he was even glad of it--glad that she should feel no lightest
shrinking from the temple that had enshrined the brave jewel of his
soul.

Arrived in her own room, she found Parbutti huddled on the ground, in
a state of damp and voluble distress. She could not bring herself to
dismiss the old woman at once; though her heart cried out for
solitude, and weariness seemed suddenly to dissolve her very bones.
She saw now that her love had deepened and strengthened during
Desmond's absence, as great love is apt to do; and the shock of his
return, coupled with the scant possibility of her own escape, had
tried her fortitude more severely than she knew.

She submitted in silence to the exchanging of her tea-gown for a white
wrapper, and to the loosening of her hair, Parbutti crooning over her
ceaselessly the while.

"Now I will soothe your Honour's head till weariness be forgotten, O
my Miss Sahib, daughter of my heart! Sleep without dreams, my life;
and have no fear for the Captain Sahib, who is surely favoured of the
gods by reason of his great courage."

While her tongue ran on, the wrinkled hands moved skilfully over the
girl's head and neck, fingering each separate nerve, and stilling the
throbbing pulses by that mystery of touch, which we of the West are
just beginning to acquire, but which is a common heritage in the East.

"Go now, Parbutti," Honor commanded at length. "Thy fingers be
miracle-workers. It is enough."

And as Parbutti departed, praising the gods, Honor leaned her chin
upon her hands, and frankly confronted the decision that must be
arrived at before morning.

To her inner consciousness it seemed wrong and impossible to fulfil
her promise and remain; while to all outward appearance it seemed
equally wrong and impossible to go. She could not see clearly. She
could only feel intensely; and her paramount feeling at the moment
was that God asked of her more than human nature could achieve.

The man's weakness and dependence awakened in her the strongest, the
divinest element of a woman's love, and with it the longing to uphold
and help him to the utmost limit of her power. It was this intensity
of longing which convinced her that, at all costs, she must go. Yet at
the first thought of Evelyn her invincible arguments fell back like a
defeated battalion.

If she had sought the Frontier in the hope of coming into touch with
life's stern realities, her hope had been terribly fulfilled.

"Dear God, what