before the two women met again, it was evening—the debatable hour, between light and darkness, which falls so quickly upon the december day. rosamond had come in, wet and weary, from a walk alone on the downs; caught by reverie, she sat before the fire in her dressing-gown, her change of garb unfinished, her hair still loosened, gazing through those unsubstantial misty recent years to the past, which had grown so vivid.
aspasia peeped in, half drew back, hesitated; then, as lady gerardine held out her left hand, without a word, the girl flew to her side and nestled down on the hearthrug at her feet, seizing the white hand with the unexpressed joy of tacit reconciliation. for a little while there was silence between them. baby's eyes roved about the room; within her sunny head a host of new thoughts were humming like a hive of bees. all at once something unfamiliar to her touch about the fingers she was fondling drew her gaze with surprise.
"why, aunt rosamond?"
"yes, baby."
lady gerardine answered from the past, her voice far away and dreamy.
"why." the girl turned the inert hand now to the faint grey light of the waning day, now to the fireglow. "you have changed your rings. this is a new one i never saw before," and her plump fingertips felt the plain circle, so much rounder and narrower than that pompous gold band with which the great sir arthur had plighted his nuptial vow. the cry had almost escaped her lips: "you've never taken off runkle's wedding-ring!" but she checked it with that new prudence circumstances were forcing upon her. she wished now she had not spoken at all. but lady gerardine was smiling.
"yes," said she, tenderly, looking down at her hand where the leaping wood flame flashed back from the narrow gold circlet and the tiny coloured gems of an antique ring that surmounted it. "i have changed my rings—this one was given me the night before my marriage. it all went so quickly, you see, baby, that my engagement ring came only the day before the wedding-ring. it was hers," said rosamond, looking over her shoulder at the bed where mrs. english had died. "'tis a very old trinket, you see. red roses of rubies, green leaves of emerald, and a diamond heart. he said it was my heart—i said it was his."
she smiled again into space. aspasia clasped her and kissed her. it was the first time since the voyage her aunt had spoken to her openly of her hidden thoughts. and now she spoke as if confidence had always existed between them, as if she were merely continuing the thread of an interrupted discourse.
baby's heart began to sink with an uneasy sense of awe as before something unnatural, and of her own incapacity for meeting it. she wished her kiss could stop the lovely smiling lips from further speech. but lady gerardine went on:
"we were married quite early, in the little alverstoke church. i used to hate it when i went there sunday after sunday; but it was a new place to me that morning, holy and beautiful, all in the dewy freshness, grey amid the green, with stripes of sunlight yellow upon it, and the dancing shadows of the trees. the whole church was full of the smell of white narcissus; it was like incense. when i came up the nave, he turned where he stood at the altar rail, and looked at me. i can see him now, just as he looked; his eyes dark, dark, and his face quite pale for all it was so bronzed. baby, i can smell the narcissus now, as i stood beside him and he put this on my finger."
she raised her hand and kissed the ring.
"i shall never take it off," she said, as if to herself. and unhappy, practical baby, could have laughed and cried together with the despairing ejaculation: "poor runkle!"
the night was pressing up against the windows; only the firelight now fought the darkness in the wainscoted room. upon the panel opposite the bed, the life-size portrait of captain english, in its strong relief of black and white, began to assume a ruddy tint; in the shifting of the shadows the expression of the face seemed to change. it assumed startling airs of life. baby caught sight of this and gave a faint scream.
"oh, oh," she said, burrowing her face against rosamond's neck, "he almost looks alive!"
lady gerardine had seen, too; but there was no terror in her soul.
"why should he not look alive?" said she, in a soft confidential whisper, "he's not really dead, you know."
the astounding words had scarcely fallen upon baby's alarmed consciousness, when there was a crunching of wheels below the window, as if the night without had suddenly engendered some ghostly visitor in state. a violent peal rang through the silent house; a new but very tangible fear was upon aspasia. with a shriek she sprang to her feet.
"as sure as eggs is eggs, it's runkle!"
she rushed helter-skelter to the door, while rosamond sat still, clasping her ringed finger.
a minute later aspasia burst into the room again. she was laughing violently in reaction, and brought a breath as of wet woods and winter winds into the warm room.
"it's all right," she gasped. "it isn't runkle, aunt, it's only——" with a fresh irrepressible gust, "it's only the 'native spring,' you know, the black man—the secretary who's writing up runkle's monument!"
she leaned against the bed-post, puffing and fanning herself with her handkerchief.
"what a turn he's given me—poor thing! i'm glad we've got jani for him. he looked so forlorn, standing in the hall, staring about him with great sad eyes, like something pitchforked into a different world."
* * * * *
jani carried a lamp into the small bare chamber allotted to muhammed saif-u-din, and set it on the table at which he was seated.
she turned up the wick, and was straightening herself from her task when her glance fell upon the man's hands and became riveted there. even in their attitude of repose, folded one over the other in the oriental fashion, these dusky hands had a singular suggestion of strength and energy about them. they were larger, too, than might have been expected in a babu; but then was he not of the virile northern breed?
after a while, slowly, the woman's gaze travelled up to the broad breast, where it rested once more. then, upon a sudden impulse, she tilted the green shade so as to throw the full light upon the bearded countenance. the secretary smiled and raised his eyes to look at her in return; but her action had cast her face into profound shadow.
"so," said he, in her own tongue, "here we meet, children of the sun in the land of the mist. so far from home we should be friends."
"i make no friend of your blood-stained race," said jani, harshly.
"why, what harm have we done thee or thine, mother?" asked muhammed, his easy good-humoured tone contradicted by the relentless keenness of the gaze that still strove to pierce the gloom in her direction.
"what harm, pathan?" shrieked jani, suddenly, trembling with a sort of monkey fury. she flung out her hands as if waving off some threatening vision. "what harm, do you ask, have you done, you and your brothers of the mountain? harm enough. see that ye do no more. cross not my mistress's path."
muhammed put his hand over his mouth, as if to conceal a yawn. then, with an air of weary curiosity:
"your mistress?" he echoed. "nay, mother, my business is with your noble lord. how should even my shadow ever come between your lady and the sun?"
"i will tell you," said jani. she came closer to him, though still keeping in the darkness, and laid her fingers on his sleeve. "your mountains once brought her great sorrow. she has forgotten, she is consoled. i would not that she remembered again. why did you come here?" she cried, breaking into a wail. "my heart trembles. it is for no good!"
the man shrugged his shoulders, but she repeated in a sort of frenzy:
"keep out of the mem sahib's way. wa?, that you should have come here to remind her! her tears are dry."
muhammed smiled again, a smile full of secret yet fierce irony.
"i am here," said he, "upon the bidding of my most noble lord and master, the governor sahib, of splendid fame."
"great be his shadow!" ejaculated the woman, with eastern gesture of reverence. "oh, you speak the truth; that is a noble and magnificent lord!"
"ay," quoth the secretary. then, with a movement as sudden as her own had been, he lifted the shade altogether from the lamp. jani again flung out both her hands.
"stay," he commanded, as she huddled towards the door; and she stayed, glancing at him with furtive, furious eyes like a frightened wild thing. "you love your lady then so deeply?" he queried, studying her dark face in the revealing glare.
the ayah's lips moved. she looked askance at her questioner, dropped her gaze upon his hands again, hesitated, and at last spoke:
"i—i suckled her at this breast," she beat her withered bosom. "she is more beloved to me than the child of my flesh. when she weeps, it is as if my blood fell. she is happy, she is great, she is the lady of a high and magnificent lord. she reigns as a queen, she has jewels—oh, jewels—all her heart can wish."
"what then?" cried muhammed, laughing loudly.
"the sons of the mountain have made her weep enough," cried jani, hoarsely. she was trembling as between a terror of pleading and an impotence of anger. "woe to you if your shadow come between her and the sunshine! the dead are dead, past and done with; but the living she shall keep—and her greatness."
"you speak in riddles," said the pathan, coldly. "but doubtless you are a faithful servant. faithful, but also foolish. i will not harm your mistress!"
"who harms my lord harms her," retorted the woman, sullenly.
muhammed's eyes flashed.
"and who would harm so just, so great, so beloved a master? you weary me, mother; begone."
he did not raise his voice, but there was that in it before which she shrank; creeping from the room thereafter stealthily, like a threatened dog.
muhammed, his hands folded once more, remained seated long into the night, with the merciless light of the unshaded lamp upon his brooding countenance.
