And as, blindly, he obeyed, passing rapidly through a low doorway and so up a dark staircase, he slipped the locket back to its place with a sort of groan. Here was another woman to be reckoned with, and though the discovery suited his purpose, and though he knew himself to be as safe as her woman's wit could make him, he wondered irritably if there was anything in the world into which this eternal question of sex did not intrude. And then, suddenly, he seemed to feel Alice Gissing's heart beat beneath his hand; there had been no womanhood in that touch.
So he passed on. And next morning he was on his way southward. Tara had told him what he wanted to know.
[CHAPTER V.]
IN THE RESIDENCY.
"Strawberries! Oh, how delightful!"
Kate Erlton looked with real emotion at a plate of strawberries and cream which Captain Morecombe had just handed to her. "They are the first I have ever seen in India," she went on in almost pathetic explanation of her apparent greed. "Where could Sir Theophilus have got them?"
"Meerut," replied her cavalier with a kindly smile. "They grow up-country. But they put one in mind of home, don't they?" He turned away, almost embarrassed, from the look in her eyes; and added, as if to change the subject, "The Resident does it splendidly, does not he?"
There could be no two opinions as to that. The park-like grounds were kept like an English garden, the house was crammed from floor to ceiling with works of art, the broad verandas were full of rare plants, and really valuable statuary. That toward the river, on the brink of which Metcalfe House stood, gave on a balustraded terrace which was in reality the roof of a lower story excavated, for the sake of coolness, in the bank itself. Here, among others, was the billiard room, from the balcony of which you could see along the curved stone embankment of the river to the Koodsia garden, which lay between Metcalfe Park and the rose-red wall of the city. It was an old pleasure-ground of the Moghuls, and a ruined palace, half-hidden in creepers, half lost in sheer luxuriance of blossom, still stood in its wilderness of forest trees and scented shrubs; a very different style of garden from that over which Kate Erlton looked, as it undulated away in lawns and drives between the Ridge and the river.
"Yes!" she said, "it always reminds me of England; but for that----" She pointed to the dome of a Mohammedan tomb which curved boldly into the blue sky close to the house.
"Yet that is the original owner," replied her companion. "There is rather an odd story about that tomb, Mrs. Erlton. It is the burial place of the great Akhbar's foster-brother. Most likely he was a cowherd by caste, for their women often go out as nurses, and the land about here all belonged to these Goojers, as they are called. But when we occupied Delhi, a civilian--one Blake--fancied the tomb as a house, added to it, and removed the good gentleman's grave-stone to make room for his dining-table--a hospitable man, no doubt, as the Resident is now. But the Goojers objected, appealed to the Government agent. In vain. Curiously enough both those men were, shortly afterward, assassinated."