ear--dearest,"
she called softly. But he did not heed.

She overtook him, however, and caught his arm with both hands, forcing
him to stop.

"Darling--forgive me," she murmured, her face appealingly close to his.
"I didn't mean--I was only trying to ease things for you, a little--you
quiver-full of sensibilities."

He had been a fakir, past saving, could he have withstood her in that
vein. Her nearness, her tenderness, revived the mood of sheer
bewitchment, when he could think of nothing, desire nothing but her. She
had a genius for inducing that mood in men; and Roy's virginal passion,
once roused, was stronger than he knew. With his arms round her, his
heart against hers, it was humanly impossible to wish her other than she
was--other than his own.

Words failed. He simply clung to her, in a kind of dumb desperation to
which she had not the key.

"To-morrow," he said at last, "I'll tell you more--show you her
picture."

And, unlike Aruna, she had no inkling of all that those few words
implied.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 28: Early tea.]

CHAPTER VIII.

"The patience of the British is as long as a summer's day; but the
arm of the British is as long as a winter's night."--_Pathan
Saying._

They parted on the understanding that Roy would come in to tiffin on
Sunday. Instead, to his shameless relief, he found the squadron detailed
to bivouac all day in the Gol Bagh, and be available at short notice.

It gave him a curious thrill to open his camphor-drenched uniform
case--left behind with Lance--and unearth the familiar khaki of Kohat
and Mespot days; to ride out with his men in the cool of early morning
to the gardens at the far end of Lahore. The familiar words of commands,
the rhythmic clatter of hoofs, were music in his ears. A thousand pities
he was not free to join the Indian Army. But, in any case, there was
Rose. There would always be Rose now. And he had an inkling that their
angle of vision was by no means identical....

The voice of Lance, shouting an order, dispelled his brown study; and
Rose--beautiful, desirable, but profoundly disturbing--did not intrude
again.

Arrived in the gardens, they picketed the horses, and disposed
themselves under the trees to await events. The heat increased and the
flies, and the eternal clamour of crows; and it was nearing noon before
their ears caught a far-off sound--an unmistakable hum rising to a roar.

"Thought so," said Lance, and fl