presented Aruna's
'_prasad_,' consecrated by her touch. In silence Dyan set it on the
table; and reverently touched, with his finger-tips, first the small
parcel, then his own forehead.

"Aruna--sister," he said on an under breath. But he would not be drawn
into talking of her, of his grandfather, or of home affairs: and his
abrupt departure left Roy with a maddening sense of frustration.

He lay awake half the night; and reached certain conclusions that atoned
for a violent headache next morning. First and best--Dyan was not a
genuine convert. All this ferment and froth did not spell reasoned
conviction. He was simply ensnared; his finer nature warped by the
'delusion of irresistible suggestion,' deadlier than any weapon of War.
His fanatical loyalty savoured of obsession. So much the better. An
obsession could be pricked like an air-ball with the right weapon at the
right moment. That, as Roy saw it, was his task:--in effect, a ghostly
duel between himself and Chandranath for the soul of Dyan Singh; and the
fate of Aruna virtually hung on the issue.

Should he succeed, Chandranath would doubtless guess at his share in
Dyan's defection; and few men care about courting the enmity of the
unscrupulous. That is the secret power behind the forces of anarchy,
above all in India, where social and spiritual boycott can virtually
slay a man without shedding of blood. For himself, Roy decided the game
was worth the candle. The question remained--how far that natural
shrinking might affect Dyan? And again--how much did he know of
Chandranath's designs on Aruna?

Roy decided to spring the truth on him next time--and note the effect.
Dyan had said he would come again one evening; and--sooner than Roy
expected--he came. Again he was abnormally voluble, as if holding his
cousin at arm's length by italicising his own fanatical fervour, till
Roy's impatience subsided into weariness and he palpably stifled a yawn.

Dyan, detecting him, stopped dead, with a pained, puzzled look that went
to Roy's heart. For he loved the real Dyan, even while he was bored to
extinction with the semi-religious verbiage that poured from him like
water from a jug.

"Awfully sorry," he apologised frankly. "But I've been over-dosed with
that sort of stuff lately; and I'm damned if I can swallow it like you
do. Yet I'm dead keen for India to have the best, all round, that she's
capable of digesting--yet. So's Grandfather. You _can't_ deny it."

Dyan fr