e to meet their look with the same frankness. He turned aside
and Mrs. Linforth said,

"Come and see my roses."

Dick went back to his book. The man and woman passed on round the corner
of the house to a little rose-garden with a stone sun-dial in the middle,
surrounded by low red brick walls. Here it was very quiet. Only the bees
among the flowers filled the air with a pleasant murmur.

"They are doing well--your roses," said Dewes.

"Yes. These Queen Mabs are good. Don't you think so? I am rather proud of
them," said Sybil; and then she broke off suddenly and faced him.

"Is it true?" she whispered in a low passionate voice. "Is the road
stopped? Will it not go beyond Kohara?"

Colonel Dewes attempted no evasion with Mrs. Linforth.

"It is true that it is stopped. It is also true that for the moment there
is no intention to carry it further. But--but--"

And as he paused Sybil took up the sentence.

"But it will go on, I know. Sooner or later." And there was almost a note
of hopelessness in her voice. "The Power of the Road is beyond the Power
of Governments," she added with the air of one quoting a sentence.

They walked on between the alleys of rose-trees and she asked:

"Did you notice the book which Dick was reading?"

"It looked like a bound volume of magazines."

Sybil nodded her head.

"It was a volume of the 'Fortnightly.' He was reading an article
written forty years ago by Andrew Linforth--" and she suddenly cried
out, "Oh, how I wish he had never lived. He was an uncle of Harry's--my
husband. He predicted it. He was in the old Company, then he became a
servant of the Government, and he was the first to begin the road. You
know his history?"

"No."

"It is a curious one. When it was his time to retire, he sent his money
to England, he made all his arrangements to come home, and then one night
he walked out of the hotel in Bombay, a couple of days before the ship
sailed, and disappeared. He has never been heard of since."

"Had he no wife?" asked Dewes.

"No," replied Sybil. "Do you know what I think? I think he went back to
the north, back to his Road. I think it called him. I think he could not
keep away."

"But we should have come across him," cried Dewes, "or across news of
him. Surely we should!"

Sybil shrugged her shoulders.

"In that article which Dick was reading, the road was first proposed.
Listen to this," and she began to recite:

"The road will reach northwards, throu