"I have no other instructions than what are contained in the telegram. I shall have a letter to-morrow giving me more particulars. Meanwhile Ananda should be privately warned that he must be ready to leave not later than to-morrow evening by the night mail." "Shall we lend him the car?" "There again the difficulty occurs of assistance being rendered by me to an out-caste member of an important caste family, a member who is under the ban of the family's displeasure. No; he had better go by rail. The native chauffeur would sell the secret for a couple of rupees. I can't drive him myself; I haven't the time, and it would be risky." "Mr. Alderbury will have to come and take Ananda away himself," said Eola, unconsciously ready to believe that a visit was necessary. "If so he must not do it from this house," said Wenaston decisively. "But before anything can be settled as to ways and means, we must communicate with Ananda and find out what his wishes are." "The simplest way is to write a letter." "But it would be difficult to deliver it. It would never reach his hand." Wenaston lunched and returned to the college. The boys were assembled in the playing-field, and his spirits revived somewhat when he noted that at the summons of the bell they entered the class rooms in greater numbers than in the morning. He had an interview with the Vice-principal before afternoon school began. At four o'clock he came into the verandah for tea. "Have you done anything about communicating with Ananda?" he asked of Eola. "Nothing beyond writing him a letter." "Impossible to get it conveyed to him!" he exclaimed. "You mustn't go any further with the business. I have been talking to Rama Krishna, my Vice, and he implores me to remain strictly neutral for the sake of the school if for nothing else. He says that if I intend to help Ananda I may be able to do so later; but that at present I must be rigidly neutral." "It seems rather hard not to lend a helping hand," said Eola, whose pity was roused. "I can't quite reconcile my conscience to a course of total inaction. Whatever the Vice may say--and he is a heathen--we ought not to withhold any assistance that may be in our power to give him." "Rama Krishna assures me again and again that I can best help Ananda by remaining neutral. I shall only provoke the town as well as the family to open hostilities." "Does he show any animosity towards Ananda?"