"The top o' the morning to you both! 'Tis an unholy hour for a visit. But I'm after the loan of a feeding-cup, knowing you've two. That murdering villain of a _messalchi_[2] broke me only one this morning; an' I'm afraid I used 'language' when I saw the corpse, besides threatening to cut the price of a new one out of his pay! '_Memsahib ke kushi_,'[3] he answers, salaaming like a sainted martyr, and taking the wind clean out o' me sails. But I'll wash yours meself; so you needn't fear to lend it." Then, becoming aware of Honor's red eyelids, she broke off short. "Why, Honor, me dear, it's the born fool I am to be chattering like a parrot when you're in trouble, by the looks of it." A glance from one to the other revealed the telegram in Paul's hand. "Great goodness, it's never the child, is it?" she asked with a swift change of tone. "Yes. Honor has had disturbing news," he answered for her. "She'll tell you about it while I send off this wire." Honor, who had risen, sank into her chair again as he left the room. "Read that, dear," she said simply: and while Frank Olliver read, a strange softness stole over her face, blanched and lined by many Frontier hot weathers. Outsiders, who wondered how any man had ever come to fall in love with her, might have wondered less had they chanced to see her then. On reaching the signature, she awkwardly patted Honor's shoulder. "'Tis just one o' the bad minutes there's no evading, me darlint. The price you've to pay for the high privilege of carrying on the race." "It seems a big price sometimes . . in India," Honor answered, not quite steadily. "And it's your one bit of compensation, Frank, that you're spared the wrench of having to live with your heart in two places at once." At that Frank bit her lip, and stinging tears--an unusual phenomenon--blinded her eyes. But she was overstrung by a week of hard nursing; and some childless women never loss the tragic sense of incompleteness, the unacknowledged ache of empty arms. "Spared? Ah, me dear, you ought to know me better by now," she protested reproachfully. "I've no use at all for cheap comforts o' that kind. What's the sharpest pangs, after all, balanced against . . . the other thing? Lighter than vanity itself; an' you know it. None better. But there . . . I'm clean daft to be talking so at this stage o' the proceedings. It's the happy woman I am, sure enough. Geoff and I are rare good friends. Always have been. But don't you talk to me again about being spared. It's one more than I can stand; an' that's the truth." Honor took possession of the hand that patted her shoulder,--a square hand; rough with much riding and exposure,--and laid it against her cheek. "Bless you, Frank," she said softly. "You make me feel quite ashamed of myself. Come and get the feeding-cup; and take me home with you. I've wired to Mrs Rivers; and the answer will come to you. I couldn't tell Theo, till . . I must."