“I have imagined terrible things about my wife and Neva,” he said. “My poor wife! I have thought of her a thousand times as dead of grief. Do you know, major, how she took the report of my death?” “I have heard,” said the major, “she nearly died of grief. For a long time she shut herself up, and was inconsolable, and when she did venture out at last, it was in a funereal coach, and dressed in the deepest mourning. There are few wives who mourn as she did.” Sir Harold’s lips quivered. “My poor darling!” he muttered inaudibly. “My precious wife! I shall come back to you from the dead.” “Lady Wynde is heart-broken, they say,” said the major. “One of the men in our mess, a lieutenant, is from Canterbury and hears all the Kentish gossip, and he says people were afraid that Lady Wynde would go into a decline.” “My poor wife!” said Sir Harold, with a sobbing breath. “I knew how she loved me. We were all the world to each other, Major. I must be careful how she hears the news that I am living. The sudden shock may kill her. Have you any news of my daughter also?” “She was still at school when I last heard of her,” answered the major. “There is no more news of your home, Sir Harold. Your family are mourning for you and you will bring back their lost happiness. You ought to have seen your obituaries in the London papers. Some of them were a yard long, and I’d be willing to die to-day if I could only read such notices about myself. That sounds a little Hibernian, but it’s true. And your tenantry put on mourning, and they had funeral sermons and so on. By all the rules, you ought to have been dead, and, by the Lord Harry, I can’t understand why you are not.” Sir Harold smiled wanly. “Let me explain why I am not,” he said. “You remember that I was taking my last ride in India, and was about to start for Calcutta, to embark for England, when I disappeared? Some three days before that I had a quarrel, if I might call it so, with the Hindoo Karrah--” “I know it. He told me about it for the first time this morning.” “You understand then that I had incurred his enmity by kicking him out of this house? I found him stealing the effects of my dead son. He had also stolen from me. The letters he was stealing he was acute enough to know were precious to me, and there was George’s diary, for which I would not have taken any amount of money. The scoundrel meant to get away with these, and then sell them to me at his own terms. I took back my property, and punished him as he deserved. I have now reason to believe he went away that night to his friends among the hills--” “He did. He told me he did. But what did he go for?” cried the major excitedly.