An evil, dark face had risen before her imagination, and she heard again the voice speaking to the basket-maker at the méla, vowing to take the life of the surgeon who had been the cause of his only son's death. "Oh, God!—oh, God!" burst from her lips.
"Honey! Honey! What is it you fear?" Mrs. Bright cried, gripping her by the shoulders.
But Honor broke away from her mother and, with shaking fingers, flung on her out-door clothes.
"Surely you are not going out?"
"Can't you understand, Mother?" she cried in strained, unnatural tones. "They have killed him! I know they have killed him!"
"Sahib! Sahib!" called voices loudly on the verandah.
The coolies pulling at the punkha joined in a chorus of "Sahib, Sahib!"
"We are sent to call the Bara Sahib. Haste and wake him. A great calamity hath befallen."
"A murder has been committed, wake the Sahib!"
"Good God!" exclaimed Mr. Bright springing from his bed. "What are they saying? A murder? Where?"