nce; and suddenly she lifted her
head, her face all animation.

"Look here, I have a notion--an inspired notion. Why should not you
two get Colonel Mayhew's permission to go off on a week's shooting trip
beyond Chumba. Ten days if you like. Theo would love it. You would
come back to your writing like a giant refreshed. There now, isn't
that a plan worth thinking over?"

Moved beyond his wont, Lenox leaned impulsively towards her.

"My dear Mrs Desmond, your kindness overpowers me. But I really can't
see that you and your husband are called upon to put yourselves out
like that, on my behalf. You are up here to enjoy your short holiday
together; and you are rare good companions, as I know. What right have
I to monopolise him for ten days, and leave you alone? Why should you
care, after all, if I do go and knock myself to bits in the interior?"

"That question is unworthy of you, and doesn't deserve an answer," she
said on a note of gentle reproof. "Mine does. Will you do what I ask?"

"Since you ask it of me--yes. Always supposing that it suits Desmond
to go."

"Of course it will suit him. We will settle it when he comes in."

He leaned back in his chair, and sighed.

"You're amazingly good to me, Mrs Desmond; and I'm an ungrateful brute.
Will you overlook that, and play me something warranted to soothe
jarred nerves, till your husband comes?"

"Of course I will, gladly. Only you mustn't expect real music from a
hireling!"

She chose one of Beethoven's most tenderly gracious Allegrettos, and
the soul of the hireling responded creditably to the magic of her touch.

But before she had played many bars a clatter of hoofs announced
Desmond's return. He flung himself from the saddle, cleared the
verandah steps at a bound, and entered the room:--a man of magnetic
vitality, with a temperament like a clear flame; a typical officer of
that isolated force to whose gallantry and unwearied devotion to duty
India owes more than she is apt to acknowledge, or, possibly, to
perceive. He nodded a welcome to Lenox, signed to him to remain
seated, and going straight to the piano laid a hand on his wife's
shoulder.

"Don't stop. Finish your piece," he said, as she smiled up at him; and
he did not remove his hand, but remained standing there, in simple
satisfaction at having got back to her.

Now and again, at very rare intervals, Nature seems to select a
favoured man and woman to uphold the torch of the ideal