During the days of convalescence the Englishman's thoughts turned often to the probable experiences of the six years that this sweet American woman had spent alone in this "Hell." Even his stout English heart recoiled at the mental pictures his mind conjured up. He could see her threading her way alone through the crowded bazaars where vile Hindu priests, dirty shopkeepers, men red-faced with smallpox, or hideous lepers must again and again have jostled rudely against her. He saw her, unattended, with difficulty passing the frenzied religious processions which accompany the silver car of the great god as it makes its sacred rounds, or being pushed to the wall by a surging mass of religious devotees, eager to reach the sacred river to bathe in its holy waters. But the worst picture to him was of the nights of those six years when unprotected she must have crouched within her chamber in fright at the awful and unholy confusion of night in a Hindu city.
"My——!" He pulled himself up short. "I must not swear, for she is a missionary, but by—by—by Oliver Cromwell, I'll save her from all that."
The instinct of gratitude will assert itself and it is easy for gratitude to pass over into affection and enduring devotion. When the rescuer is a beautiful and capable woman, who can measure the consequences? All of Caldwell-Sahib's philosophy of life was thrown into confusion. His complex nature would no longer run according to his will. Staid, cold, hard, matter-of-fact Englishman though he was, his imagination played fantastic tricks with him and so through all these days while his body was regaining its lost strength, her face lived in his memory and the memory gave him a warm and comforting sensation about the heart, a sensation intensified in its delight by the thought that she was probably thinking about him, for so the old romance has run since the beginning of the human drama.
As soon as Caldwell-Sahib was able to get out, he inquired his way to her home. He had an easy time finding it, for everybody seemed to know where she lived and every face brightened at her name. But when he reached the compound and through the gate saw the plain but comfortable bungalow within, his courage gave way and he turned back home. However, he got into the habit of strolling around that way towards nightfall and standing a few minutes at the point of the wall nearest to what he thought her window and watching the people who came and went from her compound; but never on these occasions did he catch a glimpse of her. As a courageous and polite Englishman, he should have gone in and thanked the good American lady for having saved his life, but he had grown to feel that there was only one way in which he wanted to thank her and he had not yet reached the height of courage where he could tell her how she had wrecked his philosophy of life. So he lingered around outside the compound walls and watched the natives; "lucky beggars" he called them to himself, as they came and went from a small, low building at one side of the compound which he knew from appearance must be her dispensary. Those who passed him were lame and halt and, yes, even blind. But they were all "lucky" in his sight because they had been in her presence and had been speaking to her.
He overheard their remarks occasionally and now it was: "It hurt awfully but she put her hand on my head and took all the pain away;" or "She gave me the worst medicine to take, but since she said 'Take it!' I will;" and even the blind man said as he passed, a strange light in his face, "She says to come to-morrow and she will cut something in my eyes and then she thinks I shall see again. Since she says it will be all right, I am coming back to-morrow, but I wouldn't believe any one else."
Caldwell-Sahib's heart ached for the sweet, clean American woman who must touch, heal, and minister to such foul, dirty creatures. Every night as he watched them he felt that he ought to go in and tell her of his love and take her away from such a dreadful life at once. Possibly she was wondering why he had not come. How cruel he was to delay! But every night home he would go again and put off the visit, bachelor-like, until the next day.
However fate took a hand in the affair at last. One day a couple of months after his illness, as Caldwell-Sahib was standing in the narrow bazaar with, for a wonder, very few people about, he saw a lady's topi above some sari-covered heads turn into the street at the corner.
Caldwell-Sahib could not conceal from himself that his heart was beating with strangely quickened throbs. This sight of the woman who had saved his life and for weeks had filled his thoughts now brought to him an overwhelming consciousness that his bachelor dreams were at an end, that his hour had come, the happiest of a man's life; for when a man sees for the first time the light of love in the eyes of the woman whom he loves, that is the happiest hour of life. She came nearer. He could hear her voice, low in Hindustani, addressing a young native girl at her side.
For a blissful moment he watched her approach, saw the grace of her carriage, the pretty bend of her head as she talked with the girl, the slender, strong hands which had ministered to him and saved his life. He saw also, in anticipation, the light in her eyes and the blush upon her cheek when she should see him.
He stammered a good-morning. Strange how his lips seemed to tremble!