“I cannot guess what good news there could possibly be in store for me,” he replied, with so much sadness in his voice that the girl gave a little start, and then the least possible smile, for she was well aware that the luxury of sadness was frequently indulged in by her companion. “It is good news for you, for me, for all of us, for all the world, for--well, for everybody that I have not included. Don't laugh at me, please, for my news is that papa is coming home at last. Now, isn't that good news?” “I am very glad to hear it,” said Standish. “I am very glad because I know it will make you happy.” “How nicely said; and I know you feel it, my dear Standish. Ah, poor papa! he has had a hard time of it, battling with the terrible Indian climate and with those annoying people.” “It is a life worth living,” cried Standish. “After you are dead the world feels that you have lived in it. The world is the better for your life.” “You are right,” said Daireen. “Papa leaves India crowned with honours, as the newspapers say. The Queen has made him a C.B., you know. But--only think how provoking it is--he has been ordered by the surgeon of his regiment to return by long-sea, instead of overland, for the sake of his health; so that though I got his letter from Madras yesterday to tell me that he was at the point of starting, it will be another month before I can see him.” “But then he will no doubt have completely recovered,” said Standish. “That is my only consolation. Yes; he will be himself again--himself as I saw him five years ago in our bungalow--how well I remember it and its single plantain-tree in the garden where the officers used to hunt me for kisses.” Standish frowned. It was, to him, a hideous recollection for the girl to have. He would cheerfully have undertaken the strangulation of each of those sportive officers. “I should have learned a great deal during these five years that have passed since I was sent to England to school, but I'm afraid I didn't. Never mind, papa won't cross-examine me to see if his money has been wasted. But why do you look so sad, Standish? You do look sad, you know.” “I feel it too,” he cried. “I feel more wretched than I can tell you. I'm sick of everything here--no, not here, you know, but at home. There I am in that cursed jail, shut out from the world, a beggar without the liberty to beg.” “Oh, Standish!” “But it is the truth, Daireen. I might as well be dead as living as I am. Yes, better--I wish to God I was dead, for then there might be at least some chance of making a beginning in a new sort of life under different conditions.” “Isn't it wicked to talk that way, Standish?” “I don't know,” he replied doggedly. “Wickedness and goodness have ceased to be anything more to me than vague conditions of life in a world I have nothing to say to. I cannot be either good or bad here.” Daireen looked very solemn at this confession of impotence.