"Do you mind--can you face it?"

She laughed a little, with a repressed exultation.

"This is the tarantella as I danced it--the beginning before the madness

comes--the rising of the tide. Can't you feel it beating in your

blood?"

A fresh band, headed by a swaying banner, pushed its way through the

leaderless crowd, and after that, carried on the shoulders of four

sweating, staggering men, the image of the Triumvirate.

The sun poured down over the roofs and glittered fierily on the three

faces of the god. They had been gilded afresh for the occasion, and the

hand which had laboured at their features had not failed in its simple

craftsmanship. Benevolence, cruelty, and an unutterable serenity stared

over the heads of the tossing multitude. The idol swayed from side to

side in its passage, and, as it caught the rays of the sun, gleamed with

a living, sinister brightness. There were wreaths of faded flowers on

the base of the altar, and there was white dust everywhere. The crowd

surged closer, holding up its hands to it in greeting. Their lifted

faces showed neither reverence, nor fear, nor hope, but a kind of frenzy

seeking its outlet.

Slowly, triumphantly, the image rocked on its way towards the river, a

spot of sullen fire on the breast of an ever-changing sea of colour.

Like a dangerous backwash, the mob closed in, sweeping it forward and

leaving behind a sudden relaxation--a breaking-up of the sea into a

hundred drifting particles. It was the passing of a mad dream. The sun

blazed on to the peaceful bustle. The note of frenzy died down. The

old fakir had crawled on his knees into the shade and held out his

wooden bowl, bleating monotonously.

"Alakh! Alakh!"

A merchant came out from his hiding-place in a cowshed and exhibited his

wares. The hovel opposite revealed itself as a cook-shop, where the

hungry could buy pulse-puffs and dough-cakes and sweets of a hundred

kinds. A sherbet-seller pitched his tent a few doors lower down and

clinked his coloured glasses alluringly. An ascetic, with the face of a

mediaeval saint, sold gilt-papered corks from champagne bottles as

sacred charms of marvellous efficacy.

Sigrid Fersen looked up into her companion's face and they both laughed,

scarcely knowing why, but swept away by a childish pleasure in the

swiftness of the change, in the naive _volte face_ of these simple folk,

who a minute before had trampled upon each other in a paroxysm of

religious frenzy and now wandered wide-eyed and eager amidst all these

bewildering fascinations.

And perhaps, as the deep secret source of their pleasure, was the

knowledge that the day was young and wholly theirs.

"I want to buy something," she said gaily. "Why should we be superior?

It's our feast, too. And who knows if their values are not as good as

ours? if their faith in champagne corks isn't as effective as our

superstitious belief in the mysterious horrors compounded by an

honourable Dakktar Sahib!" She shot him a demure, malicious glance.

"Come, I am going to buy recklessly!"

A bright-eyed boy beckoned them to the tray behind which he watched

cross-legged and eager, like a handsome, bewitching spider. It was not

in vain that he had bright eyes or that he sold wares dear to the hearts

of women. The merchant in cheap stuffs from Manchester, and even the

sherbet-seller, watched him sourly as the soft-footed, timid women

hovered about him pricing his coveted treasures.

Now he looked up, showing his white teeth in a smile of innocent

welcome.

"Gifts for the Mem-Sahib--and gifts for him whom Mem-Sahib loves."

Sigrid knelt down in the dust beside his tray, and rummaged through the

medley of his stock. Ear-rings, bracelets, amulets, glass beads, vulgar

trophies of Western taste--paste diamond brooches stuck on cardboard and

labelled rolled gold--these last displayed with almost passionate pride,

and here and there a scornfully suppressed relic of days when Manchester

and Birmingham were not. Tristram stood beside her and watched her. He

had the feeling that all this had happened before, years ago, and that

this companionship of a day was just a link in a long, unbroken chain of

days. It was so simple, so natural. He felt no constraint, scarcely any

excitement, just an all-pervading peace. They had always known each

other, always shared their days, their thoughts, and desires. He did

not think about it. It filled his senses with a well-being, a rare and

exquisite content.

She gave an exclamation and held up something in the palm of her little

hand. He took it from her. It was a bracelet made of seven threads of

seven different colours and bound with a silver clasp. The boy-merchant

shrugged scornfully.

"It is nothing--nothing, Mem-Sahib."

"Do you remember?" she asked.

He nodded--not looking at her now.

"The Rani Kurnavati----"

"Yes--that night when we sat by the moonlight and Ayeshi told us her

story----" She laid an extravagant sum on the tray. "There, that is

all I want."

The amazed merchant gasped his blessings after her. She walked on,

threading her way through the aimless crowd, inspecting her purchase

with a thoughtful pleasure.

"I wanted to give it you," Tristram protested, aggrievedly.

"And I didn't want you to," she retorted. "You have given me enough,

Major Tristram."

Her solemn reversion to his title amused him. He watched her smilingly

as she snapped the bracelet about her wrist.

"What have I given you?"

"The cup. Have you forgotten? I was so miserable because I forgot to

thank you. I'd never been remorseful in my life before, but I was

remorseful about that."

"I'm sorry. Remorse is ghastly. And I hadn't expected thanks."

"You didn't expect to live. Ought I to give the cup back?"

"No."

"But your mother----?"

"I have told her," he said gravely.

They reached the confines of the village. The high grass had been

trampled down under the passing of a monstrous animal. Through the

dazzling blaze of sunlight they could see a black mass swarming along

the banks, a huge, writhing octopus whose tentacles groped towards the

temple with greedy, hurrying persistency. And in the midst of it, like

a restless, menacing eye, the Triumvirate flashed backwards and forwards

in evil, delirious triumph.

"They're bringing up their offerings now," Tristram said, rather grimly.

"The Snake God and his retinue will have food enough for months to come.

It's a queer thing--no one has seen these serpents in the memory of man,

and yet it's true enough that native sceptics who have ventured inside

the jungle have either never returned or come out raving madmen. There

is madness connected with the whole thing--a kind of delirium which we

English don't understand. It's in their blood, just as it's in the

blood of some families to respond to supernatural influences which

others don't even feel. Anyhow, we'd better keep clear of them today."

"I have made my plan," she answered, with sedate authority.

He knew now where she was going. They made their way in silence down

the length of the river, touching the monster only there where its

tentacles reached up to the temple, and came at last to the

green-shadowed backwater. Tristram held aside the branches of the trees

for her to pass through, and their eyes met.

"Isn't this a fitting place to celebrate our day?" she asked, "--here,

where a certain romantic Hermit beheld a vision and was not afraid?"

"Visions are not terrifying," he answered.

"But the reality----?"

She did not seem to expect an answer. The boughs of the trees had swung

back into their place. They stood together at the edge of the water,

looking down into its tangled depths, listening to the silence. Nothing

had changed. It was as though time had fallen asleep, and they were

still living in that first day of their meeting. The dense foliage of

the trees walled them in from the heat and glare and tumult. The dull

murmur that came to them from time to time seemed no more than the

soughing of a rising wind. The peace of it laid itself upon their

senses like a cooling hand.

They sat down in the fresh grass, talking softly and only a little,

fearing to disturb the sleeping spirit of the place. Tristram unpacked

his basket and produced the day's provisions, over which they laughed

subduedly. It appeared that he was cook as well as doctor, and she made

wry faces over the probable ingredients of his dough-cakes. For her

humour had lost its keenness and had become very young and a little

tremulous. He responded loyally and easily. There was no constraint

between them, no sense of trouble. They were comrades together,

responding light-heartedly to the appeal of the sunlight, and the

flowers burning brightly in the cool shadows. They did not know as yet

that their real life lay beneath the surface of that easy comradeship in

a great stillness where their own voices did not penetrate.

But that stillness mastered them at last, flowing quietly and mightily

over their broken, careless talk. The sunlight, falling aslant through

the trees touched the green stem of a high palm and began its upward

journey. Tristram watched it. He had slipped lower down the bank, where

he could see his own bulk shadowed darkly in the water and the pale,

ghostly reflection of the woman behind him. At first, he had lain full

length on his elbow looking at her frankly, fearlessly, as she sat above

him, her hands clasped about her knees, her fair small head bent a

little from the light, so that her eyes seemed dark and more serious

than her lips. Now he had turned away from her and watched the passing

of the sunbeam. A kind of panic had gripped him. The time was passing.

He had begun to realize dimly that what they had set out to do was

impossible--a defiance of the law of life. A day cannot be set apart

from its fellows either for joy or sorrow. It is bound up with them by

whatever menace or promise they hold, and the menace of yesterday and

tomorrow touched him like the breath of a chill wind.

He pointed out on to the water and saw that his hand shook. His pulses

had begun to beat heavily, thickly.

"The lotus-flower has gone," he said.

"It is dead. It's so long ago--it seems only yesterday to us. Do you

remember asking me if I wanted it? You were glad because I let it live

out its life."

"How did you know that?"

"I knew that you loved living things."

"Isn't that a love common to us all?"

She gave a short laugh out of which the joyful irresponsibility had

died.

"Men love ideas--the fetishes of their intellects. Or they love their

cabbage-patch, or their country. Life and humanity are nothing to the

majority. But you cared--for everything." It was a long time before

she spoke again, and then her voice had changed. It sounded

languid--indifferent. "It must be terrible to kill," she said.

He stirred, drawing himself up.

"The unforgettable sin," he said.

"Unforgettable? Have you ever known any one who had killed----?"

"Yes. It was worse than killing. He smashed his man--crippled him for

life."

"Perhaps he didn't care."

"He cared desperately. He thought of life as I do----"

She laughed again.

"Another Tolstoyan! Well, he was punished, I suppose."

"Oh, yes, he was punished. Not by the law. He had no belief in that

Fetish of Justice--an eye for an eye. His life was of value--to another.

Of what use would it have been to have smashed it with the rest? He

found the only way to make good the damage he had done--and he took it."

He spoke firmly, as a man does who has fought through to a clear issue.

He heard her move--he fancied that she had held out her hand as though

to touch him, and that her hand had dropped.

"Perhaps he was mistaken," she said. "Some one once said to me there is

a curse on us--that we are damned to destroy. Perhaps the life he took

was justly taken--perhaps it was a bad, valueless life----"

He turned impetuously, with an intensity of feeling far removed from his

previous impersonal deliberation.

"You can't tell," he said. "That's the ghastly part of it--you can't

tell. You find a piece of broken glass on your road. You grind it

under foot or throw it away and think you've done your fellow creatures

a service. And then a child comes along crying for its lost treasure.

It doesn't matter that you were justified. The thing had its value,

after all, and you smashed it. You hurt someone----"

"Some one is always hurt," she interrupted.

A mist of passionate introspection passed from his eyes, and he saw her

face--very pale, with a blue shadow about the lips. He started, almost

touching her.

"You're ill--tired----!" he stammered.

"A little--it was the heat and the crowd----"

He looked at the light on the green stem of the palm, as though to a

warning hand. It had reached the end of its journey and had grown dim.

He got up, holding himself desperately erect. "It's the end of the

Feast," he said, "the end of our day."

But she shook her head broodingly.

"You can't tell that either--only the gods know the end, Tristram

Sahib."

* * * * *

Something had wrapped itself about their senses. They had talked of

impersonal things and--save for that one break of his--without emotion.

But the emotion had been there, below the surface, crushed out of sight

by an effort of the will which left them no physical consciousness. It

walled them within themselves as the trees and dense foliage walled them

in from the heat and tumult.

Thus the storm broke on them without warning. It had risen little by

little with the dull boom of an angry sea. They had heard nothing. But

there had been a silence so tense, so prolonged that they looked at each

other, wondering, waiting, though they did not know it, for the scream

that ripped through, tearing down the barriers of their unconsciousness,

forcing a breach through which the full fury of the sound bore down upon

them.

Sigrid had risen instantly to her feet.

"Tarantella!" she breathed. "Tarantella!"

He did not wait to speak. He pushed through the undergrowth, not

knowing that she had followed him. On the fringe of the coppice he

turned and found her at his elbow.

"Something's happened," he said briefly. "We can't stay here--we've got

to get back to the village----"

She nodded. A minute before she had looked ill, almost broken. Now the

colour burnt in her cheek, she held herself lightly, strongly, and her

eyes shone as they swept the scene before them.

"Shall we get through?"

"I don't know--I don't know what's happened. It may be nothing----"

"You don't believe that yourself. It is something. Anyhow, we've got to

try for it----"

The fear was in him, not in her. Even then, striding at her side,

bracing himself for whatever lay before them, he wondered at her,

thrilled at the joyous adventurousness in her. Her head was erect and

she was smiling faintly. The howling of the frantic, demented mob which

swept backwards and forwards across the plain did not seem to touch her.

He felt how, with the coolness of a general, she was measuring the

distances, their chances. He saw the tightening of her lips and that

she had measured rightly.

"If it's us they're mad with, it will be a close finish," she said, with

a low laugh.

He scarcely heard her. He was watching the men and women who overtook

them and ran past. Their faces were unknown to him. They looked back

at him---with the wild-eyed curiosity of animals. As yet it was only

curiosity. They were as ignorant as himself as to the passion which had

broken through the crust of restraint and now raged in a mad whirlpool

between the temple and the river. But the infection of frenzy was upon

them. They muttered as they ran past--broken sentences in a dialect

which he could not understand. They were pilgrims from distant

provinces. He knew that they were in the majority and that he could

have no hold over them. They would sweep the rest with them--even his

own people.

The sprawling mass of life which had hugged the bank of the river turned

and rolled back. In an instant, it had blocked the narrow passage on

which he had based his hope of escape. He could see the golden effigy

swaying madly above the crowd like a bright, sinister barque on a black,

raging sea, now flung back, now forward, but still drawing steadily

nearer. Through the wild uproar of voices the dull thud of a drum

persisted. It was as though in that frenzied movement there was a

purpose--a blind, demented will to an end.

He stopped short.

"We can't go on--it's too late--we must make a dash back and try for the

bridge----"

"It is too late," she answered simply.

He saw then what she had seen. They were cut off. From left and right,

the streams of hurrying men and women converged upon them, sweeping them

forward as an Atlantic roller tosses driftwood on its crest. For an

instant they were separated. He fought his way savagely back to her

side, and caught her to him with the roughness of panic.

She looked up at him, smiling tranquilly, inscrutably. "Afraid,

Tristram?"

"Yes--horribly--hideously--if I had lost you----"

"You didn't. I'm not afraid."

"I can't forgive myself----"

"Why should you? I am very happy."

"We must keep together. Give me your hand."

She gave it him. He remembered how it had lain in his once before, how

the splendid vitality and strength of it had thrilled him. It thrilled

him now, it burnt like fire through his nerves. They stood facing each

other, holding their ground, swept into a moment's oblivion of all else

but themselves. There was exultation in that grave, brief

contemplation. The panic had died out of the man's eyes. He no longer

pitied her or feared for her. He felt the joy of their new, fierce

comradeship.

"If it were only myself--I could be glad----"

"Be glad!" she cried back. "Isn't it worth it?"

A wave of frantic humanity forced them forward. They held together. He

heard her laugh--the eager, triumphant laugh of men in the glory of

battle. "No one can separate us now!" she said.

"No one!" he answered gladly.

He knew it was true. Nothing, so it seemed to him, could break the

steel link of their hands. But he had grown calmer. He had got to save

her. The instinct which damns the weak acceptance of annihilation burnt

up clearly in him. He gave ground to the force behind him, keeping his

feet with the utmost exertion of his strength, striving to force a

passage towards the village. It was a vain effort. Faces were turned

to him. He read their expression. The mere curiosity had become

distrust--a furtive antagonism as yet unarmed with purpose. A fakir,

wild-eyed, bespattered with filth, his emaciated arms flung up in

imprecation, leered up at him.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

It was no more than a whisper. But it passed from lip to lip. They

were pushed on, the circle about them tightening in a strangling noose.

For all her courage, he knew that the woman beside him was weakening.

He heard her voice, strained and breathless.

"Don't let me go under--don't let me go under----"

He knew the horror that had forced the appeal from her--the terror which

can change a man's heart to water--the horror of those pitiless

trampling feet--of those mad mob rushes under which a human body can be

stamped out of recognition. He threw one arm about her. He no longer

resisted. It was better to go on--to be forgotten. But the stench of

those hot, dust-laden bodies sickened him. It was the smell of

hatred--of madness. It sapped his strength. It was like the breathing

in of a hideous poison.

They swept on. They had reached the densest part of the crowd. Above

them he could see the golden image, swaying dangerously from the

shoulders of its staggering bearers. A ray of red light from the

sinking sun was on the face nearest to them. Its frozen cruelty seemed

to have drawn life into itself--to be sucking up a horrible vitality

from the very passions to which it had given birth. To Tristram's

blurred vision the eyes blazed--the mouth gaped with a grotesque lust of

hatred.

It was then he saw Meredith with his shoulders to the base of the altar,

his arm raised, shielding his face. A half-naked fakir sprang at him

and dragged the arm down, and Tristram saw what had been done. The face

was blotted out with blood. The lips were moving. In one clenched hand

was an open Bible. Through the hellish pandemonium Tristram caught a

single sentence:

"Father, forgive them----"

Tristram flung the man in front of him aside. He had felt the tense

revival of strength in his companion like an electric current through

all his nerves. They had got to stand together--to go down with the man

of their race, for good or evil uphold him.

"We're coming!" Tristram shouted. "Hold on!"

Meredith turned his head in their direction. Perhaps he saw them

through the veil of blood. He made a gesture urging them back, and in

the same instant the man whom Tristram had flung aside revealed his

face.

It was Lalloo, the money-lender.

"Dakktar Sahib!" he said.

"Damn you--let me go past----!"

The old man smiled imperturbably, shrugging his shoulders. The whisper,

"The Dakktar Sahib," ran like an undercurrent of sound beneath the

screams and curses of the swaying, tossing multitude. A woman spat in

Meredith's disfigured face. Tristram lurched forward, but already they

had lost ground. Some new force had them in its grip. They were bound

in a revolving circle of which Lalloo had become the pivot. Tristram

looked about him. He recognized faces which seemed to have sprung from

nowhere. There was Mehr Singh, the corn-dealer, and Seetul the weaver,

Peru the village ne'er-do-well--men with whom he had lived and suffered.

He cursed at them in their dialect, and they regarded him stolidly. He

shook Lalloo fiercely with his free hand.

"Let us get out of this--I've got to get back to my friend--do you hear.

I've got to help him--do you hear, you lying, grasping old man?"

Lalloo shrugged his shoulders.

The circle rolled on. Meredith and the shining figure of the

three-faced god had gone down in the black tumult. The roar of voices

began to fade like thunder, rolling faintly in the distance. A breath

of fresh air fanned their faces. The circle broke suddenly scattering

in all directions.

Tristram still held Lalloo by the shoulder.

"You--you saved us," he stammered thickly. "You saved us--didn't you

know me better than that----"

Lalloo rubbed his thin dark hands and smiled vaguely.

"What have I done, Sahib?" he said. "What have I done?" And with an

amazing facility freed himself and glided into the shadow of the

deserted village.

They went on, not speaking, not looking at each other, sick with the

horror of that which they had left behind them. At the door of

Tristram's hut a man came running towards them. It was the captain of

the native regiment, cursing volubly.

"Tristram--where the devil have you been? What's happened! What set

them off?"

"Meredith--preaching the love of God to Siva."

"Oh, damn the parsons!" He mopped his face in helpless exasperation.

"Well, I've had a nice time of it. Men vanished into thin air. They've

been queer for months--now they've gone. Anyhow, I shall have to stick

to it--overawe them with my presence and all that." Even in that

moment, his English good-humour prevailed. "Give us a hand,

Tristram--you've influence with them. What's happened to Meredith?"

"I don't know----"

"Well, we'll try and get him out. Miss Fersen, you stay quietly in

there. There's no getting away just yet. If neither of us get back,

there'll be relief from Gaya as soon as they get wind of this shindy.

Come on, Hermit!"

Tristram held open the door for her.

"You won't mind my going? I may be able to help----"

"I want you to go. I am not afraid."

"I know."

They avoided each other's eyes. For one moment at least they had

expected death--perhaps willed to die--and in that moment had dared to

live.

She went past him, closing the door after her.

Night came on. It rose blackly out of the far corners of the hut,

creeping stealthily and soundlessly up the walls, as water rises in a

closed lock. She had sat and watched it and listened to the deep,

encircling silence beyond which was sound--indefinable, subdued,

continuous. Once it had come nearer and instinctively she had sprung

up, bracing herself--then rolled back again with a thwarted, muffled

murmur.

She had fed the stray pup and put it to sleep on Wickie's old bed. A

disreputable, ill-bred-looking tabby had crept slyly in through the open

window and had eyed the intruder with disapproving curiosity, then

settled herself down as one accustomed to eccentricities. Sigrid had

laughed a little at the interlude. It had seemed grotesque and humdrum,

a kind of satire on that which the sound painted on the gathering

darkness.

Presently it was quite dark. She got up and lit a candle, and held it

high above her head. The flame threw a pale circle of light down on the

surface of the still black waters which eddied round her. It gave life

to an eerie procession of formless, soft-footed shadows. She watched

them slide past, from darkness to darkness. Then she went back to the

table and sat there with her chin in her hand, her wide eyes fixed

broodingly on something far beyond the tiny pillar of light.

An hour passed. She got up and moved restlessly about the room. In the

struggle, her helmet had been knocked off and her hair loosened. She

let it down and smoothed its fair softness with her hands. There was no

glass in the place. She took the candle to the carved table against the

wall, and knelt down so that she could see a faint reflection of herself

in the glass of the big photograph. She began to do her hair with

fastidious, delicate carefulness. When it was done she took the

photograph and held it to the light. There was a pile of letters on the

table. The envelopes bore the same handwriting--strong and clear, yet

not with the strength and clearness of youth. It had an indefinable

affinity with the old face that looked out at her with its serene,

smiling wisdom from the wooden photo-frame. She counted the letters,

lingering over them, as though their touch brought her secret knowledge.

The cat, sleeping by the wall, lifted its head. A minute later, it got

up, arching its back, its fur bristling, its eyes blazing in the

darkness. She glanced towards it, aroused by its soft, menacing hiss of

anger and fear. Then suddenly the silence around her shivered and

broke. She turned and slipped into the second room. There was an old

hunting-knife lying among the debris of their hastily prepared picnic.

She snatched it up and ran back, placing herself against the wall with

the light between her and the door.

The sound that rushed down upon her was a new thing--more terrible than

the roar which had beaten persistently against the outer wall of her

consciousness. It was like rain and wind and water tearing through a

narrow gully. It came on swiftly, gathering speed and violence. It came

with a rush down the village street--nearer and nearer--the patter of

countless running feet--the gasp and groan of hard-drawn breath, stifled

mutterings, the shrill scream of a woman breaking off into a choking

gurgle. Nearer--in a headlong torrent--right to the closed door. She

drew herself up, her lithe body tense and prepared--and it swept past.

It raced on in a ceaseless torrent. She heard the jolt of a heavy body

sent reeling against the walls of the hut--and a little whimpering sound

that was like a child's crying. Behind the deluge there was a fresh

sound--the clatter of horses' hoofs at the gallop.

The door opened and closed. She had taken an involuntary step forward

to meet whatever was to come, the knife clenched in her right hand; but,

as she saw Tristram, she relaxed with a short, shuddering sigh and her

hand sank. He stood leaning with his shoulders against the door, staring

at her. His clothes were torn and blood-stained. There was something

wild and violent in his face which she had never seen before--the look

of a fighter straight from a struggle in which every nerve and sinew has

been put to a dire test--in which all the primitive passions of men have

risen like wolf-hounds tugging at the leash. The sleeve of his shirt had

been ripped to the elbow, and she saw the grand curving line of his

shoulder, expressive of an immense, tutored strength.

The hot colour raced through her pallor. She looked back to his face.

His eyes had dropped to the knife which she still held--they met hers

now and blazed back her fierce and sombre admiration. They remained

thus watching each other through a moment of shaken silence. Then he

lurched forward, dropping down on the chair by the table, sprawling like

a man overtaken by a sudden exhaustion, his bleeding hands clenched

before him.

"I am sick--sick of bloodshed!" he muttered.

She laid the knife quietly on the table and stood looking down at his

bent head.

"Meredith----" she began.

He threw back his shoulders with a bitter laugh.

"Did you ever know of any one who set out to sacrifice himself and who

didn't sacrifice everyone else first? Meredith's safe--but my people--my

poor people--they didn't mean any harm--they saved us--you and me. Even

though one of our kind had spat in the face of their religion--they

didn't forget. You don't know what it meant to them to be so calm and

loyal in all that frenzy. Then--then the troops came from Gaya. There

was a stampede--no one meant to hurt any one--but they went

under--dozens of them--stamped out of recognition--old Seetul and

Lalloo's little son, whom I nursed once----" He broke off with a harsh,

dry sob. She knelt down beside him. She drew his head down to her

shoulder, soothing him like a child.

"Tristram--you mustn't mind so. Things happen like that. We don't mean

to harm each other--we don't realize or we can't help ourselves. Some

one has to go under. We're always trampling on some one. It can't be

helped. The crowd is too great--we have to fight for ourselves first.

We were made like that----"

He made no answer. He leant against her with closed eyes. The

hurricane of galloping hoofs rolled past. She kissed him lightly,

tenderly--"Tristram----"

His eyes opened. Their faces were quite close. Their gaze became

fixed, intoxicated, deepening in intensity till it seemed as though they

held each other, were drawn closer and closer in an embrace of fire

which burnt out every intervening thought and consciousness. Suddenly,

violently, he sprang up, pushing her from him, and lurched towards the

door.

"I've got--to--see after things--there'll be an escort for you at the

bridge-head--later--I'll keep guard outside----"

She also had risen as swift and soundless as a panther. She stood by the

table upright and exultant, a point of light shining in her eyes.

"Stay here--here with me. If you go, it is because you're afraid----"

"Afraid----?" He swung round, his hand still on the door. "Of whom?"

"Of me--of yourself. You promised to be honest with me. This was to be

our day of days for which no one should demand reckoning. It is not

ended yet. You were honest once. That was when you thought we were

going to be killed. Then you dared to own to what I know already--that

you belonged to me--as I perhaps belong to you--to our fate--a fate

neither of us can escape, Tristram----"

He remained motionless; she could see the rise and fall of his great

chest.

"It isn't wise to be honest," he said thickly. "I'm afraid, if you

like--afraid of myself. You'd better let me go."

"Back to your dreams? But they're gone. You were just a grown-up boy,

playing with a fancy. Now you are a man and I am a woman. We've got to

deal with the reality now."

"That's true." He came slowly towards her, reeling a little in his

stride. "I want you--body and soul."

"I know--you told me----"

"When----?"

"The night you lay unconscious in my arms."

He put up his hand to his throat, as though something suffocated him.

"You had better let me go," he repeated doggedly. "We're both thrown out

of our course. At my best, I'm not much--I've learnt that--if I

resist--things it's because I don't care. And tonight----"

"You do care."

"Yes," he said, between his teeth.

"Why should we resist what is the most splendid thing in us?"

"Splendid?" he echoed. "My--my dreams were splendid. As you

say--they've gone. And the reality--can there be any reality between

us--between a divinely gifted woman and the loutish fool who dreams

about her? If I'd thought so--I'd have gone away--but it seemed to me

that you were just kind and pitying--amused even--and I dared go on.

And it is impossible--we belong to different worlds--life isn't the same

thing to either of us."

"We stand on different peaks of the same mountain range," she answered

wistfully. "There is the same sun and sky and stars for us both. It

seemed to me that we could have watched the sun rise together."

He held out his hand as though to touch her, and then drew back, his

face drawn and hard with the bitterness of mastered passion.

"You don't know what you're saying, Sigrid," he began harshly. "Nor

what you are offering me----"

"Myself," she flung in, with joyful fearlessness. "My love for you."

He began to pace the room backwards and forwards, in and out of the

light, his hands clenched at his sides.

"I can't--oh, my dear--it's hideous, so hopeless." His voice shook with

rough suffering. "Even if things were different--if I were

cad--enough--you see, I am being desperately frank now--don't you

realize what it would mean--can't you realize what you'd have to pay?"

She watched him patiently. Her first fierce energy had died down. The

colour had faded from her cheeks, leaving her with a look of pathetic

weariness.

"I've never bothered about the price of things. It's been a curse in my

life, I daresay; I shall never be able to sink into a safe, comfortable

mediocrity. I've burnt my boats too thoroughly for that. But, instead,

I've had the highest and best in life. I've always dared to live to the

utmost, Tristram. I wanted to be perfect in my art, and I gave my soul

to it. I lived more austerely than a nun, more grandly than an empress.

Men wanted to love me, but I never thought of them. There was only one

thing for me then--it was like a mountain that I had sworn to climb. I

climbed it. And then--then it was over. You can't understand--but I

had paid the price to the last farthing. Now, before it's too late, I

want the greatest, most splendid thing that perhaps a human being can

pray for--the happiness of loving."

Her voice had dropped gradually, as though she had forgotten him. He

stood still, frowning at her with a hopeless misery in his exhausted

eyes.

"Sigrid--if I'd asked you a month ago would you have been my wife?"

She started a little, seeming to shrink from what was to come.

"No, Tristram--not then."

"And now--if things were different--if it were possible----?"

She shook her head.

"No--now least of all." She heard the sharp, painful catch in his

breath. "It isn't possible--that's just it," she added wearily.

He resumed his restless pacing backwards and forwards.

"Then it was just a moment in your life you were offering me--I was to

be part of a new and splendid episode----" He strode up to her and

gripped her by the shoulders. "Oh--I'm not proud--you're a creature of

fire and air, and I'm one of the earth. You could have walked over me

and I'd have been content. And yet--I don't know. I might have cared

too much. Perhaps I do care too much--but there's something besides

that now. I'm not a moral or even a strong man, but there's only to be

one woman in my life---the woman I marry."

"Yes," she said listlessly.

"And Anne has promised to be my wife."

She looked up at him for an instant. It grew very still.

"I might have told you that before. But it was to have been our

day--with no one between us--no one to demand reckoning. I cheated

myself. I'm a rotten sentimentalist, dear--and I've ended by doing

something mean and low, like a thorough-paced cad. I deserve to

lose--all that I have lost."

She shook her head. Something of her old detachment, a little of her

demure humour, tinged with satire, shone in her eyes.

"It's almost funny--your blaming yourself. I hunted you down--and I am

going to marry Mr. Barclay."

He swung round on his heel, white to the lips.

"That man----!" he burst out.

"That woman----!" she retorted cynically.

He fought desperately for self-control.

"Anne is a good woman----"

"Is she? A better human being than Barclay? Have you started to lay

down the standard of values like the rest of us?"

For an instant they confronted each other as antagonists, then he made a

gesture of despair, of fierce self-loathing.

"No--you're quite right. I don't judge--I can't. I seem going down-hill

fast with my theories--my--my infernal humanity. I can't believe

it--everything seems to have gone at once--you didn't care--it wasn't

love you felt for me----"

"Aren't you glad--doesn't that relieve you of all responsibility?"

She watched him for a moment in silence. Then her face softened. He

was standing against the table, his hand pressed upon it as though he

held himself upright only by an effort of will. She laid her hand on

his, diffidently, pityingly. "Tristram, we're both mad with pain, but

don't let's hurt each other more than we must. It's no one's fault. We

pick up threads in our lives carelessly and without a thought, and from

day to day they weave themselves without our will into a pattern--into

tragedy. That's all there is to it, Tristram." He nodded silently, and

she turned away from him, sighing. "It's quite quiet now. I'll go back

to Gaya, Tristram."

He went out beside her into the empty moonlit street. A black shadow lay

huddled against the wall, and involuntarily he bent and touched it.

"Dead!" he muttered.

"The feast of Siva!" she said. "He who destroys!"

Her small pale face was lifted to the great silver disk above her. It

seemed to his aching eyes that she was no more than a frail white

ghost--a haunting spirit of the haunted moonlight.

"Sigrid----!" he whispered.

"Hush--it's no good. We've got to go on--Tristram Sahib----"

He walked beside her as she rode out of Heerut. It was very still---no

sound but that of her horse's hoofs and the soft swish of the long Arab

tail. They went out across the plain. The conflagration of the day had

burnt itself out, leaving grey ash and a few stains on the white fields.

The temple lay sinister and watchful beneath the shadow of the jungle.

It was as though all life had been swept away in a deluge of

destruction.

He looked up and saw how bravely she held herself.

They came within a hundred yards of the bridge-head, and she drew rein.

They could hear voices and the jangle of steel. He stood close to her,

touching her, feeling the warmth of her, drinking in a faint elusive

perfume which was her own. His brain reeled. He was sick and faint at

the nearness of the end.

Suddenly she bent down and took his hand. He felt something clasp

itself about his wrist.

"I can't give you up--not altogether--I can't, Tristram. I want to keep

you in my life--the dream of you--to haunt you a little--to claim you a

little--in this world and the next--for good and evil--my

bracelet-brother----"

She was gone. He stood there, listening to the thud of her horse's

hoofs.

_*BOOK II*_

*CHAPTER I*

*MRS. COMPTON STANDS FIRM*

"Among all the noble, disinterested, selfless things I've done--and my

life is full of them--this is the noblest, most disinterested, most

selfless."

Mrs. Compton stood back and surveyed the dainty Dresden figure perched

on the shelf with the dignity of renunciation. Mrs. Bosanquet sniffed.

It was an uncorrected habit of hers when confronted with the

incomprehensible and absurd.

"I don't see what you're so upset about," she commented from her large

and comfortable pose in the most accommodating chair of which the rather

shabby-looking room boasted. "Why, I've seen things just as pretty as

that in sixpenny bazaars. I'm sure Anne won't like it. Anne's my type.

We both have our spiritual homes in a London suburb--not a

garden-suburb, my dear, with nasty modern folk in sandals and

_djibba_--but in the old kind, with good old Victorian plush everywhere.

It's just a tragedy that we should have to live in India with queer

specimens like the Judge and Tristram." She chuckled. The serene

detachment with which she regarded her own weaknesses and the weaknesses

of her fellow-creatures had made her an institution in Gaya, and was a

good substitute for a talent. Mrs. Bosanquet could not make a joke or

tell a funny story without disaster, but she could hold up mirrors for

herself and her friends and grimace into them with most excellent

results, as far as the gaiety of the station was concerned. It was

whispered, however, that the Judge's somewhat halting progress towards

higher honours was not a little due to his wife's passion for showing

plain but superior people just what they looked like.

Mary Compton continued to regard her treasure with wistful tenderness.

"Tristram will like it, anyhow," she said.

"H'm, poor Tristram!"

"Why 'poor Tristram'?"

"Oh, I don't know--a kind of inspiration. Anne did want him so badly,

and now she's got him. It's a real triumph of goodness. Now she can

pull long noses at dear, disgraceful Eleanor and be sentimental over

dear, disgraceful Richard. Also she can make the place too hot for--for

that woman. Altogether a wonderful strategic position for any one quite

so harmless as dear, respectable Anne."

There was a distinct and unusual note of asperity in Mrs. Bosanquet's

review of the situation, and Mary Compton turned to her with apparent

puzzlement. But her eyes were bright and rather defiant, as though she

was preparing for a long-expected engagement.

"Whom do you mean by 'that woman'?" she asked, not very steadily.

"My dear, there's only one 'that woman' in Gaya as far as I know. The

rest of us are--what are we--ladies! or is that Victorian again?--in

fact, I mean 'that woman,' and you're just pretending not to know whom I

mean."

"I won't pretend." Mrs. Compton steadied to the attack. "If you mean

Sigrid----"

"I do, my dear."

"Then I think it's mean and disloyal of you. You were one of the first

to kow-tow to her----"

Mrs. Bosanquet settled herself back fatly and serenely unoffended.

"I did--I don't deny it. I kow-towed. Figuratively, I licked her

boots. She could have walked over me if she'd had a fancy for

mountaineering. She could have done a high-kick under the Viceroy's

nose and I should have applauded to poor George's everlasting undoing.

She could have eloped with that puppy Radcliffe. She could have become

Rani of Gaya and worn a nose-ring. My ample bosom would still have

welcomed her. But that man! No. It's not only the man, but it's what

must be in her to be able to touch him with a fire-tongs. There's a

rotten streak in her--there must be. And even if one got over

that--well, it isn't feasible. One can't swallow her without him, and

it's too big a mouthful. Can you imagine sitting down to dinner with

him?"

Mary Compton faced her visitor. She held herself very straight, and her

brown, alert face had a rigid look about it which boded trouble.

"Yes, I can," she said quietly. "It's a possibility everybody will have

to face who comes here."

"Mary!"

She nodded confirmation. She lost her first rather tremulous

aggressiveness and became quiet and resolute, her hazel eyes sparkling

with the zest of battle.

"Yes, Archie and I figured it out as soon as we heard. We don't

understand--we don't pretend to--and--and we hate it. Nobody can loathe

it more than I do. I've run counter to that man, and I can guess what

we're in for. But we're going to stick to her. We didn't become her

pals on the understanding that she was to marry one of our nice select

circle. She was just Sigrid. Well, as far as we're concerned, she's

Sigrid still. Her husband's her business."

"Then," said Mrs. Bosanquet gravely, "you're in for a fight with the

whole station--and, what's more, with an unwritten law which is based on

sound principles. 'East is East and West is West and never the twain

shall meet.' But they do meet occasionally, and it's then the trouble

begins. We can do with a Rasaldu because we're not responsible for

him--it's like watching a foreigner eat peas with his knife--but

Barclay, no--he's a scandalous, illegitimate relation, and the more he

claims us the more uncomfortable we get. My dear, we shall fight to the

last ditch, and you'll be beaten, and badly beaten. You'll damage

yourselves, and that's about all."

"Are you going to help beat us?" Mary asked quietly.

Mrs. Bosanquet pursed up her fat, good-natured lips.

"I can't help myself. I'm really sorry----"

"Rubbish! If you were sorry, you wouldn't do it."

"I've got to think of the Judge----"

"Well, I've got Archie. He's got his career, too."

"He'll get into trouble with the regiment."

"It's more than likely. We're not going to--to behave like cads on that

account."

Mrs. Bosanquet got up, leaning heavily on her gold-topped stick. She

had reddened slightly, but otherwise remained benignly unruffled.

"Quite right, my dear. I applaud. The trouble is that the majority of

us are cads at the bottom--that is, we think of our own safety first.

I'm sure I do. The station will ostracize Sigrid--has begun to

ostracize her already. I can't stem the tide, and I shan't try."

Mary Compton smiled bitterly.

"How pleased Anne will be!"

"Eh?"

"How pleased Anne will be," she repeated.

Mrs. Bosanquet paused on the threshold of the verandah. She had become

suddenly very angry.

"You're a very annoying woman, Mary Compton. You said that just to

upset me. You know I can't bear Anne. In a previous existence, I

believe we were next-door neighbours in our suburb, and that she played

hymns on a pianola. Please don't mention Anne to me."

"And you're fond of me, and you were fond of Sigrid," Mrs. Compton

persisted, not without malicious amusement. Mrs. Bosanquet turned round

as sharply as her bulk would allow.

"She's driving up now," she said helplessly. "My dear, for goodness'

sake, get me out--I don't want to meet her--I haven't made up my

mind--I'm really not in a fit state--have pity on an old woman with a

weak heart and an Indian liver--let me out by the back--do, there's a

dear--I'll think it over--I will really----"

"You can go out by the back," Mary Compton allowed coldly. "You'll

probably give the butler a fit, but that doesn't matter. By the way,

we're giving a dinner next week. We hope you and the Judge will honour

us."

Mrs. Bosanquet glared from the doorway.

"I dislike you intensely," she said, "and I won't be bullied."

"Nor will I," Mrs. Compton retorted, and then with an uncontrollable

burst of venom. "You nasty old woman!" The curtains fell with a

furious rustle and Mary Compton returned to her Dresden shepherdess.

Her interest was either very intense or very artificial, for she did not

appear to hear the dog-cart which rattled up the drive, and started

guiltily when she was called by name.

She turned and saw Sigrid standing on the threshold. The latter still

carried her lace parasol over her shoulder, as though she were not

certain of coming in, and the tinted shadow which veiled her head and

shoulders afforded a delicious contrast to the unrelieved whiteness of

her dress. Mrs. Compton, not given to poetic comparisons, was driven in

the first breath to the memory of the cool, intoxicating seductiveness

of a narcissus flowering in the fresh winds of an English spring-time.

But, in the second breath, she was realizing, not without a little

twinge of unreasonable disappointment, that the muslin dress was not

English but Parisian, and that the graceful lines of the unpretentious

garden hat represented an expenditure which would have covered the

greater part of Mrs. Compton's yearly outfit.

"Can I come in, or are you not at home?" Sigrid asked. Her head was a

little on one side and her eyes and mouth were quizzical. Mary Compton

promptly kissed her and took charge of the parasol, which she handled

with an almost masculine awe of its amazing daintiness.

"Sigrid, I'm just thankful. I didn't know it was you. I didn't

recognize the cart."

"It wasn't mine." She hesitated for a second and her mouth was

uncontrollably wry. "Jim brought me in."

"Oh!" For the life of her, Mrs. Compton could think of no better

answer. She drew her visitor to the chair which Mrs. Bosanquet had just

vacated. "Anyhow, you're just the person I was longing to see," she

added lightly.

Sigrid's lips quivered.

"Am I? Well, that's more than Mrs. Bosanquet would have said! Poor

lady, how she must have hurried. Which way did she go? Out through the

servants' compound?"

"My dear Sigrid!" Mrs. Compton turned to her Dresden shepherdess to

hide the fact that her face was suffused with the red of sheer panic.

"Don't be so absurd! Mrs. Bosanquet and I have been 'having words,' as

Mary Ann would say. She was too cross to face anybody."

The smile lingered about Sigrid's lips, as though some secret thought

amused her. Her eyes, dark shadowed and rather wistful, were fixed

absently ahead. Mary Compton trusted she had not noticed her own

confusion. Suddenly, though she did not look up, she held out her hand.

"What have you got there, dear?"

Mrs. Compton responded thankfully. She came like an eager child,

kneeling at Sigrid's feet, the Dresden shepherdess held up reverently

for inspection.

"My pet shepherdess. I don't think you've seen her before, I've made up

my mind to part with her. I've been almost in tears over it."

"Have you?"

Mary nodded. She was convinced that her visitor was not listening, but

she rattled on determinedly, set on holding off an inevitable crisis.

"Yes. You know, our little bits of china are just like children to us.

In fact, they're substitutes--only much nicer. They don't get the

measles, they don't become increasingly expensive and unsatisfactory,

they don't live to curse your grey hairs. On the contrary, they become

increasingly valuable and lovable. You see, when Archie and I married,

we were desperately in love, but we hadn't a single high-class interest.

We adored dancing and tennis and theatres and expensive food at

expensive restaurants. There were times when we felt we hadn't a soul

between us. You don't know how it worried us, because we do want to go

on existing and having good times together in the next world, and we

felt we never should if we didn't cultivate our higher selves or

something. We thought of children, but you know we don't like children a

bit, and we've forty cousins between us, so that there's no chance of

our families dying out. When we found we both loved beautiful china, we

almost wept for thankfulness. We knew then that there was something in

us above food and drink. And there's our most precious bit. Isn't she

a gem?"

Sigrid took the shepherdess and considered it gravely.

"Yes--a real find. Tell me, what were you and Mrs. Bosanquet

quarrelling about?" She waited a moment, and then, as Mrs. Compton,

very red and almost sullen in her aggrieved sense of thwarted diplomacy,

remained silent, she went on quietly: "You were quarrelling about me.

You were discussing whether to cut me or drop me gently; isn't that so?"

Mrs. Compton looked up with a sudden resolution. "We were quarrelling

about you."

"That's good. That's frank of you, Mary." She put the shepherdess on

the table and took the elder woman's hand tenderly between hers. "What

did you decide?"

"There wasn't anything to decide where we're concerned. You can do what

you like, Sigrid. Archie and I are far too much in love with you----"

Sigrid laughed.

"Don't get me into worse trouble by making out that I'm a

husband-snatcher. So you're going to stick to me. And the others----?"

"I don't know, dear."

"And you--you're both awfully shocked and horrified."

Mrs. Compton's mouth tightened with the struggle. She did not flinch

under the steady, penetrating eyes.

"We don't understand--that's all."

"You loyal soul!" She was thoughtfully silent for an instant, and then

went on: "But you must understand--at least a little. It's only fair,

since you're going to fight my battle. If you'd decided differently, I

shouldn't have told you. I'm an adventuress, Mary--I've never pretended

to be anything else--not in a bad sense. I've lived very straightly in

some ways, but I've always staked my all on a day. I've lived

fabulously--like a Roman empress, Mary. And one day there was nothing

left to stake. In ordinary language, I was bankrupt--or near it. So I

took what was left and set out round the world--husband-hunting----"

"Sigrid!"

"Yes, that doesn't sound very ideal, does it? But in reality it was

rather a wonderful quest. I was looking for a man who could give me all

that I conceived necessary for life--who would share it with me in

understanding and whom I could care for--deeply." She smiled in

self-mockery. "That sounds better, doesn't it? But, unfortunately, I

never found him."

"Never?"

There was significance in Mary Compton's eyes--a challenge.

"No, never. And three months ago, when Mr. Barclay asked me to marry

him--I had one hundred pounds and my passage left me in the world."

Mrs. Compton sprang to her feet, her hands clasped in consternation.

"Why didn't you tell us--you could have come to us. Oh, no, I know

that's nonsense--we're poor as mice. But you could have gone back--you

could have danced again and in one night you would have made enough----"

She stopped short, arrested by something that passed over the other's

face--a shadow, a wince of physical, deadly pain. "Sigrid, couldn't

you----"

"Yes, I could have done that. And the money would have paid for a

gorgeous funeral."

"Sigrid--don't joke--be serious----"

"I am serious----" Her voice hardened. "Horribly serious. One night's

triumph, if you like--and then the end. That's what I came to tell you.

No one else knows except Smithy. It's my secret. It's yours now."

Alary Compton stood transfixed. The colour had faded from her face,

leaving it sallow with fear and grief. She bit her lips, trying

desperately to hold back an overwhelming rush of tears. She hated

tears. Now they choked her. Through a mist, she saw Sigrid lay her

hand lightly on her side. "A little affair of the heart--_c'est tout_."

Mrs. Compton dropped on her knees. Reckless of the expensive gown, she

buried her face on Sigrid's breast, clinging to her with a defiant

fierceness.

"Oh, my dear, my dear--and we didn't know. I can't believe it--you so

strong--so perfect----"

"Yes--almost perfect." She passed her hand caressingly over the

grey-flaked, curly head much as though the grief was not her own.

"Perfect in my Art--almost perfect in body. But the 'almost' was the

price I paid. Oh Mary, just once again to glide out into the lights, to

hear the music--to lose the sea of gaping faces--to rise right up on the

crest of living----" She drew herself erect, her eyes burning. "Oh, my

Art, the greatest Art of all! Scientists, musicians, painters--just so

many lopsided distortions! But I was the soul and the body, the perfect

union. I was music and poetry and speech. I was a miracle greater than

the dreams of science. I was the perfect human body with an inspired

soul----" Her voice failed. The life died out of her eyes. She sank

back, laughing brokenly. "Isn't that absurd--funny--for I am going to

marry Mr. Barclay."

There was a long, heavy silence. Both women faced the tragedy, the one

with the bitter knowledge that her understanding could only be dim and

incomplete. She roused herself at last, disengaging herself gently from

the enfolding arm, rubbing the tears from her cheeks.

"Sigrid--there were other men--good men--of one's own blood----"

"Oh yes, I know. There was one in England. I meant--but things

happened. I can't explain. You've got to take that much on trust. Mr.

Barclay offered me more than money."

"You mean----?"

"Silence."

Mary Compton rose slowly to her feet. She was quiet now and very grave.

She gazed at the woman in the chair and realized for the first time a

change in her. The old serenity, the laughing, godlike attitude towards

life had gone. She had the wan dignity of a fighter who, from a post of

easy vantage, has gone down into the arena.

"I don't want to know any more. I do take you on trust."

"And there was more in it than that," Sigrid went on, following the

train of her thoughts. "It was a bargain. I, too, had something to

offer. That suited my pride. I could do for him what I could not have

done for another man. I could give him what he desires, I believe, more

than life----"

"Position----?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Compton shook her head. Her seriousness was now business-like,

scarcely touched with emotion.

"And you think you are strong enough?"

"I don't know. I must be. Everything that matters to me now depends on

it."

"If you went away--to another part of India--oh, I don't want you to

go--I'm trying to think only of your good----"

"It would be useless. I have won my position here. I have friends.

Anywhere else I should just be his wife."

"His wife--you! Oh, it's hardly bearable! Just because we are your

friends it hurts worse." She ruffled her hair with an unhappy hand.

"Sigrid, you can count on us, of course. I believe you may count on

Mrs. Bosanquet, and the Judge follows automatically. She's furious just

now, but she has a regular schoolgirl rave on you and it will be too

strong for her. I daresay the other women will follow. Even Anne----"

She saw Sigrid move restlessly in her chair, and hastily swung off,

moved by she knew not what consciousness of pain. "It's the men who'll

be the hardest to fight. They'd forgive you most things--things we

wouldn't forgive--a vulgar intrigue, an elopement with somebody else's

husband--but this is against their code. Men are conventional, women

moral. It's the one vital difference between the sexes. And then there

are other troubles. Things are rocky in Gaya. We know that the

regiment is disaffected. The new Colonel makes no headway.

Boucicault's work was too thorough for that. Then there's Rasaldu. He

regards your engagement as a sort of insult--and, weak tool though he

is, we've got to keep him in hand. All that counts against you. Oh, it

will be a fight, though we shall have Tristram. He's always ready for a

lost cause----"

She stopped again. Sigrid had risen to her feet. She seemed not to

have heard the last sentence. She picked up the Dresden shepherdess

with a light, reckless hand.

"How pretty it is! Why are you parting with it? Who's the lucky

recipient----?"

"It's a wedding present." She felt a sick misery creep over her. "For

Anne and Tristram----?"

"Ah, yes--of course--for Anne and Tristram----" Her voice was very

level and matter-of-fact, rather indifferent, as though she were echoing

mechanically something that scarcely reached her intelligence.

Then a shadow fell across the sunlight patch on the worn matting, and

both women looked up. James Barclay stood on the verandah. He raised

his hand in a military salute.

"I've come for Sigrid, Mrs. Compton," he said. "She was such an

unconscionable time, and one is naturally impatient. Please forgive, if

you were discussing secrets."

His dark eyes were on Mrs. Compton's face, intent, curious, vaguely

appealing. The thrill of loathing and contempt which had passed through

her gave place to a bitter amusement. He was so wonderfully, correctly

dressed, so desperately at ease. She stared back at him, burning with

her first instinctive revolt against his presence. Then she remembered.

She glanced at Sigrid, who was still toying idly with the Dresden

shepherdess. Something in the resolute submission of that proud,

self-reliant figure set fire to all the chivalry in Mrs. Compton's

blood. She turned again. She heard herself speaking:

"We're very pleased--won't you both stay for tea? And--and I was just

saying--I'm giving a dinner next week--to celebrate--your engagement--if

it suits you----"

It was done. She felt as though she had cut through a dam, and that the

torrent was on her. She saw Sigrid look up swiftly and then glance at

the man by the window.

He bowed gravely, but she caught the triumphant flash in his eyes.

"It is very kind. We shall be delighted--this afternoon we've an

engagement, haven't we, Sigrid?"

It was all Mrs. Compton remembered clearly. Looking back on the scene,

she had a vague recollection of her own voice flowing on ceaselessly

over a seething inner conflict, of a pale face watching her, half in

pity, half in gratitude. Presently, when they had gone, she flung

herself down by Sigrid's empty chair and cried with misery and

humiliation. And, when the last tears had been shed, she picked up the

Dresden shepherdess and put her back in her place in the glass cabinet,

and turned the key with an air of locking up evil genii. Then she

thought of her husband for the first time.

"Poor old Archie!" she muttered remorsefully. "Poor Archie!"

Meantime, Barclay drove his showy cob towards the dak-bungalow.

"So you've managed it," he said. "You've really managed. You're

wonderful--even more wonderful than I thought."

She drew farther away from him.

"I have kept my part of the bargain."

He laughed.

"Which is fortunate for everyone concerned."

"Keep your part!"

He made her a little bow, his face suddenly flushed and heavy-looking.

"As much as it lies in human nature, dear lady," he answered.

*CHAPTER II*

*A HOME-COMING*

Mrs. Boucicault welcomed her daughter with the affable irresponsibility

which had become her habitual mood. She bore no grudge--not more than a

steam-roller bears towards the stones it has ground into acquiescence.

She had got what she wanted and was quite pleased that Anne should have

been equally successful. No one witnessing the warm, rather

absent-minded embrace could have guessed at a very bitter parting or at

a wedding at which the bride's family was conspicuous by its absence.

As a matter of fact, the bitterness had been on Anne's side and the

wedding had been so recklessly hurried on that Mrs. Boucicault's excuse

that she could not leave poor Richard at such short notice sounded

acceptable. Gaya knew perfectly well that the Governor-General's visit

and its attendant gaieties was the real reason, but extended a

charitable sympathy, and endeavoured to keep Anne in happy ignorance,

guessing that her understanding would be altogether of a different kind.

Mrs. Boucicault kissed Tristram on both cheeks, putting her hands on his

shoulder in order to pull herself up to the necessary altitude.

"My dears, how well you both look! Really, I believe you got married

just for a month of the hills. How I did envy you! We've been

positively baked alive. I nearly bolted, but of course your poor father

could not have been moved. It was terrible."

She began to wander about the newly furnished room in a restless,

over-excited way, giving neither the time to reply. "You must come and

admire everything. We all did our bit. I had some furniture sent from

Lucknow. Don't you like the chairs? They're a home product. Mrs.

Bosanquet gave such a lovely tea-service. My ayah smashed a cup in the

unpacking, but these accidents will happen. I hope the servants will be

all right. You both know how they steal." She led them through the

length and breadth of the bungalow, whose decoration had the charm of

haphazard good taste. As Mrs. Boucicault had said, everyone in Gaya had

taken a hand in Tristram's home and given of their best, attaining an

unconventional success. But Anne followed silently and without

expression of approval. Her natural composure of manner seemed to have

developed. She looked very well and much older. Her girlishness had

been completely swallowed up in a rather self-conscious womanhood, and

much that her girlhood had promised had been fulfilled. The line of her

mouth had stiffened. Her very clothes, well-made but severe, expressed

a character already set within definite and inelastic boundaries. Once

or twice she glanced back at her husband and her eyes were full of a

half-timorous, half-proprietary tenderness.

"Do you like it all, Tris?"

He nodded, smiling down at her.

"It's first-rate. I don't know how they managed it."

"Yes--it's quite nice. Of course, we shall have to rearrange things.

It's all so patchy, isn't it?"

He did not answer. Mrs. Boucicault came back to the drawing-room and

gave them tea. It was then, seated, facing her with her back to the

light that Anne noticed the too-vivid red of her mother's lips, the

tinge of artificial colour on the grey cheeks. Her own eyes hardened a

little.

"Is father better?" she asked coldly. "Is there any change? I asked

you to write to me, mother, but you never did."

Mrs. Boucicault helped herself daintily to cake.

"There's no change--at least, not for the better. He had Sir Gilbert

Foster here to see him. He happened to be in Lucknow, and, of course,

I've spared no effort--no expense. Sir Gilbert agreed that there was

very little hope. Sometimes I think it would be more merciful if the

end came. He is so utterly helpless. He just lies there and broods.

Even the official attempt to get at some clue with regard to the man who

attacked him doesn't seem to rouse him--and Richard was always so

anxious to get square with an enemy, wasn't he? Of course, I go and sit

with him every day and tell him our doings. It's very dull for me, but

one has to do all one can. Didn't I write? I'm so sorry. I meant to,

but we've been so busy----"

"I've no doubt," Anne interposed, with contemptuous bitterness. "Gaya

has been quite gay, I hear."

Mrs. Boucicault smiled happily.

"Yes, quite gay. And very upset into the bargain. It's like living on

an eruption or a volcano or whatever it is I mean. I suppose you've

heard, Tristram? The regiment is just seething with sedition. Poor

Richard kept the lid on wonderfully, and now he's gone we're all waiting

for the lid to come off with a bang. Colonel Armstrong is a dear, but

he's got beautiful democratic ideas, and bullies and distrusts his

equals more than any one I ever knew. So we're all waiting. And things

have been made so deliciously worse by the advent of Mr. Barclay. You've

heard of that, too? He's going to marry Sigrid Fersen in two months.

Awful, isn't it?"

Anne turned her eyes to her husband.

"It's revolting," she said. "He's the kind of man a woman of her type

would choose. The least she can do is to leave Gaya."

"She's not going to, though. The whole station is a divided camp and

armed to the teeth about it. Half of us want to cut her and half want

to swallow him for her sake. Mary Compton and Mrs. Bosanquet are for

swallowing--and so am I. I don't see why people shouldn't do as they

like."

Anne's lips curled.

"You would choose the easy way, mother."

Mrs. Boucicault shot her a glance, which was not entirely free from

malice.

"Hardly easy in this case. Think of the complications! Think of Rasaldu

going about like a comic thunder-storm! Think of our pet official snobs.

Oh, we shall live to see exciting times. More tea, Tristram?"

He shook his head and placed a half-emptied cup on the table.

Throughout Mrs. Boucicault's garrulous chatter he had been watching her

narrowly and almost as though he were listening to something beneath her

words. Now he turned and met his wife's eyes with an unflinching

directness. It seemed to check an impulsive answer. She got up

sharply.

"I'd better go and help the ayah unpack," she said. "I'll drive round

and see father tonight, mother. Let him know."

"Of course, dear. He'll be so delighted. I'll go home now and leave

you two to settle down. Tell the syce to bring round the cart, will

you, Tristram?"

On parting, she kissed them again with her new absent-minded

effusiveness and patted Anne's shoulder. "It's so nice to see you happy

at last, child. By the way, you've never asked after poor Owen--and

he's so devoted."

A faint flush crept into Anne's cheeks. For an instant, at least, her

composure wavered.

"I hadn't forgotten. How is he?"

"Dreadfully disfigured, poor fellow--and his sight affected. But he

goes on with his work just the same--like a real martyr. It's such a

pity the natives don't appreciate it. They pretend he has the evil eye,

and run away from him. Terrible, isn't it?"

"I shall have to look him up," Tristram observed.

"Do--you're so clever." She took her place in the dog-cart with the

lightness and ease of a much younger woman. Then as the syce jerked the

reins, she bent down. "Tristram, will you be coming round, too, this

evening?"

"Yes," he answered gravely.

"Well--when you've seen Richard--will you have a talk with me--a

professional talk? I believe I'm getting an Indian liver, and the

natives seem to have such a holy terror of your concoctions that I'm

sure they're effective. Will you?"

"Rather!" He laughed, though the blue eyes remained seriously intent.

"And I'll bring my deadliest blue pills with me," he promised.

As the cart swung through the compound gates Mrs. Boucicault turned her

head and looked back. Tristram waved, but Anne gave no sign. Her face

was set and hard as Tristram turned to her. He slipped his arm with a

rather shy affection through hers.

"Aren't you satisfied, dear?"

She looked up at him smiling, but perfunctorily, as a grown-up smiles at

a child, concealing her real feeling.

"Oh, so satisfied with you and the home, Tris. But I wish mother hadn't

welcomed us. She makes me sick to the heart the way she talks about

father. I don't want to hate her--and yet sometimes I can't help

myself. And I didn't want our first day here to be spoilt by hatred.

It's like a bad omen."

He was silent for a moment. Had she been looking at him she might have

seen the faint change which passed over his features. It was a change

that had come to them more than once during these two months among the

hills--a kind of troubled perplexity--of uneasiness.

"Anne, I'm not satisfied with your mother," he began suddenly. "I don't

like the look of her. I believe she's hiding something from us----"

She interrupted him with an impatient, scornful gesture.

"It's just her way. She's always imagining there's something the matter

with her. When father was almost dying, she worried the doctor about a

petty ailment of her own. I think she does it to cover the way she

behaves----"

"Aren't you a wee bit hard on her?"

"Hard? Tris, surely it's right to be hard sometimes? One can't be

lenient towards what's wrong. And it is wrong to be cruel, and our duty

is towards the sick and sorrowful, no matter what they've done. Don't

you think so?"

"Yes," he answered thoughtfully. "Perhaps our only duty."

She shook her head.

"Our first duty is to God." Then, with a quick movement that was an

instant's reversion to her girlhood, she slipped her hand into his,

pressing it, and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. "Tris, that

sounded as though I were criticizing. I didn't mean it. You're so

good-natured and tender-hearted--perhaps too forgiving. But at the

bottom we think and feel the same about things, I know. Only you're too

good for me."

"Don't let's talk about our respective goodness," he implored lightly.

"We shall quarrel. Let's go and prospect for your rose-garden instead."

They went down the steps together, her hands linked over his arm, and

followed the path of sunlight through the wilderness of wild-growing

flowers and high luxuriant trees which Gaya perhaps deliberately had

left untouched.

"We shall have to make it trim and neat," Anne said, sighing. "My roses

will never grow in all this shadow. Besides, it's so untidy. Those big

palms ought to be cut down, too, don't you think?"

She always appealed to him differently, yet as though his agreement was

an assured thing. He looked up, catching a line of azure between the

foliage. It seemed to him that for an instant he breathed the scented

virgin air of the forests, that soon night would be creeping in

stealthily between the slender trunks of the trees and that he would lie

full length by the camp-fire and watch the distant beacons flame up in

the violet darkness. It was a picture flashed from his memory, perhaps

in contrast to those smooth, cool, civilized days among the hills. He

closed his eyes to it.

"You must have things as you like them, dear," he said. "I want you to

have everything--everything that makes you happy."

"Really? Do you mean it?" There was a breathless eagerness in her

voice, no mere acknowledgment. He paused an instant and looked down

into her earnest face. In a vague, instinctive way she had often

resented his eyes--or rather the something which their clouded

introspection held from her. Now she thrilled under them. They were

clear, intensely, fiercely living.

"Yes, I do mean it," he said passionately. "Anne--if I thought you

happy, I should be content. If I knew of anything that would give you

only a moment's pleasure, I wouldn't rest till I brought it you. I want

you to be happy--more than I can say."

She flushed girlishly.

"Do you love me so much as all that, Tris?"

"Isn't that proof?" he asked back.

"You are very, very good to me." Still she held her ground, watching

him with her strange mingling of diffidence and conscious power.

"Tris--I do want something awfully--something that will make me

perfectly content----"

He smiled.

"Then it's yours, if a poor Major can squeeze it out of his official

fortune."

"I want my father here--with us." She saw no change in him, and yet,

absorbed as she was in her own appeal, she felt the sudden check in his

breathing, the tightening of the muscles under her hand. She became

reasonlessly frightened. "Tris, is it too much to ask?"

He turned and continued to walk on.

"No--I meant what I said just now. Only--I don't understand, Anne--in

the old days--before the accident--you were so afraid of him. You

dreaded him--I think you hated him----"

"Don't!" she interrupted. "You can't think how it hurts to be reminded

of all that. Yes, he frightened me. He made us all unhappy. Now he is

helpless--broken. Sometimes, looking back, it seems to me that we were

to blame--that perhaps mother was not the wife for him--that she didn't

understand----"

He crushed back the exclamation that had risen to his lips. He dared

not admit even to himself that it had been one of bitter impatience.

"That doesn't seem quite fair, Anne. He may have been ill, mad, if you

like. It's the best one can say."

"He was considered a fine soldier," she returned, rather primly. "His

men worshipped him."

"You live in the past, dear," he persisted.

Something had risen between them, a pulsing, quick-breathing irritation.

She pressed his arm.

"You don't understand," she said forgivingly.

"No, perhaps not." They had reached the gates of the compound, and,

arrested by sounds whose thrill for ever outlives familiarity, they

stood still, their faces turned to the open high-road. Amidst the

rattle of drums, and the shrill call of the fifes, the regiment slogged

its way sullenly back to the barracks. The dust rose in silver columns

under the tramping feet. The red sun, lying already westwards, fell

aslant the dark, brooding faces and made a quivering stream of fire of

the fixed bayonets. The new Colonel rode at the head of the column,

chatting with his Adjutant. He had a resolute serenity about him, an

unimaginative contentment. Tristram, saluting, knew that for him there

was no significance in that fiery line winding its way up the hill in

black silence--no hint of the future. Only the common, daily routine.

He heard Anne's voice at his side, broken and piteous.

"Oh, if only father were there--at the head of his men--if we could only

bring him back----"

"I can't do that," he answered gently. "If I could, I would. I never

realized how much you cared. It's taught me a lot about life--your

caring. But if you think he wishes it--he must come to us, whatever it

may cost."

She smiled at him through her tears.

"I know he would wish it. Mother is cruel to him--I know she feels

cruelly. He will be happy with us. He will get to understand that we

both care--oh, Tristram, I can't thank you enough. I promise you it

shan't trouble you."

A scarcely perceptible line deepened about his fine mouth.

"Don't promise rashly, dear. And remember, I said, whatever it

costs----"

It became very still about them. The tramp of feet and the rattle of

drums grew muffled and rumbled into silence. They could see the column

wind its way up in and out of the broken avenue of trees like a

monstrous glittering serpent. The dust sank back peacefully in golden

particles, and with the deepening silence there came a sense of relief,

of healing. The vague spirit of irritation and opposition laid itself.

Tristram drank in the silence. In that subconscious self where no

thought or desire is formulated, he prayed for its continuation. He

held himself motionless so that no movement of his should rouse his

companion from her seeming abstraction. For a moment, she had relaxed

her hold of him and he shrank back into himself, into a loneliness where

he seemed to draw breath, to lay down a burden which he never

acknowledged, and to stretch his cramped soul in exquisite relief. The

perfumed air, the golden lights and splendid purples of a brief twilight

penetrated below his senses, and with light, magic fingers opened the

closed doors behind which he had imprisoned all that the woman beside

him could not understand, all that was repugnant to her. They came out,

these ghostly figures of his fancy, and played before him. At first

they had been pale and wan, but as they drew in light and air, they

regained their youth and glowed with their old splendour. He watched

them, fascinated. His blood began to move more swiftly. A thought

shaped itself out of the depths--the thought of the nights and days out

there on the fringe of the jungle--of the work that would claim him

back--of life as it might still be to him. Service! that remained.

He felt Anne's fingers tighten on his arm.

"Look!" she said.

The scorn and anger in her voice stung him. The lights grew suddenly

dim and the fancies faded. He looked the way she pointed, and his

pulses stood still. Two riders were coming slowly down the hill towards

them. Their white-clad figures shone ghostly in the shadow of the

trees. They came on, up to the gates. Tristram's pulses resumed their

beating, heavily, suffocatingly. His hand went up to his helmet, and

the fair-haired woman on the Arab bowed with grave indifference. The

man beside her smiled, showing his white teeth. Then it was over. He

heard the man's voice break on the silence--he was making some ironic

comment--and then the beat of horses' hoofs at a mad gallop.

Anne's eyes were on his face.

"Tris, how could you!" she said bitterly.

He turned and looked at her. He felt stupid and heavy, as though some

one had struck him between the eyes; but even then he realized her

expression, the unbreakable will showing through the mask of her

femininity.

"What should I have done?" he asked, and was conscious of a wry

amusement. Beneath the surface their wills grappled together. She was

so small, so strong. He would be so utterly beaten.

"I don't know--You didn't even wait for her to bow. It's not for me to

dictate--surely it wasn't necessary to know her--she's outside the

pale--and that man--oh, it was sickening, horrible----!"

Her voice quivered. He put his arm about her shoulders,

"Did you want me to--to cut them?" he asked.

"Why not? I think it would have been better to do what we must do right

from the beginning. We can't _know_ them, Tris."

"I must," he responded deliberately.

He felt her whole body stiffen.

"Why?" Her voice was very low now, subdued so as to cover its real

timbre. "Why?" she repeated.

"Because I have no reason not to," he returned.

"A half-caste and an adventuress----"

Something tortured and leashed within him leapt up flinging itself

savagely against his self-control.

"What is an adventuress, Anne? A woman who ventures? What better thing

can any of us do?" He spoke half-jestingly, striving to ward off the

issue that was to arise between them; but there was no pity in the hard

eyes which she lifted for a moment to his face.

"Are you going to be one of those who are prepared to sneer at our

morality--at the whole prestige of our race?" she asked.

Even then he marvelled at her. She had been so young, so childish. She

challenged him now with a mature fixity of outlook and of character.

She might have been an old woman. And he knew that it was no sudden

development. It had been there always, a deep-rooted inheritance of her

kind.

"I cannot be other than I am," he said steadily. "As to

prestige--doesn't it belong to our English greatness to shoulder our

responsibilities? We're responsible to a man like Barclay. He belongs

to us more than any man of our own blood. Don't you realize--he's our

fault--we've flung him into his position. We've made him what he is.

He had an English father--Anne, and he has a claim on me I cannot and

will not ignore."

He saw the curl of her lips. It was an answer straight from those past

generations stronger than all reason.

"We must stamp out our sins--not foster them. And that woman--do you

expect me to meet her--the Rajah's mistress--this man's bought

property----"

"Anne!" A sick horror surged up within him--horror of his own

passionate anger--horror in some dim way mingled with a vicarious shame.

He turned away from her. But the instinctive chivalry which prompted

the action was unnecessary. She held her ground with the resolution of

justification. "Anne, you're speaking recklessly. I know that what you

say is not true. And even if it were--I can't judge other people--it's

not in me--I feel no right in me to judge. There's only one distinction

I can make between men and women--the happy and the unhappy, the blessed

and the cursed----"

"The good and the evil," she interrupted stonily. "There is only one

morality, Tristram----"

He drew himself to his full and splendid height. The red sunlight

glowed on his impassioned face, in his blazing eyes. For an instant he

forgot her--became free, breathing in the glory of his faith.

"--That ye love one another," he exclaimed with happy triumph. Her eyes

sank. For that instant her instinct told her that she could not touch

him--that he had passed beyond her reach. But, behind their lids, her

eyes were bright with a bitter resentment.

"Do you love Sigrid Fersen, Tris? People said you did----"

He came slowly back--down to the level, arid country where he was to

live his life. He stared down into her white face. "Do you, Tris?"

He caught her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes

were sullen and unhappy. Their unhappiness shattered his anger,

changing it to a burning remorse and pity.

"You're my wife. There can be no other woman for me but you. That's my

little fragment of morality. Isn't that enough?"

"You stand up for her----" she persisted, with a sudden break in her

hard voice. She put up her hands, clinging to him. "Oh, Tris, you make

me afraid----" she cried miserably. "I couldn't bear to lose you----"

He held her with a desperate tenderness. He had groped his way to the

source of her outburst, and the dawning knowledge threw a pitiless light

into his own heart. All the antagonism had gone. In the moment's

revulsion he saw her as justified.

"If it was because I loved her, I shouldn't fight for her," he said

hoarsely. "Don't you understand--it's not only her--it's Barclay,

too--it's everyone. I'd trample on every feeling I had for your

sake--but not on my religion--don't you understand?" He knew she could

not, that the word "religion" had rung like blasphemy in her ears. But

she leant against him, crying wearily like a tired child.

"And this is our home-coming, Tris!"

"It makes a mockery of all my promises!" he answered sadly. "What shall

I do to make you happy again, little Anne?"

She bent and kissed his hand. "Oh, Tris, if we could only go away from

here--from Gaya--somewhere where we should get away from

everyone-everyone who makes me afraid--couldn't we? We could start

afresh with no one to come between us----?"

It had grown very dark. Though she was watching him again, she could

not read his expression. And he was looking past her, straight into the

vision which she had called up before him. But it was a vision of all

that had been. He saw the old landmarks--the river and the long, broken

roads, the camping-place beneath the trees, the familiar faces whose

solemn trustfulness he had fought for with his best years, with all the

ardour of his youth. He saw the dreams he had dreamed--the hours tight

packed with action, with all the glory of battle and victory. And now

to begin again--to cut new paths through the waste tracts, to call up

fresh springs of faith and hope from desert ground. He felt himself

suddenly old and very tired.

"It should be easy enough," he said gently. "I could get a new

district--I'm not popular and they've just left me here--but they'd do

that for me, I daresay. Yes, we will go away and start again, Anne."

She was silent for a moment. She was breathing quietly and contentedly.

In a flash of knowledge which he despised and hated, he knew that they

had fought together and that she had won.

"You're so good, Tris, so good to me. Sometimes we don't quite

understand each other. But we're husband and wife, and that's all that

really matters, isn't it?"

He nodded. The tiredness stupefied him, bewildered him. He fancied he

saw something white glide in among the trees--a slender figure that

moved like a very spirit of Life. He fancied there was music in the

stillness--afar off, intoxicating.

"All that matters, Anne----"

*CHAPTER III*

*MRS. BOUCICAULT CALLS THE TUNE*

The male-nurse had put the carefully shaded lamp on the table behind the

bed and gone off to take an unobtrusive share in the festivities.

Colonel Armstrong had lent the regimental band for the occasion, and

what with the music and the superabundance of champagne and the

pliability of the native character, the male-nurse recognized golden

opportunities for a break in the tedium of his duties. Possibly he was

quite justified. It was a dull business nursing a patient who could not

even curse at you. Moreover, there was nothing to do. What could be

done for a log that lay day in, day out, staring sightlessly up at the

white ceiling, whose every desire, if desire still lived behind that

appalling silence, had to be guessed at?

So the male-nurse threw a professional glance round the scene of his

activities, noted the perfection of orderliness, and went his way.

Boucicault continued to stare upwards. The shadows were massed against

the ceiling like sultry, motionless clouds. They loomed over the

withering body stretched out beneath them in the rigidity of death,

their stifling intensity loaded with an overpowering perfume. There

were flowers everywhere--on the table, at the foot of the bed, on the

chest of drawers, on the shelves, lighting the room's barren simplicity

with fierce, burning colour. Their vividness seemed a part of the music

that came light-footed into the sombre hush--an echo of the murmuring

voices, the merry jangle of harness, the patter of naked feet, the clink

of glasses. The room was like a white-cliffed, deserted island in the

midst of a moonlit, tossing ocean of life. The wave slapped the walls,

and rolled back from them as from something alien and repellent.

Or again, but for those eyes staring up at the ceiling, the place might

have been a death-chamber. There was the same orderliness, the same

white silence, the many flowers. And the long, shrivelled body outlined

on the bed was quieter than any living thing.

A voice broke from the distant murmur and came nearer. It was a woman's

voice, rather strained and high-pitched. Something white and shimmering

fluttered against the darkness on the verandah.

"I'm sure it's awfully nice of you, Tristram. He'll be so pleased. I

usually go in, but this evening I was too busy. Don't stay too

long----"

The eyes distended and then closed. Perhaps the brain behind them

became conscious of a vital change in the stillness, for a moment later

they opened again and rested full and direct on the man standing at the

foot of the bed. They stared at each other dumbly. The eyes became

ironic and cruel in their knowledge of power. But, as the man moved and

came nearer, they followed him, showing the whites like those of a sick

animal.

Tristram sat down on the edge of the bed. The light from behind the bed

drifted on to his face. He looked weary and composed, and there was no

trace of discomfort under that watching enmity.

"I had to come, Boucicault," he said quietly. "It got on my nerves--the

thought of your being alone like this. You may not want to see me, but,

on the other hand, it may give you some satisfaction. I don't carry my

secret very well, do I?" He spoke without bitterness or sarcasm, and

the eyes gleamed. "And then there are things I have to talk to you

about," he added.

The regimental band glided into a Viennese waltz, and the intoxicating

measure came swaying through the silence. The eyes winced, and then

steadied angrily, scornfully. Tristram stretched out his hand and

touched the coverlet. There was something groping and passionately

seeking in the movement--an articulate appeal.

"Boucicault--it's rotten perhaps to come and preach--don't let it eat

into you--all this. Don't judge harshly. I'm not speaking of myself,

you know that. I'm thinking of your wife. You lie there dumb and

helpless--I don't know what's going on in your mind. I can't

understand. Well, it's like that with most of us. Words and actions

don't matter much. We just hide behind them. But if we could get down

to the motive of each other's cruelty, there would be neither hatred nor

condemnation--at the worst, pity." He was silent an instant, his strong

hands clasped between his knees. He had spoken sadly and with a certain

abstraction and unconsciousness of his hearer, which lent his appeal

force and took from it all hint of patronage and mockery. "I say all

this because you must think a great deal--lying there--a great deal of

the past. For your own peace, it would be better to judge gently a

woman you must have cared for. Sometimes, behind our worst frivolity,

there is a great bitterness----"

The eyes sneered. Tristram met their ferocious gibe unflinchingly.

"That is one thing I had to say. And then--there's Anne. When I asked

her to be my wife, I didn't know what you would feel about our marriage

and I didn't care very much. You had made her pretty wretched, and I

didn't consider at the time that what had happened between us made any

difference. You had been considerably less than a father to her--and

besides, you were knocked out. I understand Sir Gilbert treated you

like a brave man and was quite honest with you. He doesn't believe in

your recovery--nor do I--chiefly because I've done everything for you

that science can do--and failed." He paused again. His sentences had

been clipped and hard, the words almost brutal. But his attitude was

not that of a strong man talking down from the height of his strength

and well-being to a broken victim. The eyes under the straight fair

brows revealed pitilessly what lay behind the dogged jaw, the composed

and resolute exposition. There can be no sentimentality between

suffering and suffering, only equality.

"But there was one thing I hadn't understood," he said, "and that was

Anne's love for you. Frankly, I thought she would be freer, happier

without you. But I was mistaken. It didn't matter that you'd made her

wretched. She only remembered that you were her father, the Bagh Sahib,

the fine soldier who had done great things. She cared intensely, and

all this--this sort of life smashed her up. If she ran away from it, it

was because she felt it as an insult to you--a deliberate cruelty. She

just ate her heart out about it. When I realized how matters were there

was only one thing on earth I wanted to do, and that was to come along

and give her every mortal thing I could to make her happy--you

included--everything she'd missed. It seemed to me pitiable to consider

your feelings or any conventional notions of--of propriety, as I suppose

you'd call it. She needed some one to look after her--some one who

cared. Well, I cared. Now that I have the right, I shall live for her

as far as one human being can live for another. It is my most

passionate hope to make her happy. I don't know whether I shall

succeed--that's another matter. I shall do my best."

He got up and stood at his full height. The evening regimentals which

he wore did not become him. They looked indefinably grotesque on his

bigness--like a child's toy uniform on a grown man. The short Eton coat

exaggerated the breadth of his shoulders, the black trousers the

narrowness of his hips, the length of limb. The gold and red clashed

with his tawny hair and the rugged, weather-tanned features. He needed

a background of forest, of action, of stern living. His body needed the

freedom of rough clothing.

"Anne wants you to live with us," he said. "That is what I have come to

tell you. If you both would be happier, I should be glad, too. There

is a great deal I might be able to do to make things more tolerable for

you--at least, I should try. I have given up my quarters at Heerut. It

is for you to decide."

The eyes sparkled. It seemed to Tristram that they were blazing with

satiric laughter. He had a reasonless, overwhelming sense of near

disaster. "Give me some sign, Boucicault. If you consent, close your

eyes or----"

Slowly, as if weighed down by disuse, the withered arm lying on the

sheet lifted itself from the elbow. It remained upright for an instant,

throwing a sinister shadow on the wall, seeming to point upwards with

menacing significance, then sank slowly to its place. The eyes were mad

with exultation.

Tristram was back to the bedside at one stride. He laid his fingers on

the savagely beating pulse. With rapid, skilful movements, he began to

test the muscles and nerve of the now motionless arm. He was breathing

quickly. The weariness, the painful deliberation had gone from him. He

was himself again--the fighter on the vast field of suffering, the

physician glorying in the greatest of all triumphs.

"By God, Boucicault, you don't know what that may mean! It's what we'd

hoped for. Look here--can you do it again?"

The arm remained inert, the eyes were, momentarily veiled and

insignificant. "How long have you been able to do that?" He was still

busy with his examination and scarcely troubled about an answer. He had

plunged back into a world where there were no passions or conflicts, but

only huge immutable laws, no personal desires or unreal dreams, but only

facts, unending chains of cause and effect, a thousand paths converging

on one great end. It was not till he had made every experiment complete

that he remembered. He looked up. The eyes were turned into their

corners, resting on his face. Their exaggerated expanse of white gave

them a look like that of a vicious dog. They did not move save when

Tristram lifted himself slowly from his half-kneeling position, and then

they followed him with a malicious fixity. The rest of the face was

dead--a crumbling mask--but the life in those eyes was inextinguishable,

titanic in its will to continuation.

He had to escape from them. He went over to the wide-open balcony and

stood there with his back turned, staring out into the darkness. For a

moment, his brain refused to face this reckoning with the future. He

listened to the music which poured through the scented stillness like

the drowsy, delicious murmur of running water. A man and a woman came

down the pathway which led from the front of the bungalow. He could

hear their voices--the man's deep-pitched and earnest, the woman's

silvery and ironic. The light from a Chinese lantern shining softly

among the branches drew a subdued gleam from the gold on the man's

collar, from the woman's white, uncovered shoulders. Suddenly the man

bent down, and they stood together through a tense, suffocating moment

of silence. Then the woman spoke again--breathlessly, the ironic

lightness gone.

Tristram drew back. He felt as though he had been drawn out into the

night's delirious sweetness; as though in defiance of that silent,

menacing figure his pulses had leapt forward, his blood had clamoured

for the fulfilment of its elemental demand on all this wealth of living.

He was young still--young in his purity of feeling--young in the

unsatisfied forces of desire. Youth flung itself on him with its

imperative behests--now when he reeled under the knowledge of its

passing. For it was over. He reasoned clearly enough through this

storm of primitive emotion. Boucicault would live. He might come back

into life--he, Tristram, would bring him back to life. It was the task

which his creed set him--not the creed of his profession but the deeper,

sterner creed of his blood.

And what if his blood lied, what if his creed were a mad, senseless

paradox? Was not the happiness of the majority the only good, its

preservation the only morality? This man had set himself against the

law. In a ghostly, tragic procession, those whom he had hunted out of

their rightful heritage passed before Tristram's memory--young officers,

those six men in the full glory of manhood standing in the barrack yard,

their backs to the wall, their faces to their brothers, and the death

which was to be dealt out to them; Eleanor Boucicault grey-cheeked and

wild-eyed pursuing the phantom promises of life; Anne, cowed and broken,

haunted now by a remorseful treacherous memory; a death-stricken little

mongrel dog, most harmless, most pitiable of all, with glazed eyes,

seeking to understand the black mystery of human cruelty.

Tristram put his hand to the stiff military collar as though it choked

him. The foundations on which he had built his life were crumbling

under his feet. Was he to give this criminal mind the power to act, to

drag his escaped and maimed victims back into the net of his authority,

to add others to that pitiable procession? Tristram recognized the

issues with an appalling clearness. His trained intellect grappled with

them with the same stern impartiality of judgment as he would have used

in tracking the source of a disease. With regard to himself, he

discarded all false sentiment. As men judge, the blow he had struck had

been unfortunate but just. Was he to heap an outrageous punishment upon

himself, upon Anne, upon an old woman who had known no happiness save

her joy in him? Would it not be a strong and logical following out of

his sincere belief if he made no effort to fan this evil flame to life?

As yet he was not conscious of any direct temptation. He was only facing

the issues--weighing one life against another, as it had happened a

hundred times in his professional career.

He turned slowly and came back into the room. The eyes followed him,

but their malicious knowledge no longer reached him. The fight was not

now between himself and this man, but between two fundamental and

opposite conceptions of life. There was a little table at the foot of

the bed, crowded with the paraphernalia of sickness. He stopped before

it, because its interest offered a fresh delay, and idly picked up one

of the glass-stoppered bottles. He opened it and smelt its contents.

The faint, sickly perfume flashed its significance to his brain.