That day her husband was long absent on his parochial duties, and Clare was not sorry; she wanted time for thought--but thought only took the line of refining, and a comparison of what was now the inevitable, with what might have _been_. Clare was formed by nature for excitement, society, music, and gaiety, she did not like to be left to mope as a parson's wife "in the station to which the Lord had called her," as her husband constantly phrased it; and she had been wont to writhe under his advice as to how she was to comport herself, what she was to wear and not to wear, and to avoid the groups of young officers about the "Band Stand," and all risk of _gup_ or gossip. His intense goodness, his awful sense of propriety, even his fervid piety, had bored and wearied the young wife ere their dull honeymoon was well over; for though a good girl in every way, Clare was not pious, as Mr. Thorne understood piety. She went, per order, to church twice on Sunday, but flatly refused to teach "little niggers" in the mission schools, and he groaned in spirit over her contumacy. The excitement she wished, was not to be found in visiting old Hindoo women and teaching naked little boys that the precepts of Menou, the lawgiver, were idolatry. "Oh dear, for what did you marry me, Cecil?" she asked one evening impatiently, when she heard the strains of military music coming from the forbidden band-stand, and knew that all the little gaiety of the place was centred there. "To be a helpmate to me, Clare," he replied gravely, "and to share with me, so far as becomes my wife, my labours in the vineyard of our Divine Master. In our little Bengali church are regular Sabbath services and weekly prayer-meetings; there are four _patshalas_ or elementary schools; but to not one of these have you gone; there are much evangelistic work and colportage work to be done, yet you assist in them not, and will not even sing the hymns I have translated from the _Tembavani_." "If I did, Cecil--dear Cecil, would you let me go even once a week to the military promenade--I do so love the band?" she asked, with her eyes full of tears. "No; such frivolity becomes not my wife," was the firm reply. Repiningly she obeyed his dictum in every respect, and when other ladies ventured to remonstrate with her, Clare, to do her justice, ever upheld her husband, and treated him with respect and honour. CHAPTER II. Next day, ere the sun had risen, Clare Thorne, attended by Chuttur Sing, her native groom, went forth for her morning ride while the air was yet cool and delicious, and in every European she saw dreading to meet Wilmot, left the station behind her at a canter. She was clad in a light brown holland habit, trimmed with red braid; she wore a broad hat and long feather, and looked strikingly handsome.