e....

And now--Lance was gone; Roy was hers; Bramleigh Beeches and a
prospective title were hers; but still....

The shock of Roy's revelation had upset her a good deal more than she
dared let him guess. And the effect did not pass--in spite of determined
efforts to be unaware of it. She knew, now, that her vaunted tolerance
sprang chiefly from having ignored the whole subject. Half-castes she
instinctively despised. For India and the Indians she had little real
sympathy; and the rising tide of unrest, the increasing antagonism, had
sharpened her negative attitude to a positive dislike and distrust,
acutely intensified since that evening at Anarkalli, when the sight of
Lance and her stepfather, sitting there at the mercy of any chance-flung
missile, had stirred the slumbering passion in her to fury. For one
bewildering moment she had scarcely been able to endure Roy's touch or
look, because he was even remotely linked with those creatures, who
mouthed and yelled and would have murdered them all without compunction.

The impression of those few nerve-wracking days had struck deep. Yet, in
spite of all, Roy's hold on her was strong; the stronger perhaps because
she had been aware of his inner resistance, and had never felt quite
sure of him. She did not feel fundamentally sure of him, even now. His
letters had been few and brief; heart-broken, naturally; yet scarcely
the letters of an ardent lover. The longest of the four had given her a
poignant picture of Lance's funeral; almost as if he knew, and had
written with intent to hurt her. In addition to half the British
officers of the station, the cemetery had been thronged with the men of
his squadron, Sikhs and Pathans--a form of homage very rare in India.
Many of them had cried like children; and for himself, Roy confessed, it
had broken him all to bits. He hardly knew how to write of it; but he
felt she would care to know.

She cared so intensely that, for the moment, she had almost hated him
for probing so deep, for stamping on her memory a picture that would not
fade.

His next letter had been no more than half a sheet. That was three days
ago. Another was overdue; and the post was overdue also.

Ah--at last! A flash of scarlet in the verandah and Fazl Ali presenting
an envelope on a salver, as though she were a goddess and the letter an
offering at her shrine.

It was a shade thicker than usual. Well, it ought to be. She had been
very patient with his brevit