o have run out to Panipara for a rioting case
which he and the police were bothered with; so Miss Honor stayed with
the doctor till she thought fit to come home."

"Bitten by a snake!" gasped Joyce in consternation. "Poor Honor!--how
terrified she must have been!"

"That's best known to herself and him. Since then, you'll observe that
there is a sort of understanding between them."

"How do you mean?"

"They seem to be on far better terms than he is with any one else in the
Station, and Honor is falling in love with him. I am anything but blind
to the symptoms!" and Mrs. Fox struck a match and lighted another
cigarette.

"I suppose they grew friendly over the treatment of her wound," said
Joyce beginning to understand how it was that the doctor had learned to
appreciate Honor Bright. Yet he was "not seeking to marry her."

"I must get Honor to tell me all about it when I see her. Perhaps she
does not know I am back?"

"She knows right enough, for, as I have said, the doctor was with her
yesterday, talking across the garden fence."

Mrs. Fox smoked her second and third cigarette, drank tea with Joyce,
and, when every topic of interest was exhausted, wended her way
homeward, deploring the fact that her husband was too selfish to give
her a motor-car. "He doesn't care for one, so I have to do without; and
with only one riding-horse and that one lame, I am obliged to tramp the
dusty lanes on foot."

"I am also without a conveyance while my husband is in camp," said
Joyce, "but it does not matter as I like walking."

"I don't. My frocks are not suited to pedestrian exercise and cost too
much--" which suggested the idea to Joyce that Mrs. Fox's expensive
clothes accounted for her husband's economy in other directions. She
watched her swaying languidly down the drive, a tall and graceful
figure, stylishly dressed and pretty in a faded way, in spite of the
delicate pink of her oval cheek and the brightness of her thin lips.
What a pity it was that she had never a good word for any one, and made
herself so ridiculous with the men, thought Joyce; it lowered her in
their estimation and laid her open to impudence. Though she was
attractive to many, she never succeeded in holding the attention of her
admirers very long; which was humiliating to say the least of it. Joyce
looked upon her as an example of a true flirt, and feared her
accordingly--not on her husband's account, for Ray gave her a wide
berth--but as a crimin