drive, through darkness two degrees cooler than high noon;
and beneath her surface serenity she suffered keenly from the ache of
empty arms; from the completeness of separation involved in leaving a
child too young to span distance even by hieroglyphs, profusely
decorated with 'kisses,' such as she had seen women treasure in the
days of her young ignorance. Mrs Rivers wrote constantly and
copiously. But can the most unwearied pen set down all that a mother
craves to know about her child?

At the end of a week, Lenox was with them still. To his sole
suggestion of departure, Desmond had merely replied: "My dear man,
don't talk nonsense. When we've had enough of you, we'll let you know
it, without ceremony!" And Lenox, strangely loth to return to his
bachelor quarters, took him at his word, and stayed on.

Yet the two men saw little enough of one another. For on the Frontier
work means work: and when cholera hovers over the station like a bird
of prey, it is carried on with redoubled vigour. Only by constant
occupation can fear and fatalism be held at arm's-length. Only the
infectious mettle of the British officer can infuse into all ranks that
cheerful alertness which, at a time of epidemic, is the finest
safeguard in the world. There is much virtue, also, in mere routine,
one of the wingless good angels of earth; and only those who have
proved its power to drag broken heart or broken body through the things
that must be done, estimate it at its true value.

In Lenox's case, it helped to deaden the prick of anxiety as to the
future and the physical ache of longing; for as Commandant with two out
of four subalterns on the 'sick list,' he had his hands full; and
Desmond, the Colonel's chosen friend and ally in all regimental
matters, was in the same enviable condition. The more so, since he and
Meredith between them had anticipated the modern theory that the spread
of cholera or fever can be partially checked by a determined assault on
flies and mosquitoes, the great disease-breeders of the East; a
suggestion received at that time with a mild amusement, bordering on
scorn. But the two men, zealous for the credit and welfare of the
regiment--the Great Fetish 'that claims the lives of all and lives for
ever'--determined to give the new notion a fair trial in their own
Lines; and Desmond, as may be supposed, flung himself heart and soul
into the organisation of this very novel form of campaign! Plunged
neck-deep