t Lenox, knowing well that hardships and perils loom larger in an
easy-chair than on the slope of a glacier, had asked for little, beyond
permission to depart, and that speedily.

A few days at Pindi had sufficed for the collecting of stores and
equipment. Then he had pushed northward in earnest, picking up his
escort of Gurkhas from their station in the foot-hills: and so on
through Kashmir, where spring had already flung her bridal veil over
the orchards, and retreating snow-wreaths had left the hills carpeted
with a mosaic of colour,--primula, iris, orchid, and groundlings
innumerable: over the Zoji-la Pass, into the shadeless, fantastic
desolation of Ladak; and on, across stark desert and soundless
snow-fields, to Leh, the terminus of all caravans from India and
Central Asia. Here Lenox had spent two days with one Captain Burrow of
the Bengal Cavalry, who, with a handful of half-starved Kashmiri
soldiers, upheld the interests of the British Raj on this uttermost
edge of Empire. Here also he found a letter from Quita; read and
re-read it, and stowed it away in his breast-pocket, trying not to be
aware of a haunting ache deep down in him, which must perforce be
ignored. The old charm of the Road, the 'glory of going on,' that
works like madness in the blood, was strong upon him as ever. But
whereas, in former journeyings, he had been one man, he was now two.
The whole-hearted ecstasy of travel would never again be his. He had
given a part of himself into a woman's keeping; and let him put the
earth's diameter between them, she would hold him still. Every week,
every day that drew him farther from her did but bring home to him more
forcibly the mysterious, compelling power of marriage, its large
reserves of loyalty, its sacred and intimate revelations, its
inexorable grip on life and character.

But meanwhile, there was the Road before him; a rough road, full of
vicissitudes and anxieties, of interests and anticipations that left
him small leisure for the communings of his heart.

Before leaving Leh, hill camels and ponies had been added unto him;
besides twenty-one decrepit Kashmir soldiers,--a type extinct since
they have been handled by British officers. These were to be deposited
by Lenox at his so-called 'base of operations,' by way of guarding the
trade route so grievously troubled by the brigand state.

Followed two more weeks of marching,--rougher marching this
time,--through the core of the lofty m