As she turned into Old Post-Office Street, a flanking battalion of the rains—riding up dark and thunderous behind the red-brick turrets of the High Court—whipped down upon the Maidan, and drove her, glad of a refuge, up the dingy stairs to her husband’s office. Her custom was to sit in the cabriolet and despatch the syce with a message. The syce would deliver it in his own tongue—“The memsahib sends a salutation”—and Doyle would presently appear. But to-day it was raining and there was no alternative. A little flutter of consideration greeted her entrance. Two or three native clerks shuffled to their feet and salaamed, and one ran to open the door into Doyle’s private room for her. Her husband sat writing against time at a large desk littered thick with papers. At another table a native youth in white cotton draperies sat making quill pens, with absorbed precision. The punkah swung a slow discoloured petticoat above them both. The tall wide windows were open. Through them little damp gusts came in and lifted the papers about the room; and beyond them the grey rain slanted down, and sobered the vivid green of everything, and turned the tilted palms into the likeness of draggled plumes waving against the sky. “You have just escaped the shower,” said Doyle, looking up with quick pleasure at her step. “I’ll be another twenty minutes, I’m afraid. And I have nothing for you to play with,” he added, glancing round the dusty room—“not even a novel. You must just sit down and be good.” “Mail letters?” asked Rhoda, with her hand on his shoulder. The clerk was looking another way, and she dropped a foolish, quick little kiss on the top of his head. “Yes. It’s this business of the memorial to Church. I’ve got the newspaper reports of the unveiling together, and the Committee have drafted a formal letter to Mrs. Church, and there’s a good deal of private correspondence—letters from big natives sending subscriptions, and all that—that I thought she would like to see. As Secretary to the Committee, it of course devolves upon me to forward everything. And at this moment,” Doyle went on, glancing ruefully at the page under his hand, “I am trying to write to her privately, poor thing.” Rhoda glanced down at the letter. “I know you will be glad to have these testimonials, which are as sincere as they are spontaneous, to the unique position Church held in the regard of many distinguished people,” she read deliberately, aloud. “Do you think that is the right kind of thing to say? It strikes me as rather formal. But one is so terribly afraid of hurting her by some stupidity.” “Oh, I don’t think so at all, Philip. I mean—it is quite the proper thing, I think. After all, it’s—it’s more than a year ago, you know.” “The wives of men like Church remember them longer than that, I fancy. But if you will be pleased to sit down, Mrs. Doyle, I’ll finish it in some sort of decency and get it off.”