s life with all his might by so much as one underhand or
dishonourable thought.

And then, by a natural corollary, his thoughts reverted to Hilda Ryder;
and for the first time since her death he began to feel that now, after
all these years, he might surely be considered to have atoned for his
too hasty carrying-out of the promise he had made her in that
rose-coloured dawn of a bygone Indian morning.

Never had man regretted an impulsive deed more than he had regretted the
thing which had been done that day. The years which had elapsed since
then had been indeed years of penance--a penance more cruel and far more
hard to bear than any penalty inflicted by man could possibly have been.

He had been a prisoner indeed, bound fast in the captivity of his own
remorse; but now it seemed to him as though the long black night of his
imprisonment were breaking, as though a light, as yet very far off and
faint, showed upon some distant horizon with a promise of another and
more radiant day which should surely dawn ere long.

Whence came this blessed lightening of his gloom? He could not say. Was
it perhaps due to the fact that even now he was risking his life in the
service of another woman--it is to be feared he forgot all but Iris in
this strangely exalted moment--that to him her life had been confided by
the father who adored her, and that to him and to him alone could she
look for comfort and for help in the bitter hour which he foresaw was
even now at hand for the girl who loved Bruce Cheniston--and must see
him die....

* * * * *

And as his thoughts played, lightning-wise, round the figure of the
beloved woman, his footsteps led him on, more and more blithely as his
spirit rose, ph[oe]nix-like, above the ashes of his burnt-out tragedy,
and in an incredibly short space of time he approached the well whence
he might draw the precious water for lack of which the little garrison
he had left must perish and die.

It was a peaceful spot, this well. Just such a place as that to which
Rachel and the daughters of Jacob must, long ago, have come to fill
their pitchers--a quiet, palm-guarded spot where doubtless, in days gone
by, the village women had congregated in search of water and of
news--the chattered gossip of the East, punctuated by the tinkling of
native bangles as the beautifully-moulded arms raised the pitchers to
the finely-carried heads.

The well was deserted now, but the water w