lace curtains. The verandah itself
was left for the moon to illuminate.

Long residence in India and natural good taste had taught Mrs. Fox the
art of furnishing with an eye to the needs of the climate, so that her
rooms had the charm of restfulness, ease, and coolness. Most of her
drawing-room chairs were of Singapur rush-work; the mat was of green
grass, the _punkha_ frills of art muslin. The walls were distempered in
cool greys and neutral tints; while on all sides were palms, large and
small, and china-grass in dainty flower-pots of coloured earthenware. A
Japanese draught screen, embroidered in silk upon gauze and arranged
carelessly, put a finish to the most picturesque drawing-room Jack had
yet seen in Bengal.

Mr. Barrington Fox, however, was not at home. A telegram was found to
have arrived, intimating that he had been detained at a wayside station.

"Such a nuisance!" Mrs. Fox exclaimed, laying down the telegram which,
as a matter of fact, she had received earlier in the day. "You'll have
to put up with only me. Do you mind?"

"It is not for me to mind," he answered awkwardly. "If you think I might
stay, I shall be delighted."

"Then you shall. Who cares?--not my husband who has long ceased to mind
what I do or how I am left to pass the time," she said bitterly.

"You must often be very lonely?" he ventured sympathetically. He had
heard many rumours of Fox's neglect of his wife--of the temptations to
which she was exposed and to which a woman placed as she was might be
excused for yielding. Plenty of fellows paid court to her, and a good
few had grown attached--yet, barring Smart who was a cad and a bounder,
he was sure that none could cast a stone.

"I am always desperately lonely," she sighed, as she sank into a
chesterfield and motioned him to the seat beside her. "You little know
how it preys upon me; how I welcome a sympathetic friend! but--why speak
of it?" she passed him her cigarette case, and they began to smoke
companionably. "So few understand me," said she in subdued tones. "So
many misunderstand! I ask you, what is life worth to a young woman
in my position?" her chest heaved, her eyes filled with self-pity.
"And who can stifle nature and be happy?--the ache for human
sympathy--tenderness--love...." she brushed the moisture from her eyes
with a diminutive handkerchief, and smiled a wintry smile. "I refuse to
talk only of myself!--let us talk of you, dear Jack. You are a dear and
I have so