"Just the littlest bit! Nice kind of creeps. I feel quite safe--with you."

The path was rough in parts. Once she stumbled and his hand closed lightly on her arm under the cloak. She felt safe with him--and he must turn and smite her----!

At their approach, the monkey fled with a gibbering squeak: and Roy loosened his hold. Between them and the lake loomed the n.o.ble bulk of the palace; roof-terraces and facades bathed in silver, splashed with indigo shadow; but for them--mere man and woman--its imperishable strength and beauty had suddenly become a very little thing. They scarcely noticed it even.

"There--sit," Roy said softly, and she obeyed.

Her smile mutely invited him; but he could not trust himself--yet. He might have known the moonlight would go to his head.

"Aruna--my dear----" he plunged without preamble. "I took you away from them all because--well--we can't pretend any more ... you and I. It's fate--and there we are. I love you--dearly--truly. But...."

How could one go on?

"Oh, _Roy_!"

Her lifted gaze, her low impa.s.sioned cry told all; and before that too clear revealing his hard-won resolution quailed.

"No--not that. I don't deserve it," he broke out, lashing himself and startling her. "I've been a rank coward--letting things drift. But honestly I hadn't the conceit--we were cousins ... it seemed natural.

And now ... _this_!"

A stupid catch in his throat arrested him. She sat motionless; never a word.

Impulsively he dropped on one knee, to be nearer, yet not too near.

"Aruna--I don't know how to say it. The fact is ... they were afraid, at Home, if I came out here, I might--it might ... Well, just what's come to us," he blurted out in desperation. "And Mother told me frankly--it mustn't be, twice running ... like that." Her stillness dismayed him.

"Dear," he urged tenderly, "you see their difficulty--you understand?"

"I am trying--to understand." Her voice was small and contained. The courage and control of it unsteadied him more than any pa.s.sionate protest. Yet he hurried on in the same low tone.

"Of course, I ought to have thought. But, as I say, it seemed natural.... Only--on Dewali night----"

She caught her breath. "Yes--Dewali night. Mai Lakshmi knew. _Why_ did you not say it _then_?"

"Well ... so soon--I wasn't sure ... I hoped going away might give us both a chance. It seemed the best I could do," he pleaded. "And--there was Dyan. I'm not vamping up excuses, Aruna. If you hate me for hurting you so----"

"Roy--you _shall_ not say it!" she cried, roused at last. "Could I hate ... the heart in my own body!"

"Better for us both perhaps if you could!" he jerked out, rising abruptly, not daring to let the full force of her confession sink in.

"But--because of my father, I promised. No getting over that."

She was silent:--a silence more moving, more compelling than speech. Was she wondering--had he not promised...? Was he certain himself? Near enough to swear by; and the impulse to comfort her was overwhelming.

"If--if things had been different, Aruna," he added with grave tenderness, "of course I would be asking you now ... to be my wife."

At that, the tension of her control seemed to snap; and hiding her face, she sat there shaken all through with m.u.f.fled, broken-hearted sobs.

"Don't--oh, _don't_!" he cried low, his own nerves quivering with her pain.

"How can I _not_" she wailed, battling with fresh sobs. "Because of your Indian mother--I hoped.... But for me--England-returned--no hope anywhere: no true country now; no true belief; no true home; everything divided in two; only my heart--not divided. And that you cannot have, even if you would----"

Tears threatened again. It was all he could do not to take her in his arms.

"If--if they would only leave me alone," she went on, clenching her small hands to steady herself. "But impossible to change all the laws of our religion for one worthless me. They will insist I shall marry--even Dyan; and I cannot--I _cannot_----!"

Suddenly there sprang an inspiration, born of despair, of the chance and the hour and the grave tenderness of his a.s.surance. No time for shrinking or doubt. Almost in speaking she was on her feet; her cloak--that had come unlinked--dropped from her shoulders, leaving her a slim strip of pallor, like a ray of light escaped from clouds.

"Roy--_Dilkusha_!" Involuntarily her hands went out to him. "If it is true ... you are caring--and if I must not belong to you, there is a way _you_ can belong to me without trouble for any one. If--if we make pledge of betrothal ... for this one night, if you hold me this one hour ... I am safe. For me that pledge would be sacred--as marriage, because I am still Hindu. Perhaps I am punished for far-away sins--not worthy to be wife and mother; but, by my pledge, I can remain always _Swami Bakht_--worshipper of my lord ... a widow in my heart."

And Roy stood before her--motionless; stirred all through by the thrill of her exalted pa.s.sion, of her strange appeal. The pathos--the n.o.bility of it--swept him a little off his feet. It seemed as if, till to-night, he had scarcely known her. The Eastern in him said, 'Accept.' The Englishman demurred--'Unfair on her.'

"My dear----" he said--"I can refuse you nothing. But--is it right? You _should_ marry----"

"Don't trouble your mind for me," she murmured; and her eyes never left his face. "If I keep out of purdah, becoming Brahmo Samaj ...

perhaps----" She drew in her full lower lip to steady it. "But the marriage of arrangement--I cannot. I have read too many English books, thought too many English thoughts. And I know in here"--one clenched hand smote her breast--"that now I could _not_ give my body and life to any man, unless heart and mind are given too. And for me.... Must I tell all? It is not only these few weeks. It is years and years...." Her voice broke.

"Aruna! Dearest one----"

He opened his arms to her--and she was on his breast. Close and tenderly he held her, putting a strong constraint on himself lest her ecstasy of surrender should bear down all his defences. To fail her like this was a bitter thing: and as her arms stole up round his neck, he instinctively tightened his hold. So yielding she was, so unsubstantial....

And suddenly a rush of memory wafted him from the moonlit hillside to the drawing-room at Home. It was his mother he held against his breast:--the silken draperies, the clinging arms, the yielding softness, the unyielding courage at the core....

So vivid, so poignant was the lightning gleam of illusion, that when it pa.s.sed he felt dizzy, as if his body had been swept in the wake of his spirit, a thousand leagues and back: dizzy, yet, in some mysterious fashion, reinforced--a.s.sured....

He knew now that his defences would hold....

And Aruna, utterly at rest in his arms, knew it also. He loved her--oh yes, truly--as much as he said and more; but instinct told her there lacked ... just something; something that would have set him--and her--on fire, and perhaps have made renunciation unthinkable. Her acute, instinctive sense of it, hurt like the edge of a knife pressed on her heart; yet just enabled her to bear the unbearable. Had it been ..._that_ way, to lose him were utter loss. This way--there would be no losing. What she had now, she would keep--whether his bodily presence were with her or no----

Next minute, she dropped from the heights. Fire ran in her veins. His lips were on her forehead.

"The seal of betrothal," he whispered. "My brave Aruna----"

Without a word she put up her face like a child; but it was very woman who yielded her lips to his....

For her, in that supreme moment, the years that were past and the years that were to come seemed gathered into a burnt-offering--laid on his shrine. For her, that long kiss held much of pa.s.sion--confessed yet transcended; more of sacredness, inexpressible, because it would never come again--with him or any other man. She vowed it silently to her own heart....

Again far up the hillside a jackal laughed; another and another--as if in derision. She shivered; and he loosed his hold, still keeping an arm round her. To-night they were betrothed. He owed her all he had the right to give.

"Your cloak. You'll catch your death...." He stopped short--and flung up his head. "What was that? There--again--in those trees----"

"Some monkey perhaps," she whispered, startled by his look and tone.

"Hush--listen!" His grip tightened and they stood rigidly still, Roy straining every nerve to locate those stealthy sounds. They were almost under the arch; strong mellow light on one side, nethermost darkness on the other. And from all sides the large unheeded night seemed to close in on them--threatening, full of hidden danger.

Presently the sounds came again, unmistakably nearer; faint rustlings and creakings, then a distinct crumbling, as of loosened earth and stones. The shadowy plumes of acacia that crowned the arch stirred perceptibly, though no breeze was abroad:--and not the acacia only. To Aruna's excited fancy it seemed that the loose upper stones of the arch itself moved ever so slightly. But _was_ it fancy? No--there again----!

And before the truth dawned on Roy, she had pushed him with all her force, so vehemently that he stumbled backward and let go of her.

Before he recovered himself, down crashed two large stones and a shower of small ones--on Aruna, not on him. With a stifled scream she tottered and fell, knocking her head against the slab of rock.