An hour after, when the storm had passed, and a faint greyness told that the dawn was at hand, a feeble light began to flicker about the ruins: up and down, up and down, as if it sought for something. It was Fuzl Elâhi, the potter of Hodinuggur, looking for his dead daughter. He had looked for her after every storm for sixteen years; and this time, with the Miss sahib's promise to send her back lingering in his memory, he sought in hope. When the sun rose, three things were amissing from the palace at Hodinuggur: the Ayôdhya pot, Azîzan, and the old duenna. Up-stairs, while George, and Gwen, and Rose, all for private reasons of their own, acquiesced, Lewis Gordon declared that some servant must have broken the former in dusting the room, and, as usual, made away with the pieces. Down-stairs the same unanimity prevailed. Azîz and Zainub had their reasons for running away. They would be found ere long, since no one near at hand dare shelter them, and the old woman could not go far. If the folk up-stairs had known of the disappearance down-stairs, they might have connected the two losses, but they did not. So none of these three things were traced, and no one cared very much: especially Gwen Boynton. The pot might have reminded her of Hodinuggur, and now she was leaving it there were some things she intended to forget. Besides, no one now could ever say she had taken the jewels. CHAPTER XII 'I never was so tired of any place in my life,' remarked Mrs. Boynton. 'It was not so bad at first; but nothing would ever induce me to attempt the wilderness again.' She was back in the big hall at Rajpore once more, the centre of a circle assembled to bid her welcome; for Gwen was not the sort of person to come or go unnoticed. She looked charming in a new dress which she had ordered on the morning after the fire to be ready against her return. The band was playing, the dim lights were twinkling above the polished floor, people were coming and going through the swing-doors, and Dan, devoted as ever, was waiting for his promised first waltz. A sheer bit of vanity was this promise on Gwen's part; she liked to re-enter her familiar world looking perfection, and Dan was the best dancer in the room. Yet she lingered with her hand on his arm to glance at Lewis Gordon, who, still wearing a sling, stood on the outside of the circle trying not to look bored. 'And I don't think civilised people ought to go to those wild places and live in uncivilised ways,' she continued, clinching the argument against Hodinuggur. 'It is demoralising living on the roof without doors and windows. Look at my cousin. I don't believe he will ever settle down to work again.' '"No locks had they," etc.' quoted Lewis. 'I shouldn't have thought you were likely to disapprove of Arcadia anyhow, or Hodinuggur either. I assure you, Graham, Mrs. Boynton played the "Light of the Harem" to perfection.'