"But if all our fellows, from the colonel down to the youngest sub, leave their cards for you and Mr. Thorne, save me, what will he think?"
"I cannot say," sighed Clare, wearily.
"I must come, then, to avoid remark. May I?"
"If you must, you may."
"Thanks, Clare—thanks; may I escort you home?"
"No—oh no—let us return separate," said she, nervously, and they parted, she urging her horse at a hand-gallop back to the arid plain, where the lines of Mirzapatam were now quivering, and to all appearance vibrating, in the hot rays of the uprisen sun.
So when Fred Wilmot called that evening at the Rev. Mr. Thorne's bungalow, he was cordially received by that gentleman, and by his wife politely, as a—stranger! Clad in a thin dress, through which her delicate arms and the contour of her bosom were apparent, she was reclining in a long-armed Indian cane chair, with all her dark-brown hair cast loose over her back and shoulders, just as her ayah had left it for coolness; and very charming and girlish she looked, especially when her colour heightened. The fragrant odour of the recently wetted tatties, or window-screens, pervaded a large uncarpeted drawing-room. An hour and more was passed in pleasant conversation. No reference whatever could be made to the past, so from that hour each of those two felt that the game of duplicity was beginning. The piano—which had its feet immersed in saucers of water to save it from creeping insects—was more than once resorted to; and Mr. Thorne was surprised to find how many airs and duets his wife and the new comer knew in common. He could little dream how often they had practised them together, in that sweet Kentish village so long ago, it seemed now. That night Fred Wilmot slept little. He had more than the mosquitos to keep him awake, while in the verandah without the wallah pulled drowsily at the cord of the punkah.
"Innocent, pure and artless as ever—poor Clare—poor darling!" thought he; "oh, what avail my money and position now—now that she is that sombre fellow's wife—yet all men speak well of him here. What are her dark eyes, her rich hair, her sweet English beauty to me now!"