in frank reference to something
that had not been mentioned. 'It's goodbye Simla, isn't it?' she
said. He smiled in response and put his hand upon her firm, round arm,
possessively, and they began to talk.

Ram Singh, all unaware, kept his horses at their steady clanking
downward gallop, and Simla, clinging to the hilltops, was brushed by the
first rays of the sun.

It came a gloriously clear morning; early riders round Jakko saw the
real India lying beyond the outer ranges, flat and blue and pictured
with forests and rivers like a map. The plains were pretty and
interesting in this aspect, but nobody found them attractive. Sensitive
people liked it better when the heat mist veiled them and it was
possible to look abroad without a sudden painful thought of contrasting
temperatures. We may suppose that the inhabitants of Paradise sometimes
grieve over their luck. Even Madeline Anderson, whose heart knew no
constriction at the remembrance of brother or husband at some cruel
point in the blue expanse, had come to turn her head more willingly the
other way, towards the hills rolling up to the snows, being a woman who
suffered by proxy, and by observation, and by Rudyard Kipling.

On this particular morning, however, she had not elected to do either.
She slept late instead, and was glad to sleep. I might as well say at
once that on the night before she had made up her mind, had brought
herself to the point, and had written to Mrs. Innes, at 'Two Gables',
all the facts, in so far as she was acquainted with them, connected with
Frederick Prendergast's death. She was very much ashamed of herself,
poor girl; she was aware that, through her postponement, Horace Innes
would now see his problem in all its bitterness, make his choice with
his eyes wide open. If it had only happened before he knew--anything
about her!

She charged herself with having deliberately waited, and then spent an
exhausting hour trying to believe that she had drifted unconsciously to
the point of their mutual confession. Whatever the truth was, she did
not hesitate to recognize a new voice in her private counsels from that
hour, urging her in one way or another to bring matters to an end.
It was a strong instinct; looking at the facts, she saw it was the
gambler's. When she tried to think of the ethical considerations
involved she saw only the chances. The air seemed to throb with them all
night; she had to count them finally to get rid of them.

Brook