and motors, of days spent in sowing hurry
and reaping shattered nerves, the type is growing rarer, and it will be
an ill day for England's husbands and sons, nay, for her supremacy
among nations, if it should ever become extinct. For it is no
over-statement, but simple fact, that the women who follow, soon or
late, in the track of her victorious arms, women of Honor Desmond's
calibre--home-loving, home-making, skilled in the lore of heart and
spirit--have done fully as much to establish, strengthen, and settle
her scattered Empire as shot, or steel, or the doubtful machinations of
diplomacy.

A half-acknowledged conviction of this truth was undermining Eldred's
skin-deep cynicism; and it did not tend to alleviate his renewed sense
of loss. A week had passed since his astounding experience on the
Kajiar Road; a week in which the hours of sleep had been a more
negligible quantity than usual; in which he had fought squarely against
an imperative need to escape from the haunting consciousness of his
wife's presence, and had been squarely beaten. His present need to see
and speak with Honor Desmond was an ultimate confession of that defeat.

On reaching the bungalow, he was told that the Mem-sahib bad gone out
with the Chota Sahib, but would doubtless be back before long, and had
decided to await her return. During his ride with her that morning, he
had not been able to bring himself to speak. But this time he intended
to go through with the ordeal. He felt too restless to sit down; and
she did not keep him waiting long.

Footsteps and low voices, punctuated with silver laughter, heralded her
coming, and a few minutes later she entered, carrying a pocket edition
of herself, who clung about her neck, and pressed a cool rose-petal
cheek against her own.

Lenox had described her as a magnificent woman. A Scot may generally
be trusted not to overstate his facts; and certainly Honor Desmond, in
those radiant early days of marriage, deserved no less an adjective.
Height, and a buoyant stateliness of bearing, lent a regal quality to
her beauty. Her grey-blue eyes under very level brows were the eyes of
a woman dwelling in the heart of life, not merely in its outskirts and
pleasure-grounds.

She expressed no surprise at seeing Lenox again so soon. Come when he
might, his presence was accepted as a matter of course; the surest way
to put a man at his ease.

"So sorry I kept you waiting," she said simply, and the hand