My doctor tells me that I need rest and change of air. It is not
improbable that I shall get both ere long--rest that neither the
red-coated messenger nor the midday gun can break, and change of air
far beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer can give me. In the
meantime, I am resolved to stay where I am; and, in flat defiance of
my doctor's orders, to take all the world into my confidence. You
shall learn for yourselves the precise nature of my malady; and
shall, too, judge for yourselves whether any man born of woman on
this weary earth was ever so tormented as I.
Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak ere the drop-bolts
are drawn, my story, wild and hideously improbable as it may appear,
demands at least attention. That it will ever receive credence I
utterly disbelieve. Two months ago I should have scouted as mad or
drunk the man who had dared tell me the like. Two months ago I was
the happiest man in India. To-day, from Peshawur to the sea, there
is no one more wretched. My doctor and I are the only two who know
this. His explanation is, that my brain, digestion, and eyesight are
all slightly affected; giving rise to my frequent and persistent
"delusions." Delusions, indeed! I call him a fool; but he attends
me still with the same unwearied smile, the same bland professional
manner, the same neatly trimmed red whiskers, till I begin to suspect
that I am an ungrateful, evil-tempered invalid. But you shall judge
for yourselves.
Three years ago it was my fortune--my great misfortune--to sail from
Gravesend to Bombay, on return from long leave, with one Agnes
Keith-Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not
in the least concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be
content with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she
and I were desperately and unreasonably in love with each other.
Heaven knows that I can make the admission now without one particle
of vanity. In matters of this sort there is always one who gives and
another who accepts. From the first day of our ill-omened
attachment, I was conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a
more dominant, and--if I may use the expression--a purer sentiment
than mine. Whether she recognized the fact then, I do not know.
Afterward it was bitterly plain to both of us.
Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we went our respective
ways, to meet no more for the next three or four months, when my
leave and her love took us both to Simla. There we spent the season
together; and there my fire of straw burned itself out to a pitiful
end with the closing year. I attempt no excuse. I make no apology.
Mrs. Wessington had given up much for my sake, and was prepared to
give up all. From my own lips, in August, 1882, she learned that I
was sick of her presence, tired of her company, and weary of the
sound of her voice. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have
wearied of me as I wearied of them; seventy-five of that number would
have promptly avenged themselves by active and obtrusive flirtation
with other men. Mrs. Wessington was the hundredth. On her neither
my openly expressed aversion nor the cutting brutalities with which I
garnished our interviews had the least effect.
"Jack, darling!" was her one eternal cuckoo cry, "I'm sure it's all a
mistake--a hideous mistake; and we'll be good friends again some day.
_Please_ forgive me, Jack dear."
I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowledge transformed my
pity into passive endurance, and, eventually, into blind hate--the
same instinct, I suppose, which prompts a man to savagely stamp on
the spider he has but half killed. And with this hate in my bosom
the season of 1882 came to an end.
Next year we met again at Simla--she with her monotonous face and
timid attempts at reconciliation, and I with loathing of her in every
fibre of my frame. Several times I could not avoid meeting her
alone; and on each occasion her words were identically the same.
Still the unreasoning wail that it was all a "mistake"; and still the
hope of eventually "making friends." I might have seen, had I cared
to look, that that hope only was keeping her alive. She grew more
wan and thin month by month. You will agree with me, at least, that
such conduct would have driven any one to despair. It was uncalled
for; childish; unwomanly. I maintain that she was much to blame.
And again, sometimes, in the black, fever-stricken night-watches, I
have begun to think that I might have been a little kinder to her.
But that really is a "delusion." I could not have continued
pretending to love her when I didn't; could I? It would have been
unfair to us both.
Last year we met again--on the same terms as before. The same weary
appeals, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would
make her see how wholly wrong and hopeless were her attempts at
resuming the old relationship. As the season wore on, we fell
apart--that is to say, she found it difficult to meet me, for I had
other and more absorbing interests to attend to. When I think it
over quietly in my sick-room, the season of 1884 seems a confused
nightmare wherein light and shade were fantastically intermingled--my
courtship of little Kitty Mannering; my hopes, doubts, and fears; our
long rides together; my trembling avowal of attachment; her reply;
and now and again a vision of a white face flitting by in the
'rickshaw with the black and white liveries I once watched for so
earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington's gloved hand; and, when she
met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksome monotony of her
appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering; honestly, heartily loved her, and
with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In August, Kitty and
I were engaged. The next day I met those accursed "magpie"
jhampanies at the back of Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentiment
of pity, stopped to tell Mrs. Wessington everything. She knew it
already.
"So I hear you're engaged, Jack dear." Then, without a moment's
pause--"I'm sure it's all a mistake--a hideous mistake. We shall be
as good friends some day, Jack, as we ever were."
My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying woman
before me like the blow of a whip. "Please forgive me, Jack; I
didn't mean to make you angry; but it's true, it's true!"
And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left
her to finish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or
two, that I had been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back, and
saw that she had turned her 'rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of
overtaking me.
The scene and its surroundings were photographed on my memory. The
rain-swept sky (we were at the end of the wet weather), the sodden,
dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black powder-riven cliffs formed
a gloomy background against which the black and white liveries of the
jhampanies, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw and Mrs. Wessington's
down-bowed golden head stood out clearly. She was holding her
handkerchief in her left hand and was leaning back exhausted against
the 'rickshaw cushions. I turned my horse up a by-path near the
Sanjoylie Reservoir and literally ran away. Once I fancied I heard a
faint call of "Jack!" This may have been imagination. I never
stopped to verify it. Ten minutes later I came across Kitty on
horseback; and, in the delight of a long ride with her, forgot all
about the interview.
A week later Mrs. Wessington died, and the inexpressible burden of
her existence was removed from my life. I went plainsward perfectly
happy. Before three months were over I had forgotten all about her,
except that at times the discovery of some of her old letters
reminded me unpleasantly of our bygone relationship. By January I
had disinterred what was left of our correspondence from among my
scattered belongings and had burned it. At the beginning of April of
this year, 1885, I was at Simla--semi-deserted Simla--once more, and
was deep in lover's talks and walks with Kitty. It was decided that
we should be married at the end of June. You will understand,
therefore, that, loving Kitty as I did, I am not saying too much when
I pronounce myself to have been, at that time, the happiest man in
India.
Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I noticed their flight.
Then, aroused to the sense of what was proper among mortals
circumstanced as we were, I pointed out to Kitty that an
engagement-ring was the outward and visible sign of her dignity as an
engaged girl; and that she must forthwith come to Hamilton's to be
measured for one. Up to that moment, I give you my word, we had
completely forgotten so trivial a matter. To Hamilton's we
accordingly went on the 15th of April, 1885. Remember that--whatever
my doctor may say to the contrary--I was then in perfect health,
enjoying a well-balanced mind and an absolutely tranquil spirit.
Kitty and I entered Hamilton's shop together, and there, regardless
of the order of affairs, I measured Kitty for the ring in the
presence of the amused assistant. The ring was a sapphire with two
diamonds. We then rode out down the slope that leads to the
Combermere Bridge and Peliti's shop.
While my waler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale,
and Kitty was laughing and chattering at my side--while all Simla,
that is to say as much of it as had then come from the plains, was
grouped round the reading-room and Peliti's veranda--I was aware that
some one, apparently at a vast distance, was calling me by my
Christian name. It struck me that I had heard the voice before, but
when and where I could not at once determine. In the short space it
took to cover the road between the path from Hamilton's shop and the
first plank of the Combermere Bridge I had thought over half a dozen
people who might have committed such a solecism, and had eventually
decided that it must have been some singing in my ears. Immediately
opposite Peliti's shop my eye was arrested by the sight of four
jhampanies in "magpie" livery, pulling a yellow-paneled, cheap,
bazaar 'rickshaw. In a moment my mind flew back to the previous
season and Mrs. Wessington with a sense of irritation and disgust.
Was it not enough that the woman was dead and done with, without her
black and white servitors reappearing to spoil the day's happiness?
Whoever employed them now I thought I would call upon, and ask as a
personal favor to change her jhampanies' livery. I would hire the
men myself, and, if necessary, buy their coats from off their backs.
It is impossible to say here what a flood of undesirable memories
their presence evoked.
"Kitty," I cried, "there are poor Mrs. Wessington's jhampanies turned
up again! I wonder who has them now?"
Kitty had known Mrs. Wessington slightly last season, and had always
been interested in the sickly woman.
"What? Where?" she asked. "I can't see them anywhere."
Even as she spoke, her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw
himself directly in front of the advancing 'rickshaw. I had scarcely
time to utter a word of warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse
and rider passed through men and carriage as if they had been thin
air.
"What's the matter?" cried Kitty; "what made you call out so
foolishly, Jack? If I am engaged I don't want all creation to know
about it. There was lots of space between the mule and the veranda;
and, if you think I can't ride--There!"
Whereupon wilful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at
a hand-gallop in the direction of the band-stand; fully expecting, as
she herself afterward told me, that I should follow her. What was
the matter? Nothing indeed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that
Simla was haunted with devils. I reined in my impatient cob, and
turned round. The 'rickshaw had turned too, and now stood
immediately facing me, near the left railing of the Combermere Bridge.
"Jack! Jack, darling!" (There was no mistake about the words this
time; they rang through my brain as if they had been shouted in my
ear.) "It's some hideous mistake, I'm sure. Please forgive me, Jack,
and let's be friends again."
The 'rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and pray
daily for the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington,
handkerchief in hand, and golden head bowed on her breast.
How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused
by my syce taking the waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill.
From the horrible to the commonplace is but a step. I tumbled off my
horse and dashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of cherry
brandy. There two or three couples were gathered round the
coffee-tables discussing the gossip of the day. Their trivialities
were more comforting to me just then than the consolations of
religion could have been. I plunged into the midst of the
conversation at once; chatted, laughed, and jested with a face (when
I caught a glimpse of it in a mirror) as white and drawn as that of a
corpse. Three or four men noticed my condition; and, evidently
setting it down to the results of overmany pegs, charitably
endeavored to draw me apart from the rest of the loungers. But I
refused to be led away. I wanted the company of my kind--as a child
rushes into the midst of the dinner party after a fright in the dark.
I must have talked for about ten minutes or so, though it seemed an
eternity to me, when I heard Kitty's clear voice outside inquiring
for me. In another minute she had entered the shop, prepared to
roundly upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties. Something
in my face stopped her.
"Why, Jack," she cried, "what have you been doing? What has
happened? Are you ill?" Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that
the sun had been a little too much for me. It was close upon five
o'clock of a cloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all
day. I saw my mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth;
attempted to recover it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty, in
a regal rage, out-of-doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I
made some excuse (I have forgotten what) on the score of my feeling
faint; and cantered away to my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the
ride by herself.
In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter.
Here was I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal civilian in
the year of grace 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in
terror from my sweetheart's side by the apparition of a woman who had
been dead and buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could
not blink. Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of
Mrs. Wessington when Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop. Nothing was
more utterly commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti's.
It was broad daylight. The road was full of people; and yet here,
look you, in defiance of every law of probability, in direct outrage
of Nature's ordinance, there had appeared to me a face from the grave.
Kitty's Arab had gone through the 'rickshaw; so that my first hope
that some woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the
carriage and the coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and
again I went round this treadmill of thought; and again and again
gave up, baffled and in despair. The voice was as inexplicable as
the apparition. I had originally some wild notion of confiding it
all to Kitty; of begging her to marry me at once; and in her arms
defying the ghostly occupant of the 'rickshaw. "After all," I
argued, "the presence of the 'rickshaw is in itself enough to prove
the existence of a spectral illusion. One may see ghosts of men and
women, but surely never of coolies and carriages. The whole thing is
absurd. Fancy the ghost of a hill-man!"
Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to
overlook my strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My divinity
was still very wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I
explained, with a fluency born of night-long pondering over a
falsehood, that I had been attacked with a sudden palpitation of the
heart--the result of indigestion. This eminently practical solution
had its effect; and Kitty and I rode out that afternoon with the
shadow of my first lie dividing us.
Nothing could please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves
still unstrung from the previous night, I feebly protested against
the notion, suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge
road--anything rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a
little hurt; so I yielded from fear of provoking further
misunderstanding, and we set out together toward Chota Simla. We
walked a greater part of the way, and, according to our custom,
cantered from a mile or so below the convent to the stretch of level
road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched horses appeared to
fly, and my heart beat quicker and quicker as we neared the crest of
the ascent. My mind had been full of Mrs. Wessington all the
afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore witness to our
old-time walks and talks. The boulders were full of it; the pines
sung it aloud overhead; the rain-fed torrent giggled and chuckled
unseen over the shameful story; and the wind in my ears chanted the
iniquity aloud.
As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level men call the Lady's
Mile, the horror was awaiting me. No other 'rickshaw was in
sight--only the four black and white jhampanies, the yellow-paneled
carriage, and the golden head of a woman within--all apparently just
as I had left them eight months and one fortnight ago! For an
instant I fancied that Kitty must see what I saw--we were so
marvelously sympathetic in all things. Her next words undeceived
me--"Not a soul in sight! Come along, Jack, and I'll race you to the
reservoir buildings!" Her wiry little Arab was off like a bird, my
waler following close behind, and in this order we dashed under the
cliffs. Half a minute brought us within fifty yards of the
'rickshaw. I pulled my waler and fell back a little. The 'rickshaw
was directly in the middle of the road; and once more the Arab passed
through it, my horse following. "Jack! Jack, dear! Please forgive
me," rang with a wail in my ears, and, after an interval: "It's all a
mistake, a hideous mistake!"
I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head at
the reservoir works, the black and white liveries were still
waiting--patiently waiting--under the gray hillside, and the wind
brought me a mocking echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty
bantered me a good deal on my silence throughout the remainder of the
ride. I had been talking up till then wildly and at random. To save
my life I could not speak naturally afterward, and from Sanjowlie to
the church wisely held my tongue.
I was to dine with the Mannerings that night, and had barely time to
canter home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two
men talking together in the dusk--"It's a curious thing," said one,
"how completely all trace of it disappeared. You know my wife was
insanely fond of the woman (never could see anything in her myself),
and wanted me to pick up her old 'rickshaw and coolies if they were
to be got for love or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it; but
I've got to do what the Memsahib tells me. Would you believe that
the man she hired it from tells me that all four of the men--they
were brothers--died of cholera on the way to Hardwar, poor devils;
and the 'rickshaw has been broken up by the man himself. Told me he
never used a dead Memsahib's 'rickshaw. Spoiled his luck. Queer
notion, wasn't it? Fancy poor little Mrs. Wessington spoiling any
one's luck except her own!" I laughed aloud at this point; and my
laugh jarred on me as I uttered it. So there were ghosts of
'rickshaws after all, and ghostly employments in the other world!
How much did Mrs. Wessington give her men? What were their hours?
Where did they go?
And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal thing
blocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast, and by short
cuts unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and
checked my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad
to a certain extent I must have been, for I recollect that I reined
in my horse at the head of the 'rickshaw, and politely wished Mrs.
Wessington "Good-evening." Her answer was one I knew only too well.
I listened to the end; and replied that I had heard it all before,
but should be delighted if she had anything further to say. Some
malignant devil stronger than I must have entered into me that
evening, for I have a dim recollection of talking the commonplaces of
the day for five minutes to the thing in front of me.
"Mad as a hatter, poor devil--or drunk. Max, try and get him to come
home."
Surely that was not Mrs. Wessington's voice! The two men had
overheard me speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look
after me. They were very kind and considerate, and from their words
evidently gathered that I was extremely drunk. I thanked them
confusedly and cantered away to my hotel, there changed, and arrived
at the Mannerings' ten minutes late. I pleaded the darkness of the
night as an excuse; was rebuked by Kitty for my unlover-like
tardiness; and sat down.
The conversation had already become general; and under cover of it I
was addressing some tender small-talk to my sweetheart when I was
aware that at the further end of the table a short, red-whiskered man
was describing, with much broidery, his encounter with a man unknown
that evening. A few sentences convinced me that he was repeating the
incident of half an hour ago. In the middle of the story he looked
round for applause, as professional story-tellers do, caught my eyes,
and straightway collapsed. There was a moment's awkward silence, and
the red-whiskered man muttered something to the effect that he had
"forgotten the rest," thereby sacrificing a reputation as a good
story-teller which he had built up for six seasons past. I blessed
him from the bottom of my heart, and--went on with my fish.
In the fulness of time that dinner came to an end; and with genuine
regret I tore myself away from Kitty--as certain as I was of my own
existence that It would be waiting for me outside the door. The
red-whiskered man, who had been introduced to me as Dr. Heatherlegh
of Simla, volunteered to bear me company as far as our roads lay
together. I accepted his offer with gratitude.
My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall,
and, in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted
head-lamp. The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a
manner that showed he had been thinking over it all dinner-time.
"I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening
on the Elysium road?" The suddenness of the question wrenched an
answer from me before I was aware.
"That!" said I, pointing to It.
"That may be either D. T. or Eyes for aught I know. Now, you don't
liquor. I saw as much at dinner, so it can't be D. T. There's
nothing whatever where you're pointing, though you're sweating and
trembling with fright like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that
it's Eyes. And I ought to understand all about them. Come along
home with me. I'm on the Blessington lower road."
To my intense delight the 'rickshaw, instead of waiting for us, kept
about twenty yards ahead--and this, too, whether we walked, trotted,
or cantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my
companion almost as much as I have told you here.
"Well, you've spoiled one of the best tales I've ever laid tongue
to," said he, "but I'll forgive you for the sake of what you've gone
through. Now, come home and do what I tell you; and when I've cured
you, young man, let this be a lesson to you to steer clear of women
and indigestible food till the day of your death."
The 'rickshaw kept steady in front; and my red-whiskered friend
seemed to derive great pleasure from my account of its exact
whereabout.
"Eyes, Pansay--all Eyes, Brain, and Stomach. And the greatest of
these three is Stomach. You've too much conceited brain, too little
stomach, and thoroughly unhealthy eyes. Get your stomach straight
and the rest follows. And all that's French for a liver pill. I'll
take sole medical charge of you from this hour! for you're too
interesting a phenomenon to be passed over."
By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road
and the 'rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, overhanging
shale cliff. Instinctively I halted, too, giving my reason.
Heatherlegh rapped out an oath.
"Now, if you think I'm going to spend a cold night on the hillside
for the sake of a Stomach-cum-Brain-cum-Eye illusion ... Lord ha'
mercy! What's that?"
There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front
of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the
cliff-side--pines, undergrowth, and all--slid down into the road
below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and
tottered for a moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell
prone among their fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses
stood motionless and sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of
falling earth and stone had subsided, my companion muttered: "Man, if
we'd gone forward we should have been ten feet deep in our graves by
now. 'There are more things in heaven and earth--' Come home,
Pansay, and thank God. I want a peg badly."
We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr.
Heatherlegh's house shortly after midnight.
His attempts toward my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a
week I never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week
did I bless the good fortune which had thrown me in contact with
Simla's best and kindest doctor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter
and more equable. Day by day, too, I became more and more inclined
to fall in with Heatherlegh's "spectral illusion" theory, implicating
eyes, brain, and stomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a
slight sprain caused by a fall from my horse kept me indoors for a
few days; and that I should be recovered before she had time to
regret my absence.
Heatherlegh's treatment was simple to a degree. It consisted of
liver pills, cold water baths, and strong exercise, taken in the dusk
or at early dawn--for, as he sagely observed: "A man with a sprained
ankle doesn't walk a dozen miles a day, and your young woman might be
wondering if she saw you."
At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse,
and strict injunctions as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh
dismissed me as bruskly as he had taken charge of me. Here is his
parting benediction: "Man, I certify to your mental cure, and that's
as much as to say I've cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, get
your traps out of this as soon as you can; and be off to make love to
Miss Kitty."
I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his kindness. He cut me
short.
"Don't think I did this because I like you. I gather that you've
behaved like a blackguard all through. But, all the same, you're a
phenomenon, and as queer a phenomenon as you are a blackguard.
No!"--checking me a second time--"not a rupee, please. Go out and
see if you can find the eyes-brain-and-stomach business again. I'll
give you a lakh for each time you see it."
Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings' drawing-room with
Kitty--drunk with the intoxication of present happiness and the
foreknowledge that I should never more be troubled with Its hideous
presence. Strong in the sense of my new-found security, I proposed a
ride at once; and, by preference, a canter round Jakko.
Never had I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal
spirits, as I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty was
delighted at the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it
in her delightfully frank and outspoken manner. We left the
Mannerings' house together, laughing and talking, and cantered along
the Chota Simla road as of old.
I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my
assurance doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all too
slow to my impatient mind. Kitty was astonished at my
boisterousness. "Why, Jack!" she cried at last, "you are behaving
like a child. What are you doing?"
We were just below the convent, and from sheer wantonness I was
making my waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it
with the loop of my riding-whip.
"Doing?" I answered; "nothing, dear. That's just it. If you'd been
doing nothing for a week except lie up, you'd be as riotous as I.
"'Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth,
Joying to feel yourself alive;
Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible Earth,
Lord of the senses five.'"
My quotation was hardly out of my lips before we had rounded the
corner above the convent, and a few yards further on could see across
to Sanjowlie. In the centre of the level road stood the black and
white liveries, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw, and Mrs.
Keith-Wessington. I pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I
believe, must have said something. The next thing I knew was that I
was lying face downward on the road, with Kitty kneeling above me in
tears.
"Has it gone, child?" I gasped. Kitty only wept more bitterly.
"Has what gone, Jack dear? What does it all mean? There must be a
mistake somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake." Her last words brought
me to my feet--mad--raving for the time being.
"Yes, there is a mistake somewhere," I repeated, "a hideous mistake.
Come and look at It."
I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the
road up to where It stood, and implored her for pity's sake to speak
to It; to tell It that we were betrothed; that neither death nor hell
could break the tie between us; and Kitty only knows how much more to
the same effect. Now and again I appealed passionately to the terror
in the 'rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said, and to release me
from a torture that was killing me. As I talked I suppose I must
have told Kitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw
her listen intently with white face and blazing eyes.
"Thank you, Mr. Pansay," she said, "that's quite enough. Syce ghora
láo."
The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the
recaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold
of the bridle, entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer
was the cut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and
a word or two of farewell that even now I can not write down. So I
judged, and judged rightly, that Kitty knew all; and I staggered back
to the side of the 'rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding, and the
blow of the riding-whip had raised a livid blue wheal on it. I had
no self-respect. Just then, Heatherlegh, who must have been
following Kitty and me at a distance, cantered up.
"Doctor," I said, pointing to my face, "here's Miss Mannering's
signature to my order of dismissal, and I'll thank you for that lakh
as soon as convenient."
Heatherlegh's face, even in my abject misery, moved me to laughter.
"I'll stake my professional reputation--" he began.
"Don't be a fool," I whispered. "I've lost my life's happiness and
you'd better take me home."
As I spoke the 'rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what
was passing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the
crest of a cloud and fall in upon me.
Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that
I was lying in Heatherlegh's room as weak as a little child.
Heatherlegh was watching me intently from behind the papers on his
writing-table. His first words were not encouraging; but I was too
far spent to be much moved by them.
"Here's Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a
good deal, you young people. Here's a packet that looks like a ring,
and a cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which I've taken
the liberty of reading and burning. The old gentleman's not pleased
with you."
"And Kitty?" I asked dully.
"Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same
token you must have been letting out any number of queer
reminiscences just before I met you. Says that a man who would have
behaved to a woman as you did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill
himself out of sheer pity for his kind. She's a hot-headed little
virago, your mash. Will have it too that you were suffering from D.
T. when that row on the Jakko road turned up. Says she'll die before
she ever speaks to you again."