"We have all been that," he answered cheerily. "Unless I know what your trouble is, how on earth can I help you?"
"Must I really tell you?" and she looked up at him with streaming eyes.
"Why not? But first of all, let us get out of this jungle, and sit in the open by the tank," and he rose, and led the way followed by wretched Miss Sim, whose spasmodic sobs were still audible, though she was now comparatively calm.
"To begin with," she said as she dried her eyes, "I made a fatal mistake in coming out to India. I had no business in this country."
"Precisely my own case, according to Brown and Co.," reflected Mallender.
"But I was so miserable at home; an orphan, living with my aunt, as maid and governess to her four children. I had always longed to see India, and devoured every book relating to the East that I could lay hands on, and a girl I knew, had a married sister in Poona, and read me her delightful letters. Then when I went for a holiday to an old school-fellow, I met a lady who lived out here, and who took a fancy to me"—she paused for a moment, and added hysterically, "I wonder you don't laugh!"
"Why should I laugh?" he asked sharply.
"I was so different then, bright, and gay. I could sing, and tell fortunes, and trim hats, and Mrs. Powell, who was returning to India, said, that if ever I could scrape up the passage money, and make my way out, she would give me a ripping time."
"I see."
"I got this idea firmly fixed in my mind, and worked for it like a slave. I sold some old jewellery, and bought things, and got together my outfit, and at the end of six months, I advertised for, and obtained a passage to Bombay, as nurse to one child. Then I told Aunt Todd; she was furious, and declared that if I went, what she called 'wild-goosing to India,' she would never have anything more to say to me as long as she lived."