THE HERMIT DOCTOR OF GAYA (continued 8)

She drove homewards through the steady downpour with an exalted consciousness of a duty done and of a clear road before her. She knew now what she had to do. It meant sacrifice because she no longer loved, but sacrifice was a glorious prerogative. In it one found peace and happiness. She was happier already. As she passed the little tin chapel her happiness clamoured for expression, for thanksgiving. She ordered the syce to wait for her, and a moment later she was kneeling in her old place, to the right of the pathetic altar, thanking God for the light that had been granted her.

At first she did not see Meredith. There were only two side-windows through which the grey light filtered, sinking drearily on to the place's bleak unloveliness, and the figure bowed down before the altar was in shadow and motionless in its utter, almost passionate prostration. But presently he rose slowly to his feet and turned. The lower part of his body was still in darkness, but his face was in the light, lifted to it. And to Anne, who now saw him, its hideousness was sublime. She saw in it the seal of God set on His martyr. Her intuition flashed down into the depths of the man's patient soul, more seared and scarred even than those dreadful features, and the compassion which she poured out to him was other than her pity for her husband. It was understanding. In truth it was not pity, but she gave that name to it.

He saw her. Even though the twilight separated them she knew he faltered. She knew the memories that had driven the dark blood into those scars. And she too remembered—all her girlhood and all her girlhood's prayers and fancies which had been born in this poor room. She was a woman now. The fancies had been foolish and childish. She had flung away reality for them. Well, she would take up her cross.

Meredith came towards her and took her outstretched hand.

"When I saw you it was as though all the old times had come back again," he said with a grave smile.

"I came in for quiet," she answered. "I wanted to—to thank God for something. And now I've found you—may I speak with you?"

He nodded silently and led her into the tiny side-room, where he changed his vestments and gave lessons to a few Pariah children who accepted his doctrine in exchange for a certain social status. He offered her the one chair, but she remained standing.

"I have just seen Mrs. Barclay, Owen," she said. "I went to see her. It may seem a dreadful thing to have done—and it was dreadful—but I know that I did right. She confessed to me."

He looked at her and then down at the papers littered on the table.

"What did she confess?"

"That some of the wretched scandal which has associated her with Tristram was true. She did try to drag my husband into a horrible intrigue. But she failed. She swore to me, and I believe it was the truth."

"I think Mrs. Barclay would speak the truth," he said meditatively.

"She is shameless," Anne retorted with a flash of scorn; "but, at least, now I know that Tristram is innocent where she is concerned. It is for that I am so thankful."

Owen Meredith drew himself up from his bowed attitude. There was something weary and apathetic in his bearing which was new to her. She felt, with a stab of pain, that he was very ill.

"Anne—don't you love your husband?" he asked.

The feverish blush in her cheeks deepened. But his eyes were grave, even to severity, and admitted no offence.

"Why, I must love him—he is my husband."

His twisted mouth was bitter.

"The one thing doesn't always imply the other, Anne. Men and women are frail. They can't always keep the terrible oaths God makes them swear."

"They can do their duty," she interrupted, "as I shall do mine."

"Duty isn't love," he said.

She lifted her head proudly.

"It is the best one can give after love has been killed."

"Has Tristram killed your love, Anne?"

She met his stern gaze unflinchingly.

"He has done something I can't forget. I have forgiven it, but I know now how wide the gulf is between us and now I can't ever forget it. That's all I can tell you."

"Anne—Anne—we must judge gently——"

"I don't judge any one but myself," she answered. "I see that I have been most to blame. I made a great mistake and I accept the consequences. I am going back to my husband."

"Going back to him?" he echoed heavily.

She nodded.

"I can do nothing here. My father's condition is unchanged. Dr. Martin is staying on, but he believes that the operation has failed. At any rate, I shall be within reach and my place is at my husband's side. I see that in many ways I could have done more to help him. Now I mean to share his life—to stand by him. I am going to Heerut."

"There's no place for a woman," Owen exclaimed.

"I think there is. I am a good nurse. I could help him. And out there I should see all that is good in him—oh, Owen, I must love and respect him if I can."

She lifted her eyes to his and for the moment in which their gaze met they acknowledged to each other the naked, hopeless truth. He turned at last with a broken laugh.

"I think hell itself must be paved with useless sacrifice," he said.

"Oh, Owen, don't talk like that—it's terrible. I can't bear it. Help me!"

"How can I help you?" he asked almost impatiently.

"Ride with me to Heerut this afternoon—take me back to Tristram."

She did not realize what she asked. She did not see his face. She was possessed with a restless feverish desire for action—to start out on the road she had chosen.

"Dear, it's not possible. The weather and the roads are too bad. You're not strong enough. A man told me this morning that the river is terribly swollen—dangerous even——"

"I am not afraid," she said proudly. "Owen, won't you help me this last time?"

"This last time?"

She faltered.

"Oh, I didn't mean that—it was just a phrase——"

"God knows, it may be the truth—of late I have felt——"

He broke off and added quickly: "Yes, of course I will take you if it can be done."

"Thank you, Owen. I knew you would always help me if you could."

"Always."

Their hands met. The tears shone in her eyes, and they were not far from his. He bent and kissed her solemnly between the wet curls on her forehead.

"My little sister in God!" he whispered.

"Dear Owen!"

And neither of them was conscious of a lie. Their hypocrisy was pathetic in its stern sincerity.

That same day Owen Meredith rode with Anne to Heerut. The pitiless rain, the roads, so deep in mud that their horses had to pick their way at a walk, prolonged the fifteen-mile journey into the late afternoon. They scarcely spoke. The strain and physical discomfort kept them silent, and on Meredith's part there was an abstraction, a curious detachment which made speech difficult. It was as though somewhere, somehow, a vital link between himself and life had been cut. Something was finished—a book had been closed. He knew no more than that, but the vague knowledge numbed even his suffering. From time to time he glanced at his companion, questioning her power to bear so much; but her upright figure, the brilliant flush on her cheek, reassured him. He knew that she was setting out on a road of abnegation. He saw how wonderful she was.

They reached the new bridge and drew rein for a moment to watch the angry river rush past between the arches. The soffits were already awash. The monstrous flood of roaring water deafened them, and the voice of the engineer who had crawled out of his shanty to watch the progress of events came to them only in gusts.

"Damnable—you never know where you are—these accursed rains—nothing in moderation—my life's work—the lady'd better go back—it's no time to cross——"

"I am going to join my husband," Anne said slowly.

The man grunted.

"Better if he joined you," he grumbled.

They reached Heerut at last and urged their weary horses to a canter down the deserted, evil-smelling street. Tristram's hut was empty, but there were signs of a recent habitation—a pipe on the table, some instruments washing in a basin of carbolic, an open book. The dank nakedness of the place drove Meredith out of his stupor.

"Anne, is it wise—hadn't you better come back—you're not strong enough to bear all this privation——"

She shook her head with a faint smile.

"I'm not strong enough to ride back. Besides, I wouldn't. I've set out, and I'm going on."

He placed her saddle-bags out of reach of the rain which oozed in through the open doorway. He knew now that he had acquiesced in a reckless, ill-judged adventure, but a spirit of weary fatalism silenced him. Perhaps good would come of it—a real and lasting reconciliation. He thought of that night in this very place when he had intervened and his whole being winced under the lash of his self-contempt. He would not intervene again.

"So it's good-bye, Anne."

"Good-bye, Owen—and thank you."

Their hands met. He did not kiss her. Though he did not own to it, the presence of Tristram was strong in that drear place, and his own passion more vivid, less subdued by resignation than he had believed.

"God bless you, Anne—I—I—shall pray for you always."

"And I for you."

Such was their leave-taking. There was in it an element of finality which neither analysed nor understood. When the door had closed on him an instant's pang of fear and yearning forced his name from her lips, but he did not hear and she did not call again. She sat down, looking about her. Now that she was alone she knew that she was very tired—so tired that even rest offered no relief. At other times, after a long day in the saddle, the thought of sleep had been like a draught of fresh water to a thirsty man, but now it seemed hideously afar off—almost unthinkable. Instead her weariness goaded her to movement, whilst her brain was numb. It was as though something mysterious was working up inside her physical being, gathering together for some unknown crisis.

She tried to think—to visualize things. She tried to picture Tristram's entry and the scene between them. She had gone over it so many times, and now it eluded her. She tried to remember what her husband was like, but could not. A little prayer for strength and guidance came into her mind, but after the first words she forgot that she was praying. In despair she drove herself to think of Sigrid in this place, of Sigrid in her husband's arms; but the picture left her numb and indifferent. Her mind rode helpless on a great shoreless sea of exhaustion. Nothing mattered but her body, and its rising suffering.

Her hands and face burnt. The room was stifling. She got up uncertainly to open the door, but on the way remembered her wet things and began to unpack the saddle-bags. In the midst of it she fancied she heard Tristram's step and a new desire obtruded itself on her masterless thoughts. She had meant to get a meal ready for him—to make the place homely—to welcome him as his wife, his comrade. She swayed as she drew herself up. She began aimlessly to clear the table——

Half an hour later, when Tristram returned, he found his supper waiting for him and his wife unconscious on the ground.

The shock, coming as a climax to a fruitless day of labour among men and women who had once loved him and now shrank from his very shadow, did not hinder prompt action. He gathered her up tenderly and laid her on his bed. Her clothes were wringing wet, but the fever of her body burnt through them, and, knowing what Meredith did not know, he cursed with an anger inspired by pity. He forced a little brandy between her lips, and he was beginning to remove her soaking riding-skirt when her eyes opened.

"Tris—what's happened? Did I faint?—oh, how stupid of me—don't bother—I can manage—I shall be all right in a minute——"

"You must lie still," he said impatiently. "Why did you come? It was madness. If you had wanted me you could have sent for me. You've made yourself ill."

"I don't know—I wanted——" She tried desperately to think, to recall all her plans and motives. They slipped through her fingers. And meanwhile he was tending her skilfully, tenderly. He scarcely heeded her broken muttering. Suddenly she stretched out her hand and drew him to her.

"Tris, I know what it was—I wanted to come to you—and tell you that—that—I—I—forgive—I was harsh—and cruel—I—misjudged. Mrs. Barclay told me—how loyal you had been. I'll stand by you—I'm your wife—it's my duty—I want to do what's right—I'll help you—here—I——" Then her body overwhelmed her. It threw her soul to the earth, whining and whimpering. "Oh, Tris, Tris, I'm in such awful pain—such awful pain."

"I know," he answered hoarsely, "my poor little Anne——"

Her eyes turned to his. They cleared for an instant.

"Tris—you don't think——"

"Dear, I'm afraid so. We've got to do the best we can. You mustn't be frightened——"

She began to cry helplessly. Then the pain dried even her tears. She clung to him in a frenzy of agony.

"Oh, Tris—Tris—help me——"

She passed at last into a merciful unconsciousness. Not once during that night did she regain knowledge of his presence and yet he knew that even in that mental darkness she suffered as only women are doomed to suffer. Watching her, alleviating where he could, he gave no thought to the past or future, no thought to the other woman who had lain in the selfsame place, battling with the selfsame enemy. He did not ask himself whether, had this piteous offer of forgiveness been made in the crisis of their lives, it would have stemmed the torrent of events, whether indeed there is any power which can check the course of character and the heart's will. Nothing of all that mattered. Nothing but this pitiful suffering. He saw Anne only in her girlish youth and innocence and ignorance. He saw her as a child ground between life and her own child's beliefs and ideals. She claimed him by the great right of pain.

Her poor fevered little hand rested in his. Even in her unconsciousness she clung to him as though his touch soothed her. But in her delirium she called on Owen—called on him incessantly——

And in the early hours of the morning her hope was taken from her.

* * * * *

Owen Meredith reached the river shortly before nightfall. The muffled roar of the water sounded louder and nearer than before. As he crossed the bridge he could feel the steel girders quivering under the strain; he could see the yellowish-greyish mass racing from under his feet into the gloom of the coming night. It conveyed nothing to him. He was thinking of Anne—praying for her with a dull, stupid persistence.

The engineer, encased in waterproof, met him with a torrent of grim abuse.

"What we poor devils have to put up with! If this blessed thing doesn't hold—I'm dished. Bah—India! What the dickens are we doing in this galère? The very elements are against us." He shook himself like a wet dog. "Well, you'd better hurry. You'll catch up that fat monkey of a Rajah. He's in a towering rage about something—somebody been rude to his Allmightiness. You'd better soothe him down. There's trouble enough going——"

Meredith rode on. He did not want to catch up with Rasaldû. He was still thinking of Anne when the Rajah, wet through and mounted on a limping English thoroughbred, loomed up like a ghost in the rain-soaked twilight. He greeted Meredith much as the engineer had done.

"This rotten climate! Look what a mess I'm in. I've just come from Heerut—incog. you know. Wanted to do the poor beggars a good turn and they threw stones at me—they—they insulted me. It's that damned blackguard Barclay. He ought to have been shot. You English are getting too devilish delicate. One's got to hit, and hit hard." He rambled on furiously. Meredith understood that Rasaldû, without escort, after the fashion of English royalties on their own domains, had sought to act the part of benefactor in Heerut and had been repulsed. At another time the incident might have caused Meredith a faint amusement, but now he could feel nothing. The desolation of rain and grey, lightless sky pressed down upon him like a stupefying burden. He went on thinking of Anne, wondering dully how it was he knew so well that he would never see her again. He thought of Tristram and pitied him. In that hour he forgot creed and principle. He saw, perhaps for the first time, humanity as one in suffering.

Two beggars slunk through the mud towards him. They were almost naked. The water ran in streams off their glistening brown skins and matted their beards into black masks. They came up, one to Meredith, one to the Rajah, whining for alms. Meredith threw his man a coin. He did it mechanically. The Rajah burst into a fresh stream of curses. He was very wet—very angry. He had been called "swineherd" by his own people and the name rankled like a poisoned dart in his quivering flesh. He spurred his horse at the whimpering mendicant.

"Get out of my way, you vermin——"

Something happened. Meredith, still weighed down by his own thoughts, was only conscious of a coming change. He half turned to his companion, and as he did so one of the natives sprang past him. It was the leap of a tiger, straight at Rasaldû's throat. A gleam of white light streaked through the greyness—a muffled scream ended suddenly by a choking, sickening groan.

Rasaldû pitched headlong from the saddle. His foot caught in the stirrup. The startled animal swung round and bolted, dragging its rider face-downwards through the mud—a mere inanimate, shapeless bundle.

So much Meredith saw. He tried to think—to act. But he was like a sleeper waking slowly—too slowly—from a narcotic. Instinctively he turned to meet his own danger. He never saw it. It came noiselessly and quite painlessly. It was like a stupendous stroke of lightning severing the earth under his feet. It sent him spinning through æons of memory and feeling into nothing.

CHAPTER XI

FREEDOM

A covered bullock-wagon which for the last two hours had been struggling with the morass leading up from the valley came to a standstill outside the gates of the Barclays' compound. The driver lifted a flap of the canvas covering, and a woman crawled out and clambered stiffly to the ground. She stood for a moment in the steam of the panting and sweating bullocks counting money into the brown calloused palm extended to her in greedy persistence.

"No, I shan't want you going back," she said, in answer to his half diffident, half insolent question. "I've come to stop." She gave a little, high-pitched laugh, and, gathering up her untidy skirts, went through the open gates.

A syce, holding a lady's saddle-horse, waited at the bottom of the verandah steps. He stared stolidly at the intruder. He did not know her, and he knew everyone in Gaya. He had also the unerring instinct of his race and class which discounted the superficial Europeanism of her dress and its common gaudiness. He knew her for what she was, and made a gesture of detention as she passed.

"What you want, missy?" he asked in English, and with a mocking flash of his white teeth. "Missy not go in there."

She turned her head. The expression on her dark, mobile features was composite of dignity and nervousness.

"I want Barclay Sahib," she said. "Is he here?"

"Meester Barclay gone away," the man retorted, using the English prefix deliberately. "Meester Barclay gone away many weeks."

"Where has he gone?"

"Not know, missy."

She stood irresolute, looking at the saddled horse. At first it seemed to convey no significance to her. Then suddenly she flushed up.

"I must see some one who does know," she explained. "Who lives here?"

"The Mem-Sahib, missy."

"Who is the Mem-Sahib?"

The syce made no answer. He stroked the velvet nose of his charge and the stranger became aware from his attitude that they were no longer alone. She turned sharply, and the woman standing at the head of the steps immediately behind her returned her stare with a faint smile.

"Do you want Mr. Barclay?" she asked quietly.

"Yes, I do." The Eurasian hesitated. The fair-haired fragile-looking woman in the dark riding-habit seemed to frighten her.

"I've come all the way from Calcutta," she stammered.

"That's a long way. I'm sorry—Mr. Barclay is away—has been away for many weeks. I don't even know where he is. If you would tell me your name——"

The woman caught her breath audibly. Her dark, uneasy eyes had a smouldering look in them—a look that was somehow primitive in its sombre, gathering suspicion.

"My name's Barclay—Marie Barclay," she flashed out.

"Ah, Mr. Barclay's sister?"

"No, his wife." She flung the words down with the defiance of an animal that is afraid of its own temerity. Her head, with its over-adorned hat, was thrown back truculently, but her lips quivered. "I'm his wife," she repeated.

Sigrid had been pale when she came out. Now a faint delicate colour tinged her cheeks, bringing life and energy to her listless transparency. She put her ungloved hand to her face with a little familiar gesture of surprise and thought—but to Marie Barclay it expressed mockery.

"It's true," she burst out. "I can prove it——"

"I'm sure you can—only not here. It's so wet. Purga, you can walk Astora for a little. Won't you come in—Mrs. Barclay?"

She gave her visitor no opportunity to answer, but led the way to the library where Mrs. Smithers, with ruffled grey hair and a face of care and perpetual perplexity, sat beneath the marble Venus knitting a pair of mittens which no human being was ever likely to wear.

"Smithy, this lady has come all the way from Calcutta. She's Mrs. Barclay—Jim's wife."

Mrs. Smithers let the mittens drop into her lap, but she gave no other sign of consternation. She was in the state of a person who has been subjected to a vigorous course of electric treatment and has become impervious to shocks.

"Lawks a-mercy!" she exclaimed wearily. "Well, and I'm not surprised. It's not the last thing I expected to hear. I warrant there's a good few of 'em about the country if we only knew."

"But this is true, Smithy—I'm sure it is, isn't it?" She turned, with a quick gracious movement, to the woman at her side, but for a moment the latter did not answer. Her full, rather pretty, mouth was desperately closed to hide its trembling. Her hands were interlocked in front of her. A strand of straight black hair straggled untidily across her face, and she tried to toss it back with an upward jerk of her head. It was as though she dared not unclasp her hands.

"Yes, it's true," she said at last. "I can prove it. We were married—years ago—in Calcutta. He's kept it quiet—I know—he was ashamed. He thought I'd pull him back. He wanted to get on so badly—and I put up with it. I'd—I'd have put up with anything. He said he'd send for me—afterwards—but he never did. I hadn't heard from him for weeks. He didn't send any money—there was hardly any left—just enough to bring me here——" she looked from one woman to another, and there was a tortured, hunted look in her eyes that made her violent defiance pitiable. "I didn't mean to tell—he made me promise—but I've been so unhappy—so desperate—when I found he'd gone—and—and you here, I lost my head—I couldn't bear it any longer—I couldn't——"

She dropped down into the chair nearest her, her face buried in her hands, crying wildly.

"Scoundrel!" Mrs. Smithers ejaculated on the same note of confirmed conviction.

Sigrid stood looking down at the bowed, shaking shoulders. Her eyes were pitying, but her mouth was a little wry, almost whimsical.

"You were quite right to tell us," she said. "It's made a great many things clear. You needn't be frightened. I have an idea your husband meant you to come and that he will be glad. I daresay that was why he didn't write——"

Mrs. Barclay lifted her head, brushing the tears from her wet cheeks. Her hat had slipped a little to one side, giving her a look of grotesque and distraught violence.

"What are you doing here?" she asked insolently. "Who are you?"

"Nobody in particular—an interloper—it seems."

"Oh, I know better than that!" The dark face quivered into a sneer. "I know who you are. You're the white woman he was after. I guessed right enough. He wanted an Englishwoman." She sprang suddenly to her feet with an almost threatening gesture. "But it was me he loved—me he married. He didn't care for you—don't you flatter yourself—he wanted you—just to get even—just to hurt as he'd been hurt. You're nothing but a——"

She broke off. Sigrid had not moved or spoken, but there was that in the still white face which checked the torrent of savage insult. Mrs. Smithers got up. She rolled the mittens into a neat ball.

"I'm an old woman," she said, "and I hate violence. But just you mind what you're saying, Mrs. Barclay——"

Sigrid checked her with a gesture.

"Mrs. Barclay is quite right," she said calmly. "I think she understands her husband very well. She is only mistaken in supposing I did not understand too. I did not know that he was married, but that is neither here nor there. I did know that I was merely a means to an end—as he was to me. Now that's all finished and done with." She laughed a little. "Do you know, Mrs. Barclay, you are the second woman in twenty-four hours who has accused me of trying to steal her husband, and, heaven knows, in this instance, it isn't true."

Marie Barclay stared at her in sullen silence. Her passion had gone down under fatigue and a natural racial apathy. She had struck with all the strength she possessed, and now came the reaction of helpless tears.

"I don't know what to do," she said brokenly. "I've nowhere to go—no one to help me."

"We're going to help you," Sigrid answered. She came and laid a gentle, controlling hand on the other's arm. "You mustn't break down. There's nothing to be afraid of. You don't know it, but you've done me a great service. And now it's my turn. You'll stay here. It's your home—everything in it is yours. There's money enough to keep you going till he comes back. And he will come back. He'll be glad to find you here—we were nothing to one another. Doesn't that make you happy?"

Her tone was so gay, so assured that the brimming eyes lifted to hers lost their suspicion and hatred.

"I don't know—I don't understand—and you——"

"I shall clear out. I've no right here. We'll be your guests for tonight and we can talk things over. Meantime, Mrs. Smithers will give you tea, and I'll go for a last ride on your horse. I want fresh air and a little quiet. You don't mind?"

The full lips quivered resentfully.

"You're making fun of me——"

"No—I'm in dead earnest. I've been an intruder and an unwilling thief, and now I return my ill-gotten gains. Smithy, take care of her till I come back. And no violence!"

Mrs. Smithers paid no heed to the injunction. She was trembling in every limb as she followed the quickly moving figure to the verandah steps. She clutched Sigrid's hands. Her dim old eyes were full of a great dread.

"Sigrid—my dearest—what are you going to do?"

"Do? Nothing rash, Smithy. Did you think I might——? Don't you see how good it is? I'm free. I'm Sigrid Fersen—I haven't got to fight daily, hourly, for my integrity—I'm free." She drew in a deep joyous breath of the fresh, rain-soaked air. Her eyes shone under the fine, untroubled brows. "I'm going home with you to England, Smithy. I'm going to live in the little suburban house and give dancing lessons to the large suburban feet. And in my free moments I shall play Beethoven and Wagner and Chopin on an extravagantly fine Bechstein. For I've learnt that one can play noble music anywhere. That's a great lesson, Smithy." She smiled tenderly. "And I shall live on your savings, Smithy. That'll make you happy, won't it?"

"Oh, my dear——"

"I know. Such queer things make women happy." She grew grave for an instant. "And perhaps I shall live to be very old, as Tristram said I might. I may grow so much stronger—I shall outlive you, Smithy, and every one who ever cared for me. But I'm not going to funk it now. I shall play my music to the very end."

Mrs. Smithers made no answer. She could not have answered, for the dimness had crept into her throat and choked her. She lifted the little hand clasped in hers and kissed it.

Thus Sigrid Fersen rode down the steep, mud-choked road towards the valley. She told herself that it was for the last time. And because each "last time" in life is a bridge-crossing into a new and trackless country she looked back along the old road, and her thoughts lingered by the high landmarks by which she would never pass again. High up against the horizon a mountain-peak glowed in the warm splendour of this farewell. On its topmost crag she had dwelt a little and alone. She saw the rough and ruthless descent into the world of men the winding road over strange countries, the always-seeking of those two years, and there on the verge of an abyss the revelation of something as lofty, as splendid as all that she had left behind her. At first she had drawn back. She had even smiled a little at the thought that her feet should tread so desperate a path. But in the end she had gone on—down into the depths and through a suffocating evil darkness and up again at last to the farther summit. And had it been worth it—worth the effort, the sheer, physical effort, the pitiless drain upon soul and body, the inevitable loneliness? She knew her answer. She saw before her the country to which her stern enterprise had led her. She saw it flat and barren and wind-swept, its sparse trees bowed before the solitary storms. She saw that it had its own grandeur. There was a sweet taste in the wind; and the rough earth carried many flowers on its bosom, and they had a fragrance more delicate than all the rich exotic blossoms which had once been dear to her. She welcomed the sweet winds and the great limitless horizons. She stretched out her arms to the blustering storm. She was free. Her freedom was not of the mountain crags, but of the great undulating plains where men pass their daily life. And she had ceased to be alone. Somewhere on that vast expanse a fellow-traveller pressed on his way, often erring, often misled, but still with head erect, eyes fixed on the down-going sun which was their common goal. She saw him big and careless and unkempt with strays and vagabonds crowded at his heels. She saw the light on his face, and knew that he too was conscious of their comradeship. It did not matter that in that country over which they travelled they would not meet again. They had met once. God Himself, if He existed apart from His creation, could not blot out that knowledge or His own decree by which the separate paths of men meet at the end.

Thus Sigrid Fersen rode out of Gaya. Her horse slipped and fretted over the treacherous descent, but her hand was as strong and steady as her thought. She had the quality common to all vitally living things—the love of physical, friendly warfare with the elements. She lifted her glowing face to the warm rain. She felt at peace and happy. She could look with clear eyes into the future. Tristram had said that with care she might live to be very old. The thought had no terrors for her now.

Between dreams and realities she left Gaya floating in the grey mists behind her. The solitude and wide stretch of the plain soothed her and gave her a sense of release from a cramping prison. She began to deal practically with the coming years—even, with a faint smile at the corners of her mouth, to furnish the little suburban house, to arrange her days.

And then, in the midst of her planning, her horse jerked to a quivering standstill. She leant forward in her saddle, frowning through the veil of rain, and saw that something lay across her road—something black and huddled and shapeless. She tried to urge the frightened animal forward; then something definite checked her—held her in sick, motionless horror. It was a white patch—the shape of a man's hand, the fingers clawed into the mud.

A minute later she had managed to dismount. She knelt down by the crumpled body, and, exerting all her strength, lifted it. It was so caked and stiffened with mire and blood that it remained upright, kneeling grotesquely, leaning against her. The disfigured features, made more hideous by their mud-smeared agony, were close to her own. She believed him dead. The horror of him, kneeling there, leering at her, overcame her. She let him sink back—and then only saw that he still lived. His eyes were open. They were already glazed and could not have seen her, but an instinct, kindling for the last time, recognized her presence.

"Tristram—Heerut—warn Tristram—warn——"

His mouth fell open. His gaze became fixed under the half-sunk lids. It was finished.

Sigrid Fersen rose to her feet. She was not conscious now of fear or hesitation; she walked forward a few paces, tracing the smeared track of Meredith's body back to a confusion of hoof-prints in the thick mud. There had been a struggle, and Meredith had had strength enough to crawl a few feet—she did not know that each foot had represented hours and the triumph of the man's will over agony and unconsciousness, but she knew what he had tried to do.

"Warn Tristram!"

It was a call to her old, unbroken fearlessness, to the eager, adventuring blood and the new faith. Gaya and prudence and safety lay behind her; but what was Gaya to her, what had prudence or safety ever mattered to her? Before her lay the swollen river and sinister, uncomprehended danger.

She was going forward.

She caught her horse by the bridle. It was no easy task to mount from that slippery road, but she had in that hour an unconquerable energy and resolve. It was done at last. She settled herself firmly in the saddle, her hands on the reins were flexible and strong as steel. Through the splashing mire and rain she rode towards Heerut.

She reached the river-bank. The door of the engineer's shanty stood open and one glance showed her that the place was deserted. She rode over the bridge. The water slid across the roadway with an ugly, slopping gurgle; its deeper voice thundered beneath among the shaken arches.

On the farther bank she drew rein for an instant. Amidst the rush of the river it seemed to her that another sound had reached her. It was vague and indefinite, and yet unmistakably separate from all else. It was as though close to her, and yet hidden beneath the water, something monstrous and living groaned in the agony of dismemberment.

"Warn Tristram!"

She rode on towards Heerut.

CHAPTER XII

THE MEETING OF THE WAYS

They had come from all the ends of the Province, secretly and one by one from the towns, and in whole companies from the villages. It was for them only another pilgrimage. They brought with them the same childlike faith, the same dim, passionless hopes, the same fatalism. And behind those simple things there was the same incalculable force awaiting the spark which should fire them to a ferocious heroism or headlong panic.

They came together in the broad curve of plain where the Ganges twisted in a horseshoe towards the foot of Gaya's hills. To the west, within half a mile of the encampment, the black impregnable barrier of the jungle followed the river's course past the bridge-head and the temple, forming lower down a crescent around the little plateau on which Heerut lay huddled.

There were close on two thousand of them, men of all ages, all castes. They carried weapons, but of a strange and varied nature—old army rifles, an ancient sword, the deadly kukri, sometimes no more than a rusty bayonet, stolen or bought from some drunken defaulter. They themselves were as heterogeneous. They herded together without order or discipline. The rain poured down upon them ceaselessly, saturating their scanty clothing so that it clung to their lean bodies like creased and dirty skins. Here and there the saffron robe proclaimed the Saddhu, and there were priests, haughty, arrogant-featured men, who stood aloof, as though the matter scarcely concerned them. Yet it was they who had worked secretly and cunningly in the towns and villages. It was their infallibility which had welded these strange, inco-ordinate atoms into a weapon. For, undisciplined, ill-armed, and dejected though they seemed, though they came straight from their fields and the enervating atmosphere of the bazaars, these two thousand men were still fighters. In the old days their fathers had scorned the plough and had lived and died by the sword. They had fought for the old Rajah and gone with him into exile and ended their adversity in the wildernesses. Some of that fighting blood was in the veins of these, their descendants, and some of that stern tradition lay smouldering beneath the veneer of peace which the British Raj had forced upon them.

But of all this, Barclay, riding at Ayeshi's side down the irregular front of this strange army, saw nothing. To him they were a sorry, pitiable crew, foredoomed to disaster. He knew now, if he had not always known, the futile madness of the enterprise on which they were launched, he with them. The brief illusion which he had nourished that night in the temple had gone. Though he had flung himself into this cause with all his wealth, all his power, he saw it to be lost. The shadow of the future was on these upturned stoic faces, on Ayeshi, and on himself. Yet he would not have turned back nor changed the course of events. A sombre triumph and satisfaction glowed through his foreknowledge.

He had found his people. He belonged to them. In the end that was coming he would not be alone. His blood would mingle with theirs. And with them those others would be swept away—those others who had rejected him.

He turned his haggard, moody eyes towards distant Gaya and laughed. Even now he was a little theatrical. He wore the native dress, and it was like a masquerade. All that was English in him stood out the more prominently. The very priests who had admitted him to their caste shrank from his shadow, and quick, dark glances of suspicion followed him as he rode at Ayeshi's side. Vahana, the Saddhu, clung to his stirrup-leather. He was like a mocking spirit of evil, noiseless and remorseless. Once Barclay had tried to swing him off by a quick turn of his horse, but the old withered figure had leapt with him with the agility of a tiger. Afterwards Vahana had lifted his face to Barclay, showing his teeth in a mirthless grin of understanding.

Thereafter Barclay made no effort to free himself. But he had become afraid—afraid of something other than the end.

Ayeshi rode to the farther end of the roughly formed square. Beyond the jewelled turban and the ancient sword at his waist, he wore no insignia of his rank, and even his knightly seat on the thoroughbred Arab could not wholly atone to his followers for this lack of outward splendour. They had expected something other—something resplendent, a gorgeous representative of the millennium that was coming,—a god, an avatar. And he was only a boy, with wasted features and restless, unhappy eyes. Yet they greeted him as their lord. Perhaps even in their minds was the knowledge that their lives were bound up with his, that there was no turning back either for him or them. A Brahmin and a native under-officer, still in uniform though without his badges, came out of the ranks to meet him, and for a few minutes they spoke together in an undertone. Barclay scarcely listened. He was watching with cynical intentness the play of the priest's astute features, the deferential, courtly movements, the keen flashes of the cruel eyes. In contrast, the soldier seemed brutal and aggressive. His face was pockmarked and sodden with vice, but he was a strong man—more vital in that moment even than Ayeshi.

Between Barclay and these two men Ayeshi was the shuttlecock—the toy and instrument with which each sought to attain his own petty ends of vengeance and power. For a moment Barclay could have pitied him as he sat there, reining in his restive Arab with a master's hand, so passionately in earnest, so deeply shaken by premonition.

"They will fight, Pugra?" he asked repeatedly. "They will keep faith with us?"

The soldier grinned significantly.

"They have sworn it, lord. There is no cause for them to break their oath. It is a simple matter. In an hour it will be finished. Heera Singh leads them. He is a good soldier. His brother was shot a year ago. He will not fail."

"And afterwards——?"

"We shall join forces with them."

"And after that——?"

The soldier and the priest exchanged a quick glance of interrogation. But the question had rung with an urgent appeal not to be denied. The Brahmin drew a step nearer, taking the answer upon himself.

"After that the great cities will follow. In Calcutta and Bombay they do but await the signal. Is it not so?"

"That is what they told me." Ayeshi passed his hand nervously over his forehead. "They swore to me that they were ready. I was to be the torch which should light India——"

"Surely, then, it will be so, lord."

Ayeshi made no answer. He seemed to sink into a fit of brooding, his eyes fixed in the direction of Gaya. Barclay, who had not ceased to watch him, urged his horse nearer.

"Of what are you afraid, Rajah?" he asked softly in English, adding with a flash of malice: "Isn't death the worst that can happen to us?"

The echo of the grandiloquent phrase stung Ayeshi to a haughty gesture.

"I do not fear death."

"Whom then? Rasaldû? Rasaldû is dead. In a few hours there will be no white men left in your kingdom——"

"I know. It is not that. It is for these men—my people. They trust me. They hope great things. If I should fail——"

"You will not fail, Rajah. You have the right to call upon them. You are their lord."

Ayeshi glanced up swiftly.

"And if I were not—if it proved a mistake—sometimes I am afraid——"

Barclay shrugged his shoulders. He was growing impatient. The merciless rain began to chill his blood. The roar of the river beat like the incessant thud of a hammer on his ears.

"What does it all matter?" he muttered. "If only this infernal rain would stop! It's dangerous. If the water overflows on the high ground up by Bjura we shall have to swim for it. That's what matters."

But suddenly Ayeshi bent down from his saddle and laid his hand on Vahana's shoulder.

"You promised!" he said, in a tense undertone. "You promised that today you would speak—that you would give me proofs to show my people. Now keep your promise to me. Vahana—justify me."

The fakir lifted his eyes to Ayeshi. His lips moved, but no sound came from them. He shrank back against Barclay's knee, cowering as from a blow. But his expression was triumphantly evil.

And Barclay, looking into Ayeshi's stricken face, came to a bitter understanding. Not only this boy, but all of them, were so many instruments in a master-hand. Their hates and ambitions had been woven skilfully into the greater pattern of a patient, insatiable vengeance. They were pawns in Vahana's game. They would be swept from the board. Vahana would go on to his own end.

Before this selfsame knowledge Ayeshi had faltered. Now he drew himself up in the saddle.

"Rasaldû is dead," he said quietly, yet with despair, "and Sahib Meredith and others—others. Justify me!"

And to that final, irrepressible cry of anguish Vahana answered. His unaccustomed tongue wrestled with the words, and formed them slowly and thickly. They fell like blows.

"The—Rajah—had—no—son," he said.

Then suddenly he laughed. In that final moment the brain, corroded with hatred, broke down beneath its accumulated burden. The maniacal merriment rang out above the thunder of racing water, it pealed on till it dominated every other sound. As Ayeshi turned with lifted hand to strike, it subsided hideously into a broken cackle. Still clinging to Barclay's stirrup, Vahana dropped to his knees. What possessed Barclay in that moment he could not have told. He stretched out his arm over the cowering figure, shielding the thing he feared.

"No, no, Ayeshi—it's too late. It doesn't matter who or what you are. You've got to go on with it. You can't leave us in the lurch. There's been bloodshed enough——"

Ayeshi's hand sank limply to his side. His lips were quivering.

"Rasaldû is dead," he repeated. "Rasaldû the swine-herd—had more right than I—and the Sahibs who have done me no wrong——"

Barclay interrupted him with a curse. Was this last catastrophe of his life to end as the others had done, in a travesty—in a Gilbertian fiasco? Was he to be held up to ridicule before those cool, insolent men and women—ludicrous and ineffectual even in his death?

"For God's sake—pull yourself together, Ayeshi!" he said imperatively. "What does it matter whether you are wronged or not? You are the leader. Chance has made you—the deliverer of your people. Act like a man. Save your country—set us free——" He laid his hand on his breast with a dramatic gesture. "I ask it of you—I, who have suffered at their hands. Be strong, Ayeshi. Give us our freedom."

But Ayeshi seemed not to listen. His frowning eyes were fixed in front of him, and suddenly he pointed. Barclay turned in his saddle. At first the spectacle that met him seemed no more than curious. The belt of high grass which separated them from the river had parted, and a young tigress stood in the opening. She seemed wholly unconscious of the massed enemy before her. She stood there lashing her tail, her velvet flanks heaving with recent hard effort, her fine head lifted in an attitude of listening. For an instant she remained thus. No hand was raised against her. Ayeshi and his followers watched her in motionless, superstitious silence. Even Barclay felt himself incapable of action. It was as though the apparition had for them a deeper, as yet unread significance.

With a low growl, not of anger but of fear, the beautiful animal trotted with long, loping strides between Ayeshi and the herded crowd of tensely watching natives. No sound was uttered until the lean, striped body had vanished. Then a cry went up—at first isolated—then swelling to a shout:

"An omen—an omen!"

"Vishnu has spoken!"

"The gods are against us!"

"The flood—the flood——!"

The last came in a scream. It bore the other cries down into an instant's stupefied silence. The massed square of humanity which had tossed and surged in a gathering storm of panic grew still.

Barclay lifted himself in his stirrups. He could see nothing. The rain blinded him. Yet his ears, alert now, caught a distant ominous boom.

"I believe it's true—the animal was bolting for her life—the water must have burst its banks at Bjura—if it has, it's coming twenty miles an hour—we've got to run for high ground, Ayeshi."

The Hindu shrugged his shoulders.

"There is no high ground——"

Vahana roused himself from the mud where he had remained in an attitude of apparent stupor. A demoniac energy blazed in the mad eyes.

"There is a way—past Heerut—I will show you—only let me ride with you, Sahib Barclay——"

The Eurasian nodded. He no longer appealed to Ayeshi, who was sunk in an apathy of despair. He raised himself again in the saddle.

"There is a way to safety!" he shouted. "Vahana, the Holy Man, will lead us—the gods have sent a warning—the gods are with us—follow!"

He lifted Vahana into the saddle behind him and swung his horse round towards Heerut. Ayeshi lingered; Barclay passed him with a gesture of contempt. The control was in his hands now. It was for him to act—to retrieve disaster. He had become the leader—the leader of his people. He heard the rush of feet behind him—the sound thrilled through his blood in a storm of exultation.

"Follow me!" he shouted. "I will lead you."

They followed. They swept Ayeshi into their maelstrom and carried him with them, but they too had ceased to heed him. Nor did he try to regain his hold. The right to command—even to resist—had gone. He was no longer Rajah—exiled and disinherited, yet still lord of his destiny. He was Ayeshi, the village story-teller, the servant of Tristram Sahib, the dreamer bereft of his dreams. He would have been glad to meet the end.

But the people he had betrayed bore him in their midst, as they fled before the oncoming waters.

* * * * *

Tristram heard only the deepening voice of the river, the rain splashing on the roof, and the rush and swirl of the water as it tore through the village gutters. Even these things, though they reached his hearing, scarcely touched his consciousness. They walled him in. They formed a sombre background for his wife's voice.

He sat beside her, her hot little hand in his, and it seemed to him that they talked together for the first time in their lives. Her voice was weak and husky with pain, but the pain itself relaxed its grip on her, allowing her to sink slowly and mercifully.

"I'm dying, am I not, Tristram?" she had asked, and then, reading his face, added gently: "I want to know—really. I'm not afraid to die. Why should I be? There is nothing to fear—only so much to hope. Tell me."

"Anne—little wife—I honestly don't know. So much depends on your will to live——"

Her smile was touched with something of its old wisdom.

"It depends on God, Tris."

He nodded. It was too late to show her where their roads met. He could only acquiesce. And presently she spoke again. "It's all been such a big, sad mistake, hasn't it?"

"What, dear?"

"Our marriage."

He looked into her pinched face, in which only a child-like wistfulness remained. He looked then at her hand, hiding his own smarting eyes.

"I suppose it has. It's my failure——"

"You didn't love me, Tris."

"I cared—genuinely. I cared so much that I wanted to make you happy." He hesitated. "But I couldn't make myself to be the man you loved."

"No, it was just a mistake," she agreed.

"You're very generous, dear."

She shook her head.

"Oh, no—it was my fault most of all. I didn't understand. There are things I don't understand even now."

"What things?"

"Wickie—and—and—that. It seems so wrong—just a dog. You love life so—Tris."

"I love living things—I can't help it—helpless living things most of all. Even now I can't judge what I did—it's the old problem—how far one has the right to punish—to resist evil. But I haven't any real theories. I can't bear pain—that's all."

Her eyes softened.

"I know. You have been so good—so tender to me. Last night I understood better all you are—but it's too late——"

"No, Anne—it isn't. Live—give me the chance to make up to you. Dear, you can. Ask God to give you the will. We've muddled it so far, but we've seen our mistakes. We can start again. Who knows but if all this trouble and pain wasn't meant to bring us together—to give us a real love and knowledge of each other, Anne; couldn't it be——?"

He was using instinctively the language which she could understand best. Yet there was a sincerity behind the artificial sentences, a passionate eagerness which moved her. She turned her head wearily on the pillow, looking steadily into his face.

"Would you be glad—if I lived?"

"Unutterably glad."

"Perhaps we might learn to love each other—in the end——"

"I would try to earn your love."

She smiled wanly.

"I would try to—to make you love me too. I don't know. I would be glad to live—perhaps if I could only sleep a little. Is there a chance——"

"Only try."

"Will you stop by me whilst I sleep?"

"I won't leave you."

"I think—if you're there—if you wish it—yes—I will try. I will ask God to let me live." He bent and kissed her hand. "You won't leave me, Tris?"

"I promise you."

Her eyes closed peacefully. Her hand rested in his. He remained motionless, hushing his own breathing. He did not want to disturb her by the faintest sound, and he himself was tired almost past feeling. He tried to hush even his thoughts—to create an hiatus between present and future in which they could both rest. For an instinct in him knew well that the great battle lay still before them. The time would come when the warmth of reconciliation would grow cold, and they would face each other again in the full strength of their conflicting temperaments. But so long as this silence lasted there was peace, and in that peace they were very close to each other—closer than they had ever been.

They were both so unutterably tired.

Of what use to force the issue now, even in his mind? Who knew—perhaps they had indeed learnt their lesson—perhaps they would have patience and help each other. All things were possible. He had sworn to himself to make them possible.

He sat there, bent forward, and listened to the rain and the monotonous boom of the river. His hearing was that of a man coming out of an anæsthetic—it distorted and magnified sounds, and yet held them a long way off as though they came from another world. He could not bring his thoughts to bear upon them.

Then, amidst the dull persistency of it all, there broke the sharp, staccato beat of hoofs—the splash of a horse galloping through water.

Tristram rose cautiously to his feet. He had to unclasp his wife's hand and her eyes opened.

"What is it, Tris?"

"My messenger back from Gaya, I expect. I didn't believe he meant to go, but it seems I misjudged him."

"You won't leave me, Tris?"

"I've promised you."

The horse had been drawn up sharply. Tristram went to the door and opened it, letting in a wave of dank air. Sigrid stood on the threshold. She was drenched with rain and mud. She went past him, closing the door behind her.

"Tristram—I——" she began breathlessly.

"For pity's sake!" he muttered, in utter consternation. Then she saw Anne lying on the bed by the wall. There was an instant's silence. Anne had lifted herself on her elbow. Her cheeks blazed with colour. All the childish wistfulness had gone from her expression, which was old and hard and cruel.

"Is this an appointment?" she asked clearly. "Didn't Tristram warn you in time?"

"Anne—what are you saying?" He came to her side, trying to force her gently back. "I know nothing of Mrs. Barclay's coming—she will tell you herself——" He looked towards Sigrid, standing white and still in the centre of the room, and his voice shook with anger. "Mrs. Barclay—explain to my wife—and to me——"

But Anne freed herself from his hands.

"Please—don't ask her to perjure herself. I don't believe you, Tristram—lies are nothing to you—and I shouldn't believe her. She didn't hesitate to try and take you from me before—a woman who can do that is bad——"

"It's not true," he broke in sternly.

"It is true. She told me so with her own lips. I wouldn't be here now if she hadn't confessed to me. You wouldn't have her—that's what she said. Now, I don't believe even that——"

She stopped, gasping for breath. Sigrid took a step forwards, and Tristram, as he saw her face, felt the anger go out of him. She also had tried to atone—to safeguard the happiness of a woman they had both wronged. It had been in vain, grotesquely, tragically in vain. But she had not spared herself.

She went past him, straight to Anne's side.

"Mrs. Tristram——" she began, "your husband has told you the truth. He knew nothing of my coming. I bring grave news——"

Anne shrank back from her.

"Tristram—tell her to go—I can't bear it—won't you do even that for me? I'm dying—you'll have time enough afterwards. You'll be happy with her then. Can't you give me this hour—tell her to go——"

He stood big and determined before her.

"You are unjust, Anne. And you are doing yourself harm——"

"Does that trouble you?"

"I tell you, you are unjust. At least, hear why Mrs. Barclay has come. She may have a message for us—perhaps from your father."

She laughed bitterly.

"You are very clever, Tristram. But I shan't believe her. I won't hear her——"

"You've got to," Sigrid interposed resolutely. "Mr. Meredith is dead. He has been murdered. I found him dying—and his last message was a warning to Tristram."

She had meant to cut short the ugly scene. There was no time to waste. One sentence was to save Anne the agony of a suspicion which seemed justified enough. But no relief came into the poor, passion-twisted features—only a more terrible change. Without a sound, Anne dropped back among her pillows. Her eyes were closed, the last atom of colour drained from her open lips.

Tristram bent over her, his hand on her pulse. The fear of that moment sickened him.

"Owen,—Owen——!"

The whispered name, warm with tenderness and grief, silenced them both. They could not look at each other. It was as though they had pried unwillingly into a secret which filled them with shame and a sense of tragic futility. She, too, had borne her burden—her share of their common error.

"Owen—Owen——!"

Sigrid touched Tristram's bowed shoulders. There was an odd diffidence in her touch, as though she had become afraid.

"I didn't know—how could I have known? Have I hurt her?"

"It seems our fate," he answered bitterly.

"I couldn't help it. There was no time to think. Something is very wrong. Rasaldû was missed yesterday. Then Meredith—and there was no one at the bridge. I came as fast I could—to warn you——"

He drew himself up painfully.

"It's no good. We can't leave here. You'd better go back to Gaya." He glanced quickly at her. Her ethereal pallor, the look of wan spirituality, smote him to the heart, and yet he spoke roughly. "You ought never to have come. Why didn't you return to Gaya at once?"

"He sent me," she said simply, like a child that has been reproached.

"He knew that Anne was here," he muttered. His eyes returned to the white, still face of his wife, as though he saw her for the first time. Sigrid's answer seemed to him no more than the whisper of his own thoughts.

"Perhaps I should have come anyhow."

"You won't be strong enough to ride back."

"Oh—yes—I am quite strong. It's as you said, Major Tristram—I think I shall live to be quite old."

He heard her turn to go. He remained motionless, his hands clenched at his side. No other words could have expressed more poignantly his own vision of the future, and yet he dared not answer, dared not look at her.

"Ask them to send help," he said thickly. His voice shook beneath the harsh self-repression. "You see—how it is—I can't leave here—I couldn't leave her here——"

"Yes—I understand—I'll send help." The door opened. Yet he knew that she still lingered. "Major Tristram—I'm afraid, somehow, it's too late."

He turned. He heard what she had heard.

"Close the door," he said quietly.

She obeyed. There was something inexpressibly gentle and docile about her. He remembered—not in thought, but in a vivid picture—how once before they had confronted each other in that selfsame place—he saw her resolute, defiant of life, splendidly self-assured. All that was gone. It was as though her physical being, her bodily vitality had been worn away, and that there was nothing left but the spirit, unbroken, yet intensely weary.

The sound of voices grew nearer. The cries, at first blurred into one, became separate, sharp, shrill notes played on the dull bass of the booming waters. Inarticulate though they were, they carried an unmistakable significance; they were cries of fear, more terrible, more pitiless than anger.

Tristram made a gesture of quiet understanding.

"Yes, it is too late," he said. "It's been working up to this. We shall have to face it together."

She assented silently.

"I can't do much. I haven't a weapon—not so much as a rusty revolver." He smiled grimly, remembering their first day together. "I shouldn't do much damage, anyway."

"I'm glad," she answered.

Their eyes met. They dared look at each other now. In that steady, passionless encounter there was acknowledgment and confession. They saw their visions of the future as realities and knew that they had been the creations of their despair. It was all impossible. They could not have gone on. They were exhausted. They had worn themselves out in the effort to bear their burden honourably, to break the rare mysterious decree which binds one being to another in defiance of all human law and circumstance. It was over. Soon they would be able to rest.

"If only Anne were safe!" he said.

"We must try and help her——"

He felt a hand on his sleeve. He looked down and saw that his wife's eyes were open. She clung to him.

"You won't leave me, Tris?"

"No, no, I promise you."

"I'm so frightened——"

He could not answer. The vain assurance died on his lips. He could only hold her hand in his, comforting her to the last. The door opened and he turned, facing whatever was to come.

Barclay entered; Vahana, at his heels, lingered sinisterly in the shadow, but Barclay strode straight forward, his arrogant eyes flashing from one face to the other. He held himself as he had always longed to hold himself—as the master, as the more than equal. He looked straight at Tristram, and in that steadfast regard there was satisfaction, an almost voluptuous foreknowledge of satiated passions.

"You are my prisoner," he said.

"Whom do you represent, Mr. Barclay?"

"The Rajah Ayeshi." He saw, or thought he saw, amusement in Tristram's eyes, and pointed to the open doorway—"and two thousand armed men."

"Is this Ayeshi's order?"

"It is my order—Rajah Ayeshi accepts my leadership."

"Then it was you who murdered Rasaldû and Mr. Meredith?"

He smiled.

"And others. Believe me, there will be no living white man or woman in Gaya by midnight—my wife excepted." He made Sigrid a little satirical bow. "In spite of circumstances, I am glad of the chance to make that exception. My wife will follow me."

"Your wife is waiting for you in Gaya," she answered. She felt rather than saw Anne lift herself on her elbow. She felt Tristram's movement and added simply: "Mr. Barclay was married years ago. My marriage with him was illegal, and I am free."

She did not see the ugly little smile quiver about Anne's lips. She held her ground, patient, content. She had broken the last link which held her to a loathed life. It was as though she breathed a fresher, purer air.

"That frees me from all responsibility, doesn't it?" Barclay suggested.

"Quite."

He hesitated. His minutes in the place were numbered. His ears, attuned to catch the first warning, reminded him of the remorseless, oncoming danger, and yet he faltered. A bitter taste of failure was in his mouth.

"You had better follow me, Tristram. Resistance is useless."

"As you will. I have only one request to make. Respect my wife. She is very ill."

Barclay shrugged his shoulders.

"A dying woman——? I can grant you that much."

But even in the midst of his brutal self-assertiveness, a merciless flash of intuition showed him himself as they saw him. His power slipped through his fingers. He looked from Sigrid to Tristram, and knew their immeasurable indifference to all that he could threaten. They were not afraid—almost—they were glad. He could not penetrate their mood—he only felt it as an intolerable hurt—a frustration of that madly aching desire in him. They stood aloof from him as they had always done. He could not reach them—the woman had shaken herself free from his very name as from something loathsome. To the last—ineffectual, beyond the pale. He had meant to strike—he had set them free.

He made a gesture, and Vahana closed the door. He came and stood close to Sigrid, staring into her face.

"Will you come with me?" he asked. She made no answer. He felt his lips trembling. "I could make you," he broke out.

"I think not."

"You mean that, sooner or later, you would escape me? I daresay. You are brave enough. But I ask you to come with me of your own free will—as my mistress—as anything on earth I choose—to share my life—whatever future I have—faithfully——"

"Aren't you wasting time, Mr. Barclay?" Tristram interposed.

Barclay remained with his eyes on Sigrid's face.

"If you will come with me, Sigrid, Major Tristram can go back to Gaya."

She seemed scarcely to hear him. He heard Tristram laugh.

"Isn't this all rather melodramatic, Barclay? Do you really imagine I am anxious to save my life on such terms? Why don't you get on with things?"

Barclay swung round on his heel.

"And does my offer really amuse you? Are you amused at the death of a score or so of your countrymen up there in Gaya? That's what it amounts to. Mrs. Boucicault is giving a dinner to the station tonight. In three hours' time, the regiment mutinies, and your friends will be wiped out without being able to lift a hand—unless you warn them. Is that amusing?"

He drew a deep breath of content. He had seen Tristram flinch. He had reached him at last, had forced him down from his heights to meet him in the equality of a life-and-death struggle. He could afford now to be patient and composed.

It was Sigrid who spoke. Her voice sounded curiously flat and lifeless.

"Why have you told us this?"

He turned to her.

"Because I am asking a great deal of you. This is not our old bargain, Sigrid. If you come with me, it must be on my own terms. I don't know where I am going—but I shall be an exile—an Eurasian outcast with a price on his head. And you have got to stick to me."

"And your wife? She believes that you care for her."

His hands were clenched.

"I have done with caring," he said harshly. "You've taken care that I shouldn't put love first in my life. Leave my wife out of this. Nothing concerns you but your own decision."

"And you are ready to sacrifice your plans——?"

"I am prepared to give Gaya a fighting chance," he interrupted sternly. "I do not pretend that it is more than that—perhaps not so much."

"If—if I consent, will you keep faith? Have you the power——?"

"I have the power. Ayeshi will consent to anything I suggest. Remember—I have to trust you, too——" He hesitated, and then added slowly: "I do trust you."

She made a groping, uncertain gesture.

"Tristram——"

But he threw back his head in defiance.

"It can't be. Gaya wouldn't be saved at such a cost."

"It isn't what Gaya would want—it's what we've got to do—we ourselves don't count."

"Your honour——" he burst out.

"What is honour?" she retorted finely. "By your own creed, Tristram—what other honour is there but our duty towards others?"

He fought against her, against the light which he saw gathering in her eyes—against himself.

"It's a hideous impossibility."

"The hideousness isn't ours. It isn't impossible."

"Decide—can't you?" Barclay flung at them.

Tristram turned to him with a gesture of immeasurable contempt.

"So you betray all your masters?" he said.

"I am the son of a betrayal," Barclay retorted, smiling bitterly. "Has that ever troubled you? Why trouble yourself now about me?"

Sigrid's eyes avoided Tristram's face. The grey horror of it shook her.

"It's as Mr. Barclay says—we've only got to consider our own actions."

"Then you've decided?"

"Is there any choice?" she asked sternly.

For one moment he hated her as a man hates the cause of an intolerable suffering. The next, he saw that she had outstripped him. She had taken the fundamentals of his life and built her own edifice upon them—a higher, finer edifice than his own.

"I see that there is no choice for you," he said, with a chivalrous resignation. "And you're right. We don't count."

He felt the hand in his tighten. He looked down into his wife's ashen face. Throughout she had not spoken—scarcely moved. Now the change in her startled him out of the stupefying absorption of his pain. He saw that she had ceased to be afraid, and that the malice and anger had gone from her. He saw her as she had been in her girlhood, in her first innocent, incredulous love of him. Her failing eyes were full of a deep, unearthly pity.

"Tris—you are both—very brave."

A groan burst from his lips.

"Anne—I can't leave you."

"You must. That is my little share in the sacrifice. I shan't be afraid now, Tris."

He knelt down beside her. She put her weak arms round his neck and kissed him. "Good-bye, husband."

"Little Anne—God keep you."

She smiled a little.

"I'm—sure—He—will."

Barclay moved impatiently. He saw that they had forgotten him.

"Will you come, Sigrid?"

She bent her head in assent.

"Then you can go your way, Major," Barclay said.

But it was as though the last weapon which his tortured pride had forged for him had shivered against an impregnable armour. They were great—these people—even in defeat—even Anne, little cowardly Anne—could face death alone and unflinchingly. He recognized that greatness with a last anguish. He had their blood in him. If they had turned to him, recognized him, appealed to him in the name of their common ancestry,—even then—— But they did not think of him. He was a whirlwind driving them apart to their separate destinies—an impersonal, soulless force—no more.

"Come!" he demanded violently.

Tristram gave Sigrid his hand. They took up their burden of life. It had become heavier; but they took it up. And for a while they would carry it. But in the end there would be rest. That was their message and their farewell.

Tristram went out into the rain-swept street—past Vahana, who looked up into his face and laughed.

Sigrid lingered. She drew shyly near the camp-bed with its little burden.

"Good-bye——"

But Anne stretched out her hand and drew Sigrid down to her and kissed her.

"Yours is the hardest part. I—judged—harshly. Forgive."

"There is no need—our ways have met in the end."

The door closed presently. It grew very still in the little hut. The voices and the clatter of hoofs faded in the distance. All other sounds sank into the deepening, growing call of the flood.

Anne lay still. Her eyes lingered on the shadowy furniture. Even now there was Wickie's old basket in the corner. Poor Tristram! She sighed faintly—wearily. Somehow now it was so much easier to understand—God was all-merciful.

It was growing dark. She tried to compose herself. The shadows were rising up all around her. She was not afraid. Owen would be there—he would be waiting for her—it would be just as it had always been—only more perfect.

She tried to fold her hands.

"Our Father which art——"

It was as though a great sea poured over her—engulfing her in its peace.

CHAPTER XIII

TO GAYA!

Tristram led Arabella out of her stable and spoke gently to her. He showed no sign of haste or trouble. He did not believe Barclay. He was convinced that there was no intention to allow him to leave Heerut living. Even Barclay could not betray his followers so openly. Yet he had no right to refuse the chance, and in the end it could make but little difference.

He mounted and walked Arabella down the centre of the flooded street. Across the western exit of the village, where the land lay highest, the two thousand had herded together like a pack of hunted wolves awaiting the signal from their leader. Ayeshi sat his horse a little in advance, with Barclay and the shadowy mendicant to his right. Tristram rode towards them unmoved. He held himself with his usual casual ease, a little loosely, with one fist stemmed against his thigh. There was no conscious bravado in the attitude. An instinct inherited from generations of men who had confronted the same enemy at the same odds taught him an unchallenging serenity. As he drew nearer, he looked full into Ayeshi's face and read in the sombre eyes the confirmation of his death. He might have spoken, made some appeal to the old memories that bound them, but something—perhaps the consciousness that for that moment he represented more than himself—held him sternly silent. Barclay smiled, but his eyes too, were overshadowed with a knowledge in which there was neither happiness nor triumph. Thus the three men met in a last encounter. For an instant they seemed to be alone—to be standing on a lofty plateau above the watching crowd, confronting each other with a tragic perception of something common to them all, and of a destroying, merciless destiny.

Then Vahana laughed, shrilly, exultantly, and it was over.

Tristram rode past Ayeshi. He reached the border of the crowd. Arabella hesitated and he touched her gently with his heels. She understood, and, understanding, became insolently irresistible. The first man whom she nosed aside hesitated, his hand on his knife. Tristram did not look at him. His eyes passed carelessly over the sea of upturned faces. He did not draw himself up. So he might have ridden among them on a feast day, or as they returned from their work on the plain. His expression was neither defiant, nor contemptuous. To the last even as he awaited death at their hands, he remained one of them, not judge or master or victim, but man among men. One step more. The sea closed in behind him. Would it come now? He knew that it would be in his back. Sooner or later the hypnotic spell which his presence threw over them would snap. Some hand, bolder, more resolved than the rest, would lift itself, and then the waves would close over him for ever. Yet as he rode on, winning each step, the tension of waiting relaxed. He forgot himself. Something rose up to him in that heated, foetid atmosphere of a passion-ridden humanity. It enveloped him with a deeper knowledge of their dim strivings, of their dimmer hopes, and great fears. He saw in their revolt only a thwarted desire, a piteous clinging to the only faith they knew, in their hating cruelty only the curse under which all men, struggling blindly towards their vision of the future, flood their path with the blood of their brothers.

He did not pity them. The burden of their life was his. He forgot himself as the individual. He was part of the universe, part of all life. The instinct in him was to hold, out his hands to them in recognition—in acceptance of their common destiny.

He did not know that his face had changed as he rode slowly forward, nor that the faith which burnt up in him shone in his eyes. He only knew that suddenly it was over. The last wondering, questioning face flashed past him. He was out in the open—free.

Arabella broke into a canter. He pulled her back to a walk. The time had not yet come. They would recover now. Some of them had rifles. They would use them. There must be no sign of flight, of fear.

Ten yards—twenty—fifty—still nothing. Another pace or two, and he stood on a hillock, his body, as he knew, sharply outlined against the light. He drew in deliberately. Still nothing. He went on. He was hidden now. He called to Arabella, and then they were galloping towards Gaya.

Three hours and fifteen miles of bad road—perhaps partly flooded. So far there was only mud, into which Arabella sank up to the fetlocks, but down on the plain itself there would be morass—in places water. His mind foresaw each mile, each obstacle. If it could be done, Arabella would do it. No thoroughbred had her pluck and stamina. But it would be a close finish. Night was coming on. It would be dark within an hour. He would have to rely on his instinct to guide him. The lights of Gaya would not carry half a mile through the rain which fell in a finely woven curtain from the loaded sky.

He had ceased to question Barclay's action or Ayeshi's curious acquiescence. Possibly they had not meant him to escape—possibly they had relied on his coming too late or on the futility of his warning. It was useless to speculate. He could only act—do the best he could.

He breasted the last hillock which separated him from the plain. The roar of the river sounded ominous even then—like the roll of continuous, unmodulated thunder. Then on her own initiative, Arabella slithered to a standstill, her ears pricked, her lean body quivering with apprehension. Tristram brushed the rain from his eyes. For an instant he was only incredulous—distrustful of his own senses. Twenty-four hours ago—a wide flat stretch of saturated fertile soil—the bold, sweeping line of the Ganges—and now this—this level, rising, onward-flowing surface, broken near the centre by a broad ribbon of sinister, rippling movement—no landmark left, no grass, no trace of land—one stupendous, terrible monotony of water.

Then he knew what Barclay had known. The floods had come. The catastrophe of which old villagers had spoken with bated breath had broken over them. He could hear the water lapping against the base of the rising ground. With every minute it grew louder, nearer. In a few hours it might well be that the whole plain might be covered—Heerut—the temple itself.

He spoke to Arabella. He felt that figuratively she shrugged her shoulders. They had done many mad things together in their day, and this was the maddest and the last; but, if he wished it, she had no objection. She went slithering and stumbling down into the water. It rose to her knees, to his feet and there for the time stopped. They waded steadily towards the bridge-head. If it grew no deeper than this the passage might still be possible. He leant forward eagerly in the saddle, waiting for his goal to outline itself against the eternal greyness. There was no sound but the sish of the water as it broke from Arabella's shoulders and her own heavy breathing. He had ceased to hear the boom which had first warned him. He was in the midst of it and it became a kind of silence. It was a part of his consciousness—it had been there always.

Striking diagonally across the plain, he left the black mass of the temple on his right. He could not feel any current, and yet he was aware that they were being drawn insidiously towards the centre. The knowledge did not trouble him. So long as he could keep Arabella's head up the river, he could afford to give ground. He did not contemplate the possibility of being sucked into the torrent itself. As yet Arabella's foothold was sure and her progress steady.

No suspicion of the truth had reached him.

But still he could not see the bridge. Once past the temple it was the first important landmark, and he began to wonder, in spite of Arabella's sturdy efforts, whether they were really moving forward. The horror of the passing time coiled itself round him, stifling him. He knew fear—already the drab daylight was failing rapidly. Yet there was no bridge.

He was drifting nearer to the river's banks. He could mark them definitely by the break in the placid surface—the sudden rush, the eddies and deep pits of the whirlpools. He could judge the pace of the torrent by the passing of odd, as yet unrecognizable fragments. They sped on their way, now disappearing for many minutes, now carried from side to side in cross currents, but always in headlong movement. Some of the fragments were like small islands—they stood upright out of the water like pillars of a ruined church, black and straight.

Still there was no bridge.

"Mother Ganges demands toll of those who curb her."

Suddenly he understood. He understood Barclay's smile and Ayeshi's acquiescence. He recognized those pillars. They were motionless. They held their place in the torrent like the defiant remnant of an annihilated army, like tragic monuments to man's futility.

The bridge had gone.

For a moment he drew Arabella to a standstill. He had lost all sense of anxiety, all thought of failure. Methodically but rapidly, he threw overboard every unnecessary weight: his water-logged riding boots, various small items in his pockets, a heavy belt with a metal clasp, his coat. With an effort he managed to cut the girths and finally to remove the saddle itself, flinging it to the rest. Then he turned Arabella's head towards the river.

They were moving quickly now—perilously quickly. In what seemed no more than a minute they had reached the limit. The water rose above his knees, he could feel it circling round him—a living monster, awaiting its moment. He bent forward and patted Arabella's neck and whispered to her, and kissed her warm sleekness. She whinnied challengingly, tossing her head. Then plunged.

The torrent passed over them. He went down under a crushing opaque mass of delirious water. It seemed many minutes—perhaps it was only a second or two—then they rose again. Arabella's head was turned downstream. She made no effort. She was panic-stricken—helpless. He called to her. He himself was stunned and could barely keep his seat. Invisible forces had hold of him, dragging at him. At last he had her head round, and she struck out with the energy of terror. They were moving now. He could judge their progress by the two pillars mere specks on the rushing greyness. A fierce exultation possessed him—the glory of struggle—they were moving. Arabella had found her stride. Though they drifted, too, they were not wholly at the mercy of the current. Foot by foot, they were winning their way across. It did not matter that they were being swept farther down the river. Once on dry land they could make up for lost time. Then Arabella would not fail.

But now he was afraid for her. He could feel in his own nerves and sinews the cost of her heroic effort—the rising agony of her exhaustion. He believed that already she was finished. He felt her go down under him. Then, in answer to a supreme demand of her spirit, she rose again—the blood streaming from her nostrils. He called to her, and she turned her head a little. He could see her eyes, their whites veined with red, and he remembered Wickie. It was the same look, the same unfaltering confidence, the same patient acceptance of suffering. For herself alone she would not have struggled farther; but for him, for his life she accepted the crushing, heart-breaking burden of living.

Strange things raced past them—fragments horrible in their significance—an unhinged door, a table, a wooden image swept from some village shrine, its battered face staring from out of the foaming water in grotesque serenity; dead things—the carcase of a bullock, a woman's rigid hand tossed up in horrible semblance of appeal, a baby's body; living things—the hideous snout of a mugger battling against the stream, its jaws snapping greedily at the passing provender, a cheetah, caught perhaps in the midst of some marauding expedition, which struggled to Tristram's side and kept close to him. He called to it and it turned its eyes to him in frantic supplication and terror. In that dread moment they were comrades, fighting shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy.

They reached midstream. In a minute they would be out of the worst—out of danger. He turned his head; he wanted to measure by the pillars how far they had still to go. He saw the end coming. It was grotesque—absurd—a native hovel that had been caught up bodily. It bore down upon him, staggering drunkenly on the full breast of the current. It seemed to blot out the sky—a monstrous, towering Juggernaut.

A figure clung to the thatched roof. It was gesticulating wildly—in fear or warning, he could not tell. But there was no escape. The rocking structure was travelling with the speed of an express,—Arabella had almost ceased to move. Tristram slipped quietly from her back, only holding to her bridle, and she rose buoyantly. In that final moment, a deep-rooted instinct in him had prevailed. She was to have her chance. He struck out—turning his head for a last time towards the onrushing catastrophe. It was not more than twenty yards away. He could see the man's dark face—staring down into the water—aghast, silly-looking. His grotesque vessel seemed suddenly to stop, to draw back, quivering like a frightened, death-stricken animal—then plunged headlong—flashed like a pebble over the edge of a precipice.

Tristram closed his eyes. He tasted death. He knew the horror of suffocation—the pitiless night which swirled over him, choking him, stupefying him.

Twenty yards lower down the hut reappeared. Its roof was battered in. The clinging, piteous figure had vanished.

Tristram twisted Arabella's bridle about his arm. It was his last deliberate act. He was dimly conscious of movement, of being sucked against warm, heaving flanks, of a hand that closed down blackly on his will to live. He knew that he was letting go his hold—he was beaten. He felt himself go down—then one last thrill of consciousness. His feet jarred against something—he was being dragged—dragged over a soft spongy substance.

He tried to right himself—but instead stumbled—pitched headlong into oblivion.

CHAPTER XIV

RESURRECTION

"That reminds me of a story some one told me once," Mrs. Brabazone declared. "I think it was George——"

George, seated three places lower down on the opposite side of the table, looked up anxiously and, meeting his wife's eyes, signalled a denial. "Yes, I'm sure it was you, George. Anyhow, it's a very good story. It was about a Lancashire coal-heaver—or was it a cotton-spinner? What do they do in Lancashire? I never can remember. But I know they make a frightful lot of money, and are horribly extravagant." She considered a moment. "Yes—it is extravagant, not mean. I get so confused. And one day when he was dying——"

Some one laughed, and Mrs. Brabazone glanced up perplexedly. "My dear, that isn't the point—at least, I don't think so. George, do tell it. It's such a good story."

The Judge, usually the soul of courtesy, turned a deaf ear and fixed his attention with an expression of almost passionate interest on Colonel Armstrong, who was seated on Mrs. Boucicault's left. The Colonel was discussing the prospects of the rains, his manner beautifully Anglo-Saxon in its optimistic serenity.

"I'm sure we can congratulate ourselves that the worst is over," he said. "As long as the banks at Bjura hold there is nothing to fear, and Rutherford promised to let us know the moment there was any danger—on account of the bridge, of course. Poor Matherson was rather rattled about the bridge. It's his first single-handed job, and a swollen river like that is a severe test. However, he's kept quiet, so we can presume that it's holding out."

Mrs. Boucicault smiled. She smiled very often—always when a reply was expected of her. It covered over her silence. It was a curious smile. It came suddenly and faded slowly, leaving behind it a kind of grimace. Her eyes, abnormally large and intensely blue, were fixed blankly on the length of the table. Its display of silver, the many flowers, the subdued lights, the noiseless servants whose dark hands reached out spectrally from the shadows, seemed to absorb her. Certainly it was a feast unequalled in the annals of Gaya's sociabilities. Some of the guests were even vaguely oppressed by it. A pace was being set which none of them could hope to keep up.

Dr. Martin, seated a few places lower down on his hostess's right, scarcely turned his eyes from her face. She seemed to fascinate him. His neighbour—the wife of a newly arrived Captain—decided that he was a very stupid little man. He rarely spoke, and seemed to have no appetite. Her inherited antipathy for civilians increased to dislike, and she pitied herself intensely. In despite, she amused herself with Captain Compton, who was her vis-à-vis, dilating rather maliciously on the glories of Simla, from whence she hailed.

The conversation never flagged. Its feverish persistency covered the splash of the rain outside the open windows and the sound of smothered, angry whisperings somewhere behind the curtained doorways. Mrs. Compton, who was an old hand at Indian life, sensed "nerves" in that perpetual chatter, in that resolute determination to shut out alike thought and silence. The last weeks had been almost unbearable. She herself had never experienced anything to equal the incessant downpour. But it was more than the climate. There was unrest in the air. From her husband she had heard mutterings to the effect that Armstrong, good soldier though he was, did not know how to tackle the ugly temper of his men—that a demand had been sent to headquarters for a battalion of white troops. Then other things had gone wrong—Rasaldû, Sigrid, Barclay—it was one long sequence of trouble.

And now tonight, Mrs. Boucicault sat at the head of the table with her staring, unseeing eyes and grey, powdered face, looking like a smiling death's-head.

Mary Compton thought of the man who lay paralysed and silent behind the walls, and wondered if beneath their gaiety the others thought of him and of the unknown hand which had struck him down. Things happened in India. They came out of the darkness like lightning—struck, and vanished. It was no wonder people had nerves. They were in the minority—in reality quite powerless. It was just bluff—splendid bluff.

Mrs. Compton bit her lip. She had nearly screamed. In the midst of her unpleasant reflections, the voices in the corridor had risen to an angry clamour. Suddenly the curtains were pushed violently aside. The butler entered backwards, expostulating, gesticulating, followed overwhelmingly by Mrs. Smithers. Her entry, her rain-soaked clothes and dishevelled grey hair might have been comic—might have caused amused surprise—discomfort; but there was something else about her—a resolution, a reality of tense anxiety which, reflected on the faces of those who saw her first, brought the rest to an instantaneous silence.

She looked round the table, and, seeing Mrs. Compton, who had half risen, burst into breathless speech.

"It's Sigrid—she's gone—she's been gone since this morning—I've waited—I couldn't bear it any longer. She'll die. It's her heart. And that man—that scoundrel—his real wife's down there now—crying her eyes out. It made me sick. I had to come. Mrs. Compton, you cared for her—you'll help me. Don't you know anything—don't you know where she's gone?"

The broken, incoherent flow came to a more resolute end. The servants made a movement as though to approach her, but Mrs. Boucicault waved them back. She had become suddenly alert and watchful, as though for something which she had long foreseen.

Mrs. Compton looked helplessly round the table.

"Does any one know—I haven't seen Mrs. Barclay for days——"

"You can call her Miss Fersen," Mrs. Smithers broke in doggedly.

"Well, you know who I mean. Perhaps she's taken shelter——"

"It was raining when she started out. That was this morning early—after that woman came——"

"What woman——?"

"Mrs. Barclay—a nigger, like him."

Mrs. Smithers was uncompromising—violent. She did not care that she interrupted, that forty of Gaya's most important inhabitants stared at her with varying feelings of consternation and annoyance. She was frightened. Her fear had tightened its hold with every hour of futile waiting, till what self-consciousness she had was stifled out of her. Her fear was everything. These people were nothing. Her disparagement of them expressed itself in every line of her grim, ashen features.

"You mean"—Colonel Armstrong leant back judicially in his chair, fingering the stem of his wine-glass "you mean actually that Mrs.—your mistress discovered this morning—that—that, in fact, her marriage had been illegal——?"

"That's it. She wasn't his wife—never had been, thank God."

"Isn't it conceivable—I don't want to frighten you—that in her despair she may have done something rash?"

Mrs. Smithers jerked her head with a movement of utter contempt.

"You men seem to think we're always in despair if we lose one of you precious creatures—most times it's t'other way round. She was glad. It's the first time I've seen her happy for months and months. He's done away with her—and you sit there like a herd of stuck pigs——"

"Really, my good woman——"

"I'm not your good woman. A lot you care. She's one of your blood—worth the whole crowd of you—and you treated her like dirt just because she got into the clutches of one of your—your—wickednesses——"

"Smithy!" Mrs. Compton implored.

"I don't care—it's true."

Armstrong looked helplessly at Mrs. Boucicault; but Mrs. Boucicault was staring in front of her with that same look of tense expectancy. The new arrival from Simla shivered. She did not understand the scene, but she thought it vulgar and horrid. These out-of-the-way stations were very uncivilized. It was amazing how quickly the smartest people lost their polish.