praying that Mr. Lindsay
should get better. Only that he should be given time to find salvation
and die in Jesus."

"Don't--don't say those things to me. How light you are--it's wicked!"
Alicia returned with vehemence, and then, as Captain Filbert stared,
half comprehending, "Don't you care?" she added curiously.

It was so casual that it was cruel. The girl's eyes grew wider still
during the instant she fixed them upon Alicia in the effort of complete
understanding. Then her lip trembled.

"How can I care?" she cried, "how can I?" and burst into weeping. She
drew her _sari_ over her face and rocked to and fro. Her dusty bare foot
protruded from her cotton skirt. She sat huddled together, her head in
its coverings sunk between weak, shaking shoulders. Alicia considered
her for an instant as a pitiable and degraded spectacle. Then she went
over and touched her.

"You are completely worn out," she said, "and it is almost dinner time.
The ayah will bring you a hot bath, and then you will come down and have
some food quietly with me. My brother is dining out somewhere. I will go
away for a little while and then I know you will feel better. And after
dinner," she added gently, "you may come up if you like and pray again
for Mr. Lindsay. I am sure he would----"

The faintest break in her own voice warned her, and she hurried out of
the room.

It was a foolish thing and the Livingstones' old Karim Bux much deplored
it, but the Miss-sahib had forgotten to give information that the dinner
of eight commanded a fortnight ago would not take place--hence
everything was ready in its sequence for this event, with a new fashion
of stuffing quails and the first strawberries of the season from
Dinapore. The feelings of Karim Bux in presenting these things to a
woman in the dress of a coolie are not important; but Alicia, for some
reason, seemed to find the trivial incident gratifying.

CHAPTER XV.

Under the Greek porch of No. 10, Middleton street, in the white sunlight
between the shadows of the stucco pillars, stood a flagrant
ticca-gharry. The driver lay extended on the top of it, asleep, the syce
squatted beneath the horse's nose and fed it perfunctorily with hay from
a bundle tied under the vehicle behind. A fringe of palms and ferns in
pots ran between the pillars, and orchids hung from above, shutting out
the garden, where heavy scents stood in the sun and mynas chattered on
the drive. The air was full of ease, w