fice of yours, dear. And it would have been a big
sacrifice. You wouldn't like being dragged through the mud, but I'm used
to it. It came to me just that moment that you said, 'Yes, of course,'
when Mr. Harley came to call you back to duty. Duty is better than a
worthless woman, my Billikins, and I was never fit to be anything more
than a toy to you--a toy to play with and toss aside. And so good-bye,
good-bye!"

The scrawl ended with a little cross at the bottom of the page. He
looked up from it with eyes gone blind with pain and a stunned and awful
sense of loss.

"When did the _mem-sahib_ go?" he questioned, dully.

The _khitmutgar_ bent his stately person. "The _mem-sahib_ went in
haste," he said, "an hour before midnight. Your servant followed her to
the _dak-bungalow_ to protect her from _budmashes_, but she dismissed me
ere she entered in. _Sahib_, I could do no more."

The man's eyes appealed for one instant, but fell the next before the
dumb despair that looked out of his master's.

There fell a terrible silence--a pause, as it were, of suspended
vitality, while the iron bit deeper and deeper into tissues too numbed
to feel.

Then, "Fetch me a drink!" said Merryon, curtly. "I must be getting back
to duty."

And with soundless promptitude the man withdrew, thankful to make his
escape.

CHAPTER XI

THE SACRED FIRE

"Well? Is she all right?" Almost angrily the colonel flung the question
as his second-in-command came back heavy-footed through the rain. He had
been through a nasty period of suspense himself during Merryon's
absence.

Merryon nodded. His face was very pale and his lips seemed stiff.

"She has--gone, sir," he managed to say, after a moment.

"Gone, has she?" The colonel raised his brows in astonished
interrogation. "What! Taken fright at last? Well, best thing she could
do, all things considered. You ought to be very thankful."

He dismissed the subject for more pressing matters, and he never noticed
the awful whiteness of Merryon's face or the deadly fixity of his look.

Macfarlane noticed both, coming up two hours later to report the death
of one of the officers at the bungalow.

"For Heaven's sake, man, have some brandy!" he said, proffering a flask
of his own. "You're looking pretty unhealthy. What is it? Feeling a bit
off, eh?"

He held Merryon's wrist while he drank the brandy, regarding him with a
troubled frown the while.

"What is the matter with you, man?" he