"No, I've really seen very few places round about—beyond the range of the wide compounds. I think your touring must be delightful. But you haven't told me anything of Puranapore yet except about the Collector, and I didn't get much from Alfred even after he had visited you."
Mark was silent. Rayner then had given his wife the impression that he had been at the English station while at Puranapore, and had, no doubt, concealed the fact that he was visiting Zynool. The discovery was disturbing, and he wondered if it would be wise to enlighten Hester there and then. He felt, however, that he could not bear to bring a deeper shadow to the sweet face, and proceeded instead to give some annals of the station-life.
"Well, to begin with the ladies. There's Mrs. Samptor, wife of the Superintendent of the District Jail, a big giant of a man, and a capital fellow. She is a little country-bred person who had never been to England and has a perfect horror of Eurasians."
Hester's eyes opened wider. She was about to exclaim: "Just like Alfred!" But that topic had cut too deep for her to touch it lightly.
"You wonder perhaps how she tolerates me," said Mark with a smile, as if divining her thoughts. "Well, as it happens, we are very good friends. Her mental process regarding the matter is peculiar, I allow, but it seems to her convincing, as she is a lady who prides herself on knowing everything about everybody. She volunteers to prove from my hands, my nails, and from my toes, I expect, if she were allowed to inspect them, from every feature of my face in fact, that I do not belong to the race she detests."
"And does the Collector like this little lady?"
"He does, I think. She amuses him. I sometimes accuse him of even encouraging her gossip. In that connection I once reminded him of the old proverb: 'One man may steal a horse, another may not look over the stable door,' as a case in point. The Collector's denunciations against gossip are most scathing, for instance, where Mrs. Goldring, the Judge's wife, is in question. She is a pompous, snobbish woman, and the Collector thinks that she sits on her little husband, the Judge, of whom he is very fond. Nor can he forgive her for her treatment of her weird-looking daughter Jane. The poor girl hates station life, and wants to go home and do governessing with some beloved aunts who keep a school. Then we have a Civil Surgeon and his wife, Dr. and Mrs. Campbell, delightful Scotch people."
"I wonder Alfred did not tell me about all these people. He must have met them when he was at Puranapore," said Hester, with a thoughtful air which Mark noticed, and he at once led the conversation into other channels.
Hester narrated to him the errand which had obliged her husband to go to Palaveram on this Christmas day, and they talked with sobered hearts of the sadness of it all; of the great entanglement in the meshes of which poor young Hyde had fallen a victim; and of the ever haunting mystery of life where evil triumphs in lives which seem inclined to good rather than to evil.
Shortly before the dinner-hour a telegram arrived from Palaveram to say that Mr. Rayner to his great regret would be unable to eat his Christmas dinner with his wife. But so congenially did the talk glide on between these two old friends, the young hostess decided, as she sat at dinner, that, after all, two might be an even more ideal number than eight for the complete enjoyment of the dinner-table.