So, as she stood silent, checked in her desire to check, Father Ninian, who had just entered with Laila, came up to greet her, and having done so, turned to Lance with kind eyes and voice.
"Captain Dering has just told me that we have to call you Sir Lancelot Carlyon. I am sorry for the cause, since your uncle was a man who made the world better by being in it;--as--as you will. It is a fine old name, Sir Lancelot! It carries with it a fine inheritance of honour; therefore I can wish no better wish for the world, as well as for yourself, than that you may hand it on to your son. So, peace be with you!" His clasped hands unfolded themselves for a space as he passed on, leaving those two once more standing together with that sense of being singled out for friendship which had come to them in the beginning.
And this was to be the end of it? Even to her it seemed impossible. To him it made the impossibility certain.
"Miss Shepherd," he said suddenly, "I have something I must say to you this afternoon. Come into the verandah, after you have done pouring out the tea, and let me say it."
There was so much of command in his voice that she might have resented it, had not Father Ninian's voice risen at that moment; firmly, yet with its usual faint hesitancy, in words which made everyone in the room pause to listen.
"I, and I only, am responsible, Dr. Campbell. I gave the Commissioner the information on which he has acted," here he raised his hand against interruption. "I have been fifty years at Eshwara; fifty times have I seen the pilgrims pass to the 'Cradle of the Gods' listening peacefully to your preaching. But this year there is something new." He paused to put on his spectacles, yet the keenness they brought to his face was dimmed by wistfulness. "I cannot quite tell what it is. There is something beyond the things I know, though these are many--small, it is true, but cumulative. Still, this is certain; the pulse of the people beats irregularly to-day, and that means danger to the body corporate. It may pass; yet the faintest stimulus may upset the whole balance of the organism. So, my friends, as our cause is eternal, as we have time--"
"Time!" interrupted David Campbell, passionately, "but now is the appointed time. Think, sir, how many of these poor deluded souls, striving after salvation, may die upon the road to their false gods--none can know how many better than you, who--"
The old priest looked at the young one with a whole lifetime of sad wisdom in his face. "Yes!" he said, softly, "for I am very old. I have seen half a world die upon its road to the 'Cradle of the Gods.' Die--though we have not the courage to say so,--with their faces set to the eternal goal of humanity; to the finding of something we have lost. And something keeps us all back. What is it? Have we the secret more than they, who say, as we do, that it is sin?"
His voice had fallen into a strangely musical rhythm, so that Dr. Campbell's, following it, seemed harsh indeed.
"We know we have. We have the certainty--we are missionaries of that certainty--"