Not till they were settling down for a few hours' sleep in the night mail, did it dawn on Roy that the little game might possibly have been connected with himself. Chandranath had seen him in that dress before. He had just come very near quarrelling with Dyán. If he suspected Roy's identity, he would suspect his influence....
He frankly spoke his thought to Dyán; and found it had occurred to him already. "Not himself, of course," he added. "The gentleman is not partial to firearms! But suspecting—he might have arranged; hoping to catch you coming back—the swine! Naturally after this, he will go further than suspecting!"
"He can go to the devil—and welcome; now I've collared you!" said Roy;—and slept soundly upon that satisfying achievement, through all the rattle and clatter of the express.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] At once.
CHAPTER XII.
| "God uses us to help each other so." |
| —Browning. |
It was distinctly one of Roy's great moments when, at last, they four stood together in Sir Lakshman's room: the old man, outwardly impassive—as became a Rajput—profoundly moved in the deep places of his heart; Arúna, in Oxford gown and sari, radiant one moment; the next—in spite of stoic resolves—crying softly in Dyán's arms. And Roy understood only too well. The moment he held her hand and met her eyes—he knew. It was not only joy at Dyán's return that evoked the veiled blush, the laugh that trembled into tears. Conceit or no conceit, his intuition was not to be deceived.