Restlessly, Jan walked round the outer aisles, reading the inscriptions on marble tablets and brasses, many of them dating back to the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Men died young out in India in those days; hardly any seemed to live beyond forty-two, many died in the twenties. On nearly all the tablets the words "zeal" or "zealous" regularly appeared. With regard to their performance of their duties these dead and gone men who had helped to make the India of to-day had evidently had a very definite notion as to their own purpose in life. The remarks were guarded and remarkably free from exaggerated tributes to the virtues they celebrated. One Major-General Bellasis was described as "that very respectable Officer--who departed this life while he was in the meritorious discharge of his duty presiding at the Military Board." Others died "from exposure to the sun"; nearly all seemed to have displayed "unremitting" or "characteristic zeal" in the discharge of their duties. Jan sat down, and gradually it seemed as though the spirits and souls of those departed men, those ordinary everyday men--whose descendants might probably be met any day in the Yacht Club now--seemed to surround her in a great company, all pointing in one direction and with one voice declaring, "This is the WAY." Jan fell on her knees and prayed that her stumbling feet might be guided upon it, that she should in no wise turn aside, however steep and stony it might prove. And as she knelt there came upon her the conviction that here was the true meaning of life as lived upon the earth; just this, that each should do his job. CHAPTER VIII THE END OF THE DREAM She walked back rather slowly. It was a little cooler, but dusty, and the hot pavements made her feet ache. She was just wondering whether she would take a gharri when a motor stopped at the curb and Peter got out. "What are you doing?" he asked crossly. "Why are you walking in all this heat? You can't play these games in India. Get in." He held the door open for her. "Good afternoon, Mr. Ledgard," Jan said, sweetly. "Is it worth while for such a little way?" "Get in," Peter said again, and Jan meekly got in. "I was just coming to see you, and I could have taken you anywhere you wanted to go, if only you'd waited. Why didn't you take a gharri?" "Since you must know," Jan said, smiling at the angry Peter, "I went out because I wanted to go out. And I walked because I wanted to walk." "You can't do things just because you want to do 'em in this infernal country--you must consider whether it's a suitable time." Jan made no answer, and silence reigned till they reached the bungalow. Peter followed her in. "Where did you go?" he asked. "And why?" "I went to the Cathedral, and my reason was that I simply couldn't stay in the bungalow because the lady below was singing 'Less than the dust.'" "I know," Peter said grimly. "Just the sort of thing she would sing."