The other Doctor said nothing. It was all that he could say.
Then he remembered that Dumoise had passed through Simla on his way from
Bagi; and thus might, possibly, have heard first news of the impending
transfer.
He tried to put the question, and the implied suspicion into words, but
Dumoise stopped him with--"If I had desired _that_, I should never have
come back from Chini. I was shooting there. I wish to live, for I have
things to do ... but I shall not be sorry."
The other man bowed his head, and helped, in the twilight, to pack up
Dumoise's just opened trunks. Ram Dass entered with the lamps.
"Where is the _Sahib_ going?" he asked.
"To Nuddea," said Dumoise, softly.
Ram Dass clawed Dumoise's knees and boots and begged him not to go. Ram
Dass wept and howled till he was turned out of the room. Then he wrapped
up all his belongings and came back to ask for a character. He was not
going to Nuddea to see his _Sahib_ die and, perhaps, to die himself.
So Dumoise gave the man his wages and went down to Nuddea alone; the other
Doctor bidding him good-bye as one under sentence of death.
Eleven days later he had joined his _Memsahib_; and the Bengal Government
had to borrow a fresh Doctor to cope with that epidemic at Nuddea, The
first importation lay dead in Chooadanga Dâk Bungalow.