,--'Didn't he ever confess himself to you?--naughty boy'! and
so on. Or the disappointed one butting in with--'Hands off! He is
promised to me!' which is more than likely."

So Jack decided to make his confession, prostrate at her feet,
metaphorically.

While the lovers were living in a world of their own, Joyce was learning
many things, chiefly courage and patience. Her fellow-passengers courted
her society; she was considered the loveliest of women; and all combined
to spoil her with flattery and attentions. However, she was too much
absorbed in her own thoughts, her manner was too cold and aloof to lend
encouragement to flatterers who vied with each other in serving her and
disputed among themselves for her favours. She took no real interest in
what was going on, to realise the half of it; and her indifference
rendered her the more alluring. But Joyce had had a life-long lesson at
Muktiarbad, and not being by nature, a flirt, the result was that the
childish coquetries of the past were abandoned for a dignity and reserve
that would have satisfied the most jealous of husbands.

She had not cabled to India. A desire to read her fate in her husband's
eyes had fixed her determination to take him by surprise. She would then
know at the first glance whether she were welcome or had ceased to reign
supreme in his heart.

Honor had advised her to cable. But this was entirely her own affair and
she would go through with it. She had a right to expect her husband's
love and loyalty; and this being the case, there could be no objection
to her taking him unawares. Joy does not kill; and if she did not bring
him happiness, it were as well for her not to be deceived. Such was her
logic, which she kept to herself, being too proud to share her doubts
with Kitty.

One day, as she lay in a deck chair, apparently dozing with her book
open on her lap, she overheard two women gossiping together behind the
angle of the saloon. They were talking of friends in Darjeeling, and
their voices had lulled her into a state of semi-consciousness, till the
name "Meredith" made her alive to the fact that her husband was under
discussion.

"Not the planter, Tom Meredith, but the I. C. S. man."

"Any relation of the pretty creature with us?"

"I am sure I can't say. He is married, I am told, with a wife at home.
'When the cat's away, the mice _will_ play,' you know! She is a widow,
or passes for one, and neither cares a snap of the finger for th