over him. Nor was he the only invalid; for
little Brian grew pale and listless in the mists that enveloped the
outpost constantly now, until finally the doctor decreed that his
mother, much as she hated parting from her husband and her home, must
take the children to Darjeeling. And he ordered the subaltern to go too.
Frank did not repine, after Mrs. Dermot had casually intimated that
Muriel Benson was arranging to join her at the railway station and
accompany her on a long visit to Darjeeling.

It was Wargrave's first introduction to a hill-station; and everything
was a delightful novelty to him, from the quaint little train that
brought them up the seven thousand feet to their destination in the
pretty town of villas, clubs and hotels in the mountains, to the
glorious panorama of the Eternal Snows and Kinchinjunga's lofty crests
that rise like fairyland into the sky at early dawn and under the
brilliant Indian moon.

As Mrs. Dermot could not often leave her children it was Muriel, who
knew Darjeeling well, who became his guide. Together every day they set
out from their hotel, together they scaled the heights of Jalapahar or
rode down to watch the polo on the flat hill-top of Lebong, a thousand
feet below. Together they explored the fascinating bazaar and bought
ghost-daggers and turquoises in the quaint little shops. Together they
went on picnics down into the deep valleys on the way to Sikkhim. They
played tennis, rinked or danced together at the Amusement Club; and the
ladies at the tea-tables in the great lounge smiled significantly and
whispered to each other as the good-looking fair man and the pretty,
dark-haired girl came in together when the light was fading on the
mountains. Frank forgot cares. He ceased to brood unhappily--for it had
come to that--on Violet, who, as her rare letters told him, had spent
the Hot Weather in the Bombay hill-station of Mahableshwar and was now
enjoying life during the Rains in gay Poona. She seldom wrote, and then
but scrappily; and it seemed to him certain that she was forgetting him.
And he felt ashamed at the joy which filled him at the thought. Was he
always destined to be only the friend of the girl he loved, the lover of
the woman to whom he wished to be a friend?

CHAPTER XII

"ROOTED IN DISHONOUR"

Government House, Ganeshkind, outside Poona, the residence of the
Governor of Bombay during the Rains, was blazing with light and gay with
the sound of music; f