But it left her painfully weak and thin, and the colonel became again furiously insistent that she should leave the Plains till the rains were over.
Merryon, curiously enough, did not insist. Only one evening he took the little wasted body into his arms and begged her—actually begged her—to consent to go.
"I shall be with you for the first fortnight," he said. "It won't be more than a six-weeks' separation."
"Six weeks!" she protested, piteously.
"Perhaps less," he said. "I may be able to come to you for a day or two in the middle. Say you will go—and stay, sweetheart! Set my mind at rest!"
"But, darling, you may be ill. A thousand things may happen. And I couldn't go back to Shamkura. I couldn't!" said Puck, almost crying, clinging fast around his neck.
"But why not?" he questioned, gently. "Weren't they kind to you there? Weren't you happy?"
She clung faster. "Happy, Billikins! With that hateful Captain Silvester lying in wait to—to make love to me! I didn't tell you before. But that—that was why I left."
He frowned above her head. "You ought to have told me before, Puck."