CHAPTER XVII

FALSE LIGHT

The way to the new Bazaar lay to the right of the mine through a forest clearing, and was one of Marut's most beautiful roads. Of late, increased traffic had held the English pleasure-seekers from their once favorite haunt, and in this early evening hour the bullock wagons had not as yet begun their journeyings to and from the residential quarter to the Bazaar, and the road was pleasantly quiet and peaceful. Hitherto Beatrice had kept her thoroughbred at a constant and exhausting canter, but here, against her resolution, she pulled up to a walk and let the cool scented air from the pines blow gently and caressingly against her hot cheeks.

"This is one of the moments which Fate herself can not take from us," she said to her companion. "It is perhaps a very brief moment, but it is unclouded. We are just glad and happy to be alive in such a lovely world, and all the outward circumstances which make our lot hard and bitter are forgotten. Great and little worries are put on one side, and we can feel like children to whom the past and future is nothing and the present everything."

"I know what you mean," Nehal Singh answered, "and the hours spent with you are always those which no one can ever take from me."

She bent over her horse and stroked the glossy coat with her gloved hand. Then she remembered that she would never ride him again, and the thought pained her. It was his horse, and this was their last ride together, though he did not know it. She was going to tell the truth—or something like the truth—now. No, not now—later on, when they turned homeward. Then she would tell him, and it would be well over. But there was no hurry. All that was still in the future. The moment was hers—a happy moment full of unalloyed charm such as she had never known in her barren, profitless life. She was not going to throw it away unless he forced her, and hitherto he had made no attempt to lead the conversation out of the usual channels.

It was the first time that they were alone together since the eventful evening at the club, and in the intervening week enough had happened to give them food for intercourse. By mutual consent, the accident of the chandelier was not touched upon. Nehal Singh, though promising to investigate the matter thoroughly, had shown a distress out of proportion to his responsibility, and it was understood that for some reason or another, the subject was painful to him. On the other hand, he had shown a lively and warm-hearted interest in Lois' recovery. She had sustained little more than a severe shock, and he had been constant in his attentions, as though striving to atone for an injury he had unwittingly done her. The accident had also served to deepen his interest in Adam Nicholson.

"That is a man!" he had said to Beatrice, as they had spoken of his presence of mind, and his enthusiasm had rung like a last echo of his old boyishness. "I can not understand why Travers seems to dislike him so."

Beatrice had made no reply. She had her own ideas on the matter, having a quick eye for expressions, and she knew that the news of Lois' engagement had been a shock both to Nicholson and to the Carmichaels. Travers was one of those men whom the world receives with open arms in society, but repudiates at the entrance to the family circle; and of this fact Travers himself was bitterly conscious. And, on the other hand, there was Nicholson, the accepted and cherished friend, to whom the world looked with unreserved respect and deserved admiration. It was not altogether surprising that the two men had little in common, and on Travers' side there was added a certain amount of satisfied spite. His instinct told him that he had won Lois at the critical moment, and that another twenty-four hours would have seen her safe under the reawakening influence of an old, only half-forgotten friendship; and Nicholson, too, felt dimly that a cunning and none too scrupulous hand had shattered a secret hope that he had cherished from his first year in India. Altogether, there was a stiffness between them which the world was quick to recognize without understanding. But Beatrice had made her observations, and, as it has been said, had come to a definite conclusion. Her interest in Lois was now thoroughly aroused, and the vision of a dark, suffering little face against a white pillow recurred to her as she walked her horse beside Nehal Singh's. As they passed out of the wood, her companion lifted his whip and pointed in front of them.

"Look!" he said.

She raised her hand to the rim of her helmet, shading her eyes from the dazzling sun, and gazed in the direction which he indicated.

"Why!" she exclaimed, smiling, "a model world, Rajah!"

"Yes," he answered, "that is what I have tried to make it. I do not think plague or disease will ever find firm foothold here, and one day my people will learn to do for themselves what I do for them. They are as yet no more than children who have to be taught what is good and bad. There is the chief overseer."

A respectable looking Hindu, who stood at the door of his hut, salaamed profoundly. It was as though he had given some secret signal, for in an instant the broad street was alive with dark, scantily clad figures, who bowed themselves to the dust and raised cries of welcome as the Rajah and his companion picked their way among them. It was a picturesque scene, not without its pathos; for their joy was sincere and their respect heartfelt. Beatrice glanced at Nehal Singh. A flush had crept up under his dark skin, and his eyes shone with suppressed enthusiasm.

"Is their homage so precious to you?" she asked.

"It is a sign that I have power over them," he answered, "and that is precious to me. Without power I could not do anything. They believe that I am God-sent, and so they obey blindly. Otherwise, these changes would have been impossible." He paused, smiling to himself; then, with a new amusement in his dark eyes, he looked at Beatrice. "My people are not fond of an over-abundance of clothing," he observed. "Do you consider a change in that respect essential?"

Beatrice stared at him, and then, seeing that he was laughing, she laughed with him.

"Certainly not! If the poor wretches knew what we poor Europeans have to suffer with our artificial over-abundance, their obedience would stop short at such a request. What made you think of such a thing?"

"It was Mr. Berry who spoke to me about it. He said I ought to insist on them having what he called decent attire. It seems he had been using his influence in vain, and was very unhappy about it. He said as much that—that trousers were the first and most necessary step toward salvation." He looked quickly at her to see if she was offended at his outspokenness, but she only laughed.

"Poor Mr. Berry is a Philistine," she said. "He can't help thinking absurdities of that sort."

"Would you mind telling me what you mean by a Philistine?" he asked.

"A Philistine is a person who sees everything in its wrong proportions," she answered. "He mistakes the essential for the unessential, and vice versa. He can never recognize the beauty in art or nature, because he can never get any further than the unpleasant details. One might call him a mental earth-worm who has only the smallest possible outlook. Mr. Berry, for instance, has never, I feel sure, felt the charm of India and its people. He is always too overpowered by the fact that the clothing is too scanty for his idea of decency. You must not take him as an example of European taste, although you will find only too many like him."

"I am glad to have your reassurance," Nehal Singh replied. "Mr. Berry angered me, and I can well understand that he has no influence among my people. They are very innocent in their way, and they can not understand where the wickedness lies. Nor do I wish them to understand. It does not seem to me necessary." His mouth settled in a new and rather stern line. "I shall order Mr. Berry to leave them in peace."

She smiled at this little outburst of autocracy.

"You do not wish your people to become Christians?" she asked.

"I shall not interfere in their religion," was the quick answer—"or, at any rate, I shall force nothing. If my people believe truly and earnestly in their gods, I shall not destroy their belief, for then they will believe in nothing. And the belief is everything. As for me"—his voice sank and grew suddenly gentler—"I am different. I have been led by a light which I must follow."

After a moment's thoughtful silence he changed the subject and began pointing out to her the improvements he had brought about in the native dwellings. Even Beatrice, who had seen little of the old conditions, felt that the change was almost incredible. A conservative, indolent and superstitious people had within a few months been transferred from loathsome dirt and squalor into a "model village" such as an English workman might have envied. Nehal Singh showed her the houses at the end of the Bazaar which belonged to the chief men, or those responsible to him for the cleanliness and order of the community. Small, prettily planted gardens separated one low dwelling from the other, and each bore its stamp of individuality, as though the owner had tried by some new and quaint device to outdo his neighbor.

"Of course," Nehal Singh explained to her, as they turned homeward, "there are men with whom nothing can be done. They have spent their lives as beggars, and can not work now even if they would. For such I have made provision, although they, too, have been given small tasks to keep them from appearing beggars. But they are the last of their kind. There shall in future be no idlers in Marut. From thenceforward every man shall work honestly and faithfully for his daily bread, and I will see that he has no need to starve. The mine will employ the strongest, and then, later, Travers and I intend to revive the various industries suited to the people's taste and talent."

"You have already done a great deal," she said, moved to real admiration. "I tremble to think what it has cost you." As she spoke, the hidden irony in her casually spoken words came home to her, and she felt the old fear clutch at her heart.

"I have given the best I have—myself," he answered gravely. "Of material wealth I have only retained what is beautiful; for beauty must not be sold to be given as bread among the poor. That would be a crime—as though one would sell Heaven for earth. Travers wished me to sell the old jeweled statues and relics, but I would not. They belong to my people, and one day, when they have learned to see and understand, they will thank me that I have kept the splendors intact for them."

"You are wise," she said thoughtfully—"wiser than Travers and many others."

"In my first enthusiasm, I meant to sell everything, and live as the poorest of them all," he went on; "but I soon saw that that was wrong. The man into whose hands wealth is given has a great task set him. He has a power denied to others. He can collect and preserve all that is beautiful in art and nature—not for himself, but for those who otherwise would never see anything but what is poor and squalid and commonplace. True, he must also strive to alleviate the sufferings of their bodies, so that their minds may be free to enjoy; but he must not sacrifice the higher for the lower task—that would surely be the work of what you call a Philistine. And his higher task is to feed their souls with all that is lovely and stainless. Has not the Master said, 'A man shall not live by bread alone'? Is it not true? And again, I have read: 'What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' And is not the man who sits, fed and clothed, in a low, flat, level world of mud-huts in danger, of forgetting that there were ever such wonders as the minarets of a high, Heaven-aspiring temple? Will he not grow to think that there is nothing more beautiful than a mud-hut, nothing more to be desired than his daily bread? I have thought of all this, and I have preserved my palace and everything that it contains. I have preserved it for my people. It shall be for them a goal and encouragement, a voice speaking to them day by day from the high towers: 'See what the hands of thy fathers have created! Thou people in the low dwellings, arise and do greater things still, for the great and beautiful is nearest God'!"

He stopped abruptly, shaken by his own passionate enthusiasm. His fine head raised, his eyes flashing, his hand extended, he could have stood for the statue of some inspired prophet.

"You are a modern Buddha," she said, smiling faintly. Inwardly she was comparing him to Mr. Berry—Mr. Berry, whose highest ideal in life was to bring everything down to a nice, shabby, orthodox level.

Nehal Singh's hand dropped to his side and he looked at her earnestly.

"That is what they say," he answered. "My people say that I am the tenth Avatar. But I am not. I am only a man—scarcely so much. A few months ago I was no more than a beggar in the Bazaar, an idler and a dreamer. If I have thrown aside my false dreams and come out as an untried worker into the light of truth, it is because I have been led by God—through you."

Every trace of color fled from her face, and the clear eyes which met his from beneath the broad helmet distended as though at some sudden shock. In the course of their earnest but impersonal conversation she had almost forgotten what was to come. This was the end of the ride, this was the to-morrow, the inevitable to-morrow of those who procrastinate with the inevitable.

"I—I have done nothing," she said, striving to hush down the rising tide of suffocating emotion.

"Yes, it is nothing. I know it is nothing, but it may still become something," he answered. "Or is it not already something? Is it not something that you have led me to the feet of the Great Teacher? Is it not something that I am awake and standing on the threshold of a new Earth and Heaven, as yet blinded by the light, but with every day gaining courage and strength to go forward? Do not say that this is nothing—you to whom I owe all that I am and ever shall be!"

She threw back her fair head. Now was the time to call to her aid all her cynicism, all the shallow, heartless skepticism which had hitherto ruled her character. Now was the time to laugh and to throw into this man's face what she had been glad and satisfied to throw into the faces of a dozen other men—the biting acid of her mockery. But she could not laugh—she could not laugh at this man. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, her throat seemed thick with a suffocating dust, so that she could make no sound.

"God forgive me if I have boasted of my own progress," he went on earnestly. "I know too well how much of the long road I have still to travel. It could not be otherwise. I can not reach in a few months what men have attained who have always lived in the light of truth. But I have hope. I carry in my heart your image and the ideal you have set me—the ideal of your race."

Then speech was given her.

"Cast that ideal out!" she said wildly and recklessly. "It is too low for you. You have passed it. You never needed it. Choose your own ideal, and forget me—forget us all. We can teach you nothing." She caught her breath as though she would have called back her own words. They were not the words she had meant to speak. They did not sound like her own. They had been put in her mouth by a force within her whose existence had been revealed to her, as a hidden volcanic mountain is revealed, by a sudden fierce upheaval, which threw off all the old rubbish loading the surface of her nature. It was only a momentary upheaval. The next minute she was trying to save herself behind the old flippant subterfuges. "I am talking nonsense!" she exclaimed, with a short angry laugh.

"Then it is not true what you said?" He had urged his horse close to hers, and she could almost feel the intensity with which his eyes were fixed upon her face. That gaze stifled her laughter, drove her deeper into the danger she was striving to escape.

"Yes, it is true!" she answered between her teeth.

His strong hand rested upon hers and held it with a gentleness which paralyzed her strength.

"If it is true, then the time has come!" he said. "The hour has struck which God ordained for us both. Beatrice, I may tell you now what you have surely known since the day we stood together before the altar—I love you. You are the first and last woman in my world." His voice pierced through to her senses through waves of roaring, confusing sound. Her heart beat till it became unbearable torture. "Do you remember that second evening?" he went on. "The priest tried to stop you at the gate of the sanctuary, but I spoke to him, and he let you pass. You asked me what I had said, but I would not tell you—not then. Now I may: 'This is the woman whom God has given me—'"

She flung his hand violently from her.

"You must not say that!" she cried, with desperate resolution. "You must not say that sort of thing—to me."

"Why should I not? I love you."

"You must not love me. I—I am to be Captain Stafford's wife."

"Beatrice!" His cry of incredulous pain drove her to frantic measures.

"It is true. I swear it."

Then it was all over. He made no protest. He rode by her side as though he had been turned to stone, rigidly upright, his hand hanging lifeless at his side, his face expressionless. She felt that she had struck right at his life's vitality—that she had killed him. Yet it was not remorse that blinded her till the white road became a shimmering blur—it was a frightful personal pain which was hers and hers alone. Neither spoke. They passed a crowd of natives returning to the Bazaar. They salaamed, but Nehal Singh made no response, as was his wont. He did not seem to see them. Mechanically he guided his horse through the bowing crowd. The silence became unbearable. She had flippantly told herself that as long as he did not make a "scene" she would be satisfied. He had not made a "scene." From the moment that she had made her final declaration he had not spoken, and now she was praying that he would say something to her—anything, she did not care what, only not that terrible accusatory silence. At last, in desperation, she began to make it up with him as she had planned—in an incoherent, helpless way.

"I have hurt you," she stammered. "Forgive me—I did not mean to. It has all been a cruel mistake. I looked upon you as a friend. How could I tell that you meant more than that? If I have deceived you, I can only ask you with all my heart to forgive me."

He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were dull and clouded, as though a film had been drawn across them.

"Not you have deceived me," he answered quietly. "I have deceived myself. I thought I was following a great God-sent light. It was nothing more than a firefly glittering through my darkness. You are not to blame."

He was already casting contempt at the influence which she had exercised over him; he was cutting himself free from her—as she had desired, as was inevitable. Yet, with a foolish, senseless anger, she sought to draw him back to her and hold him, if only by the reverence for what had been.

"Do not despise our friendship!" she pleaded. "If it has not been what you thought it was, has it any the less opened the gates of Heaven and earth, as you said? What I have given you is good—the very best I had to give. The ideal was a high one. I helped you toward it with my friendship. Is it bad because it was only friendship—because it couldn't be more than that? You do not know," she went on, with a forced attempt to appear cheerful and matter-of-fact, "you do not know how much your trust and confidence has been to me. I have been so proud to help you. If I had ever thought it would come to this—I would have stopped long ago."

So she lied, clinging to his respect as though it had been her salvation. And he believed her. His face relaxed, and for the first time she saw clearly what he was enduring.

"I do not despise our—friendship, even though it must end here," he said. "What you have given me I shall always keep—always. I shall not turn back because I must go on alone. Your image shall still guide me in my life. It is not less pure and noble because I can not ever call it my own." She heard his voice break, but he went on quietly and gently: "I pray you may be happy with the man you love."

She had conquered. She had kept her place in his life at the same time that she was thrusting him out of her own. He would continue undeterred along the road on to which she had tempted him—perhaps to his destruction—believing in her, trusting in her as no other being had ever done or would do. This much she had snatched from the wreckage.

They did not speak again until they reached her bungalow. Then he dismounted and, quietly motioning the syce to one side, helped her to the ground.

"It is for the last time," he said. "Good-by, Lakshmi!"

"Good-by!"

She could not lift her eyes to his face, but from the top of the steps she was tempted to look back. He stood where she had left him, his hand resting on her saddle, his head bent, and there was something in his attitude which sent her hurrying into the house without a second glance.

She found her mother waiting for her in her room, whither she fled to be alone and undisturbed to fight and stamp out the pain that was aching in her heart. Mrs. Cary, wonderfully curled and powdered, received her daughter with unusual rapture.

"My dear!" she exclaimed, kissing Beatrice on both cheeks, "I am so glad you have come back early! Captain Stafford is here, and has something for you—I shouldn't be surprised if it was a ring, you lucky child! Did I not tell you he was the very husband for you? He has been telling me all about Lois and Travers. Everybody is quite pleased about it. Now hurry up and make yourself pretty. Why, what's the matter? You look so—so queer!"

Beatrice pushed past her mother and, going to the table, flung herself down as though exhausted.

"It's nothing," she muttered. "Tell—John I can't see him. I'm tired—ill—anything you like."

"Beaty, I won't do anything of the sort. What has happened? Is it that horrid Rajah? Did you tell him?"

"Yes."

"And he made a scene, my poor Beaty?"

"No."

"Can't you answer me properly? Tell me what happened."

"He asked me to marry him."

Mrs. Cary first gasped, and then burst into a loud, cackling laugh.

"He asked you to marry him! That colored man! I hope you laughed in his face?"

Beatrice turned, one clenched hand resting on the table.

"No," she said, "I did not laugh—there was nothing to laugh at. I have kept my promise to you." Then, unexpectedly she buried her face in her arms and burst into tears.

Mrs. Cary stood there thunderstruck, her mouth open, her eyes wide with alarm. For one moment she was incapable of reasoning out this catastrophe. She had never seen Beatrice cry—her tears, because of their rarity, were as terrible as a man's, and could not be explained away by nerves or fatigue. This was something else. Mrs. Cary crossed the room. She laid a fat, trembling hand on her daughter's shoulder.

"Beaty, what's the matter?" she asked uneasily. "What is it? Are you ill?—or—or—Beaty!"—a light dawning across her dull face—"good heavens! you don't love that man?" There was no answer. After a long moment, Mrs. Cary's hand fell to her side. "You couldn't!" she muttered. "It wouldn't do. Think of what people would say! Our position!" Still no answer. She turned and stumbled toward the door. "I will tell the captain—you are ill," she said.

Beatrice did not move.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

BUILDING THE CATHEDRAL

The pretty little drawing-room was already in half darkness. Travers went to the window and, leaning his shoulder lazily against the casement, began to sort out and open the letters that had been lying on the tea-table waiting for him.

"One from the Colonel, Lois," he said, after a moment's perusal. "No news in particular. He is down with a touch of fever, and the whole regiment is camping out without him. Stafford's marriage still hanging fire. Silly girl! What's she waiting for, in the name of conscience?"

Lois looked up from her duties at the table.

"They have been engaged over a year," she said.

"As long as we have been engaged and married," he answered with an affectionate smile. "How long is that, little woman? About eighteen months, eh? They don't either of them seem in much of a hurry."

He went on reading, only stretching out his hand mechanically as she brought him his second cup of tea. Lois remained at his side, her eyes fixed thoughtfully, almost hungrily, on the torn envelope which lay on the floor at his feet.

"Why did you call Beatrice Cary a silly girl?" she asked at last. "It never struck me that she was silly."

"She wasn't, but she will be if she doesn't hold Stafford fast."

A shadow passed over the face still turned to the floor.

"Is Stafford—so—so desirable?"

"His money is, dear child, and the Carys may need money in the near future."

"I thought they were rich?"

"Their money is in the mine."

"But the mine is to be successful?"

He smiled in good-natured amusement at her persistency.

"Have you ever heard of a mine that wasn't to be successful? If you wait a moment, I will tell you the latest news. Here's a note from the Rajah."

He tore open the large square envelope, and went on reading with the same idle interest. "There's been an accident with the blasting," he observed casually. "Five men killed. Our native friend is, of course, in a fever. Has pensioned all the families. I don't know where he will land us with his extravagances. We shall want all the money we can get for repairing the damage. Philanthropy is becoming a sort of disease with him. Fortunately, I am not bitten so far." He laughed, and threw the letter to one side. "I expect I shall have to run up north to put things straight."

"Hasn't the mine brought in enough?" Lois answered innocently.

"Enough?" He looked at her with a twinkle in his bright eyes. "Dear girl, it hasn't paid so much as a quarter of its expenses."

"But will it ever?"

"Heaven knows—or perhaps even Heaven does not. I'm sure I don't."

"You talk so calmly about it!" she exclaimed, aghast. "Surely you are heavily involved—and not only you, but the Rajah and the people in Marut?"

He patted her on the cheek.

"Don't worry on that score," he assured her. "Besides, it's not my way to sit down and cry over what can't be helped. I dare say I shall pull through somehow."

"Yes, you, perhaps."

He changed color slightly under the challenge in her eyes, but his expression remained unruffled.

"You are not exactly a very trusting wife, are you, Lois? It comes of letting a woman have a look into business. Never mind, we won't argue the subject all over again. I know what you think of me. There, good-by. I must be off again. Nicholson will be around shortly. I told him he would find me at home."

"Had you not better wait for him, then?"

"Oh, no. I only told him I should be at home as a sort of facon de parler. He only comes when he thinks I am there—admirable person—and I know you like to have old friends about. Good-by, dear."

"Good-by." She accepted his kiss listlessly, and when he had gone went back to the window.

The window had become Lois Travers' vantage-point of life. From thence she could overlook the bustling Madras square into which four streets poured their unending stream, and build her fancies about each one of the atoms as they passed unconsciously beneath her gaze. Some of the faces were well known to her. They always passed at the time when she took her sewing and sat by the window, pretending to work by the fading glow of evening light, and about each she wove a simple little story, always, or nearly always, happy. She imagined the men returning from business to their homes. If there was ever a cloud upon their brow, she smiled to think how the trouble would be brushed away by loving hands; if their step were more than usually light and elastic, her own heart grew lighter with the thought that they were hurrying back to the source of their happiness.

Lois lived on the real or imagined joys of others. She clung to her air castles in which her unknown heroes lived, building them more beautifully, fitting them out with more perfect content, as her own brick dwelling grew darker and more desolate. She felt that if ever she let go her hold on them she would lose faith in human happiness, and thus in life itself. For between Lois Travers the woman and Lois Travers the light-hearted, high-spirited girl there stretched a year's gulf. Marriage had been to her what it is more or less to all women—a Rubicon, a Book of Revelations in which girlish ideals are rarely realized, sometimes modified, more often destroyed.

Clever and pliable women, women with the "art of living" do not allow their hearts to be broken in the latter event, supposing them to have relaxed their cleverness so far as to have had ideals at all; but Lois was not clever or pliable, and her ideals had been destroyed. She had loved John Stafford, and in some inexplicable way he had failed her. She had given her life into Travers' hands in the belief that he needed her for his progress, and that in helping him her idle powers of love and devotion would not be wasted. Too late she realized—what no woman ever realizes until it is too late—that the man who needs a woman for his salvation is already far beyond her help.

Beneath Lois' light-heartedness and love of gaiety there lurked a spirit of Puritanism which had drawn her to Stafford, and now brought her into violent conflict with Travers' fundamental frivolity. In the first month of their marriage she had had to admit that she had reached the bottom of his character, and found nothing there—not so much as a deeply planted vice. He had pretended a depth of feeling which was only in part sincere, and he was too lazy to keep up a pretense when his chief object was gained. He really cared for Lois, but he had wilfully exaggerated the role she played in his life. Always good-natured and kindly, he never allowed her to ruffle or anger him. She had never seen him rough or cruel to any human being, and all these superficial virtues forced her farther from him.

A few significant incidents had revealed to her that his good nature covered a cold-blooded indifference where his own interests were vitally concerned. His apparent pliability hid a dexterity which evaded every recognized principle. In vain she exerted the influence with which he had pretended to invest her. The first effort proved that it had never really existed. It was no more in his life than the valuable ornament on his mantel-shelf—a thing to be dusted, preserved, and admired in leisure hours, never set to serious use. This last discovery, made shortly after their arrival in Madras, had broken her. From that moment she had felt herself crippled. Her life became a blank, colorless waste, all the more terrible because of the mirages with which it was lighted. The world saw the mirages: the good-looking, genial-tempered husband; the well-furnished house; all the outward symptoms of an irrefutably satisfactory and successful life.

Only one person perhaps saw deeper, and that was Nicholson. He had been ordered for a year to Madras, and thus it came about that they often met. Travers' first dislike for the officer had evaporated, and he seemed rather to insist on an increase of their intimacy, inviting Nicholson constantly to the house. And in those long evening visits Nicholson had seen what others did not see and what Lois kept hidden in her own heart. For she had told no one that the mirages were no more than mirages—that her life still lacked all the vital elements of reality and sincerity. She was proud, and not even the people in dear old Marut suspected that she was stifling in the hot Madras air and in the unhealthy atmosphere of small lies and loose principles in which Travers was so thoroughly at home. Only Nicholson's sensitive temperament felt what others neither heard nor saw.

So a year had passed, and every evening Lois sat by the window, watching the busy crowd, and building up their lives as she had once dreamed of building up her own. She scarcely thought of herself. Memories are dangerous. The present was too real to be considered, and the future too blank and hopeless.

The darkness increased. Twilight yielded to nightfall, and the yellow lights sprang up in the shops opposite her window. She heard the door open, but did not turn, thinking it was her husband unexpectedly returned.

"Shall I light the lamp?" she asked.

It was not Travers who answered. A familiar voice struck on her ears, like the memories, ringing out a dangerous response from her tired soul.

"Forgive me, Mrs. Travers. I met your husband this afternoon, and he told me to drop in unannounced, as he would be alone. It seems the other way about. I am very sorry to seem so rude."

Lois rose quickly to her feet. She saw Nicholson standing in the doorway, tall, upright, his face hidden by the shadow.

"I won't disturb you," he added, after a moment's hesitation.

The tone of formality hurt her. With a return of her old impulsiveness, she began searching for the matches.

"You are not disturbing me," she said. "On the contrary, I—was expecting you. Archibald told me you were coming, but I forgot to light up. I was twilight-dreaming, if there is such a term."

She laughed with a forced cheerfulness, and he made no answer. The little red-shaded lamp gave her some trouble, and when she looked up she saw that he was standing opposite her, the light falling on a broad scar across his forehead.

"How the burn shows to-night!" she exclaimed involuntarily. "Will you never lose it?"

"Never," he answered. "I do not want to. When I am depressed, I look at it, and remember that I have done one thing worth doing in my life."

"I don't know," she returned. "You have done more useful things than that."

"Not to my mind."

"Well, but to mine. There, when I have pulled the curtains and put the lamp just at your elbow, you could almost imagine yourself back in England, couldn't you? Imagine the street outside as a bit of London. There could hardly be more noise. The idea may refresh you. You look so tired."

He seated himself in the comfortable wicker chair by the table and looked about him with a faint smile of content.

"Yes," he said, "it is homely, isn't it? The red light, and the pretty little room, and you sitting there working. It might be a corner of the old country—or of Marut. Your study was just like this, I remember."

"Yes, I copied it. It made me feel less lonely. Only I flatter myself that it is tidier here than it used to be in the old days."

He laughed, and the laughter sent the light shining in his eyes.

"Rather! When I first joined I had the chemical craze on, do you remember? I thought I was going to discover some wonderful new gunpowder, and we used to experiment together in your room. The business came to an untimely end when I blew off part of the ceiling—"

"And some of my eyebrows!" she interposed merrily.

"Yes, of course. I don't know which disaster upset Mrs. Carmichael most, good soul. After that I forget what craze came about, but we always had a new one on the list, hadn't we?"

She nodded, her head once more bent over her work.

"None of them lasted," she said. "Crazes never do."

There was a moment's silence. Their little burst of gay recollections was over, and the restraint had regained its old ascendancy over them. Unknown to her, Nicholson was watching his companion with keen, anxious eyes.

"You look pale and tired," he said gently. "Madras is getting too much for you. When is Travers going to take you for a change?"

"I don't know. Not just now. Besides, I am happier here. I like the noise and bustle."

"You used not to. You were all for outdoor sports and beautiful scenery."

"Yes, but now it is different. I could not stand the quiet. I must have noise to distract me—I mean, I have grown so accustomed to it."

"Yes," he said slowly, "one grows accustomed to it." Then, presently, he added, in another tone: "At any rate, my term in Madras is at an end. I return to Marut next week."

She started. The start was almost a violent one, and her hands fell limply in her lap.

"You are going back to Marut?" she said. "For ever?"

He smiled, but his eyes avoided hers.

"Not for ever, I hope. I am sick of pen-work, and want to get back to the front among my men. There is a company of sepoys to be stationed at Marut, and they have given me the command. It's a good post, though of course I would rather be at the frontier, where there's something doing. At any rate, I must get away from Madras as soon as possible."

"Yes," she said absently, "no doubt it is best."

She went on stitching as though nothing had happened, but her hands trembled, and once she threw back her head as though fighting down a strong emotion. But he had ceased to watch her. He was leaning a little forward, one elbow resting on his knee, his eyes fixed steadfastly in front of him.

"Can I be the bearer of any messages?" he asked at last.

"No, thank you. I write regularly. Or—yes, you might tell them that you left me well and happy. That will please them. Will you be so kind?"

"Will it be kind to give a message which is not quite true?—I mean," he added hastily, "you do not seem strong."

"Oh, I am strong enough. I do not think I shall ever be ill."

Another long and painful silence intervened. There was no sound, save Lois' thread as it was drawn through the thick material. Nicholson drew out his watch.

"You mustn't think me rude, Mrs. Travers," he said, with an abrupt return to his old formality, "but I have any amount of work to do before I leave, and among other things I wanted to see your husband on business. He told me the other day that he had some shares in the Marut Company going, and said if I would care for them—"

Her work dropped from her hand to the floor. She stared at him with a face whiter than the linen she had been stitching.

"But you are not going to buy them?" she asked sharply. Something in her tone forced him to meet her eyes.

"Oh, I don't know. Why not? I'm a poor business man, and your husband always seems to come off well in his ventures. Without being in the least a speculator, I should be glad to make a little money." He smiled. "I have another craze on, you see—a gun this time—and it requires capital to complete. So I thought—"

She leaned forward. One small hand lay clenched on the table between them, and there was a force and energy in her attitude which arrested his startled attention.

"I think you are mistaken, Captain Nicholson," she said. "My husband has no shares to sell."

"But yesterday he told me that he had!"

"Yes, yesterday, no doubt. But he heard to-day from the Rajah. I think, if you do not mind waiting, he will tell you himself that what I say is true."

For a second they looked straight at each other without speaking. Neither was conscious of any clear thought, but both knew that in that breathing space they had exchanged a signal from those hidden chambers which men unlock only in brief moments of silent crisis. The crisis had come in spite of a year's defiant struggle. It had broken down the barrier of trivial commonplaces behind which they had always sought shelter; it had rushed over them in a flash, like a sudden tidal wave, scorning their painfully erected defenses, driving them helplessly before it. It had no apparent cause, save that in that moment of alarm she had looked at him with her soul unguarded, and he, overwhelmed by that silent revelation, had allowed his own sternly repressed secret to flash back its breathless message. Nicholson was the first to regain his self-control. He bent down and, picking up her work, restored it gently to her hands.

"You must go on with your sewing," he said. "I like seeing you work.
It completes the picture of a—home—"

"Yes," she interrupted, in a rough, broken voice. "It is a perfect picture, is it not? Just so, as it is—only, of course—" she laughed as he had never heard her laugh before—"of course it's only a tableau—it isn't real."

Once more her head was bent over her work. He saw how with every stitch she was fighting stubbornly for calm—fighting with all the dogged desperation of a high-minded woman who sees herself trembling at the edge of a bottomless abyss. He knew now for certain that her apparent happiness was a sham and an heroic lie—that she knew what he knew of Travers' outside life, and suffered with the intensity which honor must suffer when linked with dishonor. He saw, with a soldier's instinctive admiration, that she was holding her ground against the fierce and unexpected attack of an overwhelming enemy, and that he, who had his own battle to fight, must hold out to her a helping, strengthening comrade's hand.

"Lois!" he said quietly. "Lois!"

She went on working. The name had been a test of her strength, and she had borne it. He knew that he could go on with what he had to say.

"Lois, we had our young enthusiasms in those old days—crazes, we will call them—and of course, like all young enthusiasms, they are gone for ever. But there were other things. Sometimes we used to talk very seriously about life, do you remember? I dare say we talked nonsense for the greater part—we were very young—but we were intensely serious. We told each other what we thought life was, and what we intended to make of it. It was then we had the idea of the cathedral."

She looked up earnestly at him.

"The cathedral? Haven't you forgotten?"

"No. I never forgot it."

"I thought you had. It is all such a long time ago. When I read about you in the papers, and heard of all the wonders you had done, I was sure you must have forgotten the chatter of your fifteen-year-old playfellow. A man who spends his day as you did, in the saddle, and the night in long, anxious watches, does not have time for such ideas as we cultivated in those days."

"You are wrong, Lois. The idea is everything. It is the mainspring of a man's life. If I did anything wonderful, as you say, it was for the sake of the cathedral. There was, for instance, one night which I remember very well. A whole tribe had risen. Half my men were down with fever, and I felt—well, pretty bad. I was a bit delirious, I fancy, and in delirium very often the foundations of a man's character come uppermost. The cathedral was always in my mind. I saw your half, and it was getting on splendidly. That goaded me. I felt I had to go on, too. So I pulled myself together and went ahead. We pulled through somehow, and I have always felt that in that night I laid the chief stone."

The burning tears sprang to her eyes.

"So all that splendid work was done for the sake of our cathedral?"

"Partly, but not in the first place. Do you remember of what use our cathedral was to be in the world? It wasn't merely to be a monument to our own glory—it was to be a sheltering place for others, an example to them, an inspiration. You said once, very rightly, that if every here and there a human being made a cathedral out of his life, other people would soon get ashamed of their mud-huts, and pull them down. They would try to build cathedrals on a bigger and nobler scale than the first one, and probably would succeed. Thus the work would go on from one generation to another. It was an idea worthy to form the foundations of a man's ambition. I made it mine, as I knew you had made it yours. It strengthened me to think that every decent action was a fresh stone to the building which in the end would stand perfect—not to my glory, but to the glory of the whole human race." He smiled, though his eyes remained serious. "As an Englishman, I can not help wishing that cathedrals should be most plentiful on English soil."

"Do you really think that one small human life can make so much difference?" she asked, rather bitterly. "I used to think so, in my self-important days, but I am beginning to believe that our little individual efforts are hopelessly lost in a sea of rubbish."

"Our youthful conceit is more justifiable than such self-disparagement," he answered. "I often think that humility—at any rate a certain kind—is a questionable virtue. In lessening our own value, we lessen our own responsibility, and our responsibility is tremendous. One life can make the difference of a cathedral spire in a town of low-built huts or of a snow mountain in an ugly plain. I am sure of it—and so are you. So is everybody who thinks about it. But people do not think. It is sometimes much more convenient to believe that one is too insignificant to have any responsibility. But to my mind there is not a vagabond in the street who is not directly helping on our national decay, and who might not be building up the Empire." He leaned toward her, lowering his voice. "You know I am not just talking, Lois. It is my life's principle which I lay before you—mine and yours. How long is it since we have spoken of these things? Ten years. Since then we have been building steadily at our cathedral. We must go on."

"How can we?" she answered wearily. "It is not our cathedral any more.
I thought you had forgotten, and—"

"My first day in Marut I sent a message to you—a little in fun, but with an earnest purpose. I wanted to see if you had forgotten, and I wanted you to know that I had remembered. I told you that the cathedral still lacked its chief spire."

"I never got the message. It was that day Archibald asked me to be his wife. When did you send the letter?"

"It was not a letter but a verbal message, by Travers."

"That afternoon?"

"Yes, that afternoon."

She covered her face with her hand.

"He—he must have forgotten," she said at last.

"Yes, he must have forgotten," he agreed quietly.

There was a long silence. She remained motionless, but he heard her breath being drawn in quick, painful gasps. The battle for them both was at its height. He bent forward and took the hand that lay clenched in her lap gently in his own.

[Illustration: He took her hand that lay clutched in her lap.]

"Dear little Lois, dear little comrade! We are like two architects, you and I. We were very young when we set out on our great task, and no doubt we have made many blunders. In the beginning we each hoped secretly that the time would come when we should be able to crown our work hand in hand. It was that I was thinking of when I sent my message. Well, things have turned out differently—perhaps through our own fault. But the cathedral must go on. Instead of one spire, as we had hoped, there will be two spires. You will build yours, I mine. They will be far apart, and so we of necessity must be apart, too. But the cathedral will go on; and in the end—who knows?—it may be more perfect than as we saw it in our first great plan."

"But we might have built together, Adam!"

"Yes. We might even build together now—but then it would no longer be a cathedral. It would be a mud hovel like the rest. And that would be wrong—wrong to the world and wrong to ourselves. Have you understood what I mean?"

He waited patiently, his hand still clasping hers. One single piteous tear rolled down her cheek, but that was all, and when she looked up at him her eyes were calm and steadfast.

"I understand quite well what you mean," she said, "and I know that you are right. God bless and help you."

"And you, Lois."

They exchanged a firm pressure. Then Nicholson rose.

"I must be going," he said. "Will you tell Travers that I shall be around at the office to-morrow morning? If by any chance he has any shares going, I should be obliged if he would allot them to me."

Lois rose also. Her face was turned toward the door.

"If you wait one moment, you will see him yourself," she said. "I think I hear him coming upstairs."

She was right. The next minute the door opened quickly and Travers entered. Evidently something unusual had happened. In one hand he held an open telegram. His face was crimson with excitement and his lips parted as if with a hasty announcement. But as he saw the two standing at the table watching him, he stopped short, looking from one to the other with a flash of amused curiosity in his eyes.

"Hullo, you both here?" he said cheerfully. "How cozy you look. See here, Lois, I've just had a telegram from the Rajah. He wants me to come at once. Can you be ready to start in three days?"

"For Marut?" A rush of color filled her pale cheeks.

"Yes, of course. By the bye, Nicholson, that's your destination, isn't it? We might travel together."

"I think not," was the quiet answer. "I have orders to start next week."

"Well, there's no great hurry for us, I expect. Our friend, Nehal, is of an excitable disposition. I hope you haven't had to wait long for me, Nicholson. You said you had some business you wanted to talk over with me."

"Yes, it was about those shares. But if you are busy—"

"Oh, that's all right. It won't take more than a few minutes to settle. How much do you want to invest? I tell you, my dear fellow, it's a splendid thing, and—"

He was unexpectedly interrupted. He had taken out a heavy pocket-book and was busily looking through some papers, when Lois laid her hand on his.

"I think Captain Nicholson is under a misapprehension, Archibald," she said, in a low voice. "He said you had some shares to sell him, but I remembered what you said about the mine, and I told him that there must be some mistake. I was quite right, wasn't I?"

Every word she had spoken sounded emphasized as though she were striving to convey a double meaning, and the second in which husband and wife looked at each other was to the puzzled witness a painful eternity. With a strong perceptible effort, Travers turned away.

"So my wife has broken the news to you?" he said, smiling. "Yes, I'm awfully sorry. Everything good gets snapped up so confoundedly quickly. Better luck next time. I was quite dreading disappointing you, but Lois, as usual, has taken my disagreeable task from me." He patted the hand which still rested on his own. "Stay and have a little dinner with us," he added cordially, as Nicholson prepared to take his leave. "I'd like to make up to you with a little of my best Cliquot."

Nicholson shook his head. The impression that he stood before a veiled and unpleasant comedy increased his desire to get away.

"Thanks, I'm afraid I can't," he said. "I have work to do. Good night."

"Good night. To our next meeting in Marut!" The two men shook hands.

"Good night, Mrs. Travers. You will be able to be your own messenger now," Nicholson said.

She met his glance with quiet courage.

"They will be able to see with their own eyes that things are going well with me," she answered simply.

When the door closed upon Nicholson's tall form she went back to her husband's side. He was busy consulting time-tables, and hardly seemed aware of her approach. Only when she touched him on the arm did he look up.

"Well, what is it?"

"I want to know if you are angry?"

"What about?"

"The shares—and Captain Nicholson. I felt it was wrong to deceive him. He is not rich, and you told me that the mine was a failure."

"Of course, you have every reason, no doubt, to consider your friend before your husband," he said with a sudden outburst which he instantly regretted. He had encouraged—nay, forced—her intimacy with Nicholson. With what purpose? He himself hardly knew. Perhaps somewhere at the bottom of him he was beginning to dread the honesty of her character as an unspoken reproach. If she were less perfect in her conduct, his own life would have seemed less blamable. Or perhaps his motives had been more generous. He knew he had nothing to give her—and Nicholson was a good fellow. At any rate, it was a mistake to have betrayed even a moment's irritation. She had shrunk back from him, but he put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her. "There! Of course I am not angry. You've lost me a few hundreds, but you're worth it, and I dare say it was all for the best. Run and write a note to the Colonel and say we are coming, there's a good little woman!"

Lois turned wearily away. He had not understood her. She considered him more than she had considered Nicholson. She had wanted to save him from what she felt was a mean and treacherous step. But he had not been able to understand. Nor could she have explained. Between certain characters all real communication is an impossibility, and words no more than sounds.

CHAPTER II

CATASTROPHE

The tea-room, usually the most animated portion of the Marut club-house, had lost its cheerful appearance. The comfortable chairs had been cleared on one side and replaced by a long green baize table littered with papers; the doors leading on to the verandah were closed, and a stifling atmosphere bore down upon the five occupants who were ranged about the table in various attitudes of listless exhaustion.

"I can't think what we have been called here for," Mrs. Cary protested loudly; "and from the way we have been locked in, we might be in a state of siege. I know I shall faint in a minute. Beatrice, pass me my salts, child."

Her daughter obeyed mechanically, without moving her eyes, which were fixed in front of her. Colonel Carmichael, who was seated at the far end of the table, opposite the Rajah, smiled good-naturedly.

"If you feel yourself justified in grumbling, what about me, Mrs. Cary?" he said. "You at least are a share-holder, and I suppose there are some formalities to be gone through, but what I have to do with the business I can not imagine."

"Business!" groaned Mrs. Berry from his right. "That's the silliest part of it all! What's the good of getting me to talk business? I don't understand business; I never did, and never shall. Why doesn't Mr. Travers come? I'm sure I have been waiting quite ten minutes."

"Perhaps the Rajah can give us a clue to the mystery," the Colonel suggested. "Rajah, don't you think the ladies could be allowed their liberty? I can not think that their presence is so essential."

Nehal Singh looked up. From the moment he had exchanged nothing more than a brief salutation with the four Europeans, he had sat with his head bent over some papers, reading, or pretending to read. The months had brought a new expression to his face. Pain had cut her lines into the broad forehead; anxiety met the Colonel's questioning gaze from eyes which had once flashed happy confidence and enthusiasm.

"I am afraid I can give you no answer, Colonel Carmichael," he said quietly. "Since Mr. Travers has returned to Marut all control over affairs has passed out of my hands into his. For some reason, I have been kept in ignorance as to the progress of events, and I wait here to-day with you as completely in the dark as any one. No doubt he will be here in a few minutes."

"With good news, I hope," Mrs. Cary sighed. "I also am no sort of a business woman, but I understand enough to know that if one invests money in an honest concern one gets interest sooner or later. And so far the Marut Company hasn't paid me a penny piece."

Nehal Singh started slightly, and his glance wandered to the red face of the speaker with an expression that was akin to fear.

"An honest concern!" he repeated. "Do you mean that—that it is not honest?"

Mrs. Cary beamed with recovered equanimity.

"Good gracious! How could you suppose I should mean such a horrid thing, dear Prince! Of course everything to which you put your hand is hall-marked. Otherwise I should never have dreamed of investing my money in the Marut Company."

There was a silence. The Colonel drummed with his fingers on the table, watching the native sentry who passed stolidly backward and forward in front of the closed windows. Mrs. Cary fanned herself and exchanged whispered comments with Mrs. Berry on the opposite side. Beatrice remained motionless. From the beginning of the meeting she had once raised her eyes—on Nehal Singh's entry—and then it had been for no more than a second. That second had been enough. She had seen his face. She had seen—and it was not her imagination, but a real and bitter irony—that of all the people in the room she alone had been the object of his quiet greeting. She knew then—for her eyes had not lost their keenness—that the eighteen months in which they had scarcely met had made no difference to him. He still reverenced and loved her. For him she was still "Lakshmi," the goddess of beauty and perfection; for him she was still the ideal, the woman of goodness and truth and purity. Her victory over him had been complete, eternal. She had betrayed him and retained him. Of all her triumphs over men and circumstances this was the most perfect. Yet she sat there, white and still, not lifting her eyes from the table, and seemingly unconscious of all that went on about her.

Presently a carriage drove up the avenue. They heard Travers' voice giving some orders, and a moment later he himself entered, followed by a Mr. Medway, his chief mining engineer. He closed the door and with a grave bow took his place at the table. He seemed indifferent to or unaware of the curious and somewhat anxious glances which were turned toward him. There was something in his appearance which cast an unpleasant chill over every one of the little assembly. Even the Colonel, though an outsider, felt himself disagreeably impressed by Travers' new bearing, and the good-natured banter which he had held in readiness for the new arrival died away on his lips as he responded to the cold, formal bow. For some minutes no one spoke. Travers was busy arranging some papers which he had brought with him, and only when he had laid these out to his satisfaction did he rise to address the meeting. He held himself stiffly erect, his fingers resting lightly on the table, his pale face turned toward the window as though he wished to avoid addressing any one directly. The usual geniality was lacking in his composed features.

"Colonel Carmichael and honorable share-holders in the Marut Diamond Company," he began, "you are no doubt wondering why I have called this private meeting. I do so because you are the chief partakers in the concern, and because, as my friends, I wish to offer you an explanation which I do not feel bound to offer to the other share-holders within and without Marut. This excuse does not hold good for you, Colonel Carmichael, and you must feel I am encroaching heavily on your valuable time. Nevertheless, I assure you that your presence will assist me considerably in my difficult task."

"I am sure I shall be delighted to do anything in my power," Colonel Carmichael responded, "but I fear my knowledge of intricate business details is not such as to make it of the slightest use to you."

"The business is not intricate," Travers went on. "Nor do I propose drawing out this meeting to any tiring length. The heat must be very trying for the ladies present, but my wish to keep what passes between us, at any rate for the time being, entirely secret, makes it essential to sit in closed rooms. I will be as brief as possible. Two years ago the Marut Diamond Company first came into existence under the protection of our friend, Rajah Nehal Singh. For some time previous to this event it had been my great ambition to open out a diamond field in which, thanks to favorable reports, I sincerely believed. My position, however, and above all my lack of personal means, made the scheme an impossibility so far as I was concerned. Chance brought me the pleasure and misfortune of making your acquaintance, Rajah. I say 'misfortune,' because, as events have turned, I can not but feel that my casual observations led you to enter into an enterprise before which another man, if I may say so, with more experience and less impulse, would have hesitated.

"Your generosity and enthusiasm brought my half-conceived plans into a reality almost before I had any clear idea as to whither we were all drifting. You will remember, Mrs. Cary, I did my best to dissuade you from any rash investment; and even there, as director of the company, I felt that I was not acting with entire loyalty to the man who had put me into that position. The responsibility of the whole matter rested heavily on my shoulders, and grew still heavier as the circle of share-holders without Marut increased. I felt that, should my first hopes prove unfounded, my friends and many others would suffer losses which they could ill afford to bear. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my painful duty to tell you that the dreaded collapse has come. Mr. Medway, here, the company's chief engineer and mining expert, informed me yesterday that any continuation of the works was useless and a mere waste of the share-holders' money. I therefore beg to announce to you that the Marut Diamond Company Mine is definitely closed."

The Colonel clenched his teeth half-way through the first oath he had ever allowed himself in the presence of ladies. He was not an unusually egoistical man, but his first thought was one of unutterable gratitude that in the moment of strong temptation his wife had held an obstinate hand on the purse-strings.

The first person to speak was Mrs. Cary. She leaned half-way across the table.

"And my money?" she said thickly and unsteadily. "Where's my money?
Where's my money? Tell me that!"

Travers shrugged his shoulders.

"I fear it has gone the way of mine and of the other share-holders'," he said. "Nor can I hold out any hopes of its coming back. The expenses of the mine have been terribly heavy, the workmen have been extremely well paid—extremely well paid." There was a distinct note of reproach in his voice, though he looked at no one.

Mrs. Cary sat down in her seat. It was a pitiful and almost terrible sight to see her, all the florid, vulgar ostentation and sleek content dashed out of her, leaving her with pasty cheeks and horror-stricken, staring eyes to face the ruined future. Mrs. Berry burst into ever-ready tears.

"Oh!" she sobbed. "What will my husband say! I told him it was such a good thing—it isn't my fault. What will he say!"

The sharp, wailing tones broke through Mrs. Cary's momentary paralysis. She sat up and brought her fat clenched fist down with a bang upon the table.

"You!" she half screamed at the Rajah. "You—you black swindler—you thief—it's you who have done it—you who have ruined us all with your wicked schemes. You baited us with this clubhouse—you pretended you wanted to do us such a lot of good, didn't you? And all the time you meant to feather your own nest with diamonds and the Lord knows what. Give us back our money, you heathen swindler! For you aren't a Christian! You pretended that, too, just as a blind—"

Her flow of frightful coarse invectives came to an abrupt end. Colonel Carmichael, who knew now why his presence had been required, leaned forward and pushed her firmly down in her seat.

"For Heaven's sake, Mrs. Cary, hold your tongue!" he expostulated, in a rapid, emphatic undertone. "You don't know what you are saying. You are not in England. A little more of that sort of thing, and our lives aren't worth an hour's purchase."

"I don't care," she retorted, with all the headlong brutality of her origin. "It's true what I say! It's true!"

"It is true." The interruption came from the Rajah himself. He had risen and stood before them, very pale, but calm and composed, his eyes fixed with haggard resolution on the furious face of his accuser. "It is true. I am a swindler. I have ruined you all. Why should you believe it was done unwittingly? Yet that is true also. I, like my poor friend here whom I used as my tool, believed that I was doing the best for you all. But I have ruined you. I have done worse than that—I have ruined my country, my people. You have friends who will help you in your distress, but who will help my people? I pulled them out of their miserable homes only to cast them into deeper misery. I have taken their pitiful savings, meaning, without the use of charity, to increase them tenfold. I have taken everything from them. I gave a hope, and have left them with a deeper despair. Not all my wealth—and not a stone, not a farthing piece shall be held back from your and their just claims upon me—will fill up the ruin of those I wished so well. It is true—I stand before you all a dishonored man."

There was a moment's petrified silence. Even Mrs. Cary's coarse nature stood baffled before this pitiless, dignified self-accusal. Nor could the Colonel find a word to say. He had been ready—knowing the native character—to defend Mrs. Cary from the stroke of a revenging dagger. His half-outstretched arm sank powerless before the stroke of these few words, spoken with a calm which thinly covered a chaos of remorse and broken-hearted grief.

"I have a question I should like to ask you, Mr. Travers."

There was a general uneasy start. Each shook off his brooding considerations and turned with surprise to this unexpected speaker. It was Beatrice, hitherto silent and apparently unmoved, who leaned across to Travers. He himself felt the blood rise to his face. In his absorbed state he had not noticed her presence, and now that he met her cold eyes a curious discomfort crept over him—a discomfort that was nearly fear.

"I will answer your question to the best of my ability," he said quietly.

"The Rajah has spoken of you as his tool, and I think from your tone that you think yourself aggrieved. In what way have you suffered? What is your share of the losses?"