But Colonel Dunstan’s allusion to her want of spirits has recalled all her jealousy of Mrs Lawless to Ethel’s mind, and the journey to England finds no favour in her eyes. ‘You want me to go away for a twelvemonth,’ she says sharply, ‘and pray what is to become of you meanwhile?’ ‘I must stay here. You know I cannot leave India.’ ‘You will stay with Mrs—, I mean with the regiment, whilst I go home with the child.’ ‘Yes. What else can I do?’ ‘Then I shall _not_ go. I refuse to leave you.’ ‘Not even for Katie’s sake?’ ‘We will take her somewhere else. There are plenty of places in India where we can go for change of air; and if you _cared_ for me, Charlie, you would never contemplate such a thing as a whole year’s separation.’ ‘Do you think I _like_ the idea, Ethel? What should I do left here all by myself? I only proposed it for your sake and the child’s.’ ‘I will not go,’ repeats Mrs Dunstan, firmly, and she sends for Dr MacQuirk and has a long talk with him. ‘Dr MacQuirk, is it an absolute necessity that Katie should go to England?’ ‘Not an absolute neeceessity, my dear leddy, but, from a mee-dical point of view, advisable. And your own hee-alth also—’ ‘Bother my health!’ she cries irreverently. ‘What is the nearest place to which I could take the child for change?’ ‘You might take her to the heels, Mrs Doonstan—to the heels of Mandalinati, which are very salubrious at this time of the year.’ ‘And how far off are they?’ ‘A matter of a coople of hundred miles. Ye canna get houses there, but there is a cairs-tle on the broo’ o’ the heel that ye may have for the airsking.’ ‘A castle! that sounds most romantic? And whom must we ask, doctor?’ ‘The cairs-tle is the property of Rajah Mati Singh, and he bee-lt it for his ain plee-sure, but he doesna’ ceer to leeve there, and so he will lend it to any Europeans who weesh for a change to the heels of Mandalinati.’ ‘Rajah Mati Singh! That horrid man! There will be no chance of seeing him, will there?’ ‘No, no, Mrs Doonstan! the Rajah will not trouble ye! He never goes near the cairs-tle noo, and ye will have the whoole place to yersel’ in peace and quietude.’ ‘I will speak to the colonel about it directly he comes in. Thank you for your information, Dr MacQuirk. If we must leave Mudlianah, I shall be delighted to stay for a while at this romantic castle on the brow of the hill. ‘Yes,’ she says to herself, when the doctor is gone, ‘we shall be alone there, I and my Charlie, and it will seem like the dear old honeymoon time, before we came to live amongst these horrid flirting cats of women, and perhaps some of the old memories will come back to him and we shall be happy, foolish lovers again as we used to be long ago before I was so miserable.’ But when Colonel Dunstan hears of the proposed visit to the Mandalinati hills, he does not seem to approve of it half so much as he did of the voyage to England.