Part 15 (1/2)

Stella smiled a little. ”I don't want to hurt Tommy's feelings, and I know they would be hurt if I went sooner. Besides I would like to have one cold weather out here.”

”And why not?” said Mrs. Ralston. She added after a moment, ”What will you do with Peter?”

Stella hesitated. ”That is one reason why I have not come to a decision sooner. I don't like leaving poor Peter. It occurred to me possibly that down at Kurrumpore he might find another master. Anyway, I shall tell him my plans when I get there, and he will have the opportunity”--she smiled rather sadly--”to transfer his devotion to someone else.”

”He won't take it,” said Mrs. Ralston with conviction. ”The fidelity of these men is amazing. It puts us to shame.”

”I hate the thought of parting with him,” Stella said. ”But what can I do?”

She broke off short as the subject of their discussion came softly into the room, salver in hand. He gave her a telegram and stood back decorously behind her chair while she opened it.

Mrs. Ralston's grave eyes watched her, and in a moment Stella looked up and met them. ”From Kurrumpore,” she said.

Her face was pale, but her hands and voice were steady.

”From Tommy?” questioned Mrs. Ralston.

”No. From Captain Monck. Tommy is ill--very ill. Malaria again. He thinks I had better go to him.”

”Oh, my dear!” Mrs. Ralston's exclamation held dismay.

Stella met it by holding out to her the message. ”Tommy down with malaria,” it said. ”Condition serious. Come if you are able. Monck.”

Mrs. Ralston rose. She seemed to be more agitated than Stella. ”I shall go too,” she said.

”No, dear, no!” Stella stopped her. ”There is no need for that. I shall be all right. I am perfectly strong now, stronger than you are. And they say malaria never attacks newcomers so badly. No. I will go alone. I won't be answerable to your husband for you. Really, dear, really, I am in earnest.”

Her insistence prevailed, albeit Mrs. Ralston yielded very unwillingly.

She was not very strong, and she knew well that her husband would be greatly averse to her taking such a step. But the thought of Stella going alone was even harder to face till her look suddenly fell upon Peter the Great standing motionless behind her chair.

”Ah well, you will have Peter,” she said with relief.

And Stella, who was bending already over her reply telegram, replied instantly with one of her rare smiles. ”Of course I shall have Peter!”

Peter's responding smile was good to see. ”I will take care of my _mem-sahib_,” he said.

Stella's reply was absolutely simple. ”Starting at once,” she wrote; and within half an hour her preparations were complete.

She knew Monck well enough to be certain that he would not have telegraphed that urgent message had not the need been great. He had nursed Tommy once before, and she knew that in Tommy's estimation at least he had been the means of saving his life. He was a man of steady nerve and level judgment. He would not have sent for her if his faith in his own powers had not begun to weaken. It meant that Tommy was very ill, that he might be dying. All that was great in Stella rose up impulsively at the call. Tommy had never really wanted her before.

To Mrs. Ralston who at the last stood over her with a gla.s.s of wine she was as a different woman. There was nothing headlong about her, but the quiet energy of her made her realize that she had been fas.h.i.+oned for better things than the social gaieties with which so many were content.

Stella would go to the deep heart of life.

She yearned to accompany her upon her journey to the plains, but Stella's solemn promise to send for her if she were taken ill herself consoled her in a measure. Very regretfully did she take leave of her, and when the rattle of the wheels that bore Stella and the faithful Peter away had died at last in the distance she turned back into her empty bungalow with tears in her eyes. Stella had become dear to her as a sister.

It was an all-night journey, and only a part of it could be accomplished by train, the line ending at Khanmulla which was reached in the early hours of the morning. But for Peter's ministrations Stella would probably have fared ill, but he was an experienced traveller and surrounded her with every comfort that he could devise. The night was close and dank. They travelled through pitch darkness. Stella lay back and tried to sleep; but sleep would not come to her. She was tired, but repose eluded her. The beating of the unceasing rain upon the tin roof, and the perpetual rattle of the train made an endless tattoo in her brain from which there was no escape. She was haunted by the memory of the last journey that she had made along that line when leaving Kurrumpore in the spring, of Ralph and the ever-growing pa.s.sion in his eyes, of the first wild revolt within her which she had so barely quelled. How far away seemed those days of an almost unbelievable torture! She could regard them now dispa.s.sionately, albeit with wonder.

She marvelled now that she had ever given herself to such a man. By the light of experience she realized how tragic had been her blunder, and now that the awful sense of shock and desolation had pa.s.sed she could be thankful that no heavier penalty had been exacted. The man had been taken swiftly, mercifully, as she believed. He had been spared much, and she--she had been delivered from a fate far worse. For she could never have come to love him. She was certain of that. Lifelong misery would have been her portion, school herself to submission though she might.

She believed that the awakening from that dream of lethargy could not have been long deferred for either of them, and with it would have come a bitterness immeasurable. She did not think he had ever honestly believed that she loved him. But at least he had never guessed at the actual repulsion with which at times she had been filled. She was thankful to think that he could never know that now, thankful that now she had come into her womanhood it was all her own. She valued her freedom almost extravagantly since it had been given back to her. And she also valued the fact that in no worldly sense was she the richer for having been Ralph Dacre's wife. He had had no private means, and she was thankful that this was so. She could not have endured to reap any benefit from what she now regarded as a sin. She had borne her punishment, she had garnered her experience. And now she walked once more with unshackled feet; and though all her life she would carry the marks of the chain that had galled her she had travelled far enough to realize and be thankful for her liberty.