her if she were taken ill herself
consoled her in a measure. Very regretfully did she take leave of her,
and when the rattle of the wheels that bore Stella and the faithful
Peter away had died at last in the distance she turned back into her
empty bungalow with tears in her eyes. Stella had become dear to her as
a sister.

It was an all-night journey, and only a part of it could be accomplished
by train, the line ending at Khanmulla which was reached in the early
hours of the morning. But for Peter's ministrations Stella would
probably have fared ill, but he was an experienced traveller and
surrounded her with every comfort that he could devise. The night was
close and dank. They travelled through pitch darkness. Stella lay back
and tried to sleep; but sleep would not come to her. She was tired, but
repose eluded her. The beating of the unceasing rain upon the tin roof,
and the perpetual rattle of the train made an endless tattoo in her
brain from which there was no escape. She was haunted by the memory of
the last journey that she had made along that line when leaving
Kurrumpore in the spring, of Ralph and the ever-growing passion in his
eyes, of the first wild revolt within her which she had so barely
quelled. How far away seemed those days of an almost unbelievable
torture! She could regard them now dispassionately, albeit with wonder.
She marvelled now that she had ever given herself to such a man. By the
light of experience she realized how tragic had been her blunder, and
now that the awful sense of shock and desolation had passed she could be
thankful that no heavier penalty had been exacted. The man had been
taken swiftly, mercifully, as she believed. He had been spared much, and
she--she had been delivered from a fate far worse. For she could never
have come to love him. She was certain of that. Lifelong misery would
have been her portion, school herself to submission though she might.
She believed that the awakening from that dream of lethargy could not
have been long deferred for either of them, and with it would have come
a bitterness immeasurable. She did not think he had ever honestly
believed that she loved him. But at least he had never guessed at the
actual repulsion with which at times she had been filled. She was
thankful to think that he could never know that now, thankful that now
she had come into her womanhood it was all her own. She valued her
freedom almost extravagantly since it had been given