Joyce returned, a subdued little person in black with a
bursting heart which was relieved by a flood of tears in her husband's
arms. He was very pitiful of her in her wrought-up state, and he soothed
her with tender caresses.

It was very comforting to Joyce to be petted, and by degrees her
weakened self-esteem was restored. Nothing was very far wrong with
herself or her world while her husband loved her so, and Honor Bright
remained her friend. Meredith would not allow his beloved to blame
herself, though it was hardly the thing to entertain a visitor of the
opposite sex so late at night when her husband was in camp; but the
circumstances were exceptional; his little darling was nervous and
lonely, and Dalton was a gentleman. Poof! he wouldn't for a moment allow
that the doctor did not know his own business best; and very likely
Elsie Meek's case had been hopeless from the start. With a weak heart,
anything might happen in typhoid. Anyhow, he was not going to let his
little girl worry herself sick and she was to cheer up on the instant
and think no more about what did not concern herself. The main thing
was, he had returned for the week-end, and wanted all her love and all
her smiles to reward him for his long abstinence; and Joyce obediently
kissed him and beamed upon him through her tears, wondering in her
childish soul why husbands were so exacting in their love--their ardour
so inexhaustible. Women were so very different--but men!

"With a wife like you, what can you expect?" Meredith cried, when she
had expressed her views with naivete. Which was all very flattering and
calculated to spoil her thoroughly, but Meredith was in a mood to spoil
her thoroughly after their enforced separation.

* * * * *

On Sunday morning, Honor followed up the notice which had been pinned on
the board at the Club concerning evensong at the Railway Institute, by
cycling round to various bungalows and exacting promises of attendance
from her friends.

Muktiarbad was behind hand in the matter of a church building, the
proposal having been shelved by the authorities with the usual
procrastination. The Roman Catholic missionary lived in ascetic
simplicity in the Station, and took his meals in native fashion wherever
he preached the Faith.

There was no Episcopal clergyman nearer than the headquarters of the
Division, eighty miles away; so it was only when his duties permitted
it, that the District Chap