into a sweeter, nobler mood, and was more than ever mistress of her husband's heart. Her departure, peremptorily insisted on by her husband, had none the less cost them both a bitter pang; though Sutton promised that it should be for a few weeks at the utmost, a promise which cheered Maud more than it did himself, as she knew not, as he did, how easily its fulfilment might be rendered impossible. So Sutton went about his work in his own determined, loyal fashion, but with his heart no longer in it. His treasure was elsewhere and his heart with it. The collection of materials for his Report gave him a deal of trouble and involved many weary rides. He had to see District officers, Zámindars, police inspectors, heads of villages, spies, and then to determine what the real necessities of the case were and where the posts should be fixed. Everything depended on his work being well, wisely, and thoroughly done. The responsibility weighed on him: the peace, safety, prosperity of a whole District was hanging on his judgment. This is the kind of work which tries conscientious and loyal men far more than physical exertion. Then the cholera, which had shown symptoms of abatement, broke out all of a sudden with more violence than ever, and it became apparent that Sutton's regiment was thoroughly infected. Then all real hopes of his getting up to the Hills for the present, at any rate, had to be abandoned; but of this he said nothing to his wife. It was of no use to distress her beforehand with bad news, which she would be certain to learn quite soon enough. One evening, when Sutton had returned, thoroughly tired with a long, hot expedition, the orderly, whose task it was to bring him the returns of the sick for the day, told him that in the list of seizures for that afternoon was a Pathan boy, who had been picked up years before by some of the troopers in a suddenly deserted village, and who had lived as a pet child of the regiment ever since. Sutton had been kind to the lad, had defrayed such small charges as his maintenance in the lines involved, and had secured him the beginning of an education in the regimental school. Sutton on hearing the news went off at once to the hospital. Already the disease had made fearful progress, and he saw in a moment that the boy was in the most critical condition. He bent over the exhausted, helpless form, and said a few kind words of hopefulness and sympathy. The boy listened with glistening eyes and lips quivering with agitation; and as Sutton turned to go he sprang up in bed, forgetful of everything but the master-feeling which overpowered him, and clasped his protector round the neck with a single outburst of affection: 'Ma-Bap,' 'My father and mother!' Two hours later they came to say that the boy was dead, and before the next morning Sutton began to be aware that that last embrace had been a deadly one, and that the dread malady had laid its hand upon himself. CHAPTER XXXV. AN ELYSIAN PICNIC.