A weak monsoon, following on scarcity already serious; consequent failure of autumn and spring crops; and famine, dread word, echoed over the half of India.

Now the hot weather had set in unusually, as it were, malevolently early. Areas none too fertile at the best of times reverted to parched deserts, wells and river-beds dried, canals shrank, strained to the limit of inadequate supply. People and beasts were dying of disease and starvation, and officials, both European and Indian, fought one of Nature's remedies for over-population with every ounce of human energy.

Philip Flint sat in his office-tent weary, over-taxed, writing with a sort of dogged persistence. His papers were powdered with dust, the ink evaporated, thickened in the pot; his eyes smarted and his bones ached. For months he had been touring through stricken districts, his camp a kind of flying column, inspecting and organising relief works, famine camps, poor-houses, hospitals. Out at dawn, often not home till dusk, he would have to sit up half the night to wrestle with reports and returns, accounts and statistics; so sparing neither body nor brain on behalf of the miserable multitude that crawled and craved, hunger-smitten, homeless, his heart sore with the sight of skeleton children, exhausted mothers, piteous old people....

Early yesterday he had arrived at a remote point far from town or railway, where earthworks had lately been started for the relief of an area comprising numerous scattered villages, never prosperous, now on the verge of absolute ruin. Transport was the chief difficulty; it must be some time before the light railway that was being laid from the nearest junction could be completed. Cartage and bullocks were scarce, and though a certain stock of food and necessaries were already to hand, there were many to be fed, clothed, accommodated, and the numbers increased day and night. The hospital sheds, in charge of a native doctor, were filling rapidly; further medical help would be needed. Flint had been thankful to hear from his senior subordinate that recently a Zenana Mission lady had arrived with a fair supply of comforts. He was familiar with the invaluable work of such women; it was beyond all praise. As yet he had not had the time to visit the little encampment pointed out to him on the far side of the works; all day he had been too busy superintending transport, checking stores of grain, considering applications for financial assistance, while it was his duty, as well, to detect and guard against imposition, to sift demands, even to appear callous, that the ready cunning of those who sought to benefit by help intended for their suffering brethren might be frustrated. Only this afternoon he had been nearly outdone by an old fellow who presented himself among a gang of emaciated villagers clamouring that he had no plough-bullocks, no seed, nothing—that he and his descendants were ruined.... At first Flint had listened with sympathy until something in the demeanour of the bystanders aroused his suspicions; a few of the less distressed members of the crowd were covertly smiling as though in amused admiration of the patriarch's powers of persuasion, and a little adroit inquiry disclosed the fact that the supplicant was none other than the moneylender of the village whence they had all come.

In contrast with this example of rascality a man of low caste in obvious need had stoutly refused assistance other than in the form of a loan from the Government to be repaid with reasonable interest when times should improve. So it had gone on from the first—patience and pride, heroic endurance, a fine sense of fair play, in company with avarice, fraud, evil intention. Ignorance, stupidity, superstition had to be reckoned with as well, allowed for; the problems were endless, for, while the people must be tended and fed, money could not be wasted or misapplied.

At last Flint laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair to relax muscles and mind. Had he been called upon to define his condition, he would have summed it up simply in the one word "cooked." He lit a cigarette and allowed his thoughts liberty, it was seldom he permitted them to dwell upon the past, but to-night he was too tired for self-discipline. On leaving Rassih he had volunteered for famine work as a desperate antidote to his sickness of heart and spirit; this in face of the knowledge that the decision had probably cost him a chance of important advancement, but the future for him had been shorn of attraction, and the sight of wretchedness and want, his passionate pity for the helpless, the strain and the stress of the work had, he knew, preserved him from despair as no official promotion could have preserved him at the time.

All the same Stella had never been far from his memory, and to-night she seemed to him painfully near. Again he went over that last scene in the Commissioner's house, saw Crayfield standing grim and contemptuous in the big drawing-room, Stella weeping and helpless, himself worsted, ashamed, without honest claim to defence. "Slink, you young hound!" The sentence forced itself backwards and forwards through his brain, hitting his pride each time like a shameful blow.... In his weak selfishness what misery he had brought upon himself and the woman he loved, would never cease to love. Where was she now? What was she doing? He pictured her at the piano accompanying the self-satisfied vocal performance of her husband! He visioned the light on her hair, the delicate outline of her neck, and he writhed as the memory tortured his heart. What devilish fate had taken him to Rassih! Yet he had a feeling that in any case he and Stella must ultimately have met, and that some day, somehow, they must meet again. The refrain of a cheaply sentimental little ballad he had heard her sing came back to him: "Some day, some day, some day, I shall meet you"—he could almost hear the clear, chorister-like voice.... Of a certainty the day would come, and then? He smiled with a sweet bitterness as he recalled her faith in his work, in his usefulness to India; she had said: "Without men like you the wheel would not go round." Well, he was doing his best in his own way to act up to her trust; and for her sake he would stick to the wheel, humbly, unswervingly, though the zest and the savour of ambition had gone, wiped out by unlawful love....

A cold muzzle crept into his hand that hung listless at his side—Jacob, diffident, sensitive, asking attention; Jacob had loved her too, with all his tender dog-heart. On that terrible evening Jacob had sat shivering on the edge of her skirt, conscious of trouble, until he followed his miserable master from the room.

Suddenly he became aware that someone was speaking; he looked up to see an apologetic peon standing at his elbow.

"Sahib, there is a memsahib without."

For one wild second he fancied it might be Stella, his mind was so full of her. Had she fled to him, sure of his love and protection, willing to give herself into his care? He felt as though aroused from a distressing dream, perhaps to find that all the pain and the longing had passed——

"A memsahib is without," repeated the peon resentfully. "She will not depart, though this slave hath told her that the sahib is busy."

Flint rose mechanically, his reason flouting the fancy that Stella could be "the memsahib without." A tall figure was framed in the doorway of the tent.

"Yes?" he said with tentative politeness.

"I won't keep you long." The voice was brisk and high. "I've come from the Zenana Mission camp, where I'm helping Miss Abigail on behalf of the Charitable Relief Fund Committee."

"Indeed!" murmured Philip, inwardly apprehensive. The Charitable Relief Fund Committee sometimes added heavily to his work and responsibilities, admirable though its purpose, welcome though its help.

"Yes, I've been hoping all day to get hold of you, but you were always somewhere else."

"Please come in." He glanced around dubiously, for the interior of the tent seemed hardly fit for the reception of a lady; files and papers heaped on the table, on the chairs, even on the floor; dust, cigarette ends, everywhere; camp equipage, boxes, books and boots, in a hopeless jumble.

"I'm afraid it's all very untidy," he added as he cleared a seat.

The brisk, high voice responded: "What does it matter! Who can hope to be tidy in these horrible circumstances. I feel very untidy myself."

She did not look it, whatever she felt. Here was no typical Zenana Mission female, but a long-limbed, well-built girl, garbed in a neat holland frock, brown shoes, wash-leather gloves, and an obviously English felt hat, bound with a blue puggaree, that proclaimed itself "Indispensable for travel in the East." All very plain and serviceable, but to an experienced eye undoubtedly expensive.

To Flint's astonishment she took off her hat, carelessly, as any man might have done, and dropped it beside her chair. He saw that her hair was cropped short, a thick mop of curling, fox-coloured hair; that her eyes, clear and shining, were grey (and truculent), that her freckled irregular nose and rather large mouth had a certain charm. He felt faintly scandalised when she proceeded to help herself calmly to a cigarette from his box, lighting it with an accustomed air. Smoking among ladies was not general in India at that period. Seated, she crossed her legs, showing slim ankles and neatly-turned calves in brown stockings.

"Well," she began, "I thought someone ought to come and tell you that a lot of people have bolted from the relief works."

"Yes, I know——"

"And you don't care, I suppose," she interrupted.

He stared at her, puzzled; why this unprovoked attack? "We shall get them back. Perhaps you don't realise the reason——"

Again she broke in: "It's because you officials inspire no trust!"

What on earth was the matter with the girl—was she a lunatic?

"I'm afraid superstition is more to blame," he told her patiently. "Some mischief-maker among them has probably started the report that they are all to be murdered in order to extract oil from their bodies for medicinal purposes."

"What nonsense!"

He wondered if she meant the report, or his explanation.

"Of course it's nonsense. But that kind of thing will happen, even nowadays. Superstition dies hard in India. Coolies often bolt wholesale when some important work has to be started, because in old times, before our occupation of the country, a human victim was nearly always buried beneath the foundations of any big building as a sop to the gods!"

He could see she did not believe him. His anger rose. "How long have you been out here?" he inquired.

"Quite long enough to discover how little the people are considered. I think the Government ought to be hanged. Not a penny will you spend—on this famine, for example—without exacting the uttermost farthing in return. You make these wretched creatures work for a mere pittance, you force them into poor-houses when you know it lowers their self-respect, and many of them die because they would rather die than accept relief in the way you administer it!" She paused, breathless.

"And how do you propose it should be administered—indiscriminately, and no questions asked? That would be rather hard on the taxpayers, and bad for the people themselves. I think even the Charitable Relief Fund Committee would hardly work on those lines."

She ignored his argument. "It's appalling," she went on heatedly, "to find how badly private charity is needed. I came out a few weeks ago to see what I could do to help, and I'm horrified. Where would all these unfortunate people be without the Charitable Relief Fund!"

"If it comes to that," he retorted, "where would they be without all the Government machinery that is kept ready to be set going directly scarcity becomes serious—the means of transport, the linking up with unaffected Provinces, the loans for seed and cattle. Good Heavens, you can have no conception of the work."

She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her with a peremptory gesture, and continued quickly: "Private charity is of the utmost value in a calamity of this kind, and we are only too thankful for it, especially in remote regions, but personal sacrifice and hard work isn't entirely confined to the non-official. The help would be simply a drop in the ocean if the way hadn't been prepared. Try to be just, Miss——"

He waited interrogatively.

"Baker—Dorothy Baker"—she waved her cigarette. "You may have heard of my father, Lord Redgate?"

So here was the solution of the girl's extraordinary antagonism. She was the daughter of a new-made nobleman whose apparent object in life, to judge by his speeches, was to disparage British administration in India, to discount the long years of effort and experience, to undermine confidence in honest rule. No doubt such an undertaking engendered a nice sense of superiority and importance that blinded its owner to the truth, if his eyes were not shut deliberately. This obtrusive young woman was clearly imbued with her parent's particular form of conceit. He would not trouble to wrangle with her further.

"Oh! yes," he said indifferently; "we have all heard of your father. Did he object to your coming out here alone?"

"Object? Of course not. He believes in the freedom of the individual. And if he had objected I should be here all the same. I always do as I please."

"And it pleased you to come out and do famine work. How kind of you!"

She shot him a glance of contemptuous suspicion. He understood all that the glance implied; as a British official in India he was an enemy of the people, a bureaucrat, battening on the revenue wrung from a poverty-stricken land, one of the guilty gang that kept Indians from the possession of their country. Yet she seemed in no hurry to quit the presence of such a tyrant and oppressor; evidently she found his chair comfortable, was enjoying his cigarettes, and perhaps she was not altogether averse to a little change of companionship? It was conceivable that the privilege of constant intercourse with her Zenana colleague might have become a bit of a strain. For himself her young presence, despite her antagonism, was in a measure welcome after his fit of depression. Physically she was an attractive creature, and her naÏve self-importance, her impulsive opinions, suited her vigorous personality. Jacob, the little traitor, was already making advances to the visitor. She snapped her finger and thumb in response.

"I like dogs," she said, as though it were a form of weakness that redounded to her credit. "And they always love me!"

"And horses?"

"Oh! yes, rather! I wanted to buy a pony, but Miss Abigail seemed to think it would not be quite in keeping with the work we are doing, and that the money had better be spent in some other direction. We get about in a bullock shigram, not a very comfortable or rapid mode of progression, but comfort and convenience don't count, of course. Personally, I'm not sure that we oughtn't to walk everywhere."

"It would perhaps be a waste of energy and time," suggested Philip.

"But think of the example! You, I suppose, ride or drive everywhere?"

"I couldn't get through my work if I didn't; it would entail endless delay in the administration of relief. I'm practically single-handed in this circle. For example, to-morrow morning I have to cover, roughly speaking, about fifteen miles before breakfast. How would you like to come with me? Have you a saddle—I could mount you."

Obviously the offer tempted her. "Yes, I brought out my saddle. Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad thing——"

"It would give you a further opportunity of condemning our iniquitous methods," said Philip meekly.

She let the thrust pass. "All right; what time do you start?"

"About six. Is that too early for you?"

"Don't talk rot! Send the gee to our camp, and I'll be ready."

"Good! Now can I offer you any refreshment—will you have a cup of tea or coffee, or," he ventured, in view of the cigarettes, "a peg?"

"Nothing, thank you." She rose a little reluctantly. "Now I must get back——"

"Have you a lantern?" he inquired, for the sudden Indian dusk had descended.

She looked out of the tent. "No, I never thought of it, but I can find my way all right."

"I'll come with you——"

She protested. He paid no attention; and presently they were stumbling along side by side in the wake of a peon who marched ahead swinging a hurricane lantern, and banging a staff on the ground to scare possible snakes that at this season, waking from their winter sleep, were apt to lie curled in the warm dust, a danger to pedestrians.

"Are you married?" she asked him suddenly.

"No, I am a lone being, and I think it is just as well."

"Why?"

"If I had a wife and children it would only mean separation sooner or later. Children must be sent home after a certain age, not only on account of health and education but because the moral atmosphere is bad for them, and to my mind the children should be considered before the husband."

"How do you mean—the moral atmosphere?" she asked argumentatively. "I have always understood that natives were excellent with children, kind and patient and faithful."

"They are all that, bless them!" he said, "but their ideas of discipline are not quite the same as our own. To tell lies is merely a matter of self-protection, and, all wrong as it may seem, they knuckle under to English children, let them have their own way, and encourage them indirectly to be arrogant and self-indulgent, taking a sort of pride in their faults! At least that is what my married friends tell me."

"Then the parents are to blame!" declared Miss Baker severely, "for leaving their children to the care of servants while they amuse themselves flirting and dancing and playing games! You don't accuse this Mr. Kipling everybody talks about of writing what is not true, I conclude?"

"Have you never read a preface to one of his books in which he particularly warns his readers not to judge of the dirt of a room by the sweepings in a corner? Parents in India are much the same as parents in England, and parents in England haven't to contend with exile and climate and long separations"—he paused, feeling he was wasting his breath, and was ashamed of a spiteful little sense of satisfaction when at that moment she tripped and clung to him to save herself a fall.

"Now, if I hadn't been with you"—he could not help reminding her.

"I should have come a cropper, and probably been none the worse," she replied ungratefully. "What were we saying? Oh! about parents in India. Why do you go into the Indian services at all then? You know what to expect!"

"Why do we go into the army and the navy—the worst paid professions on earth? It's an instinct, thank goodness, and with it goes the love of justice and fair play towards the weak and unprotected. It's the keynote of our power all the world over."

"Oh! you are hopeless!" cried Miss Baker. "I call it love of conquest, and position, and power!"

"Call it what you like, don't you shut your eyes to the results—anyway, out here."

"The results! Poverty and famine, and a refusal to allow the people to govern themselves, refusal to mix with them socially——"

"Wait a moment," he interrupted, angry with himself because he could not keep silence. "Which in your opinion should govern—the Hindus or the Mohammedans?"

"Of course the Hindus. India is their country."

"The Mohammedans would have something to say to that; or, rather, it would be deeds not words. And how about other nations who would all like to exploit India? We could hardly be expected to keep up an army and a navy to prevent them from doing so if we had no stake in the country."

"Go on," she urged sarcastically. "I am listening."

"When India is in a position to protect herself from internal quarrels and foreign invasion it will be time enough for us to clear out; and as far as social questions go I can assure you they are not at all anxious to mix with us. Their customs and traditions are all opposed to ours.... But it would take weeks to give you even the most superficial idea of the difficulties, and at the end I suppose you wouldn't believe me."

"Oh! I've heard it all over and over again from hide-bound old generals and retired civilians at home, the same time-worn arguments that really mean nothing. However, I am quite ready to believe that you, personally, are well disposed towards the people, and that you do your best for them in spite of the trammels of red tape!"

He refrained from an amused expression of gratitude. After all, the girl was actuated by benevolent intention, however befogged, and she was enduring discomforts, almost hardship, in her self-imposed philanthropy, as he realised when they arrived at the Zenana Mission encampment. What wretched little tents, badly pitched, ill-lighted, with a clamouring throng of distressful humanity pressing up to the very flaps. From the tent in the centre came the sound of singing; a familiar hymn tune.

"There now!" exclaimed Miss Baker in vexation. "I'm late for evening prayers. I'm an atheist myself, but I try to fit in with my chief's customs."

"I hope for her sake that you spare her argument on the subject of religion at least!" said Flint with a magnanimous laugh, as he held her hand in farewell. "We shall meet again to-morrow morning."

He watched her disappear into the principal tent, and turned his steps back to his camp, his feelings ajar. Why would these good folk from home interfere in what they knew nothing about. What mischief they made, all unwittingly for the most part, adding to the difficulties already so great for those who were working under conditions but dimly understood even by the faction who trusted their own countrymen, and did not regard the English official as a thief and a bully and a time server....

In spite of Miss Baker's tiresome attitude, he looked forward to seeing her the following morning. She was a stimulating companion and engaging in her way with her boyish figure, her eager grey eyes, her expressive, irregular features.... In time, if they met often enough, they might become friends—an armed friendship, perhaps, but none the less interesting for that.... What would Stella have thought of her, Stella with her passionate perception of the work that England had done in the past, was doing in the present, would continue to do as long as she was permitted, with honest endeavour, for India. He was conscious of a revival of his old ambitions as he plodded over the uneven track, and far into the night he sat writing, reading, spurred, refreshed as well, by the unexpected diversion of Miss Baker's visit and her violent opinions.