“Yes,” she said simply, “and the most natural thing. Your children. What could they be but my first interest? They are old enough--that is one good thing--to come to India without pause.” He rose from her side again and returned to his habitual action of walking about the room. “I knew,” he said, “from the first moment, that I was a lucky man, indeed, to meet with you. I have always been a lucky man; but never so much as when you made up your mind to have me, little as I deserve a woman like you. I’ve that good in me that I know it when I see it: a good woman from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot. There’s nothing in the world so good as that. Now, I’ll tell you something, and I hope it will please you, for it’s chiefly meant to please you. I am very well off. I can settle something very comfortable on you, and I can provide for the young ones. If it pleases you, my dear, we’ll turn our backs on this blazing India altogether, and go home.” “Go home!” she said, with startled eyes. “You’d like it? A country place in England or Scotland--better still, a house that would be your own--that you could settle in your own way, with all the things that please ladies now-a-days. I’ll bring you home a cartload of curiosities that will set you up in that way. And then you could have the children, and put them through their facings. Eh, my lady dear? You’d like that? Well, I can afford it,” he said with subdued exultation, with his hands in those pockets which metaphorically contained all that heart of man could desire. His eyes glowed with pleasure, with triumph, with a consciousness that he was making her happy. Yes! this was what every English lady banished in India must desire. A house in her own country, with every kind of greenness round, and every comfort within--with beautiful Indian stuffs and carpets, and curious things--and the children to pet and guide as she pleased. He was again the spectator, so to speak, of a picture of life, which rose before him, more beautiful than that of old--himself, indeed, the least lovely part of it, yet not so much amiss for an old fellow who had made all the money, and who could give her everything that could please her, everything her heart could wish for. His eyes, though they were not in themselves remarkable, grew liquid and lustrous in the pleasure of that thought. As for Evelyn, she sat startled holding her hands clasped in her lap, with many things beyond the satisfaction he imagined in her eyes. Home in England meant something to her which could never be again. She said somewhat faintly--“In Scotland, if you would please me most of all.” At which words, for Rowland was a Scotsman, he came to her in a glow of pleasure and took both her hands and ventured, for the first time, to touch her forehead with his lips. The touch gave this elderly pair a little shock, a surprise, which startled her still more. CHAPTER III.