Honor had advised her to cable. But this was entirely her own affair and she would go through with it. She had a right to expect her husband's love and loyalty; and this being the case, there could be no objection to her taking him unawares. Joy does not kill; and if she did not bring him happiness, it were as well for her not to be deceived. Such was her logic, which she kept to herself, being too proud to share her doubts with Kitty.
One day, as she lay in a deck chair, apparently dozing with her book open on her lap, she overheard two women gossiping together behind the angle of the saloon. They were talking of friends in Darjeeling, and their voices had lulled her into a state of semi-consciousness, till the name "Meredith" made her alive to the fact that her husband was under discussion.
"Not the planter, Tom Meredith, but the I. C. S. man."
"Any relation of the pretty creature with us?"
"I am sure I can't say. He is married, I am told, with a wife at home. 'When the cat's away, the mice will play,' you know! She is a widow, or passes for one, and neither cares a snap of the finger for the talk about them. All Darjeeling is scandalised, and that's saying a good deal! My friend writes that the woman nursed him while he was ill from sunstroke in some outlandish station in Bengal, and they became fearfully intimate. These nurses know a thing or two and can make themselves indispensable if they like. Men generally find them irresistible. However, it is rather rough on his wife at home, when you come to think of it."
"What has the nurse to do with him, now that he has recovered?"
"Ah, that's the point! She stays at the same hotel nominally looking after a delicate baby whose parents are in the plains; but the kid gets precious little of her attention. It is left to the ayah's tender mercies while the nurse goes about with Mr. Meredith. They are never seen apart, and she spends most of her time in his rooms. It puts me in mind of that divorce case you may remember two years ago at Simla, when"—and the conversation was diverted into other channels.
Meanwhile, Joyce was hot and cold with conflicting emotions. Without question, it was her husband they had been discussing, for he was in the Indian Civil Service, and had been sent to Darjeeling to convalesce after the sunstroke, which had seized him in the District of Muktiarbad, the "outlandish station" referred to.
By the light of this conversation Honor's letter was explained. She, too, had heard of the doings at Darjeeling, and in her anxiety had written that letter imploring her friend to return.
Well—she was returning, but to what?