“But if there’s nothing the matter with them, I can’t think why he didn’t tell you to rest for a month or so, and let you go on again with glasses,” said Georgia.
Mabel looked a little ashamed.
“Well, the fact is, I made rather a baby of myself. I couldn’t wear glasses, Georgie—think what a guy I should look! And you can’t imagine how disappointed I was. I knew that the loss of a month’s work would mean that I should fail, and I was feeling very miserable altogether, after weeks of awful headaches, and my eyes hurt so, and—and—I wailed a little. Sir William was most sweet, and asked me all about it; and then he said that he really didn’t think the Medical was what I was best fitted for, and he advised me to travel for a little while and forget all about it.”
“And not give up to medicine what was meant for mankind,” murmured Dick softly.
“And she comes out here, where we have an eye-destroying glare all the year round, and dust-storms two or three times a week, to cure her eyes!” cried Georgia.
“My beloved Georgiana, I came here that you might minister to a mind diseased. When once the thought had flashed upon me, I simply couldn’t stay in England. I just flew round to the shops and bought whatever they showed me, and started as soon as I could settle matters at home and take my passage. I went on writing to you up to the very last minute. I shouldn’t wonder if the letter I posted on my way to the docks travelled in the steamer with me. Is that it there? Well, have I explained matters?”
“It was an awful risk, Mab,” said Dick in an elder-brotherly tone. “We might have been both ill, or out in the district, or touring in Nalapur, or anything.”
“But you weren’t, you see, so it’s all right. I had an inspiration that you’d be in your own house for Christmas. What time is dinner? Lend me a warm tea-gown, Georgie. How cold it gets here when the sun sets, and yet we were nearly roasted this morning! My belongings were to follow in a bullock-cart or two, but I haven’t heard them arrive. Oh, it is sweet to see you two again, and looking so thoroughly happy and fit, too.”
She bestowed a kiss on the top of Dick’s head, remarking as she did so that he was getting disgracefully bald, and rushed away to lavish a series of hugs on Georgia in the privacy of her own room. Her toilet did not take long when she was left alone, and she threw over her head the white shawl Georgia had left with her, and stepped out on the verandah. There was only a faint gleam of moonlight, and a sense of the vastness and dreariness of the desert around crept over her as she tried to distinguish in the blackness the lights of the Alibad cantonments, through which she had passed in the afternoon. The wind was chill, and gathering her wrap more closely round her, she turned to find her way back to the drawing-room. As she did so, the sound of a horse’s footsteps struck upon her ear. Some one was riding past the house at no great distance, riding at a smart pace, which caused a clatter of accoutrements and an occasional sharp metallic ring when the horse’s hoofs came in contact with a rock.
“How horrid it must be riding in the dark!” said Mabel to herself. “Dick,” she cried, meeting her brother in the hall, “are you expecting any one to dinner? Some one is coming here on horseback.”