mile descent to the foot-hill terminus it rained
perseveringly. But toward evening the clouds parted, and an hour of
sunshine set the drenched earth steaming like a soup kettle when the lid
is lifted off. Desmond had ordained that Lenox and his wife should be
carried down in doolies; an indignity to which they submitted under
protest: and Honor, scrambling out of her prison through an opening level
with the ground, passed quite gratefully from its stuffy twilight,
redolent of sodden canvas and humanity, to the smell of hot wood and
leather that pervaded the sun-saturate railway carriage awaiting them in
Pathankot station.

With the unhurried deftness of an experienced pilgrim, she set about
making the place cooler, and more habitable; drew up all the
window-shutters; opened her bedding roll; and taking possession of Lenox,
established him, with tender imperiousness, in the least stifling corner,
a pillow set lengthways behind him. He leaned against it, and closed his
eyes.

"Head bad?" she asked a little anxiously. For the concussion headache is
no child's play, and ten hours in a doolie might breed neuralgia in a
cannon-ball.

"Pretty average. Nothing to trouble about." The assurance was not
convincing: and she gleaned the truth from two deep lines in his forehead.

"I'm going to make you some tea in a minute," she announced cheerfully,
opening her basket, and clamping a travelling spirit-lamp to the woodwork
above the seat. "Real tea. Not the stewed leaves and water we should
pay six annas for outside! There's half a dozen of soda, three pints of
champagne, a fowl, and an aspic in the icebox under your seat. But tea
would be best now. We'll keep the rest for your dinners."

He opened his eyes and smiled at her.

"You've a remarkable talent for spoiling a man!"

"It's one I'm very proud of," she answered simply: and leaning out of the
open doorway, caught sight of her husband striding down the platform,
closely followed by an army of coolies, two bearers, and two
pessimistic-looking dogs on chains. "Theo," she called, "do leave that
eternal luggage to Amar Singh, and come and be spoilt! We're going to
have tea."

Before the train jolted out of the station, she had served it to them in
large cups, an insubstantial biscuit in each saucer: for it is drink, not
food, that a man wants when the thermometer stands at 110 degrees in the
shade.

At Umritsur the train halted for half an hour. The thermo