"Hester, you're an angel! I declare I'll pass for an old ayah going to visit my granddaughter. Of course my lovely nut brown hue will soon wear off but it may last till I reach--ah, I mustn't mention the place, though! But I'm afraid those bare feet, though brown enough, will take badly to the road, and yet my shoes would give me away." "But master must have ring on his toe," cried the ayah, and the kindly old woman transferred her own ring from her toe to his. "You'll need to hurry, Alfred," said Hester. "The dawn is beginning to steal in." When her husband caught sight of her grief-stricken face, the brief courage which his successful disguise had imparted began to give way. "Oh, I can't do it, Hester," he moaned. "I'm not fit to go through with it. I'll rather stay and be caught, like a rat in a trap," and he threw himself down on a sofa. Hester's brave spirit rose with the desperate crisis. "You must carry out your plan, Alfred. It's too late to draw back now--unless it is any sense that it is wrong to go that makes you shrink? You must not let your faint heart get the upper hand," she said firmly, almost dragging him from the sofa. "Alfred, I want to say something to you," she whispered, as they went downstairs to the verandah. "Will you try to think of what you've done? It's so terrible! Will you cry to God to make you feel the shame and the sin of it all? It is never too late to seek His forgiveness. Nothing else really matters but that in the end," she said softly, and her eyes pleaded more than her words. "You're a saint," murmured her husband, looking into her face with an awed air. "God bless you, my sweet wife! I was never worthy of you. Old Worsley was right there." Even in her woe Hester felt surprise at these words. "He's dreaming," she thought, but the time for words was past. Not one moment longer could she allow him to linger. She urged him to go, but he threw himself into a chair. "It's you who are sending me away," he groaned. "I never thought it would end so. I won't be hoofed out by you like this! No, don't lay a finger on me," he cried, pushing her away as she stooped over him caressingly, as a mother might over a rebellious child. "You'll spoil my make-up if you touch me and then my only chance of escape will be gone!" After a moment he recovered himself and started up. "Look here, Hester, how could I forget? You must share in my gold--I've got plenty here," he said, pulling out one of the bags he had stowed away in the remnants of English clothing which he had retained beneath the thickly pleated folds of the red saree. "See, I'll give you half----"