. What I said in

Cadenabbia--you remember? 'You shall stir the blood even of those

colossal Philistines, your own countrymen.' See them now before that

picture--even those that have all the dictionary of art in their

finger-ends. Proof enough that you have moved something bigger than

the brain. Your father-in-law is satisfied, h'n?"

"Yes. Oh, yes."

The restraint of the Englishman was strong upon Nevil in this his

hour of atonement for the locust-eaten years; and the Frenchman as

much elate with his own perspicacity as his pupil's justification

thereof.

"_Bein_! How else? To me it seems that within this hundred feet or

so of space you have presented the very essence of that India to

which you owe your inspiration, together with your wife."

And it was so. The critical eye of the Frenchman saw plainly that

here was no mere triumph of anecdotal art, scorned by an

impressionistic age. Sinclair had imbibed the spirit of the

Ramayāna through the spirit of his wife. In these his

pictures, as in the Epic itself, the story, with all its subtle

analysis of motive, its barbaric opulence of colour, served as

background, merely, for the proving and revealing of a woman's soul,

triumphant in purity and renunciation: twin kernels of the Hindu

faith.

Not the pictures alone, nor the haunting minor music, but the whole

long room, was imbued with the glow and glamour of the East. Costly

rugs and hangings, quaintly carven chairs inlaid with ivory, on the

temporary dais where Lady Sinclair received her guests, had come over

from India with Sir Lakshman, that the harmony of the subject and

setting might be complete. By Lilamani's wish gold was everywhere

the prevailing colour: and she herself--in the midst of sober black

coats and the half tones of early spring--flashed like a living ray

of sunlight: all gold, from veiled head to shining feet; save for the

aquamarines on her breast, and the gleam of sapphire and emerald in

the minutely-jewelled border of a _sari_ the most regal she had ever

worn.

For the sake of Nevil and that dear father, from whose keen insight

little could be hid, she had made a last determined effort to shake

off the paralysing listlessness that clouded her clear spirit and

hung like a weight upon her limbs. In a measure will had triumphed.

But the strain and the supervening excitement had taken their toll of

her; so had three days in London, though no longer an ochreous

nightmare of lost souls.

To-day her heart veered between overwhelming shyness and overwhelming

pride. The unnatural brightness of her eyes, the dusky glow in her

cheeks, illumined her like a lamp. Yet Sir Lakshman, listening

courteously to Lord Roscoe's polished turns of phrase, found eyes and

mind wandering incessantly to the small regal figure in the

throne-like chair. For him, no passing illumination could gloss over

the fact that she was thinner. The fine lines of nostrils, nose, and

brow were just perceptibly sharpened, and purplish brown shadows

ringed her eyes. Was she well? Was she happy? Or had this notable

young Englishman, with the acquisitive instinct of his race, taken

all--devotion, inspiration, fame--and given little in return? To

such questions her lightly-closed lips would vouchsafe him no answer.

That he knew. In eleven months of marriage his child had become

woman, and he must needs accept the veil between. None the less,

before returning to India, he would make very sure----.

"It is remarkable--most remarkable, in a poem of that era, the

mingling of purely epic and barbaric qualities with an insight, a

psychological subtlety peculiarly modern----" Lord Roscoe's

well-bred voice at his ear reminded him that now was not the moment

for anxious brooding over the daughter of his heart.

For the moment she sat alone, glad of a brief respite even from the

friendly volubilities of Martino, who had gone off, on compulsion,

with two brother-artists to give his opinion on a disputed point.

For an hour and more she had endured an unceasing flow of small talk,

compliments, bewildering intellectualities and genuine enthusiasm

that set her head buzzing and left her hands uncomfortably cold.

Here, in this vast, seething London, always agape for some new thing,

was no sign of Bramleigh's nervous shrinking from the unorthodox, the

unusual. Artists, art-critics, minor planets of the social system,

all were eager for more than a passing word or two with the living

Sita, who, until quite lately had been "a genuine _purdahnashin_."

Glad for Nevil's sake, she had yet found this avalanche of

appreciation a little overpowering. It had left her small chance of

talk with her real friends, whose joy in Nevil's achievement almost

equalled her own.

From her too-prominent seat of honour she sought them out in the

thinning crowd below. Broome on a centre seat, beaming alternately

at Morna and Christina, who talked eagerly across him. Clara, in the

flowing grey gown that was her own gift, nervously pleased and

important, clinging to the arm of Rāma, who obviously longed

to escape. Lilamani did not guess how the longing concerned Sita and

a cup of tea; nor how Clara, in her foolish pride, had been

chattering of two sonnets discovered in her son's rooms, that also

concerned Sita, minus the cup of tea. Nevil she spied with Leslie de

Winton, in the group Martino had joined, before the terrible scene of

Sita's abduction; considered by some of the younger men the finest

thing in the room. Lady Roscoe, on the other hand, pronounced it

repulsive and unnecessary; tried not to be aware of it, and failed

altogether. Look where she might, uncomfortable sensations assailed

her. The "native element" jarred; and there was far too much

primitive, unvarnished emotion in the air to suit her taste. It was

more than satisfactory, of course, to feel that at last, by some

mysterious accident, Nevil, the impossible, stood on the threshold of

distinction. But satisfaction was marred by private worries; and the

whole atmosphere of the place set her Philistine bristles on end. A

set of vigorous hunting pictures would have been infinitely

wholesomer and pleasanter, infinitely more in keeping with the name

of Sinclair, than this theatrical farrago of abductions and ordeals

by fire!

She had avoided the dais so far; but Lilamani caught sight of her

now, in sober purple and ermine, standing with Phillippa near the

Hanuman scene, deep in earnest talk that clearly did not concern the

picture before them. Once or twice they glanced in the direction of

George, who stood at the opposite end of the line, hands clasped

behind him, gazing abstractedly at the upturned face of Sita pleading

with her lord.

To Lilamani, George still seemed little more than a friendly big dog

to be patted and smiled upon because he belonged to her husband; and

George absorbed in a picture was a contradiction of terms. She

amused herself now with speculating on the nature of his thoughts

that must surely have drifted miles away. It did not occur to her

that he was absorbed in no picture, but in the face and figure of a

woman rendered almost living by the magic of Nevil's brush.

Possibly her thought drew him, as thought will. Certainly he turned;

and seeing her alone made straight for the dais.

"Great luck catching you like this even for a minute," he said with

his Sinclair directness. "I thought I should never get a look in.

I'm nobody to-day!"

"How nonsense!" She smiled indulgent reproof as at a child. "You are

just so much 'George' as other days!"

"But you're not a bit the same Jewel. In that ripping frock you look

more than ever like a Princess out of a fairy-tale. And I tell you,

that first picture's a stunning portrait. I must get old Nevil to

have it photographed for my benefit. Now--do come and have a cup of

tea."

"Very well."

But as she rose, behold Jane confronting them, with the militant

gleam in her eyes that Lord Roscoe had learned to respect.

"One minute, George. Phil's had enough of this. She wants to

exchange some books before going home."

George's scowl emphasized the likeness between brother and sister to

a remarkable degree.

"And I'm one of the books she wants to exchange--eh?" he asked, with

a gruff attempt at a laugh. "Phil's quite capable of facing a

librarian without an escort; and I didn't suppose she'd be keen on

mine to-day."

"My dear boy, don't talk nonsense. Go and call a hansom. She'll be

ready in a minute."

"Oh well--if it's General Orders----! But I don't suppose she's in a

mortal hurry; and I want to give Jewel some tea."

"George----!" Lady Roscoe remonstrated sharply under her breath;

then checked herself and stood on guard, while two cups of tea and

two sandwiches were swallowed in comfortless haste.

Lilamani, puzzled beyond measure, was thankful when George put his

cup down and gripped her hand.

"Sorry I'm obliged to run off like this; and a thousand

congratulations on a stunning good show. I couldn't have believed

old Nevil had it in him. But he's had all the luck going, this last

year."

His eyes lingered on her a moment in open defiance of Jane. Then he

was gone: and, in the silence that fell, Lord Roscoe's even voice

could still be heard drawing abstruse comparisons between Homer and

his contemporary, Valmiki, hermit and singer, who enriched the

national life of India by the story of Rāma and his Queen.

Lilamani spoke first.

"Anything gone wrong--with George?"

"Yes. He's making a fool of himself all round. But we can't talk of

that here."

Lady Roscoe scrutinized her sister-in-law for a few seconds, and

decided afresh that her dress was far too conspicuous for good taste;

then she added in the tone of schooled friendliness Lilamani knew too

well: "You're beginning to look fagged, my dear. If you want to be

fresh for the dinner to-night, and fit for travelling to-morrow,

you'd better come straight home in the brougham with me. All the

best people have gone. Kit can very well play hostess for Nevil's

artist friends, and give you a chance to lie down before you dress.

I know you're glorying in it all. But be sensible, for once, and

come away with me."

Command lurked beneath the conciliatory flow of words, and

Lilamani--puzzled and a little reluctant--felt too tired to resist.

"I am quite ready for being sensible for once!" she said, forcing a

smile. "If he is really not needing me."

"Come and ask him yourself."

"Very well." Crossing over to Sir Lakshman she touched his arm. "I

am going now, Father--for a little rest."

"Very wise, my child. You look to need it," he answered, laying a

hand over hers and deliberately searching her face. "We meet again

soon--for this great dinner!"

And she passed on. The great dinner--given by Broome--was to be a

private one at the Carlton; a gathering of choice spirits to give

Nevil and his wife a hearty "send-off" and drink long life to the

Ramayāna Exhibition.

They found Nevil in the thick of an argument with Martino on the link

between motive and art. He commended Jane's wisdom, while privately

wondering at it. Lilamani wondered also; the more so that her

over-sensitized nerves divined hostility in the air. But not until

they reached the drawing-room door and she turned to escape did the

true inwardness of Jane's manœuvre come to light.

"Don't run away at once, Lil. I want a talk with you first," said

she; and Lilamani winced, as always, at the anglicized mutilation of

her name.

"I came home for rest," she objected, without her usual spirit.

"Well, I won't keep you long. But it's important. There's tea in

there. One never gets any worth speaking of in a crowd like that."

Clearly resistance was useless. When Jane meant to have her way she

usually had it. Nor did she waste time in beating about the bush.

An arm-chair and a cup of tea were the limit of her concessions to

Lilamani's weakness. Her speech was straight and plain.

"Of course it's about George. You asked what was wrong. But you

must know as well as I do----"

Lilamani started, and set down her cup.

"I? How do you mean?" she asked blankly, and Jane's vexation flashed

out.

"My dear innocent! I suppose you're aware that he admires you?"

The frank statement fired Lilamani's cheeks. "I know he is very

kind--almost like real brother. Only sometimes he ... he troubles me

with his eyes. But if you are so bad of heart to think ... because

of that ... he..."

"For goodness' sake, child, give me a chance to speak. George is a

gentleman and a Sinclair. I'm not suspecting him of anything more

serious than a passing fascination for a new type; and that's hard

enough on Phil. But she's most reasonable; most sensible. And

though Nevil says I 'make friction,' I'd have let things alone if

George hadn't been fool enough, yesterday, to talk airily about

running over to Antibes for Easter. Phil says she told him plainly

that if he went their engagement would be at an end; and they've

scarcely spoken since----"

"But Jane----! How to break so sacred thing?"

Lady Roscoe waved aside the futile question.

"This isn't a treatise on racial customs. Still--you can take it

from me that, in England, we've good sense enough to consider an

unsuitable marriage much more disastrous than a broken engagement.

But this one is not unsuitable; and it shan't be broken off if I can

help it. Women may be over-plentiful. But not girls like Phil, plus

five thousand a year."

Lilamani did not quite see the connection of this last. The whole

subject jarred her fastidious sense of reserve; and she could not be

expected to perceive that it really was rather trying, for Jane, to

find this insignificant Hindu child upsetting the whole of her sacred

Family.

"I hope there will come no such trouble," the Hindu child murmured,

with a touch of constraint.

"Hoping's no use. I want facts. Has he mentioned this last bit of

folly to you? Have you encouraged the idea? Perhaps--with your

queer 'sisterly' notions, you've been asking him to come----"

"I--oh, what are you saying? What shall I, who am wife, have to do

with coming and going of--other men?" She rose abruptly; pulses

hammering at her temples and in her throat. "With us it is insult to

make any such suggestion; and for--for other kinds of foolishness,

how can _I_ help----"

"That's for you to answer. I know _I_ could"--which was true enough.

"No right-minded woman fascinates men promiscuously without knowing

it; and if you go on at this rate, there'll always be trouble."

"At what rate?" Lilamani murmured blankly; and Jane, extinguishing

her with a glance: "Don't ask childish questions, but listen to me.

It's not only George. There's Ronald writing sonnets to your

eyebrows--or some such foolery--by way of being violently original.

But Nevil's to blame for that. I'm only concerned for George. If he

talks to you of coming out----'

"He will not talk," Lilamani retorted with sudden anger. "He is not

like you think. Only friend. But now all that is spoilt, by your

saying such things. I do not wish even to see him----"

"My dear Lil, do sit down. Heroics are futile and bad form."

Jane spoke more placably, perceiving she had gone too far. But

Lilamani shook her head.

"I am tired, and do not wish to hear any more. If you have more to

speak you can tell it to Nevil----"

"Nevil, indeed! much use talking to Nevil to-day about mere human

beings! He'll be hopelessly in the clouds."

"Better that, than to be in such ugly kind of mud as you have pushed

me in now."

"What nonsense, my dear. That's just your Eastern trick of

exaggeration. I'm a practical woman of the world; years older than

you; and when I see things going wrong in the family all on your

account, I have every right to speak. If you were not so spoilt and

so unreasonable, you would take it in good part, and Nevil need not

be bothered at all. But really you two haven't an ounce of common

sense between you!"

"For that I am glad and thankful from my inmost soul," Lilamani made

answer with heartfelt fervour of conviction; and was gone.

Alone in her room, she pressed cold fingers against her throbbing

temples and flaming cheeks. Then flinging herself on the sofa, she

lay chilled and rigid with burning head; her thoughts a chaotic

mingling of Epic India, Nevil's triumph and her own renewed hatred of

Jane. Foolish? Perhaps. But her health was far from normal. It

had been a day of strain; and That Terrible's sacrilegious hand upon

her sanctities seemed more than she could endure.

At the approach of Nevil's footstep she sat upright--waiting.

From the rhythm of it she pictured him bounding up, schoolboy

fashion, three steps at a time; and his face, when the door opened,

confirmed her vision. Dazzled by the day's triumph he saw nothing,

for the moment, but the radiant figure that throughout had been the

lodestar of his eyes and mind.

"Rested already? Good!" was his cheerful greeting. Then he came

quickly forward, closing the door.

"Oh, my Sita Dévi--it's been a supreme day! And I've come to lay all

my laurels at the feet of the Queen. You won't allow me near you in

public. Now I claim atonement to the full!"

Laughing, he knelt before her and bowed his head upon the hands that

lay in her lap.

At the touch of them he started and looked up. "Darling--you're

ice-cold. And your cheeks are on fire. I thought Jane took you home

to rest."

"Yes. But first she was telling me cruel things--to me like

insult--how I am making trouble in your family; breaking betrothal of

George----"

"_You_? So that was at the bottom of her sisterly concern. I might

have known! That engagement was of Jane's making. If anything goes

wrong it's her look-out. You--indeed! Was she unkind?"

"No--no. Only she is not understanding how, for Hindu wife--oh,

Nevil! Rather would I go back in strictest _purdah_--even from

men-folk of husband's family----"

A fit of coughing shook her; and he, tenderly masterful, laid her

back among the cushions, covering her with a quilt.

"You stay there and shut your eyes _and_ your mind!" he commanded,

with a lightness he was far from feeling. "Leave Jane and George to

me; and don't give the matter another thought. That's _hukm_--d'you

hear! I want you to be at your very best to-night. Sir Lakshman

seems bothered about you as it is; and we don't want fresh trouble in

that quarter---- Oh, confound it all!" he broke out desperately.

"She might have let you alone, to-day, of all days, that ought to

have been one of unclouded happiness----"

"But King of me"--she clung to his hands--"I am happy in spite of

all. Heart and spirit are singing in the air like birds. Only this

stupid body, so strangely without life--like a flower faded and

thrown in the dust."

"A very brilliant and beautiful flower," he said softly, and passed a

slow, soothing hand over her from shoulder to ankles. "It will never

be thrown in the dust while I'm alive."

Her lids fell almost before he had ceased speaking. Yet still he

stood over her, watching intently.

With the swift approach of sleep the whole delicate face relaxed its

tension. Lips drooped at the corners, shadows under the lashes

seemed to darken; and the curve of the cheek was unmistakably less

perfect than on the day he sketched it first: significant trifles to

the eye of love.

A haunting remark of Broome's returned to trouble him. "Of course I

know you must wait. But the deuce of it is that you can't bargain

with the ghostly sisters to 'go slow' while an insignificant human

completes an insignificant fragment of his life's work."

Bargain or no--there remained a fundamental reliance on the Great

Unseen, strangely intensified by eleven months of union with this

Hindu wife of his: and leaning above her now the man's heart breathed

a broken prayer that she might not slip away from him on the

threshold of achievement.

Then he went softly out, bent on speaking his mind to Jane, with a

directness that for once should outrival her own.

CHAPTER IX

"O greying of my dawn, suspiring into rose: O grey veils of dusk,

that obscure the tender flushing of my dawn!"--FIONA McLEOD.

At a small deal table, set across the oval window of her third-floor

bedroom, Audrey Hammond sat writing. It was the selfsame corner room

where they had all drunk tea with Signor Martino in the far-off

beginning of things. And now--only four days ago, they had been

shocked and saddened by a letter from Broome announcing his death.

It transpired that sooner than miss Nevil's hour of triumph, he had

come straight from a sick-bed, in defiance of doctor and sister. And

within two weeks the most murderous month in the English calendar had

done its work.

To-day, on the deal table that had once been sticky with his paints,

Audrey Hammond's books and papers, and a photo or two, were set out

with mathematical neatness. Her hand moved steadily over the ruled

page. The lines of her intent face had been graven deeper by a

year's leave that had brought her little of holiday or enjoyment,

much of struggle and pain. She had believed the pain dead and

buried, the emotion that caused it atrophied by stern disregard of

its existence, until she met Sir Nevil Sinclair and his wife at

Antibes Station a week ago. The night or two at Bramleigh had not

been achieved: and on that day of arrival she had discovered, as do

all who suffer, that though love and pain be buried never so deep,

they die hard--if they ever die at all. For are they not twin seeds

of the tree of life? And a seed, though it come not to fruition,

remains, for an incredible time, a vital spark in darkness.

Three days from now, the s.s. _Arabia_, outward bound, was due to

leave Marseilles, with Sir Lakshman and Audrey Hammond on board.

Only three days. On the whole, Audrey would be glad when they were

over; still more glad to take up regular work again. She was at work

now, completing an article on nerve crises for a semi-scientific

magazine; her fair hair neatly coiled and brushed back as of old, a

deep furrow of concentration between her brows. She wore a blue

flannel dressing-gown and her bare feet were thrust into slippers.

For it was early, very early: a dawn of lucent stillness was stealing

over Golfe Juan after a night of sudden tempestuous wind and rain. A

last lowering mass of storm-cloud low in the east threw all the bay

into gloom. The near hills above Cannes loomed purple-violet. Yet,

away in the north, day triumphed on far-off ice-fields and glimmering

peaks.

But Audrey Hammond's eyes looked inward rather than outward. The

storm had banished sleep and left her at the mercy of importunate

thoughts: importunate, because--when not definitely in harness--they

were apt to fall back upon those two; the sole human beings who had

ever deeply and lastingly disturbed her equipoise, or, in her own

phrase, knocked her off her centre.

Lilamani, wife and budding woman, was still for her "the child" of an

earlier day; lovable and gently intractable as ever behind her

delicate, impenetrable veil of reserve. This last Audrey understood.

She knew enough of the Hindu wife not to expect the sort of

confidences that might have been bestowed upon her by an English

girl-wife of nineteen. On the whole she was thankful to be spared.

But she was not altogether happy about Lilamani; and she suspected

that Sir Lakshman was not happy either. More than once he had asked

her searching questions about lungs and nerves; and Audrey, being

honest by nature, had not quite succeeded in setting his heart at

rest. As regards individual suitability and devotion the marriage

was a manifest success; manifest enough to humble the pride of the

girl who, in secret, had believed herself the more fitting mate for

this man of her own race. But in Lilamani's case the secondary

considerations of family and country counted for much. How had she

fared with Lady Roscoe, and her large, yet, in a sense, narrow circle

of sporting and political friends? What of the neighbours round

Bramleigh, and her position as mistress of a great house?

Little could be gleaned from Lilamani. She grew restive under

questioning, and Audrey drew her own conclusions. In the matter of

her health, this doctor-woman had less need to rely on question. Her

quick medical sense detected incipient lung trouble and nerves

overstrung either from repression or strain; and conscience urged her

to speak a word of warning to Nevil before the last day. No easy

task, even for one who had scaled the steeps of stoicism. And yet

another vital discovery made speech more difficult still.

Lilamani's shadowed eyes, slightly sharpened features, and her

fainting fit on the night of arrival, indicated a hope that would

probably readjust altogether her state of body and mind. She

wondered whether the child realized things yet; wondered still more

what, precisely, was Nevil's attitude toward this, the crux of

intermarriage between East and West. She approached Lilamani's

husband discreetly, even in thought. Since she could not think of

him dispassionately her scrupulous conscience bade her refrain from

thinking of him at all. But on this particular point she had always

held strong opinions common to the majority of her race. Her own

feelings apart, this, the inevitable consequence, had been her main

argument against the marriage: and, at the time of the engagement, it

had seemed to her quite in keeping with Nevil, as she knew him, to

snatch impetuously at the desire of his heart, without looking--or

perhaps without choosing to look--the more complex issues frankly in

the face.

But Nevil, as she knew him then, had seemed little like to develop so

swiftly into the restrained and purposeful Nevil of to-day. The fact

that a year of marriage had wrought more perceptible change in the

man than in the girl-wife eleven years his junior was, for Audrey,

the most unique and interesting factor in the whole situation. It

had been natural to wonder what would be the effect on Lilamani of

marriage with an Englishman and close contact with the ways of the

West; and lo, it was he who had taken colour from her. His

hyper-civilized brain and soul appeared to have acquired not

inspiration only, but a new grip on all things, from contact with the

elemental strength and passion underlying her surface pliability.

Would Nevil, man and artist, have so developed, so triumphantly found

himself, after a year of marriage with her--Audrey? On that

inadmissible question she sternly slammed the door; and fell back

upon her former wonderings. Did the child realize----? And did

he----?

One thing was certain. For all her devotion, she had something very

much on her mind. Something that concerned her husband; and, in her

present state, brooding was the worst of evils. She would be certain

to exaggerate trifles, to distort simple facts. If only she would

speak----! Invariably Audrey's thoughts came back full circle upon

that paralysing "if"----

And, unguessed by her, the same refrain was, at that very hour,

disturbing the mind of Sir Lakshman Singh, who sat sipping his early

cup of tea by the open French windows of his first-floor room. Far

better even than Audrey Hammond did he understand and appreciate the

wifely loyalties and reticences of his child. But he argued that her

case was exceptional, that his own responsibility, in regard to the

great experiment, privileged him to fuller assurance than he had yet

received that she had not bought her heart's desire at too great a

price. Finally, he knew that he could not leave her again

indefinitely till his doubts had been set at rest. Not her reserve

alone, but her manner of evading question, drove him to mistaken

inferences, which might have been dispelled by more open speech.

This brief reunion, so ardently longed for, had proved singularly

disappointing on the whole. He had spent ten days at Bramleigh and

five in London; had spoken little and noted much that gave him food

for anxious thought. In spite of immense satisfaction at her vital

share in Nevil's success, and his frank recognition thereof, the

father's heart--jealous for his child's happiness--foreknew the

dangers inherent in overgenerous draughts of the headiest wine on

earth; the fatal human tendency to lose sight of the giver in the

gift. And when sons came to them--how would it fare with her then?

Would the brave words spoken in the glow of desire hold good in face

of concrete facts? Nevil was an excellent fellow and singularly

wide-minded: not a doubt of it. Yet Sir Lakshman wondered very much.

But when all was said the one imperative anxiety overshadowed every

other--her health. Too well he knew the heavy toll paid by his race

for the doubtful privilege of culture; the tale of promising young

lives cut short by the treacherous grey winters of the West. Her

small dry cough and smiling listlessness pierced his heart. They

worried Miss Hammond too. That was plain. Something more radical

was needed than two or three months on the Continent. A winter in

India might very well work wonders. She need not come to Hyderabad.

He would mention it to Nevil. If need were, he would insist.

Soothed by the prospect of definite action, he emptied his teacup and

lit a cigarette. Most certainly he must find or make opportunity for

a frank talk with his son-in-law before the day was out.

Lilamani came down looking a shade more fragile than usual. She had

slept badly, she said, on account of the storm; and Sir Lakshman had

a moment of quiet unreasoning annoyance as he glanced from her dusky

pallor and shadowed eyes to her husband's clear-skinned virile face.

Health has, at times, a knack of appearing unsympathetic, even when

it is not. For, though Sir Lakshman did not guess it, Nevil's secret

anxiety matched his own.

In the middle of breakfast he was called down to the telephone. An

artist cousin of Martino's, passing through Nice, begged him to come

over for the day. He accepted; and returning to Sir Lakshman's

sitting-room, announced his intention and his train. The Indian

mentally relegated his straight talk to the after-dinner hour; a

propitious hour, when the dinner is likely to be a good one; and the

faintest possible shadow clouded Lilamani's face. Her wakeful night

had culminated in a decision; and she too must wait till evening for

a chance of speech.

"You don't mind my running away, do you, dear?" Nevil asked later

when they had a moment alone. "If you lie down this morning, you may

get back some of the sleep you lost. And you've no lack of good

company for this afternoon. I don't doubt Sir Lakshman's blessing me

for giving him a clear field!"

"Yes. That is possible!" she answered lightly, though her smile had

the shadow of constraint that had troubled him for a week or more.

Questions as to what was wrong produced the invariable answer: "Not

anything," and immediate change of subject. Some fanciful bogey no

doubt; and he had decided not to worry her till sea and sunshine had

more nearly wrought their perfect work. "Go for a drive out

Esterelle way, you two," he suggested.

"Yes. That I would like--better than all."

But the lost sleep was not recaptured: and when Sir Lakshman

unwittingly echoed Nevil's suggestion--in the hope of a confidential

talk, that should determine the tone of to-night's arraignment--she

baffled him by including Audrey in the plan. It was not the first

time she had eluded him thus, since coming to Antibes; and whether

she did it of set purpose he could never tell. For once he attempted

protest.

"I was not meaning Miss Hammond. Do you want her specially to-day?"

Her grave smile hinted at reproach. "Not more than other days.

Only--think how unkind, Father mine, leaving her in the cold. And

she would so much enjoy to come."

She did enjoy it; more than Sir Lakshman, who left conversation

mainly to the women, and carried on a vigorous argument with Nevil in

his own mind.

After tea Lilamani slipped quietly away without a word to either:

and, as sunset drew on, Sir Lakshman wandered out alone to the rocky

headland, raging inwardly against the invisible Something that

debarred him from heart to heart communion with his Jewel of Delight.

The very name he so loved seemed a mockery now, in view of her pale

cheeks and trouble-haunted eyes. Enforced repression, and a sense of

being baffled at every turn, stirred the primitive passions that burn

beneath the surface impassivity of the Rajput, and wrought him to a

mood of mind ill-befitting the delicate task of approaching an

Englishman on the subject of his wife.

But mere movement and the nameless influences of the hour were not

without effect; and he decided to make the round of the Cap before

going back to his room, where he hoped to find a vanished Lilamani

awaiting him in the dusk. He had intended that she should share his

stroll, and enjoy with him, as of old, the evening pageantry of sea

and sky. But the Gods were against him every way; and their glory

manifest in the heavens mocked him rather than consoled. He walked

on, bathed in it, while the chill wind of doubt blew through his

heart. Could it be that he had done wrong in granting her the thing

she craved? If so, well--it was conceivable that he might forgive

himself; but never the man who had tempted him to her undoing.

He had reached the Cap now. Fretted and caressed by the darkening

waters, it lay before him empty of the usual sunset strollers, who

were over at Cannes waging a Lenten Battle of Flowers. No threat

to-night of coming storm. The wind was sinking with the sun, and all

the west one still, clear lake of gold barred with flakes and strands

of dusky purple cloud. Deeper purple still, the carven headland of

the Esterelles brooded darkly between a bronze-green sea and a molten

sky. Beautiful past question: yet without her vivid, peculiar joy in

it all, mere beauty seemed to lack significance.

Suddenly Sir Lakshman stood still. He was not alone after all.

Some distance ahead of him, under the lee of a myrtle bush, sat a

dark figure, huddled together, as if the head rested on the hands.

But the arms were not visible. Their owner was cloaked and hooded.

The father's heart quickened, as he moved a step or two nearer. Then

he knew. She had come out after all; and had preferred to come

alone. A trifling detail; yet it hurt the man as she had never hurt

him yet.

At the sound of his step she sprang up so swiftly that he hurried

forward, half-fearing she would evade him even now.

"Lilamani--my child!" he cried, slipping an arm round her. "What has

come over you that you should run away like this, deserting your old

father when so few days are left for being together? Why shut the

door of your heart against me--unless that you are unhappy----?"

"No--not that, Father mine. Only some foolishness--through not being

well. But you must please believe--whatever comes, your Lilamani is

happy--happy----"

And by way of confirming her statement she fell sobbing on his breast.

For a few minutes he soothed her without speech. But the doubt and

trouble that seethed in him could no longer be repressed.

"A strange fashion of happiness, Light of my Life. I know you would

not speak lies to me. Yet neither will you speak all the truth. You

would not even drive alone with me to-day, when I so greatly

wished----"

"To-morrow, dearest--to-morrow," she assured him, choking back her

sobs. "We will ride on the sea, like old times. You and I only.

Nevil will understand. Then we shall talk more freely of--of some

things----"

"And why not to-night?" he asked, increasingly bewildered.

She shook her head without lifting it. "Please not ask. Please

understand."

The old childish formula smote him, and he held her closer.

"Take me back now," she pleaded; and still supporting her, he led her

along the path. "Not any more Lilamani-talk," she commanded,

smiling. But the doors being once opened the trouble of his mind

must out.

"Do you imagine one moment I shall make criticism or discussion of

your husband?" said he, quietly disregarding her behest. "Am I not

Hindu also, and you the daughter of my begetting? But I cannot

return to India, seeing you in this state, and knowing my child of

the sun must again endure the grey cold of English autumn and winter,

so fatal for our race." He felt the small irrepressible shiver and

went rapidly on: "No daughter of Rajputs will cry out for trifles.

But, from my own heart, I know it is telling on you more than you

will confess. So much was changed by the sudden death of Sir George.

That I understand. Also success and many friends will make Nevil

more inclined for living in England than before. But I shall suggest

that he must bring you to India, where he can make further study of

Eastern subjects on the spot----"

"No, not say that," she broke in with such decision that he came to a

standstill and looked searchingly in her face. "Lilamani--what is

your reason? More mysteries? Or is it possible--you do not

wish----?"

"Oh, Father--Father!" In the mingled reproach and longing of that

cry from her heart, he had all the answer he desired. But she added

swiftly, lest he take self-justification for consent. "We have

spoken of that already; and he says not possible. Too far. Too much

money, I think--he does not wish----"

"Leave all to me, child. There is duty of husband to wife, as of

wife to her lord; more especially in the West. Leave it to me."

His decision outmatched her own; and she, between secret longing and

innate instinct of submission to the masculine note of command, said

no more.

CHAPTER X

"A man's whole victory over Fate begins with a question."

PERCIVAL GIBBONS.

Except as regards the menu, dinner that night, in Sir Lakshman's

former sitting-room, could not be reckoned a notable success. To

Audrey it recalled an earlier dinner, after the storm, when she had

counted the moments till she could escape. But to-night she was less

concerned for herself than for "the child," whose eyes suggested

tincture of belladonna; the more so that two dusky patches of carmine

burned in her cheeks.

How much did she know of her father's intent? A few words from him

before dinner had apprised Audrey of his wish to secure half an hour

with Nevil alone. Lilamani would no doubt retire early, and he would

regard it as a favour if she left at the same time. The man was

clearly too intent upon his purpose to leave anything to chance; and

Audrey, as was natural, fell to wondering what he meant to say, and

how Nevil would receive it, when she ought to have been coining talk.

Of the four, Nevil only was not obsessed by the sense of something

impending. Yet even he gleaned a hint of it from his wife's face,

and the fact that she wore her mother-o'-pearl _sari_. He had not

seen it for more than a week; and his eyes were not so "deaf for the

language of colour" as they had been a year ago. He knew now that

she never wore that _sari_ in deeply-troubled or despondent moods,

and took its reappearance for a sign that the mercury was rising

within. No doubt she had dismissed the hidden worry that hung

between them like a veil; and he was glad.

But, Lilamani apart, his natural serenity was clouded by much talk

with Carlo Martino of the dead Andrea, who, in spite of mortal

frailty, had seemed always too vividly, too passionately alive to go

down into the Great Silence, even for a space.

Though caring little for money, and rarely speaking of it, he had, it

seemed, left more behind him than a distinguished name. But no form

of will had transpired, beyond a half-sheet of foolscap, folded and

sealed, bequeathing two incomparable sea-pieces "to Sir Nevil and

Lady Sinclair (Lilamani) for grateful remembrance of one summer,

not-to-be-forgotten, on Lake Como." Nevil Sinclair had felt no shame

of the tears that ached behind his eyeballs when he looked upon that

half-sheet of paper, henceforth to be counted among his most

priceless possessions.

To-night the voices of the living were lost in the clarion call of

that dead friend who had bidden him cease from making glowworms with

his eternal cigarette, and from choking with earth that "spark from

the fire of God," which had since leapt up triumphantly in flame.

To-night his art, and all it stood for, shone full in his eyes as

when one looks toward the rising sun; while against the radiance of

it men and women moved as silhouetted shadows. But for this, he had

surely lifted before now the veil, woven of worshipful, fanciful

tremors, that had shut him out of late from the inmost sanctuary of

his wife's heart.

Thus it befell that the thoughts of all were more active than their

tongues; and soon after coffee had been served, Lilamani rose to go.

She was tired, not having recaptured that lost sleep, she explained

vaguely to whom it might concern. Then she kissed her father with a

heart so full of her husband that she missed the meaning pressure of

his hand. In passing Nevil, her eyes said: "Come. I have something

to say"; and he nodded a smiling assurance. He himself had much to

say of Martino; and decided to join her when he had finished his

cigar. A stroll in the moonlight, if she were not too tired, would

suit his mood.

Audrey went out with her, smiling to think how little Nevil guessed

at collusion; and at Lilamani's door they stopped.

"Am I to come in?" Audrey asked. Her voice had a gentler note than

of old.

"Not to-night, please, dear Audrey. I have reason."

She lifted her face to be kissed with so childlike a gesture, that

Audrey, guessing the "reason," felt a queer contraction of heart.

"You will never get back lost sleep or lost health, my dear," she

said, kissing the flushed cheek, "if you bury your troubles and brood

over them. There's been one in your eyes all this week."

"Not trouble."

"Well, then--something else. Can't you tell Audrey? You said once I

stood in place of Mataji----"

For a second or two Lilamani confronted those quiet questioning eyes.

Then a hot blush submerged her even to the temples.

"I believe you know quite well, without any telling," said she,

studying the tip of her gold-embroidered shoe.

"I believe I do," Audrey answered gravely. "And--is that all?"

"That is all--for now." And Audrey kissed her again.

"He doesn't know. She is afraid to tell him," was the older woman's

thought as she went slowly down to the central hall. "And he----? I

wonder----!"

His wife was wondering also, as she stood alone on the threshold of

her open French window, watching a tawny-golden moon disentangle

herself leisurely from the last of the tree-tops, and dissolve as

leisurely from orange-golden to the amber glow that puts the stars to

shame. She had been wondering now for a week and more without

arriving at any definite conclusion, save that, for her father's

sake, she could put off speaking no longer. Absorbed in her own

anguish of uncertainty--her unreasoning self-torment over the

unavoidable, intensified by ill-health--she had not realized, till

to-night, how wrong it was to keep silence when half a dozen words

might set her father's mind at rest.

And he--her lord--himself the giver----?

That there could be any shadow of doubt on such a matter, was to her

Eastern heart a calamity almost beyond endurance: her crowning

punishment at the hands of her outraged Gods. Joy in the knowledge

that at last the great consummation was hers, had been strangled at

birth by the old serpent suspicion--scotched, not killed--that, in

the deep of his heart, her husband might be hoping to evade the full

price of possession; the stigma of passing on the Sinclair title and

estates to a son who had not pure English blood in his veins. Not

unnatural; that she must needs admit. Pride of race was an instinct

she could very well understand. Yet, in such a case her heart cried

out that he had no right--no right----

A dry sob shook her; and covering her face she sank into a low chair,

set always near the threshold.

Before they left Bramleigh she had known how it was with her. But at

that moment the fulfilling of her first gift had absorbed him to the

exclusion of all else. Better wait, her heart had whispered, and

tell him after--at Antibes, where all things would speak to him of

those early days when father, family, country had weighed as feathers

in the scale against his great love and desire of her.

But, alas, waiting gave time for thought; and thought bred a host of

fears that grew and whispered and distorted themselves with a

fiendish versatility; speaking always in the voice of That Terrible,

whose unforgetable sentence was the germ whence they had sprung. Had

this great hope of motherhood come sooner, no doubt she had accepted

it more simply and sanely. But now, ill-health and strain and long

brooding on the one idea inclined her to see all things a little out

of their true proportion, till at moments she wondered if she would

ever find courage to speak at all. Well she knew that, if her fears

were grounded, not all his chivalrous tenderness and reticence could

blind her to truth. From such knowledge he could not shield her--he

could not! One look into his eyes would suffice. And if--if----!

Sooner death for herself and her gift, than that he should not deem

it the crown of all, was her desperate thought. With a shuddering

sigh she let fall her hands. Oh, when--when would he come? His eyes

had said he understood; and with each moment of waiting courage waned.

Her room adjoined their dining-room, and the steady murmur of voices

through the wall recalled that earlier day, when her fate had hung in

the balance. Suddenly the voices grew louder. Was her father, in

sheer love for her, making fresh trouble on her account, just when

she had that to tell which might be deemed the greater trouble than

all?

A torment of restlessness took hold of her. She rose and paced the

room, every sensitive nerve of doubt and suspense strained almost to

breaking-point. Then she stood still again upon the threshold, and

saw how the moonlight seemed magically to be drinking up the shadows

along the wide path to the sea. The brooding calm of it all drew her

with the potency of a command. Again, as on that still morning of

frost, sudden longing seized her to be out there alone in the heart

of silence. Surely there, if anywhere, peace and courage would

revisit her soul. At least she would escape from those distracting

voices that might go on for another hour.

When nerves and imagination are overwrought, impulse seems the voice

of inspiration. The garden called her. She would go. Already she

was fastening her cloak with unsteady fingers, thankful for the mere

relief of movement after the nervous tension of waiting.

Outside in the passage she started and stood still. Through the

sitting-room door the voices sounded clearer; Nevil's raised this

time in manifest remonstrance. Again, as on that night at

Cadenabbia, all thought of right or wrong was blotted out by the

imperative need to know; and again came punishment, sharp as the

stroke of a sword.

"My dear sir, I'd infinitely rather not," she heard Nevil say, with a

touch of impatience. "I don't think you quite realize what a big

sacrifice you ask of me. Last year, as I've explained, my position

was utterly different. But now--with so many new interests opening

up, to lease Bramleigh Beeches and practically live abroad----!"

Lilamani heard no more. She had no business to hear. His anger at

Como came suddenly back to her. And clapping both hands over her

ears, she sped like a thing pursued, down the shallow staircase,

through the empty public dining-room, out into the night----

And the two in the sitting-room, guessing nothing of danger to her

they loved, from tension of waiting and nerves at strain, continued

to weigh her fate in the balance, even as they had done a year ago,

in that very room, on a moonlit night of March.

Nevil's wish to join her, after a brief concession to politeness, had

been increased by a vague sense of disturbance, almost of antagonism,

in the air. Too well he knew that Sir Lakshman had cause for

anxiety; nor did he look to part from him without rendering some

account of his stewardship. But to-night, between thoughts of

Martino, desire of his wife, and an inspiriting review of his

exhibition in _Le Temps_, by Leseppes, he was not in the mood.

Moreover, he had all the Englishman's distaste for interposition,

however legitimate, between man and wife.

But as he rose Sir Lakshman put out a detaining hand.

"You will spare me another fifteen minutes, Nevil. There is a

matter, not yet freely spoken of between us, that has been on my mind

all day."

Politely repressing a sigh, Nevil sat down again and prepared to

light a cigarette. "Very well, sir; if it won't take too long.

Lilamani's waiting up for me, and she's tired."

"That I know too well. And it is because of that--because every day

she is seeming a little more tired--that I must ask you plainly,

before leaving--is your heart satisfied about her? Mine is not."

Nevil frowned thoughtfully at his empty coffee-cup, recalling his

talk with Broome. This man had twice the right to speak; and yet...

Nevil felt perversely restive under the Indian's look and tone.

"She is in a very poor state of health," he answered with studied

quietness, "or we should not be here. Are you implying anything

else?"

"No need to waste time in implying. My child's welfare and happiness

are more than my own. I am troubled--uncertain about many things;

and only straight talk will serve."

Nevil inclined his head. "You shall have straight answers, I promise

you. About her health I am as worried as yourself. It's the one

grave drawback----"

"And you think to make it right by a few months on the

Mediterranean?" the other put in quickly. "That is where you

mistake. I know that specialist of London said no lung trouble yet.

But unless there is great care, great improvement of health--I tell

you, Nevil, it will come. It is your country's backhanded fashion of

encouragement to pioneers of our race, especially when very young and

over-early developed. Being myself responsible for permitting this

marriage, how shall my conscience not feel disturbed in seeing her

thus? No criticism of you is in my thought, you understand. And

yet--you cannot know as I do----"

"I know quite enough to make me confoundedly anxious," Nevil declared

with a touch of heat. "You did permit the marriage, thank God; and

for her sake I've left England and my Place at a moment when I

particularly wanted to be on the spot. What more would you have me

do? You must consider that I am an Englishman, with peculiarly

strong ties binding me to the country----"

"That I do consider. I also consider that you are husband of a woman

outside the ordinary. Though her father, I think I have right in

saying there are not too many of her quality in India or otherwheres.

For love of you, she is facing many difficulties. Is it good to make

them greater than must be? When we spoke of such things in this same

room one year ago, you said, from your own impulse, that difficulty

of climate need not count, because you would be willing to live

chiefly abroad. But now----"

He turned out his hands, Eastern fashion; and Nevil Sinclair leaned

suddenly forward, a spark of fire in his eyes.

"You infer that I have gone back on my word, sir?"

"My dear Nevil, I infer no such thing. But in justification of

myself I repeat only what you said."

"Yes. I did say it. And I meant it. But how on earth could I

foresee such big changes in so short time? Then I was an amateur

artist; a cosmopolitan Bohemian, with no taste for loafing at home,

and no very urgent duties to keep me there. Now my duties are

obvious and imperative: my father's place to fill as best I can, and

a big, heavily-mortgaged estate to keep going, as far as possible on

the old lines. What's more, I have grown to love the Place in a way

I never thought possible. As for my work, I'm an amateur no longer,

but an acknowledged artist--of promise--if no more----"

Sir Lakshman raised his hand. "Consider one moment, Nevil, in

speaking of that last. It has been my pleasure and pride to see that

no one is more ready to acknowledge how much of your so rapid success

is owing to Lilamani herself. Ask your own heart then--does it

square with your British sense of fair play, that you reap all

benefit of these changes you speak of, while she must pay all the

price?"

"Of course not. Surely you know me better than that."

"So I was imagining," the other answered with his grave smile. "And

in such a case you will listen fairly to what I shall say. A couple

of months here will not make Lilamani fit for facing your English

autumn and winter again so soon; and your friend Broome, if willing

for a longer lease, can surely be trusted to look after your

interests as if they were his own. Why not, then, leave your estates

in his care--I do not say for always; but for a term of years, that

you may be more free----"

"My dear sir," Nevil broke in sharply, "I'd infinitely rather not. I

don't think you quite realize what a big sacrifice you ask of me.

Last year, as I've explained, my position was utterly different.

But, now--with so many new interests opening up--to lease Bramleigh

Beeches and practically live abroad----!"

"Not even for the sake of bringing greater health and happiness to

that wife who has made, for love of you, a sacrifice bigger than

you--not being Eastern--can ever understand?"

Sir Lakshman drove home each word of his plea with a quiet, forcible

distinctness, that did not fail of its effect. Nevil Sinclair

extinguished his cigarette stump, and for several minutes considered

the pattern of the carpet with profound attention. The Indian,

determined to gain his point, found encouragement even in such

negative acquiescence.

"No harm, but rather benefit to your art," he went on, exchanging the

forcible note to one of persuasion, "from some years spent in other

lands than England. And since you have done so well with Eastern

subjects, you will be the more able to combine closer study for

yourself with the light and warmth that are so needful for this child

of the sun you have taken to wife. Better than all, give her a year

in India, Nevil----"

Lilamani's husband looked up quickly. "No, not that, sir. Not

India--yet."

From the moment Sir Lakshman began to speak he had known it was

impending. Yet the actual word came as a shock. So also did his

abrupt refusal to the man who had believed victory in sight.

"And why not India?" he asked, up in arms at once for his own

country. "Surely----"

"Please don't think me unkind or unreasonable, sir, or take my

refusal amiss. I can't explain myself. But you must accept my word

for it that India's out of the question."

As if to clinch the matter he rose, braced his shoulders, and going

over to the open door stood there in a long silence, while the

opposing forces of passion and ambition, pride of possession and

worshipful devotion to her through whom he had found himself, clashed

within him mightily yet without sound. Gazing abstractedly down the

pearl-grey path of radiance that ended in the ghostly glimmer of the

Mediterranean, he noted, with vague interest, a dusky speck that

moved from one pool of shadow to another, far away, down by the

balustrade where the rocks fell sheer to the sea. That this moving

speck concerned him, even remotely, he did not dream. Unthinkingly

he saw it vanish into the last of the shadows; and straightway forgot

it altogether.

Sir Lakshman, wondering and waiting in a pained suspense, never

removed his gaze from the significant-looking figure in the doorway.

If not India--what of the first proposition, unanswered so far?

The question was almost on his lips when Nevil Sinclair turned

abruptly and spoke.

"You're right, sir. Absolutely right. For the present, at all

events, Bramleigh Beeches must stand back. There are difficulties,

of course. It's a matter that can't be fixed up in five minutes.

But I shall not change my mind. So you can set yours at rest."

Sir Lakshman let out a breath of relief. "The Gods be praised! I

have not believed in you without good reason, Nevil. And I am the

more thankful for your decision because--not through any word from

her--I have a thought that more than her health is concerned."

Nevil nodded. "Yes--yes. I admit things have been difficult--for us

both, in many ways. Surface things--that time will set right; but

still---- With me, as you are aware, her nationality simply doesn't

count. She's herself; and God knows a man need ask no more of her.

But I can't make others see with my eyes all in a moment----"

He broke off with a start. For the door opened suddenly; and Audrey

stood before them; a little pale, a little out of breath.

"Lilamani's not here?" she asked.

"No," from both men at once, and Sir Lakshman sprang to his feet.

"I looked in on her to say good night," Audrey went on. "But her

room was empty. D'you think--would she go out into the garden alone,

at this time of night?"

"Why d'you ask that?" It was Nevil who spoke.

"Only because I saw someone in a cloak pass along the verandah about

ten minutes ago. I thought no more of it till I found her gone. But

I know she has something very much on her mind; and she has such

fanciful notions about things--the moonlight and the sea----" Poor

Audrey floundered sadly out of her depth. "At any rate--we might ask

the waiters. It's possible----"

"Yes, indeed, it _is_ possible. And other things--worse things, are

possible as she is to-night."

Sir Lakshman, knowing the women of his race, spoke with a strange

vehemence quite unlike himself.

"Go, Nevil, go!" He gripped his son-in-law by the arm. "Bring her

safe back with you, or--by God----"

Nevil did not wait to hear the rest. He strode out, slamming the

door. That speck moving from shadow to shadow came suddenly back to

him; and remembrance of a certain night on Como laid an icy clutch

upon his heart.

Audrey followed him out, leaving the distracted father alone.

Hearing her footsteps, Nevil turned and confronted her.

"Something very much on her mind, you said?"

"I thought so."

"Did she tell you what it was?"

"Not exactly. There was no need. I understood." A pause: then, for

Lilamani's sake, Audrey found courage to add with deliberate,

unmistakable significance: "Nevil--can't you guess?"

Look and tone enlightened him.

"That? Good God!" he exclaimed under his breath--and was gone.

Audrey stood still for many minutes looking at the empty space where

he had been, wondering what that fervent expletive might bode for

Lilamani's "great gift."

CHAPTER THE LAST

"O very woman, god at once and child,

What ails thee to desire of me once more

The assurance that thou hadst in heart before?

For all this wild, sweet waste of sweet, vain breath,

Thou knowest, I know thou hast given me

Life, not Death."

SWINBURNE.

And out there in full moonlight, while the two men talked, the dusky

speck, seen of Nevil, moved restlessly to and fro in the open sandy

space, where no balustrade intervenes between sheer rocks and the sea.

Not even night and silence could baptize the soul of Lilamani

Sinclair with the dew of peace. Fleeing from her overwrought self,

imprisoned within four walls, she found only that self, and none

other, here at the edge of all things. None other: that was the

horror of it. But there came another; a ghostly presence, unseen,

yet acutely felt, close to her shoulder, whispering insistently at

her ear. And the voice was the voice of Jane. One half of her mind

knew it for a product of nerves and imagination; the other half

shivered, at the chill nearness of it, like a naked soul in the winds

between the worlds.

And through all these importunate unrealities of sight and sound,

Nevil's voice, with its note of remonstrance, sounded clearer than

all. "You don't quite realize what a big sacrifice you ask of me."

"Give up Bramleigh Beeches and practically live abroad----"

Oh, it was impossible, past thinking. How could that dear

father--always so wise--make fresh trouble on her account, when

already she had made too much in this great English family. Nevil

had told her nothing about his own bearding of Jane, save that she

need not distress herself over George, who could be trusted not to

fling away five thousand a year plus a woman who loved him. His

parting with her had been awkward and constrained; Jane's, frigidly

polite; and her own secret wish had been that she might see neither

of them again. They had rubbed the bloom off everything with their

"muddy thoughts." For that last encounter with Lady Roscoe, striking

sharp on her joy in Nevil's triumph--and she peculiarly unfit for

emotional strain--had produced upon her an effect out of all

proportion to the cause; dashing her rudely to earth, just when her

wings had begun to flutter afresh; obscuring the worth of her first

great gift in renewed sense of her own unfitness, not for wifehood,

but for Lady Sinclairhood and all it involved. Better for him by

far, whispered the malign voice at her ear, had he married his true

English mate--Leslie de Winton, who would have fulfilled the needs of

his art and of his great house no less; and--bitterest "and"--would

have given him sons of his own blood to carry on his distinguished

name.

Yet of his own heart and will he had chosen her--Lilamani; perhaps

without thought of sons or of great names. And now--when she told

him, would he be glad in his inmost heart? Or would he----?

Oh, what foolishness to torment herself thus for more than a week!

And yet--better uncertainty than a certainty she could scarce endure,

and live. Had she been capable of pouring out her heart to Audrey,

much had been spared her. But she was not so made; and it is written

that passionate love has a danger for natures over-sensitive and

reserved, unknown to the more volatile and expansive. Yet had her

sole lapse from self-imposed silence--one shower of tears

unexplained, one cry from her heart--wrought this gravest

complication of all.

Instinctively her Eastern womanhood rebelled against the idea that

her lord should change his way of life in any degree on her account.

And her father--himself a Hindu--what possessed him to suggest such

madness? Too well her heart knew the answer--love, sheer love, hard

pressed by secret fears. For a week or more, whenever his eyes

rested upon her, she had seen that love in them suffering dumbly, and

yet had not found courage for speech. Oh, coward, and self-thinking,

to spoil that dear father's last week with her, through fear of her

own pain.

And in two small days he would be gone. The great sea, that brooded

and murmured below among the rocks, would turn traitor, even like the

moon to-night, and take him from her. If only they two might go

also--they three, her heart whispered shyly, as she turned her steps

seaward and stood upon a grey slab of rock, gazing out across that

mysterious other-world which casts so strange a spell over dwellers

on land.

Softly still and dark, the wide waters slept beneath the stars, save

where moon-butterflies, in their thousands, made a shimmering path of

light. The eternal wonder and glory of it was new every morning

every evening. Yet to-night, for the first time, she hated it,

almost, that it divided her irrevocably from the dear, deserted

Motherland; that India, where no doubt could ever be how husband

would receive such news as she had to tell.

A verse from the English psalm-book she loved, spoke the cry of her

heart: "Oh, that I had the wings--the wings of a dove----!" And with

evil intent that voice at her ear whispered of strong unclouded

sunlight, the still lakes and feathered palm-fronds of her own

Hyderabad. The temple-bell, the familiar street cries and scents

assailed her with poignant vividness. And through it all, as through

a brilliant veil, she saw the chill grey skies of her husband's land;

the great house, the ubiquitous servants, the "needless ones" for

ever at her gates! By some fiendish freak of her distraught

imagination, Nevil seemed purposely to obliterate himself from the

picture----.

What did it mean? What madness had come upon her? Pressing her

hands to her temples she stood so, striving for self-mastery. And

lo, another voice--a voice of temptation, from the great sea itself,

"Here is rest. Here forgetfulness," murmured the lazy breakers that

lapped against her rock. Like Eve in the old, old legend, this

daughter of lake and plain, seemed to have hid a wave of the sea in

her blood. And now, wave called to wave, with alluring insistence.

A little foam upon the water; and the sea, that incomparable,

insatiable lover, would take into his deep heart the dream that was

her body, while the dream that was her soul passed on----

Startled, she stepped back a space; and the wonder grew and

strengthened in her--was this no temptation, but inspiration rather,

pointing the way, not so much to rest from her strange weariness, as

to freedom for him--her god among men? No passionate impulse now--as

on that night by the waters of Como: but the innate desire of her

storm-tossed heart to win happiness for him at any cost to herself.

Would not Sita, model of wifehood, have done no less? Sooner than

shadow of stain on her lord's name, or shadow of trouble on his

heart--an end of Lilamani----.

True, that night on Como he had been angered, desperate, hurt. Yet

now--how different! Then--she had much still to give. Now, it

seemed she had given all that he had need of--from her; all that she

and none else could have given. Must she then pass on; leaving that

other--(a red-hot shaft of jealousy here)--to give him those things

which were beyond her power----?

How should she tell? How think clearly when thoughts and voices

buzzed in her brain like angry bees----!

Stepping again to the rock's edge, she stood looking down into the

waiting depths--stone still, as one who listens for a signal.

But there came no signal: only the alluring whisper of the sea.

With a despairing gesture she flung out her arms; swayed a little

backward; then forward----

"Lilamani--Lilamani--where are you?"

The call reached her just in time. Almost miraculously she regained

her balance, and stood rigid, scarcely able to believe her ears.

The desperate note in her husband's voice stilled every tremor, every

doubt. It was the signal. The gods did not demand this twofold

sacrifice at her hands.

"Lilamani!"

The call came again, appreciably nearer.

"Come to me. I am here," she called back; a ring of triumph in her

clear tones.

Two minutes later he sprang, a flying shadow, out of the massed

shadows behind--

For almost an eternity, it seemed to her, they stood, locked

together; his pulses hammering, his breath coming in short gasps from

the speed of his race. The terror of that night on Como had been

his, increased fourfold by his lightning-flash of knowledge: and now

that he held her warm and living in his arms, emotion struck too deep

for any word of love, or of thanksgiving. He did not even kiss her.

It was enough that he held her, almost crushed her against him,

forgetful for once of her fragility. The pain of that mute

passionate embrace was pure balm to her heart; and when at last he

spoke, his voice had an under-note of sternness more thrilling than a

caress.

"I believe--I was only just in time?"

"Yes." The word was a breath merely.

"You really would----?"

"Oh-h, not say it!" She shuddered; and he gripped her closer. But

the note of sternness deepened.

"Lilamani, when I left Como last year, you swore to me, by--the most

sacred of all things, that this madness should never come back.

How--dare--you break your promise?"

"Oh, Nevil! I promised--for then. Not thinking beyond. But now--so

different. I am no more needed for Sita; no more making sister of

you seem like murderer. I am only making too much trouble in your

family, your home. And to-night--passing the door, I stopped--I

heard----"

"_What?_"

"You were saying--true enough, how can you give up Bramleigh Beeches

and be living abroad, because of me. Much too big sacrifice----"

"Think a moment, little wife. Did I say 'too big'?"

"N-no. You said 'what a big----' But, dear lord, it was madness of

my father to speak such a thing. It is not possible--not right--that

for one small woman such great sacrifice shall be made."

"Not even when that small woman"--his lips were close to her ear--"is

to be the mother of my son?"

At that word, heard for the first time, she drew a soft breath of

rapture.

"How--how did you know?"

"From something Audrey said--I guessed."

"And--you are wishing--that son, truthfully, in your heart?"

"I am wishing him truthfully, with all my heart."

A long pause, filled with the whisper of the sea; tempter no longer,

but prophet of peace. Then she--taking courage in both hands,

determined to know all: "Nevil, have I been hurting my soul with pain

and doubt for nothing? Did you wish him--just so much--from the

first?"

Freeing a hand, he pressed her head against his shoulder.

"Lilamani--if there is to be an end of doubt and pain between us, you

must have the truth," he said quietly. "I did not wish him--just so

much--from the first. For some time I simply put away the thought.

I had you. That was enough. Then--when we got home to the Beeches,

I began to realize--well, how much I was my father's son, after all.

It was a bad minute for me, little wife; and it came just when things

were so discouragingly difficult. You remember?"

"How shall I forget?" she spoke quietly as he; all her quivering

sensibilities held in leash. "And you were wishing--no children?"

"Not that. Never that. I thought--if we had daughters----"

"O-oh!" Her low sound of dismay was Eastern to the core. "And since

when--were you feeling different?"

"Since Christmas Eve. When I saw you that night, worshipping that

other Nevil, who was no son of mine, a rage of jealousy flamed up in

me; and I knew--not quite then, but afterwards--that no narrow

prejudice of race could come between me and the need to see you so,

with a son who should be yours and mine."

"You are not wishing him daughter now?" she murmured in an ecstasy of

content.

"No indeed. Shall I tell you just how I see him?"

"Please tell."

"You have given me a new spirit of understanding in so many things,

my Sita Dévi; and in this one above all. Six months ago I confess I

shrank from the idea of a son handicapped by the stigma of mixed

blood. But now--you being his mother--I refuse to admit the stigma.

I see him as one who will have the strength of his handicap, as one

doubly endowed with the best that two great races can give--the

spirituality of the East, the power and virility of the West; one

whose destiny it may be to draw these mighty opposites nearer

together by his own intimate love and understanding of both. Is it a

good vision you have given me, beloved?"

She drew in a deep breath.

"Glorious past telling. But it is not I that gave. It is your own

so big heart, and----"

"Hush--listen again. There is more---- You remember I told you once

India was impossible for us?"

"Yes?"

He heard the thrill of eagerness in that whispered question; and had

a fleeting instant of hesitation before committing himself

irrevocably to the inspired impulse of a moment. Then he burnt his

boats.

"Well--I had no right to say that. Nothing but my own selfishness

stands in the way of our going out there--later on. Next time your

father comes home we will go out with him--we three. For your sake,

and for the sake of all your inspiring love has given me, I promise

never again to grudge India her share in the heart of my son."

And she, laying both hands upon him, looked up at last--her face a

beatific vision, in the full light of the moon.

"Husband of me--you are ready for doing all this, only because

of--your Sita Dévi?"

"Only because of my Sita Dévi," he made answer gravely. "But I also

ask a promise in return. Never--while you live--must you let

to-night's madness conquer you again."

"No--no. I promise for always in the name--of him that shall come

after."

And stooping, he sealed that promise with his lips. Suddenly, the

wonder of it all, the incredible change in heart and hope and

outlook, swept over her with the force of a breaking wave.

"Oh, I am not deserving!" she cried out, half pushing herself from

him. "All these things you will do, only for your little wife; and

I--I thought, I feared--oh, I have been a wicked, doubting Lilamani,

this long time. But now--now----"

Swiftly she hid her face against him; and once more, as on the day of

betrothal, the deeps of his manhood were stirred by her passionate

murmur: "Live for ever, my lord and my king----!"

THE END