'Gwen!' he called to her softly, for the chick was down, the door half closed.
'My dear Dan!' Her voice, as she opened it and came hurriedly into the verandah, was full of amused horror and half-vexed kindness. 'Do go away, there's a dear! I never heard of such a thing, never! And the hotel is crammed full of people!'
'It's only to wish you many happy returns of the day, dear!' he whispered fondly. 'When I've done that I'll go content. Who wouldn't be content with you, Gwen? And yet I wouldn't spare an inch of it all--I couldn't. Gwen! do you remember the day your bearer was cleaning the lamps out here, and we were sitting on the sofa?--odd, isn't it, how one remembers these things all in a jumble, the one with the other--and I said to you--the very words come back to me, dear, every one of them--"You might be bankrupt of everything, Gwen, of everything save yourself, and I'll give you credit for it all the same." Do you remember, dear? Well, I've come to take the promise back. You've spoilt me, Gwen, I can't do it.'
'I--I don't understand,' she said faintly. 'I wish you would go, Dan. We can talk of it to-morrow--afterwards.'
'To-morrow! Why's it's to-day already, our wedding-day! And if I can't keep the promise, am I not bound to take it back while I can? Not that I'm afraid--that is why I've come, to tell you, selfish brute that I am--that is why I want it all--every scrap of your beauty, your goodness. I'll take nothing else, dear, now; for I know it's yours, and what is yours is mine by right!'
She had grown very pale, and a sort of terror came into her eyes.
'Ah Dan! what is the use of talking? I give you all I can. My best--I can't do more--it isn't kind----' she broke off almost impatiently, and yet she did not move from his clasp.
'Not kind, when I know what the best means? And yet, Gwen, it just comes upon me now that I couldn't stand it--if--if it were not so--not after this midsummer night's dream--of madness, if you will! Yes, dear, I'm going--I am indeed. But, Gwen--it's an idle fancy--and yet if there was anything it would be better to tell me now. You're not angry at the thought--it's only a thought. See, give me one kiss--just one, to be an answer for always.'
What right, she asked herself fiercely, had she to hesitate? What possible right, standing as she did on the threshold of a new life, where no one could possibly know? And so she was back on the low levels among the ordinary considerations of convenience and safety as she kissed him. But the touch of her lips sent his blood surging through his heart and brain; and without another word, another look, he turned and left her--content, absolutely content. Love, pity, friendship, passion, had all combined to raise him to the uttermost limit of vitality. He might come near it perhaps in the future; he was not likely ever to reach it again--not even without Chândni waiting to tell him the truth on his return to the odd little house at the other end of the station.
He neither knew nor cared where he was going; but his pony, tired of these incomprehensible wanderings, set its galloping hoofs on the shortest road home--that is to say, through the densely-wooded grounds of the Residency. Along a grassy ride or two, across a short cut they sped. Dan forgetting even his joy in the keen effort of steering a runaway through the trees; a runaway unheld, free to go as fast, nay, faster than it chose, yet obedient to that grip to right or left. It was a mad ride, a mad rider--yet a masterful one, wrestling imperiously with that other will, when the gloom grew as the trees thickened, and darkness and danger came together in the hot night, prisoned by the dense foliage above. Dan, looking down at the pony's heaving flanks as it paused, wearied by its short, sharp, unavailing struggle against his strong hands, felt flushed and hot. Not wearied,--he could not be that on such a night,--but glowing, palpitating, excited; drunk almost as if with wine. But yonder stood a remedy in that long, low-thatched roof, supported on brick pillars, and hung round with heavy bamboo screens. Dan laughed as he slid to the ground, thinking of the twelve feet of clear cool water running fresh and fresh into the big swimming-bath at the one end, and out at the other to irrigate the green levels of the garden. Fresh and fresh all through the scorching summer weather, when life held no greater pleasure than to feel that cool water close in round the hot limbs. Frequented then, morning and evening, though deserted and empty through the colder months. Only the day before Dan's smooth dark head had come up from its depths rejoicing, and now the thought of it was luxury itself when the blood was beating in his temples, and racing at fever heat through his veins. More than once coming home at night, after careless, reckless enjoyment, he had stopped here, as he did now, to try the water-cure--as he had tried it in the canal at Hodinuggur.