After a moment the boy returned again, the tray still in his hand.
"Gone out, Sahib," he said, resolutely, and without waiting for any more Hartley turned the pony's head and drove out slowly.
Twice in two days Heath had lied, to his certain knowledge, and as he glanced back at the bungalow, a curtain in an upper window moved slightly as though it had been dropped in haste.
Just as he turned into the road he came face to face with Atkins, Heath's bungalow companion, and he pulled up short.
"I've been trying to call on the Padré," he said, carelessly, "but he was out."
"Out," said Atkins, in a tone of surprise. "Why, that is odd. He told me he was due at a meeting at half-past five, and that he wasn't going out until then. I suppose he changed his mind."
"It looks like it," said Hartley, dryly.
"He hasn't been well these last few days," went on Atkins, quickly, "said he felt the weather, and he certainly seems ill. I don't believe the poor devil sleeps at all. Whenever I wake, I can see his light in the passage."
"That is bad," Hartley's voice grew sympathetic. "Has he been long like this?"
"Not long," said Atkins, who was constitutionally accurate. "I think it began about the night after the thunder-storm, but I can't say for certain."