bmit to his loss with
fortitude, but the loneliness of the camp, after the experience of a
sweet wife's companionship, was insupportable. There were no Europeans
for miles around and there remained only the diversions of an occasional
_shikar_. The tour of the previous autumn and winter months on which he
had been accompanied by his girlish bride, had spoilt him for bachelor
life; for though Joyce had disliked the inconveniences of camping, she
had suffered them meekly, seeing that to have objected would have been
both selfish and unkind. But the coming of the child had roused in her
active opposition to all that might be harmful to its most precious
health, and her husband was gradually discovering that he would
inevitably have to accept the back seat.

For the first time in his official career, the routine of his work
wearied him with its monotony and staleness. Having his meals in
solitary state affected his appetite and digestion, for he took to
bolting his food just to get rid of the automaton behind his chair who,
no doubt, mentally criticised his every act, and treasured up the memory
of his idiosyncrasies to comment upon them, later, in the kitchen.

During the day the business of hearing petitions, trying cases, and
delivering judgments, occupied his mind and brought distraction, but in
the evenings he could settle to nothing. Even his beloved pipe failed to
bring him consolation.

When darkness closed in with dense shadows where the moonlight failed to
penetrate, and the peace of a world at rest was upon the countryside,
when even the birds had ceased to chirp and flutter in their nests, the
air would feel charged with expectancy. A footfall without would cause
Meredith to lift his head from his papers or book, wondering if there
was a message for him--Joyce taken ill--or the baby? The silence bred
nerves, till a chorus of jackals howling in an adjacent paddy field
would break the spell and come as a welcome relief.

Often, the words of a book he tried to read conveyed no meaning to his
mind till he had re-read a paragraph several times. Or the official
report he had set himself to write was disturbed by mental visions of
Station doings in which his young wife was perhaps taking part without
his support and protection.

She was so young and unsophisticated! It was perhaps his own fault that
she was so, but he loved her all the more on account of it, and would
not have had her otherwise.

An instinctive