?

Honor held her breath to listen, and heard it again--a man's voice
calling--"Hulloa!--_coo-ee!_"

CHAPTER XIV

THE INDISCRETION

Joyce had started out on her motor ride with the doctor as happy as a
child on a holiday. Her baby was well and there was no cause for
anxiety; in fact, all the world seemed smiling and kind. At last she was
learning that a short absence from home made no difference to an infant
in the care of so capable a nurse as her Madrassi ayah, trained in the
way of infants by the remarkable "Barnes-Memsahib."

All things considered, there seemed no earthly reason why she should not
be happy with the light-heartedness of youth helped by a kind friend to
pass the time agreeably while she remained in India. In the spring----

But she would not look ahead. Why borrow trouble? When the hot, March
winds began to blow, Ray himself would recognise the necessity of
sending the little one home. No father could be so selfish as to allow
his own son and heir to fade away under his own eyes, and neglect the
only chance of saving his little life. As to the hills!--the innumerable
infantile diseases incurred in the hills owing to the dampness of the
climate made life a constant terror. No! It would have to be Home in
March. Passages were usually booked long beforehand but people often
dropped out at the last, and a passage for a "lady and infant" could
easily be found at the eleventh hour.

Meanwhile, this was December, and she was capable of enjoying herself
amazingly in circumstances that were innocent and harmless.

With a friend like Captain Dalton at her service, so to speak, and Honor
to love her almost as a sister would, she was very lucky and could
afford to be as happy as the season would permit.

Station gossip whispered that Dalton would not have spared so much of
his precious time unless he were receiving some return by way of
compensation; which was a logical deduction in estimating a masculine
nature not governed by religious scruples; but with this Joyce was
hardly concerned, having little comprehension of all that gossips
implied. She was delighted to requite so much self-sacrifice on the
doctor's part with all the geniality she could command.

As a matter of fact, Captain Dalton was finding a cynical amusement in
the study of this--to him--new type of feminine creature: a married
woman with the mind of a child, unawakened as yet to the deeper
emotions, in whom the instincts of s