"Alfred, how could you? Oh, this is terrible," murmured Hester, with a look of horror mingled with fear as she glanced at her husband's scowling face. She felt she must protest, whatever it cost her. "Did you not see he wanted to speak to us?—to you particularly? He even held out his hand to you and you were so cold—oh, so cruel!"
"Yes, I meant to be! There's no other way of choking off these half-castes. I tell you, Hester, if you want to be a good wife to me you'll cut all that connection with Vepery. It's only a perpetual annoyance to both of us."
Hester made no reply, and was glad to take refuge in the carriage and be driven swiftly home without exchanging words with her husband. She absented herself from dinner with a sense of physical illness upon her as well as a heart sick with sorrow and shame.
Had she known it, her husband's waking thoughts that evening, as well as his dreams that night, might have found a place in Dante's Inferno. His haggard aspect was piteous to behold when he came down to late breakfast next morning. There had been no rising with the dawn for him; his feverish dreams did not vanish with the night, but made part and parcel of all his daylight hours.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The first frenzy, which succeeded the reception of the secret imparted to Alfred Rayner at the Shrine of Kali had subsided. Never again after the terrible scene in the drawing-room at Clive's Road when he had crushed the ivory box with such ferocity, and the still more poignant one in which he had spurned his father when brought face to face with him, had the unhappy man given way to any ebullition of temper.
Though these incidents were graven as if by hot iron on his wife's heart, she made no allusion to them and even tried to forget them. Her attitude towards her husband was now more like that of a mother to a weak, erring child than that of a young wife to the husband of her choice. Alfred's evident efforts at self-restraint were very patent to her and touched her tender heart many times every day. He seemed in fact to cling to her with almost child-like affection, and she spared no efforts to make the days pass harmoniously. Being deprived of his mail-phaeton, he now accompanied her in her evening drives, never lingering at the Club or other resorts as he had formerly done. The occasion on which they were met by Mrs. Rouat and her niece was one of the many in which no untoward incident had happened. They walked peacefully on the beach or sat in their landau enjoying the rising of the evening breeze, so welcome after the airless hours of the long hot day. But Leila Baltus judged truly when she said that Hester's brilliant beauty had gone. She looked pale and wan, and there was an air of languor about her whole bearing. Her pretty frocks too were becoming stained by the damp red dust, and she was at no pains to replace them. Even her books grew spotted with the red powdering, and she could not open an old favourite without seeing its baleful traces. Intense lassitude invaded her, and sometimes her effort to greet her husband cheerfully seemed well-nigh impossible, though she still kept a brave heart and a cheerful mien, and still joined Mrs. Fellowes at the meeting for the Eurasian girls.
Her friend, however, perceived that there was a subtle change in her. She seemed less frank and accessible than formerly. Recalling with what pleasure she had welcomed the visit to Mr. Morpeth, Mrs. Fellowes suggested they should repeat it one afternoon, but Hester had rejected the proposal almost coldly. Neither did Mrs. Fellowes fail to note how pathetic Mr. Morpeth looked when in a conversation with him she had dwelt on her anxiety concerning their mutual friend. On confiding to him that she and the colonel felt convinced her marriage was not a happy one, she observed that, though he had been about to make some reply, he suddenly lapsed into pained silence and seemed unable to even rouse himself to interest over his schemes for the good of the Vepery people. Alfred Rayner had so often of late come back from the High Court with an air of depression that Hester was surprised one evening when he returned home in his office-bandy in high excitement.
"I've great news for you, my darling," he greeted her gleefully, as he hurried up the verandah steps. "I've been and gone and shaken the pagoda tree, as the natives say, and I've brought down a crop of gold! To the hills at once, Hester, and gather your English roses once more. I can't stand those pale cheeks a day longer."