The dÎners À la russe on the roof had not passed unnoticed by the world below. How could they? Over such strange doings curious tongues must need wag, setting other curious eyes to peep and peer; especially in the women's apartments, where life was so empty of novelty and where a crowded squabbling glimpse, from some lattice, of arrival or departure was all the inmates could hope for, beyond, of course, the ceremonial visit which the English ladies paid to a circle of selected wives.

But there, in company dresses and company manners, the chief women of three generations had found it impossible to ask enough questions to throw any light on the one absorbing phenomenon of utter shamelessness in their visitors; and after Colonel Tweedie's departure disputes began to run high in that rabbit-warren of dark rooms and darker passages, centred round a bit of roof walled in to the semblance of a tank, which lay to the right of the DiwÂn's tower.

The elder women, led by the old man's last remaining wife, a still personable woman of forty, upheld the theory which has had so much to do with British supremacy in the past; namely, that the sahib-logue, being barely human, must not be judged by ordinary human standards. As likely as not, their women were not women at all. The younger party, however, consisting largely of Dalel Beg's many matrimonial ventures in the forlorn hope of a son, declared that the true explanation lay the other way; namely, in the excess of frail humanity. Both positions being argued with that absolute want of reserve which is the natural result of herding women together away from the necessity for modest reticence which the presence of even their stranger sisters brings with it. That lack of reserve in the mind by which nature compensates herself for the seclusion of the body, and which makes those who have real experience of the working of the zenana system put their finger on it as the plague-spot of India; a plague-spot which all the women doctors sent to bolster up the system by exotic and mistaken benevolence will never cure.

And to the war of words, AzÎzan listened listlessly as she crouched for hours beside that slit in the prison wall, whence on tip-toe she could see the flag-stone before the mosque on which she had sat when he was painting her picture. She had ceased to cry, ceased to do anything save mope about in the dark with dull resentful eyes taking in the emptiness and hopelessness of all things; even her desires going no further than a vague wish that she could have seen the flag-stone where the sahib had sat, instead of that dull, uninteresting, unconsecrated one. But in that house of languid, listless, useless women her dejection might have passed unnoticed save for the fact that old Zainub, the duenna, began to be troubled with an old enemy--the rheumatism.

Up-stairs on the roof, the connection between AzÎzan's tears and Zainub's sciatica would have seemed far-fetched, obscure; down-stairs, however, it was self-evident, clear as daylight. Briefly, AzÎz had the evil eye, like her grandfather the potter, and she was using it, as her mother had used it. Sixteen years before, after nursing that mother in the damp dungeon, where useless cries could be deadened, Zainub had nearly died of rheumatic fever. Not from the damp, of course; simply from the evil eye. Nothing, in fact, had saved her life then, save a promise to protect the baby. And now for the sake of money, she had brought grief on the child, and unless that grief could be assuaged, the result was certain; she would die. The pains were already upon her, and a dozen times a day she cursed her own folly in helping ChÂndni; ChÂndni who, when the ruse failed, had thrown her over with a paltry fee. Yet old Zainub, even while she blamed herself, confessed that no duenna could have foreseen such a coil about nothing; but then the world was full of strange new wickedness. In the old time no girl in her senses would have met the suggestion of carrying on the intrigue on her own account as AzÎzan had done, with vehement denial and glowering, unhappy eyes. The thought of them sent additional twinges through poor old Zainub's bones. George Keene, who had taken up his quarters in the state-rooms of the palace, so as to be near Lewis Gordon at night, never dreamt how narrowly he escaped the invasion of an old beldame beseeching him to remove a curse from her. He had for the time almost forgotten the AzÎzan episode; even the surprise which the potter's mention of his daughter's name had aroused he set aside for the present. There would be time enough for inquiry when he was alone once more; when the absorbing interest of the present had gone out of his life.

So the tragedy down-stairs was completely hidden from those up-stairs. It is so often in India. Occasionally we gain a glimpse behind the veil; for instance, when the periodical scare as to the number of human brains required to keep up British prestige seizes on some cantonment. A scare which it may interest the 'Peace with Dishonour, party to know is apt to follow on any lowering of the Lion's tail. Then there are two simple syllables, known doubtless to many readers of this veracious story as they are to the writer of it, which if uttered casually--say in dinner-table conversation--will of a certainty lead to your servants leaving your service without delay. These things sound unreal, farcical, no doubt; so would George, as he handed their bread and butter to the ladies up-stairs, have deemed the fear which prompted old Zainub's wheedling words as she crouched by AzÎzan's bed plying her with greasy sweetmeats.

'Eat some, my pigeon--a morsel, beloved! Why wilt not be comforted, child? Say what is in thy heart, and if Zainub's old hands can compass it, 'tis thine.

'I want nothing. Let me be,' muttered AzÎzan.

Zainub rocked herself to and fro, partly in despair, partly to allay a sharper twinge of the enemy, and looked round dismally as if for some inspiration of comfort. There was not much to suggest it in those bare walls, inexpressibly squalid, dirty beyond belief; save the cemented floor, which underwent a daily sprinkling from a skin water-bag, and a daily lashing with a reed broom. There was a mark of the passage of that skin bag up the narrow stairs in a cleaner streak along the grimy walls, and a mark of that reed broom in the spatter-work dado of slush round the room. The smoke of rushlights blackened the arched niches, their oily dribblings seamed the once whitewashed walk below, and centuries of cobwebs hung on the rough rafters. There was no furniture of any sort or kind, excepting the low stool on which Zainub crouched, and the string cot whereon the girl had flung herself recklessly. Not even resting fairly, but half on, half off, each listless curve showing her indifferent despair; her flimsy veil crushed into a pillow, her unkempt yet braided hair showing she had not thought of it for days. No uncommon sight in the zenana, when so and so's 'constitution is disturbed,' as the phrase runs.

'Would it soothe thee to talk of it?' whined the old lady.

'No! no!' AzÎz sat up in sudden anger. 'I hate him. I hate everybody.' Then, her own confused emotion being strange and new to her, she sought refuge with a whimper in her old sullenness.

'Ari! pretty one,' replied Zainub, relieved at something tangible. 'Thou art right to hate him. Yet grieve not, since he hath gained naught of thee. Thou hast passed him by scornfully.'

On the face turned to the dirty wall something like a smile quivered.

'He hath the pot--the AyÔdhya pot,' murmured AzÎz half to herself. 'He kept that--he liked that.' The duenna beat her shrivelled hands together and laughed shrilly.

'Wah illÂh! he hath kept it, sure enough, but he will rue it. Look you! I know not the ins and outs; yet will the pot bring him evil. Yea! even though he hath given it to the mem up-stairs.'

AzÎzan was on her feet ere the words were finished, her eyes aflame, her whole figure trembling with excitement.

'He hath given it away! Mai Zainub, is it truth? He hath given it to the mems! Ah! how I hate them. It is mine! I will have it back. I will--I will.'

She flung herself once more on the bed, almost choking with her passionate cries, wild in her uncontrolled jealousy, while Zainub, mystified and half impatient, deprecated the foolish, impossible desire. Did she not want revenge? Well, the pot was to bring it about. It would bring money to the treasury also, and before that consideration what mere personal whim could stand? Finally, it was not hers, but the DiwÂn's, who had a right to let the pot go as he chose.

AzÎzan's ultimatum came swiftly with a savage gleam in her light eyes.

'Then I will die; and others shall die, too.' The girl was no fool; she could see through the secret of Zainub's docility by the light of many a covert allusion of her companions to her strange eyes. Well, if the power was hers she would use it, so give her back the AyÔdhya pot or take the chance. Zainub crept away disconsolate; even with her life-long experience of the vagaries in which hysterical girls indulged she demanded shrilly of High Heaven if there had ever been contrariety equal to AzÎzan's. To set aside the possibility of revenge! Still she must do her best, and if the mem had the AyÔdhya pot in the palace there was always a chance of being able to steal it. As a beginning she spent some of ChÂndni's rupees on sweetmeats, and, hiding the tray under her domino, set off to pay her respects to Mrs. Boynton's ayah.

'The burka is certainly a most mysterious garment,' remarked Gwen, as she lent over the balcony just as Zainub shuffled through the courtyard on her errand. 'Did I ever mention the fright I had one morning? I woke thinking that a pair of those latticed goggles were glaring at me; but it was only Fuzli looking in to see if I was awake. Still it alarmed me.'

'Women have a hard time of it,' said Lewis languidly from the arm-chair at her side, where he was playing the part of interesting invalid after four days of unwelcome fever. 'How I should hate to have nerves!'

'We are not a whole army of martyrs, however,' objected Rose swiftly. 'I, for one, decline to be credited with them.'

As she sat pouring out the tea with George Keene's help her face rather belied her words. She looked fine-drawn and eager, her eyes bright, yet tired. Gwen smiled confidentially at her companion.

'People in good times never have nerves, so you and Mr. Keene have no excuse for them at present. By the way, you must have been successful with the partridges today, for I assure you, Lewis, they were not in to breakfast till past twelve.'

Not much in the words--much in the manner. It made Rose bring her cup of tea to the balcony and stand looking with a satirical smile at the pair seated there before she turned to George.

'We think Mr. Gordon is in a good time also! don't we, Mr. Keene? You should break something too; Mrs. Boynton would be quite equal to another patient.'

The crudeness, not to say rudeness, of her own words startled her into adding hastily, 'For she is a good nurse; isn't she, Mr. Gordon?

'First-class for one,' he replied coolly; 'but I doubt her managing three. Therefore, if Keene is going to break something, as you suggest, it would be as well if, for a change, you took some care of yourself. At present you look miserably ill.'

Rose flushed into health at once.

'I? Rubbish! If you have quite finished tea, Mr. Keene, let us go on with that match at tennis.'

'There they go, supremely happy,' commented Gwen from her post of vantage after a pause. 'I'm a shockingly bad chaperon, but that is your fault, Lewis, for getting fever. Do you think monsieur le pÈre will be very angry?'

He shifted irritably. 'My dear Gwen, don't overdo it, for goodness sake. I'm grateful; you know that quite well. But if you want me to believe that Keene is in love with Miss Tweedie, I must decline to agree. The lad is palpably in love with you; as we all are. As for Miss Tweedie, I decline to have any opinion at all. Girls of her type are beyond me. She looks ill, of course, but no woman can stand half-a-dozen hours in the saddle before breakfast and half-a-dozen singles before dinner, with, I suppose, half-a-dozen problems before lunch and half-a-dozen books before bed. The thing's absurd, and as you don't seem able to stop it, it is as well we are leaving Hodinuggur so soon.'

His distinct loss of temper made Gwen change the subject outwardly, but retain it inwardly as a justification of her tactics. They had been very simple. A word to George of gratitude for his care of Rose, a playful remark to the latter on her marked anxiety for the patient's comfort had left the elder woman mistress of the situation. She was in no hurry, however, to bring it to a crisis. Time enough for that when they should nave returned to civilisation, and she had that letter from the jewellers which might even now be waiting for a certain Mrs. Arbuthnot at the post-office at Rajpore.

Perhaps she might not have found Rose so ready to acquiesce in plans through which the young girl saw perfectly if they had not fallen in with the latter's convenience. It was easier that Lewis Gordon should believe her occupied with George, and better for the boy than dangling after Gwen all day; he was too good for that sort of thing. She told herself this savagely, many times a day; even when, with a worldly wisdom beyond her years, she was playing the part of elder sister and confidant to the lad's ardent admiration. As for him, he was supremely happy between the occupations of worshipping the most perfect woman in the world and being companion to the jolliest girl he had ever known.

The day had been hot and sultry, unusually so for the time of year, and as the four stood saying good-night to each other for the last time on the roof the sheet lightning was shimmering in a faint haze low down on the eastern horizon.

'Rain,' said Lewis Gordon in a low voice to Rose. 'Lucky for that dusty dhoolie journey to-morrow evening. In the meantime, I hope it may cure your headache.'

'I have no headache,' she replied coldly.

'I'm glad you did not say no head; that perjury could have been proved. Good-night.'

He turned to his cousin and let his hand linger in hers affectionately,

'Don't be alarmed if the storm is a bad one.'

'Of course I shall be alarmed,' she answered gaily. 'Then you and Mr. Keene will have no peace; for you don't suppose I intend to stay on the roof in order to be struck by lightning. I shall turn you out down-stairs at a moment's notice.

George with adoring eyes on his divinity suggested eagerly that if he returned to the bungalow the ladies could move down at once. Gordon no longer required any one at night, and it would be more comfortable.'

'Nonsense,' cried Rose impatiently. 'I don't believe it will rain. Anyhow, I shall stay where I am, storm or no storm.'

'Nerves or no nerves,' parodied Lewis, 'Keene shall come into my room, Gwen, and I will order his to be got ready for emergencies. Then, if nature does convulse, you can seek shelter without disturbing us. Even Miss Tweedie will allow the wisdom of that arrangement from a masculine, and, therefore, selfish point of view.'

She did allow it, inwardly. The worst of Lewis Gordon was his knack of being right in a way which forced her into disagreement. This consciousness accentuated her obstinacy, and even when Mrs. Boynton, pathetic and plaintive in a trailing white dressing-gown, sat on the edge of the girl's bed beseeching her to let discretion be the better part of valour, she would not yield. She was not going to give colour to Mr. Gordon's caricature of womanhood. Besides, it was close down-stairs. She had a headache, and liked the air. Finally, she was not afraid of being left alone; Gwen could go down if she wished.

As she watched the little procession bearing pillows and blankets file down the stairs, with the ayah in the rear, protesting that 'big storm come kill missy baba for laugh old Fuzli,' she felt glad to be left alone. Her head did ache; what is more, her pulses were bounding with a touch of sun-fever. It would be gone by morning; yet Lewis, perhaps, had been right also in saying that she had been exposing herself too much. The inclination to rest her hot head on the cool marble balustrade and sit there under the restful sky was strong, but with an instinct of fight she set it aside almost fiercely, and after looping back the curtains of the corner-room so as to let in what air there was, lay down decorously. But not to sleep. A dreary disturbing round of thought kept her awake, sending her back and back again to the same point--the assertion that she had certainly been overdoing it. That was the cause of her depression. Until suddenly, causelessly, her native truth rebelled against the self-deception, and she sat up in the dark pressing the palms of her hot hands together. What was the use of lying to herself? Was it not better to confess frankly that with all his faults Lewis Gordon interested her more than any one else in the world? Perhaps it was love--yes! she cared for him as she cared for no one else in the world, and was it not detestable to blush and deny the fact instead of being straightforward? At any time this indictment of her honesty would have been intolerable; now, with fever running riot in her veins it forced her to exaggerated action. She had been behaving like a romantic school-girl in a novel. In future there should be no possibility of her denying the fact that she had wilfully, and without due cause, fallen in love with a man who did not love her. Yes, fallen in love! Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining when the light of the candle she lit fell on them. As she passed quickly into the mirror-room the thousand facets gave back her eagerness, her determination, as she deliberately chose out Lewis Gordon's photograph from a folding frame standing below the AyÔdhya pot. She stood for a moment looking at it, struggling with her pride, then she passed back into her room again and thrust it under her pillow. That was an end of all lies at any rate. After that she would never be able to deny the truth. She gave an odd, almost happy little laugh as she crept into her bed again, where, after a time, she fell asleep with one hand guarding something under the pillow: just as Gwen had guarded something in her corner-room a few nights before.

No doubt it was the growing coolness of the night which soothed the girl; on the other hand, it may have been the testimony of a good conscience not ashamed to confess facts. The lightning shimmered over her sleeping face, and, as it shimmered, showed a black arch of cloud looming from the east. By and by the wind rose, bringing with it the fresh earthy smell of distant rain.

It was now between second and third jackal cry, that is to say, the deadest hour in the Indian night, when even natives and dogs sleep. Yet there were two figures stealing round the base of the DiwÂn's tower to the piled ruins of the old wall which had fallen on the potter's house long years before; fallen suddenly in the night, after just such a storm as that now sweeping up with the wind.

'Ari, heart's core!' pleaded a cracked voice, 'sure the rain begins even now, and God knows what the old stairs be like. 'Tis sixteen years gone since they were used. Holy FÂtma, what a flash! 'Tis no night for women-folk to be out; be wise and leave it. To-morrow, perchance, when they pack up the things, I may lay hands on it.'

'Be still, mai! What good to talk when 'tis settled? What didst say? Straight up to the hole in the wall, three steps down to the ledge, along that to the window slit in the DiwÂn's stair, so by them to the gate; thou hast the key. No, 'tis open, thou sayest. Is not that right? Lo, mai, 'tis easy.'

'In the old days; but the lattice parapet is gone, they say, and a false step--O AzÎz, be wise! Would God I had not told thee of it.'

A faint laugh echoed into the pitchy darkness. 'Thy aches and pains would never have reached the pot otherwise, O mother!'

The hint was not lost on old Zainub. She stumbled on hastily until a shimmer of lightning showed an opening half hidden by dÉbris in the base of the tower into which she crept.

'See, here are the matches,' she whimpered, 'and witness, O AzÎz! I have done all, even to letting thee wear the old dress, since it pleaseth thee, though wherefore, God knows----'

''Tis light and strong,' interrupted the girl hastily. 'Stay you here, mother; I will be back ere long.'

A box of Swedish tÄndstickors made for the British market with a portrait of Mr. Pickwick on the cover, was an incongruous item in the scene, yet one of them looked tragic enough as it sent a glow through AzÎzan's brown fingers and showed a broken flight of steps.

'I will be back ere long,' she repeated at the first turn. Then the light went with her into the very heart of the wall.

Zainub sat crouching in the dark, shivering and groaning. 'Ai! my sins,' she muttered, hiding her face from a sudden flash of lightning, 'the pains of Jehannum are on me already. I perish of fear; the breath leaves my body.' She rocked herself backwards and forwards ceaselessly, moaning and muttering; a weird figure guarding the stair up which AzÎzan was toiling by the light of other tÄndstickors. Beyond the possibility of a half torpid snake, or a shower of loosened bricks from above, there was as yet no danger, even to one so unused to effort as the zenana girl. Thus she had time to think of what she was to do when she reached the roof. For one thing, she had to steal the AyÔdhya pot; for the rest, she was not sure, but something ready for impulse lay tucked away in the waist-folds of the old woollen dress. A glimmering slit showing its arched top against a lighter darkness of sky brought her back to the present. This must be the hole in the wall; and beyond it lay a chasm of night. She lit another match and held it over the gulf. The flame burned steadily, for the stair, in winding through the wall of the tower, had brought her to leeward of the storm. Nothing was to be seen save the blackness of clouds above, the blackness of God knows what below. Then as she stood peering out into the darkness a shiver of silent lightning revealed a silver plain far down beneath her feet, and above, to the right, silver balconies and cupolas. That must be the roof whither she was bound.

The expenditure of more matches disclosed the three steps downwards, and at right angles a ledge along the wall ending in a buttress some thirty feet off. That must be the support of the DiwÂn's stair. Both steps and ledge had once been protected by a latticed parapet; now they were edged by the blackness of the gulf. The ledge, however, seemed perfect as ever, and the rest was, after all, mere fancy; especially at night when you could not see. Should she risk it? The match she held left indecision on her face as it flickered out. The storm, close at hand, took breath as it were for the onslaught in a long pause of intense, silent darkness. Then a sudden shimmer shot over the old tower, spreading a silver mantle upon the slender figure of a girl clinging to the wall. Darkness again; and then once more the same sight. A girl with her face against the wall moving step by step slowly, deliberately. Nearer and nearer each time to the buttress. Then a little cry, too inarticulate for comprehension, rose on the still air, and when the next shaft of light came it found nothing but the bare wall. The figure was gone.

So much might have been seen by any watcher on the roof, but there was none. It lay still, deserted. The very wind, stirring the folds of the curtain Rose had looped aside, made no noise, and the light and the dark played their game of hide and seek in silence. An odd game in the mirror-room, and the arches on arches of shadow leading to it. Each separate scrap of looking-glass would blaze out like a star, sending a beam on the blue bowl of the AyÔdhya pot, then dive into the dark again, carrying a reflection of the scene with it in triumph. Miles of shadowy arches, millions of blue bowls glowing amid countless stars; thousands of looped curtains showing a girl asleep on a white bed.

After a while the stars carried a new sight; a girl in a strange dress crouching by the bed. The lightning shimmered keenly over this group several times, bringing into glittering relief something held by the crouching figure, and something held close to a flushed cheek by the sleeping girl. The one was a knife, the other a photograph of a young man in an immaculate coat and an irreproachable tie. Different things, indeed, yet the girls who held them differed little. They were both in dreamland; for AzÎzan, as she crouched beside Rose, felt that she was in a new world. The whiteness, the stillness, the solitude, guarding the pure sleep of girlhood--the refinement, the peace, made her think involuntarily of the dead laid out for their last rest. She gave a quick little sigh; her hand relaxed its grasp, then tightened again, as a flash showed the photograph clearly. It was a picture of some one. If it was his picture, why then----

She struck a match softly and peered closer. No! She paused, taking advantage of the light to look at the sleeper. Rose stirred.

'Who is it?' she murmured, in the low quick tones of those who talk in their sleep.

The watcher's hand closed silently round the match extinguishing it.

'I am AzÎzan, Huzoor.'

The immediate answer had its effect. Rose nestled her head to the pillow once more, and from the ensuing darkness her breathing came soft and regular. Suddenly, with a crash the thunder rolled right overhead, the wind hushed, the heavy drops of rain fell, each in a distinct plash for a second, then merged into a hissing downpour on the hard roof.

Rose started up in bed, just as the quivering shaft of lightning blazed through the mirror-room upon a girl in an odd dress, holding the AyÔdhya pot close to her breast. A girl with odd light eyes.

'I am AzÎzan, Huzoor.' The words seemed still in her ears, recalling a confused memory of the potter and her own promise.

'Your father wants you, AzÎzan,' she said half in a dream, and the sound of her own voice woke her thoroughly to darkness. Had she been dreaming? The wind rising, now the storm had broken, swept rain-laden through the open door, extinguishing the matches she struck hastily, so that the first glimmering of her own candle was echoed by the ayah's lantern as the latter came paddling over the streaming roof with petticoats held high over her trousered knees, and shrill denunciations of the missy-baba's obstinacy high above the storm. Rose Tweedie's thoughts flew to Lewis Gordon's warning, and his wisdom reminded her of her own foolishness. That was not a dream; and she blushed violently over it as she thrust the photograph out of sight before her attendant rolled the bedding into a bundle and staggered with it down-stairs. As the girl followed ignominiously in the mackintosh and umbrella supplied by that injured official, she told herself she must indeed have had fever, to commit such a ridiculous piece of folly. Her ears tingled over the very recollection of what had perhaps saved her life.

Meanwhile, the girl with the AyÔdhya pot, whom Rose, in her absorbing shame, had decided must have been a dream, was stumbling down the broken stairs once more, her courage gone, her chaos of emotion reduced to one heart-whole desire to reach Zainub in safety. How she had crossed the ledge again she scarcely knew; she had dropped the tÄndstickors on the way, and, as she felt her way step by step in the dark, she was sobbing like a frightened child. Half-way down a displaced brick in the outside masonry allowed the lightning to glimmer over a sort of landing, where she paused for breath. God and his Prophet! What was that huddled up on the next step? She had to await another flash ere she could decide; and in the interval her heart beat with sickening, fearful curiosity.

'Mai Zainub! Mai Zainub!' Her cry of relief and content came swift as the flash. There was no answer save renewed darkness, bringing downright terror with it. Still that was a human form warm under her touch.

'Mai Zainub! Mai Zainub!'

There was no flutter beneath the hand seeking the heart. Could she----? Then came a blaze of light, and the familiar face all unfamiliar; the fixed eyes wide open, the jaw fallen.

The next instant she was dashing down the stairs recklessly; down and down, out into the open, over the dÉbris; anywhere, so as to leave that horror behind. The wind caught her, the rain blinded her, the thunder crashed overhead, as she ran on blindly, till with a cry she slipped on a loose brick and fell, stunned, against a mass of broken masonry. So she lay, looking almost as dead as the poor old duenna huddled up on that landing in the secret stair, where, with one final twinge at her heart, the rheumatism had left her for ever.

An hour after, when the storm had passed, and a faint greyness told that the dawn was at hand, a feeble light began to flicker about the ruins: up and down, up and down, as if it sought for something. It was Fuzl ElÂhi, the potter of Hodinuggur, looking for his dead daughter. He had looked for her after every storm for sixteen years; and this time, with the Miss sahib's promise to send her back lingering in his memory, he sought in hope.

When the sun rose, three things were amissing from the palace at Hodinuggur: the AyÔdhya pot, AzÎzan, and the old duenna.

Up-stairs, while George, and Gwen, and Rose, all for private reasons of their own, acquiesced, Lewis Gordon declared that some servant must have broken the former in dusting the room, and, as usual, made away with the pieces.

Down-stairs the same unanimity prevailed. AzÎz and Zainub had their reasons for running away. They would be found ere long, since no one near at hand dare shelter them, and the old woman could not go far.

If the folk up-stairs had known of the disappearance down-stairs, they might have connected the two losses, but they did not. So none of these three things were traced, and no one cared very much: especially Gwen Boynton. The pot might have reminded her of Hodinuggur, and now she was leaving it there were some things she intended to forget. Besides, no one now could ever say she had taken the jewels.