"So it is! a bounden duty. Never hath childless widow had to leave this house, and never shall, till God makes us pigs of unbelievers."
"I wish my handsome Inaiyut had lived for all that," muttered the girl, as Feroza showed signs of recovery. She resisted all attempts at explanation or comfort, however, and made her way alone, a solitary resolute figure, to her windowless room, where, when she shut the door, all was dark. There she lay tearless while the others, sitting in the sunlight, talked in whispers as if the dead were within.
"The Moulvie must bid her repeat the creed," was old Mytâb's ultimatum. "God send the Miss has not made a Christian of her, with all those soapings and washings!" She had no spark of pity. Such was woman's lot, and to rebel was sacrilege.
"Don't make sure of my consent," pouted Kareema, her pretty face swollen with easy tears. "If he is really the noodle Feroza deems, I'd rather be a religious. 'Twould be just as amusing."
Mytâb laughed derisively. "Thou a religious! The gossips would have tired tongues. Besides, choice is over. Had the child lived, perhaps; but now the Moulvie hath a right to see Inaiyut's children on his knee."
The sunshine had given place to shadow before Feroza appeared.
"Bring me a burka;[[20]] I am going to see the Miss. Follow if thou wilt," she said; and though her voice had lost its ring, the tone warned Mytâb to raise no objection. Ere she left the sheltering walls she stood a moment before her sister-in-law, all the character, and grief, and passion blotted out by the formless white domino she wore. "I could kill you for being pretty," she said in a hard whisper, as she turned away.
She had never been to the mission-house since that eventful night, and the sight of its familiar unfamiliarity renewed the sense of injury with which she had last seen it. "Miss Eshsmitt sahib," they told her, was ill; but she would take no denial, and so, for the first time in her life, Feroza entered an English lady's bedroom. Simple, almost poor as this one was in its appointments, the sight sent a throb of fear to the girl's heart. What! Was not Kareema's beauty odds enough, that she must fight also against this undreamed-of comfort? She flung up her arms with the old cry, "Dohai! Dohai!" The fever-flushed face on the frilled pillows turned fearfully. "What is it, Feroza? Oh! what is it?"
The question was hard to solve even in the calm sessions of thought, well-nigh impossible here. Why had she been lured from the old life in some ways and not in all? Was their boasted influence all words? Then why had they prated of higher things? Why had they lied to her?
Poor Julia buried her face in a pocket-handkerchief drenched in eau-de-Cologne, and sobbed, "Ah, take her away! Please take her away!"