Desmond turned back to the table, and helped himself to a fresh cigar.

"Are you so dead certain about the disqualification?" he asked without looking up: and he heard Lenox grind his teeth.

"Oh Lord, man, if you're going on that tack, I'm off."

"Indeed you're not. There's a deal more to be said. As far as I understand matters, I imagine that your wife's coming here makes a decided difference in regard to--ultimate possibilities?"

"Yes; that's just it. She has cut away the ground from under my feet on all sides." He was thinking of his promise that afternoon, and his voice lost its schooled hardness. "She's set on going through with things, at any price. But then . . she doesn't realise . . ."

"Believe me, it wouldn't make the smallest difference if she did.

Women are made that way, to our eternal good fortune. Their capacity for loving us in spite of what we are is a thing to go down on one's knees for. You'll appreciate it, one of these days, if you haven't done so already."

"Appreciate it? Great Scott, Desmond, haven't I ten times more cause to do so than _you_ can ever have had? But that doesn't wipe out facts or principles."

He left the hearth-rug, and paced the room in restless agitation.

Desmond sat down, lit his cigar, and waited. His own suggestion could best be made if Lenox could be induced to unburden himself a little first. Presently he sat on the edge of the writing-table, well out of range of the lamp; stretched out his long legs, and folded his arms.

"By rights, I suppose I ought to have let her go back to Dalhousie at once. She suggested it herself. But it seemed too brutal; and I wasn't up to the wrench of letting her go just then. Besides, there was your wife's illness. It would have been out of the question. And now I'm in a bigger hole than before. We are living at cross purposes.

She sees I'm holding back; and she's puzzled, and unhappy. But how the deuce is a man to tell her plainly that by an act of pure pluck and devotion, at the wrong moment, she has practically pushed me deeper into the pit than I've been yet? In fact, I'm beginning to be afraid that . . . the damage may be permanent."

Desmond stifled an exclamation of dismay.

"I wonder if you could bring yourself to tell me exactly what you mean by that?" he said quietly. "Perhaps I have no business to ask; but unless one goes to the root of a thing it's useless to talk of it at all."

"I know that. If I hadn't meant to tell you, I shouldn't be in here now. The fact is . . it's gone a good bit beyond tobacco this last fortnight." He hesitated; but Desmond made no sign. "Did you never miss that bottle of chlorodyne you brought me the day I was bowled over?"

This time Desmond started.

"Good heavens, yes! I had to get a fresh one . . for Honor. But it never occurred to me . . ."

"It wouldn't. You're not the sort. I emptied it, though, in no time.

But it's poor stuff. It didn't half work. Then, one night--I was mad with pain, and want of sleep--I got hold of the raw drug, in pellets--from the bazaar." He shivered at the recollection: "I tell you, Desmond, it's appalling to feel the foundations of things giving way. But I've taken it ever since, . . pain or no.--_Now_ do you doubt the disqualification I spoke of? Personally I don't feel fit to touch her hand."

The bitterness of conviction in his tone made Desmond lean forward to get a better sight of him.

"Lenox, old man," he said, almost tenderly, "such exaggerated notions are all a part of your unsettled nerves.--Smash up your devil's box of pills; or . . hand it over to me . . if you will . . . ?"

Lenox hesitated; but his face gave no sign of the short sharp struggle within. "You shall have the thing, if you wish it," he said at length.

"It gives me no pleasure to make a beast of myself. But that doesn't touch the heart of the difficulty. So long as she's here, I haven't a chance. If I give up the stuff, I shall go to pieces with headache and insomnia. That's flat."

"Indeed I think you're mistaken," Desmond spoke with deliberate lightness. "At all events, I have a suggestion to make that may help you . . for the moment. I have quite decided that Honor must leave this, directly she is strong enough to stand the short journey to Sheik Budeen; probably in three or four days; and after a week or two there, she must go on to Dalhousie till September. Can you see a c.h.i.n.k of daylight now?"

"Why, naturally. You want Quita to go up with her? A capital notion!"

His eagerness was an unconscious revelation of all that he had endured.

"Yes. I want you to tell her, from me, that she would be doing us both a very real kindness. Honor would break her poor heart alone at Sheik Budeen; and if you put it to Quita that way, I don't think she will take your suggestion amiss."

"I'm positive she won't. I'll speak to her to-morrow."

He got up; squared his shoulders, with a great sigh of relief; helped himself to whisky-and-soda; and emptied half the tumbler at a draught.

"By Jove, Desmond, you've put fresh spirit into me. This will give me a chance to fight the thing squarely; and I hope to G.o.d I may succeed,--even yet."

"Of course you'll succeed. We may take that for granted," Desmond answered, smiling. "You've won the great talisman that puts failure out of the question. As soon as we are officially through with the cholera, you should take sick leave, and go off into the hills. You'll not fight to any purpose, till you're in sound health again."

"How about d.i.c.k, though? It's his turn for leave."

"He'll survive missing it. He's in splendid condition; and this is a life-and-death matter for you. Besides, Courtenay will never let you start duty till you've been away. 'd.i.c.k' can take fifteen days when you get back."

"Poor chap! But I'm afraid that's the only programme possible."

He sat down at last; and for a time they smoked contentedly; then Lenox drew a letter from his breast-pocket.

"From Sir Henry Forsyth at Simla," he explained, "about my chances up Gilgit way. If we decide on re-establishing the Agency there, he evidently counts on sending me up again, with young Travers as my a.s.sistant. He and I have done some decent work together in that part of the world. Nothing I should like better, of course. But . . in the face of recent developments, I swear I don't know how to answer him."

He handed the letter to Desmond, who read it and looked thoughtful

"If you get this chance, I think you must take it," he said. "With your special knowledge, you'd be the right man in the right place, up there: and apart from your own ambition, you owe something to India, after what you've done already."

Lenox sighed.

"I owe something to my wife also. You'd be the last to deny that.--Jove, it's amazing what a fine crop of complications will grow out of one false step. A little want of frankness on her part; a little over-hastiness on mine; . . and see where we've travelled in consequence. All my work in the past five years has been tending towards something of this kind. But it would never do . . for Quita.

Think what a life for a woman, even if one could hope to have her there in time. Shut up in the heart of the hills, with half a dozen Englishmen, and a husband who might end in going to the devil. Not another woman nearer than Srinagar; and communication with India cut off for six months in the year. No. One would never get permission.

It would simply wrench us apart again.--There seems to be a Fate against this marriage of mine every way. My fault, no doubt. Perhaps as a soldier with a taste for exploration, I was a fool to go in for it at all."

Desmond leaned forward, and flicked the ash from his cigar.

"Nonsense, man," he said emphatically. "You're talking heresy and schism! Soldier or no soldier, I believe in marriage. Always have done. With all its difficulties, it's an incomparable bond; as you'll find out, once you two are on the right footing. But you're hardly fit enough yet to see things in their true perspective. All this Gilgit business is still a good way ahead; and I can only say that if it does come to spending a good part of your service up in the wilds, you could not have chosen a woman more fitted for it than Quita. The better one knows her, the more one admires her . ."

The other's face softened.

"She's as straight and as plucky as a man," he said simply. "And whenever comes of it, I'm a lucky devil to be her husband.--Think I'll turn in now, and try for a little sleep. I never meant to inflict my affairs on you like this. But you bring it on yourself, Desmond, by being so confoundedly sympathetic!"

Before the two men parted, the box of opium pills had changed hands: and Lenox, by way of trying for a little sleep, lit a fresh cigar,--he was beginning to tolerate them now,--and went out into the garden.

Its open s.p.a.ces were saturated with moonlight; while trees and bushes, solitary or huddled together, stood in black pools of shadow, and fragments of curded cloud trailed across the sky. Absorbed in thought, Lenox crossed a stretch of lawn set with rose-beds; and turning at the far end strolled back towards the house, that loomed, an unwieldy ma.s.s of shadow, against the palpitating radiance beyond.

The light in his own room showed through the split bamboo of the 'chick' in hair-line streaks of brightness; but from the door next his own it issued in a wide stream that lost itself in the moon-splashed verandah. Quita had rolled up her 'chick,' and stood leaning against the doorpost in an att.i.tude that suggested weariness, or despondency, or both; the tall slender form of her thrown into strong relief by the light within. He knew that she must have seen him; and his hope was that she would come out and say good-night to him. Since he must speak, it would be a relief to speak at once, and get it over. It might even be possible to sleep, if matters could be definitely settled between them without further discord; otherwise, bereft of the opium, his chances were small indeed.

But though he drew steadily nearer, she remained motionless; to all appearance unaware of his presence. But the mere craving to touch her, to hear her voice, grew stronger every minute; and he was not to be thwarted thus. At the verandah's edge he paused.

"Quita," he said, scarcely above his breath.

"Yes."

"Have you forgiven me?"

"No. Not quite."