he
clasped her hands tightly and moved close to him, her face as white as
death.

"And the sahib, the white man, where is he?"

The native of India weaves and fashions the cloth of his cloak of love
out of many colours. Gorgeous colours, blinding, dazzling, in which
predominate the scarlet of passion and the emerald of the supreme
male's jealousy. And all, from the sweeper to the highest of birth and
caste, wear this wondrous garment in India, though not one out of the
teeming millions fashions his cloak upon the pattern of his neighbour's.

Madhu Krishnaghar, the son of princes, with eyes dimmed by the
brilliance of his own particular garment, failed to perceive that
Leonie, too, was wrapped in a love mantle.

The occidental mantle, made of honest homespun, uniform in colour, and
with a wide hem to allow for shrinkage; but guaranteed to stand all
weathers and to last a lifetime.

He might have been flicking a fly from his sleeve, so indifferent was
his answer in his blindness.

"The white man? He is bound to the temple walls, awaiting the woman he
allows to walk unveiled and alone throughout India."

"Ah!" said Leonie, with that little hush in her voice which is heard in
the mother's when she first sees her new-born babe. "I am sorry," she
continued quietly, "so sorry I have not been honest with you. I cannot
marry you because----"

She stopped and turned as with a sound like the tearing of silk a flock
of birds suddenly flew from the tree tops and whirled away into the
night.

"Because? _Because_, woman?"

For a moment Leonie unconsciously watched the flight of the birds, then
swung round, arms stretched wide, eyes shining, and her face aglow.

"Because I love the white man in the temple who is tied to the wall,
_that_ is why!"

Her voice rang clear and true under the sky, and she stepped back
quickly and threw out her hands as the man spoke. For the banked-down
fires of his passion and his love, and the hurt to his race, and his
own sudden-born agony flared in one half-second into a mighty, awful
conflagration. The flame of his words licked at her feet and the hem
of her garments, blazed across her hands with which she hid her face,
and swept right over her from head to heels, and yet he did not touch
her nor raise his voice one half tone.

"Thou _woman_! Then shall no man have thee, for I will drive my dagger
through the white man's heart before thine eyes, and watch thee, thou
beautiful t