a visit.
But I'm after the loan of a feeding-cup, knowing you've two. That
murdering villain of a _messalchi_[2] broke me only one this morning;
an' I'm afraid I used 'language' when I saw the corpse, besides
threatening to cut the price of a new one out of his pay! '_Memsahib
ke kushi_,'[3] he answers, salaaming like a sainted martyr, and taking
the wind clean out o' me sails. But I'll wash yours meself; so you
needn't fear to lend it." Then, becoming aware of Honor's red eyelids,
she broke off short. "Why, Honor, me dear, it's the born fool I am to
be chattering like a parrot when you're in trouble, by the looks of
it." A glance from one to the other revealed the telegram in Paul's
hand. "Great goodness, it's never the child, is it?" she asked with a
swift change of tone.

"Yes. Honor has had disturbing news," he answered for her. "She'll
tell you about it while I send off this wire."

Honor, who had risen, sank into her chair again as he left the room.

"Read that, dear," she said simply: and while Frank Olliver read, a
strange softness stole over her face, blanched and lined by many
Frontier hot weathers. Outsiders, who wondered how any man had ever
come to fall in love with her, might have wondered less had they
chanced to see her then. On reaching the signature, she awkwardly
patted Honor's shoulder.

"'Tis just one o' the bad minutes there's no evading, me darlint. The
price you've to pay for the high privilege of carrying on the race."

"It seems a big price sometimes . . in India," Honor answered, not
quite steadily. "And it's your one bit of compensation, Frank, that
you're spared the wrench of having to live with your heart in two
places at once."

At that Frank bit her lip, and stinging tears--an unusual
phenomenon--blinded her eyes. But she was overstrung by a week of hard
nursing; and some childless women never loss the tragic sense of
incompleteness, the unacknowledged ache of empty arms.

"Spared? Ah, me dear, you ought to know me better by now," she
protested reproachfully. "I've no use at all for cheap comforts o'
that kind. What's the sharpest pangs, after all, balanced
against . . . the other thing? Lighter than vanity itself; an' you
know it. None better. But there . . . I'm clean daft to be talking so
at this stage o' the proceedings. It's the happy woman I am, sure
enough. Geoff and I are rare good friends. Always have been. But
don't you talk to me again about be