and devoted. "Come away, my _mem-sahib!_" he entreated
very earnestly. "It is the Gate of Death."

That pierced her anew. Her desolation came upon her in an overwhelming
wave. She turned with a great cry, and threw her arms wide to the risen
sun, tottering blindly towards the emptiness that stretched beneath her
feet. And as she went, she heard the roar of the torrent dashing down
over its grim boulders to the great river up which they two had glided
in their dream of enchantment aeons and aeons before....

She knew nothing of the sinewy arms that held her back from death though
she fought them fiercely, desperately. She did not hear the piteous
entreaties of poor harassed Peter as he forced her back, back, back,
from those awful depths. She only knew a great turmoil that seemed to
her unending--a fearful striving against ever-increasing odds--and at
the last a swirling, unfathomable darkness descending like a wind-blown
blanket upon her--enveloping her, annihilating her....

And British eyes, keen and grey and stern, looked on from afar, watching
silently, as the Indian bore his senseless _mem-sahib_ away.

PART II

CHAPTER I

THE MINISTERING ANGEL

"And what am I going to do?" demanded Mrs. Ermsted fretfully. She was
lounging in the easiest chair in Mrs. Ralston's drawing-room with a
cigarette between her fingers. A very decided frown was drawing her
delicate brows. "I had no idea you could be so fickle," she said.

"My dear, I shall welcome you here just as heartily as I ever have,"
Mrs. Ralston assured her, without lifting her eyes from the muslin frock
at which she was busily stitching.

Mrs. Ermsted pouted. "That may be. But I shan't come very often when she
is here. I don't like widows. They are either so melancholy that they
give you the hump or so self-important that you want to slap them. I
never did fancy this girl, as you know. Much too haughty and superior."

"You never knew her, dear," said Mrs. Ralston.

Mrs. Ermsted's laugh had a touch of venom. "As I have tried more than
once to make you realize," she said, "there are at least two points of
view to everybody. You, dear Mrs. Ralston, always wear rose-coloured
spectacles, with the unfortunate result that your opinion is so
unvaryingly favourable that nobody values it."

Mrs. Ralston's faded face flushed faintly. She worked on in silence.

For a space Netta Ermsted smoked her cigarette with her eyes fixed upon
space; then very sudde