A girl who's been educated at home. It seems an unfailing prescription
for trouble. I rather fancy she's a cousin of yours."

Roy started. "What--Aruna?"

"She didn't mention the name. Only ructions--and Thea to the rescue!"

"Poor Aruna!--She stayed in England a goodish time, because of the
War--and Dyan. I've not heard of Dyan for an age; and I don't believe
they have either. He was knocked out in 1915. Lost his left arm. Said he
was going to study art in Calcutta.--I wonder----?" Desmond--who had
chiefly been talking to divert the current of his thoughts--noted, with
satisfaction, how his simple tactics had taken effect.

"We'll write to-morrow--eh?" said he. "Better still--happy
thought!--I'll bear down on Jaipur myself, for Christmas leave. Rare
fine pig-sticking in those parts."

The happy thought proved a masterstroke. In the discussion of plans and
projects Roy became almost his radiant self again: forgot, for one
merciful hour, that he was dead, damned, and done for--the wraith of a
'Might-Have-Been.'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: Punjab Irregular Frontier Force.]

CHAPTER II.

"Oh, not more subtly silence strays
Amongst the winds, between the voices...
Than thou art present in my days.

My silence, life returns to thee
In all the pauses of her breath.
And thou, wake ever, wake for me!"
--ALICE MEYNELL.

Some five weeks later, Roy sat alone--very completely and desolately
alone--in a whitewashed, unhomely room that everywhere bore the stamp of
dak bungalow; from the wobbly teapoy[4] at his elbow to the board of
printed rules that adorned the empty mantelpiece. The only cheering
thing in the room was the log fire that made companionable noises and
danced shadow-dances on the dingy white walls. But the optimism of the
fire was discounted by the pessimism of the lamp that seemed specially
constructed to produce a minimum of light with a maximum of smell--and
rank kerosene at that.

Dak bungalows had seemed good fun in the days of his leave, when he and
Lance made merry over their well-worn failings. But it was quite another
affair to smoke the pipe of compulsory solitude, on the outskirts of
Chitor, hundreds of miles away from Kohat and the Regiment; to feel
oneself the only living being in a succession of empty rooms--for the
servants were housed in their own little colony apart. Solitude, in the
right mood and the right p