The ayah’s lips moved. She looked askance at her questioner, dropped her gaze upon his hands again, hesitated, and at last spoke: "I—I suckled her at this breast," she beat her withered bosom. "She is more beloved to me than the child of my flesh. When she weeps, it is as if my blood fell. She is happy, she is great, she is the lady of a high and magnificent lord. She reigns as a queen, she has jewels—oh, jewels—all her heart can wish." "What then?" cried Muhammed, laughing loudly. "The sons of the mountain have made her weep enough," cried Jani, hoarsely. She was trembling as between a terror of pleading and an impotence of anger. "Woe to you if your shadow come between her and the sunshine! The dead are dead, past and done with; but the living she shall keep—and her greatness." "You speak in riddles," said the Pathan, coldly. "But doubtless you are a faithful servant. Faithful, but also foolish. I will not harm your mistress!" "Who harms my lord harms her," retorted the woman, sullenly. Muhammed’s eyes flashed. "And who would harm so just, so great, so beloved a master? You weary me, mother; begone." He did not raise his voice, but there was that in it before which she shrank; creeping from the room thereafter stealthily, like a threatened dog. Muhammed, his hands folded once more, remained seated long into the night, with the merciless light of the unshaded lamp upon his brooding countenance. *CHAPTER VIII* The law of change, of passage—the pressure of time, in fact—is so strong upon everything that comes under its law at all, that not even in memory can we remain stationary. Fain, fain, would Rosamond have lingered upon the first stage of that journey into the past she had so singularly engaged upon. But, in spite of herself, the wheels were turning, the moments dropping; from within as well as from without, she was forced on and on, and she knew that in a little while she must reach the parting of the ways. It having been ruled for us that life is almost all change, and that change is mostly sorrow, it is a dispensation of mercy that we should be blind travellers along the road, and never know what lies beyond. But Rosamond, who had rebelled against the natural law, was now, with eyes unsealed, advancing fatally towards the way of sorrows she had already once traversed, refusing to mourn at her appointed hour. Fain would she have walked in the sheltered valley, fain even called back the old sleep of coldness. In vain. Time was marching, and she must march. And two there were that drove her forward, besides the relentless invisible power—Bethune, with his expectant close presence, and Sir Arthur, unbearable menace from the distance. * * * * * "And then, you know, the summons came," said she. "I know," he answered. Then there was silence between them.