"Talked?" he echoed, with a sudden outburst of impatience. "What else is there for me to do? I can neither read, nor write, nor move. Am I to lie here like a log, with my own black thoughts for company? I'm not ill, in spite of all." "No, Theo, you are not ill now," the girl reasoned with him in all gentleness, "but with a wound like that so near your temple you soon will be ill, if you refuse to be moderately careful. Evelyn shall stay for a quarter of an hour. After that you _must please_ obey me and lie quiet, so as to get a little sleep, if possible, after your cruel journey. Amar Singh shall sit here, and I will leave the drawing-room door open and play to you;--something invigorating--the Pastoral, to start with. Will that do?" His prompt penitence caught at her heart. "Forgive me, Honor," he said. "I was an ungrateful brute, and you're a long way too good to me. I'll obey orders in future, without kicking against the pricks. The music will be no end of a comfort. Just like you to think of it!" CHAPTER XXV. THE MOONLIGHT SONATA. "The depth and dream of my desire, The bitter paths wherein I stray, Thou knowest, who hast made the Fire, Thou knowest, who hast made the Clay." --KIPLING. When the bedroom door opened, Desmond lifted his head, in a distracted attempt to see more of his wife than the shade would permit, and held out his hand. "Come, Ladybird. I want you." She came at his bidding, and put her hand in his. But, unwittingly, she stood no nearer than the action demanded; and in her bewildered misery she forgot that he would expect her to stoop and kiss him. It was a fatal omission--how fatal she did not realise till later. He drew her closer with quiet decision; and she submitted, as she would have submitted to anything he might have chosen to do just then. "Am I so very dreadful that you can't bear to come near me?" he asked, with a brave attempt at lightness. "Oh, Theo, don't say that," she pleaded. It came too painfully near the truth. "Only--I can't seem able to believe that--it is really you." "Well, I give you my word it _is_ really me--the very same Theo who won the Punjab Cup, and danced with you at Lahore three months ago." Then he bit his lip sharply; for the thought smote him that he might never sit a pony or dance with her again. The sob that had been clutching at her throat escaped, in spite of herself. "Lahore!" she murmured. "It was all so beautiful at Lahore!" "Don't cry about it, darling. It will be just as beautiful again, in time. Sit down on the floor--here, close to me. I can't get a sight of you any other way." She sat down, but in such a position that he had only a scant view of her tear-disfigured face. He pushed the damp ringlets back from her forehead. In his eyes it was her misfortune, rather than her fault, that she should be so inexorably chained to her own trouble.