at my side. I had been expecting this ever since
I came out; and was only surprised at her delay. The phantom 'rickshaw
and I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close to
the bazaar, Kitty and a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any
sign she gave I might have been a dog in the road. She did not even pay
me the compliment of quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon had
served for an excuse.

So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly Light-o'-Love, crept
round Jakko in couples. The road was streaming with water; the pines
dripped like roof-pipes on the rocks below, and the air was full of
fine, driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying to myself
almost aloud: "I'm Jack Pansay on leave at Simla--_at Simla!_ Everyday,
ordinary Simla. I mustn't forget that--I mustn't forget that." Then I
would try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard at the Club; the
prices of So-and-So's horses--anything, in fact, that related to the
work-a-day Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated the
multiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was
not taking leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have
prevented my hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time.

Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the level
road. Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was left
alone with Mrs. Wessington. "Agnes," said I, "will you put back your
hood and tell me what it all means?" The hood dropped noiselessly and
I was face to face with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearing
the dress in which I had last seen her alive: carried the same tiny
handkerchief in her right hand; and the same card-case in her left. (A
woman eight months dead with a card-case!) I had to pin myself down to
the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of
the road to assure myself that that at least was real.

"Agnes," I repeated, "for pity's sake tell me what it all means." Mrs.
Wessington leant forward, with that odd, quick turn of the head I used
to know so well, and spoke.

If my story had not already so madly overleaped the bounds of all human
belief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one--no, not
even Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort of justification of my
conduct--will believe me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and I
walked with her from the Sanjowlie road to the turning below the
Commander-i