"How the light light love, he has wings to fly
At suspicion of a bond."
—Browning.

The rugged peak of Bakrota was enveloped in a grey winding-sheet, impenetrable, all-pervading; a dense mass of vapour ceaselessly rolling onward, yet never rolling past. It was as if the mountain had become entangled in the folds of a giant's robe.

The Banksia rose that climbed over the verandah of the Crow's Nest had shed its first crop of blossoms. The border below was strewn with bright petals of storm-scattered flowers; while above the dank pines dripped and drooped beneath the dead weight of universal moisture. The far-off glory of the mountains was blotted out, as though it had never been; and the doll's house, with its subsidiary group of native huts, had the aspect of a dwelling in Cloudland. From within came the plash of water falling drop by drop, suggesting a vision of zinc tubs, pails, and basins, set here, there, and everywhere, to check the too complete invasion of the saturated outer world.

Just outside the drawing-room door, heedless of the mist that hung dewdrops on her lashes, and on blown wisps of hair, Quita stood, devouring with her eyes a damp note, handed to her a minute since by one of Mrs Desmond's jhampannis.

"DEAR MISS MAURICE"—(it ran)—"At last I am allowed to write and say—Come. Not this afternoon, because he had quite a long outing this morning in that blessed spell of sunshine; and he is sound asleep after it, has been for an hour and more; or of course he would send a line with this himself. Come to dinner. Half-past seven. Then you can have a long evening together without keeping him up too late. For Theo is still high-handed with him about sleep and rest. But really he has made astonishing progress since we got him over here. Dr O'Malley is quite comically elated over his recuperative power. Says he has seldom seen such a rapid and vigorous convalescence after concussion; and takes more than half the credit to himself; but I am convinced that it is you who are mainly responsible for it. He says little enough, even to Theo. Yet one can see how impatient he is to be well again, because of you; and that's half the battle. Though perhaps my prosaic zeal for concentrated food of all kinds deserves to be taken into account! Theo, who is reading every word of this over my shoulder—in spite of my insistence on the privacy of all correspondence!—wishes to point out that his own genius for nursing is really at the bottom of it. (N.B.—This is simply because he wants you to be extra charming to him to-night!) But apart from all my nonsense, the point remains that among us all we have done great things in less than three weeks. Come and see for yourself, and we can squabble over our laurels at leisure!

"Theo sends sympathy and salaams, and I think you know that I am very really 'yours,'

"HONOR M. DESMOND."

Quita smiled as she folded up the note, though her lashes were wet with more than mist. Tears came too readily to her eyes just now, a fact that engendered occasional bickerings between herself and Michael.

"And to think that I was blind enough to hate that dear woman," she thought. "I, who pride myself on my intuition!"

Then she scribbled a hasty note of acceptance, despatched the jhampanni, and remained standing absently by the verandah rail, looking out into nothingness; trying to grasp the fact that the longest, hardest three weeks of her life were over; that in less than four hours' time she would once more set eyes on the man who was, to all intents and purposes, her newly accepted lover; would verify in the flesh the remembrance of that wonderful night and morning.

The thought so unsteadied her, that she clenched her hands, and jerked herself together. Having more of Diana than of Venus in her composition, the intensity of her love—since avowal had levelled all barriers—was a constant surprise to her; and now she was even a little ashamed of her natural longing for the touch of hands and lips, that she had at times been disposed to scorn. None the less, she hoped, unblushingly, that she would be allowed to have him to herself for an hour, or so; hoped also—nay, confidently expected—that she would end in overruling this stern purpose of his, that irritated her, even while it compelled her admiration.

To her, as to all eager natures, the appeal of the present was all-powerful, the more so when that present offered her with both hands the best that life has to give. To sacrifice it on the altar of a problematical future seemed sheer folly; magnificent folly, perhaps, but, in the circumstances her quickened heart leaned towards a less magnificent wisdom. She detected in this unmanageable husband of hers a strain of unpretentious heroism, which delighted her in the abstract. But when the heroic puts on flesh and blood, and shoulders itself into our narrow lives, it is apt to appear a little too big for the stage; and Quita had an artist's eye for proportion, whether in pictures or in the human comedy.

Moreover, a mingling of French and Irish blood rarely results in an irksome development of the conscience, or of that moral bugbear, a sense of responsibility; and deep down, Quita knew herself to be more like her brother in both respects than she quite cared to acknowledge. For all her husband's conscientious suggestion that marriage was a "complicated affair," she persisted in regarding it simply as the crown and completion of their great love, a happiness to which they were entitled by every law human and divine. The generations still to be had not yet laid their arresting hand upon her. In her esteem, such shadowy probabilities had neither right nor power to stem the new imperious forces at work within her.

It remains to add that Eldred's avowal had not shocked or repelled her as much as he had feared. For, among Michael's promiscuous intimates in Paris, Vienna, Rome, she had seen and heard more than Lenox was likely to guess of that enslavement to drugs and absinthe to which the artist's temperament seems peculiarly prone; though she was far from realising in detail the full horror and degradation involved. She merely felt certain that—heredity or no—Eldred was, by the nature of him, incapable of travelling far down that awful road; that with her at his side to hearten and help him, he could not fail to free himself from "the accursed chain."

But they must fight the battle together. That was the Alpha and Omega of her thoughts. He had not yet measured the height and depth of her love. Let her only make this clear to him, and he must give in; if not to-night, at least before his leave was up. Years of living with Michael had accustomed her to getting her own way in all essentials. But she had yet to try her strength against the bed-rock of Scottish granite underlying her husband's surface quietness; against the terrible singleness of mind that cannot—even for Love's dear sake—view harsh facts through a medium of rosy mist.

While she stood thus, trying to see into the darkness that shrouds the coming day, even the coming hour, from inquisitive eyes, the drifting vapour all about her paled from grey to white, from white to a gossamer film; and finally uprose from the valley, like a spotless scroll rolled backward by an unseen Hand, giving gradually to view a multitude of mountains, newly washed; mountains that glowed with richest tints of purple and amethyst and rose, in the level light of afternoon. And Quita, being in a fanciful mood, saw in this "good gigantic smile" of the rain-soaked earth a happy omen; an assurance that so would the mists rise from her own life, and the sunlight prevail. A sudden recollection of the buffalo "MÈla" set her smiling.

"How idiotic I am!" she reproved herself gently;—we are apt to be gentle with our own foolishness; it never seems quite so egregious as other people's—"I might be a girl of twenty, after my first proposal, instead of nearly thirty, and a nominal wife of five years' standing."

She drew out her watch. Four o'clock. Three mortal hours before she could even think of starting. There was nothing for it but to have recourse to her easel, faute de mieux. The last words waked her normal self. They were no less than heresy, treason to her art. Michael would have disowned her, had she spoken them in his hearing! Was Art, then, so small a thing when compared with this overwhelming force of Love, which dwarfed all thoughts and acts that did not minister to its needs? It was too early days as yet to answer so large a question. She simply knew that since that first kiss had set her on the threshold of an unexplored world, Art had lost its grip; that, for the present, at all events, she did not want to paint, but to love and live!

"Pity Michael isn't here to scold me," she thought, as she turned back into the house.

But Michael was away at Jundraghat, the Rajah's summer Residency. His finished portrait had been sent off that afternoon; and he had followed it, for the pleasure of hearing Elsie's thanks and praise in person.

The little room, robbed of the picture that had been its chief ornament for many weeks, looked empty, desolate; and with a restless sigh she went over to her easel. This also was empty. Her study of a hill girl,—begun half jestingly, as a contrast to Michael's flower of Western Maidenhood,—had so grown and beautified under her hands, that it had been voted worthy of a Home Exhibition; and its case now stood against the wall, awaiting mail day. Three or four unfinished pictures leaned against the easel. Quita looked through them, aimlessly, in search of a congenial subject. But they were chiefly landscape studies; and in her present mood Nature seemed a little tame, and bloodless. Her heart cried out for something human, and she wished that Michael would come back.

Then, like a ray of light, came the required inspiration, satisfying at once the counter-claims of Art and Love. She sought out a fresh canvas, set it on the easel, and plunged, forthwith, into a rough head-and-shoulder study of her husband.

Now time no longer stood still. Michael was forgotten. And, while her brush sped hither and thither, she crooned low and clear, the song that had proved the open sesame to her cave of enchantment.

And, in the meantime, Michael—the forgotten—was manipulating a new and delicate complication in a fashion peculiarly his own.

On entering Mrs Mayhew's drawing-room, he had found, not his "moonlight maiden," as it pleased him to call her, but the Button Quail herself, who greeted him with a rather embarrassing effusion of thanks.

"And the best point about it is, that it's really like Elsie," she concluded, with an air of paying an exceptional tribute to his skill. "Portraits so seldom are like people. Haven't you noticed it? That's why I generally prefer photographs. But your picture is different. There are only two things about it that don't quite please me." She paused, eyeing the canvas with her head on one side; and Maurice, who was irresistibly reminded of a bird contemplating a worm, wondered idly what was coming in the way of criticism. "I wish you had allowed her to wear something smarter than that limp white silk; and I think she looks much too unpractical, day-dreaming on a verandah railing at that hour of the morning! But then, Elsie is rather unpractical; or would be," she added quickly, "if I didn't insist on her helping me with the house. That's where moat Anglo-Indian mothers make such a mistake. But I always say it is a mother's duty to have some consideration for her girl's future husband!"

And she smiled confidentially upon the aspirant at her side. But Maurice, absorbed in critical appraisement of his own skill in rendering the luminous quality of Elsie's eyes, missed the smile; missed also most of the interesting disquisition on her education.

"Yes, yes,—no doubt," he agreed with vague politeness, and Mrs Mayhew opened her round eyes.

But the direction of his gaze was excuse enough for any breach of manners; and she returned to the charge undismayed, approaching her subject this time from a less prosaic point of view.

"Really, Mr Maurice, I never knew till now that I had such a pretty daughter! The whole effect is so charming, that I begin to think you must have flattered her!" she remarked archly; and Maurice fell headlong into the trap.

"Flattered her? Mon Dieu, no! Nature has taken care to make that impossible. For, although she falls short of true beauty, she has such delicacy of outline, of colouring, an atmosphere so ethereal, that one wants a brush of gossamer dipped in moonlight, not coarse canvas, camel's hair, and oils, if one is even to do her justice. Some day I must try water-colours, or pastels. Sans doute Ça ira mieux." He was off on his Pegasus now, far above Mrs Mayhew's bewildered head. "She would make a divine Undine—moonlight, and overhanging trees. The face and figure dimly seen through a veil of water weeds.—But where is she, then?" he broke off, falling suddenly to earth like a rocket. "May one see her this afternoon? I want to hear from herself that she is satisfied."

Mrs Mayhew smiled and nodded, a world of comprehension in her eyes.

"Yes, yes, I can quite believe that. I will tell her you are here. She looked rather a wisp after the dance last night, so I sent her up to rest, for the sake of her complexion! But, of course, she must come down now. You will find her more entertaining than 'la petite mÈre,' She has taken to calling me that lately!"

The complacent little lady took a step forward, then—a bubble with maternal satisfaction—spoke the word too much that is responsible for half the minor miseries of life.

"Do you know, Mr Maurice, it is quite charming of you to have shown me your feelings so openly, and I think the least that I can do is to assure you of my sympathy and approval. I don't feel quite so certain about her father. He is wrapped up in the child, and man-like, wants to keep her for himself. But no doubt between us we shall persuade him to listen to reason! Now, I will go to Elsie."

But Michael made haste to interpose;—a changed Michael, puzzled to the verge of anger, yet punctiliously polite withal.

"One moment, Mrs Mayhew, please. It might be as well if you and I understood one another first. It seems that I have been clumsy in expressing myself, that I have given you a false impression. If so, I ask your pardon. Believe me, I fully sympathise with Colonel Mayhew's reluctance to part with such a daughter; and I am not arrogant enough to dream of asking him to make such a sacrifice,—on my behalf."

It was very neatly done. Michael's detached self, looking on at the little scene, applauded it as quite a masterpiece in its way. But Mrs Mayhew stood petrified. Her brain worked slowly, and it took her an appreciable time to realise that she had been something more than a fool. Then, drawing herself up to her full height—barely five feet in her heels,—she answered him with an attempt at hauteur that quite missed fire.

"Since you are so considerate of Colonel Mayhew's feelings, I only wonder it has not occurred to you that your conduct during the past two months has been little short of dishonourable?"

"Dishonourable?" His eyes flashed. "Mais comment?"

"You have given every one in Dalhousie the impression that you were—in love with Miss Mayhew."

His relief was obvious.

"Naturally, my dear lady. For I am in love with her. How could a man, and an artist, be anything else? But marriage—no——" He shook his head decisively. "That is another pair of sleeves. Women are adorable. But they are terrible monopolists; and, frankly, I have no talent for the domesticities. As a lover, I am well enough. But as a husband—believe me, in six months I should drive a woman distracted! Ask Quita. She knows. If I have given Miss Mayhew cause to regret her kindness to me, I am inconsolable; though, in any case, I can never regret the privilege of having known, and—loved her."

Throughout this ingenious jumble of egoism and gallantry, his listener had been freezing visibly. On the last word she compressed her mouth to a mere line, and stabbed the unrepentant sinner with her eyes; since it was unhappily impossible to stab him with a hat-pin, which she would infinitely have preferred.

"I have never in my life heard any man express such improper ideas upon a serious subject," she remarked with icy emphasis. "And I am quite thankful that your peculiar views prevent you from wishing to marry my daughter."

"Bien! Then we are of one mind after all," Maurice answered cheerfully. "And since we understand each other, may I at least be permitted to see Miss Mayhew before I go?"

"See her? Certainly not. Really, Mr Maurice, your effrontery astounds me! Understand, please, that from to-day there is an end of your free-and-easy French intimacies! Colonel Mayhew and I have to consider her good name and her future happiness; and we cannot allow you, or any man, to endanger either."

Michael shrugged his shoulders. His disappointment was keener than he cared to show; but this hopeless little woman, with her bourgeois point of view, was obviously blind and deaf to common-sense or reason.

"I would not for the world endanger Miss Mayhew's happiness, or her good name," he said, not without dignity. "And as one may not see her, there is no more to be said."

He held out his hand. But Mrs Mayhew's manners were not proof against so severe a shock to her maternal vanity. She bowed as if the gesture had escaped her notice.

"Good-bye, Mr Maurice," she said rigidly.

He returned her bow in silence, slipped the rejected hand into his pocket, and went out.

In passing through the hall he was aware of a slim white figure coming down the broad staircase; and without an instant's hesitation he stood still. In spite of "the little she-dragon in there," he would see her yet. For the knowledge that he had lost her increased her value tenfold.

"You are really pleased with it—tell me?" he said eagerly as their hands met, for he saw the question in her eyes.

"Pleased? You know I am. It is much too good of you to give me such a splendid present; and father is simply delighted. But why are you going away? I thought you would stay to tea."

He still held her hand, in defiance of a gentle attempt to withdraw it, and now he pressed it closer.

"Unhappily I must go," he said, without looking at her. "Your mother will tell you why, better than I can do. Good-bye—-petite amis. Think well of me, if you can."

He bent over her hand, kissed it lingeringly, and was gone before she could find words to express her bewilderment.