doesn't appeal to me."

"You couldn't offer me a worse insult than to think that I might be like
her!"

"I am sorry. Forgive me, will you?"

"I cannot forgive myself for my blindness and folly!"

Joyce spoke as though she were shivering, and Dalton was stricken with
concern. "You are cold?" he asked anxiously.

Her teeth chattered. In December the nights in Bengal are often bitter,
and Joyce had left her driving cloak in the car. Dalton immediately
divested himself of his coat and made her wear it. His manner having
returned to the professional, she was no longer afraid of him, so obeyed
meekly.

"Now the rug," said he. And she was wrapped to her ears in the rug,
after which he left her to herself for the night. Both listened to the
patter of the rain as it fell on the _debris_ around them, and,
eventually overcome with fatigue, Joyce dropped off to sleep.

CHAPTER XV

THE AFTERMATH

In the early morning, Joyce realised that she was both hungry and
thirsty. Her lips were parched, her throat dry, nothing having passed
them since early tea the previous afternoon, and she was at the lowest
ebb of despondency and depression. Her surroundings helped to increase
her misery, for the ground was a mixture of puddle and slush, and there
seemed no chance of help anywhere. She seemed to have fallen into a deep
crater, and but for a projection of roof that still held firm owing to a
network of pipal roots, she would have been as drenched as the bricks
and mortar with which she was surrounded.

To add to her alarm, she was all alone. Captain Dalton was nowhere to be
seen.

Though he had behaved horribly the evening before, he had not troubled
her since; the tramp of his feet as he paced up and down the
circumscribed space that was left to them of the chamber, being the only
evidence she had till she dropped off to sleep that she was not without
company. But with the daylight he was gone, and feeling almost
panic-stricken with ghostly fears and loneliness, she called aloud to
him.

"Captain Dalton!"

"I'm here," his voice cheerily announced as he emerged from the inner
room which had suffered an equal amount of damage. "See what the gods
have sent you!" and he handed her a pipal-leaf cup, full of water to
drink.

It was eagerly seized and gratefully drunk. "Where did you get it from?"

"That other room is full of branches torn from the roof when it fell
in," he returned. "I discovered them by the light of