or," she said. "I
never imagined you could be as terrible as that." Then her lips
quivered, and she caught at the girl's skirt, drawing her nearer. "You
_must_ go on helping me, or everything will go to pieces."

"So long as you remain a loyal wife to--Theo, I cannot choose but do
so, with all my heart."

She knelt down again now; and Evelyn, flinging both arms round her
neck, broke into a passion of weeping.

"I think I was half mad," she moaned through her tears, clinging to
Honor as a drowning woman clings to a spar. "And I am dreadfully
frightened still. But I will do whatever you tell me. I will try to be
a loyal wife, even if----"

"We won't think of that at all," Honor interposed hastily. "It
cannot--it shall not happen!"

But Evelyn's tears flowed on unchecked. The fire of Honor's just anger
had melted the morsel of ice in her heart; and in a very short time
she had cried herself to sleep.

Then Honor gently unlocked the clinging fingers, and went straight to
Frank Olliver's room.

CHAPTER XXIV.

I WANT LADYBIRD.

"So free we seem; so fettered fast we are."
--BROWNING.

A low sun was gilding the hill-tops when two doolies, borne by sturdy
_kahars_ and escorted by Wyndham and Mackay, passed between the
gate-posts of Desmond's bungalow. Honor stood with Evelyn at the head
of the verandah steps; but as the _kahars_ halted, and the officers
prepared to dismount, she moved back a space, leaving her to welcome
her husband alone.

The blood ebbed from Evelyn's face as she watched Theo mount the
steps, slowly, uncertainly, supported on either side by Wyndham and
the doctor--he who, in normal circumstances, would have cleared them
at a bound and taken her in his arms. His appearance alone struck
terror into her heart. Was this the splendid-looking husband who had
ridden away full of life and energy,--this strange seeming man, whose
face was disfigured and more than half-hidden by an unsightly bandage
and a broad green shade; whose empty coat-sleeve, slashed and
blood-stained, suggested too vividly the condition of the arm strapped
into place beneath?

It was all she could do not to shrink back instinctively when the men
moved aside, as Honor had done, to afford husband and wife some small
measure of privacy, and Theo held out his hand.

"They've sent me back rather the worse for wear, Ladybird," he said,
with a smile; "but Mackay will put the pieces t