anxiety. On the eve of sailing he had despatched her with his blessing
and, by way of practical accessory, a handsome revolver, which he had
taught her to use as accurately as a man.

And now, while she sat alone in the mellow moonlight of early morning,
within a few miles of the greatest river of the Punjab, not even the
pain of recent parting could lessen the thrill of independence and
adventure, that quickened her pulses, and stirred the deep waters of
her soul.

At five-and-twenty this girl still remained heart-whole, as at
nineteen: still looked confidently forward to the best that life has
to give. For, despite a strong practical strain in her nature, she was
an idealist at the core. She could not understand that temper of mind
which sets out to buy a gold watch, and declines upon a silver one
because the other is not instantly attainable. She would have the best
or none: and, with the enviable assurance of youth, she never doubted
but that the best would be forthcoming in good time.

For this cause, no doubt, she had failed to make the brilliant match
tacitly expected of her by a large circle of friends ever since her
arrival in the country. None the less, she had gone cheerfully on her
way, untrammelled by criticism, quite unaware of failure, and
eternally interested in the manifold drama of Indian and Anglo-Indian
life. Her father and four soldier brothers had set her standard of
manhood, and had set it high; and although in the past eight years
many men had been passionately convinced of their ability to satisfy
her needs of heart and brain, not one among them had succeeded in
convincing Sir John Meredith's clear-sighted daughter.

But thought of all these things was far from her as she watched the
moon dip to the jagged peaks that shouldered the stars along the
western horizon. The present held her; the future beckoned with an
encouraging finger; and she had no quarrel with the past.

* * * * *

By now the moon's last rim formed a golden sickle behind a blunt
shoulder of rock; while over the eastward levels the topaz-yellow of
an Indian dawn rushed at one stride to the zenith of heaven. In the
clear light the girl's beauty took on a new distinctness, a new living
charm. The upward-sweeping mass of her hair showed the softness of
bronze, save where the sun burnished it to copper. Breadth of brow,
and the strong moulding of her nose and chin, suggested powers rather
befit