"Now I will soothe your Honour's head till weariness be forgotten, O my Miss Sahib, daughter of my heart! Sleep without dreams, my life; and have no fear for the Captain Sahib, who is surely favoured of the gods by reason of his great courage."
While her tongue ran on, the wrinkled hands moved skilfully over the girl's head and neck, fingering each separate nerve, and stilling the throbbing pulses by that mystery of touch, which we of the West are just beginning to acquire, but which is a common heritage in the East.
"Go now, Parbutti," Honor commanded at length. "Thy fingers be miracle-workers. It is enough."
And as Parbutti departed, praising the gods, Honor leaned her chin upon her hands, and frankly confronted the decision that must be arrived at before morning.
To her inner consciousness it seemed wrong and impossible to fulfil her promise and remain; while to all outward appearance it seemed equally wrong and impossible to go. She could not see clearly. She could only feel intensely; and her paramount feeling at the moment was that God asked of her more than human nature could achieve.
The man's weakness and dependence awakened in her the strongest, the divinest element of a woman's love, and with it the longing to uphold and help him to the utmost limit of her power. It was this intensity of longing which convinced her that, at all costs, she must go. Yet at the first thought of Evelyn her invincible arguments fell back like a defeated battalion.
If she had sought the Frontier in the hope of coming into touch with life's stern realities, her hope had been terribly fulfilled.
"Dear God, what ought I to do?" she murmured on a note of passionate appeal. But no answer came out of the stillness; and sheer human need was too strong upon her for prayer.
Rising impulsively, she went over to the wide-flung door that led into the back verandah, and rolled up the "chick," flooding the room with light; for a full moon rode high in the heavens, eclipsing the fire of the stars. She stepped out into the verandah, and passed to the far end, that looked across a strip of rocky desolation to the hills.