It was part of the delightful strangeness that we should move to that strong music. We sat on the upper deck and watched the dream--like beauty drift slowly by until we emerged beneath a little bridge into the fairy land of the lake which the Mogul Emperors loved so well that they made their noble pleasance gardens on the banks, and thought it little to travel up yearly from far--off Delhi over the snowy Pir Panjal with their Queens and courts for the perfect summer of Kashmir. We moored by a low bank under a great wood of chenar trees, and saw the little table in the wilderness set in the greenest shade with our chairs beside it, and my pipe laid reverently upon it by Kahdra. Across the glittering water lay on one side the Shalimar Garden known to all readers of “Lalla Ruhk”--a paradise of roses; and beyond it again the lovelier gardens of Nour-Mahal, the Light of the Palace, that imperial woman who ruled India under the weak Emperor’s name--she whose name he set thus upon his coins: “By order of King Jehangir. Gold has a hundred splendours added to it by receiving the name of Nour-Jahan the Queen.” Has any woman ever had a more royal homage than this most royal lady--known first as Mihr-u-nissa--Sun of Women, and later, Nour-Mahal, Light of the Palace, and latest, Nour-Jahan-Begam, Queen, Light of the World? Here in these gardens she had lived--had seen the snow mountains change from the silver of dawn to the illimitable rose of sunset. The life, the colour beat insistently upon my brain. They built a world of magic where every moment was pure gold. Surely--surely to Vanna it must be the same. I believed in my very soul that she who gave and shared such joy could not be utterly apart from me? Could I then feel certain that I had gained any ground in these days we had been together? Could she still define the cruel limits she had laid down, or were her eyes kinder, her tones a more broken music? I did not know. Whenever I could hazard a guess the next minute baffled me. Just then, in the sunset, she was sitting on deck, singing under her breath and looking absently away to the Gardens across the Lake. I could catch the words here and there, and knew them. “Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar, Where are you now--who lies beneath your spell? Whom do you lead on Rapture’s roadway far, Before you agonize them in farewell?” “Don’t!” I said abruptly. It stung me. “What?” she asked in surprise. “That is the song every one remembers here. Poor Laurence Hope! How she knew and loved this India! What are you grumbling at?” Her smile stung me. “Never mind,” I said morosely. “You don’t understand. You never will.” And yet I believed sometimes that she would--that time was on my side. When Kahdra and I pulled her across to Nour-Mahal’s garden next day, how could I not believe it--her face was so full of joy as she looked at me for sympathy?