d not got a very good station just then. She was prettier than ever,
seemed perfectly happy, and both Anthony and Jan rejoiced in her.

After she went out the Tancreds moved to Dariawarpur, which was
considered one of the best stations in their province, and there little
Fay was born, and it was arranged that Jan and her father were to visit
India and Fay during the next cold weather.

But early in the following November Anthony Ross got influenza,
recovered, went out too soon, got a fresh chill, and in two days
developed double pneumonia.

His heart gave out, and before his many friends had realised he was at
all seriously ill, he died.

Jan, stunned, bewildered, and heart-broken, yet contrived to keep her
head. She got rid of the big house in St. George's Square and most of
the servants, finally keeping only Hannah, her old Scottish nurse. She
paid everybody, rendered a full account of her stewardship to Fay and
Hugo, and then prepared to go out to India as had been arranged. Her
heart cried out for her only sister.

To her surprise this proposition met with but scant enthusiasm. It
seemed the Tancreds' plans were uncertain; perhaps it might be better
for Fay and the children to come home in spring instead of Jan going out
to them. Hugo's letters were ambiguous and rather cold; Fay's a curious
mixture of abandonment and restraint; but the prevailing note of both
was "would she please do nothing in a hurry, but wait."

So, of course, Jan waited.

She waited two years, growing more anxious and puzzled as time went on.
Her lawyer protested unavailingly at Hugo's perpetual demands (of
course, backed up by Fay) for more and more capital that he might
"re-invest" it. Fay's letters grew shorter and balder and more
constrained. At last, quite suddenly, came the imperative summons to go
out at once to be with Fay when the new baby should arrive.

And now after three weeks in Bombay Jan felt that she had never known
any other life, that she never would know any other life than this
curious dream-like existence, this silent, hopeless waiting for
something as afflicting as it was inevitable.

There had been a great fire in the cotton green towards Colaba. It had
blazed all night, and, in spite of the efforts of the Bombay firemen and
their engines, was still blazing at six o'clock the following evening.

Peter took Jan in his car out to see it. There was an immense crowd, so
they left the car on its outskirts and plung