Stafford made no effort to detain him. He stood on one side, and Travers hurried down the steps. A minute later he was driving his trap down the avenue at a pace which boded danger for himself and for any who dared to cross his path. CHAPTER XVII FALSE LIGHT The way to the new Bazaar lay to the right of the mine through a forest clearing, and was one of Marut's most beautiful roads. Of late, increased traffic had held the English pleasure-seekers from their once favorite haunt, and in this early evening hour the bullock wagons had not as yet begun their journeyings to and from the residential quarter to the Bazaar, and the road was pleasantly quiet and peaceful. Hitherto Beatrice had kept her thoroughbred at a constant and exhausting canter, but here, against her resolution, she pulled up to a walk and let the cool scented air from the pines blow gently and caressingly against her hot cheeks. "This is one of the moments which Fate herself can not take from us," she said to her companion. "It is perhaps a very brief moment, but it is unclouded. We are just glad and happy to be alive in such a lovely world, and all the outward circumstances which make our lot hard and bitter are forgotten. Great and little worries are put on one side, and we can feel like children to whom the past and future is nothing and the present everything." "I know what you mean," Nehal Singh answered, "and the hours spent with you are always those which no one can ever take from me." She bent over her horse and stroked the glossy coat with her gloved hand. Then she remembered that she would never ride him again, and the thought pained her. It was _his_ horse, and this was their last ride together, though he did not know it. She was going to tell the truth--or something like the truth--now. No, not now--later on, when they turned homeward. Then she would tell him, and it would be well over. But there was no hurry. All that was still in the future. The moment was hers--a happy moment full of unalloyed charm such as she had never known in her barren, profitless life. She was not going to throw it away unless he forced her, and hitherto he had made no attempt to lead the conversation out of the usual channels.