e
miraculous envelope which was to buy back for her all that she had so
lightly flung away.

Honor had spoken truth when she said that Desmond was the one big
thing in Evelyn's life. Everything else about her was small as her
person, and little more effectual. But this impetuous, large-hearted
husband of hers--whose love she had been so proud to win, and had
taken such small pains to keep--could by no means be chiselled into
proportions with the rest of the picture. He took his stand, simply
and naturally, on the heights; and if it was an effort to keep up with
him, it was a real calamity to be left behind. Understand him she
could not, and never would; but it sufficed that she saw him fearless,
chivalrous, admired on all sides, and singularly good to look at. This
last should perhaps have been set down first; for there is no denying
that her remorse, her suffering, had been less overwhelming without
that unexpected vision of his face.

But things were going to be all right soon. She would never hide
anything from him again--never. And the resolve may be counted unto
her for righteousness, even if there could be small hope of its
fulfilment.

Such absorbing considerations crowded out all thought of Honor's
generosity. It was just Honor. No one else would ever give you two
hundred rupees, at a moment's notice, as if it were sixpence. But you
might expect anything from Honor--that was how she was made. And the
one important point was--Theo. Nothing else really mattered at all.

As Kresney's bungalow came in sight she found herself fervently hoping
that he might have gone out; that she might have to encounter nothing
more formidable than Miss Kresney, or, better still, the bearer.

But before the gate was reached, she caught sight of him in the
verandah, taking his ease very completely in one of those ungainly
chairs, with arms extending to long wooden leg-rests, which seem to
belong to India and no other country in the world. He had exchanged
his coat for a Japanese smoking jacket, whose collar and cuffs could
ill afford to brave daylight; and his boots for slippers of Linda's
making, whose conflicting colours might have set an oyster's teeth on
edge! His own teeth were clenched upon a rank cigar; and he was
reading a paper-bound novel that she would not have touched with a
pair of tongs.

He had never appeared to worse advantage; and Evelyn, fresh from her
husband's air of unobtrusive neatness and distinction, wa