‘I am. I have long intended going to Haldabad on a shooting excursion, which may detain me for two or three months. Inadvertently almost I have delayed it, your visit and Janie’s illness coming in the way; but now I am ready to start at twelve hours’ notice, if need be—indeed, I am anxious to be gone.’ ‘And what will Janie say to that, Captain Norton?’ she demanded in a lowered voice. ‘At this moment I believe that my absence will affect Janie less than your departure would do. She is very much attached to you, and she feels the comfort of a woman’s presence. Added to which, Margaret, I am in a great measure responsible to your uncle for your proceedings, and I shall not feel easy if you leave my house for a stranger’s without previously asking his consent. He will imagine I have proved unfaithful to my trust. Do you wish others to think as badly of me as I do of myself?’ As I uttered these words I dropped my voice almost to a whisper, but she heard them plainly. ‘Oh, let me go! let me go!’ she exclaimed wildly. ‘It will be better, far better, for all of us. I cannot, indeed I cannot, remain here; the air of this place stifles me.’ ‘I have made you despise me,’ I said despondently. ‘No; oh no!’ and her dark eyes were fixed upon me for a moment with an expression which I would have kept in them for ever; ‘but—you _know_, Captain Norton, that it is best—that, in fact, we _must part_.’ ‘I do know it,’ I replied; ‘and therefore I am going. By this time to-morrow I hope to have made all necessary preparations, and to be ready for a start. Meanwhile you will stay here—I know you will, because I ask you—to comfort and look after Janie until you receive your uncle’s consent to go to Madras. And when it arrives, and you have left Mushin-Bunda, I will return to it.’ ‘And we shall never, never meet again!’ she said, in a voice so broken as to be almost inarticulate. I dared not answer her; had I spoken, I must have poured out all my heart. ‘You have consented?’ were my next words. ‘Yes, since you think it best; only I am sorry to be the means of driving you from home.’ ‘If you are—though you have no need to be—will you give me one recompense, Margaret?’ She lifted her eyes inquiringly; speech seemed almost lost to her. ‘Say you forgive me for what I told you yesterday. I have sorely reproached myself since.’ She stretched out her hand, and met mine in a grasp which, though firm, was cold as that of death. ‘Then we part friends?’ It was again myself who spoke; she nodded her head in acquiescence, and I felt my prudence evaporating, and rushed from the apartment. Written down, this interview seems nothing; but to those who feel as we do, the misery of years may be compressed into an hour; and that small room, for both of us, was worse than a torture-chamber.