"But I don't know myself. That's as far as I've written. I was going to ask you what you thought they should do. What do you think?"
Flint laid the sheets of manuscript, the George Thomas Romance, on the wicker table that stood between himself and his hostess. The two were seated on the balcony, though it was late in the morning. Rain had fallen over-night, and the temperature was lowered for the present—not that the monsoon had actually broken up-country, but reports were hopeful, and for the past few days there had been a welcome gathering of clouds culminating in a heavy downpour. Still the fear remained that the clouds might yet disperse, to leave the district parched and arid as before.
The desert steamed like a gigantic hot-bed, the atmosphere was reminiscent of an orchid house, but at least there was temporary respite from imprisonment in closed and darkened rooms, and the air wafted from a hand-punkah, wielded with vigour by a youthful coolie, was comparatively cool and refreshing. Philip Flint, set free from the tortures of the Rest House, had quickly recovered condition despite a recurrence of fever—just a sufficient recurrence to justify prolongation of his stay with the Crayfields, a short extension of idleness encouraged by his unsuspecting Chief. To-morrow he intended to return to his uncomfortable quarters; work must be resumed; meanwhile he had lived in a golden dream, oblivious of the future that now loomed before him like a grey, empty tomb, compared with the rapturous present.
As he gazed unceasingly at Stella nothing seemed to matter if only he could hear from her lips that she cared for him. Beloved! how perfect she was from the sheen of her pretty head as she bent over some trifling needlework, to the tips of her little arched feet; and her nature was as sweet and tender and white as her slim body——
"Well, what do you think?" he persisted recklessly; and in repeating the question he knew he was heading for danger, as a rider might put a runaway horse to an impossible fence that the inevitable crash should come quickly, prove neck or nothing.
She hesitated, sighed. "Oh! I don't know. To begin with, you see, Anne was married, and her husband, though she hated him, was fighting like John, under George Thomas. Would it have meant trouble, disgrace, for John if——"
"If they had bolted? Perhaps; though in those days it might have been different. But apart from that—what about the marriage question? If you had been Anne?"
"I should have done what was best for John."
"Even if it meant parting from him for ever?"
"Of course!" she said stoutly.