“You’re over-tired,” he cried, not much surprised.
“Ronny, he’s innocent; I made an awful mistake.”
“Well, sit down anyhow.” He looked round the room, but only two sparrows were chasing one another. She obeyed and took hold of his hand. He stroked it and she smiled, and gasped as if she had risen to the surface of the water, then touched her ear.
“My echo’s better.”
“That’s good. You’ll be perfectly well in a few days, but you must save yourself up for the trial. Das is a very good fellow, we shall all be with you.”
“But Ronny, dear Ronny, perhaps there oughtn’t to be any trial.”
“I don’t quite know what you’re saying, and I don’t think you do.”
“If Dr. Aziz never did it he ought to be let out.”
A shiver like impending death passed over Ronny. He said hurriedly, “He was let out—until the Mohurram riot, when he had to be put in again.” To divert her, he told her the story, which was held to be amusing. Nureddin had stolen the Nawab Bahadur’s car and driven Aziz into a ditch in the dark. Both of them had fallen out, and Nureddin had cut his face open. Their wailing had been drowned by the cries of the faithful, and it was quite a time before they were rescued by the police. Nureddin was taken to the Minto Hospital, Aziz restored to prison, with an additional charge against him of disturbing the public peace. “Half a minute,” he remarked when the anecdote was over, and went to the telephone to ask Callendar to look in as soon as he found it convenient, because she hadn’t borne the journey well.
When he returned, she was in a nervous crisis, but it took a different form—she clung to him, and sobbed, “Help me to do what I ought. Aziz is good. You heard your mother say so.”