h in Quita that appeared
_difficile_ and contradictory; explained also her instant gravitation
to Lenox, in whom she divined a supply of moral force, and the
masculine spirit of protection, both strangely undeveloped in the
brother she so devoutly loved. And if at times the uncongenial task of
conscience-keeper, and general financier, coupled with complexities,
arising from her own false position, had proved something of a strain
upon her, Michael had never yet discovered the fact. She understood
and shared enough of his Pagan spirit to accept his emotional aids to
self-expression at their true value. Do what he might, she could not
find it in her heart to be angry with him for long. He carried his
fine crop of failings with a cheerfulness and assurance so engaging,
that it seemed almost ungracious to be aware of them.

But there were moments when the woman in her rebelled, even to
remonstrance, with small result; and when, at length, the arrival of
two cheques coincided with Michael's announcement that a certain
enamoured Countess obviously expected him to free her from the tyranny
of an unloved husband, Quita had laughingly suggested India as an
inviting means of escape from entanglements present and to come.

Half a night of meditation had sufficed to set her on the rock of
decision. There were possibilities about India not to be named, even
to her own heart. There were also empty spaces where white women would
be scarce, and where Michael must learn to work without the spur of a
fictitious stimulant.

Before the week was out, behold them ploughing through the
Mediterranean, leaving the misguided Countess to pacify a suspicious
husband. A summer in Kashmir, and a winter in a deserted Himalayan
station, had confirmed Quita in the wisdom of their flight; and now her
own unnamed possibility had been sprung upon her so suddenly, so
strangely, that it took away her breath, and left her as yet neither
glad nor sorry, but profoundly disturbed.

Arrived at her own turning, she relieved her feelings a little by
getting Yorick at a canter up the twisted scrap of a path that climbed
to a wooden doll's house, christened by a poetical Hindu landlord, the
"Crow's Nest." Perched on an impossible-looking slope of gravel and
granite, eight thousand feet above the Punjab, it seemed only to be
saved from falling headlong by an eight-foot ledge of earth, which
Quita spoke of proudly as her "garden," and which actually boaste