How deep her gratitude was for his watchful tenderness it would be impossible to express. Once or twice, when he passed, she looked up at him with a wistful smile, and once she touched his arm lightly with her thin fingers, whispering, 'You are so good to me!'
'Good!' he echoed. 'Oh! Grace, if you only knew!'
And then, for an instant, the warm colour flooded his face, and his eyes shone with a wonderful light; but, not daring to trust himself to speak, he turned away, leaving Mrs. Lyster on guard.
Meanwhile, in the hall, which had surely never seen so strange a gathering before, there was plenty of fun and good fellowship. The party at the Residency had just been reinforced by Mr. Montgomery's wife, a handsome and accomplished woman, her sister, a pretty, timid girl fresh from England, and several other ladies, who had come to Gumilcund on the Resident's invitation, leaving, in more cases than one, desolated homes behind them. There were besides the two young officers—Irish, by the bye, both of them—who had come in with Mrs. Lyster, quite well now and up to all sorts of fun. And so the evening glided on merrily. To an onlooker there might have seemed to be something pathetic about their mirth. Scarcely one of the Europeans but had some deep present anxiety to endure, or some recent loss to mourn; but they were English ladies and gentlemen, and they knew how to control themselves. For the sake of one another and their entertainer, they would not be gloomy or morose. The two young officers sang comic songs, and Mr. Montgomery, the Resident, brought out his violin and played dance-tunes which made the feet of the younger ladies twitch to be off, and brave Mrs. Lyster, who was fighting all night with a desperate longing to run away and have a good cry, talked and laughed and told travellers' tales, charming them all with her wit and vivacity. The grave Indians, who knew through what deep waters many of these poor women had passed, were surprised at their spirits. Happily for some of them, it was not kept up late. The Resident and his party, with hearty expressions of thanks and goodwill, took leave of them long before midnight, and the Indian visitors followed their example immediately. Then poor Mrs. Lyster sat down and covered her face with her hands. 'I couldn't have stood it another five minutes. Oh! do all of you think me a brute?' she cried, lifting up her haggard face.
'Don't! Don't!' cried Lucy piteously. 'You will make me cry.'
'I think you one of the bravest of women. I always did,' said Tom. 'Do you remember the storm? No one was so plucky as you.'
'Do I remember it?' said Mrs. Lyster, with a queer little smile. 'Why, it was nothing—child's play. But come, my son of Anak, pick up the couch and carry our invalid inside. Be quiet, my dear!' to Grace. 'You're not to be allowed to stir a step to-night. Carry her in, Mr. Rajah, and then take your retinue away and say good-night. We will face the terrors of the silent hours together.'
After that the days glided quietly one into the other. Every morning the rajah met his family, as he used to call the ladies and children who had found a refuge in the palace, at breakfast, in the pretty garden-pavilion. And pleasant breakfasts they were, although Grace was never present: for some one—Kit, or Aglaia, or Mrs. Lyster, or Lucy—had always something encouraging to say about her. During the day he gave himself without reserve to business and study, and cultivating useful and kindly relations with the people about him, making meanwhile such progress in the knowledge of Indian affairs, and gaining such insight into hidden depths of life and character, and into the scope and meaning of the philosophies and religions of the country, as would sometimes surprise even himself. After sunset, when the work of the day was over, he met his friends again, and they would all take their evening meal together, talking over past and present, discussing hopefully the state of affairs in the country, and exchanging the news which the mails of the day had brought in.
Sometimes Grace would join them at these dinners in the hall, and sometimes not; but she always sent him affectionate messages, of which Aglaia was generally the bearer, and he seldom spent a day without seeing her once. Later he looked back upon those early days at Gumilcund, full to the brim of joyful interests, and flooded with the light of hope, as some of the happiest in his life.
Gradually a dull pain—a terror to which he could not give a name—began to encroach upon their sweetness. Why did not Grace pick up her strength? At first her weakness was easily to be accounted for. But surely the time had come when they might look for improvement. The rest, the freedom from anxiety, and the daily companionship of her friends ought, by this time, to be taking some effect. Sometimes, when they met, he would try to cheat himself into the belief that she was better and brighter; but the absence of vital strength was a fact that, in spite of himself, pressed home to his heart. Day after day he saw the same white face, the same patient smile, the same sorrow-haunted eyes. Day after day he was the witness of efforts so pathetic that he would entreat her sometimes not to make them. 'Be patient, my beloved!' he would whisper; and all the time, in his own heart there would be a tumult of fierce impatience, a gnawing of angry pain that almost unnerved him.