the paddock, white as chalk,
with blue lips, his knees giving way under him. People said nasty things
in the paddock; but Brunt never heeded. He changed into tweeds, took his
stick and went down the road, still shaking with fright, and muttering
over and over again:--"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" To the best of my
knowledge and belief he spoke the truth.

So now you know how the Broken-Link Handicap was run and won. Of course
you don't believe it. You would credit anything about Russia's designs
on India, or the recommendations of the Currency Commission; but a
little bit of sober fact is more than you can stand!

BEYOND THE PALE.

"Love heeds not caste nor sleep a broken bed. I went in search of
love and lost myself."

Hindu Proverb.

A man should, whatever happens, keep to his own caste, race and breed.
Let the White go to the White and the Black to the Black. Then, whatever
trouble falls is in the ordinary course of things--neither sudden,
alien, nor unexpected.

This is the story of a man who wilfully stepped beyond the safe limits
of decent every-day society, and paid for it heavily.

He knew too much in the first instance; and he saw too much in the
second. He took too deep an interest in native life; but he will never
do so again.

Deep away in the heart of the City, behind Jitha Megji's bustee, lies
Amir Nath's Gully, which ends in a dead-wall pierced by one grated
window. At the head of the Gully is a big cow-byre, and the walls on
either side of the Gully are without windows. Neither Suchet Singh nor
Gaur Chand approved of their women-folk looking into the world. If
Durga Charan had been of their opinion, he would have been a happier man
to-day, and little Biessa would have been able to knead her own bread.
Her room looked out through the grated window into the narrow dark Gully
where the sun never came and where the buffaloes wallowed in the blue
slime. She was a widow, about fifteen years old, and she prayed the
Gods, day and night, to send her a lover; for she did not approve of
living alone.

One day the man--Trejago his name was--came into Amir Nath's Gully on an
aimless wandering; and, after he had passed the buffaloes, stumbled over
a big heap of cattle food.

Then he saw that the Gully ended in a trap, and heard a little laugh
from behind the grated window. It was a pretty little laugh, and
Trejago, knowing that, for all p