And Kirpo looking after them was saying in her turn that they were very queer people. If he was her lover why did the mem look so unhappy? The sahib logue did not cut off their wives' noses, or put them in prison; so what did it matter?
Truly those two were compassed about by a strange cloud of witnesses as they strolled homewards. Perhaps the civilised world would have judged them as harshly. But no tribunal, human or divine, could have judged Belle more harshly than she did herself; and herein lay all the trouble. She could not accept facts and make the best of them.
John Raby coming in later found the two reading solemnly, one on either side of the fire, and told them they were horribly unsociable. "I couldn't get away before," he said. "Afzul wanted a day's leave and I had to measure up before he started."
"Has he gone already? I'm sorry," remarked Philip. "I wished to see him before I leave tomorrow."
"To-morrow!" John Raby looked from one to another. "Have you been quarrelling?"
And poor Belle, with the necessity for derisive denial before her, felt more than ever that she was on the broad path leading to destruction.
"I am sorry I have to go," said Philip with perfect truth; "but I really am of no use here."
[CHAPTER XXII.]
Could Philip Marsden have seen into Mahomed Lateef's old tower about the time he was leaving Nilgunj his regrets might have had a still more truthful ring, and Belle might have been saved from once more adding to the difficulties of her own lot, and, as it were, making a stumbling-block of her own good intentions. For in that case, Major Marsden would have stopped another day in order to see his old friend, and in the course of conversation would have heard things which might have changed the current of subsequent events; but Fate decreed otherwise.
More than once, seeing the daily increasing poverty of his patron, Afzul Khân had suggested an appeal to the Major, as one sure to do something for the father of the man who had stood between him and death; but the stubborn old malcontent had lumped the whole Western creation in his category of ingrates. "The past is past," he would say angrily. "I will not even ask justice from one of them. And, according to thy tales, Marsden sahib has taken to trade and leagued himself with Raby, who is no better than a buniah,--no better than Shunker Bahâdur, whom God smite to hell! Hast heard what they are doing down yonder? Pera Ditta was here last week, saying his land was to be sold because he could not pay. And how could he pay when water never came? And how could water come when strangers enter and build dams without let or hindrance?"