Part 17 (1/2)

Barlow's face was white, and Hodson was trembling, but the girl stood, a merciless cold triumph in her face: ”I do realise that, father. For the girl I care nothing, nor for Captain Barlow's intrigue with such, but I am the daughter of the man who represents the British Raj here.”

Barlow, knowing the full deviltry of this high protestation, knowing that Elizabeth, imperious, dominating, cold-blooded, was knifing a supposed rival--a rival not in love, for he fancied Elizabeth was incapable of love--felt a surge of indignation.

”For G.o.d's sake, Elizabeth, what impossible thing has led you to believe that Captain Barlow has anything to do with this girl?” the father asked.

”I'll tell you; the matter is too grave for me to remain silent. This morning I rode early--earlier than usual, for I wanted to pick up the Captain before he had started. As I turned my mount in to his compound I saw, coming from the back of the bungalow, this native woman, and she was being taken away by his _chowkidar_. She had just come out some back door of the bungalow, for from the drive I could see the open s.p.a.ce that lay between the bungalow and the servants' quarters.”

Hodson dropped a hand to the teak-wood desk; it looked inadequate, thin, bloodless; blue veins mapped its white back. ”You are mistaken, Elizabeth, I'm sure. Some other girl--”

”No, father, I was not mistaken. There are not many native girls like the Gulab, I'll admit. As she turned a clump of crotons she saw me sitting my horse and drew a gauze scarf across her face to hide it. I waited, and asked the _chowkidar_ if it were his daughter, and the old fool said it was the wife of his son; and the girl that he claimed was his son's wife had the iron bracelet of a Hindu widow on her arm. And the Gulab wears one--I saw it the night she danced.”

A ghastly hush fell upon the three. Barlow was moaning inwardly, ”Poor Bootea!”; Hodson, fingers pressed to both temples, was trying to think this was all the mistaken outburst of an angry woman. The strong-faced, honest, fearless soldier sitting in the chair could not be a traitor--_could not be_.

Suddenly something went awry in the inflamed chambers of Elizabeth's mind--as if an electric current had been abruptly shut off. She hesitated; she had meant to say more; but there was a staggering vacuity.

With an effort she grasped a wavering thing of tangibility, and said: ”I'm going now, father--to give the keys to the butler for breakfast.

You can question Captain Barlow.”

Elizabeth turned and left the room; her feet were like dependents, servants that she had to direct to carry her on her way. She did not call to the butler, but went to her room, closed the door, flung herself on the bed, face downward, and sobbed; tears that scalded splashed her cheeks, and she beat pa.s.sionately with clenched fist at the pillow, beating, as she knew, at her heart. It was incredible, this thing, her feelings.

”I don't care--I don't care--I never did!” she gasped.

But she did, and only now knew it.

”I was right--I'm glad--I'd say it again!”

But she would not, and she knew it. She knew that Barlow could not be a traitor; she knew it; it was just a battered new love a.s.serting itself.

And below in the room the two men for a little sat not speaking of the ghoulish thing. Barlow had drawn the papers from his pocket; he pa.s.sed them silently across the table.

Hodson, almost mechanically, had stretched a hand for them, and when they were opened, and he saw the seal, and realised what they were, some curious guttural sound issued from his lips as if he had waked in affright from a nightmare. He pulled a drawer of the desk open, took out a cheroot--and lighted it. Then he commenced to speak, slowly, droppingly, as one speaks who has suddenly been detected in a crime.

He put a flat hand on the papers, holding them to the desk. And it was Elizabeth he spoke of at first, as if the thing under his palm, that meant danger to an empire, was subservient.

”Barlow, my boy,” he said, ”I'm old, I'm tired.”

The Captain, looking into the drawn face, had a curious feeling that Hodson was at least a hundred. There was a floaty wonderment in his mind why the fifty-five-years'-service retirement rule had not been enforced in the Colonel's case. Then he heard the other's words.

”I've had but two G.o.ds, Barlow, the British Raj and Elizabeth; that's since her mother died. In a little, a few years more, I will retire with just enough to live on plus my pension--perhaps in France, where it's cheap. And then I'll still have two G.o.ds, Elizabeth and the one G.o.d. And, Captain, somehow I had hoped that you and Elizabeth would hit it off, but I'm afraid she's made a mistake.”

Barlow had been following this with half his receptivity, for, though he fought against it, the memory of Bootea--gentle, trusting, radiating love, warmth--cried out against the bitter unfemininity of the girl who had stabbed his honour and his cleanness. The black figure of Kali still rested on the table, and somehow the evil lines in the face of the G.o.ddess suggested the vindictiveness that had played about the thin lips of his accuser.

And the very plea the father was making was reacting. It was this, that he, Barlow, was rich, that a chance death or two would make him Lord Barradean, was the attraction, not love. A girl couldn't be in love with a man and strive to break him.

Hodson had taken up the papers, and was again scanning them mistily.

”They were on the murdered messenger--he was killed, wasn't he, Barlow?”

”Yes.”

”And has any native seen these papers, Captain?”

”No, I cut them from the soles of the sandals the messenger wore, myself, Sir.”