Through the door left open by Sir Arthur the sound of the fountain playing in the great inner baths fell soothingly on the ear. A breeze gently swayed the scented matting blinds to and fro and brought in gusts of Eastern airs to their nostrils, spiced, heavy, dreamy. From below, where lay the town, rose rumours of revel—the poignant twang of the ghitern, the plaint of the reed, the dry sob of the tom-tom. The whole atmosphere within and without was an appeal to the emotions, to the senses; the very touch of the night wind a velvet-soft caress. A night, surely, when but to be alive was in itself a boon; when to be young and beautiful should mean joy. The appeal of it clamoured to Rosamond Gerardine's dormant soul, troubled this day to the core of its self-imposed slumber by the insistent voices of the past. She turned cold with a stony prescience of evil. If she might not sleep through life, then must she wish herself dead.
"I am very tired," she said to her husband, with a note of unconscious pleading in her voice. "I am going to bed; excuse me to all our guests."
"Oh, every one has gone!" said the Lieutenant-Governor.
He threw himself luxuriously upon the settee and stretched his arms over the piled cushions with the gesture of the man at home in his wife's room.
"Sit here, dear."
She took place beside him. He lifted a coil of her hair and played with it admiringly. The ayah drew back into the arched recess of the window and stood immobile, the silver brush gleaming in her dark hand.
"Bethune tells me, Rosamond," said Sir Arthur, rolling the soft hair round his finger, "that he wants you to help him with a life of poor English." Rosamond looked at her husband, the light of pleading in her eyes died down into dull misery. "I understand, dear, that you have made some objection; but, as I have said to him, it is our duty, my dear Rosamond, our duty, to see that the memory of the poor fellow should get proper recognition. A very distinguished young soldier," said Sir Arthur, with benevolence, "it would certainly ill-become me to put any difficulty in the way. So I have promised——"
She started away from him with an involuntary movement; the twist of hair in Sir Arthur's fingers plucked her back. She gave a cry:
"Oh, you have hurt me!"
He was full of solicitous apology; kissed her hand, patted her head. But she, still drawing from him, gazed at him with the eyes of a woman in fever.