Perhaps there was no one concerned in the situation who took a graver view of the possibilities of a disturbance among the seething masses of the native town than did the young Assistant-Collector, who went about his daily work with a watchful air and an anxious heart. CHAPTER XXIX. On the morning of the third day after her visit to Mr. Morpeth, as Hester sat with Mrs. Fellowes at early tea in the verandah at Royapooram, a chit was handed to her and the butler announced that her carriage was waiting. The note was from her husband telling her of his arrival at Clive's Road. "Do, my darling Hester, hurry to me at once," it ran. "I am pining to hold you in my arms. I have only just arrived, but this horrid south wind is making a wreck of me already. I feel so nervous I can hardly hold a pen." Having shared her news with her hostess, Hester rose to make hasty preparations for her departure. "This is a blow to me," said Mrs. Fellowes. "I hoped at least to keep you a week longer with us. Your husband has evidently changed his plans." "He has seemingly. But why should this wind be troubling him? I was just thinking how refreshing it was." "Ah, but your husband is right there. This south wind is an enemy we dread, it is baleful in its effects, I assure you. When it first blows on one it does seem refreshing, but the very next moment one begins to feel its bad influence. It is like a gust of hot damp air blown over marshes, penetrating to one's joints and marrows." "Alfred evidently resents it," returned Hester. "I fear it will blow away all the good effects of his change. I wonder what can have made him hurry back so soon," she added, with a sigh she repressed at once and turned to her friend, saying, "How can I thank you for all that has made this time so pleasant to me? I shall never forget these days." The tears sprang to her eyes as she clasped her friend's hand. "I feel as if I were leaving Paradise for the thorns and thistles of the wilderness," she murmured; and in this remark she laid bare more of her heart than she had ever done, even to her trusted friend, who now looked at her with keen concern. "But I mustn't put it like that," she added. "Poor Alfred needs me. I must go back strong and cheerful!" Presently Mrs. Fellowes stood in the verandah with a sorrowful face watching her departing guest. "You don't mean to say the fellow has come back already like a bad shilling and requisitioned that wife of his a whole week earlier than we reckoned on!" exclaimed the colonel with vexation, when he returned from his morning's work and heard of Hester's sudden summons to Clive's Road. "That is a blow! Why, she should have sent back the landau empty and told him he still owed her a week's release from his presence!"