ary, willing suicide. They would tell Bootea that
owing to having been evil in former incarnations her sins had been
visited upon her husband, had caused his death; that in a former life she
had been a snake, or a rat.

The dead husband's mother, had Bootea come of an age to live with him,
though yet but a child of twelve years, would, on the slightest
provocation, beat her--even brand her with a hot iron; he had known of it
having been done. She would be given but one meal a day--rice and
chillies. Even if she had not yet left her father's house he would look
upon her as a shameful thing, an undesirable member of the family, one
not to be rid of again in the way of marriage; for if a Hindu married her
it would break his caste--he would be a veritable pariah. No servant
would serve him; no man would sell him anything; if he kept a shop no one
would buy of him; no one would sit and speak with him--he would be
ostracised.

The only life possible for the girl would be that of a prostitute. She
might be married by the temple priests to the god Khandoka, as thousands
of widows had been, and thus become a nun of the temple, a prostitute to
the celibate priests. Knowing all this, and that Bootea was what she
was, her face and eyes holding all that sweetness and cleanness, that she
lived in the guardianship of Ajeet Singh, very much a man, Barlow admired
her the more in that she had escaped moral destruction. Her face was the
face of one of high caste; she was not like the ordinary _nautch_ girl of
the fourth caste. Everything about Bootea suggested breeding, quality.
The iron bracelet, indicated why she had socially passed down the
scale--there was no doubt about it.

"I understand, Gulab," he said; "the Sahibs all understand, and know that
widowhood is not a reproach."

"But the Sahib questioned of love; and how can one such know of love?
The heart starves and does not grow for it feeds upon love--what we of
Hind call the sweet pain in the heart."

"But have none been kind, Gulab--pleased by your flower face, has no one
warmed your heart?"

The slim arms that gripped Barlow in a new tightening trembled, the face
that fled from the betraying moonlight was buried against his tunic, and
the warm body quivered from sobs.

Barlow turned her face up, and the moonlight showed vagrant pearls that
lay against the olive cheeks, now tinted like the petals of a rose. Then
from a service point of view, and as a matter of