m glad _I'm_ going, anyway. I've never felt in
sympathy. And now, after all this ... and Amritsar ... I simply
couldn't...."

She broke off in mid-career, flicked her pony's flanks, and set off at a
brisk canter.

Pause and action could have but one meaning. "She's realising," thought
Roy, cantering after, pain and anger mingled in his heart. At such a
moment, he admitted, her outburst was not unnatural. But to him it was,
none the less, intolerable. The trouble was, he could say nothing, lest
he say too much.

At the Lawrence Hall they found half a company of British soldiers on
guard,--producing, by their mere presence, that sense of security which
radiates from the policeman and the soldier when the solid ground fails
underfoot.

Within doors, the atmosphere was electrical with excitement and
uncertainty. Orders had been received that, in case of matters taking a
serious turn, the hundred or so of English women and children gathered
at the Club would be removed under escort to Government House. No one
was dancing. Every one was talking. The wildest rumours were current.

At a crisis the curtains of convention are rent and the inner self peers
through, sometimes revealing the face of a stranger. While the imposing
Mrs Elton quivered inwardly, Mrs Ranyard--for all her 'creeps' and her
fluffiness--knew no flicker of fear. In any case, there were few who
would confess to it, though it gnawed at their vitals; and Roy's quick
eye noted that, among the women, as a whole, the light-hearted courage
of Anglo-India prevailed. It gave him a sharp inner tweak to look at
them all and remember that nightmare of seething, yelling rebels at
Anarkalli. He wished to God Rose had not seen it too. It was the kind of
thing that would stick in the memory.

On their appearance in the Hall, Mrs Elton deserted a voluble group and
bore down upon them, flustered and perspiring.

"My darling girl--thank God! I've been in a fever!" she cried, and would
have engulfed her stately daughter before them all, but that Rose put
out a deterring hand.

"I was afraid you'd be upset--so we hurried," she said serenely; not the
Rose of Anarkalli, by any means. "But we were all right along the Mozung
road."

That 'we,' and a possessive glance--the merest--at her lover, brought
down upon the pair a small shower of congratulations. Every one had
foreseen it, of course, but it was so delightful to _know_....

After the sixth infliction, Roy whispered