The effort was so painful that she avoided it as a rule; but this time the memory of Philip Marsden's kindness came back sharply, and the trivial remorse about the letter rose up once more to take the front place in her regrets until driven thence by one vague, impotent desire to have the past back again. Looking down into the impalpable barrier of cloud through which a pale gleam of light drifted hither and thither, she could almost fancy herself a disembodied spirit striving after a glimpse of the world whence it had been driven by death; so far away did she feel herself from those careless days at Faizapore, from the kindly friends, the-- "Miss Stuart! surely it is Miss Stuart!" cried a man's voice behind her. She turned, to see John Raby, who, throwing the reins of his pony to the groom, advanced to greet her, his handsome face bright with pleasure. His left arm was in a sling, for he had been slightly wounded; to the girl's eyes he had a halo of heroism and happiness round him. "I am so glad!" she said, "so glad!" As they stood, hand in hand, a sunbeam struggling through the cloud parted the mist at their feet. Below them, like a jewelled mosaic, lay the Doon bathed in a flood of light; each hamlet and tree, each silver torrent-streak and emerald field, seemingly within touch, so clear and pellucid was the rain-washed air between. Further away, like fire-opals with their purple shadows, flashed the peaks of the Sewaliks, and beyond them shade upon shade, light upon light, the mother-of-pearl plain losing itself in the golden setting of the sky. "I am in for luck all round," cried John Raby in high delight. "That means a break in the rains, and a fortnight of heaven for me,--if fate is kind--" But Belle heard nothing; one of those rare moments when individuality seems merged in a vast sympathy with all things visible and invisible was upon her, filling her, body and soul, with supreme content. "Are you not coming in?" she asked, when, after walking slowly along the Mall, they reached the path which led downward to the little drawing-room and the four women. "I will come to-morrow," he replied, looking at her with undisguised admiration in his eyes. "Today it is enough to have seen you. After all, you were always my great friend,--you and your father." "Yes, he was very fond of you," she assented softly; and with her flushed cheeks and the little fluffy curls by her pretty ears all glistening with mist drops, showed an April face, half smiles, half tears. CHAPTER XIV. Two months later found Belle Raby sitting in the shade of a spreading deodar-tree, placidly knitting silk socks for her husband, who, stretched on the turf beside her, read a French novel.