John Raby laughed. These half savages had certainly most expressive methods of speech, a pity their actions were not as forcible. "Wait here," he said quietly. "I'll send you out a note for the native magistrate; but mind! no word of your visit to my wife. I'm not going to have that all over the place." Kirpo squatted down at the gate-post, wrapping the bloody veil round her once more; a habit she would have to grow into with the years. Not a stone's throw from this ghastly figure, in the large bare sitting-room of the rest-house, which she had decorated to the best of her ability with Indian draperies disposed after the fashion of the West, sat Belle in a low wicker chair. A tea-table bright with silver and china awaited the master's return, while a pile of music scattered on the open piano showed her recent occupation. "There you are at last, John!" she said. "Cold isn't it?--quite Christmas weather; but your tea is ready." "And what has my wife been doing with herself all day?" he asked, with the complacent affection which invariably sprang up at the sight of his own home comfort. "Oh, I? Working, and reading, and practising as usual. There's a very interesting article on the morality of the Vedas in the _Nineteenth Century_. It seems wonderfully pure." "A little more sugar, if you please, and one of those cakes with the chocolate, dear," was the reply, given with a stretching of the limbs into the curves of a cushioned chair. "Do you know, Belle, India is a most delightful country. If Blanche Amory had lived here she would not have had to say, '_Il me faut des emotions_.' They sit at the gate, so to speak, and the contrasts give such a zest to life. You, with that white gown and all the accessories (as the studio-slang has it) are like _pâté de foie_ after the black bread of the Spartans. If you have done your tea, go to the piano, there's a dear girl, and play me a valse; _Rêves d'Amour_ for choice; that will put the truffles to the _pâté_." Kirpo squatting at the gate, waiting for vengeance, heard the gay notes. "What a noise!" she said to herself; "no beginning or end, just like a jackal's cry. I wish he would send the letter." It came at last; and Kirpo, for one, always believed that to it she owed the fact that Râmu was caught, tried, sentenced, and imprisoned for a whole year; for as she used to say, in telling the tale to her cronies, "I hadn't a cowrie or an ornament left, so it would have been no use complaining to the police." The Lâlâ, too, impressed a like belief on the indignant Râmu. "'Tis true enough," he said, "that it is tyranny to deny a man his right to teach his wife caution; but there!--she went straight to Raby _sahib_, and now you are in for a whole year without a friend to stand treat, my poor Râmu." Râm Lâl's teeth chattered at the prospect of desertion. "But you will stand by me still, master?" he asked piteously.