t could be said
has already been said about Mrs. Reiver, in another tale. Moriarty was
heavily-built and handsome, very quiet and nervously anxious to please
his neighbors when he wasn't sunk in a brown study. He started a good
deal at sudden noises or if spoken to without warning; and, when you
watched him drinking his glass of water at dinner, you could see the
hand shake a little. But all this was put down to nervousness, and the
quiet, steady, "sip-sip-sip, fill and sip-sip-sip, again," that went
on in his own room when he was by himself, was never known. Which was
miraculous, seeing how everything in a man's private life is public
property out here.

Moriarty was drawn, not into Mrs. Reiver's set, because they were not
his sort, but into the power of Mrs. Reiver, and he fell down in front
of her and made a goddess of her. This was due to his coming fresh out
of the jungle to a big town. He could not scale things properly or see
who was what.

Because Mrs. Reiver was cold and hard, he said she was stately and
dignified. Because she had no brains, and could not talk cleverly, he
said she was reserved and shy. Mrs. Reiver shy! Because she was unworthy
of honor or reverence from any one, he reverenced her from a distance
and dowered her with all the virtues in the Bible and most of those in
Shakespeare.

This big, dark, abstracted man who was so nervous when a pony cantered
behind him, used to moon in the train of Mrs. Reiver, blushing with
pleasure when she threw a word or two his way. His admiration was
strictly platonic: even other women saw and admitted this. He did not
move out in Simla, so he heard nothing against his idol: which was
satisfactory. Mrs. Reiver took no special notice of him, beyond seeing
that he was added to her list of admirers, and going for a walk with him
now and then, just to show that he was her property, claimable as such.
Moriarty must have done most of the talking, for Mrs. Reiver couldn't
talk much to a man of his stamp; and the little she said could not have
been profitable. What Moriarty believed in, as he had good reason to,
was Mrs. Reiver's influence over him, and, in that belief, set himself
seriously to try to do away with the vice that only he himself knew of.

His experiences while he was fighting with it must have been peculiar,
but he never described them. Sometimes he would hold off from everything
except water for a week. Then, on a rainy night, when no one had asked
hi