CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH MANY THINGS ARE BROKEN
"I can't think what is making Captain Stafford so late," Lois said to Mrs. Carmichael, who was, as usual, knitting at some unrecognizable garment destined for a far-off London slum. "I wonder if he has forgotten that to-day is the tournament, and that he promised to fetch me."
"I hardly think he has forgotten the tournament," Travers remarked carelessly. "He was speaking about it to Miss Cary this morning. I expect he will be around soon—and if he fails, will I do instead?"
He looked at her with such a pleasant frankness in his eyes that any awkwardness she might have felt became impossible, and she could only smile back at him, grateful for the unchanged friendship which he had retained for her.
"Of course you will do!" she said gaily. "But I must give him a few minutes' grace. It has only just struck four o'clock."
The Colonel looked around. He had come in five minutes before, hot and tired from a long ride of inspection, and his family, knowing his small peculiarities, had allowed him to get over his first exhaustion undisturbed.
"I shouldn't wait too long, little girl," he said, smiling kindly. "I fancy Stafford is not at all up to the mark. I told him to take a day off if he wanted it."
"Why, when did you see him?" his wife asked.
"This morning, of course, at parade. He struck me then as being rather peculiar."
"Ill?" Lois exclaimed with some alarm. She put her racquet on the table and came and slipped her hand through the Colonel's arm. "You don't think he is ill?" she asked earnestly.
Colonel Carmichael shook his head.
"No," he said, "not exactly ill." He laid his hand gently upon hers, so that she could not draw it back. "Let us go outside and see if he is coming," he went on.
The old man—for sorrow and physical weakness had made him older than his years—led the way on to the verandah, still holding Lois' hand in his own. He could not have explained the indefinable force which drove him out of his wife's presence. His ear shrank from her hard, matter-of-fact voice and undisturbed optimism. She who had never had any mood but the one energetic and untirable one, had no comprehension for the changing shades of his temper—would, indeed, have rather scorned the necessity of understanding them. She did not believe in what she called "vapors," and when they ventured to cross her path she swept them away again—or thought she did—with a none too sparing brush.
Unfortunately, there are some characters who can not overcome depression, be it reasonable or unreasonable, simply because someone else happens to be cheerful. The source of their melancholy lies too deep, and the more hidden it is, the more inexplicable, the harder it is to be overcome. It is as though a chord in their temperament is linked to the future, and vibrates with painful presentiment before that which is to come. Colonel Carmichael was one of these so-called sensitive and moody people—quite unknown to himself. When the cloud hung heavily over his head, he said it was his liver or the heat, and took his cure in the form of solitude, thus escaping his wife's pitiless condemnation. And on this afternoon, yielding to his instinct, he sought to be alone with Lois. Lois never disturbed him or jarred on his worn-out nerves. In spite of her energy and vigor, there was a side of her nature which responded absolutely to his own, and with her he could always be sure of a sympathetic silence, or, what was still more, a gentle sadness which helped him more than any overflow of strident high spirits.
For some little time they stood together arm-in-arm, looking over the garden. The excuse that they were watching for Stafford was no more than an excuse, for from their position the road was completely hidden by the high wall with which the whole compound was surrounded. Through the foliage of the trees the outline of the old bungalow was faintly visible, and thither their earnest contemplation was directed. For both of them it was something more than a ruin, something more than a relic out of the tragic past. It had become, above all for the Colonel, a part of their lives, a piece of inanimate destiny to which they felt themselves tied by all the bonds of possession. It was theirs, and they in turn were possessed by the influence it exercised over their lives. Their dear ones had died within its walls, and some intuition, feeling blindly through the lightless passages of the future, told them that its history was not yet ended.
Colonel Carmichael bent down and looked into Lois' dark face. He had grown to love her as his own child, and the desire to protect and guard her from all misfortune was the one strong link that held him in the world. Life as life had disappointed him, not because he had made a failure out of it, but because success was not what he had supposed it to be. It is very likely that his subsequent indifference to existence, coupled with a far from robust constitution, would have long since cut short his earthly career had it not been for Lois. She held him fast. He flattered himself—as what loving soul does not?—that he was necessary to her, that only his old hand could keep her path clear from thorns and pitfalls. It was the last duty which life had given him to perform, and he clung to it gratefully, never realizing the pathetic truth—the saddest truth of all—that with all our love, all our heartfelt devotion and self-sacrifice, we can no more shield our dear ones from the hand of Fate than we can shield ourselves, and that their salvation, if salvation there be for them, can only come from their own strength.
"What a grave face!" he said, with a lightness he was not feeling.
"Why so serious, dear? Has anything gone wrong?"
She shook her head.
"No, nothing whatever; on the contrary, I was thinking how grateful for all my happiness I ought to feel—and do feel. Would you call me an ungrateful, discontented person, Uncle?"
"You? No! What makes you ask?"
"I think I am ungrateful, only you don't notice it, because I am not more so than most, and perhaps less than a good many. Everybody has flashes of self-revelation, don't you think, when one sees oneself and the whole world in the true proportions and not as in every-day life. I have just had such a revelation. I was feeling rather annoyed that Captain Stafford should have forgotten the tournament and so make me late; and then you said something about him—you spoke as though he were ill—and the sickening thought flashed through my mind: suppose you—or some one I loved—were taken from me—died? Then things slipped into their right size. The petty woes and grievances which so constantly irritate me became petty. I didn't care in the least about the tennis—I thanked God for you and for your love."
He saw that she was strangely moved. Her voice had a rough, dry sound which he had not heard before, and her brows were knitted in a plucky effort to keep back the tears that some inward pain had driven to her eyes.
"I didn't mean to frighten you, Lois," he said remorsefully. "How was
I to know that you were so easily alarmed?"
She pressed his arm with warm affection.
"There is nothing to be regretted," she said. "I ought to be glad that a little thing can stir me—some people need catastrophe. If it had not been for that sudden fear, I might have been bad-tempered and spoiled the day for myself and every one."
"And then you would have had to add it to the long list of days which haunt us in later life," he added almost to himself, "—one of the occasions for happiness which we have wilfully defaced. But there, I think I hear some one coming. It is probably Stafford. Won't you run and meet him?"
She drew her hand quickly from his arm as though in answer to his suggestion, then hesitated and shook her head.
"I think I will wait here with you," she said, looking up at him.
He nodded, and they stood side by side watching the pathway which led around to the highroad beyond the compound. Colonel Carmichael was smiling to himself. His wife's sure conviction that the hour of Lois' union with Stafford was not far off had at last overcome his own inexplicable doubts and objections, and he even considered the possibility with a kind of satisfaction not unmingled with pain. "It is well that she should have a good strong man to protect her," he thought, conscious of age and growing infirmity. Then he looked down at the happy face beside him and his smile lost all trace of bitterness. "She loves him," was the concluding thought that flashed through his mind as Stafford appeared around the corner. He meant to say something in tender jest to her, but the words died on his lips and he felt that the hand upon his arm had tightened. It was the only sign which Lois made that a sudden change had come over her horizon. She said nothing, but in the same moment that the Colonel's eyes rested on her in half tender, half teasing query, she knew instinctively that her happiness had shattered against a rock which, hidden beneath a treacherously calm sea, had struck suddenly at the very foundations of her world.
Stafford was coming toward them slowly, his head bent. It was not his face which, like a bitter frost, froze the overflow of her happy heart to icy fear—for she could not see it. It was his attitude, his movements, above all a terrible return of that presentiment which already once that day had darkened her hopeful, cheery mood. Do what she would, she could not move to meet him. She could only stand there, clinging to her guardian's arm, the smile of welcome stiffening on her pale lips. The Colonel was the first to speak. He held out his disengaged hand with a frank movement of pleasure.
"Glad to see you, Stafford," he said. "I was beginning to think the fever had really got hold of you. What has caused the delay?"
"Delay?" Stafford repeated dully, looking from one to the other.
Travers, who had joined them a moment before, laughed with sincerity.
"My good fellow—surely you have not forgotten?" he said. "You promised to fetch Miss Caruthers for the tournament."
"Ah, the tournament!" Stafford passed his hand quickly across his forehead like a man who has been awakened roughly from a dream. "Of course—the tournament. I am awfully sorry—" He turned to Lois with a curious, awkward gesture. "—I'm afraid I can't come. I—I am not very fit—in fact—" He hesitated and then stopped altogether, looking past her with his brows knitted, his lips compressed as though in an effort to keep back an exclamation of pain.
"You look out of sorts," Travers agreed sympathetically. "Come and take my chair. I'll look after Miss Caruthers—if she will let me."
Lois shook her head. She was watching Stafford's ashy face and there was a pity in her eyes which was deepening every instant to tenderness. All suffering awoke in her an instant response, and this man was dear to her—how dear she only realized now that the lines of pain were on his forehead.
"You are not to bother," she said gently, but with an unmistakable decision. "I can manage quite well by myself. I shall start as soon as I have given Captain Stafford a cup of tea. Sit down—it will do you good."
Stafford made an abrupt gesture of refusal. The movement was almost violent, as though for an instant he had lost hold over himself. Then he pulled himself together, looking her full and steadily in the face.
"It is very good of you," he said, "but indeed I can not wait. I have only come to break a piece of news to you. As—my best friends here, I thought it only right that you should be told first."
Travers rose with a mock alacrity.
"Am I de trop, or do I count among the 'best friends'?" he asked.
Stafford nodded, but he did not meet the quizzical eyes which studied his face. He was still looking at Lois.
"Please remain," he said. "I wish you to know—and Miss Cary wishes you to know also."
"Miss Cary?" It was the Colonel's turn to speak. His veined hand rested clenched on the verandah balustrade, and there was a sudden sternness in his attitude and voice which filled the atmosphere with an electric suspense. "What has Miss Cary to do with the matter?"
"Everything. Miss Cary has consented to become my wife."
[Illustration: "Miss Cary has consented to become my wife."]
He was not looking at Lois now, but at the Colonel, and then afterward at Travers. The latter had turned away and was gazing out over the garden, his arms folded over his broad, powerful chest. His silence was pointed, brutally significant. It threatened to force an explanation which each present was ready to give his life to avoid. The Colonel, Mrs. Carmichael, Stafford himself, each thought of Lois in that brief silence, and each after his own character acted in obedience to the instinctive desire to protect and uphold her. No one looked at her. It was as though they were afraid to read a pitiful self-betrayal on her young, mobile features, and with a fierce attempt at composure the Colonel turned to Stafford. He meant to break the icy threatening silence with the first commonplace which occurred to him, and at the bottom of his heart he cursed Travers for his attitude of unconcealed scorn. The next instant, the clumsy words which he had gathered together in his rage and distress were checked by Lois herself. She advanced to Stafford with outstretched hand, her face grave but absolutely composed.
"I congratulate you," she said. "I hope you will be very happy."
That was all, but it sufficed to break the spell which held them bound. The Colonel's commonplace passed unnoticed, and Mrs. Carmichael murmured inaudibly. Only Travers remained silent, immovable.
"Thank you," Stafford said. He had taken Lois' hand without hesitation and the painful uneasiness which had at first marked his manner had given place to a certain grave, decided dignity. "Thank you," he repeated. "I hope we shall be happy. In the meantime, I must ask you to keep our engagement private. My future wife wishes it for the present—only you were to be told. So much I owed to you."
"Yes, you owed us so much," the Colonel said, and there was a faint, irrepressible irony in his tone.
Stafford still held Lois' hand. He seemed to have forgotten that he held it, and when she gently drew it away he started and a wave of dark color mounted to his forehead.
"I must go now," she said. "I shall be late for the tournament, and I am to play with Captain Webb in the doubles. It would not be fair for me to spoil everything. I—I am very glad and grateful that you told us."
Mrs. Carmichael gripped the arms of her chair. She saw more than her husband saw, and there was something in that absolute self-possession which frightened her.
"Please go with Lois, Mr. Travers," she said sharply, recklessly. "I do not want her to go that long way alone. I should worry the whole evening."
"May I, Miss Caruthers?" Travers had turned at last and was looking at her. "You promised me that I might act as substitute. Do you remember?" His tone was low, significant, full of a profound feeling which he knew she would hear and understand.
She took his extended arm and he felt that she clung to him for support.
"Thank you," she said under her breath.
She went with him to the head of the verandah Steps, blindly obeying his strong guidance. Then she saw the Colonel's face and suddenly she laughed lightly, cheerfully, as though nothing in the world had happened, and her eyes flashed with an unconquerable courage.
"You are not to bother," she called back to him. "I shall play up and win. I shall come back with all the prizes."
He nodded. He understood and recognized the fighting spirit, and his admiration kindled and mingled with a biting, cruel grief. He watched her as she walked proudly erect at Travers' side, and his heart ached. He understood what his wife had understood in the first moment and what an hour before would have seemed impossible to them both; he understood that they were helpless, that they could neither protect nor comfort the brave young life which had been confided to their care. Their love, great as it was, lay useless, and his last pride, his last consolation was gone. He threw it to the wrecked lumber on his life's road. He did not hear Stafford's farewell nor his wife's icy response. He stood there with his hand clenched on the balustrade, motionless and wordless, until the evening shadows had crept over the silent garden. In that hour he knew himself to be an old and broken man.
Many miles away a dusty, haggard-faced rider urged his weary horse over the great highroad. Danger lurked in every shadow, but he heeded nothing—was scarcely conscious of what went on about him. He, too, suffered, but no remorse mingled itself with his tight-lipped grief. He had done the right and—according to his code and way of thinking—the only merciful thing.
CHAPTER XV
THE GREAT HEALER
"Yes, it's a fine building," Travers said, looking about him with an expression of satisfaction. "The Rajah hasn't spared the paint in any way. You see, it was all native work, so he killed two birds with one stone—pleased us and gave the aborigines a job. He has gone quite mad on reforms, poor fellow!" He laughed, not in the least contemptuously, but with a faint pity. "And it's all your doing, Miss Beatrice," he went on, turning to her with an elaborate bow. "You should be very proud of your work."
She looked him straight in the face. They were in the new ballroom of the clubhouse which the Rajah of Marut had just opened. In the adjacent tearoom she heard voices raised in gay discussion, but for the moment they were quite alone.
"You give me more credit in the matter than I deserve," she said. "Is that generosity on your part, or—are you shirking your share of the responsibility?"
"I—shirk my share of the responsibility!" he exclaimed with a good-tempered lifting of the eyebrows. "My dear lady, have you ever known me to do such a thing?"
She smiled rather sarcastically.
"No, Mr. Travers, but I own that the idea does not seem to me wholly impossible."
"And even if you were right, why should I in this particular case 'shirk the responsibility,' as you put it? Surely it is not responsibility we have incurred, but gratitude."
She walked by his side over to the open windows which looked out on to the as yet uncultivated and barren gardens.
"The question is this," she said at last: "Does the superficial gratitude of a crowd in any way compensate for the fact that, in order to obtain it, a whole life's happiness has been incidentally sacrificed?"
"I know to whom you are alluding," he said, looking earnestly at her, "although, as a matter of fact, the two things have nothing to do with each other, except in your imagination. You mean Lois. Yes, of course she has had a hard time. Who doesn't? But it's rubbish to talk of a 'life's happiness.' In the first place, there isn't such a thing—nothing lasts so long as a lifetime, I assure you. In the second, Lois has not sustained any real loss—not any which I can not make good to her."
"Do you imagine yourself so all-sufficient?" she asked.
"I have confidence in my own powers," he admitted. "That is the first condition of success. I believe that in a few hours I shall have Lois on the road to recovery."
"I do not in the least understand your methods," Beatrice said, "but they have hitherto been so eminently successful that I suppose I ought not to question them. I hope for the best. I really was rather sorry for Lois—especially as she behaved so well."
"Are you starting a conscience, Miss Beatrice?" Travers asked gaily. "I rather suspect you. It would be such a typically feminine proceeding."
"There you are quite wrong," she answered, with a shade of annoyance in her cool voice. "A conscience is an appendage which I discarded a good many years ago as the luxury of respectability. As you know, and as any woman at the Station would tell you, I am not respectable."
"Whence this anxiety, then?"
"It is purely a practical one. You talk of gratitude—do you really think anyone is grateful to me for—this?" She waved her hand toward the lofty, handsomely decorated room before her. "Why, I doubt if anyone remembers that I had anything to do with it. But every one suspects me of having bewitched Stafford into becoming a deserter—thanks to Mrs. Carmichael's tongue—and every one feels a just and holy indignation. I doubt whether they really care a rap about poor Lois, and indeed I could accuse one or two of a certain satisfaction; but the matter has given them a new whip with which to beat us out of Marut."
"But you will not be beaten out of Marut," Travers said, a smile passing over his fresh face. "You have got a far too firm footing. The woman who has bagged the finest catch in the Station has nothing more to fear."
"You mean Captain Stafford?"
"I do."
"Then, if you have no objection, we will leave that subject alone."
"By all means, if you wish it," he agreed, somewhat taken aback. "But, between friends, you know, one does not need to be so delicate."
Her hands played idly with the handle of her silk parasol.
"It is not a matter of delicacy," she said, "—at least, not altogether. It would be rather silly to begin with that sort of thing at my time of life, wouldn't it? But—you don't know for certain that I shall marry Captain Stafford."
"My dear lady! You have accepted him!" Travers exclaimed.
She looked at him, her clear hazel eyes flashing with momentary fun.
"It is very bad policy to rely upon what a woman says further back than twenty-four hours," she warned him.
For once he remained serious.
"That may be true, but it is sometimes necessary to warn her that first thoughts are best."
"Now, what do you mean?"
He folded his arms over his broad chest.
"Miss Beatrice," he said, appearing to ignore her question, "do you remember some time ago my telling you that we were like two partners at a game of bridge?"
"I remember very well."
"Well, we are still partners, though the game is nearing its end. As a rule I am for straight, aboveboard play, but there are moments when a man is strongly tempted to cheat."
"Haven't we cheated all through?" she inquired, with a one-sided smile.
"By no means. We have finessed, that's all. Just at present I feel impelled to—well, give you a hint under the table."
"Why?"
"Miss Beatrice, more or less I stand in the position of a skilled and rich player who has tempted a less wealthy partner into a doubtful game. If my plans fail, I can look after myself; but I shouldn't like to get you in a mess. If I give you a hint, will you keep counsel?"
"I suppose I must."
"Well, then, it's just this. Your mother has invested the greater part of her money in the Marut Company. I did not want her to—I'll say that for myself—but she has the speculating craze, and nothing would stop her. Of course the mine will be an immense success—but if it isn't, I should like to see you, as my partner, well out of reach of the results."
"Now I understand. Thank you."
"As to the Rajah, I think you had better let him run before things go too far. I'm afraid he has got one or two silly ideas in his head. You had better make your engagement public."
"Thank you." She looked perfectly calm and collected. The red had died out of her cheeks and left them their pale rose, which not even the hottest Indian sun had been able to wither. Still, her tone had something in it which startled even the self-possessed Travers.
"By Jove!" he began, "are you angry—?"
She passed over the question before he had time to finish it.
"I am going into the garden to look for my mother," she said. "The band is just beginning. Au revoir."
Travers watched her curiously and admiringly as she walked across the parquetry flooring to the door. It requires a good deal of self-possession and carriage to walk gracefully under the scrutiny of critical eyes, and this self-possession and carriage were the final clauses to Beatrice's claim to physical perfection. There was a natural dignity in her bearing and an absolute balance in all her movements which Travers had never seen before combined in one woman. At first sight an observer called her pretty, and then, as one by one the perfect details unfolded themselves to a closer criticism, beautiful. He was never disappointed, and even the most carping and envious of Marut's female contingent had failed to find her vulnerable point. So they had turned with more success to her character, and proceeded there with their work of destruction. Her beauty they left unquestioned.
Travers often asked himself—and asked himself especially on this afternoon—why, apart from practical considerations, he had not fallen in love with her instead of Lois. He liked beautiful women, as he liked all beautiful things, and Lois had no real pretensions to beauty. Was it, perhaps, as he had said, that her honesty and genuine heart-goodness had drawn him to her? Of course he had pretended that it was so. He knew that, in company with all true women, she was susceptible to that form of flattery where other compliments merely disgusted, and he had made good use of his knowledge. He had often laughed to himself at the feminine craze for salvaging lost souls, but he had never taken it seriously, not even with Lois. Was there any truth in the assertions that he had made to her, more than he knew? The idea amused him immensely, and also drew his attention back to his previous conversation with Beatrice Cary. He shook his head whimsically in the direction she had taken.
"I don't care what you say," he thought, "you are getting a conscience. Now, I wonder whom you caught it from? Not from me, I'll be bound."
He laughed out loud, and shaking himself up from his half-lounging attitude against the window casement, he proceeded to follow in Beatrice's footsteps. At the door he was met by three men—the Rajah, Stafford, and a new-comer whom he did not recognize and for the moment scarcely noticed. He had a quick and sympathetic intelligence, which was trained to read straight through men's eyes into their minds, and in an instant he had classed and compared, not without a pang of real if very objective regret, the two familiar faces and their expressions. Gloom and sunshine jostled each other.
On the one hand, Nehal Singh had never looked better than he did then. The old film of dreamy contemplation was gone from his eyes, which flashed with energy and purpose; the face was thinner and in places lined; the figure, always upright, had become more muscular. From a merely handsome man he had developed into a striking personality, released from the bonds of an enforced inactivity and an objectless destiny. By just so much Stafford had altered for the worse. His character was too strong and rigid to allow an absolute breakdown. He still carried himself well; to all intents and purposes, as far as his duty was concerned, he was as hard-working and conscientious as he had ever been, but no strength of will had been able to hinder the change in his face and expression. He looked years older. There was grey mixed with the dark brown of his hair; the eyes were hollow and lightless; the cheeks had painfully sunken in. A friend returning after a two months' absence would have said that he had gone through a sharp and very dangerous illness; but Marut, who knew that he had not been ill, wondered exceedingly.
They wondered all the more because, though nothing was known for certain, they suspected a rupture in the relations between Stafford and the Carmichael family, and Beatrice was recognized as the undoubtable cause. Her engagement with Stafford had been kept secret, but the Marut world had its ideas and was puzzled to distraction as to why he seemed to shun her society and had become morose and taciturn. "It is his conscience," said the busybodies, whose inexperience on the subject of conscience excused the mistaken diagnosis. Travers knew better. He felt no sort of regret, but he was rather sorry for Stafford and sometimes Stafford felt his unspoken sympathy and shrank from it.
"We have been looking all over the place for you, Travers," he said, after the first greeting had been exchanged. "Nicholson arrived here last night, and he has already been on a tour of inspection. He wants to know the man who has built the modern settlement."
Travers turned to the new-comer and held out his hand.
"Glad to meet you," he said cordially; "but please don't run off with the idea that I have anything to do with the innovations. I am no more than the artisan. The Rajah is the moving spirit."
Nehal Singh's expression protested.
"If money is the moving power, you may be right," he said; "but if, as I think, the conception is everything, then the credit is wholly yours."
"You have been the energizing spirit," Travers retorted.
"Well, we will divide the honors. And, after all, it does not matter in the least who has done it, so long as it is done."
"Well spoken!" Adam Nicholson said. "If that's your principle, I'm not surprised at the marvels you have brought about."
Nehal Singh turned to the speaker.
"You think the changes are for the good?" he asked eagerly.
"Without a doubt. The new Bazaar is a model for Indian civilization."
"And the mine?"
"Excuse me—is that part of the reform? I understood that it was merely a speculation."
The prince's brows contracted with surprise.
"It is part of the reform. I wish to give my people a settled industry. There is no idea of—personal gain."
"I see. Well, I don't know about that yet. I haven't looked into the matter; I must to-morrow—that is, no, I won't. You know,"—with a movement of good-tempered impatience—"I've been sent here on a rest-cure, and I'm not to bother about anything. Please remind me now and again. I always forget."
Stafford smiled grimly.
"You don't look as though you knew what rest is," he said.
Travers, who stood a little on one side, felt there was some truth in the criticism. During the brief conversation between Nehal Singh and Nicholson he had had ample opportunity to study the two men and to glean the esthetic pleasure which all beauty gave him. Both represented the best type of their respective races, and, curiously enough, this perfection seemed to obliterate the differences. Travers could not help thinking, as he glanced from one to the other, that, had it not been for the dress, it would have been difficult to decide who was the native prince and who the officer. Nehal Singh's high forehead and clean-cut features might have been those of a European, and his complexion, if anything, was fairer than that of the sunburnt man opposite him. It was doubtful, too, which of the two faces was the more striking. Travers felt himself irresistibly drawn to the new-comer. The bold, aquiline nose, the determined mouth under the close-cut moustache, the broad forehead with the white line where the military helmet had protected from the sun, the black hair prematurely sprinkled with grey—these, together with the well-built figure, made him seem worthy of the record of heroism and ability with which his name was associated.
"If you want a rest, your only hope is with the ladies," Travers said, as he turned with Nicholson toward the garden. "They are the only people who haven't got mines and industrial progress on the brain. Are you prepared to be lionized, by the way? We are all so heartily sick of one another that a new arrival is bound to be pursued to death."
"I don't care so long as I get in some decent tennis and polo," Nicholson answered cheerfully. "Not that I've starved in that respect. I got my men up at the Fort into splendid form. We made our net and racquets ourselves, and rolled out some sort of a court. It was immense fun, though the racquets weren't all you might have wished, and the court had a most disconcerting surface." He laughed heartily at his recollections, and Travers laughed with him.
"No wonder the men worshiped you," he said, and then saw that the remark had been a mistake.
"They didn't worship me," was the sharp answer. "That sort of thing is all rubbish. They respected me, and I respected them—that's all."
"It seems to me a good deal," Travers observed.
"It is a good deal, in one sense," Nicholson returned. "It is the only condition under which native and European can work in unity."
Nehal Singh and Stafford were walking a little ahead, and Travers thought he saw the Rajah hesitate as though about to join the conversation. Almost immediately, however, Nicholson changed the subject.
"I've had no time to look up my old friends," he said to Travers. "Perhaps you could tell me something about them. Colonel Carmichael is, of course, still here. I had a few words with him this afternoon. Do you know if that little girl, Lois Caruthers, is with him, or has she gone back to England?"
"No, she is still in Marut."
"That's good. When I was a young lieutenant, she and I were great pals. Of course she is grown-up now, but I always think of her as my wild little comrade who led me into the most hairbreadth adventures." He smiled to himself, and Travers, looking sharply at him, felt that there was a wealth of memories behind the pleasant grey eyes.
"Things change," he said sententiously.
"Do they? Well, perhaps; though the change, I find, lies usually in oneself, and I never change. Is she married?"
"No—not yet."
He saw that Nicholson was on the point of answering, asking another question, and he went on hurriedly:
"She is not here this afternoon. If you are anxious to meet her, how would it be if I ran over to the Colonel's bungalow and persuaded her to come? I dare say I could manage it."
"Excellent, if you wouldn't mind. Or I might go myself. We shall have any amount to say to each other."
There was a scarcely noticeable pause before Travers answered:
"I think it would be better if I went. I know a short cut, and could get there and back with Miss Caruthers in half an hour. Would you mind telling the Colonel what I have done?"
"Certainly. In the meantime, I'll have a talk with the Rajah about this mining business. He seems to have an exceptional individuality, and—"
"Remember the doctor!" Travers warned him.
"Oh, yes, thanks! I forgot again. By the way, when you see Lois—Miss Caruthers—tell her for me, the cathedral still lacks the chief spire, but otherwise is getting on very nicely."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
"No, but I dare say she will. Good-by."
Travers borrowed a buggy from one of the other guests, and started impetuously on his self-imposed errand. He had lied about the short cut, and about the half-hour. He would have lied up to the hilt if it had been required of him, because his instinct—that instinct which had saved him untold times from blundering—warned him that danger was at hand. It told him that it was now or never, and the realization filled him with a reckless resolve which was ready to ride down all principles and honor. He was still sufficiently master of himself to hide the storm; it showed itself only in so far that, when he stood before Lois, he seemed more moved and agitated than she had ever seen him. She had just returned from a long and lonely ride, and was about to retire to change her white habit, when he came upon her in the entrance hall. Had he not found her himself, she would have refused to see him, for she dreaded his message. She felt that he had come to urge her attendance at the opening ceremony, and old fondness for social pleasures of that kind had given place to dislike. It was the only change that sorrow had wrought upon her character. Otherwise she was the same as she had always been. For one week she had suffered something like despair, and then the brave spirit in her despised itself for its weakness, and set to work on the rebuilding of her life on new foundations. To all appearances, she had succeeded admirably in her task. There was no drooping hopelessness in her attitude toward the world. And if beneath the surface there lay hidden the dangerous flaw of purposelessness, no one knew—at least, so she believed.
To her surprise, Travers made no mention of the subject she dreaded. He took her hand in his, and led her into the shady drawing-room. She made no attempt to protest, nor did she offer him any formal greeting. She was oppressed and hypnotized by the conviction that a crisis was about to break over her head which no power of hers could avert. He did not let her hand go. He still held it between his own as they stood opposite each other, and she felt that he was trembling.
"Lois," he said, "Lois, don't think me mad. There are limits to a man's endurance. I have held out so long that I can hold out no longer. I have come because I must speak to you alone. Will you let me?"
She knew now what was coming, and she made a gentle effort to free herself.
"Mr. Travers, will you think me very conceited if I say that I know what you have come to tell me?" she said, with an earnestness which did not conceal her anxiety. "Will you forgive me if I ask you not to tell me? It would be hard to have to spoil our friendship. It has been a great deal to me."
"Does that mean that you don't care?"
"I did not say that. As proof that I do care I will give you my whole confidence, I will be absolutely honest with you. Will you think me very low-spirited if I tell you that a man still holds a place in my life—a man who cares nothing for me? I ought to forget him—my pride should make it possible, and yet I can not, and somehow I do not think I ever shall."
"Isn't that rather a hard punishment for him, Lois?"
"For him?"
"I, too, will be honest. I know whom you mean and I ask you—does Stafford look a happy man? He looks like a man weighed down by a heavy burden. I believe that burden is the knowledge that he has sinned against you, that in his heedlessness, folly, what you will, he has spoiled your life. Until he feels that you have regained your happiness he will never be able to find his own."
A spasm of pain passed over her face.
"You mean—I stand in his way?"
"I believe so. And I am sure of one thing—for your own sake as well as for his, you must shake off your old affection for him, and how better than through the cultivation of a new and stronger love? My dear little girl, you couldn't pretend that all the happy hours we have spent together count for nothing. You say my friendship has been a great deal to you. What else is friendship but the sanest, most lasting, and noblest part of love? What surer basis was ever the union between a man and woman built upon? I know what you would say—it has come too soon. You have only just pulled yourself up from a hard blow, and you feel that you must have time to right yourself and all the hopes that were bowled over with you. My dear, I understand that—God knows, I understand too well—but have pity on me. Think how I have waited, and how time has drifted on and on for me. Must I wait the best years of my life? Won't you let me add the whole of my love to time's cure for healing the old wound?"
There was no pretense in his pleading, no pretense in the passion with which his voice shook. And because it was genuine, it carried her forward on the wave of powerful feeling toward his will.
"I do care for you," she said, with a strong effort to appear calm. "As a friend you are very dear to me, and you are no doubt right to class friendship so highly. But I can not pretend that I love you. I do not love you. And a woman should love the man she marries."
He let her hands fall.
"And so you are going to let your life remain empty, little woman?"
"Empty?" she echoed.
"Yes, empty. Will it prove the strength of my love for you if I tell you that it has given me the power to look straight into your heart? How many times have I read there the thought: 'Of what use is it all? My life has no object, no end or aim. No one needs me now.' Lois, one man needs you—needs you perhaps as much as he loves you. That man is myself. If you say you have done nothing in the world, look into the soul that I open out to you and to you alone. There is not a generous, honest deed or thought which has not its origin in you. For your sake I have beaten down the devil under my feet—I have tried to live as I meant to live before the time when I, too, found that there was no object in it all, that no one cared whether I was good or bad. This much have you changed in me—it has been your unconscious work. Are you going to leave the task which surely God has left for you to accomplish?"
He had touched the chord in her which could only give one response, and he knew it. There lay the canker which made her energy and cheerfulness a mere task to hide the real disease. Half unconsciously she had loved Stafford and half unconsciously she had built her life upon him. When he had been taken from her, the foundations had been shaken, and she found herself crippled by a horrible sense of emptiness and purposelessness. In England she would have flung herself into some intellectual pursuit, as other women do who have suffered heart shipwreck. But she was in India, and in India intellectual food is scarce. Pleasure is the one serious occupation for the womenkind; and though pleasure may be a good narcotic for some, for Lois it was worse than useless. She needed one being for whom she could bring sacrifices and endless patient devotion, and there was no one. Her two guardians lived for her, and that was not what she hungered after with all the thwarted energy of her soul. She wanted to work for somebody, not to be worked for—and no one needed her, no one except this man. She looked at him. She saw that her long silence was torture to him; she saw that he was suffering genuinely, and her heart went out to him in pity. Pity is a woman's invariable undoing. How many women—sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy, according to the rulings of an inscrutable Fate—have married, partly out of flattered vanity, but chiefly because they are good-hearted, and labor under the mistaken conviction that a man's happiness rests on their decision? And in this particular instance Lois was honestly attached to Travers. She felt that to lose him would be to lose a friend whom she could ill spare. Yet a blind instinct forced her to a last resistance.
"I do not love you," she repeated, almost desperately.
"I do not ask for that now, because I know that it will come. I ask you to be my lifelong friend and helper. Remember your promise, Lois! Has not the time come when we need each other—when no one else is left?" He took her hand again. He felt that she was won.
"If you need me—I care for you enough to try and love you as my husband."
"Thank you, Lois!"
His inborn tact and knowledge of the human character stood him again in good stead. He made no violent demonstration of his triumph and happiness, thus breaking roughly into a region which as yet for him was dangerous ground. As he had done months before, when the road to success had seemed blocked, he lifted her hand reverently and gratefully to his lips.
Thus it was that Captain Adam Nicholson waited patiently but in vain for Travers' return with his old playfellow. As one by one the Rajah's guests took their departure in order to prepare for the evening's festivities, he gave up his last hope.
"I suppose it was too late," he thought ruefully. "Or—she was so young, and it's many years ago—maybe she has forgotten."
It was not till long afterward that he knew how unconsciously his first supposition had brushed past the truth.
CHAPTER XVI
FATE
Travers had correctly described the new Marut club-house as a fine building on which the paint had been laid with a generous hand. The original modest design had been rejected as unworthy, and Nehal Singh had ordered the erection of a miniature copy of his own palace, the ball-room being line for line a reproduction of the Great Hall, save that the decorations, which in the palace were inimitable, had been carried out with dignified simplicity, and that some necessary modernization had been added. Gold and white predominated, where in the original, precious stones glistened; the brackets for the torches were transformed into small artistic lamps which had been ordered from Madras; and from the ceiling a heavy chandelier added brilliancy to the shaded light. The central floor had been left free for dancing, but the slender pillars ranged on either side formed separate little alcoves banked with flowers and plants. It was in one of these refuges from the whirr and confusion of gay dresses and white uniforms that Stafford took up his watch. He had arrived late, thanks to Travers, who had detained him at his bungalow in a long and earnest conversation. The two men had subsequently driven together to the club, and had further been hindered on their way by a curious accident. Just where the road passed an unprotected ravine, a native had sprung out from some bushes and, having waved his arms wildly, disappeared. The horse had immediately taken fright, and for a moment the car and its occupants stood in danger of being flung headlong down the precipice. Stafford's strength and nerve had saved the situation, but the incident had effectually put an end to their conversation, and now for the first time Stafford found himself alone and at liberty to bring some order into his troubled thoughts.
He was not, as Marut supposed, a conscience-stricken man, but a man with a diseased conscience, his sense of duty and responsibility developed to abnormities which left him no clear judgment. He had broken with Lois because he loved her and because there seemed no other way of shielding her from the most terrible blow that could fall upon any human life—judging by the only standard he knew, which was his own. He had asked Beatrice to be his wife because it cut the last link and because he knew—Travers had told him—that the Station had long since coupled their names together in a way that cast a deeper shadow about Beatrice's reputation.
"It's no one's fault, old fellow," Travers had said sympathetically. "You meant no harm, but you were often with her, and that old fiend, Mrs. Cary, has told every one that you 'were as good as—' And then you know what the people are here. When they see that things are at an end between you and Lois they will dig their knives deeper into Miss Cary, without giving her the credit of having won her game. She is fairly at every one's mercy here. I am sorry for Lois, but the other is worse off, according to my lights."
Stafford had said nothing. Goaded by Travers' words and blinded by the catastrophe which had broken upon him, he had acted without thought, without consideration, for the first time in his life obeying the behests of a headlong impulse. He had asked Beatrice to be his wife, and to-night was to put the final seal upon their alliance. Again it was Travers who had spoken the decisive word.
"A secret engagement is a piece of folly," he said, "and Miss Cary is mad to wish it. For your sake as well as hers, everything must be above-board. Or are you shirking?"
Stafford had made a hot retort. It was not in the scope of his character to turn back on a road which he had marked out for himself, and he waited now for Beatrice with the unshaken resolution of a man who believes absolutely in himself and his own code. He waited even with a certain impatience. Shortly before he had seen her standing at the Rajah's side, a fair and beautiful contrast to his eastern splendor, and, somehow, in that moment, he had understood Travers' warning as he had not understood it before. She was to be his wife, she was to bear his name, and it was his duty to protect her if need be from herself. He was about to leave the alcove to go in search of her when she pushed aside the hangings and entered. The suddenness of her appearance and something in her expression startled him. He did not notice how radiantly beautiful she was nor the taste and richness of her dress. He saw only that there was a curious look of pain and fear in her eyes which warmed his friendship and aroused in him afresh the desire to shield her from the malice of the eyes that watched them.
"Have I been a long time coming?" she asked, taking the chair he offered her. "I am so sorry. The Rajah kept me."
Her voice sounded breathless and there was a forced lightness in her tone which did not escape him. He bent a little over her.
"It does not matter," he said. "You look troubled. Is there anything wrong?"
She laughed.
"Nothing."
He hesitated, and then went on slowly:
"There is one matter I want to speak to you about, Beatrice. It is the matter of—our engagement. I think you are wrong to wish it kept secret. I think it can only bring trouble and misunderstanding. Will you not allow me to tell every one?"
The white satin slipper stopped its regular tattoo on the rugged floor. She lifted her face to his and looked him full in the eyes.
"You think it was foolish and unreasonable to wish no one to know? But I had my reasons—very good reasons. I wanted the retreat kept clear for you."
"Retreat—for me?"
"Yes, for you. Captain Stafford, why did you ask me to be your wife?"
He drew himself stiffly erect.
"I told you at the time," he said sternly. "I was quite honest. I told you that the best a man can bring the woman he marries is not in my power to give you. It was—shipwrecked some time ago."
"Not so very long ago," she corrected.
"That does not matter. The point is that I believe it in my power to make you happy—at any rate, it would always be my ambition to see you so; and therein I should no doubt regain a great deal that I have lost—"
"But you do not love me, Captain Stafford?"
"I have just said that I have lost the power of loving."
For a moment she was silent, her jeweled hands resting wearily on the arms of her chair, her eyes sunk to the ground.
"You made me an honorable proposal, Captain Stafford," she said at last. "You are an honorable man and inspire me with the desire to be honorable also. Won't you take back your freedom while there is yet time?"
"No."
"There are others—good women among whom you would find one who would love you as you deserve. I do not love you. All I can bring is a certain respect and friendship—that is all."
"I am grateful for so much," he said. He was thinking of Lois, and his voice sounded hard and compressed.
"If I marry you it will be because I must."
He nodded.
"Yes, I am aware of that."
"Aware of that?" she said, looking up into his haggard face. "How should you be 'aware of that?' Is my private life so public then?"
"You misunderstand me," he said, striving to cover up what he felt to have been a wanton piece of brutality. "I only mean, you must for the same reason that I must—because circumstances have linked us inseparably together, and because—"
He broke off. The tall figure of the Rajah had passed the alcove and he had seen Beatrice sink back in her chair. As the figure moved on she broke into one of her harsh, jarring laughs.
"Good heavens, Captain Stafford," she exclaimed, "your arguments haven't a leg to stand on! What are you marrying me for?"
"I have tried to explain," he said, swinging himself clumsily up to the great lie of his life—"because I need you—and I hope you will come to need me."
"You mean I do need you? Well, perhaps I do!" She sprang to her feet and held out her hand to him. "There! I seal the bargain. I warned you but you would not be warned. Vogue la galere! Tell the whole world—it is better so."
He took the small firm hand and pressed it. At the same moment he saw the Rajah approaching for a second time.
"I will leave you now," he said in a low, earnest whisper. "I fancy the Rajah wishes to speak with you. It would be a good opportunity to tell him that we are engaged."
She drew back her hand hastily.
"Yes—of course I shall tell him."
Stafford bowed ceremoniously, making way for Nehal Singh. As he did so, he saw Lois enter the hall at Mrs. Carmichael's side. The two women bowed to him, the elder in a way which he had learned to understand. He drew aside out of their path, avoiding the genuine kindness which Lois' eyes expressed for him.
"Pray God you believe the worst of me!" was the thought that flashed through his mind. "Pray God I have taught you to forget!"
Nehal Singh had meanwhile taken Stafford's place at Beatrice's side. As he had entered the alcove she had made an effort to pass out, but her eyes had met his, and the look in them had held her rooted to the ground. The color died and deepened by turns in her cheeks, and the hand that clasped the ivory fan shook as it had never shaken before in the course of a life full of risks and dangers. But then no man had ever looked at her as this man did. She had outstared insolence and snubbed sentimentality. She had never had to face such an honest, pure-hearted worship as this young prince brought and laid silently at her feet. No need for him to tell her that she embodied every virtue and every perfection of which human nature is capable. She knew it, and the knowledge broke the very backbone of her daring and stirred to life in her sickened soul emotions which she could scarcely recognize as her own.
He stood quite close to her, but he did not touch her. In all their acquaintance he had never, except when he had taken her hand in farewell, made any attempt to draw nearer to her than the strictest etiquette allowed. Other men—men whom she hardly knew—had taken the opportunity which a ride or drive offered to kiss her, and had been offended and surprised at her contemptuous rebuff. (What girl in Marut objected to being kissed?) This man had treated her as though she were holy, an object to be respected and protected, not to be handled as a common plaything; and her heart had gone out to him in gratitude and admiration. But tonight his very respect was painful to her. For a moment she would have given the best years of her life to know that he despised her and that all was over between them; and then came the revulsion, the wild longing to hold him to her as though his trust in her were her one salvation.
"Lakshmi!" he said, in a voice broken with feeling. "Lakshmi, you are the most perfect woman God ever sent to earth. Every hour I grow to know you better I feel how pale and empty of all true beauty my life was until you came. How can I thank you for all you have given me?"
"Hush!" she said. "You must not talk to me like that. You must not."
"Why should I not tell you what is true?"
"Because—oh, don't you see?"—she gave a short, unsteady laugh—"we English don't tell people everything that is true. A man does not say that sort of thing to a woman—"
"To one woman!" he said.
"Yes, to one woman, perhaps. But I—I—" She hesitated, the truth struggling feebly to her lips. She felt herself turn sick and faint as she looked into his earnest face. She knew what answer he had ready for her, and though it would have brought the end for which she was praying, she sought with all her strength to keep it back. All the brutality in her character, her indifference to the feelings and opinions of others, failed. She dreaded the change that would come into his eyes; she did not believe that she could bear it. Tomorrow would be time enough. But was it any longer in her power to determine when it would be time enough? There was an expression in Nehal Singh's face which told her that he had already decided, and that the reins had suddenly slipped from her hands into his.
"Rajah—" she began, wildly seeking for some inspiration which would give her back control over herself and him. But the triviality died on her lips as the truth had died. A shrill cry broke above the dying waltz, and the Rajah and Beatrice, startled by its piercing appeal, turned from each other and confronted a catastrophe which overshadowed, and for the moment obliterated, their own threatening fate.
The dancers had already retired to the sitting-out alcoves. Only one figure occupied the floor, and that figure was Stafford's. He was crossing the room and had reached the center when the cry had been uttered. The amazed and startled watchers saw Lois rush toward him and with an incredible strength and rapidity thrust him to one side. A second later—it scarcely seemed a second—the immense golden chandelier crashed with a sound like thunder on to the very spot where he had been standing. A moment's uproar and horrified confusion ensued. The place, plunged in a half-darkness, seemed filled with dust and flying fragments, and people hurrying backward and forward, scarcely knowing what had happened or what had been the extent of the accident. Stafford's voice was the first to bring reassurance to the startled crowd.
"It's all right!" he shouted. "We are both safe, thank God!"
They saw that he was deadly pale, though otherwise calm and collected. In the first moment of alarm he had instinctively caught Lois in his arms, as though to shield her from some fresh danger, but immediately afterward he had let her go, and she stood apart amidst the debris of the wrecked chandelier, trembling slightly, but firmly refusing all assistance.
"I owe my life to you," Stafford said to her, with awkward gratitude.
"You do not need to thank me," she answered at once. "I did what any one else would have done in my place. I saw it coming."
"How did it happen?" The question came from Nehal Singh, who had forced his way to her side. "I can not understand how such an accident was possible."
There was an anxiety in his manner which seemed to increase during
Lois' brief hesitation.
"I hardly like to say," she said at last, in a troubled voice. "I could not believe my eyes, and even now it seems like a dream. Or a shadow might have deceived me. I don't know—"
"Please tell me what you saw, or thought you saw!" the Rajah begged earnestly.
"I seemed to see the chandelier being lowered," she said, with an irrepressible shudder, "and then from a dark hole in the ceiling a hand appeared—a black hand with a knife—"
One of the women moaned, and there was afterward a silence in which a wave of formless fear surged over the closed circle. The men exchanged questioning glances, to which no one had an answer.
"That's just the way," Beatrice heard some one behind her say. "We dance on the crust of a volcano or under a threatening avalanche. Sooner or later the one gives way or the other falls. There is no real safety from these devils."
Meanwhile Nehal Singh had approached the wreckage and was examining the crown, to which a piece of gilded rope and chain were still attached. One or two of the men were engaged in stamping out the candles, which still sputtered feebly on the floor. The rest stood about uncomfortably, hypnotized by an indefinable alarm.
"I fear you did not dream, Miss Caruthers," the Rajah said at last. "The rope has been cut—the chain unlinked. Some wicked harm was intended to us all."
"Not to us all," Stafford observed coolly. "I think you will admit, Rajah, that whoever the murderer was, he would have chosen a more advantageous moment if he had intended general damage. My life was the one aimed at, and I am all the more convinced that I am right, because this is the third time within twenty-four hours that I have escaped by a miracle from accidents which were not accidental."
The Rajah started sharply around.
"How?—what do you mean?" he demanded.
"Yesterday my boat on the river was plugged. To-day a native tried to frighten my horse over the ravine. This"—pointing to the chandelier—"is the third attempt."
"Do you know of any one who could have a grudge against you?"
"No."
"Or against—your family?"
There was a slight hesitation in Stafford's manner. He frowned as a man does who has been pressed with an unpleasant question.
"That is more possible," he admitted.
Nehal Singh made no further remark. He stood staring straight ahead into the half-darkness, and every eye in that uneasy assembly fixed itself on his face, as though striving to read from his expression the conclusion to which his mind was groping. For his exclamation after Stafford's first announcement had betrayed that a sudden suspicion had flashed before him, and they waited for him to take them into his confidence. But they waited in vain. He seemed to have forgotten their existence, and the silence grew tense and painful. All at once, Mrs. Berry, who was clinging to her husband's arm, uttered a scream, which acted like a shock of electricity on the overstrained nerves of those who stood about her.
"Look! Look!" she cried. "Miss Caruthers is on fire! Oh, help! Help!"
She turned and rushed like a frightened sheep to the back of the hall, crying incoherent warnings to those who tried to bar her headlong flight. It was a catastrophe upon catastrophe. How it happened no one knew—possibly some half-extinct candle had done the work. In an instant Lois' white silk dress had become a sheet of flame which mounted with furious rapidity to her horror-stricken face. In such disasters it is only the question of a fraction of a second as to who recovers his wits first. Almost on the top of Mrs. Berry's heedless scream Beatrice had sprung toward the doomed girl—with what intention she hardly knew—but before she was in reach of danger Adam Nicholson thrust her to one side and, folding Lois in his arms, flung her to the ground.
"A rug—a shawl—anything!" he shouted.
Mrs. Carmichael tore the long wrap from her shoulders, and a dozen willing hands lent what assistance first occurred to them. But Nicholson fought his enemy alone.
"Stand back!" he commanded. "Stand back!"
They obeyed him instinctively, and stood helpless, watching the short, desperate struggle between life and death. Scarcely a moment elapsed before the flames died down—one last tight drawing together of Mrs. Carmichael's wrap, and they were extinct. Nicholson stumbled to his feet, the frail, unconscious burden in his arms.
"Please make way," he said. "I do not think she is badly hurt, but she must be taken home at once. Stafford, go and see if the carriage is there."
His own face was singed, and one of his hands badly burnt, but he did not seem to notice his own injuries. Colonel Carmichael, who had entered the hall with him at the moment of the accident, helped to clear the road. His features in the half-light were grey with the fear of those last few moments.
"You have saved our little girl!" he said brokenly to Nicholson. "You have saved her life. God bless you for it, Adam!"
"That's all right," was the cheerful answer. "You know, Colonel, Lois and I were always helping each other out of scrapes, and I expect it was my turn." He looked down at the pale face against his shoulder, and there was an unconscious tenderness in his expression which touched the shaken old man's heart.
"She will be glad to hear it was you, Adam," he said. "You were always her favorite."
They had reached the great doors, which the Rajah himself had flung wide open, when Travers sprang up the steps to meet them. He was dishevelled, breathless, and exhausted as though with hard running, and his eyes, as they flashed from one to the other of the little procession, were those of a madman.
"What has happened?" he demanded frantically. "I was outside with Webb. What has happened?—Oh!" He caught sight of Lois in Nicholson's arms, and his cry was high and hysterical, like a frightened woman's.
Stafford seized him by the shoulder and dragged him back into the now empty hall.
"Control yourself!" he said roughly. "Don't behave like a fool. She is all right, but they won't want you interfering, especially if you can't keep your head."
"They won't want me!" Travers exclaimed, staring at him. He then broke into a discordant laugh. "Why, my good Stafford, they'll have to have me, whether they want me or no. Lois is mine—mine, I tell you; and that fellow, Nicholson, had better look to himself—"
"You are beside yourself, Travers. Nicholson saved her life. What do you mean by saying she is yours?"
"She is to be my wife. Who can have more right to her than I have?"
The two men stared at each other through the semi-darkness. One by one the lights at the side of the hall were extinguished by the softly-moving servants. The hushed voices of the departing guests died away in the distance.
"Your wife!" Stafford repeated slowly. "Since when is that, Travers?"
"Since this afternoon. Let me pass!"
Stafford made no effort to detain him. He stood on one side, and Travers hurried down the steps. A minute later he was driving his trap down the avenue at a pace which boded danger for himself and for any who dared to cross his path.