and relics which abound at Dera Ishmael, or extracted
information from shy, smiling women, whose faces happened to take her
fancy in passing.

"You have been a miracle of patience!" she assured him, as they neared
cantonments. "And I daresay you hated it half the time, and scorned my
globe-trotter behaviour! I've noticed how quickly most Anglo-Indians
get bored if one asks questions, or shows the smallest interest in the
country and the people."

"Probably they don't enjoy airing their own ignorance," he suggested,
with lazy amusement in his eyes. "_I'm_ not bored with you, though.
Shouldn't be, even if you were to pelt me with questions till midnight."

She laughed lightly.

"Don't dare me to put you to the test! It might make us enemies for
life. And it's really capital that we get on so well. Just think how
awkward for Eldred if I had taken one of my strong unreasoning dislikes
to you!"

"Still more awkward for me! I never thought you carried hidden weapons
of that sort about with you."

"Wait till you know me better. I am a hopeless creature of extremes!
You can't think how I hated my dear Honor Desmond last year,--though
I'd cut off a hand for her now; nor how I still hate . . . some one I
have never seen;--some one who wrote to Eldred--about me--years ago."

She broke off, remembering that in his eyes she had only been married
nine months; though if she had been looking at him instead of
contemplating the hands that lay clasped in her lap, she must have
noticed his start, the sudden tension of his face and figure. Lenox
had never told her, then. He might have guessed as much. And why
should she ever know, after all? His native honesty prompted him to
make a clean breast of it, and ask her forgiveness. But something
stronger,--a new imperative desire to stand well with her at any
price,--held him silent. Presently, she glanced up at him curiously;
but his straight-featured profile and steady hands upon the reins
revealed nothing beyond a momentary abstraction of thought.

"I forgot, when I spoke just now," she said in a changed voice--a voice
of closer intimacy--"that you don't know how long we have really been
married,--do you?"

"Yes, I do know," he answered, still intent upon the pony. Every
moment made him more exquisitely uncomfortable. But he could not lie
to her.

"Did my husband tell you?" she flashed out almost angrily.

"No, indeed. He's not that sort. I--found out by chan