On the morning of the third day after her visit to Mr. Morpeth, as Hester sat with Mrs. Fellowes at early tea in the verandah at Royapooram, a chit was handed to her and the butler announced that her carriage was waiting. The note was from her husband telling her of his arrival at Clive's Road.

"Do, my darling Hester, hurry to me at once," it ran. "I am pining to hold you in my arms. I have only just arrived, but this horrid south wind is making a wreck of me already. I feel so nervous I can hardly hold a pen."

Having shared her news with her hostess, Hester rose to make hasty preparations for her departure.

"This is a blow to me," said Mrs. Fellowes. "I hoped at least to keep you a week longer with us. Your husband has evidently changed his plans."

"He has seemingly. But why should this wind be troubling him? I was just thinking how refreshing it was."

"Ah, but your husband is right there. This south wind is an enemy we dread, it is baleful in its effects, I assure you. When it first blows on one it does seem refreshing, but the very next moment one begins to feel its bad influence. It is like a gust of hot damp air blown over marshes, penetrating to one's joints and marrows."

"Alfred evidently resents it," returned Hester. "I fear it will blow away all the good effects of his change. I wonder what can have made him hurry back so soon," she added, with a sigh she repressed at once and turned to her friend, saying, "How can I thank you for all that has made this time so pleasant to me? I shall never forget these days."

The tears sprang to her eyes as she clasped her friend's hand. "I feel as if I were leaving Paradise for the thorns and thistles of the wilderness," she murmured; and in this remark she laid bare more of her heart than she had ever done, even to her trusted friend, who now looked at her with keen concern.

"But I mustn't put it like that," she added. "Poor Alfred needs me. I must go back strong and cheerful!"

Presently Mrs. Fellowes stood in the verandah with a sorrowful face watching her departing guest.

"You don't mean to say the fellow has come back already like a bad shilling and requisitioned that wife of his a whole week earlier than we reckoned on!" exclaimed the colonel with vexation, when he returned from his morning's work and heard of Hester's sudden summons to Clive's Road. "That is a blow! Why, she should have sent back the landau empty and told him he still owed her a week's release from his presence!"

"Though you say that, Joe, you know it would not be like the faithful wife she is to take things into her own hands like that," returned his wife. "But somehow my heart misgives me about her. I feel as if she were going down into a valley of suffering. But she never complains, and we must not probe her secret sorrow."

Meanwhile the pair of swift Walers had borne their mistress to her destination.

"How ill you look, Alfred!" she exclaimed, when her husband met her on the verandah steps. "What is the matter? Had you a bad passage? Surely the south wind can't affect you so much when you've only just arrived!"

"That's all you know, Hester! It's made a perfect wreck of me already. The fact is I feel more miserable than ever I did in my life," said Rayner with a groan, and threw himself on to a lounging chair, welcoming the baleful wind as the excuse of his haggard looks, of which he was fully conscious.

The revelation made to him at the Shrine of Kali seemed still to scorch his nature like a flame, and his return to familiar scenes appeared only to intensify his misery. He scanned his wife's face anxiously to see whether by any unlucky chance she might already be in possession of the hateful secret; but he perceived nothing except sweet kindness in her demeanour, and at once began to think how foolish he had been to let the matter gnaw his heart as he had been doing. The whole story was probably trumped up by Truelove Brothers, he tried to persuade himself with a juggler-like effort at self-deception. More than likely the Eurasian clerk was the firm's tool in a conspiracy. Alternating hopes and fears still haunted him, however, as he listened to his wife's soothing talk. At length, feeling so comforted by it, he decided to absent himself from the High Court and spend the whole day in her society. Then he changed his mind, and, to Hester's surprise, his mail-phaeton instead of his office bandy was hastily ordered after breakfast. He drove off, saying he would return early and have a drive with his wife when the south wind had abated.

Hester was already experiencing the languor that accompanied the gusty wind she had at first welcomed as a friend. She tried to occupy herself with various household duties which claimed her attention after her absence. With her ayah's help she set about arranging all her possessions, taking her books and ornaments from their retreat, but was dismayed to find that the wind was bringing in its train, not only damp, but also clouds of dust. She had recourse to closing the glass doors of the drawing-room, which had always stood open since her arrival in the tropical clime, before she felt safe to spread out her treasures. She gave Mr. Morpeth's gift an honoured place among them, smiling as she laid a packet of her mother's letters in the precious casket.

When the time came for her husband's return she was surprised to see him drive up in a hired bandy instead of the mail-phaeton.

"What have you done with your phaeton?" she asked.

"You may well ask, Hester, but wait till I've taken refuge from the hurricane behind the glass doors, which I see you've been sensible enough to have closed, and I'll tell you," he said cheerfully; and linking his arm in hers, he led her to one of the sofas in the drawing-room.

"Well, what do you think I've done with my fine phaeton? Been and gone and sold it, horses, harness and all! I was going to add the syce, for he was also thrown in! I met a Mahomedan who was so enamoured of the whole turn-out that I concluded the bargain there and then!"

Hester, not being of an inquisitive turn of mind, did not ask the name of the phaeton's purchaser, and her husband preferred to withhold it. The transaction was the result of an interview with Zynool Sahib. He had appeared that morning at the High Court in an agitated state and begged to see La'yer Rayner, who had invited him to accompany him to Waller's Stables, where he had left the phaeton for some small repair. They could have a freer talk driving, Mr. Rayner had decided, than in the precincts of the High Court.

"Things are going from the bad to the worst at Puranapore," said Zynool, shaking his head dolefully. "Nothing but insults from these pigs of Hindus, backed up by that great enemee of mine, Doctor Campbell. Whatt's the good to us of the Government order stopping tom-toms and conchs at certain hours onlee. By Allah, our mosque is open day and night for prayer. These swinish sounds must not pass its door. We must stop them, La'yer Rayner," he wound up, with a significant glance at his companion.

"Yes, Zynool, that bit by the river, so near the mosque too, would make a fine site for a garden-house for you, such as you want. You desire an order to move the Hindu burning place from there, don't you?"

"That is so," returned the Mahomedan brightening. "You're a clever one, La'yer Rayner!"

"Wouldn't it be best to get up a little thunderstorm? It would clear the atmosphere if you could combine and give it hot to these troublesome Hindus. Pack the town beforehand with your people from outlying villages, and the fire won't need much fanning to burst into a flame. But take care you only mine underground. Complicity found might mean the Andaman Islands!"

Zynool's fat body shivered.

"By the holy Prophet there is need for a fight! They come when we are at our prayers, sounding and bellowing those horrible conchs fit to break the drums of our ears."

"The Mohurram will soon be on," said Mr. Rayner. "There's a chance for you! When you're passing in one of your processions along the streets arrange to go for some howling crowd that may be annoying you, and the fat will be in the fire! May I be there to see, Zynool Sahib! You'll slay many a craven wretch with that brawny arm of yours."

The Mahomedan laughed complacently as he spat on the floor of the bandy.

"Believe you are right, La'yer Rayner. I will say a word to one or two of the Faithful and try to get them up to the scratch, as you say."

"A regular dressing down is what they need. And it will give Worsley and that puppy, his sub., a scare into the bargain," said Rayner with a malicious smile. He had been surprised that the rash granting of the site for the mosque had not caused more acute trouble to the Collector of Puranapore, and his malice now prompted him to wish that he should be reprimanded or made to suffer in some way. There were possible ugly aspects in the agreeing to that site which might be used to Mr. Worsley's disadvantage, he thought with a gratified smile, though he did not share these conclusions with his companion. A breaking of the peace would do excellently well as a first move in the game.

On their arrival at Waller's, Zynool was so fascinated by the smart mail-phaeton that he at once proposed taking it over there and then as part payment of Rayner's debt to him. As his financial embarrassments were pressing, Rayner decided to part with his once much-prized possession, though he made it the occasion to ask the usurer for another loan. To this the Mahomedan willingly agreed, though he demanded higher interest. A cheque was transferred to Rayner's pocket which he went forthwith to cash at the bank; while Zynool, with childish glee, made arrangements with Waller for the sending of his latest possession to his stables at Puranapore.

Hester seemed more disturbed by her husband's news regarding the sale of his mail-phaeton than he expected.

"Surely it was too hurried a step to part with it like that," she faltered, her home ideas being against such raw haste in an important matter.

"How do you know I did it without premeditation? You women always jump to such hasty conclusions! Let me tell you, Hester, it has been at least four days simmering in my mind," returned her husband; then he stopped and bit his lip. To be sure, he thought, he must tell his wife sooner or later some tale about his quarrel with Truelove Brothers. That they were cheating him out of his rights—that was how he would put it—but he would not spoil the first day of his return by such communications. It would surely impress her favourably, for the time being, that he had in this self-sacrificing manner begun by abandoning one of his chief luxuries.

Perceiving that she seemed to regret his self-denial, he set about to make light of it, assuring her that with such a sweet wife he could afford to dispense with bachelor delights. The load of misery which had weighed him down so heavily these last days seemed already to be rolling away as he sat by Hester's side in the drawing-room shut in from the raging wind, and listened to her beautifully modulated tones as she read aloud to him.

Though he laughingly declared he was not an invalid, and did not require to be coddled when she placed her softest cushions under his head, her quick eyes discerned that from whatever cause her husband's holiday had been no gain to his health, but very much the reverse. His cheeks looked hollow and his eyes lustreless, and his step had an uncertain tread which she had never observed before.

Dinner was over, and they had again taken refuge in their sheltered retreat, for as the wind still raged the verandah was impossible. Mr. Rayner began to pace up and down the room as he listened to Hester's playing, which he seemed to appreciate as he had seldom done. In his walk he was suddenly attracted by the ivory box which lay on his wife's writing table.

"Hallo, Hester, where came you by this treasure? What a beauty! This one is real ivory and no mistake. My poor bone fellow must hide its head for ever now. Why this is a genuine work of art! What splendid carving! Did Mrs. Fellowes present this as a supreme proof of her admiration of my wife? Or did you dip deep into your own purse? I shouldn't have thought these things were in the market nowadays. Where did you pick it up?"

"Well, Alfred, I'll tell you," answered Hester slowly, as she wheeled round on the piano-stool to face her husband. "It ought to seem a peace-offering to you, for you once behaved so badly to the dear old man. Mr. Morpeth actually gave it to me the other day when Mrs. Fellowes and I paid him a visit in his most interesting house."

"You got it from him? You paid him a visit? You actually dared to enter that man's house?" panted her husband, growing deadly pale, his eyes flashing, and his lips quivering in uncontrolled passion. "You shall not—you shall not keep it."

As he spoke he lifted the box high above his head and dashed it on the floor, where it lay dismembered. Then with a savage gesture he stamped on the fragments, crushing them to atoms with his foot.

Hester sat staring at him as if spell-bound. She gazed alternately at her husband's face and at the ruins of her priceless box. Ignorant as she was as to the source of his wild emotion, she realised that there was something quite exceptional in his attitude. It seemed nothing less than frenzy. She rose, appalled and trembling from head to foot, her courage for once deserting her. She made a movement to cross the room and escape by the glass door to seek refuge under the dark blue heavens. Then she sank down on her seat again and, covering her face with her trembling hands, bursted into a torrent of tears.

At length she raised her eyes to her husband, who still stood with folded arms and ghastly pale, looking silently down on her. She rose from the music stool and quietly picked up, one by one, the broken fragments of the ivory box which had been so precious to her. Gathering them in the folds of her muslin gown as a child might guard its treasure, she hurried away and went up-stairs, leaving her husband standing motionless and silent.

When she reached her room she sank down under the light of the lamp as if she meant to examine the broken fragments. Instead of doing so she sat holding them covered up in her lap, for there was a greater tragedy gripping her heart than the ruin of the box. Her thoughts were involuntarily following the same train as Mr. Worsley's when in his pity for the young wife he had remarked to her friend, "What a vista of misery lies before her!"

Yes, it was some glimmering of this vista which Hester was seeing now more clearly than she had ever done before. Was it to be in a succession of such scenes that she was to pass all her earthly years till death released her? They might be many, for she was young and strong of body. What would it matter now if to-morrow her husband were to greet her gaily and seemingly forgetful of the wounds which he had inflicted on her heart, or even if he expressed himself penitent and desirous to atone for his fit of demoniac fury? Could he efface by a light word, a manufactured smile—as he flattered himself he was able to do—the recollection of his blighting words and deeds?

Love for him was dead, but Pity was now knocking gently at the door of her tender heart. A true compassion for that disordered soul came creeping in. Surely this desperate pass made a stronger claim for her to put forth every effort to help her husband. She might perhaps, when he was calmer, be able to show him the misery which he was inflicting on both their lives by these ungoverned outbursts. She must be more brave and firm for the right than she had been in the past. Other disordered lives had been won over by patience; and was not the great patient Love of One the source of all hope and trust? To that never-failing Love she carried her burden now and found there the promised peace.

Unfolding her muslin dress, she drew forth the pitiful fragments of the shattered thing of beauty, and opening her almirah, brought out an old box which had been one of the treasures of her childish days. Into it she reverently laid the relics, wrapping them in a fold of paper on which she wrote the words: "The True," and the date of the tragedy. She stowed the box safely away, fearing lest even her ayah should discover it and marvel at the fate of the much-prized treasure.