s and ropes, and as news flies
from village to village with almost the rapidity of "wireless," hundreds
of natives gathered at the scene to view operations, the women with
infants astride one hip, and naked children swarming around. They camped
on the ground chewing _pan_ and parched rice, and chattered incessantly
of the mysterious workings of Providence, the folly of humanity, and the
decrees of Fate.

The bare-footed, semi-nude rescuers, climbed over the face of the ruins
with complete disregard of life and limb, and with wary tread and light
touch, began the work of removing the _debris_.

In due course, the rescue was effected, and Joyce was assisted to climb
out of the wrecked chamber to safety. Honor half-supported her to the
car which Captain Dalton drove in silence to the Bara Koti. His eyes
avoided Honor's and in manner he was quiet and constrained.

"So you never got the souvenir after all!" she said to Joyce when she
had heard a disjointed account of the catastrophe.

"I should have hated to look at it again, if I had," was the hysterical
reply. "I shan't want to pass this road again, or get a glimpse of that
terrible place as long as I live. I hate India more than ever, and Ray
must send me home at once. Otherwise, I shall live in dread of some
other calamity befalling either Baby or me. Oh, Honor, persuade him to
let me go!"

By the time she was put to bed she was suffering from nervous
prostration. Meredith, who had returned from his fruitless search,
looked like a man walking in his sleep. His wife had clung to his neck
in passionate relief, but she had avoided his lips as she had never done
before, and a sword seemed to have entered his heart.

"Oh, I am so glad to be back!" she kept repeating, with her babe pressed
to her bosom.

"Memsahib habbing one great fright!" commiserated the ayah.

Silent and stunned, Meredith hovered about the room. He had uttered no
word of reproach to his wife for her imprudence,--she had suffered
enough, mentally and physically; but resentment was fierce within him
towards the doctor. The impulse to walk round and horse-whip him for
having had the impudence to lead his foolish, but adored girl-wife into
such a scrape, was well-nigh unconquerable, and he refrained only for
fear that scandalous tongues would give the unhappy event a sinister
character.

"Kiss me, Sweet," he once whispered, leaning over her in passionate
anxiety. He wanted to look deep into her eyes