on their last night at the Palace, when she said that she had discovered
that she was mistaken in believing in Noreen's approaching betrothal to
Charlesworth, of which she had assured him in Darjeeling? For at Lalpuri
she said she had extracted from the girl the confession that she had
refused the Rifleman and others for love of someone in the Plains below.
And Ida, judging from Chunerbutty's constant attendance on, and
proprietorial manner with Noreen, confided to Dermot her firm belief that
the Bengali was the man.

The thought was unbearable to the soldier. As he sat in his lonely eyrie he
knew now that he loved the girl, that it would be unbearable for him to see
her another's wife. Those few days at Lalpuri, when first he felt the
estrangement between them, had revealed the truth to him. When in the
courtyard of the Palace he saw Death rushing on him he had given her what
he believed would be his last thought.

He recalled her charm, her delightful comradeship, her brightness, and her
beauty. It was hateful to think that she would dower this renegade Hindu
with them all. Dermot had no unjust prejudice against the natives of the
land in which so much of his life was passed. Like every officer in the
Indian Army he loved his sepoys and regarded them as his children. Their
troubles, their welfare, were his. He respected the men of those gallant
warrior races that once had faced the British valiantly in battle and
fought as loyally beside them since. But for the effeminate and cowardly
peoples of India, that ever crawled to kiss the feet of each conqueror of
the peninsula in turn and then stabbed him in the back if they could, he
had the contempt that every member of the martial races of the land, every
Sikh, Rajput, Gurkha, Punjaubi had.

The girl would scarcely have refused so good a match as Charlesworth or
come away heart-whole from Darjeeling, where so many had striven for her
favour, if she had gone there without a prior attachment. That she cared
for no man in England he was sure, for she had often told him that she had
no desire to return to that country. He had seen her among the planters of
the district and was certain that she loved none of them. Only Chunerbutty
was left; it must indeed be he.

He shut up his binoculars and climbed down the rocky pinnacle on which he
had been perched, and went to eat a cheerless meal where Badshah grazed a
thousand feet below.

In Malpura Noreen was suffering bitterly