TTTT55 
 LEGACY 
 
 
 jSj .«' 
 
 •%9 
 
 •«*' 
 
 «a 
 
 '&: 
 
 » 
 
 * * 
 
 ^<^' 
 
 ^^5ot|^S?^?#;2 
 
 <a 
 
 
 ?^ 
 
 Sa <»«, 
 
 .1J 
 
 «*• 
 
 *** 
 
 V( 
 
Miss Stuart's Legacy 
 
 By 
 
 Flora Annie Steel 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 ' ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS,' ETC. 
 
 London 
 
 William Heinemann 
 
 1900 
 
All rights reserved 
 
MISS STUART'S LSGAOT.' 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 An Indian railway station in the first freshness 
 of an autumn dawn, Avith a clear decision of light 
 and shade, unknown to northern latitudes, lending a 
 fictitious picturesqueness to the low-arched buildings 
 festooned with purple creepers. There was a crisp- 
 ness in the air which seemed to belie the possibility 
 of a noon of brass; yet the level beams of the sun 
 had already in them a warning of warmth. 
 
 The up-country mail had just steamed out of the 
 station after depositing a scanty store of passengers 
 on the narrow platform, while the down-country 
 train, duly placarded with the information that it 
 carried the homeward-bound mail, had shunted in 
 from the siding where it had been patiently await- 
 ing the signal of a clear line. The engine mean- 
 Avhile drank breathlessly at the tank, where, in a 
 masonry tower overhead, a couple of bullocks circled 
 round and round, engaged in raising the water from 
 the well beneath to the reservoir beside them. 
 
 
 f) 8 7 .11* 3 
 
2 MISS STUART S LEGACY. 
 
 Kouncl and round sleepily, while the primeval 
 wooden wheel creaked and clacked, and the clumsy 
 rope-ladder with its ring of earthen pots let half 
 their contents fall; bacV into the bowels of the earth; 
 round. and.. jr9ui]:d. djL'eamily, with the fresh gurgle of 
 the water ill their ears, and the blindness of leathern 
 blinkers in their eyes; round and round, as their 
 forebears had gone for centuries in the cool shade 
 of sylvan wells. What was it to the patient creat- 
 ures whether they watered a snorting western demon 
 labelled "homeward mail," or the chequered mud- 
 fields where the tender wheat spikelets took advan- 
 tage of every crack in the dry soil ? It was little 
 to them who sowed the seed, or who gave the 
 increase, so lo]ig as the goad lay in some one's 
 hands. So much the cattle knew, and in this sim- 
 ple knowledge were not far behind the comprehen- 
 sion of their driver, who, wrapped in his cotton 
 sheet, lay dozing while he drove. 
 
 The sweetmeat-seller dawdled by, pursued even 
 at dawn by his pest of flies. The water-carriers 
 lounged along uttering their monotonous chant, 
 "Any Hindu drinkers? Any Mussulman drink- 
 ers?" while in their van, dusky hands stretched 
 out holding metal cups and bowls, from the very 
 shape of Avhich the religion of the OAvners might be 
 inferred, owners sitting cheek by jowl in third-class 
 compartments with a gulf unfathomable, impassable, 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 3 
 
 between them in this world and the next. The 
 hmk yellow dogs crept among the wheels, licking a 
 precarious meal from the grease-boxes. The grey- 
 headed carrion-crows sat in lines on the wire fenc- 
 ing with beaks wide open in unending yawns. 
 Nothing else appeaj-ed to mark the passage of time ; 
 indeed the absence of hurry on all sides gave the 
 scene a curious unreality to Western eyes, a feeling 
 which was plainly shown in the expression of a 
 young girl who stood alone beside a small pile of 
 luggage. 
 
 "A new arrival," remarked a tall man in undress 
 uniform, w^ho was leaning against the door of a first- 
 class compartment, and talking to its occupants. 
 
 "Yes, to judge by complexion and baggage," 
 was the reply. ''You'd hardly believe it, but Kate 
 was as trim once ; now ! — just look at the carriage I " 
 
 A gay laugh came from behind a perfect barrier 
 of baths, bundles, and bassinettes. '' We hadn't 
 four babies to drag about in those days, George, and 
 I can assure Major Marsden that I'm not a bit 
 ashamed of them, or my complexion. George, dear! 
 do for goodness' sake get baby's bottle filled with hot 
 water at the engine; if he doesn't have something 
 to eat he will cry in ten minutes, and then you will 
 have to take him." 
 
 While George, with the proverbial docility of the 
 Anglo-Indian husband and father, strolled off on his 
 
4 MISS STUART S LEGACY. 
 
 errand, the feminine voice came into view in the 
 shape of a cheerful round little woman with a 
 child in her arms and another clinging to her dress. 
 She looked with interest at the girl on the plat- 
 form. "She seems lonely, doesn't she?" 
 
 Major Marsden frowned. He had been thinking 
 the same thing, though he was fond of posing as a 
 man devoid of sentiment; a not unusual affectation 
 with those who are conscious of an over-soft heart. 
 "I wonder what she is doing here," he said, kicking 
 his heels viciously against the iron step of the 
 carriage. 
 
 A twinkle of mischief lurked in his companion's 
 blue eyes as she replied: 
 
 " ' What are you doing here, m}- pretty maid?* 
 ' Going a-marrying, sir,' she said. 
 
 Can't you see the square wooden box which betrays 
 the wedding cake ? " 
 
 " Then if you want to do a Christian act, — and 
 you ladies love aggressive charity — just step out of 
 your car as dea ex machina, and take her home again. 
 India is no place for Englishwomen to be married in." 
 
 "Now don't go on! I know quite well what you 
 are going to say, and I agree, — theoretically. India 
 is an ogre, eating us up body and soul; ruining our 
 health, our tempers, our morals, our manners, our 
 babies." 
 
MISS STUART S LEGACY. 5 
 
 The laugh died from her lips at the last word, for 
 the spectre of certain separation haunts Indian 
 motherhood too closely to be treated as a jest. In- 
 stinctively she held the child tighter to her breast 
 with a little restless sigh ; a short holiday at home, 
 and then an empty nest, — that was the future for 
 her! So she went on recklessly: "Oh, yes! Of 
 course we are all bad lots, — neither good mothers, 
 nor good wives." 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Gordon! I never said one or the 
 other. I only remarked that Englishwomen had no 
 business in India." 
 
 "What's that?" asked George, returning with the 
 bottle. 
 
 "Only Major Marsden in a hurry to get rid of 
 me," replied his wife. 
 
 "Don't believe her, Gordon! For all-embracing 
 generalities, convertible into rigid personalities at 
 a moment's notice, commend me to you, Mrs. Gor- 
 don. But there, I regret to say, goes the last bell." 
 
 The train moved off in a series of dislocations, 
 which, painful to witness, were still more painful 
 to endure, and Philip Marsden was left watching 
 the last nod of George Gordon's friendly head, with 
 that curious catching at the heart which comes to 
 all Anglo-Indians as they say good-bye to the home- 
 ward-bound. He was contented enough, happy in 
 his work and his play ; yet the feeling of exile ran 
 
6 MISS STUART S LEGACY. 
 
 through it all, — as it does alwa3^s, till pension 
 comes to bid one leave the interests and friends of 
 a lifetime. Then, all too late, the glamour of the 
 East claims the heart, in exchange for the hodj. 
 
 The girl was still standing sentinel by her lug- 
 gage, and as he passed their eyes met. In sudden 
 impulse he went up and offered help if she required 
 it. His voice, singularly sweet for a man, seemed 
 to make the girl realise her own loneliness, for her 
 lips quivered distinctly. "It is father! I expected 
 him to meet me, and he has not come." 
 
 "Should you know him if you saw him?" She 
 stared, evidently surprised, so he went on quickly, 
 " I beg your pardon ! I meant that you might not 
 have seen him for some time, and — " 
 
 "I haven't seen him since I was a bab}^" she in- 
 terrupted, with a sort of hurt dignity; "but of 
 course I should know him from his photograph." 
 
 "Of course!" He scanned her face curiously, 
 thinking her little more than a baby now ; but he 
 only suggested the possibility of a telegram, and 
 went off in search of one, returning a minute after- 
 wards with several. Behind him came the station- 
 master explaining, with the plentiful plurals and 
 Addisonian periods dear to babudom, that without 
 due givings of names it was unpermissible, not to 
 say non-regulation, to deliver telegrams. 
 
 "I forgot you couldn't know my name," said the 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 7 
 
 girl frankly, when a rapid scrutiny had shown that 
 none were addressed to her. "I'm Belle Stuart; 
 my father lives at Faizapore." 
 
 "Not Colonel Stuart of the Commissariat?" 
 ' " Yes ! Do you know him ? " 
 
 A radiant smile lit up her face with such a curve 
 of red lips, and flash of white teeth, that the specta- 
 tor might well have been infected by its wdiolesome 
 sweetness into an answering look. Major Marsden's 
 eyes, however, only narrowed with perplexed en- 
 quiry as he said bluntly, "Yes, slightly." 
 
 " Then perhaps father sent 3'ou to fetch me ? " 
 
 This time he relaxed: confidence is catchinsf. 
 "I'm afraid not; but possibly if he had known I 
 was to be here he might. At all events I can make 
 myself useful." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "I can get j^ou a gharri — that is a carriage — and 
 start you for Faizapore. It is sixty miles from here 
 as you know." 
 
 She bent down to pick up her rugs. "I did not 
 know. You see I expected father." 
 
 Philip Marsden felt impelled to consolation. 
 " He has been delayed. ^Most likely there has been " 
 — in his haste to put forward a solid excuse he was 
 just about to say "an accident," but floundered 
 instead into a bald "something to detain him." 
 
 " There generally is something to detain one in 
 
8 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 every delay, isn't there?" she asked dryly; adding 
 hastily, " but it is very kind of you to help. You 
 see I have only just arrived in India, so I am quite 
 a stranger." 
 
 "People generally are strangers when they first 
 arrive in a new country aren't they?" retorted her 
 companion grimly. Then as his eyes met her smil- 
 ing ones, he smiled too and asked with a kinder 
 ring in his voice, if there were anything else he 
 could do for her. 
 
 "I'm 80 hungry," she said simply. "Couldn't 
 you take me to get breakfast somewhere? I don't 
 see a refreshment-room, and I hate going by myself." 
 
 "There is the ddk bungalow, but," he hesitated 
 for an instant and stood looking at her, as if mak- 
 ing up his mind about something; then calling 
 some coolies he bade them take up the luggage. 
 "This way please. Miss Stuart; you will have to 
 walk about half a mile, but you won't mind that 
 either, I expect." 
 
 In reply she launched out, as they went along the 
 dusty road, into girlish chatter about the distances 
 she could go without fatigue, the country life at 
 home which seemed so very far off now, and the new 
 existence on which she was just entering. 
 
 "You are not in the least like your sisters," he 
 said suddenly. 
 
 She laughed. " They aren't my real sisters, you 
 
MISS stuapwT's legacy. 9 
 
 see. Father married again, and they are my step- 
 mother's children. There are five of them — three 
 girls and two boys, besides Charlie who is only six 
 years old — but then he is my brother — my half- 
 brother I mean. It's very funny, isn't it? to have 
 so many brothers and a mother one has never seen. 
 But of course I have their photographs." 
 
 He said he was glad of that; yet when he had 
 seen her safely started at breakfast, he retired to the 
 verandah under excuse of a cigar, and found fault 
 with Providence. Briefly, he knew too much of 
 the reality, not to make poor Belle's anticipations 
 somewhat of a ghastly mockery. "Poor child," he 
 thought, " how much easier life would be to some of 
 us, if like Tops}^ we growed. What business has 
 that girl's father to be a disreputable scamp? For 
 the matter of that Avhat business has a disreputa- 
 ble scamp to be any girl's father? It's the old 
 problem." 
 
 Belle meanwhile eating her breakfast with youtli- 
 ful appetite felt no qualms. Life to her was at its 
 brightest moment. This coming out to India in 
 order to rejoin her father had been the Hegira of 
 her existence, with reference to which all smaller 
 events had to be classified. His approval or disajD- 
 proval had been her standard of right and wrong, 
 his mind and body her model of human perfection ; 
 and so far distance had enabled Colonel Stuart to 
 
10 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 do justice to this pedestal; for it is easy to touch 
 perfection in a letter, especially when it only ex- 
 tends to one sheet of creamlaid note-paper. Most 
 of us have sufficient principal for such a small 
 dividend. 
 
 "I knew father had not forgotten," she said 
 calmly, when an abject badge-wearer was discovered 
 asleep under a castor-oil bush, and proved to be the 
 bearer of a note addressed in the familiar bold 
 flourish to Miss Belle Stuart. "You see he had 
 made all the arrangements, and I am not to start 
 till the heat of the day is over." 
 
 "Then I Avill resign my charge, and say good- 
 bye." 
 
 When they had shaken hands he went round to 
 the other verandah where her baggage la}^, and 
 looked at the wooden box. Was it a wedding-cake ? 
 Even that might be better than life in the home to 
 which she was going, though, for all he knew, the 
 latter might suit her admirably. Then he went and 
 kicked his heels at the station in order to be out of 
 the way, for the bungalow only boasted one room. 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The dawn of another clay was just breaking, when 
 the rattle and clatter Avhich had formed an accom- 
 paniment to Belle's wakeful dreams all night long, 
 ceased at the last stage out from Faizapore. Belle 
 stepped out of thQ palki-gharri to stretch her cramped 
 limbs, and looked round her with eyes in which 
 sleep still lingered. 
 
 A mud village lay close to the road, and from an 
 outlying hut the ponies, destined to convey her the 
 remaining five miles, struggled forth reluctantly. 
 The coachman was furtively pulling at some one 
 else's pipe; a naked anatomy, halt and blind of an 
 eye, dribbled water from an earthen pot over the hot 
 axles; two early travellers were bathing in a pool 
 of dirty water. Belle standing in the middle of 
 the glaring white highwa}', instinctively turned to 
 where, in the distance, a slender church-spire rose 
 above the bank of trees on the horizon. That was 
 familiar! — that she understood. Born in India, 
 and therefore a daughter of the soil, she could not 
 have been further removed in taste and feeling from 
 the toiling self-centred cosmogony of the Indian 
 village in which she stood, had she dropped into it 
 
12 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 from another planet. So, alien in heart, she passed 
 through the tide of life which sets every morning 
 towards a great cantonment, looking on it as on 
 some strange, new picture. Beyond all this, among 
 people who ate with forks and spoons and went to 
 church on Sundays, lay the life of which she had 
 dreamed for years. The rest was a picturesque 
 background; that was all. 
 
 A final flourish of an excruciating horn, gateposts 
 guiltless of gates, a ragged privet hedge curving 
 intermittently to a bright blue house set haphazard, 
 cornerwise, in a square dusty expanse, — and the 
 journey was over. 
 
 It was not only her cramped limbs that made Belle 
 feel weak and unsteady as she stood before the 
 seemingly deserted house. Suddenly, from behind 
 a projecting corner, came a wrinkled beldame clad in 
 dingy white bordered with red. With one hand she 
 grasped a skinny child dressed in flannel night gar- 
 ments of Macgregor tartan, with the other she held 
 up her draggling petticoats and salaamed profusely, 
 thus displaying a pair of bandy, blue-trousered legs. 
 
 Belle looked at her with distinct aversion. "I 
 think I have made a mistake," she said; "this 
 can't be Colonel Stuart's house." 
 
 The woman grinned from ear to ear. " Ar'l right, 
 missy ha. Mem sahib comin'. This b'y sonny 
 haba/'' She broke in on the whining wail of her 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 13 
 
 voice (which made Belle think of a professional 
 beggar) to apostrophise her charge with loud- 
 tongued abuse for not sajdng good morning to 
 his "sissy." 
 
 Belle gasped. Could this dirty dark boy be her 
 brother Charlie? Then a sudden rush of pity for 
 the little fellow whose big black eyes met hers with 
 such distrust, made her stoop to kiss him. But the 
 child, reluctant and alarmed, struck at her face 
 with his lean brown fingers and then fled into the 
 house howling, followed full tilt by his aged attend- 
 ant. 
 
 Belle w^ould have felt inclined to cry, if the very 
 unexpectedness of the attack, joined to the sight of 
 the ayaKs little bandy legs in hot pursuit, had not 
 roused her ever-ready sense of humour. She laughed 
 instead, and in so doing showed that she could hold 
 her own with life ; for no one throws up the sponge 
 until the faculty of coming up smiling, even at 
 one's own discomfiture, has been lost. And while 
 she laughed, a new voice asserted itself above the 
 howls within; a voice with, to Belle's ears, a 
 strangely novel intonation, soft yet distinctly stac- 
 cato^ sharpening the vowels, clipping the conso- 
 nants, and rising in pitch at the end of each sen- 
 tence. It heralded the advent of a tall, stout lady 
 in a limp cotton wrapper, wdio straightway took 
 Belle to a languidly-effusive embrace, while she 
 
14 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 poured out an even flow of wonderings, delights, 
 and endearments. The girl, with the reserve 
 taught by long years of homelessness, felt embar- 
 rassed at the warm kisses and tepid tears showered 
 upon her; then, ashamed of her own unresponsive- 
 ness, tried hard to realise that this was really the 
 great event, — the homecoming to which she had 
 looked forward ever since she could remember. She 
 felt vexed with herself, annoyed at her own failure 
 to reach high pressure point. Yet she was not 
 conscious of disappointment, and gave herself up 
 willingly to the voluble welcomes of three slender, 
 dark-eyed girls, who presently came running in, clad 
 like their mother in limp cotton wrappers. They 
 sat beside her on the bare string bed in the bare 
 room which looked so cheerless to Belle's English 
 eyes, and chattered, fluttered, and pecked at her 
 with little kisses, like a group of birds on a branch. 
 Mrs. Stuart was meanwhile drying her ready tears 
 on a coarse, highly-scented pocket handkerchief, 
 giving orders for boundless refreshments, and ex- 
 pressing her joy in alternate English and Hindu- 
 stani. Belle, beset on all sides by novelty, found it 
 diflQcult to recognise wdiich language was being 
 spoken, so little change was there in voice or inflec- 
 tion. At last, amid the babel of words and em- 
 braces, she managed to enquire for her father. The 
 question produced a sudden gravity, as if some 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 15 
 
 sacred subject had been introduced. In after years 
 she recognised this extreme deference to the house- 
 master as typical of the mixed race, but at the time, 
 it made lier heart beat with a sudden fear of evil. 
 
 "Colonel Stuart is very well, thank you," replied 
 her stepmother, showing a distinct tendency to 
 reproduce the coarse handkerchief. "He will, I 
 am sure, be very jDleased to see you; — indeed that 
 is one reason why I am glad myself. Though, of 
 course, I welcome you for your own sake too, my 
 darling girl. I am only a stepmother, I know, but 
 I will allow no difference between you and my own 
 three. So I told the mess-president yesterday — 
 ' My daughters cannot go to your ball, Captain 
 Jenkins,' I said, 'unless Belle goes also.' So, of 
 course, he sent you an invitation." Mrs. Stuart 
 had a habit of saying "of course" as if she agreed 
 plaintively with the decrees of Providence. 
 
 "But when" — began Belle, her mind far from 
 balls. 
 
 "To-night," chorused the three girls; a chorus 
 followed by voluble solos adjuring her to put on her 
 smartest frock, because all the men were frantic to 
 see the original of the photograph which, it appeared, 
 had been duly handed round for inspection and 
 admiration. Belle neither blushed nor felt indig- 
 nant; her face fell however when she found that 
 her father would not be up for another two hours, 
 
16 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 but the bated breath with which they spoke of his 
 morning sleep prevented her from rebellion. Those 
 two hours seemed an eternity, and as she sat wait- 
 ing for him in the dim drawing-room, her heart 
 beat witli almost sickening force at each sound. 
 
 Unconscious as yet of disappointment, of any- 
 thing save not unpleasant surprise, she still was 
 conscious of an almost pathetic insistence that father 
 must be the father of her dreams. 
 
 A mellow voice from the window calling her by 
 name startled her from her watch by the door. She 
 turned, to see a tall figure in scarlet and gold stand- 
 ing against the light which glittered on a trailing 
 sword. 
 
 There was no doubt this time. With a cry of 
 "Father? oh yes, you are father!" she was in his 
 arms. To him also came the re-incarnation of a 
 half-forgotten dream. The fair, slim, white-robed 
 girl standing in the dim shadows, made the years 
 vanish and youth return. "Good God, child, how 
 like you are to your poor mother! " he faltered, and 
 the ring in his voice made his daughter feel as if 
 life held no more content. 
 
 Despite years of dissipation Colonel Stuart was 
 still a singularly fine-looking man ; well set up, and 
 if a trifle fat in his dressing-gown, no more than 
 portly in a tightly-buttoned tunic. He had always 
 had a magnificent way with women, a sort of mas- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 17 
 
 terful politeness, a beautiful overbearing condescen- 
 sion, which the majority of the sex described as the 
 sweetest of manners. And now, inspired by his 
 little girl's undisguised admiration, he excelled 
 himself, discoursing on his delight in having her 
 with him, and on the impossibility of thanking 
 Heaven sufficiently for the care it had taken of her. 
 On this last point he spoke in the same terms that 
 he was accustomed to use towards his hostess at the 
 conclusion of a visit; that is to say, with the under- 
 lying conviction that she had only done her duty. 
 He drew a touching picture of his own forlornness, 
 when, as a matter of fact, the very thought of her 
 had passed so completely out of his life, that her 
 death would only have caused an unreal regret. His 
 eloquence however brought conviction to himself. 
 So, to all intents and purposes, he became a fond 
 father, because he felt as if he had been one. After 
 all. Belle, even had she known the truth, would 
 have no real cause for distress. We have no lien 
 on the past of another, or on the future either; the 
 present is all we can claim, and that only to a cer- 
 tain limited extent. 
 
 In truth it would have required little self-decep- 
 tion to convince any one that Belle had always been 
 an abiding factor in life. She Avas a daughter any 
 man might well have been proud to possess. Tall 
 and straight, clear-eyed and bright, with v/holesome 
 
18 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 thoughts and tastes expressed in every feature. As 
 she brought a cup of tea to her father, her face alight 
 with pleasure, her eyes brilliant with happiness, she 
 looked the picture of all an English girl ought to be. 
 
 "Thank you, my dear,'' said the Colonel viewing 
 the offering dubiously. " I think, — I mean, — I 
 should prefer a peg, — a B. and S., — a brandy and 
 soda. The fact is I had a confounded bad night, and 
 it might do me good, you know." 
 
 He was faintly surprised at finding himself mak- 
 ing excuses for what was a daily habit; but it was 
 delightful to bask in the tender solicitude of Belle's 
 grey eyes, as he poured out, and drank the dose with 
 an air of accurate virtue. Once more he imposed on 
 himself ; on every one in fact but the servant, who, 
 with the forethought of laziness, sat outside with 
 the brandy-bottle lest he should be summoned again. 
 And when, finally, the Colonel rode off to his com- 
 mittee on his big Australian charger. Belle thought 
 the world could never have contained a more mag- 
 nificently martial figure. That this gorgeous appa- 
 rition should condescend to wave its hand to her at 
 the gate, was at once so bewildering and so natural, 
 that all lesser details faded into insignificance before 
 this astounding realisation of her dreams. 
 
 This was fortunate, for many were the readjust- 
 ments necessary ere the day was over. Breakfast, 
 where Belle sat blissfully at her father's side, re- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 19 
 
 vealed two handsome, overdressed young men redo- 
 lent of scent and sleek as to hair. These the Miss 
 Van Milders, still in rumpled wrappers, introduced 
 as their brothers Walter and Stanley, adding by no 
 means covert chaff about "store clothes," whereat 
 the young fellows giggled like girls, and Belle 
 became almost aggressively sisterly in her manner. 
 Walter was in tea, or rather had been so; as the 
 plantation appeared to be undergoing transmutation 
 into a limited Company, in order, Belle was told, to 
 produce a dividend. Stanley was reading for some 
 examination, after which somebody was to do some- 
 thing for him. It was all very voluble and vague. 
 Meanwhile they stayed at home quite contentedly ; 
 satisfied to lounge about, play tennis, and keep a 
 tame mongoose. 
 
 Towards the end of the meal, however, a red- 
 haired youth slouched into the room, thrust an 
 unwilling hand into Belle's when introduced as 
 "your cousin Dick," and then sat down in silence 
 with all the open awkwardness of an English school- 
 boy. Afterwards, whenever Belle's cool grey eyes 
 wandered to that corner, they met a pair of fiery 
 brown ones also on the reconnoitre. 
 
 Besides these present relations there were others 
 constantly cropping up in conversation ; and of them 
 Belle had enough ere the day was done. The young 
 men chattered over their cigarettes on the verandah; 
 
20 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 the girls chattered over Belle's boxes, which they 
 insisted on unpacking at once; Mrs. Stuart chattered 
 of, and to her servants. It was a relief when, after 
 luncheon, the whole house settled into the silence of 
 siesta, though Belle herself was far too excited to 
 rest. 
 
 Dinner brought a bitter disappointment in Colonel 
 Stuart's absence; for she had excused herself from 
 the ball on plea of fatigue, in the hopes of an even- 
 ing with her father. It was Cousin Dick who, as 
 they sat down to table, answered the exjDectation in 
 Belle's face. "The Colonel never dines on ball 
 nights, he goes to mess. You see, the girls bobbing 
 up and down annoy him, and it is beastly to see 
 people bolting their food in curl-papers." 
 
 "I'd speak grammar if I were you," retorted 
 Mildred Van Milder, flushing up. Her fringe was 
 a perpetual weariness to her, sometimes demanding 
 the sacrifice of a dance in order to allow hair-curl- 
 ers to do their perfect work. 
 
 "And I wouldn't wear a fringe like a poodle," 
 growled Dick; whereat Mrs. Stuart plaintively won- 
 dered whence he got his manners, and wished he was 
 more like her own boys. 
 
 Poodles or no poodles, when the dancing-party 
 appeared ready for the fray. Belle could hardly 
 believe her eyes. The sallow-faced girls of the 
 morning in their limp cotton wrappers were replaced 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 21 
 
 by admirable copies of the latest French fashion- 
 prints. Their elaborately-dressed hair, large dark 
 eyes, and cream-coloured skins (to which art had 
 lent a soft bloom denied by nature under Indian 
 skies), joined to the perfect fit of their gowns, com- 
 pelled attention. Indeed, when Maud, to try the 
 stabilit}^ of a shoe, waltzed round the room with her 
 brother, Belle was startled at her own admiration 
 for their lithe, graceful, sensuous beauty. 
 
 "I'll tell you what it is," cried Mabel, the eldest 
 of the three; "you'll have a ripping good time to- 
 night, Maudie. I never saw you look so cheek." 
 She meant chic^ but the spelling was against her. 
 As for Mrs. Stuart, she appeared correctly attired in 
 black satin and bugles. The girls saw to that, sup- 
 pressing with inexorable firmness the good lady's 
 hankering after gayer colours and more flimsy stuffs. 
 
 Left alone with Cousin Dick, Belle pretended to 
 read, while in reality she was all ears for the sound 
 of returning wheels. It was nearly ten o'clock, 
 and, to her simple imagination, time for her father 
 to come home. The clock struck, and Dick, who 
 had been immersed in a book at the further corner 
 of the room, laid it aside, and bringing out a chess- 
 board began to set the men. He paused, frowned, 
 passed both hands through his rough red hair, and 
 finally asked abruptly if she played. A brief nega- 
 tive made him shift the pieces rapidly to a problem. 
 
22 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 and no more was said. Again tlie clock struck, 
 and this time Dick came and stood before her. He 
 was a middle-sized, broad-shouldered youth about 
 her own age, with a promise of strength in face and 
 figure. "You had better go to bed," he said still 
 more abruptly. "The Colonel won't be home till 
 morning. It isn't a bit of good your waiting for 
 him." 
 
 This was the second time that he had stepped in 
 to her thoughts, as it were, and Belle resented the 
 intrusion. " Don't let me keep you up," she replied. 
 "I'd just as soon be alone." 
 
 "Then you'll have your wish, I expect," he an- 
 swered coolly, as he swept the chessmen together 
 and left the room. 
 
 Some two hours after Belle woke from sleep to the 
 sound of an impatient voice. "Bearer! Bearer! 
 peg lao, quick! Hang it all, Raby! you must, you 
 shall stop and give me my revenge. You've the 
 most cursed good luck — " 
 
 "Father!" She rose from her chair with cheeks 
 flushed like those of a newly-awakened child. The 
 tall, fair young man who stood beside Colonel 
 Stuart turned at the sound of her voice, then touched 
 his companion on the arm. " Some one is speaking 
 to you." 
 
 " God bless my soul, child ! I thought you were 
 at the ball. Why didn't you go?" His tone was 
 
MTss stfart's legacy. 23 
 
 kind, if a little husky, and he stretched a trembling 
 hand towards her. 
 
 ''1 waited to see you, father," she replied, laying 
 hers on his arm with a touch which w^as a caress. 
 
 The tall young man smiled to himself. "Will 
 you not introduce me to your daughter, Colonel?" 
 he said with a half-familiar bow towards Belle. 
 
 Colonel Stuart looked from one to the other as if 
 he had never seen either of them before. "Intro- 
 duce you, — why not? Belle, this is John Baby; 
 a fellow who has the most infernal good luck in 
 creation." 
 
 "I have no inclination to deny the fact at tJiis 
 moment," interposed the other, bowing again. 
 
 The implied compliment was quite lost on Belle, 
 whose eyes and ears were for her father only. "I 
 waited for you," she said with a little joyous laugh, 
 "and fell asleep in my chair I " 
 
 Once more the Colonel looked from one to the 
 other. The mere fact of his daughter's presence was 
 in his present state confusing, but that she should 
 have been waiting for him was bewildering in the 
 extreme. How many years ago was it that another 
 slim girl in white had gazed on him with similar 
 adoration ? 
 
 "You had better go to bed now," he said with 
 almost supernatural profundity. "Good night. 
 God bless you." 
 
24 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 " Let me stay, please, father. I'm not a bit tired," 
 she pleaded. 
 
 He stood uncertain, and John Raby drew out his 
 watch with a contemptuous smile. " Half-past one, 
 Colonel; I must be off." 
 
 "Hang it all!" expostulated the other feebly. 
 "You can't go without my revenge. It ain't fair! " 
 
 "You shall have it sometime, never fear. Good 
 night. Miss Stuart; we can't afford to peril such 
 roses by late hours." 
 
 Again his w^ords fell flat, their only result being 
 that he looked at her with a flash of real interest. 
 When he had gone Belle knelt beside her father's 
 chair, timidly asking if he was angry with her for 
 sitting up. 
 
 "Angrj^!" cried the Colonel, already in a half 
 doze. "No, child! certainly not. Dear! dear! how 
 like you are to your poor mother." The thought 
 roused him, for he stood up shaking his head mourn- 
 fully. " Go to bed, my dear. We all need rest. It 
 has been a trying day, a very trying day." 
 
 Belle, as she laid her head on the pillow, felt that 
 it had been so indeed ; yet she was not disappointed 
 with it. She was too young to criticise kindness, 
 and they had all been kind, very kind; even Charlie 
 had forgotten his first fright; and so she fell asleep, 
 smiling at the remembrance of the old ayah's bandy 
 legs. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Early morning in the big bazaar at Faizapore. 
 So much can be said; but who with pen alone could 
 paint the scene, or who with brush give the aroma, 
 physical and moral, which, to those familiar with 
 the life of Indian streets, remains for ever the one 
 indelible memory? The mysterious smell inde- 
 scribable to those who know not the East; the air 
 of sordid money-getting and giving which pervades 
 even the children; the gaily-dressed, chattering 
 stream of people drifting by; but from the grey- 
 bearded cultivator come on a lawsuit from his vil- 
 lage, to the sw^eeper, besom in hand, propelling the 
 black flood along the gutter, the only subject suffi- 
 ciently interesting to raise one voice above the 
 universal hum, is money. Even the stalwart herds- 
 women with their kilted skirts swaying at each free 
 bold step, their patchwork bodices obeying laws of 
 decency antipodal to ours, even they, born and bred 
 in the desert, talk noisily of the ghee they are bring- 
 ing to market in the russet and black jars poised on 
 their heads; and if ghee be not actually money, it 
 is inextricably mixed up with it in the native mind. 
 
 All else may fade from the memory ; the glare of 
 
26 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 sunlight, the transparent shadows, the clustering 
 flies and children round the cavernous sweetmeat- 
 shops, the glitter of brazen pots, and the rainbow- 
 hued overflow from the dyers' vats staining the 
 streets like a reflection of the many-tinted cloths 
 festooned to dry overhead. Even the sharper con- 
 trasts of the scene may be forgotten ; the marriage 
 procession swerving to give way to the quiet dead, 
 swathed in muslins and bound with tinsel, carried 
 high on the string bed, or awaiting sunset and burial 
 in some narrow by-way among green-gold melons 
 and piles of red wheat. But to those who have 
 known an Indian bazaar well, the chink of money, 
 and the smell of a chemist's shop, will ever remain 
 a more potent spell to awaken memory than any 
 elaborate pictures made by pen or pencil. 
 
 On this particular morning quite a little crowd 
 was collected round the doorway leading to the 
 house of one Shunker D^s, usurer, contractor, and 
 honorary magistrate; a man who combined those 
 three occupations into one unceasing manufacture 
 of money. In his hands pice turned to annas, annas 
 to rupees, and rupees in their turn to fat. For 
 there is no little truth in the assertion that the real 
 test of a huniali's (money-lender's) wealth is his 
 weight, and the safest guard for income-tax his 
 girth in inches. 
 
 Nevertheless a skeleton lay hidden under Shunker 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 27 
 
 Das's mountain of prosperous flesh; a gruesome 
 skeleton whose bones rattled ominously. Between 
 him and the perdition of a sonless death stood but 
 one life ; a life so frail that it had only been saved 
 hitherto by the expedient of dressing the priceless 
 boy in petticoats, and so palming him off on the 
 dread Shiva as a girl. At least so said the zenana 
 women, and so in his inmost heart thought Shunker 
 Das, though he was a prime specimen of enlightened 
 native society. But on that day the fateful first 
 decade during which the Destroyer had reft away so 
 many baby-heirs from the usurer's home was over; 
 and amid countless ceremonies, and much dispensa- 
 tion of alms, the little Nuttu, with his ears and nose 
 pierced like a girl's, had been attired in the pugree 
 and pyjamas of his sex. Hence the crowd closing 
 in round the Lala's Calcutta-built barouche which 
 waited for its owner to come out. Hence the num- 
 ber of professional beggars, looking on the whole 
 more fat and well-liking than the workers around 
 them, certainly more so than a small group of women 
 who were peeping charily from the door of the next 
 house, — a very different house from Lala Shunker 
 Das's pretentious stucco erection with its blue ele- 
 phants and mottled tigers frescoed round the top 
 storey, and a railway train, flanked by two carica- 
 tures of the British soldier, over the courtyard 
 doorway. This was a tall, square, colourless tower. 
 
28 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 gaining its only relief from the numerous places 
 where the outer skin of bricks had fallen away, 
 disclosing the hard red mortar beneath; mortar that 
 was stronger than stone; mortar that had been 
 ground and spread long years before the word " con- 
 tractor " was a power in India. Here in poverty, 
 abject in all save honour, dAvelt Mahomed Lateef, a 
 Syyed of the Syyeds ; ^ and it was his hewers of wood 
 and drawers of water who formed the group at the 
 door, turning their lean faces away disdainfully 
 when the baskets of dough cakes, and trays of sweet 
 rice were brought out for distribution from the 
 idolater's house. 
 
 The crowd thickened, but fell away instinctively 
 to give place to a couple of English soldiers who 
 came tramping along shoulder to shoulder, utterly 
 unconcerned and unsympathetic; their Glengarry 
 caps set at the same angle, the very pipes in their 
 mouths having a drilled appearance. Such a quiet, 
 orderly crowd it was; not even becoming audible 
 when Shunker Das appeared with little Nuttu, the 
 hero of the day, who in a coat of the same brocade as 
 his father's, and a pugree tied in the same fashion, 
 looked a wizened, changeling double of his unwieldy 
 companion. The barouche was brilliant as to var- 
 nish, vivid as to red linings, and the bay Australians 
 were the best money could buy ; yet the people, as 
 1 A lineal descendant of the Prophet. 
 
MISS stijart's legacy. 29 
 
 it passed, took small notice of the Lala, lolling in 
 gorgeous attire against the Berlin- wool- worked cush- 
 ion which he had bought from the Commissioner's 
 wife at a bazaar in aid of a cathedral. They gave far 
 more attention to a hawk-eyed old man with a cruel, 
 high-bred face, who rode by on a miserable pony, 
 and after returning tlie Lala's contemptuous saluta- 
 tion with grave dignity, spat solemnly into the 
 gutter. 
 
 This Avas Mahomed Lateef, who but the day before 
 had put the talisman-signet on his right hand to a 
 deed mortgaging the last acre of his ancestral estate 
 to the usurer. Yet the people stood up with re- 
 spectful salaams to him, while they had only obse- 
 quious grins for the other. Indeed, one old patriarch 
 waiting for death in the sun, curled up comfortably, 
 his chin upon his knees, on a bed stuck well into 
 the street, nodded his head cheerfully and muttered 
 "Shunker's father was nobody," over and over again 
 till he fell asleep; to dream perchance of the old 
 order of things. 
 
 Meanwhile the Lala waited his turn for audience 
 at the District Officer's bungalow. There were 
 many other aspirants to that honour, seated on a row 
 of cane-bottomed chairs in the verandah, silent, 
 bored, uncomfortable. It is an irony of fate which 
 elevates the chair in India into a patent of position, 
 for nowhere does the native look more thoroughly 
 
30 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 out of place than in the coveted honour. As it is 
 he clings to it, notably with his legs; those thin 
 legs round whose painful want of contour the tight 
 cotton pantaloons wrinkle all too closely, and which 
 would be so much better tucked away under digni- 
 fied skirts in true Eastern fashion. But the exotic 
 has a strange fascination for humanity. Waiting 
 there for his turn, the Lala inwardly cursed the 
 Western morality which prevented an immediate 
 and bribe-won entry; but the red-coated badge- 
 wearers knew better than to allow even a munifi- 
 cent shoe-money to interfere with the roster. The 
 harassed-looking, preoccupied official within had 
 an almost uncanny quickness of perception, so 
 the rupees chinked into their pockets, but pro- 
 duced no effect beyond whining voices and fulsome 
 flattery. 
 
 "Well, Lala-ji! and what do you want?" asked 
 the representative of British majesty when, at last, 
 Shunker Das's most obsequious smile curled out 
 over his fat face. There was no doubt a certain 
 brutality of directness in the salutation, but it came 
 from a deadly conviction that a request lay at the 
 bottom of every interview, and that duty bade its 
 discovery without delay. The abruptness of the 
 magistrate was therefore compressed politeness. As 
 he laid down the pen with which he had been writ- 
 ing a judgment, and leant wearily back in his chair, 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 31 
 
 his bald head was framed, as it were, in a square 
 nimbus formed by a poster on the wall behind. It 
 was four feet square, and held, in treble columns, a 
 list of all the schedules and reports due from his 
 ofhce during the year to come. That was his patent 
 of position; and it was one which grows visibly, as 
 day by day, and month by month, law and order 
 become of more consequence than truth and equity 
 in the government of India. 
 
 The Lala's tact bade him follow the lead given. 
 ''I want, S(2/iz5," he said, *'to be made a Rai 
 Bahadur.'' 
 
 Now Rai Bdhddur is an honorific title bestowed 
 by Government for distinguished service to the 
 State. So without more ado Shunker Das detailed 
 his own virtues, totalled up the money expended 
 in public utility, and wound up with an offer of five 
 thousand rupees towards a new Female Hospital. 
 The representative of British majesty drew diagrams 
 on his blotting-paper, and remarked, casually, that 
 he would certainly convey the Lala's liberal sug- 
 gestion about the hospital to the proper authorities; 
 adding his belief that one Puras Ram, who was 
 about to receive the coveted honour, had offered 
 fifteen thousand for the same purpose. 
 
 "I will give ten thousand, Huzooi^'" bid the 
 usurer, with a scowl struggling with his smile; 
 "that will make seventy-five thousand in all; and 
 
82 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 Tota Mull got it for building the big tank that 
 won't hold water. If it cost him fifty thousand, may 
 I eat dirt; and I ought to know for I had the con- 
 tract. It won't last, Huzoor; I know the stuff that 
 went into it." 
 
 "T6ta Mull had other services." 
 
 " Other services ! " echoed Shunker fumbling in 
 his garments, and producing a printed book tied 
 up in a cotton handkerchief. " See my certificates ; 
 one from your honour's own hand." 
 
 Perhaps the District Officer judged the worth 
 of the others by the measure of his own testi- 
 monial, wherein, being then a " griff " of six months' 
 standing, he had recorded Shunker's name opposite 
 a list of the cardinal virtues, for he set the book 
 aside with a sad smile. Most likely he was think- 
 ing that in those days his ambition had been a 
 reality, and his liver an idea, and that now they 
 had changed places. " I am glad to see your son 
 looking so well," he remarked with pointed irrele- 
 vance. " I hear you are to marr}^ him next month, 
 and that everything is to be on a magnificent scale. 
 Tota Mull will be quite eclipsed; though his boy's 
 wedding cost him sixty-five thousand, — he told 
 me so himself. Accept my best wishes on the 
 occasion." 
 
 " Huzoor ! I will give fifteen thou — " British 
 majesty rose gravel}' with the usual intimation of 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 33 
 
 dismissal, and a remark that it was always gratified 
 at liberality. Shunker Das left the presence with 
 his smile thoroughly replaced by a scowl, though his 
 going there had simply been an attempt to save 
 his pocket; for he knew right well that he had 
 not yet filled up the measure of qualification for a 
 Rai Bdhddur-shii^. 
 
 While this interview had been going on, another 
 of a very different nature was taking place outside 
 a bungalow on the other side of the road, where 
 Philip Marsden stood holding the rein of his charger 
 and talking to Mahomed Lateef, whose pink-nosed 
 pony was tied to a neighbouring tree. 
 
 The old man, in faded green turban and shawl, 
 showed straight and tall even beside the younger 
 man's height and soldierly carriage. '' SaJiih^'' he 
 said, '' I am no beggar to whine at the feet of a 
 stranger for alms. I don't know the mhih over 
 yonder whose verandah, as you see, is crowded with 
 such folk. They come and go too fast these sahibs^ 
 nowadays ; and I am too old to tell the story of 
 my birth. If it is forgotten, it is forgotten. But 
 you know me, Allah be praised ! You feel my 
 son's blood there on your heart where he fell fight- 
 ing beside you ! Which of the three was it ? What 
 matter? They all died fighting. And this one is 
 Benjamin ; I cannot let him go. He is a bright 
 boy, and will give brains, not blood, to the Sirkar, 
 
34 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 if I can only get employment for him. So I come 
 to you, who know me and mine." 
 
 Philip Marsden laid his hand on the old man's 
 shoulder. '' That is true. Khan sahlh. What is it 
 I can do for you?" 
 
 " There is a post vacant in the office, Hiizoor ! It 
 is not much, but a small thing is a great gain in 
 our poor house. The boy could stay at home, and 
 not see the women starve. It is only writing-work, 
 and thanks to the old mullah, Murghub Admed is 
 a real khusJi nawis (penman). Persian and Arabic, 
 too, and Euclidus, and Algebra; all a true man 
 should know. If you would ask the saJiih.'^ 
 
 "I'll go over now. No, no. Khan sahib! I am 
 too young, and you are too old." 
 
 But Mahomed Lateef held the stirrup stoutly 
 with lean brown lingers. " The old help the young 
 into the saddle always, sahib. It is for you boys to 
 fight now, and for us to watch and cry 'Allah be 
 with the brave! '" 
 
 So it happened that as Shunker Das drove out of 
 the District Officer's compound. Major Marsden rode 
 in. Despite his scowl, the usurer stood up and 
 salaamed profusely with both hands, receiving a 
 curt salute in return. 
 
 British majesty was now in the verandah dispos- 
 ing of the smaller fry in batches. "Come inside," 
 it said, hastily dismissing the final lot. "I've only 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 35 
 
 ten minutes left for bath and breakfast, but you'll 
 find a cigar there, and we can talk while I tub." 
 
 Amid vigorous splashings from within Major 
 Marsden unfolded his mission, receiving in reply 
 a somewhat disjointed enquiry as to whether the 
 applicant had passed the Middle School examina- 
 tion, for otherwise his case was hopeless. 
 
 "And why, in Heaven's name?" asked his hearer 
 impatientl}^ 
 
 The magistrate having finished his ablutions 
 appeared at the door in scanty attire rubbing his 
 bald head with a towel. "Immutable decree of 
 government." 
 
 "And loyalty, family, influence-- what of them?" 
 
 A shrug of the shoulders, — " Ask some one else. 
 I am only a barrel-organ grinding out the executive 
 and judicial tunes sent down from headquarters." 
 
 "And a lively discord you'll make of it in time! 
 But you are wrong. A man in your position is, 
 as it were, trustee to a minor's estate and bound to 
 speak up for his wards." 
 
 "And be over-ridden! No good! I've tried it. 
 Oh lord! twelve o'clock and I had a case with five 
 pleaders in it at half-past eleven. Well, I'll bet 
 the four-anna bit the exchange left me from last 
 month's pay, that my judgment will be upset on 
 appeal." 
 
 "I pity you profoundly." 
 
36 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 "Don't mention it; there's balm in Gilead. This 
 is mail-day, and I shall hear from my wife and the 
 kids. Good-bye! — I'm sorry about the boy, but it 
 can't be helped." 
 
 " It strikes me it will have to be helped some day," 
 replied Major Marsden as he rode off. 
 
 Meanwhile a third interview, fraught with grave 
 consequences to this story, had just taken place in 
 the Commissariat office whither Shunker Das had 
 driven immediately after his rebuff, with the inten- 
 tion of robbing Peter to pay Paul ; in other words, 
 of getting hold of some Government contract, out of 
 which he could squeeze the extra rupees required 
 for the purchase of the Rai Bdhddur-shi]} ; a pro- 
 ceeding which commended itself to his revengeful 
 and spiteful brain. As it so happened, he appeared 
 in the very nick of time; for he found Colonel 
 Stuart looking helplessly at a telegram from head- 
 quarters, ordering him to forward five hundred 
 camels to the front at once. 
 
 Now the Faizapore office sent in the daily sched- 
 ules, original, duplicate, and triplicate, with com- 
 mendable regularity, and drew the exact amount of 
 grain sanctioned for transport animals without fail ; 
 nevertheless a sudden demand on its resources was 
 disagreeable. So, as he had done once or twice 
 before in this time of war and rumours of wars, the 
 chief turned to the big contractor for help; not 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 37 
 
 without a certain uneasiness, for though a long 
 course of shady transactions had blunted Colonel 
 Stuart's sense of honour towards his equals, it had 
 survived to an altogether illogical extent towards 
 his inferiors. Now his private indebtedness to the 
 usurer was so great that he could not afford to 
 quarrel with him; and this knowledge nurtured a 
 suspicion that Shunker Das made a tool of him, an 
 idea most distasteful both to pride and honour. No 
 mental poh'ition is more difficult to analyse than 
 that of a man, who having lost the desire to do the 
 right from a higher motive, clings to it from a lower 
 one. Belle's father, for instance, did not hesitate 
 to borrow cash from monies intrusted to his care; 
 but he would rather not have borrowed it from a 
 man with whom he had official dealings. 
 
 Shunker Das, however, knew nothing, and had he 
 known would have credited little, of this survival 
 of honour. It seemed impossible in his eyes that 
 the innumerable dishonesties of the Faizapore office 
 could exist without the knowledge of its chief. 
 Bribery was to him no crime ; nor is it one to a very 
 large proportion of the people of India. To the 
 ignorant, indeed, it seems such a mere detail of 
 daily life that it is hard for them to believe in judi- 
 cial honesty. Hence the ease with which minor 
 officials extort large sums on pretence of carrying 
 the bribe to the right quarter; and hence again 
 
38 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 comes, no doubt, many a whispered tale of corrup- 
 tion in high places. 
 
 "I shall lose by this contract, sa7i^5," said the 
 Lala when the terms had been arranged; "but I 
 rely on your honour's generous aid in the future. 
 There are big things coming in, when the Protector 
 of the Poor will doubtless remember his old servant, 
 whose life and goods are always at your honour's 
 disposal." 
 
 "I have the highest opinion of, — of your integ- 
 rity, Lala sa/ii6," replied the Colonel evasively, 
 " and of course shall take it, — I mean 3'our previ- 
 ous services — into consideration, whenever it — it 
 is possible to do so." The word integrity had made 
 him collapse a little, but ere the end of the sentence 
 he had recovered his self-esteem, and with it his 
 pomposity. 
 
 The Lala's crafty face expanded into a smile. 
 "We understand each other, sahib, and if — ! " here 
 he dropped his voice to a confidential pitch. 
 
 Five minutes after Colonel Stuart's debts had 
 increased by a thousand rupees, and the Lala was 
 carefully putting away a duly stamped and signed 
 LO.U. in his pocket-book; not that he assigned 
 any value to it, but because it was part of the game. 
 Without any distinct idea of treachery, he always 
 felt that Lukshmi, the goddess of Fortune, had 
 given him one more security against discomfiture 
 
MISS stuart's legacy. 39 
 
 when he managed to have the same date on a con- 
 tract and a note of hand. Not that he anticipated 
 discomfiture either. In fact, liad any one told him 
 that he and the Colonel were playing at cross-pur- 
 poses, he would have laughed the assertion to scorn. 
 He had too high an opinion of the perspicacity of 
 the saliih-logue^ and especially of the saliih who shut 
 his eyes to so many irregularities, to credit such a 
 possibilit3\ 
 
 So he drove homewards elate, and on the way was 
 stopped in a narrow alley by an invertebrate crowd, 
 which, Avithout any backbone of resistance, blocked 
 all passage, despite the abuse he showered around. 
 "Run over the pigs! Drive on, I say," he shouted 
 to the driver, when other means failed. 
 
 "Best not, Shunker," sneered a little gold-ear- 
 ringed Rajpoot amongst the crowd, "there's a sepoy 
 in yonder shooting free." 
 
 The Lala sank back among his cushions, green 
 with fear. At the same moment an officer in un- 
 dress uniform rode up as if the street were empty, 
 the crowd making way before him. "What is it, 
 havildar (sergeant)?" he asked sharply, reining up 
 before an open door where a sentry stood with rifle 
 ready. 
 
 "Private Afzul Khan run amuck, Kuzoor!^'' 
 
 Major Marsden threw himself from his horse and 
 looked through the door into the little court within. 
 
40 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 It was empty, but an archway at right angles led to 
 an inner yard. " When ? " 
 
 " Half an hour gone — the guard will be here 
 directly, Huzoor ! They were teasing him for being 
 an Afghan, and saying he would have to fight his 
 own people." 
 
 "Any one hurt?" 
 
 "Jeswunt Rai and Gurdit Singh, not badly,* he 
 has -seven rounds left, sahih^ and swears he won't 
 be taken alive." 
 
 The last remark came hastily, as Major Marsden 
 stepped inside tlie doorway, lie paused, not to 
 consider, but because the tramp of soldiers at the 
 double came down the street. " Draw up your men 
 at three paces on either side of the door," he said to 
 the native officer. " If you hear a shot, go on the 
 house-top and fire on him as he sits. If lie comes 
 out alone, shoot him down." 
 
 "Allah be with the brave! " muttered one or two 
 of the men, as Philip Marsden turned once more to 
 enter the courtyard. It lay blazing in the sunshine, 
 open and empty; but what of the dim archway 
 tunnelling a row of buildings into that smaller yard 
 beyond, where Afzul Khan waited with murder in 
 his heart, and his finger on the trigger of his rifle? 
 There the Englishman would need all his nerve. 
 It Avas a rash attempt he was making; he knew that 
 right vv^ell, but he had resolved to attempt it if ever 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 41 
 
 he got the opportunity. Anything, he had told 
 himself, was better than the wild-beast-like scuffle 
 he had witnessed not long before ; a hopeless, insane 
 struggle ending in death to three brave men, one of 
 them the best soldier in the regiment. The remem- 
 brance of the horrible scene was strong on him as his 
 spurs clicked an even measure across the court. 
 
 It was cooler in the shadow, quite a relief after 
 the glare. Ah! . . . just as he had imagined! In 
 the far corner a crouching figure and a glint of 
 light on the barrel of a rifle. No pause; straight 
 on into the sunlight again ; then suddenl}- the word 
 of command rang through the court boldly. " Lay 
 down your arms ! " 
 
 The familiar sound died away into silence. It 
 was courage against power, and a life hung on the 
 balance. Then the long gleam of light on the rifle 
 wavered, disappeared, as Private Afzul Khan stood 
 up and saluted. "You are a braver man than I, 
 saM," he said. That was all. 
 
 A sort of awed whisper of relief and amazement 
 ran through the crowd as Philip Mars den came out 
 with his prisoner, and gave orders for the men to 
 fall in. Two Englishmen in mufti had ridden up 
 in time for the final tableau ; and one of them, nod- 
 ding his head to the retreating soldiers, said approv- 
 ingly, "That is what gave, and keeps us India." 
 
 "And that," returned John Raby pointing to 
 
42 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 Shunker Das who with renewed arrogance was driv- 
 ing off, "will make us lose it." 
 
 "My dear Rab}'! I thought the moneyed 
 classes — • " 
 
 "My dear Smith! if you think that when the 
 struggle comes, as come it must, our new nobility, 
 whose patent is plunder, Avill fight our battles 
 against the old, I don't." 
 
 They argued the point all the way liome without 
 convincing each other, while Time with tlie truth 
 hidden in his wallet passed on towards the Future. 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Had any one, a week before his daughter arrived, 
 told Colonel Stuart that her presence would be a 
 pleasant restraint upon him, he would have been 
 very angry. Yet such was the fact. Her likeness 
 to her mother carried him back to days when his 
 peccadilloes could still be regarded as youthful fol- 
 lies, and people spared a harsh verdict on what age 
 might be expected to remedy. Then her vast ad- 
 miration gave a reality to his own assumptions of 
 rectitude; for the Colonel clung theoretically to 
 virtue with great tenacity, in a loud-voiced, conserv- 
 ative "d. you if you don't believe what I say" 
 
 sort of manner. He also maintained a high ideal in 
 regard to the honour of every one else, based on a 
 weak-kneed conviction that liis own was above 
 suspicion. 
 
 He was proud of Belle too, fully recognising that 
 with her by his side his grey hairs became reverend. 
 So he pulled himself up to some small degree, and 
 began to sprinkle good advice among the younger 
 men with edifying gravity. As for Belle she was 
 supremely happy. No doubt had she been " earnest " 
 or "soulful" or ''intense" she might have found 
 
44 MISS ST u art's legacy. 
 
 spots on her sun with the greatest ease ; but she was 
 none of these things. At this period of her exist- 
 ence nothing was further from her disposition than 
 inward questionings on any subject. She took life 
 as she found it, seeing only her own healthy, happy 
 desires in its dreary old problems, and remaining as 
 utterly unconscious that she was assimilating her- 
 self to her surroundings as the caterpillar which 
 takes its colour from the leaf on which it feeds. 
 For a healthy mind acts towards small worries as 
 the skin does towards friction; it protects itself 
 from pain by an excess of vitality. It is only when 
 pressure breaks through the blister that its extent 
 is realised. 
 
 In good truth Belle's life was a merry one. The 
 three girls were good-nature itself, especially when 
 they found the new arrival possessed none of their 
 own single-hearted desire for matrimony. Her 
 stepmother, if anything, was over-considerate, being 
 a trifle inclined to make a bugbear of the girl's 
 superior claims to her father's affection. The house- 
 keeping was lavishly good, and men of a certain 
 stamp were not slow to avail themselves of the best 
 mutton and prawn curry in Faizapore. Where the 
 money came from which enabled the Stuarts to keep 
 open house, they did not enquire. Neither did 
 Belle, who knew no more about the value of things 
 than a baby in arms. As for the Colonel, he had 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 45 
 
 long years before acquired the habit of looking on 
 his debts as his principal, and treating his pay as 
 the interest. So matters went smoothly and swiftly 
 for the first month or so, during which time Belle 
 might have been seen everywhere in the company of 
 the three Miss Van Milders, cheerfully following 
 their lead with a serene innocence that kept even 
 the fastest of a very fast set in check. Once or 
 twice she saw Philip Marsden, and was rallied by 
 the girls on her acquaintance with that solitary 
 misogynist. Mrs. Stuart, indeed, w^ent so far as to 
 ask him to dinner, even though he had not called, 
 on the ground that he was the richest man in the 
 station, and Belle's interests must not be neglected 
 though she was only a stepdaughter. But he sent 
 a polite refusal, and so the matter dropped; nor to 
 Mrs. Stuart's open surprise did Belle make any 
 other declared conquest. 
 
 Yet, unnoticed by all, there was some one, who 
 long before the first month was out, would willingly 
 have cut himself into little pieces in order to save 
 his idol from the least breath of disappointment. 
 So it was from Cousin Dick's superior knowledge of 
 Indian life that Belle learnt many comforting, if 
 curious excuses for things liable to ruffle even her 
 calm of content. 
 
 Poor Dick! Hitherto his efforts in all directions 
 had resulted in conspicuous failure ; chiefly, odd 
 
46 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 though it may seem, because he happened to be born 
 under English instead of Indian skies. In other 
 words, because he was not what bureaucracies term 
 "a Statutory Native." His mother, Mrs. Stuart's 
 younger sister, had run away with a young English- 
 man who, having ruined himself over a patent, was 
 keeping soul and body together by driving engines. 
 In some ways she might have done worse, for Smith 
 senior was a gentleman; but he possessed, unfortu- 
 nately, just that unstable spark of genius which, like 
 a will-o'-the-wisp leads a man out of the beaten path 
 without guiding him into another. The small sum 
 of money she brought him was simply so much fuel 
 to feed the flame ; and, within a few months of their 
 marriage, the soft, luxurious girl was weeping her 
 eyes out in a miserable London lodging, while he 
 went the rounds with his patent. There Dick was 
 born, and thence after a year or two she brought 
 them both back to the elastic house, the strong 
 family affection, and lavish hospitality which charac- 
 terise the Eurasian race. Not for long, however, 
 since her husband died of heat-apoplexy while away 
 seeking for employment, and she, after shedding 
 many tears, succumbed to consumption brought on 
 by the fogs and cold of the north. So, dependent 
 on various uncles and aunts in turn, little Dick 
 Smith had grown up with one rooted desire in the 
 rough red head over which his sleek, soft guardians 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 47 
 
 shook theirs ominously. Briefly, he was to be an 
 engineer like his father. He broke open everything 
 to see how it worked, and made so many crucial 
 experiments that the whole family yearned for the 
 time when he should join the Government Engineer- 
 ing College at Roorkee. And then, just when this 
 desirable consummation was within reach, some one 
 up among the deodars at Simla, or in an office at 
 Whitehall, invented the "Statutory Native," and 
 there was an end of poor Dick's career; for a Statu- 
 tory Native is a person born in India of parents 
 habitually resident and domiciled in the country. 
 True, the college was open to the boy for his train- 
 ing; but with all the Government appointments 
 awarded to successful students closed to him by the 
 accident of his birth, his guardians naturally shook 
 their heads again over an expensive education 
 which would leave him, practically, without hope 
 of employment. For, outside Government service, 
 engineers are not, as yet, wanted in India. He 
 might, of course, had he been the son of a rich man, 
 have been sent home to pass out as an Englishman 
 through the English college. As it was the boy, 
 rebellious to the heart's core, was set to other 
 employment. Poor Dick! If his European birth 
 militated against him on the one side, his Eurasian 
 parentage condemned him on the other. After in- 
 finite trouble his relations got him a small post on 
 
48 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 the railway, whence he was ousted on reduction; 
 another with a private firm which became bankrupt. 
 The lad's heart and brains were elsewhere, and as 
 failure followed on failure, he gave way to fits of 
 defiance, leading him by sheer excess of energy into 
 low companionship and bad habits. At the time of 
 Belle's arrival he was trying to work off steam as an 
 unpaid clerk in his uncle's office when a boy's first 
 love revolutionized his world; love at first sight, so 
 enthralling, so compelling, that he did not even 
 wonder at the change it wrought in him. Belle 
 never knew, perhaps he himself did not recognise, 
 how much of the calm content of those first few 
 months was due to Dick's constant care. A silent, 
 unreasoning devotion may seem a small thing 
 viewed by the head, but it keeps the heart warm. 
 Poor, homeless, rebellious Dick had never felt so 
 happy, or so good, in all his life; and he would 
 kneel down in his hitherto prayerless room and pray 
 that she might be kept from sorrow, like any young 
 saint. Yet he had an all-too-intimate acquaintance 
 with the corruption of Indian towns, and an all-too- 
 precocious knowledge of evil. 
 
 Belle in her turn liked him; there was something 
 more congenial in his breezy, tempestuous, nature 
 than in the sweetness of her stepbrothers, and 
 unconsciously she soon learnt to come to him for 
 comfort. " Charlie tells such dreadful stories," she 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 49 
 
 complained one day, "and lie really is fond of 
 whisky-and-water. I almost wish father wouldn't 
 give him any." 
 
 "The governor thinks it good for him, I bet," 
 returned Dick stoutl}^ "I believe it is sometimes. 
 Then as for lies! I used to tell 'em myself; it's the 
 climate. He'll grow out of it, you'll see; I did." 
 
 Now Dick's truthfulness was, as a rule, so uncom- 
 promising that Belle cheered up; as for the boy, his 
 one object then was to keep care from those clear 
 eyes ; abstract truth was nowhere. 
 
 The next time Sonny haba was offered a sip from 
 his father's glass, he refused hastily. Pressure pro- 
 duced a howl of terror; nor was it without the 
 greatest difficulty that he was subsequently brought 
 to own that Cousin Dick had threatened to kill him 
 if he ever touched a "peg" again. Luckily for 
 the peace of the household this confession was made 
 in the Colonel's absence, when only Mrs. Stuart's 
 high, strident voice could be raised in feeble anger. 
 The culprit remained unrepentant; the more so 
 because Belle assoilzied him, declaring that Charlie 
 ought not to be allowed to touch the horrid mixture. 
 Whereupon her stepmother sat and cried softly with 
 the boy on her lap, making both Belle and Dick feel 
 horribly guilty, until, the incident having occurred 
 at lunch, both the sufferers fell asleep placidly. 
 When Belle returned from her afternoon ride she 
 
 E 
 
50 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 found Mrs. Stuart in high good humour, decanting 
 a bottle of port wine. " You frightened me so, my 
 dear," she said affectionately, "that I sent for the 
 doctor, and he says port wine is better, so I'm glad 
 you mentioned it." And Belle felt more guilty 
 than ever. 
 
 These afternoon rides were Dick's only trouble. 
 He hated the men who came about the house, and 
 more especially the favoured many who were allowed 
 to escort the "Van" as Belle's three stepsisters 
 were nick-named. It made him feel hot and cold 
 all over to think of her in the company which he 
 found suitable enough for liis cousins. But then it 
 seemed to him as if no one was good enough for 
 Belle, — he himself least of all. He dreamed wild, 
 happy dreams of doing something brave, fine, and 
 manly; not so much from any desire of thereby 
 winning her, but because liis own love demanded it 
 imperiously. For the first time the needle of his 
 compass pointed unhesitatingly to the pole of right. 
 He confided these aspirations to the girl, and they 
 would tell each other tales of heroism until their 
 cheeks flushed, and their eyes flashed responsive to 
 the deeds of which they talked. One day Dick came 
 home full of the story of Major Marsden and the 
 Afghan sepoy; and they agreed to admire it im- 
 mensely. After that Dick made rather a hero of the 
 Major, and Belle began to wonder why the tall quiet 
 
MISS STtJAIlT's LEGACY. 51 
 
 man who had been so friendly at their first meeting, 
 kept so persistently aloof from her and hers. He 
 was busy, of course, but so were others, for these 
 were stirring times. The arsenal was working over 
 hours, and all through the night, long files of laden 
 carts crept down the dusty roads, bearing stores for 
 the front. 
 
 To all outward appearance, however, society 
 took no heed of these wars or rumours of wars, but 
 went on its way rejoicing in the winter climate 
 w^hich made amusement possible. And no one in 
 the station rejoiced more than Belle. Major Mars- 
 den, watching her from afar, told himself that a girl 
 who adopted her surroundings — and such surround- 
 ings ! — so readil}^ was not to be pitied. She was 
 evidently well able to take care of herself; yet, 
 many a time, as he sat playing whist while others 
 were dancing, he caught himself looking up to see 
 who the partner might be with whom she was hurry- 
 ing past to seek the cooler air of the .gardens, where 
 seats for two were dimly visible among the coloured 
 lanterns. 
 
 For the most part, however. Belle's partners were 
 boys, too young to have lost the faculty of recognis- 
 ing innocent unconsciousness. But one night at a 
 large ball given to a departing regiment, she fell 
 into the hands of a stranger who had come in from 
 an outstation in order to continue a pronounced fiirta- 
 
52 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 tion which Maud Van Milder had permitted during 
 a dull visit to a friend. That astute young lady 
 having no intention of offending permanent partners 
 for his sake, handed him over to Belle for a dance, 
 and the latter, failing to fall in with his step during 
 the first turn, pleaded fatigue as the easiest way of 
 getting through the penance. 
 
 Philip at his whist, saw her pass down the corri- 
 dor towards the garden ; and, happening to know her 
 companion, played a false card, lost the trick, and 
 apologised. 
 
 "Time yet, if we look out," replied his partner; 
 but this was exactly what the Major could not do, 
 and the rubber coming swiftly to an end, he made 
 an excuse for cutting out, and followed Belle into 
 the garden, wondering wlio could have introduced 
 her to such a man. To begin with he was not fit for 
 decent society, and in addition he had evidently 
 favoured the champagne. Philip had no definite 
 purpose in his pursuit, until from a dark corner he 
 heard Belle's clear young voice with a touch of 
 hauteur in it. Then the impulse to get her away 
 from her companion before he had a chance of mak- 
 ing himself objectionable, came to the front, joined 
 to an unexpected anger and annoyance. 
 
 "I have been looking for you everywhere, Miss 
 Stuart. You are wanted," said Philip going up to 
 them. 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 53 
 
 "Hallo, Marsden! what a beast you are to come 
 just as we were gettin' confidential — weren't we?" 
 exclaimed Belle's companion with what was meant 
 to be a fascinating leer. She turned from one face 
 to the other; but if the one aroused dislike and 
 contempt, the air of authority in Major Marsden 's 
 touched her pride. 
 
 "Who wants me?" she asked calmly. 
 
 "Who!" echoed her partner. "Come, that's a 
 good one ! We both want you ; don't we, Marsden ? " 
 
 Luckily for the speaker Philip recognised his own 
 imprudence in risking an altercation. The only 
 thing to be done now, was to get the girl away as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 "Exactly so;" he replied, crushing down his 
 anger, "Miss Stuart can choose between us." 
 
 Belle rose superbly. 
 
 " You seem to forget I can go alone. " And alone she 
 went, while her partner shrieked with noisy laughter, 
 avowing that he loved a spice of the devil in a girl. 
 
 Philip moodily chewing the end of his cheroot ere 
 turning in felt that the rebuff served him right, 
 though he could not restrain a smile as he thought 
 of Belle's victorious retreat. By that time, how- 
 ever, subsequent facts had enlightened her as to 
 Philip's possible meaning, and the sight of her 
 former partner being inveigled away from waltzing 
 to the billiard room by the senior subaltern, made 
 
54 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 her turn so pale that John Raby, on whose arm she 
 was leaning, thought she was afraid. 
 
 "He won't be allowed to come back, Miss Stuart," 
 he said consolingly. " And I apologise in the name 
 of the committee for the strength of the champagne." 
 
 Belle's mouth hardened. "There is no excuse for 
 that sort of thing. There never can be one." 
 
 He looked at her curiously. 
 
 "I wouldn't say that, Miss Stuart. It is a mistake 
 to be so stern. For my part I can forgive anything. 
 It is an easy habit to acquire — and most con- 
 venient." 
 
 Belle, however, could not even forgive herself. 
 She lay tossing about enacting the scene over and 
 over again, wondering what Major Marsden must 
 think of her. How foolish she ha/:l been! Wliy 
 had she not trusted him? Why had he not made 
 her understand? 
 
 Being unable to sleep, she rose, and long ere her 
 usual hour was walking about the winding patlis 
 which intersected the barren desert of garden where 
 nothing grew but privet and a few bushes of olean- 
 der. This barrenness was not Dame Nature's fault, 
 for just OA^er the other side of the wide white road 
 John Raby's garden was ablaze with blossom. Trails 
 of Mar^chale Niel roses, heavy with great creamy 
 cups, hung over the low hedge, and a sweet English 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 55 
 
 scent of clove-pinks and mignonette was wafted to 
 her with every soft, fitful gust of wind. She felt 
 desperately inclined to cross the intervening dust 
 into this paradise, and stood quite a long time at 
 the blue gate-posts wondering why a serpent seemed 
 to have crept into her own Eden. The crow's long- 
 drawn note came regularly from a kuchndr tree that 
 was sheeted with white geranium-like flowers ; the 
 Seven Brothers chattered noisily among the yellow 
 tassels of the cassia, and over head, against the 
 cloudless sky, a wedge-sha2:)ed flight of cranes was 
 winging its way northward, all signs that the pleas- 
 ant cold weather was about to give p)lace to the fiery 
 furnace of May; but Belle knew nothing of such 
 things as yet, so the vague sense of coming evil, 
 which lay heavily on her, seemed all the more 
 depressing from its unreasonableness. A striped 
 squirrel became inquisitive over her still figure and 
 began inspection with bushy tail erect and short 
 starts of advance, till it was scared by the clank of 
 bangles and anklets as a group of Hindu women, 
 bearing bunches of flowers and brazen lotahs of milk 
 for Seetlas' shrine, came down the road; beside them, 
 in various stages of toddle, the little children for 
 whom their mothers were about to beg immunity 
 from small-pox. Of all this again Belle knew noth- 
 ing ; but suddenly, causelessly, it struck her for the 
 first time that she ought to know something. Who 
 
66 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 were these people ? What v/ere they doing ? Where 
 were they going ? One small child paused to look 
 at her and she smiled at him. The mother smiled 
 in return, and the other women looked back half 
 surprised, half pleased, nodding, and laughing as 
 they went on their way. 
 
 Why? Belle, turning to enquire after the late 
 breakfast, felt oppressed by her own ignorance. In 
 the verandah she met the bearer coming out of the 
 Colonel's window with a medicine bottle in his 
 hand. Did her ignorance go so far that her father 
 should be ill and she not know of it? "Budlu!" 
 she asked hastily, "the Colonel saldh isn't ill, is 
 he?" 
 
 The man, who had known her mother, and grown 
 grey with his master, raised a submissive face. 
 "No, missy haba^ not ill. Colonel sahih^ he drunk." 
 
 "Drunk! " she echoed mechanically, too astonished 
 for horror. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Too much wine drunk, — very bad," explained 
 Budlu cheerful^. 
 
 She caught swiftly at the words with a sense of 
 relief from she knew not what. "Ah, I see! the 
 wine last night was bad, and disagreed with him?" 
 
 "Damn bad!" Budlu's English was limited but 
 not choice. She remarked on it at the breakfast- 
 table, repeating his words and laughing. None of 
 the girls were down, but Walter and Stanley gig- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 67 
 
 gled; and the latter was apparently about to say 
 something facetious, when his words changed into 
 an indignant request that Dick woukl look out, and 
 keep his feet to himself. 
 
 "Was it you I kicked?" asked Dick innocently. 
 "I thought it was the pnppy." Then he went on 
 fast as if in haste to change the subject: "I often 
 wonder why you don't learn Hindustani, Belle. 
 You'd be ashamed not to speak the lingo in other 
 countries. Why not here? I'll teach j^ou if you 
 like." 
 
 "There's your chance. Belle!" sneered Stanley, 
 still smarting from Dick's forcible method of ensur- 
 ing silence. "He really is worth ten rupees a 
 month as moonshee, and 'twill save the governor's 
 pocket if it goes in the family." 
 
 An unkind speech, no doubt ; yet it did good ser- 
 vice to Dick by ensuring Belle's indignant defence, 
 and her immediate acceptance of his offer; for she 
 was ever ready of tongue, and swift of sympath}^ 
 against injustice or meanness. 
 
 So the little incident of the morning passed with- 
 out her understanding it in the least. Nevertheless 
 Dick found it harder and harder every day to manip- 
 ulate facts, and to stand between his princess and 
 the naked, indecent truth. Her curiosity in regard 
 to many things had been aroused, and she asked 
 more questions in the next four days than she had 
 
58 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 asked in the previous four months ; almost scandaliz- 
 ing the Van Milder clan by the interest she took 
 in things of which they knew nothing. It was all 
 very well, the girls said, if she intended to be a 
 zenana-mission lady, but without that aim it seemed 
 to them barely correct that she should know how 
 many wives the khayisamah (butler) had. As for 
 the boys, they rallied her tremendously about her 
 Hindustani studies, for, like most of their race, 
 they prided themselves on possessing but a limited 
 acquaintance with their mother tongue; Walter, 
 indeed, being almost boastful over the fact that he 
 had twice failed for the Higher Standard. Then 
 the whole family chaffed her openly because she had 
 a few sensible talks with John Raby, the young 
 civilian; and when she began to show a certain 
 weariness of pursuing pleasure in rear of the "Van," 
 insisted that she must be in love with him without 
 knowing it. 
 
 "I don't like Raby," said Mildred, the youngest 
 and least artificial of the sisters. "Jack Carruthers 
 told me the governor had been dropping a lot of 
 money to him at ecarte.'' 
 
 "I don't see what you and Mr. Carruthers have to 
 do with father's amusements," flashed out Belle in 
 swift anger. "I suppose he can afford it, and at 
 least he never stints you, — I mean the family," she 
 added hastil}^ fearing to be mean. 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 59 
 
 "Quite true, my dear! He's a real good sort, is 
 the governor, about money, and he can of course do 
 as he likes; but Raby oughtn't to gamble; it isn't 
 form in a civilian. You needn't laugh, Belle, it's 
 true; it would be quite different if he was in the 
 army." 
 
 "Soldiers rush in where civilians fear to tread," 
 parodied Belle contemptuously. "I wish people 
 wouldn't gossip so. Why can't they leave their 
 neighbours alone ? " 
 
 Nevertheless that afternoon she stole over to the 
 office, which was only separated from the house by 
 an expanse of dusty, stubbly grass, and seeing her 
 father alone in his private room comfortably reading 
 the paper, slipped to his side, and knelt down. 
 
 "Well, my pretty Belle," he said caressing her 
 soft fluffy hair, "why aren't you out riding with the 
 others?" 
 
 "I didn't care to go; then you were to be at home, 
 and I like that best. I don't see much of you as a 
 rule, father." 
 
 Colonel Stuart's virtue swelled visibly, as it 
 always did under the vivifying influence of his 
 daughter's devotion. "lam a busy man, my dear, 
 you must not forget that," he replied a trifle pom- 
 pously; "my time belongs to the Government I have 
 the honour to serve." The girl was a perfect god- 
 send to him, acting on his half-dead sensibilities 
 
60 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 like a galvanic battery on paralysed nerve-centres. 
 He was dimly conscious of this, and also of relief 
 that the influence was not always on him. 
 
 "I know you are very busy, dear," she returned, 
 nestling her head on his arm, as she seated herself 
 on the floor. "That's what bothers me. Couldn't 
 I help you in your work sometimes ? I write a very 
 good hand, so people say." 
 
 Colonel Stuart let his paper fall in sheer astonish- 
 ment. " Help me I why my dear child, I have any 
 number of clerks." 
 
 "But I should like to help!" Her voice was 
 almost pathetic ; there was quite a break in it. 
 
 Her father looked at her in vague alarm. " You 
 are not feeling ill, are you. Belle ? Not feverish, I 
 hope, my dear! It's a most infernal climate though, 
 and one can't be too careful. You'd better go and 
 get your mother to give you five grains of quinine. 
 I can't have you falling sick, I can't indeed; just 
 think of the anxiety it would be." 
 
 Belle, grateful for her father's interest, took the 
 quinine; but no drug, not even poppy or mandra- 
 gora, had power to charm away her restless dissatis- 
 faction. Dick's office was no sinecure, and even 
 his partial eyes could not fail to see that she was 
 often captious, almost cross. It came as a revela- 
 tion to him, for hitherto she had been a divinity in 
 his eyes; and now, oh strange heresy! he found 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 61 
 
 himself able to laugli at her with increased, but 
 altered devotion. Hitherto he had wreathed her 
 pedestal Avith flowers; now he kept the woman's 
 feet from thorns, and the impulse to make their 
 pathways one grew stronger day by day. She, un- 
 conscious of the position, added fuel to the flame by 
 choosing his society, and making him her confidant. 
 Naturally with one so emotional as Dick, the crisis 
 was not long in coming, and music, of which he was 
 passionately fond, brought it about in this wise ; for 
 Belle played prettily, and he used to sit and listen 
 to her like the lover in Frank Dicks ee's Harmony^ 
 letting himself drift away on a sea of pleasure or 
 pain, he scarcely knew which. So, one afternoon 
 when they were alone in the house together, she sat 
 down to the piano and played Schubert's Friihling- 
 slied. The sunshine lay like cloth of gold outside, 
 the doves cooed ceaselessly, the scent of the roses in 
 John Raby's garden drifted in through the window 
 with the warm wind which stirred the little soft 
 curls on Belle's neck. The perfume of life got into 
 the lad's brain, and almost before he knew it, his 
 arms were round the girl, his kisses were on her lips, 
 and his tale of love in her ears. 
 
 It was very unconventional of course, but very 
 natural, — for him. For her the sudden rising to 
 her full height with amazement and dislike in her 
 face was equally natural, and even more unfore- 
 
62 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 seen. The sight of it filled poor Dick with such 
 shame and regret, that his past action seemed almost 
 incredible to his present bewilderment. "Forgive 
 me, Belle," he cried, "I was mad; but indeed I love 
 you, — I love you." 
 
 She stood before him like an insulted queen full 
 of bitter anger. " I will never forgive you. How 
 dare you kiss me? How dare you say you love 
 me?" 
 
 The lad's combativeness rose at her tone. " I 
 suppose any one may dare to love you. I'm sorry I 
 kissed you. Belle, but my conduct doesn't alter my 
 love." 
 
 His manner, meant to be dignified, tended to bom- 
 bast, and the girl laughed scornfully. "Love in- 
 deed! You're only a boy! what do you know about 
 love?" 
 
 "More than you do apparently." 
 
 "I'm glad you realise the fact if that is what you 
 call love." 
 
 "At any rate I'm older than you." 
 
 The retort that he was old enough to know better 
 rose to Belle's lips, but a suspicion that this childish 
 squabbling was neither correct nor dignified, made 
 her pause and say loftily, " How can you ask me to 
 forgive such a mean ungentlemanly thing?" 
 
 The last epithet was too much for Dick ; he looked 
 at her as if she had struck him. "Don't say that, 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 63 
 
 Belle," he said hoarsely. "It's bad enough that it's 
 true, and that you don't understand; but don't say 
 that." He leant over the piano and buried his face 
 in his hands in utter despair. For tlie first time a 
 pulse of pity shot through the storm of physical and 
 mental repulsion in the girl's breast, but she put it 
 from her fiercely. "Why shouldn't I say it if it is 
 true?" 
 
 "Because you are kind; always so good and kind." 
 
 Again the pity had to be repulsed, this time still 
 more harshly. "You will say next that I've been 
 too kind, that I encouraged 3^ou, I suppose; that 
 would put the finishing touch to your meanness." 
 
 This speech put it to Dick's patience; he caught 
 her by both hands, and stood before her masterful in 
 his wrath. " You shall not say such things to me. 
 Belle ! Look me in the face and say it again if you 
 dare. You know quite well how I love and rever- 
 ence you; you know that I would die rather than 
 offend you. I forgot everything but you, — I lost 
 myself, — you know it." 
 
 The thrill in his voice brought a new and dis- 
 tinctly pleasurable sense of power to the young girl, 
 and, alas ! that it should be so, made her more merci- 
 less. "I prefer actions to words. You have in- 
 sulted me and I will never speak to you again." 
 She regretted this assertion almost as it was uttered ; 
 it went too far and bound her down too much. She 
 
64 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 was not always going to be angry with poor Dick 
 surely? No! not always, but for the present de- 
 cidedly angry, very angry indeed. 
 
 "Insult! " echoed Dick drearily, letting her hands 
 slip from his. "There you go again; but fellows do 
 kiss their cousins sometimes." 
 
 Had there been any grown-up spectators to this 
 scene they must have laughed at the full-blown 
 tragedy of both faces, and the alternate bathos and 
 pathos of the pleas. They were so young, so very 
 young, this girl and boy, and neither of them really 
 meant what they said. Belle especially, with her 
 vicious retort: "I am not your cousin, and I'm glad 
 of it. I'm glad that I have nothing to do with 
 you." 
 
 As before her harshness overreached itself, and 
 made a man of him. " You want to put me out of 
 your life altogether. Belle," he said more steadily, 
 "because I have made you angry. You have a 
 right to be angry, and I will go. But not for al- 
 ways. You don't wish that yourself, I think, for 
 you are kind. Oh Belle! be like yourself! say one 
 kind word before I go." 
 
 Again the consciousness of power made her merci- 
 less, and she stood silent, yet tingling all over with 
 a half-fearful curiosity as to what he would say next. 
 
 "One kind word," he pleaded; "only one." 
 
 He waited a minute, then, with a curse on his 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 65 
 
 own folly in expecting pity, flung out of the room. 
 So it was all over! A genuine regret came into the 
 girl's heart and she crept away miserably to her own 
 room, and cried. 
 
 "I wonder Dick isn't home to dinner," remarked 
 Mrs. Stuart when that meal came round. " I do hope 
 he isn't going back to his old habit of staying out. 
 He heard to-day that his application for a post in 
 the Salt Department was refused, and he has no 
 patience like my own boys. I do hope he will 
 come to no harm." 
 
 The empty chair renewed Belle's remorseful regret. 
 
 "Well! I can't have him kicking his heels in my 
 office much longer," remarked the Colonel crossly. 
 " The head-clerk complains of him. Confound his 
 impudence ! he actually interfered in the accounts the 
 other day, and showed regular distrust. I must 
 have good feeling in the office; that's a sine qua 
 wo?i." 
 
 "Oh, Dick's got a splendid opinion of himself," 
 broke in Stanley. " He had the cheek to tell Raby 
 yesterday that he played too much S carte v,dth. — " 
 The speaker remembered his audience too late. 
 
 Colonel Stuart grew purple and breathless. "Do 
 you mean to say that the boy, — that ho?/ — presumed 
 to speak to Raby, — to my friend Raby — about his 
 private actions ? Lucilla ! What is the world com- 
 ing to?" 
 
66 MISS STUART S LEGACY. 
 
 This was a problem never propounded to his wife 
 save under dire provocation, and the answer invari- 
 ably warned him not to expect his own high standard 
 from the Avorld. This time she ventured upon a 
 timid addition to the effect that rumour did accuse 
 Mr. Raby of playing high. 
 
 "And if he does," retorted the Colonel, "he can 
 afford to pay. Raby, my dear, is a fine young fel- 
 low, with good principles, — deuced good principles, 
 let me tell you." 
 
 "I am very glad to hear it, Charles, I'm sure; for 
 it would be a pity if a nice, clever, young man, who 
 would make any girl a good husband, were to get 
 into bad habits." 
 
 " Raby is a man any girl might be proud to marr}^ 
 He is a good fellow." He looked at Belle, who 
 smiled at him absently; she was wondering where 
 Dick could be. 
 
 "Raby isn't a Christian," remarked Mabel. "He 
 told us yesterday he was something else. What 
 was it, Maud?" 
 
 "An erotic Buddhist." 
 
 "Esoteric," suggested Belle. 
 
 "It's all the same. He said we were the three 
 Thibetan sisters and he worshipped us all. But we 
 know who it is, don't we?" 
 
 "How you giggle, girls!" complained Colonel 
 Stuart fretfully. "Belle never giggles. Dear 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 67 
 
 child, I will teach you ecarte this evening. It will 
 amuse 3^ou."' 
 
 It amused him, which was more to the purpose ; in 
 addition it prevented him from falling asleep after 
 dinner, which he was particularly anxious not to do 
 that evening. So they played until, just as the 
 clock was striking ten, a step was heard outside, 
 and Colonel Stuart rose with a relieved remark that 
 it must be John Raby at last. The opening door, 
 however, only admitted truant Dick with rather a 
 flushed face. "From Eaby," he said handing a 
 note to his uncle. "I met the man outside." 
 
 The scowl, which the sight of the culprit had 
 raised on Colonel Stuart's face, deepened as he read 
 a palpable excuse for not coming over to play ecarte. 
 It seemed inconceivable that Dick's remonstrance 
 could have wrought this disappointment; yet even 
 the suggestion was unpleasant. He turned on his 
 nephew only too anxious to find cause of quarrel. 
 It was not hard to find, for Dick was manifestly 
 excited. "At your old tricks again, sir?" said his 
 uncle sternly. "You've been drinking in the 
 bazaar." 
 
 Now Dick, ever since the day on which Belle had 
 come to him in distress over Charlie's abandonment 
 to "pegs," had forsworn liquor, as he had forsworn 
 many another bad habit. Even w^hen driven to 
 despair, he had not flown to the old anodyne. But 
 
68 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 his very virtue had been his undoing, and a single 
 stiff tumbler of whisky and water, forced on him by 
 a friend who was startled by his looks as he returned 
 fagged from a wander into the wilderness, had gone 
 to his unaccustomed head in a most unlooked-for 
 degree. The injustice of the accusation maddened 
 him, and he retorted fiercely: "I haven't had so 
 much to drink as you have, sir." 
 
 "Don't speak to your uncle like that, Dick," 
 cried Mrs. Stuart alarmed. " You had better go to 
 bed, dear; it is the best place for you." 
 
 "Leave the room, you dissipated young meddler," 
 thundered the Colonel breaking in on his wife's 
 attempt to avert a collision. It was the first time 
 Belle had witnessed her father's passion, and the 
 sight made her cling to him as if her touch might 
 soothe his anger. 
 
 Dick, seeing her thus, felt himself an outcast 
 indeed. "I've not been drinking," he burst out, 
 beside himself with jealousy and rage. " The man 
 who says I have is a liar." 
 
 "Go to bed, sir," bawled his uncle, "or I'll kick 
 you out of the room. I'll have no drunkards here." 
 
 Luckless Dick's evil genius prompted an easy 
 retort. "Then you'd better go first, sir; for I've 
 seen you drunk oftener than you've seen me! " 
 
 The next instant he was at Belle's side pleading 
 for disbelief. "No, no, Belle! it's a lie! I am mad 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 69 
 
 — drunk — anything — only it is not true!" His 
 denial struck home to the girl's heart when the 
 angry assertion might have glanced by. A flash of 
 intelligence lit up the past: she recollected a thou- 
 sand incidents, she remembered a thousand doubts 
 which had made no impression at the time; and 
 before Colonel Stuart's inarticulate splutterings of 
 Avrath found words, her eyes met Dick's so truth- 
 fully, so steadily, that he turned away in despair, 
 in blank, hopeless despair. 
 
 " Why to-morrow ? " he cried bitterly in answer to 
 his uncle's order to leave the room instantly and the 
 house to-morrow. " There's no time like the pres- 
 ent, and I deserve it. Good-bj^e, Aunt Lucilla; 
 you've been very kind, always; but I can't stand it 
 any longer. Good-bye, all of you!" 
 
 He never even looked at Belle again; the door 
 closed and he was gone. 
 
 "Poor, dear Dick!" remarked Mrs. Stuart inker 
 high complaining voice. " He always had a violent 
 temper, even as a baby. Don't fret about it, my 
 dear," — for large tears were slowly rolling down 
 Belle's cheeks — " He will be all right to-morrow, 
 you'll see; and he has really been steadiness itself 
 of late." 
 
 "He wasn't anything to speak of either," urged 
 Mildred with her usual good-nature. " Only a little 
 bit on, and I expect he had no dinner." 
 
70 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 "Dinner or no dinner, I say he was drunk," 
 growled Colonel Stuart sulkily. "No one lies like 
 that unless he is, — that's my experience." 
 
 But Belle scarcely realised what they said. Her 
 heart was full of fear, and though sleep came with 
 almost unwelcome readiness to drive thought away, 
 she dreamt all night long that some one was saying, 
 "One kind word. Belle, only one kind word," and 
 she could not speak. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 71 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Outside the parallelograms of white roads cen- 
 tred by brown stretches of stubbly grass, and bor- 
 dered by red and blue houses wherein the European 
 residents of Faizapore dwelt after their kind, and 
 our poor Belle lay dreaming, a very different world 
 had been going on its way placidly indifferent, not 
 to her only, but to the whole colony of strangers 
 within its gates. The great plains, sweeping like 
 a sea to the horizon, had been ploughed, sown, 
 watered, harvested: children had been born, strong 
 men had died, crimes been committed, noble acts 
 done ; and of all this not one word had reached the 
 alien ears. Only the District Officer and his subal- 
 tern, John Raby, bridged the gulf by driving down 
 every day to the court-house, which lay just beyond 
 the boundaries of the cantonment and close to the 
 native city; there, for eight weary hours, to come 
 in contact with the most ignoble attributes of the 
 Indian, and thence to drive at evening heartily glad 
 of escape. In the lines of the native regiment Philip 
 Marsden went in and out among his men, knowing 
 them by name, and sympathising with their lives. 
 But they too were a race apart from the tillers of 
 
Y2 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 soil, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, who 
 pay the bills for the great Empire. 
 
 Even old Mahomed Lateef came but seldom to see 
 the Major saMh since he had been forced to send his 
 Benjamin to Delhi, there, in a hotbed of vice and 
 corruption, to gain a livelihood by his penmanship. 
 The lad was employed on the staff of a red-hot 
 Mahometan newspaper entitled "The Light of 
 Islam," and spent his da3^s in copying blatant lead- 
 ers on to the lithographic stones. Nothing could 
 exceed the lofty tone of "The Light of Islam." No 
 trace of the old Adam peeped through its exalted 
 sentiments save when it spoke of the Government, 
 or of its Hindu rival "The Patriot." Then the 
 editor took down his dictionary of synonyms, and, 
 looking out all the bad epithets from "abandoned" 
 to "zymotic," used them with more copiousness than 
 accurac}^ Sometimes, however, it would join issue 
 with one adversary against another, and blaze out 
 into fiery paragraphs of the following order: 
 
 We are glad to see that j^et once more " The Patriot," for- 
 getting its nonsensical race-prejudice for the nonce, has, to nse 
 a colloquialism, followed oiu* lead in pertinently calling on Gov- 
 ernment for some worthy explanation of the dastardly outrage 
 perpetrated by its minions on a virtuous ]\Iahometan widow, 
 &c., &c. 
 
 And lovers of the dreadful, after wading through 
 a column of abuse, w^ould discover that the ancestral 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. " 73 
 
 dirt of an old lady's cowhouse had been removed by 
 order of the Deput}^ Commissioner! Yet the paper 
 did good : it could hardly do otherwise, considering 
 its exalted sentiments ; but for all that the occupa- 
 tion was an unwholesome one for an excitable lad 
 like Murghub Ahmed. While his fingers inked 
 themselves hopelessly over the fine words, his mind 
 also became clouded by them. The abuse of lan- 
 guage intoxicated him, until moderation seemed to 
 him indifference, and tolerance sympathy. He took 
 to sitting up of nights composing still more turgid 
 denunciations ; and the first time " The Light of 
 Islam " went forth, bearing not only his hand-writ- 
 ing, but his heart's belief on its pages, he felt that 
 he had found his mission. To think that but four 
 months ago he had wept with disappointment be- 
 cause he was refused the post of statistical writer in 
 a Government office! Between striking averages, 
 and evolving Utopias, what a glorious difference! 
 He thanked Providence for the change, though his 
 heart ached cruelly at times when he could spare 
 nothing from his modest wage for the dear ones at 
 home. He had a wife waiting there for him; ere 
 long there mig-ht be a child, and he knew her to be 
 w^orse fed than man}- a street-beggar. It seemed to 
 him part of the general injustice which set his brain 
 on fire. 
 
 "Words! Nothing but words," muttered old 
 
74 ' MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 Mahomed Lateef as lie lay under the solitary nim 
 tree in his courtyard and spelt out "The Light of 
 Islam" with the aid of a huge horn-rimmed pair of 
 spectacles. "Pish! ^ The pen is mightier than the 
 sivord ! ' What white-livered fool said that ? The 
 boy should not have such water in his veins unless 
 his mother played me false. God knows! women 
 are deceitful, and full of guile." 
 
 This was only his habit of thought; he had no 
 intention of casting aspersions on his much respected 
 wife Fatma Bibi, who just then appeared Avith a 
 hookah full of the rankest tobacco. " I shall send for 
 the boy, oh Fatma Bi! " said the stern old domestic 
 tyrant. " Pie is learning to say more than he dare 
 do, and that I will not have. He shall come home 
 and do more than he sa3'S — ha! ha!" Fatma Bi 
 laughed too, and clapped her wrinkled hands, while 
 the shy girl, dutifully doing the daughter-in-law's 
 part of cooking, turned her head away to smile lest 
 any one should accuse her of joy because he was 
 coming back. 
 
 So Mahomed Lateef covered a sheet of flimsy 
 German note-paper, bought in the bazaar, with 
 crabbed Arabic lettering, and the women rejoiced 
 because the light of their ej^es was coming back. 
 And after all the lad refused stoutly to return. He 
 wrote his father a letter, full of the most trite and 
 beautiful sentiments, informing his aged parent that 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 75 
 
 times had changed, the okl order given pLace to the 
 new, and that he intended to raise tlie banner of 
 jehad (religious war) against the infidel. The 
 women cried BismiUah, and Mahomed Lateef, 
 despite his annoyance at the disobedience, could 
 not help, as it were, cocking his ears like an old 
 war-horse. Yet he wrote the lad a warning after 
 his lights, which ran thus : 
 
 God and His prophet forbid, oh son of my heart, that I should 
 keep thee back, if, as thou sayest, thou wouldst raise the banner 
 of Jehad. If a sword be needed, I ^Yill send thee mine own friend ; 
 but remember always what the mullah taught thee, nor confound 
 the three great things, — the Dur-ul-Islam, the Dur-ul-Husub, 
 and the Dur-ul-Ummun.^ Have at the Hindu pigs, especially 
 any that bear kindred to Shunker's fat carcase ; he hath cheated 
 me rascally, and built a window overlooking my yard for which 
 I shall have the law of him. But listen for the cry of the muez- 
 zin, and put thy sword in the scabbard when its sound falls on 
 thine ear, remembering 'tis the House of Protection, and not 
 the House of the Foe. If thou goest to China, as perhaps may 
 befall, seeing the saJiibs fight the infidel there, remember to 
 cool thy brother's grave with tears. Meanwhile, play singlestick 
 with Shahbaz Khan the Mogul, and if thou canst get the old 
 Meean saJiib, his father, on his legs, put the foils into his hand, 
 rap him over the knuckles once, and he will teach thee more in 
 one minute than his son in five. 
 
 1 The three divisions recognised in Mahometan polemics. (1) The 
 place of Islam ; (2) the place of the enemy ; (3) the place of pro- 
 tection. The sign of the latter is the liberty of giving the call to 
 prayers. 
 
76 MISS stuabt's legacy. 
 
 Then the old Syyecl lay down on his bed under 
 the n{7n tree, and Fatma Bi fanned the mosquitoes 
 from him with a tinsel fan, and talked in whispers 
 to Nasibun, the childless wife, of the deeds their 
 boy was to do, while Haiyat Bi, the young bride, 
 busy as usual, found time to dry her tears unseen. 
 A fire burning dim in one corner of the courtyard 
 was almost eclipsed by the moon riding gloriously 
 in the purple-black sky overhead. From the other 
 side of the high partition wall came the dull throb- 
 bing of the dliolki (little drum) and an occasional 
 wild skirling of pipes. The marriage festivities in 
 Shunker Dfis's house had begun, and every day some 
 ceremony or other had to be gone through, bringing 
 an excuse for having the ^nardnsunis (female musi- 
 cians) in to play and sing. High up near the roof 
 of the sugar-cake house with its white filigree 
 mouldings gleamed the objectionable window. 
 Within sat the usurer himself conferring with his 
 jackal, one Ram Lai, a man of small estate but in- 
 finite cunning. It was from no desire of overlook- 
 ing Mahomed Lateef's women that Shunker Das 
 frequented the upper chamber. He had other and 
 far more important business on hand, necessitating 
 quiet and the impossibility of being overheard. Even 
 up there the two talked in whispers, and chuckled 
 under their breath; while in the courtj^ard below 
 the delicate child who stood between Shunker and 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 77 
 
 damnation ate sweetmeats and turned night into day 
 with weary, yet sleepless, eyes. 
 
 The moon, shining in on the two courtyards, shone 
 also on the church garden, as Major Marsden after 
 going his rounds turned his horse into its winding 
 paths. A curious garden it was, guiltless of flowers 
 and planted for the most part with tombstones. 
 Modern sanitation, stepping in like Aaron's rod to 
 divide the dead from the living, had ceased to use it 
 as a cemetery ; but the records of long forgotten sor- 
 rows remained, looking ghostly in the moonlight. 
 The branch of a rose-tree encroaching on the walk 
 caught in the tassel of Major Marsden's bridle, and 
 he stooped to disentangle it. Straightening himself 
 again, he paused to look on the peaceful scene 
 around him and perceived that some one, a belated 
 soldier most likely, was lying not far off on a tomb- 
 stone. The horse picked its way among many a 
 nameless grave to draw up beside a figure lying 
 still as if carved in stone. 
 
 "Now, my man, what's up?" said Major Marsden 
 dismounting to lay a heavy hand on its shoulder. 
 The sleeper rose almost automatically, and stood 
 before him alert and yet confused. " Dick Smith ! 
 What on earth brings you here?" 
 
 The boy could scarcely remember at first, so far 
 had sleep taken him from his troubles. Then he 
 hung his head before memory. "I'm leaving Faiza- 
 
78 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 pore, and came here — to wait for daylight; that's 
 all." 
 
 But the moonlight on the tombstone showed its 
 inscription, "Sacred to the memory of John Smith"; 
 and Philip Marsden judged instantly that there was 
 trouble afoot; boys do not go to sleep on their 
 father's graves without due cause. Some scrape no 
 doubt, and yet — . His dislike to Colonel Stuart 
 made him a partisan, and he was more ready to 
 believe ill of the elder, than of the younger man. 
 
 "Don't be in a hurry," he said kindly. "There's 
 something wrong of course, but very few scrapes 
 necessitate running away." 
 
 "There's nothing to make me run away," replied 
 Dick, with a lump in his throat as he unconsciously 
 contrasted this stranger's kindness with other peo- 
 ple's harshness; "but go I must." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 The question roused the sense of injury latent for 
 years. "Where? How do I know? I tell you 
 there's nothing for me to do anywhere — nothing! 
 And then, when a fellow is sick of waiting, and 
 runs wild a bit, they throw it in his teeth, when he 
 has given it all up." 
 
 It was not very lucid, but the lad's tone was 
 enough for Philip Marsden. "Come home with 
 me," he said with a smile full of pit}^; "and have a 
 real sleep in a real bed. You don't know how dif- 
 ferent things will seem to-morrow." 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 79 
 
 Dick looked at his hero, thought how splendid he 
 was, and went with him like a lamb. 
 
 Next morning when the boy with much circumlo- 
 cution began to tell the tale of his troubles, Major 
 Marsden felt inclined to swear. Would he never 
 learn to mistrust his benevolent impulses, but go 
 down to his grave making a fool of himself? A 
 boy and girl lovers' quarrel, — was that all? Yet 
 as the story proceeded he became interested in spite 
 of himself. "Do you mean to tell me," he said 
 incredulously, "that Miss Stuart is absolutely igno- 
 rant of what goes on in that house? " 
 
 Dick laid his head on the table in sheer despair. 
 "Ah Major, Major!" he cried, "I told her — I — 
 you should have seen her face ! " He burst into 
 incoherent regrets, and praises of Belle's angelic 
 innocence. 
 
 "It appears to me," remarked Major Marsden 
 drily, "to be about the best thing that could have 
 happened. Fiction is always unsafe. Belle, — as 
 you call her — must have found it out sooner or 
 later. The sooner the better, in my opinion." 
 
 "You wouldn't say that if you knew her as I do," 
 explained the other eagerly; "or if you knew all 
 that I do. There will be a smash some day soon, 
 and it will kill Belle outright. Ah! if I hadn't 
 been a fool and a brute, I might have stayed and 
 perhaps kept things from going utterly wrong." 
 
80 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 "Then why don't you go back?" asked his hearer 
 impatiently. 
 
 "I can't! He won't have me in the office again. 
 You don't know what mischief is brewing there." 
 
 "Thank you, I'd rather not know; but if you're 
 certain this move of yours is final, — that is to say 
 if you don't want to kiss and make friends with 
 your cousin — [Poor Dick writhed inwardly, for he 
 had kept back the full enormity of his offence] — 
 then I might be able to help you in getting employ- 
 ment. They are laying a new telegraph-line to the 
 front, and, as it so happens, a friend wrote to me a 
 few days ago asking if I knew of any volunteers for 
 the work." 
 
 The lad's face brightened. "Telegraphs! oh, I 
 should like that! I've been working at them these 
 two years, and I think — but I'm not sure — that 
 I've invented a new — " 
 
 " All right," interrupted Major Marsden brusquely ; 
 "they can try you, at any rate. You can start to- 
 night ; that settles it. Now you had better go round 
 and get your things ready." 
 
 Dick writhed again in mingled pride and regret. 
 "I can't; I've said good-bye to them all; besides, I 
 left a bundle of sorts in the bazaar before I went — 
 there." 
 
 Philip Marsden shrugged his shoulders, remark- 
 ing that the boy might do as he liked, and went off 
 
ivnss Stuart's legacy. 81 
 
 to his work; returning about two o'clock, however, 
 to find Dick asleep, wearied out even by a half- 
 night's vigil of sorrow. "How soft these young 
 things are," he thought, as he looked down on the 
 sleeping boy, and noticed a distinctly damp pocket- 
 handkerchief still in the half-relaxed hand. A cer- 
 tain scorn was in his heart, yet the very fact that he 
 did notice such details showed that he was not so 
 hard as he pretended. He went into the rough, dis- 
 orderly room where he spent so many solitary even- 
 ings, lit a cigar, and walked about restlessly. 
 Finally, telling himself the while that he was a fool 
 for his pains, he sat down and wrote to Belle Stuart 
 in this wise : — 
 
 My dear Miss Stuart, — At the risk of once more being 
 meddlesome, I venture to tell you that your cousin, Dick Smith, 
 goes off to Beluchistan to-night as telegraph overseer. It is 
 dangerous work, and perhaps you might like to see him before 
 he leaves. If so, by riding through the church garden about 
 six o'clock you will meet him. He doesn't know I am writing, 
 and would most likely object if he did ; but I know most women 
 believe in the duty of forgiveness. Yours truly, P. H. Marsdex. 
 
 P.S. If you were to send a small selection of warm clothing 
 to meet him at the bullock train office it, at any rate, could not 
 fail to be a comfort to him. 
 
 Belle read this rather brusque production with 
 shining eyes and a sudden lightening of her heart. 
 Perhaps, as she told herself, this arose entirely from 
 
82 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 her relief on Dick's account; perhaps the convic- 
 tion that Major Marsden could not judge her very 
 harshly if he thought it worth while to appeal to 
 her in this fashion, had something to do with it. 
 The girl however did not question herself closely on 
 any subject. Even the dreadful doubt which Dick's 
 mad words had raised the night before had somehow 
 found its appointed niche in the orderly pageant of 
 her mind where love sat in the place of honour. 
 Was it true? The answer came in a passionate 
 desire to be ignorant, and yet to protect and save. 
 Very illogical, no doubt, but very womanl}^; to a 
 certain extent very natural also, for her father, 
 forced by the circumstances detailed in the last chap- 
 ter to retire early to bed, had arisen next morning 
 in a most edifying frame of mind, and a somewhat 
 depressed state of body. He was unusually tender 
 towards Belle, and spoke with kindly dignity of 
 unhappy Dick's manifest ill-luck. These disposi- 
 tions therefore rendered it easy for Belle to make 
 excuses in her turn. Not that she made them con- 
 sciously; that would have argued too great a change 
 of thought. The craving to forget and forgive was 
 imperative, and the sense of wrong-doing which her 
 innate truthfulness would not allow to be smothered, 
 found an outlet in self-blame for her unkindness to 
 dear Dick. As for poor father — : the epithets 
 spoke volumes. 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 83 
 
 "There is your cousin," said Major Marsclen to 
 Dick as Belle rode towards tliem through the over- 
 arching trees in the church garden. "Don't run 
 away; I asked her to come. You'll find me by the 
 bridge." 
 
 The lad was like Mahomet's coffin, hanging 
 between a hell of remorse and a heaven of forgive- 
 ness, as he watched her approach, and when she 
 reined up beside him, he looked at her almost fear- 
 fully. 
 
 "I'm sorry I was cross to you, Dick," she said 
 simply, holding out her hand to him. The clouds 
 were gone, and Dick Smith felt as if he would have 
 liked to stand up and chant her praises, or fight 
 her battles, before the whole world. They did not 
 allude to the past in any way until the time for part- 
 ing came, when Dick, urged thereto by the rankle of 
 a certain epithet, asked with a furious blush if she 
 would promise to forget — everything. She looked 
 at him with kindly smiling eyes. " Good-bye, dear 
 Dick," she said; and then, suddenly, she stooped 
 and kissed him. 
 
 The young fellow could not speak. He turned 
 aside to caress the horse, and stood so at her bridle- 
 rein for a moment. " God bless you for that, Belle," 
 he said huskily and left her. 
 
 Belle, with a lump in her own throat and tearful 
 shining eyes, rode back past the bridge where Philip 
 
84 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 Marsden, leaning over the parapet, watched the oily 
 flow of the canal water in the cut below. He looked 
 up, thinking how fair and slim and young she was, 
 and raised his hat expecting her to pass, but she 
 paused. He felt a strange thrill as his eyes met 
 hers still wet with tears. 
 
 " I have so much to thank you for. Major Mars- 
 den," she said with a little tremor in her voice, "and 
 I do it so badly. You see I don't always under- 
 stand—" 
 
 Something in her tone smote Philip Marsden with 
 remorse. "Please not to say any more about it. 
 Miss Stuart. I understand, — and, — and, — I'm 
 glad you do not." Thinking over his words after- 
 wards he came to the conclusion that both these 
 statements had wandered from the truth ; but how, 
 he asked himself a little wrathfully, could any 
 man tell the naked, unvarnished, disagreeable truth 
 with a pair of grey eyes soft with tears looking 
 at him? 
 
 Dick, of course, raved about his cousin for the 
 rest of the evening, and besought the Major to send 
 him confidential reports on the progress of events. 
 In his opinion disaster was unavoidable, and he was 
 proceeding to detail his reasons, when Major Mars- 
 den cut him short by saying : " I would rather not 
 hear anything about it; and I should like to know, 
 first, if you are engaged to your cousin?" 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 85 
 
 Dick confessed he was not; whereupon his com- 
 panion told him that he would promise nothing, 
 except, he added hastily, catching sight of Dick's 
 disappointed face, to help the girl in any way he 
 could. With this the boy professed to be quite con- 
 tent; perhaps he had grasped the fact that Philip 
 Marsden was apt to be better than his word. And 
 indeed a day or two after Dick's departu7:e Marsden 
 took the trouble to go over and inquire of John 
 Raby what sort of a man Lala Shunker Das, the 
 great contractor, was supposed to be. 
 
 The 3'oung civilian laughed. "Like them all, 
 not to be trusted. Why do you ask?" He broke 
 in on the evasive answer by continuing, " The man 
 is a goldsmith by caste. I suppose you know that 
 in old days they were never allowed in Government 
 service. As the proverb says, 'A goldsmith will do 
 his grandmother out of a pice. ' But if the Lala-ji 
 gives you trouble, bring him to me. I've been kind 
 to him, and he is grateful, in his way." 
 
 Now the history of John Raby's kindness to Lala 
 Shunker Das was briefly this: he had discovered 
 him in an attempt to cheat the revenue in the mat- 
 ter of income-tax, and had kept the knowledge in 
 his own hands. "Purists would say I ought to 
 report it, and smash the man," argued this astute 
 young casuist; "but the knowledge that his ruin 
 in the matter of that Rai Bdhddur-^hi^ hangs by a 
 
86 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 thread will keep the old thief straighter; besides it 
 is always unwise to give away power. '^ 
 
 That to a great extent was the keynote of John 
 Raby's life. He coveted power, not so much for its 
 own sake as for the use he could make of it. For 
 just as some men inherit a passion for drink, he had 
 inherited greed of gain from a long line of Jewish 
 ancestry. The less said of his family the better: 
 indeed, so far as his own account went, he appeared 
 to have been born when he went to read with a cele- 
 brated "coach" at the age of sixteen. Memory 
 never carried him further in outward speech ; but as 
 this is no uncommon occurrence in Indian society, 
 the world accepted him for what he appeared to 
 be, a well-educated gentleman, and for what he was, 
 a man with a pension for himself and his widow. 
 His first collector, a civilian of the old type, used to 
 shake his head when John Raby's name was men- 
 tioned, and augur that he would either be hanged or 
 become a Chief Court Judge. "He was in camp 
 with me, sir," this worthy would say, "when a 
 flight of wild geese came bang over the tent. I 
 got a couple, the last with the full choke; and I 
 give you my word of honour Raby never lifted his 
 eyes from the huniah's book he was deciphering in a 
 petty bond case! " 
 
 In truth the young man's faculty for figures, and 
 his aptitude for discovering fraud, partook of the 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 87 
 
 nature of genius, and gained liim the reputation of 
 being a perfect shaitan (devil) among the natives. 
 Philip Marsden, associated with him on a committee 
 for the purchase of mules, learnt to trust his acumen 
 implicitly, and became greatly interested in the 
 clear-headed, well-mannered young fellow who knew 
 such a prodigious amount for his years ; pleasant in 
 society too, singing sentimental songs in a light 
 tenor voice, and having a store of that easy small- 
 talk which makes society smooth by filling up the 
 chinks. Being a regular visitor of Colonel Stuart's 
 house John Raby saw a good deal of Belle, and liked 
 her in a friendly, approving manner; but, whatever 
 Mrs. Stuart may have thought, he had no more 
 intention of marrying a penniless girl than of per- 
 forming a pilgrimage, or any other pious act savour- 
 ing of the Middle Ages. 
 
 " By the way, I haven't seen the Miss Van Milders 
 or their mother lately,'' remarked Major Marsden 
 one day to him, as they came home from their com- 
 mittee together and met Belle going out for her 
 afternoon ride by herself. 
 
 "Oh, they've gone to Mussoorie; Belle's keeping 
 house for her father." 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 ''Yes, alone; queer menage^ ain't it? I believe 
 the girl thinks she'll reform the Colonel; and he is 
 awfully fond of her, but — " The younger man 
 
88 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 shook his head with a laugh. It jarred upon Philip 
 Marsden and he changed the subject quickly. So 
 she had elected to stay with her father! Well, he 
 admired her courage, and could only hope that she 
 would not have to pay too dearly for it. 
 
MISS stuaPvT's legacy. 89 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Lala Shunker DAs having discarded all cloth- 
 ing save a scarf of white muslin tied petticoat-wise 
 round his loins, lay on a wooden bed perched high 
 on the topmost platform of his tall house. But 
 even there the burning breezes of May brought no 
 relief from the heat; and he lay gasping, while his 
 faithful jackal Ram Lai pounded away with lean 
 brown knuckles at his master's fat body. The mas- 
 sage seemed to do little good, for he grunted and 
 groaned dismally. In truth the Lala ached all over, 
 both in body and soul. A thousand things had 
 conspired against him : his last and most expensive 
 wife (after spending a fortune in pilgrimages) had 
 committed the indiscretion of presenting him with a 
 girl baby ; his grandmother having died, he had been 
 forced much against his will to shave his head; his 
 greatest rival had been elevated to the Honorary 
 Magistracy and (adding injur}^ to insult) been asso- 
 ciated with him on a hunch (bench), and justice grown 
 in bunches is not nearly so remunerative to the 
 grower as single specimens. These w^ere serious 
 ills, but there was one, far more trivial, which 
 
90 MISS STUAET'S LEGACY. 
 
 nevertheless smarted worst of all ; perhaps because it 
 was the most recent. 
 
 That very morning Shunker Das, as behoved one 
 of his aspirations, had testified to his loyalty by 
 attending the usual parade in honour of the Queen's 
 birthday. On previous occasions he had driven 
 thither in his barouche, but ambition had suggested 
 that an appearance on horseback would show greater 
 activity, and please the Powers. So he bought a 
 cast horse from the cavalry regiment just ordered on 
 service, and having attired himself in glittering 
 raiment, including a magnificent turban of pink 
 Benares muslin, he took his place by the flagstaff. 
 People congratulated him warmly on his confidential 
 charger Avhich, even at the feu de joie, seemed lost in 
 philosophic reflections. Shunker Das waxed jubi- 
 lant over the success of his scheme, and was just 
 giving himself away in magnificent lies, when the 
 bugle sounded for "close order" preparatory to a 
 few words from the General to the departing cavalry 
 regiment. On this the war-horse pricked up its 
 ears, and starting off at a dignified trot rejoined its 
 old companions, while the Lala, swearing hideously, 
 tugged vainly at the reins. Arrived at the line the 
 conscientious creature sidled down it, trying vainly 
 to slip into a vacant place. Failing of success, the 
 intelligent beast concluded it must be on orderly 
 duty, and just as the l^ala was congratulating him- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 91 
 
 self on having finisliecl his involuntary ronncls, his 
 horse, turning at right angles, bounded off to rejoin 
 the General's staff. Away went the Lala's stirrups. 
 He must have gone too, despite his clutch on the 
 mane, had not the streaming end of his inigree 
 caught in the high crupper-strap and held fast. So 
 stayed, fore and aft, he might have reached the goal 
 in safety, had not the General, annoyed by the sup- 
 pressed tittering around him, lost patience, and 
 angrily ordered some one to stop that man. Where- 
 upon a mischievous aide-de-camp gave the word for 
 the "halt" to be sounded. Confused out of every- 
 thing save obedience, the charger stopped dead in 
 his tracks, and the Lala shot over his head, still 
 in a sitting posture. On being relieved of his 
 burden, the co-ordination "stables" apparently came 
 uppermost in the horse's mind, for it w^alked away 
 slowly, bearing with it the end of the Lala's turban 
 still fastened in the crupper. He, feeling a sudden 
 insecurity in his headgear, and being, even in his 
 confusion, painfully conscious of his baldness, clung 
 to the lower folds w^ith both hands. At this slight 
 check, the charger, not to be baulked, set off at a 
 canter, and over rolled the fat Lal^, heels in air. 
 Then, and not till then, one roar of laughter rent 
 the air. For as he lay there on his back, kicking 
 like a turned turtle, the pugree began to unwind like 
 a ball of thread, while the Lala held on like grim 
 
92 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 death to the lower portion. Not until the last fold 
 had slipped through his fingers and a quarter of a 
 mile or so of pink muslin was fluttering across the 
 parade ground, did he realise the position, and strug- 
 gling to his seat pass his hand over his bald head 
 with a deprecating smile. 
 
 "Go out, Raby, and pick him up," gasped the 
 General aching with laughter. "You're in political 
 charge, aren't you?" 
 
 But Philip Marsden, who happened to be on staff 
 duty that day, was already pouring in oil and wine 
 to the Lala's hurt dignity when the young civilian 
 came up with nonchalant courtesy. '"'' SMhhdsh^ 
 sahib !^^ he said, "you sat him splendidly, and that 
 last prop would have undone a Centaur." 
 
 The Lal^ grinned a ghastly smile, and Philip 
 Marsden turned impatiently, saying aside: "Get 
 him home, do ! He looks so helpless with his bald 
 head; it seems a shame to laugh." 
 
 John Raby raised his eyebrows. "The General 
 shall lend him his carriage. That will soothe his 
 wounded vanity." 
 
 So the Lala, with his head tied up in a red pocket- 
 handkerchief, went home in the big man's barouche, 
 and the spectators of his discomfiture laughed again 
 at the recollection of it. 
 
 "You ought to be the editor of a native news- 
 paper, Marsden," remarked John Raby. "You 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 93 
 
 would be grand on the unsympathetic Anglo-Indian. 
 But if I'd seen the Viceroy himself being unwound 
 like a reel of cotton I must have chuckled." 
 
 "No doubt," replied the other laughing himself. 
 "Yet I am sure a keen sense of the ludicrous is 
 unfortunate in a conquering race. We English 
 always laugh Avhen policy should make us grave; 
 that is why we don't succeed." 
 
 "Perhaps; for myself I prefer to grin. As some 
 one says, humour is the religion of to-day. Those 
 who believe in eternity have time for tears. We 
 others, — why we cry ' Vogue la gale re .^ ' " 
 
 Lala Shunker Das, however, without any abiding 
 belief in a future state, was in no laughing mood as 
 he lay under Ram Lai's manipulations, listening 
 captiously to his items of bazaar rumour. 
 
 " And they say, Lala-ji, that the Sirkar thinks of 
 transferring Colonel Estuart saJiih.'" 
 
 Shunker Das sat up suddenly and scowled. 
 " Transfer Estuart sahib ! — why ? " 
 
 Ram Lai redoubled his exertions on the new por- 
 tion of the Lala's frame thus brought within reach, 
 until the latter, uttering dismal groans, sank back 
 to his former position. "They say," he continued 
 calmly, "that the Sirkar is beginning to suspect." 
 
 "Fool! idiot! knave!" growled his master, gasp- 
 ing at the furious onslaught on his fat stomach. 
 "'Tis all thy bungling. Have T not bid thee not 
 
94 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 go SO fast? Times have changed since the Commis- 
 sariat sahibs sat in their verandahs, and one could 
 walk a file of twenty camels round and round the 
 house until they counted the proper number. But 
 remember! 'Tis thou who goest to the wall, not I. 
 That's the compact. Shunker finds the money, 
 Ramu runs the risk." 
 
 " Have I forgotten it, Lala-ji ? " replied the other 
 with some spirit. "Ramu is ready. And 'tis 
 Shunker's part to look after the wife and children 
 when I'm in jail; don't forget that! The master 
 would do better if he were bolder. This one would 
 have made much in that fodder contract, but your 
 heart was as water; it always is." 
 
 "And if Estuart is transferred; what then?" 
 
 "If the branch be properly limed, the bird sticks. 
 Is it limed? Such things are the master's work, not 
 mine." 
 
 "Ay! limed right enough for him. But the 
 money, Ramu, the money! It will take months to 
 lay the snare for a new man, and the war will be 
 over." The Lala positively wept at the idea. 
 
 Ram Lai looked at him contemptuously. "Get 
 what is to be got from this sahib, at any rate ; that's 
 my advice." 
 
 The very next day Lala Shunker Das drove down 
 to the Commissariat office, intent on striking a grand 
 blow. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 95 
 
 Things had been going on better than could have 
 been expected in the large, empty house, where 
 Belle, thinner and paler as the days of intense heat 
 went by, did the honours cheerfully. It was not 
 without a struggle that she had been allowed to 
 remain with her father. Mrs. Stuart had prophesied 
 endless evil, beginning with a bad reputation for 
 herself as stepmother; but prudential reasons had 
 given their weight in favour of the girl's earnest 
 desire. To make light of the heat, and avoid flight 
 to the hills, was a great recommendation for a civi- 
 lian's wife, and that, Mrs. Stuart had decreed, was 
 to be Belle's fate. So with many private injunc- 
 tions to the khansamah not to allow the Miss sahib 
 to interfere too much in the management, the good 
 lady had, as usual, taken herself and her family to 
 Mussoorie. Shortly after they left Fate played a 
 trump for Belle by sending a slight attack of malari- 
 ous fever to the Colonel. He was always dread- 
 fully alarmed about himself, and a hint from the 
 doctor about the consequences of over-free living, 
 reduced him to toast and water for a week, and kept 
 him from mess for three. Belle was in a heaven of 
 delight; and she was just enjoying the sight of her 
 father actually drinking afternoon tea, when Budlu 
 came in to say the Lala-ji wanted to see the Colonel. 
 
 "Don't go, father," pleaded Belle. "It's only 
 that horrid fat man; tell him to come again." 
 
96 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 John Raby, who often strolled across about tea- 
 time, looked at Colonel Stuart and smiled. He 
 knew most things in the station ; among others how 
 unpleasant a visitor Shunker Das might be to his 
 host, and not being ill-natured, he chimed in with 
 the girl by offering to see the man himself. 
 
 The Lala, leaning back magnificently in his 
 barouche, felt a sudden diminution of dignity at 
 the sight of John Raby. "Bruises all right, Lala?" 
 asked the young man cheerfully, and Shunker's 
 dignity sank lower still. " They ought to give you 
 that Rai Bdhdclur-fihi]} for the way you stuck to 
 him; by George, they should ! We don't often get 
 men of your stamp, Lala, with estates in every 
 district, — do Ave? So you want to see the Colonel; 
 what for?" he added suddenly and sternly. 
 
 '"'' Huzoor ! '^ bleated the fat man. "I, — I came to 
 inquire after his honour's health." 
 
 "Much obliged to you! He is better; and T 
 really think if you were to come, say this day fort- 
 night, he might be able to see you." 
 
 Shunker Das hesitated, fear for his money mak- 
 ing him brave. "There were rumours," he began, 
 "that my good patron was about to be transferred." 
 
 "Sits the wind in that quarter," thought Raby, 
 amused. "My dear L^la," he said, "it's absolutely 
 untrue. Your eighty thousand is quite safe, I 
 assure you." 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 97 
 
 ''Huzoorf' 
 
 "Good-bye, Lala-ji — this day fortnight," and he 
 returned to his cup of tea in high good-humour. 
 Then he sat and played ecartS with the Colonel for 
 an hour while Belle worked and watched them care- 
 lessly. 
 
 "That makes fifteen," remarked the 3^oung man as 
 he rose to go, whereupon Colonel Stuart assented 
 cheerfully, for he had won that evening; and Belle 
 looked up with a smiling farewell, unconscious and 
 content. She lived in a fool's paradise, hugging 
 the belief that her presence was the charm; as 
 though Niagara was to be stemmed by a straw, or 
 the habit of years by a sentiment. As time wore on, 
 the few remaining ladies fled before that last awful 
 pause ere the rains break, when a deadly weariness 
 settles on all living things. Belle, feeling shy 
 among so many men, ceased to go out except on the 
 rare occasions when she could persuade her father 
 to accompany her. But, though he still adhered to 
 his habit of dining at home, he was moody and out 
 of sorts. He, too, had heard rumours of transfer, 
 and that meant the possibility of disaster not to be 
 faced with composure. Restless and irritable, he 
 began to relieve the great craving which took jDosses- 
 sion of him by all sorts of stimulant and narcotic 
 drugs. And one day came an almost illegible note 
 from him, bidding Belle not wait dinner for him. 
 
98 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 She felt instinctively that this was the beginning of 
 trouble; nor was she wrong, for though Colonel 
 Stuart was full of excuses the next evening, he 
 never even sent a note the clay after that. So Belle 
 ate her solitary dinners as best she might, and 
 though she often lay awake till the small hours of 
 the morning brought an altercation between Budlu 
 and her father, she never sat up for him, or made 
 any effort to meet him on his return. From this 
 time, brutal though it may seem to say so, poor 
 Belle's presence in the house, so far from being an 
 advantage, became a distinct drawback. But for it. 
 Colonel Stuart would have yielded to the mad craze 
 for drink which generally beset him at this time of 
 the 3^ear; and after a shorter or longer bout, as the 
 case might be, have been pulled up short by illness. 
 Instead of this, he tried to keep up appearances, and 
 drugged himself Avith chloral and laudanum till the 
 remedy grew worse than the disease so far as he him- 
 self was concerned. It served, however, to hide the 
 real facts from his daughter; for he met her timid 
 protests by complaints of ill-health, assertions that 
 he knew what was best for him, and absolute refusal 
 to call in a doctor. 
 
 She grew alarmed. The long, silent days spent 
 in brooding over her father's altered demeanour 
 were too great a strain on her nerves, and she began 
 to exaggerate the position. Her thoughts turned 
 
MISS stuart's legacy. 99 
 
 again and again to Dick; if he were there! ah, if 
 he ^ye^e only there! No one who has not had in 
 extreme youth to bear anxiety alone, can fully 
 understand the horror of silence to the young. 
 Belle felt she must speak, must tell some one of her 
 trouble; it seemed to her as if her silence w^as a sort 
 of neglect, and that some one must be able to do 
 something to set matters straight. But who? She 
 hesitated and shrank, till one day her father broke 
 down and began to cr}^ piteously in the middle of 
 his ordinary abuse of the servants at lunch. A stiff 
 glass of whisky-and-water restored his anger effectu- 
 ally, and he made light of the incident; but that 
 evening, when Philip Marsden came in late to dress 
 for dinner he found a note awaiting him from Belle. 
 She, having received no answer, had been expect- 
 ing him all the afternoon, and as time passed began 
 to wonder at her own temerity in writing. Dick, it 
 is true, had bidden her look on Major Marsden as 
 one willing to help if needs be ; but what could Dick 
 know ? She went out, after a pretence of dinner, to 
 the little raised platform in the garden where chairs 
 w^ere set every evening for those who preferred it to 
 the house. Belle liked it far better; the purple 
 arch of sky, spangled with stars save where the 
 growing moon outshone them, rested her tired eyes, 
 and the ceaseless quiver of the cicala prevented her 
 from thinking by its insistence. Suddenly her half- 
 
100 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 doze was interrupted by a voice asking for the Miss 
 sahih^ and she stood up trembling and uncertain. 
 Why had she sent for him, and what should she say 
 now that he had come ? 
 
 "I came as soon as I could, Miss Stuart," said 
 Major Marsden, formally, as their hands met. " But 
 I was out all day, and had a guest to entertain at 
 mess." He stopped, dismayed at her appearance, 
 and added in quite a different tone, "I am afraid 
 you are ill." 
 
 She did indeed look ghastly pale in the moonlight, 
 her eyes full of appeal and her lips quivering; yet 
 her shyness had gone with the first look at his face, 
 and she felt glad that she had sent for him. " It is 
 father," she began, then could say no more for fear 
 of breaking down. 
 
 The trivial words brought back the recollection 
 of that first meeting with her months before, when 
 she had made the same reply to his offer of help ; and 
 as he stood, waiting for her to master the fast-rising 
 sobs, a remorse seized him with the thought that 
 surely some of this pain might have been prevented 
 somehow, by some one. 
 
 "You must think me very silly," she murmured 
 hastily. 
 
 "I think you are overdone," he replied, "and I 
 don't expect you've had any dinner. Now have 
 you?" 
 
MISS stfart's legacy. • * • • ' • • idr 
 
 A smile struggled to her face. "I don't think I 
 had, — much." 
 
 "Then I will tell the khansamaJi to bring you 
 something now." 
 
 The full-blown tragedy of life seemed to have 
 departed. She even Avondered at her own tears as 
 she sipped her soup, and told him of her troubles 
 with a lightening heart. "Budlu says he never 
 saw father like this before," was the climax, and 
 even that did not seem a hopeless outlook. 
 
 "Could he not take leave?" suggested Major 
 Marsden at once; leave being the panacea for all 
 ills in India. 
 
 " That's what I want to know. I begged him to 
 go, but the very idea excites him. Would it harm 
 him officially ? Is there any reason why he should 
 not?" 
 
 Dick's words of warning recurred to Major Mars- 
 den unpleasantly. "None that I know of," he re- 
 plied. " I will go round to Seymour's to-morrow, 
 and get him to bundle you both off to the hills. You 
 want change as much as your father. In a month's 
 time you will be laughing at all these fears." 
 
 "I think you are laughing at them now," said 
 Belle wistfully. 
 
 "Am I? Well, I promise not to laugh at you 
 any more. Miss Stuart." He stood up, tall and 
 straight, to say good-bye. 
 
102 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 "Isn't that rather a rash promise, Major Mars- 
 den?" 
 
 "I don't think so. Anyhow I make it, and I'm 
 very glad yon sent for me. Considering how little 
 you knew of me, — and how disagreeable that little 
 had been — it was kind." 
 
 "I know a great deal of you," she replied, smiling 
 softly. "Dick has told me a lot, — about the bre- 
 vet, — and the intelligence-work — and the Afghan 
 sep>oy — " 
 
 "And the men in buckram too, I suppose? I'm 
 afraid Dick is not to be trusted. Did he tell you 
 how the man escaped next day, and I got a wig- 
 ging?" 
 
 " No ! " cried Belle indignantly. " Did he ? — Did 
 you, I mean? — what a shame! " 
 
 "On the contrary, it was quite right. I'll tell 
 you about it some day, if I may. Meanwhile, good- 
 bye, and don't starve ; it really doesn't do any good ! " 
 
 She watched him jingle down the steps, thinking 
 how like an overgrown school-boy he looked in his 
 mess-jacket. So life was not a tragedy after all, 
 but a serio-comedy in which only the monologues 
 were depressing and dull. She went in and played 
 the piano till it was time to go to bed. Yet nothing 
 had really changed, and Fate marched on relent- 
 lessly as before. We make our own feelings, and 
 then sit down to weep or smile over them. 
 
MISS STUAKT's LEGACy. ; , :'''•. '10'3^ 
 
 The very next afternoon Colonel Stuart was brood- 
 ing silently over nothing at all in his private office- 
 room, passing the time, as it were, out of mischief, 
 till he went to dine with John Raby. For the latter, 
 with a sort of contemptuous kindness, put the drag 
 of an occasional game of ecarte on to the Colonel's 
 potations. Sitting in the dusk his face looked wan 
 and haggard, and, despite his profound stillness, 
 every nerve was wearied and yet awake with excite- 
 ment; as might be seen from his unrestrained start 
 when Shunker Das came into the room unannounced; 
 for the office-hours being over the chuprassie had 
 departed. 
 
 "Well, what is it now?'' he cried sharply. "I 
 saw you this morning. Haven't you got enough for 
 one day? Am I never to have any peace?" 
 
 An angry tone generally reduced his native visit- 
 ors to submission, but the Lala was evidently in no 
 mood for silence. He had taken up a small contract 
 that morning, the earnest-money of which lay for 
 the time in Colonel Stuart's safe. Since then he 
 had heard casually that a long-expected source of 
 profit over which he had often talked with the 
 Colonel, and for which he had even made prepa- 
 rations, had slipped through his fingers. In other 
 words, that all the mule-transport was to be 
 bought by a special officer. "I've come, sahih^'' 
 he blurted out, sitting down unasked, "to know 
 
104 MI-SS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 if it is true that Mardsen sahih has the purchase of 
 mules." 
 
 " And if he has, what the devil is it to you, or to 
 me?" The man's arrogance was becoming unbear- 
 able, and Colonel Stuart was a great stickler for 
 etiquette. 
 
 " Only this ; that if you are not going to deal fairly 
 by me, you mustn't count on my silence; that's all! " 
 
 " Go and tell the whole bazaar I owe you money, 
 you black scoundrel," cried his hearer, annoj^ed 
 beyond endurance by the man's assumption of equal- 
 ity, "ril pay 3^ou every penny, if I sell my soul 
 for it, curse you! " 
 
 "Eighty thousand rupees is a tall price, sahih,^^ 
 sneered the Lala. "And how about the contracts, 
 and the commission, and the general partnership? 
 Am I to tell that also? " 
 
 The Colonel stared at him in blank surprise. 
 God knows in his queer conglomerate of morality it 
 was hard to tell what elementary rock of principle 
 might be found; yet to a certain extent honour 
 remained as it were in pebbles, worn and frayed by 
 contact with the stream of life. " General partner- 
 ship! you black devil, what do you mean?" 
 
 "Mean!" echoed the Lala shrilly. "Why, the 
 money I've lent you, paid you for each contract; 
 the commission I've given your clerks; the grain 
 your horses have eaten ; the — " 
 
MISS STUAKT's LEGA€¥'. ^ ' " lt)B 
 
 The Colonel's right hand was raised above his 
 head; the first coarse rage of his face had settled into 
 a stern wrath that turned it white. "If you stop 
 here another instant, by God I'll kill you! " 
 
 The words came like a steel-thrust, and the Lala 
 without a word turned and fled before the Berserk 
 rage of the Northman; it is always terrible to the 
 Oriental, and the Lala was a heaven-sent coward. 
 
 "Stop! " cried the Colonel as the wretched creat- 
 ure reached the door. He obeyed and came back 
 trembling. " Take your money for the contract with 
 you ; it's cancelled. I won't have it in the house. 
 Take it back and give me the receipt I gave you ; 
 give it me, I sa}^" The Colonel, fumbling at the 
 lock of the safe, stuttered and shook with excite- 
 ment. "Take 'em back," he continued, flourishing 
 a roll of notes. "The receipt! — quick! out with 
 it ! — the receipt for the three thousand five hundred 
 I gave you this morning! " 
 
 " Huzoor ! ITuzoo}' I I am looking for it ; be patient 
 one moment!" The Lala's quivering fingers blun- 
 dered among the papers in his pocket-book. 
 
 "Give it me, or, by heaven, I'll break every bone 
 in your bod}'!" His hand came down with an 
 ominous thud on the table. 
 
 "I will give it, sahib, — I have it, — here — no — 
 ah! praise to the gods! " He shook so that the paper 
 rustled in his hand. Colonel Stuart seized it, and 
 
'lt)6 Miss stuart's legacy. 
 
 tearing it to bits, flung the pieces in the waste paper 
 basket at his feet. " There goes your last contract 
 from me, and there's the door, and there's your 
 money!" As he flung the notes in the man's face 
 they went fluttering over the floor, and he laughed 
 foolishly to see them gathered up in trembling haste. 
 
 "Gad! " he muttered as he sank exhausted into a 
 chair, "there isn't much fear of Shunker so long as 
 I've a stick in my hand. Hullo! what's that? 
 Something rustled under the table. Here, Budlu! 
 quick, lights! It may be a snake! Confound the 
 servants; they're never to be found! " 
 
 He stopped and drew his hand over his forehead 
 two or three times. Just then Budlu, entering 
 with the lamp, stooped to pick something from the 
 floor. It was a note for a thousand rupees, crisp and 
 crackling. 
 
 Colonel Stuart looked at it in a dazed sort of way, 
 then burst into a roar of laughter and put it in his 
 pocket-book. "My fair perquisite, by Jove! and it 
 will come in useful to-night at ecarte. Budlu, give 
 me the little bottle. I must steady my nerves a bit 
 if I'm to play with Raby." 
 
^nss stuaet's legacy. IOT 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 People who talk of the still Indian night can 
 scarcely do so from experience, for, especially during 
 the hot weather, darkness in the East is vocal with 
 life. The cicala shrills its loudest, the birds are 
 awake, and the very trees and plants seem to blossom 
 audibly. Go round an Indian garden at sunset and 
 it is a sepulchre ; the roses shrivelled in their prime, 
 the buds scorched in the birth, the foliage beaten 
 down by the fierce sun. Visit it again at sunrise 
 and you will find it bright with blossom, sweet with 
 perfume, refreshed with dew. That is the work of 
 night; what marvel then if it is instinct with sound 
 and movement! Never for one hour does silence 
 fall upon the world. The monotonous beat of some 
 native musician's drum goes on and on; a village 
 dog barks, and is answered by another until seventy 
 times seven; a crow takes to cawing irrelatively; the 
 birds sing in snatches, and the Indian cock, like 
 that of scriptural story, crows for other reasons be- 
 sides the dawn. 
 
 The long-legged rooster who habitually retired to 
 sleep on the summit of Colonel Stuart's cook-room, 
 had, however, legitimate cause for his vociferations, 
 
108 MISS stuabt's legacy. 
 
 and dawn was just darkening the rest of the sky 
 when the sudden flapping of his wings startled the 
 horse of an early wayfarer who came at a walk down 
 the Mall. 
 
 It was Philip Marsden setting out betimes for a 
 two days' scour of the district in search of the very 
 mules out of which Shunker D^s had hoped to make 
 so much profit. Most men, carrying ten thousand 
 rupees with them, would have applied for a treasure- 
 chest and a police guard; but Major Marsden consid- 
 ered himself quite sufficient security for the roll of 
 currency notes in his breast-pocket. As he quieted 
 the frightened horse, his close proximity to the Com- 
 missariat office reminded him that he had forgotten 
 to apply for a certain form on which he had to regis- 
 ter his purchases ; the omission would entail delay, 
 so he anathematised his own carelessness and was 
 riding on, when a light in the office-windows at- 
 tracted his attention. It was early for any one to be 
 at work, but knowing how time pressed in all depart- 
 ments under the strain of war, he thought it not 
 improbable that some energetic hahu was thus seek- 
 ing the worm of promotion, and might be able to 
 give him what he required. Dismounting, lest his 
 horse's tread should disturb the sleepers in the house 
 by which he had to pass, he hitched the reins to a 
 tree, and made his way towards the office ; not with- 
 out a kindly thought of the girl, forgetful of care, 
 
MISS STUART S LEGACY. 109 
 
 who lay sleeping so near to him that, unconsciously, 
 he slackened his step and trod softly. He had been 
 as good as his word, and that very day the doctor 
 was to go over and prescribe immediate change. 
 Change! he smiled at the idea, wondering what 
 change could stem the course of the inevitable. 
 
 As he drew near he saw that the light came, not 
 from the office, but from its chief's private room. 
 He hesitated an instant; then a suspicion that some- 
 thing might be wrong made him go on till he could 
 see through the open door into the room. Thefts 
 were common enough in cantonments, and it was as 
 well to make sure. Throuo'h the chick he could dis- 
 tinctly see a well-known figure seated at the Avriting- 
 table, leaning forward on its crossed arms. 
 
 "Drunk I "' said Philip Marsden to himself with a 
 thrill of bitter contempt and turned away. The 
 bearer would find the Colonel and put him decently 
 to bed long before the girl was up. Poor Belle! 
 The little platform where she had stood but the night 
 before was faintly visible, bringing a recollection of 
 her pale face and sad appeal. "It is father," — the 
 first words she had ever said to him ; the very first ! 
 He retraced his steps quickly, set the chick aside, 
 and entered the room. The lamp on the table was 
 fast dying out, but its feeble flicker fell full on the 
 Colonel's grey hair, and lit up the shining gold lace 
 on his mess-jacket. Silver, and gold, and scarlet. 
 
110 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 — a brilliant show of colour in the shabby, dim 
 room. A curious smell in the air and a great still- 
 ness made Philip Marsden stop suddenly and call 
 the sleeper by name. In the silence Avhich followed 
 he heard the ticking of a chronometer which lay close 
 to him. He called again, not louder, but quicker, 
 then with swift decision passed his arm round the 
 leaning figure and raised it from the table. The 
 grey head fell back inertly on his breast, and the set, 
 half-closed eyes looked up lifelessly into liis. 
 
 "Dead," he heard himself say, "dead!" — dead, 
 not drunk. As he stood there for an instant with 
 the dead man's head finding a resting-place so close 
 to his heart, the wan face looking up at him as if in 
 a mute appeal, a flame of bitter regret for his own 
 harsh judgment seemed to shrivel up all save pity. 
 The great change had come, to end poor Belle's 
 anxieties. And she? Ah! poor child, who was to 
 tell her of it? 
 
 He lifted the head from his breast, laying it once 
 more, as he had found it, on the crossed arms ; then 
 looked round the room rapidly. An empty bottle 
 of chloral on the table accounted for the faint sickly 
 smell he had noticed. Was it a mistake ? If not, 
 why? Perhaps there was a letter. Something at 
 any rate lay under the nerveless hands, ]Dowerless 
 now to defend their secret. Philip Marsden took 
 the paper from them gently and turned up the expir- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. Ill 
 
 ing lamp till it flared smokily. The blotted writing 
 was hard to read, yet easy to understand, for it told 
 a tale too often written; a tale of debt, dishonour, 
 remorse, despair. Ten thousand rupees borrowed 
 from the safe, and an unsigned cheque for the 
 amount, drawn on no one, but payable to the Govern- 
 ment of India, lying beside the dead man in mute 
 witness to the last desire for restitution in the poor 
 stupefied brain. A pile of official letters were scat- 
 tered on the floor as if they had fallen from the table. 
 All save one were unopened, but that one contained 
 a notification of Colonel Stuart's transfer. Major 
 Marsden drew a chair to the table and deliberately 
 sat doAvn to think. 
 
 Something must be done, and that quickl}^, for 
 alread}^ the merciless light of day was gaining on the 
 darkness. "And there is nothing hid that shall not 
 be made manifest;" the words somehow recurred to 
 his memory bringing another j)ulse of pity for poor 
 Belle. What was to be done? The answer came to 
 him suddenly in a rush, as if it had all been settled 
 before. Why had Fate sent him there with more 
 than enough money to save the girl from shame? 
 Money that was his to use as he chose, for he could 
 repay it twenty times over ere nightfall. Why had 
 Fate mixed the girl's life with his, despite his efforts 
 to stand aloof ? Why had she sent for him ? Why, 
 — why was he there? The dead man's keys lay on 
 
112 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 the table, the sum owed was clearly set down in 
 black and white, the safe close at hand. What was 
 there, save a personal loss he could well afford, to 
 prevent silence ? And he had promised help — 
 
 When the hastily-summoned doctor came in a few 
 minutes later the bottle of chloral still lay on the 
 table, but the blotted paper and the cheque were 
 gone. The lamp had flared out, and a little heap of 
 grey ashes on the hearth drifted apart as the doors 
 and windows were flung wide open to let in all the 
 light there was. 
 
 "He has been dead about two hours," said the doc- 
 tor. " Over-dose of chloral, of course. I forbade it 
 from the hospital, but he got it elsewhere." 
 
 They had laid the dead man on the floor, and the 
 grey dawn falling on his face made it seem greyer 
 still. The native servants huddled trembling at the 
 door; the two Englishmen stood looking down upon 
 the still figure. 
 
 "There is always the fear of an over-dose," said 
 Philip Marsden slowly, "or of some rash mistake." 
 
 The doctor met his look comprehensively. " Ex- 
 actly! who can tell? Unless there is circumstantial 
 evidence, and I see none as yet. Anyhow he was 
 not responsible, for he has been on the verge of 
 delirium tremens for days." 
 
 "Then you give the benefit of the doubt?" 
 
 "Always, if possible." 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 113 
 
 Again the wind of dawn fanning the dead man's 
 hair drifted the grey ashes further apart. 
 
 "He had better stay here," continued the doctor. 
 "Moving him might rouse the poor girl, and there's 
 no need for that as j^et. By the way, who is to tell 
 her? There isn't a lady or a parson in the place.' 
 
 "I suppose I must," returned Philip after a pause. 
 "I think it might be best, since she confided her 
 trouble to me. But couldn't I get some sort of a 
 woman from barracks just to stay with her?" 
 
 "Right; you're a thoughtful fellow, Marsden. 
 Take my buggy and go to the sergeant-major; his 
 wife will know of some one. I'll stay till you re- 
 turn in case she wakes ; and look here, as you pass 
 send a man about the coffin. The funeral must be 
 this evening, and — " 
 
 Philip Marsden fled from the dreary details of 
 death with a remark that the doctor could send a 
 messenger. He was no coward, yet he felt glad to 
 escape into the level beams of the rising sun. As 
 he drove down along the staring white roads he asked 
 himself more than once why he had interfered to save 
 a girl he scarcely knew from the knowledge of her 
 father's dishonour; and if he could find no sufficient 
 reason for it he could find no regret either. It had 
 been an impulse, and it was over. He had kept his 
 word to Dick, and done his best to drive care from 
 those clear e5^es, — what beautiful eyes they were! 
 
114 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 "Och then!" cried Mrs. /3' Grady, the sergeant- 
 major's wife, who, hastily roused from her slumbers, 
 came out into the verandah in scanty attire, " and is 
 the swate young leddy alone ? It's meself wud go 
 at wanst but that I'm a Holy Roman, surr, and shud 
 be talkin' of the blessed saints in glory. An' that's 
 not the thing wid a Prothestant in his coffin." 
 
 Despite his anxiety her hearer could not repress a 
 smile. "I don't set so much store by religious con- 
 solation, Mrs. O' Grady. It's more a kind, motherly 
 person I want." 
 
 " Then, Tim ! " cried the good lady, appealing to 
 her spouse who had appeared in shirt and trousers, 
 "Mrs. Flanigan wud be the woman, but that she's 
 daily expectin' her tinth — " 
 
 "Isn't there some kindly person who's seen 
 trouble?" hastily interrupted the Major. 
 
 "Ah, if it's the throuble you're wantin', take 
 little Mrs. Vickary. A Baptist and a widder, — 
 more by token twice ; bore with two dhrunken bastes, 
 Major, like a blissed angel, and wud be ready to 
 spake up for anny one." 
 
 Major Marsden, with a recollection of Widow 
 Vickary 's sad face as nurse by a comrade's sick bed, 
 pleaded for a younger and brighter one. Thereupon 
 the ser jeant-major suggested poor Healy's Mary Ann, 
 but his wife tossed her head. " What the men see 
 in that gurrll, surr, I can't say; but she'll go, and 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 115 
 
 cheerful, wicl her little boy ; a swate little boy, suit, 
 like thim cherubs with a trumpet — for her father 
 she come to live wid died of the fayver a month 
 gone, and her man is waiting to be killed by thim 
 Afghans somewhere." 
 
 So Major Marsden, driving back with poor Healy's 
 Mary Ann and the cherub wielding a piece of sugar- 
 cane as trumpet, found Belle still sleeping. 
 
 Then together, in the fresh early morning, they 
 broke the sad tidings to the girl. How, it does not 
 much matter, for words mean nothing. We say, 
 "He is dead," many and many a time, carelessly, 
 indifferently. Then comes a day when the sentence 
 is fraught with wild despair and helpless pain. The 
 sun seems blotted out, and the world is dark. Yet 
 the words are the same, nor can pen and ink write 
 them differently. 
 
 "Let me see that he is dead! Oh, let me see 
 him!" was her cry; so they took her across to the 
 shabb}^ room where everything stood unchanged save 
 for the sheeted figure on the string bed. The gar- 
 dener had strewn some roses over it and the sun 
 streamed in brightly. The sight brought no real 
 conviction to Belle. It all seemed more dreamlike 
 than ever. To fall asleep, as she had done, in the 
 turmoil of life, and to wake finding the hush of death 
 in possession of all things ! She let Philip Marsden 
 lead her away passively like a child, and all througli 
 
116 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 the long day she sat idle and tearless, with her hands 
 on her lap, as if she were waiting for something or 
 some one. Yet it was a busy day in that quiet, 
 empty house; for in India death comes rudely. 
 Many a time has the father to superintend the mak- 
 ing of the little coffin, while the mother stitches 
 away to provide a daintier resting-place for the 
 golden head that is used to frills and lace ; until, in 
 the dawn, those two go forth alone to the desolate 
 graveyard, and he reads the Church service as best 
 he can, and she s^js " Amen" between her sobs. 
 There was none of this strain for Belle, nothing to 
 remind her of the inevitable ; so she wondered what 
 they wanted of her when, as the glare of sunset red' 
 dened the walls of her room. Major Marsden came and 
 looked at her with pitying eyes. "It is time we 
 were starting. Miss Stuart," he said gently. 
 
 "Starting! where?" 
 
 " We thought 3^ou would like to go to the cemetery, 
 and I have arranged to drive you down. It will be 
 a military funeral, of course." 
 
 She rose swdftly in passionate entreaty. "Ah no, 
 no! not so soon! he is not dead! Oh I cannot, I 
 cannot! " Then seeing the tender gravity of his 
 face, she clasped her hands on his arm and begged 
 to see him once more, — just to say good-bye. 
 
 He shook his head. " It is too late — it is best 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 117 
 
 " But I have no dress, — it can't be — " she pleaded 
 vainly. 
 
 "Every one will be in white as you are," he re- 
 turned with tears he could not check in his eyes. 
 "Come! it will be better for you by and by." He 
 laid his hand on her clasped ones. She looked in 
 his eyes doubtfully, and did as she was bidden. 
 
 " We will drive out a bit first," said Philip, when 
 she had taken her seat by his side in the tall dog-cart 
 that seemed so out of keeping with its dismal office. 
 " We have plenty of time for I thought the air would 
 do your head good, — and, — it was best for you to 
 be away just now." 
 
 Better, and best! As if anything could make any 
 difference now! "You are very kind, " she said in 
 dull recognition of his care. 
 
 Philip Marsden never forgot that drive ; the mem- 
 ory of it remained with him for years as a kind of 
 nightmare. The girl in her white dress and sailor 
 hat as he had seen her at many a tennis-party; the 
 great bank of clouds on the horizon telling of wel- 
 come rain; the little squirrels leaping across the 
 white road; the cattle returning homewards amid 
 clouds of dust ; the stolid stare of the natives as they 
 passed by. It was almost a relief to stand side by 
 side before an open grave listening to an even, dis- 
 ciplined tramp audible above the muffled drums com- 
 ing nearer and nearer. 
 
118 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 A clingy brick wall bleached to mud-colour shut 
 out all view, but high up in the sky, above the fringe 
 of grey tamarisk trees, a procession of flame-edged 
 clouds told that, out in the west. Nature was cele- 
 brating the obsequies of day in glorious apparel. 
 Suddenly Tlie Dead March struck uj), loud and full, 
 bringing to Philip Marsden's memory many a sword- 
 decked coffin and riderless charger behind which he 
 had walked, wondering if his turn would come next. 
 The music ceased with a clash of arms at the gate ; 
 and after a loAV-toned order or two the procession 
 appeared in narrow file up the central path. The 
 Avhite uniforms looked ghostly in the deepening 
 shadows ; but through a break in the trees a last sun- 
 beam slanted over the wall, making the spikes on the 
 officers' helmets glow like stars. 
 
 Belle's clasped yet listless fingers tightened ner- 
 vously as the Brigade-Major's voice rose and fell in 
 monotonous cadence about "our dear brother de- 
 parted." It seemed to her like a dream; or rather as 
 if she too were dead and had no tears, no grief, noth- 
 ing but a great numbness at her heart. Then some 
 one put a clumsily-made cross of white flowers into 
 her hands, bidding her lay it on the coffin, bared now 
 of the protecting flag; and she obeyed, wondering 
 the wdiile why other people should have thought of 
 these things when she had not, and thinking how 
 crooked it was, and how much better she could have 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 119 
 
 made it herself. Perhaps ; for the hands that twined 
 it were not used to such woman's work. It was 
 Philip Marsden's task, also, to throw the first hand- 
 ful of earth into the grave, and draw Belle's arm 
 within his own before the salutes rang out. They 
 startled the screaming parrots from their roost among 
 the trees, and sent them wheeling and flashing like 
 jewels against the dark purple clouds. 
 
 " Was it never going to end ? " she thought wearily 
 as they waited again, and yet again, for the rattle of 
 the rifles. Yet she stood heedlessly silent, even 
 when the band struck into quick time and the cheer- 
 ful echo of the men's answ^ering footsteps died away 
 into the distance. 
 
 "Take her home," said the doctor, who with John 
 Raby had remained to see the grave properly filled 
 in. "I'll call round by and by with a sleeping 
 draught; that av ill do her more good than anything." 
 
 As they drove back she complained, quite fretfully, 
 of the cold, and her companion reined in the horse 
 while he wrapped his military coat round her, fasten- 
 ing it beneath her soft dimpled chin with hands that 
 trembled a little. She seemed to him inexpressibly 
 pitiful in her grief, and his heart ached for her. 
 
 "It is going to rain, I think," she said suddenly, 
 with her eyes fixed on the dull red glow barred by 
 heavy storm clouds in the west ; adding in a lower 
 tone, "Father will get wet! " 
 
120 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 Major Marsden looked at her anxiously and drove 
 faster, frightened at the dull despair of her tone. 
 He had meant to say good-bye at the door, but he 
 could not. How could he leave her to that unuttera- 
 ble loneliness? And yet what good could he do 
 beyond beguiling her to take a few mouthf uls of food ? 
 Poor Healy's Mary Ann proved helpless before a 
 form of grief to which she was utterly unaccustomed, 
 and as her presence seemed to do more harm than 
 good Philip Marsden sent her into the next room, 
 where she nursed her boy and wept profusely. He 
 sat talking to Belle till long after the mess-hour, 
 and then, when he did turn to go, the sight of 
 her seated alone, tearless and miserable in the big, 
 empty room was too much for his soft heart. He 
 came back hastily, bending over her, then kneeling 
 to look in her downcast face, and take her cold little 
 hands into his warm ones and say kind words that 
 came from his very heart. Perhaps they brought 
 conviction, perhaps the touch of his hand assured 
 her of s^anpathy, for suddenly her dull despair gave 
 way; she laid her head on his shoulder and cried 
 pitifully, as children cry themselves to sleep. 
 
 With the clasp of his fingers on hers and his breath 
 stirring her soft curly hair, Philip Marsden 's heart 
 beat fast and his pulses thrilled. His own emotion 
 startled and perplexed him ; he shrank from it, and 
 yet he welcomed it. Did he love her? Was this 
 the meaning of it all? 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 121 
 
 "How good you are," she whispered, trying to 
 regain her composure. " What should I have done 
 without you?" Her unconsciousness smote him 
 with regret and a great tenderness. 
 
 "There are plenty who will be kind to you," he 
 answered unsteadily. "Life holds everything for 
 you yet, my dear; peace, and happiness, and love." 
 
 Love! Did it hold his for her? he asked himself 
 again as he walked homewards in the dark. Love! 
 He was quite a young man still, only two and thirty, 
 yet he had deliberately set passion and romance from 
 him years before. Poverty had stood between him 
 and the realisation of a dream till, with the sight of 
 his ideal profoundly happy as some one else's wife, 
 had come distrust and contempt for a feeling that 
 experience showed him did not, could not last. 
 Why, therefore, should it enter into and disturb 
 his life at all ? Friendship ? ah, that was different ! 
 Perhaps the future held a time when he would clasp 
 hands with a life-companion ; a woman to be the mis- 
 tress of his home, the mother of his children. But 
 Belle! poor little, soft Belle Stuart, with her beau- 
 tiful grey ej^es! He seemed to feel the touch of 
 her hand in his, the caress of her hair on his lips ; 
 and though he laughed grimly at himself, he could 
 not master the joy that took possession of him at the 
 remembrance. Dear little Belle! Amidst the doubt 
 and surprise which swept over him as he realised 
 
122 MISS stuapvT's legacy. 
 
 his own state of mind, but one thing gave him in- 
 finite satisfaction, — he had saved her from the far 
 more lasting trouble of her father's disgrace. 
 Friend, or lover, it had been a good deed to do, 
 and he was glad that he had done it. Nothing could 
 alter that. And Avhile he slept, dreaming still of 
 his clasp on the little cold yet willing hand, an 
 official envelope lay on the table beside him mock- 
 ing his security. He opened it next morning, to lay 
 it aside with a curse at his own ill luck, though it 
 was only a notification that Major P. H. Marsden 
 would carry on the current duties of the Commis- 
 sariat office till further orders. He had half a mind 
 to go over to the Brigade office and get himself 
 excused: a word or two about his other work would 
 do it ; but his pride rose in arms against any shirk- 
 ing for private reasons. Besides, there might be noth- 
 ing wrong in Colonel Stuart's accounts, and even if 
 there was, he would be the best man to find it out. 
 Yet he walked up and down the verandah a prey 
 to conflicting desires, bitterly angry with himself 
 for hesitating an instant. Common sense told him 
 that it might be as well for one less biassed than he 
 was by previous knowledge to undertake the scru- 
 tiny, that it was scarcely fair for him to go to the 
 task with a foregone conclusion in his mind; but 
 pride suggested that he could not trust himself to 
 decide fairly even now. How could he, when he 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 123 
 
 was bitterly conscious of one overmastering desire 
 to save Belle ? Then came the thought that if she 
 was indeed what in his heart he believed her to be, 
 if her steadfastness and straightforwardness were 
 more than a match for his own, then the very idea 
 of his refusing the task would be an offence to her. 
 After that, nothing could have prevented him from 
 placing himself with open eyes in a position from 
 which, in common fairness to himself and others, he 
 ought to have escaped. 
 
124 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A FEW days after Colonel Stuart's death John 
 Raby was making up his accounts in a very unen- 
 viable frame of mind, though the balance on the 
 right side was a large one. As a rule this result 
 would have given him keen pleasure ; for though he 
 was as yet too young to enjoy that delight of dotage, 
 the actual fingering of gold, he inherited the in- 
 stinct too strongly not to rejoice at the sight of its 
 equivalent in figures. There were two reasons for 
 his annoyance. First, the constantly recurring re- 
 gret of not being able to invest his savings as he 
 chose. With endless opportunities for turning over 
 a high percentage coming under his notice, it was 
 galling to be restricted by the terms of his covenant 
 with Government from any commercial enterprise. 
 Not that he would have scrupled to evade the regu- 
 lation had the game been worth the candle ; but as 
 yet it was not. By and by, when his capital war- 
 ranted a plunge, he had every intention of risking 
 his position, and, if need be, of throwing it up. 
 But for this justification he must wait years, unless 
 indeed Fate sent him a rich wife. Heiresses how- 
 ever are scarce in India, and furlough was not yet 
 
125 
 
 due. So John Raby had to content himself with 
 four per cent, which was all the more annoying 
 when he remembered that Shunker Das was making 
 forty out of the very indigo business on which he 
 had tried to evade the income-tax. Sooner or later 
 John Raby intended to have his finger in that pie, 
 unless some more fortunate person plucked the plum 
 out first. 
 
 The other reason for his annoyance arose from the 
 fact, clearly demonstrated by his neat system of 
 accounts, that over nine thousand rupees of his bal- 
 ance were the proceeds of eearte played with a man 
 who had had the confidence to make him his execu- 
 tor. The young civilian had no qualms of conscience 
 here either; it had been a fair fight, the Colonel 
 considering himself quite as good at the game as his 
 antagonist. But somehow the total looked bad 
 beside that other one, where intricate columns of 
 figures added themselves into a row of nothings for 
 the widow and orphans. Not a penny, so far as the 
 executor could see, after paying current debts. 
 About Madame and the black-and-tans, as he irrev- 
 erently styled her family, he did not much concern 
 himself; but for Belle it was different. He liked 
 the girl, and had often told himself that the addition 
 of money would have made her an excellent wife; 
 just the sort one could safely have at home ; and that 
 to a busy man meant much. The thought that 
 
126 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 Philip Marsden with his large fortune showed a dis- 
 position to annex the prize lessened his regrets for 
 her poverty, and yet increased them. Why, he 
 asked himself savagely, did nice girls never have 
 money? The only gleam of satisfaction, in short, 
 to be yielded by the balance was the remembrance 
 that his possession of the nine thousand rupees pre- 
 vented Lal^ Shunker Das from absorbing it. As a 
 matter of fact his executorship had proved a whole- 
 some check on the usurer's outcries , and it gave the 
 young man some consolation to think that no one 
 could have managed the Lala so well as he did. 
 The smile raised by this remembrance lingered still 
 when Major Marsden walked, unannounced, through 
 the window in unceremonious Indian fashion. 
 
 " Hullo, " said John Raby, " glad to see you. Miss 
 Stuart is much better to-day." 
 
 There Avas no reason why this very pleasant and 
 natural remark should annoy his hearer, but it did. 
 It reminded him that John Raby had acquired a sort 
 of authority over the dead man's daughter by virtue 
 of his executorship. Neither of them had seen her 
 since the day of the funeral, for she had been hover- 
 ing on the verge of nervous fever; but the responsi- 
 bility of caring for her had fallen on John Raby and 
 not on Philip Marsden. John Raby, and not he, had 
 had to make all the necessary arrangements for her 
 comfort and speedy departure to the hills as soon as 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 127 
 
 possible; for Mrs. Stuart had collapsed under the 
 shock of her husband's death, and the rapid Indian 
 funeral had made the presence of the others impossi- 
 ble. So Philip Marsden felt himself to be out in the 
 cold, and resented it. 
 
 "The nurse told me so when I inquired just now," 
 he replied shortly. 
 
 "I'm to see her this afternoon when she comes 
 back from her drive. I've sent for Shunker Das's 
 carriage." 
 
 Major Marsden frowned. " You might have chosen 
 some one else's, surely. He ruined her father." 
 
 " Not at all ; he lent him money. Some one had 
 to do it." 
 
 "Well, it's a grim world, and her drive can't be 
 more so than the last she had." The remembrance 
 evidentl}^ absorbed him, for he sat silent. 
 
 "You're looking used up, Marsden," said the other 
 kindly. " Anything the matter ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, if it has to do with the Commissariat busi- 
 ness I don't wonder. The Colonel's private affairs 
 are simply chaos." He pointed to the piles of papers 
 on and below the table with a contemptuous smile. 
 
 Major Marsden shook his head. " The public ones 
 are in fairly good order. I'm surprised at the 
 method ; but of course he had good clerks ; and then 
 the system of checks — " 
 
128 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 " Make it possible to be inaccurate with the utmost 
 accuracy. What's wrong?" 
 
 Philip Marsden moved uneasily in his chair and 
 gave an impatient sigh. "I suppose I've got to tell 
 you, because you're the man's executor; but I don't 
 want to." 
 
 "Never do anything you don't want, my dear fel- 
 low; it's a mistake. You don't know what will 
 please other people, and you generally have a rough 
 guess at your own desires." 
 
 "I don't suppose this will please you, the fact is 
 there is a deficit of four thousand five hundred 
 rupees in the private safe of which Colonel Stuart 
 kept the key." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 " All ! Surely it is enough ? " 
 
 "Quite enough; but I'm not exactly surprised." 
 
 "Then I am," returned the Major emphatically. 
 "In fact I don't believe there really is any deficit at 
 all. Do you think Shunker Das is the sort of man 
 to make a false claim?" 
 
 "Not unless he has fallen upon fair proofs," said 
 the other coolly. " What claim does he make ? " 
 
 " He says he paid in three thousand five hundred 
 the very day of Colonel Stuart's death and produces 
 a receipt. Another thousand was paid in by some 
 one else the day before. It seems odd that this 
 should just make up the deficiency." 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 129 
 
 " But you have no proof that these are actually the 
 notes missing?" 
 
 " Curiously enough I have. Contrary to what 
 one would have expected, Colonel Stuart made a 
 practice of writing the numbers of notes received in 
 a private ledger, and none of the four entered as hav- 
 ing been given by Shunker are to be found. Now, 
 as you were Stuart's friend, and are his executor, do 
 you know of any large payment made to any one 
 within two days of his death? It limits itself, 3^ou 
 see, to that time." 
 
 " Nothing to account for three thousand five hun- 
 dred," returned John Raby a little hastily. "Let's 
 stick to Shunker's claim first ; it may be false. You 
 say he holds a receipt?" 
 
 "Yes, and gives the numbers of the notes also." 
 
 "Right?" 
 
 "All but one. The book gives a 3 where he gives 
 a 5; but natives often confuse figures." 
 
 John Raby nodded, and leant back in his chair 
 thinking. "I believe the notes were paid," he said 
 at last, " and if they are not to be found, the infer- 
 ence, I'm afraid, is clear. The Colonel horroiued 
 them." 
 
 "I don't believe it," returned the Major sloAvly, 
 He had been drawing diagrams idly on a piece of 
 paper and now threw aside the pen with decision. 
 "I don't believe it," he repeated, "and I'll tell you 
 
130 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 why; I'd rather not tell you, as I said before, but 
 as you're his executor I must. When I found him 
 dead that morning there was a paper, — it wasn't a 
 mistake, j^ou understand" — his hearer nodded again 
 — " and in it he had set down the reasons, or want 
 of reasons, clearly enough. I haven't got the paper; 
 I burnt it. I suppose I ought to have kept it, but it 
 seemed a pity at the time. Anjdiow the total he 
 had, — borrowed — was close on ten thousand." 
 
 " Ten! you said there was only — " 
 
 "Just so; you see, as luck would have it, T had 
 money with me at the time. So I replaced it." 
 
 "Ten thousand?" 
 
 "No; to be strictly accurate nine thousand seven 
 hundred and fifty. Well, — you needn't stare so, 
 Raby! Why the devil shouldn't I if I chose?" 
 
 John Raby gave a low whistle. "You must l)e 
 awfully fond of Belle," he said after a pause. 
 
 Philip flushed a deep angry red. Ever since the 
 possible necessity for giving his action to the world 
 had dawned upon him he had known Vvdiat comment 
 would be made; but the knowledge did not lessen 
 its sting. "Don't you think Ave had better keep 
 Miss Stuart's name out of the conversation? I 
 merely tell you this to show that I have good reasons 
 for supposing that there is some chicanery, or con- 
 fusion — " 
 
 "T beg your pardon! exactly so," assented John 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 131 
 
 Raby with a smile. "I am as anxious as you can 
 be to keep her out of it; and so, as executor, I'll 
 undertake to refund the deficiency at once. There 
 may be some mistake, but it is best to have no 
 inquiry." 
 
 " I hardly see how that is to be prevented, for of 
 course I had to report the matter." 
 
 John Raby literally bounded from his chair in 
 unrestrained vexation. " Reported it! my dear Mars- 
 den, what the devil! — Oh, I beg your pardon, 
 but really, to begin with, you cut your own throat." 
 
 "What else could I do?" asked the other quietl}^ 
 "You forp-et I am in charo-e of the office." 
 
 o o 
 
 "Do?" returned his hearer, pausing in his rapid 
 pacing of the room. " Ah, I don't suppose you could 
 do anything else; but I'm not so high-flown myself, 
 and I can't see the good of chucking ten thousand 
 rupees into the gutter for the sake of a sentiment, 
 and then chucking the sentiment after it. For the 
 girl adored her father, and I warn you — " 
 
 "If we can't keep off that subject I'll go," inter- 
 rupted Philip rising. "I thought you might know 
 something. Colonel Stuart dined with you that last 
 evening, if you remember." 
 
 The civilian needed no reminder; indeed for the 
 last ten minutes he had been distractingly conscious 
 of a note for a thousand rupees lying in his despatch- 
 box which might throw -some light on the mysterious 
 
132 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 disappearances. "Yes," he replied, "he did, and, 
 
 — I see what you are thinking of, Marsden — he 
 pLayed ecarte too; but to tell the truth, he was so 
 fuddled and excited that I refused to go on, and sent 
 him home. See what comes of benevolence. If I 
 had let him play and rooked him, he wouldn't have 
 had the opportunity of brooding over difficulties and 
 putting an end to them. Again, you see there's 
 nothing so unsafe as unselfishness." 
 
 Philip, remembering the notice of transfer he had 
 found open by the dead man's side, wondered if mat- 
 ters might not have turned out differently had it 
 been viewed by the calm light of day. 
 
 "Well, it can't be helped now," continued the 
 speaker. "I don't approve of what has been done, 
 but I'll do my best, — in fact I'm bound as executor 
 
 — to clear the matter up. Though I'm sure I don't 
 knoAV where the inquiry may not lead me. It's an 
 infernal nuisance, nothing less! Well, hand me 
 over the papers and — I suppose you've no objection 
 to my searching the office ? " 
 
 "None; the Colonel's room is as he left it. I 
 was afraid of noise so near the house." The speaker 
 frowned at his own words, annoyed to find how 
 thought for Belle crept into all his actions. 
 
 "So far, good. And look here, Marsden, if you 
 value that girl's opinion go and tell her the downright 
 truth. She will be able to see you this afternoon." 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 133 
 
 A piece of sound advice meant kindly, which 
 liad the not unusual effect of making the recipient 
 hesitate about a course of action on Avhich he had 
 almost decided. In after years, when he considered 
 the tangled clew Fate held at this time for his un- 
 winding, he never hesitated to say, "Here I went 
 Avrong;" but at the time it seemed of small impor- 
 tance whether he saw the girl that day or the next. 
 And once more the assumption of authority on John 
 Raby's part irritated him into contradiction. "It 
 will be a pity to disturb Miss Stuart's first day," he 
 replied stiffly, and rode away. 
 
 The young civilian shrugged his shoulders. 
 Philip Marsden wasn't a bad fellow on the whole, 
 but a prig of the first Avater. Imagine any one gifted 
 with a grain of common sense acting as he had done! 
 Why, if he wanted the girl's good graces, had he not 
 paid up the rest of the money and finished the whole 
 affair? It was a long price to pay, of course, but it 
 was better than giving ten thousand for nothing. 
 Only a morbid self-esteem could have prevented him. 
 Really, the sense of duty to be found in some people 
 was almost enough to engender a belief in original 
 sin. The mere struggle for existence could never 
 have produced such a congeries of useless sentiment. 
 He threw himself into a chair determining to have 
 a quiet cigar before tasking his brain with further 
 thought about what he had just heard. But the first 
 
134 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 glance at the daily paper which had just come in 
 made him throw it from him in disgust; for it con- 
 tained a fulsomely flattering notice extolling Major 
 Marsden at the expense of Colonel Stuart, and 
 openly hinting at discrepancies in the accounts 
 which the former officer was determined to bring 
 home to the latter. The style betrayed the hand of 
 some clerk toadying for promotion ; but style or no 
 style, the matter was clear, and to be read by the 
 million. It all came from Marsden's infernal sense 
 of duty, and John Raby had half a mind to spoil his 
 little game by sending the paper over to Belle as 
 usual. But with all his faults he was not a spiteful 
 man, or one inclined to play the part of dog-in-the- 
 manger. Consequently wdien Lala Shunker Das's 
 carriage went over for Belle the chuprassi in charge 
 only carried a bouquet; the newspaper remained be- 
 hind, keeping company with John Raby and mag- 
 nanimity. 
 
 Belle never noticed the omission, for she was 
 still strangely forgetful and indifferent; even when 
 she drove along the familiar road, she hardly re- 
 membered anything of her last dismal ride. Only 
 one or two things showed distinctly in the midst of 
 past pain ; such trivial things as a crooked cross of 
 flowers, and screaming parrots in a stormy sky. The 
 rest had gone, to come back, — the doctor told John 
 Raby — ere long; just now the forgetfulness Vv^as 
 
MISS stuaiit's legacy. 135 
 
 best, though it showed how narrowly she had escaped 
 brain-fever. So nobody spoke of the past, and while 
 Philip was cherishing the remembrance of that first 
 day, and using it to build up his belief in her trust, 
 she was not even conscious that he had been the 
 kindest among many kind. 
 
 Meanwhile Philip Mars den had not found himself 
 in a bed of roses. The impossibility of seeing Belle 
 left him a prey to uncertainty, and if he was ready 
 fifty times a day to admit that he was in love, there 
 were quite as many times when he doubted the fact. 
 Yet love or no love, he was strenuously eager to save 
 her from trouble ; so his relief at finding the office in 
 good order had been great. In regard to matters 
 which had been in Colonel Stuart's own hands he 
 naturally felt safe; the discovery of the deficiency 
 therefore had been a most unpleasant shock, the 
 more so because he saw at once that inquiry might 
 make it necessary for him to betray his own action. 
 He wearied himself fruitlessly with endeavours to 
 discover any error, but the thought of hushing the 
 matter up never occurred to him as possible. To 
 some men it might have been a temptation ; to him 
 it was none, so he deserved no credit on that score. 
 He told himself again that if Belle were what he 
 deemed her, she would see the necessity of a report 
 also; but then he was reckoning on perfection, and 
 poor Belle, as it so happened, was in such a state of 
 
136 MLss stuailt's legacy. 
 
 nervous tension that she Avas utterly incapable of 
 judging calnil}^ about anything relating to her 
 father. 
 
 She lay on the sofa after she returned from her 
 drive, feeling all the dreariness of coming back to 
 everj^day life, and, in consequence, exalting the 
 standard of her loss till the tears rolled quietly 
 down her cheeks. Whereupon poor Healy's Mary 
 Ann, full of the best intentions, brewed her a cup of 
 tea, and sent over the road for the newspaper, Avhich 
 she imagined had been foi-gotten. The master of 
 the house was out for his evening ride, and thus it 
 came to pass that when he called on his way home, 
 he found Belle studying the misleading i)aragraph 
 with flushed clieeks and tearful eyes. '' Wliat does 
 it mean?" she asked tempestuously. ''What is it 
 that he dares to say of father?" 
 
 With her prett}-, troubled face looking into his 
 John Kaby washed his hands of further magnanimity. 
 He refused to play the part of Providence to a man 
 who could not look after his own interests, and 
 whom, in a vague wa}^ he felt to be a rival. So, 
 considering Belle only, he told the modified truth, 
 making as light as he could of the deficiency, and 
 openly expressing his regret that it should ever have 
 been reported, the more so because Major Marsden 
 himself believed there was some mistake. This con- 
 solation increased her indio-nation. 
 
MISS stuaktVs legacy. 137 
 
 "Do yon mean to say," she cried, trembling with 
 anger and weakness, " that he has dragged father's 
 name in the dirt for a mistake? Why didn't he 
 come to me, or to you ? We would have told him it 
 was impossible. But he always misjudged father; 
 he hated him ; he never would come here. Ah yes ! 
 I see it all now! I understand." 
 
 The "we" sounded SAveetly in the young man's 
 ears, but its injustice was too appalling to be passed 
 over. He felt compelled to defence. For a moment 
 he thought of telling the whole truth, but he re- 
 flected that Philip had a tongue as well as he, and 
 that no one had a right to make free with another 
 man's confidence. Consequently his palliation only 
 referred to the culprit's well-known inflexibilit}- and 
 almost morbid sense of duty; all of which made 
 Belle more and more angry, as if the very insistence 
 on such virtues involved some depreciation of their 
 quality in the dead man. 
 
 "I do not care wdiat happens now," she said vehe- 
 mently. " I know well enough that nothing he can 
 say will harm father's good name ; but I will never 
 forgive him, never! It is no use excusing him; all 
 you say only makes it more unnecessary, and cruel, 
 and,^ — ^ and stupid. I will never forgive him; no, 
 never! " 
 
 And all that night she lay awake working herself 
 into a fever, mental and bodily, by piling up the 
 
138 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 many evidences in favour of her theory as to Philip's 
 long-cherished enmity. He had never called, never 
 spoken to them when all the world beside had been 
 friendly. His very kindness to Dick was tainted; 
 for had he not sided with the boy against her father? 
 Once the train of thought started, it was easy to turn 
 the points so that there seemed no possibilit}^ of its 
 following any other line than the one she laid down 
 for it as she went along. Finally, to clinch the 
 matter, memory served her a sorry trick by suddenly 
 recalling to her recollection Philip Marsden's gloomy 
 face when she had told him who she was on their 
 first meeting at the railway-station. She sat up in 
 bed with little hot hands stretched into the darkness. 
 "O father! father! I was the only one who loved 
 you, — the only one! '' A climax at once of sorrow 
 and consolation which somehow soothed her to sleep. 
 Now, while she was employed in blackening his 
 character, Philip Marsden was crediting her with all 
 the cardinal virtues. He had not seen the daily 
 paper, for reasons which put many other things out 
 of his head for the time beinof. He had no idea 
 when he wilfully went to play racquets that evening 
 instead of following Raby's advice of seeing Belle, 
 that he was throwing away his last chance of an 
 interview; but as he sat outside the court, cooling 
 himself after the game, an urgent summons came 
 from the orderh-room. Ten minutes after he was 
 
MISS sTUAirrs legacy. 139 
 
 reading a telegram bidding the 101st Sikhs start to 
 the front immediately. Farewell to leisure; for 
 though the regiment had been under warning for 
 service and in a great measure prepared for it, the 
 next forty-eight hours were ones of exceeding bustle. 
 Pliilip, harassed on all sides, had barely time to 
 realise wdiat it meant; and, despite a catch at his 
 heart when he thought of Belle, the blood ran faster 
 in his yeins from the prospect of action. His own 
 certainty, moreover, was so great, that it seemed al- 
 most incredible that one, of wdiose sympathy he felt 
 assured, should see the matter with other eyes. 
 Nevertheless he was determined to tell her all at the 
 first opportunity; and often, as he went untiringly 
 through the wearisome details of inspection, his 
 mind was busy over the interview to come ; but the 
 end was always the same, and left him Avith a smile 
 on his face. 
 
 John Raby happened to be standing in the verandah 
 Avhen, between pillar and post, Philip found that 
 vacant five minutes which he had been chasing all 
 day long. 
 
 "Can't see you, I'm afraid," he returned, cheer- 
 fully, to the inquiry for Miss Stuart. " The fact is 
 she has worried herself into a fever over that para- 
 graph. I don't wonder; it was infernal! " 
 
 "What paragraph?" asked Philip innocently. 
 
 John Raby looked at him and laughed, not a very 
 
140 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 pleasant kind of laugh. "Upon ni}^ soul,"' he said, 
 "you are an unlucky beggar. I begin to think it's 
 a true case, for you've enough real bad luck to make 
 a three-volume-course of true love run rough! So 
 you haven't seen it? Then I'll fetch it out. The 
 paper is just inside." 
 
 Philip, reining in his restive horse viciously, read 
 the offending lines, punctuating them with admoni- 
 tory digs of his heels and tugs at the bridle as the 
 charger fretted at the fluttering paper. He looked 
 well on horseback, and the civilian, lazily leaning 
 against a pillar, admired liim, dangling sword, jing- 
 ling spurs, and all. He folded the paper methodi- 
 cally against his knee and handed it back. " And 
 Miss Stuart believed all that?" he asked quietly. 
 
 "Women always believe what they see printed. 
 She is in an awful rage, of course ; but I warned 
 you, Marsden, you know I did." 
 
 " You were most kind. Will you tell Miss Stuart, 
 when you see her, that I called to say good-b3^e and 
 that I was sorry, — 3^es! you can say I was sorry, for 
 the cause of her fever. " His tone was bitterness itself. 
 
 "Look here, Marsden," said the other, "don't 
 huff; take my advice this time and write to her." 
 
 "Do you think the belief of women extends to 
 what they see written? I didn't know you had such 
 a high opinion of the sex, Raby! Well, good-bye to 
 you, and thanks." 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 141 
 
 " Oh, I shall be clown to see the 101st march out. 
 Five A.M., isn't it?" 
 
 Philip nodded as he rode off. All through that 
 last night in cantonments he was angry with every- 
 thing and everybody, himself included. Why had 
 he meddled ? What demon had possessed the Brig- 
 adier to put him in charge of the Commissariat office ? 
 Why had not this order for the front come before ? 
 Why had it come now ? What induced the hahii who 
 penned that paragraph to be born ? And why did a 
 Mission school teach him the misuse of adjectives? 
 He was still too angry to ask himself why he had not 
 taken John Raby's advice; that touched too closely 
 on the real mistake to be acknowledged yet awhile. 
 
 The gloom on his face was not out of keeping with 
 the scene, as the regiment marched down the Mall 
 at early dawn while the band played ZaJchmi^ that 
 plaintive lament of the Afghan maiden for her 
 wounded lover. Yet there was no pitiful crowd of 
 weeping women and children, such as often mars the 
 spectacle of a British regiment going on service. 
 The farewells had all been said at home, and if the 
 women wept in the deserted lines, the men marched, 
 eyes front without a waver, behind the sacred flag 
 borne aloft by the tall drum-major, whose magnifi- 
 cent stature was enhanced by an enormous high- 
 twined turban. Close at his heels went two men 
 waving white silver-mounted whisks over the Holv 
 
142 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 Grunth, watchful lest aught might settle on the 
 sacred page which lay open on a yellow satin cush- 
 ion borne by four sergeants. There, plainly discerni- 
 ble even by the half-light, was inscribed in broad 
 red and black lettering the sure guide through death 
 to life for its faithful followers. Then, separated by 
 a wide blank from the book in front and the men 
 behind, rode the Colonel. Finall}^, shoulder to 
 shoulder, marched as fine a body of men as could be 
 seen east or west, with dexterously knotted turbans 
 neutralising the least difference in height, so that 
 the companies came by as if carved out of one block. 
 
 It was a stirring sight, making the blood thrill, 
 especially when, at the turn of the road leading to 
 barracks, the bands of the British regiments formed 
 in front to play their fellow soldiers out of the sta- 
 tion, and the Siklis broke into their old Avar cry, 
 ^^ Jai! Jail guru-ji ke Jail (Victory, victory, our 
 Teachers' victory)." It mingled oddly with the 
 strains of "The Girl I left Behind Me." 
 
 A little group of horsemen waited for the last fare- 
 wells at the cantonment boundary, and one of them 
 riding alongside told Philip Marsden that a clue had 
 been found, and the truth would be made manifest. 
 The conventional answer of pleasure came reluc- 
 tantl}^ but as the hands of the two men met, the 
 gloomy, troubled face looked almost wistfully into 
 the clever, contented one. "You are very good to 
 
MISS STUART S LEGACY. 143 
 
 her, Rab}^; I know that; good-bye." The workman- 
 like groans and shrieks of the fife and drum rephiced 
 the retiring bands, and as cheer after cheer greeted 
 the final departure Philip Marsden felt that John 
 Raby was left completely master of the situation. 
 
 That evening, tw^enty miles out among the sand- 
 hills, he put his pride in his pocket, impelled thereto 
 by a persistent gnawing at his heart, and followed 
 the advice of writing to Belle ; an honest, if some- 
 what hard letter, telling her, not of his good deeds, 
 but the truth of those which seemed to her bad. 
 Ten days after at Peshawar, with the last civilised 
 post he was to see for many weeks, his letter came 
 back to him unopened and re-addressed in a shaky 
 hand. 
 
 The heart-ache was better by that time. "She 
 might have afforded me the courtesy of an envelope," 
 he said as he threw the letter into the camp-fire. 
 
144 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The clue spoken of b}^ John Rahy lay in the note 
 for a thousand rupees with which Colonel Stuart 
 had paid a portion of his card debts during his last 
 deal in the great game. It proved to be not only 
 one of the missing notes, but, as luck would have 
 it, the very one about the number of whicli uncer- 
 tainty existed. The figures stood as the Colonel 
 had written them; so the mistake lay with the 
 usurer, if it was really a mistake. John Raby lit a 
 cigarette and meditated, with the list before him; 
 but beyond an odd persistency in threes and fives, 
 the figures presented no peculiarity. So he set the 
 problem aside till he could tackle it on the spot 
 where it had arisen ; for he was a great believer in 
 scenery as an aid to the senses. 
 
 The day was almost done, however, ere he found 
 leisure for the task; nevertheless, fatigued as he 
 was, he set to work methodically and was rewarded 
 by the immediate discovery that uncertainty existed 
 as to the number of another note, the one which had 
 been paid in by some one else. The entry had been 
 blotted by the hasty closing of the ledger, and though 
 it read like 159934, it was quite conceivable that it 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy!'. 145 
 
 might be something else. Again those threes and 
 fives ! Idly enough he wrote the two uncertainties 
 on a sheet of paper, and sat staring at them till sud- 
 denly a suggestion came to him, making him re-write 
 the number given by Shunker in close imitation of 
 the dead man's bold black figures, and then deliber- 
 ately blot it by placing it in the ledger. The result 
 bore so close a resemblance to the blurred entry that 
 his quick brain darted off in a Avonder how the 
 usurer had got hold of the number of a note which 
 he had not paid in. No reasonable explanation sug- 
 gesting itself, he began a systematic search in the 
 waste paper basket ; the scraps there would at least 
 tell him on what work the Colonel had been engaged 
 during his last day. He knew that Shunker had had 
 an interview with him in the morning, but that did 
 not account for the shreds of a receipt for three thou- 
 sand five hundred maunds of grain which he found 
 almost on the top. An old receipt dated some 
 months back ; three thousand five hundred too — an 
 odd coincidence! So far good; the next thing was 
 to have a sight of Shunker's face before he had time 
 to hear rumours or make plans. 
 
 The summons to come up for an interview early 
 next morning rather pleased the Lala, for he re- 
 ceived it vv^hile at the receipt of custom, when it 
 added to his importance in the eyes of the wedding 
 guests who sat watching a nautch girl sidle, like a 
 
146 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 pouter pigeon, over a strip of dirty carpet. She was 
 stout to obesity; her oiled hair was phistered so as 
 to narrow her forehead to a triangle ; her voluminous 
 skirts ended just under the arms in a superfluity of 
 bust. S]je held one fat hand to her cheek persist- 
 ently as if in the agonies of toothache, Avhile she 
 yelled away as if the dentist had failed to comfoi't 
 her. Yet the best native society of Faizapore had 
 sat there for an hour and a half with the impassive 
 faces of the Asiatic bent on amusement; a face which 
 surely will make Paradise dull Avork for the Jiouris. 
 
 "'Yea! 1 will come to Raby if he needs me," as- 
 sented the rich man, turning with a spiteful chuckle 
 to his right hand, where old Mahomed Lateef sat 
 solemn and dignified. "See you. Khan sahih^ how 
 even the Sirkar favours money?" 
 
 "When I was young, Oh Sliunker! " retorted tlie 
 other grimly, "the hands of Nikalsane and Jan 
 Larnce lield the sword too tiglit to leave room for 
 the rupees." 
 
 "Ay! when you Klians of Kurtpore brought fifty 
 swords to flash behind theirs, without payment. 
 Swords are bought nowadays, and those who lack 
 money must e'en go to the wall." 
 
 The old Mahomedan's eyes flared. ^^ Mashdlldh, 
 oh huniah-ji^ if they go to the wall in my poor house 
 they will find swords enow! Bat yesterday a hut 
 fell — I mean 'twas pulled down for repairs — and 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 147 
 
 we came on five Persian blades I ^ Ready to use, O 
 Lala-ji; no spot or blemish of rust. Haply they 
 may help back the rupees some day." 
 
 Shunker moved uneasily in his chair, and the 
 guests sank again into silence, broken only by the 
 occasional tributary hiccup which native etiquette 
 demands for the memory of dinner. The stars shone 
 overhead, and a great trail of smoke from the brazier 
 of oil and cotton-seed seemed to mix itself up with 
 the Milky Way. Little Nuttu, the hero of the feast, 
 had fallen asleep in his chair, his baby bride being 
 engaged in cutting her teeth elsewhere. A group 
 of younger men, squatted in the far corner round a 
 flaring paraffin lamp, talked vociferously in a mixed 
 jargon of "individual freedom," ''political rights," 
 and "representative government." And no one 
 laughed or cried at anything ; neither at the nautch 
 girl with her unmentionable songs, nor the spectacle 
 of people discussing freedom while engaged in tak- 
 ing it away from two harmless infants. 
 
 So the night wore on in dull dissipation, leaving 
 Shunker at a disadvantage when he came to confront 
 the young civilian's clear-cut, clean-shaven face in 
 the morning. 
 
 "You have made a mistake, Lala-ji," he began, 
 opening fire at once ; " a serious mistake about the 
 notes you claim to have left with Colonel Stuart." 
 1 A common occurrence in old Patlian houses. 
 
148 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 So much, at least, was certain; John Raby, however, 
 saw more in the unrestrained start of alarm which 
 the surprise evoked. "It isn't so very serious," he 
 continued blandly; "nothing for you to be so fright- 
 ened about, Lala-ji; we all make mistakes at times. 
 By the way, did you keep your original memoran- 
 dum of the numbers in English or Mahajani [ac- 
 countant's character]?" "In Mahajani, Huzoor^'' 
 bleated Shunker, and John Raby smiled. For this 
 diminished the possibility of clerical error enor- 
 mously; indeed it was to settle this point that he 
 had sent for the usurer. "So much the better for 
 you," he went on carelessly, "and if you will bring 
 the paper to me this evening, say about six, I'll see 
 if we can get the error in your claim altered. You 
 have interchanged a five and a three in one number, 
 and it is as well to be accurate before the inquiry 
 commences. It will be a very stringent one. By 
 the b3^ what time did you last see Colonel Stuart?" 
 
 But the usurer was prepared this time, and wlien 
 he finally bowed himself out, John Raby was as 
 much in the dark as ever in regard to the details of 
 a plot which he felt sure had been laid. 
 
 All day long in a sort of under-current of thought 
 he was busy ransacking memory and invention for 
 a theory, coming back again and again, disheartened, 
 to the half-tipsy laugh with which Colonel Stuart 
 had given him the note, declaring it was a windfall. 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 149 
 
 A windfall I ^yhat could that mean! Had Shunker 
 given it back? Then there must have been a second 
 interview; but none of the servants could speak to 
 one. He went over early to the office and sat in the 
 dead man's chair trying to piece things together. 
 The shadows were beginning to cling to the corners 
 ere the usurer was announced, and something in the 
 scared glance he gave towards the tall figure in the 
 seat of office convinced John Raby that the man was 
 reminded of another and similar visit to that room. 
 The quaver in hand and voice with which he pro- 
 duced his day-book, and said that the Huzoor's num- 
 ber was right after all, clinched the matter. 
 
 "I suppose," remarked the young man coolly, 
 "you were confused by the other note." A random 
 shot, but it struck home ! 
 
 ''^ Huzoor ! ^' faltered the fat man. 
 
 John Kab}^ looked him full in the face, and went 
 one better; poker was a game of which he was pas- 
 sionatel}^ fond. "The other note with the threes 
 and the fives which you saw, — which you got when, 
 — I mean the second time you came here — when 
 3^ou brought the receipt for the grain which he de- 
 stroyed — By Jove! " He threw his hand up, and a 
 light came into his face. " Fool not to see it before 
 — ^the receipt, — the wrong receipt of course." 
 
 "But he never gave me the money; I swear he 
 didn't I " protested Shunker, completel}' off his guard. 
 
150 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 His hearer broke into a tit of cynical laughter. 
 "Thank you, Shunker, thank you! Of course he 
 gave you the money: I see it all; and as one of the 
 numbers were different, you improved on your origi- 
 nal memorandum, thinking you had made a mistake. 
 Stay, — number 150034 wasn't your note. B}^ Jove I 
 he must have given you back the whole roll of four 
 thousand five hundred by mistake. You're a bigger 
 blackguard than I thought! " 
 
 "No, no!" cried the usurer, beside himself with 
 fear of this shaitan. " Only three ! I swear it! I only 
 picked up three." 
 
 " Thank you again, Lala. You picked up three. 
 Let me see; how was it?" The young man rose, 
 pacing the room quickly and talking rapidly. " Stu- 
 art must have taken four from the safe. The wind- 
 fall! by George! the windfall. The Colonel must 
 have thought Shunker had only taken two. Well! 
 you're a nice sort of scoundrel," he went on, stop- 
 ping opposite the usurer and viewing him with criti- 
 cal eyes. " So you gave him the wrong receipt on 
 purpose, and now claim a second payment, is that it ? " 
 
 Shunker collapsed to the floor as if every bone had 
 left his body. "I didn't, — I'll swear by holy 
 Ganges, by my son's head — I didn't mean it. I 
 thought he would kill me, and I gave him the wrong 
 receipt in my hurry. Oh, sir, I s'wear — " 
 
 " Let go my legs, you fool, or I shall ! Stand up. 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 161 
 
 and don't let your teeth chatter. I'm not going to 
 kill 3^ou. So you weren't even a good scoundrel, 
 Shunker, only a pitiful fortune-tinder. Having done 
 a clever trick by mistake, you thought it safe to 
 claim the money again, as the only witness was dead. 
 And it was safe, but for that chance of the other 
 note! It was hard luck, Lala-ji, hard luck! "' 
 
 There was something almost uncanny in John 
 Raby's jeering smile as he threw himself into a 
 chair and began to light one of his eternal cigarettes. 
 The fact being that he was elated beyond measure at 
 his own success, and uuAvilling to detract, as it 
 were, from his own skill by any hint of carelessness 
 on the other side. 
 
 "And now, Shunker,"' he asked, his chief atten- 
 tion being apparently given to his tobacco, ''what 
 do you intend to do?" Coolly as he spoke, he was 
 conscious of inward anxiety; for he had rapidly 
 reviewed the position, and confessed himself impo- 
 tent should the usurer regain the courage of denial, 
 since any attempt to prove the facts must bring to 
 light his own possession of the unlucky note. His 
 best chance therefore was to work on the Labi's 
 terror without delay. 
 
 "I throw myself on your honour's mercy," qua- 
 vered the usurer in a dull despairing tone, knowing 
 by experience that it was but a broken reed on which 
 to rely. 
 
152 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 "You don't deserve any; still there are reasons 
 which incline me to be lenient. Your son is young 
 to be deprived of a father's care; besides, as the 
 Colonel sahih^s executor, I do not wish to have a 
 committee of inquiry in the office. You under- 
 stand?" 
 
 ''''Sahib, I understand." This eminently sensible 
 view of the matter was as welcome as it was unex- 
 pected. 
 
 "Therefore I shall be content if you withdraw 
 your claim, in some credible way of course. Equally, 
 of course, you will sign a confession, which I will 
 burn when — " 
 
 "But, sahib, how — ?" 
 
 "Not another word. I particularly do not wish 
 to know what you are going to do; but I haven't 
 lived seven years in India without being aware how 
 things can be burked." 
 
 " If the sahib would only tell me — " 
 
 "I tell you to burke it! Why, man, if I only had 
 ^our conscience all things would be possible; I'd 
 make money even out of this. I'll help you so far. 
 You have someliow or another to restore certain 
 notes, the numbers of which are known. I happen 
 to have traced one of these already, and you happen 
 to have got hold of a wrong one. I will exchange. 
 If you haven't got it about you, — ah! I see you 
 have; that is a great saving of trouble." 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 153 
 
 A quarter of an hour later John Raby wrote a few 
 lines to Major Marsden's successor enclosing a thou- 
 sand-rupee note which he had found in an unex- 
 pected place in Colonel Stuart's office, adding his 
 belief that the others would doubtless turn up ere 
 long, and suggesting a few days' grace in order that 
 a thorough search might be made. 
 
 "Never lie if you can help it," he said to himself 
 sardonically. "That dear old prig Marsden would 
 be shocked at my squaring this business, though at 
 one stage of the proceedings he tried to do so him- 
 self. What the devil would be the good of an 
 inquiry to any living soul? And as I've lost a 
 thousand in avoiding one, no one could accuse me 
 of interested motives. Marsden and I row in the 
 same boat, and if I had had as much money as he 
 has ! — Well, she is a dear little girl, and that's 
 a fact." 
 
 He called on the dear little girl after leaving the 
 office, and comforted her greatly by general expres- 
 sions of hope. They made her almost more grateful 
 to him than any certainty would have done, for they 
 showed a more perfect trust in her father's integrity. 
 So even the young man's caution told in his favour, 
 and he went home very well satisfied Avith himself, 
 to await the final explanation that was to emanate 
 from the Lala's fertile brain. The notes would be 
 found someAvhere, no doubt; or else in looking over 
 
154 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 his accounts he would discover a like sum owing to 
 Government which would cause the disappearance of 
 the apparent deficiency. 
 
 But amid all his terror, the Lala had noted John 
 Raby's assertion that, given a certain conscience, 
 he could make money out of the restitution ; and 
 these idle words stood between him and many a 
 solution of the difficulty. His soul (if he had one) 
 was full of hate, a sense of defeat, and a desire for 
 revenge. If only he could devise some plan by 
 which he could retain the plunder, especially that 
 thousand-rupee note the white-faced shaitan had 
 given him in exchange! 
 
 Dawn found him still in the upper chamber alone 
 with his faithful jackal. There was determination 
 in his face and dogged resistance in RS,m Lai's. 
 
 "Fool! " whispered the usurer. "If I fall, where 
 art thou? And I swear I will let the whole thing 
 go. I have money, — thou hast none. It is only a 
 year without opium or tobacco, Ramu, and the wife 
 and children well cared for meanwhile. Are you 
 going to back out of the agreement, unfaithful to 
 salt?" 
 
 "A year is ten years without opium, Lala; and 
 there is no need for this. I am the scapegoat, it is 
 true, but only for safety." 
 
 "Son of owls! " cursed the usurer, still under liis 
 breath. " It is for safety, thy safety as well as mine. 
 
MISS STU art's legacy. 155 
 
 For if thoiT wilt do as I bid thee, it will tie that 
 shaitan's hands; and if they be not tied, they will 
 meddle. Besides, the sahih-logue are never satisfied 
 without a scapegoat, and if some one go not to jail 
 they will inquire; and then, Ramu, wilt thou fare 
 better? 'Twill be longer in the cells, that is all. 
 Opium can be smuggled, Ramu! See, I promise 
 five rupees a month to the warder, and a big caste 
 dinner when thou returnest from the father-in-law's 
 house [a native euphemism for the jail]. And 
 listen, Ramu — " 
 
 So the whispered colloquy went on and on through 
 the hot night, and during the course of the next 
 day John Raby Avas asked to sign a search-warrant 
 for the house of one Ramu Lai, who was suspected 
 by his master, Shunker Das, of having stolen the 
 missing notes from Colonel Stuart's office-table. 
 For a moment the young man, taken aback by this 
 unexpected turn of affairs, hesitated; but reflection 
 showed him that, for all he could prove to the con- 
 trary, the crime might have been committed. At 
 least there would be time enough for interference at 
 a later stage of the proceedings. So Ramu and his 
 house were searched ; a note for five hundred rupees 
 was found on his person, and two previous convic- 
 tions against him promptly produced by the police. 
 
 The discovery of but one, and that the smallest, 
 note gave John Raby the key to Shunker's plan; 
 
156 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 for if it could, be proved that the money had been 
 stolen after it had been duly handed over to the 
 Commissariat officer, the Lala's claim would remain 
 intact. Thus he would be the gainer by exactly 
 three thousand rupees. Some of this would of 
 course go towards indemnifying the scapegoat; but 
 Ramu was notoriously the contractor's jackal, and 
 bound to take such risks. 
 
 What was to be done ? It was maddening to be 
 outwitted in this manner, but after all no one was 
 really the worse for it. Ramu liad evidently been 
 squared: Shunker was bound to escape in any case; 
 and Government had gained all round. Practically 
 speaking, he and Marsden were the only sufferers; 
 the latter in having paid up ten tliousand rupees 
 which the authorities must otherwise have lost; he, 
 in having restored one tliousand out of his honest 
 earnings. Besides, he had forced Shunker to dis- 
 gorge another live hundred; in fact, but for him and 
 his 4carte the fraud could not have been discovered. 
 Surely that was enough for any man to do; espe- 
 cially as one disclosure must lead to another, and in 
 that case Government would have to pay Marsden 
 back his money. All of which devious but straight- 
 forward arguments ended in John Raby taking care 
 that the case should be tried in another court ; which 
 it was and successfully. Ram Lai, confronted by a 
 mass of evidence ingeniously compounded after 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 157 
 
 native fashion from truth and falsehood, — from the 
 denials of honest people who could not possibly have 
 seen anything, and the assertions of those who were 
 paid to have seen everything,— pleaded guilty to 
 having watched his master give the money to Colo- 
 nel Stuart, who, being in a hurry, had placed it in 
 an envelope-box on the writing-table, whence Ramu, 
 returning after dark, had taken it " in a moment of 
 forge tfulness " [the usual native excuse]. 
 
 Here the Lala interrupted the Court to say in a 
 voice broken by emotion that Ramu was a faithful 
 servant, a very faithful servant indeed. 
 
 So the jackal got eighteen months for the theft, 
 and Shunker drove down next morning to the jail on 
 a visit of inspection and took the opportunity of pre- 
 senting one of the warders with five rupees. 
 
 The net result of the whole affair, from a monetary 
 (that is to say from John Raby's) point of view, be- 
 ing that Shunker gained three thousand rupees, the 
 Government six thousand and odd, while Philip 
 Marsden lost over nine, and he himself forfeited one. 
 He did not count other gains and losses; not even 
 when a day or two after the trial he stood, with 
 Belle's hand in his, saying good-bye to her ere she 
 departed to the hills. The gharri waited with its 
 pile of luggage outside in the sunlight; poor Healy's 
 Mary Ann, who was to accompany her to Rajpore, 
 was arranging the pillows and fussing over the 
 
158 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 jDosition of the ice-box which was to ensure com- 
 fort. 
 
 "I can't thank you," said the girl tearfull}^ her 
 pretty eyes on his. "I wish I could, but I can't." 
 
 "Perhaps you may, — some day,"' he replied 
 vaguely, wishing it were possible. "After all I did 
 nothing ; it was clear from the first that there was a 
 mistake." 
 
 "Some people did not see the clearness," she re- 
 turned bitterly. "So your kindness, — and — and 
 confidence — were all the more welcome. I sliall 
 never forget it." 
 
 Once more the young civilian was driven, by sheer 
 keenness of perception, to the position of an outsider 
 who, seeing the game, sees the odds also. "If I 
 were you I'd forget all about it," he said, more 
 earnestly than Avas his wont. " It lias been a bad 
 dream from beginning to end. When we all come 
 back from the wars with a paucity of liml)s and a 
 plethora of medals we can begin afresh. You look 
 surprised. The fact is I've just accepted a political 
 berth with one of the forces, and am off at once. I 
 am glad; Faizapore will be dull when 3^ou are gone." 
 
 " What a nice young gentleman a' be, miss," said 
 poor Heal3"'s Mary Ann when he had seen them 
 safely stowed away, and with a plunge and a wild 
 tootle of the coachman's horn they were dashing out 
 of the gate. "So cheerful like. He must a' suf- 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 169 
 
 fered a deal 'imself for to keep up 'is sperrits so in 
 trouble. It's wonderful what one gets used to." 
 
 ''He has been very good to me, — and to father," 
 replied Belle softly. 
 
160 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A COLD wind swept down the Peirak valley, driv- 
 ing tlie last leaves from the birch trees, whicli, 
 filling the gully, crept some short way up the steep 
 ascent to the Pass, where the ridges of grey-blue 
 slate seemed almost a part of the staring blue sky 
 against which they showed like a serrated line of 
 shadow. Nearer at hand the slopes of withered 
 bent were broken by sharp fang-like rocks gathering 
 themselves in the distance into immature peaks and 
 passes. Here and there a patch of dirty snow, hav- 
 ing borne the burden and heat of summer, lay 
 awaiting a fresh robe of Avhite at the hands of the 
 fast-coming winter. Already the round black tents 
 of the pasture-seeking tribes were in full retreat to 
 the plains, and the valley lay still and silent, without 
 even the sweep of a hawk in its solitary circle, or 
 the bird-like whistle of a marmot sunning itself on 
 the rocks. Ere long the snow would wrap all in its 
 soft white mantle, and the bunting, paired with its 
 own shadow, flicker over the glistening drifts. 
 
 Notwithstanding the lateness of the season the 
 Peirak was not utterly deserted. In a sheltered bit 
 behind a cluster of rocks sat two young men. One, 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 161 
 
 despite the sheepskin coat and turban-wound peaked 
 cap of the Afglian, showed unmistakable signs of 
 alien blood in the steady gaze of a pair of brown 
 eyes, and a white line of clean skin where the fur 
 collar met his neck. It was our old friend Dick 
 Smith, and he was on the watch for the last British 
 regiment which was to cross the Pass in order to 
 strengthen the little garrison beyond, before winter 
 set her silver key upon the mountains. His com- 
 panion carried his nationality in his face, for even 
 when Afzul Khan had condescended to wear the 
 uniform of a Sikh soldier no one could have mistaken 
 the evidence of his long, straight nose and cruel, 
 crafty expression, in which, however, lurked little 
 hint of sensuality. 
 
 " You are deeply interested in this particular regi- 
 ment," remarked Dick in fair Pushtu. "What's 
 up, Afzul?" 
 
 " Nothing, Huzoor. A fool who called himself my 
 relative took service once with your Sirkar. Mayhap 
 in this regiment — God knows I It does not matter 
 if it was." 
 
 The studied indifference made his hearer smile. 
 "You are a queer lot, you Pathans," he said lazily. 
 " Not much family affection ; not much welcome for 
 a long-lost brother, eh, Afzul?" 
 
 " The Presence should remember there are Pathans 
 and Pathans. He has not seen my people ; they are 
 
162 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 not here." He spread a well-shaped nervous hand 
 emphatically east, west, and south. 
 
 "Tarred with the same brush north, I expect," 
 muttered the Englishman to himself. 
 
 Afzul Khan frowned. "These are my enemies," 
 he went on. "But for the Sirkar, — eM.'" He 
 gave a curious sound, half click, half gurgle, and 
 drew an illustrative finger across his throat. It was 
 rather a ghastl}?- performance. 
 
 "Then why stop?" 
 
 Afzul Khan plucked at the withered bents care- 
 lessly. " Because — because it suits this slave ; be- 
 cause the merciful Presence is my master; because I 
 may as well wait here as anywhere else." 
 
 "What are you waiting for?" 
 
 He showed all his long white teeth in a grin. 
 " Promotion, Huzoor. It should come speedily, since 
 but yesterday the sahib said I was worth all the rest 
 of the gang." 
 
 " I must be more careful. Where the dickens did 
 3'ou pick up English, Afzul?" 
 
 "From you, Huzoor.'' A statement so irredeema- 
 bly fictitious that it made Dick thoughtful. 
 
 " You're sharp enough. Heaven knows ; but I don't 
 understand why you wanted to learn signalling. 
 Are you going to give up your jezail and become a 
 hdhu?'' 
 
 Afzul Khan fingered the matchlock which lay 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 163 
 
 beside him. "I have changed my mind,'' he said 
 shortly. "I will leave it to the Presence to bring 
 down fire from Heaven; /bring it from this flash-in- 
 the-pan." 
 
 "Now what can you know about Prometheus?" 
 
 He shook his head. "The Presence speaks rid- 
 dles. The fire comes to some folk, to many of the 
 sahibs — to you, perhaps. God knows I The Pathans 
 are different. Our work is fighting." 
 
 Dick, looking at his companion's sinewy strength, 
 thought it not unlikely. " While we are waiting, 
 Afzul," he said idly, "tell me the finest fight 3^ou 
 ever were in. Don't be modest; out with it! " 
 
 " Wherefore not ? Victory is Fate, and only women 
 hang their heads over success. The best fight, you 
 say? 'Twas over yonder to the north. There is a 
 dip; but one way up and down. Twenty of us Ba- 
 rakzais and they were fifteen ; but they were ahead 
 of us in count, for, by Allah! their wives were so 
 ugly that we didn't care to carry them off." 
 
 "Why should you?" 
 
 "'Twas a feud. Once, God knows when, a Bu- 
 dakshan Nurzai carried off one of ours and began it. 
 If the women ran out, we killed the men instead. 
 So it was a moonlight night, and the fifteen were 
 fast asleep, snoring like hogs. By Allah! my heart 
 beat as we crept behind the rocks on our bellies, 
 knowing that a rolling stone might waken them. 
 
164 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 But God was good, and clik I they bled to death, like 
 the pigs they were, before their eyes were wide 
 open." 
 
 Dick Smith stared incredulously. " You call that 
 the best fight you ever were in ? I call it — " Tlie 
 epithet remained unspoken as he started to his feet 
 with a shout. " By George I I see the glitter. Yon- 
 der, Afzul I by the turn. Hurrah I hurrah ! " 
 
 He was off at long swinging strides, careless of the 
 fact that the Pathan never moved. The latter's keen 
 eyes followed the lad with a certain regret, and then 
 turned to the straggling file of soldiers now plainly 
 visible. 
 
 " Marsden sahlh with the advance guard," he mut- 
 tered. " Why did I give in to those cursed hawk's 
 eyes when my bullet was all but in his heart ! Wali- 
 illali ! his bravery made me a coward, and now my 
 life is his. But I will return it, and then we shall 
 cry quits. Yonder's the suhaddr. By God I my 
 knife will be in his big belly ere long, and some of 
 those gibing Punjabis shall jest no more." 
 
 So he watched them keenly with a fierce joy, while 
 Dick tore down the hill, to be brought, by an omi- 
 nous rattle among the rifles below^ to a remembrance 
 of his dress. Then he waited, hands down, in the 
 open, until the advance guard came within hail of his 
 friendly voice ; when he received the whole regiment 
 with open arms, as if the Peirak were his special 
 
MISS stuaf.t's legacy. 165 
 
 property. Perhaps he had some right to consider it 
 so, seeing that he was the only Englishman who had 
 ever attempted to make those barren heights his 
 head-quarters. But, as he explained to Philip Mars- 
 den, while they climbed the narrow gully hemmed in 
 by perpendicular rocks which led to the summit, 
 the breaks in communication from storms and other 
 causes had been so constant, that he had cut himself 
 adrift from head-quarters at Jumwar in order to be 
 on the spot, and so avoid the constant worry of small 
 expeditions with an escort; without which he Avas 
 not allowed to traverse the unsettled country on 
 either side. 
 
 " Here I am safe enough," he said with a laugh ; 
 ''and if I could only get my assistant, a Bengali hdhu^ 
 to live at the other hut I have built on the northern 
 descent, we could defy all difficulties. But he is in 
 such a blind funk that if I go out he retires to bed 
 and locks the door. The only time he is happy is 
 when a regiment is on the road." 
 
 " Then his ha]3piness is doomed for this year, — 
 unless you use discretion and come on with us 
 to Jumwar. I doubt your being safe here much 
 longer." 
 
 Dick shrugged his shoulders. "• Perhaps not, and 
 of course I shall have to cut and run before the 
 snow ; but I like the life, and it gives me time. Pve 
 been at work on a field-instrument — " here his eyes 
 
166 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 lit up, and his tongue ran aAvay with him over insu- 
 lators and circuits. 
 
 Major Marsden looked at the lad approvingly, 
 thinking how different he Avas from the slouching 
 sullen bo}^ of six months back. " I'm afraid I don't 
 understand, Dick," he said with a half-smile; "but 
 I've no doubt it will be very useful, if, as you say, it 
 enables you to tap the wires anywhere with speed and 
 certaint3^" 
 
 Dick gave a fine blush. " I beg your pardon, but 
 these things get into my head. It will work thougli, 
 I'm sure of it. I'd show you if it was here, but I left 
 it at the other slianty. There's a stretch of low level 
 line across the Pass Avhere I was testing it." 
 
 The half-aggrieved eagerness in his voice made 
 Philip smile. They were sitting together under the 
 lee of a rock on the summit while a halt was called, 
 in order to give time for the long caravan-like file, 
 encumbered by baggage ponies, to reach the top and 
 so ensure an unbroken line during the descent. For 
 in these mountain marches the least breach of conti- 
 nuity is almost certain to bring doAvn on the detached 
 portion an attack from the robbers who are always on 
 the watch for such an opportunity. 
 
 " You had best come with us, Dick," said Philip, 
 returning to the point after a pause. 
 
 " No ! The fact is I want to be certain of the 
 communication until 3'ou are safe in Jumwar. Those 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 167 
 
 two marches, between your next camp and the city, 
 are risky. I have my doubts of the people." 
 
 ''Doubts shared by head-quarters apparently, for 
 the chief got a telegram yesterday to await orders at 
 Jusraoli. I expect they are going to send to meet us 
 from Jumwar." 
 
 '^ I wish I'd known in time," replied Dick lightly ; 
 '* in that case there is not much reason for staying. 
 Yet I don't know ; I'd rather stick on till I am 
 forced to quit." 
 
 '' That won't be long ; the snow's due already, and 
 you are coming on with us so far in any case, aren't 
 you?" 
 
 Dick sat idly chucking stones and watching them 
 leap from point to point of the cliffs below him. '' I 
 don't think I shall, if you are to be in camp Jusraoli 
 for some days. You see, my hdhu is no use, and 
 something might turn up. I'll see you across the 
 Pass and come back. I could join you later on if I 
 made up my mind to cut." He lay back with his 
 arms under his head and looked up into the brilliant 
 blue cloudless sky. '' Major," he said suddenl}^, after 
 a pause, " do you know that you have never asked 
 after Belle ? " 
 
 " Haven't I ? The fact is I had news of her lately. 
 Raby wrote to me a few daj^s ago.'' 
 
 " I wouldn't trust Raby if I were you. Did he tell 
 you that Belle hadn't a penny and was trying to be 
 independent of charity by teaching ? " 
 
168 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 "I am very sorry to hear it." 
 
 Dick sat up with quite a scared look on his honest 
 face. "I thouo'ht there must be somethino^ wronof 
 between you two by her letters," he said in a low 
 voice; "but I didn't think it was so bad as that. 
 What is it?" 
 
 "Really, my dear boy, I don't feel called upon to 
 answer that question." 
 
 "It's beastly impertinent, of course," allowed 
 Dick; "but see here. Major, you are the best friend 
 I have, and she, — ^why, I love her more dearly every 
 day. So you see there must be a mistake." 
 
 The logic was doubtful, but the faith touched 
 Philip's heart. "And so you love her more than 
 ever?" he asked evasively. 
 
 "Why not? I seem somehow nearer to her now, 
 not so hopelessly beneath her in every way. And 
 I can help her a little by sending money to Aunt 
 Lucilla. She wouldn't take a penny, of course. 
 But they tell me that when my grandfather, — I mean 
 m}^ mother's father — dies I miglit come in for a few 
 rupees ; so I have made my will leaving anything in 
 your charge for Belle. You don't mind, do you?" 
 
 Philip Marsden felt distinctly annoyed. Here 
 Avas fate once again meddling with his freedom. 
 "I'm afraid I do. To begin with, I ma}^ be lying with 
 a bullet through me before the week's out." 
 
 " So may I. Look on it as my last request, Major. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 169 
 
 I'd sooner trust you than any one in the wide ^Y0^1d. 
 You would be certain to do what I would like." 
 
 "Should I? I'm not so sure of myself. Look 
 here, Dick! I didn't mean to tell you, but perhaps 
 it is best to have it out, and be fair and square. 
 The fact is we are rivals."' He laughed cynically at 
 his hearer's blank look of surprise. ''Yes, — don't 
 be downcast, my dear fellow; you've a better chance 
 than I have, any day, for she dislikes me excessively ; 
 and upon my word, I believe I'm glad of it. Let's 
 talk of something more agreeable. Ah, there goes 
 the bugle." 
 
 He started to his feet, leaving Dick a prey to very 
 mixed emotions, looking out with shining eyes over 
 the dim blue plains which rolled up into the eastern 
 sky. It must be a mistake, he felt. His hero was 
 too perfect for anything else; and she? Something 
 seemed to rise in his throat and choke him. So 
 nothing further was said between them till on the 
 northern skirts of the hills they stood saying good- 
 bye. Then Dick with some solemnity put a blue 
 official envelope into his friend's hand. "It's the 
 will. Major. I think it's all right; I got the bdhu 
 to witness it. And of course the — the other — 
 doesn't make any difference. You see I shall write 
 and tell her it is all a mistake." 
 
 The older man as he returned the boyish clasp felt 
 indescribably mean. "Don't be in a hurry, Dick," 
 
170 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 he said slowly. " You can think it over and give it 
 me when you join us, for join us you must. I won't 
 take it till then, at all events. As for the other, as 
 you call it, the mistake Avould be to have it changed. 
 Whatever happens she will never get anything better 
 than what you give her, Dick — never! — never! 
 Good-bye; take care of yourself." 
 
 As he watched the young fellow go swinging along 
 the path with his head up, he told himself that 
 others beside Belle Avould be the losers if anything 
 happened to Dick Smith; who, for all the world had 
 cared, might at that moment have been lying dead- 
 drunk in a disreputable bazaar. "There is some- 
 thing," he thought sadly, "that most men lose with 
 tlie freshness of extreme youth. It lias gone from 
 me hopelessly, and I am so mucli the worse for it." 
 And Dick, meanwhile, was telling himself with a 
 pang at liis heart that no girl, Belle least of all, 
 could fail in the end to see the faultlessness of his 
 hero. 
 
jsuss Stuart's legacy. 171 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The sun had set ere Dick reached the narrowest 
 part of the defile where, even at midday, the shadow^s 
 lay dark ; and now, wdth the clouds Avhich had been 
 creeping up from the eastward all the afternoon 
 obscuring the moon, it looked grim and threatening. 
 He was standing at an open turn, surprised at the 
 warmth of the wind that came hurrying down the 
 gully, when the low whistling cry of the marmot 
 rang through the valley and died away among the 
 rocks. A second afterwards the whizz of a bullet, 
 followed by the distant crack of a rifle, made him 
 drop in his tracks and seek the shelter of a neigh- 
 bouring boulder. Once again the marmot's cry 
 arose, this time comparatively close at hand. To 
 answer it was the result of a second's thought, and 
 the silence which ensued convinced Dick that he had 
 done the right thing. But what was the next step ? 
 Whistling was easy work, but how if he met some 
 of these musical sentries face to face? Perhaps it 
 would be wiser to go back. He had almost made up 
 his mind to this course when the thought that these 
 robbers, for so he deemed them, might out of pure 
 mischief have tampered with his beloved Avires came 
 
172 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 to turn the balance in favour of going on. A dis- 
 used path leading by a detour to the southern side 
 branched off about a mile further up; if he could 
 reach that safely he might manage to get home with- 
 out much delay. Only a mile; he would risk it. 
 Creeping from his shelter cautiously he resumed 
 his way, adopting the easy lounging gait of the hill- 
 people ; rather a difficult task with the inward knowl- 
 edge that some one may be taking deliberate aim at 
 you from behind a rock. More than once, as he 
 went steadily onwards, the cry of a bird or beast rose 
 out of the twilight, prompting his instant reply. 
 "If they would only crow like a cock," he thought, 
 with the idle triviality which so often accompanies 
 grave anxiety, "I could do that first-class." 
 
 Yet he was fain to pause and wi[)e the sweat from 
 his face when he found himself safely in the disused 
 track, and knew by the silence that he was beyond 
 the line of sentries. A rough road lay before him, 
 but he traversed it rapidly, being anxious to get the 
 worst of it over before the lingering light deserted 
 the peaks. As he stood on the summit he was 
 startled at the lurid look of the vast masses of cloud 
 which, rolling up to his very feet, obscured all view 
 beyond. They were in for a big storm, he thought, 
 as he hurried down the slopes at a break-neck pace ; 
 with all his haste barely reaching the shanty in time, 
 for a low growl of thunder greeted his arrival, and 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 173 
 
 as he pulled the latch a faint gleam of light showed 
 him the empty room. He called loudly; darkness 
 and silence : again, as he struck a match ; light, but 
 still silence. Quick as thought, Dick was at the 
 signaller, and the electric bell rang out incongru- 
 ously. Tiiik-a-tink-a-tink was echoed from the east- 
 ward. But westward? He waited breathlessly, while 
 not a sound returned to him. Communication was 
 broken; the wires had possibly been cut, and Dick 
 stood up with a curiously personal sense of injury. 
 His wires tampered with out of sheer mischief! Yet 
 stay I Might it not be something more ? Where the 
 devil had the hdbu hidden himself? After fruitless 
 search an idea struck him, and he signalled eastward 
 once more. "Repeat your last message, giving time 
 at which sent." With ears attuned to tragedy Dick 
 awaited the reply. "6 p.m. To north side. 'Will 
 send cocoa-nut oil and curry stuff by next mail.' "' 
 
 The echo of Dick's laughter, as he realised that 
 but an hour or so before the hdhu had been putting 
 the telegraph to commissariat uses, was the last 
 human sound the shanty was to hear for many a long 
 day. For the next moment's thought roused a sud- 
 den fear. The hdhu had doubtless gone over the 
 Pass with the troops for the sake of company; that 
 was natural enough, but if he was still in the north 
 shanty awaiting Dick's return, why had he not an- 
 swered the signal sent westward? It could not be 
 
174 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 due to any break in the wire, unless the damage had 
 been done after dark, for he had been able to tele- 
 graph eastward not so long ago. Was there more 
 afoot than mere mischief? 
 
 It was not a night for a dog to be out in, and as 
 Dick stood at the door he could see nothing but 
 masses of cloud hurr3ang past, softly, silently. 
 Then suddenly a shudder of light zig-zagged hither 
 and thither, revealing only more cloud pierced by a 
 few pinnacles of rock. 
 
 Not a night for a dog certainly; but for a man, 
 with a man's work before him? Belle would ])id 
 him go, he knew. A minute later he had closed the 
 door behind him, and faced the Pass again. Ere he 
 reached the end of the short ascent it was snowing 
 gently ; then, with a furious blast, hailing in slanted 
 torrents that glittered like dew-drops in the almost 
 ceaseless shiver of the silent lightning. Ever3^thing 
 was so silent, save for the wind which, caught and 
 twisted in the gullies, moaned as if in pain. Ah! 
 was that the end of all things ? Round him, in him, 
 tlirough him, came a blaze of white flame, making 
 him stagger against the wall of rock and throw up 
 his hands as if to ward off the impalpable mist which 
 held such a deadly weapon. Half-blinded he went 
 on, his mind full of one thought. If that sort of 
 thing came again, say when he was passing the snow- 
 bridore, could a man stand it without a start which 
 
. - _ - T iter" 
 
 Tltt^r^ 8^: snouH 331.— 
 
 
 1 T<^ TT^:^ lazT ^'Tim JDS^ inz" 
 
 - -- — — - 7 7~_ JOe SIE[(*Il!ll SC TTTff 
 
 ; ::__ i_^_ :_ ■ - "" - '^M: liimT IT 12^ 
 
176 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 over him with drawn knife. " Go on, you fool ! "' 
 he was saying, "your work is nearly finished." 
 
 The full meaning of the scene flashed through 
 Dick Smith's excited brain quicker than any light- 
 ning. Treachery was at work, with a coward for its 
 agent. His revolver was out in a second, and before 
 the astonished group had time to grasp the unex- 
 pected interruption, the bctbu's nerveless fingers 
 slipped from the handles, as with a gasping sob, ris- 
 ing above the report, he sank in a heap on the floor. 
 
 "By God and His Prophet! " cried Afzul, carried 
 away, as men of his kind are, by the display of dare- 
 devil boldness Avhich is their unattained ideal of 
 bravery. "Yea, by the twelve Imaunis, but it was 
 well done." 
 
 "Liar, traitor, unfaithful to salt!" cried Dick, 
 whose extraordinary appearance and absolutely reck- 
 less behaviour inspired his hearers with such awe 
 that for the moment they stood transfixed. The 
 revolver was levelled again, this time at Afzul, when 
 the memory of other things beside revenge sobered 
 the lad, and a flash of that inspiration which in time 
 of danger marks the leader of men from his fellows 
 made him throw aside the weapon and fold his arms. 
 "No! " he said coolly, "I am faithful. I have eaten 
 the salt of the Barakzais; they are my friends." 
 
 "Don't hurt the lad," cried Afzul, not a moment 
 too soon, for cold steel was at Dick's throat. " God 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 177 
 
 smite you to eternal damnation, Haiyat! Put up 
 that knife, I say. The lad's words are true. He 
 has eaten of our salt, and we of his. He hath lived 
 among us and done no harm to man or maid. By 
 Allah! the lightning has got into his brain. Bind 
 him fast; and mark you, 'twill be Avorse than death 
 for him to lie here helpless, knowing that the wires 
 he made such a fuss about have lured his friends to 
 death. I know his sort. Death? — this will be 
 seventy hells for him ; and we can kill him after, if 
 needs be." 
 
 Dick, as he felt the cords bite into his wrists and 
 ankles, ground his teeth at the man's jeering cruelty. 
 " Kill me outright, you devils ! " he cried, struggling 
 madly. It was the wisest way to ensure life, for the 
 sight of his impotent despair amused his captors. 
 
 " Give him a nip of his own brand}^, Haiyat, or 
 he Avill be slipping through our lingers," said one, 
 as he lay back exhausted. 
 
 ''Not I; the bottle's near empty as it is." 
 
 Tales of his boyhood about drunken guards and 
 miraculous escapes recurred to Dick's memory, and 
 though he felt to the full the absurdity of mixing 
 them up with the present deadly reality, the slen- 
 derest chance gave at least room for hope. " There 
 is plenty more in the cupboard," he gasped. ''The 
 key is in my pocket." 
 
 "True is it, O Kareem, that the Feringhi infidel 
 
178 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 cannot die in peace without his shardh^'' remarked 
 Haiyat virtuously. But he did not fail with the 
 others to taste all the contents of the cupboard, even 
 to a bottle of Pain-killer which had belonged to the 
 hdhu. Meanwhile Dick, lying helpless and bound, 
 felt a fierce surge of hope and despair as he remem- 
 bered that behind those open doors lay something 
 which could put an end to treachery. Five minutes 
 with his field-instrument in the open, and, let what 
 Avould come afterwards, he would have done his 
 work. The thought gave Dick an idea which,^ if 
 anything, increased the hopelessness of his position, 
 foi' the only result of liis offer to work the wires on 
 condition of his life being saved, was to drive Afzul, 
 who saw his dread of Dick's getting his hands on the 
 instrument in danger of being over-ruled, into set- 
 tling the question, once and for all, by severing the 
 connection with a hatchet. 
 
 "I know him better than that," he said; "he 
 would sit and fool us until he had given warning. 
 Let him lie there; if he has sense, he will sleep." 
 
 There was something so significant in his tone 
 that Dick felt wisdom lay in pretending to follow 
 the advice. He strained his ears for every whispered 
 word of the gang as they crouched round the fire, 
 and gathered enough to convince him that the sudden 
 change of plan at head-quarters had endangered some 
 deep-laid scheme of revenge, and that Afzul Khan, 
 
MISS stuap.t's legacy. 179 
 
 believing Dick had gone on to the camp, had sug- 
 gested a false telegram in order to lure the regiment 
 into the open. A frantic rage and hate for the man 
 who had suggested such a devilish prostitution of 
 what constituted Dick's joy and pride roused every 
 fibre of the lad's being. Lecoq, that greatest of ex- 
 amples to prisoners, declares that given time, pluck, 
 and a cold chisel, the man who remains a captive is 
 a fool. But how about the cold chisel? Dick's 
 eyes, craftily searching about under cover of the 
 failing fire-light, saw many things which might 
 be useful, but all out of reach. 
 
 "I am cold," he said boldly: ''bring me a rug or 
 move me out of the draught." 
 
 They did both, in quick recognition of his spirit, 
 and, with a laugh and an oath to the effect that the 
 dead man Avould be a warm l^ed-fellow, dragged him 
 beside the wretched hdhii and threw a sheepskin rug 
 over both. Dick's faint hope of some carpenter's 
 tools in the far corner fled utterly; but his heart 
 leaped up again as he remembered that his cowardly 
 subordinate had always gone about armed with 
 revolvers and bowie-knives. Rifling a dead man's 
 pockets with your hands tied behind your back is 
 slow work, but the rug covered a multitude of m.ove- 
 ments. Half an hour afterwards Dick's feet were 
 free, and with the knife held fast between his heels 
 he was breakingf his back in obstinate determination 
 
180 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 of some time and somehow severing the rope upon 
 his wrists. Some time and somehow — it seemed 
 hours ; yet when he managed at last with bleeding 
 hands to draw the watch from his pocket he found 
 it was barely two o'clock. Hitherto his one thought 
 had been freedom; now he turned his mind towards 
 escape. There was still plenty of time for him to 
 reach the camp ere dawn found the regiment on the 
 move; but the risks he might have to run on the 
 Avay decided him, first of all, to try and secure his 
 field-instrument from the cupboard. He lay still for 
 a long time wondering what to do next, furtively 
 watching Afzul Khan as he busied himself over the 
 fire, while the others dozed preparatory to the work 
 before them. Having possessed himself also of the 
 dead hdhu^s revolver, Dick felt miglitily inclined to 
 risk all by a stead}?- shot at Afzul, and immediate 
 flight. But the remembrance of those sentries on 
 the downward road prevented him from relying alto- 
 gether on his speed of foot. Yet Dick knew his man 
 too well to build anything on the chance of either 
 wine or weariness causing Afzul to relax his watch. 
 It had come to be a stand-up fight between tliese 
 two, a state of affairs which never fails to develop 
 all the resources of brain and body. Dick, keenly 
 alive to every trivial detail, noticed first a longer 
 interval in the replenishing of the fire, and then the 
 fact that but a few small logs of wood remained in 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 181 
 
 the pile. Thereafter, whenever AfzuFs right hand 
 withdrew fresh fuel, Dick's left under cover of the 
 noise made free with more. The sheepskin rug had 
 shelter for other things than a dead body and a liv- 
 ing one. 
 
 '•It burns like a fat Hindoo,"' muttered the 
 Pathan, sulkily, as the last faggot went to feed the 
 flame. ''Lucky there is more in the outhouse, or 
 those fools would freeze to death in their sleep." 
 
 Dick's heart beat like a sledge-hammer. His 
 chance, the only chance, had come I Almost before 
 the tall figure of the Pathan, after stooping over 
 him to make sure that he slept, had ceased to block 
 the doorway, Dick was at the cupboard. A min- 
 ute's, surely not more than a minute's delay, and he 
 was outside, safe and free, with the means of warn- 
 ing carefully tucked inside his fur coat. 
 
 Too late I Right up the only possible path came 
 Afzul, carrying a great armful of sticks. To rush 
 on him unprepared, tumble him backwards into a 
 snow-drift alongside, deal him a crashing blow or tw^o 
 for quietness' sake and cram his pugree into his 
 mouth, was the work of a minute ; the next he was 
 speeding down the descent with flying feet. The 
 storm was over, and the moon riding high in the 
 heavens shone on a white world; but already the 
 darkness of the peaks against the eastern sky told 
 that the dawn was not far off. 
 
182 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 The first dip of the wires, he decided, was too 
 close for safety, besides the drifts always la}^ thick- 
 est there. The next, a mile and a half down the 
 valley, was best in every way; and as he ran, the 
 keen joy of victory, not only against odds but against 
 one man, came to him with the thought of Afzul 
 Khan gagged and helpless in the snow. But he had 
 reckoned without the cold; the chill night air which, 
 finding its way through the open door, soon roused 
 the sleepers by the ill-replenished fire. Haiyat, 
 waking first, gave the alarm, and the discovery of 
 their leader half suffocated in the snowdrift followed 
 swiftly. Yet it was not until the latter, slowly 
 recovering speech, gasped out a warning, that the 
 full meaning of their prisoner's escape was brought 
 home to them. 
 
 "After him! Slioot him down I"' cried Afzul, 
 staggering to his feet. "He can bring fire from 
 heaven ! If he touches the Avires all is lost. Fool 
 that I was not to kill him, the tiger's cub, the hero 
 of old ! Curse him, true son of Byramghor, born of 
 the lightning! " So with wild threats, mingled 
 with wilder words of wonder and admiration, Afzul 
 Khan, still dazed by the blows Dick had dealt him, 
 stumbled along in rear of the pursuit. 
 
 The latter's heart knew its first throb of fear when 
 the signal he sent down the severed wire brought no 
 reply. After all, was the outcome of long months 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 183 
 
 of labour, the visible embodiment of what was best 
 in him, about to fail in time of need? Again and 
 again he signalled, urgently, imperiously, wliile his 
 whole world seemed to wait in breathless silence. 
 Failure ! No, no, incredible, impossible ; not failure 
 after all! Suddenly-, loud and clear, came an answer- 
 ing trill, bringing with it a joy such as few lives 
 know. A shout from above, a bullet whistling past 
 him; scarcely fair that, when his hands were busy, 
 and his mind too, working metliodically, despite 
 those yelling fiends tearing down the slope. " Major 
 from Dick — treachery.'' Something like a red-hot 
 iron shot through his leg as he knelfc on the cliff, a 
 clear mark against the sk}-. Lucky, he thought, it 
 was not tlirough his arm. ''^ For GocVs sake — "' 
 He doubled up in sudden agony but went on 
 ''^ Stand fast." 
 
 There was still a glint of life left in him when 
 Afzul Khan, coming up behind the butchers, claimed 
 the death-blow. Their eyes met. " Fire — from — 
 heaven I"' gasped Dick, and rolled over dead. The 
 Pathan put up his knife gloomily. "It is true,"' lie 
 said with an oath. "I knew he was that sort; lie 
 has beaten us fairly.' 
 
 An hour afterwards, heralded by winged clouds 
 flushed with the ceaseless race of da}-, the steady sun 
 climbed the eastern sky and looked down brightly 
 on the dead body of the lad who had given back his 
 
184 MISS stuaut's legacy. 
 
 spark of divine fire to the Unknown. Perhaps, if 
 bureaucracy had not seen fit to limit genius within 
 statutory bounds, Dick Smith might have left good 
 gifts behind him for his generation, instead of tak- 
 ing them back with him to the storehouse of Nature. 
 And the sun shone brightly also on Belle Stuart's 
 bed ; but not even her dreams told her that her best 
 chance of happiness lay dead in the snow. She 
 would not have believed it, even if she had been 
 told. 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 185 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 It was a walled garden full of blossoming peach- 
 trees, and chequered with little rills of running 
 water beside which grew fragrant clumps of golden- 
 eyed narcissus. In the centre was a slender-shafted, 
 twelve-arched garden-house, with overhanging eaves, 
 and elaborate fret-work, like wooden lace, between 
 the pillars. On the sides of the stone dais on which 
 the building stood trailed creepers bright with flow- 
 ers, and in front of the open archway serving as a 
 door lay the harmonious puzzle of a Persian carpet 
 rich in deep reds and yellow^s. Easy-chairs, with a 
 fox-terrier curled up on one of them, and a low^ gipsy 
 table ominously ringed with marks of tumblers, 
 showed the presence of incongruous civilisation. 
 
 From within bursts of merriment and the clatter 
 of plates and dishes, without which civilisation 
 cannot eat in comfort, bore witness that dinner was 
 going on. Then, while the birds were beginning to 
 say good-night to each other, the guests came troop- 
 ing out in liigh spirits, ready for coffee and cigars. 
 All, Avith one exception, were in the JchdJci uniform 
 which repeated washing renders, and always will 
 render, skewbald, despite the eft'orts of martial 
 
186 MISS stfart's legacy. 
 
 experts towards a permanent dye. Most of the party 
 were young and deeply engrossed by the prospect of 
 some sky-races, Avhich, coming off next day, were to 
 bring their winter sojourn at Jumwar to a brilliant 
 close. One, a lanky boy with pretensions to both 
 money and brains, was drawing down on himself 
 merciless chaff by a boastful allusion to former sta- 
 bles he had owned. 
 
 "Don't believe a syllable he says," cried his dear- 
 est friend. "I give you my w^ord they were all 
 scrcAvs. Stable, indeed! Call it your tool-chest, 
 Samuel, my boy." 
 
 Lieutenant Samuel Johnson, whose real name of 
 Algernon, bestowed on him by his godfathers and 
 godmothers in his baptism, had been voted far too 
 magnificent for everj'day use, blinked his wliite eye- 
 lashes in evident enjojnnent of his own wit as he 
 retorted: "Well, if they were screws 1 turned 'em 
 myself. You buy yours read}' made." 
 
 "Well done, Samivel! Well done! You're im- 
 proving," chorused the others with a laugh. 
 
 " You might lend me that old jest-book, Sam, now 
 that you've got a new one," replied his opponent 
 calmly. "I'm running short of repartees, — and of 
 cigars, too, bad cess to the Post! By Jove! I wish 
 I had the driving of those runners; I'd hurry them 
 up!" 
 
 "Man does not live by cigars alone. I'm dead 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 187 
 
 broke for boots," interrupted another, looking dis- 
 consolately at the soles and uppers which not all the 
 shameless patching of an amateur artist could keep 
 together. 
 
 "I have the best of 3^ou there," remarked some one 
 else. "I got these at Tom Turton's sale. They 
 wouldn't fit any one else." 
 
 "Yes, poor Tom had small feet." 
 
 There was a pause among the light-hearted young- 
 sters as if the grim Sliadow which surrounded that 
 blossoming garden had crept a bit nearer. 
 
 "This is delightful," said John Raby, the only 
 civilian present, as he lay back in his easy-chair 
 which was placed beyond the noisy circle. His 
 remark was addressed to Philip jNIarsden, who leaned 
 aofainst one of the octao-onal turrets which like 
 miniature bastions flanked the platform. "I shall 
 be quite sorry to leave the place," continued Raby. 
 "It's a perfect paradise." 
 
 In truth it was very beautiful. The pink and 
 white glory of the peach blossoms blent softly into 
 the snow-clad peaks, now flushed by the setting sun ; 
 while a level beam of light, streaming in through a 
 breach in the wall, lit up the undergrowth of the 
 garden, making the narcissus shine like stars against 
 the dark green shadows. 
 
 "Doubtless," remarked Philip, " — for a Political 
 who comes with the swallows and summer. You 
 
188 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 sliould have seen it in January, — shouldn't he, 
 boys?" 
 
 "Bah I the usual 'last Toosday ' of 'Punch! ' The 
 hardships of campaigning indeed! Perdrix aux 
 choux and cold gooseberry tart for dinner; an idyllic 
 mess-house in a peach-garden ; coffee and iced pegs 
 to follow." 
 
 "Well, sir," cried a youngster cheerfully, "if you 
 had favoured us in winter we would have given you 
 stewed Tom in addition. It was an excellent cat; 
 we all enjoyed it, except Samuel. You see it was 
 his favourite miaoir, so he is going to give the stuffed 
 skin to an aged aunt, from Avhom he expects money, 
 in order to show that he belongs to the Anti-Vivi- 
 section League." 
 
 "A certain faint regard for the verities is essen- 
 tial to a jest," began Samuel, affecting tlie style of 
 his illustrious namesake. 
 
 " I wish some one would remove the mess-diction- 
 ary," interrupted the other. "The child will hurt 
 himself Avith those long words some da}^" 
 
 "Bad for you, if they did," grinned a third. 
 "D'ye know he actually asked me last mail-day 
 if there were two f's in affection. Whoo hoop! " 
 Closely pursued by the avenger he leapt the low 
 balustrade, and the garden resounded to much. l)oy- 
 ish laughter, as one by one the youngsters joined the 
 chase. 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 189 
 
 "Remarkably high spirits," yawned John Raby, 
 "but a trifle reminiscent of a young gentleman's 
 academy. They jar on the dolce far 7iiente of the 
 surroundings." 
 
 " We were glad enough of the spirits a few months 
 ago," replied Philip significantly. "Tlie dolce far 
 niente of semi-starvation requires some stimulant." 
 
 " That was very nearly a fiasco^ sending you over 
 the Pass so late. Lucky for you the Politicals put 
 the drag on the Military in time." 
 
 " Lucky, you mean, that poor Dick Smith managed 
 to send that telegram. Lve often wondered how he 
 did it. The story would be worth hearing; he Avas 
 one in a thousand." 
 
 "You always had a leaning towards that red- 
 headed boy; now I thought him most offensive. 
 He— ' 
 
 "i)e inortuis^'' quoted the Major with a frown. 
 
 "Those are the ethics of eternity combined with 
 a sneaking belief in ghosts. But I mean nothing 
 personal. He was simply a disconcerting sport, as 
 the biologists say, from the neutral-tinted Eurasian, 
 and I distrust a man who doesn't look his parentage; 
 he is generally a fraud or a monstrosity." 
 
 " That theory of yours is rather hard on develop- 
 ment, isn't it?" said Philip with a smile. 
 
 " Only a stand in favour of decency and order. 
 What right has a man to be above his generation? 
 
190 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 It is extremely inconvenient to the rest of us. If 
 he is successful, he disturbs our actions; if he uses 
 us as a brick wall whereon to dash out his brains, he 
 disturbs our feelings. To return to Dick Smith; 
 the whole affair was foolhardy and ridiculous. If 
 I had been Political then I should certainly have 
 refused to allow that camping-out on the Pass ; and 
 so he would probably have been enjoying all that 
 money, instead of dying miserably just wdien life 
 became worth having." 
 
 "What money?" asked Philip Marsden hastily. 
 
 ''Didn't you liear? It was in the papers last 
 week, — haven't seen them yet perhaps ? Some dis- 
 tant relation of his father's died in England, leaving 
 everything to Smith senior or his direct male heirs ; 
 failing them, or their assigns, to charit}^ So as no 
 one had made a will, ^ paupers don't generally — 
 some dozens of wretched children will be clothed in 
 knee-breeches or poke-bonnets till Time is no more." 
 
 In the pause w^iich ensued Philip Marsden felt, as 
 most of us do at times, that he would have given all 
 he possessed to put Time's dial back a space, and 
 to be standing once more on the northern slope of 
 the Peirak with Dick's hand in his. " There^s the 
 ivill^ Major; it does7iH make ayiy difference^ you 
 hnoiv.'' The words came back to him clearly, and 
 with them the mingled feeling of proud irritation 
 and resentful self-respect which had made him set 
 
MISS stuart\s legacy. 191 
 
 the blue envelope aside, and advise a more worldly 
 caution. Temper, nothing but temper, it seemed to 
 him now. "Tliere was a will," he said at last, in 
 a low voice. ''Dick spoke to me of one Avlien we 
 came over the Pass together. You see there was a 
 chance of his getting a few rupees from old Desouza." 
 
 John Raby threw away the end of his cigarette 
 with an exclamation. "By George, that's funny! 
 To make a will in hopes of something from a man 
 who died insolvent, and come in for thirty thousand 
 pounds 3'ou kncAv nothing about! But where is the 
 will? It was not among his papers, for strangely 
 enough the people had not looted much when the 
 Pass opened and we went over to search. Perhaps 
 he sent it somewhere for safe custody. It would 
 make a difference to Belle Stuart, I expect, for he — 
 well, he was another victim." 
 
 " I think, — in fact I am almost sure," — the words 
 came reluctantly as if the speaker was loth to face 
 the truth, — "that he had the will with him when he 
 died. He showed it me — and — Raby, was every 
 search made for the body?" 
 
 His hearer shrugged his shoulders. "As much as 
 could be done in a place like that. For myself I 
 should have been surprised at success. Think of 
 the drifts, the vultures and hyenas, the floods in 
 spring. Of course it may turn up still ere summer 
 is over, but I doubt it. What a fool the boy was to 
 
192 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 cany the will about with him! Why didn't he give 
 it to some one else who was less heroic?" 
 
 ''He could easily have done that, for I tell you, 
 Raby, he was worth a dozen of us who remain," said 
 Philip bitterly, as he stood looking over the peach- 
 blossom to the lingering snows Avhere Dick had died. 
 " Well, good-night. I think I shall turn in. After 
 all there is no fool like an old fool." 
 
 The civilian followed his retreating figure with a 
 good-natured smile. "He really was fond of that 
 youngster," he said to himself. "The mere thought 
 of it all has made him throw away half of the best 
 cigar on this side the Peirak. By Jove! I won't 
 give him another; it is too extravagant." 
 
 The next morning Philip Marsden came over to 
 the Political quarters, and with a remark that 
 last night's conversation had borne in on him the 
 necessity for leaving one's affairs in strict business 
 order, asked John Raby to look over the rough draft 
 of a will. 
 
 ''Leave it with me," was the reply, given Avith the 
 usual easy good-nature. " It appears to me too legal, 
 the common fault of amateurs. I'll make it unim- 
 peachable as CcGsar's wife, get one of my hdhis to 
 engross it, and bring it over ready for 3'ou to fill up 
 the names and sign this afternoon. No thanks 
 required; that sort of thing amuses me." 
 
 He kept his promise, finding Philip writing in the 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 193 
 
 summer-house. "If you will crown one kindness 
 by another and can wait a moment, I will ask you 
 to witness it," said the latter. "I shall not be a 
 moment filling it in." 
 
 "The advantage of not cutting up good money 
 into too many pieces," replied his friend smiling. 
 
 "The disadvantage perhaps of being somewhat 
 alone in the world. There, will you sign ? " 
 
 " Two witnesses, please ; but I saw Carruthers in 
 his quarters as I came by; he wdll do." 
 
 John Raby, waiting to perform a kindly act some- 
 what to the prejudice of his own leisure, for he was 
 very busy, amused himself during Major Marsden's 
 temporary absence by watching a pair of doves with 
 pink-grey plumage among the pink-grey blossom. 
 Everything was still and silent in the garden, though 
 outside the row of silvery poplar trees swayed and 
 rustled in the fitful gusts of the wind. Suddenly 
 a kite soaring above swooped slightly, the startled 
 doves fled scattering the petals, and the wind, win- 
 ning a way through the breach in the wall, blew 
 them about like snowflakes. It caught the paper too 
 that was lying still wet with ink, and whirled it off 
 the table to John Raby's feet. "I hope it is not 
 blotted," he thought carelessly, as he stooped to pick 
 it up and replace it. 
 
 A minute after Major Marsden, coming in alone, 
 found him, as he had left him, at the door, with 
 
194 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 rather a contemptuous smile on his face. "Car- 
 ruthers is not to be had, and I really have not the 
 conscience to ask you to wait any longer," said the 
 Major. 
 
 John Raby was conscious of a curious sense of 
 relief. In after years he felt that the chance which 
 prevented him from signing Philip Marsden's will 
 as a witness came nearer to a special providence than 
 any other event in his career. Yet he replied care- 
 lessly: "I wish I could, my dear fellow, but any 
 other person will do as well. I have to see the 
 Mukdoom at five, and I start at seven to prepare 
 your way before you in true Political style. Can I 
 do anything else for j^ou ? " 
 
 " Put the will into the Political post-bag for safety 
 when I send it over," laughed Philip as they shook 
 hands. "Good-bye. You will be a lion at Simla 
 while we are still doing duty as sand-bags on the 
 scientific frontier; diplomacy wins nowadays." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. In twenty years, when we have 
 invented a gun that Will shoot round a corner, the 
 nation which hasn't forgotten the use of the bayonet 
 will whip creation, and we shall return to the belief 
 that the man who will face his fellow, and lick him, 
 is the best animal." 
 
 " In the meantime, Simla for you and service for 
 us." 
 
 "Not a bit of that, either. Why, the British 
 
:^^ss stuart's legacy. 195 
 
 Lion has been on the war-trail for a year ah^eady. 
 It's time noAV for repentance and a transformation- 
 scene ; troops recalled, clurhar at Peshawar, the Amir 
 harlequin to Foreign Office columbine, Skobeloff as 
 clown playing tricks on the British public as panta- 
 loon." 
 
 "And the nameless graves?" 
 
 "Principle, my dear fellow," replied John Raby 
 with a shrug of his shoulders, "is our modern 
 Moloch. We sacrifice most things to it, — on prin- 
 ciple. By the bye, I have mislaid that original of 
 the will somehow ; possibl}^ ni}^ boy packed it up by 
 mistake, but if I come across it I'll return it." 
 
 "Don't bother, — burn it. 'Tis no good to any 
 one now." 
 
 "Nor liarm, either, — so good-bye, warrior! " 
 
 "Good-bye, diplomatist! " 
 
 They parted gaily, as men who are neither friends 
 nor foes do part even when danger lies ahead. 
 
 That same evening the homeward bound post- 
 runner carried with him over the Peirak Major Mars- 
 den's will leaving thirty thousand j^ounds to Belle 
 Stuart unconditionally. It was addressed to an 
 eminently respectable London firm of solicitors, who, 
 not having to deal with the chances of war, would 
 doubtless hold it in safe custody until it was wanted. 
 The testator, as he ro^le the first march on the Cabul 
 road, felt, a little bitterly, that once more he had 
 
196 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 done his best to stand between her and care. Yet it 
 must be confessed that this feeling was but as the 
 vein of gold running through the quartz, for pride 
 and a resentful determination that no shadow of 
 blame should be his, whatever happened, were the 
 chief factors in his action. Nor did he in any way 
 regard it as final. The odds on his life were even, 
 and if he returned safe from the campaign he meant 
 to leave no stone unturned in the search for Dick 
 Smith's body. Then, if he failed to find the will, 
 it would be time enough to confess he had been in 
 the wrong. 
 
 John Raby, as he put the bulky letter in the Politi- 
 cal bag according to promise, felt also a little bitter 
 as he realised that Belle with thirty thousand pounds 
 would come as near perfection in his eyes as any 
 woman could. And then he smiled at the queer 
 chance which had put him in possession of Major 
 Marsden's intention; finally dismissing the subject 
 with the cynical remark that perhaps a woman who 
 was sufficiently fascinating to make two people leave 
 her money ere she was out of her teens might not be 
 a very safe possession. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 197 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 In the tiny drawing-room of a tiny house, wedged 
 in between a huge retaining wall and the almost 
 perpendicular hill-side, Belle Stuart sat idly looking 
 out of the window. Not that there was anything 
 to see. The monsoon fogs swept past the stunted 
 oaks, tipped over the railings, filled the verandah, 
 crept in through the crevices, and literally sat down 
 on the hearth-stone; for the room was too small, the 
 thermometer too high, and humanity too poor, to 
 allow of a fire. Without, was a soft grey vapour 
 deadening the world; within, was a still more de- 
 pressing atmosphere of women, widow's weeds, and 
 wrangling. 
 
 On her lap lay the newspaper filled, as usual, with 
 items from the frontier. To many a woman that 
 first sheet meant a daily agony of relief or despair ; 
 to Belle Stuart it was nothing more than a history of 
 the stirring times in which she lived, for with Dick's 
 sad end, and John Raby's return to reap rewards at 
 Simla, she told herself that her personal interest in 
 the war must needs be over. A passing pity, per- 
 haps, for some one known by name, a kindly joy for 
 some chance acquaintance, might stir her pulses; 
 
198 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 but nothing more. Yet as she sat there she was 
 conscious of having made a mistake. Something 
 there was in the very paper lying on her lap which 
 had power to give keen pain ; even to bring the tears 
 to her eyes as she read the paragraph over again 
 listlessly. 
 
 Severe Fightixg in the Terwan Pass. Gallant 
 Charge of the 101st Sikhs. List of Officers Killed, 
 Wounded, and Missing. — The telegram which reached 
 Simla a few days ago reporting a severe skirmish in the Terwan 
 has now been supplemented by details. It a^Dpears that a 
 small force consisting of some companies of the 101st Sikhs, 
 the 24:th Goorkhas, the 207th British Infantry, and a mule bat- 
 tery, were sent by the old route over the Terwan Pass in order 
 to report on its practical use. No opposition was expected, as 
 the tribes in the vicinity had come in and were believed to be 
 friendly. About the middle of the Pass, which proved to be 
 far more difficult than was anticipated, a halt had to be made 
 for the purpose of repairing a bridge which spanned an almost 
 impassable torrent. The road, which up to this point had 
 followed the right bank of the river, now crossed by this bridge 
 to the left in order to avoid some precipitous cliffs. Here it 
 became evident that the little force had fallen into an ambus- 
 cade, for firing immediately commenced from the numerous 
 points of vantage on either side. The Goorkhas, charging up 
 the right bank, succeeded in dislodging most of the enemy and 
 driving them to a safe distance. From the advantage thus 
 gained they then opened fire on the left bank, managing to 
 disperse some of the lower pickets. Owing, however, to the 
 rocky and almost precipitous nature of the ground the upper 
 ones were completely protected, and continued to pour a relent- 
 
MISS STUABT'S LEGACY. 199 
 
 less fire on our troops, who were, for the most part, yomig 
 soldiers. During the trying inaction necessary until the bridge 
 could be repaired, — which was done with praiseworthy rapidity 
 despite the heavy fire — Major Philip Marsden, of the 101st 
 Sikhs, volunteered to attempt the passage of the torrent with 
 the object of doing for the left bank what the Goorkhas had 
 done for the right. 
 
 Accordingly the Sikhs, led by this distinguished officer, 
 rushed the river in grand style, how it is almost impossible to 
 say, save by sheer pluck and determination, and after an 
 incredibly short interval succeeded in charging up the hill-side 
 and carrying picket after picket. A more brilliant affair could 
 scarcely be conceived, and it is with the very deepest regret that 
 we have to report the loss of its gallant leader. Major Mars- 
 den, who was among the first to find foothold on the opposite 
 bank, was giving directions to his men when a bullet struck 
 him in the chest. Staggering back almost to the edge of the 
 river, he recovered himself against a boulder, and shouting 
 that he was all right, bade them go on. Lost sight of in the 
 ensuing skirmish, it is feared that he must have slipped from 
 the place of comparative safety where they left him and fallen 
 into the river, for his helmet and sword-belt were found after- 
 wards a few hundred yards down the stream. Xone of the 
 bodies, however, of those lost in the torrent have been recov- 
 ered. Nov was it likely that they would be, as the stream here 
 descends in a series of boiling cataracts and swirling pools. 
 In addition to their leader, whose premature death is greatly 
 to be deplored, the Sikhs lost two native officers, and thirty-one 
 rank and file. The Goorkhas — 
 
 But here Belle's interest waned and she let the 
 paper fall on her lap again. One trivial thought 
 
200 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 became almost pitifully insistent, "I wish, oh, how 
 I wish I had not sent back that letter Tinoj^ened ! " 
 As if a foolish girlish discourtesy more or less would 
 have made any difference in the great tragedy and 
 triumph of the man's death. For it was a triumph; 
 she could read that between the lines of the bald 
 conventional report. 
 
 "There's Belle crying, actually crying over Major 
 Marsden," broke in Maud's cross voice from a 
 rocking-chair. Now a rocking-chair is an article of 
 furniture which requires a palatial apartment, where 
 its obtrusive assertion of individual comfort can be 
 softened by distance. In the midst of a small room, 
 and especially when surrounded by four women who 
 have not rocking-chairs of their own, it conduces to 
 nervous irritation on all sides. "You talk about 
 disrespect, mamma," went on the same injured voice, 
 " just because I didn't see why we shouldn't go to 
 the Volunteer Ball in colours, when he was only 
 our stepfather; but I call it really nasty of Belle to 
 sit and whimper over a man w^ho did his best to take 
 away the only thing except debts that Colonel 
 Stuart — " 
 
 " Oh, do hold your tongue, Maudie ! " cried Mabel. 
 "I'm getting sick of that old complaint. I don't 
 see myself why we shouldn't wear our pink tulles. 
 It would be economical to begin with, and, goodness 
 knows, we have to think of the rupees, annas, and 
 paisas nowadays." 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 201 
 
 Here Maud, who was not really an ill-tempered 
 girl, became overwhelmed by the contemplation of 
 her own wrongs, and began to sob. " I never — 
 wore — a year-behind-fashion dress before, and — 
 when I suggest it — just to save the expense — I'm 
 told I'm heartless. As if it was my fault that 
 mamma's settlement was so much waste paper, and 
 that our money went to pay — " 
 
 "Really, Maud, you are too bad," flared up her 
 youngest sister. "If it was any one's fault, it was 
 Uncle Tom's, for not being more careful. The 
 governor was awfully good to us always. Ah, 
 things were very different then! " 
 
 This remark turned on the widow's ready tears. 
 " Very different indeed. Three in the kitchen, and 
 I wouldn't like to say how many in the stable. And 
 though I don't wish to repine against Providence, 
 yet caps are so expensive. I can't think why, for 
 they are only muslin; but Miss Crowe says she can't 
 supply me with one that is really respectful under 
 five rupees." 
 
 "It is all very well for you to talk, Mabel," in- 
 sisted Maud from the rocking-chair; "you have a 
 settlement of your own in prospect." 
 
 "So might you," retorted the other, "if you were 
 wise, instead of wasting your time over men who 
 mean nothing, like that handsome Captain Stanley." 
 
 "Yes!" yawned Mildred. "It is the stubby 
 
202 MISS stuart's legacy. 
 
 Majors with half-a-dozen motherless children grow- 
 ing up at home who marry." 
 
 Mabel flushed through her sallow skin and in her 
 turn became tearful ; for in truth her fiance was but 
 too accurately described in these unflattering terms. 
 " It is not your part to jeer at me for sacrificing my- 
 self to the interests of you girls. In our unfortunate 
 position it is our duty to avail ourselves of the 
 chances left us, and not to go hankering after penni- 
 less probationers in the Post-Office." 
 
 Yet one more recruit for pocket-handkerchief drill 
 rushed to the front, though more in anger than 
 sorroAV. "If you are alluding to Willie Allsop," 
 retorted Mildred fiercely, " I dare say he will be as 
 well off as your Major some day. At any rate I'm 
 not going to perjure m^^self for money, like some 
 people." 
 
 " Oh, girls, girls ! " whimpered the widow plain- 
 tively, "don't quarrel and wake Charlie, for the 
 doctor said he was to be kept quiet and not excited. 
 Really, misfortunes come so fast, and things are so 
 dear, — to say nothing of Parrish's Chemical Food 
 for Charlie — that I don't know where to turn. If 
 poor Dick had but lived! It was too bad of those 
 nasty Afghans to kill the dear boy just as he was 
 getting on, and being so generous to me. I always 
 stood up for Dick ; he had a warm heart, and people 
 don't make their own tempers, you know." 
 
MISS stuapcT's legacy. 203 
 
 Belle, who had been sitting silent at the window, 
 clasping and unclasping her hands* nervously, felt as 
 if she must stifle. "I wish," she said in a low 
 voice, "you would let me go on teaching as I did in 
 the winter. Why should we mind, even if there are 
 old friends here now? I am not ashamed of work- 
 ing." 
 
 Her remark had one good effect. It healed minor 
 differences by the counter irritation of a general 
 grievance, and the upshot of a combined and vigor- 
 ous attack was that there had been quite enough 
 disgrace in the family already, without Belle adding 
 to it. Of course, had she been able to give lessons 
 in music or singing, the suggestion might have been 
 considered, since the flavour of art subdued the 
 degradation; but the idea of teaching the children 
 of the middle class to read and write was hopelessly 
 vulgar. It was far more genteel to become a zenana- 
 lady, since there the flavour of religion disguised 
 the necessity. Belle, trying to possess her soul in 
 patience by stitching away as if her life depended on 
 it, found the task beyond her powers. "I think I'll 
 go out," she said in a choked voice. "Oh, yes! I 
 know it's raining, but the air will do me good; the 
 house is so stuffy." 
 
 "It's the best we can afford now," retorted Maud. 
 
 "And the position is good," suggested Mrs. Stuart 
 feebly. 
 
204 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 "Belle doesn't care a fig for position, mamma," 
 snapped up her daughter. " She would have liked 
 one of those barracks by the bazaar where nobody 
 lives." 
 
 "We might have got up a scratch dance there," 
 remarked Mildred in tones of regret. " Oh, not now^ 
 mamma, of course; but by and by when things got 
 jollier." 
 
 "I don't believe they ever will get jollier," came 
 in gloomy prophecy from the rocking-chair, as Belle 
 escaped gladly into the mist and rain. Six weeks, 
 she thought; was it only six weeks since the mad- 
 dening, paralysing drip, drip, drip of ceaseless rain- 
 drops had been in her ears ? And yet these experi- 
 enced in hill-weather spoke cheerfully of another 
 six weeks to come. Would she ever be able to 
 endure being the fifth woman in that ridiculous little 
 room for all those days? What irritated her most 
 was the needlessness of half the petty worries which 
 went to make up the dreary discomfort. The ex- 
 travagant clinging to the habits of past opulence, 
 the wastefulness, resulting in the want of many 
 things which might have made life more pleasant; 
 the apathy content to grumble and do nothing, while 
 she felt her spirits rise and her cheeks brighten even 
 from her rapid walk through the driving mist. The 
 rain had lessened as she paused to lean over the 
 railings which protected a turn of the road where it 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 205 
 
 was hollowed out from the hill-side ; sheer cliff on 
 one side, sheer precipice on the other. Up) to her 
 very feet surged the vast grey sea of mist, making 
 her feel as if one more step would set her afloat 
 on its shoreless waste. Yet below that dim myste- 
 rious pall lay, she well knew, one of the fairest 
 scenes on God's earth, smiling doubtless in a sun- 
 shine in which she had no part. Then suddenly, 
 causelessly, the words recurred to her — " Tlie woi'ld 
 is before you yet; it holds life, and happiness, and 
 love.''' Who had said them? Even now it cost her 
 an effort to remember clearly the events following 
 on the shock of her father's death. The effort was 
 so painful that she avoided it as a rule; but this 
 time the memory of Philip Marsden's kindness came 
 back sharply, and the trivial remorse about the letter 
 rose up once more to take the front place in her 
 regrets until driven thence by one vague, impotent 
 desire to have the past back again. Looking down 
 into the impalpable barrier of cloud through which a 
 pale gleam of light drifted hither and thither, she 
 could almost fancy herself a disembodied spirit striv- 
 ing after a glimpse of the world whence it had been 
 driven by death; so far away did she feel herself from 
 those careless days at Faizapore, from the kindly 
 friends, the — 
 
 "Miss Stuart! surely it is Miss Stuart I" cried a 
 man's voice behind her. She turned, to see John 
 
206 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 Raby, who, throwing the reins of his pony to the 
 groom, advanced to greet her, his handsome face 
 bright with pleasure. His left arm was in a sling, 
 for he had been slightly wounded; to the girl's eyes 
 he had a halo of heroism and happiness round him. 
 
 "I am so glad! " she said, "so glad! " 
 
 As they stood, hand in hand, a sunbeam strug- 
 gling through the cloud parted the mist at their feet. 
 Below them, like a jewelled mosaic, lay the Doon 
 bathed in a flood of light ; each hamlet and tree, each 
 silver torrent-streak and emerald field, seemingly 
 within touch, so clear and pellucid was the rain- 
 Avashed air between. Further away, like fire-opals 
 with their purple shadows, flashed the peaks of the 
 Sewaliks, and be3^ond them shade upon shade, light 
 upon light, the mother-of-pearl plain losing itself 
 in the golden setting of the sky. 
 
 "I am in for luck all round," cried John Raby in 
 high delight. "That means a break in the rains, 
 and a fortnight of heaven for me, — if fate is 
 kind — " 
 
 But Belle heard nothing; one of those rare mo- 
 ments when individuality seems merged in a vast 
 S3aiipathy with all things visible and invisible was 
 upon her, filling her, body and soul, with supreme 
 content. 
 
 "Are you not coming in?"' she asked, when, after 
 walking slowl}^ along the IMall, the}' reached the 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 207 
 
 path which led downward to the little drawing-room 
 and the four women. 
 
 "I will come to-morrow," he replied, looking at 
 her with undisguised admiration in his eyes. " To- 
 day it is enough to have seen you. After all, you 
 were always my great friend, — you and your father." 
 
 "Yes, he was very fond of you," she assented 
 softly; and with her flushed cheeks and the little 
 fluffy curls by her pretty ears all glistening wdth mist 
 drops, showed an April face, half smiles, half tears. 
 
208 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Two months later found Belle Raby sitting in the 
 shade of a spreading deodar-tree, placidly knitting 
 silk sock^ for her husband, who, stretched on the 
 turf beside her, read a French novel. 
 
 Pages would not satisfactorily explain how this 
 sequence of events came about, because pages would 
 not suffice to get at the bottom of the amazing, un- 
 natural ignorance of first principles which enables a 
 nice girl to marry a man towards whom she enter- 
 tains a rudimentary affection, and afterwards, with 
 the same contented calm, to acquiesce in the discon- 
 certing realities of life. Belle was not the first girl 
 who chose a husband as she would have chosen a 
 dress ; that is to sa}^, in the belief that it will prove 
 becoming, and the hope that it will fit. Nor was 
 she (and this is the oddest or the most tragic part in 
 the business) the first or the last girl who, after sol- 
 emnly perjuring herself before God and man to per- 
 form duties of which she knows nothing, and to have 
 feelings of which she has not even dreamed, is on 
 the whole perfectly content with herself and her 
 world. In fact Belle, as she looked affectionately 
 at her lounging spouse, felt no shadow of doubt as 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 209 
 
 to the wisdom of her choice ; so little has the mind 
 or heart to do with the crude facts of marriage, so 
 absolutely distinct are the latter from the spiritual 
 or sentimental love with Avhich ethical culture has 
 overlaid the simplicity of nature to the general con- 
 fusion of all concerned. 
 
 " Upon my life, Paul de Kock is infinitely amus- 
 ing! " remarked John Raby, throAving the book aside 
 and turning lazily to his young wife. "Worth 
 twice all your Zolas and Ohnets, who ivill be serious 
 over frivolit3\ Our friend here has an inexhaustible 
 laugh." 
 
 "Tm sure I thought him dreadfully stupid," re- 
 plied Belle simpl}^ "I tried to read some last 
 night." 
 
 "I wouldn't struggle to acquire the art of reading 
 Paul de Kock, my dear," said John Raby with a 
 queer smile. "It's not an accomplishment neces- 
 sary to female salvation. The most iniquitous prov- 
 erb in the language is that one about sauce for the 
 goose and the gander. Say what you will, men and 
 women are as different in their fixings as chalk from 
 cheese. Now I, — though I am domestic enough in 
 all conscience — would never be contented knitting- 
 socks as you are. By the way, those will be too big 
 for me." 
 
 "Who said they were meant for you?" retorted 
 Belle gaily. "Not I!" 
 
210 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 " Perhaps not with your lips ; but a good wife in- 
 variably knits socks for her husband, and you, my 
 dear Belle, were foreordained from the beginning of 
 time to be a good wife, — the very best of little wives 
 a man ever had." 
 
 "I hope so," she replied after a pause. "John, 
 it is all very well here in holiday time to be lazy as 
 I am, but by and by I should like to be a little more 
 useful; to help you in your work, if I could; at any 
 rate to understand it, to know what the people we 
 govern think, and say, and do." 
 
 Her husband sat up, dangling his hands idly be- 
 tween his knees. "I'm not sure about the wisdom 
 of it. Personally I have no objection; besides, I 
 hold that no one has a right to interfere with another 
 person's harmless fancies; yet that sort of thing is 
 invariably misunderstood in India. First by the 
 natives; they think a woman's interest means a 
 desire for power. Then by the men of one's own 
 class; they drag up 'grey mare the better horse,' &c. 
 How I hate proverbs ! You see, women out here 
 divide themselves, as a rule, betwixt balls and babies, 
 so the men get clique, I don't defend it, but it's 
 very natural. Most of us come out just at the age 
 when a contempt for woman's intellect seems to 
 make our beards grow faster, and we have no clever 
 mixed society to act as an antidote to our own con- 
 ceit. NoAV a woman with a clear head like yours, 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 211 
 
 Belle, you are much cleverer than I thought you 
 were, by the way, is sure with unbiassed eyes to see 
 details that don't strike men who are in the game, — 
 unpleasant, ridiculous details probably, — and that 
 is always an offence. If you were stupid, it wouldn't 
 matter; but being as you are, why, discretion is the 
 better part of valour." 
 
 " But if I have brains, as you say I have, what am 
 I to do with them?" cried Belle, knitting very fast. 
 
 "There are the balls, — and the babies; as Pen- 
 dennis said to his wife, ' Tout vient a ceux qui savent 
 attendre. ' By the way, I wonder where the dickens 
 the postman has gone to to-day? It's too bad to keep 
 us waiting like this. I'll report him." 
 
 ^^ Tout vient — .^ " retorted Belle, recovering from 
 a fine blush. " Why are you always in such a hurry 
 for the letters, John? I never am." 
 
 "No more am I," he cried gaily, rising to his feet 
 and holding out his hand to help her. "I never 
 was in a hurry, except — " and here he drew her 
 towards him in easy proprietorship — "to marry you. 
 I was in a hurry then, I confess." 
 
 "You were indeed," said the girl, who but a year 
 before had felt outraged by the first passionately pure 
 kiss of a boy, as she submitted cheerfully to that of 
 a man whose love was of the earth, earthy. " Why, 
 you hardly left me time to get a wedding-garment! 
 But it was much wiser for you to spend the rest of 
 
212 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 your leave here, than to begin work and the honey- 
 moon together." 
 
 "Much nicer and wiser; but then you are wisdom 
 itself, Belle. Upon my soul, I never thought women 
 could be so sensible till I married you. As your 
 poor father said the first time we met, I have the 
 devil's own luck." 
 
 He thought so with the utmost sincerity as he 
 strolled along the turfy stretches beyond the deodars, 
 with his arm round his wife's waist. The devil's 
 own luck, and all through no management of his 
 own. What finger had he raised to help along the 
 chain of fatality which had linked him for life to the 
 most charming of women who ere long would step 
 into a fortune of thirty thousand pounds ? On the 
 contrary, had he not given the best of advice to 
 Philip Marsden ? Had he not held his tongue dis- 
 creetl}' , or indiscreetly ? Finally, what right would 
 he have had to come to Belle Stuart and say, " By 
 an accident, I have reason to suppose that you are 
 somebody's heiress." For all he knew the senti- 
 mental fool might have made another will. And yet 
 when two days later the dilatory postman brought in 
 the English mail, John Raby's face paled, not so 
 much with anxiet}", as with speculation. 
 
 " Have you been running up bills already ? " he 
 asked, lightly, as he threw an unmistakably busi- 
 ness envelope over to her side of the table along with 
 some others. 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 213 
 
 "You wouldn't be responsible, at all events," she 
 replied with a laugh, " for it is addressed to Miss 
 Belle Stuart." 
 
 "I am not so sure about that," he retorted, still in 
 the same jesting way. " It is astonishing how far 
 the responsibility of a husband extends." 
 
 "And his rights," cried Belle, who in a half- 
 hearted way professed advanced opinions on this 
 subject. 
 
 "My dear girl, we must have some compensation." 
 
 He sat reading, or pretending to read, his own 
 letters with phenomenal patience, while his wife 
 glanced through a long crossed communication from 
 her step-sisters ; he even gave a perfunctory attention 
 to several items of uninteresting family news which 
 she retailed to him. He had foreseen the situation 
 so long, had imagined it so often, that he felt quite 
 at home and confident of his self-control. 
 
 "John! " came Belle's voice, with a curious catch 
 in it. 
 
 "What is it, dear? Nothing the matter, I hope? 
 You look startled." He had imagined it so far; but 
 he knew the next minute from her face that he had 
 under-rated something in her reception of the neAvs. 
 She had risen to her feet with a scared, frightened 
 look. "I don't understand," she said, half to her- 
 self; " it must be a mistake." Then remembering, 
 apparently, that she no longer stood alone, she crossed 
 
214 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 swiftly to her husband's side, and kneeling beside 
 him thrust the open letter before his eyes. " What 
 does it mean, John?" she asked hurriedly. "It is 
 a mistake, isn't it?" 
 
 His hand, passed round her caressingly, could 
 feel her heart bounding, but his own kept its even 
 rhythm despite the surprise he forced into his face. 
 "It means," he said, at length, — and the ring of 
 triumph would not be kept out of his voice — " that 
 Philip Marsden has left you thirty thousand pounds." 
 
 " Left me .^ — impossible! I tell you it is a mis- 
 take!" 
 
 Now that the crisis was over, the cat out of the 
 bag, John Raby knew how great his anxiety had 
 been, by the sense of relief which found vent in a 
 meaningless laugh. "Lawyers don't make mis- 
 takes," he replied. "It is as clear as daylight. 
 Philip Marsden has left you thirty thousand pounds ! 
 By Jove, Belle, you are quite an heiress ! " 
 
 She stood up slowly, leaning on the table as if to 
 steady herself. "That does not follow," she said, 
 "for of course I shall refuse to take it." 
 
 Her husband stared at her incredulously. "Re- 
 fuse thirty thousand pounds, — are you mad?" He 
 need not have been afraid of under-doing his part of 
 surprise, for her attitude took him beyond art into 
 untutored nature. 
 
 "It is an insult! " she continued in a higher key. 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 215 
 
 "I will write to these people and say I will not 
 have it." 
 
 "Without consulting me? You seem to forget 
 that you are a married woman now. Am I to have 
 no voice in the matter?" His tone was instinct with 
 the aggressive quiet of one determined to keep his 
 temper. " Supposing I disapproved of your refusal ? " 
 he went on, seeing from her startled look that he 
 had her unprepared. 
 
 " Surely you would not wish — • " 
 
 "That is another question. I said, supposing I 
 disapproved of the refusal. What then ? " 
 
 Standing there in bewildered surprise, the loss of 
 her own individuality made itself felt for the first 
 time, and it roused the frightened resentment of a 
 newlj'-caught colt. "I do not know," she replied, 
 bravely enough. "But you would surely let me do 
 what I thought right?" 
 
 " Right ! My dear girl, do stick to the point. Of 
 course if there were urgent reasons against your 
 taking this money — " 
 
 " But there are ! " interrupted Belle quickty. " To 
 begin with, he had no right to leave it to me." 
 
 "I beg your pardon. The law gives a man the 
 right to leave his money to any one he chooses." 
 
 "But he had no right to choose me." 
 
 "I beg your pardon again. It is not uncommon 
 for a man to leave his money to a woman with whom 
 he is in love." 
 
216 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 "Ill love I " It was Belle's turn to stare incredu- 
 lously. " Major Marsden in love with me ! What 
 put that into your head?" 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "My 
 dear child, even if you didn't know it before, — and 
 upon my soul you are unsophisticated enough for 
 anything — surely it is patent now. A man doesn't 
 leave thirty thousand to any woman he happens to 
 know." 
 
 For the first time Belle flinched visibly and her 
 face paled. "All the more reason for refusing, 
 surely," she replied in a low tone, after a pause. 
 " You could not like your wife — " 
 
 "Why not? It isn't as if you had cared for him, 
 you know." 
 
 The blood which had left her cheeks came back 
 with an indignant rush. "Care for him! Can't 
 you see that makes it doubly an insult? " 
 
 "I'm afraid not. It makes it much more senti- 
 mental, and self-sacrificing, and beautiful, on his 
 part; and I thought women admired that sort of 
 thing. I know that leaving money to the girl who 
 has jilted jou is a stock incident in their novels." 
 
 " I did not jilt Philip Marsden. I refuse to admit 
 the incident into my life. I don't want to vex you, 
 John, but I must do what I think right." 
 
 Her husband, who had walked to the window and 
 now stood looking out of it, paused a moment before 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 217 
 
 replying. "^My clear Belle," lie said at last, turning 
 to her kindly, '' I hate on principle to make myself 
 disagreeable to any one, least of all to my wife, but 
 it is best you should know the truth. The law gives 
 that money to me, as your husband. You see, you 
 married without settlements. Now, don't look like 
 a tragedy-queen, dear, for it never does any good. 
 We have to accept facts, and I had nothing to do 
 with making the law." 
 
 " You mean that I have no power to refuse ? " 
 cried Belle with her eyes full of indignant tears. 
 
 "I'm afraid so. But there is no reason why I 
 should stand on my rights. I should hate to have 
 to do so, I assure you, and would far rather come to 
 a mutual understanding. Honestly, I scarcely think 
 the objections you have urged sufficient. Perhaps 
 you have others ; if so, I am quite willing to con- 
 sider them." 
 
 The curious mixture of resentment, regret, and 
 remorse which rose up in the girl's mind with the 
 mere mention of Major Marsden's name, made her 
 say hurriedly, " Think of the way he treated father I 
 If it was only for that — " The tears came into her 
 voice and stifled it. 
 
 John Baby looked at her gravely, walked to the 
 window again, and paused. '' I fancied that might 
 be one, perhaps the chief reason. Supposing you 
 were mistaken ; supposing that Marsden was proved 
 
218 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 to have done his best for your father, would it make 
 any difference?" 
 
 "How can it be proved?" 
 
 "My dear Belle, I do wish you would stick to the 
 point. I asked you if your chief objection would be 
 removed by Major Marsden's having acted through- 
 out with a regard for your father's reputation whicli 
 few men would have shown ? " 
 
 " I should think more kindly of him and his legacy 
 certainly, if such a thing were possible." 
 
 "It is possible; and, as I said before, it is best in 
 all things to have the naked, undisguised truth. I 
 would have told you long ago if Mars den hadn't 
 given it me in confidence. But now I feel that 
 respect for his memory demands the removal of false 
 •mpressions. Indeed, I never approved of his con- 
 cealing the real facts. They would have been pain- 
 ful to you, of course; they must be painful now — 
 worse luck to it; but if it liadn't been for that idiotic 
 sentimentality of poor Marsden's you would have 
 forgotten the trouble by this time." 
 
 Belle, with a sudden fear, the sort of immature 
 knowledge of the end to come which springs up with 
 the first hint of bad tidings, put out her hand en- 
 treatingly. " If there is anything to tell, please tell 
 it me at once." 
 
 "Don't look so scared, my poor Belle. Come, 
 sit down quietly, and I will explain it all. For it 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 219 
 
 is best you should not remain under a wrong impres- 
 sion, especially now, when, — when so much depends 
 on your being reasonable." 
 
 So, seated on the sofa beside her husband. Belle 
 Stuart listened to the real story of her father's death 
 and Philip Marsden's generosity. "Is that all?" 
 she asked, when the measured voice ceased. It was 
 almost the first sign of life she had given. 
 
 "Yes, dear, that is all. And you must remem- 
 ber that the trouble is past and over, — that no one 
 but we two need ever suspect the truth -/- " 
 
 "The truth! " Belle looked at him w4th eyes in 
 which dread was still the master. 
 
 " And he was not accountable for his actions, not 
 in an}' way himself at the time," he continued. 
 
 With a sudden sharp cr}^ she turned from him to 
 bury her face in the sofa cushions. " Not himself at 
 the time!" Had he ever been himself? Never, 
 never ! How could a dishonoured, drunken gambler, 
 dying by his own act, have been, even for a moment, 
 the faultless father of her girlish dreams ! And was 
 that the only mistake she had made; or was the 
 world nothing but a lie ? Was there no truth in it 
 at all, not even in her own feelings ? 
 
 " I am so sorry to have been obliged to give you 
 pain," said her husband, laying his hand on her 
 shoulder. " But it is always best to have the truth." 
 
 His words seemed a hideous mockery of her 
 
220 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 thoughts, and she shrank impatiently from his touch. 
 
 " You must not be angry with me ; it is not my 
 fault," he urged. 
 
 "Oh, I am not angry with you," she cried, with a 
 petulant ring in her voice as she raised herself 
 hastily, and looked him full in the face. "Only, 
 — if you don't mind — I would so much rather be 
 left alone. I want to think it all out by myself, — 
 quite by myself." 
 
 The hunted look in her eyes escaped his want of 
 sympathy, and he gave a sigh of relief at her reason- 
 ableness. " That is a wise little woman," he replied, 
 bending down to kiss her more than once. "I'll go 
 down the khud after those pheasants and won't be 
 back till tea. So 3^ou will have the whole day to 
 yourself. But remember, there is no hurry. The 
 only good point about a weekly post is that it gives 
 plenty of time to consider an answer." 
 
 That, to him, was the great point at issue; for 
 her the foundations of the deep had suddenly been 
 let loose, and she had forgotten the question of the 
 legacy. Almost mechanically she gave him back his 
 farewell kiss, and sat still as a stone till he had 
 left the room. Then, impelled by an uncontrollable 
 impulse, she dashed across to the door and locked it 
 swiftly, pausing, with her hand still on the key, 
 bewildered, frightened at her own act. What had 
 she done? What did it mean? Why had her one 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 221 
 
 thought been to get away from John, to prevent his 
 having part or lot in her sorrow ? Slowly she un- 
 locked the door again, with a half impulse to run 
 after him and call him back. But instead of this 
 she crept in a dazed sort of way to her own room and 
 lay down on the bed to think. Of what? Of every- 
 thing under the sun, it seemed to her confusion; 
 yet always, when she became conscious of any clear 
 thought, it had to do, not with her father or Philip 
 Marsden, but with her own future. Was it possible 
 that she had made other mistakes ? Was it possible 
 that she w\as not in love with John ? Why else had 
 she that wild desire to get rid of him? The very 
 suggestion of such a possibility angered her beyond 
 measure. Her life, as she had proudly claimed, was 
 not a novel ; nothing wrong or undignified, nothing 
 extravagant or unseemly should come into it; and it 
 was surely all this not to be in love Avith one's law- 
 ful husband! It was bad enough even to have had 
 such a suspicion after a bare fortnight of wedded 
 life; it was absurd, ridiculous, impossible. So as 
 the day passed on, all other considerations were 
 gradually submerged in the overwhelming necessity 
 of proving to herself that she and John were a most 
 devoted couple. As tea-time approached she put on 
 a certain tea-gown which her lord and master was 
 pleased to commend, and generally prepared to re- 
 ceive the Great Moq-uI as husbands should be re- 
 
222 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 ceived. Not because she had come to any conclusion 
 in regard to that locking of the door, but because, 
 whatever else was uncertain, there could be no doubt 
 how a husband should be treated. For, as some one 
 has said, while a man tolerates the marriage-bond 
 for the sake of a particular woman, the latter toler- 
 ates a particular man for the sake of the bond. 
 
 So Belle poured out the tea and admired the 
 pheasants, to John Raby's great contentment; though 
 in his innermost heart he felt a little manly con- 
 tempt for the feminine want of backbone which ren- 
 dered such pliability possible. Only once did she 
 show signs of the unstilled tempest of thought which 
 lay beneath her calm manner. It was when, later 
 on in the evening during their nightly game of 
 ecarte^ he complimented her on some coiqo^ remark- 
 ing that her skill seemed inherited. Then she started 
 as if the cards she was handling had stung her, and 
 her face flushed crimson with mingled pain and 
 resentment; yet in her homeless life she had neces- 
 sarily learned betimes the give and take required in 
 most human intercourse. The fact was that already 
 (though she knew it not) her husband v/as on his 
 trial, and she could no longer treat his lightest word 
 or look with the reasonable allowances she would 
 have accorded to a stranger. A man is seldom fool- 
 ish enough to expect perfection in a wife ; a woman 
 from her babyhood is taught to find it in her hus- 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 223 
 
 band, and biouglit up to believe that the deadliest 
 sin a good woman can commit is to see a spot in her 
 sun. She may be a faithful wife, a kindly compan- 
 ion, a veritable helpmate ; but if the partner of her 
 joys and sorrows is not, for her, the incarnation of 
 all manly virtues, or at least the man she would have 
 chosen out of all the world, her marriage must be 
 deemed a failure. Love, that mysterious young jug- 
 gler, is not there to change duty into something 
 which we are told is better than duty, and so the 
 simple, single-hearted performance of a simple, per- 
 fectly natural contract becomes degradation. 
 
 Belle, confused yet resentful, lay awake long after 
 her husband slept the sleep of the selfish. Her slow 
 tears wetted her own pillow quietty, decorously, 
 lest they might disturb the Great Mogul's slumbers. 
 Yet she could scarcely have told why the tears came 
 at all, for a curious numbness was at her heart. 
 Even the thought of her dead father had already lost 
 its power to give keen pain, and she was in a vague 
 Avay shocked at the ease with which her new knowl- 
 edge fitted into the old. The fact being, that now 
 she dared to look it full in the face without reserva- 
 tion, the loving compassion, the almost divine pity 
 which had been with her ever since the day when 
 poor Dick had first opened her eyes to the feet of 
 clay, seemed no stranger, but a familiar friend. 
 Then Philip Marsden! Dwell as she might on her 
 
224 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 own ingratitude, his kindness seemed too good a gift 
 to weep over; and again she stretched out her hands 
 into the darkness, as she had done on the night 
 when her anger had risen hot against the man she 
 misjudged; but this time it was to call to him with 
 a very passion of repentance, '''Friend, I will take 
 this gift also. In this at least you shall have your 
 wayy 
 
 "By George, Belle! " said John Raby next morn- 
 ing, when she told him that she had made up her 
 mind to take the legacy without demur, "you are 
 simply a pearl of women for sense. I prophesy we 
 shall be as happy as the day is long, always." 
 
 And Belle said she hoped so too. But when he 
 fell to talking joyously of the coming comforts of 
 sweet reasonableness and thirty thousand pounds, 
 in the life that was just beginning for them, her 
 thoughts were busy with schemes for spending some 
 at least of the legacy in building a shrine of good 
 deeds to the memory of her friend, — surely the best 
 friend a woman ever had. She was bound by her 
 nature to idealise some one, and the dead man was 
 an easier subject than the living one. 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 225 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MuEGHUB Ahmad, with nothing on but a waist- 
 cloth, his high narrow forehead bedewed with the 
 sweat which ran down his hollow cheeks like tear- 
 drops, Avas fanning the flame of his own virtue with 
 windy words in the dark outhouse which he desig- 
 nated the editor's room. Four square yards of court 
 beyond constituted the printing office of the Jehdd^ 
 a bi-weekly paper of extreme views on every topic 
 under the sun. For the proprietors of The Light of 
 Islam having a wholesome regard to the expense of 
 libels, had dispensed with the young man's elo- 
 quence as being too fervid for safety. So, Heaven 
 knows by what pinching and paring, by what starva- 
 tion-point of self-denial, the boy had saved and 
 scraped enough to buy a wretched, rotten handpress, 
 and two used up lithographic stones. With these 
 implements, and a heart and brain full of the fierce 
 fire of his conquering race, he set to work with the 
 utmost simplicity to regenerate mankind in general, 
 and the Government of India in particular, by dis- 
 seminating the smudged results of his labours on the 
 poor old press among his fellow-subjects ; for the 
 most part, it is to be feared, free, gratis, and for 
 
 Q 
 
226 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 nothing. Poor old press! No wonder it creaked 
 and groaned under Murghub Ahmad's thin straining 
 arms ; for it had grown old in the service of Govern- 
 ment, and on the side of law and order. Generation 
 after generation of prisoners in the district jail had 
 found a certain grim satisfaction and amusement in 
 producing by its help endless thousands of the forms 
 necessary for the due capture and punishments of 
 criminals yet to come. Reams and reams of paper 
 had they turned out as writs of arrest, warrants for 
 committal, charge-sheets, orders for jail discipline, 
 or, joyful thought, memos of discharge. And now 
 order and discipline were unknown quantities in its 
 life. Perhaps the change was too much for its con- 
 stitution ; certain it is that it became daily more and 
 more unsatisfactory in regard to the complicated 
 Arabic words with which its present owner loved to 
 besprinkle his text. Then the damp, overworked 
 stones refused to dry, even under the boy's hot fever- 
 ish hands; and he lost half his precious time in 
 chasing the shifting sunlight round and round the 
 narrow courtyard in order to set the ink. Some- 
 thing there was infinitely pathetic about it all; 
 especially on the days when, with the look of a St. 
 Sebastian in his young face, the lad could stay his 
 hard labour for a while, and rest himself by folding 
 the flimsy sheets within the orthodox green wrapper 
 where a remarkably crooked crescent was depicted as 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 227 
 
 surrounded by the beams of the rising sun. False 
 astrononi}', but excellent sentiment! Then there 
 was the addressing for the post. Most of the packets 
 bore the inscription hearing ; but one, chosen with 
 care, and cunningly corrected with a deft pen, never 
 failed to carry the requisite stamp above the quaint 
 address: To my 7^es]jectahle and respected father^ 
 BJidn Mahommed Lateef Khdn^ in the house of the 
 Khan of Khurtpore^ Sudr Bazaar^ Faizapore. Which 
 is much as though one should address a Prince of 
 the Blood to Tottenham Court Road. 
 
 Then, with the precious parcels in his arms, and 
 one copy in his bosom, he would joyfully lock the 
 door above which " Press of the Jehad Newspaper " 
 was emblazoned in English, and make his way to 
 some cheap cook-house, where, in honour of the occa- 
 sion, he would purchase a farthing's worth of fried 
 stuff to eat with his dry dough cakes. Thereafter 
 he would repair to the steps of a mosque, or to one 
 of the shady wells which still linger in the heart of 
 cities in India, in order to discuss his own vicAvs 
 and writings with a group of young men of his own 
 age. For in that large town, with its strange un- 
 dercurrents of new thoughts and aims underlying the 
 steady stream of humanity towards the old beliefs, 
 Murghub Ahmad was not without his audience, nor 
 even his following. He had the sometimes fatal 
 gift, greater than mere eloquence, of leading the 
 
228 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 minds of his hearers blindfold by some strange charm 
 of voice and personalit}^ ; and when, as often hap- 
 pened, discussion took the form of harangue, the 
 slow-gathering, stolid crowd used to wake up into 
 muttered approbation as the familiar watchwords of 
 their faith were presented to them in new and bewil- 
 dering forms. 
 
 It was the eve of Mohurrim, the great feast and 
 fast of orthodox and unorthodox Mahomedans; an 
 occasion which claimed more zeal than usual from 
 the 3^oung reformer. On the morrow the paper 
 shrines of the dead Hussan and Hussain, which were 
 now being prepared in man}- a quiet courtyard, would 
 be borne through the streets in triumph, followed by 
 excited crowds of the faithful. And, as sometimes 
 happens, it was Dussarah-tide also, and the Hindus 
 held high festival as well as the Mahomedans. A 
 simple thing enough to Western minds, accustomed 
 to the idea of wide thoroughfares and religious tol- 
 eration ; a ver}^ different affair in the tortuous bye- 
 waj-s of a native town, and among the ancient antag- 
 onisms. It was critical at the best of times, and this 
 year doubl}^ trebly so, for with the newly-granted 
 franchise of municipal government, the richer Hindus 
 out-numbered the INlahomedans in the committee 
 which had power to direct the route open to each 
 procession. So the cry of favouritism went forth, 
 and as the gaudy paper streamers were being gummed 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 229 
 
 to the frail bamboo frames, many a dark face grew 
 darker with determination to carry the sacred symbol 
 where he chose; yea, even into the midst of the 
 cursed idol-worshipping crew, despite all the mu- 
 nicipal committees and fat, bribing usurers in the 
 world. 
 
 The Jehad was full of sublime wrath and valiant 
 appeals for justice to high Heaven, because a cer- 
 tain connecting alley between two of the big bazaars 
 had been closed to the Mahomedans and given to 
 the Hindus. True, another, and equally conven- 
 ient, connection, had been allowed the former; but 
 for many years past the procession of tdzzias had 
 struggled through that particular alley, and the in- 
 novation was resented as an insult. East and west, 
 mankind is made the same way. It was astonishing 
 how many imperious demands on the resources of 
 Providence this trivial change aroused in Murghub 
 Ahmad. He called for justice, mercy, and religious 
 freedom, for the stars as witness, for the days of 
 Akbar. On the other hand, a rival print with an 
 unpronounceable title, clamoured for Bikramajeet, 
 the hero-king of old, for Hindu independence and the 
 sword. Either faction, it may be observed, asked for 
 those things in others of which they had least them- 
 selves, after the way of factions all over the world. 
 
 Thus many a quarterstaff was being diligently 
 whittled that evenino", and down in the butchers' 
 
230 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 quarter even deadlier weapons were being talked of 
 openly by its inhabitants, the most truculent of all 
 the mixed races and trades with which rulers have 
 to deal. John Rab}^ doing his judicial Avork in the 
 big court-house outside the town, felt, with that 
 sharp, half-cunning perception of concealed things 
 which he possessed so pre-eminently, that there was 
 mischief brewing, and drove round by the executive 
 official's house in order to tell him so. The latter 
 assured him that the newly-elected municipal com- 
 mittee were fully alive to the necessity for precau- 
 tions; Avhereat the young man shrugged his shoul- 
 ders and said he was glad to hear it. He mentioned 
 it casually to Belle with a sneer, which he did not 
 allow himself in public, at the crass stupidity of 
 needlessly setting race against race by premature 
 haste to confer the blessings of vestrydom on India. 
 And Belle agreed, since, even with the limited ex- 
 perience of the past year, she had learnt a sort of 
 reverence for the old ways, which seem so irredeema- 
 bly bad to the unsympathetic philanthropy of the 
 West. 
 
 For a whole year had passed since the fateful letter 
 announcing the legacy had come to disturb the 
 foundations of her world. It had had surprisingly 
 little effect on her, chiefly because she was deter- 
 mined that her life must run in one ordered groove. 
 There must be no mistake or fiasco, nothing but 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 231 
 
 what she considered decent, orderly, virtuous. Un- 
 interesting, no doubt; but it is nevertheless true 
 that a very large number of women are born into the 
 world with an unhesitating preference for behaving 
 nicely; women who can no more help being long- 
 suffering, cheerful, and self-forgetful, than they can 
 help being the children of their parents. Her hus- 
 band's clear sight had early seen the expediency of 
 concealing from her the radical difference between 
 her view of life and his own. He even felt pleased 
 she should think as she did; it was so much safer, 
 and more ladylike. In his way he grew to be very 
 fond of her, and there was scarcely any friction 
 between them, since, moved by a certain gratitude 
 for the change her money had wrought in his pros- 
 pects, he gave her free play in everything that did 
 not interfere with his settled plans. Half the said 
 money was already invested in Shunker D^s's indigo 
 concern, and John Raby was only awaiting its 
 assured success to throw up his appointment and go 
 openly into trade; but of this Belle knew nothing. 
 She had money enough and to spare for all her 
 wishes, and that was sufficient for her; indeed, on 
 the whole, she was happy in the larger interests of 
 her new life. The tragic, poverty-stricken, yet con- 
 tented lives of the poor around her had a strange 
 fascination for the girl, and the desire to see and 
 understand all that went to make up the pitiful sum- 
 
232 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 total of their pleasures, led her often, on her solitary 
 morning rides (for John was an incurable sluggard) 
 through the alleys and bazaars of the great city. In 
 the latter, the people knowing in a dim way that she 
 was the judge sahib's wife, would salaam artificially, 
 but in the back streets both women and children 
 smile on her, much to her unreasoning content. 
 
 So the morninof after her husband's sarcasm over 
 the mistakes of his seniors, she determined, in the 
 confidence of ignorance, to see something of the 
 processions; and with this intention found herself, 
 about seven o'clock, in the outskirts of the town. 
 Here the deserted appearance of the streets beguiled 
 her into pushing on and on, until close to the big 
 mosque a blare of conches, and the throbbing of 
 ceaseless drums mingled with cries, warned her of an 
 advancing procession. Wishing to watch it unob- 
 served, she turned her horse into a side alley and 
 waited. 
 
 As in all countries, a rabble of boys, sprung 
 Heaven knows whence, formed the advance guard. 
 Behind them came an older, yet more mischievous 
 crowd of men flourishing quarterstaves and shouting 
 " Hussan ! Hussain ! " Next emerged into the square, 
 a swaying, top-heavy tazzia, looking every instant 
 as though it must shake to pieces, and behind it 
 more quarterstaves and more tazzias^ more shouts, 
 and more dark faces streaminof on and on to overflow 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 233 
 
 into the square, until the procession formed a part 
 only of the great crowd. So absorbed was she in 
 watching the swooping out of each successive tazzia^ 
 like some gay-plumaged bird from the intricate 
 windings of the way beyond, that she failed to notice 
 the current settling towards her until the vanguard 
 of urchins was almost at her horse's hoofs. Then 
 she recognised the disconcerting fact that she had 
 taken refuge in the very path of the procession. 
 Turning to escape by retreat, she saw the further 
 end of the alley blocked by a similar crowd; only 
 that here the shouts of " Dhurm ! DJiiirm ! Durga del ! 
 Grunga (the faith, the faith! the goddess Durga! 
 Ganges !) " told of Hindu fanaticism. 
 
 She was, in fact, in the very alley which both 
 sides claimed as their own. Bewildered, yet not 
 alarmed, for her ignorance of religious ecstasy made 
 her presuppose deference, she turned her horse once 
 more, and rode towards the advancing tazzias at a 
 foot's-pace. The look of the crowd as she neared it 
 was startling, but the cry of ''^Jelidd ! Jelicid ! Death 
 to the infidel ! " seemed too incredible for fear; and 
 ere the latter came with the conviction that not even 
 for a judge sahibs mem would the stream slacken, a 
 young man, his gaunt face encircled by a high green 
 turban, rushed to the front and seized her horse by 
 the bridle. 
 
 "No words! Dismount yourself from steed and 
 
234 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 follow your preserver. We war not with women." 
 The effect of these stilted words uttered in tones of 
 intense excitement was somehow ludicrous. " Smile 
 not! Be nimble, I entreat. Unhorse yourself, and 
 follow, follow me." 
 
 The vision of a hideous leering face leading the 
 quarterstaves decided her on complying. The next 
 instant she felt herself thrust into a dark entry, and 
 ere the door closed, heard a scream of terrified rage 
 from her horse, as some one cut it over the flank 
 with his staff. The outrage made her temper leap 
 up fiercely, and she felt inclined to confront the 
 offender ; but before she could reach the door it was 
 shut and hasped in her face. 
 
 Then the desire to escape from darkness and see — 
 see something, no matter what — possessed her, and 
 she groped round for some means of exit. Ah! a 
 flight of steep steps, black as pitch, narrow, broken ; 
 she climbed up, and up, till a grating in the wall 
 shed a glimmer of light on the winding stair; up 
 further, till she emerged on a balcony overlooking 
 the street, whence she could see far into the alley on 
 one side and into the square on the other. Beneath 
 her feet lay a small empty space edged by the oppos- 
 ing factions hurrying into collision. 
 
 " Give way ! Give way, idolaters ! Hussan ! Hus- 
 sain! Futeh Maliommed (Victory of Mahomed)," 
 yelled the ^aat^/a-bearers. 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 235 
 
 "Jai, Jai, Durga Devi, de-jai! Give way, killers 
 of kine," shouted the Hindus. 
 
 For an instant or two Belle's horse, hemmed in 
 by the advancing crowds, kept the peace by clearing 
 a space between them with head and heels; then, 
 choosing the least alarming procession, it charged 
 the Hindus, breaking their ranks as, maddened by 
 terror it plunged and bit. Only for a moment, 
 however, for the packed mass of humanity closing in 
 round it, held it harmless as in a vice. 
 
 " The charger of Pertap ! " ^ cried a huge rice-husker 
 with ready wit, as he leapt to the saddle, and coming 
 rather to grief over the crutches, raised a roar of 
 derision from the other side. He scowled danger- 
 ously. " Come on, brothers ! " he cried, digging his 
 heels viciously into the trembling, snorting beast. 
 "Down with the cursed slayers of kine. This is 
 Durga-ji's road, — Dliurm ! Dhurm ! " 
 
 " Hussan, — Hussain ! " 
 
 Then the dull thud of heavy blows seemed to 
 dominate the war of words, and business began in 
 earnest as a Mahomedan, caught behind the ear, 
 fell in his tracks. It was not much of a fight as yet, 
 for in that narroAV street the vast majority of the 
 crowd could do nothing but press forward and thus 
 jam activity into still smaller space, until the useless 
 
 1 A celebrated white charger of a Rajpoot prince ; an eastern 
 Bucephalus. 
 
236 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 sticks were thrown aside, and the combatants went 
 at each other tooth and nail, but unarmed. So they 
 might have fought out the wild-beast instinct of 
 fighting, but for the fact that the Hindus, with 
 commendable foresight, had headed their procession 
 by athletes, the Mahomedans by enthusiast. So, 
 inch by inch, surging and swaying, yelling, cursing, 
 yet doing comparatively little harm, the combatants 
 drifted towards the square until the wider outlet 
 allowed a larger number of the Mahomedans to 
 come into play, and thus reverse the order of affairs. 
 Once more the tazzias, surrounded by their support- 
 ers, carried the lane, and swept back the red-splashed 
 figure of Durga amidst yells of religious fury. So 
 the battle raged more in words than blows. Belle, 
 indeed, had begun to feel her bounding pulses steady 
 with the recognition that, beyond a few black eyes 
 and broken heads, no harm had been done, when a 
 trivial incident changed the complexion of affairs in 
 an instant. 
 
 The foremost tazzia, which had borne the brunt of 
 conflict and come up smiling after many a repulse, 
 lost balance, toj)pled over, and went to pieces, most 
 likely from the inherent weakness of its architecture. 
 The result was startling. A sudden wave of pas- 
 sion swept along the Mahomedan line, and as a 
 young man sprang to the pilaster of the mosque 
 steps and harangued the crowd, every face settled 
 into a deadl}^ desire for revenge. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 237 
 
 " Kill ! Kill ! Kill the idolaters — JeUd ! Jehad I " 
 — the cry of religious warfare rang in an instant 
 from lip to lip. And now from behind came a fresh 
 burst of enthusiasm, as a body of men naked to the 
 waist pushed their way towards the front with omi- 
 nous glint of sunlight on steel as they fought fiercel}^ 
 for place. 
 
 "Room! Room for the butchers! Kill! Kill! 
 Let them bleed! let them bleed! " 
 
 The shout overbore the high ringing voice of the 
 preacher, but Belle, watching with held breath, saw 
 him wave his hand towards the lane. Slowly, un- 
 willingly at first, the crowd gave way; then more 
 rapidly until a roar of assent rose up. " The butch- 
 ers, the butchers ! Kill! Kill!" 
 
 Belle gasped and held tight to the railing, seeing 
 nothing more but the tide of strife beneath her very 
 feet. Red knives, gleaming no longer, straining 
 hands, and every now and again a gurgle and a 
 human head disappearing to be trodden under foot. 
 Heaven knows how weapons come in such scenes as 
 these, — from the houses, — passed to the front by 
 willing hands — snatched from unwilling foes who 
 fall. In a second it was knife against knife, murder 
 against murder. ^'' Durga ! Durga devil Destroy! 
 Destroy ! " " Hussan ! Hussain ! Kill ! Kill ! " 
 Then suddenly, a rattle of musketry at the far end 
 of the square, where, cut off from the actual conflict 
 
238 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 by an impenetrable crowd, a strange scene bad been 
 going on unobserved. Two or tbree mounted Eng- 
 lishmen unarmed, but sitting cool and square on 
 their horse sat the head of a company of Mahome- 
 dan and Hindu sepoj^s who stood cheek by jowl, 
 calm, apparently indifferent, their carbines still 
 smoking from the recent discharge. About them 
 was a curious stillness, broken only by the sound of 
 more disciplined feet coming along at the double. 
 A glint of red coats appears behind, and then a 
 police-officer, the sunlight gleaming on his silver 
 buckles, gallops along the edge of the rapidly clear- 
 ing space, laying about him with the flat of his 
 sword, while yellow-trousered constables, emerging 
 Heaven knows from what safe shelter, dive in among 
 the people, whacking vigorously with the traditional 
 truncheon of the West. A rapid order to the 
 sepoys, an instant of marking time as the company 
 forms, then quick march through an unresisting 
 crowd. As they near the combatants a few brickbats 
 are throAvn : there is one free fight over the preacher : 
 and then the great mass of mankind falls once more 
 into atoms, each animated by the instinct of self- 
 preservation. Five minutes more, and the proces- 
 sions have gone on their appointed ways with the 
 loss of some chosen spirits, while the ghastly results 
 are being hurried away b}^ fatigue-parties recruited 
 from the bystanders. 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 239 
 
 "Only one round of blank cartridge," remarked 
 John Raby, as the Deputy Commissioner rode for- 
 ward ruefully to inspect the damage. " Ten minutes 
 more, and it wouldn't haye been so easy, for the 
 fighting would haye reached the square, and once a 
 man beo-ins — Great God I what's that?" 
 
 He was out of the saddle staring at a horse that 
 was trying to stagger from the gutter to its feet. 
 Perhaps in all his life he had never felt such genu- 
 ine passion as then ; certainl}- Belle herself was 
 neyer so near to loying her husband as when she saw 
 the awful fear come into his face at the sight of the 
 riderless steed. She had been waiting for him to 
 come nearer before calling for assistance, and now 
 the thought of her past danger and its meaning 
 almost choked her yoice. ''I'm not hurt! Oh, 
 John! I'm not hurt," she cried, stretchino- her 
 hands towards him. 
 
 He looked up to see her on the balcony, and his 
 relief, as it often does, brought a momentary resent- 
 ment. "Belle! What the deyil — I mean, why are 
 3'ou here?" 
 
 Now that it was all oyer, she felt disagreeably 
 inclined to cry; but something in his yoice roused 
 her pride and urged her to make light of what had 
 happened, and so ayoid being still more conspicuous. 
 "I'll come down and explain," she replied with an 
 effort. 
 
240 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 "Wait! I'll be with you in a moment. Which 
 is the door?" As he paused to kiss her before help- 
 ing her down the dark stair, Belle passed the happi- 
 est moment of her married life. Physically and 
 morally she felt crushed by the scenes she had wit- 
 nessed, and his calm, half-callous strength seemed a 
 refuge indeed. 
 
 "Not across the square," whispered the police- 
 officer as he was about to take her the shortest route. 
 " That poor brute must be shot." 
 
 John Raby raised his eyebrows a little, but took 
 the hint. Women were kittle cattle to deal with ; 
 even the best of them like Belle. Who, for instance, 
 would have thought of any one with a grain of sense 
 getting into such a position? Underneath all his 
 kindness lay a certain irritation at the whole busi- 
 ness, which he could not conceal. 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 241 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Belle, recovering from the shock healthily, 
 looked for a like forgetfulness in her husband, but 
 she was disappointed. " There is nothing to make 
 such a fuss about, John,'' she said, when a few days 
 brought no cessation of his regret at her having been 
 mixed up in such a scene. "It hasn't hurt me, you 
 see ; and as for the notoriety, people will soon forget 
 all about it." 
 
 " At any rate it shows you that I was right in say- 
 ing that the philanthropical dodge doesn't do in the 
 wife of an official," he replied moodily. "A thing 
 like that might do a man a lot of harm." 
 
 "I can't see how; besides, there isn't much phi- 
 lanthropy in watching men — Oh, John ! don't let us 
 talk of it any more. It makes me feel ill; I want to 
 forget all about it." 
 
 "But you can't. I don't want to be disagreeable, 
 Belle ; but have you ever considered that there must 
 be a trial, and that you, as an eye-witness, must — " 
 
 She turned pale, and clutched the arm of her chair 
 nervously. 
 
 "No! I see you haven't, — that's always the way 
 with women. They want all the fun of the fair 
 
242 MISS stuabt's legacy. 
 
 without the responsibility. The ring-leaders will 
 be tried, for their lives of course ; eight of the poor 
 beggars were killed, and two more are dying, so they 
 must hang some one. You had a box-seat, so to 
 speak, and are bound to give your evidence." 
 
 "But I could only see the tops of their heads. 
 I couldn't possibly recognise — " 
 
 "You must have seen and heard that fool of a 
 preacher, my dear child. That's the worst of it; if 
 you hadn't studied the language it would have been 
 different. As I said before, it all comes of taking 
 what you call an interest in the people. I don't see 
 how you are to get out of being called on for evi- 
 dence, and I tell you honestly I'd have given pounds 
 to prevent you putting ^^ourself in such a position. 
 It may mean more than you think." 
 
 "But T couldn't give evidence against that boy," 
 said Belle in a very low voice. " I told you, John, 
 I thought it was he who, — who — " 
 
 "It doesn't matter a straw if he did help you. 
 The question is, if he excited the crowd. Of course 
 he did, and with your predilection for abstract truth, 
 you would say so, I suppose, even if it was, — well, 
 unwise." 
 
 "What, — what would the punishment be?" she 
 asked after a pause. 
 
 He looked at her with unfeigned surprise. 
 "Really, Belle! you surely see that some one must 
 be hanged? The question is, who?" 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 243 
 
 "But lie used such long words." 
 
 He had been quarrelling with a cigarette during 
 the conversation, and now threw it aAvay impatiently. 
 "You are certainly a very ingenuous person, Belle. 
 On the whole, perhaps you had better stick to the 
 truth. You couldn't manage anything else satisfac- 
 torily." 
 
 "Of course I shall stick to the truth, John," she 
 rej)lied hotly. 
 
 "Well, I don't want to be disagreeable, you know; 
 but in your place I shouldn't, and that's a fact." 
 
 "Why?" she asked, in a startled voice. 
 
 "For many reasons. To begin with, the boy 
 comes of decent folk ; Marsden used to swear by the 
 father. There were three brothers in the regiment, 
 and one of them saved the Major's life, or something 
 of that sort. Why, Belle, what's the matter?" 
 
 She had risen, and was now fain to catch at his 
 outstretched hand to steady herself. Why, she 
 scarcely knew; finding the only explanation in an 
 assertion, made as much for her own edification as 
 his, that her nerves must be out of order. 
 
 "Nerves! " he echoed, as he placed her with half 
 contemptuous kindness in his chair, and brought her 
 a scent-bottle. "I'll tell you what it is, dear, no 
 woman should have both nerves and conscience. It's 
 too much for one frail human being. It is no use 
 my advising you to forget all about this wretched 
 
244 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 business, or to suppress the disagreeable parts ; and 
 yet, in your place, I should do both." 
 
 "Oh, John!" 
 
 "Yes, I should, from a sense of duty, — to myself 
 first, and then to society. What will be gained by 
 hanging that blatant windbag of a boy? " 
 
 Murghub Ahmad, who, in his cell awaiting trial, 
 was meanwhile comforting himself with the belief 
 that the fate of nations depended on his life or death, 
 would no doubt have resented this opinion bitterly. 
 Yet it was all too true. The evil lay much further 
 back than the utterance of the half-realised words 
 which had poured from his lips like oil on the flame. 
 He had said things as wild, as subversive of the law, 
 dozens of times before, and nothing had happened; 
 no one had taken any notice of it. And now ! The 
 boy buried his face in his hands, and tried to think 
 if he was glad or sorry for martyrdom. 
 
 Mahomed Lateef, stern and indignant, hurried 
 from far Faizapore to see his Benjamin, and in the 
 sight of the pale half-starved face forgot his anger, 
 and pledged his last remaining credit to engage an 
 English law^^er for his son's defence. And then he 
 girt his old sword about him, counted over the pre- 
 cious parchments of olden days, and the still more 
 precious scraps of modern note-paper, which were all 
 that was left to his honour, and thus armed set off to 
 see the big Lord saliih at Simla. He came back look- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 245 
 
 ing years older, to await, as the}' bade liim, the usual 
 course of law and order. 
 
 So it came to pass that as her husbaud had fore- 
 told. Belle found herself one day saying in a low 
 voice : " I heard him call on the people to fight. I 
 saw him wave his hand towards the Hindus." 
 
 "You mean, — pray be careful Mrs. Raby, for it is 
 a point of great importance — that, as the butchers 
 were coming up, you saw the prisoner wave them on 
 to the conflict?" 
 
 ''I cannot say if that was his intention. I saw 
 him wave his hand." 
 
 ^' As they were passing?" 
 
 "As they were passing." 
 
 "Should 3'ou say, — I mean, did it give you the 
 impression that he was encouraging them, urging 
 them on? " 
 
 Belle Raby, before she answered, looked across 
 the court at the boy, then at her husband, who with 
 a slight frown, sat twiddling a pen at the Govern- 
 ment Advocate's table. "It did. I think it would 
 have given that impression to any one wdio saw it." 
 And with these words every one knew the case was 
 virtually at an end so far as Murghub Ahmad was 
 concerned. 
 
 "Roman matrons are not in it," thought John 
 Raby as he flung the pen from him impatiently; 
 "and 3-et she will regret it all her life, and wonder 
 
246 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 if she didn't make a mistake, or tell an untruth, to 
 the end of her days. O Lord, I'm glad I wasn't 
 born a woman! They won't hang him, if that's 
 any consolation to you, my dear," he said as they 
 drove home; "though upon my word, it isn't your 
 fault if they don't. I'm beginning to be a bit 
 afraid of you. Belle. Your conscientiousness would 
 run me out of that commodity in a week ; but I sup- 
 pose some people are born that way." 
 
 The fresh wind blew in her face, the sun was 
 shining, the little squirrels skipping over the road. 
 The memory of that drive to her father's funeral 
 returned to her, sharply, Avith a sort of dim con- 
 sciousness that something else in her life was dying, 
 and would have to be buried away decently ere long. 
 "Why didn't you tell me before that he would not 
 be hanged?" she asked in a dull voice. 
 
 "Why? For many reasons. For one, I thought 
 you might be more merciful, and, — but there's an 
 end of it! They'll give him fourteen years over in 
 the Andamans. By George, the boy will learn that 
 the tongue is a two-edged sword! Pity he wasn't 
 taught it before." 
 
 Perhaps it was. At all events Mahomed Lateef, 
 his father, went back to his sonless house with a 
 vague sense of injustice not to be lost this side the 
 grave, and a palsied shake of his head only to be 
 stilled by death. Not to stay there long, however, 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 247 
 
 for he was ousted even from that dull refuge by the 
 necessity for selling it in order to redeem his 
 pledges. So he flitted drearily to his last hold on 
 life. A scrap of land between the Indus and the 
 sand-]iills, where, if the river ran high, the flooding 
 water raised a crop, and if not the tiller must starve, 
 — or go elsewhere ; if only to the six feet of earth all 
 men may claim whereon to sow the seed for a glori- 
 ous resurrection. 
 
 About a month after the trial John Raby came 
 home from office, not exactly in a bad temper, but 
 in that cynical, contemptuously-patient frame of 
 mind which Belle began to see meant mischief to 
 the hero-worship she still insisted on yielding to her 
 husband. 
 
 "I've brought you something to read," he said 
 coolly, laying a newspaper on the table and taking 
 up the cup of tea she had poured out for him. ''As 
 that unfortunate trial has led to this premature dis- 
 closure, I think it only fair to ask you what you 
 would rather I did in the matter. Honestly, I don't 
 much care. Of course I would rather have had a 
 little more time ; but as the native papers have got 
 hold of the business I'm quite ready, if you prefer 
 it, to throAV up my appointment to-morrow. How- 
 ever, read it, — on the second page I think — and 
 skip the adjectives." 
 
 " Well?" he asked, as after a time she laid down 
 
248 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 the newspaper, and stared at him in a bewildered 
 sort of way. "The main facts are- true, if that is 
 what you mean. I was lucky enough to hit on that 
 indigo business ; it will pay cent per cent if prop- 
 erly worked." 
 
 "I thought," she replied in a toneless voice, "that 
 it was against, — the rules." 
 
 "Exactly so; but you see I haven't the slightest 
 intention of remaining in the service. I never had, 
 if once I got an opportunity, and I've got it." 
 
 "But the rules?" 
 
 " Bother the rules ! I am not going to bu}^ a pig 
 in a poke to please propriety. That part of it is 
 done, and I think it is always best to let by-gones 
 be by-gones. If you like me to send in my papers 
 to-day, I'll do it; if not I shall hang on for a time, 
 and defy them. Why should one lose twelve hun- 
 dred a month for an idea ? I do my work quite as 
 well as I did, and there won't be any necessity for 
 personal supervision down in Saudaghur till next 
 spring. But as I said before, if you have scruples, 
 — why, you brought the money, and I'm deeply 
 grateful, I assure you. Don't look scared, my dear; 
 I'll insure my life if you are thinking of the pension 
 of a civilian's widow! " 
 
 "Dont' laugh, John; I can't stand it. Have any 
 more of the native papers been writing, — things like 
 that?" And she shivered a little as she spoke. 
 
249 
 
 "No, that's the first; but the others will follow 
 suit. They were desperately indignant about the 
 Mohurrim riot. That is why I wanted — " 
 
 Belle stood up, and stretched her hands out ap- 
 pealingly to her husband, "Don't say it. Oh, please 
 don't say it! You don't, — you can't mean it! " 
 
 He came across to her, taking her hands in his. 
 "That's not consistent, Belle; you're always for 
 having the truth. I do mean it. What harm would 
 you have done to anybody by toning down what you 
 saw ? For the matter of that, what harm have I done 
 to any one by investing money in indigo? None, 
 absolutely none! However, it is no use talking 
 about it; we should never agree; people seldom do 
 on these points. But you ought to know by this 
 time that I never mean to hurt your feelings in any 
 way. So which is it to be, — dignity or impu- 
 dence?" 
 
 And Belle, as he kissed her, felt helpless. It was 
 like being smothered in a feather bed, all softness 
 and suffocation. 
 
 " Well, I'm waiting. Am I not a model husband? 
 Now don't begin to cry when it's all over; perhaps 
 it is best as it is, for I shall have to build you a 
 house. Belle. Think of that; a house of your very 
 own ! And look here ! 3'ou can go in for doing good 
 to your heart's content when you are no longer the 
 wife of an official. Cheer up! There's a good time 
 
250 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 coming, and you have to decide if it's to come now, 
 or next spring." 
 
 "How can you ask? " she said, breaking from him 
 hurriedly, to walk up and down the room, twisting 
 her fingers nervously. "We must go, — go at 
 once." 
 
 "Very well. It's a little hasty; but remember 
 it's your doing, not mine; and for goodness' sake, 
 you poor, little, conscience-stricken soul, don't cry 
 at getting your own way," 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 251 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 John Raby's announcement that he was about to 
 leave the service fell like a thunderbolt on his old 
 friend Shunker Das, for that astute gentleman had 
 sketched out a very different programme in which 
 the shaitan sahib was to figure as chief actor. Indeed, 
 when the latter had first come nibbling round the 
 indigo prize, Shunker had, as it were, asked him to 
 dine off it, chuckling in his sleeve the while at the 
 idea of getting his enemy into the toils. But then 
 he knew nothing of the thirty thousand pounds, 
 which the young civilian rightly considered a suffi- 
 cient insurance against any punishment for breaking 
 the rules of his covenant. So all the Lala's deft 
 hounding of the native papers on the track of " dis- 
 graceful corruption and disregard of law on the part 
 of Mr. John Raby of the Civil Service " had simply 
 resulted in bringing a personal sujDervision, destruc- 
 tive of account-cooking, into the business. 
 
 He went down to Saudaghur shortly after the 
 Rabys, and nearly had a fit over the calm decision 
 with which the 3'oung Englishman took possession 
 of the field. New machines were being imported, 
 new vats built, new contracts made with growers 
 
252 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 throughout a large stretch of the district. On all 
 sides Shunker found himself forestalled, outpaced, 
 left in the cold. He would dearly have liked to 
 break absolutely with this shrewd, unmerciful part- 
 ner; yet to indulge this desire meant loss, for the 
 Lala, despite his hatred of the work, was not blind 
 to John Raby's supreme capability for making the 
 business pay. He was torn asunder by rage at hav- 
 ing been outwitted, and admiration for the wit which 
 had effected the task. He came home one day to 
 the square block of a house he owned on the out- 
 skirts of Saudaghur village, cursing freely, and 
 longing for some covert means of relieving his spite. 
 The recipient of his curses took them with stolid 
 indifference. She was a dark-browed, deep-chested 
 lum^) of a woman, engaged in cooking the Lala's 
 dinner in a dutiful, conscientious sort of way, while 
 she kept one eye on a solid two-year-old boy who 
 was busy over a pumpkin rind. This was Kirpo, 
 the absent Ram Lai's wife, who had been sent to 
 occupy this empty house of the Lala's for several 
 reasons. Chiefly because it was out of the way of 
 scandal, and it had pleased Shunker to combine 
 pleasure with the business of supporting her during 
 her husband's imprisonment; wherefore, is one of 
 those problems of human perversity best left alone. 
 Kirpo herself had merely adopted the surest way of 
 securing comfort and a pair of gold bangles, during 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 253 
 
 this unpleasing interlude, and in her heart was 
 longing to return to her rightful owner; but not 
 without the bangles. There was, however, consid- 
 erable divergence of opinion between her and the 
 Lala on this point, resulting, on the one side, in her 
 refusal to retire discreetly before the off chance of 
 any remission of her husband's sentence which might 
 induce a premature appearance; and, on the other, 
 in Shunker's half alarmed desire to let her risk her 
 nose by discovery. Neither of them being altogether 
 in earnest, and each anxiously awaiting symptoms 
 of capitulation in the other. 
 
 "I don't care for your words, Lala-//," she retorted 
 in answer to his abuse. "We women have to eat 
 curses, aye! and blows too; but we get our own 
 way for all that. I mean to have the bangles, so the 
 sooner you unstomach them the better." Her black 
 brows met in determination as Shunker consigned 
 her and all her female ancestors to unspeakable tor- 
 ments. "If you say much more I'll have the evil 
 eye cast on that sickly Nuttu of yours. Mai-Bishen 
 does it. You take seven hairs — " 
 
 "Be silent, she-devil!" shouted the Lala turning 
 green. " What ails you to give the mind freedom 
 on such things? Lo! I have been good to you, 
 Kirpo, and the boy there, — would mine were like 
 him!" 
 
 Kirpo caught the child in her arms, covering him 
 
254 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 with kisses as she held him to her broad brown 
 breast. "Thine! Pooh! thou art a poor body and 
 a poor spirit, Shunker. Afraid for all thy big belly ; 
 afraid of R?ibj-sahib ! Look yon, I will go to him ; 
 nay, I will go to his mern^ who loves to see the black 
 women, and she will make you give me the bangles." 
 
 Now Shunker's evil disposition partook of the 
 nature of an amoeba. That is to say, no sooner did 
 a suggestion of food dawn upon it, than straightway 
 the undefined mass of spite shot out a new limb in 
 that direction. Kirpo's words had this effect upon 
 him. After all why should she not go to see the 
 mem ? How angry the shaitan would be if he knew 
 that his, Shunker's mistress, had had an interview 
 with the stuck-up English girl. What business, 
 too, had she to bring her husband money when her 
 father was bankrupt ? Rare sport indeed to chuckle 
 over when Raby put on his airs. " By the holy water 
 of Gunga!" he cried, " thou shalt go, Kirpo, as my 
 wife. No one will know. Silks and satins, Kirpo, 
 and sheets held up for thee to scuttle through so that 
 none may see! Aha! And I have to take off my 
 shoes at the door, curse him!" He lay back and 
 chuckled at the bare idea of the petty, concealed 
 insult of which no one but himself would know. 
 
 Kirpo looked at him in contemptuous dislike. 
 " If I was a bad woman like thy friends in the bazaar 
 I would not go, for the}^ say she is easy to deceive 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 255 
 
 and kind; but T am not bad. " It is you wlio are bad. 
 So I will go; but with the bangles, and with the 
 boy too, in a khim-khdh (cloth of gold) coat. 'Twill 
 be as thy son. Lala-^/, remember, so thou wouldst 
 not have him look a beggar." 
 
 Her shrill laughter rang through the empty house, 
 making an old woman glance upwards from the lower 
 court. "Kirpo should go home," muttered the hag, 
 "or she will lose her nose like Dhundei when they 
 let her husband out of gaol by mistake. A grand 
 mistake for poor Dhunnu! oho I oho! " 
 
 "Kirpo Devi," returned the Lala, with a grin of 
 concentrated wickedness. " Thou shalt have the ban- 
 gles, and then thou shall go see the mem first, and to 
 damnation after. Mark my words, 'tis a true saying." 
 For another suggestion of evil had sprung into 
 vision, and he already had a feeler out to seize it. 
 
 Two days later he sat on the same bed grinning 
 over his own cleverness, yet for all that disconcerted. 
 Kirpo had fled, with her boy and her bangles. That 
 he had expected, but he was hardly prepared to find 
 a clean sweep of all his brass cooking-pots into the 
 bargain. He cursed a little, but on the whole felt 
 satisfied, since his spite against Belle Raby had been 
 gratified and Kirpo got rid of, at the price of a pair 
 of deftly lacquered brass bangles. He grinned still 
 more wickedly at the thought of the latter's face 
 when she found out the trick. 
 
256 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 As he sat smoking his pipe a man looked in at the 
 cloor. A curiously evasive, downcast figure in gar- 
 ments so rumpled as to suggest having been tied up 
 in tight bundles for months; as indeed they had 
 been, duly ticketed and put away in the store-rooms 
 of the gaol. 
 
 "Holy Krishna! " muttered the Lala, while drops 
 of sweat at the thought of the narrow escape oozed 
 to his forehead, "'tis Ramu himself." 
 
 And Ramu it was, scowling and suspicious. 
 "Where's my house?" he asked after the curtest 
 of greetings. 
 
 Unfortunately for the truth Shunker Das had an- 
 swered this question in anticipation many times. 
 So he was quite prepared. " Thy house, oh Ramu ? 
 If she be not at home, God knoweth whither she hath 
 gone. I sent her here, for safety, seeing that women 
 are uncertain even when ill-looking; but she hath 
 left this security without my consent." 
 
 His hearer's face darkened still more deeply as he 
 looked about him in a dissatisfied way. "I went 
 straight to Faizapore; they said she was here." He 
 did not add that he had purposely refrained from 
 announcing his remission (for good conduct) in order 
 to see the state of affairs for himself. 
 
 Shunker meanwhile was mentally offering a cheap 
 but showy oblation to his pet deity for having sug- 
 gested the abstraction of the brass pots to Kirpo. " I 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 267 
 
 say notliing, Ramu,'' he replied unctuously; "but 
 this I know, that having placed her here virtuously 
 with an old mother, who is even now engaged in 
 work below, she hath fled, nor stayed her hand from 
 taking things that are not hers. See, I am here 
 without food even, driven to eat it from the bazaar, 
 by reason of her wickedness ; but I will call, and the 
 old mother will fetch some ; thou must be hungry. 
 Hadst thou sent word, Ramu, the faithful servant 
 should have had a feast from the faithful master." 
 
 Ramu and he looked at each other steadily for a 
 moment, like two dogs uncertain whether to growl 
 or to be friends. 
 
 "Fret not because of one woman, Ramu," added 
 his master peacefully. " Hadst thou sent word, she 
 would have been at home doubtless. She is no worse 
 than others." 
 
 "She shall be worse by a nose," retorted his hearer 
 viciously. Whereat the Lala laughed. 
 
 He sat talking to his old henchman till late on 
 into the night, during the course of his conversation 
 following so many trails of that serpent, his own 
 evil imaginings, that before Ramu, full of fresh 
 meats and wines, had fallen asleep, Shunker Das 
 had almost persuaded himself, as well as the hus- 
 band, that Kirpo's disappearance had something to 
 do with gold bangles and a series of visits to the 
 shaitan sahib in the rest-house, where, until their 
 
 own was finished, the Rabys were living. 
 
 s 
 
258 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 This scandalous suggestion found, to Ramu's 
 mind, a certain corroboration next day; for on his 
 way to the station in order to return to Faizapore, 
 he came full tilt on his wife, also hurrying to catch 
 the train. The gold bangles on her wrists, and the 
 fact of her having remained in Saudaghur after leav- 
 ing the Lala's house, pointed to mischief. He flew 
 at her like a mad dog, too angry even to listen. 
 Now the station of Saudaghur was a good two miles 
 from the town, and the road a lonely one; so that 
 the enraged husband had no interruptions, and finally 
 marched on to his destination, leaving his wife, half 
 dead, behind a bush; a brutal, but not uncommon 
 occurrence in a land Avhere animal jealousy is the only 
 cause of women's importance. That evening John 
 Raby, riding back from a distant village in the dusk, 
 was nearly thrown at the rest-house gates by a sud- 
 den swerve of his horse. 
 
 " Dohai I DoJiai ! Dohai ! " The traditional appeal 
 for justice rose to high heaven as a female figure 
 started from the shadow, and clutched his bridle. 
 It was Kirpo, with a bloody veil di\awn close about 
 her face. 
 
 The young man swore, not unnaturally. " Well, 
 what's the matter?" he cried angrily; past experi- 
 ence teaching him the hopelessness of escaping with- 
 out some show of attention. "I'm not a magistrate 
 any longer, thank God! Go to the police, my good 
 
INIISS STUART'S LEGACY. 259 
 
 woman. Oh!" he continued, in contemptuous com- 
 prehension, as the woman, clutching fiercely with 
 both hands, let go her veil, which falling aside, 
 showed a noseless face; "'tis your own fault, no 
 doubt." 
 
 "The Lala! the Lala!" shrieked Kirpo. "'Tis 
 his doing." 
 
 "Shunker Das?" asked John Raby, reining up 
 his horse in sudden interest. 
 
 " Yes, Shunker Das ! He gave me the gold ban- 
 gles for going to see your meyn and pretending to be 
 his wife. He did it. The ill-begotten son of a hag, 
 the vile offspring of a she-devil I " 
 
 So, with sobs and curses, she poured the whole 
 tale of' her wrong into the young man's ear. He 
 listened to it with wonderful patience. "All you 
 want, I suppose, is to punish your husband?" he 
 asked, when she paused for breath. 
 
 "No!" almost yelled the woman. "The Lala! 
 the Lala! I could choke him on his own flesh." 
 
 John Raby laughed. These half savages had cer- 
 tainly most expressive methods of speech, a pity 
 their actions were not as forcible. "Wait here," he 
 said quietly. " 111 send you out a note for the native 
 magistrate; but mind! no word of your visit to my 
 wife. I'm not going to have that all over the place." 
 
 Kirpo squatted down at the gate-post, wrapping 
 the bloody veil round her once more; a habit she 
 
260 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 would have to grow into with the years. Not a 
 stone's throw from this ghastly figure, in the large 
 bare sitting-room of the rest-house, which she had 
 decorated to the best of her ability with Indian 
 draperies disposed after the fashion of the West, sat 
 Belle in a low wicker chair. A tea-table bright with 
 silver and china awaited the master's return, while 
 a pile of music scattered on the open piano showed 
 her recent occupation. "There you are at last, 
 John!" she said. "Cold isn't it? — quite Christ- 
 mas weather; but your tea is ready." 
 
 "And what has my wife been doing with herself 
 all day?" he asked, with the complacent affection 
 which invariably sprang up at the sight of his own 
 home comfort. 
 
 "Oh, I? Working, and reading, and practising 
 as usual. There's a very interesting article on the 
 morality of the Vedas in the Nineteenth Century. It 
 seems wonderfully pure." 
 
 "A little more sugar, if you please, and one of 
 those cakes with the chocolate, dear," was the reply, 
 given with a stretching of the limbs into the curves 
 of a cushioned chair. "Do 3^ou know^ Belle, India 
 is a most delightful country. If Blanche Amory 
 had lived here she would not have had to sa}^, ''11 me 
 faut des Smotions. ' The}^ sit at the gate, so to speak, 
 and the contrasts give such a zest to life. You, with 
 that white gown and all the accessories (as the 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 261 
 
 studio-slang has it) are like ])dte de foie after the 
 black bread of the Spartans. If yon have done your 
 tea, go to the piano, there's a dear girl, and play me 
 a valse; Reves d^Aynour for choice ; that will put the 
 truffles to the pdte.''^ 
 
 Kirpo squatting at the gate, waiting for vengeance, 
 heard the gay notes. "What a noise! " she said to 
 herself; "no beginning or end, just like a jackal's 
 cry. I wish he would send the letter." 
 
 It came at last; and Kirpo, for one, always be- 
 lieved that to it she owed the fact that Ramu was 
 caught, tried, sentenced, and imprisoned for a whole 
 year; for as she used to say, in telling the tale to her 
 cronies, "I hadn't a cowrie or an ornament left, so 
 it would have been no use complaining to the 
 police." 
 
 The Lala, too, impressed a like belief on the in- 
 dignant Ramu. "'Tis true enough," he said, "that 
 it is tyranny to deny a man his right to teach his 
 wife caution ; but there ! — she went straight to Raby 
 sahib, and now you are in for a whole year without a 
 friend to stand treat, my poor Ramu." 
 
 Ram Lai's teeth chattered at the prospect of de- 
 sertion. "But you will stand by me still, master?" 
 he asked piteously. 
 
 "Wherefore, Ramu? Even a huniali leaves old 
 scores alone when there is a receipt-stamp on the 
 paper," chuckled the usurer. "Pray that thou hast 
 
262 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 not the same warder, oh my son ! and come back to 
 me, if thou wilst, when the time is over." He hap- 
 pened to be in high good spirits that morning owing 
 to a slip on John Raby's part in regard to the sign- 
 ing of some contract which promised to put rupees 
 into the Lala's private pocket. So much so, that he 
 went to the rest-house in order to gloat over the 
 prospect in his unconscious partner's presence. It 
 was the first time that the latter had seen him since 
 Kirpo's appeal and confession, for John Raby had 
 purposely avoided an interview until the trial, with 
 its possibility of unpleasantness, was over. Now he 
 calmly shut the door, and made the practical joker 
 acquire a thorough and yet superficial knowledge of 
 the ways of the ruling race, finishing up by a con- 
 temptuous recommendation to vinegar and brown 
 paper. 
 
 "I've been fighting your battles, dear," he said, 
 coming into his wife's room, and leaning over to 
 kiss her as she lay resting on the sofa. A pile of 
 dainty lace and muslin things on the table beside 
 her, told tales for the future. 
 
 "My battles, John? I didn't know I had any 
 enemies here." Or any friends she might have 
 added, for those three months in the rest-house had 
 been inexpressibly lonely; her husband away all 
 day, and no white face within fifty miles. 
 
 "Enemies? No, Belle, I should say not; but I 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 263 
 
 have, and what's mine's yours, joii know." Then, 
 half amused, half irritated, he told her of Kirpo's 
 visit. 
 
 Her eyes sought his with the puzzled look which 
 life was beginning to put into them. " I suppose it 
 was intended as an insult," she said; "but when a 
 man has half a dozen wives, some married one, some 
 another way, it, — it doesn't seem to matter if they 
 are married or not." 
 
 "My dear!" cried he, aghast. "I do hope you 
 haven't been reading my French novels." 
 
 She smiled, a trifle bitterly. " No ; they bore me. 
 It's the gazeteer of this district which is to blame. 
 How many kinds of marriage? I forget; one is 
 called a kicking-strap, I know. It is a mere ques- 
 tion of names all through. What difference can it 
 make?" 
 
 John Raby walked up and down the room in, for 
 him, quite a disturbed manner. "I'm sorry to hear 
 you speak that way. Belle. It's always a mistake. 
 If you can't see the insult, you will at least allow 
 that it confirms what I have always maintained, the 
 undesirability of mixing yourself up with a social 
 life that doesn't fit in with ours. It has put me 
 into rather a hole at all events." 
 
 "A hole, John? What do you mean?" 
 
 "Why, even the Lala won't work with me after 
 this, and I must take all the risk; there isn't much 
 
264 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 of course ; but somehow I've been hustled all through. 
 First by that foolish trial — " 
 
 "I thought we had agreed to leave that alone, 
 John?" interrrupted his wife with a heightened 
 colour. 
 
 "True, O queen! And you needn't be afraid, 
 Belle. You and the babies shall be millionaires, 
 billionaires if you like." And a speech like this, 
 accompanied as it was by the half-careless, half- 
 affectionate glance she knew so well, would start her 
 self-reproach on the road to that sanctuary from all 
 her vague puzzles; the fixed belief that she and 
 John were the most attached of couples. 
 
 It would, nevertheless, be almost impossible to 
 over-colour the absolute loneliness of the girl's life 
 at this time. Her husband aAvay from dawn till 
 sundown, her only companions a people whose un- 
 couth patois she hardly understood, whose broad 
 simplicity of purpose and passion positively con- 
 fused her own complexity. It was utter isolation, 
 combined with the persistent reflection that close 
 by in the native town, humanity went to and fro full 
 to the brim with the same emotions of joy and sor- 
 row, hope and fear, though the causes were different. 
 It made her feel as if she had dropped from another 
 world; and being, from physical causes, fanciful, 
 she often thought, Avhen looking over the wide level 
 plain, without one tree to break its contour, which 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 265 
 
 stretched awa}^ from her to the horizon, that, but for 
 the force of gravity, she could walk over its visible 
 curve into space. One of her chief amusements was 
 what her husband laughingly called her jardin 
 d' acclimatisation ; a dreary row of pots where, in de- 
 fiance of a daily efflorescence of Glaubers salt, she 
 coaxed a doxen or so of disheartened pansies into 
 producing feeble flowers half the size of a wild 
 heart's-ease. She was extremely patient, was Belle 
 Rab}^ and given to watering and tending all things 
 which she fancied should adorn a woman's house 
 and home; and among them gratitude. Scarcely a 
 day passed but the thought of Philip Marsden's ill- 
 requited kindness set this irreclaimable hero-worship- 
 per into metaphorically besprinkling his grave with 
 her tears, until countless flowers of fact and fancy 
 grew up to weave a crown for his memory, a frame 
 for his virtues. The extent to which she idealised 
 him never came home to her, for the fact of his hav- 
 ing passed finally from life prevented her from 
 having to decide his exact position in her Pantheon. 
 Another thing which intensified her inclination to 
 over-estimate the benefits she had received at Philip's 
 hands was her husband's evident desire for complete 
 silence on this subject. Naturally in one so impul- 
 sively generous as Belle, this seemed to make her 
 remembrance, and her gratitude, all the more neces- 
 sary. 
 
266 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 So time passed until, as women have to do, she 
 began to set her house in order against life or death. 
 To-day, to-morrow, the next day, everything famil- 
 iar, commonplace, — and then? How the heart beats 
 in swift wonder and impatience even though the 
 cradle may be the grave ! 
 
 A hint of spring was in the air; that sudden 
 spring which in Northern India follows close on the 
 first footsteps of the new year. Belle, with a light 
 heart, sat sorting her husband's wardrobe, and lay- 
 ing aside in camphor and peppercorns, things not 
 likely to be required; for who could tell how long 
 it might be ere she could look after John's clothes 
 again? As she paused to search the pockets of a 
 coat, a building sparroAV hopped across the floor to 
 tug at a loose thread in the pile of miscellaneous 
 garments among which she was sitting, and a bright- 
 eyed squirrel, hanging on the open door, cast watch- 
 ful glances on a skein of Berlin wool, which appeared 
 utterly desirable for a nest. The whole world, she 
 thought, seemed preparing for new life, working for 
 the unknown, and she smiled at the fancy as she 
 began methodically to fold and smooth. More care- 
 fully than usual, for this was John's political uni- 
 form, and the sight of it invariably brought her a 
 pang of regret for the career that had been given up. 
 Suddenly her half-caressing fingers distinguished 
 something unusual between the linings ; something 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 267 
 
 that must have slipped from the pocket, for she had 
 to unrip a rough mend in the latter ere she could 
 remove a sheet of thin paper folded in two, smooth, 
 uncrushed. 
 
 The writing startled her; it was Philip Mars- 
 den's, and she sat there for a minute staring at it 
 blankly. In after years the smell of camphor always 
 brought her back to that moment of life; the sun- 
 light streaming on the floor beside her, the twitter- 
 ing bird, the watchful squirrel. 
 
 The draft of a will, — surely the will — and yet! 
 How came it in her husband's pocket, in the coat 
 that he must have worn ? Then he had known — he 
 7??ifsHiave known about the money! Money! Yes, 
 the one passion she had ever seen on his face ; the 
 one love — 
 
 The sparrow came back again and again robbing 
 one life for another. The squirrel, emboldened at 
 her silence, made off with its heart's desire; but 
 still poor Belle lay in a dead faint on the floor. 
 And there she might have remained, with the accus- 
 ing paper in her hand to face her husband, had not 
 pain, sharp compelling pain, roused her. To what? 
 To a new life, to something beyond, yet of herself, 
 something to defy fate and carry hope and fear from 
 the present to the future. 
 
 A vague understanding of her own position came 
 to her as she lay slowly gathering consciousness, 
 
268 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 until she rose to her feet and looked round her almost 
 fearfully. "It must not alter anything," she mut- 
 tered, as the torn shreds of paper fell from her shak- 
 ing hand. "It cannot, — oh, dear God! it shall not. 
 Not now, not now; I could not bear it; not now, 
 not now ! " 
 
 All that night Belle Raby fought a strange, un- 
 certain battle, fought hard for the old life and the 
 new, for life or death, scarcely knowing why she 
 did either, and caring little, thinking little, of any- 
 thing save the blind instinct of light. And with the 
 dawn the child which was hers, but which she was 
 never to see, gave up its feeble desire, and left noth- 
 ing but a pitiful waxen image to tell of life that had 
 been and was gone. 
 
 But Belle, fast clasping her husband's hand, was 
 in the Land of Dreams; the land to which many 
 things besides the dead child must belong forever. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 269 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Death, we are told, changes our vile bodies and 
 minds. It is at any rate to be hoped so, if orthodox 
 heaven is to be endurable to some of us. And when 
 mind and body have gone nigh to death, so nigh that 
 he has stilled us in his arms for long days and nights, 
 when he has kissed the sight of all things mortal 
 from our eyes, and charmed away love and dread till 
 soul could part from flesh without one sigh; does 
 not that sometimes send us back, as it were, to a 
 new life, and make us feel strangers even to our- 
 selves ? 
 
 Belle Rab}' felt this as she came back discreetly, 
 decently, according to her wont in all things, from 
 the Valley of the Shadow. Everything was changed, 
 and she herself was no longer the girl who had cried 
 uselessly, "Not now! Ah, dear God, not now! " 
 
 When she first floated up to consciousness through 
 the dim resounding sea which for days and nights 
 had seemed to lull her to sleep, it had been to find 
 herself in John's arms, while he fed her with a tea- 
 spoon, and she had drifted down again into the dark, 
 carrying with her a faint, half-amused wonder why a 
 man who had so deceived his wife should trouble 
 
270 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 himself about her beef-tea. Neither was it a fit 
 season for tragedy when, with hair decently brushed 
 for the first time, and a bit of pink ribbon disposed 
 somewhere to give colour to the pale face, she lay 
 propped up on the pillow at last, fingering a bunch 
 of roses brought her by the traitor. Nor when he 
 had carried her to the sofa with pleasant smiles at 
 the ease of the task, could she begin the dreadful 
 accusation, "You knew I was an heiress, — that was 
 why you married me." Horrible, hateful! The 
 blood would surge over her face, the tears come into 
 her eyes at the thought of the degradation of such a 
 mutual understanding. Better, far better, that the 
 offender should go scot-free. And after all, where 
 Avas the difference? What had she lost? Only 
 ignorance; the thing itself had always been the 
 same. And yet she had not found it out — yet she 
 had been content ! That was the saddest, strangest 
 part of all, and in her first bitterness of spirit she 
 asked herself, more than once, if she had any right 
 to truth, when lies satisfied her so easily. He had 
 not chosen her out of all the world because he loved 
 her, and jet she had not found him out. Was it not 
 possible that she had not found herself out either? 
 And what then? Did it make any difference, any 
 difference at all ? 
 
 During her tedious convalescence she lay turning 
 these things over and over in her mind, almost as if 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 271 
 
 the problem referred to the life of some one else. It 
 was a critical time for the new venture, and long be- 
 fore she could leave the sofa, her husband had to 
 spend a day here, two days there, arranging for 
 labour and machinery ; above all for the new house 
 into which he was so anxious for her to settle com- 
 fortably before the hot weather came on. All was 
 very natural and right; nevertheless it marked the 
 beginning of the epoch which comes about in most 
 marriages; the time when Adam and Eve leave the 
 garden of Eden, and face the world; the time when 
 different dispositions naturally drift apart to differ- 
 ent interests. Belle, still weak and unstrung, found 
 a morbid significance in her husband's growing ab- 
 sorption in the business ; she seemed to see the greed 
 of gold in his handsome face as he sat descanting, 
 over his cigarette, on the many projects of his busy 
 brain. Yet she said no word of blame or warning, 
 for she began to lack the courage of criticism. The 
 fact was, she did not want to know the extent of the 
 gulf between them ; therefore she kept silence on all 
 points which might serve as a landmark to their rela- 
 tive positions. Even so she came on the knowledge 
 unawares. 
 
 "I'm glad you don't fret over the baby," he said 
 to her one day; "but you were always sensible. 
 The poor little thing might have got ill, you know, 
 and it would have been a bore if you had had to go 
 
272 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 to the hills this year, when there is so much to be 
 done." 
 
 After that she would have died sooner than men- 
 tion a grief that was always with her, despite her 
 smiling face. Yet, when he was away, she wept 
 unrestrained tears over a forlorn little spot in the 
 dreary garden where they told her the lost hope lay 
 hidden away, for ever, from her eyes. If she had 
 only seen it once, she used to think; if she could 
 only have shed one tear over the little face of which 
 she used to dream I If she could only have whis- 
 pered to it that she was sorry, that it was not her 
 fault. Such grief, she told herself, was natural even 
 in the happiest wife ; it could not be construed into 
 a complaint, or counted as a surrender to Fate. She 
 was not going to do that, whatever happened. 
 Never, never! That was the ruling idea to which 
 even her own unhappiness gave place ; and the cause 
 of this fixed purpose was a curious one. Nothing 
 more or less than a passionate desire not to defeat 
 the purpose of Philip Marsden's legacy. He had 
 meant kindly by her; when, she thought with the 
 glow of ardent gratitude which his memory invaria- 
 bly aroused, had he not meant kindly by her and 
 hers! And no one, least of all she herself, should 
 turn that kindness to unkindness. Poor Belle ! She 
 was bound hand and foot to hero-worship, and life 
 had shown her unmistakably that it was safer to 
 
i^nss Stuart's legacy. 273 
 
 canonise the dead. She lived, it must be remem- 
 bered, in a solitude hard even of explanation to those 
 unacquainted with out-station life in India. The 
 growing gulf between her and her husband had to be 
 bridged over a dozen times a day by their mutual 
 dependence on each other even for bare speech. The 
 saying, "It takes two to make a quarrel," falls short 
 of truth. It takes three; two to fight, and one to 
 hold the sponge, and play umpire. After a few 
 days of silence consequent on his frequent absences, 
 Belle was quite ready to welcome John back w^th 
 smiles; and this very readiness gave her comfort. 
 Things could not be so far wrong after all. And so 
 every time he went away, she set herself to miss his 
 company with a zest that would have seemed to the 
 spectators — had there been any — right-minded, 
 WTong-headed, an-d purely pitiful. It was so even 
 to herself, at times, when, for instance, the shadows 
 of day lifted in the night-time, and she woke to find 
 her pillow w^et with tears, — why, she knew not. 
 Perhaps because those who had loved her best were 
 lying in unknown graves far away among the ever- 
 lasting hills. It seemed so strange that they should 
 have met such similar fates ; their very deaths mys- 
 terious, if all too certain. In her mind they seemed 
 indissolubly mixed up with each other, living and 
 dying, and her thoughts Avere often with them. Not 
 in sadness, in anything but sadness ; rather in a deep 
 
274 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 unreasoning content that they had loved and trusted 
 her. 
 
 And all the while Fate was arranging a cunning 
 blow against her hard-contested peace. 
 
 She was expecting her husband one evening when 
 the rapid Indian twilight had begun to fill the large 
 bare room with shadows, and as, driven by the wan- 
 ing light from her books, she sat down at the piano, 
 her fingers found one theme after another on the keys. 
 Quite carelessly they fell on the FrUhlingslied, which 
 three years before had wrought poor Dick's undoing. 
 And then, suddenly, she seemed to feel the touch of 
 his warm young lips on hers, to see the fire and wor- 
 ship of his eyes. Was that Love? she wondered, as 
 her fingers stilled themselves to silence ; or was that 
 too nothing but a lie? Dear, dear old Dick! The 
 shadows gathered into an eager jorotesting face, the 
 empty room seemed full of the life that was dead 
 for ever. Ah, if it could be so really ? If those dear 
 dead could only come back just to know how sorely 
 the living longed for them. 
 
 A sound behind made her rise hastily. "Is that 
 you, John ? How late you are ! " she said with face 
 averted, for, dark as it was, the unbidden tears in 
 her eyes craved concealment. 
 
 "No! it is I, Philip Marsden." 
 
 Her hand fell on the keys with a jarring clang 
 that set the room ringing. Philip ! Nervous, over- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 275 
 
 wrought, unstrung as she was by long months of 
 silence and repression, it seemed to her that the dead 
 had heard her wish. How terribly afraid she was ! 
 Afraid of Philip ? A swift denial in her heart made 
 her turn slowly and strain her eyes into the shadow 
 by the door. He was there, tall and still, for dark- 
 ness dazzles like day and Philip Mars den's eyes were 
 seeking her in vain by the sound of her voice until 
 he saw a dim figure meeting him with outstretched 
 hands. "Philip, oh, Philip! kindest! best! dearest! " 
 
 In the shadows their hands met, warm clinging 
 hands; and at the touch a cry, half-fear, half-joy, 
 dominated the still echoing discord. The next 
 instant like a child who, frightened in the dark, 
 sees a familiar face, she was in his arms sobbing out 
 her relief and wonder. " Ah, Philip, it is you your- 
 self! You are not dead! You have come back to 
 me, my dear, my dear! " 
 
 He had entered the room cynically contemptu- 
 ous over the inevitable predicament into which Fate 
 and his impulsive actions had led him. During his 
 long captivity he had so often faced the extreme 
 probability of her marrying John Raby that the cer- 
 tainty which had met him on his arrival at Kohat 
 two days before had brought no surprise, and but 
 little pain. The past, he had said, was over. She 
 had never liked him; and he? That too was over; 
 had been over for months if, indeed, it had ever 
 
276 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 existed. He must go down at once, of course, ex- 
 plain about Dick's legacy and settle what was to be 
 done in the meantime — that was all. And now she 
 was in his arms and everything was swept away in 
 the flood of a great tenderness that never left him 
 again. 
 
 "Oh, Belle! You are glad, you are glad that I 
 have come back! " 
 
 The wonder and joy of his voice seemed to rouse 
 her to realities ; she drew away from him, and stood 
 with one hand raised to her forehead in perplexity. 
 " How dark it is I " she cried, petulantly. " I did not 
 see. I cannot, — Why did you come like a thief in 
 the night? Why did you not write ? Why? — you 
 should not have come, you should not! " 
 
 "I did write," he answered gently, the blame in 
 her tone seeming to escape his ear. " I wrote from 
 Kohat to tell you. The dog-cart was at the station 
 and I thought — " 
 
 "It was for John, not for you," she interrupted 
 almost fiercely. " It was for my husband — " She 
 broke off into silence. 
 
 "Yes; I heard at Kohat you were married." 
 
 He could not see her face, nor she his, and once 
 more her voice was petulant in complaint. "You 
 startled me. No one could have seen in the dark." 
 
 " Shall I call for lights now? " 
 
 "If you please." 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 277 
 
 When lie returned, followed by a servant bringing 
 the lamp, she was standing where he had left her. 
 Great Heavens, how she had changed! Was this 
 little Belle Stuart with her beautiful grey eyes? 
 This woman with the nameless look of motherhood, 
 the nameless dignity of knowledge in her face ; and 
 yet with a terror, such as the tyranny of truth brings 
 with it, in the tired eyes which used to be so clear 
 of care. 
 
 "I am sorr}^," he began; then his thought over- 
 flowed conventional speech, making him exclaim — 
 "Don't look so scared, for pity's sake! " 
 
 "Don't look like that!" she echoed swiftly. 
 "That is what you said the last time I saw you: 
 'Don't, Belle, the whole world is before you, life 
 and happiness and love.' It w^as not true, and you 
 have only made it worse by coming back to upset 
 everything, to take away everything." 
 
 " I am not going to take anything. The money — " 
 
 "Money, what money? I was not thinking of 
 money. Ah, I remember now! Of course it is 
 yours, all yours." 
 
 Then silence fell between them again; but it was 
 a silence eloquent of explanation. So eloquent that 
 Philip Marsden had to turn aside and look out on the 
 red bars of the sunset before he could beat down the mad 
 desire to take instant advantage of her self-betrayal. 
 But he was a man who above all things claimed the 
 
278 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 control of his own life, and the knowledge that he 
 too had been caught unawares helped him. " It is 
 all my fault, Mrs. Raby," he said, coming back to 
 her, with a great deference in voice and look. " This 
 has startled you terribly, and you have been ill, I 
 think." 
 
 "Yes, I have been ill, very ill. The baby died, 
 and then — oh, Philip, Philip ! I thought you were 
 dead; I did indeed." 
 
 That was the end. Every atom of chivalry the 
 man possessed, every scrap of good in his nature 
 responded to the pitiful appeal. " I do not wonder," 
 he answered, and though he spoke lightly there was 
 a new tone in his voice which always remained in it 
 afterwards when he addressed her. "I thought I 
 was dead myself. Come, let us sit down, and I will 
 tell you how it all happened. Yes, I thought I was 
 dead; at least so Afzul Khan declares — " 
 
 " Afzul Khan ! That was the name of the sepoy 
 you arrested at Faizapore." 
 
 Did she remember that? It was so long ago; long 
 before the day he had seen her last, when he had 
 tried to comfort her, and she had sobbed out her sor- 
 row as to a brother, in just such another bare shad- 
 owy room as this. Ah, poor Belle, poor Belle! 
 Had it all been a mistake from beginning to end? 
 The only refuge from bevv^ildering thought seemed 
 speech, and so he plunged into it, explaining, at far 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 279 
 
 greater length than he would otherwise have clone, 
 how he came to be sitting beside her, instead of ly- 
 ing with whitening bones in some deep pool in the 
 mountains. Pie must, he said, have become uncon- 
 scious from loss of blood, and slipped into the river 
 after he was wounded, for Afzul Kh^n from his place 
 of concealment on the water's edge had seen him 
 drifting down and dragged him to safety. They 
 were a queer lot, the Afghans, and Afzul believed 
 he owed the Major a life. After that it was a week 
 ere he could be taken to decent shelter, because 
 Afzul was also wounded ; but of all this he himself 
 knew nothing. His unconsciousness passing into 
 delirium it was six weeks ere he awoke to find him- 
 self in a sort of cave with snow shining like sunlight 
 beyond the opening, and Afzul cooking marmot- 
 flesh over a smoky fire. Even after that there was a 
 rough time what Avith cold and hunger, for it was an 
 enemy's country, and the people about were at blood- 
 feud with Afzul's clan. At last it became a toss-up 
 for death one way or the other, seeing he was too 
 weak to attempt escape. So he had given himself 
 up to the tribe, trusting that to their avarice an 
 English prisoner might be worth a ransom, while 
 Afzul had gone east promising to return with the 
 swalloAVS. 
 
 Then months had passed bringing threats of death 
 more and more constant as the promised ambassador 
 
280 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 never returned, until towards autumn, being stronger, 
 he managed to escape, and after running the gaunt- 
 let of danger and starvation succeeded in reaching 
 Afzul's tribe, only to find him slowly recovering 
 from rheumatic fever brought on by exposure and 
 privation. The poor fellow had been at death's 
 door, and long ere he was strong enough to act as 
 pilot eastwards winter had set her seal on the passes. 
 So there they had remained, fairly comfortable, until 
 spring melted the snows. "And," he added with a 
 smile, for Belle's face had resumed its calm, "I grew 
 quite fat, in comparison ! Yet they all took me for 
 a ghost when I walked in to the mess-room at Kohat 
 one evening after dinner, — just as I walked in 
 here." 
 
 But her truthful eyes looked into his and declined 
 the excuse. "No! I did not take you for a ghost, 
 except for an instant. I knew it was you, and that 
 you had come back to claim — everything." 
 
 " Then you knew wrong. I have come to claim 
 nothing. Perhaps I have no right to claim any- 
 thing; so it need make no difference — " 
 
 "It must make a difference to John," she inter- 
 rupted coldly. " I was thinking of him. It is hard 
 on him at all events." 
 
 "Hard! Of course it is hard," he answered with 
 a sudden pain at his heart. " Yet it is not my fault. 
 I meant no harm." 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 281 
 
 "You have done no harm as far as I know," was 
 the still colder reply. But in her turn she rose and 
 looked out to that low bar of red still lingering in 
 the horizon. "It is all very unfortunate, but we 
 shall manage, — somehow." There was a pause, 
 then she added in quite her ordinary tone, "I don't 
 think John can be coming to-night, so we need not 
 wait dinner for him. They have taken your things 
 to the end room. I see a light there." 
 
 " But I have no right — " he began, crossing to 
 where she stood. 
 
 She turned to him with a sudden gracious smile. 
 " Right ! you have every right to everything. You 
 have given me, — what have you not given me? " 
 
 A tall figure crouching in the verandah rose as they 
 passed through the open French window. 
 
 "Who is that?" she asked, half startled. 
 
 "Afzul Khan. I can't take him back to the regi- 
 ment, of course, but he came so far with me. He 
 has business, he says, in Faizapore." 
 
 "Afzul Khan! Call him here, please." 
 
 It was a curious group : those two bound to each 
 other by such a tissue of misunderstanding and mis- 
 take, and the Pathan responsible for part of those 
 mistakes. He stood by salaaming stolidly; for all 
 that taking in the scene with a quick eye. 
 
 " You have brought me back the best friend I ever 
 had," said Belle with a ring in her voice, and all 
 
282 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 instinctively her hand sought her companion's and 
 found it. 
 
 "It is God's will, not mine," was the reply. Not 
 an atom of sentiment in the words, not a scrap of 
 sanctimoniousness; simply a statement of fact. 
 God's will! And stOAved away in the folds of his 
 fur coat lay a long blue envelope, ominously stained 
 with blood, and addressed in a free bold hand to Miss 
 Belle Stuart, favoured by Major Marsden of the 
 101st Sikhs. That was poor Dick's will at any rate. 
 Even in their ignorance those two looked at each 
 other and wondered. God's will ! It was strange, 
 if true. 
 
 " We dine in the garden now, it is cooler. I shall 
 be ready in ten minutes," said Belle. 
 
 She was waiting for him under the stars when he 
 came out from his room, and the slender figure 
 against its setting of barren plain and over-arching 
 sky seemed all too slight for its surroundings. 
 
 "You must be very lonely here," he said abruptly. 
 
 Her light laugh startled him. "Not to-night at 
 any rate ! To-night is high holiday, and I only hope 
 the JcTidnsdmah will give us a good dinner. Come ! 
 you must be hungry." 
 
 Thinking over it afterwards the rest of the even- 
 ing seemed like a dream to Philip Marsden. A 
 halo of light round a table set with flowers ; a man 
 and a woman talking and laughing, the man with a 
 
isnss Stuart's legacy. 283 
 
 deep unreasoning content in the present preventing 
 all thought for the future. How gay she was, how 
 brilliant ! How little need there was for words with 
 those clear sympathetic eyes lighting up into com- 
 prehension at the first hint ; and with some people it 
 was necessary to have Johnson's dictionary on the 
 table ready for reference ! Afterwards again, as he 
 sat in the moonlight smoking his cigar, and the cool 
 night wind stirred the lace ruffle on the delicate 
 white arm stretched on the lounge chair, how pleas- 
 ant silence was; silence with the consciousness of 
 comprehension. Then when her hand lay in his as 
 they said good-night how dear her words were once 
 more. " I want jou to understand that I am glad. 
 Why not ? You thought I meant the money, but it 
 was not that. I don't know what I meant, but it 
 was not that. I used to cry because I couldn't thank 
 you; and now you have come, I do not want to." 
 
 "Thank me for what?" he asked, with a catch in 
 his voice. 
 
 But there was no answering tremble in liers. " You 
 are not so wise as your ghost; it knew. Supposing 
 it was better to be dead after all ? That would be a 
 pity, would it not? Good-night. John will be 
 home to-morrow." 
 
 He stood and stared at the lamp after she had 
 gone, as if its feeble ray would illuminate the puzzle 
 of a woman's face and words. He did not know that 
 
284 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 for the first time in lier life Belle had turned on 
 Fate. "I do not care," she had said, recklessly, as 
 she walked up and down waiting for him amid the 
 flowering oleanders. " One cannot be always think- 
 ing, thinking. He has come back and I am glad. 
 Surely that is enough for to-night." 
 
 It was not much to claim, and yet it made the 
 puzzle so much the harder for Philip Marsden. He 
 sat on the edge of his bed, and swore to himself that 
 he did not know what it all meant, that he did not 
 even know his own feelings. To leave a girl with 
 whom you fancied yourself in love and who appar- 
 ently hated you ; to die, and fall out of love, only to 
 find when you came back to life, that she who had 
 scorned jon living had taken a fancy to your mem- 
 ory. Nay more, to find that something in you had 
 survived death. What? Were the elements of a 
 French novel born out of such materials ? He had 
 never thought over these questions, being one of 
 those men who, from a certain physical fastidious- 
 ness, are not brought into contact with them. So 
 he may have been said to be, in his way, quite as 
 conventional in his morality as any woman ; and the 
 suggestion of such a situation offended him quite as 
 much as it would have offended Belle. The pride 
 and combativeness of the man rose up against the 
 suggestion even while the very thought of her glad 
 welcome thrilled him through and through. He 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 285 
 
 wished no harm to her, — God forbid! And yet if 
 one were to believe the world — bah ! what was one 
 to believe ? He was too restless to sleep, and, with 
 the curious instinct wdiich drives most good men to 
 be tempted of the devil in the wilderness, he put on 
 a pair of thick boots, turned up his trousers methodi- 
 cally, and set out to seek -pe^ce in a moonlight walk. 
 Bathos, no doubt; but if the sublime borders on the 
 ridiculous, the commonplaces of life must touch on 
 its tragedy. It was a broad white road down which 
 he started at a rattling pace. Before, behind, it 
 merged into a treeless horizon and it led — God 
 knows where I For all he knew it might be the road 
 leading to destruction ; the ready-made conventional 
 turnpike worn by the feet of thousands following 
 some bell-wether wdio had tinkled down to death 
 when the world was young. The moon shone gar- 
 ishly, eclipsing the stars. It seemed a pit}^ seeing 
 they were at least further from this detestable world 
 than she, — a mere satellite dancing attendance on a 
 half-congealed cinder, and allowing it to come be- 
 tween her and the light at every critical moment! 
 A pretty conceit, but not thought; and Philip was 
 there with the firm intention of thinking out the 
 position. Yet again and again he found himself 
 basking in the remembrance of Belle's welcome. 
 How glad, how unfeignedly, innocently glad she had 
 been, till fear crept in. Fear of what? Of the 
 
286 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 French novel, of course. He had felt it himself; he 
 had asked himself the same question, doubtless, as 
 she had; and what in heaven's name was to be the 
 answer? Must love always be handfast to some- 
 thing else? Or was it possible for it to exist, not 
 in the self-denying penance of propriety and duty, 
 but absolutely free and content in itself? Why 
 not? 
 
 As he tramped along, stunning noises came from a 
 neighbouring village; thrummings of tom-toms, and 
 blares of inconceivable horns mingling in a wild, 
 beast-like tumult. That meant a marriage in all its 
 unglozed simplicity of purpose; a marriage, to use 
 the jargon, unsanctified by love. But after all what 
 had love to do with marriage ? What could the most 
 unselfish dream of humanity have to do with the 
 most selfish, the most exacting, the most common- 
 place of all ties ? Love, it is true, might exist side 
 by side with marriage, but the perfection of the one 
 was not bound up in the perfection of the other. 
 Had not the attempt to find an unnecessary fig-leaf 
 by uniting sentiment to passion, only ended in an 
 apotheosis of animalism not much above that which 
 found expression in those hideous yells and brayings ? 
 Above ! nay below ! for it degraded love and passion 
 alike by false shame. 
 
 To escape the wedding party he struck away from 
 the road, and felt relieved when he had got rid of 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 287 
 
 its liard-and-fast lines, its arrogance of knowing the 
 way. The clumps of tall tiger-grass shot arrow- 
 like against the velvet sky, and every now and again 
 a faint rustle at their roots told of something watch- 
 ing the intruder; a brooding partridge may be, per- 
 haps a snake with unwinking eyes. And as he 
 walked, his thoughts seemed to lead him on, till 
 something of the truth, something naked yet not 
 ashamed as it had been before mankind ate of the 
 sorrowful tree, came home to him. It could not be 
 true, that verdict of the world. He would defy it. 
 
 Suddenly he found himself confronted by a strange 
 barrier, blocking his way. As far as eye could reach 
 on either side rose a wall of shadow twenty feet high, 
 a wall dense and dark beloAV, filmy as cobwebs where 
 the tasselled reeds of which it was composed touched 
 the purple of the sky. The gossamer wings of a day 
 could pass through those feathery tops ; but below, 
 even the buffalo had to seek an oozy track here and 
 there. He had often heard of this reed wall, which, 
 following the old river bed, divides village from vil- 
 lage as effectually as when the stream ran fast and 
 deep ; but its curious aptness to his thoughts startled 
 him. Impenetrable save for those who sought the 
 mire, or those with the wings of a dove. Which 
 was it to be ? As he stood arrested by his own 
 fancy a night-heron flitted past; its broad white 
 wings whirred softly, and its plumed head, craning 
 
288 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 forward, with blood-red eyes searching the shadows, 
 cleft the moonlight. By some strange jugglery of 
 fancy it reminded him of a picture by Gustave Dore, 
 and with the remembrance of Francesca da Rimini 
 came that of the scared look in poor Belle's face. 
 
 He turned aside impatiently beset once more by 
 the desire for escape and struck across the plain; 
 coming, after a time, on a footpath which he followed 
 mechanically through the tamarisk bushes, until he 
 emerged on an open space where a hoar frost of salt 
 crystals glittered on rows and rows of tiny mounds. 
 So pure, so white, that the eye might have sworn to 
 a Avinter's night even while the other senses told of 
 more than summer's heat; a deception increasing the 
 unreality with which Philip recognised that his wan- 
 dering steps had led him to a village grave-yard. 
 A far cry from the marriage feast! He sat doAvn 
 on the pile of disordered bricks and stucco which 
 marked the resting-place of the saint round whose 
 bones the faithful had gathered, and asked himself 
 what chance there was of standing out against the 
 opinion of the many in life, if even in death it Avas 
 always follow my leader? 
 
 A quaint place it was ; no enclosure, no token of 
 hope or grief, no symbol of faith; nothing but the 
 dead, clean forgotten and out of mind. Ah! but 
 Belle had not forgotten him, and if he had remained 
 dead she would have gone on giving him the best 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 289 
 
 part of herself without reproach, without remorse. 
 Was death then the only freedom from the body? 
 He sat so long immersed in his own thoughts that 
 the slow stars were wheeling to meet the dawn ere 
 he rose, and threw out his arms cramped by long 
 stillness. Dead, yet alive, — that was the old pan- 
 acea. Was nothing else attainable ? Must love be 
 killed? Why? 
 
 A rustle in the tamarisks beyond the open made 
 him turn sharply, and make his way towards the 
 corner whence it proceeded. As he did so a group 
 of men defiled from the bushes, set down the burden 
 tjiey carried, and, without looking round, began to 
 dig a grave. The hour, the absence of wailing, gave 
 Philip a momentary thought that he might be assist- 
 ing at the concealment of some crime, but his knowl- 
 edge of the people reassured him. Yet as he ap- 
 proached, all the party — save a very old man 
 mumbling his beads — scurried into the jungle, and 
 so he judged it wiser to stop and give the orthodox 
 salutation. The patriarch rose in feeble haste. 
 " Allah be praised ! we thought you were the ghost 
 already. Come back; come back!" he cried in 
 louder quavering voice. " 'Tis only a Presence, 
 seeking sport, doubtless. Come back, and get her 
 under earth ere dawn, or 'twill be the worse for all." 
 
 Then, as one by one his companions crept back to 
 
 their task, he answered Philip's curious looks with 
 
 u 
 
290 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 waggling head. " Only a wanton woman, JSuzoor. 
 Seven months ago meek as a dove, playing about the 
 village with maiden-plaited hair. But when the 
 matrons unbound it for the bridegroom, as in due 
 course of duty, the wickedness came out. It is so 
 with some women; a fancy that hath not bit nor 
 bridle ; a wantonness of mind when God made them 
 to be mothers. And she would have been one — ay, 
 a happy one — for all her fancies, had she not wept 
 herself into a wasting and died with her unborn 
 child. Cursed creature, bringing evil on the whole 
 village with her whims! Quick, quick, my sons! 
 Hide her before dawn, with the irons round her 
 thumbs, and the nails through her feet. Then will 
 I sow the mustard-seed in her path homewards, so 
 that cock-crow will ever send her back to the worms 
 ere she hath done gathering. And all for a fancy 
 when God made women to be mothers! A wanton 
 mind! A wanton mind! "' 
 
 The broken, quavering voice went on accusingly 
 as Philip turned away sick at heart. Here was the 
 other side of the shield; and which was the truth? 
 
 He went home feeling he had gained very little 
 from the wilderness. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 291 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The night which had proved so restless to Philip 
 Marsden had been for Belle, strangely enough, one 
 of profound repose. Never, since as a child she fell 
 asleep with the fresh cool caress of her pillow, had 
 she felt less inclination to be wakeful, less desire 
 for thought. The measureless content which comes 
 so seldom, save in a pleasant dream, held her, body 
 and soul. To feel it was enough. Yet as she woke 
 to the sound of her husband's early return, she 
 woke also to a full consciousness of the change 
 Philip's resurrection from the dead must bring into 
 their lives. A hasty remorse at her own brief hap- 
 piness made her slip on a morning-gown and go into 
 her husband's office-room. The wonder whether he 
 knew, or whether the post which always went to 
 him direct while he was in camp in order to save 
 time, had failed to find him, made her cheek pale. 
 She scarcely knew which would be worst; to meet 
 him crushed by the news, or to have to kill his easy 
 content with bitter tidings. 
 
 She found him already engaged with the tea and 
 toast which the servant had brought in on his arrival. 
 
292 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 and lier heart sank; face to face with it, anything 
 seemed better than the task of telling. 
 
 "Hullo! Belle, little woman! is that you up so 
 early ? But it must have been deuced startling for 
 you to have Marsden walking in like Lazarus — " 
 
 " Then you have heard ? " she interrupted with 
 quite a sigh of relief. 
 
 "Of course I've heard. One always does hear 
 that sort of thing. But the fool of a peoyi ^ took the 
 letters to the village I'd just left, so it was too late 
 to send you word. And then I had to finish some 
 work. It's a queer go, isn't it? Poor old Marsden! 
 Somehow it makes me laugh." 
 
 Belle sat down helplessly in the low chair by her 
 husband, feeling utterly lost. Was she never to be 
 able even to guess at his moods ? She had imagined 
 that this would be the most bitter of blows, and 
 he found it provocative of laughter. "I'm so glad 
 you take it that way, John," she began, "I was 
 afraid — " 
 
 " Afraid of what ? By the way, he is here, I sup- 
 pose. You haven't sent him elsewhere, or done 
 anything foolish, I hope ? " 
 
 "Why should I send him away? I don't under- 
 stand — " 
 
 "Oh, nothing! Only, — you see, when you have 
 got to keep on the right side of a man it is as well 
 1 Literally, a footman. 
 
iNCSS stuaet's legacy. 293 
 
 not to be too particular. I suppose you have been 
 talking about the money. What did he say ? " 
 
 A slow colour crept into Belle's face. "Not 
 much, — at least, — I don't think we talked about it 
 at all. There were so many other things." 
 
 John Kaby whistled a tune; then he smiled. 
 "Upon my soul, you are sometimes quite incom- 
 prehensible. Belle; but perhaps it is as well. You 
 might have put your foot in it somehow ; and as it 
 is absolutely necessary that the legacy should remain 
 in the business, we must be careful. If we play our 
 cards decently this ridiculous resurrection won't 
 make much difference. You see, Marsden is a gen- 
 tleman. He wouldn't ruin anybody, least of all a 
 woman he — Hullo! what's the matter now? '' 
 
 Her hand gripped his arm almost painfully. 
 "Don't, John, don't! For pity's sake, don't! " 
 
 "Phew! you needn't pinch me black and blue, my 
 dear, for hinting at the truth. You know what 
 Marsden did to save you once. Why shouldn't he 
 do something to save you now? There is no use 
 mincing matters when one is in a corner like this. 
 I mean to have the use of that money, and if we play 
 our cards fairly we shall get it. I mean to have it, 
 and you're bound to help; for, though I don't wish 
 to reproach you, Belle, you must see that you are 
 mainly responsible for the position." 
 
 "T ! " 
 
294 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 "Yes, you. If it hadn't been for your squeamish- 
 ness I should still have been a civilian and able to 
 go back on my tracks. Then again, but for having 
 to quarrel with Shunker for his impudence, I should 
 only have been at half -risks ; he would have had to 
 sink or swim with me, and that would have ensured 
 his advancing more capital. The fact is that luck 
 has been against me all through." 
 
 "What is it 3^ou want me to do?" she asked 
 faintly. "How can I help?" 
 
 " Oh, if you ask in that tragedy-tone it's no use 
 answering. I want you to be sensible, that is all. 
 There really is nothing to make a fuss about. I'll 
 ensure him a fair interest. And his coming back 
 doesn't alter our position; we have been living on 
 his money for the last year." 
 
 " But we thought he was dead — that it was ours. 
 Oh, John, there is a difference! Don't you see he is 
 tied; — that he has no choice, as it were ? " 
 
 "If you mean that Marsden is a gentleman and 
 sees that the predicament is none of our making, 
 then I agree." 
 
 She knelt down beside him, looking into his face 
 with passionate entreaty in hers. " John ! " she said, 
 "I can't make you understand, but if j^ou love me, 
 — ever so little — don't, don't beg of — of this man. 
 Surely we have taken enough! You have some 
 money of your own, — indeed I would rather starve! 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 295 
 
 It would kill me if you took advantage of, — of his 
 kindness." Then, seeing the hopelessness of rous- 
 ing sympathy in him, she buried her face against the 
 arm of his chair with a sob of pain. 
 
 " ril tell you what I do know, Belle," he answered 
 kindly enough. "It was a confounded shame of 
 Marsden to upset your nerves by popping up like a 
 Jack-in-the-box. You're not a bit strong yet. Go 
 and lie down till breakfast-time, and leave me to 
 settle it. Why, you little goose, you don't think 
 I'm going down on my knees to beg of any man I I 
 am only, very wisely, going to take advantage of the 
 natural strength of the position. It isn't as if you 
 had ever cared a button for him, you know." 
 
 Something like a flash of lightning shot down from 
 heaven on poor Belle, shrivelling up all her strength. 
 She crept away to her room, and there, with flaming 
 cheeks, paced up and down wondering why the sky 
 didn't fall on the house and kill every one; every 
 one but Philip. The memory of the night before 
 had come back to fill her with shame and doubt, and 
 yet with a great certainty. When had she felt so 
 happy, so content? When had she talked to John, 
 straight out from her very heart, as she had talked 
 to Philip? What must he have thought? That she 
 had been seeking to please him ; as John called it, try- 
 ing to play her cards well ? No ! he would not think 
 such things; and yet the alternative was even less 
 
296 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 honourable to her. What had possessed her? She, 
 John's wife, who had tried, — who had always tried 
 so hard to be content! How had this inconceivable 
 thing come about? Preposterous! Absurd; it had 
 not come about ; it could not, should not, must not 
 be. Yet, after all, what was the use in denying it? 
 Philip stood far above John in her Pantheon. She 
 had known that for months. But then it was allowa- 
 ble to canonise the dead. AVhy had he come back? 
 Above all, why had he brought his saintship with 
 him ? So the circle of passionate resentment at fate, 
 and still more passionate contempt for herself, went 
 round and round, bringing no conclusion. She 
 would have liked to throw herself on her bed and cry 
 her eyes out; but, trivial yet insuperable barrier to 
 this relief, it was too near breakfast-time for tears, 
 since no one must guess at her trouble. 
 
 So she appeared at the appointed time, and asked 
 Philip if he had slept well, and if he would take tea 
 or coffee ; and no one knew that she was wondering 
 half the time why the sky didn't fall down and crush 
 her for noticing that Philip saw she was pale, that 
 Philip handed her the butter, and Philip looked to 
 her alwaj^s for an opinion. What right had he to do 
 all this when her husband did not? Poor Belle; 
 she had dreamed dreams only to find herself, as she 
 thought, in the most despicable position in which a 
 woman can j)ossibly find herself. She never paused 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 297 
 
 to ask if the verdict of society in its more virtuous 
 moods was trustworthy, and that a woman who dis- 
 covers some other man to be nearer the sun than 
 her husband, must necessarily call her marriage a 
 failure, and so forfeit some measure of her self- 
 respect. Her righteous ignorance simply made her 
 feel, as she looked at the w^ell-laid table, that here 
 were all the elements of a mariage d trois ; an idea 
 hateful to her, and from which, according to what 
 she had been taught, the only escape was flight. Yet 
 how could there be flight if John would not give up 
 the money? And then the thought that the table 
 laid for two last night had been ever so much more 
 pleasant, came to reduce her reasoning powers to 
 pulp. She listened to the story of poor Dick's 
 will, — that will which had led to the present puzzle, 
 — feeling that the half-excuse it gave to John's 
 avarice, was but another rivet in the chain which 
 bound her life to Philip's; for with his kind face 
 before her eyes, and his kind voice in her ears, it 
 was useless denying the tie between them. That 
 was the worst of it; she knew perfectly well that, 
 as he sat there calmly talking to her husband, silence 
 was no protection to her feelings. He knew them, 
 just as she knew of a certainty what his were ; not 
 by any occult power, not by any mysterious affinity, 
 but by the clear-eyed reason which affirms that, 
 given certain conditions and certain ideals, the 
 
298 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 result is also certain. And yet, while she acknowl- 
 edged her confidence in him, something, she knew 
 not what, rebelled against his sympathy; it was an 
 interference, an offence. 
 
 "It is a pity you did not take the will," she said 
 coldly. " It would have saved us all a great deal of 
 annoyance." The patience in his reply made her 
 still more angry. She positively preferred her hus- 
 band's frown, as he suggested with a very different 
 tone in his voice, that if Major Marsden had finished 
 breakfast he should come and talk over details in the 
 ofBce. 
 
 " But I should like your wife — " began Philip. 
 
 "John is much better at business than I am," 
 interrupted Belle. "I don't take much interest in 
 that sort of thing, and, — I would rather not, thank 
 you." 
 
 So the two men whom fate had always placed in 
 such strange antagonism to each other sat amicably 
 arranging the business, while Belle Avandered about 
 from one occupation to another, angry with herself 
 for knowing which of the two had her interest most 
 at heart. 
 
 "It's all settled. Belle! " cried her husband gaily, 
 as they came in to lunch. "Marsden's a trump! 
 but we knew that before, didn't we? You'll never 
 regret it though, Philip, for it is twenty per cent, 
 and no mistake. I say. Belle! we must have a 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 299 
 
 bottle of champagne to drink to the new firm, Mars- 
 den, Raby, and Co." 
 
 He hurried off for the wine, leaving Belle and the 
 Major alone. Marsden, Raby, and Co. ! Horrible, 
 detestable! Nor was the position bettered by Philip's 
 remark that there was no other way out of it at 
 present. Dick's will might turn up, if, as was not 
 unlikely, some one had buried the poor lad; there 
 was no doubt that some one had looked after his 
 effects in the shanties. At all events her husband 
 had arranged to pay back the money, by instalments, 
 so soon as possible. All this only made her reply 
 stiffly, that she was sure John would do his utmost 
 to lessen the risk. 
 
 "I shall leave it in his hands, at any rate," said 
 Philip, who despite his pity and sympathy was 
 human. "I shan't trouble you much with inter- 
 ference. By the way, when does the train leave to- 
 night? I shall have to be going on my way." 
 
 "What's that?" cried John, returning with the 
 champagne. " Going away ? Nonsense ! You must 
 see the new house, your new house for the time 
 being. And then there is the new dam; you must 
 see that as member of the firm, mustn't he, Belle?" 
 
 Her silence roused Philip's old temper. "Yes, 
 I suppose I ought to see it all. Afzul is leaving to- 
 night, as he has business somewhere or other, but I 
 will stop till to-morrow. We might ride over in the 
 
300 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 morning to the house, if you have a horse at my 
 disposal ? " 
 
 " They are all at your disposal," said Belle quickly. 
 "Major Marsden can ride Suleiman, John. I shall 
 not want him." 
 
 They dined in the garden again that evening, but 
 it was a different affair, and the perception that it 
 was so added to Belle's wild rebellion at the posi- 
 tion in which she found, or fancied she found, her- 
 self. When they stood out under the stars again 
 saying good-night, Belle's hand lay in Philip's for 
 an instant while John filled himself a tumbler from 
 the tray in the verandah. Somehow the tragedy of 
 her face proved too much for the humour of the man, 
 who knew himself guiltless of all save a great ten- 
 derness. "I am not going to bite my poor Belle! " 
 he said with a smile half of amusement, half of 
 annoyance. "You needn't call in the aid of the 
 policeman, I assure you." 
 
 She looked at him angrily, but as she turned away 
 there were tears in her eyes. 
 
 He sat on the edge of his bed once more, ponder- 
 ing over the events of the day, but this time there 
 was no doubt in his mind at all. He cared more for 
 Belle's peace than for anything else in the world. 
 He would go away for a while; but he would not 
 give her up ; he would prove to her that there was 
 no need for that. 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 301 
 
 To his surprise she was waiting in the verandah 
 when he came out of his room at daybreak next 
 morning. She looked business-like and self-reliant, 
 as all women do in their riding-habits, and she was 
 fastening a rose at her collar. 
 
 "John's not quite ready," she remarked easily; 
 " but he said we had better go on and he would catch 
 us up. I want to see about the garden. The roses 
 here are mine, and as some of them are quite prett}^, 
 — this one for instance — won't you take it? you 
 can't have seen many roses lately — I intend moving 
 them. By the bye, I've sent out breakfast, so as your 
 train doesn't leave till midnight we can have a jolly 
 day." 
 
 Philip, fastening the rose in his buttonhole, won- 
 dered if the best parlour with all the covers off was 
 not worse than calls on the policeman. Both seemed 
 to him equally unnecessary, but then he had all the 
 advantage in position. He could show his friend- 
 ship in an unmistakable way, while poor Belle had 
 onl}^ the far harder task of receiving benefits. 
 
 "You don't remember Suleiman, my Arab at 
 Faizapore?" she said as they cantered off. "You 
 are riding him now, — oh, don't apologise, the pony 
 does well enough for me ; John gave me such a de- 
 lightful surprise in buying him back after we were 
 married." 
 
 " Got him dirt cheap from a woman who was afraid 
 
302 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 to ride him," remarked John coming up behind 
 cheerfully; and Belle was divided between vexation 
 and pleasure at this depreciation of his own merits. 
 
 "I should think you rode pretty straight as a 
 rule," said Philip, looking at her full in the face. 
 "Many women make the mistake of jagging at a 
 beast's mouth perpetually. If you can trust him, it's 
 far better to leave him alone; don't 3^ou think 
 so?" 
 
 " John, race me to the next kikar tree. It's our 
 last chance, for we shall be among the corn soon. 
 Come!" 
 
 Major Marsden, overtaking them at regulation 
 pace, owned that Belle did ride very straight indeed. 
 Perhaps she was right after all, and the position was 
 untenable. He felt a little disheartened and weary, 
 only his pride remained firm, telling him that he had 
 a perfect right to settle the point as he chose. Surely 
 he might at least rectify his own mistakes. The sun 
 climbed up and up, and even in the cooler, greener 
 river-land beat down fiercely on the stubble where 
 here and there the oxen circled round on the 
 threshing-floors and clouds of chaff, glittering like 
 gold in the light, showed the winnower was at work. 
 John was in his element, pointing out this field 
 promised to indigo, and that village where a vat was 
 to be built. 
 
 "It is getting a little hot for Mrs. Raby to be 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 303 
 
 out," remarked Philip, though he was quite aware it 
 would be an offence. 
 
 "By George, it is late! Look, Belle! there's the 
 house beyond those trees on the promontory. It is 
 three miles round, but if you cut across, so, by the 
 sand, it's only one and a half. Marsden and I Avill 
 go the other way. I have to see a village first, and 
 then we can look at the new dam." 
 
 "It is over yonder, I suppose?" said Philip point- 
 ing to a likely bend in the river bank. 
 
 "Just so." 
 
 "Then I will see Mrs. Raby across the cut, and 
 join 3'ou there." 
 
 "But I can manage quite well by myself," pro- 
 tested Belle. 
 
 "I have no interest in villages, Mrs. Raby; and, 
 — excuse me — before we start your pony's girths 
 require tightening." He slipped from his horse and 
 was at her side before she could reply. 
 
 "Then I'm off," cried John with a faint shrug of 
 his shoulders. "I'll meet you at the corner, Mars- 
 den, in twenty minutes." 
 
 "Steady, lad, steady! " murmured the Major with 
 his head under the flap of the saddle, as Suleiman 
 figeted to join his stable-companion. Belle stand- 
 ing, tapping her boot with her whip, moved forward. 
 "Give me the reins. I don't see why you should do 
 everything." 
 
304 MISS sttjaet's legacy. 
 
 Philip came uj) from the girths smiling, and began 
 on the curb. 
 
 " What a fidget you are ! I'm glad John isn't like 
 that." 
 
 " Curbs and girths mean more than you suppose. 
 There ! now you can go neck-and-crop at everything, 
 and I won't say you nay. Steady, lad, stead}^! 
 One, two, three — are you all right? " 
 
 "Thank you, I think I have the proper number 
 of hands and feet, and so far as I know my head 
 is on my shoulders," replied Belle tartly. 
 
 They dipped down a bit from the fields to a slug- 
 gish stream edging the higher land, and then scam- 
 pered across the muddy flats towards the promontory 
 which lay right at the other side of the bend. 
 
 "Pull up please!" cried Philip. "That strip 
 looks quick. ^^ 
 
 " Nonsense ! John comes this way every week ; it's 
 all right." Belle gave her pony a cut, making it 
 forge ahead ; but it was no match for Suleiman who, 
 unaccustomed to the spur, bounded past her. 
 
 "Pull up, please; don't be foolish, pull up!" 
 Philip shouted, hearing the ominous cloop of his 
 horse's feet. Another dig of the spur, a leap, a 
 flounder, and Suleiman was over the creek. Not 
 so Belle's pony; slower, heavier, it was hopelessly 
 bogged in a second, and floundering about, sank 
 deeper and deeper. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 305 
 
 "Throw yourself off!" cried Philip; "as far as 
 you can, — arms flat! So, — quite still, please. 
 There is no clanger. I can get at you easily, and 
 it is not deep." A minute after his hand closed on 
 her wrist as she lay sinking slowly despite her still- 
 ness; for the pony, relieved of her weight, was 
 plunging like a mad thing and churning up the sand 
 and water to slush. "I must get a purchase first; 
 these sands hold like birdlime; " he said after an in- 
 effectual attempt. "Don't be frightened if I let go 
 for a moment." Then with one hand through Sulei- 
 man's stirrup he knelt once more on the extreme 
 edge of the firm ground and got a grip of Belle 
 again. "Now then, — all together!" More all to- 
 gether than he desired, for Suleiman, alarmed at the 
 strain, backed violently, reared, and finally broke 
 away, leaving Philip prone on his back in the dirt. 
 "I hope I didn't hurt you," he said, struggling up, 
 rather blindly, to aid Belle's final flounder to safe 
 ground. 
 
 "Not much," she replied with a nervous laugh as 
 she shook the curiously dry sand from her habit. 
 " My wrist will be a bit black and blue, that's all. 
 Why, Philip, what's the matter? Philip! " 
 
 He had doubled up limply, horribly, as if he had 
 been shot, and lay in a heap at her feet. 
 
 "Philip! What is it?" 
 
 As she slipped her arm beneath him to raise his 
 
306 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 head, something warm and wet trickled over it, — 
 blood! 
 
 "The wound," he murmured. "My handker- 
 chief, — anything, — I am sorry.'' Then the pain 
 died out of his face and his head felt heavy on her arm. 
 
 The wound ! She sought for it by the aid of that 
 ghastly trickle only to find, when she tore the cov- 
 erings away, that it was no trickle, but an intermit- 
 tent gushing. That must be stopped somehow, — her 
 handkerchief, his handkerchief, her own little white 
 hands. It had all passed so quickly that it seemed 
 but a minute since he had cried " Pull up," and there 
 she was with his head on her knee, face downwards, 
 and the warm blood soaking over her. People make 
 long stories afterwards of such scenes; but as a 
 matter of fact they derive all their horror from their 
 awful swiftness. 
 
 Belle, bareheaded in the sunlight, was full of one 
 frantic desire to see the face hidden away in her 
 habit. Was he dead? Was that the reason why 
 the blood oozed slower and slower? She craned 
 over his close-cropped hair only to see the outline of 
 his cheek. "Philip, Philip! " she whispered in his 
 ear; but there was no answer. Was it five minutes, 
 was it ten, was it an hour since she had sat there 
 with her hands — ? Ah, ghastly, ghastly ! She 
 could not look at them ; and yet for no temptation 
 in the world would she have moved a finger, lest he 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 307 
 
 was not dead and she, — oh, blessed thought! — was 
 staving death aside. 
 
 A shout behind, and her husband tearing down 
 at a mad gallop, alarmed at the return of the rider- 
 less horse. "Good God! Belle! what has hap- 
 pened?" 
 
 "Look, and tell me if he is dead," she said. 
 "Quick! I want to know^, — I want to know! " 
 
 He was not dead, and yet the bleeding had 
 stopped. Then they must get him home; get him 
 somewhere as best they could. A string bed was 
 brought from the nearest village, with relays of 
 willing yet placid bearers; Belle walked beside it, 
 in Philip's helmet, for her own hat had been lost in 
 the quicksand, keej)ing her hand on the rough ban- 
 dages while John raced ahead to set the doors open. 
 It was dreary crossing the threshold of the new 
 house, with the jostling, shuffling footsteps of those 
 who carry something that is death's or will be death's. 
 But there was a light in Belle's eyes, and even her 
 husband, accustomed as he was to her even nerves, 
 wondered at her calm decision. Since they must 
 procure a doctor as quickly as possible, the best plan 
 would be for John to ride across country to a sta- 
 tion where the afternoon mail stopped. To return 
 to Saudaghur and a mere hospital assistant would 
 be needless delay. She did not mind, she said, 
 being left alone ; and meauAvhile they must send for 
 
308 
 
 a supply of necessaries since it was evident that 
 Philip could not be moved, at any rate for a day or 
 two. So Belle sat in the big empty room, which 
 by and by was to be hers, and watched alone by the 
 unconscious man, feeling that it was her turn now. 
 It was a vigil not to be forgotten. And once as she 
 raised his head on her arm in order to moisten his 
 lips with the stimulant which alone seemed to keep 
 life in him, he stirred slightly, his eyes opened for a 
 second, and a faint murmur reached her ear, "No 
 need for a policeman." 
 
 A smile, pathetic in its absolute self-surrender, 
 came to her face as she stooped and kissed him with 
 the passion of protection and possession which a 
 mother has for her helpless child ; and that is a love 
 Avhich casts out fear. As she crouched once more 
 beside the coarse pallet where he lay, for the room 
 was destitute of all furniture save the string woven 
 bed, Belle Raby, for the first time in her life, faced 
 facts undistorted by her own ideals, and judged 
 things as they were, not as they ought to be. She 
 loved this man ; but what was that love ? Was it a 
 thing to be spoken of with bated breath just be- 
 cause the object happened to be a person whom, all 
 things consenting, one might have married? Her 
 nature was healthy and unselfish ; her knowledge of 
 the " devastating passion " which is said to devour 
 humanity was derived entirely from a pious but un- 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 309 
 
 reasoning belief in what she was told. It is not the 
 fashion nowadays to say so, bnt that is really the 
 position in which a vast majority of women find 
 themselves in regard to many social problems. And 
 so, in that drear}", shadowy room, with the man she 
 loved dependent on her care for his sole chance of 
 life. Belle Raby asked herself wherein lay the sin 
 or shame of such a love as hers, and found no 
 answer. 
 
 And yet, when her husband returned with the 
 doctor, he brought back with him also the old famil- 
 iar sense that something, she knew not what, was 
 wrong. The old resentment, born of the old beliefs, 
 at the odious position in which she found herself. 
 But now she tried to set these thoughts aside as 
 unworthy, unworth}" of her own self, above all un- 
 worthy of Philip. 
 
310 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Afzul Khan was sitting in Shunker Das's house 
 at Faizapore with a frown upon his face. He had 
 come all the way in order to consult Mahomed 
 Lateef, the old Syyed, about a certain blue envelope 
 which was hidden away in his posteen^ only to find 
 that the old man had retreated before his enemies to 
 his last foothold of land, while the usurer had en- 
 larged his borders at the expense of the ruined old 
 chief's ruined house. 
 
 Now Mahomed Lateef was Afzul Khan's patron. 
 In this way. The latter was foster-brother to that 
 dead son who had died gloriously in the regiment, 
 and who had been born at an outpost on the frontier. 
 Indeed, but for the old man, Afzul would never 
 have put the yoke of service round his neck. So 
 his frown was not only on account of his useless 
 journey; much of it was anger at his old friend's 
 misfortunes, and those who had taken advantage of 
 them. It angered him to see a blue monkey painted 
 on the wall in front of which the staunch Moham- 
 medan used to say his prayers ; it angered him still 
 more to see the rows of cooking-pots where there 
 used to be but one. Yet business Avas business, and 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 311 
 
 Shunker might be able to tell liim what had become 
 of the Commissariat-Colonel sahib's daughter; for 
 Afziil had had the address of the letter spelt out for 
 him by a self-satisfied little schoolboy at Kohat, and 
 knew enough of poor Dick's family history to suppose 
 that Belle Stuart must be his cousin. 
 
 "Estuart sahib's daughter," echoed Shunker, a 
 sullen scowl settling on his face ; as it always did at 
 the memory of his wrongs. "Why she married that 
 shaitan Raby wdio lives at Saudaghur now, because 
 he was turned out of the service. Wah ! a fine pair, 
 and a fine tale. She had a lover, Marsden of a Sikh 
 regiment, who paid for her with lakhs on lakhs. 
 Then, when he was killed, she took the money and 
 married Raby. Scum! and they talk about our 
 women, bah! " 
 
 This was not all malice and uncharitableness on 
 the usurer's part; for it must be remembered that, if 
 we know very little of Indian social life, the natives 
 know still less of ours; the result being, on both 
 sides, the explanation of strange phenomena by our 
 own familiar experience ; and this is not, as a rule, a 
 safe guide in conditions of which we know nothing. 
 
 Afzul gave a guttural snort, startling but expres- 
 sive. "She married Raby! Truly it is said 'The 
 journeyings of fools are best not made.' And Mars- 
 den sahib — long life to him! — was her lover! 
 Inshallah! she might have found a worse." 
 
312 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 "Before the worms got liim," chuckled Shunker; 
 "and then his money was worth another fine man. 
 That is woman's way, white or black." 
 
 "Raby sahib's mem^^' repeated Afzul medita- 
 tively. "There thou speakest truth, O Shunker. 
 He is with her now." The memory of those two, 
 standing together hand in hand, came to him and 
 he nodded his head approvingly, for the thought that 
 Belle's allegiance might return to its original object 
 commended itself to his mind; his view of the sub- 
 ject not being occidental. 
 
 "Who is with her now?" asked Shunker with a 
 stare. 
 
 "Marsden saliih. Hast not heard he hath come 
 back to life?" 
 
 The usurer's eyes almost started from his head. 
 "Come back! " he shrieked. "He is not dead! Oh 
 holy Lukshmi I what offerings to thy shrine ! Why, 
 the shaitmi will lose the money; he will have to give 
 up the business ; and I — oh Gunesh-yz / I am re- 
 venged, I am revenged!" He lay back on his bed 
 gasping, gurgling, choking with spiteful laughter 
 and real passionate delight. 
 
 The Pathan scowled. His knowledge of English 
 law was limited, and he objected to laughter at 
 Marsden sahib's expense. "If he gave it to the oiiem 
 for what he got, as thou sayest, Shunker, Marsden 
 sahib will never ask it back. He will take the 
 woman instead; that is but fair." 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 313 
 
 "Thou dost not understand their crooked ways," 
 gasped Shunker; "and 'tis waste of time to explain. 
 So Marsden sahih is alive again; that is news in- 
 deed! Hurri G-ungal I must go down to Sauda- 
 ghur and felicitate the shaitan on his friend's return. 
 He! he! on his friend's return! " 
 
 Afzul felt the longing of the frontiersman to stick 
 a knife in a fat Hindu stomach, but he refrained. 
 The blue envelope was going to be a heavier re- 
 sponsibility than he had thought for, and till that 
 was settled he must not wander into by-ways. No 
 matter how the pig-faced idolater had lied in other 
 things, it was true, about the 77iem and the Major, 
 he had seen that with his own eyes. Had Dick sahih 
 been her lover too ? And what did both those brave 
 ones see in such a poor, thin creature ? Truly the 
 ways of the sahih-logue were past finding out. 
 Nevertheless he would seek out the old Khan, and 
 see what he said. Shunker might be lying, all 
 except that about the mem-sahib and the Major; that 
 was true. 
 
 It was well on to noon when Afzul, after many 
 hours of varied travelling by train, by canal, and 
 finallj^ on foot, found himself in Mahomed Lateef's 
 last few acres of land. Of a surety they were not 
 ones to be voluntarily chosen as a resting-place; 
 bare of everything save the sparse stalks of last 3'ear's 
 millet crop, showing all too clearlj^ how scanty that 
 
314 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 crop had been; bare to the very walls of the half- 
 ruinecl tower which stood supported on one side by 
 the mud hovel occupied by the owner. A signifi- 
 cant fact, that bareness, showing the lack of flocks 
 and herds, the lack of everything that was not 
 wanted for immediate use. And as he stood at the 
 open door of the yard, it also showed clean-swept 
 and garnished, dire sign of the poverty which allows 
 nothing to go to waste. Yet it was not empty of 
 all, for as the Pathan knocked again, a child, bub- 
 bling over with laughter, ran from a dark door into 
 the sunlight. 
 
 "Nana, Nana! [grand-dad] catch, catch! " it cried, 
 and its little legs, unsteady though they were, kept 
 their advantage on the long ones behind, long but 
 old; crippled too with rheumatism and want of food 
 to keep the stern old heart in fighting order; yet 
 bubbling over with laughter, also, was the stern old 
 face. "Catch thee, gazelle of the desert! fleetest 
 son of Byramghor! Who could catch thee? Ah, 
 God and his Prophet! thou hast not hurt thyself, 
 little heart of my heart ! What, no tears ? F^tma, 
 Fatma ! the boy hath fallen and on my life he hath 
 not shed a tear. Ai, the bold heart! a/, the brave 
 man!" 
 
 An old woman, bent almost double with age, crept 
 from the door. She kissed the child's feet as it sat 
 throned in its grandfather's arms. Her lips could 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 315 
 
 reach no higher, but that was high enough for wor- 
 ship. "He never cries! None of them cried, and 
 he is like them all," she crooned. "Dost have a 
 mind. Khan saJiih^ of Futteh Mahomed falling? — 
 the first, and I so frightened. There was a scratch 
 a fin O'er long* on his knee and — " 
 
 o o 
 
 " Peace, Fatma, and go back ! There is a stranger 
 at the door. Go back, I say! " 
 
 It was a difficult task to draw the veil over those 
 bent shoulders, but the old woman's wrinkled hands 
 did their best as she scurried away obediently. 
 
 ^^ Salaam Alaikoo^n T^ said the Pathan. "The 
 mother may return. It is I, Afzul, brother of the 
 breast." 
 
 "Afzul!" The old martinet's face grew dark. 
 " The only Afzul I knew was a runaway and a de- 
 serter. Art thou he ? " 
 
 "Ay! Khan sa7ii5," replied the man calmly. "I 
 ran away because I had sold my life to Marsden 
 sahih^ and I wanted to buy it back again. I have 
 done it, and I am free." 
 
 "Marsden sahib! 'Tis long since I heard that 
 name. Allah be with the brave! Pity there was 
 none to stand between him and death as on that day 
 when my son died." 
 
 "Thou liest. Khan saJiib. I stood in my brother's 
 place. Marsden sahib is not dead. I left him 
 three days ago at Saudaghur." 
 
316 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 "Not dead? This is a tale! A prisoner no doubt. 
 Inshallah! my blood scents something worth words. 
 Here, Fatma, take the child; or, stay, it's best he 
 should hear too. Such things sink through the skin 
 and strengthen the heart. And bring food, woman, 
 what thou hast, and no excuses. A brave man 
 stomachs all save insult." 
 
 So, with the child on his knee, the old soldier 
 listened to Afzul Khan's story, while in the dark 
 room beyond the women positively shed tears of 
 shame over the poor appearance which the plain 
 hajra^^ cakes, unsweetened, unbuttered, presented 
 on the big brass platter. 
 
 " There is the boy's curdled milk," suggested his 
 sad-faced mother. "He will not mind for a day." 
 
 "Peace, unnatural!" scolded the grandmother. 
 "The boy's milk, forsooth! What next? Women 
 nowadays have no heart. A strange man, and the 
 boy's milk forsooth! " 
 
 Haiyat hihi blushed under her brown skin. Hers 
 was a hard life with her husband far over the black 
 water, and this stern old man and woman for gaol- 
 ers. But the boy was hers; she hugged that knowl- 
 edge to her heart and it comforted her. 
 
 The evening drew in, the child dozed off to sleep, 
 but not one jot or tittle of adventure was to be passed 
 over in silence. ^''Inshallah! but thou didst well! " 
 1 Small millet ; the food of the poorest. 
 
MISS stuabt's legacy. 317 
 
 "God send the traitors to hell!" "Ay! Marsden 
 sahih was ever the bravest of the brave ! " These and 
 many another exclamation testified to the old cam- 
 paigner's keen interest. But when Afzul began 
 tentatively to question him about the blue envelope, 
 the light died from the hollow eyes. Raby sahih? 
 Nay, he knew nought, save that the people said it 
 was the mem-sahih' s money he was spending in this 
 new talk of indigo and what not. He wished them 
 no ill, but Murghub Ahmad, far away in the Anda- 
 mans, had saved the mem from insult, — perhaps 
 worse — and she had given evidence against him in 
 the trial. He wished no man ill, but if what the 
 people said was true, and Raby sahib's new dam 
 would prevent the river from doing its duty, then it 
 would be a different matter. Ay! the new factory 
 was but ten miles up the river, but no one lived there 
 as yet. 
 
 Now the matter of the blue envelope became more 
 and more oppressive to Afzul Kh^n the more he 
 thought of it. Easy enough to send it anonymously 
 to Raby sahib's mem, and so be quit of it once for 
 all; but what if she had taken the Major's money, 
 as Shunker asserted, in order to buy a new husband? 
 And what if this paper of Eshmitt sahib's meant 
 more loot? Afzul was, all unconsciously, jealous of 
 this white-faced mem, and but for a strange sort of 
 loyalty to the boy he had betrayed would have liked 
 
318 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 to put the letter in the fire, shake himself loose of 
 all ties, and return to his people. 
 
 "Nay! thou askest more than I have to give," re- 
 plied Mahomed Lateef to his questioning. " I know 
 'tis on paper they leave their moneys, for, as I said, 
 the Colonel sahih once asked me — 'twas in China, 
 during the war — to set my name as witness to 
 something." 
 
 "Was it long-shaped, in a blue cover?" asked 
 Afzul, eagerly. 
 
 "There was no cover, but it was long, like the 
 summons from the courts. Stay! if tl\y mind be 
 really set on such knowledge there is a friend of my 
 poor Murghub's — one who pleads in the courts — 
 even now resting in his father's village but a space 
 from here. He must know more than thou canst 
 want to hear." 
 
 So in the cool of the next morning Afzul walked 
 through the barren fields to see the pleader. A 
 keen-faced sallow young man, seemingly glad to 
 escape for the time from patent-leather boots and 
 such like products of civilisation. The Pathan 
 found him squatting over against a hookah and bask- 
 ing in the sunshine like the veriest villager. For 
 all that he was fulfilled with strange knowledge of 
 law and order as administered by the alien, and 
 Afzul sat open-ej^ed while he discoursed of lega- 
 cies, and settlements, of the feme covert and the 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 319 
 
 Married Women's Property Act, with a side glance 
 at divorces and permanent alimony — strange topics 
 to be gravely discussed at the gateway of an Indian 
 village through which men were carried to their rest 
 and women to their bridal beds, with scant appeal 
 to anything but custom. It utterly confused Afzul, 
 though it sent him away convinced that the blue 
 envelope must mean the loot of another lover to the 
 mem-saJiih. 
 
 "I will wait,'' he said to himself decisively; "yes, 
 I will wait until she is faithful and goes back to the 
 Major; then, as that pleader fellow says, he will 
 get the money. But if he leaves her and takes his 
 money instead, then I will send her the envelope. 
 That is but fair. God and his Prophet! but their 
 Avays are confusing. 'Tis better to steal and fight 
 as we do; it makes the women faithful." 
 
 That evening he spent half an hour with a needle 
 and thread, borrowed from old Fatma, in sewing the 
 blue envelope safely into his skin-coat. Then he 
 sat once more stirring the old Mohammedan's blood 
 with tales of fight and adventure till far on into the 
 night. Yet the earliest blink of dawn found him 
 creeping away from the still sleeping household, 
 and his right arm bare of a massive gold bracelet he 
 had worn for years. That he had left lying on the 
 baby's pillow; for was not the child the son of his 
 brother? Had not his father saved Marsden sahih 
 
320 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 also? Ah! that score was not paid off yet. He 
 still seemed to see the tall figure standing in the 
 sunlight. Fool that he had been not to fire, instead 
 of giving himself away at a mere word ! Even now, 
 though he knew that but for him Philip Marsden's 
 bones would have been churning in a dreary dance 
 of death at the bottom of some boiling pool in the 
 Terwan torrent, he felt the bitterness of defeat. His 
 very admiration, growing as it did with the other's 
 display of pluck, added to his resentment. To take 
 an order from a man when you had your finger on 
 the trigger of your rifle! It Avas all very well to 
 save a wounded comrade, to stand by him through 
 thick and thin, but that did not show him, or con- 
 vince yourself, that you cared as little for his menace 
 as he had done for yours. Some day, yes, some day! 
 he would stand up before Marsden sahih and defy 
 him. Then he could cry quits, and go home to his 
 own people in peace. 
 
 Nevertheless, the news of his master's accident 
 which met him on his return to Saudaghur sent him 
 without an instant's pause to. the factory where 
 Philip still lay unconscious. And when he walked, 
 at the dead of night, into the big bare room where 
 Belle sat watching, his face softened at the sight of 
 that dark head on the pillow. It softened still more 
 when something of the past — Heaven knows what 
 — seemed to come with him, rousing a low, quick 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 321 
 
 voice from tlie bed. " Afzul, it is cold ; put on more 
 fuel. Do you not feel the cold? Afzul, Afzul!" 
 For that something had carried Philip Marsden back 
 to the smoky cave among the snows, although the 
 windows stood wide open to let in the tardy cool- 
 ness of the summer night. 
 
 The Pathan drew himself together and stood at 
 attention. ^^Huzoor!'' he answered quietly. "It 
 is done; the tire blazes." 
 
 Belle in the half-shadows thrown by the sheltered 
 lamp stood up looking kindly at the new-comer. 
 "I'm glad you have come, Afzul," she whispered; 
 "he has been calling for you so often." 
 
 Behind his military salute the man smiled approv- 
 ingly. She was of the right sort, faithful to the old 
 love. Marsden sahih should marry her and get the 
 money, if that was the way they managed things 
 over the black water. And this solution of the 
 question grew upon him as he watched her unfail- 
 ing devotion when, between them, they helped the 
 sick man through the drear}' trouble which w^as all 
 too familiar to the Pathan. " It was so in the cave," 
 he would say, as time dragged on through days when 
 the sick man lay still and silent, through nights 
 when the quick hurried words never seemed to leave 
 his lips and it was all they could do to keep on the 
 bandages. 
 
 " It's the bullet in the shoulder blade that's troub- 
 
 Y 
 
322 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 liii' liim," said the clever little Irish doctor, who 
 rode forty miles every day between two trains in 
 order to see his patient and keep an eye on his hos- 
 pital. "Put three more days' strength into him, 
 Mrs. Raby, and I'll bring over another man and we'll 
 have at it somehow. The wound has niver haled, 
 and niver will till it gets a fair chance." 
 
 Shortly after this Belle found herself pacing up 
 and down the verandah, scarcely daring to think of 
 what was going on within. Would he die ? Was 
 this really the end? Was it to be peace at last, and 
 no more struggle? And lo and behold! when the 
 doctors let her into the room again he was lying with 
 a smile on his face, because the pain, the ceaseless 
 pain which had annihilated everything else in the 
 world, was gone. 
 
 "I've given you a lot of trouble," he said; and 
 even as he spoke fell asleep from sheer, blessed ease. 
 
 After that again came a time when even Afzul 
 stood aside and let the mem take the lead while he sat 
 watching her curiously — a time when it positively 
 seemed more to her that Philip should take so many 
 spoonfuls of nourishment every hour than that he 
 should get better; when the content of immediate 
 success blotted out the thought of future failure, and 
 the fear of death was forgotten in the desire of stav- 
 ing it off. Most people who have nursed a case in 
 which even the doctors stay their hands and wait on 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 323 
 
 Nature, know that strange dream-like life wherein 
 the peaks and passes on the temperature chart seem 
 by contraries to raise or depress the whole world. 
 Belle fought the fight bravely; and not until she 
 stood one day looking at a thermometer which regis- 
 tered normal did she feel a sinking at her heart. 
 They had come down into the low levels of life; 
 they were back in the work-day world. Yet it was 
 not the one they had left six weeks before. Even 
 outwardly it had changed. The last green blade of 
 grass had withered to a brown shadow on the sun- 
 baked soil, and the dust-storms of ]\Iay swept over 
 the half- finished house. 
 
 " It looks dreary enough now, but just you wait 
 till next year," said John Raby, in his cheerful con- 
 fident way. '' The new dam will be finished, I hope, 
 the water will come in at high level to the garden, 
 the place will be a paradise of flowers, and we shall 
 be dividing thirty per cent, profit! There's a pros- 
 pect! Oh, by the way, did I ever tell you that beast 
 Shunker Das came down just after you did, Marsden, 
 expecting to find me on my back like a turned 
 turtle ? His face, when he saw^ I was joll}^ as a sand- 
 boy, was a caution ! By George ! that man does hate 
 me and no mistake." 
 
 Belle moved a step nearer her husband and laid 
 her hand on the back of his easy-chair. Perhaps it 
 was only his good-nature in leaving her free to nurse 
 
324 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 Philip, but somehow she felt they had drifted far 
 apart during the past six weeks. "I seem to have 
 heard nothing," she began, wistfully. 
 
 "Better employed on the head of the firm, my 
 dear," he replied with a laugh. " You do her credit, 
 Marsden. And now I must be off again, for there 
 is some idiotic fuss at a village a few miles off. 
 Shunker's work, I expect; but we are too strong for 
 him. Even the native recognises the almighty dol- 
 lar, and if they will onl}^ have patience, I'll engage 
 to treble the revenue of this district. Well, good- 
 bye, Belle. I'll be back to-morrow or next day. 
 Soon as I can 'get,' as the Americans say. Take 
 care of yourselves." 
 
 When he had gone tlie punkali went on swinging, 
 Belle's hands knitted busily, Philip's lay idle in the 
 languor of convalescence ; all was as before, and yet 
 there Avas a difference — a difference of which each 
 was conscious, and which brought a certain restraint. 
 
 "Why does Shunker hate him?" asked Major 
 Marsden. 
 
 There was no lack of confidence now between 
 these two, and if he asked many questions, she was 
 quite ready to answer them faithfully, according to 
 her lights. In this one, however, she failed to give 
 a just impression, for the simple reason that she her- 
 self had no conception of the extent of the usurer's 
 malice. In fact, his impotent rage on discovering 
 
MISS STUART S LEGACY. 325 
 
 that Philip's return had apparently made no differ- 
 ence to the Rabys would have been incredible to an 
 educated Englishwoman, had she been aware of it, 
 which she was not. The man, coming down to Sau- 
 daghur expectant of consternation, had found noth- 
 ing but a stir of fresh enterprise which his keen 
 business eye told him meant mone}^ He wandered 
 about from village to village, noting the golden seed 
 being sown by his adversary, until the thought of 
 the harvest in which he would have no share posi- 
 tively worried him into spleen and ague. And as 
 he lay among the simple village folk a fresh idea for 
 revenge came to console him. It is never hard to 
 change the stolid opposition of the Indian peasant 
 into stolid obstruction. No overt injustice is re- 
 quired ; nothing but a disregard of custom. And so 
 Shunker, taking advantage of the short period dur- 
 ing which he had been associated in partnership with 
 John Raby, began cautiously to call in debts in the 
 name of the firm. Now in an Indian village a debt 
 to the ancestral usurer is a debt; that is to say no 
 flighty ephemeral liability which may crop up at any 
 time claiming payment, but a good, solid inheritance 
 going back sometimes a generation or two; a patent 
 almost of solvency, a claim certainly for considera- 
 tion at the hands of your banker; since a bumper 
 crop might any day give you the upper-hand, or a 
 bad one make it still more unwise for the creditor to 
 
326 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 present his bill. Thus, when Shunker disregarded 
 time-worn prejudices to the extent of asking one 
 Peru, an old-established customer, to make a settle- 
 ment, the latter looked as if the foundations of the 
 round world had been moved. 
 
 "Pay," he said slowly, his broad nostrils inflated 
 like those of a horse shying at novelty, " I am always 
 paying, huniah-ji^ year by 3'ear, one harvest or 
 another. God knows how much, but 'tis the old 
 way, and old ways are good." 
 
 "They are good," sighed the usurer, piously. "I 
 like them myself, Peru ; but new masters have new 
 Avays." 
 
 "New masters do not make new land," retorted 
 the peasant shrewdly enough. "That remains the 
 same. It must be sown ; yet when I ask the seed- 
 grain, as my fathers have done, the answer is ''Pay ! ' 
 Pay! of course I will pay when the crops ripen. 
 Does not harvest mean payment to the peasant?" 
 
 "Your crops won't lipen long on those fields, I'm 
 afraid, my poor Peru ! The sahih wants land, here, 
 everywhere, for tliis new factory of his. The men 
 who will not pay will see what befalls. A little will 
 go this year, a little more next. If I were alone 
 'twould be a different matter, for I was ever faithful 
 to my friends." 
 
 Shunker' s air of virtuous distress was admirable, 
 but Peru laughed; the rough peasant laugh full of 
 
MISS stuafvT's legacy. 327 
 
 broad toleration. "As vermin to the Pathan, so are 
 the grain-dealers to the farmer! We warm you, and 
 you feed on us till you grow troublesome, then — 
 off goes the coat! One hwiiah is like another; why 
 then dost change ? " 
 
 "I change not, dunderhead!" cried Shunker en- 
 raged at a certain slow superiority in the other. 
 '"Tis Raby saliih claims pa3^ment." 
 
 " Then tell Raby saliih I will pay when the river 
 comes. It will come this year perhaps, if not, next 
 3^ear; if luck be bad, it ma}^ tarry twain, not longer. 
 It comes ever sooner or later; then, let us talk of 
 payment." 
 
 Shunker leaned forward, his evil face kindling 
 with malice. "But what, Peru, if the river never 
 returns? What if Raby sahib's new dam is built to 
 prevent the water coming, so that he may have a 
 grip on the land? What if the seed-grain thou 
 sowest springs green, to die 3'ellow, year after 
 year?" 
 
 Pera Ditta's ox-eyes opened helplessly. What if 
 the river never returned? The idea was too vast 
 for him, and yet it remained with him long after 
 Shunker had gone to sow the same seed of mischief 
 in other minds. He did it deftly, taking care not 
 to turn the screw too tightly at first, lest he should 
 bring down on himself the villagers' final argument 
 of the stick. The reason given by the Laird of 
 
328 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 Inverawe for hanging the Laird of Inverie, '' that he 
 just didna like him," has been given before now as 
 fair cause for doing an unfortunate usurer to death 
 with quarterstaves. So Shunker did not disturb 
 primeval calm too rudely. Nevertheless as he paused 
 for a night ere returning to Faizapore, in the empty 
 house at Saudaghur, where Kirpo had passed the 
 months of Ramu's captivity, he felt content with his 
 labours. He had started a stone of unpopularity on 
 its travels, which by and by would bring down an 
 avalanche on his enemy. 
 
 As he lounged on the string bed, set for cool- 
 ness on the flat roof, he told himself, not without 
 a measure of truth, that sooner or later all his 
 enemies perished. Ah, if it were only as easy to 
 keep those you loved in life, as it was to drive those 
 you hated down to death! But it was not; and 
 the thought of frail, sickly Nuttu came, as it often 
 did, to take the savour even from revenge. The 
 memory of deserted Kirpo's sons, — those strapping 
 youngsters whom he had often seen playing on that 
 very roof — made him groan and roll over on his 
 fat stomach to consider the possibility of marrying 
 yet another wife. He had married so man)^ only to 
 find disappointment! As his face came back, dis- 
 heartened, to the unsympathetic stars which fought 
 against him, he started as if he had been shot. For 
 there was Kirpo herself tall and menacing standing 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 329 
 
 beside the bed. The veil wrapped tightly round her 
 bod}^ left her disfigured death's-head face visible. 
 
 "Don't be more of a coward than need be," she 
 said scornfully, as the Lala, after shooting up like a 
 Jack-in-the-box, began to sidle away from her, his 
 dangling legs swinging wildly in his efforts to move 
 his fat form. "I've not come to beat the breath from 
 thy carcase. 'Twill die soon enough, never fear; 
 and just now there is a son to perform the obsequies. 
 There won't be one by and by." 
 
 The indifference of her voice, and the aptness of 
 her words to his own thoughts, roused the Lala's 
 rage. " What dost want, hag of a noseless one?" 
 he shrieked, "she-devil I base-born I — " 
 
 "Not bad words, Lala," she interrupted calmly. 
 "I've had enough of them. T want money. I'm 
 starving; thou knowest it. What else could I be?" 
 
 "Starving!" The word rolled sweeter than any 
 honey under Shunker's tongue. " Then starve awa}' . 
 So thou thouo^htest to trick me — me I How didst 
 like the bangles, Kirpo dear? the brave bangles, — 
 he, — he! " 
 
 To his surprise the allusion failed to touch her. 
 Instead of breaking into abuse she looked at him 
 curiously, drew her veil so as to hide all but her 
 great dark eyes, and squatted down, as if for a chat, 
 on the ground opposite to him. 
 
 "Look here, Lala! " she said. " This is no matter 
 
330 MISS stuap.t's legacy. 
 
 for ill words; 'tis business. What is past, is past. 
 I'm going to give thee a chance for the future — a 
 last chance! Dost hear? So I've come to say I am 
 starving. For six months I paid for my food in this 
 very place; paid for it in thy pleasure. Fair and 
 square so far. But now, because of that pleasure, 
 Ramu is in jail again and I am noseless. Then 
 Ramu's people have taken his sons, — hai! hail his 
 beautiful sons — from me because of that pleasure. 
 Is not that payment enough, Liila? Shall I starve 
 also?" 
 
 "Why not?" chuckled Shunker, "I have no need 
 of thee any more." 
 
 Kirpo leaned forward with hand raised in warning, 
 her fierce eyes on his face. "Have a care, Lrda,! 
 Have a care! It is the last chance. Thou dost not 
 want me ; good. I asked for naught to be taken ; I 
 asked for something to be given." 
 
 "Not a paisa^ not a paif' broke in the usurer 
 brutally. "I'm glad of thy starvation; I'm glad 
 they've taken away thy sons." 
 
 "Stop, Lala! " shrieked Kirpo, her calm gone, her 
 voice ringing with passion. " I did not say my sons ! 
 I said Ramu's! Look, Shunker, look! I have an- 
 other, — " as she spoke, she tore her veil aside — 
 "in my arms, Lala! Is he not fair and strong for a 
 two months' babe? Would 5'ou not like to have 
 him? No, no, hands off, no touching^! He is mine. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 331 
 
 I say, mine, mine! " She sprang to her feet hokling 
 the baby high above his head exultantly. He sat 
 staring at it, and trembled like a leaf. 
 
 "Kirpo!" he gasped, ''give it to me; by all the 
 Gods in Heaven, I will pay — "' 
 
 A peal of mocking laughter greeted the words. 
 "Bah! Now I have roused thee. 'Tis all a lie, 
 Shunker, all a lie ! Only a trick of starving Kirpo 's ! 
 And yet, somehow he favours thee as thou mightest 
 have been before the grease came to spoil beauty. 
 For all that not like Nuttu, the sickly one. Nuttu 
 will die, this one will live. Wilt thou not, heart's 
 darling and delight?" She covered the babe with 
 a storm of passionate kisses. 
 
 "Kirpo! by all the torments of hell — " urged 
 Shunker. 
 
 "What! art there already? Not so fast, Lrila! 
 not so fast. Wait till I bring this babe to curse thy 
 pyre, to spit on thy ashes, — thy son — thy son! " 
 
 "It is a lie!" burst in the wretched man, beside 
 himself with doubt, certainty, and desire. "He is 
 not mine." 
 
 "Well said, Shunker, well said!" laughed Kirpo 
 triumphantly, growing calmer with her evident suc- 
 cess. "He is not thine, he is mine." She folded 
 her veil round the sleeping child with a flourish, as 
 if to emphasise her words, and stepped backwards. 
 As she stood there sombre, malignant, the winged 
 
332 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 thoughts flew through Shunker's braiu. There is, 
 strictly speaking, no possible divorce, no remarriage 
 for the Hindu; but if Ramu could be got out of 
 the way, he, Shunker Das, might pose as a social 
 reformer. It was a fine idea. Or he might, — a 
 thousand suggestions found expression in the covet- 
 ous hands he stretched towards his victim. " Kirpo, 
 listen!" 
 
 "I will not listen. I gave the chance for the 
 cliild's sake. Now — " 
 
 "Kirpo! take what thou likest — " 
 
 '' I luill take what I like, Lfda. That is revenge ! " 
 Before he could say another Avord she had turned her 
 back on him, and ere he could rise to stop her was 
 down the narrow stair and out into the street with 
 her precious burden. 
 
 So Lala Shunker Das lay down and cried, because 
 not one of the women his Avealth had bought could 
 bear him a son save this Kirpo whom he had betrayed. 
 Fool that he was not to have seen she must have 
 some deep move on hand ere she came to beg of him I 
 Revenge ! He had dreamt of that himself ; but what 
 was his poor spite to this devilish malice ? He tried 
 to remember that Avant was a hard master; that 
 Kirpo 's OAvn people came from beyond the fourth ^ 
 river and Avere therefore useless to her as a refuge ; 
 that it Avas Avoman's way to bark more than bite. In 
 1 The extreme south-east. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 333 
 
 his heart of hearts he knew that she had said truly 
 when she offered him his last chance. And, as a 
 matter of fact, while he sat trying to recover confi- 
 dence on the edge of his bed, Kirpo and the baby, 
 with many a swing of the full skirts as she strode 
 along, were making their way direct to the enemy's 
 camp; in other words to John Raby's new factory. 
 The sahih had interfered on her behalf once, and he 
 hated Shunker. He could give her coolie's work 
 on the new dam, and in return she could give him 
 valuable information as to the usurer's little game. 
 The Lala had had his chance, partly for the sake of 
 comfort, partly for the sake of the child. Now she 
 would devote herself to revenge and gain a living at 
 the same time. 
 
 Of all this, however. Belle was profoundly igno- 
 rant; nor did Kirpo say more to her new master than 
 was necessary to show a sound, conceivable reason 
 for her professions of attachment to his cause. John 
 Raby laughed when he heard of his enemy's vows of 
 vengeance ; but he was wise enough to see the pros- 
 pect of unpopularity with his poorer neighbours, and 
 the advisability of being prepared for opposition. 
 
 "I hope you don't mind, Marsden," he said a day 
 or two before the Major left, "but I've been treating 
 with that truculent rascal of yours, Afzul. He's 
 coming back to India, he says, next cold weather, 
 on business or something. I've asked him to bring 
 
334 MISS ST u art's legacy. 
 
 me a gang of navvies and do overseer himself till 
 next rainy season. Those hill-men work like English- 
 men, and the new dam will require constant care 
 until it solidifies ; besides, I believe in mercenaries ; 
 a bandit is always handy." 
 
 "And Afzul consented?'' asked Philip in sur- 
 prise. 
 
 "Jumped at it. There is no one like the noble 
 savage for turning an honest penny when he can, 
 and I own to tempting him pretty stifQ}^ We may 
 want that sort of fellow by and by to keep things 
 going." 
 
 "I am surprised at Afzul for all that," continued 
 Philip, thoughtfully. " I wonder what he means ? " 
 
 "Devotion to you," laughed the other; "you 
 should have heard liim. And you too, Belle! He 
 laid the butter on thick about your capabilities as a 
 nurse." 
 
 She looked uj) quickly. '' I suppose it's ungrate- 
 ful, but I don't like that man. He always seems 
 to have something in his mind that I can't get 
 hold of." 
 
 "He is very intelligent," replied her husband with 
 a shrug of his shoulders ; " and took quite an interest 
 in the business, I assure you ; he asked a lot of ques- 
 tions. And, to tell the truth, I think a thoroughly 
 devoted rascal is the most useful thing in creation ; 
 so I hope he is one." 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 335 
 
 Philip laughed. "Shall I leave my interests in 
 his hands, Belle, or in yours?" 
 
 "Leave them to me, my dear felloAv," interi'upted 
 John. "Belle doesn't understand business." 
 
c336 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Perhaps her husband was right in saying Belle 
 did not understand business. At any rate she had 
 little to do with it in the uneventful months which 
 followed. It was a dry, hot year bringing no respite 
 of rain to the long weary hours. It brought j^lenty 
 of work, however, to John Raby, who was up with 
 the dawn, and never seemed to tire or flag in his 
 unceasing pursuit of success. In good sooth, as 
 Belle confessed to herself, Philip could have found 
 no better custodian for his mone}-; and this knowl- 
 edge was a great consolation, — how great she scarcely 
 realised until something came to disturb it. 
 
 She was writing to Philip Marsden one day when 
 John entered the room. She rose hastil}^, even 
 though she felt vexed with herself for doing so. 
 Why should she not write? As a matter of fact slie 
 spent a considerable portion of her time over these 
 letters. Sometimes she would resolutely put pen and 
 paper away, and set to work to sew every possible 
 button on John's under-garments, or perform some 
 other virtuous domestic duty, only to find when all 
 was done that leisure still stared her in the face. 
 For the leisure of a long hot-weather day in an out- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 337 
 
 station may be compared to that of a solitaiy cell. 
 Their nearest neighbours were twenty miles awa}-, 
 and Belle's experiment of having her youngest and 
 most good-natured step-sister on a visit had ended 
 in disastrous failure. The girl had cried for three 
 days consecutively out of sheer low spirits. It was 
 all very well, she said plaintivel}', when one was 
 married and got something by it ; but what was the 
 use of being miserable before there was any neces- 
 sity for it, and when one couldn't even scold the 
 servants to amuse one's self? By and by, when 
 Charlie Allsop got his step, she would no doubt have 
 to put up with jungle life for a time; but now her 
 dearest Belle must excuse her. Maud had written 
 such a description of the dress she was going to Avear 
 at the ]\Iasonic ball; and really, now that Mabel was 
 married to her widower, and Charlie's schooling paid 
 for by John, they got on splendidly in the little 
 house. Why shouldn't Belle go back to Missouri 
 with her, and take rooms at Scott's Hotel? They 
 would have such fun! But, though her husband 
 gave her full leave to do as she liked, Belle shook 
 her head over this tempting offer. She felt that she 
 could not afford to neglect the tithes of mint and 
 cummin, the jots and tittles of the law; she must at 
 any rate make offering of what she had to give. So 
 she stayed at home, and blushed violently when she 
 rose from her desk. 
 
338 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 "Writing to Marsclen?" said John carelessly. 
 " I thought you might be, and I wanted you just to 
 give him a hint or two about the business. It would 
 come naturall}^ from you and save surprise. The 
 fact is, there has been a lot of unforeseen ex])ense ; 
 then the firm in Calcutta to which I sent my first 
 batch of stuff has failed. Altogether I sha'n't be 
 able to spare any interest on the money this year." 
 
 "No interest?" Belie could only echo his words 
 stupidly, for the very idea of such a contingency 
 had never entered her head, and the fact seemed 
 to bring back all the old sickening dislike to the 
 situation. 
 
 "Well!" He looked at her with the expression 
 of distasteful patience which always came to his face 
 when awaiting a remonstrance. But none followed. 
 She was so absorbed in the fresh shame, to her, of 
 this failure, that she could think of nothing else. 
 
 "Of course it is a pity," he went on, somewhat 
 mollified by her silence, "but Marsden isn't a fool. 
 He knoAvs one has generally to wait for a return ; 
 indeed I consider it lucky we have not to borrow. I 
 wish you wouldn't look so tragic over it. Belle. 
 We are not ruined ; far from it. Only for tlie pres- 
 ent we have to live on our capital." 
 
 Belle's face brightened. " Could we not pay the 
 interest out of capital, too, John ? " 
 
 Her husband burst out laughing as he threw him- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 339 
 
 self into an easy chair. " Upon my soul, for utter 
 incapacity to understand even the morals of business, 
 commend me to a really good woman ! Interest out 
 of capital ! We are not a swindling company. Belle I *' 
 
 " We might pay it out of your own savings, John," 
 she urged, knowing how hopeless it would be to 
 argue. 
 
 "Transference from one budget-head to another, 
 and consequent cooking of accounts I No, my dear; 
 I left that S3^stem of book-keeping behind me when 
 I quitted Government service. Marsden must go 
 without his interest for the present; he has very 
 good pa}", and the loss is quite temporary. In any 
 circumstances the returns would have been unfa- 
 vourable for this year, owing to the drought. Wli}^ 
 even with the aid of the dam I have scarcely had 
 enough water for a quarter of the acreage I intend 
 to have next season." 
 
 His voice tailed off into indifference as his atten- 
 tion became concentrated in a paper he had taken up, 
 and there was an end of the matter so far as he was 
 concerned. 
 
 Pens, ink and paper had lost their attraction for 
 Belle that day, and for many days after; indeed, it 
 was not until the knowledge that her long silence 
 Avould cause anxiety, that she faced the task of fin- 
 ishing her letter to Major Marsden. The very cer- 
 tainty that he would care little for the absence of the 
 
340 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 promised dividend, and be quite ready to accept her 
 husband's views on the matter, made it seem all the 
 more hard for her; and though she determined to 
 leave the proper person to tell the uuAvelcome news, 
 she found herself hampered on all sides by her own 
 knowledge. Even remarks on the dryness of the 
 weather savoured of an attempt at excuse, and for 
 the first time she felt glad to write her signature at 
 the bottom of the page. When it was done she leant 
 her head over her crossed arms in a sudden rush of 
 weariness, and thought how different it Avould have 
 been if she could have met Philip on equal terms ; if 
 they could have told each other the truth in all 
 things. Theoretically it was all very well to sa}' 
 that the money had nothing to do with the position, 
 but practically she could not get rid of the convic- 
 tion that she and John were preying on a man's sense 
 of honour, or, worse, on his affections. It was no 
 use telling herself she Avas despicable in having such 
 thoughts; that, setting love aside, friendship itself 
 excluded the question of give or take. As a matter 
 of fact Philip did give her all he had, and he took, 
 — Avhat did he not take ? She cowered before that, 
 the worst question of all. She could not escape 
 from the haunting sense of wrong which seemed to 
 sap the strength of her self-respect ; and back through 
 all her heart-burnings came the one foolish fanc}^ that 
 if she could only have met Philip with the money, 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 341 
 
 or even a decent five per cent, interest on it, in her 
 hand, she could have looked into his face with clear 
 unshadowed eyes. And now! How was she to 
 meet him when there was not even a dividend? 
 
 Philip meanwhile was undergoing no qualms ; on 
 the contrary, he was having a very good time. To 
 begin with he was in command of the regiment and 
 drawing, as John Raby said, excellent pay. Fur- 
 thermore he was enjoying, as was inevitable, the 
 return to health and life after eighteen months of 
 death to all pleasui-e. Lastly, his conscience was 
 absolutely at rest in regard to Belle. He would 
 have been more, or less, than human had he not been 
 aware that he had behaved as well as a man could, 
 in very trying circumstances. In fact he was a 
 little complacent over Avhat had been, so far, a ver}' 
 simple and easy solution of a problem which other 
 people held to be insoluble. He sent Belle the last 
 new books, and wrote her kind brotherly letters, 
 and thought of her as the best friend he had, and 
 always with the same underlying consciousness of 
 j)ure virtue. He forgot, however, that poor Belle 
 stood in a very different position ; one in which calm 
 peace was well-nigh impossible. So as her letters 
 became less frequent and less frank, he began to 
 puzzle somewhat captiously over the cause. Finally 
 he hinted at an explanation, and receiving nothing 
 but jesting replies, he took ten days' leave and went 
 
342 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 down to Saudaghur, ostensibly to settle the half 
 3^early accounts ; for both John and he found a sort 
 of solemn refuge from the truth in the observance, 
 so far as was possible, of strict business relations. 
 
 It gave him quite a shock to find how much change 
 his few months' absence had wrought. The bare 
 deserted house where Belle had nursed him back to 
 life, and where he and she had spent so many days 
 forgetful of the work-a-day world, content in a kindly 
 constant companionship, was now a luxurious house 
 hedged about by conventionalities. The drawing- 
 room, where his sofa had reigned supreme, was full 
 of hric-d-hrac tables and heaven knows what obsta- 
 cles, through which a man had to thread his way like 
 a performing ape. Belle herself, despite her kind 
 face and soft voice, was no longer the caretaker full 
 of sympathy. She was his hostess, his friend, but 
 also another man's wife; a fact of which she took 
 care to remind him by saying she was glad he had 
 come in time to celebrate the anniversary of her 
 wedding-day on the morrow. Despite his theories 
 Philip did not like the change. It vexed him, too, 
 that she should look pale and worried when he had 
 really done all, all that an honest man could do, to 
 smooth her path. Had he not even kept away for 
 five whole months? So he was decidedly out of 
 humour when, coming from a long spell of business 
 with John in the office, he found her alone for the 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy, 343 
 
 first time. She was standing by the fireplace in the 
 drawing-room, and he made his way towards her 
 intent on words. But she forestalled him. "Well! 
 he has told you about it, I suppose, — that there is 
 no dividend?" she said defiantly; and as she spoke 
 she crushed the withered roses she had been removing 
 from a vase and flung them on to the smouldering- 
 embers. 
 
 He looked at her in surprise. " I scarcely expected 
 one. Oh, Belle!" he continued hotly, "is it that? 
 Did you think, could 3'ou think I would care?" 
 
 She gave a little hard laugh. " How stupid you 
 are! Of course you don't mind. Can't you see it 
 is that, — which hurts? Can't you understand it is 
 that, — your kindness, — which must hurt, — always ? " 
 
 The dead leaves had caught fire and flamed up, 
 throwing a glare of light on both their faces. It 
 seemed to light up their hearts also. Perhaps she 
 had not meant to say so much ; yet now that she had 
 said it she stood gracefully upright, looking him in 
 the eyes, reckless, ready for anything. The sight 
 of her brought home to Philip what he had forgotten 
 before; that in this problem of his he had not to 
 do with one factor but with two, and one of them 
 a woman. Not a passionate one it is true, but a 
 woman to whom sentiment and emotion were more 
 than reason : a woman whose very innocence left her 
 confused and helpless, uncertain of her own foot- 
 
844 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 hold, and unable to draw the hard-and-fast line be- 
 tween good and evil without which she felt lost in a 
 Avilderness of wrong. The recognition startled him, 
 but at the same time aroused his combativeness. 
 
 "I confess I don't see why it should," he said 
 rather coldly. "Surel}^ I have a perfect right to 
 set, — other things before money, and it is 
 wrong — " 
 
 "Shall I give you a copy-book so that you may 
 write the sentiment down for future reference, 
 Philip?" she interrupted swiftl}'. "Copy-book 
 maxims about right and wrong are so useful wlien 
 one has lost the way, aren't the}^? For myself I am 
 tired of them, — dead tired, — dead tired of ever}^- 
 thing." And once again with a gesture of utter 
 weariness she leant against the mantelpiece, her head 
 upon her crossed arms. 
 
 His hands clenched as if to hold something tighter; 
 something that seemed slipping from him. "I am 
 sorry," he said huskily. ''Is it m}^ fault? " 
 
 She flamed round upon him. " Ye;^ I it is your 
 fault! All your fault! Why did you ever leave me 
 that mone}'? " 
 
 Tlie truth, and the unfairness of her words, bit 
 deep. "It was 'Why did you come back to take it 
 away?' when we first met," he retorted in rising 
 anger. " I told you then I had a right to live if / 
 chose. I tell you now I will take the money back if 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 845 
 
 you choose. I will do it to-day if you like. It is 
 only lent, I can give notice."' 
 
 "What difference will it make now?'' she went 
 on recklessly. "Will it undo the mischief? Your 
 legacy did it all. It made John — " She broke 
 off suddenly, a look of terror came to her eyes, and 
 she turned away. 
 
 "Well! I am waiting to hear. It made 
 John—?'' 
 
 "Nothing," she said in a low voice. "What is the 
 good? It is all past." 
 
 "But I have a right to know; I will know. 
 Belle, what wrong did my legacy do you? What 
 wrong of which I know nothing? Let me see your 
 face — I must see it — " He bent over her, almost 
 rough i]i his impatience at the fine filmy threads of 
 overwrought feeling which, seeming so petty to a 
 man, yet have the knack of tying him hand and foot. 
 What did she mean ? Though they had never talked 
 of such things, the fact that her legacy had decided 
 John's choice could be no novelty, even to her. A 
 woman who had money must always know it would 
 enhance her other charms. Then suddenly a hitherto 
 unappreciated fact recurred to him — if this was her 
 wedding-day, she must have been married very soon 
 — the memory of a marble summer-house in a peach 
 garden, with his Avill on the table and John standing 
 by, flashed upon him, making the passionate blood 
 
346 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 leap up in resentment. "Belle!" he cried imperi- 
 ously, " did he — did you know ? Have you known 
 — ?" He paused, his anger yielding to pain. 
 Had she known this incredible baseness all these 
 weary months, those months during which he had 
 been priding himself on his own forbearance ? And 
 she had said nothing! Yet she was right; for if 
 once this thing were made clear between them what 
 barrier would remain ? Why should they guard the 
 honour of a man who had himself betrayed it? In 
 the silence which ensued it was lucky for them both 
 that the room was full of memories of her kind toucli, 
 soothing his restless pain ; so the desire to give some- 
 thing back in kind came uppermost. 
 
 "Is there nothing I can do?" he said at last, 
 moving aside and standing square and steady. 
 " Nothing I can say or do to make it easier for you ? " 
 
 "If you could forget — " 
 
 He shook his head. " I will go away if you like, 
 though I don't see why I should." 
 
 " Then it would only be giving up one thing more 
 to please me," she answered with a little sad smile. 
 "Why should you give up anything, when I can 
 give — nothing! Ah, Philip, Philip! If you had 
 only taken poor Dick's will and were free to go, — 
 if you chose." 
 
 He frowned moodily. " I should not choose, so 
 it Avould make no difference ; except that you think 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 347 
 
 there would be one. I cannot see it. As for the 
 will, I'm afraid it is hopeless; but if you like 1 can 
 take leave and try. Afzul might come with me." 
 
 "If I like!" she echoed in despair. "If I like! 
 It always comes back to that." 
 
 The slow tears overflowing her tired eyes cut him 
 to the quick, though in sober truth he thought them 
 needless. " It must, — seeing that I love you. Why 
 should you shrink from the truth. Belle? Great 
 Heavens ! what have you or I done that we should 
 be ashamed of ourselves ? " 
 
 "Don't let's speak of it, Philip," she cried in a 
 sort of terror. " It is all my fault, I know ; but I 
 cannot help it. It is no use saying I am wrong; 
 everything is wrong from beginning to end." 
 
 And thouo'h he fretted and fumed, aro-ued and 
 appealed, nothing he could say sufficed to re-assure 
 her. Rightly or wrongly she could not view the 
 situation as he viewed it. She was galled and 
 chafed on every side; nor could he fail to see during 
 the next four days that his presence only brought 
 her additional misery. She seemed unable to take 
 anything naturally, and she shrank equally from 
 seeming to avoid being alone with him, or from 
 being alone. Yet, with true womanly inconsequence, 
 she shrank most of all when he told her that he had 
 made up his mind to go, and not to return until she 
 sent for him. They were walking up and down the 
 
348 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 new dam, which curved across a bend in the sandy 
 reach, waiting for her husband who with Afzul and 
 his gang of bandits was busy seeing to a strengthen- 
 ing of the side nearest the river. A red sun was 
 setting over the jagged purple shadow of the 
 Suleiman Hills, and flaring on the still pools of 
 water below the embankment. 
 
 ''I am driving you away," she said despondently. 
 "You cannot even look after your own business 
 because of me.*' 
 
 Then his patience gave way. "Damn the busi- 
 ness!" he cried heartily, and walked along beside 
 her kicking the little clods from his path before 
 turning to her apologetically. " I beg your pardon, 
 Belle, but it is a little trying. Let us hope the 
 business will be successfully dammed, and then, 
 according to John, I shall get my money back in two 
 years. So cheer up; freedom is beneath your feet! " 
 
 Just below them, measuring up earthwork, stood 
 John Raby and Afzul Khan. As they passed the 
 latter looked up, salaaming with broad grins. "I 
 wonder if he will take her away soon," was his 
 thought. " I wish he would ; then I could get rid 
 of the paper and be off home by summer with Raby 
 sahib's rupees in my pocket. What is he waiting 
 for? She likes him, and Raby sahib would be quite 
 content with the money." 
 
 John looked up too, and nodded. "Don't wait 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 349 
 
 for me, good people. I have to go over to the fur- 
 ther end. You needn't keep tea for me, Belle, I 
 prefer a whiskey-peg. Ta, ta! "' 
 
 And as they moved off, their figures showing 
 dark against the red sky, he looked after them, say- 
 ing to himself that the Major could not complain. 
 One way and another he got his money's worth. 
 
 "Your husband works too hard. Belle," said 
 Philip. "You should persuade him to take it 
 easier." 
 
 "He is so anxious to make it a success," she re- 
 plied quickly. 
 
 "So are we all,"' retorted Philip cynically. "We 
 ought to manage it between us, someliow." 
 
 As they passed the coolies' huts a big strapping 
 woman with her face hidden in her veil came out 
 and salaamed. 
 
 "Who is that?" asked Philip at once. The last 
 few days had brought him a curious dissatisfaction 
 with Belle's surroundings. Despite the luxurious 
 home she seemed out of keeping with Afzul and his 
 bandits, the tag-rag and bobtail of squalid coolies 
 swarming about the place, and the stolid indiffer- 
 ence of the peasants beyond the factory. 
 
 "A "protegee of John's. He got her out of trouble 
 somewhere. He says he has the biggest lot of mis- 
 creants on the frontier on his works. They don't 
 look much, I must allow ; but this woman seems to 
 
350 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 like me. She has such a jolly baby. I had to doctor 
 it last week. How's Nuttu to-day, Kirpo?" 
 
 The woman, grinning, opened her veil and dis- 
 played a sleeping child. 
 
 "Isn't he pretty, Philip?" said Belle softly. 
 " And see, they have pierced his nose and ears like 
 a girl's." 
 
 "For luck, I suppose. May God spare him to 
 manhood," prefaced Philip piously, in native fash- 
 ion before he asked the mother if it were not so. 
 
 She shook her head. "No, Protector of the poor! 
 All my boys are healthy. He is called Nuttu, so 
 that as he thrives some one else of the same name 
 may dwindle and pine. That is why." She hugged 
 the baby to her with an odd smile. 
 
 " She could not have meant that there was really 
 another child whose death she desired," said Belle 
 as they went on. 
 
 " I would not answer for it if I were you. They 
 are a queer people. By Jove! How that woman 
 does hate some one; I'm glad it isn't you, Belle! " 
 
 And Kirpo looking after them w^as saying in her 
 turn that they were very queer people. If he was 
 her lover why did the mem look so unhappy? The 
 sahib logue did not cut off their wives' noses, or put 
 them in prison; so wdiat did it matter? 
 
 Truly those two were compassed about by a strange 
 cloud of witnesses as they strolled homewards. Per- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 351 
 
 haps the civilised world would have judged them as 
 harshly. But no tribunal, human or divine, could 
 have judged Belle more harshly than she did herself; 
 and herein lay all the trouble. She could not accept 
 facts and make the best of them. 
 
 John Kaby coming in later found the two reading 
 solemnly, one on either side of the fire, and told them 
 they were horribly unsociable. " I couldn't get away 
 before," he said. "Afzul wanted a day's leave and 
 I had to measure up before he started." 
 
 "Has he gone already? I'm sorry," remarked 
 Philip. " I wished to see him before I leave to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "To-morrow!" John Raby looked from one to 
 another. "Have you been quarrelling?" 
 
 And poor Belle, with the necessity for derisive 
 denial before her, felt more than ever that she was 
 on the broad path leading to destruction. 
 
 "I am sorry I have to go," said Philip with perfect 
 truth; "but I really am of no use here." 
 
352 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Could Philip Marsden have seen into Mahomed 
 Lateef s old tower about the time he was leaving 
 Nilgunj his regrets might have had a still more 
 truthful ring, and Belle might have been saved 
 from once more adding to the difficulties of her own 
 lot, and, as it were, making a stumbling-block of 
 her own good intentions. For in that case, Major 
 Marsden would have stopped another day in order to 
 see his old friend, and in the course of conversation 
 would have heard things which might have changed 
 the current of subsequent events ; but Fate decreed 
 otherwise. 
 
 More than once, seeing the daily increasing pov- 
 erty of his patron, Afzul Khan had suggested an 
 appeal to the Major, as one sure to do something 
 for the father of the man who had stood between 
 him and death; but the stubborn old malcontent had 
 lumped the whole Western creation in his category 
 of ingrates. "The past is past," he Avould say an- 
 grily. "I will not even ask justice from one of 
 them. And, according to thy tales, Marsden saliih has 
 taken to trade and leagued himself with Rab3% who 
 is no better than a Imniali^ — no better than Shunker 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 353 
 
 Bahadur, whom God smite to hell! Hast heard 
 what they are doing down 3'onder? Pera Ditta was 
 here last week, saying his land was to be sold because 
 he could not pay. And how^ could he pay when 
 water never came? And how could w\ater come 
 when strangers enter and build dams without let or 
 hindrance?" 
 
 Afzul frowned. " True, father, and 'tis about that 
 dam I would have you speak. Not, look you, that 
 it did harm this year. 'Twas God's fault, not 
 Raby's, that the river failed, though folk will not 
 have it so. And next year, even, the dam will do 
 good, not harm, if a sluice be put in it such as they 
 have north in the big canals. Look you, Raby is no 
 fool. Before Allah! he is wise; and he offered to 
 put one, so that the water would run every year 
 right away to the south, if the people would promise 
 him to grow indigo, and dig part of the channel. 
 But Shunker, or God knows who, hath stuffed their 
 ears, and they will not listen. So Raby means the 
 pig-headed fools shall learn reason. I blame him 
 not, but that is no cause why you should starve; and 
 starve you must if the river does not come. ' 
 
 "I will starve sooner than beg." 
 
 "And the child?" 
 
 That was an argument which invariably brought 
 the discussion to a close in vehement objections to 
 interference, and loud-voiced assertions of indepen- 
 
 A 
 
354 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 clence. Nevertheless, Afzul returned to the charge 
 again and again, moved to insistence by a personal 
 desire to be free from the necessity of eking out the 
 expenses of the household. He gave cheerfully 
 enough to the women, on the sly lest the old marti- 
 net should wring his neck for the impertinence ; but 
 for all that he wanted to be free to go his own ways 
 when summer came. If the sluice were made and a 
 constant supply of water insured, the old man and 
 the women would at least escape starvation. John 
 Raby, wlio had found the Pathan singularly intelli- 
 gent and with some know^ledge of levelling (learnt 
 from poor Dick), had so far given him confidence 
 that he knew what ought to be done ; but he was not 
 well enough up in the whole matter to understand 
 that his master had considerable excuse for refusing 
 to do it. As a matter of fact the dam had been 
 constructed with great care so as to avoid cutting 
 off the water supply from the neighbouring villages, 
 where the floods came with fair regularity. John 
 Raby had even spent money in improving their 
 chances, on certain conditions about indigo, which 
 he well knew would eventually be of enormous bene- 
 fit to the people themselves. In regard to those fur- 
 ther afield he had made a very fair proposal, which, 
 mainly owing to Shunker's machinations, they had 
 rejected ; briefly, he had offered a constant supply of 
 water at the price of a little labour and a few rea- 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 355 
 
 sonable concessions. When they refused his terms, 
 he smiled and went on building his dam. Up to a 
 certain flood-point he knew it would be an obstruc- 
 tion ; beyond that, the river would still find its way. 
 He only enlarged the cycle of floodless years; but 
 on this fact he counted for eventual submission. 
 As for the owners of the few small holdings between 
 the dam and the basin of alluvial soil tilled by these 
 pig-headed Hindus, he was sorry for them ; but as it 
 was quite impossible for him to ensure a water- 
 supply without giving it beyond, their best plan 
 would be to exert their influence towards a reasona- 
 ble solution of the difficulty. In a matter like this 
 he was not a man to swerve a hair's breadth from 
 his own plan for the sake of anybody. He con- 
 ceived that he had a perfect right to do as he chose, 
 and if others disputed his action they could go to 
 law about it; only, long before the vexed question 
 of the frequency of flood in past years could be de- 
 cided one way or the other, he felt certain that the 
 sight of the surrounding prosperity would have over- 
 come all opposition. 
 
 Afzul Khan, however, only half in the secret, be- 
 lieved that the sluice-gate might be made by an 
 appeal to Major Marsden; and, when the latter 
 came to the factory, took a day's leave on purpose to 
 rouse the old Khan to action, it being quite hopeless 
 to expect him to ask a favour of John Raby, of 
 
356 
 
 whom he never spoke save with a gibe. Perhaps the 
 thought of seeing a familiar face influenced the okl 
 man, for when the argument reached its usual 
 climax of, " And the child, Khan sahih^ what of the 
 child?" he gave a fierce sigh, and pressing the boy, 
 who was sitting on his knee, closer to his heart, 
 muttered impatiently, " What is the pride of a man 
 before the hunger of a child? I will go; so hold 
 thy devil of a tongue, and let us have peace! " 
 
 Afterwards, however, when Afzul with solemn 
 satisfaction at his victory was polishing up the old 
 warrior's sword, Mahomed Lateef became restive 
 again. " I know not that I will go. He owes me 
 somewhat, 'tis true, and in past time I thought him 
 just; but I like not this talk of trade; 'tis not a 
 soldier's task." 
 
 The Pathan leaning over the shining blade 
 breathed on it to test its lustre. " Walt! Khan sahib, 
 all's fair in love and war. Men do much for the 
 sake of a woman without tarnishing their honour 
 longer than my breath lingers on good steel. Mars- 
 den sahib did it for love of the mem, look you." 
 
 The old man scowled. " I like not that either. 
 Let him choose the one or the other, and use his 
 sword to keep his choice." 
 
 Afzul smiled cunningly. '' Wait a while, Khun 
 sahib, wait a while ; the fowler must have time to 
 lure his bird, and some women have cold hearts." 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 357 
 
 " She hath a heart of ice I Yea ! I v/ill go, Afzul, 
 and I will tell him of Murghub Ahmad and how 
 she bore false witness." 
 
 " Not so I Thou wilt ask for w^ater, and get thy 
 revenge safe in thy pocket; it lies heavy on an 
 empty stomach." 
 
 So they borrowed a pink-nosed pony from the 
 pleader's father in the next village, and with his 
 little grandson, arrayed in huge turban and tarnished 
 tinsel coatee, disposed in front of the high-peaked 
 saddle. Khan Mahomed Lateef Khan set off to see 
 the Major and plead the child's cause. A picturesque 
 group they made, as they passed along the sandy 
 ways and treeless stretches of hard sun-baked soil ; 
 Afzul leading the pony, the boy laughing and clap- 
 ping his hands at the novelty, the old soldier's white 
 beard showing wdiiter than ever against the child's 
 dark curls, Fatma and Haiyat standing outside, 
 recklessly unveiled, to shriek parting blessings and 
 injunctions. And lo I after all these preparations, 
 after all this screwing up of courage and letting 
 down of pride, the Major had gone! Afzul could 
 scarcely believe his ears. Gone ! and he had been 
 reckoning on giving certain hints about Dick's will 
 which might have served to bring matters to a crisis. 
 He returned to the hut where he had left the Khan 
 and his grandson while he went to arrange for an 
 interview, and tried to persuade Mahomed Lateef 
 
368 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 not to allow his journey to go for nothing, but to 
 prefer his request to Raby sahih himself. He might 
 even write a petition, and demand that it should be 
 sent on to the Major, if pride forbade asking a favour 
 of the former. Afzul might as well have urged the 
 old man to wear patent-leather shoes or perform any 
 other such abomination of desolation. ''Am I a 
 baboo that I should cringe and beg?" he answered, 
 wrathfully. "The Major is a soldier and knows 
 what it means to stave a blow from a comrade's 
 head; 'tis but defending your own in the future. 
 But this man ! He would talk of rupees, and I have 
 none to give. Let it be, fool ! I will stop the night 
 here as was arranged, since the child seems tired. 
 To-morrow we can return. I am not so far through 
 that a day's journey will kill me."' 
 
 So, from the recesses of the windowless shanty, he 
 watched John Raby passing back to the house Avhen 
 the day's work was done ; then he went forth in the 
 twilight and prowled about the new factory, noting 
 the unmistakable signs of masterful energy with a 
 curious mixture of admiration and contempt. " As 
 thou sayest he is a man, and no mere money-bag 
 like Shunker," was his final comment. ''Come, little 
 one, say thy evening petition and let me roll thee 
 in thy quilt, for thine eyes are heavy." 
 
 The child, already half asleep, slid from his grand- 
 father's knee, and standing, stretched his little hands 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 359 
 
 sky^Ya^cls. " God bring justice to those who brought 
 my father injustice," he murmured drowsily. 
 
 A savage exultation came to the old face looking 
 down on the curves and dimples. " Ameen^ ameen I 
 Justice ! That is all we seek. Come, light of mine 
 eyes, and God give thee many wakenings." 
 
 Thereafter the two men sat silent, waiting for 
 sleep to come to the child. And it came, but not 
 for long. Perhaps in less careful hands the boy had 
 taken chill, perhaps Afzul's more sumptuous fare 
 was the exciting cause ; an3diow, a few hours after- 
 wards Kirpo, roused by the helpless men from the 
 death-like slumber of the domesticated savage, found 
 little Hussan Ahmad struggling for breath in his 
 grandfather's arms, a prey to spasmodic croup. Of 
 course she had not the remotest idea what was the 
 matter, or what was to be done. She could but take 
 the child to her capacious bosom and add to the 
 general alarm by shrill sympathy. It was a fit — 
 the dear one would die — Rai, hai ! — some one had 
 bewitched it. Then suddenly an inspiration seized 
 her. The mem! let them send for the mem! But 
 last week her own boy had had the gripes until the 
 mem came with a little bottle and cured him. Hai, 
 hai! the darling was choking I Send for the mem, 
 if they would not have him die before their eyes. 
 
 Afzul looked at the grandfather interrogatively. 
 Pride, fear, resentment, and love fought hard for the 
 
360 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 mastery. " She will not come ; she hath a heart of 
 ice," quavered the old voice, seeking for excuse, and 
 escape from responsibility. 
 
 " Who can count on a woman ? but death is sure ; 
 and she is wise in such ways, I know. Say, Khan 
 sahih^ shall I go ? " 
 
 There was an instant's pause, broken by the child's 
 hoarse crow. Then the faith of a life-time spoke. 
 " Go ! It is Kismet. Give her the chance ; it is 
 God's will to give it. She may not come, and 
 then — " 
 
 But ten minutes after Belle Raby in her soft 
 white evening dress had the struggling child in 
 her arms and reassuring Avords on her lips. Afzul 
 Kh^n, too, held a bottle and a teaspoon, whereat 
 Kirpo's face broadened to content. " Have no fear, 
 master," she whispered in the old man's ear ; " 'tis 
 the same one, I swear it. A charm, a potent 
 charm ! " 
 
 Most Englishwomen in India gain some knowl- 
 edge of doctoring, not only from necessity, but from 
 the neighbourliness which turns them into nurses 
 where in England they would be content with kind 
 inquiries ; and, though croup is comparatively rare 
 among the native children, Belle had seen it treated 
 among English ones. Such knowledge, a medicine- 
 chest, and common sense seem, and indeed often act, 
 like magic to the ignorant e3^es helplessly watching 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 361 
 
 their loved ones light for life. The old Moham- 
 medan stood aside, bolt upright as if on parade, a 
 prey to dull regrets and keen joy as Belle's kind 
 voice conjured up endless things beyond the thought 
 or comprehension even of the child's mother, had she 
 been there. Hot water, a bath fetched from some- 
 where in the dark beyond the feeble glimmer of 
 light in which those bare white arms gleamed about 
 the child's brown body, ice, a soft white blanket, 
 within the folds of which peace seemed to come to 
 the struggling limbs till sleep actually claimed the 
 child again. 
 
 " He is all right now," said Belle smiling. " Keep 
 him in your arms, Kirpo, and give him plenty of air. 
 I will come to-morrow and see him again. Afzul, 
 have you the lantern ? " 
 
 She stood — a strange figure in that mud-floored, 
 mud-roofed hovel — fastening the silver clasp of her 
 fur cloak with slim fingers sparkling with jewels ; 
 a figure more suitable to some gay gathering on the 
 other side of the world. Then from the darkness 
 into the ring of light where she stood stepped an- 
 other figure. A tall old man, made taller by the 
 high-twined green turban proclaiming him a past 
 pilgrim to the great shrine of warriors, a man with 
 his son's medals on a threadbare velvet coat, and a 
 sharp curved sword held like a sacrament in his 
 outstretched palms. " Huzoor ! " he said bowing 
 
362 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 his proud old head. All the conflicting emotions 
 of the past hour had concentrated themselves to 
 this. Words, either of gratitude or blame, were 
 beyond him. God knows which, given opportunity 
 of calm thought, he might have offered. But so, 
 taken by surprise, carried beyond his own personal 
 interests by admiration, he gave, in the true old 
 fighting instinct which dies hard amongst the Mo- 
 hammedans, his allegiance to what was brave and 
 capable. " Huzoor ! " 
 
 The English girl had learnt enough of native cus- 
 toms to know her part. Those slim white fingers 
 lingered an instant on the cold steel, and her bright 
 eyes smiled up into the old man's face. '• The gift 
 is not mine, but yours." Perhaps it was ; the faculty 
 of just admiration is a great possession. 
 
 She found lier husband still smoking cigarettes 
 over a French novel. " By George ! Belle," he said, 
 ''you look awfully nice. That sort of thing suits 
 you down to the ground. You were born to be a 
 Lady Bountiful, and send social problems to sleep 
 with sentiment. By the way, do you know who the 
 little beggar is ? I asked the khansaman ; he is the 
 son of that man Murghub Ahmad Avho was trans- 
 ported ! His grandfather is living on the ancestral 
 estate about ten miles down the old 7uiUali. I'm 
 precious glad Marsden didn't find him out, or he 
 would have been bothering me to do something for 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 36o 
 
 the old fellow. And I haven't time just now for 
 charity. I leave that to you, my dear; it suits you — 
 as I remarked just now — down to the ground." 
 
 Belle, who had turned very j)ale, said nothing, but 
 she seemed to feel the chill of the cold steel at her 
 finger-tips. She understood better what that offering- 
 had meant, and, sentiment or no sentiment, some- 
 thing rose in her throat and kept her silent. Next 
 morning, according to promise, she went over to the 
 huts again. The dew shone on the flowers as she 
 crossed the garden, an indescribable freshness Avas 
 in the air. The child, but newly aroused from a 
 sweet sleep, was still surrounded by the white blanket 
 in the midst of which he sat cuddled up, rubbing his 
 eyes and yawning. Afzul was smiling at the door, 
 the grandfather, calmed into stern politeness, stand- 
 ing by the bed. 
 
 " Rise, O Hussan Ahmad ! " he said to the child 
 after a few words of inquiry and reply. '* Rise and 
 say thy thanks to the mem for her kindness. They 
 are due ; they are justly due." 
 
 Still drowsy, and mindful only of an accustomed 
 order, the boy stretched his chubby little arms sky- 
 ward. '• May God bring justice to those who brought 
 injustice to my father." 
 
 Khan Mahomed Lateef Khan started as if he had 
 been shot, and his right hand fell sharpl}^ on the 
 child's shoulder, then wandered to his sword-hilt. 
 
364 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 '' It is Fate," he muttered gloomily. '' Out of his 
 own mouth I am rebuked." 
 
 Belle's heart gave a great throb of anger and pain. 
 She had lain awake piecing the stray threads of the 
 story together till it had seemed to her a sad yet 
 beautiful pattern on the web of life, and now — 
 "Why do you say that?" she asked gently of the 
 child, as if he were the only person present. 
 
 He looked at her fearlessly. "I say it morning 
 and evening. Listen ! May God bring justice to 
 those who brought injustice to my father." 
 
 The eyes of those two men watching her were like 
 spurs to her high spirit. " Listen," she said. " I 
 will say it too. May God bring justice to those who 
 brought injustice to your father." 
 
 The eyes fell as she passed out without another 
 word. " By the God who made me," swore the old 
 soldier, " she is a brave one, and she hath my sword ! 
 Remember that, Afzul. If the time should ever 
 come, my sword at least is for her and hers. For 
 the rest, the child has spoken." 
 
 Afzul smiled grimly. He was beginning to see 
 what those two brave ones fancied in the pale-faced 
 mem. She was too good for Raby sahib with his 
 rupees, he decided ; yet women are always influenced 
 by wealth. Perhaps the thought of what she would 
 leave behind hindered her from following the Major. 
 If so, a little reverse in the business might be bene- 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 365 
 
 ficial. Anyhow, and come what may, he must get 
 rid of that cursed blue envelope ere summer opened 
 the passes for homesick footsteps. Even if he had 
 to leave it behind him unconditionally, he must do 
 so, since by that time he would have money saved 
 to last for an idle year or two. 
 
366 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Some ten days after this John Raby came from 
 the office into tlie drawing-room with a letter in his 
 hand and vexation on his face. '^ Upon my word, 
 Belle," he began, "you have a most unfortunate 
 turn for philanthrop}^ as I always told you. I've 
 no doubt your doctoring that little croupy imp sug- 
 gested the idea that we were made up of benevo- 
 lence. Sentiment, my dear child, is the devil in 
 business." 
 
 " What is it now, John ? " she asked, Avith an 
 effort at lightness. For all that, her tone made him 
 raise his eyebrows impatiently. There is no ac- 
 counting for the jar which comes at times between 
 two natures, especially when circumstances are em- 
 phasising their respective individualities. This was 
 the case between Belle and her husband; her con- 
 scientiousness being hyper-sensitised by constant self- 
 blame, and his being dulled by the keen desire to 
 triumph over all opposition. 
 
 " Only that bankrupt old warrior appealing through 
 Marsden to the firm for an annual supply of water 
 from my dam. A cool request, isn't it? And 
 Marsden, of course, being sentimental as you are. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 367 
 
 hopes it ^Yill be clone. All I can say is, that it is 
 lucky he and you have me to look after your in- 
 terests.'' 
 
 "But if it could be done — " 
 
 " My dear child, don't you think I'd have done it 
 had the thing been possible without detriment to 
 us? I don't suppose Marsden thought of it in that 
 light, but he ought to have done so. I have my 
 faults no doubt, but I'm not an ogre.'' 
 
 " I wish it had been possible ! " 
 
 "So do I; but it isn't. Therefore, if you don't 
 mind, I hope you will refrain from arousing Philip's 
 benevolence more than you can help. I mean by 
 allusions to the old man and the child. They are 
 a most picturesque couple, of course, but if senti- 
 ment is to come in, I may as well throw up the 
 whole business. For mind you, Belle, it is just as 
 well you should know that the factory is bound to 
 be unpopular at first." 
 
 "Unpopular! Why?" asked Belle in surprise. 
 " I thought you said it would improve the condition 
 of the people immensely." 
 
 " After a time. However it is no use discussing 
 it ; I shall write to Marsden and say, — well, I shall 
 say, chiefly, that I also am filled with pious and 
 benevolent intentions, but that I desire a free hand. 
 Meanwhile, as I see from Philip's letter that Afzul 
 has been priming you with pity which you have 
 
368 MISS stuaht's legacy. 
 
 been handing on, I wish you wouldn't. Give the 
 old man as much money as you like, of course ; but 
 don't egg my partner on to socialism, there's a good 
 girl." He looked very bright and handsome as he 
 bent over and kissed her. '' Do you know, Belle," 
 he said, laughingly, " you are the most transparent 
 fraud in creation. I believe you set the old man on 
 to Marsden ; now didn't you?" 
 
 She flushed scarlet. " I only told Afzul when he 
 was speaking of it that the best way was to write 
 a petition. And Philip was an old friend." 
 
 " Just so ; but we don't Avant old friends, or new 
 ones either, to interfere. I'm manager of this fac- 
 tory, and I intend to manage it my own way.'' 
 
 "Do you mean without consulting Philip's 
 wishes ? " 
 
 He turned round on her sharply as he was leaving 
 the room. "That is about it. He knows nothing 
 of business, and should be glad to have some one 
 to act for him who does." 
 
 There was, as usual, so much sound common sense 
 in her husband's words that Belle tried to crush 
 down the dissatisfaction she could not help feeling 
 at the idea of Philip being made responsible for 
 actions of which he might know nothing. After 
 all, had it really come to this, that she did not 
 trust her husband to behave uprightly? The 
 thought was poison to all peace, and she thrust 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 369 
 
 ii; aside in horror at its very appearance. Yet a 
 new element of trouble had entered into life and 
 she found herself, quite unconsciously, keeping ears 
 and e3'es open for things which she had previously 
 iguored. This did not escape her husband's keen 
 sight, and in his light, half-serious way he rallied 
 her on this newly-developed interest in the busi- 
 ness. The fact was the}' were beginning to under- 
 stand each other too well ; and now and again a 
 tone came into John's voice which sent the blood 
 to her heart in a throb of fear and made her grovel, 
 positively grovel, before her ideal of wifely duty. 
 Then her husband would recover his careless good- 
 nature, and the household run so smoothly that 
 even Belle's high-strung nerves scarcely felt a jolt. 
 So the spring came, bringing to the garden a 
 rush of blossom well-nigh impossible of descriptiou 
 to those accustomed to slow northern lands. Belle 
 could have picked clothes-baskets full of Marechal 
 Niel roses from the bushes and yet have left them 
 burdened with great yellow^ cups. The pomegran- 
 ates glowed with a scarlet positively dazzling to 
 the eyes ; the gardenias were all too strongly 
 scented; the bees and butterflies drugged them- 
 selves with honey from the wild tangle of over- 
 grown, overblown annuals Avhich, forgetting their 
 trim English habit, usurped the very paths by 
 thickets of mignonette, sweet pea, dianthus. and 
 
 2 B 
 
370 IMISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 a host of other familiar flowers. Belle, walking 
 round her domain in the early morning when the 
 nightly gift of dew still lay on the leaves, used to 
 wonder how serpents could creep into such a para- 
 dise. The very isolation of the life had an irre- 
 sistible charm. What was the use of worrying 
 about ideas? Where was the good of fretting 
 over the mischances of that Avorld which lay beyond 
 this calm retreat? 
 
 Suddenly, however, that world asserted its exist- 
 ence. She had still kept up her habit of morning 
 rides, and though her husband was now up with 
 the dawn, he was far too much absorbed in his 
 work to accompany her save Avhen business sent 
 him beyond his own boundaries. Even then she 
 began to notice his excuses for escaping her com- 
 panionship, and when in her drowsy content she 
 went so far as to express a half-jesting remon- 
 strance, he would reply in the same tone, that he 
 had no intention of slaving forever ; and that tliis 
 was his working day. By and by, when he liad 
 turned Marsden adrift, and could have the whole 
 thing to himself, — wh3% he meant to have it and 
 enjoy it. Meanwhile it was much pleasanter for 
 her to ride along the river bank and through the 
 inundation lands, than in the dust southwards Avhere 
 his business took him so often. But this level 
 expanse of bare fruitless soil had an attraction for 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 371 
 
 Belle ; and one clay, losing her way on it, she made 
 for the landmark of a village on the horizon, and 
 thus found herself considerably beyond her usual 
 distance from home. It was a village with poverty 
 and sloth written on the blistered, rain-marked, mud 
 walls, and in the absence of fuel-heaps and thorn- 
 enclosures. A sorry forsaken spot it was, despite 
 the swarm of low-bred-looking brats who came out 
 to stare at her as she rode at a foot's pace through 
 the widest lane. A woman stood slouching at the 
 entrauce to a courtyard, and Belle, pausing, asked 
 her the way to Nilgunj. The scowl on the face 
 raised to hers startled her, so did the words. " Are 
 you Raby's mem ? " 
 
 Her answering assent met a rude reception in the 
 curt recommendation to find the way herself, accom- 
 panied by a sudden closing of the door. Then came 
 a shrill clamour of voices from within, and one by 
 one, over the alley Avails, dark disapproving faces 
 full of angry curiosity. The display of hostility 
 might have gone no further if her horse, restive at 
 being checked and, no doubt, disliking the crowd 
 of children following close on its heels, had not 
 sidled and backed, putting the young imps to hust- 
 ling flight. This was naturally the signal for 
 shrieks and abuse from the mothers, and though a 
 a touch of the whip recalled her beast to duty, 
 humanity Avas not so reasonable. A little raga- 
 
372 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 muffin took up a piece of dirt and threw it after 
 her; the others approved, and though fear of her 
 horse's heels kept the little arms at a comparatively 
 safe distance, Belle Raby had nevertheless to submit 
 to the indignity of riding through the village pur- 
 sued by pelting urchins, and by no means pleasant 
 abuse from over the Avails. Her indignation was 
 greater than her fear or even than her surprise, 
 and the scornful glance with which she met the 
 angry eyes on a level with her own silenced more 
 than one of the tongues. But for a sense that it 
 would have been undignified, she would dearly have 
 loved to dismount, seize one of the ringleaders, and 
 administer summary justice. The possible meaning 
 of this unusual reception did not strike her until, 
 emerging from the village still pursued by her tor- 
 mentors, she came straight upon her husband. His 
 look, as he recognised the position, filled her with 
 alarm ; and there was something in it of such abso- 
 lutely uncontrolled passion and hatred, that it flashed 
 upon her that he, at least, must have good reason 
 to understand the scene. '' John ! don't do any- 
 thing, please don't ! " she cried as he tlirew himself 
 from his horse. " They are only children." 
 
 " I'm not going to run after those little demons, 
 if you mean that," he replied, giving her the reins 
 of his mount to hold; "but they have parents, I 
 suppose. I'll be back in a moment. Don't be 
 
MISS stitart's legacy. 373 
 
 afraid, Belle ; tliey are curs, every one of them. 
 But they shall pa}^ for this, in more ways than 
 one." 
 
 He came out five minutes afterwards, followed 
 by a protesting and most venerable looking panta- 
 loon, representative of that past age in which a 
 white face was, verily, a sign of kingship. He 
 took no notice of the lavish appeals and apologies, 
 but, putting his note-book in his pocket, remounted. 
 "I'm sorry you came this way," he said as they 
 rode off ; " but, as I often saj^ you have a faculty 
 for getting into mischief which is surprising in such 
 an eminently virtuous person as you are. Belle. 
 However, you mustn't do it again. In fact I should 
 prefer your keeping to my land for the next two 
 or three months." 
 
 Belle, given time to think, had lost much of her 
 courage in dismay at this most unexpected insight 
 into the world beyond her gates. Could such a 
 state of affairs be necessary? "Why, — " she began. 
 
 " My dear child, don't ask me why I I can't 
 suppl}^ reason to these pig-headed brutes. And 
 don't, for goodness' sake, make a fuss over it, and 
 bring Marsden's soft-heartedness down on me just 
 when I need to have a free hand. I told you I 
 should be unpopular, and I am; that is the long 
 and short of it; more unpopular than need be, for 
 somehow the people have got an idea that I could 
 
374 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 help if I chose. Why didn't Marsden put their 
 appeals in the waste paper basket, as I do, instead 
 of raising hopes by referring to me?" 
 
 "Has he been referring to you?" 
 
 Her husband looked at her and laughed. "I'm 
 not going to give myself away in confidence. As 
 I said before, I'm awfully sorry you came out this 
 way and chanced on that village. It is the worst 
 about here. For all that, there is no need for any 
 anxiety, I assure you. Afzul and his bandits are 
 worth a hundred of these curs ; and once the people 
 see I am a man of my word, they will come in 
 sharp enough." 
 
 " But if Philip — " 
 
 "Bother Philip! He is a trump of course, but I 
 tliink he has mixed himself up a little too mucli in 
 this business. I sliall be glad when he is out of it." 
 
 " Surely if you were to explain — " 
 
 " My dear Belle, explanation is nothing to demon- 
 stration. In six weeks' time, when the first flood 
 comes, I shall prove myself right, and waltz in, 
 hands down, an easy winner. That is to say if 
 nobody fouls me now out of goodness, and righteous- 
 ness, and all charitableness." 
 
 It was one thing to be told this, another to find 
 comfort in it, and as the days passed Belle grew 
 more and more uneasy. She felt sure all could not 
 be fair and square ; that there must be some antago- 
 
MISS stuakt's legacy. 375 
 
 nistic element at work to make the unpopularity so 
 intense. Perhaps because she watched for it so 
 keenly, it seemed to her that discontent showed itself 
 more and more freely on the faces of the people she 
 did meet in her now limited walks. One evening 
 she had a bad five minutes listening to a row in the 
 coolies' quarters with her husband's clear voice 
 dominating the clamour. She was still pale when 
 he came whistling through the garden as if nothing 
 had happened. It was onl}^, he said, a war of words 
 between Kirpo and Afzul. There had always been 
 a jealousy between them ; the latter declaring that 
 such a hideous female was not worthy to touch any 
 man's bread, for the former had risen by favour from 
 mere cooliedom, to act as cook for a gang of Hindu 
 workers ; the woman retorting that the hillmen were 
 no better than pirates, ready, despite their profes- 
 sions of horror at meats prepared by idolaters, to 
 steal her supplies if her back was turned. Afzul 
 had of late been growing idle and uppish; so John 
 had sided with Kirpo in this particular dispute. 
 
 " I think Kirpo is rather uppish too," replied 
 Belle. '' I heard her ordering some of the men 
 about as if she was their mistress." 
 
 Her husband laughed easily. " Just like a native ! 
 The fact being that Kirpo is useful to me at present, 
 by giving me information I can rely upon ; and she 
 presumes on the fact. When the floods have come 
 
376 MISS STUARTS LEGACY. 
 
 I shall be able to dispense with her, — with a variety 
 of things, in fact. I shall not be sorry ; I hate being 
 beholden to people." 
 
 Belle bent her head over her work and sewed 
 faster. '' I don't like Afzul, I don't like Kirpo, and 
 I like the unpopularit}^ least of all. Oh, John, 
 could you not give way a little? I am sure 
 Philip — " 
 
 "Now look here. Belle, I said just now that I 
 hated being beholden to any one, and you yourself 
 made enough to-do when I borrowed this money 
 from Marsden. And you've fussed and worried 
 about it ever since, because you think he consented 
 for your sake. Perhaps he did ; and so I mean to 
 show him he should have consented for his own. I 
 call that a laudable ambition which should satisfy 
 your pride. Now in my opinion the only road to 
 success lies my way. That, I think, should settle 
 the matter once and for all. Of course I am not 
 infallible ; but, unless something very unexpected 
 turns up, 3^ou will be laughing at your own fears 
 this time two months. Now, as I told Kirpo to 
 come ap to the office as soon as it was dark, let me 
 get some peace and quiet first. I think Haydn 
 would suit me to-day ; there is no forced sentiment 
 in him, jolly old chap ! " 
 
 So Belle played Haydn, and John dozed in his 
 chair till the darkness settled deep enough to hide 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 37T 
 
 Kirpo as she stole through bye-paths to the office 
 verandah. There, behind a creeper-hung pillar, she 
 waited till John's tall figure showed itself at the 
 writing-table. Then she went forward, and raising 
 the bamboo chick said softly : " I am here, Huzoor ! " 
 " All right ! Come in and shut the door." 
 Some one hiding in the oleander bushes in full 
 view of this incident muttered a curse, and settled 
 himself down in a new position. So what Shunker 
 had said was true, and, disfigured as she was, Kirpo 
 still kept her hold on the shaitan sahib. But for 
 a promise he had made to the usurer not to antici- 
 pate the great revenge brewing for John Raby's 
 discomfiture, Ramu (for it was he, once more out 
 of prison) would have asked nothing better than to 
 have waited patiently till Kirpo appeared again, and 
 then in the darkness to have fallen on her and 
 killed her outright. As it w^as he sat with eyes 
 fixed on the door, controlling his passion by the 
 thought of future and less hazardous revenge upon 
 them both. He had a long knife tucked away in 
 his waistcloth, but it seemed to him as if he could 
 feel its sharp edge and see its gleaming curve 
 plunging into flesh. Truly a venomous, dangerous 
 animal to be lurking among the white oleanders 
 in Belle's paradise, as she sat playing Haydn, and 
 John, with a contemptuous smile on his face, was 
 listening to Kirpo's tales. She knew a good deal 
 
378 MISS stuakt's legacy. 
 
 did Kirpo, but not all. She did not know, for 
 instance, that her husband la}^ among the oleanders, 
 else she might have hesitated in playing the part 
 of spy ; though she was no coward, and her revenge- 
 ful desires were keen. 
 
 By and by she came out, and a crouching, shadowy 
 figure followed her through the garden, and then 
 struck across the barren plain to the village which 
 John Raby had described as the worst of the lot; 
 the village of which Belle used persistently to 
 dream ; the village where even the children looked 
 at her with eyes of hate. Her husband did not 
 dream of anything. He used to sleep the alee]} 
 of the just, and wake fresh as a lark to the pur- 
 suit of the one reality in his life, — money. And 
 even in its pursuit he was content, because it occu- 
 pied him so thoroughly that he had no time to notice 
 minor details. Sometimes Belle irritated him, but 
 the instant after he would smile ; it was a way 
 women, especially good women, liad, — they could 
 not help it. Sometimes he fell foul in spirit of his 
 senior partner, but not for long. What were such 
 trivialities in comparison with the main fact of 
 general success ? Belle was a good wife, Marsden a 
 good friend ; above all, the concern was a good 
 concern, a rattling good business ; and he, John 
 Raby, had plucked the plum out of Shunker's very 
 hands. That last thought was always provocative 
 of a smile* 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 379 
 
 Meanwhile the Lala was smiling too. The re- 
 appearance of Ramu, — who seemed to keep all ]iis 
 virtue for the purpose of procuring a ticket-of-leave, 
 — had considerably strengthened the usurer's hands 
 by providing him with one absolutely reckless tool. 
 When the time came for setting fire to the carefully 
 laid train he would not have to seek for a match ; 
 and that, when one had to deal with these slow- 
 brained peasants, was a great gain. With such a 
 leader he looked forward confidently to mischief 
 sooner or later. Kirpo might tell tales, but there 
 were some tales Shunker meant to keep secret, till 
 the right moment came for turning passive opposi- 
 tion into active interference. 
 
380 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Belle's paradise did not last long. In less than 
 three weeks the hot winds came to shrivel the 
 bursting buds and turn even the promise of blossom 
 into a sign of death. The sunshine took a deeper 
 yellow glow, the blue faded from the sky, an im- 
 palpable dust began to settle on all things. Down 
 in the sand stretches below the house the net-work 
 of the river grew finer day by day, and the mud- 
 banks left by shrinking streams assumed airs of 
 perpetuity by clothing themselves with green herbs, 
 as if the time of floods were not nigh to swallow 
 them up once more. All else, far and near, seemed 
 fainting in a great thirst, longing for the crisis which 
 was to bring them life. 
 
 But Belle, though the floods had not yet come, 
 felt one calm still mornins^ as if the waters had 
 gone over her head, and she had no power to resist 
 the current which swept her from her feet. It was 
 a trivial thing which roused the feeling ; only a Avord 
 or two in one of Philip's letters which she held in 
 her hand as she stood beside her husband's writing- 
 table. 
 
 " I quite admit it, my dear girl," he was saying 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 381 
 
 calmly. " Marsden has written to me on that sub- 
 ject several times, and I have replied as I thought 
 fit. It is quite possible I may have given him the 
 impression I was willing, or even that I was going, 
 to do more than has really been done. What then? " 
 
 "Only this," she replied hotly; "that you have 
 degraded him in the eyes of these people. He 
 promised inquiry and — *" 
 
 " He had no business to promise anything. He 
 referred it to me, and he has no right to complain 
 of my decision." 
 
 "He does not complain! When has he ever com- 
 plained?" she interrupted, trying hard to keep the 
 passion from her voice. " You can read what he 
 says, if you like. He thinks, — I do not ask how — 
 that you have done your best." 
 
 "Exactly! I have done my best for the business." 
 
 " He did not mean that. Oh, John, the shame of 
 it will kill me ! To take everything from a man, 
 even his honour and good name — " 
 
 " You don't appear to be so much concerned about 
 mine. But I promised to pay Philip back his money 
 in two years, and I mean to do it. Be reasonable, 
 my dear child. Some one must take the responsi- 
 bility; some one must take the odium which is un- 
 fortunately inseparable from success. Why should 
 you complain because I take it cheerfully ? " 
 
 Belle crushed the letter closer in vexed despair. 
 
382 MISS stuaht's legacy. 
 
 " I can never make you understand ! Do you not 
 see it is a question of right and wrong? You have 
 taken his money and are using it as he would liate 
 to have it used. You have, — I do not say deceived 
 him — but kept the truth from him ; and even if you 
 succeed, what will you be doing but giving him 
 money gained as he would have scorned to gain it?" 
 
 Her husband laughed a very ugly laugh, and for 
 the first time his face showed some emotion. " I 
 always knew you thought Marsden perfect, but I 
 wasn't aware of your estimate of ni}^ comparative 
 virtue. I cannot say I'm flattered by it." 
 
 " I can't help it," she said, almost with a sob. " I 
 can't see things in the light you see them." 
 
 " That is a mutual disability, so for heaven's sake 
 let us agree to differ. The thing is done. P^ven if 
 I wished to do so, the sluice could not be built now. 
 The river is due in three Aveeks, or sooner, and any 
 interference with the dam at present must mean 
 disaster to all concerned. I tell you this because I 
 want you to understand that now, at any rate, my 
 hands are tied." 
 
 "Perhaps, — I mean, no doubt; but lie must 
 be told, and — and given his choice. It is not 
 right — " 
 
 " Tell him, my dear, if it pleases you to do so ; 
 though I think it is a pity, for in two months' time, 
 if all this fuss doesn't play the devil with my plans, 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 383 
 
 the difficulties will be over. By the wa}', what do 
 you propose to tell him ? That I have behaved like 
 a scoundrel?" 
 
 "You have no right to say such things, John!" 
 she cried indignantl}^ 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. '^ Well I That I have 
 behaved as he would have scorned to behave ? &c., 
 &c. It seems to me about the same thing in differ- 
 ent words." 
 
 The flush Avhich rose to her face told how hard 
 she was hit. That was the mischief of it all ! — that 
 fatal comparison between these two men, against 
 which she had struggled in vain. Why should she 
 have compared them? Why, even now, should she 
 not let things be and trust to John's superior wisdom ? 
 For he was wise in such matters, and, heaven know^s I 
 gave himself up wholly to insure success. How could 
 she tell Philip? What was she to tell him? Yet 
 he must know : even for John's sake he ouo-ht to 
 know what w^as being done in his name. '' I will 
 ask him to come here," she said with an effort, " then 
 he can see for himself." 
 
 John Rab}' looked up quickly. " Very well, do 
 so. Only remember this : I disclaim all responsi- 
 bility for what may happen, and I tell you fairly I 
 mean to have my own way. You know perfectly 
 well that I consider quarrelling mere w^aste of time ; 
 but if the position becomes awkward, that will be 
 your doing, not mine." 
 
384 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 '' I will tell him to come," repeated Belle slowly. 
 
 '' Then that's settled. Perhaps it may be best, 
 after all," he added, his face losing its last trace of 
 vexation. "Indeed I thought of asking him before; 
 but the fact is the last time he was here you showed 
 your uneasiness so distinctly that 1 hesitated." 
 
 Once more the colour rose to his wife's face as she 
 turned away. Was everything from beginning to 
 end her fault, she wondered, as she sent off a tele- 
 gram asking Philip to come, if he could get leave. 
 She chose a telegram more because it relieved her 
 from the necessity of giving her reasons than from 
 any desire to save time, and so accelerate the ex- 
 planations she dreaded. Yet when, late in the even- 
 ing of the next day, John, coming from the factory, 
 told her with a certain elation in his voice, that the 
 river Avas on the rise, she clasped her hands nervously 
 and wished Philip had wings. 
 
 All the next day she found herself going to the 
 verandah whence she could see the sandy flats, and 
 wondering if those distant streaks of water were 
 indeed creeping nearer. 
 
 "The barometer's falling fast, so I'm afraid your 
 philanthropy comes a little too late, Belle," said John 
 when he came in to lunch ; " but personally I'm glad 
 the floods will be early. I don't mind confessing to 
 a little anxiety as to whether the dam will work, and 
 it will be a relief to see you looking less worried. I 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 385 
 
 think every one is too much on the strain just now, 
 even Afzul. He was only saved from throwing up 
 his place this morning by the news that Philip was 
 coming to-morrow; so you see your plan has done 
 some good already/' 
 
 The night closed dark and hazy, and Belle's last 
 look from the verandah showed her nothino- but dim 
 distances stretching away to a lighter horizon. She 
 could not sleep, yet she would not make any stir, so 
 she lay awake wondering what forces were at work 
 among the shadows, and what the dawn would bring 
 forth. 
 
 " John, John ! " she cried, touching his shoulder 
 to rouse him when the first glimmer of light came to 
 reveal the labour of the night. " The floods are out 
 right up to the high bank ! " 
 
 He was on his feet in an instant. " By George ! 
 I am in luck ! " he cried. " It will take them all by 
 surprise. Tell them to bring tea, Belle ; I must be 
 off to the dam at once. And don't expect me back 
 till lunch ; Marsden will excuse me, and besides," he 
 gave a little light laugh, " it will give you leisure to 
 get over your confession. It's awfully nice to have 
 some one to be penitent in your place. It saves a 
 lot of bother. Don't you remember Florae's repl}: 
 to Pendennis about his mother's tears. ' You must 
 have made her weep a good deal,' says Pen 'Mais 
 enorm^ment, mon cher ! ' " 
 
 2 c 
 
386 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 A few minutes later he had left her with a kindly 
 good-bye, and a recommendation to take things easy 
 as he did. As she walked up and down the verandah 
 waiting for Philip's arrival, she asked herself more 
 than once whether it would not be wdser to folloAV 
 John's advice. Now that the last chance of remedy 
 was over for the present, why should she give herself 
 the pain of acknowledging that she condemned her 
 husband's action? Drifting this way and that in 
 the current of thought, as many another thing swept 
 from its moorings was drifting in the floods beneath 
 her eyes, she had reached no certain conclusion when 
 the even tread of the horse, which they had sent to 
 meet Philip, brought her back to action with a strange 
 dread of herself. He was beside her in an instant and 
 though she had worded her telegram so as to avoid 
 anxiety, it was clearly evident in his face. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" he said, still holding her out- 
 stretched hand of welcome, and looking into her face 
 curiously. 
 
 " Nothing," she answered hurriedly ; " nothing in 
 the least important. Only — I wanted to see you. 
 Come in ; you must be tired, that beast has such 
 rough paces ; I would have sent Suleiman, but he is 
 lame. Come in, tea is ready." 
 
 So she ran on, and Philip, who, to say sooth, had 
 been on tenter-hooks ever since the receipt of her 
 summons, had to fall into her mood, not without a 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 387 
 
 certain sense of injury. But the pleasure of being 
 within touch of her hand and sight of her face was 
 irresistible, so that the following hours seemed to 
 take him back to the most perfect memory of his 
 whole life, to that evening at Saudaghur which he 
 and she had spent together in thoughtless, unreason- 
 ing content. Perhaps this memory cast its glamour 
 over Belle likewise; certain it is that something 
 beat down and overwhelmed all thought and care. 
 John, coming in almost late for lunch, found them 
 laughing over the last week's " Punch " which Philip 
 had brought with him ; and taking his cue quickly, 
 if with some contemptuous surprise, di*opped his 
 serious air and became the genial host. Never was 
 there a gayer or more light-hearted trio ; but outside 
 the house the clear promise of the morning had 
 dulled to a yelloAv haze, and every now and again a 
 swirl of dust swept past, making the yellow deeper. 
 
 " In for the first audi ^ of the season," said John 
 Raby standing by the window. " The natives say it 
 is a sign of a healthy year to have a dust-storm 
 early. More good luck, you see. Belle I There is 
 nothing like keeping a calm sough, and trusting to 
 Providence. Doesn't it make you feel ' heavenly 
 calm,' Marsden, to be here in this jolly room and 
 know that outside, in all that dust and pother, the 
 elements are working together for your good ? " 
 1 Electrical dust-storm. 
 
388 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 Philip laughed. " I feel very Avell content, thank 
 you. The comfort of contrast always appeals to my 
 selfish nature." 
 
 " Hark to that, Belle ! I'll never believe in 
 Philij^'s saintship again," cried her husband trium- 
 phantly. " Well, I must be off ; there was the tiniest 
 crumble in the dam, and I must get my bandits to 
 work on it before dark. By the Avay, Marsden, 
 Afzul said he was coming to see you this afternoon. 
 If so, sit on him. The beggar has been half muti- 
 nous of late. Faugh ! what an atmosphere ; but I 
 dare say it will be better outside." 
 
 " How well he is looking," said Philip, as he 
 watched the figure disappearing through the haze. 
 "I wish I could see you do more credit to the 
 ' heavenly calm.' " He made the remark lightly 
 enough, thinking only of his first glance at her 
 Avlien he arrived ; a glance which had prompted his 
 swift inquiry as to what was the matter. But he 
 was startled out of all save surprise by the look on 
 her face as she turned towards him from the window. 
 
 " Heavenly calm ! " she echoed almost wildly. 
 '' Yes, for you and for me, and for him ; but for the 
 others ? You asked me, and I said nothing was the 
 matter. It was a lie, everything is the matter ! 
 Outside there, in the dust, — " as she spoke the 
 hand she had laid on his arm in her vehemence 
 tightened to a clutch, her eyes fixed themselves 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 389 
 
 on something. '' John I " she cried. '' He is com- 
 ing back, running ! Oh, what is it? what is it?" 
 
 Almost before he could grasp her meaning the 
 door burst open, and John Raby was back in the 
 room, calm for all his excitement. "Quick, Mars- 
 den, quick! get your revolver, — the fools are at 
 the dam ! There's treachery, and not a moment to 
 lose ! Quick, man, quick ! " 
 
 "Treachery! What? How? I don't understand 
 — Belle, what is the matter?" 
 
 For she had thrown herself between him and her 
 husband, and stood with one hand on his breast as 
 if to push him back. " He shall not go ; he does 
 not understand ! " she cried passionately. " I tell 
 you he shall not go until I have told him all. He 
 does not know, he does not understand; it is not 
 fair — Philip! — " 
 
 " — Don't heed her, Marsden ; it's all fancy, and 
 there is no time for words. I tell you they are at 
 the dam, — the fools ! " cried John, his self-control 
 seeming to give way at the very thought of danger 
 to the work of his hands. " Belle, let him go ! I 
 command you, — I entreat — " 
 
 But she stood firm, every fibre of her nature tense 
 in this fimal conflict, a conflict not so much between 
 the two men, as between her instincts and her 
 beliefs. And yet, the sense of personal injury so 
 long repressed made her words reckless. " You 
 
390 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 have taken everything from him — everything that 
 makes life worth living — even his love. And be- 
 cause of that he has given up everything without 
 a word ; and now you ask his honour, his life, in a 
 bad cause ; but you shall not have it ! Philip I if 
 you love me, — if you love your own good name, — 
 stay where you are. It is I who command it ! " 
 
 With an oath John Raby dashed past her to the 
 office, but ere Philip had time to do more than 
 unclasp, as gently as he could, the arms she had 
 flung about his neck, her husband was back again, 
 revolver in hand, his clear face blurred by anger; 
 sheer, annual anger. 
 
 " Belle ! " he cried, beside himself with uncon- 
 trolled passion, "don't add this folly to your other 
 foolishness. Think! I am your husband; so choose 
 between us. Choose between us I say, or by God — " 
 
 She interrupted him in tones so bitter that no 
 escape remained from their finality. " Choose ? 
 Yes ! I have chosen at last — at last ! Philip shall 
 not suffer." 
 
 His answer came swiftly ! " Then stay with your 
 lover; I might have known I was a fool to trust 
 a woman." 
 
 Ere the echo of his voice died away he was out 
 in the storm again, leaving those two in a silence 
 worse than the words just spoken. He had dis- 
 engaged her arms, but her hands had tightened 
 
]Nnss Stuart's legacy. 391 
 
 themselves on his, and so they stood face to face, 
 lookmg into each other's eyes. But in his hay a 
 pity and tenderness before which hers failed and 
 fell. 
 
 " You must not go,*' she whispered, low and fast. 
 " I have not told you, and I ought to have told 
 you. He had no right to use your name, to be so 
 hard ; and they may kill you. I have a right to 
 tell you, — surely I have a right to so much?" 
 
 Her warm clasp held him unresisting, yet in his 
 heart of hearts he was not thinking of her, only of 
 some expedient which should avoid the last resource 
 of brute force ; for with all his tenderness his pride 
 was in arms. "Have I not given you enough. 
 Belle ? " he said hoarsely. '' Will you not even 
 leave me my courage ? " 
 
 With a sob she flung his hands from her as if 
 they bit and stung. " Go I " she cried. " You are 
 unjust, ungenerous ; but go I " 
 
 He did not wait. Torn as he was by love and 
 compassion for the woman he Avas leaving so for- 
 saken and abased, he could not pause in the mad 
 hurry which seized him, even for a word of com- 
 fort; time, if he was to retrieve his self-respect and 
 hers, was too precious. Another instant and he 
 was searching frantically for his revolver among 
 his half-unpacked things, and feeling a certain fierce 
 joy in anticipation of the struggle to come. A 
 
392 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 quick snatch, a breathless relief, and he looked up 
 to find Afzul Khan standing by the only door of 
 exit from the room. " Afzul ! " he cried, " why are 
 you here? Why are you not at your post when 
 there is danger afoot ? Follow me at once ! " 
 
 But the Pathan's answer was to close the door and 
 stand with his arm thrown across it, bolt-wise. Then 
 he looked at the Major boldly, yet respectfully. 
 ''I'm here, ITuzoor, because I have grown tired of 
 helping a tyrant. The sahib should be tired of it 
 too and take his reward. That is what I came to 
 make known to the Presence." 
 
 " Let me pass, fool ! " shouted Philip, struggling 
 to get at the door. But Afzul was his match in 
 strength, and, even as he resisted, found time for 
 words. " Listen, Ruzoor ! If it is the money, let it 
 go. I have here in my pocket sometliing that will 
 put more money into the me^iis hand. So you can 
 have her and the money too." 
 
 " Are you mad ? Let me pass, I say, or it will be 
 the worse for you ! " 
 
 "For you, Huzoor. There is danger; the men 
 mean fight, but if Raby sahib has none to back him, 
 he will choose prudence. He wrought the evil — 
 I will not stir, sahib^ till you have listened — he 
 wrought the evil, let him bear the loss. You — " 
 
 Philip gave one glance round for other means of 
 escape; then the breathless hurry of the last few 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 393 
 
 moments left his voice and manner. " Stand back, 
 Afzul," he said quietly, ''or I"ll fire. One, — two, 
 
 — three! — " 
 
 An instant's pause, and the hand on the trigge-r 
 wavered. Something, the memory of those days 
 and nights in the smoky cave, j)erhaps, came between 
 Philip and the wrist he aimed at, for the ball struck 
 the door below it, splintering the wood. But that 
 waver, slight though it was, caught the Pathan's 
 quick eye. He threw up his arm with a laugh of 
 malicious triumph. " We are quits, Huzoor ! We 
 have both been fools before the other's bravery ; that 
 is the end, the end at last! " 
 
 The meaning of his words, even the words them- 
 selves, were lost on Philip, who was already down 
 the verandah steps, his head, as he ran, bent low to 
 save himself from being blinded by the swirl of dust 
 which now swept past continuously. Afzul scowled 
 after the retreating figure. " Fool ! " he muttered 
 between his teeth. " But I have done with him now 
 
 — done with everything save this accursed letter. 
 I wish I had sent it to the mem at first. It belongs 
 to her, and she is the best of the bunch." 
 
 So muttering he made his way to the verandah, 
 and raising the bamboo screen looked into the draw- 
 ing-room. Belle, crushed to a dull endurance by the 
 consciousness of her own impotence to aid ; nay 
 more, with the very desire to help killed by the 
 
394 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 awful knowledge that both those men had flung her 
 aside as something beneath their manhood, had 
 thrown herself face downward on the sofa, where 
 she lay with clenched hands, striving to regain some 
 power of thought or action ; yet in the very effort 
 driving herself to greater helplessness by her wild 
 insistence that time was passing, that she must de- 
 cide, must do something. 
 
 ''Huzoor!'' 
 
 She started to her feet, and found Afzul beside 
 lier with outstretched hand. The sight, by rousing 
 a physical fear, brought back the courage which 
 never failed her at such times. "Well?" she asked 
 boldly. 
 
 " I am not come to hurt you, Huzoor^ but to give 
 you this. It belongs to you." 
 
 She put out her hand mechanically, and took a 
 small package done up, native fasliion, in a bit of old 
 brocade. 
 
 '' Mine ! what is it ? " she asked in a dull tone. 
 
 "It is Dick saJiib's w^ill. He died fighting like 
 the brave one he was ; but they were all brave, those 
 three, — Dick sahib, and Marsden sahib, and Raby 
 sahib. They die fighting, — curse them I " 
 
 They die fighting? With the lirst cry she had 
 given. Belle broke from him, and, still clutching the 
 packet, followed in the footsteps of those two ; and 
 as she ran, beaten back by the wind, and half-blinded 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 395 
 
 by the sand, she scarcely thought of their safety, 
 only that she might get there in time. Only in 
 time, dear God ! only in time to show them that she 
 was brave also. 
 
 The lurid yellow of the dust-storm had darkened 
 or lightened everything to the same dull tint; the 
 sand beneath her feet, the sky above, the swaying 
 trees between, each and all seemed like shadows 
 throw^n upon a screen, and her own flying figure the 
 only reality in an empty world of dreams. Not a 
 sound save the broad rush of the wind, not a sight 
 save the dim dust hazed paths bordered by shrivelled 
 flowers. Then, beyond the garden, the long curve 
 of the dam, the deeper sinking into dun-coloured 
 soil of those frantic feet ; and, running with her as 
 she ran, the swirls and dimples of the yellow river 
 angry for all its silence. 
 
 If only she might be in time I There, in the 
 centre of the curve, like a swarm of bees, shifting, 
 crowding, pressing, — was that John's fair head in 
 the centre? If the wind were only the other way, 
 she might have heard; but now, even if they were 
 crying for help, she would not hear I — 
 
 Suddenly her stumbling flight ceased in a stum- 
 bling pause. Was that the wind? She threw up 
 her hands without a cry, and stood as if turned to 
 stone. It seemed to her as if the seconds beat 
 themselves in on her brain — one — two — three — 
 
396 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 four — live — not more than that ; then a low dull 
 roar ending in silence ; silence and peace, for she 
 lay huddled up in a heap upon the ground as if 
 struck by lightning. 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 397 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 When John Raby, waking at Belle's touch to find 
 the floods had come, remarked that the people would 
 be taken by surprise, he said truly. The corollary 
 he drew from this premise — that he was to be con- 
 gratulated on good luck — was not so sure. For 
 there are times when the unforeseen acts as a spur 
 to those who, when prepared, often lack the courage 
 of action. And this was the case with a large body 
 of the malcontents whom Shunker Das, aided of late 
 by his lieutenant Ram Lai, had been diligently in- 
 structing in the necessity for resistance at the proper 
 time. But a vague formula of this sort is a very 
 different thing in the eyes of the stolid law-abiding 
 peasant, from the resolution that to-daj^, this hour, 
 this minute, they had to set aside their inherited 
 endurance, their ancestral calm, and fight. So, had 
 the floods come in due course and after due warning, 
 it is more than probable that even Ram Lai's reckless 
 desire for revenge v/ould have failed to excite 
 the people to the organised attack on the new 
 dam towards which all Shunker's machinations had 
 tended, and in which he saw at least temporary ruin 
 to his enemy's plans. Fate, however, provided the 
 
398 MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 
 
 element of surprise, and, to these slow-brained rebels, 
 seemed to leave no choice beyond instant revolt or 
 instant submission. 
 
 Aided by Ram Lai's envoys the news that the 
 river was rising travelled fast ; down the depression 
 of cultivated land along which — given a high flood- 
 mark — -the water might be expected: nor was the 
 assertion wanting that such a flood-mark had already 
 been reached during the past two days, and its bene- 
 fits neutralised by Raby saJiih's unholy contrivance. 
 By dawn bands of the restless had begun to drift 
 about from village to village, eager to discuss the 
 position, and by degrees gaining a certain coherence 
 of intention. Even those who hung back from the 
 idea of active interference joining the crowd out of 
 curiosity and so increasing the quantity of human 
 tinder ready for ignition by the smallest spark. 
 Before noon Khan Mahomed Lateef Khan, looking 
 out from his ruined tower, saw a cloud of dust 
 beyond his bare brown fields and ere long was in 
 parley with a recruiting band. 
 
 "Not I," swore the old man fiercely; "these are 
 not days for honest blows. My son — God smite 
 those who smote him ! — could tell you so much ; 
 and his son must learn his father's wisdom. Ye are 
 fools ! Let every one of you give one ruj)ee after 
 the manner of a wedding, and go purchase the 
 slithering lies of a pleader. Then may ye have jus- 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 399 
 
 tice in the sahibs' courts ; not otlier\Yise. Besides, 
 look ye, Shunker is in this, and his jackal Ramu ; 
 and by the twelve Imaums I hate them Avorse than 
 Raby sahib I '' 
 
 " Ram Lai hath cause," retorted a villainous-look- 
 ing goldsmith, hailing from the village where Belle 
 had been pelted by the children. " We Hindus, 
 Khan sahib^ are peace-lovers till they touch our 
 women." 
 
 The old Mussulman burst into a scornful laugh. 
 "Best not chatter thus to me, Gurdit ! Inshallah ; 
 there have been times when honest blows with a 
 good sword have brought the faithful many a Hindu 
 peri ! But I quarrel not, so go your way, fools, like 
 sheep to slaughter if so your wisdom teaches. I bide 
 at home." 
 
 "Nay but. Khan sahib,'' expostulated that very 
 Peru with whom Shunker had begun his work, " we 
 go not to, or for slaughter. We mean to petition 
 first to Marsden sahib, who comes to-day; so the 
 Pathan hath given out." 
 
 " What ! " interrupted the Khan with a frown. 
 " He hath returned I Then go ye doubly to slaugh- 
 ter, for there is one who dallies not with words. He 
 knows how to smite, and if it comes to blows I 
 know which side good swords — But there ! I bide at 
 home." 
 
 Nor, despite their urgent importunities, would he 
 
400 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 consent even to join those who favoured a petition. 
 No doubt the racial disinclination to be mixed up 
 with idolaters had something to do with the refusal ; 
 beyond this there was a stronger desire to give no 
 help to Shunker ; and stronger than all was that lik- 
 ing for sheer pluck which makes a native regiment, 
 recruited from the martial races and led by English- 
 men it trusts, well nigh the perfection of a warlike 
 weapon. Many records bear witness to this fact, 
 none more so than the story of Ahmad Kheyl, when, 
 but for an Englishman's voice and the steady re- 
 sponse of Indian soldiers, the tale might have been 
 writ " disaster " instead of " victory." Perhaps some 
 of the three thousand Ghazies who on that day 
 dashed like an avalanche down the hill-side on to 
 the thin brown line guarding a mistaken retreat 
 of red-coats may have expected colour to side with 
 colour. If so they paid dearly for their error. It 
 is i^luck with pluck; and the words '''•Retreat he 
 damned — stand fast^ men!'^ attributed rightly or 
 wrongly to an Englishman not mentioned in de- 
 spatches, were sufficient to weld two nationalities 
 into a wall which broke the force of one of the 
 most desperate charges ever made. At least so 
 runs the story, — out of despatches. 
 
 Khan Mahomed Lateef Khan, then, retreated 
 growling to his tumbledown roof, and betook him- 
 self inconsequently to polishing up his sword. Half 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 401 
 
 an hour afterwards, however, he suddenly bade okl 
 Fatma bring him his company raiment with the 
 medals and clasps of his dead sons sewn on it. 
 Then he said a brief farewell to the child, left the 
 women without a ^vord, and went over to borrow 
 the pink-nosed pony of the pleader's father, who, 
 being the Government accountant, was of course 
 discreetly at home. 
 
 "Why didst not make thy son take up the case 
 without payment ? " asked the old man wratlif ully, 
 as his neighbour held the stirrup for him to mount. 
 " Then should I not have had to go in mine old age 
 and strive for peace, — mark you, for peace ! " 
 
 But as he rode off, the old sword clattered merrily 
 about his old legs, and he smiled, thinking of the 
 gift given when the light of his eyes lay sick in the 
 mem's arms. 
 
 " The sword is for her and hers, according to my 
 oath," he said to himself. " God knows it may be 
 peace ; I will do naught to hinder it ; but with 
 Marsden saliih — Allah Akhar ! at least they do not 
 worship stocks and stones like these pigs." 
 
 So behind the gathering cloud of witnesses, half 
 hidden in the gathering dust, came the pink-nosed 
 pony ready for peace or war. The odds, either for 
 one or the other, flickered up and down a dozen 
 times as village after village sent or held back its 
 contingent. Finally it flared up conclusively with 
 
 2 D 
 
402 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 the advent of Ramu at the head of his particuhir 
 villains, armed not only with sticks and stones, but 
 with picks and shovels. Like a spark among tinder 
 the suggestion flamed through the mass, — why waste 
 time in words when, without a blow, except at solid 
 earth, they could bring the floods into their own 
 channel, since Afzul and his gang had declared in 
 favour of the people ? So said Ramu, and the peas- 
 ants were only too ready to believe him, seeing that 
 picks and shovels were more to their minds than 
 blows. Thus, wdiile the trio of aliens to whom that 
 low curve of earthwork meant so much, were talking 
 and laughing over their lunch, the dam was being 
 assailed by a swarm of men eager for its destruction. 
 Almost at the same time the Khan saJiib, spurring 
 the pink-nosed pony to the overseer's hut, found 
 Afzul asleep, or pretending to sleep. Perhaps the 
 hint of bribery was true ; perhaps the Pathan thought 
 a crisis was needed ; at all events he was too crafty 
 to show his hand to his stern old patron, and set off 
 ostensibly to give the alarm at the house and sum- 
 mon his gang, who by a curious coincidence hap- 
 pened to be employed half a mile or so further up 
 the river. Not till he saw his messenger reach the 
 verandah did the Khan seek the scene of action. 
 Picks and shovels indeed ! Well ! these ploughmen 
 had a right to use such weapons, and he would stand 
 by and see fair play. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 403 
 
 How Afzul fulfilled his mission has already been 
 told ; also the result of John Raby's appeal for help 
 to Philip Marsden. To say that the former could 
 not believe his eyes, when, on first turning out of 
 the garden, he caught sight of the crowd gathered 
 on the dam, is but a feeble description of the abso- 
 lutely incredulous wrath which overpowered him. 
 He had been prepared for opposition, perhaps even 
 for attack, when such attack was reasonable. But 
 that these fools, these madmen, should propose to 
 cut a channel with the full weight of a flood on the 
 dam was inconceivable. As he ran back for his 
 revolver, a savage joy at the danger to the workers 
 themselves merged itself with rage at the possible 
 ruin of his labour, and a fierce determination by 
 words, warnings, and threats to avert the worst. 
 They could not be such fools, such insensate idiots ! 
 As he passed the workmen's huts on his return, he 
 shouted to Afzul, and getting no reply ran on with 
 a curse at all traitors. He was alone against them 
 all, but despite them all he would prevail. As he 
 neared the crowd, bare-headed, revolver in hand, 
 he felt a wild desire to fire without a word and kill 
 some one, no matter whom. The suspicion, how- 
 ever, that this attack could not proceed from any- 
 thing but revenge had grown upon him, and became 
 conviction as he saw that the largest portion of his 
 enemies were of the ruck ; men who never did a 
 
404 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 hand's turn, and who even now stood by, applaud- 
 ing, while others plied spade and mattock. In the 
 latter, in their stolid wisdom and experience, lay 
 his best chance, and he slipped the revolver to his 
 pocket instantly. " Stop, you fools ! " he shouted, 
 " stop ! Peru ! Gunga ; where are your wits ? The 
 flood, — the flood is too strong." Then, recognising 
 the old Khan, he appealed instinctively to him for 
 support. "Stop them. Khan saJiib! you are old 
 and wise ; tell them it is madness ! " 
 
 As he spoke, reaching the growing gap, he leapt 
 doAvn into it and wrested a spade from the man 
 nearest to him. It was yielded almost without re- 
 sistance, but a murmur ran through the bystanders, 
 and the workers dug faster. 
 
 " Jodha ! Boota ! Dhurma I " rose John's voice 
 again, singling out the men he knew to be culti- 
 vators. " This is folly ! tell them it is folly. Khan 
 saJiib!'' 
 
 " I know not," answered the other moodily ; " 'tis 
 shovel, not sword-work, and they have a right to 
 the water — before God, saJiib, they have a right 
 to so much ! " 
 
 "Before God, they will have more than they 
 want," interrupted that eager tone,; and something 
 in its intelligent decision arrested one or two of the 
 older workers. They looked round at the swirling 
 waste of the river and hesitated. 
 
MISS stuart's legacy. 405 
 
 " 'Tis but his craft," cried Ramu excitedly, show- 
 ing himself for the first time ; " I know Raby w^ell. 
 On ! On, my brothers ! He has wiles for men as 
 Avell as for women ! " 
 
 The revolver came out of John Raby's pocket 
 again swiftly, but an ominous surge together of the 
 crowd showed him that it must be a last resource 
 when all else had failed ; and now there w^ere steps 
 behind him coming down the embankment hard and 
 fast. The next instant Philip's voice with the ring 
 of accustomed command in it came sharp. '' Listen I 
 The first of you who puts spade to ground, God 
 save his soul from damnation ! " 
 
 The native is essentially dramatic. The very turn 
 of his speech, where the imperative remains intact 
 even when it has filtered through other lips, shows 
 him to be so ; and Philip Marsden, with the intimate 
 knowledge of years, counted not unwisely on this 
 characteristic for effect. The surprise, the appear- 
 ance of one who in a vague way they considered of 
 the right sort, the certainty that the voice they 
 heard meant what it said, produced a general pause 
 among the diggers ; a pause during which Mahomed 
 Lateef drew his sword gently from the scabbard. 
 
 " Listen again ! " cried Philip. " Put down those 
 spades and you shall have justice. I promise it." 
 
 But even as he spoke John Raby gave a quick 
 excited cry. " Back ! Marsden, back I the dam is 
 
406 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 cracking ! Back, for God's sake ! It is too late ! 
 Let the fools be ! " 
 
 He sprang up the gap, and as he did so a man 
 sprang after him. It was Ramu, ready for the deed 
 he had come to do, fearful lest by this unexpected 
 flight his prey might escape him. The glance of a 
 knife, a cry, more of surprise than pain, and John 
 Raby, twisting round in a last desire to get at his 
 assassin, overbalanced and fell headlong down into 
 the ditch. The next instant, before Philip's revolver 
 could single out the criminal, the old Khan's sword 
 swirled above the high turban. 
 
 <■'• AllaJi-i-Huhk ! Allah-i-Akhar !'' (God is Right 
 and Might.) The fervour of youth rang in the 
 familiar war-shout, and the memory of youth must 
 have nerved the hand, for Rrimu's head heeled over 
 on his shoulder in ghastly fashion as he doubled up 
 beneath the force of the blow. But ere he fell the 
 ground beneath him split as if for a grave, and with 
 a hiss of water pouring through the cracks the 
 loosened soil gave way on all sides. Philip, bound- 
 ing down to reach his fallen friend, felt a sudden 
 dizziness as the solid earth swirled round, split up, 
 broke into islands. Then, with an awful swiftness, 
 while the crowd fought frantically for a crumbling 
 foothold, the dam, like a child's sand-castle before 
 an incoming wave, broadened, sank, melted, disap- 
 peared, leaving nothing but a sheet of w^ater racing 
 madl}^ to find its old haunts. 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 407 
 
 Then it was, Avhen the scene in which all her life 
 seemed bound up disappeared bodily from before her 
 eyes, that Belle Raby threw up her hands and forgot 
 the whole world for a time. 
 
 Philip, strong swimmer as he Avas, struggled hard 
 with the underdraw ere he rose to the surface, shook 
 the mud and water from his eyes, and looked about 
 him. Many a wretch swept past him shrieking for 
 aid, but he searched for something which, even amid 
 his own danger, he could not think of without a 
 curse. Once, twice, thrice, he dived after a hint, a 
 hope ; then, coming on Mahomed Lateef, drifting 
 half-unconsciously down stream, he gave up the use- 
 less search and, buoying the old man's head against 
 his shoulder, struck out for the back eddy. He was 
 so spent when he reached the shore, that he could 
 with difficulty drag his burden to the dry warm sand 
 and sink down beside it. The whole incident had 
 passed so rapidly that it seemed but an instant since 
 he had been running down the embankment, eager 
 to be in time. And he had been in time for what? 
 Suddenlv he remembered Belle and stao^o-ered to his 
 feet. The storm was darker than ever and aided by 
 the afternoon shadows wrapped everything in a dim 
 twilio'ht which hid all save the immediate fore- 
 ground. Still he could see from the ebb of the flood 
 in front of him that the great mass of upheld water 
 must have surged first in a forward direction, and 
 
408 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 then recoiled to find the lower levels which lay at 
 right angles. Thus it seemed probable that many of 
 those swept away in the great rush might have been 
 left high and dry a quarter of a mile or so loAver 
 down ; and in this case nothing was more likely than 
 a further attack on the house, for once blood has 
 been shed, — and that some of those engaged must 
 have lost their lives seemed certain — even the pro- 
 verbially placid peasantry of India loses its head. 
 Belle, therefore, must be found, not merely to tell 
 her of the calamity, but to secure her safety; the 
 instant after this thought flashed upon him, Philip 
 Marsden was making his way to the house, stum- 
 bling as he ran through heavy sand and in the teeth 
 of a choking dust-storm. Men, even strong men, 
 have in such a storm lost their way and been smoth- 
 ered to death as they sought shelter in some hollow, 
 but Philip was too set on his purpose to think of 
 pausing. 
 
 "Belle! Belle!" he cried as he ran up the veran- 
 dah-steps and burst into the drawing-room. She 
 was not there. "Belle! Belle! I want you." But 
 there was no reply. The absence of servants, the 
 deserted verandah, did not surprise him ; news flies 
 fast among the people. But Belle ? was it possible 
 she too had ventured out, perhaps along the dam 
 itself? The very thought turned him sick with 
 fear, and he dashed into her room calling on her 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 409 
 
 again and again. The thousand and one delicate 
 tokens of her presence hit him hard by contrast 
 with the idea of her out there alone, perhaps swirl 
 ing down that awful stream with which it seemed 
 to him he was still struggling. 
 
 ''Belle! Belle!" He was out of the house once 
 more, through the garden, down by the huts. Was 
 it a year, or a minute ago, that he had passed that 
 way, running, as now, to be in time ? Or were past 
 and present nothing but a bad dream? One of 
 those endless flights from some unknown horror 
 which survive a thousand checks, and go on and 
 on despite perpetual escape? No, it was not a 
 dream ! The last time there had been a low curve 
 of earth before him where now nothing showed save 
 a dim yellow flood sliding so smoothly that it seemed 
 to have been sliding there since time began. Each 
 step bringing him nearer to it brought him nearer 
 also to despair. Then, just as he had given up hope, 
 on the very brink, so close that one clenched hand 
 hung over the water, he found her lying as she had 
 fallen; found her none too soon, for even as he 
 stooped to raise her, another few inches of loosened 
 soil undermined by the current fell with a dull 
 splash, and he realised that ere long the river would 
 have turned her forgetfulness to death. 
 
 Lifting her as best he could in his arms, he paused 
 an instant to consider what had best be done. One 
 
410 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 tiling was certain, neither house nor hut was safe 
 until time showed the temper of the survivors. Yet 
 help and remedies of some sort he must have, and 
 shelter too from storm and night. He thought of 
 Kirpo, but decided not to trust her. A lucky de- 
 cision, since to seek her would have been but waste 
 of time, as, recognising her husband among the 
 rioters, she had fled into the jungle with her child. 
 The servants might be found if fear had not dis- 
 persed them, but where in the meantime w^as he to 
 leave Belle? At last his thoughts returned to the 
 old Khiln. He was faithful, and if he had recovered 
 might at least keep watch while Philip sought other 
 help. Besides, not far from where he had left the 
 old man, Philip had noticed a reed shanty built 
 against the abutment of the dam, and so hidden 
 from the sight of all save those coming from that 
 side. He determined therefore to carr}- Belle thither, 
 and if he could find Mahomed Lateef to leave her 
 in his charge. This was no easy task, for Belle, 
 unconscious as she was, proved an awkward burden 
 over such a rough road, and it was a great relief to 
 be able to lay her down at last in comparative shelter 
 and assure himself that she was still alive ; for, as 
 he had struggled on, the dead weight in his arms 
 had filled him with apprehension. The next thing 
 was to find the Khan. Here fate proved kind, and 
 within a few yards of the shanty Philip came upon 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 411 
 
 him, battling against the wind yet finding breath for 
 a running fire of curses on all idolaters. To cut 
 short his gratitude and explain what was wanted 
 took but a moment; the next saw Philip hurrying 
 towards the house again, since, if the rioters re- 
 turned, time might run short. It did, despite his 
 hurry, so that after vainly searching for the servants, 
 he was still rummaging for more ammunition and 
 (most potent weapon of all) for money, when the 
 sound of advancing A^oices warned him to be off. 
 Thanks to the almost blinding dust there was little 
 fear of being seen in his retreat ; yet when, on reach- 
 ing the shanty, he found Belle still quite uncon- 
 scious, he recognised that the most difficult part of 
 his task had yet to come. He had brought back a 
 few comforts snatched up hastily as he made his 
 escape, and now set to work to force a few drops 
 of brandy down her throat, wrap her in warmer 
 garments, and chafe her cold hands and feet. To 
 do so he had to unclasp the fingers of her right 
 hand by force and withdraw something she held in 
 it. This, without giving it a glance, he slijiped into 
 the breast-pocket of his coat and so continued his 
 efforts. After a time her colour became less death- 
 like: she moaned once or twice, turning her head 
 aside as if to escape from some distasteful sight ; but 
 beyond this there was no change, and the hope 
 of her recovering the shock sufficiently to aid in 
 
412 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 her own escape seemed very slender. Nor did Philip 
 wonder at her collapse when he thought of what it 
 must have been for her to stand by helpless, and 
 see those who had left her in anger swept away 
 into the unforgiveness of death. 
 
 " Huzoov^^ whispered the old Khan, who in defer- 
 ence to inviolable custom had been sitting with 
 averted face in the doorway, where, shivering from 
 the chill of the wind throuGfh his wet clothes he had 
 been considering the position carefully, "We must 
 get out of this. To sit here will have us crippled 
 with ague by dawn. There is my pony ; I will go 
 fetch it from the huts. Perchance they may not see 
 me ; perchance they would not touch me if they did, 
 for lirimu — the man I killed, Huzoor — hath no 
 blood-kin in these parts, and death cools friendship. 
 Besides, their Avrath will be only against white faces. 
 When I am gone ten minutes, lift the mem^ and 
 make for the dip in the south road by the nullah. 
 If all goes well, you will hear hoofs ere long. But 
 if these fools are set on blood, make your w\ay as 
 best you can due south. Eight miles, more or less, 
 keeping the left bank till you see a square-towered 
 house. Give this to the women; they will obey it." 
 
 He took the talisman signet from his thumb, and 
 slipping it into Philip's hand left the hut. The next 
 ten minutes seemed interminable ; and the relief of 
 action when it came was great. This time Belle 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 413 
 
 proved an easier burden, when wrapped closely in a 
 shawl and lifted leisurely. Once amongst the tall 
 tiger-grass in the nullali he rested his knee against 
 a high tussock and still holding her in his arms 
 waited anxiously, for he was now on the direct route 
 to the house and liable to come across a straggling 
 rioter at any moment. The risk, however, had to 
 be run, as the only available bridge over a cut from 
 the river lay a few yards further on. Sheltered by 
 the high grass, Philip's eyes were practically useless 
 to him, and the pony's hoofs being deadened by the 
 sand, it needed a low whistle from the Khan to bring 
 him out on to the road beside the pink-nosed pony. 
 
 "Give me her here, across the pummel, Huzoor^'' 
 said the old man briefly. " Your legs are younger 
 than mine, and time is precious. So, gently ! 
 Mashcdlah ! I have seen women carried thus before 
 this ! — women who gave the rider more trouble 
 than she is like to do. Now, if you are ready, 
 Huzoor ; for though 'tis dark enough there will be 
 a blaze ere long. Those low-caste, pig-leather-work- 
 ing dogs had got to the saJiib^s brandy-bottles, and 
 you know what that means." 
 
 '' Did they try to stop you ? " asked Philip, when 
 after crossing the bridge in silent anxiety they struck 
 into the comparative safety of the jungle. 
 
 The old man grunted softly, his anger tempered 
 by the necessity for caution. "By the twelve 
 
414 
 
 Imaums tliey said I was afraid ! — J, Mahomed 
 Lateef Syyed ! — that I was sneaking away ! And 
 I, — I never even called them pigs." 
 
 Despite his anxiety Philip could not resist a smile, 
 partly of confidence, for no better proof of the 
 Khan's resolution to bring Belle safely out of trouble 
 could have been found than this unparalleled meek- 
 ness. So they went on swiftly. Philip at the bridle- 
 rein, the old Khan supporting Belle partly on his 
 arm, partly by a dexterous arrangement of his scab- 
 bard, over which the old man chuckled as if in 
 contented reminiscence of bygone days. " 'Tis as I 
 said, Huzoor^'' he remarked pointing to a red flush 
 rising behind them. *' That is the bungalow roof. 
 'Tis well she is out of it so far." Philip thinking of 
 all the horrors of the past few hours, and contrasting 
 them with his memories of Belle in her pretty home, 
 clenched his hands, wishing lie were nearer. Per- 
 haps the Khan's sympathy saw to his thought, for 
 the old man went on in aggrieved tones, "And we 
 get no good from it. Not even an honest set-to 
 when the women are safe ; for to-morrow the tdhseel- 
 dar'^ and the police will spoil sport. Besides, these 
 shovel-diggers will be afraid of their own actions by 
 dawn ! Even now we are safe ; safe as if we are 
 driving down the watered road of a cantonment, our 
 only care to convey this poor soul to woman's hands. 
 1 Deputy -Collector, i.e., chief native official. 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 415 
 
 Inshallali ! The women have the best of it in your 
 reign, Huzoor ! " 
 
 "Well! some one will have to answer for the 
 day's work," replied Philip grimly. 
 
 " Some one. Ay, that is to-day's law, and even of 
 that I know not," grumbled the Khan. " For look 
 you, Eiimu and none else killed the saliih., and 1 
 killed Ramu, so that is done. The rest were peace- 
 able enough, God knows, and you hang not for the 
 bursting of hunds (dams) and burning of bungalows. 
 There is no justice nowadays ! " 
 
 It was past midnight ere the pony pulled up of its 
 own accord at a ruinous door, and the owner with 
 mighty shouts and much impatient rattling of his 
 sword-hilt on the panels roused the inmates. "Come 
 forth, Fatma," he cried to the wdiite-sheeted form 
 muttering faint excuses which appeared at length. 
 "Heed not the stranger to-night, — Haiyat also. 
 He is my brother, and this, look you, is my sister. 
 We will carry her within to the women's room, and 
 ye must see to her as women should, and bring us 
 word of her state speedily. 'Tis best so, Huzoo?'; 
 Fatma is learned in woman's lore and hath simples. 
 She will tell us if there be hurts or danger. For 
 to-night the 77iem had best stay here, since there is 
 nought to be done save rest." 
 
 "Not so. Khan saJiib ; I must return and see 
 after — " 
 
416 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 The old Mussulman raised his right hand sol- 
 emnly. "Let the dead rest in peace also for to- 
 night, Huzoor. I saw Raby sahih fall, and I know 
 how dead clay toucheth the earth to which it returns. 
 The knife struck home, Huzoor ; right through the 
 heart ! Lo, it was Kismet ! Raby sahih is dead, but 
 his slayer is dead also, so we, his comrades, may rest 
 awhile till dawn comes." 
 
 "I will wait till dawn," said Philip, "and hear 
 what the women say." 
 
 So the Khan disposed himself to sleep with the 
 calm of an old campaigner, and Philip sat out in the 
 warm night air waiting for the dawn. The storm 
 had ended in weak-minded thunder and a few spots 
 of dry rain, which had nevertheless left a freshness 
 behind them. Here and there through the parting 
 drifts of cloud and dust the stars twinkled brightly, 
 making Philip's thoughts turn to a future more 
 peaceful than past or present. He drove the erring 
 fancies back to realities with a certain scorn of liim- 
 self, but they broke from control again and again 
 with the insistence which truth brings to bear on 
 conventionalities. It was true that by and by time 
 would heal the present trouble ; it was true that by 
 and by regrets would soften. There was no hurry, 
 no thought but pity and sorrow for what was, and 
 yet he started from a vision of peace to find old 
 Filtma by his side. The Khan had long since been 
 
ivnss stijaet's legacy. 417 
 
 snoring placidly, so the old matron's eyes could look 
 into Philip's with straightforward confidence. 
 
 " The mem will do for now, Huzoor. There is no 
 danger, none at all. But by and by, in the months 
 to come, may God save from harm the child that will 
 be born ! " 
 
 He rose to his feet white to the very lips. Just 
 Heaven I Was this poor Belle's last legacy ! 
 
 2 E 
 
418 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 The old Khan's forecast proved correct in every 
 particular. By noon on the day after the outbreak 
 the ringleaders were safe in the lock-up awaiting 
 trial, and, save for the smouldering house and the 
 yellow flood of water sliding down the old channel, 
 there was nothing to tell of the past night's work. 
 For the dead bodies bad been carried to their homes, 
 and the women wailed over them discreetly behind 
 mud walls, as if they had died in their beds. All 
 save John Raby's, and that was making a dismal pro- 
 cession towards the nearest railway station, preceded 
 at a little distance by poor Belle, crushed and but 
 half-conscious of the truth. Philip, riding by the side 
 of the litter, felt there was something exasperating in 
 the absolute insignificance of the whole affair. It 
 almost seemed as if some one must be to blame, as if 
 something could surely have been done to avert so 
 terrible an ending to what was, after all, but a storm 
 in a tea-cup. But then neither he, nor the authorities 
 who had to inquire into the matter, were in possession 
 of that master-key to the whole position which was to 
 be found in Shunker Das's desire for revenge. For 
 he had worked carefully, leaving scarcely a trace 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 419 
 
 behind him ; and though Kirpo came forward boldly 
 to declare his responsibility, her palpable motive for 
 spite discredited her statements. Besides, at the very 
 outset of the inquiry, it became clear that John 
 Raby's murder by Ramu had nothing whatever to 
 do with his action in regard to the water ; and how- 
 ever absurd the man's jealousy might seem, it was 
 certainly sufficient to explain the rancour with which 
 Kirpo's husband had set himself to conspire against 
 the Englishman. It was evident therefore that the 
 latter had met his death, not from his harshness 
 towards the people, but from the good-nature with 
 which he had originally espoused the woman's cause. 
 Both Philip Marsden and the Khan could only wit- 
 ness to the freedom from all attempt at personal 
 violence on the part of the crowd, even when John 
 Raby had thrown himself among the workers and 
 taken a spade from them by force ; while the 
 subsequent burning and looting of the factory was 
 evidently an after impulse caused by the rage of the 
 survivors at the loss of their companions. The whole 
 affair, in short, being one of those perfectly madden- 
 ing mistakes and misapprehensions which serve some- 
 times to emphasise the peculiar conditions of life in 
 our Indian Empire. 
 
 All this, or most of it, was in due time dinned 
 into the widow's ears by kindly but strange voices ; 
 for there was one familiar voice which she dreaded 
 
420 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 to hear because the owner knew of somethmg which 
 the others did not know : something she could not 
 remember without despair. So day after day she 
 lay in the spare room of the head ofi&cial's house, — 
 that spare room which shelters such an odd variety of 
 guests, the travelling Member of Parliament, the 
 widow, the homeward and outward bound, the dying, 
 sometimes the dead — and when Philip's name was 
 mentioned she would turn her head away and beg to 
 be left alone a little longer, just a little longer. Hurt 
 as he could not fail to be at her avoidance of him, he 
 understood the reason of it all too well, and waited 
 patiently. Then the last day of his leave came, and 
 he sent to say he must see her before he left; so 
 Belle, white as her widow's cap, nerved herself for 
 the interview with the man whom she had preferred 
 before her dead husband. That is how, in her abject 
 remorse, she put it to herself. She had chosen her 
 lover. The natural indignation at deceit, the gener- 
 ous instinct, the sense of injustice which had forced 
 her to the decision were all forgotten before the 
 memory of those minutes of delay. How could she 
 meet Philip? — Philip, round whose neck she had 
 thrown her arms while defying the husband whom 
 she had sent alone to seek death ! That Philip had 
 refused to play the part she gave him, that he had 
 forced her to play a better one herself, brought her 
 no comfort. She was too much absorbed in the scene 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 421 
 
 as it affected her and the dead man to care what 
 Philip had said or done. The very fact of his enter- 
 ing into it at all was an offence. She wonld not 
 consider him in the least, except to tell herself that 
 she was also responsible to him for the loss of his 
 money. To this additional self-reproach she clung 
 firmly, as if to a protection, and when she saw him 
 pausing for half a second at the first glimpse of her 
 in her widow's weeds, she thrust it forward hastily, 
 like a shield against his sympathy. 
 
 "I am so sorry," she began coldly, "it was not 
 his fault. He did his best about the money, and 
 now 3^ou have lost it all." 
 
 A sort of irritated amazement came over him. 
 What did he care for the money ? Why should she 
 be fretting over it when his thoughts were full of 
 her, — of her only? He looked into her grief- 
 darkened ej-es with a certain impatience — the old 
 impatience at seeing her unhappy — the old eager- 
 ness to rouse her into hope. " Oh Belle ! what does 
 all that matter? Don't look so miserable over it, 
 for pity's sake! " 
 
 She drew her hand from his, slowly, with her eyes 
 full on his face. "You are fond of saying that. 
 But how can I look anything else when I killed my 
 husband?" 
 
 "Belle!" The horrified surprise in his tone 
 scarcely expressed his bewilderment, for he had 
 
422 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 little experience of women or the morbid exaggera- 
 tions in which, at times, they find a positive relief. 
 "Belle, what do you mean? How can you say 
 such things ? " 
 
 " What is the use of hiding the truth from our- 
 selves?" she answ^ered almost with satisfaction at 
 her own self-torture. She had not meant, at least 
 she thought she had not meant, to broach the subject 
 at all ; but now that it was begun she threw herself 
 into it with out reserve. " You know as well as pos- 
 sible that it was I who really killed him; I who 
 prevented your being in time to save him." 
 
 There was more pity than amazement in his voice 
 now. "Have you been tormenting yourself with 
 that thought all these long days? Poor child! No 
 wonder you have been miserable. Belle, my dear, it 
 isn't true. You know yourself, — surely you must 
 know it isn't true." 
 
 "I know nothing of the sort," she interrupted 
 quickly, with a dull hard voice. " I kept you, and 
 you were too late. Nothing can alter that. It is 
 the truth." 
 
 "It is not the truth," he answered quietly. "If 
 you had but let me see you at first I might have 
 spared you this unnecessary pain. Perhaps I ought 
 to have insisted on seeing you, but — " He went 
 on after a slight pause, "but I respected your 
 wishes, because — " 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 423 
 
 " Because you knew I had reason to dread seeing 
 you!" she broke in passionately. "Because you 
 knew it was I who killed him I Because you were 
 afraid! Don't deny it, Philip; you knew, — yes! 
 you knew why." 
 
 He stood before her, manly and strong, pitiful yet 
 full of vexation. " I will not have you say such 
 things — of me at any rate. Belle. I will not even 
 have you think them of me; or of yourself either. 
 In your heart of hearts you know they are not true. 
 True I — they are lies, Belle, wicked lies. You have 
 been working yourself up in 3'our loneliness to be- 
 lieve something impossible, preposterous, and it is 
 my fault for letting you be lonely. I was not too 
 late. No power on earth could have saved John. 
 I was there armed, ready; the Khan was there also 
 with drawn sword ; yet we could not save him. No 
 one could have saved him. That is the truth." 
 
 "If you had gone sooner," she murmured, pressing 
 her hands tightly together till the rings on them cut 
 and hurt, as if she were glad of pain, of something 
 to appease her own self-condemnation ; " if you had 
 not been delayed, you might have persuaded him to 
 be more cautious." 
 
 Philip almost smiled, a smile of vexed surprise at 
 her perversity. "My dear Belle! Am I a man to 
 preach caution when I am opposed? Was John a 
 man to listen to such caution when the time for 
 
424 
 
 action had come ? Nonsense ! I don't wish to be hard, 
 dear; I don't say, mind you, that the remembrance of 
 his anger is not very bitter — God only knows how 
 bitter — for you to bear. But, Belle, if he knows 
 anything now, he knows that he was wrong." 
 
 " He was not wrong ; he was right. I chose you 
 and forsook him." 
 
 Philip gave a little impatient shake of his head, 
 then walked away to the window feeling how hope- 
 less it was to argue with a woman in Belle's posi- 
 tion. A man was absolutely helpless before such 
 weakness and such strength. Yet, after a pause, he 
 returned to the attack by a side route. "Besides," 
 he said, coming back to where she was seated, and 
 standing beside her resting one hand on the back of 
 her chair, " it was not really you who dela3^ed me. 
 It was something else of which you know nothing. 
 If I had seen you I would have told 3X)U, but there 
 was no use mentioning it to others because the man 
 had gone and there was nothing to be done. It was 
 Afzul kept me. He came to my room when I went 
 to fetch my revolver, and barred the door. He 
 wanted me to listen as you did. I think he was 
 mad, but I had to fire ere he would let me pass. 
 You see it was he who delayed me, not you. One 
 reason why I did not mention it was this : the man 
 was a deserter, but he had saved my life and, — I 
 think — I think he must have been mad." 
 
MISS STUAET'S LEGACY. 425 
 
 But Belle made no answer. With her head rest- 
 ing on her hand she was frowning slightly in pur- 
 suit of a fugitive memoiy. "Afzull " she echoed at 
 last in puzzled tones. "I had quite forgotten; but 
 surely he came to me in the drawing-room. He 
 gave me something and he said something; surely 
 about Dick! Could it have been about Dick?" 
 
 Her eyes sought Philip's for the first time with 
 ajDpeal, and he was sorry to chill the interest in them 
 with a negative. Yet what could Afzul possibly 
 have to say about poor Dick Smith? "Hardly, I 
 should think; I doubt if they ever met even at 
 Faizapore. But this reminds me, — you had some- 
 thing tight clasped in your hand when I found you 
 close to the river; — so close, — did they tell you 
 how close it was to death, my dear, when I came 
 upon you lying — Oh, Belle, so close! " 
 
 "Something in my hand," echoed Belle coldly. 
 "What did you do with it?" 
 
 "Like you I had forgotten," said Philip, recover- 
 ing from the break in his voice. "I put it in the 
 pocket of my coat when I was trying to bring you 
 back to consciousness in the hut. I dare say it is 
 there still. Shall I go and see ? " 
 
 Her affirmative sent him away relieved at the more 
 human interest in her face. A minute afterwards he 
 returned with a little brocaded packet looking as if 
 it had lain in damp lodgings. " I hope it isn't hurt," 
 
426 MISS stuaet's legacy. 
 
 he said lightly; "but having no servant here, my 
 clothes have dried as best they could, and it feels 
 rather pulpy. Open it and see what parting gift 
 that inexplicable compound of fidelity and treachery 
 left behind him. He had a great admiration for you, 
 Belle." 
 
 "It is not for me after all. It is for you,*' she re- 
 plied after a pause, as she smoothed out the long 
 blue envelope which had been rolled round a smaller 
 packet. " At least I think so. The writing above 
 is smudged, but 'Marsden, 101st Sikhs' is quite clear. 
 Look at it, Avhile I open the other." 
 
 He took the letter from her calmly, without a mis- 
 giving. His first glance at it, however, roused a 
 sudden doubt, a sudden memory; but ere he had 
 grasped the meaning of his own thoughts. Belle's 
 hand was on his arm, and her voice appealing to him 
 in a new, glad tone of hope. "Oh Philip, it is 
 Dick's ring! I have seen him wear it, — so often; 
 I can't be mistaken. It is Dick's ring, — can he be 
 alive, — is he, — do you think he can be alive still?" 
 
 For an instant they stood so, she like a resurrec- 
 tion of her girlhood, he stupidly staring at a curious 
 dark stain blotting out part of the address. Then 
 the truth began to dawn upon him, and his hand 
 clenched in a growing passion. "No!" he said 
 fiercely, and his voice was almost a whisper at first. 
 "No! This is his will, — the will I would not take, 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 427 
 
 — Afzul! My God! Afzul had it all the time! 
 He must have been in the Pass, — Ah! I remember, 
 
 — the subaclar, — those others, all Jus enemies, — He 
 must have killed the boy, — He must have killed the 
 boy!" 
 
 His horror, his anger, burst bounds. He forgot 
 everything else in the wild hatred which rose U23 in 
 him against the murderer, as he strode up and down 
 the room, silent for the most part, but every now and 
 again breaking out into a passionate regret. Why 
 had he been so blind? To think that all the time 
 this man had nursed him, all the time he had taken 
 so many benefits from that hand, it had been red with 
 poor, brave Dick's blood. Why had he not shot the 
 scoundrel when he had the chance ? 
 
 But Belle stood as he had left her, the fingers of 
 her right hand still caressing the ring which, half 
 unconsciously, she had slipped to the third finger of 
 her left, where, over-large for the slender resting- 
 place, it almost hid the golden circlet of her wed- 
 ding ring. Her ej'es, soft with a great tenderness, 
 seemed to see nothing but a young face eager in 
 its plea for toleration. Dick, poor Dick! Had an}^- 
 thing better than his love ever come into her life ? 
 The sight of her as she stood almost with a smile 
 on her face brought a ncAV element into Philip's 
 thoughts. All that time, while Belle had been 
 beating her wings against the cage, Afzul had been 
 
428 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 walking about with release in his pocket. " It is God's 
 will! " The scene in the verandah at Saudaghur on 
 the first night of their return from death recurred to 
 Philip's mind, as such forgotten incidents do when 
 time has shown their true significance, making him 
 realise more clearly than he had ever done before in 
 all his life what mere shuttlecocks in the game of 
 Fate the strongest-willed may be at times. A cer- 
 tain defiant revolt made him cross to where Belle 
 stood and put his arm around her as if to claim her. 
 "The Fates have been against us, my darling," he 
 whispered passionatel}^, "against us all along! " 
 
 She scarcely seemed to hear him, scarcely seemed 
 to notice his touch. In truth she had forgotten him, 
 forgotten even her troubles. " Philip," she said, and 
 there was a strange thrill in her voice, " if we had 
 only known, he could have told us what Dick did. 
 It was something very brave, I know; but if we 
 could onl}^ be sure what it was." 
 
 Before the eyes full of a great tenderness which 
 were raised to his, he felt as far beneath her in his 
 selfishness as she had seemed to him but just now in 
 her morbid weakness. How could he be angry with 
 her ? How could he even blame her ? 
 
 And yet when he left her room at length, he looked 
 so dispirited that the little Irish doctor coming in on 
 his daily visit to Mrs. Raby, felt impelled to clap 
 him on the back and remark somewhat inconse- 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 429 
 
 qiiently that " \yonien, God bless 'em!" were only 
 occasionally responsible for their words; certainly 
 not so w^hen their nerves were jangled and out of 
 tune. Whereat Philip's pride rose at the very idea 
 that the bystanders understood, or thought they 
 understood, the position. Perhaps they were even 
 now speculating how soon those two would give up 
 mourning and be married. The only drop of com- 
 fort came from Mildred Van Milder, who had come 
 to be with Belle, and take her back to the little 
 house at Missouri when she was fit to travel. And 
 her consolation consisted in a tearful remark that 
 Belle had far better have married Dick Smith. He 
 was very young, of course, and had no money, but 
 Charlie Allsop hadn't any either, and yet she 
 wouldn't change him for all the legacies in the 
 world. The news of the discovery of Dick's will 
 was a nine days' wonder, and even found its way 
 into the dail)^ papers, much to Philip's annoyance. 
 Otherwise the fact itself Avas a distinct relief, since 
 it gave Belle independence and removed the fear of 
 her choosing poverty in preference to his help; a 
 choice which in her present frame of mind seemed 
 a foregone conclusion. At the same time it was 
 likely to raise a new crop of difficulties, for three 
 3'ears had passed by since the monej" had fallen in 
 to the charity, and a long time must elapse before it 
 could be recovered; if indeed it could be recovered 
 
430 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 at all. Luckily the proving of the will was not diffi- 
 cult, despite the peculiarities of its custody. To 
 begin with it was in Dick's own writing, and the 
 old Khan was able to speak with certainty as to 
 having seen both envelope and ring in the Pathan's 
 possession, and bear out the fact that Philip had 
 taken the brocaded packet from Belle's hand in the 
 hut. The question as to how Afzul had come by it 
 was, in Philip's opinion, all too clear; especially 
 when inquiry proved that the Pathan had at any rate 
 been on the Peiwar Pass about the time of the mur- 
 der. So far good ; the remainder, however, was more 
 puzzling, and Philip felt that Belle made a wise 
 decision in refusing to disturb any existing arrange- 
 ments until, as she put it, time should show what 
 she ought to do. The doctors strongly advised her 
 going home to England as soon as the advent of the 
 rains should make the long railway journey to Bom- 
 bay possible. The complete change would give her 
 the best chance of recovering the shock, and she 
 could then see with her own eyes how the money had 
 been spent, and what portion of it, if any, she would 
 care to leave in its present employment. 
 
 "I shall meet you in Delhi," he wrote in reply to 
 the letter in which she gave him her final decision, 
 "and see you safe to Bombay. To begin with, there 
 are one or two little business formalities which re- 
 quire my presence as executor, and then I must see 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 431 
 
 you once more. There is to be a punitive expedi- 
 tion over the frontier in spring; so leave will be 
 impossible until the cold weather after next, and 
 that is a long time. I ma}^ never see you again." 
 
 She read these words as she sate on the window- 
 seat of the little drawing-room where she had read 
 the news of his death three years before. Three 
 years ! Was it only three years, since, with her 
 eyes still wet with the tears she did not under- 
 stand, she had gone out into the mist and the rain 
 to find that vision of a sunlit world at her feet with 
 John Raby standing at her side? And now he 
 was dead, dead in anger, while tears, far more 
 bitter than those she had shed at the thought of 
 Philip's death, came to her eyes with the thought 
 of seeino" him ao-ain. Yet the world seemed to have 
 stood still otherwise ; the little room, the slanting 
 pines, the di-ifts of cloud over the hills, even Maud 
 in the rocking-chair, and Mrs. Stuart still aggres- 
 sive in her tears and widow's caps — for the good 
 lady had ordered a new one in anticipation of 
 Belle's visit, moved thereto by an ill-defined but 
 very kindly impulse of sympathy. But Belle did 
 not know this; she only saw that sameness which 
 is almost irritating when we ourselves have changed 
 so much. She used to sit in the little room where 
 she had slept the night before her wedding, and 
 wonder what she had done to brinsf herself into this 
 
432 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 position ; herein, for once, agreeing with Philip, 
 who far away with his regiment asked himself 
 many and many a time what either of them had 
 done of which they needed to be ashamed. 
 
 Meanwhile the little honsehold went on its 
 monotonous way contentedly. Charlie was at 
 school, much improved, and glad of Belle's pres- 
 ence ; partly because he was fond of her, partly 
 because she occupied his room and thus prevented 
 that weekly return home from Saturday to Mon- 
 day at which he Avas beginning to grow restive, 
 since it was almost as derogatory to dignity as 
 being a home-boarder. Mrs. Stuart employed her- 
 self in weeping placidly over Belle's misfortunes, 
 and paying visits to her friends, during which she 
 darkly hinted that she had always been against the 
 match ; for Mr. Raby had played eearte^ and though 
 of course he had not lost his money that way, it 
 was not comme il faiit in a young civilian. i\Iaud 
 was growing older in the rocking-chair, and inclined, 
 as ever, to resent other people's tears. 
 
 '' I don't think Belle is so much to be pitied after 
 all," she cried captiously. " Other people are not 
 always having legacies left them, and <£ 30,000 means 
 more to a widow than to a married woman. Besides, 
 she needn't remain a widow unless she likes ; Philip 
 Marsden has been in love with her all the time." 
 Whereat Mildred, signing her daily letter to Charlie 
 
isuss Stuart's legacy, 433 
 
 AUsop with a flourish which woukl have done credit 
 to the heiress of millions, interrupted her sister 
 hotly. ''I think it's a beastly shame to say so all 
 the same, Maudie. I dare say it's true; but I'm 
 sure if any one said such things of me w^hen I 
 was a widow, I'd never marry the man. No, not 
 if I liked him ever so much I I'll tell you what it 
 is: Belle has had a hard time of it; and if poor 
 Dick were only here, as well as his money, I believe 
 she would marry him and be happ}-.'' 
 
 " My dear girls I " expostulated their mother 
 feebly, "her husband is not six weeks dead till 
 next Tuesday. If any one had suggested marriage 
 to me when poor Colonel Stuart — " 
 
 " Oh, that is different, mamma," retorted Mildred 
 impatiently. "Belle only married John by mistake. 
 Lots of girls do the same thing. Mabel has, with 
 her Major; but then she will never find it out, so 
 it doesn't matter. Charlie says — " 
 
 " Oh, if Charlie says anything, that settles the 
 matter," broke in Maud peevishly. "I wish you 
 two Avould get married, and then you would soon 
 cease to think each other perfection. For my part, 
 I consider Belle is not to be pitied. She has plenty 
 of money, and by and by she will have a baby to 
 amuse her when she's tired of other things. What 
 more can any woman want? I'm very sorry for 
 her now, but grief doesn't last forever, and after 
 
 2 F 
 
434 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 all she never was in love with John. That's one 
 comfort." 
 
 Perhaps if Belle had been asked she might have 
 denied the last statement. If she had loved him, the 
 past wonld certainly have been less of a regret, the 
 future less of a fear. What was to be the end of it 
 all ? That question clamoured for answer as the big 
 ship began to slide from its moorings. Leaning 
 over the taffrail, her eyes heavy with unshed tears, 
 she could see nothing but Philip standing bareheaded 
 in the boat which slipped landwards so fast. A 
 minute before his hands had been in hers, his kind 
 voice faltering good-bye in her ears. And now? 
 Suddenly her clasped fingers opened in a gesture of 
 entreaty. "Philip!" she whispered. "Comeback, 
 come back! " 
 
 But the swirl of the screw had caught the boat 
 and Major Marsden A\'as in his place at the tiller- 
 ropes, his face set landwards. The rowers bent to 
 their oars and so, inch by inch, 3^ard by yard, the 
 rippling sunlit water grew between those two. Was 
 that to be the end ? 
 
MISS STUART'S LEGACY. 435 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Seven years I Time enough, so physiologists tell 
 us, for the whole structure of the body to be worn 
 out and renewed again. And for the mind? Is it 
 to be allowed no chance of change, no throwing aside 
 of effete matter, no relief from the monotony of a 
 fixed body of opinions, thoughts, and emotions? 
 That would be hard indeed. Yet Belle Raby — for 
 she was Belle Raby still — had altered little either 
 outwardly or inwardly in the seven years which had 
 passed since she stood leaning over the taffrail watch- 
 ing a boat slip landwards, and asking herself if that 
 was to be the end of it all. Perhaps this lack of 
 change was the less remarkable because, as she leant 
 over the wicket-gate looking into the lane beyond, 
 she was still watching and waiting, and asking 
 herself what the end was to be. Not, however, as 
 she had done then ; for then she had been in a state 
 of nervous collapse and unable to judge fairly of 
 anything or any one, of herself least of all. To do 
 her justice this state of mind had not lasted long ; 
 indeed Belle had found herself facing the white cliffs 
 of England, and the uncertain future awaiting her 
 there with more equanimity than she would have 
 
436 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 deemed possible or even proper a month before. 
 The long journey home, — that slow passaging day 
 after day towards a set haven regardless of storm or 
 calm, — the imperturbable decision of the big ship 
 which seems to have absorbed your weakness in its 
 strength — the knowledge that day and night, night 
 and day, while you forget, the engines like a great 
 heart are throbbing on purposefully across the path- 
 less sea, — all this has worked many a miracle of 
 healing in mind and body exhausted by the struggle 
 for existence. It wrought one for Belle, luckil}^, 
 since the future held many a difficulty. Despite 
 them all, as seven years afterwards, she stood bare- 
 headed in the cool English sunshine she looked won- 
 derfully young and happy ; even though those seven 
 years had been the fateful ones which find a woman 
 in the twenties and leaves her in the thirties. True 
 it is that wisdom, either of this world or the next, 
 brings a sadness to most eyes, but in this case a 
 sweetness had come with it which more than counter- 
 balanced the loss of gaiety. In fact Belle Baby had 
 never looked more attractive than she did as she 
 stood in a white dress with a Jacqueminot rose 
 tucked away in the lace at her throat leaning over 
 the wicket-gate waiting, — waiting for what? 
 
 For Philip, of course. Ten o'clock had just 
 chimed from a church-tower close by, and the time 
 between that and the half-hour had belonged for 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 437 
 
 years to her best friend. Sometimes during those 
 short thirty minutes of a busy day she wrote to him ; 
 sometimes, as now, she stood watching for him with 
 tolerable certainty that, if steamers and trains were 
 punctual, he would step with bodily presence into 
 her life for a fcAv weeks; but most often she was 
 setting time, and space, and absence, and all the 
 trivialities which clip the wings of poor humanity at 
 defiance. In other words she was allowing her 
 imagination to get the better of her common sense. 
 That is one way of putting it. Another is possible 
 to those who, like Belle, have learnt to recognise the 
 fact that the outside world exists for each one of us, 
 not in itself, but in the effect which it produces on 
 our consciousness. Two women are grinding at the 
 mill ; the one weeps over the task, the other smiles ; 
 just as they choose to weep or smile. The secret of 
 the emotion lies not in the cosmic touch itself, but 
 in the way the consciousness receives it, and in the 
 picture which the imagination draws of our own con- 
 dition; the abstract truth, the actual reality affects 
 us not at all. So Belle Raby, as she looked out to 
 the wild roses in the hedgerow and the yellow butter- 
 flies fluttering over the grey bloom of the flowering 
 grasses, saw nothing of the placid English landscape 
 spread before her eyes. She was standing on a far- 
 away Indian platform where the crows sat on the 
 railings carving irrelatively, and a tall man in un- 
 
438 MISS stuapvT's legacy. 
 
 dress uniform was listening to those first words, — 
 "it is father." That had been the beginning of it 
 all; the keynote both of the discords and harmony 
 of the whole. Then suddenly, as irrelatively per- 
 haps as the cawing of the crows, the scene changed. 
 The flood of sunshine faded to mirk and fog ; such 
 mirk and fog as humanity and its ways creates in 
 London on a dull November day. An atmosphere 
 of civilisation and culture, say some. Perhaps; but 
 if so, civilisation with all its advantages is apt to 
 smell nasty. She saw a man and a woman standing 
 opposite each other in a London lodging, in a Lon- 
 don fog. But five minutes before Philip had come 
 into it buoyantly, decisively, bringing with him a 
 memory of sunshine and purer air. Now he stood 
 with his back to the grey square of the window, his 
 hands stretched out to her in something between 
 command and entreaty. "Belle! put down the 
 child and let me speak to you." And then for the 
 first time, she had gone over to him, with the child 
 still in her arms, and kissed him. " Jack will not 
 trouble me, dear," she said; "he is such a quiet wee 
 mite. Come, let us sit down and talk it over." 
 
 Now when lovers fall to talking hand in hand it 
 is proper, even in a novel, to avert one's head and 
 smile, saying that the conversation can have no pos- 
 sible interest to outsiders. Or, if a sentence or two 
 be suggested, it is necessary to insist that love. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 439 
 
 divine love, can onl}- find its first expression in mere 
 foolishness. Belle and Philip therefore could evi- 
 dently not have been lovers, for they talked serious 
 and sound good sense while the year-old Jack with 
 his wide, wistful eyes lay in his mother's arms and 
 listened to it all. What was it to him if more than 
 once a reluctant tear fell on his tin}- wrinkled hands, 
 and more than once Philip's voice trembled and 
 then stopped a while? What Avere such emotions 
 to a life which had come into the world barred from 
 them forever? For Belle's child would never be as 
 other children are ; so much was certain ; whether 
 he would ever need her care more than another's 
 was yet to be seen. But it was strange, was it not? 
 she seemed to hear herself saying in a calm voice, 
 the steadiness of which surprised her even at the 
 time, that poor Dick's legacy had gone to a hospital 
 for just such poor little God-stricken children. 
 
 "Don't, Belle, — don't, for pity's sake, — I can't 
 bear it." That had been the man's cry, bringing 
 home to her the fact that she and Philip had changed 
 places. In the old days a duty had lain between 
 them ; a duty lay between them now. Wh}^ had she 
 seen evil and shame in this man's love then, and yet 
 find none in it now? Then he had been calm, and 
 she had fretted. Now with another man's child in 
 her arms, and just the same love in her heart, she 
 had the decision, and he the restless pain. In 
 
440 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 those days no thought of such love as deals in mar- 
 riage had ever arisen between them ; but now Philip 
 had come all the way from India full of a man's 
 determination to end the story in what the world 
 said was the only possible, natural, or moral ending 
 to any love-story. And on such stories as theirs the 
 worldly verdict runs thus : they had loved each other 
 when they could not marry, which was very wrong; 
 but a kindly Providence having removed the unnec- 
 essary husband, they could marry, Avhich set every- 
 thing right. 
 
 The mirk and fog settled very closely round them 
 as they sate by the fire; closer on Philip than on 
 Belle, for it was his turn to be scared by the phan- 
 tom of foregone conclusions. What he had strenu- 
 ously denied when the position ran counter to his 
 pride, seemed true enough now that it joined issue 
 with it. He loved Belle, so of course he must want 
 to marry her. The two things were synonymous; 
 when, of course, there was a possibility of getting 
 married. Yet Belle, even with tears in her eyes, 
 could smile as she told him that her first thought in 
 life lay in her arms ; that she could not even give 
 him hope in the future, or bid him wait, since the 
 waiting might be forever. 
 
 That had been more than five years ago, and there 
 was still a smile on Belle Raby's face as she roused 
 herself from her day-dreams, looked at her watch, 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 441 
 
 and turned back into the garden. Perhaps he had 
 missed his train. Even if he had he would still 
 come by and by to see how magnificently the roses 
 were blooming that year. There were roses every- 
 where ; wild in the hedgerows, many-coloured in the 
 borders, white in the trailing sprays that climbed 
 round about the verandahs of the low cottage which 
 formed one wing of a plainer yet more important 
 building beyond. It was evidently the later addi- 
 tion of a different taste, for the gardens surrounding 
 them showed a like dissimilarity. In the distance, 
 open stretches of well-kept lawns and wide gravelled 
 paths; civilised, commonplace. Round the cottage 
 a strip almost wild in its profusion of annuals, its 
 unpruned roses, and the encircling shade of tall 
 forest trees which must have stood there long before 
 either the cottage or the pretentious building beyond 
 had been thought of; a strip of garden suggestive, 
 even to a casual observer, of a less conventional 
 fashion of life than is usual in the old country. To 
 Belle, as she stooped to push a tangle of larkspur 
 within reasonable bounds, it served as a reminiscence 
 of days which, with all their sadness, she never 
 ceased to regret. She envied Philip often; Philip 
 in command of his regiment, away on this expedition 
 or that, able to come back always to the sociable yet 
 solitary existence so strangely free from the hurry 
 and strain inseparable from life in the West. Philip, 
 
442 
 
 whose name was known all along the frontier as the 
 boldest soldier on it. A perfect content for and in 
 him glowed at her heart as with her hands clasped 
 behind her she strolled back to the gate. And there 
 he was, his head uncovered, his pace quickening as 
 he saw her. Her pulse quickened too, but she com- 
 posed herself to calm. For they had a little game 
 to play, this middle-aged man and woman ; a game 
 which they had played with the utmost gravity on 
 the rare occasions when Fate brought them into each 
 other's presence. 
 
 "Your train is a little late to-day, Phil, isn't it?" 
 she asked as she held the gate open for him. 
 
 "Rather. Have you been waiting long?" 
 
 His voice trembled a little in the effort to take it 
 all as a matter of course, though hers did not; but 
 then the novelty of environment was greater for him 
 than for her. 
 
 "How long is it this time, Phil? I forget, and 
 after all what does it matter? Come and see the 
 roses, dear; there are such a lot out this morning." 
 
 He stopped her for an instant by drawing the hand 
 he held towards him, and clasping it in both of his. 
 " More roses than there were yesterday. Belle ? " he 
 asked with a sort of eager certainty in his tone. 
 
 She looked at him fondly. " Yes, more than yes- 
 terday " — then suddenly she laughed and laid her 
 other hand on his. " I will say it, dear, since it 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 443 
 
 pleases you. There are more roses to-day because 
 you have come, and this is holiday- time." 
 
 Their welcome was over ; they had stepped for a 
 time into each other's lives. A ridiculous pretence, 
 of course ; a mere attempt to make imagination play 
 the part assigned since all eternity to facts. But if 
 it pleased these two, or if it pleases any number of 
 persons who find facts are stubborn things, why 
 should the world quarrel with it ? Belle had once 
 on a time made herself unnecessarily miserable by 
 imagining that she and Philip were in love with 
 each other, and that, since love was inextricably 
 bound up with marriage or the desire for it, she 
 must be posing as the heroine of the third-rate 
 French novel. Her consequent loss of self-respect 
 had very nearly spoiled her life, and even Philip had 
 never ventured to think what might have happened 
 had John lived to force them into action. The 
 unreality of her past fears had come home to Belle, 
 however, durino- the lonof months when she had 
 waited for her last legacy. And with the first sight 
 of the baby-face whereon Fate had set its mark of 
 failure all too clearly, had come a resolution that in 
 the future nothing but her own beliefs should rule 
 her conduct. Her life and Philip's should not be 
 spoiled by other people's ideas ; her imagination 
 should be her slave, not her master. So much, and 
 more, she had said to Philip on that mirky day 
 
444 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 when ill his first disappointment he had declared that 
 he could not bear it. But that had been five years 
 ago, and life seemed more than bearable as he 
 walked round the garden Avith her hand drawn 
 through his arm and held there caressingly. A man 
 who is in command of a regiment in which he has 
 served since he was a boy, whose heart is in his 
 profession, whose career has been successful, has 
 other interests in life besides marriage ; if he has 
 not, the less he figures as a hero, even in a novel, 
 the better. 
 
 " It is like Nilgunj, isn't it ? " said Belle pointing 
 to the tangles of flowers. 
 
 "With a difference. You can't grow Mardchal 
 Niel roses in England. They were, — well, — over- 
 powering as I came through. INlildred has the 
 garden very nice ; you would hardly recognise the 
 place. The trees you planted are taller than 
 the house ; but everything grows fast in India, — 
 their eldest girl is up to my elbow. Oh ! and Maud 
 was there on a visit, wearing out her old clothes. 
 She hasn't forgiven you yet, Belle, for what she calls 
 throwing away your money and becoming a hospital 
 nurse. I spent some time in trying to explain that 
 you were simply spending your money in the way 
 which pleased you best; but it was no use. She 
 only said that caps were no doubt very becoming. 
 Why don't you wear them, Belle ? You always tell 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 445 
 
 me to take what pleasure I can out of life, and I 
 obey orders." 
 
 There was a pause ere he went on. " And Charlie 
 is quite a dandy. More like you, Belle, than I 
 should have thought possible from my recollection 
 of him as a youngster at Faizapore. AUsop gives a 
 first-rate account of him, says he is working splen- 
 didly. And Allsop himself ! what a rare good 
 fellow he is, with just that touch of determination 
 his race generally lack. He is making the business 
 pay now ; not as John would have done, of course, 
 but it supports them and leaves something over for 
 the bloated capitalist. Besides it is so much better 
 for Charlie than loafing about at home like the 
 others." 
 
 "You needn't tell me that, Phil," said Belle 
 softly. "Don't you think I see and understand all 
 the good you have forced from what promised to 
 be evil?" 
 
 "That is rather strong, isn't it? It would most 
 likely have done as well without my interference ; 
 things generally come right in the end, especially 
 if you trust other people. At least that is my 
 experience in the regiment. By the way, I went 
 over to see the old Khan when I was at Nilgunj. 
 He is a bit broken, though he won't allow it, by his 
 wife's death. Obstinate old hero ! He declares, 
 too, that it is no satisfaction having his son back 
 
446 MISS stuapvt's legacy. 
 
 from the Andamans because he is only out on ticket- 
 of-leave. He stickles for a full apology; as if life 
 would be endurable without a grievance of some 
 kind or another. If he only knew how I had back- 
 staired and earwigged every official on the list over 
 that business ! I wasted a whole month's leave at 
 Simla, — which I might have saved up and spent 
 on board a P. and O. steamer, my dear. It was 
 during the rains, and I seemed to live in a Avater- 
 proof on my way to some InnTCt saJiih or another. 
 But my pride is all broken and gone to bits, Belle ; 
 I shall be asking the authorities for a C.I.E.-ship 
 some day if I don't take care. AVell ! the old man 
 sent you his salaam as usual, said the women ruled 
 the roost nowadays, and in the same breath fell 
 foul of them collectively because his daughter-in-law 
 had not prepared some peculiar sherbet which old 
 Fatma always produced on state occasions. Not 
 that Hai3^at-bi minds his abuse, now she has a hus- 
 band to bully in her turn. That, says the Khan, 
 is women's way; since the beginning of time de- 
 ceitful and instinct with guile. And then. Belle 
 — yes, then he brought out the old sword, and here 
 it is, dear, his and mine in the old way, if only in 
 the spirit." 
 
 He stood beside her, stretching out his hands in 
 the well-remembered fashion, as if something sacred 
 lay in them and before the tenderness in his face, 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 447 
 
 the calmness of hers wavered for an instant. ''Did 
 we really go through all that together, Phil?" she 
 asked with a tremble in her voice. " Oh my dear, 
 my dear, how much you have all given me ! And 
 I give, — -so little. But my pride is, like yours, all 
 broken and gone to bits, and I take everything I 
 can get. You should see how I beg for the hos- 
 pital." 
 
 She turned to the big white building beyond the 
 cottage as if to escape into another subject; and 
 Philip turned also. 
 
 "Is it, — is it getting along nicely?" he asked 
 dutifully. 
 
 " Yes, dear," she replied, looking at him again 
 with a smile ; " but we shall have time to talk of that 
 by and by. You haven't given me half the budget 
 of news. And do you know, Phil, I begin to sus- 
 pect that in writing you tell all the pleasant things 
 and keep back the disagreeables. Now that isn't 
 fair; as children say, it spoils the game." 
 
 "Does it? Well, I won't do it again. Let me 
 see what is the most unpleasant story I have heard 
 for the last few months. Ah — yes! that is about 
 the worst." He paused with a frown. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Only Shunker Das is dead. That isn't very 
 distressful ; but you remember Kirpo ? " 
 
 " Why, Philip, it was her husband who — " 
 
448 MISS stuatit's legacy. 
 
 " Yes, of course, of course ; but I was not thinking 
 of that ; only of the day when she came out of the 
 coolies' hut with a child in her arms, and told us 
 why he was called Nuttu. Well, it is a horrid story, 
 Belle, but that pitiless old fatalist the Khan, who 
 was my informant, saw the hand of high heaven in 
 it. Shunker got the telegram informing him that 
 he was to be made a Red Bahadur^ and another 
 announcing his son's death by the same messenger. 
 Ghastly, Avasn't it? He had a fit, and though he 
 lived for some weeks they never could understand 
 a word he said, though he talked incessantly. One 
 can imagine what he wanted from the sequel. Well, 
 at his funeral-pyre, up turns Kirpo with a strapping 
 boy of about eight years old, and there was an awful 
 scene. She swore it was Shunker's son, and made 
 the child defile the aslies. Do you remember her 
 face that day, and how I said she hated somebody ? 
 Great Heavens ! there is something perfectly devil- 
 ish in the idea of such a revenge." 
 
 "And yet we talk calmly enough of the sins of 
 the fathers being visited on the children." She 
 paused as the church clock struck eleven. "It is 
 time I went to see my bairns, Phil. Will you come 
 too ? They will be at their best ; the out-ones just 
 in from the garden, the in-ones ready for their mid- 
 day rest. They look so comfortable all tucked up 
 in their cots." 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 449 
 
 The bravest man winces sometimes, and Philip, 
 despite the live years, had never forgotten that day 
 of mirk and fog when he had first seen John Eaby's 
 child, and Belle had bidden him go away if he could 
 not be satisfied with what she had to give him. 
 To be satisfied, or go away ! Both, it had seemed 
 to him then, equally impossible ; yet he had done 
 both. Still the memory was painful. "You are 
 going to build the new wing next year, I suppose?" 
 he said as indifferently as he could when, leaving 
 the shady wilderness, they made their way along 
 the gravel walks which were seamed in every di- 
 rection by the wheel-marks of invalid carriages. 
 
 " It depends," she replied quickly, answering the 
 effort in his tone by a grateful look. "I may not 
 have to build it. I may not be here. I am to go 
 where I am most wanted ; that was settled long ago, 
 Phil." 
 
 He was silent ; what was there to say ? 
 
 Side by side they climbed the terrace steps to 
 
 reach the front of the hospital which looked right 
 
 across a stretch of wind-swept down to the open sea. 
 
 A row of perambulators and wheeled couches stood 
 
 under a glazed verandah, and above the level lines 
 
 of square windows the words " SMITH'S HOME 
 
 FOR INCURABLE CHILDREN " showed in big 
 
 gold letters as a balustrade to the semi-Grecian 
 
 faQade. 
 
 2 G 
 
450 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 Belle glanced up at it before passing through the 
 noiseless swinging doors. "I always wish I had 
 been in time to stop that awful inscription," she 
 said; "but it was scarcely worth while pulling it 
 all down. You see none of them can read. We 
 take them young, and those Avho stop don't live to 
 be old; that is one thing to be thankful for. You 
 don't like my speaking of it, Phil, but I often wonder 
 what would have become of this empty shell of a 
 house if my Jack had been born as most children 
 are born, — as I wished him to be born. Some one 
 would have carried on the work, I suppose, if I 
 hadn't, and yet, — these bairns might have been God 
 knows where, instead of in the sunlight." 
 
 She opened an inner door, and signed to him to 
 pass before her. There was sunlight there, and no 
 lack of it, though it shone on sights which to Philip 
 Marsden's unaccustomed eyes seemed to dim the 
 brightness. Rows of little crutches along the walls, 
 weary unchildlike faces resting on the Ioav divans 
 in the windows ; in the centre a more cheerful 
 picture of little ones gathered round a table set 
 with bread and milk. 
 
 " This is my show room and these are my show 
 babies," said Belle with a smile. " We all get about 
 more or less and play by ourselves; don't we, nurse? 
 And some of us, like Georgie here, are going home 
 again because we are too strong for the place. We 
 
MISS stuaet's legacy. 451 
 
 don't keep noisy, romping, rioting ragamuffins, do 
 we, children ? " 
 
 The face she turned up to hers as she passed 
 grinned doubtfully, but all the other little white 
 faces dimpled and wrinkled with mirth at the very 
 idea of Georgie's exile. They went up stairs now, 
 into more sunshine streaming on rows of beds where 
 childhood wore away with no pleasure beyond a 
 languid joy at a new picture-book or a bunch of 
 flowers. Here they trod softly, for some of the 
 little ones were already asleep. 
 
 "Where is Freddy?" asked Belle in a whisper of 
 the nurse busy smoothing an empty cot. 
 
 " He seemed so restless this morning, ma'am, that 
 Dr. Simmonds thought we had better put him in the 
 White Ward; he was afraid — " 
 
 Belle passed on, her face a shade graver, and as 
 Philip followed her up another wide staircase she 
 paused before a closed door and asked him to wait for 
 her; she would not be long. 
 
 He caught a glimpse of a smaller, more home-like 
 room, white and still, with the light shaded from 
 the open windows. Then he stood leaning against 
 the bannisters, watching the dancing motes in a sun- 
 beam slanting down from the skylight overhead; a 
 skylight looking as if it were glazed with sapphire. 
 
 "That was the White Ward," said Belle, coming 
 out and passing upward through the beam of light. 
 
452 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 She spoke almost cheerfully, but Philip, who had 
 faced death, and worse horrors than death, many a 
 time without a qualm, felt himself shiver. Once 
 again they paused before a closed door and she gave 
 Philip a hurried half-appealing glance, before she 
 said nervously, " I have Jack in this ward now. Dr. 
 Simmonds thinks it good for him to be with the 
 other children, and he seems to like it better." 
 
 It was the sunniest room of all, for the windows 
 were set wide open, and the blinds drawn up. The 
 scent of the roses from Belle's garden drifted in with 
 the cool fresh wind. The children had evidently all 
 been out, for a pile of hats and cloaks lay on the 
 table, but they were now seated on their cots await- 
 ing their turn for lunch. Philip's eyes, travelling 
 down the row of beds, rested on a crop of golden 
 curls, and he gave a little exclamation, half groan, 
 half sigh. That was a face he could not mistake, 
 strange and wistful as it was ; not an unintelligent 
 face either, and great heavens ! how like the father's 
 as it fell stricken to death. 
 
 "Listen! " said Belle, touching his arm. A nurse 
 passing with a tray paused in pleased expectanc}^ 
 
 "Jack!" her voice echoed softly through the 
 silence. 
 
 The golden head turned, the veriest ghost of a 
 smile came to the pinched face, and the thin little 
 hands stretched themselves aimlessly into space with 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 453 
 
 a sudden plaintive cry which sent a lump to Philip's 
 throat. 
 
 "Lor! " protested the nurse full of pride: "didn't 
 he say it beautiful clear that time ? Mother ? Yes, 
 it is mother, my pretty ; and you knows her voice, 
 don't you, dearie? just as well as any on us." 
 
 Belle sate down on the cot, gathering the child in 
 her arms, and the yellow curls nestled down con- 
 tentedly on her shoulder. A mite of a boy with 
 great wide blue eyes fixed on the only face he ever 
 recognises. "Do you think him grown at all? " she 
 asked; then seeing Philip's look bent over the child 
 and kissed the blue veins on the large forehead. 
 There was a passion of protection in her kisses. " If 
 he were the only one, Phil, I should break my heart 
 about it; but there are so many, — and, — and it is 
 so causeless." Her eyes seemed to pass beyond the 
 child and she went on more cheerfully, " Then he is 
 such a contented little fellow when he is with me, 
 
 — aren't you. Jack?" 
 
 Again came the ghost of a smile, and the same 
 plaintive cry. Philip walked to the window and 
 looked out on the roses. It was a very slight thing, 
 that cry, to have come between a man and a woman, 
 
 — if it had come between them. He turned to look 
 at Belle instinctively, and found her looking at him. 
 No! nothing had come between them. Before the 
 insoluble problem of what Belle held in her arms 
 
454 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 love seemed to him forever divorced from marriage. 
 The veriest pariah, born of God knows what, or of 
 whom, the outcome of the basest passion, might enter 
 the world fair and strong and capable, while their 
 child, if they married, bringing each to each a pure 
 devotion, might be as these children here. 
 
 He crossed the room again and sate down on the 
 bed beside her. " How many have you in the hos- 
 pital now?" he asked in a low voice, for Jack, 
 contented and comfortable, was evidently falling 
 asleep. 
 
 "Fifty; but Dr. Simmonds sa3^s he could fill a 
 hundred beds to-morrow. It is the best place, he 
 declares, of its kind." 
 
 "Would you undertake so much?" 
 
 She shook her head. "I never know, — no one 
 knows from day to da}^ They are all so frail. 
 Freddy, for instance, was no worse yesterday, and 
 to-day ! There are plenty to fill my place here when, 
 — when the time comes." 
 
 " It may never come. Besides," he added, " I may 
 be incurable myself ere long. Don't you remember 
 promising me the gatekeeper's place if ever I was 
 pensioned off minus a leg or an arm?" 
 
 "Did I?" she answered in the same light tone, 
 as she rose to lay little Jack on his pillow and draw 
 the blanket over him. " Then I must warn the 
 present old cripple that his place isn't a permanent 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 455 
 
 one. Isn't he like his father, Phil?" she added, 
 laying her hand on the child's pretty soft curls. 
 
 "Very." 
 
 They passed along the sunny corridors again and 
 so out into the open air. Philip drew his hand oyer 
 his forehead as if to brush away puzzling thoughts, 
 and gave a sigh of relief. " Come down to the cliffs 
 with me, Belle," he said. "There is plenty of time 
 before lunch, and I feel as if I wanted a blow. It's 
 rather an irrelevant remark, but I wonder what will 
 become of the babies if women become men ? " 
 
 They crossed the downs keeping step together, and 
 walking rapidly as if to leave something behind, 
 finally seating themselves in a niche between two 
 great white pillars of chalk, whence they could see 
 the waves ebbing and flowing among the rocks at 
 their feet. The horizon and the sky were blent into 
 one pale blue, so that the fishing boats with their 
 red-brown sails seemed hovering between earth 
 and heaven. 
 
 "How long is it this time?" she asked after a 
 pause. " The usual three months ? " 
 
 "Yes! the usual three months from the frontier. 
 That leaves me six weeks with 3^ou; six whole 
 weeks." 
 
 There was another pause. "Philip!" she said 
 suddenly, "I'll marry you to-morrow if you like, — 
 if, — if it would make you happier." 
 
456 MISS stuart's legacy. 
 
 He was sitting with his hands between his knees, 
 looking out absently over the waves below. He 
 did not stir, but she could see a smile struggling 
 with his gravity. 
 
 " My dear Belle ! The banns haven't been called." 
 
 " Perhaps we could afford a special license on the 
 easy-j)urchase system by monthly instalments," she 
 suggested quite as gravely. "But really, Philip, 
 when I see you — " 
 
 "Growing so old; don't be afraid of the truth. 
 Belle. Am I very bald?" 
 
 "Bald! No, but 3'ou are grizzling fast, Phil; and 
 when the fact is brought home to me by seeing it 
 afresh, I ask myself wdiy you shouldn't have a wife 
 and children." 
 
 "I could, of course; there are plenty of young 
 ladies now on tlie frontier. Oh, Belle! I thought 
 we had settled this long ago. You can't leave Jack; 
 you wouldn't with a clear conscience, if you could. 
 I can't leave the regiment; I shouldn't like to, if I 
 could. Is not that an end of marriage from our point 
 of view? Besides," he turned to her now with a 
 smile full of infinite tenderness, "I am not at all 
 sure that I do wpout to marry you. When perfection 
 comes into a man's life, can you not understand his 
 being a little afraid — " 
 
 "Philip!" 
 
 "Not of you, dear; but this love of ours seems 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 457 
 
 better than we are ourselves, — than Jam, certainl}^ 
 Then marriage, as I take it, is for young people, and 
 what they call Love is the bribe held out by Nature 
 to induce her thoughtless children to undertake a 
 difficult duty. The sweet isn't unwholesome in 
 itself, but that is no reason why we should call it 
 manna from heaven and say it is better than plain, 
 wholesome bread and butter.'" 
 
 " You are growing detestably didactic in your old 
 age, Phil. When you come to the gatekeeper's 
 house I shall have to amend your ways." 
 
 "You forget I shall be incurable then; but you 
 are right. I am fast becoming a real old crusted 
 military fogy, and of all fogies that is the worst. 
 You can't think what a nuisance I am to the boys at 
 mess ; they depute a fresh one to prose to the Colonel 
 every night." 
 
 "I know better. When young Cameron came 
 home sick he had a very different story." 
 
 "Young Cameron isn't to be trusted. To begin 
 with he had had a sunstroke, and then he proposed 
 marrying on subaltern's pa}'." 
 
 "Well, you can't expect the world to give up 
 falling in love because you don't approve." 
 
 " Let it fall by all means ; only let us call things 
 by their proper names. You and I, Belle, know the 
 trouble which follows on the present confusion. 
 And if we, eminently respectable people, suffered 
 
458 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 much, many mast suffer more. Many! Why the 
 question, 'Is Marriage a Failure? ' fills up the inter- 
 stices of conversation left between the Rights of 
 Labour and Home Rule. How can it be anything 
 but a failure when people are taught to expect impos- 
 sibilities ? when they are told that love is better than 
 duty? Thank heaven, we never were in love with 
 one another! " 
 
 "Never?" 
 
 '' No, — at least, — yes ! perhaps I was one day. 
 Do you remember when you kissed your cousin Dick 
 in the church garden at Faizapore ? I was decidedly 
 jealous as I stood by the canal bridge. If he had 
 lived. Belle, I think you would have married him.'' 
 
 She did not answer, but sate softly smiling to her- 
 self. " So long ago as that," she said at last in a 
 contented tone of voice. 
 
 Philip started to his feet with a half-embarrassed 
 laugh. Even now, after all these 3'ears, her woman's 
 nature, in its utter inconsequence, was a puzzle to 
 him, — perhaps to herself. 
 
 " Come,'' he said prosaically, " I'm sure it must be 
 time for lunch." 
 
 " Are you so very hungry ? '" she asked, dusting 
 from her dress, with something of regret in the 
 action, the sweet-smelling herbs which she had idly 
 srathered from the crannies of the cliff and crumbled 
 to pieces for the sake of their perfume. 
 
MISS Stuart's legacy. 459 
 
 " I ought to be, seeing I had no breakfast." 
 
 She started up in her turn. " Philip I How could 
 you ? and never to tell me I " 
 
 " You see we were late all through ; something 
 went wrong somewhere, and then I had to catch the 
 ten o'clock train. Don't look horrified ; I got a stale 
 bun at Swindon." 
 
 ''Stale buns are most unwholesome." 
 
 " That is what materialists like you always say of 
 any diet which does not suit them. Personally I 
 like stale buns." 
 
 " You mean that you can put up with them when 
 you have a solid lunch in prospect." 
 
 He had taken her hand to help her to the level 
 and now suddenly he paused, and stooping kissed it 
 passionately. " Oh, Belle, my darling, wh}^ should 
 we talk or think of the future ? To-day is holiday- 
 time and I am happ3^" 
 
 So, hpjid in hand, like a couple of children, they 
 went homewards across the down ; while the great 
 gilt letters of the legend above the hospital glowed 
 and shone like a message of fire against the blue sky. 
 
 Was that the end of the story, so far as Belle and 
 Philip were concerned ? Or on some other sunshiny 
 day in a future June or December did those two pass 
 through the churchyard where the tiny flower-set 
 graves grew more numerous year by year, and, be- 
 
460 MISS Stuart's legacy. 
 
 neatli the tower whose chime had so often called 
 Belle to her bairns, take each other for better, for 
 worse? Most likely they did, but it is a trivial 
 detail which has nothing to do with the record of 
 Miss Stuart's Legacy. That began with her father, 
 and ended with her child. She j)aid it cheerfully to 
 the uttermost farthing, and was none the worse for 
 it. Such payments, indeed, leave us no poorer un- 
 less we choose to have it so. The only intolerable 
 tax being that Avhich follows on the attempt to 
 inherit opinions ; for, when we have paid it, we have 
 nothing in exchange save something that is neither 
 real estate nor personal property. 
 
 THE END. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed hooks are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 UCLA. 
 
 
 INTER LIBRARY 
 
 
 LOAN 
 
 
 OME MONTH AFTcR RECE 
 NHN-RFNEVVABl 
 
 PT 
 
 E 
 
 NOV 2 7 1952 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ?c,V.tf2H?'ef U.?^^gS.a 
 
UNIVEESITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, 
 BERKELEY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 Books not returned on time are subject to a fine of 
 50c per volume after the third day overdue, increasing 
 to $1.00 per volume after the sixth day. Books not in 
 demand may be renewed if application is made before 
 expiration of loan period. 
 
 JUL 9 19' 
 
 537.") 93 
 
 m 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY