"I have a meaning!" was the stern answer. "I will tell thee now what I have never told thee before--I will tell thee of a young man who, like thyself, was fearless, impetuous, a lover of the new and strange, who went out into the world, and welcomed the White People as a deliverer and friend. I will tell thee how he flung down caste and prejudice to welcome them, drank in their Thought and Culture, trembled on the brink of their Religion. Already the path had been broken for him. His mother's sister had married out of her race--an Englishman--I know not how it came about--and their child followed in her steps. I will tell thee how the young man came to know this cousin and her husband, also an Unbeliever. How often these two became his guests I will not tell thee. He took pleasure in their presence, partly for his mother's sake, partly because the white race had become dear to him. They brought others with them, and among them an English officer. Hear now further. "This young man had one wife, following the English custom--one wife more beautiful than her sisters, whom he loved as a man loves but once in life. In his madness, in spite of warnings of his priests, he gave her the freedom almost of an English-woman. Wheresoever he went she followed him; with her at his right hand he received his English guests; it was she who sang to them--" He ground his teeth in a sudden outburst of rage. "Mad, mad was I! Mad to trust a woman, and to trust the stranger! Son, the night came when my wife sang no more to me, and the stranger's shadow ceased to darken my threshold. Three years I sought them--three years; then one night she came back to me. He had cast her from him. She lay dead at my feet." His voice shook. "In vain I sought justice. There is no justice for such things among the White People--not for themselves and not for us. I drew my sword and in hatred and scorn as deep as my love and reverence had been high, I slew my way to the false devil who had betrayed me. Him I slew--and his pale wife I--" "Who was this man?" Nehal Singh asked heavily. "I know not. His name has passed from me. But the hate remains. For with that act of treachery he drew back the veil from my blind eyes, and I saw that they were all as he--bad, cruel, hypocrites--" "Not all--not all!" Nehal Singh interrupted. He stopped by the splashing fountain and gazed dreamily into the clear waters. His own face he saw there--and another which was neither bad, cruel, nor hypocritical, but wholly beautiful. "Not all," he repeated. "You judge by one man. There are others, and it is those I will see and know, and--" "I would rather see thee dead at my feet!" "My father, I will judge them as I find them," Nehal Singh went on imperturbably. "If they be good and noble, I will serve and love them. If they be bad, as thou sayest--then thou shalt live to see me do thy will."