no! How dare you think
so! How dare you imply I am lying? I have said I love you, but I shall
hate you if you hurt me so!"

Meredith's face lightened as he swung about the room. "It all comes back
to the same thing in the end. It is good-bye, maybe, for years!"

Early the next morning, he saw his wife on board with the child and
ayah, and then returned to his duties at Muktiarbad, a lonely and
heavy-hearted man.

Captain Dalton recovered, was granted sick leave by the Government, and
disappeared from the District for a sea trip to Ceylon.

Tommy mentioned the fact to Honor having just learned it from him on the
platform of the railway station where he was awaiting the Calcutta
express, surrounded with baggage and with servants in attendance. He was
looking like a ghost and was in the vilest of tempers; not even having
the grace to shake hands on saying good-bye!

Honor turned aside that the boy might not see the disappointment in her
face. Her heart was wrung with pain. Not once had Captain Dalton made an
effort to see her.

Her father had smoked a cigar with the invalid one evening when he was
allowed to sit up on a lounge in his own sitting-room, and had been
asked to convey thanks and gratitude to Mrs. Bright for her many
kindnesses to the patient in his illness; but there had been no
reference to "Miss Bright"; nor did he give any sign that he remembered
what had passed between them at his bedside, the one and only time that
he had seemed to recognise her and had spoken unforgettable words.

It was cruel; it was humiliating!

Honor had been trying by degrees to teach herself to believe that he had
spoken under the influence of delirium. Perhaps he had been thinking of
someone else outside her knowledge? But she could not forget how sanely
he had recalled the time he had treated her for snake-bite. His words
were burned into her brain as with fire--"When you came to me for help
in your danger and suspense; when I saw into that brave, staunch heart
of yours, and, for the first time, knew a true woman!"

There was no delirium in that!

What did it all mean? If he really loved her, why did he not want her as
she wanted him? Why did he treat her with such indifference and wound
her to the heart?

There was no answer to her questioning. Captain Dalton was, as always,
unaccountable, and Honor lifted her head proudly, and determined to
think no more of him. She gave herself up to the arrangements for a
happy C