as a sort of sanctuary, not to be shared as yet, even with
his son. And, in the face of such loneliness, it seemed almost cruel to
enlarge on his own clear sense of intimate communion with her who had
been unfailingly their Jewel of Delight.

So, by degrees--in the long months of separation from them all--his
ethereal link with her had come to feel closer and more real than his
link with those others, still in the flesh, yet strangely remote from
his inner life.

To-night--after reading both letters--that sense of nearness seemed
stronger than ever. Could it be that the magnetism of India was in the
nature of an intimation from her that for the present his work lay here?
By the hidden forces that mould men's lives, he had been drawn to the
land of heart's desire; and at home, neither his family nor his country
seemed to have any particular need of him. Whether or no India had need
of him, he assuredly had need of her. And it was the very strength of
that feeling which had given him pause.

But now, at last, he knew beyond cavil that, for all his mind--or was it
his conscience?--might haver and split straws, he had been drawn to
Rajputana, as irresistibly as if that vast desert region were the moon
and he a wavelet on the tidal shore.

With a great sigh he rose, yawned cavernously and shivered. Better get
to bed and to sleep:--a bed that didn't clank and jolt and batter your
brains to a pulp. Things would look amazingly different in the morning.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Tripod table.]

[Footnote 5: Joy of my Heart.]

CHAPTER III.

"Darkness and solitude shine for me:
For life's fair outward part, are rife
The silver noises: let them be.
It is the very soul of life
Listens for thee, listens for thee."
--ALICE MEYNELL.

The depressingly bare, whitewashed bedroom owned a French bedstead, with
brass rails;--a welcome 'find' in a dak bungalow, especially after three
very broken nights in an Indian train. Tired to the point of
stupefaction, Roy promised himself he would sleep the clock round; eat a
three-decker Anglo-Indian breakfast, and thereafter be his own man
again. In that faith he laid his head on the least lumpy portion of the
pillow--and in less than five minutes found himself quite intolerably
wide awake.

Though the bedstead neither repudiated him, nor took liberties with his
person, ghostly clankings and vibrations still j