These forebodings made her pass sleeplessly the hot and breathless Indian nights while hourly the cantonment ghurries were clanged, and the jackals howled in the prickly hedges, and the mosquitoes seemed a thousand times more annoying—no chowrie would whisk them out of the muslin curtains; and her breakfast seemed so insipid now, and Gunga Ram, the khansa-man, or native butler, could find nothing to tempt her appetite; yet Gunga, though, like most Hindostanees, doubtful of the virtue of every European woman, was devoted to his own particular mehm Sahib.
Every morning she had been wont to watch at the open Venetian blinds of their bungalow for the handsome figure of Duncan returning from the early parade, while the sun was yet on the verge of the horizon; and every evening was spent together in delicious idleness—riding on the course, promenading by the band-stand, or wandering among the groves where the baubool breathes an exquisite perfume from its bells of gold, as the oleander does from its clusters of pink and white blossoms, and where the lovely little tailor-bird sews two leaves together and swings in his sweet-scented nest from the bough of some little tree.
Hourly she longed for the return of Duncan.
She was a petted favourite with Lady Batardeau, who, when calling on her one day, found her asleep under the verandah outside Cameron's bungalow on a long low Indian arm-chair.
Thinking how charming the girl-wife looked, Lady Batardeau, in playful kindness, slipped on one of her fingers a rose-diamond ring, which had been in the past time a gift to herself from Sir Bevis, when she valued his gifts more than she had reason to do now; and, having done this, she went softly and laughingly away.
To the joy of Alice, Cameron returned suddenly while she was yet puzzling herself to account for the presence of the ring, and for a time, in the happiness of their reunion, she forgot all about it, till he, while toying with her pretty hands, observed it on her finder.
'A magnificent ring, Alice,' said he. 'Where did it come from?'
'That is more than I can tell you.'
'How?' he asked.
'I found that it had been slipped on my finger when I was asleep.'