It was a curious group: those two bound to each other by such a tissue of misunderstanding and mistake, and the Pathan responsible for part of those mistakes. He stood by salaaming stolidly; for all that taking in the scene with a quick eye.
"You have brought me back the best friend I ever had," said Belle with a ring in her voice, and all instinctively her hand sought her companion's and found it.
"It is God's will, not mine," was the reply. Not an atom of sentiment in the words, not a scrap of sanctimoniousness; simply a statement of fact. God's will! And stowed away in the folds of his fur coat lay a long blue envelope, ominously stained with blood, and addressed in a free bold hand to Miss Belle Stuart, favoured by Major Marsden of the 101st Sikhs. That was poor Dick's will at any rate. Even in their ignorance those two looked at each other and wondered. God's will! It was strange, if true.
"We dine in the garden now, it is cooler. I shall be ready in ten minutes," said Belle.
She was waiting for him under the stars when he came out from his room, and the slender figure against its setting of barren plain and over-arching sky seemed all too slight for its surroundings.
"You must be very lonely here," he said abruptly.
Her light laugh startled him. "Not to-night at any rate! To-night is high holiday, and I only hope the khânsâmah will give us a good dinner. Come! you must be hungry."
Thinking over it afterwards the rest of the evening seemed like a dream to Philip Marsden. A halo of light round a table set with flowers; a man and a woman talking and laughing, the man with a deep unreasoning content in the present preventing all thought for the future. How gay she was, how brilliant! How little need there was for words with those clear sympathetic eyes lighting up into comprehension at the first hint; and with some people it was necessary to have Johnson's dictionary on the table ready for reference! Afterwards again, as he sat in the moonlight smoking his cigar, and the cool night wind stirred the lace ruffle on the delicate white arm stretched on the lounge chair, how pleasant silence was; silence with the consciousness of comprehension. Then when her hand lay in his as they said good-night how dear her words were once more. "I want you to understand that I am glad. Why not? You thought I meant the money, but it was not that. I don't know what I meant, but it was not that. I used to cry because I couldn't thank you; and now you have come, I do not want to."
"Thank me for what?" he asked, with a catch in his voice.
But there was no answering tremble in hers. "You are not so wise as your ghost; it knew. Supposing it was better to be dead after all? That would be a pity, would it not? Good-night. John will be home to-morrow."