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tulle skirt and her great-grandmother’s pearls—pearls sold long ago during the hard years. How Charlie would have grieved could he have known of all her struggles. She was glad he had never known, and as she went down the stairs she kept her heart fixed in pity and tenderness on Clive, so full of hope and anxious happiness; on Charlie, lying far away in his Indian grave.

Captain Ingpen was in the lower room, bending his massive head to one of Charlie’s water-colours, and as he turned and looked up at her standing on the steps above him, she saw that he found her beautiful. She preferred not to think of Captain Ingpen’s capacity for appreciation. If it had been fear she had felt just now, it had not been the delicious fear of girlhood and there was almost a sense of anger in her as she asked: ‘Do you know my India?’

‘Yes, slightly. I know most of India I imagine.’ He was looking at her with a faintly provocative touch of amusement, rather as he had looked when she hurt her ankle.—‘Beautiful; that is what you are; and I don’t care how many grandchildren you have,’ was what his eyes were saying, though he asked, with a sort of indulgent acquiescence, as though he accepted her terms: ‘Did you care about