So Dalel Beg had rented a house which he got cheap, because three of its previous tenants had died of typhoid fever. It was a pretty place enough, shut in somewhat by the ravines which furrow the lower part of the ridge, but with an outlook beautiful beyond belief over the plains. The single dahlias--refuse run wild from many a garden above--found foothold in every cranny of the rocks, and great sheets of morning glories climbed over the broken rails fencing the narrow path from the steep declivity, which seemed to leap at one bound to the pale blue of the valley below. Chândni, stepping out of her dhooli, looked at it all distastefully, reached forth a strong, ring-bedecked hand, appropriated a yellow dahlia, which she stuck behind her ear, and called. Then the bells clashed again as she walked with a free step over to the verandah of the house, raised the chick, and looked in, while the dhooli-bearers squatted down beside the railings, and apparently resumed a conversation begun in the bazaar. For the rest, sunshine and silence. Chândni, dazzled by the glare outside, could at first see nothing clearly; the room, though to her unaccustomed eyes crammed full of useless things, seemed empty of what she sought. Then suddenly there came a shrill, unformed voice-- 'Go away! We don't want you. Mam-ma, send her away. Go, I tell you! The Mirza is married now; I am his wife.' The girl who came forward was not more than fifteen by the look of her, with a frizz of hot-pressed light hair over her forehead, and a skin which gave one the impression of being bleached, perhaps because of the coal-black eyes set in the narrow sharp face; yet with a certain attractiveness about the figure, dressed as it was in the height of fashion, with sleeves to the ears, and a waist requiring the surgical bandage of folded silk to prevent it from breaking in two. His wife! Chândni, from her full height and magnificent development, looked at her as distastefully as she had looked at the view from the terrace. Neither were to her liking: they both appealed too much to the imagination. This other woman who came in answer to the call was better, though past her prime and pulpy; drowsy, too, from the snooze she had been enjoying on the sofa. Still with a torrent of capable, tell-tale abuse for the intruder. 'Ari!' laughed Chândni contemptuously, when the fat lady paused for breath. 'So thou too hast been of the bazaar? But I want not thee, or that half-fledged thing who calls herself a wife. I want Dalel--where is he?' 'Mamma!' cried the unformed voice in English, breaking down over its own feeble passion. 'Send her away, I tell you! The Mirza will be back soon, and she must not be here. Don't fool with words. Call the servants. _Ai! budzart!_ (base-born). I will throw you down the _khud_! (hill-side).' Chândni laughed again--laughed louder as, in response to the girl's cry, a face showed itself behind her.