Travers had correctly described the new Marut club-house as a fine building on which the paint had been laid with a generous hand. The original modest design had been rejected as unworthy, and Nehal Singh had ordered the erection of a miniature copy of his own palace, the ball-room being line for line a reproduction of the Great Hall, save that the decorations, which in the palace were inimitable, had been carried out with dignified simplicity, and that some necessary modernization had been added. Gold and white predominated, where in the original, precious stones glistened; the brackets for the torches were transformed into small artistic lamps which had been ordered from Madras; and from the ceiling a heavy chandelier added brilliancy to the shaded light. The central floor had been left free for dancing, but the slender pillars ranged on either side formed separate little alcoves banked with flowers and plants. It was in one of these refuges from the whirr and confusion of gay dresses and white uniforms that Stafford took up his watch. He had arrived late, thanks to Travers, who had detained him at his bungalow in a long and earnest conversation. The two men had subsequently driven together to the club, and had further been hindered on their way by a curious accident. Just where the road passed an unprotected ravine, a native had sprung out from some bushes and, having waved his arms wildly, disappeared. The horse had immediately taken fright, and for a moment the car and its occupants stood in danger of being flung headlong down the precipice. Stafford's strength and nerve had saved the situation, but the incident had effectually put an end to their conversation, and now for the first time Stafford found himself alone and at liberty to bring some order into his troubled thoughts.

He was not, as Marut supposed, a conscience-stricken man, but a man with a diseased conscience, his sense of duty and responsibility developed to abnormities which left him no clear judgment. He had broken with Lois because he loved her and because there seemed no other way of shielding her from the most terrible blow that could fall upon any human life—judging by the only standard he knew, which was his own. He had asked Beatrice to be his wife because it cut the last link and because he knew—Travers had told him—that the Station had long since coupled their names together in a way that cast a deeper shadow about Beatrice's reputation.

"It's no one's fault, old fellow," Travers had said sympathetically. "You meant no harm, but you were often with her, and that old fiend, Mrs. Cary, has told every one that you 'were as good as—' And then you know what the people are here. When they see that things are at an end between you and Lois they will dig their knives deeper into Miss Cary, without giving her the credit of having won her game. She is fairly at every one's mercy here. I am sorry for Lois, but the other is worse off, according to my lights."

Stafford had said nothing. Goaded by Travers' words and blinded by the catastrophe which had broken upon him, he had acted without thought, without consideration, for the first time in his life obeying the behests of a headlong impulse. He had asked Beatrice to be his wife, and to-night was to put the final seal upon their alliance. Again it was Travers who had spoken the decisive word.

"A secret engagement is a piece of folly," he said, "and Miss Cary is mad to wish it. For your sake as well as hers, everything must be above-board. Or are you shirking?"

Stafford had made a hot retort. It was not in the scope of his character to turn back on a road which he had marked out for himself, and he waited now for Beatrice with the unshaken resolution of a man who believes absolutely in himself and his own code. He waited even with a certain impatience. Shortly before he had seen her standing at the Rajah's side, a fair and beautiful contrast to his eastern splendor, and, somehow, in that moment, he had understood Travers' warning as he had not understood it before. She was to be his wife, she was to bear his name, and it was his duty to protect her if need be from herself. He was about to leave the alcove to go in search of her when she pushed aside the hangings and entered. The suddenness of her appearance and something in her expression startled him. He did not notice how radiantly beautiful she was nor the taste and richness of her dress. He saw only that there was a curious look of pain and fear in her eyes which warmed his friendship and aroused in him afresh the desire to shield her from the malice of the eyes that watched them.

"Have I been a long time coming?" she asked, taking the chair he offered her. "I am so sorry. The Rajah kept me."

Her voice sounded breathless and there was a forced lightness in her tone which did not escape him. He bent a little over her.

"It does not matter," he said. "You look troubled. Is there anything wrong?"

She laughed.

"Nothing."

He hesitated, and then went on slowly:

"There is one matter I want to speak to you about, Beatrice. It is the matter of—our engagement. I think you are wrong to wish it kept secret. I think it can only bring trouble and misunderstanding. Will you not allow me to tell every one?"

The white satin slipper stopped its regular tattoo on the rugged floor. She lifted her face to his and looked him full in the eyes.

"You think it was foolish and unreasonable to wish no one to know? But I had my reasons—very good reasons. I wanted the retreat kept clear for you."

"Retreat—for me?"

"Yes, for you. Captain Stafford, why did you ask me to be your wife?"

He drew himself stiffly erect.

"I told you at the time," he said sternly. "I was quite honest. I told you that the best a man can bring the woman he marries is not in my power to give you. It was—shipwrecked some time ago."

"Not so very long ago," she corrected.

"That does not matter. The point is that I believe it in my power to make you happy—at any rate, it would always be my ambition to see you so; and therein I should no doubt regain a great deal that I have lost—"

"But you do not love me, Captain Stafford?"

"I have just said that I have lost the power of loving."

For a moment she was silent, her jeweled hands resting wearily on the arms of her chair, her eyes sunk to the ground.

"You made me an honorable proposal, Captain Stafford," she said at last. "You are an honorable man and inspire me with the desire to be honorable also. Won't you take back your freedom while there is yet time?"

"No."

"There are others—good women among whom you would find one who would love you as you deserve. I do not love you. All I can bring is a certain respect and friendship—that is all."

"I am grateful for so much," he said. He was thinking of Lois, and his voice sounded hard and compressed.

"If I marry you it will be because I must."

He nodded.

"Yes, I am aware of that."

"Aware of that?" she said, looking up into his haggard face. "How should you be 'aware of that?' Is my private life so public then?"

"You misunderstand me," he said, striving to cover up what he felt to have been a wanton piece of brutality. "I only mean, you must for the same reason that I must—because circumstances have linked us inseparably together, and because—"

He broke off. The tall figure of the Rajah had passed the alcove and he had seen Beatrice sink back in her chair. As the figure moved on she broke into one of her harsh, jarring laughs.

"Good heavens, Captain Stafford," she exclaimed, "your arguments haven't a leg to stand on! What are you marrying me for?"

"I have tried to explain," he said, swinging himself clumsily up to the great lie of his life—"because I need you—and I hope you will come to need me."

"You mean I do need you? Well, perhaps I do!" She sprang to her feet and held out her hand to him. "There! I seal the bargain. I warned you but you would not be warned. Vogue la galere! Tell the whole world—it is better so."

He took the small firm hand and pressed it. At the same moment he saw the Rajah approaching for a second time.

"I will leave you now," he said in a low, earnest whisper. "I fancy the Rajah wishes to speak with you. It would be a good opportunity to tell him that we are engaged."

She drew back her hand hastily.

"Yes—of course I shall tell him."

Stafford bowed ceremoniously, making way for Nehal Singh. As he did so, he saw Lois enter the hall at Mrs. Carmichael's side. The two women bowed to him, the elder in a way which he had learned to understand. He drew aside out of their path, avoiding the genuine kindness which Lois' eyes expressed for him.

"Pray God you believe the worst of me!" was the thought that flashed through his mind. "Pray God I have taught you to forget!"

Nehal Singh had meanwhile taken Stafford's place at Beatrice's side. As he had entered the alcove she had made an effort to pass out, but her eyes had met his, and the look in them had held her rooted to the ground. The color died and deepened by turns in her cheeks, and the hand that clasped the ivory fan shook as it had never shaken before in the course of a life full of risks and dangers. But then no man had ever looked at her as this man did. She had outstared insolence and snubbed sentimentality. She had never had to face such an honest, pure-hearted worship as this young prince brought and laid silently at her feet. No need for him to tell her that she embodied every virtue and every perfection of which human nature is capable. She knew it, and the knowledge broke the very backbone of her daring and stirred to life in her sickened soul emotions which she could scarcely recognize as her own.

He stood quite close to her, but he did not touch her. In all their acquaintance he had never, except when he had taken her hand in farewell, made any attempt to draw nearer to her than the strictest etiquette allowed. Other men—men whom she hardly knew—had taken the opportunity which a ride or drive offered to kiss her, and had been offended and surprised at her contemptuous rebuff. (What girl in Marut objected to being kissed?) This man had treated her as though she were holy, an object to be respected and protected, not to be handled as a common plaything; and her heart had gone out to him in gratitude and admiration. But tonight his very respect was painful to her. For a moment she would have given the best years of her life to know that he despised her and that all was over between them; and then came the revulsion, the wild longing to hold him to her as though his trust in her were her one salvation.

"Lakshmi!" he said, in a voice broken with feeling. "Lakshmi, you are the most perfect woman God ever sent to earth. Every hour I grow to know you better I feel how pale and empty of all true beauty my life was until you came. How can I thank you for all you have given me?"

"Hush!" she said. "You must not talk to me like that. You must not."

"Why should I not tell you what is true?"

"Because—oh, don't you see?"—she gave a short, unsteady laugh—"we English don't tell people everything that is true. A man does not say that sort of thing to a woman—"

"To one woman!" he said.

"Yes, to one woman, perhaps. But I—I—" She hesitated, the truth struggling feebly to her lips. She felt herself turn sick and faint as she looked into his earnest face. She knew what answer he had ready for her, and though it would have brought the end for which she was praying, she sought with all her strength to keep it back. All the brutality in her character, her indifference to the feelings and opinions of others, failed. She dreaded the change that would come into his eyes; she did not believe that she could bear it. Tomorrow would be time enough. But was it any longer in her power to determine when it would be time enough? There was an expression in Nehal Singh's face which told her that he had already decided, and that the reins had suddenly slipped from her hands into his.

"Rajah—" she began, wildly seeking for some inspiration which would give her back control over herself and him. But the triviality died on her lips as the truth had died. A shrill cry broke above the dying waltz, and the Rajah and Beatrice, startled by its piercing appeal, turned from each other and confronted a catastrophe which overshadowed, and for the moment obliterated, their own threatening fate.

The dancers had already retired to the sitting-out alcoves. Only one figure occupied the floor, and that figure was Stafford's. He was crossing the room and had reached the center when the cry had been uttered. The amazed and startled watchers saw Lois rush toward him and with an incredible strength and rapidity thrust him to one side. A second later—it scarcely seemed a second—the immense golden chandelier crashed with a sound like thunder on to the very spot where he had been standing. A moment's uproar and horrified confusion ensued. The place, plunged in a half-darkness, seemed filled with dust and flying fragments, and people hurrying backward and forward, scarcely knowing what had happened or what had been the extent of the accident. Stafford's voice was the first to bring reassurance to the startled crowd.

"It's all right!" he shouted. "We are both safe, thank God!"

They saw that he was deadly pale, though otherwise calm and collected. In the first moment of alarm he had instinctively caught Lois in his arms, as though to shield her from some fresh danger, but immediately afterward he had let her go, and she stood apart amidst the debris of the wrecked chandelier, trembling slightly, but firmly refusing all assistance.

"I owe my life to you," Stafford said to her, with awkward gratitude.

"You do not need to thank me," she answered at once. "I did what any one else would have done in my place. I saw it coming."

"How did it happen?" The question came from Nehal Singh, who had forced his way to her side. "I can not understand how such an accident was possible."

There was an anxiety in his manner which seemed to increase during
Lois' brief hesitation.

"I hardly like to say," she said at last, in a troubled voice. "I could not believe my eyes, and even now it seems like a dream. Or a shadow might have deceived me. I don't know—"

"Please tell me what you saw, or thought you saw!" the Rajah begged earnestly.

"I seemed to see the chandelier being lowered," she said, with an irrepressible shudder, "and then from a dark hole in the ceiling a hand appeared—a black hand with a knife—"

One of the women moaned, and there was afterward a silence in which a wave of formless fear surged over the closed circle. The men exchanged questioning glances, to which no one had an answer.

"That's just the way," Beatrice heard some one behind her say. "We dance on the crust of a volcano or under a threatening avalanche. Sooner or later the one gives way or the other falls. There is no real safety from these devils."

Meanwhile Nehal Singh had approached the wreckage and was examining the crown, to which a piece of gilded rope and chain were still attached. One or two of the men were engaged in stamping out the candles, which still sputtered feebly on the floor. The rest stood about uncomfortably, hypnotized by an indefinable alarm.

"I fear you did not dream, Miss Caruthers," the Rajah said at last. "The rope has been cut—the chain unlinked. Some wicked harm was intended to us all."

"Not to us all," Stafford observed coolly. "I think you will admit, Rajah, that whoever the murderer was, he would have chosen a more advantageous moment if he had intended general damage. My life was the one aimed at, and I am all the more convinced that I am right, because this is the third time within twenty-four hours that I have escaped by a miracle from accidents which were not accidental."

The Rajah started sharply around.

"How?—what do you mean?" he demanded.

"Yesterday my boat on the river was plugged. To-day a native tried to frighten my horse over the ravine. This"—pointing to the chandelier—"is the third attempt."

"Do you know of any one who could have a grudge against you?"

"No."

"Or against—your family?"

There was a slight hesitation in Stafford's manner. He frowned as a man does who has been pressed with an unpleasant question.

"That is more possible," he admitted.

Nehal Singh made no further remark. He stood staring straight ahead into the half-darkness, and every eye in that uneasy assembly fixed itself on his face, as though striving to read from his expression the conclusion to which his mind was groping. For his exclamation after Stafford's first announcement had betrayed that a sudden suspicion had flashed before him, and they waited for him to take them into his confidence. But they waited in vain. He seemed to have forgotten their existence, and the silence grew tense and painful. All at once, Mrs. Berry, who was clinging to her husband's arm, uttered a scream, which acted like a shock of electricity on the overstrained nerves of those who stood about her.

"Look! Look!" she cried. "Miss Caruthers is on fire! Oh, help! Help!"

She turned and rushed like a frightened sheep to the back of the hall, crying incoherent warnings to those who tried to bar her headlong flight. It was a catastrophe upon catastrophe. How it happened no one knew—possibly some half-extinct candle had done the work. In an instant Lois' white silk dress had become a sheet of flame which mounted with furious rapidity to her horror-stricken face. In such disasters it is only the question of a fraction of a second as to who recovers his wits first. Almost on the top of Mrs. Berry's heedless scream Beatrice had sprung toward the doomed girl—with what intention she hardly knew—but before she was in reach of danger Adam Nicholson thrust her to one side and, folding Lois in his arms, flung her to the ground.

"A rug—a shawl—anything!" he shouted.

Mrs. Carmichael tore the long wrap from her shoulders, and a dozen willing hands lent what assistance first occurred to them. But Nicholson fought his enemy alone.

"Stand back!" he commanded. "Stand back!"

They obeyed him instinctively, and stood helpless, watching the short, desperate struggle between life and death. Scarcely a moment elapsed before the flames died down—one last tight drawing together of Mrs. Carmichael's wrap, and they were extinct. Nicholson stumbled to his feet, the frail, unconscious burden in his arms.

"Please make way," he said. "I do not think she is badly hurt, but she must be taken home at once. Stafford, go and see if the carriage is there."

His own face was singed, and one of his hands badly burnt, but he did not seem to notice his own injuries. Colonel Carmichael, who had entered the hall with him at the moment of the accident, helped to clear the road. His features in the half-light were grey with the fear of those last few moments.

"You have saved our little girl!" he said brokenly to Nicholson. "You have saved her life. God bless you for it, Adam!"

"That's all right," was the cheerful answer. "You know, Colonel, Lois and I were always helping each other out of scrapes, and I expect it was my turn." He looked down at the pale face against his shoulder, and there was an unconscious tenderness in his expression which touched the shaken old man's heart.

"She will be glad to hear it was you, Adam," he said. "You were always her favorite."

They had reached the great doors, which the Rajah himself had flung wide open, when Travers sprang up the steps to meet them. He was dishevelled, breathless, and exhausted as though with hard running, and his eyes, as they flashed from one to the other of the little procession, were those of a madman.

"What has happened?" he demanded frantically. "I was outside with Webb. What has happened?—Oh!" He caught sight of Lois in Nicholson's arms, and his cry was high and hysterical, like a frightened woman's.

Stafford seized him by the shoulder and dragged him back into the now empty hall.

"Control yourself!" he said roughly. "Don't behave like a fool. She is all right, but they won't want you interfering, especially if you can't keep your head."

"They won't want me!" Travers exclaimed, staring at him. He then broke into a discordant laugh. "Why, my good Stafford, they'll have to have me, whether they want me or no. Lois is mine—mine, I tell you; and that fellow, Nicholson, had better look to himself—"

"You are beside yourself, Travers. Nicholson saved her life. What do you mean by saying she is yours?"

"She is to be my wife. Who can have more right to her than I have?"

The two men stared at each other through the semi-darkness. One by one the lights at the side of the hall were extinguished by the softly-moving servants. The hushed voices of the departing guests died away in the distance.

"Your wife!" Stafford repeated slowly. "Since when is that, Travers?"

"Since this afternoon. Let me pass!"

Stafford made no effort to detain him. He stood on one side, and Travers hurried down the steps. A minute later he was driving his trap down the avenue at a pace which boded danger for himself and for any who dared to cross his path.