/
 
 P
 
 ANNA LOMBARD
 
 The most Widely-read Novel of the Day 
 
 ANNA LOMBARD 
 
 Some iprcse pinion* 
 
 Review of Reviews. 'A very remarkable story ; a novel to 
 set people thinking. It it a bold, brilliant, defiant presentation of a 
 phase of the relations of the sexes which I do not remember ever 
 having seen treated with the same freedom, delicacy and audacity. 
 It is difficult to praise the book too highly.' 
 
 Literature. 'Anna Lombard loves two men at once, and is so 
 entirely non-moral as to think nothing of living with both. The 
 daughter of a general and the heiress of a thousand conventions, she 
 is sometimes mysteriously Greek, sometimes Oriental, and sometimes 
 Machiavelian. She is generally wicked, and always interesting. Her 
 lovers are endowed with an air of romance, and set in scenes of 
 gorgeous Eastern colouring, so that one forgets something of right 
 and wrong as they are understood in the Occident. The reader will 
 not, perhaps, be the better for reading this strange and contradictory 
 book, but he will find in it many a fine passage, many a brilliant 
 picture of life and emotion.' 
 
 Daily News. 'India forms a vivid background to the story. 
 The writer realises the special quality of the atmosphere. She hat 
 managed to convey to her pages " the perfumed pagaent, the magic, 
 and the mystery of the East." The heroine forms a striking char- 
 acter in the portrait galleries of fiction.' 
 
 Vanity Fair. 'Anna Lombard remains throughout everything 
 a pure woman good, sincere, clean, fit to be admired and beloved 
 with the faith and passion given to her by Gerald Ethridge, a manly, 
 interesting, very sane, and real person.' 
 
 Standard. ' A very remarkable and powerful book.' 
 
 Academy. 'The writer uses India, as recently she used the 
 Klondyke, as the immense theatre of an immense passion.' 
 
 JOHN LONG, Publisher, London
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 BY 
 
 VICTORIA CROSS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'THE WOMAN WHO DIDN'T,' 'A GIRL OF THE KLONDIKE,' 
 
 'SIX CHAPTERS OF A MAN'S LIFE,' ' PAULA,' 
 
 'TO-MORROW,' 'EVELYN HASTINGS,' 
 
 'THEODORA,' ETC. 
 
 THIRTY-SEVENTH EDITION 
 
 London 
 
 John Long 
 
 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket 
 1905 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 Stack 
 
 Annex 
 
 TO 
 
 MY C 
 
 ' Verona's summer hath not such a flower.'
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I HAVE been challenged by certain papers to state 
 my intentions in writing Anna Lombard. This 
 is my reply: I endeavoured to draw in Gerald 
 Ethridge a character whose actions should be 
 in accordance with the principles laid down by 
 Christ, one that would display, not in words but in 
 his actual life, that gentleness, humility, patience, 
 charity and self-sacrifice that our Redeemer Him- 
 self enjoined. It is a sad commentary on our 
 religion of to-day that a presumably Christian 
 journal, The Daily Chronicle, should hold this 
 Christ-like conduct up to ridicule and contempt, 
 stigmatise it as ( horrid absurdity,' and declare 
 that for such qualities a man ought to be turned 
 out of the service. I challenge The Daily Chronicle 
 and all who follow its opinion to find one act 
 
 which does not reflect Christ's own teaching, 
 
 ill
 
 Preface 
 
 committed by Gerald Ethridge. He forgives the 
 sinner, raises the fallen, comforts the weak. He 
 works and suffers to reclaim the Pagan and almost- 
 lost soul of Anna Lombard. Fearlessly, and with 
 the Gospel of Christ in my hand, I offer this 
 example of His teaching to the great Christian 
 public for its verdict, confident that I shall be 
 justified by it. 
 
 VICTORIA CROSS 
 
 IV
 
 ANNA LOMBARD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A FLOOD of glaring yellow light fell from the chandeliers 
 overhead, a sheen of light seemed to be flung back 
 from the polished, slippery, glittering floor which mirrored 
 a thousand lights above and a hundred lesser lights fixed 
 to the walls, dazzling in white and gold. There was so 
 much light, so much glitter, that it seemed to hurt 
 the eyes coming directly from the soft dark night 
 outside. It seemed to wound mine as I stepped 
 through the long window open to the marble piazza 
 where I had been sitting, silent, by a pillar, alone with 
 the gorgeous Eastern night. 
 
 The music, too, was stirring, and martial rather than 
 soothing. It was the splendid band of the Irish 
 Grenadiers, and just then they were playing for all they 
 were worth. It seemed as if someone had bet them 
 they could not make a noise, and they had bet that they 
 could. From end to end the room was one blaze of 
 colour, the scarlet and gold of countless uniforms stand- 
 ing out prominently in the general scheme. There 
 were comparatively few present in plain civilian dress 
 and no undress uniforms were to be found, for it was 
 
 5
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 an occasion such as might not be known again for two 
 or three years, or more, in that part of the country. It 
 was the ball given by the Commissioner of Kalatu in 
 honour of the Viceroy on the latter passing through 
 that station. 
 
 I stood leaning against the pillar of the window by 
 which I entered the room, watching idly the brilliant, 
 swaying crowd before me, and wondering how much 
 real joy, pleasure and gaiety there was in the room in 
 proportion to the affected amount of all these. 
 
 For myself, I felt singularly mentally weary and 
 disheartened, yet I was generally considered a much- 
 to-be - envied person, one of Fortune's particular 
 favourites. I was young not yet thirty, though 
 sometimes, possibly the result of much severe study, 
 my brain and inner being seemed singularly old I 
 had, some five years before, come out head of the 
 list in the Indian Civil Service Examination, and 
 had been granted the coveted position of Assistant 
 Commissioner ; my pay was good, my position excellent, 
 my work light and indeed far beneath the capacity 
 my severe education had endowed me with; girls 
 smiled upon me, mammas were not unkind, and ' lucky 
 fellow that Ethridge' was a comment frequently on 
 the lips of my companions. And yet, in spite of all 
 this, how empty life seemed to that lucky Ethridge 
 himself! As a boy, always given rather to dreams, 
 speculations and ideas, how fair that same life looked 
 to me ; in my cold, hard, chaste youth of study and 
 work, how much there had seemed to be done in it, 
 to be gained, to be enjoyed ! When my work is done ! 
 
 6
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I had so often thought, and now, behold ! my worlc was 
 done, and I was free to do, to have, to gain and to 
 enjoy, and suddenly there seemed nothing particular 
 in it all. No such wonderful joy to be enjoyed, and 
 no such marvellous thing to be gained. This arena, 
 that had looked so fair and dazzling while I was still 
 shut behind its gates, seemed rather circumscribed and 
 empty now that I was actually inside, and I, as it were, 
 seemed merely walking aimlessly about in it and 
 kicking up the sand which was to have been the 
 witness of such great achievements, according to my 
 former vague ideas. 
 
 After a minute or two I was conscious of someone 
 standing close beside me, and I turned slightly, to see 3 
 young lieutenant in the uniform of the Grenadiers. 
 
 'Beastly thin that girl is; just look at her shoulder 
 bones,' was his first remark addressed to me without any 
 preface. My eyes idly followed his, and I noticed the 
 girl passing us, rather a pretty, graceful dibutante, thin 
 with the thinness of extreme youth and immaturity. Her 
 shoulders rose white and smooth from her white gown of 
 conventional one might say, Viceregal lowness (for at 
 balls given to the Viceroy, gowns are cut lower than 
 usual in honour of the occasion) but certainly beneath 
 their delicate surface two little bones stood out rather 
 too prominently. I looked at them absently, thinking 
 it was the quality of the heart that beat beneath them 
 that would exercise and influence me most in my judg- 
 ment of their owner. 
 
 c She is very young,' I returned. ' In a year or two 
 she will probably be fat enough to please you.' 
 
 y
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 1 Thanks ; then she'll be passte, don't you know. Con- 
 found it, these English girls are all thin when they're 
 young, and when they're fat they're old. There's no 
 getting one just made to suit a fellow.' 
 
 ' And what about the girls ; are the men made to suit 
 them?' I inquired, turning to look at him more fully. 
 He had a square, white face, with pale blue expression- 
 less eyes, a weak receding chin and forehead, a weaker 
 mouth, and a slight lisp in his voice. In his hand he 
 swung an eyeglass, which he lifted only occasionally 
 when an unusually striking girl went by. 
 
 He laughed good humouredly a fatuous, conceited 
 laugh. ' Aw, ah I don't really know, upon my word ; 
 but they seem devilish glad to get us, don't you know, 
 when they have a chance.' 
 
 I did not answer. The conversation did not interest 
 me; but where was I to find any better? I glanced 
 along the line of vacuous faces by the wall to right 
 and left of me. What was the use of moving ? I should 
 only hear something like this from the next man beside 
 whom I should find myself. 
 
 There was a few moments' silence. Then my com- 
 panion glanced suddenly at his card and affected to 
 start with sudden recollection and contrition. 
 
 ' By Jove ! I had forgotten that poor Miss Scemler ; 
 she is waiting for me all this time ; promised her this 
 dance, you know damned scrawny girl too, but then 
 she'd be so awfully disappointed, you know. See 
 you again,' and he mingled with the line of idlers 
 passing round the room in his search for the doubtless 
 tremulously-eager and expectant Miss Scemler. Hardly 
 
 8
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 a moment or two later another acquaintance came up to 
 me. This time it was a handsome young fellow with a 
 dark eager face and high colour. 
 
 ' Well, Gerald, old man, what makes you look so 
 awfully blue ? Come and have a pick-me-up, a bitter or 
 something is just what you want. Come along to the 
 bar. You ought to be there too ; we're talking the race, 
 you know ; there's a fellow there has got all the tips. 
 Now's the time to lay your money. He says Lemon 
 won't be in it. Lemon was the high up favourite. I 
 don't understand it; they say now Parchment is but 
 you'd better hear it from him. Come along.' 
 
 I stood still by the pillar and looked at his animated 
 face with a slight smile. 
 
 Thanks. I don't think I'll come. I do feel rather 
 blue to-night.' 
 
 ' Why,' he returned rather blankly, ' I think it an 
 awfully jolly ball. I have been having a first-rate 
 time.' 
 
 'What have you been doing?' I asked with a faint 
 stirring of interest. Perhaps he could show me how to 
 have a good time too. 
 
 ' I have been in the bar all the time. The champagne 
 is going just like water. All free, you know, and good 
 stuff too. He's a jolly old Com. He doesn't do things 
 by halves.' 
 
 The interest died out again. 
 
 1 Don't let me keep you. You may lose some of the 
 valuable tips,' I said ; ' I'll stay here. I don't care for 
 the races or the champagne either.' 
 
 'You are such a queer fellow,' he replied, eyeing me 
 9
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 askance ; ' what do you care for, I wonder ? But you'd 
 better come ; ' with that he passed on and I was again 
 left alone. A short, stout elderly gentleman scudded 
 up to me next. He was a great talker, and it was a treat 
 for him to find some unoccupied person apparently able 
 to listen to him. 
 
 ' Good evening, my boy ; I see you're enjoying yourself 
 with the rest of the young folks.' 
 
 ' Good evening, Colonel,' I replied. 
 
 'I've discovered all about that Brentwood affair to- 
 night,' he went on, coming nearer to me and speaking 
 confidentially. ' It's a scandal, a shame ; it's clear that 
 Brentwood accepted a contract for the lumma road 
 and never meant to build it, never meant to, I say ; the 
 service is rotten, rotten through and through, and if 
 the Government don't take some steps about it well, I 
 don't claim any particular brilliance of intellect, I don't 
 suppose my brain is more acute or my vision clearer than 
 the ordinary man's,' here he seemed to pause as if he 
 would like some interruption, and so I gratified him 
 with a murmured, 
 
 1 1 don't know about that, Colonel.' 
 
 When he proceeded happily. 
 
 ' And, therefore, what I can see, others can see ; if I 
 know these things are going on, why, others know it. 
 Now, I am proud of my country, I am proud of ' 
 
 I am afraid I lost what else furnished him with a 
 cause of pride, for my attention wandered. Somehow I 
 did not seem to care if the service were rotten or if 
 Brentwood had contracted to build fifty roads and then 
 backed out of it. My former interlocutor was right ; I 
 
 10
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 was queer, I suppose, since none of these vital matters 
 interested me. 
 
 I really had an engagement for the coming dance, so 
 when I had listened respectfully to the whole speech, and 
 the Colonel stopped to take breath for a moment, I 
 said, 
 
 ' You must excuse me, Colonel ; I have to look for my 
 partner for this waltz.' 
 
 ' Very good, my boy, very good,' he replied genially, 
 having at last, as he hoped, impressed someone with a 
 sense of Brentwood's enormities. ' I don't grudge you 
 the dance or the girl. I like to see boys enjoy them- 
 selves.' 
 
 With which comforting assurance in my ears I started 
 listlessly to find my partner. 
 
 That young lady I soon discovered sitting on a 
 fauteuil. 
 
 ' I thought you had forgotten our dance ! ' she ex- 
 claimed the moment I came up, and she looked at me 
 with an arch expression that told me very clearly she 
 thought such a thing would be an utter impossibility. 
 She was slight and round, very well dressed, with a pretty 
 face, frivolous expression and a mouth that was always 
 laughing. I assured her that the dance was what I had 
 been waiting for all the evening, and we started to- 
 gether. She talked the whole time. She told me how 
 the last man she danced with had held her so tightly the 
 flowers at her breast had all been crushed and broken ; 
 wasn't he a wretch ? not but what she liked to be held 
 tightly, she exclaimed, as, involuntarily, my arm round 
 her loosened, but not, of course, so as to crush her 
 
 ii
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 flowers ; but they were all dead now and it didn't matter ; 
 a hateful girl too had trodden on her train ; they (trains) 
 were a bore of course in dancing, but didn't I think they 
 made you look more graceful yes, well, she thought so 
 too, and was glad I thought so, and, fancy, that ugly 
 little Miss Johnson was going to marry Captain Grant 
 of the nth, and wasn't it wonderful what he could 
 see in her, and didn't I think she was ugly ? not know 
 her by sight ? why, of course I must know her. She sat 
 three pews behind me and in the left aisle at church, and 
 when the congregation turned to the east to say the 
 Creed I could certainly see her. 
 
 While this was being poured into my ear, 1 had to 
 keep my eyes well on the alert to guard against possible 
 collision, as the room was very crowded, and just as 
 we passed a corner my gaze fell suddenly on a figure 
 in white silk sitting alone on a fauteuil. I don't know 
 why, but something in the figure caught and held my 
 eyes ; perhaps it was only, in the first place, that it was 
 alone and therefore possibly disassociated with all this 
 crowd, with which I myself felt so out of tune. 
 
 ' Do you know the name of that girl in white we 
 have just passed ? ' I asked my companion, breaking in, 
 I am afraid, rather abruptly upon more confidences. 
 
 ' That ? ' she replied, looking back over my shoulder. 
 1 Why, you must know her, surely ; she's the General's 
 daughter, Anna Lombard.' 
 
 ' Anna Lombard,' I repeated. 'It's a curious name ; 
 it sounds somehow to me medieval, a middle-age sort 
 of name.' 
 
 'Oh, Anna's not middle-aged,' returned inconse- 
 
 12
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 quently my rather flighty companion. 'She was 
 twenty-one yesterday and just out from England 
 where she was kept at study and things regular 
 lessons, you know. Don't you think it a shame to 
 keep a girl studying so long? It's made her so 
 serious; she says it made her serious, made her feel 
 and think a lot, and see things in life, I mean more 
 than most people I don't know how to express it 
 exactly but you feel she's different from other people. 
 Of course, sometimes she laughs and is just as gay 
 as the rest of us, but she can be serious, oh, just too 
 dreadful for anything, and she says there's a great 
 deal in life, and you can get a great deal out of it if 
 you choose, and oh ! funny things like that. I don't 
 see much in life, not much that's nice, I mean, except 
 dancing and ices. Could you get me an ice now, do 
 you think, Mr Ethridge? I really should like one 
 Take me out on the terrace and then bring me one, 
 will you?' 
 
 I took her out on the terrace, found her a chair and 
 then dutifully brought her the ice and sat beside her. 
 The glory of the night had not changed since I sat 
 there alone, only, as it were, deepened and grown 
 richer; the purple sky above was throbbing, beating, 
 palpitating with the light of stars and planets, and a 
 low, large mellow moon was sinking towards the 
 horizon, reddening as it sank. What a night for the 
 registration or the consummation of vows ! One of 
 those true voluptuous tropic nights when the soft, hot 
 air itself seems to breathe of .the passions. 
 
 It was a night on which, as the Frenchman said, 
 13
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 all women wish to be loved. I glanced at the girl 
 beside me and wondered if she were moved by it, but 
 I thought not ; she sat sipping her ice cheerfully and 
 diligently, for ice, like virtue, does not last long in 
 the tropics, and watching sharply the groups and 
 couples that passed across the lawn and through the 
 trees before us. 
 
 ' I'm engaged for the next dance, so you'd better 
 take me back to the room,' she said, as she set down 
 the empty glass at last, with a sigh, on the stone. 
 'And I'll introduce you to Anna, if you like,' she 
 added good-naturedly, 'and you'll see what you think 
 of her. Some men seem to like her awfully and others 
 can't get on with her a bit.' 
 
 She rose and shook out the folds of her immaculate 
 silk and muslin, and we went back to the ballroom. 
 
 The figure in white was still seated, calm and 
 motionless, on the fauteuil, and remained so as we 
 approached. I looked at her hard and critically as 
 we came up. She had a tall, strong, beautiful figure 
 and a face that was like an English summer day. Her 
 hair was fair and clustered thickly round her head 
 in its own curls and waves. It was parted in the 
 middle, and was so thick that it rose on each side of 
 the parting as hair is made to do in sculptured heads, 
 and it had the same waving creases in it, a few short, 
 tiny locks came down on the soft, white forehead, and 
 at the back it fell in a doubled-up plait on her neck, 
 her eyes were blue like pieces cut from a summer's 
 sky and her skin like the wild rose in the English 
 hedgerow first opening after a summer shower. 
 
 14
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Such was Anna Lombard as I first saw her at the 
 age of twenty-one. 
 
 ' Anna,' said the girl with me, as we stopped beside 
 the fauteuil, ' Mr Ethridge wants me to introduce him 
 to you. Mr Ethridge Miss Lombard.' 
 
 The girl addressed looked up and smiled, and 1 
 was surprised at the effect of the smile on the face; 
 the red lips parted and showed, slightly, perfect white 
 teeth between, and the eyes flashed and seemed to 
 deepen in colour and light up with curious fire. 
 
 'I am delighted to make your acquaintance,' she 
 said in the conventional manner and moved just very 
 slightly to one side of the fauteuil, which was large, 
 to indicate I might sit down by her, which I did. 
 
 ' Now you can amuse yourselves,' said Anna's friend, 
 lightly, as her partner made his way up to her to claim 
 her. 'Good-bye,' and she whirled away at the first 
 bar of the new waltz. 
 
 It is difficult to say what we talked of or what it 
 was lent such an irresistible charm to that conversa- 
 tion, but looking back I think it was partly the 
 great interest and animation with which the girl both 
 talked and listened. Her face was brilliant, with her 
 deep blue eyes darkening and flashing and her milky, 
 stainless teeth sparkling through her crimson lips as she 
 laughed. Everything was new and fresh to her in this 
 wonderful India of ours, and life itself was just dawning 
 in all its beauty before her mental vision. Her child- 
 hood had been passed in the hardest study and closest 
 intellectual training in a dull, fog-laden old town on 
 the Cornish coast. There, she told me, she had walked 
 
 15
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 on the sea-beaten sands repeating her lessons in the 
 Classics to the wild, wet winds that were busy blowing 
 the colour into her exquisite skin, while her restless, 
 impatient mind had been wandering far off in the 
 sunny lands and speculating on those strange passions 
 and emotions she was learning of through the lettered 
 pages. And now, suddenly transported to the vivid 
 glowing East, taken from that quiet solitude of study 
 and placed in a whirlpool of human life and gaiety in 
 these gorgeous surroundings of nature for nowhere 
 on earth is there a more dazzling or brilliant arena 
 for life to play itself out than in India she was like 
 an amazed, delighted and clever child watching the 
 curtain rise for the first time on the splendour of a 
 pantomime. 
 
 We sat and talked through two entire dances, then 
 as the strains of a particularly seductive waltz reached 
 us I asked her if she would not give it to me, and 
 she assented with, I fancied, the slightest possible 
 flush. She confessed to me later that though she had 
 been carefully taught and made to practise dancing 
 at home, this was her first 'real ball.' My heart 
 beat as I put my arm round her and guided her 
 amongst the dancers. I cannot say or divine exactly 
 the attractiveness of her manner, but there was a sort 
 of appealing timidity in it that, united with such an 
 obviously clever and gifted mind and such a sweet 
 face and form, had in it a keen flattery. 
 
 I held her close to me, and with a perfect unity 
 of step and motion we glided round the room in the 
 great circle of other dancers. The warmth of the slight 
 
 16
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 white arm on my shoulder and the white breast against 
 my own, the sight of the fair, animated face and a 
 swift glance now and then from those passionate blue 
 eyes, seemed working on me like a subtle charm. I 
 felt happy, contented ; India was no longer a gorgeous 
 but barren desert, life was not full of disappointment 
 after all, and this ball was the greatest, the best, the 
 most interesting function I had ever attended. 
 
 How sweet she was, this girl, what a soft, gentle voice ; 
 what smiling, caressing eyes and what a low, slim waist 
 that my arm encircled and that seemed to yield so 
 readily as if seeking and desiring protection ! When the 
 music ceased we found ourselves in the outer ring of 
 dancers and just beside the open windows. By a 
 mutual impulse we both passed outside on to the low 
 stone terrace into the soft heat which yet held the 
 freshness of grass and flowers in it of the outer air. 
 It was the same night, the same terrace as it had been 
 when I was there an hour ago, only my companion was 
 changed, and what a change that makes ! Anna sank 
 even into the same chair the other girl had had, and 
 that was still there, but how different everything seemed 
 now from when that hard, frivolous, worldly little doll 
 occupied it. My heart beat more quickly than usual, 
 and where an hour ago I had been silent and quite 
 indifferent how I might appear to my companion, now 
 my whole energy woke up in an effort and desire to 
 please. Perhaps I succeeded, for smiles, blushes and 
 laughter swept by turns over the radiant, expressive 
 face raised to mine in the subdued light of the 
 verandah. She did not talk very much, seeming rather 
 B 17
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 to wish to listen, but everything she did say was full 
 of brightness and wit and a sympathetic intelligence 
 that only comes from a really clever brain. With all 
 her knowledge, for I drew by my persistence from her 
 reluctant lips the confession of one study after another 
 with which she was familiar, she seemed full of diffi- 
 dence of herself, and fixed her large eyes upon me, as 
 she asked me questions, with the deference of an 
 inquiring child. For the first time in my life I felt 
 repaid for my hard youth given over to learning, yes, 
 more repaid for those years of toil than when my 
 name appeared heading the examination list. For the 
 first time in my life the knowledge I had acquired 
 seemed inexpressibly dear and valuable to me. She 
 was listening, she was interested, she wanted to know 
 and to hear things that I could tell her things that 
 Lieutenant Jones and Captain Scrubbins could not 
 have told her. She liked me, I was sure of it, she 
 was thinking that I knew something, and she cared 
 for these things that I cared for far more than the 
 last details of the pigeon-shooting match, the latest 
 score of the Gymkhana, the newest development of 
 the growing scandal round the major's wife, in all of 
 which Jones and Scrubbins could easily have surpassed 
 me. These thoughts rushed through my brain as I 
 leaned over her, smiling and exerting myself to the 
 utmost to please her, and the time flew by and we 
 neither of us heeded what was being played or what 
 dances danced in the room behind us till suddenly 
 4 Home, Sweet Home,' in the guise of a waltz, reached 
 us and we realised suddenly the evening, our evening, 
 
 18
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 was over. We both looked at each other with a quick 
 glance and both knew that we wanted this dance with 
 each other. How little stiffness, how little formality 
 there seems to be from the first when two people 
 meet who are going to feel a great passion one for 
 the other, even before the passion can be said to be 
 lighted, and certainly is not recognised. 
 
 Nature's own hand seems to slip loose some band- 
 age which is usually before our eyes, and we act 
 with a certain tenderness, earnestness and simplicity 
 that is foreign to our usual life and other 
 relations. 
 
 As we heard the first sounds of the waltz Anna 
 looked at me and then slipped that soft, slender white 
 arm through mine with a little happy smile, and I, with 
 a sudden sense of happiness and delight in life that I 
 had never known, pressed it close, and we joined the 
 moving circle within. As we danced, and when at the 
 corners of the room her weight was thrown on me 
 slightly and I caught a breath from her lips that 
 reminded me of the scent of the tea rose, and the 
 same faint tea rose scent came from the laces on 
 her breast, this feeling of happiness merged into an 
 ecstasy. It seemed I had never known life before, 
 and, in fact, I had never known love, not even any of 
 its base counterfeits. The soft waist yielded the more 
 I pressed it, and filled me with an infinitely tender 
 impulse towards her, the gentle arm against my 
 shoulder seemed of delicious weight. I met her soft, 
 half-wondering, innocent eyes with their pleased smile 
 and knew I was really alive at last.
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 The waltz ended somewhat abruptly. It was three in 
 the morning and the musicians were tired. 
 
 ' Would you go and try and find my father ? ' Anna 
 asked me. 'He does not dance, and I am afraid he 
 may be getting tired, waiting for me somewhere.' 
 
 Just as she spoke General Lombard came toward us. 
 We knew each other well, though his daughter, only 
 having just come out, I had not seen before to-night. 
 
 He greeted me pleasantly, and when I asked if I 
 might call on the following day he assented with a 
 smile. Then in a half-dreamlike state of feeling I 
 escorted them to their carriage, and a murmured 
 1 Good-night ' and a glance from two beautiful, pas- 
 sionate eyes, out of the darkness of the carriage, closed 
 the evening for me. 
 
 That night I had a curious and horrible dream 
 horrible because it was filled with that nameless, cause- 
 less, baseless horror and fear that only visits us in 
 dreams. Whatever may happen in our waking life, we 
 never feel that same peculiar dread which seems re- 
 served for our brains to know only in sleep. I felt I 
 was standing in a garden, in the centre of which a large 
 and beautiful white rosebud was unfolding itself before 
 me as I stood and watched it with an increasing sense 
 of delight. It was the only flower in the garden, and 
 dominated the whole scene. At last the final and most 
 lightly-closed petals were opening and spreading, and in 
 an ecstasy I leaned forward to see the heart disclosed, 
 when, suddenly, instead of a heart, a great rent was 
 revealed, a jagged, cruel chasm in the beauty of the 
 flower, and I fell back shuddering, a prey to that 
 
 30
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 ghastly, groundless, reasonless Fear of dreams. I 
 awoke abruptly, feeling cold in the sultry tropic night, 
 and turned and tossed uneasily, and fell asleep to dream 
 the same dream again. When I awoke the second time 
 I had a confused feeling, such as troubles the half- 
 wakened brain in the darkness of night, that my dream 
 was connected with Anna. Then I damned my own 
 foolishness, and went to sleep for the third time and 
 then into blank silence and rest. The next morning, 
 waking late, with the brilliant sunlight rushing like water 
 through all the cracks of the closed jilmils, I felt in 
 excellent spirits, dressed quickly and descended to the 
 dining-room of my bungalow in the best of humours. My 
 plans for that day and many days to follow were 
 distinctly laid. I would go to Anna, be with her, talk 
 with her, ride with her, and then and then and the 
 rest seemed one bright flame of light and happiness. 
 
 How strange it was, I thought, how life seemed to 
 have quickened in me, how all the senses seemed tuning 
 themselves to the enjoyment of existence, how the 
 compound seemed to smile before me, the scent from 
 the thousand opening flowers to delight me ; the blood 
 seemed spinning gaily along through my veins, I wanted 
 to laugh, hum or whistle, out of mere light-heartedness, 
 and what was it all ? Surely some electricity had passed 
 out of that soft, fair form I had held in my arms last 
 night, and kindled a fresh life in me. I sat down at 
 the breakfast table, and glanced at the pile of letters 
 waiting my attention, but deferred opening them and 
 giving my thoughts over to business for a few moments 
 longer. After I had sipped my coffee and mused 
 
 21
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 another ten minutes, I laid my hand on a long official- 
 looking letter, and rather absent-mindedly broke it open 
 and unfolded it. 
 
 I read the letter through to its last word it was curt 
 enough, for that matter then I crushed it down on the 
 table under my hand. 
 
 ' Damn ! Damn everything ! ' 
 
 The two native servants, mute bronze statues, though 
 they understood no other word of English, understood 
 that one of four letters; they both started violently. 
 The kitmargar removed my unfinished cup of coffee 
 tenderly, and inquired softly, 
 
 'The sahib has had bad news?' 
 
 'Yes,' I groaned, and then added, 'Pack everything, 
 have everything ready. We leave for Burmah by the 
 night train.' 
 
 ' Protector of the poor ! ' exclaimed the man, clasping 
 his hands. ' The sahib is transferred ? ' 
 
 ' Yes. To Lihuli, Burmah. You wish to accompany 
 me?' 
 
 The man hesitated, and great tears filled his large 
 brown eyes and then rolled down his cheeks. They are 
 hysterical, these natives, and my news had startled him. 
 
 ' That is in my heart. I wish to. But my wives are 
 sick. Yet if I stay I have no money for them.' 
 
 I knitted my brows ; my own case dictated more 
 sympathy for his wives than I should otherwise have 
 felt. 
 
 ' Allah forbid that I should take them from you, or 
 that you should want. Stay till they are well, and I 
 will see you get the same pay as now. When they are 
 
 22
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 recovered, you can follow me, with them, if you wish. 
 Now go. I want to be alone.' 
 
 For all answer, the man flung himself at my feet, and 
 clasped them and kissed them, and wept over them. 
 All of which is extremely embarrassing to an English- 
 man, and makes him feel somehow that he is not so 
 fine a thing as he generally takes himself to be. Then 
 they withdrew and I was alone in the room full of gold 
 light, reflected from the desert through the jilmils, alone 
 with that letter, my bad news and my feelings. I stared 
 at the open paper, feeling doubtless as many a prisoner 
 may have felt when shown his death warrant; how 
 curious it was, a flimsy sheet of paper, with a few scrawly 
 words the handwriting was execrable, I remember 
 could deal such a blow of deadly pain. 
 
 Since a few moments ago, the whole situation was 
 changed for me ; my hopes of last night, that pleasant 
 vista of days spent here, that yielding to the intoxication 
 of passion for Anna, that teaching and arousing of her 
 dormant soul and that drinking at last of the one cup 
 that this life holds worth draining, all this that had 
 floated before me, not as certainties indeed, but as 
 delicious possibilities, was stamped out, and a hideous 
 reality rose in its place. I was transferred to Lihuli, a 
 lonely, desolate station in Burmah, at once, and for five 
 years. Lihuli or the place of swamps I read the 
 letter through again. 
 
 'This means separation from Anna, and separation 
 means loss.' 
 
 This is what I thought as I laid it down, and the 
 resentment against it was so great that a hundred means 
 
 33
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 of rejecting it rose in my brain. ' Go to her, carry her 
 away by the storm of your passion, and take her with 
 you.' Then came the thought, 'Take her with you 
 where ? ' To the place of swamps, to a place where 
 there is always some epidemic raging sometimes it is 
 called the Black Cholera, sometimes the Plague, some- 
 times Smallpox and where there is a never-varying 
 accompaniment of malaria fever and dysentery. Where 
 the air, night and day, is tainted and suffocating, where 
 the evening, that brings cool elsewhere, brings but a 
 sickly white miasma-tainted mist from the swamps and 
 clouds of mosquitoes ; where the face of a white woman 
 is never seen ; where there are no bands, no dinners, no 
 dances ; where there is nothing but desert, disease, death 
 and duty. How could I take her there? And if I 
 could, could I keep her there ? And I shuddered. 
 'Then make her wait for you,' was the next angry, 
 turbulent thought that came rolling along in the tide of 
 anger and resentment surging through my brain. 
 ' What ! on one evening's acquaintance, ask for a girl's 
 love and faithful waiting for five years, and such a girl 
 as Anna ! ' Conceited fool though passion will make a 
 man, still it had not blinded me so far as that. I sat on 
 like a statue, thinking hard, and a thousand mad plans, 
 all equally impossible, for evading my duty came before 
 me and were dismissed. 
 
 As far as I myself was concerned, I felt no hesitation. 
 I would have gone to her and spoken freely, gladly, oh, 
 how gladly ! if I had allowed myself to be swayed by my 
 own impulses, though I had but known her a few 
 hours. It is not in the nature of things that a great
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 passion or even that embryo which is to become a great 
 passion should admit of hesitation. These feelings 
 sweep over the human being resistlessly. They do not 
 permit him to argue or reason with them ; they dictate. 
 And, moreover, they carry with them a conviction to 
 his mind which renders argument unnecessary. Lesser 
 emotions, I admit, allow of reasoning this way and that, 
 and weighing and considering, and doubtless more than 
 half the men in the world have long periods of oscilla- 
 tion before they say those irrevocable words I would 
 have said so willingly now without a tremor; but this 
 vacillation only proves that the woman they are so con- 
 sidering is not the one of all this life for them, and she 
 will never be the object of the intensest passion they are 
 capable of. The case is much the same as that of a 
 man waiting in the street to meet some friend of whose 
 appearance long absence or other causes have made 
 him not quite sure. How anxiously he scans each one 
 of the passers-by, and fifty times imagines he sees a re- 
 semblance about which he debates in his mind is that 
 he or is it not? And only hesitates thus because 
 each of these is not the man. When the friend 
 appears, his glance lights on him, he recognises him. 
 That is the man; there is no question, no doubt, no 
 hesitation. And he walks up to him with outstretched 
 hand. Similarly, my mind instinctively and uncon- 
 sciously had been waiting, as the mind of every man 
 not occupied with passion is practically waiting, for the 
 woman to pass by me in the way of life that was the 
 fulfilment of the indefinite standard in my thoughts. 
 Others who were not such women might come and go,
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 and, moved by resemblances, I might have hesitated 
 and looked and hesitated again, but Anna had stepped 
 up to me in the stream of human traffic that goes up 
 and down the Way, and my mind had instantly 
 recognised her, and my hand was outstretched, and 
 there was no hesitation and no doubt. 
 
 Doubtless, if more time had been allowed me, I 
 should have used it, out of a sense of the fitness of 
 things, decorum and, above all, deference to the girl 
 herself, but, even then, it would have been the shortest 
 time I could have set. Indeed, I knew that the impulse 
 to caress her, to clasp her in my arms and know her to 
 be my own would be a difficult one to hold down by the 
 throat for long. So that the prospect of being forced 
 to speak at once would not have been terrifying in the 
 least to me, if only and I groaned out loud. Cir- 
 cumstances seemed so wilfully and needlessly to have 
 arrayed themselves against me. Had I been ordered 
 to a hill station, one with even a moderately-good 
 climate and where white life was not wholly excluded, 
 I might have had courage enough to ask her to occupy 
 a large, cool, rose-covered bungalow, situated somewhere 
 where the breezes came, and to continue her gay, 
 brilliant life of dances and dinners and idle amusements 
 as the wife of an Assistant Commissioner instead of the 
 daughter of a General, but I could not take a girl, 
 straight from England, to share with me a fever and 
 cholera-haunted swamp even if she would come. Some- 
 how I did not feel wholly certain that she would not 
 come, and her smiling eyes, as they had looked at me 
 last night, swam before me. I lifted my head and 
 
 26
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 glanced involuntarily down the breakfast table to where, 
 at the end, a large and brilliant mirror in my sideboard 
 gave me back a reflection of myself. It recurred to me 
 suddenly, then, that I was usually considered good- 
 looking, and my heart gave a beat of pleasure. I had 
 never thought nor valued the fact before, but just as last 
 night, for the first time, I had felt thankful for my little 
 store of learning, so now for the first time I recalled with 
 genuine pleasure the general verdict of my friends. It 
 is perhaps rather to the credit of the human being in 
 general that he or she thinks invariably little of any 
 personal gift until the question arises of pleasing some 
 other by it. I looked again at the glass. Yes, the 
 features of that face looking back at me were straight and 
 perfectly regular, the skin pale and clear, the eyes large, 
 and eyebrows and hair as black as an Asiatic's, and I 
 remembered delightedly that fair people always incline 
 naturally to and admire those who are dark and vice- 
 wrsd. Nature's craving to return to the type which is 
 neither extreme in all cases has mixed that inviolable 
 instinct with men and women's desire. Then the next 
 instant that little rush of vain egotism and self-content- 
 ment had passed. Though she consented a hundred 
 times I could not take her to that horror of desolation 
 and disease that I was ordered to. It was quite, quite 
 impossible, and I put my head down in my hands, 
 ashamed that for an instant it had seemed so possible. 
 At the end of an hour and a half I rose, put on my 
 solar topee and walked out of my compound towards 
 the Lombards' bungalow to make the promised call, only 
 now it was a farewell one. When I reached the house,
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 the servants told me the Miss Sahib had had breakfast 
 one hour ago and had gone out, but only into the com- 
 pound, and if I would wish to wait in the drawing- 
 room, they would take my card to her. I gave the 
 man a rupee and told him to go within himself, and 
 that I would seek the Miss Sahib in the compound. 
 With an intelligent smile of perfect comprehension and 
 a salaam of profoundest gratitude the man withdrew 
 into the cool darkness of the hall again, and I re- 
 descended into the wilderness of blooming beauty and 
 glaring light of the compound. 
 
 I threaded my way quietly through the tangle of 
 blossom-laden and flowering trees, glancing on every 
 side as I parted them, not knowing at what minute 
 I might come upon her. The morning was unusually 
 hot, the sun seemed to have a peculiar intensity and 
 its fiery beams to be distilling the utmost of their 
 perfume from the flowers. As I advanced farther into 
 the compound I became conscious of a damper, cooler 
 air and of a mossy woodland scent; the gurgle of 
 water reached me, and then at the next step forward 
 I stood motionless and spellbound; the girl herself 
 was before me and unconscious of my presence 
 asleep. In the thick cool shade thrown by a luxu- 
 riantly-tangled cluster of bamboo trees stood a low, 
 broad stone couch covered with thick square velvet 
 and satin cushions a Turkish divan, in fact, in the 
 open, and one prepared, evidently, with skill and care, 
 for all round the stone base was hollowed out a groove 
 filled to the rim with water, thus forming an impassable 
 trench to the innumerable tree ants of enormous size 
 
 28
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 that were crawling in black ribands over the mossy 
 ground. And on this couch, fully extended, with one 
 arm above her head, lay the girl tranquilly asleep. 
 Noiselessly, hardly breathing, I stepped closer and 
 looked down upon her. She was wearing a loose 
 garment of white cambric that was unfastened at the 
 neck and showed the whole of the beautiful, solid 
 white throat to its base, but which, of its own will 
 apparently, closed itself completely over the softly 
 rising and falling bosom, the head was thrown back, 
 and her face, fresh as a flower, was upturned, the 
 cheeks were like the petals of the wild rose, the 
 mouth deep crimson like a pomegranate bud, and her 
 light hair, ruffled and loosened, fell in glistening waves 
 over the arm beneath, white and bare, for the kindly 
 sleeve was loose and wide and had fallen back from 
 it almost to the shoulder. So might have Aurora 
 herself, wearied with tending the flowers, been found 
 sleeping in the Elysian fields. I stood entranced, let- 
 ting my eyes travel reverently over the sleeping form. 
 The cambric was delicate and transparent almost as 
 a cobweb, but its multitudinous folds veiled all but 
 the beautiful outlines ; the hem of the garment seemed 
 lost in the flounces of lace, or perhaps these came 
 from some other under one, and from these issued 
 two bare white insteps, the rest of the feet being cased 
 in little indoor shoes. Beyond those delicate white 
 feet was quite a long space of the divan, covered 
 with a velvet cloth of cashmere work, and on this, 
 mechanically, I took my seat. I had no thought of 
 waking her. Awake, she would become Miss Lombard 
 
 29
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 
 
 and I Mr Ethridge, conventional words would be 
 spoken in conventional tones ; it must be so, and what 
 words could give any idea of the rushing tide of regret 
 and sorrow and disappointment that was rolling through 
 my brain at leaving her. No, this silence, this perfect 
 harmony of beauty suited best our farewells. A deep, 
 unbroken silence lay over all the compound, a heat 
 that seemed of deadly weight fell from the brazen 
 sky, and the transparent air seemed to quiver in it. 
 But here in the deep shade of the feathery bamboo 
 there was coolness and perfect peace. A large tank 
 of water, reflecting the branches overhead, till it looked 
 like liquid emerald, stood bedded in the moss close 
 by, and the tiny trickle and gurgle of water flowing 
 from it round the couch seemed to intensify the sense 
 of surrounding coolness. What a scene it was ! one 
 possible only perhaps in India where the stream of 
 Saxon civilisation, with all its richness, comfort and 
 wealth, flows abruptly into the wonders of native 
 Indian beauty, into that store of gorgeous colouring, 
 of blossoms without name, of scents without definition, 
 of skies and gardens past belief. Beyond the com- 
 pound lay a sea of radiant colour, a wild confusion 
 of pomegranate crimson and rose -pink and syringa 
 white, that seemed swaying under the dazzling efful- 
 gence of golden light. Over it hovered lazily from 
 flower to flower great butterflies large as one's two 
 hands put together, and blue as though they were 
 fallen fragments of the sky itself; and now and then 
 a crimson-headed paroquet or golden oriole would 
 fly silently across from bamboo to palm. Nearer me, 
 
 3P
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 the cool green shadow, the flowing water, the white 
 stone couch, the sleeping girl ; could Milton have seen 
 anywhere a fairer vision for his Eden? Theocritus 
 have dreamt lovelier things for his idyls, or the ancients 
 have imagined more for their Elysian fields ? 
 
 But such surroundings are everyday and common- 
 place in India, and the birthright of every Briton. 
 My eyes wandered everywhere and then came back 
 to rest upon the sleeping girl. How calmly and deeply 
 she slept ! How unconscious of the excited heart beat- 
 ing so near her ! So this was to be the end of a 
 passion but just lighted, the end to that new life 
 which had rushed through my veins when I held 
 her in the dance. A passing away in silence while 
 she slept. And yet I did not think it would be the 
 end; I had a dim prescience that this tranquil sleep- 
 ing form was bound up inextricably with my future, 
 but I also felt that never again should I behold her 
 as she now was, in the fresh, pure, unsullied morning 
 of her youth and virginity. It is strange how these 
 vague, dim thoughts pass through our brains, as if 
 sometimes our future were vaguely reflected in some 
 dark and misty mirror, and being only stray, idle 
 fancies, as we think, we take no notice of them. It 
 is only afterwards, sometimes, a startling remembrance 
 rebounds upon us from the past and we recollect 
 what we have thought. 
 
 A great sadness seized upon me and pervaded me, 
 and for a moment the temptation came over me to 
 awaken her by kisses on those ivpry feet so near me, 
 awaken her and make her listen to me. Surely this
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 enchanting scene, this languorous Nature that seemed 
 everywhere bestowing her caresses, breathing into every- 
 thing her rich fervour of Life, would favour me. How 
 could I not tell that this sensitive, impressionable girl, 
 wakened suddenly by a passionate kiss in the garden 
 where all was glowing, sense-inflaming beauty, would 
 not be inclined towards me. My heart beat violently, 
 for an instant I swayed and had almost clasped that 
 smooth instep. Then I stayed myself, and the grim 
 realities rose before me. What had I to suggest? 
 And again the reasoning of the morning passed through 
 my brain. Five years of waiting for me here waiting, 
 for her ; she ardent, impetuous, just roused to a sense 
 of the joy of life, and eager, impatient to stretch out 
 her hands to its glittering toys; or five years' banish- 
 ment with me to a notoriously dangerous and desolate 
 spot in the Burmah swamps ! No ! I could not be 
 such a selfish fool as to offer either. The decision 
 was the same as I had come to before, and must be 
 the same if I thought of it a hundred times. I sat on 
 there in silence, steeped in a dull sense of pain, and 
 she, wearied and fatigued by the long hours of last 
 night, slept on without a movement or a murmur. 
 My Aurora with the wonderfully smooth, round, 
 delicately-tinted cheeks, and the long black lashes 
 curling upwards so that I thought each moment the 
 lids were just opening ! Well, I would leave her, but 
 it should not be in absolute silence, and I took out my 
 pocket-book and tore two or three leaves from it, and 
 covered them closely with words. First I gave her the 
 text of the command, verbatim, as I had received it. 
 
 33
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Then I described Lihuli as I knew it, and then I 
 merely added my farewells. When I had finished it 
 I drew off the amethyst signet ring I always wore, and 
 adding a line to beg her to keep it as a trifling souvenir 
 of me, I rolled the paper round and thrust it through 
 the circle. Then I rose, and leaning over the couch, 
 drew down a flexible spray of bamboo and bent it over 
 in an arch, fastening the end to a niche in the stone 
 side of her resting-place; from this arch I suspended 
 the ring and the little scroll by a tendril. It hung just 
 over her bosom, and she could not rise without first 
 breaking or detaching the bamboo and seeing the ring. 
 Then I looked down upon her with an immense tender- 
 ness and reverence, though that was as nothing to the 
 tenderness I was to feel later, fixing that fresh, pure face 
 in my heart, and then moved away softly as I had come. 
 It was time ; as I retraced my steps through the blazing 
 compound, I heard the wheels of the General's carriage 
 on the gravel. A few moments more and she would 
 awake or be awakened. Those minutes of silent 
 calm and beauty, that glimpse into the Elysian fields 
 was a thing of the past. My face was turned to 
 the practical, everyday life and duties of a Civil 
 Commissioner. 
 
 U
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WHEN my train drew into Lihuli, it was evening, and a 
 refreshing softness filled the heavy, magnolia-scented 
 air. No other European was going to alight at this 
 station, and I saw my solitary carriage waiting for me 
 beyond the platform. It was a golden evening every- 
 thing seemed gold, and not a glaring, but a soft, melting 
 gold. The sky, the air, the motionless palms, even the 
 broad road down which my carriage rolled, for a short 
 tawny moss grew all over it, and caught and gave back 
 the brilliant amber light. We had driven for about 
 fifteen minutes when the first bungalow came into view. 
 It was a low, white stone, flat-roofed building, from the 
 side view almost buried in banana trees, then, as we 
 drove on, I saw it faced on to the road with a great 
 broad, inviting verandah full of long cane chairs. 
 
 ''Club house gymkhana sahib,' volunteered the driver, 
 slackening his pace, and I saw four or five men, clad 
 in what looked like sleeping suits, troop through the 
 window on to the verandah. They waved their hands 
 and set up a feeble cheer as they caught sight of me. 
 They all had the same blanched, pinched-looking faces, 
 wan eyes and dry white lips. I stopped the carriage, 
 and they came half way down the steps to meet me 
 as I got out 
 
 34
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'Very glad to welcome you to Lihuli,' one of them 
 said. 'Train must have come in early or we'd have 
 met it.' 
 
 They all looked so sickly and listless, like men one 
 sees hanging round the balconies of public hospitals or 
 convalescent homes, that the idea of their doing any- 
 thing so far requiring an effort as meeting their new 
 Deputy Commissioner seemed rather a joke than any- 
 thing else. I merely laughed and suffered them to 
 guide me up to the verandah, where there was an 
 informal and hazy introduction. 
 
 'That's Jones of the Railway Survey, and Knight of 
 the Telegraph here, and this is Dr Kennings you'll 
 probably have a close acquaintance with him pretty 
 soon and Hunter, Engineer, and these two kids 
 Seymore and Robertson. Sit down and we'll have 
 some pegs. What do you take?' 
 
 They pulled up a small table, and giving me the 
 most prominent chair, they drew their own round 
 me and proceeded to pump me for news. 
 
 ' It's a perfect Godsend to see a new face,' remarked 
 Knight, after we had been talking pretty briskly for 
 some minutes. 
 
 'We've had no Com. since poor old Burke went 
 crazy and shot himself.' I saw one of the other 
 fellows kick the speaker furtively under the little 
 bamboo table. 
 
 1 Burke was the last man the Com., I suppose ? ' 
 I queried. 'What sent him mad?' 
 
 'Oh, I suppose the the heat, and being alone, 
 you know,' stammered Knight, confused by the kick 
 
 35
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 on his shins and looking guilty. ' But the bungalow has 
 been renovated, and, in fact, the room where where 
 it happened has been pulled down, and he left a 
 note saying he war glad to go, and the change to the 
 
 cooler climate of H would do him good. He 
 
 seemed quite content.' 
 
 ' You damned fool ! ' muttered his vis-a-m's, glaring 
 at him over the glasses of long straws. 'What do 
 you want to tell him all that for the first night ? ' 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 'I'm not afraid of ghosts,' I said lightly, 'and, so 
 far, it seems as cool here as one could reasonably 
 expect below.' 
 
 'Oh, yes, it will be all right until it rains,' chimed 
 in Hunter; 'and a man's all right here if he can only 
 adapt himself. You must settle down, take a wife, 
 and live regularly ; Burke never did. He was always 
 fretting for some girl in England.' 
 
 ' Take a wife ! ' I echoed in surprise. 
 
 'Yes, a Burmese wife. Oh, don't look so con- 
 temptuous. You'll come to it They most of them 
 do. and it saves time and trouble to settle down at 
 once. Now, to-morrow morning you will have an 
 assortment brought to you. Your choice (as the 
 American stores advertise) for one hundred rupees 
 down, and the remainder in instalments later. She will 
 then be contracted to you for five years ; that's your ap- 
 pointment here, isn't it ? Yes, very good. Then you'll 
 have someone at the head of your table and to look 
 after your house for you they're first-rate little house- 
 keepers though they don't look it. Then you'll enjoy 
 
 36
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 legitimate matrimony for five years, and when your 
 time's up, you pay the bill and say good-bye, and 
 there's no trouble/ 
 
 The other men listened in listless indifference, and 
 one or two nodded in confirmation of their companion's 
 statement when he had finished. I myself knew enough 
 of the customs of Burmah to know that he was not 
 chaffing or jesting. I had heard of these Anglo- 
 Burmese marriages before, and how the Burmah girl, 
 at the end of the white man's term, goes back to 
 the house of her parents, sometimes with two or 
 three children of mixed blood, and is in no way looked 
 down upon by her own people for the same, and is 
 probably eventually married to one of her own caste. 
 
 I suppressed a yawn. 
 
 'My own company, study and books will be more 
 to my taste,' I answered. 
 
 Hunter looked at me pityingly. 
 
 'This is a country,' he said impressively, 'in which 
 a man can live, but he cannot live alone. But you 
 can try it, of course as Burke and others have.' 
 
 Then there was a pause, and it seemed as if a 
 chill had come into the lambent, yellow air. Then, 
 as a welcome distraction, the doctor suggested we 
 should go inside and dine, and we all rose with alacrity. 
 
 The dining-room was a large, lofty, airy room, and 
 they seemed to possess excellent wines, soda water and 
 spirits at least, that kind that can be kept in bottles, 
 and well-hung punkahs swung briskly the whole time. 
 
 We sat long over our coffee and smoked and gossiped, 
 and my new presence seemed to make them all quite 
 
 37
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 cheerful. It was late, and the moon had risen, before 
 they put me into my carriage again, and with cordial 
 good-nights watched me drive off to my own bungalow 
 down the steamy road that looked misty in the moon- 
 light, and where the wheels moved without sound over 
 the spongy yellow moss. 
 
 The next morning, as soon as it was light, I was 
 awakened by the sound of subdued but incessant 
 and eager chattering, apparently just beneath my 
 window. I got up from the charpoy, disentangled 
 myself from my mosquito curtains, pushed open the 
 jilmils of the nearest window and looked out. What 
 a scene it was to meet the eyes ! especially eyes like 
 mine, not yet satiated with, nor even accustomed to, the 
 splendours of the East. The sun had not yet risen, 
 only a golden glow intensifying every instant near the 
 horizon in an otherwise pearly sky heralded its approach. 
 The compound stretching beneath my window and all 
 round the house was one mass of roses of every tint 
 and shape and size ; towards the gate of the compound 
 and all round the walls were clumps of the broad-leaved 
 banana tree swaying in the slight breeze of the dawn, 
 and two or three trees of Bougainvillea bursting through, 
 from between them, stood pouring their torrents of 
 magenta blossoms to the ground; there is no other 
 way to express it, for the parasite grown to a tree yet 
 cannot forget its nature, but trails its branches to the 
 ground, and for yards round the tree roots the earth 
 has a carpet of its pinkish violet flowers. Beyond the 
 walls and broad-leaved banana trees stretched miles 
 of golden sand, like a calm golden sea, broken here
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 and there by green islands of cocoanut palms that 
 moved languidly against the pale-growing azure of the 
 sky. One glance took in all this beauty, and my 
 curiosity as to the voices returned. I looked through 
 the network of giant convolvulus that completely 
 covered one side of the house, and peering between 
 the great violet and white cups of the flowers, I saw 
 beneath, seated in a circle in a small open space of 
 turf, an old native woman and five other evidently 
 younger women round her. I could only partially see 
 them, but they appeared to be in festive attire, and 
 suddenly the warning at the Club last night came back to 
 me. These were, without doubt, the threatened ' wives.' 
 With mingled disgust and amusement I withdrew from 
 the window and commenced my toilet, the chatter- 
 ing and jabbering continuing unabated the whole 
 time, sometimes rising to a shrill clamour, and then 
 sinking to almost whispers. I went down to my dining- 
 room where breakfast was waiting for me, and which 
 I had perfectly undisturbed, then the servant withdrew 
 and I lapsed into thought, swinging absently on my 
 chair, and staring up to the roof, which was high enough 
 from the floor for the bats to come in and hang there 
 in quiet comfort. 
 
 Suddenly the lattice door was pushed open, and the 
 old woman I had seen in the compound entered, 
 followed by the five little women, all holding each 
 other's hands, and grinning the whole width of their 
 little painted mouths. They were all dressed in very 
 tight narrow petticoats, so narrow that they produced 
 the effect of a bolster case, or one wide trouser leg, 
 
 39
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 these were of different gay-coloured silks, and reached 
 just to the little ankles of the wearer, which were loaded 
 with blue china bangles. Above, they each wore a silk 
 zouave, heavily embroidered, which, while it covered 
 each breast, left the space between them exposed ; their 
 throats were quite bare and peculiarly round, smooth 
 and boneless j their arms were bare except for countless 
 glass and china bangles, and they all wore flowers 
 stuck in their straight oily black hair and behind their 
 ears. The old woman flung herself flat on the floor 
 before me, with her forehead pressed to the ground, 
 and the five little creatures went down on their hands 
 and knees, ducking their flower-decked heads, and 
 subjecting the absurdly tight silk petticoat to a terrible 
 strain over the broadest part of their small persons. After 
 her obeisance, the old woman sat up and addressed 
 me in a flow of excellent Hindustani. She had heard 
 that the sahib, who was her father and mother and the 
 protector of the poor, had come to shed the light of 
 his most glorious countenance, which was like the sun 
 rising in majesty upon Lihuli, and she had hastened 
 her aged footsteps to minister to the wants of the 
 sahib, and she brought him five flowers of the morning, 
 and he was to stretch forth his kingly hand and indi- 
 cate which would best suit him for a wife. When she 
 paused, the five little girls also sat up and eyed me 
 somewhat anxiously. Some chalk or white paste had 
 been rubbed over their faces to simulate the Aryan 
 complexion, and a round pink spot painted in the 
 middle of the cheek. Their faces were Mongolian in 
 type, more like the Chinese face than any other, but 
 
 40
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 the mouths were soft and pretty. Their diminutiveness 
 was the most striking thing about them. They seemed 
 like little children. 
 
 'How old are they?' I asked the woman. 
 
 ' Eleven, twelve and thirteen,' she answered sharply, 
 looking at me suspiciously. 'Surely the sahib doesn't 
 think that too old?' 
 
 ' Old ! Good God ! no ; they're not old enough,' I 
 returned, speaking of course always in her vernacular. 
 The old woman looked relieved, and pulling forward 
 the biggest one by the arm, she brought her close up 
 to me. 
 
 'See here,' she proceeded, 'she's plump and good- 
 sized.' With this she pinched the girl's bosom, and 
 dug her fingers into her neck precisely as poulterers 
 pinch the breasts of their fowls for customers. 
 
 After that, she went into various details pertaining 
 to the girl with a degree of frankness that makes it 
 impossible to repeat them. I sat back in my chair, 
 surveying the scene with amazement at the strange 
 commingling of ideas these little half-formed things and 
 wifehood, motherhood, and the modest Anglo-Indian 
 Government that will not have the word prostitution 
 printed in the newspapers, and yet countenances such 
 things as these. For all this was perfectly legal, and 
 the girls probably all came from Burmah families of 
 some standing. 
 
 'Here, Nanee,' exclaimed the woman to another of 
 them, perhaps the prettiest of them all. ' Go up and 
 make yourself amiable to the gentleman.' 
 
 At this Nanee approached on little bare velvet feet, 
 41
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 and nestled close to my side, one tiny hand, soft as 
 satin, absurdly flexible at the wrist, and seemingly 
 perfectly boneless, she placed on my knee, and looking 
 up straight at me she lisped softly, ' Ashik karti,' or ' I 
 love you,' to show me she too could speak Hindustani. 
 
 I looked down on her with a smile. The idea of 
 love seemed to me ludicrous. What could I do with 
 this little atom of doll-like, child-like life? But I 
 smiled upon her as one does on a pretty child asking 
 for a kiss. 
 
 'Now which will the sahib, who is lord of all the 
 virtues, decide upon, Nanee or Lalee?' asked the old 
 woman in a business-like tone. 
 
 I saw it was time to negative the matter at once, and 
 I said decidedly, 
 
 ' I am not in want of a wife, and I hav$ no intention 
 of taking one.' 
 
 The old woman fell back, sitting on her heels, and 
 stared at me blankly. 
 
 'But, sahib, protector of the poor, you are here for 
 five years, no white woman at all in Lihuli, no woman 
 allowed in bazaar ! What will you do ? ' 
 
 Five years ! So she knew the exact length of my 
 appointment, probably the amount of my salary and 
 private income to an anna. They know everything, 
 these people. I looked up and saw standing just inside 
 my door, patiently waiting till the market should be 
 concluded, a clerk with a long strip of paper and a 
 bundle of reed pens in his hands. His duty was to 
 make out the agreement between us, and give me a 
 receipt for any money paid on account. 
 
 42
 
 'I don't know,' I said abruptly. 'When I want a 
 wife I will send for one. I don't want one now. I 
 have spoken.' 
 
 ' Let the sahib think once more. He may look from 
 one end of Lihuli to the other and he will not find such 
 buds from the garden of paradise as these again.' 
 
 I glanced at the buds of paradise and saw that their 
 little faces had grown sad and wistful as they heard my 
 decision. 
 
 'They are beautiful beyond comparison,' I said to 
 reassure them, and perhaps save them from the old 
 woman's wrath. ' But I have no need of them ; if I 
 had, there are none I could wish better.' 
 
 ' Well,' muttered the old woman, somewhat appeased, 
 while the buds looked considerably happier, ' I am but 
 a poor woman, and the sahib is the lord of gold and 
 silver.' 
 
 I understood this, and it was an appeal to which I 
 could respond. I put my hand into my pocket and 
 drew out a handful of rupees. These I dropped into 
 her outstretched hands, and she fell on her face again, 
 and declared I was more her father and mother than 
 ever, and otherwise very nearly related to her. 
 
 Then I got up and filled each of the little soft brown 
 hands of the buds with rupees, and their tiny fingers 
 could hardly close over the large coins. 
 
 ' Now go,' I said, and clasping hands as before they 
 all wriggled in an uneven line to and through the door, 
 followed by the clerk. Then I threw myself into a 
 chair and laughed, yet it was rather a sad laugh and 
 ended soon, leaving me staring thoughtfully into the 
 
 43
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 sheen of gold sunlight beyond the lattice door, I felt 
 sorry for them, and after a time this impersonal sorrow 
 merged into sorrow for myself. The old woman's words : 
 1 Five years ! what will the sahib do ? ' rang in my ears. 
 It is a curious fact how, if we are in an unpleasant 
 position, another person's sympathy or pity seems 
 to stamp it into our minds and bring out sharply its 
 most disagreeable points. She saw the position more 
 clearly than I did. She had seen my predecessor come 
 and go. She knew, probably, more of the way in which 
 heat and silence can work on the white man's brain 
 than I did. My thoughts were decidedly unpleasant 
 as I stared up into the great arch above me. There 
 was no ceiling cloth stretched across. The eye could 
 go up far among the great timbers and cross-beams, 
 and watch the black mummy-like bats clinging there 
 in rows, head downwards, with their claws sheathed 
 till the night-time. 
 
 It was ten when I ordered the carriage and drove 
 down to the city to see the native quarter and find my 
 office. Lihuli is a place with a very large but strag- 
 gling population, and without those grand buildings, 
 tombs, temples and mosques one stumbles over at 
 every turn in the native cities of India. Nothing 
 but piles of irregular, badly-built, badly-kept mud, 
 plaster and stone houses leaning against each other, 
 one on the top of the other, as if an earthquake had 
 shaken them together, met my eyes on the left of 
 the broad road I was traversing. And this was the 
 town. On the other side of it lay a wide flowing 
 stream, doubtless but a dry stony bed for many 
 
 44
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 months in the year, and between the river and the 
 town rose a high stone wall which intervened to pre- 
 vent the miserable little mud houses slipping into the 
 stream and being whirled away to the great swamps 
 of the plain. Running through the town there was 
 one respectable street, and in this I found the Court 
 House and my office, a two-storied building in stone 
 adjoining. The lower storey one could enter from the 
 street, but to arrive at the second, one had to pass 
 through the ground floor out into the square yard 
 beyond, where great white oxen, reposing on their 
 fore-knees, gazed at one steadily through the blinding 
 glare of the sun, and by picking one's way carefully 
 through piles of green fodder and pools of slime, one 
 reached the airy frail wooden staircase that ran up to 
 the balcony of the second storey. The house was a 
 corner one, and the balcony at the side here overhung 
 a narrow native court. The buildings were not high, 
 and the sun fell richly into it ; glancing across, I saw a 
 little grated window opposite, low down, and white 
 with the dust of the road. Two native women sat 
 behind the bars, and I caught the glint of a red 
 and blue glass bracelet as a tiny brown hand clasped 
 one of the rails. It was fairly cool and shaded in the 
 balcony, because an awning of English manufacture 
 stretched over it made it so. Beneath, in the dust, 
 sat the sellers of sweets and cakes, cross-legged, 
 calling out their wares in a crooning, droning voice 
 I passed on and turned the corner of the balcony, 
 coming round to the front of "the office, where the 
 long windows opened into it. Some white pigeons 
 
 45
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 had their cote on the grey wall of the Court House 
 adjoining, and they whirled round the balcony, their 
 snow-like wings flashing in the gold sunlight against 
 the blue sky. I watched them for an instant and they 
 seemed looking at me wonderingly. 'Poor Burke,' I 
 thought; 'perhaps these birds were favourites of his 
 and are asking themselves if I am he come back to 
 them.' I shuddered and turned into the office. It 
 was all so neat and in such perfect order. It 
 seemed as if he had just stepped out of it except 
 that the dust lay thick on everything. The jilmils 
 of the windows were closed, and all was black dark- 
 ness to me stepping from the yellow glare outside. 
 I started as a shuffling on the matting came to my 
 ears and the light of a pair of eyes to mine, looking 
 out of the shadow. The next minute I distinguished 
 the figure of a native clerk bearing a bunch of keys. 
 
 Why, where did you spring from?' I exclaimed, or 
 a near equivalent to that in Hindustani. 
 
 'Behold, Heaven born, there is an inner staircase,' 
 replied the clerk, bowing, and then I noticed that a 
 second little staircase, just outside the office door, led 
 below. 
 
 I took over the keys and went to work ; dry work for 
 the most part ; reading letters, filing and answering them 
 and writing judgments on cases I had not tried; and hot 
 work, for there was no punkah, and ordering one put up 
 for to-morrow did not make it any cooler to-day. The 
 sweat gathered on my face and poured persistently off 
 my nose, blotting and blurring everything I wrote in 
 the most pathetic, approved, tear-stained way. It was 
 
 46
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 pathetic, I thought; a few tears would not probably 
 have cost me as much. 
 
 By five in the afternoon I was free, and shutting up 
 the dusty, airless room I strolled out on the balcony and 
 found compensation. 
 
 The Burmah air was round me, dazzling yellow air 
 like liquid gold and heavy with those strange smells of 
 smoke and rose and incense and spices. Above, the 
 Burmah sky of silver blue ; below, the broad Burmah 
 road with its countless forms in white and blue and 
 yellow passing up and down, and its bullock-carts with 
 their heavy large white bullocks moving slowly in from 
 the teak forests that lie towards the west. I leaned on 
 the rail of the balcony and looked down, realising how 
 truly the East was in my blood. It seemed my home, 
 its air my native air. With all its miseries and its sins 
 I loved it and I knew that I did. The wish of my 
 childhood, boyhood and youth had been accomplished. 
 I had come to the East, and did not think I should 
 ever want to return. It holds one with too many hands. 
 I leaned on one elbow gazing down on the careless, 
 light-hearted stream of Orientals passing below people 
 whose brains are like the brains of a genius, whose daily 
 life is the life of a child, and whose passions are the 
 passions of a beast. A feeling of contentment stole over 
 me, borne on the heated, languid, spice-laden air. Had 
 I only had beside me that yielding form and those 
 speaking eyes I should have been happy, far too happy, 
 and this is doubtless what the gods thought when they 
 arranged things differently. 
 
 I went down presently by the little rickety outside 
 47
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 staircase and through the courtyard where the bullocks 
 were still wallowing in the blue mud, and through the 
 lower storey of the building, which was the office of a 
 native and full of dusky native clerks, perched on high 
 stools in their straight white garments, with their long 
 black braided hair falling down to the floor. The place 
 was dark, with closed windows and jilmils, but the 
 rolling eyes of the clerks as they turned on me passing 
 through their midst almost lighted it with their gleam- 
 ing whites and jetty pupils. And so at last out into 
 the now cooling, brilliant air and to my carriage. A 
 thought came to me. I was not hungry my lonely 
 dinner in my empty bungalow did not invite me. I would 
 leave it till later and go now and see the notorious 
 swamps, the blue miasma-laden, death-dealing swamps 
 of Lihuli. I would go now while I was fresh and 
 strong, before the place had thinned and weakened my 
 stock of clean blood. I found out from the native 
 coachman that we should have to drive down to the 
 river where at certain places there were landing-stages 
 and boats, the common boats mostly used for mer- 
 chandise, for the river higher up was fair and broad, a 
 good highway for traffic ; here it became but a poor and 
 sluggish stream that lower down, below the town, found 
 difficulty in struggling through the wide morasses in its 
 path. 
 
 Accordingly, through the balmy, red -gold air we 
 drove down to the riverside, and found by chance an 
 old Burman sitting on his heels beside a still older 
 boat, damp and sticky yet from its recent load of half 
 rotten fruit He was smoking peacefully, watching with 
 
 48
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 dull, unseeing eyes the pinkish ripples of the stream 
 tumbling along in their muddy bed. 
 
 The coachman threw his whip at him, by way of 
 attracting his attention, and this catching him full in 
 the middle of his blue-brown naked back, sufficed to 
 arouse him from his reverie, and while I stood on the 
 little quay the following colloquy, as far as it can be 
 approached in English, took place. 
 
 ' Hi there, you son of an owl, this Heaven-born 
 person of distinction wishes to descend the river. For 
 how many annas shall his nobly-proportioned body 
 confer honour on your stinking old tub of a boat?' 
 
 ' I am the servant of the Heaven-born ; for fifteen 
 annas we will descend even to the swamps.' 
 
 ' And return, thou base-born ? ' 
 
 1 1 said not return.' 
 
 1 For fifteen annas thou shall go and return and see 
 that this king among men returns unharmed, or thou 
 wilt sway in the wind as a leaf of the peepul tree.' 
 
 ' It is well. I am but a poor man and the sahib's 
 will is my will.' 
 
 At the end of this I disposed my ' nobly-proportioned 
 body ' in the old fruit-scented craft, and we pushed of? 
 from the bank by the aid of the long pole the old 
 Burman used punting fashion. My sais got off the box 
 and, sitting on his heels beneath the noses of the 
 horses, watched me go down stream, supremely satisfied 
 with the coachman's bargaining. Easily the boat 
 rocked its way down the river like a drunken man, 
 pleased with himself and all the world, rolling home- 
 ward ; pushed by the old Burman now from one bank, 
 D 49
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 now from the other, it kept its middle course down 
 stream, and the rank grass and long weeds at the sides 
 stretched out their snares in vain. I sank into a reverie 
 that the warm stillness of the air and the ripple and the 
 lap of the water aided, and it quite startled me when 
 the punter ceased his work suddenly and waved his 
 arms round his head and then towards the landscape 
 in general with a shrill cry to attract my attention. I 
 sat up, raised my eyes and looked about me. 
 
 The swamps were round me, stretching on every 
 side of me as far as vision could reach, except in the 
 west, where the great teak forests rose in dark masses 
 against the glowing sky, and desolate, tainted, deadly 
 as they were, they yet possessed a peculiar beauty of 
 their own, that same wonderful beauty that rises before 
 one's eyes everywhere in the East and is the consola- 
 tion for all its trials. They lay around me, a wonder- 
 ful plain of varied colour, here the light amber and 
 pale green of lichen and moss growing on fallen 
 timber, there a patch of vivid scarlet from some 
 nameless flowers springing out of the rotting vegeta- 
 tion, there a long dark green band of rushes tipped 
 with gold in the flood of the evening sun, and over 
 them all, faint and indefinable, hung a pale blue mist, 
 a shifting veil of blue vapour. 
 
 The river had widened out and shallowed, and great 
 tussocks of coarse moss rose out of its straggling bed. 
 Against one of these the boat jarred and finally rested. 
 The old man laid down his pole and squatted on his 
 heels. I gazed long and curiously about me, away 
 over the masses of sodden moss, over the little flat 
 
 50
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 gleaming pools turning blood red in the evening light, 
 away over steaming patches of decaying vegetation 
 and forming carbon, away into the pale, poisonous 
 mist on every side. It was quite silent but for the 
 sing-sing of the mosquitoes round us. Far off on the 
 edge of a gleaming flat of water, motionless as an ibis 
 carved on an Egyptian wall, stood a long-shanked 
 bird. I could see his profile, all long beak and 
 tufted crest, defined against the amber distance. He 
 was the only sign of life ; all around and between him 
 and me stretched decay, poison and death. I sat 
 for a long time in contemplation as the light sank 
 lower and lower over the dismal swamp and the old 
 Burman began to get uneasy and move about in the 
 boat. At last he raised his arms over his head to 
 attract my attention, and I nodded to him that he 
 might return if he wished. Slowly we pushed and 
 punted back up stream, between the rank and muddy 
 banks, and before we reached the landing stage, 
 darkness had swept over the face of the swamp, it 
 had veiled itself in the night quickly and deftly, as 
 a woman draws her veil across her face with one 
 turn of her hand. It was quite dark when I regained 
 my bungalow, and I ate my solitary dinner by the 
 light of one solitary lamp set in the centre of the 
 table, which threw, owing to its abominable shade, 
 manufactured in Birmingham, a dazzling circle of 
 light just round its foot on the white tablecloth, 
 leaving the whole of the rest of the large and lofty 
 room in complete obscurity. I heard the bats whiz 
 in and out and repair to their haunts in the far-away
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 ceiling undisturbed, and the lizards and spiders scurrying 
 and clinking about in the shadowy, far-off corners ; they 
 doubtless gave the construction of that Birmingham 
 lamp their unqualified approval. As the sole society 
 of these companions is not very interesting, and I 
 was too tired to seek the club, I went off to bed early. 
 
 Three weeks passed, and by the end of that time 
 I felt myself settled into an old resident. I found 
 I had Court work to do, and this rather amused me. 
 Needing an interpreter by my side all through the 
 Court business irritated me. I like to hear a native's 
 evidence straight from his lips, and by the coupling 
 of particular looks and glances and motions of the 
 face with certain words, I can tell pretty well which 
 lie he is telling. Therefore in most of my leisure 
 hours I studied the Burmese language, and each 
 day, after dinner, the bats, lizards and spiders 
 listened from their corners to a high-class conversation 
 in the vernacular. I hired an old Munshi to teach 
 me and to talk to me, and often he would bring two 
 or three friends with him. Then, all crouching on 
 their heels in a circle round my chair, they would all 
 talk to me, in turn, by my special request, otherwise 
 they would have all talked together. 
 
 In addition to this study, which was my form of 
 amusement, I had found time in that three weeks to 
 paint a portrait of Anna. 
 
 I hardly needed a portrait on canvas, since a very 
 clear and I hoped indelible one was stamped in my 
 brain, but one never knows about these things ; the 
 human brain is one of the crankiest creations, and a
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 good stiff attack of fever will sometimes wipe away 
 and make a blank of its dearest impressions. So I 
 committed her face to canvas, in view of contingencies, 
 and it was pleasant to see it smiling out upon me 
 from the hot gloom of my dining-room, when I came 
 back sick and weary from a crowded court-room, with 
 my retina weary of photographing infinities of black 
 visages. I really found little time for going to the 
 Club, and the members did not see me there very 
 often, but some of the men would sometimes bring 
 their Burmese wives with them and there was quite a 
 family gathering on my verandah. It was unnecessary 
 generally to bring out extra chairs for the women, as 
 they were so small they could slip in beside their 
 husbands into the same chair without his being 
 cramped, but usually they preferred to sit cross-legged 
 at his feet. Some of them were excellent musicians 
 and occasionally brought their pear-shaped guitars and 
 sang native melodies in perfect time and tune, but for 
 the most part they liked to sit idle, smoking their 
 huge white Burmese cheroots, that are at least four 
 times the size of our cigars, and which, sticking out 
 from their little mouths, stretched quite round to 
 hold them, do anything but improve their appearance. 
 
 One evening they followed me into my dining-room, 
 and spying Anna's portrait, which I had stood upon 
 a table by itself, they crowded over it with eager curi- 
 osity. Lihuli is not an advanced Burmese community. 
 There was no white woman there then, and perhaps 
 had not been for years, perhaps not in the lives of these 
 little creatures, and the fair, bright countenance looked 
 
 S3
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 into their dusky peering eyes as a thing unseen and 
 unknown. But it was the hair that struck them most. 
 They could not understand that fair, clustering mass, 
 full of waves and golden lights. They gazed at it in 
 awestruck silence, and then I heard them murmur 
 to each other, 
 
 1 Peri hai ' ' it is a fairy.' 
 
 ' No,' I said rather sadly, ' it's not a fairy ; it's a living 
 woman, who will love and be loved and have children 
 some day just like yourselves.' It is only by such images 
 that one can convey the idea of womanhood to the 
 native mind. 
 
 'But look at the hair,' they said, pointing out their 
 soft dark fingers at it, and then turning to each other and 
 examining each other's heads. This was all they knew of 
 hair, this mass of coarse, heavy straight threads, each of 
 uniform length, that, when dressed and oiled, lay in a 
 black, solid lump against their heads, or when undone 
 fell in uneven, unwaving lines to the floor. 
 
 ' That is English hair, and she is an English woman,' 
 I said ; but as I followed them out tm to the verandah, 
 I heard them muttering to themselves, ' Sachbat ne bolta 
 hai, Peri hai ' ' he is not speaking the truth, it is a 
 fairy,' and they looked dubiously on my veracity ever 
 after. 
 
 During this time I had several letters from Anna, and 
 they were characteristic ones which delighted me. All 
 the social news of the station, and what she had been 
 doing in that way herself, crammed into the first few 
 sentences and put as shortly as possible, and all the 
 rest of the sheet filled up with some idea or theory of 
 
 54
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 hers, or else a continuation of some argument or theory 
 started in mine. Her first letter, too, had filled me 
 with more hope than I had had since I had left her. 
 It seemed full of a sorrow at my departure, that she did 
 not like to exactly express, but yet managed to indicate 
 very clearly. She thanked me for the ring, and said that 
 she wore it on the middle finger of her right hand and 
 wound up her letter with, ' Why didn't you wake me ? ' 
 
 Altogether, so far, life in Burmah did not seem 
 absolutely insupportable to me, and I grew deeply 
 interested in my judicial work. I made head-way 
 in the language and watched everything, noted every- 
 thing and stored up all the native lore and know- 
 ledge of native life with which to surprise and please 
 Anna in that far distance when we were to meet again. 
 She was deeply interested in all that I told her of my 
 Burmese friends, and every incident that was unusual 
 or striking of my crowded court-room made the back- 
 bone of a diverting story for her. One instance, 
 however, I forbore to mention, though it was a great 
 deal more to my credit than some others. On a 
 certain Monday morning, when there had been an un- 
 usual number of cases, and I was wearied out in the 
 heavy atmosphere, before the lunch hour arrived, a case 
 come before me of abduction, of which the facts elicited, 
 at length, from a mist of lies were as follows : A low- 
 caste Hindu woman had married a low-caste Burman, 
 and their daughter, a low - caste hybrid, had been 
 married and left a widow before she was eleven years 
 old. Her husband's mother thereupon used her, accord- 
 ing, indeed, to Hindu custom, as a household drudge, 
 
 55 
 
 *
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 and endeavoured to add to the cheerfulness of her ex- 
 istence by frequent blows and a scarcity of nourishment. 
 The Burmese father, of the mild, gentle Burmese 
 disposition, unable to bear the pitiful tale of his 
 daughter's woes, summoned up courage, with several 
 of his friends, to effect a forcible abduction of the girl, 
 and had rescued her from the old woman's clutches. 
 Hence the suit, and now the whole four stood before 
 me. The court-room was not very large, with four high 
 narrow windows facing each other, two on each side. 
 These had bars without and shades within to keep out 
 even that much of the pitiless sunlight, the door had a 
 square of open-work grating in it, to let some current 
 move, if possible, the stifling air ; the back of the court- 
 room was crowded with narrow wooden benches, black 
 and polished from the continued contact of oily naked 
 arms, legs and bodies. In the forepart was my chair, 
 a little raised, with a punkah swinging over it, and on 
 this particular morning there were ranged before me 
 the old witch-like mother-in-law, the prosecutrix, the 
 gentle old Burman, the accused, his wife and their 
 daughter, Lulloo, a very beautiful, half - developed 
 woman of eleven. She had very little to say ; she 
 stood with her great eyes under magnificent arching 
 brows fixed upon me the whole time, and her dirty 
 white ragged cotton tunic turned down from her back 
 and shoulders. They were horribly scarred and cut, 
 while her left breast was swollen and had a large 
 circular red patch on it. Now, it is difficult to make a 
 black skin red, and when a patch shows up dusky crim- 
 son on it, it means blood badly extravasated underneath. 
 
 56
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I knew what a cruel blow must have been given to 
 cause that mark, and I was not much inclined to 
 patience with the old woman when she explained to 
 me at great length that the girl was her son's property, 
 and her property, and could not, under any circum- 
 stances, go back to live with her own people. All this 
 was perfectly correct as far as Hindu India went, but 
 the law was different in Burmah ; moreover, a right to a 
 person's custody is forfeited by excessive cruelty under 
 any law. 
 
 1 The girl is lazy and will not work unless she's 
 beaten,' screamed the old woman. 
 
 ' Is that true, Lulloo ? ' I asked, curious to have this 
 beautiful, silent, helpless creature speak. 
 
 ' No, it is not true,' she answered calmly. ' I have 
 worked from dawn till dark for a handful of rice and 
 two dates. Let the sahib take me for a servant in 
 his house and see how I will work ; let me be only 
 meteranni in the house of the Huzoor.' 
 
 I smiled and shook my head. 
 
 ' I have no use for women in my house,' I answered. 
 ' Do you wish to return to your father ? ' 
 
 The girl looked down and fingered a dried and faded 
 circle of clematis on her wrist, and then said in a low 
 voice, 
 
 1 Yes, if I may not go to the house of the sahib.' 
 
 I signalled for the old Burman to approach. 
 
 1 Take your daughter and keep her. The Court gives 
 you the right to her.' 
 
 The girl, instead of joyfully throwing herself into her 
 father's arms, as I anticipated, flung herself at my feet, 
 
 57
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 kissing and crying over them. The old woman, as 
 soon as she fairly understood the sentence, began 
 screaming and vociferating. 
 
 ' Take her away,' I said, peremptorily, and two stout 
 Burmans, ushers of my court, dragged and hustled 
 her out between them. We could still hear her shrill 
 clamour outside, through the thick stone walls. Lulloo 
 was still weeping at my feet, and a stray ray of light 
 from the window fell across her bare shoulders and 
 showed up the hideous weals and cuts upon them. I 
 lifted her up. 
 
 'Don't you understand, child,' I said, 'you won't 
 be beaten or starved any more ? Go away now with 
 your father.' 
 
 The girl ceased sobbing and turned away to hei 
 father, muttering to herself, ' I am not a child. I am 
 a woman and a widow.' Then she went away with 
 her parents to the back of the court and other cases 
 came crowding on, through all that long hot after- 
 noon, and I thought no more about her. 
 
 The next morning, strolling out into my compound 
 to breathe a little cool air before the sun had fairly 
 struggled over the edge of the plain, I saw something 
 white in the centre of one of the big banana leaves 
 of a prominent tree which grew close to the main 
 path of the compound by the gate. I walked up to 
 it and found a note, rolled up and stuck through a 
 hole in the leaf. The writing was that of the pro- 
 fessional bazaar letter-writer, and then, signed at the 
 bottom in large, unsteady, straggling characters, was 
 the word Lulloo. I laughed and read the note. 
 
 58
 
 When a native is in love, he or she may not be very 
 constant or faithful, and what he feels may not be 
 the highest class of emotion, but, at least, he is very 
 earnest for the time being, and his language is always 
 remarkably explicit. He loses, in fact, no time what- 
 ever in coming to the point. The present note was 
 no exception to this rule. 
 
 Lulloo, having apparently lost her heart to me, the 
 previous day in the Court House, wished to draw my 
 attention to that fact in the most emphatic manner. 
 I read and re-read it several times; for it was in 
 Hindustani, both substance and character, and there- 
 fore good practice, for one cannot be too well versed 
 in this sort of literature. Then I tore it in the tiniest 
 fragments and gave them to the now stirring morning 
 breeze and went inside to breakfast. A week passed 
 and I saw nothing of Lulloo, but the notes continued 
 and I found one each morning stuck in the banana 
 leaf. Some reproached me for not having answered 
 the former ones, and some merely begged me to give 
 her some sign of my favour. At the end of the week 
 the notes ceased, and I thought my absolutely ignoring 
 of them had had the desired effect. That evening, 
 however, just as I was leaving the Court, Lulloo 
 sprang up, apparently from nowhere, and stood in 
 front of me. I was quite astonished at the change 
 in the child since I had last seen her, with matted 
 hair, thin cheeks and ragged dirty clothes in the 
 court-room. Now she was clean, plump and radiant, 
 with a brand-new bolster-case petticoat of green silk 
 and a white muslin zouave. 
 
 59
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'Sahib, sahib,' she said joyfully. 'Look at 
 me!' 
 
 ' Where did you get all these fine clothes ? ' I asked, 
 smiling. 
 
 'I buy them. They are all mine. I make much 
 money now by my profession.' 
 
 ' What is it ? ' I pursued, watching the sun strike 
 the purple lights in her hair. 
 
 'Snake charming. All snakes know me. I can 
 charm them all. They never hurt Lulloo. Would 
 the sahib like to see my snakes?' she added in- 
 sinuatingly, coming a little nearer me and throwing 
 back her head at an angle, where her curled lips and 
 arching brows looked most beautiful. 
 
 ' Shall I come this evening with my snakes and 
 show the sahib?' she repeated. 
 
 Native like, there was not a word about the notes 
 nor any allusion now to those deeper feelings that 
 had been breathed in them. What is it that some- 
 times sways us to grant, sometimes to refuse, a request 
 that we ourselves have no personal interest in ? I see 
 now that I should have refused this one, but weakness, 
 I suppose, took hold of me and I consented. 'Very 
 good, Lulloo, come up at eight o'clock this evening 
 and bring your snakes. I have some friends coming. 
 You shall show all you do,' and then I got into my 
 carriage and drove away. Lulloo, the instant her 
 request was granted, had disappeared. I had invited 
 four of the fellows to come and dine with me that 
 evening, and it struck me the snake charming would 
 be a good thing to amuse them with afterwards, and 
 
 60
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I myself would not be sorry to see the thing done 
 genuinely and watch it at close range. 
 
 So eight o'clock that evening found myself, the 
 doctor, Knight, Hunter and Jones, seated in a semi- 
 circle facing the verandah, smoking, sipping iced 
 brandies and waiting for Lulloo. With customary 
 unpunctuality, our watches marked the quarter past 
 before Lulloo came on to the verandah and appeared 
 before us, followed by an old wizened Burman who 
 was carrying a wooden box bound with brass that 
 seemed to sway with a movement of its own as he 
 carried it. I saw the men glance at each other with 
 surprise as the girl with her easy steps and Bacchus- 
 like face came into the light. She might have served 
 perfectly for the model of any of those beautiful 
 antiques of the youthful Bacchus. She salaamed 
 composedly to us all, and then sat down, crouching 
 on her heels, opened a small square door in the hutch- 
 like box and gave a shrill whistle ; almost instantly the 
 circular space around her was alive with snakes of all 
 sizes and colours, they came tumbling through the 
 small opening, one over the other, and went writh- 
 ing, wriggling and gliding in all directions over the 
 matting. 
 
 ' I say,' whispered Knight, in my ear, moving un- 
 easily in his chair. ' This is too bad ; it's like a fellow 
 having D. T. without deserving it, you know.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you do deserve it,' I retorted, for Knight was 
 a consumer of many pegs. ' Now, I don't mind watch- 
 ing them in the least.' Lulloo was catching up her 
 snakes one by one and squeezing their throats till 
 
 61
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 their mouths opened, so that we could all see that they 
 were fully fanged. There were more snakes there than 
 I knew the names of, but I recognised two fair-sized 
 rattlers and a small python. She lifted the python 
 with some little exertion of strength, for he was fat 
 and heavy, and tied him round her waist as a girdle. 
 Then she took the two rattlers by their necks, one in 
 each hand and knocked their heads together. They 
 spit and hissed violently. Then she laid one down 
 and slapped the other with her free hand, moving with 
 incredible swiftness to avoid the darting tongue. Then, 
 when the poor beast was worked up into a thorough 
 loss of his temper, she brought out of her zouave a 
 little square tablet of wood, and put it before his jaws. 
 He struck at it viciously and we plainly saw when she 
 drew it away the yellow drops of venom his poison-fangs 
 had left on it. 
 
 ' I say I don't half like this,' muttered Jones. ' It's just 
 playing with death. Suppose the brute catches her hand 
 instead of the board, she'd be dead in half an hour.' 
 
 ' He who harbours love in his heart is in more danger 
 than if he held a hundred snakes in his bosom,' crooned 
 Lulloo, as if she had understood or divined what he 
 was saying, and she threw an eloquent glance in my 
 direction that made all the men laugh and nudge each 
 other. 
 
 ' I say ; you've been going it with this girl ; must have. 
 You'll get into trouble,' remarked the doctor, and Knight 
 added, 
 
 'Seems awfully stuck on him; I imagine we're ex- 
 pected to leave early.' 
 
 62
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I felt myself flush up with annoyance, but said nothing, 
 and the clematis-crowned head in front of us bent low 
 over the snakes as the girl twined the reptiles round 
 her neck, letting a bunch of squirming heads hang down 
 like a pendant or locket between her firm, round 
 breasts. 
 
 She had knocked both the rattlers about and let them 
 each strike at the wood tablet several times. 'Now 
 they are tired,' she said. ' See,' and indeed both snakes 
 lay in a heap on the matting apparently quite exhausted. 
 
 'You cruel little beast,' said Knight in Hindustani, 
 chaffingly shaking his finger at her. 
 
 The girl laughed, and picking up one of the dormant 
 rattlers by the middle of the body, flung it full in his 
 face. I have seldom seen a man so abjectly frightened. 
 He turned livid and sprang to his feet, the snake slipped 
 down between his legs and wriggled back towards its 
 mistress. I frowned angrily at Lulloo. 
 
 'How dare you, you rude, ill-bred little girl; I am 
 sorry I had you to my house.' 
 
 The effect of my words on Lulloo was remarkable. 
 She stared at me with wide-open eyes for a moment, 
 sitting back on her heels. Then she burst out crying 
 and flung herself forward, clasping my feet and murmur- 
 ing incoherent words of contrition. 
 
 Knight sat down again with a forced smile, but he 
 had not altogether recovered his composure. It is not 
 pleasant to have a full-sized rattler flung suddenly in 
 your face, even though it is exhausted. 
 
 The other men looked on, amused. Lulloo's attitude 
 to me interested them a good deal more, practically, 
 
 63
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 than her snake charming. I drew my feet away and 
 said, 
 
 ' You should apologise to my friend, not to me.' 
 
 Lulloo looked up and gazed resentfully at Knight out 
 of her great star-like, tear-filled eyes, then glanced back 
 at me and finally crept towards Knight, clasped his feet, 
 muttered some apology, and drawing from the bosom of 
 her zouave a tiny long vial of attar of roses, dropped 
 some of it on them. The idea of well-blacked and 
 polished London-manufactured boots being anointed 
 with attar of roses amused the men ; they leaned back 
 in their long chairs and laughed at the scene till the 
 cane creaked. Knight, looking uncomfortable, tucked 
 his feet under his chair, and Jones leant forward, spread- 
 ing out his handkerchief. 
 
 ' Here, little girl, put some on this.' 
 
 Lulloo again looked questioningly at me. It was 
 plain she would obey me to any limit, but she had no 
 particular liking for my friends. They were laughing at 
 her and making fun of her, and a native, like an animal, 
 does not forgive this. 
 
 I nodded gravely, and she accordingly dropped some 
 of the priceless stuff on the outspread handkerchief. 
 Jones covered his face with it. 
 
 ' Phew, that's nice. I say, how these snakes smell ! 
 Have you noticed it ? They are worse than a tank full 
 of muggers. Come on, you fellows. I think we had 
 better be going.' 
 
 'Have you anything else to show us?' I asked 
 Lulloo. 
 
 'See me as the snake girl,' she said, and picking up 
 64
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 the smaller snakes, she twisted them together into a 
 wreath and put them on her head ; they hissed a little, 
 but did not attempt to untwine ; the next larger in size 
 she knotted into a collarette and slipped round her throat ; 
 the large python formed her waist belt, smaller snakes 
 her anklets, and smaller ones yet wriggled in twisting 
 rings along her arms from shoulders to wrists. Then 
 she stood upright before us, looking like some wonder- 
 ful little Indian god, her whole body a mass of writhing, 
 twisting snakes, and her perfect, Bacchus-like face look- 
 ing out at us from under her garland of hissing, moving 
 heads and darting forked tongues. She stood still for a 
 second, then gave a shrill whistle, and as if by magic all 
 the snakes dropped from her ; rapidly untwining and un- 
 coiling, they glided down over her face, breasts and 
 body, and in a moment they were all writhing about 
 the floor at her feet again. She sat down and began 
 unceremoniously packing them back in their box. 
 
 ' Come and have some pegs before you go,' I suggested, 
 and took the men over to the sideboard. 
 
 They drank them with much appreciation, especially 
 Knight, who declared he had an uncanny feeling yet in 
 his face where the rattler had hit him, and then, with a 
 good deal of laughter and chaff upon my having refused 
 legitimate Burmese marriage ties and then succumbed 
 to the wiles of a snake charmer, they departed, and 
 I walked back to the verandah where Lulloo was 
 sitting. 
 
 She ordered the old Burman to pick up the box and 
 retire, which he did, and then she and I were left alone. 
 She seemed in no way disposed to hurry, but came 
 E 6$
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 closer to me and looked up in my face with parted lips 
 and half-shut eyes. 
 
 'Well,' I said, putting my hand in my pocket, 'how 
 much is it to be ? ' 
 
 ' Let there be no price. Am I not the slave of the 
 sahib ? But let me stay this one night in the house of 
 the sahib.' 
 
 Then I saw my folly in accepting the snake entertain 
 ment at all. 
 
 ' I have told you before, Lulloo, it cannot be,' I re- 
 turned, drawing from my pocket enough to amply repay 
 her, and trying to force the money into her hand. ' Go 
 home, my child, and find happiness amongst your 
 own people. I am here but for a time. If I loved 
 you to-day, I must break your heart to-morrow. Go to 
 your own people and forget me.' 
 
 Lulloo let the money fall and scatter on the floor, as 
 she slipped to her knees and clasped mine, putting both 
 arms round them and commencing to sob pitifully. 
 
 I ask but to remain this night. Am I then so dis- 
 tasteful to the sahib ? ' 
 
 Now, to argue with a native is worse than useless ; it 
 does nothing but confirm him in his own view. I b*.nt 
 over her and took hold of her shoulders to raise her up. 
 
 The skin underneath the thin muslin was soft like 
 satin, and the warmth and electricity of it ran into my 
 palms. But I think the only feeling stirred in me was a 
 rush of wild longing for Anna, and as I raised my head, 
 my eyes went straight over to the picture of her, fair and 
 smiling, looking out at me from the darkness. Lulloo 
 was only a child and had the strength of a child. I 
 
 66
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 raised her up and almost carried her to the high lattice 
 door, put her outside in silence and closed and locked 
 the door between us. She stared at me for a minute 
 through the yellow lattice woodwork, and then fled away 
 into the darkness with one sobbing cry ' Sahib ! Sahib ! ' 
 It came back to me over the magnolia jungle of the 
 compound in a faint wail and then there was stillness. I 
 went inside and upstairs and threw myself on my bed, 
 but I could not sleep. I felt nervous, excited, supremely 
 dissatisfied with myself without exactly knowing why, 
 and troubled about the girl and her genuine distress. I 
 tossed about till morning, and got up with shaking 
 muscles and aching head. I went round to the Club 
 after breakfast and found there my four companions of 
 last night finishing their coffee and perusing some aged 
 papers. They looked up as I entered and eyed me all 
 over with a sort of sympathetic curiosity that I found 
 very obnoxious. 
 
 ' You look tired this morning,' observed the doctor, 
 and at this remark a sly smile went round the circle. 
 
 ' Yes, I got no sleep at all,' I returned, yawning and 
 dropping into a chair. 
 
 This statement was the signal for a fire of covert and 
 idiotic chaff and innuendo. I listened to it all in silence, 
 balancing a paper-cutter in my fingers and looking 
 through the window. Then, when they had quite ex- 
 hausted their stock of wit and were quiet, I said 
 crossly, 
 
 ' If you think that girl stayed at my place all night, 
 you're mistaken. She left five minutes after you did.' 
 
 There was silence in the room. 
 67
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Something in my look, voice or manner convinced 
 them, I suppose, that I was speaking the truth, for the 
 doctor, after laying down his paper on his knee and look- 
 ing at me over it in silence for quite two minutes, said 
 slowly, 
 
 ' Ethridge, you'll come to a bad end. You're intem- 
 perate, and intemperance in India no constitution can 
 stand.' 
 
 'What on earth are you driving at now?' I asked 
 more crossly still, for I did feel excessively irritable, and, 
 so to speak, unnerved that morning. I wheeled my 
 chair round on its hind legs and stared at him sulkily. 
 1 I'm not intemperate.' 
 
 ' Yes, you are,' persisted the doctor, stolidly ; ' you are 
 intemperately virtuous. And it won't do. You won't 
 even have the consolation of that girl of yours weeping 
 over your grave. She won't come down to Burmah to 
 do it. You drive things to extremes, and one can't 
 stand extremes here. You are extremely moderate, and 
 it won't pay. You should be moderately moderate. 
 The moderate man is the only one who lives here. 
 Moderately bad, moderately good, drinks moderately, 
 eats moderately and is moderately virtuous. A man is 
 made apparently for alternate virtue and vice, and this 
 alternation suits his health better than a strict adherence 
 to either. That theory has been threshed out in a novel 
 called The Woman Who Did Not. I would advise 
 you to read it.' 
 
 'I think you are talking a damned lot of rot,' I said 
 angrily, and got up and walked out of the Club-house. 
 But in my heart I knew the doctor was right with 
 
 68
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 limitations. I went as usual to the Court House and 
 then back at noon to my bungalow. I had no heart for 
 billiards or cards or any of the Club diversions. I had 
 hardly got inside my compound gates when a wild 
 figure ran towards me, tearing its yellow tunic and 
 throwing handfuls of dust against its breast. 
 
 ' My child, sahib, my child, my only child ! Give 
 me back my child,' and then, as it grovelled in the dust 
 at my feet, I recognised Jhuldoo, the old Burman, 
 father of Lulloo. 
 
 'I haven't got your child,' I said wearily, for my head was 
 aching, my eyes swollen and life in general was a burden. 
 
 'No, sahib, she is dead, dead, hanged in the old 
 stable by the bridge that spans the river, and Jhuldoo 
 is childless, childless,' and he rocked himself backwards 
 and forwards, sitting in the narrow pathway that ran up 
 to the house. 
 
 I stood motionless, paralysed by his words, and felt 
 myself grow cold in the blighting heat of the full noon- 
 tide sun. Lulloo dead ! hanged ! hanged herself, doubt- 
 less, after her flight from me into the darkness. And so 
 / had added one more to the terrible list of Hindu 
 suicides ! I stood still trying to realise it. The banana 
 tree drooped over us, and the figure in the dust went 
 on swaying and rocking itself and moaning like a 
 wounded animal. 
 
 1 What did the sahib do that she should end her life 
 in the stable by the bridge that spans the river? What 
 did the sahib do?' he moaned over and over again, 
 yet without daring to demand or even waiting or seem- 
 ing to expect an answer. 
 
 69
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'I don't know,' I said mechanically at last. 'Come 
 up to the verandah, Jhuldoo; I cannot stand here. 
 Come up and tell me about her.' I walked forward 
 with a sick, sinking heart, and Jhuldoo got up and 
 shambled after me. When we reached the shade of the 
 verandah, he sank down and recommenced his crooning 
 and weeping. I dropped into a chair and gazed blankly 
 into the sunlight. Dead ! choked ! hanged ! with a rope 
 round that pretty, soft, round throat, and that beautiful 
 child's face swollen and livid and distorted. Poor 
 pretty little child, what an end ! and I had brought her 
 to it. 
 
 'The sahib could have gone to the city, he could 
 have gone to the bazaar. He could have had a hun- 
 dred wives. He need not have taken Jhuldoo's only 
 child. Jhuldoo is a poor man, poor man, poor man.' 
 
 The ' poor man, poor man ' rose to a piercing wail 
 and went through the compound and distracted me. 
 
 'Jhuldoo,' I said passionately, 'I have done nothing 
 to your daughter, nothing. I am not responsible for 
 her death. She came here and begged me to use her 
 as my toy and my plaything for an hour or so, and I 
 would not. I bade her go back to you. She was here 
 in my house last evening when I and my friends were 
 here, and showed her snake charming. She left here at 
 the hour of ten, unharmed I know nothing more of 
 her than that. I give you the white man's truth.' 
 
 The old Burman lifted his head and scanned my face 
 with his heavy, reddened eyes. 
 
 'How should I not believe the sahib?' he said at 
 length ; ' I know that his word is truth ; nevertheless she 
 
 70
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 has hanged herself in the stable by the bridge that spans 
 the river, and Jhuldoo is childless and a poor man, a 
 poor man.' He rocked and sobbed again, and I sat 
 still, feeling very cold and sick-hearted. 
 
 'It was an evil day when she first saw the sahib's 
 face in the Court House. Yet do I not blame the 
 sahib. He discouraged her, as I well know. Yet it 
 is hard to remain a widow at eleven.' 
 
 Then he wept afresh. 
 
 Much has been said about the avarice and greed of 
 the native, but, whether my experience of them has 
 been singularly happy or not, I do not know, I have 
 always found them rather indifferent to money cer- 
 tainly when any of their deeper emotions have been 
 stirred. Now, when I offered the old Burman money, 
 that being, it seemed to me, the only thing I could do, 
 not in any way as consolation for his daughter's loss, 
 but simply to aid in the expenses of her funeral, he put 
 it aside and would not look at it. Although I think 
 he was convinced that I had given him an absolutely 
 truthful version of the matter, he still hated me for the 
 loss I had unwittingly brought upon him, and he would 
 not touch my money, and when he rose to leave, he 
 shook the dust of my verandah from his clothes and 
 shoes with something very like a curse. I watched him 
 shamble away down the sandy path of the compound 
 a queer, bent, twisted figure with his bluish-black skin 
 contrasting oddly with the crude yellow of his ragged 
 garments and then with a hot mist in my eyes I turned 
 into my empty bungalow. It seemed very quiet, awfully 
 quiet, and something crackled under my feet as I passed 
 
 7i
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 from the verandah. I turned to look what it was and 
 saw a little dried and withered garland of white clematis. 
 After this incident, life grew a good deal more in- 
 tolerable to me. The thought of her death depressed 
 and haunted me, and I felt a sort of distaste to black 
 faces, which, considering they were all round me they 
 and nothing else was bad. I felt an aversion for the 
 Court House some other of these narrow-petticoated 
 maidens might hang herself on my account and her 
 father come and sit on my doorstep and reproach me. 
 The weather grew steadily hotter and hotter as we 
 neared the rainy season, and Anna's letters grew less 
 and less frequent. I was evidently and quite naturally 
 slipping out of her existence, slipping out of her 
 thoughts and memory. I had gone down to Burmah 
 that is, I was virtually dead and buried and was now 
 fast being forgotten. And I had only been here not 
 quite one year. At the end of five ! I looked forward 
 with dismay, and I began to feel more and more 
 sympathy with Burke, who had blown his brains out 
 in that tepid stillness of the bungalow, which was 
 beginning to weigh more and more upon me each 
 night. The time seemed to pass slower and slower, so 
 that sometimes I caught myself wondering if it meant 
 to stop altogether and keep me anchored for ever and 
 evei in Lihuli. A day seemed to stretch and stretch 
 out its long, hot, elastic hours, and a week, to look back 
 upon when it had passed, seemed like a year. ' Take 
 a wife and settle down ' yes, that was doubtless one 
 way to kill the oppressive silence and keep a rational 
 head on one's shoulders. Knight had done so and 
 
 72
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 certainly seemed comfortable enough. He was growing 
 portly, and but for a little trouble with his liver kept his 
 health wonderfully. 
 
 When I went round to see him in the evening, I 
 used to find him generally smoking peacefully in his 
 dining-room with his wife and family crawling about 
 on the floor round his chair. He had three little 
 round, fat, toddling bundles of babies, the youngest of 
 whom was as white as its father. 
 
 'But, Knight, what will you do with all these when 
 your term is up, and you have to leave ? ' I asked him 
 one evening when I came upon the scene of happy 
 domesticity. 
 
 'Oh, well, she,' with an airy wave of his hand, 'will 
 go back to her own people, you know, with the 
 kids.' 
 
 'But what about that little one, it's a girl, isn't it? 
 and as white as we are. You won't want her to go 
 into the bazaar, surely? and lead a dog's life among 
 these blacks your own daughter with your blood in 
 her veins. It's horrible ! ' 
 
 'You're quite right, perfectly right, my dear fellow; 
 it is a horrible thought, and that's why I never 
 encourage it. I never think about disagreeable things. 
 What's the use?' 
 
 I gazed at him, fat, rubicund, cheerful and comfort- 
 able, as he leant back in his chair, then at the pretty, 
 child-like being who sat on her heels under the 
 table, weaving a garland of clematis and crooning 
 to herself, and then at the three little creatures, 
 tumbling round her, that he had seen fit, for his 
 
 73
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 own amusement, to bring into the world and to such 
 a miserable heritage. 
 
 'How different people are,' I murmured, more to 
 myself than to him. 'To me all love any sort of 
 tie of that kind means responsibility.' 
 
 'Does it?' returned Knight, sleepily. 'To me it 
 only means amusement.' 
 
 There was silence for a minute or two, then he 
 added, 
 
 'I'm afraid you will go off your head, like Burke, 
 with all your responsibilities and serious notions. I 
 suppose that's why you didn't have anything to do 
 with the little snake girl?' 
 
 ' Principally,' I answered. ' Suppose I had consented 
 and at the end of my term what then?' 
 
 Knight raised his eyebrows. 
 
 ' Why, you would have been dead sick and tired 
 of her probably long before that.' 
 
 ' And what about her feelings ? ' 
 
 'You've no need to think about them.' 
 
 'That depends on how you are made.' 
 
 'Exactly; and you are made all wrong for your 
 own comfort,' which was true in the main. 
 
 I stayed and had their after-dinner coffee with them, 
 a cup of which the little Burmese hostess brought to 
 my side and then sang us a song in her soft, lisping 
 voice to her oblong guitar, while the babies rolled 
 about contentedly on the matting. Burmese babies 
 never cry. They only laugh and croon, and sprawl 
 about and grow fat. It was a soft, heavy night, 
 hot, so that we dripped where we sat in the thinnest 
 
 74
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 of duck suits, but beautiful with the fireflies whirl- 
 ing in burning circles through the dark and the air 
 laden with the scent of the white swamp lilies, and 
 a great mellow, red-gold moon climbing slowly up 
 over the misty green of the rice fields. 
 
 As I walked homeward I noticed a pale, tearful 
 ring round it and I thought: the rains are at hand. 
 
 Next day the heat beat on the walls of the bungalow 
 and came up from the cracked, thirsty earth like 
 the glare of a furnace. Calling round early at the 
 Club for possible letters which I did not find I 
 learned that three of the members were very ill with 
 fever and the doctor himself down with dysentery. I 
 went on to the Court House, and the only incident 
 of the burning, weary hours was that one of the 
 native witnesses for the prosecution in a case was 
 seized with heat apoplexy and dropped dead on 
 the floor in the course of his testimony. This 
 simplified the case for the defence, and I drove home 
 early. Entering the bungalow felt like walking into a 
 limekiln, and eating was an impossibility. After a 
 pretence of taking some dinner I went out, involun- 
 tarily seeking for cooler, fresher air outside. But there 
 was little difference, except that outside one had to 
 forego the slight relief the punkah gave. There was 
 no breeze, not the faintest breath stirred the crystal, 
 gilt air. The sky was calm, there was silence every- 
 where silence and suffocating heat. The trees 
 seemed holding themselves rigid, not a leaf even 
 trembled on them, there was no hum of insects, no 
 rustle of a lizard even in the parched and withered 
 
 75
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 grass. The earth seemed waiting, tensely expectant, 
 and there was a universal hush as it awaited the 
 coming of the rains. 
 
 I strolled along very slowly, for each movement 
 meant a fresh burst of drenching sweat pouring down 
 one's skin, and the quiet of expectancy all round one 
 got into my own blood and made me move silently 
 and breathe lightly, so as not to disturb the omnipresent 
 stillness. The sky above me was pale, pure, trans- 
 parent and gleaming, like the inside of an oyster 
 shell. The air seemed like liquid gold to look at, 
 and like a best Whitney blanket to breathe. The 
 tawny moss beneath my feet was so dry it cracked 
 with a little hoarse whisper as I trod on it. I went 
 on with my head down, thinking of Anna and 
 noticing in a vague way how the heat was increas- 
 ing in intensity each moment, just as if I were 
 walking steadily towards a furnace. At last even 
 movement, however slow, seemed overburdening fatigue. 
 I stopped and looked up and round me. The sky 
 had changed a little. I was to witness the thunder 
 and lightning that would usher in the rains. Now, 
 a thunder-storm with black clouds and night - like 
 sky, with forks of lightning rending and splitting the 
 dark curtain that seems drawn between earth and 
 heaven, is an ordinary sight, one common to all 
 men's experience, and that is impressive enough. 
 But here was a roseate sky, luminous and trans- 
 parent as a rose-leaf held before a flame, of itself 
 exceedingly beautiful and clear, save for one enormous 
 cloud that, rising almost from the earth, so low it 
 
 76
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 seemed, towered into the sky and overspread all the 
 centre, white as the purest snow, delicate, soft and 
 filmy, while all round, to the west and east and 
 north and south, the glorious bell of the sky hung 
 unruffled and glowing with a few shining silver 
 planets showing white in the translucent green and 
 gold, and rose near the horizon. 
 
 I stood gazing up at the gigantic mass of white 
 vapour, piled up like tossed and drifted snow and 
 apparently hanging so close over me that it almost 
 seemed, by stretching my hands upwards, I could bury 
 them in its soft, fleecy masses. Then, as I watched 
 it, it suddenly changed to gold, light seemed poured 
 forth from it and through it until the whole was one 
 dazzling, burnished, blinding mass of gold towering to 
 the centre of the perfect evening sky. Then suddenly 
 from behind it there came a terrific crash, a splitting, 
 rending roar of thunder like the bursting of a thousand 
 cannon at my side, and the lightning, great, savage, 
 silver forks of it, was thrown out from behind tha 
 glowing golden mass, as if by an unseen hand, plough- 
 ing up furiously the pearl and rose of the tranquil 
 sky. If ever one could believe one was witnessing 
 the wrath of the Immortal Gods, if ever it might seem 
 to a poor ordinary mortal that he was warned to stand 
 aside while the flashing car of Zeus swept upward 
 through the sky, that moment of blinding glory was 
 the time. I flung myself backward on the baked 
 and glowing moss, and leaning upon my elbow I gazed 
 upwards and let my brain interpret the scene in any 
 fanciful way it would. Onward and upward swept 
 
 77
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 that magnificent cloud of gold. Only for a few seconds 
 had the charioteer of Zeus allowed the wheels of the 
 chariot to graze, as it were, the surface of the earth, 
 but for that moment earth's face had been transfigured. 
 Everything had caught a golden flame, reflecting the 
 celestial fire. Onward now through the clear blue 
 expanse rolled the cloud, and to my eyes it almost 
 assumed the form of a chariot. It seemed really as 
 if Zeus himself was sitting within, his majesty veiled 
 by that whirling nimbus of gold above it, and as if 
 the lightning, which kept falling from it in splitting, 
 jagged rays on every side, were bolts scattered by his 
 hand, and the long, low, threatening roll of thunder, 
 that passed resounding through the listening air, was 
 the thunder of his wheels. I lay and watched and 
 waited. There was no other sound, a tense, breathless, 
 expectant silence was all round me, there was nothing 
 to be seen above but the measureless, glorious track 
 of infinite blue, and the tender green and lambent 
 rose and gold of the west. In this direction the 
 cloud was travelling rapidly, shedding its forked 
 lightning all the way, farther and farther, higher and 
 higher, and the long, low rumbling of the chariot wheels 
 grew fainter and fainter. At last the light in the west 
 grew of an almost intolerable brightness, and before 
 my straining eyes it seemed to open suddenly with 
 light, and into an effulgence that was more than vision 
 could bear passed the chariot of cloud. It was gone ; 
 nothing but a brazen shield of purest light hung in the 
 west. Was it the outside of golden gates that had 
 opened to the coming of Zeus and swung to behind 
 
 78
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 the Immortal One? There was no lightning now. I 
 listened. There was not the faintest echo of thunder. 
 Not a sound. The sky was once more exquisitely 
 serene, and Nature was waiting silent as before. As 
 yet not one drop of rain had fallen. I rose and walked 
 slowly homeward ; I was convinced the rains would 
 come in a few hours. What had I witnessed just 
 the inaugural thunder-storm, or a sign from the gods 
 to the parched and patient air? I laughed a little, 
 but in a hushed way ; the awful silence that seemed 
 hanging everywhere like a suspended curtain in the 
 pellucid air it seemed profanity to break. Well, if it 
 were but a thunder-storm, it was certainly unique and 
 most beautiful. 
 
 Wearied out with the intense heat and utterly ex- 
 hausted, I went to bed early that night, leaving every 
 slat in the closed jilmils turned open, and the punkah 
 swinging over me with its musical squeak. Before 
 I went to sleep I noticed the extraordinary amount of 
 animal life that had taken up quarters with me 
 hundreds of the white, transparent lizards that for 
 want of knowledge of the biological name I call glass 
 bodies, since every organ in their sinuous little bodies 
 is visible through their transparent skin, scampered 
 about over my walls and ceiling, devouring the green 
 and gold flies that marched in in perfect armies through 
 every crevice and crack ; dozens of solemn, heavy-bodied 
 spiders too came waddling in from the garden and 
 verandahs, and advanced, clicking their long legs on 
 the matting ; long ribands of black tree ants journeyed 
 steadily over the floor in the direction of my bath- 
 
 79
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 room, while during the process of undressing I came 
 across no less than six snakes of a harmless kind 
 encased in my slippers, night-shirt and other suitable 
 places. I was too weary to attempt a useless war 
 against my thousands of small invaders. Doubtless 
 a message of the approaching death from the skies 
 had been conveyed to them also and they sought 
 asylum with me. So beyond picking up, by means 
 of a tumbler and a bit of paper, a portly and venomous- 
 looking scorpion, that was making its way up to my 
 bed, and throwing him through the window, I made 
 no attempt to defend myself, but flung myself on the 
 charpoy and was mercifully soon asleep. It may 
 have been midnight or later, at any rate, it was pitch 
 dark when I was again awakened. The punkah had 
 ceased. The heat was so intense that I sprang up, 
 involuntarily fancying, for the moment, someone was 
 trying to smother me with pillow or blanket. But no. 
 It was only the intolerable pressure of the thick, 
 suffocating air. All round me there was a roar in 
 the air like the roar of a flood, and the noise of the 
 rain beating on the roof was like shrapnel firing. I 
 sat up for a moment trying to get my breath. There 
 seemed no air to breathe. It had all become, apparently, 
 pea soup. Then I was startled by the drip, drip 
 of water falling with a tinkle into the matting, and I 
 suddenly put out my hand and found my sheets and 
 pillow were sodden wet. I struck a light and put it 
 to the candle. The wick flared up, and showed me 
 my room. Room ! great Heavens ! it was more like 
 an unfinished aquarium. The roof was leaking in a 
 
 80
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 dozen or more places, one being directly over my bed, 
 and the animal inmates were scurrying about in the 
 greatest alarm on discovering the frail nature of their 
 shelter. Snakes wriggled uneasily over the floor, 
 the ants came trooping back from the bathroom, 
 the spiders raced desperately up the curtains, and the 
 lizards ran backwards and forwards over the dripping 
 ceiling, sneezing. I got up, kicked aside the snakes, 
 and put on my boots. Then I dragged my bed across 
 the floor to a part of the room above which the ceiling 
 appeared to be dry. The heat was inconceivable ; 
 the exertion of moving the bed made the sweat pour 
 from me, and I sat down gasping with that awful 
 sense of there being nothing to breathe, nothing such 
 as we are accustomed to think of, only this horrible 
 thick mixture that makes one feel one is sinking in 
 quicksand. In that moment, as I sat dripping with 
 perspiration, with limbs that seemed of cotton wool, 
 and with mouth hanging open, gasping, I thought 
 of the unhappy fish I had seen, when with anglers, 
 lying straining and heaving on the dry rocks and I 
 was glad I had never fished. When I had recovered 
 a little, I walked round the room rescuing my most 
 precious possessions books, papers and clothes from 
 the persistent drip, drip that was coming now from 
 every part of the ceiling. As soon as I had done this, 
 I noticed the rain was leaking through the dry corner 
 of the ceiling and my bed was again being dripped 
 upon. I moved it again to shelter and lay down on 
 it. I dozed after a little while, with the roar of the 
 rain in my ears, and I woke again with water, warm, 
 F 81
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 tepid water, splashing on my face. I rose again and 
 dragged my bed after me, but only gained a few 
 minutes' respite ; the roof seemed giving way all over, 
 and the few weary hours that remained of darkness 
 I spent chasing my bed round the room and puddling 
 after it in dripping, steaming pyjamas. At the first 
 light I put on a holland suit and went downstairs. 
 The staircase had been transformed into a dashing 
 waterfall. The rain had poured into the verandah 
 rooms upstairs, and rushed out again on to the landings 
 in the house, and from there found its way in a whirling, 
 eddying torrent down the staircase. I picked my 
 way down it, and entered my dining-room to feel 
 the carpet under my feet give like a sponge and go 
 squelch, squelch at each step. On the table I saw 
 no signs of my fine white damask cloth that usually 
 adorned it. All over for one half inch deep lay a 
 mass of struggling, dying ants and fallen ants' wings. 
 Every cup and saucer was full of them, and the bread 
 and butter invisible beneath piles of filmy wings. 
 These creatures, indued with wings for a short time 
 at this season and driven in by the rain outside, enter 
 the room in flying swarms. Their wings drop from 
 them, they shed them everywhere table, floor, sideboard 
 alike are covered while their struggling bodies fall, 
 either to die at once, or crawl away reduced to their 
 ordinary means of locomotion again. I sighed, gazing 
 at this repulsive breakfast table, and then looked through 
 the verandahs. Long, bright, diagonal lines from sky 
 to earth everywhere, so close and merged together that 
 they made a wall between vision and landscape and 
 
 82
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 a white mist, thick as smoke, rising upward from the 
 steaming, thirsty, drinking earth. 
 
 I called my servant and breakfasted as well as I 
 could upon ants' bodies and wings flavoured with coffee, 
 and ants spread upon bread and butter, and then 
 ordered my carriage and drove down to the office, 
 with the rain lashing the top of the buggy, and the 
 running water in the road over the axles of the 
 dragging wheels. 
 
 It rained for one whole month without intermission, 
 and no one can tell what I suffered during that space 
 of time. Every road became first a running stream 
 and then a sort of quicksand, in which foot or horse's 
 hoof or carriage wheel sank hopelessly, so that exercise 
 without became an impossibility, and one was confined 
 to the lifeless, sultry air within the silent bungalow. 
 Existence became a cruel blank, and it so happened 
 that then, when I would have prized them so unspeak- 
 ably, all my letters failed me, and day after day passed 
 and post after post came in, and not a line came to 
 me from that dear outer world, where people were living, 
 any more than news comes to the inmates of the grassy 
 graves. And on the last night of the month I came 
 home, as I remember, from a vain attempt at a walk 
 in the torrents of lukewarm rain, that fell persistently 
 in long straight lines from sky to earth, deadening 
 everything, shutting out sight of everything but itself, 
 shutting out sound of everything but itself. The 
 Court House had been closed a week, owing to the 
 amount of prevailing sickness, so that exercising ground 
 as it were for the thoughts, speech and feelings had 
 
 83
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 been shut up. I had not spoken one word beyond 
 orders to my servants for the last fortnight. The Club 
 was closed, nearly all the members were sick or had 
 managed on one pretext or other to get away for a 
 little leave. I entered my bungalow that evening, 
 knowing there was nowhere to go, nothing to do, no 
 one to see, no one to speak to. I was completely 
 alone in this blank, tepid silence, shut in upon myself 
 on every side by walls of falling rain. I went through 
 the rooms, desperately looking at all the books; I 
 had read them all, and the newspapers all exhausted 
 long ago. Oh, how I longed for a letter how priceless 
 one would have been to me then; it would have 
 seemed like a hand stretched out to me from the 
 real, living world, that was somewhere far off away 
 in the distance. Where was I? I seemed out of 
 the world. Dead, buried and forgotten. I stood still 
 in the centre of my dining-room, staring blankly before 
 me, and listening to the eternal low wish, wish of the 
 water falling on the long since soddened earth. 
 
 'Poor Burke, poor Burke,' I thought. 'These were 
 just such moments as he had.' 
 
 Then I thought I saw Burke himself advance from 
 one of the dark corners, and he seemed to beckon to 
 me and say, 
 
 ' Come on, come on ; one little shot in the temple 
 does it, and, after all, you are buried, and you may as 
 well be dead.' 
 
 Then I sat down and hid my face on the table with 
 a smothered groan. I am going mad ! I thought, I 
 certainly am. Oh I God, save me from that. Deliver 
 
 84
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 me from this place ! Then I sat still and listened to 
 the rain again. It was very quiet, with no sound at all 
 but this and the dull response of the long, rank grass 
 to it. Just exactly as it must sound to the corpses in 
 the graveyard, I thought to myself. Then I wondered 
 why solitude should have such a terrible, disorganising 
 and demoralising effect on the human brain, and I found 
 myself murmuring over and over again, 'They had to 
 destroy Millbank and the solitary confinement system 
 they pulled it down for the same reason. All the 
 prisoners went mad, yes, they went mad ! and they were 
 only confined a fortnight at a time.' And the rain fell 
 outside unceasingly and the hours crept by silently. 
 
 That night I took a large dose of chloral, pouring 
 it out with an unsparing hand. I would run the risk of 
 sleeping for ever rather than remain awake that night. 
 
 The next morning there were really letters for me, 
 several letters, and though they were all in long en- 
 velopes and looked horribly business like, I seized upon 
 them as a drowning man upon a life-belt. They were 
 life-belts to me, drowning in this dead sea of solitude 
 and silence, life-belts flung, as it were, from that huge 
 comfortable liner, the World, full of lights and life 
 and companionship, standing far off from me. How 
 I tore open the tough blue envelopes ! I was still really 
 then alive, a human being to be reckoned with. 
 Positively, last night, it seemed as if six feet of good 
 churchyard soil was pressing above my breast. I 
 commenced to read the letters through, and half an 
 hour later I was walking round the room with two 
 or three sheets of blue paper clutched in my hand 
 
 5
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 and telling myself 'it was impossible,' ' incredible,' the 
 chloral of the night before had affected my brain and 
 I was going cranky like Burke. For one letter informed 
 me curtly but those words seemed to me the sweetest 
 that had ever been written that ' various changes 
 necessitated my immediate recall to Kalatu,' and the 
 other with equal brevity that, by the will of my late 
 cousin, deceased, I was the master of an estate worth 
 nearly two hundred thousand pounds. The liner had 
 indeed thrown out, not only life-belts, but a life-line 
 and was rapidly hauling me on board ! And I felt 
 exactly that sensation. When I grew a little calmer 
 and had read the letters again and assured myself 
 that the words were really written there in good black 
 ink, I took up my own pen and wrote off at once to 
 Anna. Not one second would I delay now that I was 
 free to speak. Her phrase in her very first letter : ' Why 
 didn't you wake me ? ' came before my eyes and en- 
 couraged me, and I wrote all that she should have 
 heard then. I told her my own news, and wound up by 
 saying I should start for Kalatu at once, and that she 
 was not to answer me till my arrival there, when I 
 would, the very first evening, come to see her. Then I 
 began to walk up and down my room, trying not to 
 feel too glad about it all. Had I been a Greek, I 
 should have certainly seen in this unexpected and 
 unusual good fortune the forewarning of some dire 
 calamity, for no mortal is allowed to be equally happy 
 with the gods for long ; but I was only a happy-go- 
 lucky, unsuperstitious Briton, and I did not feel the 
 least uneasiness. 
 
 H
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 The next few days, my departure from Lihuli, rain- 
 soaked and steaming, wrapped in a white mist, the long 
 hot journey north, the arrival and the first sight of 
 Kalatu's palms and sparkling sapphire line of sea 
 beyond the desert, is all lost in a bright haze of 
 pleasure, the clearest point being, when tired and 
 dusty and travel-stained, I was back in my old room 
 in the old bungalow on the Kutcherry road, with Anna's 
 housetops just visible across the palms of the inter- 
 vening compounds. 
 
 I changed my clothes hastily, a perfect fever of joy, 
 hope, expectation and nervous pleasure throbbing in 
 my veins. Then I came down the steps of the bungalow 
 in the glow of the evening and flung myself into the 
 carriage and drove to the Lombards. As I entered 
 the compound, the sky flamed up with orange and 
 saffron light, the broad meidan on every side rolled 
 away like a sea of fire. As the wheels ground on the 
 sandy path, Anna herself stepped out on the low stone 
 terrace. My eyes rushed over her in a second. She 
 was the same, untouched and unaltered. There was 
 the same exquisite freshness of the morning in her 
 face. She came forward with a soft, sparkling smile, 
 and the light in her hair. I sprang from the carriage, 
 which drove rapidly to the back of the bungalow, and up 
 the few steps. We stood on the terrace alone, in the 
 orange sunset, with only great, warm, vital, whispering, 
 indulgent Nature round us. I took her outstretched 
 hands, very slim and white and half-lost in the filmy 
 laces of the sleeve, and so drew her closer to me. I 
 was burning, overflowing with the force of my joy, 
 
 87
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 relief and suppressed passion. Perhaps the electric 
 force of all these passed through my clasp into her 
 and, for the moment, dominated her ; her figure inclined 
 docilely towards me, and she came one little step 
 nearer. My eyes were fixed on her and blazing with 
 the fires within. She raised hers to them and, for an 
 instant, it seemed to me there was something unutter- 
 ably sad in the depths of those passionate, dark blue 
 eyes, but, perhaps, it was only seriousness as she felt a 
 crisis in her life approaching. The light caught the 
 almost feathery tips of the wonderfully long lashes and 
 made the face indescribably soft and touching. 
 
 The next instant, reading her permission in that first 
 language of the world the looks I had bent forward 
 and kissed the soft sweet lips. 
 
 Within the next hour the whole station knew that we 
 were engaged.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE next morning I woke up, I suppose, perhaps the 
 happiest man in India. The bearer, bringing in the 
 morning coffee, found me with my arms crossed behind 
 my head gazing out through the open jilmils to the 
 compound full of the cool glory of an Indian dawn. 
 Anna belonged to me, the one woman between the 
 ends of the earth that I wanted, that was necessary to 
 me, and not that I wanted this hour or day, in a careless 
 gust of animal passion, but the being, the personality 
 that I should want all my life, without whom existence 
 had been empty before and would be empty again, but 
 with whom it was full, complete, rounded out, padded, 
 stuffed, as it were, with Contentment. Lucky Ethridge ! 
 The title seemed justified at last. It was curious how 
 completely Anna fulfilled every detail of my ideal of 
 girlhood. Ideal ! it is a hackneyed word, but it must 
 stand. It represents that which every mind, consciously 
 or unconsciously, possesses, and mine had been stored 
 away in the recesses of my brain almost unknown to 
 myself and yet sufficiently alive to turn me away from 
 all women I had met until I saw Anna. I looked back 
 through all those long rows of women I had known till 
 now, and there was not one that I had felt the faintest 
 impulse to take with me as my travelling companion 
 
 89
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 down the road of Life. I recollected some very 
 beautiful how beautiful they had been ! What faces 
 rose before me, with their delicate pencilled eyebrows, 
 perfectly modelled noses and rounded chins to match 
 those of statues. And now, Anna was hardly beautiful 
 at all. She was wonderfully fresh, like the dawn in 
 spring, but all that perfection of feature was wanting. 
 Yet those beautiful faces had been like empty masks 
 hung in a bazaar for me. There had been selfish 
 hardness behind some, stupidity behind others, a sordid 
 commonplaceness of thought and mind, or empty 
 frivolity. And beyond all, to me, cleverness was a 
 necessity. Then there had been clever women how 
 clever and brilliant ! but in this I had never found 
 Anna's superior or equal. Never had I known in 
 man or woman any brain like this, so clever, so logical, 
 so gifted, so full of force of intellect, which seems to 
 make itself felt in even the simplest words and actions 
 of the one who possesses it. And then the other 
 clever, great minds I had known, they had all been 
 coupled with intolerable defects, of which hardness of 
 heart and a cruelty in the moral nature were the most 
 common. Anna's hardness and keenness existed in 
 her brain and intellect alone ; it left a heart, the softest, 
 tenderest, most compassionate possible. Then yet 
 there was another class of women women with beauti- 
 ful faces and soft, lovable natures, sweet voices and 
 tender ways like Anna's, and passionate, sympathetic 
 hearts like hers, and to these I had been drawn most 
 of all, but then, on a little acquaintance, how they 
 wearied one ! There was nothing more than this 
 
 90
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 There was no brain to be a companion to one's own, 
 there was no comprehension of one's deepest thought, 
 nothing to meet one's own idea, and the sweet mild 
 glances from the beautiful eyes at last wearied one, 
 and disappointed one and left one unsatisfied. There 
 was no mentality to rush forward in a passionate ecstasy 
 to meet one's own through these gates to the soul. 
 They were beautiful gates, it is true, but less to a soul 
 than a desert. And Anna seemed to stand before me 
 this morning arrayed in my mental vision just as I 
 would have her. There was the glory of the morning, 
 of sweet life, and youth and colour to charm and lead 
 captive my senses, and give to all my mental adoration 
 of her that last touch of ecstasy that physical passion 
 alone has the power to bestow; there was the tender, 
 loving heart, on which a dying, bleeding soul might 
 rest and forget its wounds, and think that death was 
 sleep, and there was the bright, sparkling intellect, 
 ready and eager to understand, to respond, the one gift 
 that makes man in this brief life equal to the gods. 
 
 Yes. To me she was perfect. She was all that I 
 wanted, all that I had ever wanted, and she was 
 mine. I got up and dressed. 
 
 That evening I did not go to dinner, but called 
 afterwards and found the Lombards and some friends 
 all seated outside on the stone verandah. I joined 
 them and was accorded with a smile the chair next 
 Anna. We all chatted together for some time and 
 then the General suggested somebody should sing. 
 
 1 Don't let us go inside,' said Anna, gently. ' It 
 is so much cooler here.' 
 
 31
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'Well, Ethridge plays the guitar,' he returned. 
 ' You'll find a guitar just inside the dining-room,' he 
 added, turning to me. ' Fetch it and start some 
 of these young people.' 
 
 I went obediently and fetched the guitar, resumed 
 my seat, tuned the instrument and then announced 
 I would accompany anyone who would sing. But 
 no one hastened to accept the offer. Then the 
 General made an individual appeal to each in turn. 
 Most of them made excuses, and the young man 
 next Anna drawled out that he did not know 
 anything to sing. When it came to Anna she 
 said, 
 
 'I will sing you a little Greek song if you like. 
 I don't seem to remember anything else just at this 
 minute.' 
 
 There was general acclaim at this, and everybody 
 declared that a Greek song was what they had been 
 most wishing for and indeed almost expecting, and I 
 thought, as I nervously pulled up the string a little 
 higher, ' Good Heavens, what sort of an accompaniment 
 will that want ? ' 
 
 Anna, as if divining my fears, lent towards me 
 and hummed the tune in my ear. It was a very 
 quaint but simple one, and I caught it and managed 
 to follow her. Then she sang Anacreon's famous 
 ode to the dove. 
 
 The tune changed in the second verse and had a 
 most catching ring and swing in it as the soft, 
 expressive voice sent out the words on the still, 
 pearly air :
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 4 'Avaxptuv //, <Ktfiet 
 
 Ton aprt ruv 
 Kparovvra xcu rupawoi.' 
 
 Most of the men present with myself understood 
 the familiar words, and it brought back curious misty 
 recollections of college days, which somehow seem so 
 far off when we have once gone out from port on 
 life's ocean, and for the women it was an amusement 
 to hear the quaint-sounding old language and the 
 curious swinging tune. When she ceased there was 
 much applause and gratitude. Only the young man 
 next her drawled out with a most contemptuous sneer, 
 'Fancy having your head so full of Greek that you 
 can't sing anything else ! ' 
 
 The tone was so inconceivably rude that I sprang up 
 in my chair with a retort on my lips. But Anna was 
 clever and her brain sharp as steel, in spite of her 
 rose-like softness of looks, and she could quite well 
 take care of herself when she chose. She had turned 
 in her chair and answered with an exact imitation of 
 his tone, 
 
 ' Fancy having nothing in your head, so that you can't 
 sing at all.' 
 
 And there was a general laugh that was decidedly with 
 Anna. 
 
 For two days, for this reason memorable days in my 
 life, I was happy, supremely content and satisfied. 
 Work was light to me, hours flew by on their gilded 
 wings like moments, and the blood in my veins seemed a 
 
 93
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 mixture of fire and wine rather than the ordinary legiti- 
 mate British material. But the evening of the last of 
 these two days brought with it a chill of apprehension. 
 It was a something very light and slight, such as the first 
 little cold whisper of the wind flying in front of a still 
 distant storm. I was walking home alone through the 
 sultry, gorgeous tropic night from a long evening spent 
 almost alone with Anna on the verandah and in that 
 paradise of whispering palms and bending grasses and 
 sleeping flowers, the Lombards' compound. I had been 
 persuading her to fix the hour, the day, for our marriage, 
 and the soft, distressed, yet determined, resistance I had 
 met with had at first astounded, and lastly frightened 
 me. Her head had been on my shoulder, her arms 
 round me, our breasts pressed close till the hearts beat 
 one against the other. Yet a chasm was opening 
 between us because our desires were not the same. 
 
 ' No, Gerald, I really don't wish it.' And I did wish it, 
 and there was the great abyss between us. 
 
 Then I pressed for reasons, I asked questions : Did 
 she love me ? 
 
 Yes, she loved me with all the strength of her nature, 
 and what a wild, passionate nature that was I alone 
 knew, and was to know still more profoundly later. 
 Were there any family reasons for delaying our 
 marriage? Had her father anything to do with her 
 answer ? No. None. Nothing. It was simply her 
 own wish. 
 
 Then how could she love me so much and not wish 
 to marry me ? 
 
 She couldn't tell. A year ago she would have con- 
 94
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 sented at once, but I had delayed for a year and now 
 she wanted to delay a little ; she could not tell how 
 long. 
 
 Would she really have accepted me before I went to 
 Burmah ? I had asked, and oh ! the agony of my heart 
 as she had answered, 
 
 'I would have married you that same day had you 
 wished it. I felt after our first meeting that first night 
 that you were the being in the whole world I was to 
 love with all my soul. My whole nature went out to 
 you and accepted you. I felt my heart opening to your 
 smiles as a flower uncloses itself to the touch of the 
 sun. Your arms held me in the dance, and to those 
 arms I would have trusted myself for ever. I cannot 
 explain to you why, except that love and trust and 
 confidence in you were borne in upon my mind.' 
 
 c And when I went away without speaking you were 
 disappointed?' My voice was uncertain, a hot mist was 
 forcing itself over my eyes. 
 
 'Yes Her answer was so frank, so certain, so un- 
 wavering 
 
 Then I broke out into wild protestations, my reasons 
 for my action, my love for her, my unselfish motives, 
 all my thought had been for her. To which she listened 
 quietly and as quietly replied, 
 
 ' I know. You have told me. I understand. But in 
 acting as you did you ran the risk.' 
 
 ' But you say you still love me ? ' 
 
 4 1 do, I do ! ' And her lips were pressed to mine 
 with a passion that went through and through me in 
 waves of fire. 
 
 95
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 ' And no one has come between us in the interval ? ' 
 1 Could I love two men at the same time ? ' 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 'Well, what is it? what is it? You are the soul of 
 truth. Tell me why, just your reasons and I swear I 
 will be patient.' 
 
 I 1 have told you. It is just a wish of mine to delay 
 a little ... as you did.' 
 
 ' But I had my reasons.' 
 
 1 You did not tell them to me.' 
 
 And so at last I had come away from her, confused, 
 perplexed, puzzled, distressed beyond words and . . . 
 frightened. Yes, for as a slight symptom will tell to a 
 physician, surely and without hope, the approach of a 
 loathsome and relentless disease, so to my brain this 
 strange phase of her feeling foretold something, though 
 I could not discern what, of menace to the future. 
 
 And as I walked onward, reviewing all that had been 
 said by us both, I grew cold and chill in the sultry air. 
 When I reached my bungalow I opened a bottle of 
 champagne and drank half of it, and then flung myself 
 into a long cane chair for a smoke and I began to see 
 things more lightly and philosophically. It was certainly 
 very extraordinary, and all that Anna had said that 
 evening had been most contradictory, but there might 
 be some very simple explanation of it all. She might 
 have some secret girlish motive for wishing to postpone 
 the marriage, that she was too shy to confide to me. 
 The main point, that she loved me, that her heart was 
 mine, entirely mine, seemed to be absolutely self-evident. 
 She really loved me; no man. I think, could mistake 
 
 96
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 those thousand little evidences she gave me in every 
 tone and look and action ; and, therefore, loving me, she 
 could certainly love no other. Would not any man 
 have reasoned as I did that night? 
 
 Then it flashed upon me that she might have be- 
 come quasi entangled in some engagement with some 
 man she did not love. That would account for all, 
 including her denial of love for anyone else. (And 
 here an error had crept inperceptibly into my calcula- 
 tions, for she had not given me any such denial.) The 
 following day I would make inquiries. I would try 
 to find out whether, in my absence, talk had con- 
 nected Anna with anyone in the station. There 
 could hardly be anything existent in the way of an 
 engagement, love affair, or merest flirtation, that the 
 station would not know of. Then I would try to 
 straighten matters out for her, and if I once knew the 
 point, perhaps some point of honour with her, I could 
 help her with some counsel or consolation. Having 
 thought all this out to my satisfaction during the 
 smoking of seven cigarettes, I turned into bed much 
 comforted. The next morning I immediately began 
 my investigations with the greatest care and caution 
 and delicacy. But evening came and found me 
 with precisely the opposite result of my inquiries from 
 that which I had expected. In fact, my own previous 
 opinion of Anna had been completely ratified. Every- 
 one agreed that there was no individual in the station 
 that Anna favoured more than another. And the 
 announcement of my engagement to her had come 
 partly as a surprise, but more as an explanation of her 
 G 97
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 exceeding seriousness of conduct and coolness of 
 manner to everyone else. She distributed her dances 
 evenly, seldom dancing more than once with the same 
 person. If she allowed Lieutenant Tomkins to ride 
 with her one morning, she accorded that same privilege 
 to Lieutenant Simkins the next. In short, the whole 
 time I had been absent, she had been noted for her gentle 
 though cold indifference to all the officers and civilians 
 in the station. To some extent pleased with all this, I 
 fell back on the idea that Anna had some purely 
 personal and fanciful reason for delaying our wedding, 
 and I came to the conclusion that it would be best 
 whatever it cost myself to humour her and be as 
 patient as I could, to allow the subject to remain 
 untouched upon for a week or two and then press my 
 petition again. In the meantime, I devoted my 
 energies to devising all sorts of entertainments. My 
 principal object in this was to delight and amuse 
 Anna and find excuses for having her perpetually with 
 me. But also, undoubtedly, the station expected great 
 things of me. The news of the fortune I had in- 
 herited spread all over the neighbourhood and con- 
 firmed everybody in their envious refrain of 'lucky 
 Ethridge.' Now, as a young Assistant Commissioner 
 with no income but my pay, I had been generously 
 entertained by every married woman in the station 
 when I could give little return for hospitality beyond 
 general amiability, and now that I was installed in a 
 big bungalow of my own, witlTa surplus of ready money, 
 I was only too willing to pay off my social debts. 
 The more I was thrown in Anna's society and the 
 
 98
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 more we talked together, the more her remarkable 
 character and intellect shone out before me. I felt 
 somehow a vague sensation that she was not entirely 
 suited and fitted to this humdrum nineteenth century, 
 that her character and her mind belonged rather 
 to some more stirring time, when personal courage 
 was at a premium and excitement was everyday food 
 for everyone. It was not that she was not perfectly 
 calm and irreproachable in every way, in conduct, 
 looks and words. She had a peculiarly graceful and 
 fascinating manner, and everyone in the station 
 agreed she was charming. It was only when we were 
 alone, riding or driving, and had escaped from the 
 beaten tracks of conversation, that she said things 
 and expressed opinions that gave me a faint, peculiar 
 sense of her extreme independence and of something 
 wonderfully strong in her character something 
 large, larger than the nature of most women, some- 
 thing also extremely courageous, that called for an 
 heroic age to find its natural exercise. Amongst the 
 other things I had studied, the history of the Middle 
 Ages had always possessed a great fascination for me, 
 and now I was suddenly drawn again towards it 
 by the name of the girl I loved, and by the peculiar 
 timbre of her nature that seemed familiar to me and 
 came to me as an echo from the past. I began to 
 read again in my odd moments of leisure between 
 Government and social \\ork (and really the latter is 
 nearly as hard as the former ! ) the volumes of 
 mediaeval history I had brought out with me, and 
 night after night, when it was too hot to sleep, I sat 
 
 99
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 turning over the pages of the musty old tomes that 
 chronicled the events of those musty old times. One 
 night I came suddenly upon the biography of 
 Catherine Sforza, and read it through from beginning 
 to end. At the end of the old quarto volume was a 
 full-page portrait of this notorious and evil woman. 
 And I looked at it for a long time with peculiar 
 interest. It was a fine engraving and represented 
 the Sforza in a moment of triumph just after she had 
 completed to her satisfaction the manufacture of one 
 of her deadly poisons. She was represented in her 
 laboratory, and having just removed her glass mask, 
 she looked out at you from the print with a peculiar 
 arresting gaze. There was something curiously 
 familiar in the expression, in the look about the 
 luminous eyes of force great mental force and 
 power; and all at once, in a flash, it came to me 
 whence arose that feeling of recognition. 
 
 ' Anna could look like that, I am sure she could,' 1 
 thought. I sat for a long time with the open page 
 before me, and a strange fancy came to me that I would 
 like to see her, just so, in this attitude, dress and en- 
 vironment, and see whether, in reality, the resemblance 
 was fulfilled. But what excuse could I give if I told 
 her this ? and everything in the picture was so unlike 
 the surroundings one has in modern India that I 
 certainly never should see her thus. Then another 
 thought flashed upon me : ' Get up some Tableaux 
 Vivants!' What could be more orthodox, more 
 commonplace than that? What would please the 
 station more, and all the empty-headed young girls and 
 too
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 foolish old women in it, more than this an entertain- 
 ment where they could dress as extravagantly and as 
 unsuited to their years or their faces as they pleased, 
 and wear their hair down ? Great Idea ! If I knew the 
 station well in which I lived, nothing could be more 
 popular, more universally acceptable. I shut the book 
 and went to bed. And the Sforza with her flaming 
 red hair stood at the foot of the charpoy all night, 
 holding her glass mask and looking at me with those 
 strange, compelling eyes. 
 
 The next morning I invited four of the youngest, 
 gayest and most friendly married women to luncheon 
 with me and unfolded my scheme to them, begging 
 them to be my managing committee. 
 
 As I anticipated, it was hailed with cries of delight. 
 
 ' Mr Ethridge, you are just too lovely for anything ! ' 
 exclaimed Mrs Sinclair, who possessed fine hair, all her 
 own. 
 
 ' It will be the greatest fun in the world, only those 
 things cost so,' remarked Mrs Wilson, the wife of a 
 lieutenant, with a sigh. 
 
 I explained that I proposed to make a general fund of 
 Rs. 2000, from which any of the committee might draw 
 all they wanted. Costumes, curtains, lights, wigs, every 
 source of expense I would provide for with the greatest 
 pleasure. Every one of my committee was to have abso- 
 lute carte blanche. This delighted them beyond everything. 
 
 ' I would so like to be Joan of Arc and wear my hair 
 down,' recommenced Mrs Sinclair, putting up her hand 
 to it. 
 
 'We must choose the pictures to-day,' announced 
 101
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Mrs Muggridge, decisively, who also had fine hair, but 
 could not exactly have been wearing it down for forty 
 years at least. 
 
 'What have you chosen for Miss Lombard?' 
 demanded Mrs Tillotson, who was young, and keen of 
 mental vision. 
 
 I knew that perfect frankness with women, who 
 always see through you whether you are frank with them 
 or not, was the only safe policy, and luncheon being 
 over, I rose and got down the heavy quarto volume, found 
 the place and opened it there, in silence, before them. 
 
 ' That dreadful woman ! ' exclaimed Mrs Sinclair. 
 ' Why, Mr Ethridge, that's not a bit like Anna ! ' 
 
 ' How very strange ! ' murmured Mrs Muggridge. 
 'Now, I was going to suggest Gretchen sitting at the 
 spinning-wheel ! That fair hair of Anna's, you know, 
 in two plaits, and then her colouring, so Saxon, almost 
 German, one might say.' 
 
 'Gretchen is not in the least the type of humanity 
 that Anna is,' I returned, 'and I cannot imagine her 
 spinning.' 
 
 ' But good gracious ! you don't imagine Anna is like 
 this type of woman ? ' asked Mrs Wilson, in a shocked 
 tone. 
 
 ' No, I don't,' I said at once with energy. ' Only 
 there is a certain link between them. I don't know quite 
 what, but I think it is the link of courage and intense 
 mentality.' 
 
 The three women looked at me with that deferential 
 blankness of expression one meets so often in society 
 when one is not in the least understood. Mrs Tillotson 
 
 102
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 bent over the picture in silence for a minute, then she 
 nodded approvingly. 
 
 1 What do you think ? ' I asked her. 
 
 'She will do it,' she returned laconically. And so, 
 without further opposition, that was decided upon for 
 Anna. The rest of the afternoon was spent in arranging 
 the general plan of the entertainment and choosing pictures 
 for the four on the committee. I had a whole library of 
 great volumes, and in gratitude for their cordial support, I 
 diligently searched away in them till pictures for each 
 one of them had been found that supremely satisfied 
 them. Mrs Sinclair was furnished with a most striking 
 Joan of Arc, bound to a stake, with hair to an 
 indefinite extent streaming round her, as one sees in 
 the advertisements of Edwards' Harlene. Mrs 
 Muggridge was easily persuaded that she alone could 
 do justice to her favourite Gretchen. A certain stout- 
 ness of figure was not wholly unsuited to the florid style 
 of German maidenhood, and her hair was certainly light 
 and would lend itself to two plaits. Mrs Wilson, who 
 was the wife of the lieutenant on Rs. 250 per mensem, 
 revelled in the picture of the Queen of Sheba, loaded 
 with the most astounding silks and jewels. Mrs 
 Tillotson, tiny, slight, dainty, small-footed and agile, 
 fluttered the pages of innumerable volumes con- 
 temptuously, then, opening a book of French travels, she 
 hit upon the picture 'A Paris Gamin.' This young 
 gentleman, in ragged coat, shirt and trousers, with a 
 shock of untidy hair and fun-loving eyes, was depicted in 
 the act of throwing a somersault, and was practically 
 standing on his hands, head downwards, with his bare 
 103
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 feet in the air. She would be that or nothing, she 
 declared. . The remainder of the committee was 
 shocked. 
 
 'And you couldn't do it, my dear; you couldn't 
 maintain that attitude,' urged the kind and maternal 
 Mrs Muggridge. 
 
 ' It will have to be a short tableau? coolly returned 
 little Mrs Tillotson, 'a snapshot as it were,' and she 
 gazed lovingly at the gamin's high-poised feet, the most 
 striking thing in the picture. What a chance to display 
 those little feet of hers, the only ones in the station 
 that could wear a 2 shoe ! She had no hair to boast of, 
 so that the downward hanging shock head did not 
 trouble her. And finally she had her way, and at five 
 o'clock they left me, burning to carry the news to the 
 station, and I sat down to write to a Bombay firm the 
 order for the material I wanted for the Sforza's gown, 
 and to others for the accessories, such as glass masks, 
 mortars, etc., . . . things which cannot be found in the 
 highly respectable shops at Kalatu. That same 
 evening I had my bearer carry the volume, contain- 
 ing the picture, to the Lombards. I showed Anna the 
 picture and told her my ideas. She looked long at the 
 picture, then she said, 
 
 1 Catherine Sforza was a cruel and a wicked woman. 
 I do not want to poison anyone, and should never be 
 at all likely to do it.' 
 
 1 No, I know ! ' I exclaimed eagerly. ' Oh, Anna, you 
 have the tenderest heart in the world. You have 
 nothing in common with this woman, nothing except 
 the force of character, the courage, the strength of brain 
 
 104
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 she must have had to live the life she did. Her crimes 
 were the crimes of her century. Her great mental force 
 threw itself into crime, because crime was the order of 
 her time, and you have that same force, which you 
 would throw into great and heroic deeds if they were 
 to be done.' 
 
 ' I don't know, I'm sure,' returned Anna. ' But I'll 
 try to fulfil your expectations as to looking like this 
 picture, though I really do think you might have found 
 some more orthodox person for me.' 
 
 1 1 do not think that would have been nearly so 
 suitable, you see,' I returned, laughing. 
 
 For the next fortnight I hardly knew my own house. 
 The committee took possession of it, and my sedate 
 Mohammedan servants, I believe, gained the impression 
 that I was inaugurating a seraglio. It was not altogether 
 comfortable to be so invaded, but I was amply repaid by 
 the freedom it gave me of Anna's society. It was very 
 delightful, coming back from my work at five, to find 
 Anna and Mrs Tillotson sitting on a carpenter's bench 
 in my front drawing-room, with cups of tea, supplied 
 from my pantry and kitchen, in their hands, chatting 
 together, and watching the work that was going forward 
 in the back drawing-room, namely, of transforming the 
 wide pillared arch between the two rooms into a colossal 
 picture frame, and with the floor all round them, and 
 every chair and table, covered with silk scarfs, gilt 
 crowns, jewels, antique prints and wood shavings. 
 Then Anna would look up and say, 
 
 'Oh, Gerald, we've been waiting for you to advise 
 us about tliis!' 
 
 105
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 And I would sit down by them, and then Mrs 
 Tillotson would go off to fetch something, and Anna 
 and I would be left alone on the carpenter's bench, 
 in the disordered room, with only the native workmen 
 at the other end of it hanging up gilt mouldings. 
 
 But if I had looked forward to seeing Anna pose 
 and re-pose before me, I was disappointed. ' Somehow,' 
 she said, looking hard at the picture, ' I can work myself 
 up to looking like this once, but if I rehearse it, I shall 
 lose the spirit of it, and I sha'n't be able to do it. You 
 had better give me all the things and tell me what has 
 got to be done, and I'll try to do it when the time 
 comes.' 
 
 I told her I was having the dress made exactly as 
 it was in the picture, but the darsi would want to fit her 
 some time, and that I had sent to Bombay for a box 
 of powder for her hair. 
 
 ' Catherine had red hair, hadn't she ? How are you 
 going to make mine red ? ' 
 
 I looked at her sunny yellow hair, running into flaxen 
 or gold in its different creases. 
 
 ' If you put this bright red powder all over it thickly, 
 it will be the Sforza's hair ! Do you see how it clusters 
 and waves in the picture ? With the red powder yours 
 will be the very thing.' 
 
 I 1 don't see why you should be so anxious to see me 
 in such a horrid character,' she said discontentedly, 
 staring at the print and knitting her delicate, marked 
 eyebrows. 'That woman murdered dozens of people. 
 Now, I couldn't murder anybody.' 
 
 ' Yes, you could, my Anna, only with a good motive, 
 1 06
 
 I know, but if you had that you would not hesitate 
 I am sure of it.' 
 
 She was staring at me with wide eyes. 
 
 1 Gerald ! How can you say such dreadful things ! 
 Why, I can't bear to kill anything. I won't let the 
 meteranni kill the spiders in my bedroom, though I 
 hate them. I wouldn't kill anybody to save my own 
 life even ... in self-defence.' 
 
 'No,' I said gently, 'I know all that, but to save 
 another you would . . . me, for instance.' 
 
 She looked at me, laughed and coloured. 
 
 ' What nonsense we are talking ! Here comes Ethel 
 back again. Now, be sensible.' 
 
 Ethel Tillotson reappeared, bringing in her train 
 two angry-looking girls. They were the two prettiest 
 girls in the station a Miss Johnson, tall and lithe, 
 with dusky hair and skin and midnight eyes, and 
 Miss Jeffries, short and round and fat, with Saxon hair 
 and skin, and eyes like great flat turquoises under a 
 brow of snow. 
 
 'Now,' said Mrs Tillotson to Anna, 'you are to 
 be a Solomon and settle this matter. Here are two 
 May Queens ! What are we to do about it ? ' 
 
 Anna looked at both the girls quietly flushed, 
 wrathful and confused at finding me there whom they 
 evidently had not expected. 
 
 'You should be the May Queen of England,' she 
 said calmly to the Saxon girl without the least hesita- 
 tion, while Miss Johnson opened her eyes and glared 
 at her wrathfully. ' And you,' she added, turning to the 
 other, 'will make a magnificent Rosiere the Rose 
 107
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Queen of France. Won't that do? The pictures are 
 almost identical, only you will each be types of the 
 two different countries, and the pink of the roses will 
 suit you much better than English May.' The girl 
 bent over a picture of the Rose Queen of France, 
 and her wrath disappeared. 
 
 ' How clever you are, Anna ! ' she said with a gay 
 smile over her shoulder as she went away with the 
 engraving. 
 
 Well done, Solly,' said Mrs Tillotson, patting her 
 head. f Now you've just got to leave Mr Ethridge and 
 come and show me how to fix this chair so that it 
 won't be seen by the audience ; I must have it to lean 
 upon when I am standing on my head.' 
 
 Anna rose with a bright parting smile at me, and 
 Mrs Tillotson carried her off behind the scenes. 
 
 Now, as everyone knows, there is nothing so effi- 
 cacious as private theatricals for bringing out the 
 innate selfishness, conceit and smallness of human 
 nature, and I fully experienced this through the next 
 fortnight; but amongst all the pettiness, the malice 
 and unkindness, the fret and fussing of all these 
 women, Anna stood out alone as unmoved and un- 
 spoiled by it. She said very little about her own 
 part, and took all the chaff and remonstrances about 
 the 'horrid woman' she was to personate, and her 
 1 hideous red hair,' in good part. 
 
 ' Gerald wishes it,' was all she said in answer to jests, 
 
 questions and mockery. She helped prettier girls than 
 
 herself to dress their hair and choose their garments to 
 
 the most advantage. She lent generously from her own 
 
 108
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 wardrobe and jewel case. She smoothed out quarrels, 
 and turned the venomous remarks of one woman to 
 another aside as often as she could, and praised, 
 consoled, complimented, and softened the temper of 
 them all. And in those days I grew to know her 
 and love her better than ever. There was no mean- 
 ness, no small cruelty, no hardness in her character. 
 It was like some of our Indian stuffs, woven true, 
 both sides, upper and under, alike, and velvety all 
 through. 
 
 At last the eventful evening came and I, who had 
 not once seen her stand for the picture, was full of 
 wonder and curiosity as to how far she would catch 
 the spirit of it. From early afternoon my whole house 
 had been in a turmoil, like a beehive in which there is 
 an internal revolution. But by eight o'clock, when the 
 curtains were to be drawn aside from the first picture, 
 everything seemed to be in perfect order. The audience 
 were all seated and, as far as they could judge, perfect 
 peace and calm reigned behind those heavy marone 
 curtains. I, who had seen the back of these for the 
 past two weeks, doubted the last proposition, but 
 appearances were admirably maintained. The front 
 drawing-room was an enormous room, and now, cleared 
 entirely of furniture, it accommodated a large number 
 of chairs. All the station had been invited and quite 
 three-fourths of it had come. 
 
 I hardly noticed the other pictures. Anna's was 
 
 the sixth on the list, and I waited for that one with 
 
 my heart beating and my eyes hardly seeing the others 
 
 as they passed before me. When the curtains were 
 
 109
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 drawn aside for the sixth tableau^ they revealed Anna 
 standing alone in the centre of the stage. There was 
 little to distract attention from her. The whole picture 
 was that one figure, the wonderful pose and expression 
 on the face. She stood at her full height, but leaning 
 a little forward towards the audience. In one hand 
 she held the transparent glass mask and in the other 
 the marble basin holding the just-manufactured poison. 
 Her eyes, naturally large, and painted now for stage 
 requirements, looked out straight before her, over the 
 heads of the audience, burning, full of light, and a 
 strange mystic fire, a curious smile curled her lips 
 slightly, a smile of elation, of triumph in her success, 
 and yet half tender, as if she were moved with pity 
 and regret for what she had done. The people sat 
 motionless in their seats and gazed silent and fascinated 
 at that face. To me, it showed a perfect conception 
 of the character, and I sat wrapped in an intense satis- 
 faction, feeding my fancy, carried back absolutely to 
 the Middle Ages, seeing her at last as it seemed to me 
 in her true form and guise. She stood perfectly immov- 
 able, the rich green-blue silk that had cost me so much 
 trouble falling in the most statuesque folds, and re- 
 flecting curious, vivid gleams of light from the heavy 
 swinging lamps which hung directly above her head. 
 Her hair, powdered till it was crimson, as the pictured 
 hair of the Sforza, was pushed back from her temples 
 and forehead, and fell in thick masses just on the nape 
 of her neck and behind her ears. The sleeves of the 
 dress were long to the very wrist and ruffled accord- 
 ing to the fashion of the day, and from their edge a 
 no
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 deep fall of lace concealed the hand almost down to 
 its slim white finger-tips. But though her arms were 
 covered, her neck was not. The full white throat was 
 bare, and the light from above struck the white 
 shoulders, where, just at the top of the close sleeve, 
 they seemed to have burst through their silken bands. 
 I sat and steeped my eyes in the sight of her my 
 realised dream standing in front of me. 
 
 My care had not been expended in vain on the 
 picture. It, too, was entirely true to the mediaeval 
 idea. Sombre curtains of heavy stuff and colour formed 
 all the background, a tripod of bronze, crucible and 
 furnace stood at her right hand, and on her left a 
 stand covered with glass masks, mortars, pestles, and 
 jars without number of the most approved mediaeval 
 shapes and patterns. It made a very striking and 
 curious picture, to which the wonderful expression on 
 the girl's face lent all its life and reality. The audience 
 had the Sforza before them, and their breathless silence 
 and immovability showed they felt the same fascination 
 that was so fatal to her lovers in the past centuries. It 
 was very different from the other tableaux^ and met with 
 a different reception. For a second after the curtains 
 closed, instead of the light laughter and applause that 
 had greeted the others, there was a dead silence, then 
 a deafening clamour. The audience realised that the 
 picture had vanished and that unless desperate efforts 
 were made, they would not be able to recall it. With 
 one accord everyone present clapped and cheered. The 
 blase or sleepy elderly officers, and the fatigued and 
 languid women in the front row seemed electrified. 
 in
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 while the young unbridled subalterns I had massed at 
 the back kicked, yelled and stamped, after the manner 
 of their kind when gratified. In a few seconds they 
 succeeded in making the curtains divide and recalling 
 the seventeenth century. Catherine gazed over and 
 beyond them, and the light gleamed on her glass 
 mask, and her mortar of poison, and her red hair for 
 another seventy-five seconds, and then the curtain 
 closed upon her as before. And the crowd at the 
 back yelled again, and the rows in front risked making 
 themselves hot with clapping. 
 
 The poisonous fascination of the Sforza seemed to 
 work as well on the nineteenth century as on the 
 seventeenth. Four times she looked out upon them, 
 calm, triumphant, tender and vindictive; yet the 
 applause was undiminished. The curtain, however, 
 remained closed and dark. Then, when the clamour 
 and encores from the front and kicks from the back 
 were at their loudest, a sudden silence fell on them, 
 as if a pall had been dropped on the audience from 
 the ceiling. Catherine herself moved in front of the 
 great curtain and faced them. She lost nothing of 
 the character in so doing, and the audience were en- 
 raptured; she moved, she looked, she stood, an image 
 of the past. 
 
 1 1 am tired of mixing poisons,' she said, and though 
 she did not seem to raise her voice at all, it went all 
 through the crowded room, and it seemed calm and a 
 trifle arrogant, such a voice as indeed the Sforza may 
 have had. 'Please excuse me now,' and she bowed 
 very easily and naturally, moved across the stage in 
 
 1X2
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 front of the curtain, and disappeared before the 
 astonished audience had recovered themselves. I 
 left my seat, and went round to the back of the stage. 
 As I passed the door of the room that answered to a 
 green-room, I heard animated voices inside and just 
 as I approached I heard Anna's voice saying with 
 perfect good humour, 
 
 'Well, who asked me to come to your stupid old 
 tableaux! You wanted me as much as anyone.' 
 
 I entered and saw the Sforza leaning back in a 
 long chair with her slim terrible fingers crossed behind 
 her head and its red hair, and facing her stood an 
 irate little May Queen, in a muslin dress, whose 
 flushed cheeks and puckered-up brows looked the 
 reverse of queenly. Round the two stood the remain- 
 ing pictures, those who had appeared and those who 
 had not. Feeling, apparently, was running a little 
 against Catherine, since she was the only one who 
 had been favoured with an encore . . . and she had taken 
 four. They all turned at my entrance, and, seeing who 
 it was, looked confused and uncomfortable. The Sforza 
 looked across at me, nodded and smiled. 
 
 'Here's Rosa abusing me because I kept her waiting 
 so long that her complexion has all melted off and run 
 down her neck,' she said lightly. ' It's all your fault for 
 choosing a picture that took their fancy so ; I had very 
 little to do with it.' 
 
 By this speech, in which she negatived the idea of 
 her own charms having had any weight with the 
 applauders, she evidently mollified the women some- 
 what. They looked less gloomy, and the May Queen 
 H 113
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 put her crown straight and began to rub more powder 
 over her face. Catherine herself got up and arranged 
 her dress for her, and put a tiny touch of rouge on each 
 cheek, which made the girl of the turquoise eyes look 
 so pretty in the mirror that Catherine was holding up 
 before her that peace was restored, and the May Queen 
 hurried away to the front. All the remaining women 
 began talking at once, and they soon took the Sforza, 
 so unruffled, so undated by her four encores, back into 
 favour. 
 
 I stood listening with inward impatience, longing for 
 some moment when I should be alone with the Sforza. 
 It did not come in the green-room. There was endless 
 chatter and bustle there, pictures coming in and out, 
 gossiping, arranging their hair and gowns in front of 
 the long glass, talking, laughing, and saying, alternately, 
 pleasant and spiteful things about each other. In the 
 midst of it all Catherine sat resting coolly, with true 
 mediseval calm, and I, not liking to deliberately ask her 
 to come away from the others, stood by her side. At 
 last, when all the pictures had been shown, and we were 
 getting hungry, there was a general move made in the 
 room. The curtains were closed for the last time, and 
 the stage was being cleared when, suddenly, to our 
 surprise, we heard cries from the still seated audience : 
 1 Catherine Sforza ! Catherine Sforza ! ' 
 
 A silence fell on the room, and the women all looked 
 towards Catherine with envy, mingled with surprise. 
 ' Why is all this fuss made about her ? ' their looks said 
 plainly ; ' she is not beautiful, she is not half so good- 
 looking as many of the others here ! ' Which was 
 IU
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 strictly true, but oh ! the charm, the magnetism in 
 her, which was wanting in those others ! at least so 
 it seemed to me, but then I was prejudiced. Catherine 
 heard the shouts as plainly as the rest, and after a 
 moment she rose indolently from her chair. 
 
 ' What a bore those people are,' she said ; ' damned 
 bore, I think ! ' she added in a mischievous undertone 
 to me, with a laugh that disclosed a flash of her 
 white teeth, and she nodded assent to the servants 
 who came to know if they should set up the alchemistic 
 interior for Catherine again. 
 
 I rushed round to the front again and hastened to 
 my seat, not to lose a moment of that to me 
 fascinating picture. And when it had disappeared for 
 the last time, and the audience were slowly disengag- 
 ing themselves from their seats, I found the pictures 
 all trooping out of the green-room, anxious to mingle 
 with the spectators and hear compliments at close 
 range. 
 
 It had been decided that each picture should maintain 
 its dress and character throughout the evening, so here 
 they all were the May Queen and Rosiere, Gretchen 
 and the Queen of Sheba, The Dancing Girl, Joan of 
 Arc and a host of others, and the Paris Gamin. Mrs 
 Tillotson was delighted; her tableau had been greeted 
 with roars of laughter and genuine applause. In fact, 
 she could have taken an encore had she felt inclined 
 to stand on her head seventy-five seconds longer, but 
 she hadn't. And here she came, sparkling, mis- 
 chievous and pretty, her short, shock hair tumbling 
 into her eyes, and her ragged shirt, making the excuse
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 for a charming piece of decollete work, which showed 
 very daintily a V of gleaming white bosom, while her 
 little ivory feet, perfectly bare, tripped fearlessly about 
 beneath her ragged trouser ends. Next to the Sforza, 
 she was decidedly the most popular picture amongst 
 the men of the evening. The two crowds met and 
 mingled with much laughter, flattery and jesting, and 
 simultaneously made for the head of the short, broad 
 staircase leading to the dining-room. Half way down 
 was an alcove leading to the conservatory, draped by 
 porttires, and hidden from view of the staircase. As 
 I saw the Sforza come from the green-room, I took her 
 arm and hastened her down the few stairs to the recess, 
 drew her behind those heavy friendly curtains and then 
 gathered her up into my arms recklessly, half choking 
 and bruising her. ' My darling, my old-world darling,' 
 I murmured, straining her closely to me, and so for a 
 moment soothing the pain and the passion that struggled 
 and tore each other in my poor aching breast. 'You 
 were splendid to-night perfect.' 
 
 'Was I?' she said very softly, nestling up close to 
 my heart and putting her arms round me. 'I am so 
 glad you were pleased with me.' 
 
 When with me, all her arrogance, coldness and con- 
 temptuous indolence of manner, with which she often 
 treated her enemies or faced the world, disappeared. 
 With me, whatever pride she might possess, she put at 
 my feet. To me, she was always yielding, submissive, 
 clinging, loving and simple. This change, this dis- 
 tinction she made for me had in it a subtle and in- 
 toxicating flattery. 
 
 116
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I crushed her up to me and kissed her again and 
 again on her red hair and painted eyes and fresh mouth, 
 and she yielded herself passionately to me. 
 
 'I don't want to be the Sforza,' she whispered in my 
 ear, c nor anybody except just your own little girl.' 
 
 'But you are not my own yet,' I whispered back, 
 my heart beating so violently that it seemed as if it 
 would leap from my throat. 
 
 ' I didn't say I was ; I said I wanted to be.' 
 
 c Then what prevents you ? ' and my voice sounded 
 harsh and strange to myself, it was so strained with 
 nervous passion. 
 
 ' Hush ! there are people coming ! Let me go ! 
 Be patient with me a little while.' 
 
 There were feet passing the alcove, and someone 
 even brushed and almost swept back the curtains 
 behind which we stood. We paused a moment, draw- 
 ing back and keeping silence, then, as the steps and 
 voices went on down the stairs, I gave her my arm and 
 we went out and down to the supper-room like a 
 couple in the calmest frame of mind. 
 
 The room had been arranged under my own eye, and 
 it certainly presented a pleasing vision as we entered. 
 Hosts of little tables, just large enough for two people, 
 stood everywhere under the swinging lamps that sent 
 out different coloured rays from their varied glass 
 shades. Wreaths and hanging bands of roses, common 
 in India as daisies in England, were looped from lamp 
 to lamp, so that the guests sat under a veritable canopy 
 of roses, and the air was laden with their fragrance. At 
 one side of the room ran a long table, piled up with 
 
 117
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 large blocks of natural uncut ice. The bowls of punch 
 and all the various dishes and wines for the supper 
 veiled under the shade of innumerable epergnes of 
 flowers. At this table waited a line of native servants, 
 noiseless, white -glad figures, ready to serve. The 
 number of tables corresponding to the number of 
 couples, people found their places easily and without 
 formality, and when they were all seated I joined Anna 
 at the table I had chosen for her one set at the 
 upper end of the room beside a heavy blue velvet 
 tiortttre, and decorated entirely with white roses, while 
 the eastern glass casing to the lamp above it shot 
 down violet and crimson rays on the Sforza's hair. 
 Everyone was hungry and thirsty, apparently; at any- 
 rate, the room was soon filled with the clatter of knives 
 and forks, the continued report of flying corks, and the 
 bubbling of laughter and talk across the tables. 
 
 Anna was very silent through the supper. She sat 
 gazing at me steadily and earnestly with those wide, 
 innocent, appealing blue eyes of hers, that could be so 
 brilliant or so passionate as she chose, and then quite 
 suddenly, towards the close, when there was much noise 
 and laughter in the room, and much champagne had 
 been drunk, so that nobody was any longer very critical 
 as to what others were doing, she lent across the little 
 table between us, and looking up quickly and full into 
 her face, I saw her eyes were veiled a little by drooping 
 lids and those long, voluptuous lashes, and a curious 
 fire was burning under them. I recognised instantly 
 something I had never seen in her face before. It was 
 her womanhood looking out behind the mask of her girl- 
 118
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 hood. Then a whisper came to my ears, a little, faint, 
 shy half whisper, but one that had a new accent in it, 
 and my heart recognised that, as my eye had recognised 
 her expression. 
 
 1 Gerald, you are loved as very few men are. You 
 are, indeed. 1
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE evening of the tableaux was over and I was alone 
 in my room. I was sitting at the long window looking 
 with idle, unseeing eyes out into the tangle of foliage 
 and blossom in the hot moonlight. Every pulse beat 
 hard with joy, there seemed one long, triumphal note 
 ringing through my head. Anna's glance and whisper 
 to-night had transformed the air to rose colour about 
 me and filled it with music. 
 
 There was no question about the truth, the genuine- 
 ness, the spontaneity of those few words. Everything 
 had been pushed aside for the moment, and Nature had 
 come forward herself and spoken to me from under 
 those veiling lashes, and in that quick, half-frightened 
 whisper. I did not sleep at all that night, nor even 
 attempt to. I sat looking out into that fertile wilder- 
 ness of beauty before me and watching the liquid 
 moonlight spilled amongst the quivering leaves. 
 
 It so happened the following day I could not find 
 one moment for my own in which I could go to see 
 Anna. Duty, business and the Commissioner, who 
 seemed suddenly that day to grow from an ordinary 
 English gentleman into the most exacting tyrant, kept 
 me all day. And when in the evening I went round to 
 the white bungalow in the palms I was told by the servant 
 1 20
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 that the Miss Sahib was lying down and could not be 
 disturbed. I would not go again to make an ordinary 
 call and have to talk, perhaps, commonplaces with her 
 and her father for an hour or so. It was not what I 
 wanted. I decided to wait until she had retired for the 
 night, and then steal into her compound and up to her 
 window and gain a few delicious moments with her 
 alone, and say and hear a few sentences that were worth 
 to me just then all our other conversations put together. 
 So, after dinner, I had my long cane chair put outside 
 the bungalow and sat there, waiting impatiently until it 
 should be ten o'clock. As soon as the hour came the 
 silent sais appeared with my horse, and, slinging my 
 guitar across my shoulders, I flung myself into the 
 saddle and cantered out of the compound with a light 
 heart. My horse's footfalls fell without sound on the 
 soft, red roads ; the air was still and heavy, and as I 
 neared the Lombards' bungalow, the rich, stealthy odour 
 of the stephanotis hedges crept out towards me and 
 suffused itself all round me as I approached. When 
 I reached the gates I dismounted and fastened the Arab 
 to one of the posts. Then on foot I entered, and leav- 
 ing the main path struck across through the pomegranate 
 bushes and rose trees by a side walk that I knew led 
 beneath her room. As I pushed aside the fragrant 
 branches and made my way on silently, the wonder- 
 ful glory of the night and the scene came home to me, 
 absorbed and fired though I was by other thoughts. 
 Above me rose the white stone pile, snowy as the 
 purest marble in the moonlight and even the moon- 
 light is not cold in India ; it seems warm, lustrous and 
 
 121
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 mellow, unlike the lights of the northern moon. The 
 open balustrade work round the square, flat roof stood 
 out sharply, and over it in places, drooping to the 
 garden, fell like purple rain the great blossoms of the 
 tropical parasites. Above the roof rose the palms, 
 motionless in the heavy, heated air, and through 
 their branches I could see the wheeling stars and the 
 great glittering Scorpion, head downwards in the violet 
 sky, preparing for his plunge beneath the horizon. As 
 I advanced further through the tangle of the roses the 
 heavy breath of stephanotis and tuberose grew more and 
 more oppressive, until at last, when I stood beneath 
 her window, it weighed upon the senses. I glanced 
 round me. There was deep, hot stillness everywhere. 
 The whole of Anna's room was built out from the 
 house, being really nothing more than an extended 
 verandah, and from the casement ran down to the 
 compound a little light iron stairway, which white 
 convolvulus and passion flowers and magnolia had 
 embraced with their twining arms till it seemed like 
 a stairway of flowers. I passed round behind this and 
 then was standing practically under the floor of her 
 chamber. All was profoundly still. I slipped the 
 guitar round and had it in position against my 
 breast. I bent over it and was just going to sound 
 one of the strings that I thought might have slipped 
 in coming, when a whisper, a breath, it was hardly 
 more, struck upon my ear. I looked up, my heart 
 beating to suffocation. Anna's window was set wide, 
 and from there I knew the sound had floated out upon 
 the tranquil air. For the first moment I thought she 
 
 122
 
 had been awake and seen me coming, and my heart 
 leapt up with delight. The word 'Anna' rose in a 
 joyful cry and had almost burst from my lips when 
 it stayed frozen there. Another whisper came down 
 to me, clearer than the last : ' Ke khubsurat ho ' (' how 
 beautiful thou art '). It was Anna's voice and speaking 
 in Hindustani. Her voice, and yet as I had never 
 heard it. There seemed a deep contralto note in it 
 a vibration of intense passion. And I stood beneath, 
 immovable, stunned and paralysed. Thick, intense, 
 palpable silence for many seconds, and then again that 
 deep whisper in the air, terribly distinct to my dis- 
 tended ear. 
 
 1 Tumko ashik karti hun ' ( { I love you '), and then 
 two long sighs, and then silence again, so long, so 
 absolute that it seemed to mock all sound as a dream. 
 
 I stood there rigid, tense. Then I looked up. Why 
 did not the sky fall or the stars rush together or the 
 white wall above me crumble upon me ? But no, all 
 was unchanged. The glorious sky looked down upon 
 me and her unmoved. The wilderness of white and 
 pink roses stretched round me. The heavy scent still 
 weighed upon the silent, dreaming air. I cannot say 
 what I felt. Looking back upon those moments I can 
 remember nothing but a horrible blank of pain. I 
 stood there a long time, forgetting I had limbs to move 
 away. Then, at last, mechanically grasping the guitar, 
 I took my way silently back along the little rose path 
 by which I had come, and found myself eventually at 
 the compound gate. I unfastened the Arab, who stood 
 pawing the soft, red sand and arching his neck, and 
 123
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 mounted him. Then I shook the reins loosely and 
 gave him his head, and he plunged forward into a 
 long gallop, like the wind, towards the sea. 
 
 At Kalatu, between cantonments and the sea, there 
 lies the desert, a band of it two miles in width. The 
 sand is yellow, and the desert wind passes over it, 
 rippling it with waves like the sea. There are 
 countless green tussocks scattered over it where the 
 coarse, dry grass bends unhurt beneath the burning 
 wind. Across this with heads towards the sea we 
 went, and clouds of sand rose silently from the 
 Arab's flying hoofs, and miles and miles of undulating 
 sand stretched away on either side under the starlight. 
 For hours I was mad, as mad, I think, as any 
 madman confined in an asylum. Rage, unreasoning 
 anger, jealousy and disappointed physical passion flung 
 back upon itself swept down upon my brain, and tore 
 at it between them as wild dogs tear at a carcass. 
 My fingers quivered on the reins, and when the motion 
 beneath me seemed ever so slightly slackened, I urged 
 the animal onward without rest. So in a wild gallop 
 we came to the edge of the cliffs, and here t'.ie Arab 
 stopped and planted his feet, nearly flinging me from 
 the saddle, and snorted as he saw the declivity before 
 us and the silver sands and sea far below. 
 
 I paused to let him rest, for I felt him quivering 
 beneath me with fatigue and strain, and stroked his 
 neck with my hand. Reason was coming back to my 
 brain, reason and self-control and all those qualities 
 that bar the man from the brute. Self-respect rose 
 again from where it had lain trampled, and ordered 
 124
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 the dogs of rage and lust back to their kennels, and I 
 grew calm. There was a sandy, winding path down the 
 face of the cliffs, and I put my horse to it and we walked 
 slowly down it to the sand. The tide was receding, 
 and great stretches of wet shore lay exposed and 
 glimmering. The moon was sinking now, and blood 
 red in the mist near the horizon, it gave the water a 
 reddish tinge, and the slow, languid red waves lapped 
 soundlessly upon the slimy sands. 
 
 What had I been doing? I asked myself. I had 
 been distrusting her. I ought rather to have dis- 
 trusted my own senses. And suppose I had heard 
 her murmured whispers. Might she not have been 
 murmuring them to the empty air? Might she not 
 have been reading or reciting some Hindoo love poem 
 or tale? Might she not even have been speaking to 
 some child or some pet in her rooms ? It was unjust, 
 unfair, unworthy to let such thoughts enter my mind 
 as had been borne in by those words, and not, perhaps, 
 so much the words as that vibrating accent that still 
 seemed thrilling all the air around me. I was calm 
 now, and the judicial attitude, natural to my mind, to 
 investigate, to inquire, to assume nothing, was coming 
 back to it. But in my heart there seemed a dead 
 weight, a crushing chill that had stamped out all its 
 ardent life of an hour ago. The brain may reason and 
 weigh and wait to judge, but the heart is unreasonable 
 and can only feel. 
 
 I rode till daybreak, slowly now, for that first fierce 
 fire had burnt itself out, and with it had gone for ever 
 the dew, as it were, of my life, the first freshness of 
 125
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 a first love. When I saw the quivering pallor in the 
 east that precedes the dawn, and noted the lines of 
 the sand hills defining themselves against it, I turned 
 my horse's head and rode homewards. 
 
 To change my clothes and take away all traces of the 
 past night's employment and eat a hurried breakfast 
 was the work of an hour, then I had to bend my mind 
 to statistics of the native States, a volume of much 
 importance, which the Commissioner was preparing (with 
 my help) for the press, for four long hours, and then, 
 feeling almost in a lethargy, such is the effect of over- 
 excited anxiety, I drove to the Lombards' and entered 
 the open house door. 
 
 I went in and found her sitting in the soft, subdued 
 light of the shaded drawing-room, in a low wicker chair, 
 perfectly dressed in white as usual, with her feet slightly 
 raised on a low Persian stool, and her hands lying idle 
 in her lap. Beside her on a table stood a spray of 
 white roses in water, and her fair face bloomed through 
 the soft light, fresh and i/nmaculate as the morning. 
 As she sat there she would have formed a good artist's 
 study for a picture to be called ' Innocence,' ' Maiden- 
 hood,' 'Purity,' or any other similar and equally suit- 
 able title. As I advanced into the room she rose to 
 greet me, and I took her into my arms and kissed 
 her. 
 
 She looked up at me with those warm eyes of hers 
 full of soft, caressing light 
 
 ' You look terribly pale and ill, Gerald ; what is the 
 matter?' she asked, and the voice I had heard last 
 night in those terrible whispers that had scorched life 
 126
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 and hope out of my heart seemed to fall strangely on 
 my ears now. 
 
 ' Yes, I do feel very ill,' I answered, sitting down beside 
 her, 'but it is more a mental illness than physical. 
 Anna, I have come to say you must fulfil your promise 
 to me now, at once. We must be married within the 
 next few days or I shall leave for the hills, and when 
 I return we shall meet as acquaintances only.' 
 
 The light and colour died out of her face suddenly, 
 but she took the situation exactly as it was, and 
 answered me as directly as I had spoken. 
 
 'I should have said what I am going to say long 
 before now. I cannot possibly marry you now or at 
 any time.' 
 
 ' Why ? ' I asked simply. 
 
 'Because,' she answered, facing me, her steady eyes 
 fixed on mine beneath their level brows, 'because I 
 should have to tell you certain facts first. This I do 
 not want to do, and if I did, you would not marry 
 me. So it is at an end,' and she drew from her 
 finger the band of sapphires I had given her, and laid 
 it on a little console table that stood in front of us. 
 She was very pale, and her eyes were painfully dilated 
 and looked black, but she, apparently, like myself, was 
 determined to be calm and stifle all emotion which 
 might prevent her saying what she had to say. I had 
 judged her rightly. She did not mean, had never 
 meant, to marry me with lies on her lips. 
 
 ' And suppose I know already all these things ? ' I said 
 quietly, leaning towards her across the arm of my chair, 
 and looking steadfastly at her face, ' what then, Anna ? ' 
 127
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I could not be angry with her, wounded, sore and 
 cut to the quick as I was, and, to my own surprise, 
 my voice was tender instead of stern. She started, and 
 her eyes sought mine in terrified questioning. For an 
 instant, I think, she believed her lover had betrayed her. 
 
 'What is it you know?' she said in a low voice, 
 and growing paler and paler, but her eyes still looking 
 unflinchingly into mine. 
 
 'I came beneath your window last night to serenade 
 you, and heard you speaking in Hindustani to some- 
 one who shared your room speaking as I would 
 give heaven and earth, Anna, for you to speak to 
 me. Tell me it is not true. Tell me it was not your 
 voice, that I was mad or dreaming, anything, and I 
 will believe you.' 
 
 I stretched out my hands to her. The terrible 
 emotion I was repressing flowed into my voice and 
 broke and choked it. Anna looked at me for one 
 instant and then burst into a passion of tears and 
 flung herself on her knees on the floor at my feet, 
 laying both hands on my knees and looking up at 
 me through her streaming tears. 
 
 'I can't tell you that. It was my voice. It is true. 
 It became so while you were away in Burmah, but all 
 the same I love you, Gerald, as I do no other human 
 being, as I never can love anyone else. That is why 
 I have not broken our engagement sooner. I could 
 not give you up. The other is passion, madness, 
 anything you like, but not love. I love you with all 
 my soul and heart and brain, all those are yours for 
 ever and ever.' 
 
 12*
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 1 They are hardly enough for me,' I said bitterly. ' I 
 am not ethereal enough for those to entirely content me.' 
 
 ' Well, why did you not take me before you went to 
 Burmah ? ' she exclaimed passionately. ' I was innocent 
 then and willing to become all your own. I loved 
 you the first night I saw you. I told you so by 
 my eyes and smiles as far as I could. If you had 
 spoken then I would have followed you to Burmah, 
 or to Hades if you wished, or I would have waited here 
 for you five years, or ten, or an eternity. But you did 
 not. You left me without a word to tell me you loved 
 me, and all the presumption I could make was the 
 other way. You were a man. You had the right and 
 freedom to speak, if you chose. You did not choose. 
 That was all I could conclude.' 
 
 ' 1 wrote to you,' I murmured. The sickening self- 
 reproach that swept over me, the sense that all had 
 been in my hands and that I had myself cast it away, 
 to be irrevocably lost to me, seemed to be stifling 
 and strangling me. 
 
 'Wrote to me,' returned Anna. 'Yes, and your 
 very letters that came, full of everything but love, 
 seemed to me confirmation of what I thought. What 
 was in them? Admiration, understanding, intellectual 
 communion and sympathy with me. That was all. 
 You never sought my passion or my love. What you 
 sought I gave you. Could I do any more?' 
 
 I was silent. Words seemed useless, inadequate. 
 She was still on her knees before me, and the touch of 
 her hands seemed to burn into my flesh. 
 
 'For months after you left I lived here a tranquil, 
 I 129
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 empty existence. You know how empty this frivolous, 
 idle life is ; how there seems no depth, no intellectuality, 
 no sympathy anywhere. There seems nothing in it. 
 No emotion, nothing to stir one. Well, then, suddenly, 
 this great passion came across my life. It was like 
 the sirocco entering a rose garden. Perhaps the roses, 
 tired of eternal silence and dew, like to feel its scorching 
 breath, even though it kills and withers them. So the 
 sirocco swept over me, and I bent to it and accepted 
 it because it had something of life in it, something of 
 the joy of living, and I married this man, unknown 
 to anyone, of course.' 
 
 ' Married him ? ' I echoed, lifting my heavy eyes and 
 staring fixedly at her. 
 
 ' Yes,' returned Anna, looking at me half angrily now 
 in her turn. ' What else ? I thought you understood. 
 Didn't you say just now you heard us together last night 
 in my room ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' I said, hardly audibly, 'I knew that.' I leant 
 back in my chair and closed my eyes. I was over- 
 whelmed. Thought even seemed dead within me. 
 Anna drew nearer to me and put one arm round my 
 neck, and I felt her stoop and kiss me on the lips with 
 her tears falling on my face. 
 
 ' Gerald, don't look so ill and so wretched. I love 
 you, you know I do, better than anyone else in the 
 world. You have always been so kind to me, and I 
 love your beautiful face and those beautiful eyebrows. 
 Oh, why did you not take me to Burmah with you \ I 
 should have been so happy ! ' 
 
 ' Do you mean that you are in love with two men at 
 130
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 the same time ? ' I asked, opening my eyes and looking 
 at her. They seemed darkened, and I could hardly see 
 her. 
 
 ' I suppose it must be so, unless you recognise that 
 what I feel for him is only passion, not love, not love at 
 all. I would not breathe its name with that of love.' 
 
 ' Passion, without love, Anna ; even men are ashamed 
 when they feel that.' 
 
 Her head drooped a little and she coloured. Then 
 she looked up again as before. 
 
 1 1 feel it too like that,' she murmured, ' but it has 
 come so. It is not my fault. When I first loved him I 
 shut my eyes to all his faults. I invested him with 
 heaps of qualities I love, and I could have worshipped 
 him, been devoted to him if he had let me. But his 
 character in many ways I loathe. He is hard and mean 
 and cruel, and when he shows me these things I feel I 
 hate him, yet I cannot tear myself away from him. His 
 lips lie to me all day, and I know it, and I could strike 
 them, yet, when they come to kiss me, I am only too 
 glad to submit. It is horrible to feel in that way, to 
 feel your soul and body fighting together and your body 
 forcing your soul to submission. Oh, you don't know 
 what it is to lie prisoned in arms that you love and 
 whose touch delights you, to lean your head upon a 
 breast that is heaven to you, and yet to know that the 
 heart beneath is mean and narrow and full of cruelty 
 and treachery ! To loathe, to feel an unutterable con- 
 tempt, to feel your own mind struggling to get away 
 from those arms, and to feel your own limbs and body 
 turn and throw you back irresistibly into their embrace ! 
 131
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 That is my life now, one horrible imprisonment and 
 degradation, in which I keep longing for you, striving 
 to get out of it and come to you, only, I can't some- 
 how give him up.' 
 
 She dropped her head upon my shoulder as if utterly 
 exhausted, and I sat speechless still. Her words what 
 a view they showed me ! What a terrible vista they 
 opened before me ! and was I not partially responsible ? 
 Had I not helped, by awakening her dawning emotions 
 and then leaving them unsatisfied, to precipitate her into 
 this? 
 
 There was a long, unbroken silence. 
 
 1 Who is this man ? ' I asked at length ; c a native ? ' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' What is his name ? ' 
 
 'Gaida Khan.' Just as she pronounced the name I 
 heard a faint sound at the side of the room, the familiar 
 click of the glass beads on the swaying chick, and, turning 
 my head, I received the impression of a figure just with- 
 drawn. The chick was still swaying. Anna looked at 
 me and read my thoughts. 
 
 'It doesn't matter if he does see us together. He 
 knows that I am openly engaged to you. What do these 
 blacks not know ? It is useless to try to keep anything 
 from them. He recognises your position and my love 
 for you. I know when you first came back I ought 
 to have told you all this ; that I had married in your 
 absence, and I know I could have trusted you with 
 my secret ; but, oh, the delight it was to see you again, 
 to hear you say that you loved me, the rapture it is to 
 be with you, to feel you kiss me ! I could not forego it. 
 132
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Gerald, you only half realise what love I have for 
 you. Do you remember what I said the night before 
 last?' 
 
 Her soft face, glowing now with a hot colour, was close 
 to mine, her eyes looked appealingly into mine. The 
 clearest truth shone in them; I knew, I felt that, as 
 always, she was speaking the simplest, barest truth to 
 me, however strange, horrible or criminal it was, still it 
 was the truth. There was no artifice, no talking for 
 effect, no making of a tragical scene with me. Truth, 
 perfect truth, came from her lips, I knew, and to the 
 saddest, most wounded heart, what comfort is there in 
 that knowledge ! 
 
 I put my arms closely round her yielding shoulders, 
 looked down into those wells of blue fire, as her eyes 
 seemed in their passion to become. ' I do indeed re- 
 member,' I said in a strained voice. 'But how can 
 it be? You love me and him at the same time. 
 I cannot understand it it does not seem possible 
 I never heard never could have conceived it cannot 
 now.' 
 
 She looked at me in silence for a moment, biting 
 her lips violently as if unable to find words to explain. 
 Then, suddenly, they came to her wildly, impetuously, 
 and she spoke so fast I could hardly follow her. 
 
 'They are different kinds of love. I admire you, 
 worship you, love you with a love that makes it ecstasy 
 to be with you, to hear your voice, to feel the touch 
 of your hand. You are the light of existence to me; 
 I cannot bear to be separated from you. With Gaida 
 it is different. He is a beautiful toy to me. He is 
 133
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 like some pet, some lovely Persian kitten. Can't you 
 imagine that? He is a possession that I value. I 
 like to know he belongs to me. Like to feel I have 
 the right to clasp my hands round his wonderful neck 
 when and if I wish, but I do not care to be with 
 him. I do not crave for his presence as I do for 
 yours. I do not feel ecstasy at his proximity. I care 
 little for his society. As you know, my time has been 
 passed with you. I see little of Gaida; want to see 
 little of him. What link can there be between his 
 brain and mine? You understand, Gerald, he was 
 first my servant, as far as a man of the hill tribes is 
 ever anyone's servant, and I was content to keep him 
 as that, but he he oh ! his passion was something 
 terrible, resistless. He would go, or he would possess 
 me. He would not stay in the house otherwise. And 
 so, to keep him, I yielded to the idea of marriage with 
 him, thinking you had passed out of my life. Now, 
 if I could turn him into stone and marble and so 
 always possess him, I would be willing to, I swear. 
 Now you can see, can you not, how it all is? Sup- 
 pose,' she added swiftly, 'I had a tame leopard or 
 panther that I loved, even a dog, say. Oh, you don't 
 know how passionately I love anything that I love at 
 all, yet you would not dream of objecting to that, and 
 Gaida is little more to me.' 
 
 'Oh, but it is different, Anna, totally,' I murmured. 
 'This man is your lover your husband.' 
 
 'Yes,' she said in a lower tone, and one tense with 
 feeling. ' I am married to Gaida, and for that mere 
 reason I love him, I cling to him, I know. My feelings 
 134
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 cling round him, simply because of that, and in that 
 one way he has a stronger hold on me than you. Oh, 
 Gerald, take me too in that way. Let us marry, then 
 nothing could touch or break the love I have for you. 
 
 A throb of unspeakable joy went through me. I 
 strained her to me, and pressed my lips on hers 
 suddenly. 
 
 'You will give him up,' I said in her ear, in a low 
 voice suffocated with hope and joy. 
 
 Anna gave a sob which seemed to break the slight, 
 lovely figure in my arms. 'Oh, don't ask me. It 
 would be like cutting my heart from me. Let me 
 keep him too, for a little while at first.' 
 
 A revulsion of feeling, a shock almost of loathing 
 passed through me. I pushed her from me and sprang 
 up. 
 
 'Anna, I cannot believe it is you who are speaking. 
 You must be mad or I am. Englishmen do not share 
 their wives. It must be at an end, as you said.' And 
 hardly knowing what I was doing, I walked from her 
 to the door. But Anna had risen and followed me 
 and now stood between me and the chicks. 
 
 'Wait, wait, give me time. Love like ours cannot 
 be done with, or set aside, in a few words. I will try 
 I will try to give him up. Let me have time to 
 think. This evening I will tell you. Do not throw 
 me aside. I cannot bear it.' 
 
 Her broken, passionate words, still more the 
 agonised look upon her face, turned the terrible im- 
 pulse of anger to an equally terrible grief. 'This 
 evening ? You will be at the Delanys' dance ? I will 
 135
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 see you there. Do not speak to me any more now. I 
 cannot stand it.' 
 
 Then, catching again her grief-stricken and pathetic 
 eyes, I drew her up silently to my heart and pressed 
 her there. Taking up the ring from the table, I 
 slipped it over the delicate, white trembling finger. 
 ' All remains as it was outwardly,' I said. ' What has 
 passed is for ever buried between ourselves. I shall 
 never throw you aside, my darling; it is for you to 
 decide if you will belong to me entirely, or only as 
 now.' 
 
 Then, before she could answer, I passed through the 
 chicks and into the hall. 
 
 I found my carriage waiting at the door, but told it 
 to go home, and left myself free to find my way back 
 on foot. I felt as if the walking would help my 
 shattered thoughts. It was the close of the afternoon, 
 and, therefore, the loveliest part of the Indian day. I 
 turned aside from the broad, red road, down which my 
 carriage disappeared, and entered a winding lane that, 
 in spite of many twists and vagaries, yet maintained a 
 parallel direction with it and would lead me home in 
 the end. It was narrow and grassy, being little trodden 
 except by the bare feet of the natives, and the rose 
 and syringa hedges came forward from either side at 
 places and entwined their leafy arms and lingered to 
 gossip in the middle of the road undisturbed. Over- 
 head the giant sago-palms towered into the blue sky, 
 majestic and far away from small and earthly things, 
 while, between, the cotton trees dropped and rustled 
 their little leaves, and threw shade on the mortals 
 136
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 passing underneath. Down this silent, fragrant alley 
 I walked slowly, thinking of many things, and trying 
 to realise the position I had taken up. How strange 
 it all was, I thought with a bitter smile, and how the 
 station would stare could they get a glimpse now 
 into the brain of the most envied man in it ! What 
 was I practically? I asked myself. The fiance of a 
 woman living with, loving and married to, another 
 man. It was ludicrous. I laughed aloud, and my 
 laugh startled a cushat on its nest and a green 
 parrot that flew screaming from the tall hedge above 
 me. I wondered if any man had ever been exactly in 
 my position before, or had listened to the propositions 
 and spent the hours I had that morning ; and if they 
 had been, how they had acted, and what the whole set 
 of young officers and civilians in the station, to whom 
 by rank and age I belonged, and yet from whom in 
 thought and feeling I so widely differed, would say of 
 me and my conduct if they knew all. These thoughts 
 flashed through my brain and then I dismissed them 
 with a contemptuous smile. What was the world or its 
 opinions or judgment to me ? I was of the world in the 
 sense that I lived in it, worked in it, entertained and 
 drank wine in it with the rest, but my mind was not 
 modelled after its patterns. 
 
 At the tutor's, where with six other students I had 
 read for the service, I was nicknamed ' the Philosopher ' 
 and the 'Athenian,' because the problems of life and 
 death interested me more than geometry, and I had 
 been detected more than once reading Plato's Euthy- 
 dtmus and Phctdrus out of studying hours. That, indeed, 
 137
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 which had put me into the first place in the examina 
 tion, as shown by the marks' list, was the extraordinary 
 superiority over all other candidates in Greek, and this 
 was not acquired in laborious construing under a tutor's 
 fostering care, but in long, silent, lonely nights of in- 
 tense excitement, when I had sat reading the dead 
 tongue for pleasure, and seeming to grasp the very 
 hand of the dead philosopher across the gulf of 
 centuries of modern thought and learning ; so that, 
 probably, I looked at the whole matter with different 
 eyes from the average young Englishman. But in the 
 emotions we are all more nearly on a level, and that 
 which I felt most keenly as I walked quietly on was 
 pain hot rushes of pain in which my heart seemed 
 burning to a cinder, succeeded by a cold, sick hope- 
 lessness and despair. But I did not regret what I had 
 said or done in the moments of clear reason between 
 those of resentful agony. I realised that nothing could 
 have been gained by thrusting her from me and re- 
 gaining my freedom. 
 
 Freedom ! What a mockery the mere word was, 
 when her presence and her smile still meant for 
 me all that was most precious in life. And if, 
 in time, I had learned to put away the thought of 
 her, what then? Was there any other woman here or 
 elsewhere in the world that could, I will not say 
 equal her, but be to me what she was? Where else 
 could I find that exquisite sensibility, that quick 
 response to every thought and feeling, that intellect- 
 uality and brilliance that had not made her hard, 
 but had linked itself to the softest and tenderest 
 138
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 heart, and the most caressing, yielding ways? Above 
 all, that capacity for passion I do not mean only 
 physical, but mental passion, and all forms of intense 
 feeling that showed in her shining eyes and swift, 
 supple movements. 
 
 She appealed to me, spoke to all the impulses 
 and moods within me in a hundred voices. It was 
 as if the spirit of the Greek Agathon had come back 
 to earth in another form, and, like Plato, I too 
 seemed to feel my soul slipping through my lips and 
 being drunk in by hers when I kissed her. Psychology 
 had always been my favourite study, and humanity 
 my favourite book, and here, in Anna, I had come 
 upon a curious, yet lovely page. Even if I had not 
 loved her, I should have been fascinated by that 
 page and kept my eyes upon it until I understood 
 it and could translate it clearly. 
 
 No, it was better as it was. Better to have the 
 nominal right I had. Better this possession by her 
 promise, and in public opinion, than none. Besides, 
 had I not much more? I knew, even without that 
 confession of hers this morning, that I was possessed 
 of her soul and heart and brain. All, all, in fact, 
 except and here the fierce pain broke out in me 
 again, pain and anger and fury rising up and obscur- 
 ing my mental vision, like smoke before the eyes. 
 But I crushed them under, and my thoughts fought 
 their way painfully, but steadily, through the brain. 
 I saw that of whatever length the interim of suffer- 
 ing would be, beyond it there was hope. Physical 
 passion, when it is real and genuine, especially 
 . 139
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 when from opposing circumstances it cannot reach 
 satiety, is hard to kill and long in dying. Still, it 
 wears thin under the continual battling and striving 
 of the imprisoned soul against it. As the unworthy 
 object keeps revealing more and more traits that 
 shock and repulse its lover, so the force of contempt 
 and loathing grows in the lover's struggling soul; 
 grows until at last it is strong enough to vanquish the 
 clinging senses. For no new beauties of body or 
 charm of passion have been reinforcing them. They 
 are bound by the same ties as at the beginning, 
 while the soul's loathing that it brings down upon 
 those ties has increased a thousand-fold. Then is 
 the moment when they break, and the lover stands 
 free. Such a moment must come to Anna. Well, I 
 would wait for it; I saw that without external aid 
 of circumstances a bondage of the soul, such as hers 
 by the senses, could not last 
 
 As she had said, Gaida was tearing huge rents in 
 the mantle of passion she had thrown over him, and 
 soon it would fall in mere remnants from him. 
 
 Besides, that was the farthest termination. A 
 hundred accidents might give her to me any day, 
 any hour. With all my help and care and protection 
 for she should have them all the slender foundation 
 on which she had built her happiness might be swept 
 away. How insecure the whole fabric was ! How 
 unlikely that secrecy could be long preserved ! and 
 one breath of scandal would blow it down. I would 
 not hasten that hour of grief for her, if I could, by a 
 raising of the eyebrow. 
 
 140
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I could work without her knowledge against this 
 man if I chose, have him killed or imprisoned, as far 
 as that went, and Anna need never know. But she 
 trusted me entirely. I held her in my hand as one 
 can hold a little hedge sparrow, and she knew it and 
 did not even flutter in my clasp. She felt safe there, 
 and she was. My conquest would be accomplished 
 in other ways. My plan of action was clear before 
 me as a general's when he takes the field. I would 
 protect them and their secret as long as it was possible, 
 and if the storm broke upon them I would acknowledge 
 their marriage and receive them into my own house. 
 What I did the station would do. Was I not the 
 station, in fact? And I smiled in contempt at the 
 thought of the men and women who flocked to my 
 house because I fed and wined them well, and who 
 for the sake of that food and wine would condone 
 anything I did. 
 
 Yes, Anna should have from me nothing but 
 protection, consolation, comfort, love. She should 
 find that one other besides herself knew how to love, 
 whatever my pain and suffering and ultimate reward. 
 Whatever I might be to others, she, at least, should 
 never turn to me in vain. I would crush myself into 
 nothing and she should be all. I would, if called upon, 
 give everything and receive nothing. 
 
 I came to this conclusion slowly and by careful 
 thought. Then I registered the resolution within 
 myself and steeled myself to the endurance of all 
 it might mean. Yet, I had my consolation it was 
 the knowledge she was worth it; by character, by 
 141
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 intellect, by grace, by charm, by everything that 
 makes a human being of worth in this world, she was 
 worth it. And she could do what so few other men 
 and women can ; she could understand and appreciate. 
 I knew that not one pang of mine, not the smallest 
 sacrifice would pass unnoticed and unweighed, or 
 fail to bring me more than five times its value in 
 gratitude and love. What hardship is there in serving 
 such a mistress ? To me none. There are instances 
 recorded, or at least supposed to exist, where men 
 have poured out a life-long devotion at the feet of 
 some senseless idol that cared little for them, nothing 
 for their suffering, and laughed at their love. Such 
 self-abnegation seems to me degradation, and can only 
 exist where the worshipper is as worthless as the idol. 
 But for Anna I would have given up my life as cheer- 
 fully as men in all ages have died for their gods, 
 while and because they believed in them. When they 
 ceased to believe, they ceased to die. 
 
 When I reached my bungalow I went into the library, 
 threw myself on the couch and closed my eyes. I 
 felt sleep would come to me now, and I gave myself 
 over to it. Until my interview with Anna I had 
 felt restless, eager, excited, a prey to a stormy rage 
 of anger, yet full, unconsciously, of an expectation 
 that there would be some explanation of it all; that 
 Anna, in a few clear words, would dispel the whole 
 horrible nightmare, as it almost seemed to be, and that 
 I should return from her presence, calm, soothed, full 
 of joy, as I had so often been before. 
 
 But now, now that everything was settled, and there 
 142
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 was nothing to do but face the blank loss and sorrow 
 I had had, I felt no more unrest, no excitement, 
 only exhaustion and longing for oblivion. The 
 heavy air pressed on my eyelids, and in a few moments 
 I passed into the blank darkness of sleep. 
 
 When I awoke it must have been some hours 
 later. It had grown dark outside, and inside the 
 assiduous butler had lighted up all the lamps and left 
 the chick invitingly parted so that I could see the 
 table laid for my dinner in the dining-room beyond. 
 I stretched myself as I lay on the broad couch and 
 threw my eyes round the room, and they rested on the 
 little bookcase at my feet in which I kept different 
 volumes in the various languages and dialects of the 
 East. The most prominent among them, and the 
 one which pressed its title in Gujerati to the glass, 
 was the History of Draupadi, and I read it over and 
 over in the curious characters, and it seemed to have 
 a peculiar bearing on my own frame of thought. 
 Draupadi is one of the dearest Hindu ideals. She is 
 the feminine character in their literature round which 
 clings, perhaps, the most sacred reverence. She is 
 the type of pure, trustful womanhood and faithful 
 wifehood answering to the Greek conception and 
 British acceptance of Penelope. 
 
 As it is represented in India the legend of 
 Draupadi is a singularly beautiful one. Yet the 
 principle of it is the sub-division of a woman's love. 
 It portrays the woman in the dawn of life, consecrated 
 not to one husband but to. five. To each of the 
 five brothers who wed her simultaneourly, and who
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 share her amongst them as they share their common 
 tent, Draupadi is a faithful and devoted wife, and 
 eventually bears a son to each. Her counsels 
 guide them, her love and fidelity save them from 
 surrounding dangers, and they unite at all times to 
 protect and defend the chastity of the woman they 
 revere and cherish. 
 
 Strange and, to Englishmen, perverted idea, yet 
 thousands of cultivated and enlightened individuals 
 through many ages have been able to comprehend it, 
 and to associate it with an ideal of purity. And was I 
 wholly justified in the revolt and loathing I had felt of 
 Anna when she made her final suggestion to me this 
 afternoon ? 
 
 This query flashed upon me suddenly as I lay there, 
 as if a sudden flash of lightning had revealed a before 
 unobserved picture on the wall opposite me. But could 
 I marry her and share her with another ? I could not, 
 I knew I could not. The blood rushed to my brain. 
 I clenched my hands and pressed them to my head, 
 vainly striving to shut out the thoughts that came and 
 seemed to madden me. Yet there came almost imme- 
 diately the insidious idea creeping upon me that had 
 been suggested and had underlain her own words to 
 me. As things stood he was in the superior, I in the 
 inferior position. He was, so to speak, the master of 
 the house, and I but a poor beggar before the door. 
 He was received within the citadel, I was but sitting 
 down before it. Naturally, the victory was with him. 
 But let us both be within that house or citadel, and 
 which then would have the power to throw the other 
 144
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 out? She loved me as passionately as she did him, 
 and mentally far more, but this last advantage on my 
 side was overwhelmed by his superior position. But 
 let the positions be equal, and all the advantage would 
 be with me. 
 
 I sprang up from the couch and paced the room, a 
 terrible delirium in my brain in which rational thought 
 was hardly possible. The shock and horror of the 
 first discovery that she loved another, as I supposed, 
 instead of, or better than, myself, had been followed by 
 the hardly lesser one of hearing it was not instead of, 
 or better than, but as well as, and in addition to, 
 myself, and then all had culminated in that suggestion 
 of an equal partnership in love that seemed so revolt- 
 ing, so terrible, and yet whispered to the simply 
 passionate part of my love with a secret and poisonous 
 allurement. After all, for how short a time it would 
 be. Could I not, loving her as I did, turn that heart 
 of hers, so full of love for me already, to myself, and 
 fill it so entirely there would be no room for any other 
 there ? 
 
 What was this love of hers for Gaida ? Was it not 
 a mere morbid growth that had sprung up in my ab- 
 sence, a result partly of the awakened and ungratified 
 impulses of that love I had stirred, and would it not 
 be steadily pushed aside as the real love strengthened 
 and developed? But no, no, I could not enter into 
 such a horrible, disgraceful compact with her, whatever 
 its grounds might be and its possible results and 
 reward. I would not and could not desecrate this 
 feeling I had for her, which was something infinitely 
 K 14*
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 higher than a mere love through the senses, would not 
 and could not use it as the means to an end, however 
 worthy the end might seem. Where would my own self- 
 r.espect be? It must be sacrificed, and with it also 
 hers, and with the sense of honour lost between us, our 
 love, instead of being as it now was, something in- 
 finitely tender and holy, might insensibly degenerate 
 into the same mere love of pleasure and self-gratifica- 
 tion that bound her and Gaida together. No, I would 
 fight the battle and take my chances of victory from 
 the ground where I stood. The contest should be 
 won by the perpetual contrast of one love with the 
 other, and there should be no moral compulsion, no 
 coercion, not even that coercion of the sentiments 
 that intimacy produces and that Gaida was swaying 
 her with now. I would wait for that hour when she 
 would, of her own accord, turn to me as her protector 
 and deliverer, her asylum and her hope. 
 
 All that I could do by patience and the extreme of 
 fidelity and tenderness should be done, but I would 
 not buy influence over her senses by degrading my love 
 to the level of my rival's. I might have done it with 
 a woman I loved less than Anna, but, rightly or wrongly, 
 reasonably or otherwise, Anna had roused and held all 
 the very best and the most selfless emotions that I was 
 capable of. My eye could not light on that delicate, 
 beautifully-balanced form, or meet those soft, ardent 
 eyes, without a rush of tenderness and devotion filling 
 me different far from what most men understand by 
 love. And I had seen her, met her, been loved by 
 her in the first fresh, pure unfolding of her heart, and 
 
 146
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I had left her. And now I had returned and found her 
 enveloped in a horror and a darkness worse than death. 
 
 I saw her, as it were, standing smiling on a gulf of 
 hideous, unknown dangers, and I alone knew, and saw, 
 and could save her. 
 
 Could I desert her ? Married to a native ! One 
 needs to have lived in India to fully understand the 
 horror contained in those words. Aside from the 
 moral degradations of life shared with one who, accord- 
 ing to the British standpoint, has no moral sense, of 
 being allied with a race whose vices and lives are 
 beyond description, there is the daily, hourly physical 
 danger from a native's insensate jealousy, unreasoning 
 rage, and childish, yet fiendish, revenge. 
 
 A smile bestowed on another, one of those hundred 
 little social amenities or functions fulfilled by his wife 
 not understood in its right sense by the unlettered, 
 unthinking barbarian, and a naked corpse, with breasts 
 cut off, and mutilated beyond recognition, flung out 
 upon the meidan, are but likely cause and probable 
 result. 
 
 Why had I not taken her with me to Burmah ? 
 Oh, fool that I had been, with blinded eyes ! How 
 much better that disease and death that I had so 
 dreaded for her from the Lihuli swamps than this. 
 
 My servant entered and stopped amazed at the 
 door to see his sahib pacing wildly backwards and 
 forwards with clenched hands and the sweat pouring 
 unnoticed from his face. He made a profound salaam 
 as he caught my wandering eye. ' Will not the sahib 
 eat ? It is hours past the appointed time.' 
 U7
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I waved him away with impatient anger. The 
 sight of a black face was hateful and abhorrent to 
 me at that moment. 
 
 'Go, go,' I said, 'and see that neither you nor 
 anyone disturbs me till the morning. Clear the table , 
 I shall not eat to-night.' 
 
 Silent and wondering, the man withdrew, and I 
 heard him and other servants clearing away the set 
 out but untouched dinner in the adjoining room. 
 Then they returned to their quarters, and I was left 
 alone in the silence. I looked at my watch. It was 
 ten. I must dress and go to the dance, or I should 
 fail in my appointment with Anna. I went upstairs 
 and began my toilet with feverish haste. 
 
 I was fairly early at the Delanys', and Anna had 
 not yet arrived. For that matter, she generally did 
 come late. I met a girl that I had not seen for some 
 time, and who had now become a married woman. 
 By her I took my seat where I had the whole length 
 of the room before me and I could watch for Anna's 
 appearance. At a quarter to twelve she entered, and 
 I could distinguish her in a moment. What was 
 there that made her figure so charming? She was 
 tall, but not of that height which makes a woman 
 formidable instead of caressable. She was only tall 
 when you actually measured her. At other times the 
 only impression her figure gave was of extreme grace 
 and suppleness. Her waist was slim and low, her 
 shoulders broad and her hips slight. Perhaps there 
 was something in this proportion that gave the whole 
 its peculiar, insinuating charm. 
 14*
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 She wore this evening a gown of heavy white silk, 
 as usual, with a train of great length and weight, 
 and the whole dress had or was lent by its wearer an 
 incomparable distinction. As she came nearer we 
 could see that she was wearing at her bosom a cluster 
 of her favourite white roses, and a small spray was 
 intertwined with the beautiful double plait of fair 
 hair on her neck. I watched her with my usual 
 delight, and then as she came closer I sprang to my 
 feet with an almost uttered exclamation of dismay. 
 Her face was terrible to look at. For a minute I 
 could not believe that this was the rounded, smiling, 
 rose-like face I knew. It was colourless and in some 
 indescribable way seemed blighted. The eyes had a 
 strained look of intense suffering and exhaustion 
 and the pale lips had a terrible line round them I had 
 never seen. 
 
 We met and pressed each other's hands in a 
 conventional way, and then Anna said hurriedly, 
 'Let us go outside somewhere, where we can speak 
 for a few moments, and then I am going home; I 
 cannot stay here.' 
 
 We went in silence towards the verandah, which 
 led to the compound beyond and a wild jungle of 
 flowers and palms where a hundred couples might 
 walk unseen by each other, and yet where the music 
 of the ballroom would reach them all. As we passed 
 out I heard one woman say to another by whom she 
 was sitting, ' How dreadfully ill Miss Lombard looks 
 this evening.' And the other answered, 'Yes, this 
 season is really extremely trying.' 
 149
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Anna's lips curled in a faint smile, but we neither 
 of us spoke till we had got far away from the house, 
 down by the end of a tiny path that stopped by a 
 rustic seat and open summer-house, surrounded by a 
 perfect thicket of rhododendrons. Here Anna sat down 
 and I by her side, and the silence between us seemed 
 like some great, palpable curtain which we were both 
 afraid to lift. At last I said, very gently, for her 
 looks were enough to move the most indifferent to 
 pity, 'You look most unhappy, Anna. Speak to me 
 and let me comfort you.' 
 
 She turned her eyes upon me and said in a low 
 tone, ' I have suffered intensely all day since you 
 left me. I have fought with myself and been defeated. 
 I cannot give him up. I feel now that I must lose 
 one of you, and to lose either will kill me.' 
 
 Her face was such an unconscious confirmation of 
 her words that I could not look upon them as a mere 
 hysterical expression. Only once have I seen such 
 a look on a human face, and that was on the face of a 
 woman suffering from a terrible disease, just after she 
 had learned the truth and three weeks before her 
 death from it. That other horrible feminine face 
 with the seal of death set on it rose suddenly before 
 me as Anna looked at me, and my heart seemed literally 
 wrung with fear and pain, as if giant hands had 
 clutched it and twisted it to breaking point. 'If I 
 keep him,' she went on quietly, with an accent of 
 desolation that was pitiful, 'you will leave me, desert 
 me, and I shall lose you.' 
 
 That was all, and again there was a great silence. 
 150
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 In it I thought and ratified my own decision. I am 
 prepared for all men to condemn me, to say I acted 
 wrongly and weakly. To say I should have risen and 
 left her there. To say that I had done all that I could, 
 and that since she had decided upon her course I had 
 nothing to do but to accept that decision and leave 
 her to follow the fate she had decided upon. Perhaps 
 I was weak. Perhaps, if we look closely, we should 
 see that all unselfishness is a form of weakness. Be 
 that as it may, I saw that she was suffering, I loved 
 her, and I could alleviate her suffering by speaking, 
 and I spoke. 
 
 'No, Anna, I will not desert you. If you cannot 
 break with this man now, I will wait. I foresee that 
 the day will come when you will long to break this 
 tie and will call upon me to help you. Till that day 
 comes I am your protector and your friend.' 
 
 I put my arms round her and her head fell upon 
 my breast with a long-suppressed, terrible sob of pain, 
 and we sat on, motionless and in silence. From the 
 gay, brilliant windows of the Delanys' bungalow the 
 music streamed out to us, and we heard occasionally 
 on the other side of the rhododendrons a laugh or a 
 whisper as steps went by, with the trailing swish of a 
 ball gown on the grass. 
 
 Light feet, light hearts, light love, light flirtations 
 were passing gaily on the other side of that crimson 
 hedge, and we sat there drenched in an agony too great 
 for words. Deep emotions, great passions are out of 
 place in this little world of ours. They are but for 
 the immortal gods who possess all eternity in which
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 to suffer and recover from them. Conventionality! 
 How calm, how comfortable, how suitable it is to 
 our little limited lives ! How it might be said of 
 that, rather than of Wisdom : ' Her ways are ways of 
 Pleasantness and all her paths are Peace.' 
 
 Time passed. Dance after dance was played and 
 finished, and at last Anna raised her head. 'Take 
 me home, Gerald. To-morrow, come and see Gaida; 
 it is justice to me that you should see him. I will 
 be in the drawing-room at two exactly. Come to me 
 there.' 
 
 We rose, and to avoid passing through the crowd 
 I led her to an open lawn that impinged upon the 
 road where all the carriages were drawn up, wait- 
 ing. I went amongst them and found hers, and then 
 brought her to it and put her in and gave her my 
 promise I would see her at the hour she wished the 
 next day. As I put my hand for a moment on the 
 door she drew it within the carriage and kissed it. 
 Then the carriage drove onward and I went to seek 
 my own. I could not face a return to the idle, callous, 
 light-hearted crowd within and hear comments on 
 Anna's illness and change of looks. I drove away 
 and reached thankfully the lonely darkness of my own 
 house. 
 
 The following morning, after a sleepless night, I rose 
 early and went early to my work that I might be free 
 by two, and at a few minutes before the hour I had 
 reached the bungalow and was in her drawing-room. 
 
 She met me at the entrance to the room and her- 
 self drew aside the chicks to admit me. She was 
 
 152
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 deadly pale to her very lips. She seemed intensely 
 excited, and I did not feel surprised that she should 
 be so. Coming to receive two lovers, both of whom 
 t knew she loved, and to show one to the other ! 
 As for me I felt in a dream. All seemed unreal to 
 me. Were we really two ordinary, flesh-and-blood 
 British mortals? Was this ordinary life, or were we 
 shades acting in some grotesque farce? She motioned 
 me to a chair, far removed from her and in the darkest 
 shade of the shaded room. I sank into it mechanically. 
 The chair seemed real and ordinary enough, and there 
 were other chairs and tables and ordinary things round 
 me in this ordinary room, where Anna was wont to 
 laugh and talk society chatter with her ordinary 
 English friends. But what a heart of strange emotions 
 beat under that calm, white breast ! What thoughts 
 passed and repassed behind that smooth, white brow, 
 while the lightest nonsense was slipping from her lips ! 
 What self-possession and self-control she must have 
 had to meet this curious position and to live this 
 two-fold life ! What courage and nerves of steel to 
 give herself to a man whose very breath of life is 
 cruelty, whose jealousy means atrocity, whose anger 
 means death ! True, she was my Anna Lombard, 
 that I had thought of when I had first heard her 
 name, stepped out of the Middle Ages before me. 
 And I looked at her sitting not far from me, pale, 
 calm, composed as a statue, and my eyes seemed to 
 see, only through a mist of pain, a shade from those 
 times of blood and lust and passion and crime; times 
 when swift poisons were made by white fingers and
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 when women loved as men, as strongly, and often as 
 briefly. When they laughed at the idea of one lover, 
 yet were ready to die with, for, or by the hand of, any 
 one of the many ; times when the very air they breathed 
 seemed charged with treachery, cunning and danger 
 from these a shade had returned and confounded itself 
 with the clear white soul of an English girl in a body 
 beautiful and innocent to look upon as the sunlight 
 of a summer day. 
 
 She sounded a gong on a table near her and almost 
 simultaneously the swaying chick divided, and a figure 
 came into the room, a room so large and dark that I, 
 in my far corner, half concealed by a portttre, would 
 not be seen unless by one searching for me. 
 
 I sat motionless, hardly breathing, in my chair in the 
 shadow. All my senses seemed absorbed in that of 
 vision. This, then, was Gaida Khan. He moved 
 into the room like a king coming to audience. He 
 was of great height, and his form evidently, from its 
 motions, as perfect as the perfect face. I sat frozen, 
 rigid, while a great hopelessness settled on my heart 
 and seemed to kill it. A woman whose eyes had 
 been once opened so that she could see that beauty, 
 one whose senses were captured by it, would never 
 be free, entirely free, till death released her. This 
 was the thought that seemed festering round my 
 heart, chilling and crushing it to nothing. At first, 
 when I had heard from her lips that my rival was a 
 native, a feeling of contempt and scorn had given me 
 some comfort and security; his age, too, that of a 
 mere boy, and rank, that of the bazaar; everything 
 IS4
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 had seemed in my favour. But now that I saw all 
 arguments, all reasons, all considerations of this and 
 that were swept away when brought suddenly face to 
 face with him. Later, I learned that there were 
 thousands of such men in northern India serving in 
 the native regiments soldiers, weavers, grass plaiters, 
 men walking with bare feet in the dust of the highway, 
 to be seen and found in all sorts of occupations, to 
 be met every day in the streets of Peshawur, and that 
 Gaida was but a good and handsome specimen of his 
 extraordinarily gifted race. But I, though five years 
 in India, had never before met a Pathan, or, seeing 
 one, had had my eyes and thoughts elsewhere. And 
 now, with my eyes acutely sharpened by jealous pain 
 and wonder, I looked at this man and he seemed 
 almost superhuman. I had again for an instant that 
 feeling of unreality as I watched him advance with an 
 easy, stately grace and dignity. Anna made a slight 
 motion of her hand to the jilmil beside her, and Gaida 
 moved towards it and set it wide open, letting a flood 
 of the bright yellow light from the desert in upon his 
 face, doubtless, as she intended. It is difficult in the 
 slow, cold words that follow each other on paper to 
 convey any idea of the glory of beauty that the hand 
 of God has set upon this race. The face was of the 
 Greek type in the absolute oval of its contour, and 
 the perfectly straight features, the high nose chiselled 
 in one line with the forehead, the short curling upper 
 lip and the full, rounded chin; but curiously unlike 
 the Greek type, which shares with almost all statu- 
 esquely beautiful features a certain hard emptiness 
 155
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 and fixity, this face was full of fire, animation and 
 brilliance. The skin was smooth and soft as velvet, 
 of the tint of burnished copper, but glowing and 
 transparent, and eyes full of intellect and pride looked 
 out from dark marked eyebrows that swept the smooth 
 brow in a wide arch above them. On his black hair, 
 which curled closely round the ears and nape of his 
 neck, he wore a high scarlet turban, the two ends of 
 which fell as low as his waist at the back, and seemed 
 to add still greater grace to the exquisite poise of the 
 head, that was supported by a neck like a massive 
 column of warmed and tinted marble. What a marvel 
 of humanity, what a chef-d'oeuvre of its creator ! That 
 beauty was like a sort of magic, as she had said. I 
 realised it with my whole soul in those few moments. 
 If that had been a woman I might have been as faith- 
 less to Anna as she was now to me for his sake. 
 
 As it was, I sat paralysed and gazing at him, feeling 
 crushed and without hope. I knew then what a woman 
 feels who finds herself in the blaze of another woman's 
 beauty which has scorched out light and love from her 
 own life. 
 
 'Thank you,' Anna said, speaking in Hindustani, 
 'and have you any new fans to show me to-day, 
 Gaida?' 
 
 The Pathan smiled, and it was as if a sword cut me. 
 The smile was irresistible, sweet as might be painted 
 on the lips of Botticelli's cherubs. A soft light played 
 all over the youthful face, and the delicately-carved 
 lips parted from the faultless lines of even, milky 
 teeth. 
 
 156
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'Look at this punkah,' he replied, taking from his 
 right hand to his left a fan of plaited grass, worked 
 so finely one could not imagine fingers had woven it 
 together. 
 
 ' Lovely, indeed,' returned Anna, taking it from him. 
 ' How long did it take you to do this ? ' 
 
 'Oh, a day and a half, I think,' returned the Pathan, 
 lightly. 'The Mohurrum festival will be here soon; 
 do you like my dress for it?' He turned round 
 before her as he spoke, displaying the festival dress, 
 and with it the magnificence of his shapely form. 
 The dress was exceedingly rich, the attire of the 
 Mohammedan for a fte. The zouave jacket was of 
 turquoise silk embroidered in gold, over a fine white 
 tunic of muslin, thin as a spider's web. The trousers 
 were the full Turkish shape, and of fine white linen, 
 and gold embroidered sandals were on his feet. 
 
 'It is very pretty, perfect, I think, Gaida,' she 
 answered. 'I am glad you showed it to me. You 
 and all the servants, except my own bearer, can have a 
 holiday the entire day ; you can tell them.' 
 
 Gaida nodded and smiled again. 
 
 'I want you to be there to see us,' he said. 'Will 
 you come down to the sahib's office in the city and see 
 us pass by ? ' 
 
 'I will try,' said Anna. 'And now I have things to 
 do I must see to them, Gaida.' She rose from her 
 chair, and then the two figures were standing close 
 together and made a perfect picture, such as one could 
 seldom see, in the warm radiance of light falling in 
 upon them from the open jilmil. Anna, tall and grace- 
 157
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 ful, in her long, flowing white muslin, with her fair 
 English face, and her sunny hair crowning her upraised 
 head, and Gaida, taller still, magnificent in his Oriental 
 dress, with his regal head inclined a little as he looked 
 down on her. It seemed like a page torn from the 
 Arabian Nights, and put before me. 
 
 ' Good-bye,' I heard Anna say gently, and then before 
 my straining, starting eyes, I saw the Pathan take her 
 right hand, very gently and reverently, as I myself 
 would have done, and draw her a little closer to him. 
 He bent his head down and kissed her on the lips. 
 Every movement of the proud neck and shoulders was 
 grace and dignity incarnate. Then they unclasped 
 hands, and he turned away and walked towards the 
 chick, erectly and easily as he had entered, passed 
 through it and was gone. My hands were clenched on 
 each chair arm till the bones almost started ; my brain 
 seemed bursting, my eyeballs seemed to strain beyond 
 their lids. What had passed before me had been an 
 idyl of purity and dignity and grace. No kiss could 
 have been given or received with more perfect chastity 
 of look, gesture and action. And every motion of his 
 frame, from the stretching out of his hand to the 
 bending of that kingly head till his lips touched hers, 
 would have been an ideal for a painter drawing a 
 monarch bestowing a kiss upon his betrothed. And 
 he was a barbarian who trod the streets of a bazaar 
 with naked, dusty feet. But, against myself, my 
 instincts, to a certain extent, justified Anna. What 
 wonder that, with her eye so sensitive to beauty, her 
 brain so saturated with poetry and romance of feeling 
 158
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 she should be fascinated beyond power of resistance 
 by this presence that compelled even my admiration. 
 I, who had lost all through him. I, who hated and 
 loathed him. I, whose life was devastated by him. 
 Yes, even I, looking through her eyes, could see and 
 feel and realise the overpowering influence that rushed 
 through her and dominated her, and made her yield to 
 that kiss, even here, now, before my eyes. 
 
 What a strange and extraordinarily fascinating mixture 
 he was ! That extreme sweetness and most caressable 
 and appealing youthfulness when he smiled contrasted 
 how sharply with the cold, serene beauty of his profile 
 in repose, the hauteur of that curling lip, the proud 
 step and carriage, the calm authority of that last em- 
 brace. 
 
 After he had left I neither moved nor stirred. I 
 felt I could not. There was utter silence in the room 
 between us. Then Anna came over to me, knelt 
 beside my chair and laid her head down on my 
 knees. 
 
 Gerald' 
 
 Yes.' 
 
 'What do you think of him?' 
 
 1 1 understand, now.' 
 
 The words were just a hoarse whisper. I could not 
 articulate more. I stretched out my hand and laid it 
 gently on her soft hair. 
 
 'Yet I do not love him as I love you,' she declared 
 
 passionately, raising her head and looking at me with 
 
 clear, burning eyes. 'But, oh, the influence he has 
 
 upon me, when I see him enter the room, when I 
 
 159
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 look at him, and when I think of losing him ! ' She 
 did not finish, but the shudder that went over her, and 
 the grey pallor that drove out the rose colour in her 
 face finished it for her. I passed my arm round her 
 and kept it there. I felt as if she had wounded me, 
 and I was bleeding to death ; yet, to caress her was still 
 a pleasure, and she knelt beside me willingly, inclin- 
 ing towards me, absorbed in me. It was strange. She 
 did love me, there was no doubt. What was this 
 horrible mystery of a double love? 
 
 There was a long silence, then I murmured, hardly 
 conscious that I was thinking aloud, ' It is impos- 
 sible, inconceivable, unprecedented ; no woman has ever 
 done it.' 
 
 'What?' asked Anna, with straining eyes wandering 
 over my face. 
 
 ' Been in love,' I answered mechanically, ' really and 
 passionately in love with two men at the same time.' 
 
 'If you had stayed and been with me, and I had 
 met Gaida,' she answered in her peculiar trenchant 
 way, when her voice coming down with each word 
 seemed like a hammer falling true on its nail, 'I do 
 not think I should have cared or taken any notice of 
 him, any more than of the thousands of beautiful 
 faces round one out here. But you were not here, 
 and I had no idea you would ever return to me, and I 
 do love Gaida now, and you, too both of you. It may 
 be inconceivable, impossible, unprecedented, as you 
 say, but it is so. If I could kill my love for him I 
 would, for I want to be free from him. I love you so 
 much, I want to be with you, live with you, spend 
 1 60
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 every minute of my life with you, but something, some 
 intangible fearful something, binds me to this man, 
 and I can't loose myself.' 
 
 She spoke the last words slowly, fearfully, and her 
 face grew pale and her eyes dilated. She gave one 
 fleeting, half - terrified glance round the room as if 
 seeking to see with physical vision this terrible com- 
 pelling force that was overmastering her. 
 
 ' How can it possibly be kept a secret your marriage ? ' 
 I asked dully, after a moment. 'It seems as if such 
 a thing must be known all over the station directly.' 
 
 'It may be,' she answered back in a half-inaudible 
 whisper, 'at any moment. There is so much chance 
 in these things. They may, or may not be found out 
 to-day, or to-morrow, or any time. There is no certainty. 
 But all the servants are afraid of Gaida. They think 
 he has some supernatural power over them for harm 
 if they betray him, and he has told them that if his 
 secret gets known, no matter how, he will run amuck 
 and kill them all. They are all anxious to cover it up 
 and to prevent any possibility of its becoming known 
 rather than to gossip about it. They are terrified at 
 the mere idea of it being discovered. They feel 
 Gaida would not wait to find out who had told. If 
 it became known he would simply rush upon them 
 all with his knife and kill all he could. It becomes, 
 then, a matter they all wish to keep from disclosure. 
 They are in terror of him a sort of superstitious terror.' 
 
 ' And how were you married ? ' I asked after another 
 long pause, in which I tried to. bend my thoughts on 
 these questions I wanted to ask her. 
 L <6i
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 ' Not here,' she answered in the same undertone, as 
 if she were afraid of the very walls and swaying 
 chicks. 'It was when we were on a visit to 
 Peshawur. One night he got me to come away and 
 go through the marriage ceremony amongst his own 
 people. He took me, veiled, to a queer sort of house, 
 and we went through some ceremonies he said meant 
 marriage. Of course, I could not tell nor say if they 
 were so or not, but I think so, because, you see,' and 
 a little sad, bitter smile swept over her face, 'he is 
 anxious to tie me to him in every way in his power. 
 The next day we were leaving, and after a week or 
 two's travel we came back here papa and I, I mean ; 
 and all our servants, of course, including Gaida, came 
 back too.' Just at this moment, and before she could 
 rise from her knees, the chick parted and the butler 
 entered with cards on a salver. 'Captain Sahib and 
 Mem Sahib Webb, aya,' he said, and I rose to go. 
 When I was leaving the verandah I heard Anna's light, 
 clear, well-bred tones welcoming her guests. 'This is 
 good of you to come and see me. It is terribly hot 
 to-day, isn't it ? ' 
 
 And I went away painfully marvelling at her and 
 at it all, 
 
 xol
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FROM that day commenced a curious, strained existence 
 which would have been intolerable to most men and 
 was nearly so to me. Yet I had determined on a 
 particular line of conduct. I saw victory at the end, 
 however long and tedious the battle, and at the end 
 of every other course I saw only loss. This thought 
 nerved me again and again when it seemed I had 
 come to the last remnant of my strength. 
 
 At times the mere anxiety for her seemed to be a 
 strain greater than I could bear. It seemed to me 
 impossible that such a state of things could continue, 
 such a relationship could remain a secret for long, and 
 how it would be discovered, and what she might be 
 tempted or forced to do; above all, what the man 
 might do when he realised himself to be on the point 
 of losing her, were questions that rose in blood-red 
 letters before my eyes at all times, and came between 
 me and my work and my sleep. I dreaded to open 
 the papers lest I might see the story there, I dreaded 
 to halt my carriage in the bazaar lest I might hear her 
 name bandied about by the native crowd. My heart 
 beat when I saw a group of natives discussing together 
 on the road or in the compound. They might be 
 discussing her. But, so far, my fears and apprehensions 
 163
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 were not fulfilled, as, in this life, they so seldom are. 
 It is something we do not fear and have never 
 apprehended that leaps out upon us from the future 
 and devastates our lives. 
 
 The days slipped by quietly without event, and Anna 
 lived her double life and divided herself between two 
 loves, undisturbed. Circumstances seemed to lend 
 themselves completely to her wishes, and Fate herself 
 seemed interested in keeping her secret. The Lom- 
 bards' bungalow was very large, and Anna's room, in 
 fact, a whole suite of rooms, only used by her, were on 
 the opposite side of the house from her father's. The 
 large, open windows that naturally stood wide all night, 
 and the outside spiral staircase hidden under its wealth 
 of foliage, reaching from her window to the compound, 
 the compound itself a perfect jungle of flowers and trees, 
 no eye from outside could pierce, and that included 
 all the native servants' dwellings. All these things 
 made it easy for her to receive Gaida as soon as the 
 General had retired and the bungalow was dark and 
 still. In the day she never saw him or sent for him, 
 except in his capacity as servant, and he was in no 
 way favoured in money, dress or quarters above the 
 other servants. The superstitious terror with which 
 they had come to regard him shut off that greatest 
 source of scandal native gossip. In the day, Anna 
 was entirely with me, and if slander could have touched 
 her at all it would have connected her name with mine 
 and none other. Yet, even so, it seemed to me as if 
 the whole matter must rise to the light in some way, 
 and I waited in dread for the hour of discovery. 
 164
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 The more I studied Anna, the more incomprehensible 
 and terrible this strange dual passion of hers became for 
 me. But, also, I became more and more convinced 
 I had decided rightly in not abandoning her to herself. 
 Neither would she have deserved my desertion. For 
 this miserable love that had overtaken her she was 
 no more to be held responsible than she would have 
 been for any physical malady she might have been 
 stricken with. She loved me with the same faithful, 
 tender devotion she had given me from the first, and 
 it seemed, when we were alone together, impossible 
 to me that she could be living the life she was. But, 
 indeed, her love for Gaida seemed to have no sort 
 of influence upon her love for, and her relations with, 
 me. It was a thing utterly separate and apart from that 
 self which she gave to me. Within her the two loves, 
 the higher and the lower, seemed to exist together 
 without touching or disturbing the other, just as in 
 a river sometimes one sees two streams, one muddy, 
 the other clear, flowing side by side without mixing. 
 
 That such a state of things should have arisen, 
 that such feelings, which would have been designated 
 by the ignorant and unthinking as mere wantonness, 
 should have sprung up in this nature, seemed the more 
 unreasonable and terrible because it appeared to be 
 one unusually chaste, pure and refined. In all her 
 intimate conversations with me, there had never been 
 one coarse word, never the faintest suggestion of a 
 dulness of the moral sense, never a suspicion of 
 indelicacy in any of her wit. Moreover, she was an 
 extremely religious girl, not perhaps religious in a very 
 165
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 open and ostentatious way, but in that infinitely truer 
 way, religious in the deepest inner life of the soul. 1 
 did not recognise this fully at first, but as she admitted 
 me more and more into her confidence, this side of 
 her nature stood out before me so clearly that it seemed 
 to make the situation and her actions incredible. I 
 met her one Sunday afternoon quite suddenly and 
 unexpectedly coming down the steps of the church, 
 just after the service was over. It was a quiet, drowsy 
 afternoon and the neighbourhood of the church was 
 almost deserted. Only a few children under the care 
 of their ayah, and one or two old ladies who tottered 
 down the steps and drove off in their waiting carriages, 
 represented the congregation. For the fashionable 
 time was the early morning service when it was cool 
 enough for the women to enjoy their elaborate toilets, 
 and they knew the church would be full of eyes to 
 admire them. In the hot Indian afternoon one only 
 wanted to lie under a punkah and go to sleep. I was 
 very much surprised, therefore, to see Anna at this 
 time and place, and I stood still, unobserved, to look 
 at her. She was very simply dressed, and clasped in 
 her hands was a small, white ivory prayer-book. Th 
 sun shone down on her unshaded face, which was a 
 little pale, and her eyes looked very pure and innocent, 
 as if still full of prayer. Thinking in my mind she was 
 not unlike the poetical conception of Marguerite leaving 
 the cathedral, and reflecting, bitterly, that suffering not 
 unlike Marguerite's lay before her, I went forward and 
 she saw me. 
 
 'This is very nice to meet you here,' she said, smiling. 
 1 66
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 ' Have you been to church ? ' I said abruptly, 
 though the fact was obvious, as I placed myself by 
 her side and we walked on very slowly. 
 
 'Yes. I like the afternoon service. It is so quiet 
 and peaceful, with no people to disturb you, no staring 
 faces nor rustling gowns.' 
 
 ' Anna, do you believe all that is in that prayer- 
 book?' 
 
 'Oh, no,' she said. 'The prayer-book is a thing of 
 man, and may, like other human things, be full of errors 
 and mistakes. I don't know that it is, but I, personally, 
 do not feel that I believe in it. But then I believe in 
 the general idea that this Church and prayer-book stand 
 for.' 
 
 1 Do you believe in a God ? ' 
 
 'Yes, Gerald, I do. I believe in some supreme 
 power. Something that is above us. Something above 
 our own powers and understanding. I may be wrong. 
 There may be nothing, but I feel that there is, and I 
 have always felt very near that God. I am always 
 praying to Him, asking Him, consulting Him about 
 something. If I am miserable, I pray to Him. If I 
 am happy, I thank Him. If I am in danger I pray to 
 Him, and I feel His hand is round me, enclosing me, 
 and nothing can hurt me.' 
 
 I stared at the calm, serious face beside me. 'And 
 what about offending this deity ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' I try never to do what I feel is wrong,' she said in a 
 low tone. 
 
 ' And you are satisfied in your relations to this man ? ' 
 I said.
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'A great love came into my heart for him and I 
 married him. I feel sorry because it would grieve my 
 father if he knew. Otherwise, morally, I mean, is it 
 any different from marrying anyone else?' 
 
 ' And your deity also approves of your being in love 
 with two men at the same time, I suppose ? ' I 
 said with a bitterness I could not suppress. Anna 
 paused in her walk and turned to face me. We were 
 quite alone in the sleepy stillness of the Sunday after- 
 noon, the leaves flickered and swayed over our heads 
 and threw light shadows on the little gravel path before us. 
 
 'Gerald,' she said, looking steadily at me, 'I have 
 told you that feelings cannot be controlled beyond a 
 certain point. If you came to me and found me 
 suffering with a violent headache and said, " Anna, this 
 headache is sinful, you must get rid of it," what could 
 I do? 
 
 t et ' ~ n 
 
 " o ep u; votfof. 
 
 'You could cure the headache and the love,' I 
 answered sullenly. 
 
 ' Yes, if the Divine Power willed, and if not, not. I 
 suppose it is some power beyond our own that wills us 
 to love at all. Certainly love enters our hearts without 
 our own volition, and I, apparently, have been willed 
 to love two men instead of one, and what can I do ? ' 
 
 'Anna, this is all sophistry. We are not reading 
 Plato now ; we are looking at life, and you profess to be 
 looking at it from a religious standpoint. If you look 
 upon yourself as being regularly married to this man 
 and as being his wife, how can it be right to entertain 
 love for me ? ' 
 
 1 68
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'I don't entertain it,' answered Anna, wearily; 'it 
 forced itself upon me. I loved you for a whole year 
 before I saw Gaida. Do yqu wish me to banish you 
 from me? I could do that, but I could not destroy 
 my love for you.' 
 
 'Well, but the other . . .' I said desperately. 
 Gaida has been and is very good to me. Do you 
 think if I threw him aside it would be specially pleasing 
 to God ? supposing God is interested in my actions at 
 all.' 
 
 I was silent. She possessed, somehow, the art of 
 confusing one's thoughts as she did one's senses. I 
 found nothing to answer her with immediately, and 
 after a second she added, ' Two men love me and are 
 very good to me, each in their different way, and I love 
 them both, each in a different way, and why all this is 
 so I do not know, but I feel I can do very little in it. 
 " And for these unknown matters a God shall find out 
 the way,"' she quoted very softly from the familiar 
 Greek. 
 
 We both walked on slowly and in silence, and a 
 little farther on there was a stone seat, grown over 
 with moss and shaded by a cotton tree and climb- 
 ing convolvulus. Here we sat down by common 
 consent, and I looked at her face with its pale 
 tranquillity and serious calm. It was possible that 
 a God was holding her in His hand and for His 
 own ends made her suffer and feel differently from 
 other women, and it was possible, too, that the 
 same God would, as she said, discover the way 
 of deliverance for her. That was evidently her faith 
 169
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'Let us go home,' she said after a silence; 'it 
 was a very long service, and, then, talking of these 
 things with you, Gerald, always tires me out." She 
 rose, and we wended our way slowly back to her 
 bungalow, where I left her and went on to my own 
 to spend the rest of the afternoon in a gloomy 
 meditation by myself. 
 
 Whatever she might say or feel could not alter 
 my own idea of my duty towards her, which was 
 to draw her, not violently or by coercion, but gently, 
 and, in the end, with her consent, from her relation 
 to Gaida, which she might, but I could not, look 
 upon as marriage. It was not my duty to consider 
 him or care for him. It seemed to me my duty to 
 try and extricate her from this position, so full of 
 dangers and horror that she in some inexplicable 
 way failed entirely to realise. 
 
 I entertained more than ever. I was constantly 
 devising a luncheon, a dinner, a picnic, a dance. All 
 were given in rapid succession, and then the circle 
 recommenced. Anna was always invited and always 
 came, hardly going anywhere else, in fact, that she 
 might be sure of not being obliged to refuse me. 
 At these dinners or dances, outside of my duties 
 as host, I devoted myself to her, and this, in view 
 of our acknowledged position, was indulgently accepted 
 by all. 
 
 In a little while the station began to feel that 
 there must be some complication which was pre- 
 venting the course of our love flowing smoothly 
 into matrimony. For weeks they waited eagerly for 
 170
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 the date of the marriage to be given out. Then 
 expectation almost ceased, and speculation on the 
 nature of the obstacle took its place. This was 
 all the more excited and curious as, I think, it 
 must have been evident to all that two people were 
 seldom so passionately moved toward one another as 
 we were. Anna's face was only the most delicate 
 screen to her soul, and love, anger, grief, passion 
 were all reflected in it and played over it if any 
 of these were swaying her spirit, and as she sat 
 beside me or spoke to me her eyes flashed and 
 melted and grew dark by turns. Her voice had 
 the softness of love. She smiled when our glances 
 met across a table or crowded room. She yielded 
 all, or nearly all, her dances to me, and showed 
 in every way that she came to my house for its 
 host alone. Moreover, it was not only at entertain- 
 ments that we met. We almost passed the whole 
 day together, walking or riding, or driving, break- 
 fasting on the General's verandah or mine. The 
 station rarely saw one of us without the other being 
 present. 
 
 Then with wealth, and youth, and health, and love 
 and equality on each side, what could this incom- 
 prehensible cause for delay consist in? The station 
 racked its brains and had headaches over it, but 
 could not decide the question. Some of the less 
 excitable and curious said it was just a young 
 girl's caprice to put off a little longer the serious 
 part of life. Anna had, after all, but just come 
 out from England and, practically, school She 
 171
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 wanted to have a little more gaiety and frivolous 
 amusement before taking up a position as a married 
 woman. Others argued that if she was going to be 
 so wholly devoted to one man in society as she 
 was to her fiance^ she might as well be married to 
 him, and a great number of mammas and young girls, 
 who had hardly looked at me before I went to Burmah, 
 lamented and wondered over Anna's folly in not im- 
 mediately seizing upon the prize I presented. Many of 
 them amiably attempted to console me for and lure 
 me from my unrewarded service. Such efforts caused 
 me amusement mingled with pain. It seemed a pity 
 they should waste them on me, a pity I could not 
 tell them how utterly and entirely my soul was 
 anchored in Anna's breast, explain to them how all 
 my desires were bound up in this one woman. And 
 she grew dearer to me every day. Her constant society 
 did not weary me nor let me come to the end of her 
 learning and brilliance. It only drew me closer and 
 closer to her. Her mind, and heart, and soul opened 
 more to me each day, aud the farther I looked into 
 them, the more I loved her, the more restless and 
 desperate I became to have all this empire to myself. 
 We often began our day together by a ride before 
 breakfast a ride through the great, cool, dewy 
 gardens, where the pomegranate buds were unfolding, 
 and then breakfasted together with the General on his 
 verandah. Then a break through the morning of my 
 official duties, but a return to lunch with her again in 
 the middle of the day, and to consult with her on a 
 thousand points of difficulty that had presented them- 
 172
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 selves that morning or previously, and to hear her 
 elucidating them and straightening them out for me, 
 or else, merely listening to me with great eyes fixed 
 on me, all attention and sympathy. A little more 
 work in the afternoon, and then afternoon tea in the 
 shade of her rose-scented drawing-room, or beneath 
 the banana trees in the compound, from where we 
 could see the miles of desert sand and the dancing 
 sapphire sea, like a line of jewels on the horizon, and 
 in the foreground a string of camels winding slowly 
 across into the light of the west. Then dinner at 
 my house and a dance afterwards, and the intoxica- 
 tion of the music and the movement with Anna held 
 close to my bosom, in my arms, till four, perhaps, in 
 the morning, and then . . . the rending apart . . . the 
 yielding her up, and the black dejection that would 
 come over me. Sometimes, when she and all my 
 guests had gone, I would fling myself into a chair in 
 the deserted room, and so sit through the night, 
 with teeth set and my nails sunk deep into the palms 
 of my hands, till the dawn crept in, gilding the com- 
 pound. Those horrible hours passed over my head 
 without count. I was so absorbed in intense thought, 
 intense suffering that when the morning light filled 
 the room round me it seemed merely like the flash 
 of a few minutes since Anna had left me. Then, 
 knowing I was due to ride with her or share her 
 chota hazeri, or first breakfast, on the verandah, I 
 would go straight to my dressing-room to change my 
 clothes, and for many nights together the mosquito 
 nets on my bed would remain undisturbed. Food, 
 173
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 too, I could hardly touch. The mental anxiety and 
 excitement in which I lived seemed to close my throat 
 against it. Those terrible nights of desperate pain left 
 me for the succeeding day strung up to that degree 
 of nervous tension when one can think clearly, speak 
 well and transact all business, do all mental work 
 with great speed and ease, but can neither eat nor 
 sleep, nor give one's attention to trivial, restful things. 
 I felt strained to the utmost limit. To be with Anna 
 so constantly, to love her so dearly, to long for her 
 so passionately, to see the terrible danger in which 
 she stood, to feel that on me alone depended all 
 hope of drawing her from that quicksand of passion 
 in which she was sinking, to know that a moment's 
 relaxation of my efforts would undo weeks of care, to 
 feel that, strive as I would, my position was infinitely 
 less powerful, less advantageous, than the man's who 
 could take her in his arms, hold her to his breast, and 
 call her his ; to know that after a day of painful effort, 
 when she had been drawn toward me and much had 
 been gained, he, in one embrace that night, would 
 probably regain her wavering will, and chain her to 
 himself again all this strove hard, and how nearly 
 successfully I shall never know, to turn my brain from 
 its balance. But I tried to keep my firmness and 
 coolness, tried to dismiss the thoughts of Gaida and 
 his influence, and merely exert my own to the fullest, 
 tried to see the proofs that I was succeeding and draw 
 fresh encouragement from them. But at infinite cost; 
 I hardly recognised my own eyes now when they 
 looked back from the glass at me. They looked so 
 174
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 large and burning in the pale face, and I often 
 wondered, dully, as I was shaving, almost as an out- 
 sider would, how the whole thing would end. If I 
 could have felt certain that I was on the right path, 
 it would have been different, but great doubts would 
 seize me, and the knowledge that a few moments 
 with Gaida was perhaps enough to undo hours by 
 my side, stared me in the face. In fact, a certain 
 night came which showed me how little way I had 
 actually progressed, and what a terrible uphill, stony 
 path rose yet before me. 
 
 Towards the end of the month a great fete was to be 
 given in the Commissioner's gardens for both Europeans 
 and natives. Now, these mixed fetes are naively sup- 
 posed by the complacent Indian Government to bring 
 the two classes together. They are a concession to that 
 section of the community that thinks the native should be 
 brought up to the level of and treated as a white, and 
 to the uninitiated, to those who have never been to one, 
 this form of diversion seems as if it might bring about a 
 delightfully social and friendly intercourse, at least for 
 that particular afternoon or evening. The reality, how- 
 ever, hardly impresses one that way. What happens is 
 this. The gates of a magnificent public or private garden 
 (a trifle of two hundred acres or so) are thrown open 
 to black and white alike, but not the house of the host ; 
 that is for the whites alone. The natives come in and 
 pour over the grounds, looking exceedingly picturesque 
 and beautiful in their Oriental dress, and crowned with 
 flowers as the Greeks of old time. A little later the 
 whites begin to arrive. The natives loll and lounge 
 175
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 about and stare at them, but they are not allowed on 
 pain of arrest to speak to them or, as the Government 
 calls it, to 'annoy them.' Nor could the whites, except 
 a few of the men in official positions, understand a 
 word of their many languages if they did. Re- 
 freshments are served from the house, but not to 
 the natives. They have to buy theirs at little native 
 stalls at the gates. There is a band playing, but all 
 seats, stands and enclosures are reserved for the whites. 
 The natives can stand outside or hang over the rails if 
 they can get near enough. For the rest, wherever seen, 
 however occupied or idle, standing, walking or sitting, 
 the native is hustled out of the way by a policeman 
 should a white or whites be coming down the same 
 path or approaching the same bench. And the whites 
 move about as if absolutely unconscious that such a 
 thing as natives existed. He looks through them and 
 over them, walks (by the aid of a preceding policeman) 
 through them and over them, and, in fact, the natives 
 have about the same place in the fete that the tropical 
 flowers in the grass beneath the white man's feet have, 
 which flowers they greatly resemble, lending beauty and 
 local colour to the scene. 
 
 On Lieutenant Blundell and myself, the Commis- 
 sioner's practical aides-de-camp, fell the burden of all 
 the arrangements, decorations and commissariat. Anna 
 seemed delighted at the idea, and showed so much ani- 
 mation that all the ennui I usually felt over such work 
 left me, and I threw myself into it with enthusiasm. 
 She never met me now without asking what I was 
 doing for the fte and saying how much she was looking
 
 forward to it. On one of these occasions her motive 
 flashed upon me suddenly and my heart died within me. 
 
 1 Is Gaida Khan going to be there ? ' I asked abruptly. 
 
 A flood of crimson swept over her face as she looked 
 down and murmured half inaudibly, 'Yes.' 
 
 ' So that is why you are so interested in the fete ! ' 1 
 said bitterly. 
 
 ' Not entirely,' Anna said hurriedly, and with the 
 deprecating air she always had when this name was 
 mentioned, as if imploring me not to be angry with her. 
 ' But there will be a sword dance by the Pathans and he 
 will be in it. It will be very beautiful. I want you 
 to see it.' 
 
 ' I am aware that Gaida is very handsome,' I said 
 coldly ; ' I have seen him once.' 
 
 This man and the horrible, triangular position we 
 were in, though always in my thoughts, were seldom 
 touched on between us, and the pain of hearing her 
 speak of him and in this eager way was, to a certain 
 extent, unfamiliar and almost overpowering. 
 
 Anna grew pale and silent as she always did when the 
 least displeasure crept into my voice, and the thought 
 shot through me that she feared me, and fear is the 
 road to hate, not love. With an effort that seemed 
 almost beyond my strength, I crushed back the anger 
 and sense of injury and said gently, ' Well, Anna, when 
 will you be there ? I shall be at your service all the 
 evening to see dances and everything else. Blundell 
 will do all the honours overlooked by the Com- 
 missioner.' 
 
 A smile of confident pleasure broke over her face 
 M 177
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 again. ' I think about nine,' she said softly, and with a 
 grateful inflection that said plainly to me, ' Thank you for 
 not being angry.' 
 
 The evening of the fete, that was to begin about 
 five and continue till midnight, was exceptionally 
 lovely. The breeze from the sea died away and, though 
 the heat was consequently intense, the calm of earth and 
 sky in their perfection was singularly beautiful. When 
 all was ready and the Commissioner had thanked me 
 for the special service I had rendered to the cause, 
 and a few of his guests had already arrived, I strolled 
 away to the lower parts of the gardens, leaving him 
 and Blundell on the steps of the verandah as a reception 
 committee. The sky overhead gleamed like mother-of- 
 pearl with rose colour. The languid branches of the 
 palms steeped in gold drooped motionless in the 
 still air. In the west shone already a planet with silver 
 radiance, and the moon rose slowly, pale, ethereal, a 
 transparent disc in the roseate sky. I walked down 
 a narrow alley between masses of pomegranate trees 
 and roses and hibiscus and rhododendron, growing 
 all over each other, and stifling each other and fainting 
 in each other's embrace, walked away from the direction 
 of the bands and lost myself at last in the heavy 
 quiet of the garden. I wanted to find a little rest 
 and pull myself together. A dreadful tiredness, like 
 coma, seemed creeping over me. Nights of sleepless 
 pain and thoughts, days of anxiety and torment were 
 beginning to tell. I felt as if the store of vitality I 
 had been drawing and living on was exhausted. I 
 walked on slower and slower, soothed, unconsciously, 
 178
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 by the perfect tranquillity around me, when, suddenly, 
 the scent of sandal-wood and attar of roses struck me, 
 and I raised my eyes from the path, expecting to see 
 natives near me. There was a single figure only, a 
 short distance from me, and advancing in my direction. 
 One glance seemed to drive all the blood in my body 
 to my heart, and there it seemed held and freezing. 
 It was Gaida Khan. He was not in such rich holiday 
 dress as the last time I had seen him; in fact, there 
 was nothing notably festive about it except that the 
 full, white linen trousers were brilliantly white, the loose, 
 blue tunic he wore over them seemed new, and the scarlet 
 turban on his head was of silk instead of cotton. I 
 controlled myself sufficiently to walk calmly on, though 
 my feet almost stopped and seemed rooted to the 
 ground at the first sight of him, but I went slowly 
 that I might see him well as I passed. He advanced 
 without changing his pace, with his head held high 
 on its superb column of neck, and the evening light 
 falling softly on the delicate and perfect face. He 
 came up to me and passed, glancing at me full as he 
 did so, and it seemed to me he raised his head still 
 higher, and a suspicion of an arrogant smile replaced 
 the exquisitely - sweet expression that was natural to 
 the face. For a moment our eyes met across the 
 rose and golden light, in the perfect peace and stillness 
 of the garden. We looked at each other two men who 
 represented nearly completely the two extremes of 
 humanity between whom lay a gulf as wide, perhaps 
 as could exist between two creatures of the same species, 
 and the one on the lower side was the one that was 
 179
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 victorious and triumphant. I, rich in all the world 
 values, with my brain crammed with all sorts of learning, 
 useful and useless, accustomed to the best this world 
 can offer. He, without one anna or a hut, unable 
 to read or write or understand any tongue but his 
 own and a few words of another. We, the rivals, 
 looked at each other. 
 
 He had something for which I would have exchanged 
 all I had. He was the envied, the fortunate, the 
 rich. He had passed me, and the way was so narrow 
 that his clothes brushed me, and the scent of sandal- 
 wood flooded me. He was taller than I, though I 
 stood six feet, and his disdainful eyes swept over me 
 contemptuously from beneath the crimson turban as 
 he went by. In that moment all the Saxon blood 
 rose in my veins and seemed to be living fire. The 
 impulse came to spring at his throat and bear him 
 under me to the ground. It passed before me in a 
 flash the opportunity, the place, the quiet, the solitude, 
 the certainty, the impunity of my vengeance. I was 
 older and, doubtless, stronger than he, an accomplished 
 athlete, and, besides, had the strength at that moment 
 of mad fury. He was, probably, of the usual weak 
 native constitution and untrained. A short struggle 
 and I could leave him strangled in the narrow way. 
 When his body was found, who could know or prove 
 it was I that was responsible ? 
 
 And, even if that were known, the slightest excuse 
 of mine an insult offered to me momentary anger 
 on my part leading to an unfortunate accident how 
 easily it would be accepted. What was the life of one 
 
 180
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 miserable native, a chetai-wallah, a man who walked 
 with bare feet in the dust of the highway ? But I 
 restrained myself and he walked by unharmed. Then 
 I turned and looked after him as he continued his 
 way with the incomparable majesty and grace of 
 movement that is the special gift of the Pathan. With 
 eyes dim with anger I followed his figure, and Kipling's 
 lines went dully through my head : 
 
 ' He trod the ling like a buck in spring, 
 And looked like a lance at rest. ' 
 
 I paused there till the thicket of rose and magnolia had 
 closed between him and me. Then I walked forward, feel- 
 ing almost blind, and, suddenly, dizzy, sick and hopeless. 
 
 I did not regret in the least that I had let Gaida go 
 by unharmed. If I wished for his death there were 
 other ways of accomplishing it than by a personal 
 struggle. The impulse I had felt had been merely the 
 natural physical impulse of jealousy and hatred. I did 
 not wish his death, that is to say, I did not intend to 
 bring it about. I had decided that long ago, and 
 nothing in the world is more fatal than reversing in a 
 moment of anger, or any similar madness, the decisions 
 we have arrived at in cold hours of logical thought. If, 
 when the madness comes, you cannot remember your 
 reasons or your logic, if, in fact, these then seem to you 
 like folly, at least you can remember you have made 
 such a decision and adhere to it simply because you 
 have made it. This feeling it was and this mechanical 
 remembrance that had allowed Gaida Khan to pass by 
 me in peace. 
 
 Ill
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I found a gardener's water tank beside my path, and 
 some moss-covered stones. On these I sat down and 
 buried my head in my hands and rested. Yet I cannot 
 claim that I thought much. I allowed myself, as it 
 were, to drift on a blind stupor of fatigue and pain. An 
 hour, perhaps, went by and I knew I must be returning 
 to my post of duty. I rose and turned back along the 
 path I had come. 
 
 When I had retraced my steps to the bungalow the air 
 had darkened, the rose in the sky had changed to purple 
 and the stars burst forth in it. Beneath, amongst the 
 blossom-laden trees, hung countless thousands of coloured 
 lamps and lanterns, and figures began to pass me in the 
 narrow paths. The Commissioner's house was in a 
 blaze of light. Light poured from all the open windows 
 and from the decorated and illuminated verandah, so 
 that the lawn was bright as day. 
 
 Throngs of people, Europeans and natives, covered 
 it, and were crowding up the shallow white steps towards 
 the long windows. One of the bands was playing, and 
 laughter and voices mingled with the strains of music. 
 Servants flitted here and there with trays of wine and 
 ices amongst those who did not care to leave the fresh- 
 ness of the garden for the house. Groups of natives, 
 looking like animated Greek statues in their white 
 clothing and with garlands of white clematis on their 
 heads and round their throats, lingered and leaned and 
 talked and gazed towards the house, while carriages 
 dashing up to the lower end of the lawn deposited every 
 moment fresh consignments of young English girls in 
 white silk and muslin, and young men in nineteenth- 
 182
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 century attire, and behind the white corner of the bun- 
 galow roof and the palms, the great, mellow, voluptuous 
 moon climbed steadily and looked down upon it all. 
 Exactly at nine Anna arrived. I was waiting on the 
 verandah to receive her. Coming into the strong light 
 she stepped upon the terrace, looking fair and fresh as 
 one of the Immortals. 
 
 I went forward to greet her, and I felt my face was 
 pale and grave and there was a pained smile on my lips. 
 I suffered so much mental pain now and so continually 
 that I seemed growing old under the strain of it. Life 
 and its joyousness, even youth and youthful impulses, 
 seemed dying within me. But, as her affianced lover, I 
 went forward, as a hundred eyes were turned upon us 
 in the brilliant verandah, and welcomed her and drew 
 her arm through mine. She looked up at me with a 
 smile full of love and pleasure that all those eyes could 
 see, as floods of light were falling on her fair face and 
 white-clothed figure, and, doubtless, many men present 
 hated me as one supremely blessed and favoured. 
 
 'What time does the wonderful dance begin?' I 
 asked gently. 
 
 'About a quarter past nine, I think,' she answered, 
 ' and it will be at the further side of the gardens. Those 
 people passing down the lawn are going now, I think. 
 Come with me round the house ; I know a lovely path 
 down the gardens that will take us there.' 
 
 There was a general stir amongst all the guests, 
 
 natives and Europeans, and Anna and I separated from 
 
 the general mass and went round to the back of the 
 
 bungalow, where, as she said, a narrow and lovely alley, 
 
 183
 
 arched completely over by the bending cocoanut palms, 
 opened in front of us. Here and there the moonlight 
 fell through their fan-like branches and seemed to splash 
 like molten silver on the path before us. In one of 
 these irregular pools of light Anna slackened her foot- 
 steps and I saw her raise her face and look at me 
 steadily. 
 
 ' You looked so handsome, Gerald, this evening,' she 
 breathed softly, ' when you came forward on the terrace 
 to meet me ; so dark, so pale, so beautiful. Kiss me,' 
 she added, and stopped short in the path. I stopped 
 too, and took her wholly in my arms and kissed her. 
 
 1 Give him up for me,' I said in her ear. ' Am I not 
 worth it?' 
 
 I felt her bosom strained against mine heave spas- 
 modically, and her arms tremble against my neck. At 
 last a choked whisper reached me. 
 
 1 Oh, I do want to, you know, but, somehow, since I 
 have given myself to him you don't understand, perhaps, 
 but it is such a tie for a woman.' 
 
 I put her from me suddenly. 
 
 'Anna, we must not talk of these things,' I said, 
 with a suppressed vehemence that made her shrink 
 from me, ( if you want me to remain a reasoning being. 
 I am strained to the utmost limit as it is.' 
 
 We walked on in perfect silence through one cool, 
 fragrant alley after another, where the moonlight, filtered 
 through the palms, softened and silvered the heavy- 
 scented air, till we arrived in the open again, and the 
 crowds of figures told me we were near the appointed 
 ground. 
 
 184
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 When we reached the spot I saw at once that OUT 
 clever little Commissioner had selected and arranged 
 it with his usual incomparable taste in such things. The 
 luxurious undergrowth, the long rank grass and rampant 
 parasites and blossoms had all been cut away for a large 
 circular space, which had then been swept clean and 
 surrounded by a light iron railing about three feet high. 
 Outside this railing a grassy, lawn-like space stretched 
 away till a ring of cocoanut palms, and all their accom- 
 panying undergrowth of rose and pomegranate, pressed 
 forward again, making a natural, verdant, fragrant wall. 
 Raised on the grassy lawn facing the clean-swept ring 
 a grand stand came into view, and line upon line 
 of chairs in it were being taken up as we approached. 
 On the opposite side the Grenadier band had taken its 
 position, while natives and English pressed up all round 
 the circle to the railings. It was as light here as at 
 noonday, thousands of coloured lamps being swung 
 in long strings of light from pole to pole above our 
 heads, and the roof of the grand stand itself being one 
 blaze of rose and gold. 
 
 ' Where will you go ? ' I asked Anna as we came up. 
 
 ' Oh, to our seats in the stand,' she replied indiffer- 
 ently, as if she had no other possible interest in or 
 connection with the spectacle than the merest onlooker. 
 No one, certainly, could have dreamed, as she quietly 
 descended the crowded stand to its two best seats, 
 reserved for her in the very front, and calmly crushed 
 the white silk of her costume into their narrow 
 limits, and took her place with a certain cold grace 
 that was all her own, that this fair-skinned, light-haired 
 185
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Saxon girl, so thoroughly English in every look and 
 gesture, and with, apparently, all the cold pride of the 
 English, had come to see her husband dance his 
 barbaric dance, there, in the dust before us. I felt a 
 bitter pain as I watched her and took my place beside 
 her, and yet I was glad in a sort of bitter way. I 
 carried a wound, a raw, terrible wound in my breast, 
 but, if she could prevent, none should ever know it, 
 none of those eyes round us should peer delightedly 
 into its bleeding recesses. 
 
 The stand was quite full, packed from end to end 
 now, and might itself have been some beautiful, tropical 
 flower, it so glowed with silk and bright colours, and 
 brilliant, laughing faces. The band opposite began to 
 play, and trays of sweetmeats, ices and champagne 
 were brought and passed along in front of the tiers of 
 seats. Anna would not take anything, and looking at 
 her closely, I saw that though the centre of her lips 
 was of their usual bright rose, the corners were white 
 and burnt-looking. The Commissioner and Bundell had 
 their seats in the tier directly above and behind ours, 
 and towards the half-hour past nine he bent down to 
 Anna and murmured, ' Here they are.' 
 
 We looked towards the ring. The band had ceased 
 its English airs, and in perfect silence forty Pathans, 
 each with a flashing, naked sword three and a half 
 feet long and curved slightly at the point like a scimitar, 
 walked slowly into the circle. They were all of great 
 and uniform height, dressed entirely in white, full 
 Mohammedan trousers, straight tunic over to the middle 
 of the thigh, with loose, wide-open, falling sleeves ; on 
 186
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 their heads, surmounting their magnificent faces, was 
 wound to the height of a foot, perhaps, a snow-white 
 turban. 
 
 A little shiver and flutter passed in a ripple over the 
 stand. Whatever the men may have thought of the 
 1 dogs ' and ' pigs ' of natives before them, the women 
 were not and could not be quite unmoved by the sudden 
 display, for their benefit, of this male beauty, this 
 physical perfection. Fair, fluffy heads leaned suddenly 
 together, and whispers were exchanged behind fans : 
 ' Aren't they handsome ? ' ' Beautiful,' ' Just like 
 statues,' ran in feminine murmurs from seat to seat. 
 The Pathans advanced slowly till they all faced the 
 stand, and the full glare of the rosy, yellow light 
 fell on them, showing to us all distinctly the splendid 
 foreheads of pale burnished bronze ; the narrow, delicate, 
 sweeping eyebrows over the lustrous, flashing midnight 
 eyes; the perfectly modelled noses with the carved, 
 proud nostrils; the firm, cruel, yet exquisite mouths 
 and beautiful chins. 
 
 They looked up at the eager, surprised, admiring 
 white faces above them, salaamed and smiled. As 
 before, I had noticed with Gaida the smile is the last 
 touch of the Creator's hand upon their marvellous 
 faces of beauty. The cruel, beautiful lines of the 
 lips dissolve, the lips part from even teeth of flash- 
 ing pearl, and a sweetness that can only be faintly 
 represented by saying 'as of heaven' is lent to the 
 irresistible countenances. A little shiver of delight 
 swept over the women as that smile, like sunlight on 
 a brook, passed over the faces of the Pathans. And I, 
 187
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 sitting in my place, thought wonderingly, ' How strange 
 and deceitful Nature is at times. Who could believe 
 that these men are the most bloodthirsty, perhaps the 
 most fiendishly cruel, and certainly the most depraved 
 and vicious race of the earth ? ' and I passed my hand 
 over my eyes for a moment to shut out those godlike 
 forms and faces, while I thought of all I had heard 
 and read of them, stories that would almost sear the 
 paper they wer written on, and scorch out Saxon eyes 
 with shame to read. And to think that she, this girl 
 beside me, whose slender, delicate white fingers held 
 my soul and brain and heart in their hold, who con- 
 trolled the very rush of blood through my veins, she 
 with all her delicacy and refinement of thought 
 and feeling, was in the hands of one of these ! I 
 turned to her now with all this savage pain confusing 
 my thoughts and, altering some of them enough to 
 give her sharp senses the clue to them all, I said 
 something about the men before us being mere devils, 
 and she turned her face fully to me, meeting my gaze 
 with her eyes full of cool, insolent courage. It was 
 the same look that shone in her father's face when he 
 led his men up the defiles of death in the Border 
 campaigns; the same look that shines in the eyes of 
 the Saxon the world over, and makes him what he is, 
 the World's Master. 
 
 ' I am not afraid,' she said simply, answering all she 
 knew was in my thoughts, and she turned to look 
 down to the arena again. I followed her eyes and at 
 that instant the dance commenced. The Pathans had 
 all fallen into line, one behind the other, forming a 
 1 88
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 circle the entire circumference of the enclosure. At 
 the first crash of the opening chord of music forty 
 flashing swords leapt into the air and were whirled, 
 each one gleaming, round the head of each white- 
 robed Pathan as he plunged forward, breaking into a 
 wild, musical chant in unison with the music. Now, 
 I do not know what step was used in that dance, nor 
 can I possibly conceive any European foot making 
 one like it. I can only say that the Pathans moved 
 round in that perfect circle of which the proportions 
 never varied, with marvellous rapidity the broad blades 
 of their swords playing like lightning above their heads 
 the whole time, and their gait in the dance was the 
 gait of the Pathan when he walks, somewhat rolling 
 and sensuous, but when fitted to such forms of extreme 
 grace and symmetry, one that reaches the climax of 
 beauty in motion. 
 
 Their curious, swaying movement from side to side 
 seemed to bring into play every one of the muscles 
 of those shapely forms. The powerful shoulders and 
 flanks, the line of the spine, the somewhat too de- 
 veloped muscles of the hip and waist, all were moving, 
 and their play could be seen distinctly under the one 
 surface of fine white linen over them. 
 
 As the dancers swung around the ring it was a sensu- 
 ously beautiful sight, and, as such sights are generally 
 rendered by women for the benefit (or otherwise) of 
 men, I glanced round with a faint feeling of amusement, 
 questioning in my mind what the women thought of 
 this reversing of the order of things in their favour. The 
 stand was mainly filled by women, and that they were 
 189
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 affected by the unexpectedness and beauty of the scene 
 before them, and moved by the sudden call it made 
 on the senses, was evident. Their faces, as they leant 
 forward, were pale, and a dilated eye, the slight, 
 nervous movement of a fan, the parted lips or sudden 
 flush of colour on the cheeks told the emotions that 
 the otherwise coldly well-bred crowd failed to betray. 
 I brought my eyes back and they rested on Anna. 
 She was pale too, and I saw her nostril quiver, dilate 
 and beat nervously. But for that, she was motionless, 
 calm as a statue. 
 
 There was nothing, one might say, voluntarily sensu- 
 ous or sensual in the spectacle. The dance was not a 
 licentious, but a martial one, and the management of 
 the swords that they kept whirling and flashing in 
 horizontal and vertical circles round them was mag- 
 nificent. 
 
 There was perfect order and concert in each move- 
 ment in spite of their intense rapidity, for each man 
 was so closely following the other that the slightest 
 misstep, stumble, or lagging of the pace on anyone's 
 part must have resulted in a fatal accident. Each 
 whirling sword was timed to a second to rise and 
 descend, and each only cleared by an inch or so the 
 white-turbaned head directly in front of it, and its 
 backward whirl over each man's head as they swept 
 triumphantly round their circle cleared by hardly so 
 much the brow of the man behind him. It was a 
 splendid, inspiring sight, breathing of courage and 
 bravery, dexterity and skill and the madness and 
 triumph of victory. And what of sensual element 
 190
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 there was in it came involuntarily and unavoidably 
 from the wonderful physical beauty displayed, and the 
 sumptuousness of Oriental form and outline, not from 
 studied trick and gesture as in the Nautches. 
 
 I looked on fascinated, and drew my breath still 
 with a curious feeling each time that Gaida passed 
 with his face, flung upwards on its column of bronze 
 throat, beneath its white turban, and between a sword 
 and a sword. 
 
 And as the music grew louder and faster and the 
 dance more abandoned, and the encircling swords 
 more dangerous in those flying glistening circles, the 
 faces of even the quiet British officers flushed up 
 with animation. On Anna's left sat the Colonel of 
 the regiment to which most of the dancers belonged, 
 for, with the exception of Gaida and a few others 
 chosen for their personal beauty and skill, the men 
 before us were all soldiers enrolled in one of the 
 Pathan regiments and officered by Englishmen, who 
 are able to turn the splendid fighting qualities of 
 these men, their love of danger and death in battle, 
 their reckless courage, their very appetite for blood, 
 to the best account. This old Colonel, who had mixed 
 with Pathans, studied and commanded them for twenty- 
 five years, gazed down now at his men with flushing 
 face and queerly glittering eyes. They were his 
 children, practically, and he had seen their irresist- 
 ible rush in battle, their fierce onsets, their mute, 
 smiling courage, their unmurmuring deaths, until, by 
 the side of these things, their horrible lives when not 
 in war, and unspeakable vices, seemed to grow small 
 191
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 to his almost parental eye. Anna leaned towards him 
 and murmured, ' What splendid fellows, Colonel. Are 
 you not proud of them?' 
 
 ' I am ! I am ! ' he returned with beaming eyes, and 
 raised his hands to clap them loudly. This was the 
 signal, and a perfect storm of applause broke from the 
 crowded stand. At the same moment the music 
 ceased, as it had begun, with one sudden crash, and, 
 on the instant, the almost flying forms became motion- 
 less, and the lifted swords made an arrested wave of 
 gleaming light round the ring. Then the swords were 
 lowered. The Pathans smiled and salaamed as before, 
 and filed silently, a procession of kings one would have 
 said, out of the enclosure. 
 
 The stand full of whites began to flutter and whisper 
 and laugh as they rustled out of the seats, and Anna 
 and I very slowly followed in silence. Almost without 
 a word we walked through the grounds and entered 
 her carriage. When we arrived at the house the 
 General alighted first and went up into the verandah, 
 and we were left alone at the foot of the steps while 
 the carriage drove away. 
 
 1 You will receive him to-night ? ' I said in a low tone. 
 
 'I suppose so,' she said, raising her hand to her 
 lips, which parted in a little nervous yawn; 'he is 
 my husband.' 
 
 My brain seemed scorching as if with fire. 
 
 ' And what am I ? ' I asked, in desperation, standing 
 so as to bar her further path. She stood still and 
 looked up at me. Then she opened her arms to 
 me tenderly. 
 
 193
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'You are my fiance^ so we must kiss and say 
 good-night.' 
 
 I turned from her in a silence too bitter for 
 words, felt rather than saw that her arms dropped to 
 her sides and that she, too, turned and went into 
 the house. 
 
 I walked away towards my own bungalow, feeling that 
 I had drunk up the draught of life, that my mouth was 
 full of bitter lees and dregs, and that the cup was 
 empty. 
 
 When I reached the house I went straight to my 
 room, undressed and threw myself on the bed. I 
 felt the round patch of burning fire that foretells 
 Indian fever kindled in both palms, and I knew that 
 in an hour or two I should be mercifully oblivious for 
 a time of all surrounding things. My days and sleepless 
 nights of suffering, capped by this terrible evening, the 
 mental fever in which I had been living so long, had 
 culminated at last in physical fever. My finger-tips 
 were still of normal temperature, and doubling them 
 into my hands I felt the little fire growing in the 
 palms and extending its circle every minute. I felt 
 chilly and languid, with intense pain in the back, and 
 I drew a thick, soft blanket all over me, though the 
 thermometer marked ninety-six degrees. And then I 
 lay still, dreamily giving myself over to that strange sen- 
 sation of growing heat and languor, that intense fiery 
 stupor creeping insidiously all over one, and melting away 
 one's mental feelings, perceptions and pains as in a 
 natural crucible. I lay still, sinking deeper and deeper 
 into a sort of heat coma, in which I seemed wrapped 
 N 193
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 round and round with flames. Flames that did not burn 
 but only heated heated to a point where bones and 
 limbs and brains were all fused together, and one was 
 nothing any longer but an inert mass of dreamy heat. 
 Then came a blank of unconsciousness and my 
 next memory is that I was struggling like a madman 
 at the open window with my trembling Afghan bearers, 
 and someone, that they afterwards told me was my- 
 self, was screaming with a queer sort of laughter that 
 rang out over the quiet moonlit compound. After 
 a little while I was back in bed again with someone 
 holding me down by both arms, and the doctor was 
 there beside the bed with a wineglass in his hand. I 
 knew it was the doctor, for I remembered his long 
 Roman nose, and now, so funny, his nose had grown 
 so long, it reached out as far as the bed, and I tried to 
 wrench my hand loose from the bearer's hold because 
 I knew I was expected to shake hands with it Then 
 he put the wineglass down to my lips and I seized 
 the rim with my teeth and bit a piece out of it Glass 
 is a queer food to give a sick man. And then a 
 stream of icy liquid splashed all over my face and 
 throat, and I fought desperately, because the icy drops 
 seemed killing me. Then they bound me down to the 
 charpoy with cloths, and enormous hands came down 
 on my face and held my mouth open, and something 
 went cold and freezing down my throat, and I twisted 
 and strained and wrenched, and there was a loud creak- 
 ing, and I heard a voice saying far off in the distance, I 
 think it was at the end of the world, ' He will break up 
 the bed.' 
 
 194
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 And there was pain at my wrists and ankles. They 
 came and sawed at them with red-hot saws, and I 
 screamed and twisted and they sawed the faster, and 
 then there was black, black night, and nothing more. 
 
 In the morning I opened my eyes. There were 
 two servants by the bed and the doctor sitting beside 
 me. I felt very quiet and very weak. I stretched out 
 my hand and touched the chair beside me. It felt 
 warm. Then I knew the fever had left me. I looked 
 at the doctor and smiled. 
 
 'You had a pretty sharp attack last night,' he 
 observed, ' and, by Jove ! what strength you have 
 I never recognised fully your splendid physique till 
 now.' 
 
 'Thank you, doctor,' I returned weakly; 'I am 
 afraid it was rather troublesome than otherwise last 
 night.' Then, as a thought of fear suddenly struck me, 
 I added, 'Was I delirious?' 
 
 'Delirious?' exclaimed the doctor; 'well, I should 
 rather think so. First you tried to jump out of the 
 window, then you bit up a wineglass, then you tried 
 to break down the bed, screaming all the time. We 
 had a lively time with you, I can assure you.' 
 
 ' What did I say in my delirium ? ' I asked, paling. 
 Good God ! suppose I had betrayed Anna's secret. 
 
 'Oh, nothing coherent at all. You were past that. 
 Don't be alarmed, my boy, you have not given your- 
 self away. You just shrieked like a maniac, and 
 strained so when we bound you I thought you'd break 
 your wrists.' 
 
 I glanced at my wrists. They were livid and 
 195
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 swollen double. Then I closed my eyes. How 
 inestimably thankful I was that I had uttered nothing 
 about her. 
 
 Then I was given some beef tea and left to myself, 
 covered up with blankets, and I sank into a long, 
 restful coma. 
 
 I was roused towards noon. My bearer stood by my 
 bedside with a great bunch of white roses on a salver 
 and a card. ' The Miss Sahib Lombard was here and 
 would so much like to see the sahib,' said the 
 servant. 
 
 I was too weak to lift the flowers, but I motioned 
 the servant to set tray, card and flowers on the bed 
 and said I would see her. 
 
 I glanced round the room. Like most Indian rooms, 
 it was large, with an infinity of windows, all standing 
 open to the fresh Kalatu breeze, and more like a sit- 
 ting-room than a bedroom. In fact, my one narrow, 
 wooden-frame charpoy was the only thing in it that 
 suggested a sleeping-room. My bearer closed the 
 doors into my bathroom and dressing-room, drew an 
 easy-chair to the side of the bed and retired. 
 
 I watched the door by which she would enter, and 
 in a few seconds she came in. In white, and with a 
 white sailor hat on her bright hair, and a faint, pale 
 rose glow on her cool, white skin, she looked, as usual, 
 a type of the morning. 
 
 She stopped short at the door with a look of dismay. 
 
 I suppose I may have had a ghastly appearance after 
 
 the efforts of the previous night. Then she advanced, 
 
 almost running, and stooping over the bed would have 
 
 196
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 kissed me, but I put both my hands on her chest and 
 held her from me. 
 
 'Did you receive him last night?' I asked, looking 
 up at her. And I felt the fever beginning to awake 
 in my veins again. 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' Then don't kiss me. Your kisses are loathsome to 
 me,' and I turned my head away from her on the 
 pillow. She drew back as if my hands had been 
 daggers that stabbed her breast, and sat down in 
 silence in the chair close by me. There was silence, 
 and I felt the excitement, resentment, anger, grief and 
 sorrow that her presence caused in me rushing through 
 me and relighting the devouring fever in every tissue. 
 I turned my head to look at her after a minute. She 
 fcras sitting silently gazing at me with wide-open, 
 pathetic eyes and great tears were forming in them 
 and overflowing and pouring down the long black lashes. 
 
 I stretched out my hand a little nearer to her on 
 the coverlet. 
 
 ' Forgive my violence,' I said gently. ' I was like a 
 madman last night, and my brain has not recovered its 
 usual balance yet.' 
 
 She ungloved one white hand and laid it over mine. 
 'I heard you were very ill,' she said in a trembling 
 voice. 
 
 'No, not very ill,' I murmured, turning my head 
 restlessly on the pillow, for a furious pain was beginning 
 there. 'Only a little Indian fever and other kinds.' 
 
 Anna did not answer, she only sat and cried more. 
 1 Don't cry,' I said, ' that does not alter things.' Then 
 197
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I closed my eyes. The fever had taken hold of my 
 head and it was being held in a vice of steel, while 
 red-hot pincers tore slowly at the brain tissues. 
 
 When I opened my eyes again I saw the sunlight 
 had shifted its position in the room and I knew an 
 hour or more must have passed. Anna still sat by me, 
 holding my hand and still crying, only now the fair 
 skin was coloured red with tears, the blue eyes were 
 lost in a red mist and had dark purple patches round 
 their lids. 
 
 'Find the doctor and tell him to give me more 
 anti-febrine,' I muttered, ' and then go. Don't sit here 
 and cry, spoiling your face.' 
 
 Whether she went or stayed I don't know. The 
 rest of that day and night is a blur to me. The next 
 clear point to me was the following morning, when I 
 was calm and out of pain and I saw the doctor's face 
 again above my bed. It was much graver than on 
 the previous morning ; in fact, I laughed a little as I 
 saw it. It reminded me of a London undertaker. 
 
 'You have been so much worse than I anticipated,' 
 I heard him saying after a minute, ' I think change of 
 air is imperative. You seemed to grow suddenly worse 
 yesterday after Miss Lombard's visit and you raved 
 terribly in the night.' 
 
 Again that fear ! What was he saying ? Change 
 of air ? Go away ! Certainly ! yes, that was it. Go 
 away before I had betrayed Anna. Go away among 
 strangers where what I said would not matter. 
 
 ' Yes, doctor, yes, I think so. Get me away. What 
 did I say last night ? ' 
 
 198
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'I really don't know,' returned the doctor, rather 
 crossly, I thought. ' I don't pay any heed to fever 
 patients' rambling, but you mentioned Miss Lombard's 
 name a great many times.' 
 
 It was time to go ! I started out of bed and stood 
 upright for a second. Then I fell in a heap, and the 
 doctor gathered me up and put me into a chair. 
 
 'You are very, very weak,' he said; 'I don't think 
 you can go at present.' 
 
 ' I tell you I'm going to-day. The bearer can carry 
 me to the carriage if I can't walk. Help me get dressed, 
 doctor, and tell the men to put up some things for 
 me. The Commissioner will give me a fortnight's 
 leave, I know. Then you put me on a train for the 
 hills. Get me away, doctor, or I'll die on your hands ! 
 I will, indeed, and be a lasting discredit to you ! ' 
 
 The doctor looked very grave and felt my hand. 
 ' You have no fever now,' he said doubtfully, ' but 
 you are so deplorably weak. Where do you intend 
 to go?' 
 
 1 Oh to Peshawur ! 
 
 'Why take such a long trip as that? I would 
 suggest' 
 
 ' No,' I interrupted angrily, ' I am going to Peshawur. 
 Call in my servants. Let me see that black trunk 
 yes, that will do. Now, doctor, just hand me my 
 socks; I can't get up for them.' 
 
 I was intensely weak and most anxious to use all 
 
 my mental faculties while they were clear. I knew 
 
 that evening would bring back the fever and incapacity, 
 
 but then, if I were on the train, without a soul to 
 
 199
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 hear my ravings, it would not matter. And Peshawur ! 
 Yes, that idea fascinated me. I would go up to 
 the capital of the Pathans, to Gaida's birthplace, and 
 learn something of the wonderful race, learn something 
 of him too, perhaps. I began feverishly to pull on 
 my socks. My fingers trembled and my bones 
 cracked loudly, as the fever had licked up the oil 
 in their sockets. Everything was intense fatigue, 
 but my mind urged me on and kept me up to my 
 work. I could rest on the train. Once on the train, 
 I could lie and lie, and rest and rest till they picked 
 me up and carried me out at the other end. But now 
 I must work. The doctor had left me for a few 
 minutes, and I had to dress myself as well as I could 
 and get about the room by clinging on to the 
 furniture. Then he came back, bringing my butler 
 and bearer, and they packed my trunk, and I sat on 
 the edge of the charpoy with a brain rocking queerly, 
 as it does after fever, as if a see-saw were in your 
 head, and my vision all distorted. But I managed to 
 write a cheque for the butler, who would take all the 
 tickets and would want money for the journey, and 
 one for the doctor, and a note to Anna, and one to 
 the Commissioner, and the end of it all was, at five 
 o'clock that evening, in a giddy mist of pain, I was 
 put on the train in a private compartment with my 
 two servants and shipped up to Peshawur. 
 
 200
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FOR weeks I lay ill at Peshawur. Simple Indian fever 
 would have given way quickly and easily to the keen 
 light air of the hills, but no cool winds nor mountain 
 air could sweep away in a day or two the ravages those 
 long terrible nights of mental anguish, that long 
 strain of anxiety and restless passion that had been 
 put upon my brain. Days without food and nights 
 without sleep Nature deeply resents, and at last, if 
 you continue that treatment of her, she strikes you 
 down in a passion as she did me. 
 
 My servants had secured a good position for my 
 bungalow, and from the room in which I lay through 
 the long, fever-stricken days and nights, I could see, 
 without raising my head from the pillow, the light 
 turquoise sky and the deep blue lines of the hills. 
 It was rather pleasant, rather a relief to me, this 
 intense physical weakness, in which the brain ceases 
 to bother one with its ideas and pictures, its thoughts 
 and desires. This bodily preoccupation with bodily 
 pain and sufferings swept one's brain clear, and left 
 it blank like a little child's. After hours of delirium 
 and fever there came long hours of blank, quiet 
 weakness in which I lay, content to be without sensation 
 of any sort, gazing out through the open jilmils into 
 201
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 the clear, light, placid air beyond. Then I slowly 
 began to get better, and I almost dreaded recovery. 
 Recovery meant taking up again the burden of 
 responsibility and anxiety that the utter helplessness 
 of disease slips from one's shoulders. I gained strength 
 slowly each day, and I knew that with my strength 
 would come back desires and longings and hopes 
 and cares without end. 
 
 In all this time I heard constantly from Anna, and her 
 letters had always the same burden. Her love for my- 
 self, her gratitude and her devotion, and her piteous 
 longing to be free from ' her bondage,' as she called it. 
 But it was a bondage that none could free her from, and 
 no one could understand that better than I. Let there 
 be no misunderstanding here. It was Anna's own love 
 that held her captive. She wished to crush out that 
 love, to annihilate it, perhaps, but she could not, and no 
 human aid could help her. As the drunkard longs to 
 kill the desire for drink, yet goes on drinking, so she 
 might wish to kill her love, yet she continued loving. 
 Had the bondage been any other than this, had she 
 been tied to this man by the tie of marriage without 
 love, I would and could, possibly, have freed her. But 
 in this case, since her love was the disease, and her 
 captivity but, as it were, the symptom, it was useless 
 to attack the latter and set her free until the disease 
 itself, torn from its roots, was eradicated. Forcible 
 separation from Gaida would not free her, it would 
 simply martyrise and idealise him in her thoughts, and 
 she would be bound to him by the chains of a thousand 
 memories, and for the one who caused that separation 
 
 3O2
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 she would feel nothing but resentment. Even if she 
 gave herself to me, it would be with that memory of him 
 standing like a shield between us. And that should 
 not be. No, the terrible passion must be killed or die, 
 and until that came about she could not be released. 
 And I, forced to remain passive, yet was comforted, 
 knowing that one man had the power to kill it, and he, 
 probably, was working surely to that end, and that man 
 was Gaida himself. 
 
 I could not answer her letters fully, but I sent her 
 little pencil notes as often as the fever, and the 
 dysentery that followed it, and the recurrence of the 
 fever, and all the weakness in between, permitted. 
 
 And then at last there came a day when I left my bed 
 and was dressed again with a white collar round my 
 neck, and I sat up by the window of my room and 
 looked downwards, instead of being on my back and 
 looking upwards as I had for so long. 
 
 There was a pile of newspapers on the chair beside 
 me, and I looked at one printed at Kalatu and let my 
 eye stray over it from column to column. Ever since 
 I had shared Anna's secret with her I had never been 
 able to take up a paper, European or native, without a 
 vague dread that I might find her name in it, coupled 
 with suspicion, some veiled story or even open scandal ; 
 and so, from habit, my eye flitted nervously over both 
 sheets until all the headlines had been noted, and I was 
 about to lay the paper down with relief when I saw in 
 an obscure, out-of-the-way corner of the last page two 
 or three lines headed: 'The Epidemic,' and read as 
 follows : 
 
 303
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'The cholera epidemic remains at present unabated 
 despite the stringent measures adopted for its suppression 
 by our able Commissioner. Three hundred and twenty 
 deaths were reported yesterday against two hundred and 
 ninety of the day before, and there are seventy-five 
 fresh cases to-day.' 
 
 That was all absolutely all. Just that little footnote 
 at the end of the sheet. I turned over the four pages 
 of the paper vainly to find some other allusion to it. 
 There was none. Political articles were there as usual, 
 complaints against the corrupt municipality, and in the 
 local news columns account after account of this dinner, 
 that garden party, this little dance, Mrs So and So's 
 picnic. Gay jokes, ban mots, descriptions of gowns, 
 with lists of successes or failures in the weekly Gym- 
 khana. These things filled up the sheet. Just as if 
 Kalatu was the healthiest station imaginable and in 
 the gayest and most light-hearted of humours, with no 
 deadly stream of disease flowing round it and stealthily 
 lapping up its victims at an average of three hundred a 
 day. Well, not for nothing have we British our re- 
 putation for phlegm. And Anna was there, and, like 
 the true Briton she was, thought the plague too insignifi- 
 cant a matter to be mentioned in her letters. Then I 
 recollected she had not written to me for a week. 
 Could the General have sent her away for safety? It 
 was not likely. I had experience of these things. I 
 know how the British in India treat the plague. I had 
 been through an epidemic before in another station and 
 had noticed their demeanour. When I was fresh from 
 England too, and, therefore, I had noticed it From 
 204
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 England, where, if a navvy dies with stomachache in 
 the hot August weather, somewhere down by the docks 
 the morning papers have big headlines, thus, in capital 
 letters: 'CASE OF CHOLERA IN LONDON. 
 Great alarm felt. Message from the Queen.' But 
 things are different in India, and this is how they do 
 them there: First, in a native paper, appears a state- 
 ment of five deaths from cholera. A week goes by, and 
 then, in a European paper, one reads that by order such 
 and such wells have been closed, and the public tanks 
 and wash-houses shut up 'as a precautionary measure.' 
 The following week the public is informed without 
 comment that ' deaths from cholera are now averaging 
 one hundred and fifty a day, and bounds have been 
 established, the line being set at the native city ' (which 
 is, perhaps, five miles from cantonments). This means 
 that no white person shall drive in his carriage, ride 
 or pass by on foot, or in any way whatever cross the set 
 line and return. All beyond the line is infected. Day 
 by day passes, and the number of deaths per day creep 
 up steadily, and that line is drawn tighter and tighter, 
 closer and closer round the whites, as that deadly black 
 sea of cholera encroaches and encroaches on all sides. 
 The line or boundary being set down by the native 
 city at first, one can ride or drive from there to the 
 coast, one can still canter through the public gardens, 
 shop in upper town, attend the bandstand or visit 
 distant bungalows out on the desert. Presently the 
 line is drawn up into a narrower loop and one which 
 cuts out the upper town, for the advancing tide of 
 cholera has crept into that. Next the gardens go, the 
 205
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 line is put between them and you, next the drive to the 
 sea or the desert is forbidden and the line contracts into 
 a puny circle which embraces the principal bungalows, 
 half a mile, perhaps, of level ground for driving and the 
 bandstand. Within this you trot and canter and your 
 coachman turns twenty times in half an hour, and cholera 
 stares you in the face from every side from over the line. 
 Meanwhile, in spite of the strenuous measures 
 adopted by the Sanitary Inspection Committee, the 
 Board of Health, the Health Commissioner, and many 
 other untiring and conscientious officials, in spite of 
 quarantines and isolations and closed wells and dis- 
 infectants the deaths reach perhaps four hundred per 
 diem, and the English go on with their dancing and 
 dining, picnic in compounds (because everywhere else 
 is beyond the line) and charade parties. It is not con. 
 sidered etiquette to allude to the plague in any way 
 or at any time, and anyone committing such a solecism 
 is immediately frowned down by the rest of the com- 
 pany present. If an expected guest is absent from 
 his place at a dinner party, and his sudden death is 
 handed to his hostess as his excuse, no inquiry is made 
 as to his illness. It is taken for granted it is the pre- 
 vailing epidemic, and, of course, no one would be so 
 ill-bred as to mention that. Very few of the women or 
 children are sent away, at any rate not until the mortality 
 amongst the whites is very great. Beyond the line the 
 native population sickens and dies and the list of its losses 
 are sent in day by day as an item to the newspaper ; and 
 within the bounds the whites laugh and dance and flirt, 
 and listen to their bands playing dance music, and read 
 206
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 obituary notices of their best friends, and the funereal 
 tom-toms never cease throbbing over the line. 
 
 Well, so it is in India, at least in the stations where 
 I have been, and so here it evidently was in Kalatu. 
 And General Lombard and his daughter were amongst 
 that gay, insouciant crowd, listening to dance music and 
 reading obituary notices like the rest. But, though the 
 British may scorn danger and deride Death, the Briton 
 has to die like the rest of men, and though he die 
 with a smile on his lips, that does not comfort any 
 particular friend who wanted him alive. 
 
 All these reflections and recollections passed quickly 
 through my brain as I sat with the open paper on my 
 knees and my eyes staring vacantly out towards the 
 Kaiber hills. Then I turned and called up my servants 
 and bade them pack up my trunks and make all ready 
 to go down to Kalatu the following day. 
 
 There were one or two little hand-cases that I always 
 packed myself, and, as I bent over these, the thought would 
 keep driving through my brain : ' I have not heard for a 
 week. Suppose she should be ill.' And a companion 
 thought followed quickly : ' Suppose she should be dead.' 
 And yet a third : ' Suppose she should be dead and buried.' 
 One never knows in India. An eighteen hours' absence, 
 for the matter of that, is unsafe. Twelve hours is enough 
 for cholera to do its work in, and six hours after that the 
 corpse is buried. So that on Monday evening one may 
 hold a form close in one's arms, alive and brilliant with 
 health, and at Tuesday at noon on going to call one 
 may learn that it is shut away with eight feet of cemetery 
 earth barring one from it for ever. Leaning over my 
 307
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 trunk I damned my weak foolishness for having such 
 thoughts. Were there not three hundred white women 
 and girls in Kalatu, and why should Anna be stricken 
 more than they ? And would not General Lombard have 
 wired me if my fiancee were ill ? Yet that horrible, haunt- 
 ing possibility, that idea that I might never again feel that 
 soft heart beat against my own; never see those eyes 
 deepen and darken as they looked into mine ; never have 
 those gentle, slender arms clasped about my neck again, 
 stood beside me or behind me all that day, goading me. 
 
 1 The sahib packs badly,' observed my bearer, judicially, 
 from over my shoulder, as he stood watching me throwing 
 in my things recklessly. ' Even I can pack superior.' 
 
 It is a tedious journey down from Peshawur, and 
 the train, when it does arrive, brings you in at five in 
 the morning, not the most convenient hour. Kalatu 
 seemed unchanged as I drove from the station. Its 
 broad red roads, with their border of emerald green moss 
 at the edges, looked cool and pleasant enough to the eye 
 in the early dawn. The bungalows had their customary 
 quota of servants moving about them, and the sun, climb- 
 ing over the edge of the level plain to the east, threw 
 long, cool shadows from the broad-leaved banana trees. 
 
 I learned from the coachman that Lombard Sahib 
 and the Miss Sahib were both well, and perhaps that 
 made the drive seem very supportable. At nine o'clock, 
 tubbed and shaved, I was turning over the papers in 
 the Club reading-room, and having the absence of 
 several familiar faces explained to me. By half-past 
 I had reported myself to the Commissioner, and at ten 
 I was ready to make my way over to Anna's. 
 208
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 WHEN I reached the bungalow breakfast was over and 
 the General had already left. Anna met me on the 
 verandah, and I looked over her critically, expecting to 
 see some change in her after a month of the kind of 
 life she had been leading. But no, there was all that 
 same slim grace and freshness unimpaired, and the 
 pallor and grief of her face was evidently only the 
 result of sudden and recent shock. She was pale and 
 her eyes looked very large and dark, but that only 
 seemed to make her face even more expressive than 
 usual. 
 
 ' Oh, Gerald, why did you come ? ' were her first words. 
 'I do so wish you hadn't. It would be safer to keep 
 away for a little while.' 
 
 1 Since I came down from Peshawur entirely to see if 
 I could be of any use to you, I think my presence here 
 is quite natural,' I answered, smiling. It was very sweet 
 to me to even see her again. After all, the mere sight 
 of the loved one is a great and precious thing. 
 
 ' Did you really really ? How good of you,' she 
 said, looking up at me with melting eyes. 'Isn't it 
 horrible ? The whole station is down with it. No one 
 knows who will be the next one. We have it here in 
 the house among the servants.' 
 O 209
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I guessed the truth from her voice and accent, 
 and my heart almost stood still as I put the ques- 
 tion, 
 
 'Has Gaida it?' 
 
 1 Yes ; he is the only one who has at present.' 
 
 My heart seemed to give a great bound as I heard, 
 but the throb of exultation and triumph, if it were 
 really those that went through me, was checked in- 
 stantly by the look of blighting anguish on her 
 face. 
 
 ' I believe he is going to die,' she said. The words 
 are simple enough, but she spoke as the prisoner may 
 speak who is stretched on the rack with writhing lips 
 and every nerve wrenched with agony. 
 
 I looked at her face and understood how the 
 approach of death had raised all her waning, dying 
 passion again to its highest pitch. All his faults and 
 offences were forgotten, doubtless, when he was stricken 
 before her, and her whole being was clinging wildly 
 to its love for the beautiful human frame, the source of 
 so much passionate pleasure to her, and now claimed 
 by disease and death. I saw it all, and ground my 
 teeth that it should be so, but still, being so, my own 
 line of action was clear. 
 
 'Let me see him. I have some knowledge of the 
 disease and its treatment' 
 
 Anna started. 'You? Why? What would you 
 do?' 
 
 ' I will bring him through if I can,' I answered 
 simply. 
 
 ' I think the danger is too great You might get it 
 
 210
 
 from him.' There was a minute's silence while we 
 both looked at each other. Then her eyes swam 
 suddenly in tears and she caught my hand and 
 pressed it up to her breast. 
 
 ' Oh, you know, you know, if I had to choose between 
 you it would be you. Your life is infinitely more to me 
 than his. You are always first. However much I love 
 him, I love you more. I can't bring you into the 
 contagion.' 
 
 Her voice was so passionate, her whole face and form 
 so expressive of her strange, double emotion that, for 
 a second, I felt unbalanced and longed to gather her 
 into my arms and kiss her. Then I recalled myself 
 and said merely, 
 
 ' I don't believe in contagion through the breath or 
 touch. I shall not eat or drink in Gaida's room, so 
 I shall be all right. Take me to him.' 
 
 She hesitated for a minute, then, apparently, the 
 pressure of my will in the matter overcame her own, as 
 was usual in our intercourse, and she turned and we 
 went down the steps of the verandah and round the 
 house, across the rose garden by the very same little 
 track I had taken on that memorable night of whispers. 
 And the memory of all those terrible, savage emotions 
 swept over me, but not the emotions themselves. I 
 understood now so much better. The girl's respective 
 passions of the mind and body were one of those 
 terrible, complex problems that life is continually hold- 
 ing out to our gaze. It was something beyond her own 
 power, will or comprehension. She was but the inno- 
 cent will-less plaything of some of those extraordinary 
 
 211
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 forces that govern and sport with humanity, that push 
 it and pull it hither and thither, and can suddenly 
 wrench asunder the strongest ties though their victim 
 bleed to death at the severance. 
 
 I was not now the deceived and cheated lover of a 
 faithless mistress. I was simply her co-sufferer from 
 the hidden, relentless laws of life. 
 
 My feelings did not differ very widely now, I think, 
 from what they would have been if I had known her 
 stricken with some fearful disease. There was the 
 same sorrow, the same crushing resentment against 
 destiny, the same sense of selfish, personal loss, the 
 same anxiety, pity and sympathy for her. 
 
 The ancients, indeed, considered passion and all 
 love a disease, and openly called it such. But as 
 such, though in this case the effects upon my feelings 
 were much the same, I do not regard it. Passion is 
 rather the effect upon us of some mysterious, hidden 
 power in nature that sways irresistibly the senses but 
 has no control over the soul. And so our body is 
 driven often, as it seems, with intangible blows and 
 irresistible coercion, as Anna's was, towards some 
 object that the soul rejects and abhors. Subsequently 
 that same power, invisible as a storm wind and as 
 powerful, often with the same blows that one cannot 
 meet, but yet can feel, binds down the body there, and 
 with it the struggling soul. 
 
 If I had seen Anna carried from me by some beast 
 
 of prey, crying to me for help, and holding out her 
 
 arms to me, and longing for me in her death agony, 
 
 I could not have understood more clearly, or felt 
 
 212
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 more free from anger with her than I did now, now 
 that I had once gazed into this problem and read 
 it. 
 
 So I followed calmly her light, quick footsteps, for 
 she was almost running now, like a deer to its mate 
 in the thicket, and in a few minutes we had reached 
 the quarters of the natives at the far end of the com- 
 pound. No one was stirring. It was high noon, and 
 any of the natives not engaged in the house were 
 sleeping behind the grass mats hanging before their 
 hut doors. 
 
 At one of these, in no way marked out from the 
 rest, Anna stopped, and lifting the hanging mat with 
 her hand, stooped and passed in underneath and I 
 followed. Never, as long as I retain memory of any- 
 thing, can I forget that scene of desolation, squalor and 
 misery, as it seems to Europeans, that seemed to bum 
 in upon my eyes. The hut was perfectly square, with 
 unpapered, uncovered brown mud walls. There was 
 one unglazed aperture a foot square in the wall 
 opposite, which let in the only light, the mats over 
 the door having fallen again after our entrance and 
 blocking out the sunlight there. The roof was of 
 mud and laths, and, perhaps, half a foot higher than 
 my head. The floor was of soft mud, trodden by 
 many feet into a sodden paste. The whole of the 
 centre was taken up by a large square charpoy, that 
 possessed no drapery, no bedclothes of any kind, save 
 one thin, grey blanket. There was only just space for 
 one person to pass all round the room between the 
 bed and the mud walls. Other furniture there was 
 213
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 none. One cracked china tea - cup and a bent tin 
 spoon were stuck upright in the mud of the floor 
 by the bed. And there, stretched on the bed, in the 
 dim twilight of this human stable, with a few white 
 cotton rags on him, lay Gaida, dying in the grip of 
 the black cholera. He had turned his head towards 
 the entrance as Anna raised the mat. I made a step 
 forward and stood by the bed. As his eyes lighted 
 on me their narrow oval filled with a fury of anger 
 and scorn. 
 
 'Son of a sow,' he muttered, raising himself, and 
 then fell back with a groan of agony. His lips were 
 blue. Then he turned to Anna. 
 
 ' Why dost thou bring him here ? ' he said in a hoarse 
 voice. ' Is it not enough that I am leaving thee to him ? 
 Canst thou not wait till I am dead ? ' 
 
 Anna knelt beside him on the mud floor, stretching 
 her arms out on the bed in a passion of tears. 
 
 1 He has come to aid thee, cure thee,' she answered. 
 'Allah has sent him.' 
 
 ' Men do not aid and cure their rivals,' the Pathan 
 muttered in reply, turning his head wearily from side 
 to side. 
 
 'The English do,' returned Anna, between her heart- 
 rending sobs. ' I tell thee he is a medicine man. He 
 is skilled in many things. He will restore thee to life 
 for my sake. Accept him. Allah sends him.' 
 
 'True. What Allah wills is. If he has sent him 
 to kill, I die. If to cure, I live. He may come.' 
 
 Anna rose joyfully from her knees and I advanced 
 to the bed and looked keenly at him. He was still 
 314
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 in the first stage of cholera and could be saved, I 
 thought. 
 
 'Gaida Khan,' I said gently, 'I am going to cure 
 you for your wife's sake. You know Englishmen do 
 not lie. Trust me.' 
 
 A semblance of that former smile, which had been 
 the crowning beauty of that marvellous face, passed 
 over it 
 
 ' My trust is with thee,' he murmured, and closed 
 his eyes. I opened a pocket medicine case and took 
 out a preparation of opium and gave him a few drops. 
 He took them calmly and lay motionless. I turned 
 to Anna. 
 
 ' Give your servants orders to carry him over to my 
 house,' I said. ' I can treat him better there, and air 
 and space are essential.' 
 
 Anna clasped her hands against her breast in dis- 
 may, and looked at me with streaming eyes. 'Do 
 you want to take him away from me now ? ' 
 
 1 You can come there, stay there if you wish,' I said 
 hurriedly, 'but he must be moved. Give your orders 
 at once. Seconds now mean life or death.' 
 
 Anna grew paler, if that were possible, but she 
 did not hesitate longer. She raised the swinging mat 
 and slipped out into the burnished light of the com- 
 pound. I stood by the bed ready to give more opium 
 if there should be the slightest sign of an approaching 
 cramp. But he lay still, and there was no sound 
 within or without, save the gay call of a maina now 
 and then swinging on a bough outside. 
 
 In a few seconds Anna reappeared with four servants, 
 215
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 two of whom went to the head of the charpoy and two 
 to the feet, and they lifted it with ease. Anna and I 
 tore down the mats from the front of the hut and left a 
 free and open way for the charpoy and its bearers to 
 pass out. The compound was silent and deserted in 
 the blazing solitude of noon, and we threaded our way 
 across it between the pomegranate trees and out to the 
 side gate that opened on to the road leading to my 
 house. This, too, was quiet and empty, lying arid and 
 parched under the pitiless glare. Anna drew one of 
 the thin cotton cloths entirely over Gaida's head and 
 face, as the natives themselves do before going to sleep, 
 and so we passed swiftly up to my compound with our 
 burden that lay motionless under the coverings as if 
 already a corpse. When we reached my house I had 
 him taken to one of the rooms on the west side a large, 
 cool, lofty room with a wide verandah beyond, into 
 which its windows opened. This verandah being filled 
 with palms and ferns, hourly watered by a watchful 
 gardener, formed a natural thermantidote. The fierce 
 desert wind blew through it and its scorching breath 
 came into the room, a cool zephyr, bearing the moist 
 scent of ferns. From his own charpoy Gaida was 
 lifted to a bed of stretched canvas, cool and yielding as 
 down. He opened his eyes as he sank upon it and 
 gazed round. The tranquil, shaded quiet, the refreshing 
 atmosphere seemed to surprise him after the close heat 
 of the mud hut with the sun rays pouring down upon 
 its cow-dung roof. Anna had to return to be present at 
 the house when the General came back and preside 
 over his luncheon, so that I and Gaida were left alone. 
 216
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I worked against the disease all through that day, and 
 towards evening seemed to have made some headway. 
 I had had great experience with cholera, having nursed 
 many of my servants, and others, usually natives, to 
 recovery. I was absolutely without fear of the disease 
 myself why, I cannot say except that fear is such a 
 curious relative emotion. No two people seem to feel 
 the same degree of fear for the same thing. I have 
 known personally a young lieutenant who fled from his 
 post in abject terror before the cholera, and shortly 
 afterwards picked up an unexploded shell with the lighted 
 fuse attached and carried it some distance in his hands 
 with unshaken coolness and bravery. 
 
 As that long Indian day, a day of splendour and 
 gorgeous colour, wore away beyond the luminous green 
 of the verandah, I worked and watched, never leaving 
 his bedside for a moment. I did not dare to let my 
 thoughts dwell on the relative positions that would be 
 mine if he died and if he recovered. I shut out every- 
 thing from my thought except the strenuous desire to 
 save him. It was the easier to me to do this since it 
 was but the consistent following out of the policy I had 
 decided upon from the very first and had been pursuing 
 through so many weary months. To serve Anna, to 
 protect in every way this man, since that was her wish, 
 and leave the ultimate issue entirely to powers beyond 
 my own, had been the line of action from which I had 
 never wavered. How often the old Greek cry to the 
 Deity rose in my heart, ' Iv ooi yap iapsv,' and I left 
 it there. I did not wish to stretch out my own hand to 
 the rudder of my Fate. Loving Anna as I did made it 
 217
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 impossible for me, since my reaching the port or my 
 desires might mean her shipwreck. I sat, therefore, as 
 it were, a simple oarsman, rowing humbly in the boat, 
 obeying orders and trusting blindly to the hand upon 
 the helm. So now my immediate duty was to save this 
 life that was ruining my own. That was my last order, 
 and I was obeying it even cheerfully and with my 
 utmost strength, for I had beaten down my own desires 
 and my own self to a point which made it possible. 
 
 Towards evening, as I sat watching him, I saw that 
 some stimulant was needed. There was improvement 
 certainly since the morning ; the great coolness, the 
 perfect rest and silence and pure air had all helped him, 
 but now he seemed failing and sinking and I saw I 
 must bring about a reaction or he was lost. Raw brandy 
 was what was needed, and I crossed the room to my 
 chest and uncorked a bottle. Then I looked at it 
 doubtfully. Being a Mohammedan, he would not touch 
 it, I knew, unless I could successfully disguise it I 
 selected an empty medicine bottle with a large and 
 attractive label, and filled it with the brandy, pouring 
 some essence of peppermint into it. Then I walked to 
 the bed with the bottle and glass and roused him. He 
 seemed heavy and sleepy. 
 
 ' It is time to take some more medicine,' I said, and 
 he rose a little obediently, and I filled the glass and held 
 it to his lips. He swallowed two mouthfuls, then, as 
 the brandy burnt his throat and chest, he recognised in 
 a flash, and intuitively, what it was. He sprang to a 
 sitting position with his eyes blazing, and dashed the 
 glass out of my hand to the floor, where it broke 10 atoms. 
 218
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 1 Base born and cursed ! Dog ! Thou wantest to 
 steal my soul from Allah. Thou wouldst have me live, 
 but in sin, drinking what he has forbidden, like an 
 unbeliever.' 
 
 ' Gaida,' I answered bitterly, in the same tongue, ' you 
 talk foolishly. It would be better for me if I let your 
 soul depart immediately to Allah. I have no wish to 
 keep you here in sin or otherwise. But to drink wine 
 for medicine is different from drinking it for pleasure. 
 Drink it now to get well, but abjure it afterwards. 
 Allah will forgive you.' 
 
 'Thou wouldst seduce me,' he muttered sullenly, 
 eyeing me suspiciously. He was still sitting up and 
 I noticed he pressed his hands low down on his 
 chest, and I knew the frightful internal cramps were 
 beginning. 
 
 'If you will not take it you must die,' I urged. 
 
 'Then I die,' he returned, and flung himself back 
 on the bed. He had hardly spoken before a horrible 
 convulsion seized him. His head bent backwards 
 till the veins in the purple throat seemed cracking, 
 his spine arched upwards till nothing touched the 
 charpoy but his feet and head. His hands were 
 knotted into balls beneath him and his arms turned 
 livid to the elbow. The next moment he had rolled 
 over on his face with a muffled scream of agony, his 
 knees drawn upwards to the chin. I turned to get 
 my hypodermic injector, and as I did so he was 
 seized with vomiting and that vomiting of cholera! 
 Surely there is no other sickness like it. It seems 
 to rack ilie whale body and stretch every nerve 
 
 219
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 to splitting point. I put my hand on his forehead 
 to support his head, from which the wild eyeballs 
 seemed literally starting. At first, in the basin over 
 which he hung strained and quivering, there was only 
 a dark, almost ink-like fluid, but in a few moments 
 it became brightly stained with blood, and I saw that 
 some vessel in the throat or stomach had been 
 ruptured. A red stream, mingled with the darker one, 
 continued to pour from his lips as spasm after spasm 
 of vomiting passed through his tortured frame. Then 
 he sank back suddenly, almost slipping through my 
 arms to the pillow, and lay as if dead, drenched 
 with sweat and a red froth of slime and blood cover- 
 ing the blue lips. 
 
 At this moment Anna entered and paused at the 
 door. I looked at her, my heart wrung with pity 
 and alarm, but she neither screamed nor fainted nor 
 gave any sign. On her face was the look of one 
 who has gone through the acme of human agony and 
 who expects nothing, hopes nothing more from life. 
 She crossed the room calmly and looked at the bent, 
 crooked, blackened remnant of life and beauty on the 
 bed, that lay there as a young tree lies in the forest 
 that has been struck and shivered by the lightning, 
 burnt, blistered and useless, and then at the basin I 
 held. 
 
 She bent over him and with her handkerchief 
 wiped his lips dry, and I brought her a small piece 
 of ice to put between them. After a minute she 
 straightened herself by the bed and looked at me, as 
 if inquiring an account of my charge. 
 
 220
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'He was improving steadily,' I answered, 'and 
 would have done so up till now, but I could not 
 persuade him to take any stimulant it will be difficult 
 to save him without.' 
 
 'No,' she answered, looking at the broken glass and 
 spilled brandy, 'he would prefer to die, I know.' 
 
 'So he said.' 
 
 'Is there no substitute?' 
 
 I thought for a few moments. 'Nothing, I think, 
 so good, but I will try this,' and I took a bottle from 
 my cabinet and poured out a dose from it. 
 
 This he took submissively enough, and as Anna 
 took a seat by the bed he looked up with a smile and 
 clasped her hand feebly in one of his. He turned 
 towards her on his side and closed his eyes, and for 
 one hour he seemed to rest in peace, while we sat in 
 silence. Then the light grew a richer shade of gold, 
 and a clock chimed somewhere in the house. 
 
 ' I must go back to be present at dinner,' Anna 
 said, looking at her watch, ' and stay with papa through 
 the evening, but as soon as everyone is in bed I 
 will come back here.' 
 
 I felt it was quite useless to try to dissuade her, 
 to warn her of her own danger, or the risk she ran 
 in every way in leaving her own house at such 
 an hour as she proposed and walking over to 
 spend the night in mine. But even to me things 
 looked so differently under the wing of death that 
 was spread over us all from how they would at 
 other times. Everything that was not Life or Death 
 seemed small. 
 
 221
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 So I assented and Anna left me towards six and 
 drove back to her bungalow, there to be tender, quiet 
 and calm, to listen to the account of the General's 
 doings during the day, to sit at the head of his table 
 and take soup and drink wine with smiling lips, 
 and ask and answer ordinary questions with a natural 
 voice, while her heart was beating itself to death 
 beneath that smooth, white breast. 
 
 It was past eleven before she returned. I had 
 ordered all the doors of the house to be left open, 
 nominally that we might have more air, and so she 
 stepped straight from the compound into the verandah 
 of the sick-room, and then into the room itself. She 
 sank into the nearest chair, closing her eyes, and I 
 saw her face was white, while the sweat stood out in 
 large drops on her forehead. The way between the 
 two houses was short, but it was over a heavy road 
 of soft dust, and in the oppressive heat of that air which 
 it was labour even to breathe, the exertion of walking 
 that distance was very great. I went to her and 
 lifted her drooping head against my breast. 
 
 ' How is he ? How has he been ? ' she asked, 
 lifting her heavy eyes to mine. ' Will he recover ? ' 
 
 I looked down at her. ' I cannot say,' I murmured ; 
 'his powers of resistance are wonderful, but I am 
 afraid ' 
 
 'So am I,' whispered Anna, with trembling lips. 
 
 She remained with us through the night, sitting 
 
 with her eyes fixed on the bed, and I, in the intervals 
 
 of waiting upon him, sat and watched her. Outside 
 
 the moon rose slowly and poured its cold, clear 
 
 222
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 silver light down on our pestilence-stricken station. 
 The stars rose, wheeled, flashed on their courses and 
 sank again behind the horizon. Hour after hour of 
 the hot, silent night rolled heavily by, and we waited 
 and worked in silence. It was a curious situation. 
 Anna here in my house with me through those 
 midnight hours, the woman I loved and whom all 
 the station thought mine; and the man whose life 
 stood between me and the sunlight lying on my bed 
 and my hands trying to wrench him backwards as 
 he slipped towards the grave; and me, myself, if I 
 really were myself lucky Ethridge watching them 
 both, dazed and tortured and battling against this 
 death that would be the only thing to deliver me. 
 Yet so it was, till the white light of the dawn broke 
 in through the jilmils. Anna staggered to her feet 
 with a face as terrible almost as the one on the pillow, 
 and drawing a veil over her head prepared to go back 
 to her bungalow. Gaida was sleeping. She came up 
 to me and put her arms round me and kissed me, 
 a burning kiss on the neck. Then she stepped out 
 through the verandah down into the blighted, withering 
 compound and took her way through the dust to the 
 road. 
 
 The kiss seemed to speak to me in a language I 
 cannot translate. I only know that I prayed then 
 fervently and honestly for the power to save this 
 man to be put into my hands. And I worked and 
 watched strenuously by his bedside every golden 
 second of that long, golden day. But the fiat had 
 gone forth against him. There was no longer any 
 223
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 rally or response. All that I could do kept back, 
 weighted and made slower those steps, yet, in spite 
 of me, they crept onward, onward persistently to the 
 shadow. 
 
 It was five on this, the second, afternoon. 
 
 Gaida was sinking rapidly; his feet were already 
 cold. The last glory of the afternoon sun was rushing 
 into the room through the western window and filling 
 it with warm radiance. It fell all over the bed and 
 over Anna sitting beside it, crushed and hopeless. Her 
 face, always wonderful for its power of reflecting what 
 was passing in her soul, had now upon it the stamp 
 of absolute horror and despair. Cheeks and lips were 
 bloodless and the eyes so unnaturally dilated that the 
 black pupil almost eclipsed the blue iris. She sat 
 drooping, smitten, helpless beside him, and I watched 
 them both. In a few minutes his eyes opened on the 
 splendour of the sunlight that filled the room and he 
 looked at her. It was the rally before death. 
 
 'I am leaving thee,' he said in the hoarse, choleraic 
 whisper, and stretched his pinched blue arm only 
 three days before so powerful and shapely towards 
 her. 
 
 Tears came gushing to Anna's strained eyes and 
 fell in drenching rain down her white face as she flung 
 herself forward on the bed and put her arms about 
 him. 
 
 'Tell me that I shall not lose thee, that thou wilt 
 not forget me for the houris of Paradise. Tell me thy 
 soul will wait there for mine.' 
 
 Gaida opened wide his dying eyes, and there was a 
 224
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 look of love and tenderness in them. He raised his 
 hand and put it softly on her head. 'Thou art a 
 female ; thou hast no soul,' he said, and I heard a low, 
 anguished sob break from her breast as if he had driven 
 his knife there. 
 
 'Farewell, thou light of my eyes,' he said, and Anna, 
 in a frenzy of grief and agony, bent her face to his and 
 kissed him on his blackened, cholera-tainted lips. 
 
 'Go from me,' he murmured, feeling the supreme 
 moment approaching; 'let me die.' 
 
 I drew Anna from him. His breast was arching in a 
 horrible paroxysm of death; his teeth were clenched, 
 and the black, blistered lips rolled back from them. 
 There was a moment's tense struggle between that 
 noble frame and its Despoiler, then his nostrils dilated 
 suddenly. ' Allah ! Allah ! ' he called, raising his right 
 arm. It fell and he lay motionless. 
 
 ' Gerald, he is dead ! dead ! ' and Anna flung herself 
 full length upon the floor and struck her forehead again 
 and again on it like one mad. I caught her up in my 
 arms. She was insensible. It was a whole hour before 
 I brought her back to consciousness. I had taken her 
 into another room, and when she opened her eyes she 
 was in my arms and met my gaze looking down upon 
 her. She turned to me, and clung to me, and wept on 
 my shoulder in a flood of frightful, scalding tears that I 
 thought would never cease. At last, however, she raised 
 her head and looked about her. It was growing dark. 
 
 ' Gerald, I must go back. Take me back. Nothing 
 of this must be known for your sake. My life belongs 
 to you now. Let us go home.' 
 P 225
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I ordered my carriage, locking the doors and windows 
 of the room where Gaida lay, and we went back together. 
 
 She sat beside me in the carriage, rigid and pale, 
 quiet and wonderfully controlled. I held her ice-cold 
 hand in mine and pressed it hard, but we did not 
 speak. She gave her directions to the coachman per- 
 fectly clearly when she alighted. 
 
 I 1 will rejoin you in a few moments,' I said, as she 
 ascended the steps of the verandah. She inclined her 
 head, and I drove back rapidly to my bungalow. Here 
 I made all the arrangements for the burial of Gaida 
 exactly as if it had been one of my own favoured 
 servants who had died. My servants were devoted to 
 me and orders were obeyed as soon as given. Within 
 a couple of hours I was free to return to Anna, and I 
 went to her, being afraid of things I could not name to 
 myself. 
 
 When I reached her sitting-room and parted the 
 chicks, I saw her lying on a low couch at the opposite 
 end. In her hand she held a little bottle that she was 
 holding against the light and gazing at. I went forward 
 and saw it was a vial of chloroform. I put my hand 
 on her wrist. 
 
 'Anna, what were you thinking of?' She raised her 
 ghastly face and looked up in my eyes. 
 
 ' Of how nice it would be if you would let me die,' 
 she said. 
 
 ' But you have promised me.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know ; my life is not my own, it belongs to 
 you. Could you give me a little so that I might be 
 insensible just a little while?' 
 226
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'I will give you this,' I answered, taking away the 
 chloroform and putting another little bottle into her 
 hand. 'Go upstairs and to bed and drink this and 
 you will know nothing for some hours.' 
 
 Her hand clasped on the bottle, and she rose and 
 went out of the room as if in a dream. 
 
 I took down word that she was not feeling well and 
 could not be with us at dinner, and I and the General 
 sat down alone. When it was over I told him as gently 
 and cautiously as I could that there was great likelihood 
 of Anna being attacked with cholera, and I begged 
 that I might remain in the house that night to be with 
 her the first moment. General Lombard heard me with 
 perfect silence and composure. He seemed, like his 
 daughter, able to draw over his face a mask of stone 
 when he wished. He called up a servant and gave 
 orders that a room was to be prepared immediately for 
 the sahib next the Miss Sahib's room, and when the 
 man had withdrawn he turned to me and said quietly, 
 ' Where do you think she has taken the disease ? ' 
 
 1 Possibly by attending to the servants here/ I 
 answered ; ' and then the whole air is full of it.' 
 
 ' I should have sent her away,' he said as if to himself, 
 and then I noticed how all the ruddy colour had died 
 away from his face, leaving it grey, and sudden lines 
 stood out, making it haggard and drawn. 
 
 ' You acted as all we British act,' I answered ; 'scorn 
 danger and brave it, and sometimes the danger has its 
 revenge.' 
 
 He sighed heavily in reply, and, after a minute, rose 
 from his seat. ' I will go up and see her,' he said, and I 
 227
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 was left alone, staring through the open door into the 
 luminous, hot darkness of the night. I felt a strange, 
 curious triumph and calm. All around me was Death. 
 It lurked in every shadow. It was behind each rose 
 petal ; the breath of the syringa was poison. There was 
 death in the heavy, languid air, the whole atmosphere 
 was feeding one with death, but I did not think that 
 I should die, nor she. I believed she would pass 
 through the shadow, but I did not think the time had 
 come for her to die. I cannot explain this confidence, 
 but it flooded my whole soul, and I watched the great, 
 glittering Scorpion plunging through the sky before me, 
 and felt tranquil and secure in the great stillness 
 around me, which I knew was the stillness of desola- 
 tion and death. Where lights had gleamed out through 
 the foliage of the compounds now there was blackness. 
 The indefinite sounds of distant music and laughter 
 that had formerly floated up the flower-laden alleys were 
 replaced by a brooding silence in the poison-laden air. 
 There was not a house from which the occupants had 
 not fled or were preparing to flee, or was not full of 
 mourning or terror. Kalatu, in all its glory of tropic 
 beauty, was but a pest and charnel house. 
 
 Yet I felt calm. Gaida was dead. Nothing now 
 but grief stood between her soul and mine, and grief 
 for the loss of physical passion is as short as grief for 
 the loss of a passion of the soul is lasting. 
 
 When I reached my room that night my head seemed 
 
 reeling. I craved nothing but sleep. I saw the doors 
 
 leading into Anna's room, that communicated with mine, 
 
 and I knew she was sleeping behind them. Sleeping 
 
 228
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 or weeping ? But all was dull except that great longing 
 for sleep that obliterated all else. My eyes were dim 
 and my eyelids seemed fallen on them already ; without 
 any power to raise them I descried in one corner the 
 outline of the bed and staggered towards it as if blind 
 or drunk. Then, fully dressed, I threw myself face 
 downward on it and fell asleep. I awakened suddenly 
 with a violent shock. It was still dark. A terrible 
 cry of agony came from Anna's room : ' Gerald ! ' 
 
 I sprang from the bed and to the intermediate door 
 and threw it wide open. A night-lamp burned on the 
 table and shed its light through the room. I saw Anna 
 standing in the centre in her white nightgown with her 
 fair hair falling to her waist, her hands pressed to her 
 sides, her figure nearly bent double to the floor in a 
 paroxysm of agony. I rushed to her and raised her in 
 my arms. The spasm passed over and her body lost its 
 tenseness and leant against me heavily ; the head fell to 
 my shoulder, the face was piteous, pinched and blue. 
 
 1 Oh, those terrible cramps ! ' she murmured ; ' and this 
 is what he suffered.' 
 
 A rain of tears burst from her eyes and fell warm on 
 my hands that held her. The next instant she had 
 struggled from my arms and thrown herself on the bed. 
 f Oh, Gerald, let me die!' 
 
 I bent over her and raised her hidden face, blue with 
 the shadow of the disease and drenched in her un- 
 availing tears. 
 
 ' Anna, do you not owe me something ? Promise to 
 try and live for me.' 
 
 She could not answer. Suddenly her lips were 
 229
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 drawn back and curled up from the perfect white teeth 
 and her body arched from the bed in a writhing, horrible 
 convulsion. I took out two morphine pills and passed 
 them between the blackening lips, and after a second 
 or two her body fell inert, and as if lifeless, back to the 
 bed. Her eyes were closed. The sweat rolled heavily 
 from her face and fell to the pillow, and the linen grew 
 dark with it all round her head. 
 
 The room was full now of figures. The servants had 
 all heard that terrible cry and were standing mute, 
 submissive, waiting to be used, by the doors and at 
 the bed head. One had summoned General Lombard, 
 and her father came now across the room with a steady 
 tread and that same set look with which he faced the 
 bullets and the Afghans' knives. 
 
 ' Brandy,' I said to him as soon as he reached me, ' and 
 champagne. Let me have bottles of it and a tin cup, 
 lest she should break the glass, and tell the servants to 
 bring boiling water, large tubs of it, and the heaviest 
 blankets.' 
 
 He turned away to give the orders, and I leaned over 
 her and whispered in her ear, 
 
 ' I cannot save you if you wish to die. Will yourself 
 to live, Anna, for me.' 
 
 She opened her eyes and looked into mine. Perhaps 
 something of all my burning agony was in them and 
 she read it there and pitied me. Her voice came with 
 difficulty and was low and hoarse. It was the voice 
 of cholera that spoke through her lips. 
 
 'I will it then, if you do.' 
 
 That was all, but it poured new life and energy 
 230
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 through my veins. My soul was prostrate in an agony 
 of prayer to God. 
 
 When the servant brought the wine and brandy to the 
 bedside I poured out half a pint in equal parts into the 
 silver cup and held it to her lips. She lay collapsed and 
 cold. I put my hand upon her bosom. It was cold 
 and drenched in clammy sweat. I saw the disease in 
 her case would run a short and violent course. She 
 had already passed the first or convulsive stage, and 
 entered the second, the cold stage, within two hours. 
 In twelve, or perhaps less, all would be decided. I 
 slipped my arm beneath her head and raised it. She 
 drank the contents of the cup and the same quantity 
 twice again, and the liquid which would have produced 
 intoxication in health was all lapped up, as it were, by 
 the disease. Her eyes were clear as they met mine. 
 She lay passive, inert, cold. 
 
 ' Those blankets,' I said, turning to the silent servants, 
 who had brought in a bath of boiling water from which 
 the steam rose in clouds, ' plunge them in for two or 
 three seconds, then wring them out and give them to 
 me.' They did this as I ordered, though it must have 
 left their hands almost raw. 
 
 'Here, sahib,' they said a minute later, holding out 
 the blanket, and then I lifted Anna from the bed. Her 
 nightgown was heavy and black with sweat, and the 
 touch of her body through it was as ice. With one 
 hand I tore it from her, from the neck downwards, and 
 it fell with a heavy plash to the floor, and so, for one 
 brief instant, the lovely form met my eyes which had 
 ached so longed for the sight of it in vain, the exquisite 
 231
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 casket of that soul I loved so far better than my 
 own. 
 
 Strange that this should be my first sight of it, my 
 first, and perhaps my last. It was but a flash; the 
 next instant the blanket enveloped her in its folds. 
 I held her in my arms, and through the clouds of 
 burning steam, that rose between our faces, I saw her 
 open her eyes and seek mine. She put her lips close 
 to my ear and I heard her murmur, 'I am glad your 
 eyes have rested on me once, before the grave closes 
 over me for ever.' 
 
 I bent my head and put my burning lips on hers, 
 now nothing but a shrivelled blue line, and for one second 
 human love, the love I had for her, conquered the sense 
 of danger, the presence of disease, the nearness of death. 
 
 'Not even the grave shall shut you from me,' I 
 answered. 'We will lie in it together.' 
 
 She sighed, it seemed to me a natural, relieved sigh, 
 and after a minute murmured, ' I am warmer now ; it 
 is nice to feel warm again.' 
 
 I called for another blanket and wrapped that tightly 
 over the other one, and then placed two dry ones that 
 they brought burning and scorched to smoking straight 
 from the fire. 
 
 ' Dry and heat the bed,' I said to the servants, and 
 when this was done, I laid her back on it. Her head 
 sank to the pillow with a weary sigh. I looked at her 
 keenly. Still there was not that reaction that I wanted, 
 though her face now seemed whiter and less blue. I 
 filled the cup again to the brim with brandy and she 
 drank it as a child drinks water. 
 333
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Then she turned a little on her side. ' I am sleepy,' 
 she said. ' Give me your hand and let me go to sleep.' 
 
 She was swathed in the coverings and her arms bound 
 by them straight to her side, but I laid my hand upon her 
 shoulder and she seemed content. The next second she 
 was asleep. I motioned silently to the General to approach. 
 
 ' She will live, I believe,' I whispered to him. ' This 
 is the sleep that ends not in death, but recovery.' 
 
 The old man, who had stood silent, with set face, 
 beside us all the time, clasped his hands involuntarily, 
 suddenly, and turned away. 
 
 Anna slept on for ten hours, and I sat without stirring 
 in my place. The dawn had long since broken before 
 she fell asleep, and I saw it break into the glorious 
 Indian day. Noon came with its deadly heat and 
 stillness. The servants came and went in the room 
 with their noiseless steps, their bare feet unheard on 
 the matting. Sometimes they slept on the floor beside 
 me, but more often sat on their haunches watching, 
 with great patient eyes, the figure on the bed. 
 
 It was two hours past noon, when the glare of the day 
 was beginning to soften ever so slightly, and a faint, hot 
 wind off the desert came sighing through the jilmils, that 
 she awoke and turned to me with a sigh and a smile. 
 
 'Gerald,' she said in a whisper, 'you followed me 
 into the Valley of the Shadow and brought me back. 
 I am all your own now for ever and ever.' 
 
 And, feeling as if some perceptible bond were put 
 round us, drawing us together, that nothing could 
 break, from which we ourselves could not escape if we 
 would, I stooped and kissed her. 
 233
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ANNA regained her health very slowly. This surprised 
 her father, who expected the rapid rebound natural to 
 her youth and strength, but it did not surprise me. 
 I knew it was the weight of the previous shock and 
 grief which was crushing her vitality under it. It was 
 that she needed to recover from far more than the 
 cholera. 
 
 In those days immediately following her illness we 
 were inseparable. The fact that I alone knew every- 
 thing, and that there was no necessity for disguise or 
 constraint with me, drew Anna to me, and she clung 
 to me and found comfort in my presence. The General 
 noted this and pressed me to stay on in his house, so 
 that Anna and I were almost constantly together. She 
 was extremely weak, and would sit for hours in a cane 
 chair in the verandah, doing nothing, with her eyes 
 circled by a bluish shade, and often brimming over 
 with tears, gazing out into the sunlit compound. At 
 such times it was a consolation she told me to have 
 me near her, and her little cold hand would steal into 
 mine and often her head would drop on my shoulder. 
 
 'The mere contact with you seems to take all the 
 pain out of me,' she said once, and constantly she
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 would fall into a quiet sleep thus, with my arm for a 
 pillow. 
 
 Those days were very sweet to me and enclosed a 
 happiness all their own. Every hour of them welded 
 our two souls more into one, and Anna opened her 
 heart more and more to me. My attitude towards 
 Gaida and my last efforts to save him, however un- 
 wise and perhaps reprehensible they had been, had, 
 at least, secured me one thing, and that was Anna's 
 complete and absolute confidence; I had become 
 almost part of herself, and she withheld none of her 
 thoughts from me. They became mine. She talked 
 freely to me when we were alone of Gaida and her 
 relations to him, and I let her do so, even encouraged 
 her, knowing that is the only way to treat, and finally 
 heal, a deep sorrow. 
 
 The constant talk, the long stream of confidences, 
 poured out from a heart full of pain and grief, is as 
 the blood flowing from a poisoned wound, which carries 
 the poison with it and allows the wound in time to 
 heal. And in that time I realised very clearly that 
 she had yielded to his passion for her and not to hers 
 for him. Her feelings had been rather an indefinite, 
 abstract love of his beauty, a romantic, poetic sentiment 
 which he, as man invariably does, had dragged down to 
 the level of physical desire. 
 
 She was very sweet to me indeed during all these 
 days, and so grateful for all I had done that I began 
 to feel ashamed of myself, and wonder I had not 
 done more for her, been more patient and more kind. 
 
 She said laughingly, but with serious eyes, to me 
 235
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 that I had made her my little slave girl and chained 
 her to me with chains of gratitude for all time. And 
 day by day I watched her freeing herself more and 
 more from the old ties, memories and feelings, and 
 becoming more absorbed in the present and in the 
 enjoyment of my love. She waited and watched for 
 my coming and would run down the house steps into 
 the compound to meet me with face and eyes alight 
 with pleasure, and when others were present with me 
 she hardly noticed them. As she grew better and 
 stronger each day I realised what an infinite relief 
 it was to know that she was free and safe, with her 
 secret, in all probability, for ever buried with the dead 
 Pathan. I could not help sometimes the shock of asking 
 myself whether, when I tried to save him, had I not 
 been really working against her ? Was it not foolishly 
 inconsistent of me, knowing and fearing and feeling 
 all I had, to exert myself to fight against his death, 
 which was unquestionably the best thing that could 
 have happened for her? Yet to my nature it would 
 have been impossible to have acted otherwise. The 
 eternal question is ever presenting itself: Are we to 
 act as we think best for one we love, or to act as 
 the loved one wishes and commands? I do not 
 pretend to answer this question for others, but for 
 myself, and loving Anna as I did, the last was the 
 only way possible to me. Love in the highest sense 
 makes the lover only a subordinate part of the loved 
 one. The lover asks nothing, expects nothing, wills 
 nothing, and he has no rights, no claims; the loved 
 one's will is all, and often, how often, does this 
 236
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 highest love conquer irresistibly and end by enslaving 
 the loved one, as Anna declared now she was enslaved 
 to me. 
 
 I could not shut my eyes to the fact that if I had 
 succeeded in saving Gaida's life, as I had tried to do, 
 the practical result would have been to prolong her 
 dangerous position. But, even then, the theory of 
 doing all that the loved one wishes might have been 
 vindicated in the end. Who could say how much 
 my action would have strengthened my hold on her 
 and loosened Gaida's? Who could say that feelings 
 might not have sprung up in her feelings as powerful 
 to free her from him as death itself had been? 
 
 'These things are all so very curious,' she said to 
 me one afternoon, when we were sitting under the 
 shade of a heavy stone magnolia-covered porch, look- 
 ing out into the burning desert. Our chairs were set 
 close together, her hand was in mine and her head 
 was leaning against my arm. 'We are surrounded, 
 hedged in, as it were, all our life long by invisible 
 forces. We have no idea how helpless we are until 
 we get into opposition with them. Passion, for in- 
 stance, is so strange. It seems to me like a great 
 monster possessed of one long tentacle with an im- 
 mensely powerful claw at the end. When we come 
 into contact with it, out shoots the tentacle and the 
 claw comes down upon us with tremendous force and 
 holds us motionless ; it has fastened us firmly. As long 
 as we remain perfectly still and do not struggle, we 
 hardly feel it, we don't recognise "what strength it has, 
 nor how it is holding us. But try to get away, try to 
 237
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 throw it off, then you feel the claw upon you. You 
 feel that it has sunk into your being and paralysed 
 you, that there is no getting away from it, that, if you 
 struggle, the claw will reduce you to a bleeding, crushed 
 mass beneath it. Sometimes, of course, by strong will 
 one can cut the tentacle and be free, and then one has 
 to carry about the horrible claw inside one, festering in 
 one's heart. It is terrible when one really thinks of it 
 all and realises how helpless one is; that claw may 
 come down on one at any time, and one does not 
 notice it at all until one tries to get away, any 
 more than you notice my hand on yours now, but if 
 you were to get up, then you would know I was hold- 
 ing you.' 
 
 I was silent, feeling how much truth there was in 
 what she had said. Had not this very claw she 
 spoke of come down upon me and fastened itself 
 into my breast and bound me to Anna, so that, 
 though my life might have been spoiled through her, 
 I could not tear myself loose. Even had I cut the 
 tentacle the festering claw would still have poisoned 
 me. 
 
 'And then, again, Love,' she went on dreamily. 
 
 Love is a different organism floating about in life's 
 
 ocean, that seems like one of those shining, iridescent 
 
 sea anemones, armed with a thousand little soft 
 
 clinging tentacles. And it stretches out first one 
 
 soft little feeler and then another, and at last you 
 
 find them all clinging round you and yourself bound 
 
 fast by them. And if they are very numerous and all 
 
 have fastened round you, you can. never get away. 
 
 238
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Love has thousands of those little tentacles. Foi 
 instance, one is Attraction, another is Gratitude, and 
 another is Memory of joys together, and another is 
 Memory of griefs together, and so on.' 
 
 And I knew there was truth in this metaphor also. 
 
 ' I don't think we could very easily get free,' she 
 added, looking up at me with a smile beneath her 
 arched eyelids. 'The claw has come down upon 
 us and all the little soft feelers in addition.' 
 
 ' I like my captivity,' I whispered. 
 
 'Yes, the claw and the feelers both hypnotise one 
 into an exquisite trance when one has not to struggle 
 against them. But when that claw of passion came 
 out upon me from Gaida's beauty and pinioned 
 me, and I wanted to get away from it, that was 
 horrible.' 
 
 She had grown quite white, and shivered in the hot, 
 dry air. I bent over her. 
 
 ' Don't dwell on it. What does it matter ? It is 
 over.' 
 
 'Yes, I think it is over,' she answered. The next 
 minute she closed her eyes. ' I feel so tired ; I should 
 like to go to sleep.' 
 
 I resettled my arm behind her head, and she 
 turned her cheek on it and fell into that sudden sleep 
 of physical weakness. 
 
 A few days later I moved back into my own 
 bungalow. I had many things to arrange there. Anna 
 seemed sufficiently recovered now to return to her 
 normal life. She had persuaded the General to give 
 a ball to the station to celebrate her recovery, and I 
 239
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 hoped that our marriage would follow it in a few 
 days. 
 
 She improved now at a faster rate each day, and 
 even the week that intervened before the ball made 
 a great difference to her. On the morning of that 
 day I saw her for a few minutes, and she seemed to 
 have regained almost all her former glow of colour 
 and life. 
 
 'Come into the drawing-room,' she said, 'and I 
 will play you a little thing and sing you something 
 that seems to express the feelings in my heart.' 
 
 We went in together and she sat down at the piano 
 and played. There was something electrical in her 
 way of playing that morning. The music sounded 
 like the opening of a triumphal march. Her fingers 
 rose from the notes sharply, and there was an 'eclat 
 and fire in the piece, whatever it was, that arrested 
 and held the ear. Suddenly the music changed to 
 a joyous accompaniment for a song, and her voice, 
 unusually clear and resonant to-day, swelled through 
 the room. 
 
 ' Vitoria, Vitoria, Vitoria, 
 Non lagrimare piu 
 E scholta d'amore, 
 La Servitu.' 
 
 That was all. There was a truly victorious roll 
 of chords, and then she sprang up and closed the piano. 
 She smiled at me, and I smiled back. It had been 
 a very beautiful burst of music and song, exactly such 
 as one might catch through an open window when a 
 240
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 victorious army was marching by, and I knew all that 
 the words meant to convey. 
 
 She looked animated, fresh and vigorous in her 
 simple morning cotton dress, and I wanted to take 
 her in my arms, but she receded, smiling. ' Not now, 
 not now ; I know you are busy and must go back 
 to the office. But this evening come early, and 
 wait for me in the second drawing-room.' 
 
 So, early, indeed, that evening I went to her and 
 paced impatiently the little second drawing-room, 
 as she had indicated, that led into the larger one 
 beyond. 
 
 When she had finished her toilet she came to the 
 door between the two rooms and opened it, standing 
 in the frame of the doorway. Her dress was white, 
 and long, very long, as usual, cut at the breast lower 
 than I had ever seen it, and entirely sleeveless, the 
 whole responsibility of the bodice being thrown 
 on two narrow, slender shoulder straps. I looked 
 at her, and the magic that the sight possessed for 
 me emptied itself slowly into my veins. It was not 
 that the figure was exceedingly opulent, or that there 
 was any remarkable development ; quite the contrary ; 
 but there was something in the wonderful purity 
 of the skin, whiter than the satin below it, and 
 absolutely unstained by the faintest course of a vein, 
 or the smallest mole, and something in the modelling 
 of the shoulders and the turn of the neck that seemed 
 to speak to one. The beauty of her body, like that 
 of her face, was not in the form, not in the flesh. 
 It was the beauty of intense expression. The cool 
 
 Q 241
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 courage of her spirit seemed expressed in that firm, 
 smooth expanse down to the curve of her low breasts, 
 and all the passionate abandonment of which she was 
 capable in the pose of her shoulders and the long, 
 soft, white line from shoulder to elbow. 
 
 She came towards me, faintly smiling, and gave 
 herself into my arms, and her face and body spoke to 
 me so clearly there was no need of words between 
 us. She meant to convey to me and I understood 
 her that she had for my sake conquered her grief 
 and broken her memories; that she was no longer 
 sacred to another or to the contemplation of the past ; 
 that she had come back to life and the enjoyment of 
 it, and that my period of self-restraint and self-denial 
 was over. And I, seeing that she wished and expected 
 it, permitted myself the touch and the kiss of passion. 
 
 A little later, when Anna with an old General led 
 off the dancers, she was radiant, and the eyes of the 
 crowd followed her instinctively, attracted and held by 
 the curious exuberance of vitality that seemed speaking 
 in face and form. As we danced together, and she 
 gave herself up to me, fitting all the smooth undulations 
 of her movements to mine, as my arm pressed the 
 warm, bare flesh of her shoulder, and our eyes looked 
 into each other's and our breath intermingled, my 
 thoughts were borne back to the first evening we 
 had met, and I contrasted that slight, loose bond of 
 attraction, based on the pleasure of the senses, with 
 the steel-like chain that held us now. 
 
 How infinitely dearer to me now she was after the 
 pain and the sorrow gone through together, after the 
 
 242
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 suffering and the waiting, after the exquisite trust 
 and confidence, the intimacies of the soul and the 
 birth of that gratitude and love in her heart which is 
 deathless. At the end of the long waltzes together 
 we went out and sat on the darkest, quietest side of 
 the lawn in silence, unwilling to speak or to be 
 spoken to. 
 
 At four in the morning, when the daylight had already 
 broken over the plains and filled the lawn and gardens 
 with its cool, white light, though it was shut jealously 
 from the ballroom, we stepped through the windows 
 for the last dance. Anna was claimed by the Colonel 
 of the regiment and I went to seek my partner. At 
 the close of the dance a galop I had just passed 
 Anna and the Colonel, and she had smiled at me over 
 his shoulder, when she fell suddenly, and her whole 
 weight thrown unexpectedly on her partner, brought 
 him to his knees. Everyone thought she had simply 
 slipped on the polished floor, and though she was 
 immediately surrounded, the general expectation was 
 to see her rise directly herself without, or with very 
 little, aid. I was at her side the first, and as I bent 
 over her I saw it was no question of slippery floor 
 or lost balance. She had fainted, and she lay now 
 before us all, white and unconscious, helpless, oblivious 
 of everything, on the shining floor. 
 
 I felt a curious shock pass over me, a prescience 
 that in some way the incident was more serious than 
 it seemed. As I lifted her, and with the help of another 
 man carried her to a divan at the side of the room, she 
 lay unconscious with her head supported on my arm, 
 243
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 One of the women, with unnecessary haste, I thought, 
 cut open her satin bodice, that could not have impeded 
 her breathing in the least, and unbuttoned her stays ; 
 but as Anna's figure was one that needed no compression 
 nor artificial restraint, and received none, this measure 
 hardly helped matters. She did not recover until a 
 couple of glasses of water had been thrown on her 
 face, and then she slowly opened her eyes. I looked 
 into them and was startled by the expression of terror 
 and mental distress that met me. It seemed incom- 
 prehensible. Then, the next moment, she sat up, and 
 realising where she was, forced a smile, and gathering 
 her cut and disordered clothing together over her breast, 
 thanked those nearest her for their help. Her father 
 was beside her and also a doctor, one of the guests, 
 and they supported her between them from the room, 
 while the crowd, with expressions of sympathy and 
 allusions to the great heat and the fatigue of so long a 
 ball just after her illness, began to break up and depart. 
 
 I followed the General after a few moments to her 
 room and was surprised to hear that Anna had gone 
 to bed and would not see me again just then. The 
 General told me this outside her room, so after a 
 good-night to him I turned disconsolately to go over 
 to my own bungalow. 
 
 I was leaving the Lombards' hall when the doctor 
 overtook me and offered to go across with me, his 
 house being in the same direction as mine. He seemed 
 to think Anna's fainting fit was not at all to be wondered 
 at, considering the heat and exertion of dancing so 
 long. 
 
 244
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'But all that might make her tired, but it shouldn't 
 cause her to faint if she is all right,' I objected. 
 
 ' Are you a doctor, my dear sir, or am I ? ' returned 
 the little man, snappishly. ' I examined that girl a 
 little while ago myself. There is nothing the matter 
 with her. She has a marvellous constitution, wonderful 
 vitality, every organ perfect. You will be very foolish 
 if you allow a little fainting fit like that to alarm you.' 
 
 ' I don't know that it does alarm me,' I answered. ' I 
 merely don't understand it, and I don't think the ex- 
 planation you give of it adequate, that's all.' 
 
 The doctor edged up nearer to me and stuck his 
 elbow into my side. The General's champagne had 
 made him loquacious and facetious. 
 
 1 Well, if you want another reason for her faint, I'll 
 give it to you. Nervous excitement that's more to do 
 with that young woman's health than anything else. 
 Dances with you. Kisses on the lawn. Eh? And 
 so on. Thought so. Go ahead and marry her just as 
 soon as you can. That's the best thing you can do.' 
 
 It is so extremely pleasant to be told that one ought 
 to do what one wants to do, and so extremely rare also, 
 that I forgave the doctor his familiarity on the spot and 
 felt quite friendly to him and inclined to believe all he 
 said. When we came to my house I shook hands 
 cordially and wished him a good morning's sleep. 
 
 45
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 I WAS just finishing breakfast the following day and 
 in the happiest frame of mind. Everything seemed 
 now to promise sunshine in the future, bright as 
 that streaming golden light outside. I sat back in my 
 chair and gazed with satisfaction round the room. For 
 weeks past it had been my employment and delight for 
 all spare hours to work upon the beauty and the comfort 
 of the house she was so soon to enter. All that money 
 and care and orders from the largest Bombay furnishing 
 house could command had been obtained, and now, as 
 my eyes rested on the floor, it gave back the glow of 
 Persian and Turkish rugs, velvet cloths worked in gold 
 of Burmese art draped the tables, and curtains of the 
 finest lace floated beside the bay windows. The draw- 
 ing-room and Anna's boudoir had been the objects of 
 much care and thought, but the point where every 
 energy had been concentrated to bring about perfection 
 had been the room which would be our sleeping room. 
 I occupied still the verandah room on the opposite side 
 of the house, but every day I came and looked into this 
 one to see if anything struck me as wanting, or if any 
 improvement could be made. 
 
 The bed I had designed and arranged after the 
 manner of my own in Burraah, where I had passed so 
 246
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 many lonely, wakeful nights, only the draperies, instead 
 of being red, were blue, to match my Anna's eyes and 
 contrast with her fair hair. And when it was finished it 
 was a thing of beauty with its silken curtains and its 
 fine veils of azure-tinted mosquito net. The goddess 
 Parvati, the Indian Venus, moulded in silver and 
 supported by silver chains from the roof, swung above 
 it, holding in her hands a lamp of scented oil, where 
 the flame burnt in a perforated silver globe. 
 
 Everything throughout the house was ready for the 
 presence that was to light and beautify it all, and as I 
 reviewed things in my mind this morning and could 
 recall nothing that was wanting, I pushed back my 
 chair with a satisfied smile. 
 
 ' The Mem Sahib is here,' said the servant, suddenly, 
 behind me, and, turning, I saw Anna step over the 
 threshold. With a cry of delight I stretched out both 
 hands as I went to meet her. She put hers into them 
 and said in a strained voice, 
 
 ' Send all the servants away, Gerald ; I have something 
 to tell you.' 
 
 Her face looked deadly white in the morning sun- 
 shine, and with a sick sinking of the heart I ordered all 
 the servants to leave us. Then I sat down in an arm 
 chair and drew the trembling girl into my arms. 
 
 ' Now, what new trouble is it ? ' I said gently, stroking 
 her soft hair with one hand. 
 
 ' Oh, so dreadful, so utterly dreadful, that I can't tell 
 you,' she muttered with both hands clasped over her 
 face, and her voice had all the accents of shame and 
 terror. 
 
 247
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 1 Gerald, I am nothing but a worry and a misery to 
 you. Why didn't you let me die when I had the 
 cholera ? ' 
 
 'Because I wanted you for myself,' I answered 
 gently, 'because I shall always want you whether you 
 are a worry or not.' 
 
 There was silence for a minute, then I pressed her a 
 little closer and said softly, ' Well, what is it ? ' 
 
 ' I can't say it. I can't breathe it,' she replied in the 
 same desperate voice. 'Can't you guess what I have 
 discovered ? ' 
 
 Then it all flashed upon me, and the reason of her 
 swoon last night, and for an instant the whole bright, 
 throbbing sunshine seemed blotted out ; the worth and 
 use and beauty of life all seemed obliterated. For a 
 second I could have thrown her from me in anger and 
 loathing, so bitter was my disappointment crushing in 
 just now on my bright hopes and expectations. But 
 only for a minute, for my love for her was something 
 more than love and hope for my own pleasure. 
 
 'You are angry,' she said; 'kill me, strangle me, I 
 am ready to die. I should be glad to.' Her voice and 
 its stricken despair roused me. 
 
 'No, I'm not angry. This is but the consequence 
 of the past. I forgave your marriage long ago. It 
 would be absurd to quarrel with the consequences.' I 
 spoke mechanically and what I said was logical enough, 
 but yet, in this world, is it not always the consequences 
 and not the sins that we do quarrel with? Sins we 
 can forgive ; it is virtually the results that are un- 
 pardonable. 
 
 24*
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 1 1 can't understand it,' she said in the same smothered 
 voice, ' and after the cholera, too, Gerald. I accepted 
 that. I was glad of it. I thought it made this im- 
 possible. Oh, it is horrible ; I can't bear it.' 
 
 She was sitting on my knees where I had drawn her, 
 but now she tried to rise. I caught sight of her averted 
 face, and the unutterably agonised look upon it was 
 terrible. It went to my heart. I knew she had been 
 made for better things. 
 
 ' Just when I was trying to free myself from all that 
 abasement in the past, when I thought I was free, and 
 giving myself entirely to thoughts of you, and loving 
 you as I do, and wanting to wholly belong to you, 
 then, to be forced back, as it were, into all that has 
 gone by ; to live it all over again for months to come, 
 now, when all the passion that held me to Gaida is 
 dead at last. It is something beyond words. I could 
 tear myself in pieces. You understand, don't you,' she 
 went on after a moment, ' if Gaida had been worth it, 
 worthy of my love, I should never have taken it from 
 him. I should not have cared what I had done for 
 him, what I had suffered ; I gave him all that I had in the 
 world. I threw all that I had at his feet, but he was 
 not worthy, and in a little while my love died. Then 
 still for a long time the passion lingered on, but it 
 could not survive ; it is dead, and I loathe the very 
 memory of him, his very name, and now, good God 
 his child ! What can I do ? I feel I cannot live and 
 keep sane.' 
 
 She really looked so intensely ill, so peculiarly 
 different from her usual self, that all other feelings 
 249
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 were swallowed up in alarm for her life and reason. 
 Strangely enough, I had seen her once before look like 
 this, and that was when there had been the threatened 
 severance from Gaida. 
 
 'There is nothing to be done but to accept it all 
 and as bravely and as calmly as you can. After all, 
 what are a few months out of a lifetime? They will 
 pass over and you will forget them as you have been 
 forgetting your days of cholera. And it is not as if 
 you had to bear it alone. I am here, knowing every- 
 thing and sympathising with everything. Do you think 
 there is anything we cannot meet together?' 
 
 I had pressed her head to my shoulder and she let 
 it stay there, hiding her face against the shelter. 
 
 ' I think our marriage had better take place at once. 
 The whole station is expecting it ' I broke off, for 
 she had started in my arms as if an electric current had 
 passed through her. 
 
 ' Marriage ! ' she exclaimed, but her voice was only a 
 dry whisper. ' Oh, I can't, I can't marry you now. 
 How can I ? Accept every advantage from you, take 
 everything and bring yon nothing, nothing but this 
 What can you think of me?' 
 
 'Why,' I said with a sad smile, 'after all this time 
 we do not seem to understand each other a bit. If you 
 are in distress is not that just the time to come to me ? 
 When others are likely to reproach or misunderstand 
 you, you come to me because you know I never shall. 
 If you were in a storm, should I not hold out my arms 
 to you and try to cover you with my cloak ? That is 
 my idea of love, Anna. That both should give every- 
 250
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 thing and expect nothing in return. You gave all to 
 Gaida ; you would have given all to me but for my folly. 
 What has happened since, I look upon as my punish- 
 ment for that. This is part, it seems to me, of our 
 mutual punishment. Let us accept it and bear it 
 together.' 
 
 Anna had clasped both her arms round my neck and 
 was lying passive and quiet. ' You are so very good 
 to me that it seems I cannot let you ' 
 
 ' No, it is not goodness,' I answered sadly. ' I am 
 only doing what I must. You have become a part of 
 myself, and I want to shield you from everything that 
 would hurt you and end in your loss to me, just as I 
 would try to save my arms from amputation.' 
 
 ' It is such happiness to be so loved,' she answered, 
 under her breath, ' and it is so terrible to give you nothing 
 but unhappiness in exchange.' 
 
 'I am glad I am here to protect you,' I answered, 
 drawing the cold, trembling form still tighter against my 
 breast. ' That is not unhappiness.' I did indeed feel 
 such keen pity for her that all sense of the part I would 
 have to bear in the punishment was lost. 
 
 ' Are you quite sure it is so ?' I asked, stroking one 
 of the little ice-cold hands. 
 
 'I can't be absolutely sure,' she answered half in- 
 audibly, ' but I think so from several things, and especi- 
 ally from last night. . . . Oh, don't ask me about it, 
 it's so dreadful ! ' 
 
 I was silent. My great fear was for her reason. I 
 knew she was differently organised from the majority of 
 women. I knew that to her exceptionally excitable 
 251
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 and sensitive brain, circumstances unfortunate enough 
 in themselves assumed an additional horror. She, un- 
 doubtedly, felt more keenly both the pleasures and the 
 pains of this life than the average human being is in- 
 tended to do, and both were exaggerated and magnified 
 by her view of them. 
 
 'Listen to me, Anna. You have read and studied 
 philosophy by the bookful ; now is the time to practise 
 some of it.' 
 
 ' I could if this only affected myself,' she murmured in 
 a stifled voice. 
 
 'That cannot be helped. We cannot, either of us, 
 consider ourselves separately any longer. When we love 
 another we double our pains and sorrow just as we 
 double our pleasures, but that is quite fair. We must 
 face this just as we would any other trial, together, and 
 as calmly as we can. I shall give out the announcement 
 of our marriage this afternoon. How soon will you be 
 ready ? What day shall I say ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know.' 
 
 'It must be done at once,' I urged. 'After your 
 marriage you are, to some extent, secure, and life itself 
 is such an uncertain thing, Anna, we can only count on 
 the moment in our hands. I may, for instance, meet with 
 some accident. I might die, and then you would be 
 left as you are now, and unmarried.' 
 
 'It would not matter,' said Anna, who was sobbing 
 now. ' I should come with you.' 
 
 ' But, my sweet, it would make me very unhappy in 
 my last moments to feel that I had not done all that 
 lay in my power for you while I was alive. I know this 
 252
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 is not a thing to be put off. It is all important now 
 that the marriage should take place at once, before any- 
 thing intervenes which might make it impossible. Once 
 married you are safe from the outside world, at any rate, 
 whatever private griefs and sorrows we may have. The 
 world can know nothing, and say nothing.' 
 
 ' I was looking forward to it so much ... I wanted 
 it so much . . . till now,' she sobbed brokenly. 
 
 1 So did I,' I answered, ' and now I want it more than 
 ever; so it is settled,' I added, kissing her. 'The wed- 
 ding takes place at once and I will make all the 
 arrangements for it.' 
 
 1 Let me get up, I feel stifled ; I believe that dreadful 
 fainting is coming on again.' She struggled out of my 
 embrace and I rose. Her face was white and her eyes 
 uncertain and unbalanced. 
 
 I put my arm round her waist and drew her towards 
 the table. The spirit-lamp under my coffee urn was still 
 burning, and the coffee above boiling unnoticed. I 
 poured her out a cup of it and pressed her gently into 
 a chair. She drank the coffee obediently and began 
 to look more natural again. 
 
 1 We shall soon be having our breakfast together as an 
 ordinary matter,' I said, smiling. My great idea was to 
 turn her thoughts into a lighter vein. I saw that she 
 felt the position acutely, felt it to a degree that might 
 affect even her reason, and I felt I must, if possible, lift 
 the strain from her brain, if only from moment to 
 moment. She played with the little green coffee cup, 
 turning it round in the saucer, and her eyes wandered 
 about the room. 
 
 253
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 'It is so nice to come to you,' she said softly. C I 
 feel so rested, almost happy when I have been with you 
 a little while, and I dreaded this . . . telling you, I mean. 
 Last night I suffered so, I felt I could never, never tell 
 you nor see you again, and, yet, through all the suffering, 
 I longed for you so much.' 
 
 'I wondered why you would not see me last night,' I 
 answered. ' Dear child, you would have slept better if 
 you had told me at once, and let me comfort you.' 
 
 'You have been so very good to me and done so 
 much for me one thing after another but it seems 
 as if you, even you, must get tired of it all, must feel 
 angry with me, must fail me sometime. I keep on dis- 
 appointing you so.' 
 
 ' Well, this is the last,' I returned, smiling. ' You will 
 be my own after this and I will take care of you better.' 
 
 She was sitting in one of my large armchairs, leaning 
 one elbow on the table and shading her face with her 
 hand. She looked up at me now. 
 
 'I don't think we can marry immediately,' she said 
 with a painful blush, ' I mean not hurriedly at all. That 
 would only attract attention. I have been so much, so 
 very much with you, and all the station has talked so of 
 our attachment that that they would never guess the 
 truth if they thought anything they would think it was 
 you it was your fault.' 
 
 I bit my lips suddenly. I saw in a moment the 
 truth of what she said. ' What is said of me matters 
 very little,' I answered after a second. ' But, of course, 
 I don't wish to make it seem hurried so as to throw 
 suspicion into people's mind. I want to save you from 
 254
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 anything of the sort, whether connected with me 01 
 in any other way, but a fortnight hence I think would 
 be a reasonable date. Don't you? I feel a little 
 anxious now about delaying it as long as that, but, 
 perhaps, as you say, it must be so.' 
 
 ' Yes, I should think a fortnight from the ball yester- 
 day, when I was supposed to have recovered, would be 
 about what they would expect,' she answered in a low tone. 
 
 ' That shall be so,' I said. ' And now you are here, 
 Anna, come and see the house, and tell me what you 
 think of all I have been doing. I forbid you absolutely 
 to think of the future any more just now, or what it 
 may have for you. The anticipation of everything in 
 life is the keenest part, both in pleasures and trials. 
 Things are smaller when we " actually come to face 
 them. Each day brings its own strength with it.' 
 
 Anna got up from the chair, and, in obedience to my 
 wishes, gave a little faint smile, and we went out of the 
 dining-room together through the different rooms of 
 the house on the ground floor. Then up the staircase 
 to the upper rooms and verandahs, and last I brought 
 her to the bedroom at the end which covered the whole 
 width of that part of the bungalow. She sank in one of 
 the chairs, and I went over to the windows to open 
 them and let in the light and air. 
 
 There was a long pier glass at the end of the room, 
 and as I walked towards it I caught her reflection. 
 She was sitting contemplating the bed with such a look 
 of hopeless misery on her face that I left off what I 
 was saying about the flowers on the verandah and went 
 back to her.
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 What is the matter? Don't you like it?' I said 
 gently. Her eyes filled with great tears which rolled 
 slowly down her cheeks. 
 
 'Oh, yes, it is beautiful, too beautiful,' she said at 
 once, taking my hand as I stood beside her. ' And I 
 see you have put there Parvati ; she is suitable for me.' 
 
 ' Why, dear ? ' I asked, disturbed at the bitterness in 
 her tone. 'What are you thinking of?' 
 
 'Don't you know the legend of Parvati?' Anna 
 answered, gazing at the little silver figure absently. 
 ' She was sitting waiting in the forest one day for her 
 lover, Shiva, I think it was, and a little grey squirrel 
 ran by her. Parvati stretched out her hand idly and 
 caught it, and the squirrel ran through her grasp and 
 escaped, but her fingers were so burning with the fire 
 of love that they scorched the fur on its back, and for 
 ever after, to this day, the squirrel bears three black 
 stripes along its back where the fingers of the goddess 
 burned them. My hands used to burn like that when 
 you were away at Burmah.' And she put them over 
 her face. 
 
 ' I didn't know the legend,' I said simply. ' But I 
 will take down the image and throw it in the garden 
 if you wish.' 
 
 'No, no not for worlds ; let it stay there.' 
 
 ' You should not regret that fire,' I said, putting my 
 hand on her downcast head. ' It is a gift of nature to 
 you just like your red lips or curling hair, and it gives 
 you much of your power over men, Anna, and makes 
 them your slaves as I am,' I added. 
 
 Anna looked up. ' No, not a slave, an idol,' she 
 256
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 murmured passionately, taking my hands and kissing 
 them. Then she rose. ' I must go ; I have been here 
 too long already.' 
 
 I made no effort to dissuade her, and we went to 
 the door and left the room together. 
 
 ' Did you have no hat ? ' I asked in an ordinary tone, 
 and we passed into the dining-room again where the 
 butler was arranging the sideboard. 
 
 ' No, I came in a gharry, and had it all closed,' she 
 said. 'How long the coachman must have thought 
 me!' 
 
 I went with her to the door, and there her servant 
 was waiting with a large white parasol to shade her 
 with it to the carriage waiting at the foot of the steps. 
 I waited till she had disappeared, and the carriage had 
 driven off. Then I retraced my steps into the dining- 
 room and sat down. 
 
 There was almost a smile on my lips as I thought 
 bitterly how Life seems to get hold of some men and 
 play with them, mock them, cheat them, toss them 
 about for sport. It had done so with me, but I would 
 conquer Life in the end ; I would come out the victor. 
 This woman whom I had desired when I first saw her, 
 and who had been removed and removed from me by 
 various devices of circumstances each time I had 
 thought to possess her, should be entirely my own at 
 last, with not the shadow even of a thought I did not 
 know between us. 
 
 I went, as usual, in the evening to the Lombards', 
 feeling full of anxiety, but my apprehensions died away 
 as soon as Anna entered the room. She looked pale 
 R 257
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 and subdued, but quite calm and mistress of herself, 
 and I saw she had summoned all the strength of her 
 nature to meet the situation. There were only a few 
 people familiar friends present. Mrs Tillotson, the 
 Paris gamin of the tableaux, among them. I smiled to 
 myself as I saw her peering sharply at Anna. Keen- 
 witted as I knew she was, and keen-sighted, I felt 
 that Anna could defeat easily anyone who tried to pry 
 into her life, and that once she had gathered up the 
 reins and fixed her eye on the goal, she would drive 
 her chariot and steer her course straight through the 
 gaping crowds that line the ways of life, watching for 
 the accidents of those who do more and dare more 
 than they can. 
 
 That evening she was orthodoxly charming. She 
 laughed the requisite amount, neither too much nor 
 too little, and talked the prescribed idiotic babble of 
 ordinary society (which I knew was always an effort to 
 her) with the greatest fluency and ease. She played 
 and sang for us the most delightfully twaddly society 
 songs, and did not even touch her favourite Wagner 
 till the close of the evening, when she gave us the 
 'Festspiel und Brautlied' from Lohengrin, It was 
 Liszt's arrangement, and she played the opening, in 
 fact, all the 'Festspiel,' with the magnificent energy 
 and fervour of her temperament, and I, listening, 
 thought, 'Anna is speaking to me now. This is the 
 first glimpse of her real self that I have had this 
 evening.' 
 
 Then, from out of that intricate maze of brilliant 
 chords and arpeggios, floated suddenly, softly and 
 258
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 delicately as an evening breeze, the bridal song. The 
 melody filled the room and fell like a charm over us 
 all. The faces of the married women took a dreamily 
 reflective expression, and the unmarried girls one of 
 eager hope and expectancy. When she had finished 
 there was much smiling applause. 
 
 Anna rose. 'That's what I feel like,' she said 
 simply, and with a glance at me. 
 
 The announcement that our wedding was to take 
 place two weeks from the night before had been given 
 out that afternoon, and everyone laughed indulgently, 
 and there was a great deal of whispered confidence and 
 hushed laughter between her and all the women as they 
 broke up for the night. 
 
 Anna, standing saying ' good-bye ' to them, was the 
 happy, innocent, unthinking bride-elect to perfection. 
 When they had all gone and the General had retired, 
 we stood for a moment alone together. 
 
 'You don't misunderstand me?' she said in a low 
 tone. 'You don't think me callous, nor that I don't 
 feel the horror of the whole thing, but this is what you 
 wish me to be, is it not? This is how you wish me 
 to act?' 
 
 ' Do you think we could misunderstand each other ? ' 
 I said, looking into her eyes, so sad now that the 
 affected mirth had died from them. ' I think you are 
 most good and brave. I want you to be inwardly as 
 philosophic and resigned as you can, and outwardly 
 as bright and happy as you can. Nothing we can do 
 can alter things now, and we must try and minimise 
 them, not exaggerate them to ourselves.' 
 259
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 1 You poured courage and life into me this morning. 
 You were so good to me, and I am so grateful.' 
 
 Nothing else was said, but her tones were weighted 
 with feeling, and, as I folded her gently in my arms 
 for a good-night kiss, I felt that each new trial which 
 might have sundered others from each other had 
 only brought us into a more exquisite relationship. 
 
 During the next fortnight the final preparations for 
 the wedding occupied both of us. For me a great 
 deal of the life and spirit had been taken out of 
 them. I had had a blow and received a wound that 
 I could not recover from, since the wound must, 
 necessarily, remain an open and bleeding sore for 
 months to come. At the same time I did not suffer 
 so much as a man whose love was differently con- 
 stituted. For me Anna's presence near me in itself, 
 even if sick, sorrowing and burdened with the chains 
 of her dead passion, would still be a delight beyond 
 words. Moreover, having once fully determined to 
 accept the situation as it was, I rarely allowed myseli 
 to dwell on it, and tried as far as possible to put away 
 the thought and remembrance of the secret she had 
 given to my keeping, and which seemed mocked and 
 made unreal, each time I was with her, by her fair, 
 innocent, girlish look. I think she herself had deter- 
 mined in the same way to crush it under silence now, 
 for she never alluded to it when we were together, and 
 when others were present she showed a soul of gaiety and 
 happiness, not, I think, forced, and seemed interested in 
 the selection of all the countless treasures submitted by 
 the Kalatu merchants for the Mem Sahib's wardrobe. 
 260
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 One morning rather early I entered the drawing- 
 room a little unceremoniously, and found her trying 
 on a just finished gown, because, as she naively ex- 
 plained later, 'There was a long glass there and none 
 in her bedroom and she had not expected visitors.' 
 
 The gown was one of rose-coloured silk, and suited ad- 
 mirably the rose of her skin. She was just surveying her- 
 self as I came in, and the eager, happy, interested look 
 in her eyes bent on her own reflection delighted me. 
 When she caught sight of me, however, the dress 
 seemed forgotten, and she responded eagerly to my 
 caress, crushing up the delicate lace and ruffles on 
 her breast against my coat, dusty with the ride over. 
 
 ' Gerald, when I woke this morning a bird was singing 
 exquisitely at my window, and a maina was calling 
 from the banana tree. I felt so happy to think only 
 three mornings would go by and then I should wake 
 up under the smile of those serious eyes of yours, 
 that never do anything but smile, upon me.' 
 
 Another morning I found her leaning back in a long 
 chair surveying the goods of a native dealer in Oriental 
 trimmings, who had his wares opened out in a circle 
 on the floor all round her. And another time I 
 came in to see her the centre of a crowd of young 
 girls of her own age, who were all eating sweetmeats 
 and drinking iced coffee and discussing the approaching 
 event; but each time she was gay, contented, smiling, 
 and so the time passed till the eve of the marriage 
 came, and then, by pre-arrangement, I went to her to 
 take her for a drive with me before sunset. I found 
 her sitting in her chair waiting for me on the bungalow 
 261
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 steps, a delicate, charming figure with a large white 
 hat that turned up at the side, where a few tiny soft 
 light curls lay against it 
 
 'Let me sit on the left side where your hat turns 
 up,' I said, laughing ; ' I don't wish even a hat brim to 
 be between us.' And she laughed and obeyed. 
 
 'We will drive to the Burra Bagh or the Great 
 Gardens,' I said and so directed the coachman. The 
 evening was still with a heavy, dreaming stillness, that 
 the drone of a thousand insects seemed only to 
 intensify. The carriage wheels made no sound on 
 the soft roads bordered by emerald turf; the hedges 
 gave out their heavy odour of syringa and tuberose. 
 All around the sunshine fell in a burnished golden 
 haze, deepened and enriched by the approach of the 
 sunset. Overhead, through the fan-like, spreading 
 branches of the cocoanut palms that the sun burned 
 into glinting gold, the sky was beginning to blush 
 softly, and small, gold-tipped, rosy clouds floated 
 across it Occasionally, a huge, heavy black carrion 
 bird flapped lazily across from side to side, too in- 
 dolent to croak and too lazy to even fly properly and 
 in a straight line. He just flapped heavily and 
 obliquely through the warm, still air from one syringa- 
 laden hedge to another. I leaned back in the carriage, 
 giving myself up to the restfulness of my surroundings 
 and letting my eyes rest on the soft, cool cheek of 
 the girl beside me, rising, as it did, above the white 
 ruffles of lace round her neck. 
 
 We were quite silent for a long while, as we often 
 were when together. Conversation is pleasant, but 
 362
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 there is no actual need of it between minds so closely 
 linked as ours were. 
 
 After a time she slipped her hand out of her glove 
 and laid it on mine. ' I shall never forget how good 
 you were to me the morning I told you,' she whispered. 
 'You must never think that because I don't speak of 
 it that I forget.' 
 
 ' I think you were very brave and good to come and 
 tel 1 ne,' I answered quietly. 'Many women would 
 have left me no choice ; they would have married and 
 said nothing about it.' 
 
 'Would they?' returned Anna, turning upon me 
 a startled gaze. ' Oh, I could never have done that, 
 any more than I could marry you as you wished and 
 as I longed to while Gaida was alive, and not told 
 you of his existence.' 
 
 I looked into the wide-open, fearless eyes, truly 
 great wells of living light with Truth at the bottom 
 of them, 'I know you could not,' I said simply; 
 'the lying and deceit that come naturally, it seems, 
 to most women are not among your faults, my 
 Anna.' 
 
 I 1 have enough without them,' she answered sadly. 
 'You're not to be sad now,' I said authoritatively, 
 
 'on the eve of your marriage to me. I can't have it.' 
 
 ' I am not,' she said, smiling. ' I cannot help feeling 
 
 so pleased to think I am going to belong to you after 
 
 to-morrow. Fancy not being one's own mistress any 
 
 more, having no will indisputably of one's own. Fancy 
 
 not being able to get up when one wakes and feels 
 
 ready to, but when someone else wakes and is ready 
 
 263
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 to; and no longer being able to ring and order 
 luncheon when one feels hungry, but having to wait 
 until someone else is hungry, and having to sit up 
 at night until someone else gets tired. How funny 
 it all seems, and to me very delightful.' 
 
 ' Is that your idea of married life ? ' I asked, smiling. 
 
 'Is not that what it must come to, practically?' 
 she returned, smiling too. 'You know, when two 
 people live together there can be only one will between 
 them, and I think it is the woman's place to give way. 
 Nature has given her the part of submission in the 
 whole drama of love. She can't take the initiative ; she 
 can only respond. She is fitted to do that, and that 
 is where she gets her best happiness. When I marry 
 you I put my will in your hands. I make you a present 
 of it. I have no farther use for it. The only thing of 
 importance henceforward is yours. And, it seems to 
 me, that is only a small part of the whole surrender a 
 woman makes in marriage. Even now, for instance, 
 you decide the moment when you shall kiss me, and 
 I am very glad to submit Well, on the same principle, 
 I can submit when you decide other things for me, and 
 find pleasure in it.' 
 
 'You are terribly unfashionable in your views,' I 
 said, laughing. ' Just now, when woman is fighting 
 to take the lead in everything you don't seem to 
 belong to the nineteenth century.' 
 
 'I don't think that I do,' she answered. 'The 
 nineteenth century is nearly over anyway. Perhaps 
 I am a product of the twentieth, and come too soon.' 
 
 It was growing dark all round us, the beautiful, 
 264
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 luminous dark of the East, full of mysterious rose 
 and violet 
 
 'No, not too soon,' I answered, and as our eyes 
 met each other's through the soft-coloured dusk, there 
 was a moment's keen realisation that all the centuries 
 to come could not give to each other two that were as 
 nearly one as we were. 
 
 The following day, late in the afternoon, we were 
 married, not quietly as we would have wished, and in 
 Anna's drawing-room, but in the presence of all the 
 station. So far did we sacrifice ourselves for the 
 sake of the people who knew us. There followed a 
 long reception at my house, and then, at last, we were 
 alone. 
 
 It was a little after nine. In a few hours more the 
 night would be over and the light would be dawning 
 on the plains. Anna turned to me, and we stood for 
 a moment together, when our guests had gone, under 
 one of the lamps which threw a veil of light over her 
 and turned her hair to flame colour. 
 
 'Surely I am the least deserving and the most 
 fortunate of anyone in the world,' she said in a low 
 voice ; ' Gerald, in spite of everything I am so happy.' 
 
 We passed out of the room and went upstairs to 
 the one in which I had worked so hard for her sake 
 and which she was entering at last. It was full of a 
 soft radiance of light, such as she delighted in, from 
 swinging lamps in slightly-veiled shades, and the 
 great pier-glass at the opposite end of the room, 
 facing the door, reflected her figure as she stepped 
 over the threshold. I closed the door behind us. 
 065
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 The windows with their jilmils stood wide open to the 
 four quarters of the violet sky studded with different 
 patterns traced in blazing stars, so that they looked 
 like four slides from a kaleidoscope. The servants 
 had all retreated to their quarters; the sea wind that 
 sweeps restlessly over the desert sand all day had 
 sunk. Not a breath disturbed the heavy, sultry air. 
 
 We crossed the room involuntarily to the mirror 
 there, and stood looking into it at her reflection, and 
 she put up her hands to her neck to unfasten the 
 necklet I had given her. Then she dropped them 
 again. 'You do it for me,' she murmured, and I un- 
 clasped the diamonds and replaced them with kisses. 
 Then I took the great doubled-up plait of her hair, and 
 untying the white ribbon that held it double, began 
 to unplait it, letting each soft strand slip through my 
 fingers as I released it. 
 
 'And so you love me?' I said softly, when it was 
 all loosened, and fell like sunlight over her neck and 
 shoulders. 
 
 Anna leant back against me and put her arms 
 round my neck, turning her face upward so that her 
 mouth, like an opening flower, was close beneath 
 my own. 
 
 ' I do not love you,' she said, with her voice 
 quivering and the pulses beating hard in her throat; 
 ' I worship and adore you.' 
 
 And it is not a little thing for a man to hear from 
 the woman he loves. 
 
 Hours later, wide awake, I raised myself on one 
 elbow where I lay beside her and gazed down upon 
 266
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 her. The dawn was just beginning to softly fill the 
 room. Anna had fallen asleep, fallen with her face 
 turned, and her arms a little extended towards me, 
 into the happy, trustful, innocent sleep of a child 
 beside its mother. And I, to whom she was as sacred 
 now from the approach of passion as before she 
 became my own and held my name, looked down 
 upon her and realised that in self-renunciation, self- 
 abnegation, self-denial for another, lies the keenest, 
 purest pleasure of humanity. This was my marriage 
 night, and what had it brought me? No abandon- 
 ment to personal pleasure, no sensual delight of any 
 sort, no gratification of the desires or the senses, 
 nothing that the promise of its name implies, only 
 self-repression and self-restraint, a total denial of the 
 physical will. Yet out of all this rose a supreme 
 happiness, and, I suppose, no man ever felt at the 
 final abandonment to him of a mistress, or the 
 possession of a wife, the same passion of delight and 
 triumph that I did when Anna lay down beside me 
 and sank to sleep with a happy, contented sigh. 
 Out of the stress and the violence and the selfishness 
 of passion, she had come to the shelter of an absolute 
 love. She was happy, protected, safe, and I was 
 the one who gave her that happiness, protection, 
 safety. In the whole world there is no privilege that 
 Fate can give equal to this the power to bestow 
 these three where one loves. I gazed down upon 
 her now in the quiet room, where the soft light was 
 diffusing itself, seeming like the presence of the Divine 
 Spirit sanctioning our union, and my heart swelled
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 within me with a peace and calm and joy that 
 nothing in my life has equalled. She slept beside 
 me tranquilly as a child, with her loosened hair 
 thrown back and straying over the pillow, and her 
 breath coming and going softly, almost imperceptibly, 
 in her glad, confident slumber. 
 
 What did it matter to me the unappeased longings 
 of the senses ? the gratification of which has but 
 one final end, satiety, and the absence of the falsely- 
 designated 'real,' i.e., physical, pleasures. 
 
 In that mental exaltation that filled me, as I gazed 
 at that calm face and form wrapped in the mystery 
 of sleep, I was unconscious of my physical being, and 
 it is in these moments when the soul and brain take 
 up the supreme command of man that he discovers 
 the essence of joy. 
 
 268
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE note that had been struck on my marriage night 
 was the keynote of my married life self-renunciation 
 but as on that night it had brought me nothing 
 but the height of happiness, so it continued to be 
 from day to day the source of delight to me. It was 
 Anna who was dissatisfied with herself. 
 
 ' I am no good to you, dear Gerald,' she would say. 
 'What can I do?' And I could only answer the 
 simple truth, ' You are everything to me, Anna. I am 
 more than satisfied.' 
 
 It was so. Her presence alone seemed to fill up 
 my life with contentment. There was an extraordinary 
 tie, as it seemed, between us, invisible, but at times 
 almost tangible. It was as if she held one end of an 
 elastic thread and I the other, and that this thread 
 would not stretch beyond a certain distance, nor for 
 longer than a certain time. If either strained at it, 
 it pulled us irresistibly together again. There seemed 
 a curious balance of electricity between us; one must 
 have possessed just the amount which the other lacked. 
 When we were together both felt calm and satisfied, 
 but for those hours in each day, if there were any, 
 in which we were separated, there was always a sub- 
 consciousness of restlessness and discontent till we 
 269
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 were together again. In this way it often happened 
 that when I went down into the city to attend a trial 
 or other business, if I were detained there, a knock 
 would generally come on my office door, and on 
 opening it, I would see Anna with a deprecating look 
 on her face. 
 
 'Why have you come down, dear?' I would ask 
 generally, pro form& t though I knew by my own 
 instinctive feelings why she had come. And she 
 would look at me helplessly for a moment or so and 
 then laugh and say, ' I don't know.' 
 
 She would instal herself quietly in one corner of the 
 room and read or often do nothing until my work was 
 over, and then we would both descend the stairs, get 
 into the carriage and drive home together, and that 
 simple little detail of everyday life would seem some- 
 thing delightful to me because it was done with her. 
 I could not shake myself free from the feeling of 
 pleasure it gave me, though it seemed unreasonable 
 even to me to feel it so keenly. I cannot explain 
 why it was so, except by the theory that we exerted 
 some force each over the other, that some electrical 
 condition in me had been disturbed by her absence, 
 and was put right by her presence, in the same manner 
 as some people suffer from headache during a thunder- 
 storm and feel relieved and soothed when it is over. 
 
 And existence has no more perfect charm than this 
 duality, than this feeling of the strong, elastic thread 
 binding together the two lives, yielding, giving and 
 stretching as the individuality of each requires, but 
 always drawing them towards the other. 
 270
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 People in the station began to look upon us as the 
 most extraordinary couple possible, because, even after 
 we were married, we were hardly ever seen except 
 together, and the average Briton seems to expect a man, 
 when married, de facto > to seldom appear with his wife. 
 
 ' I don't know how it is,' said Anna to me one day, 
 with a puzzled smile, 'but other people don't seem to 
 love at all in the way we do, or live the same life. 
 They aren't together as we are. There's Ella Barring- 
 ton, you know, she never sees Barrington all day. 
 In the morning she goes down to the town and 
 shops, then she drives back for luncheon, and he 
 doesn't come back for that because he is so far off. 
 Then, in the afternoon, she pays calls all alone. He 
 does come back to dinner, but then in the evening 
 she very often goes to a dance and he goes to bed 
 because he is tired, or he goes to his work again and 
 she goes to bed because she is tired ! I could not lead 
 that life.' 
 
 ' Perhaps they don't hit it off very well,' I suggested. 
 
 I was writing in my office and Anna was at a little 
 table by my side copying the official correspondence for 
 me as I finished it. I had three clerks, but they had 
 not her accuracy and speed, and then also . . . 
 
 We had just paused for a moment in the work to 
 drink a large glass of soda in which the ice clinked 
 musically, and to give ourselves up to the fanning of 
 the punkah. Outside the closed jilmils the thermometer 
 registered one hundred and fifteen degrees Fahrenheit, 
 and inside here the short curls on Anna's forehead 
 were wet. 
 
 m
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 1 But that is the life of all the married women in the 
 station,' she objected. 'It's most funny. You've no 
 idea how different we are. And other people think it 
 is so odd, too, that we should want to be together, now 
 we are married. It's becoming quite a scandal,' 
 she added, with her eyes full of laughter. 'It is 
 fortunate we had such a big wedding and everyone 
 saw it with their own eyes, otherwise they'd get up 
 some story that we weren't married. They would, 
 really.' 
 
 I laughed. 'Quite likely,' I answered. 
 
 'It's so intensely nice being with you,' she con- 
 tinued, pushing her chair a little closer to mine. ' If 
 I go down to choose a pair of gloves you come with 
 me, and that makes choosing the gloves as much 
 pleasure as going to an opera. Then, when I make 
 my calls, you come too, and that makes it all in- 
 teresting, just as when I used to meet you at the 
 places when we were engaged. And in the evenings, 
 think ! I should never go a dance while you went to 
 bed or to your work. I would much rather be where 
 you were. But everyone thinks it awfully funny, and 
 so, perhaps, it is. I noticed Mrs Pearson looked quite 
 surprised, and, don't you know, almost, well . . . shocked 
 . . . when I refused to drive home with her and Captain 
 Green because I was waiting to drive you back from 
 the office. " Surely, my dear," she said, " your husband 
 doesn't expect you to drive him back every evening?" 
 and I said, " I don't know, Mrs Pearson, but I like to 
 do it." And then she raised her eyebrows and Captain 
 Green stared at me through his eyeglasses, and they 
 272
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 both drove on with the air that they considered me a 
 harmless maniac.' 
 
 I nodded and laughed. 
 
 1 The men think it odd, too, that they never see me 
 at the Club now, and that I won't stay the whole after- 
 noon gossiping with them or reading the papers, but 
 prefer to come back to walk or ride with you. They 
 are nearly all married men. I suppose we are different 
 from other people,' I concluded. 
 
 'There is not one married woman here who lives the 
 life I do,' she said meditatively. ' She is interested in 
 her children, her house, her servants, her calls, her golf; 
 and her husband is interested in his work, his horses, his 
 duties, his club. Their lives are quite apart and full 
 of different ideas and aims. We are just like one 
 person, are we not ? And,' she went on after a pause, 
 'the people who are only just married are only a little 
 better. Even they are rarely together. One does not 
 seem necessary to the other at all.' 
 
 ' I give it up,' I said, laughing. ' And now we must 
 get back to work. The Government, I'm afraid, will 
 object to paying me for using its time to discuss 
 metaphysical problems.' And we emptied our iced 
 soda-water glass and went back to the correspondence. 
 
 About three months after our marriage we were trans- 
 ferred to another station, a hot, dry place out on the 
 plains. It was large, and I think I have never seen so 
 many handsome faces among the English girls in India 
 as were crowded into that one station. On the second 
 day after our arrival when we had to be at home to 
 receive calls, I saw Anna Booking from one to another as 
 S 27S
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 they came in ; and to me, who knew her face so well, 
 her thoughts were perfectly clear. Nothing, however, 
 could make her ungracious in manner, and whatever 
 irrepressible envy she might feel, it was not in her nature 
 to stoop to the spiteful meanness, the petty warfare of 
 sneering words that most women adopt to their rivals. 
 She was graciousness and gentleness itself to them all, and 
 moved about the room and dispensed tea to her guests 
 with her usual quiet ease. That same evening, after 
 dinner, we were sitting on the couch together, looking 
 over some papers that I had brought up from the 
 Commissioner's for her consideration as well as my 
 own, when she said suddenly to me, ' Gerald, I wish 
 you were not so handsome ! ' 
 
 I laughed, knowing quite well what was in her 
 thoughts. 'Why?' I said. 
 
 ' Because all these girls and women will be falling in 
 love with you, I know.' 
 
 'I don't think that is at all likely, but, suppose they 
 did, would that matter very seriously ? ' 
 
 ' No no ' replied Anna, hesitatingly. ' Not if you ' 
 And then she stopped, looking at me. The blood 
 seemed beating up to my head in great waves. 
 
 ' Do you think that I don't know the exact value of a 
 pretty face or smooth shoulders ? ' I said quietly, trying 
 to overcome the strange excitement that was rising in 
 my veins. ' The passing trifles good to help one through 
 a tedious hour. Do you think for the pleasure they 
 would give that I would throw aside a love like ours ? ' 
 
 Her face at the end of the sofa seemed to swim 
 before me, with its arched brows and eyes welling over 
 *74
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 with light. They looked a little startled, a little sur- 
 prised. Heavens ! Did she not know, did she not 
 realise what my life beside her was ? Was it possible 
 that I had over-acted my part of self-repression which I 
 had taken up for her sake? A horrible moment of 
 weakness came over me. It was so long, this trial. 
 Perhaps my attitude was misunderstood by her. Per- 
 haps it was unnecessary, absurd. An insidious temp- 
 tation was at my side, fiercer even than that of my 
 marriage night. I was strung up then to a pitch of 
 exaltation in which everything was possible. The first 
 onslaught of desire is far easier to withstand than its 
 ilow, continued pressure eating into the brain through 
 weeks and months. Why, I do not know, but it seemed 
 as if in that moment, when she spoke so lightly of the 
 other women, all the long struggles of past nights, all 
 the anticipations, the longings, the visions of feverish 
 moments in the day, reached their culminating point. 
 Other women ! Other faces ! The passing physical 
 pleasure of a mouth that pleases, of a touch that stings. 
 What were they to me ? 
 
 The flesh has but one voice with which it calls to 
 kindred flesh; but the soul, the intellect, the brain, 
 have a thousand voices, and all of these called to me 
 from the woman before me. 
 
 It would be worth something to feel those lips quiver 
 beneath one's own, to light up a torch in those eyes, to 
 feel that breast heave beneath one's own. It would be 
 the final, the only adequate and satisfying expression of 
 our love, and it was possible, if I delayed, it might 
 never be ours. Had she not in a few months . . . months
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 ... to descend into the shadow of death, from which she 
 might never return to me ? And she was my own, my 
 absolute possession, and there was no bar between us. 
 No one could reproach me. I was her husband. 
 
 At that second I was sitting upright at the end of the 
 couch, looking at her, and bending, to breaking point, 
 a paper knife between burning fingers. The next I had 
 thrown myself forward on her. My arms were round 
 her. Her face looked up at me from the couch. I 
 seemed to see it through a mist. The lips were faintly 
 smiling, the eyes were luminous with a new light. She 
 gave herself to me willingly. As she had said, my will 
 was hers. Her conscience, also, she was content for 
 me to guard. What I did was right. And it was this 
 that saved me. Had she resisted me in the least, that 
 resistance would have challenged the brute force within 
 me that longs to dominate by force. Her passivity, her 
 trust in me spoke to the mind that seeks its victories in 
 other ways. 
 
 After all, what would this pleasure be in which the 
 soul could not share ? Nothing would give me the real 
 joy of possession but the future. I let her fall from me 
 suddenly, and drew back. 
 
 She put her hands over her face and burst into tears. 
 
 'Forgive me,' I said. 'It is so hard to keep one's 
 self-control unbroken. And never speak to me again 
 about other women. If you had any idea of all I suffer 
 on your account you would know it was quite un- 
 necessary to "be jealous of any others.' 
 
 ' I am so sorry,' Anna sobbed from the couch, ' but, 
 if you wish '
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 1 1 don't wish,' I said coldly ; in fact, the reaction was 
 so strong that ice seemed to have replaced the fire in my 
 veins of a moment ago. 
 
 I sat down beside her, calmly now, and took her hand. 
 
 1 You know as well as I do what I really wish. In 
 our final union I want you to come to me free of all 
 previous ties. I want to be able to take you for my 
 own, without a shadow between us. Nothing else will 
 satisfy me. To take you now is but to discount our 
 pleasure in the future. A pleasure which will bring no 
 reproach with it . . . as it would now. The nominal right 
 the law has given me is as nothing to my view beside 
 the law of nature. While you are bearing Gaida's 
 child you are still his. I cannot understand why I am 
 so weak to-day. I do not think it will happen again.' 
 
 That night I did not go to her room, but walked 
 about until past midnight, and then went to my own 
 former verandah room where the hot, sand-laden wind 
 was driving through the slits of the jilmils, and threw 
 myself on the charpoy of stretched canvas beneath the 
 windows and, after an hour or two, fell into a restless, 
 nervous sleep. 
 
 The following morning when I woke in the narrow 
 camp bed and looked round the bare, unfamiliar room, 
 a curious sense of loss seemed to come over me. I 
 got up and went to Anna's room, turning the handle 
 of the door and going in, for the key was never turned 
 against me. I went up to the bed where she was sleep- 
 ing. It seemed that she had sobbed herself to sleep, 
 for there were blue and scarlet patches round her eyes, 
 marks which I knew the tears always left on her light 
 277
 
 skin. She opened her eyes after a minute and there 
 was a cry of delight as she saw me standing looking 
 down at her. She stretched up her arms to me. ' Oh, 
 I had such a wretched night without you ; I couldn't 
 go to sleep at all. And I did not like to go and try 
 to find you. Please come back to me. You will come 
 to-night, won't you ? ' And I promised I would. 
 
 Owing to our official rank in the station we had 
 incessant invitations and a great deal more society than 
 we desired. I kept watch upon myself in all this time 
 that I should not seem to be drawn away from Anna 
 by all these social functions, most of which were forced 
 upon me. I knew she was acutely sensitive and, as she 
 had given me the index to her thoughts, I was put on 
 my guard. I do not mean that she was tiresomely 
 or childishly jealous. She never sought to bar me 
 from other women . . . quite the contrary . . . and if I 
 expressed the most casual admiration for any particular 
 one of the station's favourites, that one was always 
 invited by Anna to the house. She herself would 
 often urge me to accept invitations I should have 
 declined. 
 
 'You must get tired of being so much with me,' she 
 would say. 'Do go if you like and see any of these 
 people.' 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, I seldom wanted to leave 
 her. Most people nearly everybody seemed to 
 bore me and tire me, and it was always with a sense 
 of relief and pleasure that I came back from them 
 to her. 
 
 The passion that we had for each other was a 
 278
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 passion of the brain as much or more than one of 
 the senses, and no amount of custom, no time, 
 no familiarity, had any effect on that, except to 
 strengthen it. All physical pleasures decline with 
 gratification, but those of the brain increase. When 
 the body is hungry, food satisfies and then stops its 
 hunger. How different is the brain when hungry for 
 knowledge! The learning and study given to it as 
 food utterly fail to satisfy. They do no more than 
 stimulate an increased craving. 
 
 Before our marriage I had been content to sit with 
 Anna through a whole evening, because, for one reason, 
 she made a very beautiful picture sitting opposite me, 
 and my sense of vision had been delighted and satisfied. 
 That was one reason, but not the only one. The far 
 stronger one was that my brain was moved and fired 
 by all she said, it was satisfied and delighted by her 
 presence, just as my eyes by her face. And now 
 that the lines of beauty in her form were blurred and 
 distorted, when only a pale face met my eyes, it was 
 still a keen pleasure to return and sit opposite her 
 keener far than any afforded me by the pink cheeks, 
 the idiotic babble and senseless giggle of the belles 
 of the station. And I was inexpressibly thankful, 
 sometimes, that no evil fate had thrown one of these 
 to my lot as a life's companion. One may gaze on a 
 pink cheek for half an hour; one may listen to babble 
 for an hour ; one may stand insensate giggling even 
 for two, but in days and weeks, and months and years, 
 how shall these satisfy all the longing, straining, striving, 
 restless, nameless desires of the human brain? 
 279
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 The curious, or what to most men may seem the 
 curious, part of our existence now was, that as weeks 
 passed on, and Anna's condition became evident, it 
 drew me to her, rather than repelled me. I became 
 infinitely attached to her and more and more in pro- 
 portion as I saw the situation grew more depressing 
 and terrible to her. She entirely lost her health, and, 
 as she said to me one morning, she only awoke now to 
 suffer. But with that loss of health, with long hours 
 of pain, periods of sickness and weary, restless nights, 
 came none of that peevishness and irritable fretfulness 
 that most women combine with their suffering. Anna's 
 nature seemed to become sweeter and gentler the 
 greater the strain that was put on it, and the yielding, 
 unquestioning docility and tenderness she had always 
 displayed towards me linked themselves now to an 
 almost painful humility. 
 
 I saw as plainly as if the thoughts that came and 
 went in her brain were visible objects that she dreaded 
 in her ill health and in this strange position to become 
 repellent to me. That she felt in some way my debtor, 
 and to show her gratitude, to, in some way, make even 
 the score she fancied was so much against her, she made 
 use of all the seductive charm that was her gift from 
 Nature. She never complained; it was only from my 
 own observation that I knew how much she suffered, 
 both mentally and physically, but far more the former 
 than the latter. And this suffering united her to me 
 in a far greater degree than the loss of all her physical 
 charm could sunder her. I loved her infinitely more 
 now, and could be far more tender and patient than 
 280
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 in the time before our marriage, when, so to speak, 
 she was arrayed with Gaida against me. Now she 
 was suffering with me, and she and I were arrayed 
 together against a common sorrow. The sight of her 
 bearing a long punishment day by day wiped out utterly 
 from my mind all remembrance of any fault she might 
 ever have committed against me, and roused all my 
 sympathy and pity and drew the deepest love out of 
 the reserves of my nature. And, in spite of the 
 religious scruples and moral ideas that opposed 
 themselves to possession in the commonest acceptance 
 of the word, yet, in the highest sense, I knew she 
 was altogether my own. The passionate hate, that 
 she confessed to me would rise in her, in spite of all 
 her efforts, of the child she was to bear, seemed 
 like a seal on her love for me. Moreover, it was in- 
 grained in my nature to care for and lean towards 
 anything that depended upon me and clung to me, 
 and Anna, nervous and excitable as she was, viewed 
 her coming trial with a mental terror, and turned to 
 me continually for comfort, like a frightened child in 
 the dark. 
 
 As day followed day we were each more and more 
 bound up in the other. Nature can make a habit of 
 loving as she can of anything else. And with some 
 temperaments, as with mine, love nourishes itself. It 
 is the memory of what we have done for another far 
 more often than the memory of what that one has done 
 for us that softens us in reflection. And when love 
 is poured out as mine for Anna, for one who longs 
 for it, demands it, lives by it and gives back ten-fold, 
 281
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 there is an intoxication and delight in the exchange 
 enough to fill two of the blankest lives. 
 
 Anna made such a wonderful companion. I had 
 felt that she would do so during all the time I had 
 known her, but I had never realised what a mere 
 poor foreshadowing that broken-up companionship had 
 been of the perfect, smooth, intimate union in the life 
 lived day by day, night by night with her. 
 
 When she accompanied me to my office, I found she 
 was of more use to me than my three clerks together. 
 She had such a gift of grasping the sense and import 
 of things. It was never any trouble to explain to 
 her. Whatever mental nut, as it were, was offered to 
 her, her intellect seemed to grip it at once and split it 
 open, and the kernel, neat and round, was lying before 
 you. I have found this to be a very rare gift. The 
 brain that can do and create, can form ideas and hold 
 opinions is less uncommon than the one which can 
 really understand. As a rule, explaining to one's 
 subordinate what has to be done and how it is to 
 be done is so much effort and attended with so little 
 success that to do the work oneself is the lighter task. 
 One day I had spent the whole morning in endeavour- 
 ing to put my assistants in the way of making for me a 
 prtcis of some native evidence which was required for 
 the following day, and the result was an intolerably 
 confused document utterly useless to me or the Court. 
 I told them to leave the matter alone, that I would see 
 to it myself in the afternoon, and having already an im- 
 possible amount of work on hand ; that prospect did not 
 improve my temper. Tired and savage, I drove home 
 282
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 to luncheon, not without a delightful consciousness 
 that for an hour at least I should have perfect rest 
 and peace, and found Anna, as usual, waiting in the 
 cool, shaded dining-room. She came herself to my 
 side and poured out some wine for me and asked me 
 why I looked so tired, and during luncheon I told 
 her. My nerves were shaken by overwork and the 
 peculiarly irritating kind of work I had had that 
 morning, and I upbraided the Government for giving 
 me fools to work with and lamented the idiocy of 
 mankind in general, and the hard fate that made me 
 an Indian civil servant. Anna listened very quietly, 
 making hardly any remark, which was wise, for almost 
 any remark would have irritated me then. But when 
 I had quite finished and was exhausted, she agreed 
 with everything I had said (which is soothing) 
 and sympathised with me in every look and tone, 
 rather than in words (which is tranquillising). When 
 I rose, I said remorsefully, ' I am sorry to have been 
 so annoyed ; I expect I spoiled your luncheon. You 
 look very white. What have you been doing all the 
 morning ? ' 
 
 And, indeed, her face had a settled look of pain 
 on it that was distressing. 
 
 'It is nothing much,' she answered, smiling. 'I have 
 had a dreadful pain in my side, but it has gone off 
 now.' Then she came close to me and said timidly, 
 'Please let me come down this afternoon and do the 
 precis for you.' 
 
 1 Dear child,' I said gently, in surprise, 'I don't 
 think you can.' 
 
 283
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 Well, let me try.' 
 
 'Come, by all means, if it will amuse you, but 
 I am afraid you can't help me in any way.' 
 
 Anna made no reply, but put on her hat with a 
 delighted air and we went out to the carriage and 
 drove down to the city together. It was a pleasure 
 to have her beside me. Even when she did not 
 speak she looked intelligent, and I knew if I spoke 
 to her I should meet with some other response than 
 the bewildered and vaguely questioning ' sahib ? ' of 
 my clerks. When we reached the office I gave her 
 a chair and a table to herself in one corner, and piled 
 on the latter the material from which the precis was 
 to be made. Such a pile it was. Fragments of old 
 torn letters; a dying deposition taken in an opium 
 den of the bazaar and of which the paper was yellow 
 with smoke and dirt; columns of notes taken from 
 testimony in Court, and loose odds and ends of papers 
 of all sorts that might or might not, probably not, 
 throw light on the case. All these in the native 
 tongue, Hindustani, and written in the Hindustani 
 character by hurried, careless, or inexperienced penmen. 
 Anna glanced over them coolly. 
 
 ' Now, Gerald, tell me exactly what you want,' she 
 said, fixing her eyes on me, in which I noticed the 
 pupils beginning to widen and dilate as they always 
 did with special activity of the brain. I explained to 
 her what I wanted and the previous history of the 
 case, and it seemed to take five minutes, whereas, in 
 the morning I had expended as many hours, and it 
 was no trouble to explain to her either. Her large 
 284
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 bright eyes seemed to lead one on. Her keenly in- 
 terested voice : ' Yes, I understand.' ' I see.' ' Go on,' 
 was encouraging. Her acute attention absolutely given 
 to the matter in hand was inspiring. One seemed face 
 to face with an intelligence, whereas, with most people 
 the fleshy screen between their brain and yours seems 
 terribly thick. 
 
 'I understand it all now,' she said finally. 'I will 
 work it out for you.' 
 
 And I went over to my own desk. Four hours of the 
 long, golden afternoon wore away in silence and I 
 managed to get through most of my own work. Then I 
 looked over towards her and saw she was still absorbed. 
 I leaned back in my chair and watched her. The table 
 before her was a model of neatness and order. The 
 papers had, apparently, been classified, and were now 
 all ranged in separate piles. She was working on a large 
 sheet before her. I got up and went over to her. 
 
 ' Don't work too long upon that. You'll make your- 
 self so tired,' I said. 
 
 ' Just finished,' she answered, as indeed she had, and 
 she blotted the last line and then gave me the five large 
 sheets of the precis and leaned back in her chair with 
 a laugh to see my surprise and pleasure. 
 
 It was admirable. Every paper had been translated 
 and the pith of each extracted and set down with 
 perfect clearness. The letters and testimony were 
 translated and copied with the greatest accuracy, and 
 correct references had been put against each item by 
 which one could find at once the original. 
 
 ' Thank you,' I said very earnestly. ' You have done 
 285
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 that wonderfully. Far quicker than I could. How 
 have you attained such a faculty for grasping things? 
 
 'I don't know. I suppose I always had it. I re- 
 member my mathematical tutor said to me when I was 
 first learning Euclid that I could always see the pro- 
 positions quicker than any of his other pupils, and in 
 reading Tacitus I often saw what the passage meant 
 before the tutor did. Anyhow, I am awfully glad I 
 helped you with the precis, and, now, let's go home. I 
 want my tea.' 
 
 The next day the deputy-judge complimented me on 
 the ' very masterly way in which the evidence had been 
 condensed and reduced from a mass of confusion to a 
 remarkably clear and lucid statement' 
 
 But it was not Anna's knowledge of Greek and Latin, 
 nor even her capability of precis writing that made her 
 so infinitely valuable to me each day of my life. Such 
 an incident might only occur once in many months. 
 It was her intense sympathy. A sympathy that 
 emanated naturally from her as perfume from a flower. 
 And the fount of that sympathy was in those clever 
 brains of hers. Now, the sympathy that comes from the 
 brain as well as from the heart is infinitely more com- 
 prehensive and satisfying than that which comes from 
 the heart only. That good-natured sympathy that is 
 offered sometimes by a warm heart beating in an un- 
 educated person's breast ! How often is it galling and 
 irritating in the extreme! It is uncertain also. It 
 reaches out to a toothache and extends over bad colds 
 and accidents. It stretches into the region of linseed 
 poultices and physical comforts. But to those deeper 
 286
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 wounds and keener pains of the soul it cannot reach. 
 To a brain like Anna's there was nothing in the human 
 emotions too difficult to understand. Knock in any 
 way you would at the door of her soul, and it would 
 always fly open to you immediately. She would never 
 meet you with the blank, dull stare of hopeless non-com- 
 prehension. You knew she would never disappoint you. 
 The little troubles of life, and the large, the physical 
 pains and the mental, she could understand them all. 
 All of them from a finger jammed in a door, or an 
 insult from the head of a department, to the loss of an 
 appointment or the destruction of an art treasure 
 came within her province of sympathy. And, under 
 her influence, I felt that my own character was chang- 
 ing too. Unconsciously to myself at the time I grew 
 less selfish. It never seemed any trouble to do any- 
 thing for her } she was so grateful, and, insensibly, her 
 habit of throwing herself always into my mood, what- 
 ever it might be, and interesting herself in anything I 
 was interested in, gradually taught me also that secret of 
 sympathy with another that alone is capable of smooth- 
 ing out the rugged lines of life. And in this way the 
 weeks and months passed by of not the happiest period, 
 but still a happy one, of my existence. The cloud of 
 the dread that I might o soon lose her hung over it 
 and obscured the sunshine. The last day of November 
 came, and in this station of the plains it was terribly hot 
 and sultry. The air seemed to thicken and thicken as 
 night approached, until one felt suffocation in breathing 
 it. Towards dark, as I was standing for a moment by 
 an open window, watching the great tridents of lightning 
 287
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 playing on the horizon, Anna came up to me and 
 touched my arm. 
 
 ' Gerald, I am in such horrible pain,' she whispered. 
 
 I turned instantly and looked at her. Her face was 
 white to the lips and an ungoverned terror looked out 
 of her eyes. I put my arm round her and I felt she 
 was trembling as one trembles in ague ; as I drew her 
 closer I could feel her heart was leaping in great ir- 
 regular beats, her hands were cold and as wet as if they 
 had been dipped in water. 
 
 'Hold me,' she whispered. 'I am so frightened; I 
 don't know what it will be like . . . and the pain, 
 Gerald, you have no idea ; when it comes on, it is some- 
 thing beyond words ; it annihilates one.' Then putting 
 her lips close on my ear she murmured, ' Oh, if it were 
 only something I was bearing for you, if it was only 
 pain that I was suffering for your sake, then I should 
 delight in it.' 
 
 I pressed her to me in silence, too far moved for 
 words, and she clung to me. 
 
 Xj can't bear to inflict the sight of my pain on you ; 
 but but if you were with me if you stayed with 
 me, I should not be so afraid.' 
 
 'Do you think I could be anywhere but with you, 
 knowing you were suffering ? ' I answered. ' Dear little 
 girl, of course I will stay with you all the time.' 
 
 She put back her head and looked at me, and her 
 lips opened to answer me ; then they twisted suddenly 
 into a half-smothered groan of pain. I had one glance 
 of fleeting terror from her eyes and then she fell for- 
 ward against me unconscious.
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 I carried her upstairs and laid her on her bed and 
 summoned her own attendants, the nurse and the 
 doctor, whom I had had lately staying in the house 
 with us. Then I sat down by the bed, holding her 
 hand in mine and realising that that little helpless 
 hand held the whole globe of the world in it for 
 me. 
 
 ' I don't think we shall need you, sir,' said the 
 English nurse. 
 
 'My dear fellow, you had better not stay here, 
 urged the doctor. 
 
 'I intend to remain,' I answered, and they said no 
 more. 
 
 Through the whole of that terrible night I stayed 
 beside her, and whose was the greater suffering it 
 would be hard to say. The physical agony dominated 
 her completely, but she was still blindly conscious of 
 the touch of my hand and of my presence, and kept 
 the teeth on her lip till the blood came to hold back 
 her screams for my sake. 
 
 The long hours stretched out their moments to in- 
 finite length over our heads, and it seemed to me 
 impossible that any human frame could wrestle with 
 agony and withstand it for so long. It seemed as if 
 in those wild struggles the soul must get loose, free 
 itself and fly from me. In the last moments of terror, 
 when my own heart was beating in my throat in 
 dread, she tore open her eyes and fixed them on me. 
 The fear in them was heartrending, yet not only 
 fear was there. There was a desperate appeal to me 
 for that help and comfort she always turned to me to 
 T 289
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 gain. She told me afterwards my face had given her 
 strength and courage for the supreme effort. Just as 
 the dawn broke over the plains, and the first soft light 
 crept tranquilly into that room of agony, her child was 
 born and she herself fell back nerveless, it seemed 
 lifeless. I bent over her and she told me later that 
 she had felt my face close above hers, that she had 
 longed to open her eyes, to smile, to speak, to reassure 
 me, to thank me ; but that her power was gone. Not 
 even strength remained to raise the eyelids ; they lay 
 like lead upon her eyeballs ; her hand would not obey 
 her desire to close it on mine. And while I heard a 
 voice telling me she was alive and safe, she lay pallid 
 and motionless with closed eyes before me. I stooped 
 and kissed her, and for the only time there was no 
 response. 
 
 396
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A SQUARE landing with a door half open into a room 
 full of daylight. A bed with its white curtains looped 
 back, and Anna lying there half raised upon one 
 elbow, and the white light of morning striking on her 
 rapt, downward-gazing face. I was crossing the out- 
 side landing, and I paused and looked in and then 
 remained there. 
 
 That look of rapture on her face held me motionless, 
 and even my heart-beats seemed to grow still as I 
 watched her. On her left arm lay Gaida's child asleep ; 
 and unconscious of my presence, unconscious of all 
 else in the world but it, she was gazing down into its 
 face. 
 
 ' My darling, my sweet little love,' I heard her 
 murmur. ' You are all my own. How good God has 
 been to give you to me ! ' 
 
 She was silent for a moment, lost in contemplation, 
 and then, suddenly, in a passion of delight, she threw 
 herself forward on the child, covering it with her warm 
 kisses. 
 
 The child awoke and a feeble cry went through 
 
 the room. Anna raised hersejf and shook back her 
 
 long, shining hair, raising the child on one arm so 
 
 that it was brought distinctly into my view, and a 
 
 291
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 shudder went over me. It was hideous with that 
 curious hideousness of aspect that belongs usually to 
 the fruit of Eurasian marriages. As it lay on Anna's 
 arm now the peculiar whiteness of her skin threw up 
 its dusky tint. Anna bent over it again, pressing her 
 lips to its head just darkened by the coming hair. 
 
 ' Did its mother wake it then ? ' she murmured, 
 laughing and stopping its cries by kisses on its eyes 
 and mouth. The child cried violently and thrust its 
 tiny hand up to the silken masses of her hair, and 
 she threw her head back laughing, and I saw her 
 face gleaming with happy light, and her lips parted 
 in smiles and her eyes full of joy. Then, as the 
 child continued to cry, she bent over and kissed it 
 again as if her lips could never be satiated, on its 
 tiny struggling hands and feet, on the little red knees 
 that kept drawing up, on its heaving chest and open 
 crying mouth, and all her face expressed passionate 
 adoration, and all the movements of her body joyous 
 emotion, and I stood still, without the open door, 
 watching her, transfixed. 
 
 It seemed some strange illusion of the senses that I 
 stood outside watching my Anna, or at least the Anna 
 that had been mine, absorbed in this worship of another 
 life, and I realised that I was face to face with Nature 
 and her laws. In that small, dark object on the bed, 
 that I could crush with one hand, was made manifest 
 a force before which I and my life and my love and 
 service were as nothing. Anna was now a mother, 
 and with her maternity had come the insensate idolatry, 
 the passionate absorption of maternity, and those feeble 
 292
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 fingers of the child beating the air would sweep from 
 her heart the record of our love the love that had 
 withstood all the blows that shame and sin and sorrow 
 could hurl against it. 
 
 I stood still gazing on the scene before me, realising 
 that I was helpless, that, strong as I had been and as 
 my love had been for her sake, I was now in the 
 presence of a force to which I must yield, for Nature's 
 own hand was uplifted against me, and Anna and the 
 child were but the helpless exponents of her eternal 
 laws. That the child was hideous, horrible in its 
 suggestion of mixed blood; horrible as the evidence 
 of a passion long since dead, and from which she 
 had, in suffering, freed herself, made no difference 
 to her blinded eyes. It was her child, and blindly 
 following the instinct grown up in her she loved it to 
 the exclusion of all else, as the jealous maternal instinct 
 commands. 
 
 Within the room all sound had ceased, for the mother 
 had gathered the child to her bosom and opened her 
 breast to it, and the light fell now on her head droop- 
 ing over it, and her face was rapt and dreaming, as 
 the small dark mouth drew life from her breast. 
 
 I turned silently and descended the stairs with noise- 
 less feet and gained a lower room and sat down with 
 my head upon my hands. This, then, was my hour 
 of liberation. This was the hour of my reward. This 
 was what I had waited for through all these months. 
 
 I recalled her fevered words to me only a week ago, 
 uttered in a voice almost smothered in distress and 
 shame. 
 
 293
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 ' I shall hate it, Gerald, so much, I never want my 
 eyes to rest on it. You will have it taken away from 
 me at once, won't you? Sent away from me where I 
 can never see it, and then I shall be all your own and 
 nothing can come between us any more.' 
 
 That is what she had thought and fancied, and I, 
 why had I not foreseen the truth? But I had not, 
 and quite suddenly, after the suffering and hoping and 
 longing for months for our emancipation and reunion, 
 when it came, this iron law had risen between us, and 
 she went forward blindly where it directed, and I 
 fell backward, unnoticed and forgotten. 
 
 She was not to blame. As the child had been the 
 consequence of her passion for Gaida, so this new 
 maternal passion was the consequence of the birth of 
 the child. Thus the chain of the Past goes on ever 
 Stretching into the Future. 
 
 Some days passed and I existed in Anna's life as some 
 shadow, undefined, that an artist puts in the background 
 of a scene. She lived in the child. She was not the 
 least unkind or ungentle to me. When I spoke to her 
 she answered me without looking at me, and when I 
 kissed her she kissed me back with absent lips. She 
 was apparently unconscious of me and my presence, 
 except when her own worship of the child failed to 
 satisfy her, and she wanted others to be charmed by 
 it and render it homage with herself, and then she 
 would call me to the bedside to admire it and rejoice 
 with her over it. 
 
 The child, as the days passed, lost a little of its first 
 repulsiveness, and to no eyes but those that knew the 
 294
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 secret of its birth would it have seemed different from 
 a European's. I myself being so dark, the child was 
 supposed to ' favour me ' and ' resemble me,' and these 
 phrases fell upon my ears many times in those long 
 empty days from Anna's friends that came to con- 
 gratulate us. But these small stabs affected me little. 
 The one great grief encompassed and numbed me, 
 and I felt only it. That she was no longer mine. 
 Far less so now than when her body belonged to 
 another but her mind to me. Now her mind was 
 closed against me. She was still too frail and delicate 
 for me to trust myself to enter into any discussion 
 of the position with her, and I let day follow day, 
 acquiescing in all she said and wished, and watched 
 the colour and life flowing back to her, which it did 
 with marvellous rapidity. So that while she nursed 
 the child and it drew its life from hers, it seemed also 
 as if in some subtle way she received back from it more 
 than she gave, and her face grew more brilliant and her 
 laughter lighter and stronger each day. 
 
 And I watched her and waited and said nothing, 
 asking myself a thousand times a day, ' What should 
 I do?' 
 
 For herself, she seemed completely to have forgotten 
 all that she had begged and entreated of me before the 
 child was born. All the arrangements that had been 
 made for its care, and future home, far from Anna, I 
 cancelled without consulting her. She never alluded to 
 them. All the frenzy of hate she had expressed to me 
 in shamed whispers seemed like something I must have 
 heard in a dream. The child's actual presence had 
 295
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 effaced, apparently, all those months and the feelings 
 that belonged to them, as if they had never been. 
 
 One day, when a little over a month had passed since 
 the birth of the child, I was sitting in my study at work 
 when she sent down for me and asked me to go to her. 
 I went at once with my heart beating. It was possible, 
 I thought, that the first abandonment of maternal love 
 was past, and she wanted to take me back into her 
 thoughts and life. Perhaps I had been unjust and im- 
 patient in my judgment of her. If, in the first blindness 
 and intoxication of her love, she had passed me over 
 and neglected me, it was wholly natural and to be for- 
 given, but now it was over, and she had remembered 
 me. 
 
 With hope in my eyes and heart I knocked gently at 
 her closed door, and in answer to her gay ' Come in ' I 
 entered, and all the hope died out. She had, apparently, 
 been dressing the child, for the room was littered with 
 lace and linen and veils, and the child itself was sup- 
 ported by cushions in its bassinette, and sat up like a 
 doll in a voluminous cloud of muslin. With her head 
 half turned backward to the cradle, she came to the 
 door, and took my hand and drew me over to it. 
 
 'Look, Gerald, doesn't he look lovely in his new 
 clothes? Isn't he a darling?' 
 
 I stood silent and rigid by the cot. What a bitter 
 thing is jealousy ! And that first deadly sip of it that 
 we take from the cup generally held to our lips by the 
 hands we have loved and trusted till then that is the 
 worst moment. That surpasses in pain the tragedies 
 and open warfare that may come afterwards. That 
 296
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 first moment of tasting it, which we do with smiling 
 lips because we will not admit, we do not know, we 
 are poisoned, that is the worst. 
 
 'Don't you like him in this new dress?' she pursued, 
 not heeding me, but stooping over the cradle to tie a 
 ribbon by the child's shoulder. 'Gerald, I never 
 was so utterly, so perfectly happy as I am now. I 
 never could have believed I could be so happy.' She 
 finished tying the bow and rose from her knees. 
 'Isn't he sweet?' she said, drawing off a little 
 way and regarding him. ' Don't you want to kiss 
 him? You may if you like,' she added, laughing 
 joyously. 
 
 Still I could not speak nor move. I seemed bound 
 there and voiceless, and I suppose my silence pene- 
 trated at last even her self-absorption. She looked 
 up suddenly in my face. I do not know what she 
 may have read there, but she gave a little cry and 
 pushed me from the cradle. 
 
 ' Gerald, you're jealous.' 
 
 I turned away to the window and put my arms on 
 the edge of the open jilmil, and said nothing. Words 
 seemed so inadequate. The situation seemed so cruel 
 beyond all hope. 
 
 'Gerald!' There was astonishment, anger, re- 
 proach in her voice, and it stung me beyond 
 endurance. 
 
 I turned and faced her. 
 
 'Anna,' I said, and the tone was the hardest and 
 sternest she had ever heard from me, 'there is no 
 need to educate you in the emotions, surely, or has 
 297
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 your maternity quite blinded and changed you and 
 swept away your intellect entirely?' 
 
 Anna stood facing me with wide-open eyes and a 
 gradually blanching face. At first she did not seem to 
 understand, and her eyes kept their usual expression 
 now, of seeming to look at without seeing me. But 
 after a few minutes the expression grew more conscious, 
 then keenly so, and at last sorrow, sympathy and con- 
 trition rushed over it together. 
 
 ' What have I done ? ' she said. ' Have I been very 
 selfish? Have I been unkind to you?' She was 
 awakened now, and her eyes no longer looked past 
 me but hard into mine. She stretched out her hands 
 pleadingly, and her lips opened and quivered question- 
 ingly. I took her hands and drew them gently to my 
 breast. 
 
 ' Have you forgotten all we said a little over a month 
 ago, and how we have both waited for our perfect union 
 till now, and now, have we been nearer together or 
 further apart just lately? Have I been taken more 
 into your life, or less?' 
 
 There was a long silence. And it seemed to me that 
 the old Anna, that had belonged to me, was struggling 
 to awake in this new Anna that belonged to her child. 
 Then at last she said brokenly and suddenly, 
 
 ' I understand. Yes, Gerald, I remember, but when it 
 came it was all so different. It seemed I never could 
 have meant all I had said. And I thought you under- 
 stood too. And now, what can I do ? I do love it so. 
 Even if I tried I could not conceal that love from you. 
 The child is between us, I see it ; but what can I do ? ' 
 298
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 ' Nothing,' I said bitterly, ' there is nothing to be done.' 
 
 And I went away out of the room, leaving her 
 standing in the centre of the tumbled dolls' clothes, and 
 the child in the bassinette at her side. I feared I might 
 say something which I should repent, and I went out 
 and rode across the desert until it was late afternoon. 
 When I returned, Anna's ayah was sitting on my library 
 door-mat waiting for me. 
 
 'The Mem Sahib has been crying, crying all the 
 afternoon,' she said, ' and told me to find the sahib and 
 send him to her when he returned.' 
 
 I went up the few short stairs without waiting for 
 another word and entered the room alone. It seemed 
 empty, but a little glad cry guided me to the bed. Anna 
 lay in it white and exhausted. She stretched out her 
 arms towards me as I approached and whispered as I 
 bent over her, 
 
 ' All this is so dreadful. We must do something.' 
 
 I sat down beside the bed holding one of those very, 
 very slim, delicate hands in mine, whiter almost than 
 the embroidery of the sleeve above it. The child lay 
 sleeping on the other side. 
 
 ' It is another of those great, invisible iron laws that 
 we have stumbled against, that gird this life all round 
 and make it what it is,' I said wearily. ' It is natural 
 for a mother to love her child; that is the law, and 
 it is not our fault that this terrible position has 
 grown up. We did not either of us foresee it, and 
 it is simply the working out . of all that has gone 
 before.' 
 
 She was looking at me intently. I sat facing the 
 299
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 window, and the vivid glory of tawny light flung up from 
 the desert came in upon my face. She seemed to 
 see something there that arrested her eyes beyond 
 removing. 
 
 'Gerald,' she said at last, 'in return for all you have 
 done for me always, I am killing you.' 
 
 I smiled a faint, weary smile. I could not contradict 
 her. In truth, more than half of me seemed dead 
 already. 
 
 'It is not your fault. These laws are greater than 
 we are.' 
 
 There was a long silence and the tawny light died 
 away outside and within, and then, out of the grey 
 shadows, came her voice. 
 
 ' I will be above the law for your sake.' 
 
 I smiled again. When we are young we all talk 
 lightly of the laws of life, even when we recognise their 
 existence at all, which we generally do not do until we 
 have stumbled against them in the dark and fallen back 
 crushed and bleeding. As we grow older we know 
 more and speak less lightly. I pressed her hand and 
 rose. 
 
 ' Go to sleep, dear child, and grow well and strong 
 again, and do not try to arrange life. Life is stronger 
 than you.' 
 
 I was about to turn and leave her, but she called me back. 
 
 ' Come here. Bend down and look at me.' 
 
 I did as she asked, and the fire of those eyes burnt 
 
 into mine. ' Do you forget that I am Anna Lombard, 
 
 and I love you, I love you, I have always loved you ? 
 
 I understand everything. You shall have the reward 
 
 300
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 of your long, long service. The law shall break to give 
 it to you.' 
 
 I thought she was excited and light-headed. I stooped 
 and kissed her. 
 
 'Try to sleep. Whatever happens, one law will 
 always remain. I shall always love you.' 
 
 And I left her and walked down to the lower room 
 and then on to the verandah, where I sat gazing out 
 over the desert with unseeing eyes. 
 
 ' What should I do ? ' I asked myself. ' How should I 
 dispose of my life ? ' It seemed but a battered remnant 
 that was left me. Take that in my hand and go with it 
 whither ? It was impossible to stay living on beside 
 Anna, seeing her wholly devoted to and wrapped up in 
 the child. I had tried a similar experiment that had 
 left me dying at Peshawur once before. And then there 
 had been hope. Now there was none ; I saw clearly 
 and refused to be deceived. This was a growing evil, 
 one that would grow with the child's life, expand and 
 blossom with its growth. It would absorb the whole of 
 that passionate soul, once my own, that seemed to know 
 no limit between affection and adoration. No, I would 
 not undertake it. I would not allow it to enter my 
 thoughts as a possible consideration. The only thing to 
 be settled was to provide comfortably for Anna and her 
 child and leave them both. Life stretched before me as 
 dreary as the desert itself. Something of the old feeling 
 I had had before I met her was with me now, only then 
 it had been mixed with the freshness and vigour of 
 unsullied youth and the impatience and fever of over- 
 much strength. Now it was mixed with the dreadful 
 301
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 languor of exhaustion. Life had caught me in its vice 
 and wrung and twisted, and bruised and battered me, so 
 that I felt as an old, old man. 
 
 The next two or three days I noticed a change in 
 Anna. She grew extremely grave and silent, never 
 addressing me in any way, and starting visibly when 
 spoken to. She seemed to have awakened from the 
 ecstatic dream that the realisation of her maternity 
 had plunged her into. She gazed long and earnestly 
 at my face whenever I was with her, as if trying to 
 read the solution of the problem she was studying 
 there, and I noticed an effort to conceal the child from 
 me whenever I approached. She spoke no more to 
 it nor of it in my presence, and her eyes were shaded 
 and darkened with the shadow of heavy thought. 
 
 From all of this I drew a sad satisfaction. She was, 
 at least, something more of my Anna again. She 
 was no longer merely the absorbed mother, seeing and 
 recognising nothing but her child's face, and hearing 
 nothing but her child's voice. She was again allowing 
 me some share in her thoughts, though what that share 
 was, and in what kind of thoughts I had no idea, and 
 she gave me no clue. I saw her look at me long 
 and hungrily as I sat beside her, and then turn her 
 eyes towards the little hump under the sheet where 
 her child lay, but she would not answer me when I 
 questioned her as to her thoughts, though once she 
 burst into passionate tears and begged me to leave 
 her room. I divined that she, like myself, was gazing 
 into the dark mirror of the future, and, like myself, 
 shrinking from what it held for us we who had really 
 302
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 loved. Perhaps I ought to have known what all this 
 portended and seen where it was leading her. But not 
 the faintest foreshadowing or premonition of the truth 
 was vouchsafed to me. Nor should I have been 
 able to influence her nor prevent what followed had 
 I been forewarned. In that singularly soft and gentle 
 temperament there existed an underlying force and 
 violence which, when aroused, dominated irresistibly 
 everything opposed to it. During those few days I, 
 too, was preoccupied with the problem my own future 
 offered, but I saw in a dim way, that became clearer 
 to me afterwards, that she was wrestling in the throes 
 of some terrible struggle with herself. 
 
 One evening, towards sunset, when the day's work 
 was over, I was sitting alone, as usual now, in my library. 
 Anna and the child were upstairs. Since the day when 
 she had looked into my face and read everything there, 
 all her rapid convalescence, all that exuberant re- 
 building of Nature had suddenly stopped. She had 
 gone steadily backward and lay now day after day pale 
 and silent on her bed. I felt guilty and reproached 
 myself. I should have withdrawn from her when I was 
 no longer needed and left her to this new joy which 
 had filled her life. Yet even that could not have been 
 done without explanation and understanding. But 
 I felt I had awakened her too roughly. Why does 
 it seem fated, I asked myself, when one strives and 
 strives to do well for another, that there should be always 
 some moment of weakness, of selfishness that overtakes 
 one and undoes all that one has done? I saw now 
 clearly that the old love reawakened in her heart was 
 303
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 battling there with the new and tearing her between 
 them in the struggle, just as in former times. Surely 
 the best that I could do was to leave her to the fulfil- 
 ment of the natural law and the natural destiny of 
 women, to withdraw myself now, and so end the struggle 
 for her. To that I must summon my strength. And 
 yet, as I realised it, realised that I was to finally 
 renounce this thing that had been my pleasure and 
 my pain, my anguish and delight, and, through all, so 
 entirely my own, I shrank back dismayed. What 
 should we be one without the other? We whose 
 every thought even had been divided and shared? 
 She was interwoven with me in such intimacy that to 
 leave her, to lose her, seemed as impossible and absurd 
 as if my right arm could drop from me and assume a 
 life of its own. I looked up at her portrait on the wall 
 and met the strangely-powerful, gleaming eyes through 
 the dusk, and said to myself aloud in the silence, 
 ' This impossible thing is to be.' 
 
 There was a step behind me, a movement in the 
 room, and I turned and saw that Anna had entered. 
 She came close up to me, and quickly, like someone 
 who has a message to deliver. When she was directly 
 in front of me she stopped and lifted her face. I bent 
 forward, and a whisper I could hardly hear went through 
 the room. 
 
 'I have expiated my sins to you at last. I have 
 killed it.' 
 
 ' Killed what ? ' I said in a vague horror. Her words 
 conveyed no sense to me. 
 
 ' I have killed the child.' She said it very simply and
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 naturally. I searched her face with terror. I thought 
 she had lost her reason. But there was no insanity 
 in that countenance, only a dreadful grief and sorrow, 
 pathetic, tear-filled eyes and quivering lips that could 
 hardly frame the words. Before I could speak, before 
 I could collect my thoughts or realise it all, she went 
 on, 
 
 'I saw all. It was all revealed to me in a sudden 
 flash of light. I saw all your feelings these last weeks. 
 I looked back through all the previous months, then I 
 looked into the future and saw what that would be. 
 One had to be sacrificed, either you or the child. And 
 could it be you? Was this to be your reward for all 
 you have done and suffered for my sake ? Had it lived 
 it would have taken all my life. Now my grief will 
 take me for a few months, spare me to it for that time, 
 and then, after that, I am all your own for ever and 
 ever. While you live I will live for you and in you, 
 and when you die I will die with you.' 
 
 She spoke in a trembling voice and her face was 
 wet with the streaming tears that welled inexhaustibly 
 out of her eyes. She took one of my hands and kissed 
 it with cold lips, wet with tears. I stood still, dazed, 
 horrified, frozen. What had she done? Was it all 
 true and real, or was she raving? 
 
 'What have you done?' I said hoarsely; 'I don't 
 understand. Where is the child ? Let me see it.' 
 
 'Come upstairs,' she said simply, and turned to the 
 
 staircase, and I followed as in a dream. When we 
 
 reached the landing at the head of the stairs I stopped 
 
 still, a sort of numbness came over me. I felt I could 
 
 U 305
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 not face what lay before me in the room. Then, as in 
 a vision, I saw Anna turn back and take my hand and 
 lead me into the room. It was only half lighted, every- 
 thing was dim except the white charpoy in the centre, 
 and on it lay the child, as I had often seen it sleep- 
 ing. Anna drew me forward, and lifting one of my 
 hands when we stood beside the bed, laid it on the 
 child's forehead. It was quite cold. I looked down 
 at it. The dusky little form looked very, very small 
 and helpless now. Yet what a terrible power it had 
 possessed in life, a power before which our full lives 
 had been as nothing, because Nature had invested it 
 with the power of her law. Then I looked at the 
 mother. Anna's eyes were fixed upon me with a 
 devouring anxiety in them. In the dusk we looked 
 at each other over the tiny, quiet form of the child. 
 Then she stretched out her hands to me. 
 
 'Gerald, you do understand? I have done this for 
 you.' 
 
 And I whispered back, ' Yes, I understand.' 
 
 And our hands touched each other's and there was 
 silence. The room was very quiet and the dusk grew 
 deeper and deeper round us. At last, in the darkness, 
 Anna's voice broke out with a great cry, as she slipped 
 to her knees beside the bed, 
 
 ' Oh, how could I do it ? It was my own dear little 
 child, and I loved it so.' 
 
 306
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 JUST a week had passed over, a horrible week like a 
 nightmare, but it had passed and left me and Anna, 
 if this frail, attenuated spectre were really Anna, alone 
 in the wide bungalow as in former times. There was 
 no other presence, no call to summon her from my 
 side, no duties to take her from me ; no small clinging 
 vine running over the tree of our love and stifling it. 
 Anna, or her sad shadow, was my own again. She 
 was sitting opposite me in the verandah, a thin, narrow 
 figure in black, with all her hair put back from her face, 
 that was colourless and deathlike as a nun's. 
 
 She sat with her hands stiff and white in her lap and 
 her eyes looking out vacantly into the sunshine. 
 
 ' I want you to go away for a time, Gerald,' she was 
 saying. ' I want to try and understand things. I want 
 to lead the life of a penitent. I want to feel sure, before 
 I can begin to be happy again, that God understands 
 and forgives it all. It seemed right to me at the 
 time . . . but now . . . now, I don't know.' 
 
 She paused a minute or two and then went on. 
 'You know when the doctor came and questioned me 
 about the child's death, and I said I must have 
 suffocated it beneath me while I slept, then it came 
 home to me. I felt I was guilty, and I was. What 
 307
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 a mist of lies grew up round me, and this grief . . , 
 great God ! . . . that is so real, it is killing me, even 
 that seems all untrue and unholy because everyone 
 believes it is grief for what I could not help, not for 
 my own deed.' 
 
 I was silent. What could I answer her? 
 
 'And I should like to be quite alone to pray and 
 pray and pray, and fast and think and get near again 
 to God, as I have always felt I have been in my life, 
 and whatever I have done, I have never done what 
 / thought wrong. I have never felt that God was 
 angry with me. Now I feel so lost, so alone.' 
 
 Her voice shook and dropped. I went over to 
 her and stood by her. 'I am here,' I said gently. 
 
 'Yes, dear Gerald, I know, but the soul is a thing 
 apart and has a life of its own, an utterly separate 
 life that belongs to God, and no mortal can come 
 into it. To my brain, and heart, and body you are 
 all, but to my soul you are nothing. It does not 
 know you nor recognise you. In the hour of my 
 death, though your arms hold me , and your love is 
 all round me and your lips on mine, yet my soul 
 will slip away from you into the darkness all alone.' 
 
 We were both silent, and the horror of this life 
 and death seemed all round us, glaring at us from 
 out of the gold sunlight. 
 
 'And so,' she went on after a pause, with an effort, 
 'if I have done wrong, I want to repent. I want 
 to get back that peace of mind, that unity with God 
 I always had before. Will you go and leave me for 
 a time?' 
 
 308
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 ' I will always do whatever you ask me, you know ; 
 but why send me away . . . now, of all times ... I 
 ought to be with you, surely?' 
 
 Anna shook her head. 
 
 1 No, I shall think too much of you, become too 
 much drawn into your love, become too comforted 
 and consoled. I must be alone, and suffer and work 
 out some sort of repentance for myself which will 
 be accepted, and I shall be forgiven.' 
 
 She looked hard into my face and then murmured in 
 her old tender tones, ( I know it is hard upon you too. 
 But it is only one little trial more, one sorrow to bear for 
 a time, for I feel God means you to be happy. As for 
 me, I deserve nothing, but He will forgive me, perhaps, 
 for your sake, and let me be at last an instrument of 
 happiness to you, but it cannot be just yet. Leave 
 me to suffer a little while. Be patient just a little while 
 longer.' 
 
 I looked down at her; at the emaciation of the 
 figure in its close black dress; at the fragility of the 
 hand which I held in mine ; at the white transparency 
 of the face ; at the eyes that were dry now, worn out 
 with excessive weeping. 
 
 1 Anna, I can't leave you like this,' I exclaimed; 'more 
 suffering, more sorrow, and you will go from me 
 altogether.' 
 
 She shook her head, and a little smile that was full of 
 power came into her face. ' No, I think not. I shall 
 try to live, to do better than I have done. Only leave 
 me to myself.' 
 
 ' But for how long ? ' I asked desperately. 
 309
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 1 1 think it should be a year,' she said in a low tone 
 and with downcast eyes. 
 
 I groaned. ' A year 1 Exile for a year ! But 
 why . . . Anna, it's absurd.' 
 
 ' If I should feel I were forgiven sooner I would write 
 to you,' she answered in a low voice. ' But, oh, Gerald, 
 don't make it harder for me than it is,' she cried 
 suddenly, with a rush of tears ; ' help me to do some- 
 thing which I think is right. Think what I am what I 
 have done.' 
 
 ' Dear child, your will is mine. It has always been, 
 you know. Tell me when you wish me to go and when 
 to return and it shall be so ! ' 
 
 She was leaning back against me exhausted. ' Go to- 
 morrow,' she whispered faintly, ' and come back when I 
 send to you.' 
 
 ' It will seem so strange,' I murmured mechanic- 
 ally. 'What will everyone say to see you alone, and 
 I' 
 
 A ghost of a mocking smile came to her lips and 
 eyes. ' Have we ever cared what they said ? ' she 
 whispered. 
 
 And the following day I went into exile. These 
 things are easy to arrange when one is in high places and 
 money is at hand. 
 
 Anna's good-bye to me was pitiful pathetic as the 
 young nun's to her parents when she has renounced the 
 world, but it was as pure and unimpassioned. 
 
 Passion to her suddenly seemed revealed as a sin. It 
 jarred with her grief and she shrank from the kiss of my 
 lips and turned hers away. 
 
 310
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 After I had left her I recalled the parting with 
 wonder, and it seemed as if the Anna Lombard I had 
 known had vanished with the death of the child into 
 the past. 
 
 For a whole year I stayed away and in exile. I had 
 plenty of work, for I only exchanged stations, and in one 
 a thousand miles away I went through the same duties I 
 had in my own. But my inner life seemed at a stand 
 still. My own pleasure was dead. Anna had so long 
 been the centre of my thoughts that when that was cut 
 away they seemed unable to rally round any other object. 
 I saw other women and met them and danced with 
 them and dined with them, but I felt as a deaf man at 
 an opera. Some idle show is passing before his eyes 
 which means nothing to him and cannot reach him 
 through his closed ears. I lived in the moment when I 
 should return to her, and in her letters. They were not 
 very frequent and they were subdued, even a little cold, 
 but I felt in them a growing confidence in herself, a 
 tone of increasing peace and calm, and I was satisfied. 
 She was really working out her repentance, and when 
 that was accomplished I knew she would summon me to 
 her. Her past had been another's and her present was 
 now her own, but her future belonged to me, I knew. 
 And I waited and kept my patience. At last the 
 summons came. It was very short. 
 
 ' I believe I am forgiven, and that it is right to recall 
 you. Come back to me. ANNA.' 
 
 And that same night I started to return. A heavy, 
 3"
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 sullen, orange sun was hanging low in the western sky 
 over the rolling plains as I rode from the station towards 
 the bungalow on the third day. The light, parched dust 
 rose in little whirls before me as the hot desert wind ran 
 over it and licked it up here and there. Otherwise there 
 was no moving thing and the silence was complete, 
 except for the thudding of my own heart as we rode 
 forward. I wondered how she would receive me, and 
 I remembered how I had left her. Was I coming back 
 to that same black-robed penitent? Was the old, 
 loving, impetuous, erring Anna shut away from me for 
 ever behind the invisible door of the Past? It was 
 fated, apparently, that I should love her through all 
 time and metamorphoses, but my heart sank as I 
 thought of those firm red lips faded to a nun-like pale- 
 ness, and that curling, amorous hair, that held the 
 changing lights, subdued beneath a veil, as I had seen 
 it last, and all the buoyant passions of her nature 
 tamed and put to sleep. 
 
 A chill seemed to surround me in the midst of the 
 hot breath of the desert, and the huge burnished disc 
 ahead of me sank lower in the mist. 
 
 As the last long undulation of the sandy plain 
 was surmounted, the roof of the white bungalow 
 and the encircling palms rose into sight, and 
 drawing my breath almost still, I urged the horse 
 forward. 
 
 There was no sign of life as I approached. I 
 
 descried the long windows of the upper storey and the 
 
 covered balcony where the child had slept. The garden 
 
 beneath bloomed like one single rose in its wealth of 
 
 312
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 blossom, and a cool air came from it and diffused its 
 fragrance. I drew my horse in at the compound gate, 
 and at that instant there was a step upon the gravel, and 
 I turned and saw her. 
 
 A figure in white with the sunlight in the eyes and 
 hair. It was the same Anna Lombard I had left a 
 maiden sleeping in the garden. Only now it was Anna 
 awakened, with the look behind the eyes of one who has 
 read all the secrets of Life, and the look above 
 the brows of one who has met Life and conquered 
 it. 
 
 She ran down towards me with feet that hardly 
 touched the ground, then, when a few paces from me, 
 she stopped, and with one turn of her hand brought over 
 her shoulder the bright, shining twist of hair that had 
 captured my senses long ago, and she paused, gazing 
 at me expectantly. ' Do I please you ? ' she whispered. 
 
 Her eyes were shining, her whole face was lighted 
 from within, her body seemed expanding and dilating 
 with the force of her nervous joy. She had in those 
 moments a beauty beyond description. My eyes swam 
 as I looked at her. 
 
 'Dearest Anna, you are beautiful, but it is not for 
 these things that I love you, you know.' 
 
 'I know, I know,' she murmured, throwing herself 
 into my arms, putting her own soft ones about my 
 neck, and pressing the rose of her mouth against my 
 cheek. ' But you are human and you like to have them, 
 and I am human and I like to give them, and we have 
 both suffered so much no one would grudge us our 
 happiness now, and, oh, I have so prayed for God to
 
 Anna Lombard 
 
 give me back my good looks to reward you with, and 
 that He has done so is a sign of His forgiveness: 
 don't you think so ? ' 
 
 And I answered softly, 'Yes, dear.' 
 
 THE END 
 
 Colston S> Coy. Limited, Printers, Edinburgh,
 
 Crown Svo., 6s. i4th Edition 
 
 The Most Daring Novel of Modern Times 
 
 THE STORM OF LONDON 
 
 By F. DICKBERRY 
 PEOPLE'S EDITION, Price 1s. 
 
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 Fergus Hume 
 
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 Richard Marsh 
 
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 John Strange Winter 
 
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 Florence Warden 
 
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 Victoria Cross 
 
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 ONE OF A MOB just Published 
 
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 THE STORM OF LONDON 
 
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 Mr. John Long's New "Books 
 
 General Literature 
 
 MATILDA, 
 COUNTESS OF TUSCANY 
 
 By MRS. MARY E. HUDDY 
 
 Demy 8vo. t with 4 magnificent Photogravure Plates, 12s. net. 
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 produced." 
 
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 GLIMPSES OF THE AGES 
 
 OR, 
 
 The "Superior" and "Inferior" Races, so-called, Discussed 
 in the Light of Science and History 
 
 By THEOPHILUS K. SAMUEL SCHOLES, M.D., Etc. 
 Demy 8vo., 12s. net. 
 
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 daintiness of their format. Each Volume contains a Biographical Introduction by the Editor, 
 Mr. HANNAFORD BENNETT. The first twelve works are : 
 
 CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE - - 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING - 
 
 THE FOUR GEORGES 
 
 WARREN HASTINGS 
 
 TALES (Selected) 
 
 CHRISTABEL, and Other Poems - - - 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY .... 
 THE LIFE OF NELSON (double Vol.) 
 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL and Other Poems 
 ON HEROES AND HERO WORSHIP 
 
 SONNETS - - 
 
 RASSELAS - 
 
 LORD BYRON 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY 
 
 LORD MACAULAY 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE 
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE 
 
 LAURENCE STERNE 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHEY 
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 THOMAS CARLVLE 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
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 FATHER ANTHONY (Illustrated) 
 A CABINET SECRET (Illustrated) 
 AN OUTSIDER'S YEAR - ... 
 
 FUGITIVE ANNE 
 
 THE FUTURE OF PHYLLIS - 
 
 BENEATH THE VEIL 
 
 THE SCARLET SEAL 
 
 A DIFFICULT MATTER . . . . 
 
 A PASSING FANCY 
 
 BITTER FRUIT 
 
 AN ILL WIND 
 
 A WOMAN'S "NO" 
 
 MIDSUMMER MADNESS .."'.'. 
 THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO 
 THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM - - 
 A TRAITOR IN LONDON - - . . 
 THE MACHINATIONS OF JANET 
 
 THE MAGNETIC GIRL 
 
 THE BURDEN OF HER YOUTH - - 
 
 IN SUMMER SHADE 
 
 A FLIRTATION WITH TRUTH - - 
 DELPHINE 
 
 - ROBERT BUCHANAN 
 
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 JOHN LONG, 13 8j 14 Morris Street, Haymarket, London
 
 SOME RECENT POPULAR NOVELS 
 
 Six Shillings each 
 THE STORM OF LONDON .... 
 
 THE MASK 
 
 BLIND POLICY 
 
 THE AMBASSADOR'S GLOVE 
 LADY SYLVIA - - .... 
 
 THE WATERS OF OBLIVION - 
 
 THE FATE OF FELIX 
 
 THE BOOK OF ANGELUS DRAYTON 
 THE TEMPTATION OF ANTHONY - 
 LITTLE WIFE HESTER .... 
 THE NIGHT OF RECKONING - - - 
 
 ROSAMOND GRANT 
 
 LORD EVERSLEIGH'S SINS - 
 CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG LADY 
 
 LOVE AND TWENTY 
 
 HIS REVERENCE THE RECTOR - 
 
 THE INFORMER 
 
 THE FACE IN THE FLASHLIGHT 
 THE WAR OF THE SEXES 
 COUNT REMINY ... . 
 
 THE PROVINCIALS 
 
 STRAINED ALLEGIANCE .... 
 
 OLIVE KINSELLA 
 
 FROM THE CLUTCH OF THE SEA - 
 
 LORD OF HIMSELF 
 
 MISS ARNOTT'S MARRIAGE - 
 
 AN IMPOSSIBLE HUSBAND - 
 
 A WOMAN OF BUSINESS - 
 
 THE COUNTESS OF MOUNTENOY - 
 
 A SOLDIER AND A GENTLEMAN 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF MIRANDA - 
 
 HEARTS ARE TRUMPS .... 
 
 THE GIRL IN GREY 
 
 A FOOL WITH WOMEN .... 
 THE IDENTITY OF JANE .... 
 A BOND OF SYMPATHY .... 
 MADEMOISELLE NELLIE .... 
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 - (480 pp.) ANTHONY TROLL 
 
 672 pp.) CHARLES READE 
 
 576 pp.) WILKIE COLLINS 
 480 pp.) GEORGE ELIOT 
 432 pp.) W. M. THACKERAY 
 600 pp.) CHARLES KINGSLEY 
 
 THE WOMAN IN WHITE 
 
 ADAM BEDE 
 
 THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND 
 WESTWARD HO! - - - - - 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS - - 320 pp.) THOMAS HUGHES 
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 BENEATH THE VEIL - 
 
 THE BURDEN OF HER YOUTH - 
 
 LE SELVE - 
 
 SWEET "DOLL" OF HADDON HALL 
 
 THE LADY OF THE ISLAND 
 
 MIDSUMMER MADNESS 
 
 THE MAGNETIC GIRL- 
 
 No. 3, THE SQUARE - 
 
 THE JADE EYE - ... 
 
 19O5 
 
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 AN OUTSIDER'S YEAR 
 
 SOMETHING IN THE CITY - 
 
 THE LOVELY MRS. PEMBERTON 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF DUDLEY HORNE - 
 
 THE BOHEMIAN GIRLS 
 
 KITTY'S ENGAGEMENT 
 
 OUR WIDOW 
 
 THE TURNPIKE HOUSE 
 
 THE GOLDEN WANG-HO - 
 
 THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO 
 
 THE BISHOP'S SECRET 
 
 THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM 
 
 A TRAITOR IN LONDON 
 
 WOMAN THE SPHINX 
 
 A WOMAN'S "NO" - 
 
 A DIFFICULT MATTER 
 
 THE CRAZE OF CHRISTINA 
 
 A PASSING FANCY .... 
 
 BITTER FRUIT 
 
 AN ILL WIND - - - 
 
 CURIOS; or, The Strange Adventures 
 of Two Bachelors .... 
 MRS. MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND 
 ADA VERNHAM, ACTRESS - 
 THE EYE OF ISTAR - 
 THE VEILED MAN 
 A MAN OF TO-DAY - 
 THE SIN OF HAGAR - 
 THE JUGGLER AND THE SOUL - 
 FATHER ANTHONY - 
 THE WOOING OF MONICA - 
 THE SIN OF JASPER STAND1SH - 
 A CABINET SECRET - 
 THE FUTURE OF PHYLLIS - 
 A BEAUTIFUL REBEL - 
 THE PROGRESS OF PAULINE KESSLER 
 IN SUMMER SHADE - 
 GEORGE AND SON 
 THE SCARLET SEAL - 
 THE THREE DAYS' TERROR 
 
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 from time to time. 
 
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 FERGUS HUME 
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 FERGUS HUME 
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 RICHARD MARSH 
 RICHARD MARSH 
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 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 
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 1988
 
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