There was nothing that he could do--nothing. Except, yes, of course--that was obvious, as obvious as any other plain duty. Through his selfishness it had a beginning; in spite of his selfishness it should have an end. That went without saying. No more walks or rides. In a conventional way, perhaps--but nothing deliberate, designed--and never alone together. Gossip about flippant married women was bad enough, but that it should concern itself with an unprotected creature like Madeline was monstrous, incredible. He strode fiercely into the road round Jakko, and no little harmless snake, if it had crawled across his path, would have failed to suffer a quick fate under the guidance of his imagination. But there was nothing for him to kill, and he turned upon himself. The sun went down into the Punjab and left great blue-and-purple hill worlds barring the passage behind him. The deodars sank waist deep into filmy shadow, and the yellow afterlight lay silently among the branches. A pink-haunched monkey lopading across the road with a great show of prudence seemed to have strayed into an unfamiliar country, and the rustling twigs behind him made an episode of sound. The road in perpetual curve between its little stone parapet and the broad flank of the hill rose and fell under the deodars; Innes took its slopes and its steepnesses with even, unslackened stride, aware of no difference, aware of little indeed except the physical necessity of movement, spurred on by a futile instinct that the end of his walk would be the end of his trouble--his amazing, black, menacing trouble. A pony’s trot behind him struck through the silence like percussion-caps; all Jakko seemed to echo with it; and it came nearer--insistent, purposeful--but he was hardly aware of it until the creature pulled up beside him, and Madeline, slipping quickly off, said-- ‘I’m coming too.’ He took off his hat and stared at her. She seemed to represent a climax. ‘I’m coming too,’ she said. ‘I’m tired of picking flies off the Turk, and he’s really unbearable about them tonight. Here, syce.’ She threw the reins to the man and turned to Innes with a smile of relief. ‘I would much rather do a walk. Why--you want me to come too, don’t you?’ His face was all one negative, and under the unexpectedness of it and the amazement of it her questioning eyes slowly filled with sudden, uncontrollable tears, so that she had to lower them, and look steadily at the hoof-marks in the road while she waited for his answer. ‘You know how I feel about seeing you--how glad I always am,’ he stammered. ‘But there are reasons--’ ‘Reasons?’ she repeated, half audibly. ‘I don’t know how to tell you. I will write. But let me put you up again--’