But an awakened memory is not easily set at rest, and, in the stillness of that Indian day, the whole thing returned with an insistent force, dead voices spoke to me once more, and bitter regrets hummed of the past, the past that can never be retrodden--and then there arose out of the shadows in vivid distinctness the memory of that supreme moment when John Mazarion cast his soul to hell. It all came back like a picture: that lonely Himalayan mountain side, the black pines, the silent eternal snows, Mazarion with his pale white face, and Rani with her laughing eyes. An eagle screamed above us, I remember, and with a hissing of wings dropped over the abyss into the blue mists that clung to the mountain side. John Mazarion and I had been friends at school, and we met again as young men with a common interest in our lives, for we had both adopted an Indian career. Mazarion had gone into the Indian Marine, and I--I wanted in those days to build empires as did Clive and Hastings, and so I sought honour in another service, and got sent to Burma for my pains and--the empires have yet to be built. There was yet another interest between John and myself, and that was Nelly. Being young men we did as young men do, and both fell in love; but unfortunately we both fell in love with the same woman, and Nelly took Mazarion. It was a bitter thing for me then; but now that I have come to an age when I can argue with myself, I can see it was but natural. John was a big handsome man with fair hair and limpid blue eyes, and Nelly--well, a man does not care to write about the woman he loves; she was Nelly and that is enough. Though I never spoke of it, I fancy Nelly must have known I loved her, for in that tender womanly way which good women alone have she gave me strength to endure, and for her sake I wished Mazarion good luck, and sailed for the East. John followed in a few weeks, and I understood they were to be married in three years, when Mazarion got his step--a long engagement; but the purse of an Indian officer is mostly a lean one, and Nelly's people were not rich. Well, as I said before, I began my Eastern career in Burma, and Mazarion's duties led him to the Bay of Bengal and to the Burman waters. We never met for close on four years; but occasionally I came to Rangoon, the capital of Burma, and there I heard much of him, and always in connection with some story of stupid folly. The best of men would shrink from daylight being thrown on all their actions; but what would have been wrong in any man's case became doubly so, and doubly dishonourable, in the case of John Mazarion--at least I thought and think so, for Nelly's face used to rise before me with a look of patient waiting in the sweet eyes. At last we met in the club at Rangoon and lunched together. He incidentally let out that he had got his step in promotion nearly a year ago, and went on to answer the unspoken question in my look.