on't much like it,
but there's his position, you know!"

"I know. They are seldom seen apart. A handsome woman in her way, but
utterly regardless! Her dress, for instance, at the Shrubbery Ball was
indeed up to date--just a band under the armpits for a bodice. I never
saw any one off the stage so disgustingly naked!"

"He looks to me rather 'fed up.' And the way she takes charge of him in
public requires nerve! he simply falls into line just as if he can't
help himself. Got into the habit, so to speak!"

"What are you going to wear tonight?" and the conversation drifted to
the Planters' Ball at the Club. The Governor and his wife were expected
to be present with their suite, and the house-party from the Shrubbery.

"It is a wonder to me," said the first speaker, "that Mrs. Dalton is
received at Government House." Joyce again held her breath.

"Oh, but her position makes that all right. Her husband is an I.M.S.
man, a rising surgeon, somewhere in the plains. They don't get on, but
that's nobody's business; and in Darjeeling one has to shut one's eyes.
If you begin to point the finger of scorn, you'll be kept fairly busy"
(with a mischievous laugh). "And after all, if her husband doesn't mind,
it's nobody's business. All the same, she's been cut by a good few, and
if he doesn't look out, he'll end in the divorce court--or she will!"

They laughed as at a great joke, and, others listening, smiled in
sympathy, while Joyce turned her burning face away.

It seemed that there was no getting away from the story of her husband's
shame. But for her having left him, this would never have been!

* * * * *

When the train drew up at the platform of the station in Darjeeling, she
pulled herself together and stepped bravely out of her compartment, head
erect, and manner perfectly composed. The need to have herself well in
hand, gave her strength of mind for the occasion, so that none of her
old friends--were she to come unexpectedly upon any--should think her
crushed and miserable; a poor, humiliated wife! No! the world should see
a laughing face.

As the roads of the Station were very familiar to her, she climbed the
path leading to the Cosmopolitan Hotel, at which her husband was
staying. It rose by easy stages to a higher level and passed by
red-brick villas built on the English plan, with pent roofs and homely
chimney-pots. In parts the road was clear, in others, heavily shaded by
tall fir