"There is no use in my staying longer, I'm afraid," she said quietly. "I'm only in the way. I will go back to Meerut; and then home--to the boy."
"I think it would be best," he replied kindly. "I can arrange for you to start to-morrow morning. You will be the better for a change; it will help you to forget."
She smiled a little bitterly; but when he had gone she set to work, packing up such of her husband's things as she wished the boy to have with calm deliberation; and early in the afternoon went over to the garden of her old house to get some fresh flowers for what would be her last visit to that rear-guard of graves. To take, also, her last look at the city, and watch it grow mysterious in the glamour of sunset. Seen from afar it seemed unchanged. A mass of rosy light and lilac shadow, with the great white dome of the mosque hanging airily above the smoke wreaths.
Yet the end had come to its four months' dream as it had come to hers. Rebellion would linger long, but its stronghold, its very raison d'être, was gone. And Memory would last longer still; yet surely it would not be all bitter. Hers was not. Then with a rush of real regret she thought of the peaceful roof, of old Tiddu, of the Princess Farkhoonda--Tara--Soma--of Sri Anunda in his garden. Was she to go home to safe, snug England, live in a suburb, and forget? Forget all but the tragedy! Yet even that held beautiful memories. Alice Gissing under young Mainwaring's scarf, while he lay at her feet. Her husband leaving a good name to his son. Did not these things help to make the story perfect? No! not perfect. And with the remembrance her eyes filled with sudden tears. There would always be a blank for her in the record. The Spirit which had moved on the Face of the Waters, bringing their chance of Healing and Atonement to so many, had left hers in the shadow. She had learned her lesson. Ah! yes; she had learned it. But the chance of using it?
As she sat on the plinth of the ruined veranda, watching the city growing dim through the mist of her tears, John Nicholson's words came back to her once more, "If ever you have the chance"; but it would never come now--never!
She started up wildly at the clutch of a brown hand on her wrist--a brown hand with a circlet of dead gold above it.
"Come!" said a voice behind her; "come quick! he needs you."
"Tara!" she gasped--"Tara! Is--is he alive then?"
"He would not need the mem if he were dead," came the swift reply. Then with her wild eyes fixed on another gold circlet upon the wrist she held, Tara laughed shrilly. "So the mem wears it still. She has not forgotten. Women do not forget, white or black"--with a strange stamp of her foot she interrupted herself fiercely--"come, I say, come!"
If there had been doubts as to the Rajpootni's sanity at times in past days, there was none now. A glance at her face was sufficient. It was utterly distraught, the clutch on Kate's arm utterly uncontrolled; so that, involuntarily, the latter shrank back.