han fear.
Such women have been known to run screaming from a mouse and to meet
martyrdom with heroism. They can no more keep their nerves from
trembling than an aspen tree can stay the quivering of its leaves.

"That she was totally unfitted for, and would be made wretched by the
life to which his acceptance of the post would condemn her might have
readily occurred to him, had he stopped to consider for a moment her
feelings in the matter. But to view a question from any other standpoint
than his own was not his habit. That he loved her passionately, in his
way, as a thing belonging to himself, there can be no doubt, but it was
with the love that such men have for the dog they will thrash, the horse
they will spur to a broken back. To consult her on the subject never
entered his head. He informed her one day of his decision and of the
date of their sailing, and, handing her a handsome cheque, told her to
purchase all things necessary to her, and to let him know if she needed
more; and she, loving him with a dog-like devotion that was not good for
him, opened her big eyes a little wider, but said nothing. She thought
much about the coming change to herself, however, and, when nobody was
by, she would cry softly; then, hearing his footsteps, would hastily wipe
away the traces of her tears, and go to meet him with a smile.

"Now, her timidity and nervousness, which at home had been a butt for
mere chaff, became, under the new circumstances of their life, a serious
annoyance to the man. A woman who seemed unable to repress a scream
whenever she turned and saw in the gloom a pair of piercing eyes looking
out at her from a dusky face, who was liable to drop off her horse with
fear at the sound of a wild beast's roar a mile off, and who would turn
white and limp with horror at the mere sight of a snake, was not a
companionable person to live with in the neighbourhood of Indian jungles.

"He himself was entirely without fear, and could not understand it. To
him it was pure affectation. He had a muddled idea, common to men of his
stamp, that women assume nervousness because they think it pretty and
becoming to them, and that if one could only convince them of the folly
of it they might be induced to lay it aside, in the same way that they
lay aside mincing steps and simpering voices. A man who prided himself,
as he did, upon his knowledge of horses, might, one would think, have
grasped a truer notion of the nature of