George drew back deeply wounded, and looking more stern than he guessed. In the silence between them he heard the rattle of the lock in the next room, and the shaking of the door. He walked up to the folding-doors which led into the bedroom, while Nouna turned her head to watch him anxiously. Crouching down on the other side of the bed, with more of the appearance of an animal than ever now that she was foiled in her attempt to escape, was the Indian servant Sundran. “Get up,” said George shortly. “No one is going to hurt you. What are you doing here?” “I was doing no harm, sahib. I came to see my pretty missee, Missee Nouna, my own foster-child that I nurse and love. She send for me, sahib, she send for me; she lonely without me. Sahib, let me stay. I will serve you, only for food to keep me alive if you let me stay.” She was passionately in earnest, and without rising from her knees she dragged herself to him and tried to kiss his feet. George evaded the unwelcome embrace. He couldn’t bear this woman, and the thought that Nouna could really have missed her unwholesome prattle enough to send for her clandestinely on her wedding day gave him deep pain. He could scarcely help being touched by her animal-like devotion, but to allow her to remain in Nouna’s service now that the latter was his wife and was to begin her nobler education under his influence and guidance, was on every account not to be thought of. “You never thought of staying, Sundran. You were trying to get away without my seeing you, encouraging my wife to deceive me on her very wedding day. How can you expect me to keep near her such a wicked adviser as that?” “Sahib, I did not know you would be good to me. I thought you would be cruel and hard and fierce, as the English sahibs are sometimes. Oh, I have known them! But you are good, you are noble; you will not separate the sweet young lady who is the light of my eyes from her poor old Sundran.” The poor creature’s eyes were indeed full of passionate tears, and George, who was no more proof than the majority of his sex against that form of argument in a woman, said gruffly: “Nonsense, I tell you it’s impossible. But you can go down stairs and get them to give you some tea if you like, and afterwards you shall see your mistress again. But mind, if you ever attempt these underhand tricks again, you shall never set eyes on her as long as you live.”