be up early, and it was necessary for him to get a full night's rest. He was not long awake. As Helen lay with her head on his arm, still feeling his kisses on her lips, his breathing grew deep and regular, and he was asleep. She waited a few moments and then gently left him, lest he should move his arm and be disturbed. After a time she too fell asleep, but her slumber was broken and restless. She dreamt he was gone, and started up more than once to find him still lying by her side. At last the gray light of dawn began to steal into the room, and with it came to her a chill miserable consciousness that before the next night he would be far away. How dreadful it would be to wake and find herself alone! She raised herself on her arm and watched him as the light broadened, showing up his straight features and close-cut, wavy hair and long dark lashes. She longed for him to wake and speak to her; but he slept on, and she would not disturb him; the more he could sleep the better. She lay down and waited, looking at the opposite wall. There was a little silvery fish-insect running along the paper just under the whitewashed ceiling, and she followed its course foot by foot, as it stopped and went on in jerks.

After a time Kesa came with the tea, and Guy woke up. In little more than an hour the tonga would be in the road under the house.

As Guy opened his eyes he realised what was before him; and mingled with the excitement of the prospect came a sense of sorrow, almost of fear. Who could tell what might be coming to them now? At all events they must part, and for an indefinite time. How he had got to love her in those few months, since she had given herself up to him, a white-souled maiden as innocent as a child! Now she was a woman, and his own.

He lingered as long as he could, and then got up and went to his dressing-room.

Soon afterwards his baggage was in the verandah. Helen's jhampánis were to carry it down to the tonga road below. As they went off with it Helen came out. There were dark rims under her eyes, and her face was white, but she was quite steady. She sat opposite to him while he ate his breakfast and reminded him of one or two things he had promised to do. He was to telegraph from Umballa, and to write as often as he could; and he was to be good when he was in the tonga, and keep on the gauze veil she had made for him. There were so many accidents to people's eyes from flying splinters of stone or iron.

He had finished his breakfast, and they were still sitting at the table, when from the pine-clad hill-side below them came the sound of a bugle and the faint jangle of the iron bar upon the harness. The tonga was in the road waiting for him. Guy looked up and saw the sudden anguish in his wife's face.

He took her back into their room, and then she had a moment of weakness. She clung to him, sobbing wildly, with her face in his breast. 'Oh, Guy, Guy! what shall I do without you? What shall I do? What shall I do?'

He kissed her head and stroked it as if she had been a child. 'Darling, it won't be for long,' he said; 'only a month or two.' But his breast was heaving and he could hardly speak. His agitation quieted her at once.

What a wretch I am,' she said, raising her head, and controlling herself. 'Never mind me, Guy. I shall be all right directly. God bless you, my darling. You must go now. You will be careful, for my sake?'

'Yes.'

'Good-bye. God bless you and keep you.'

He kissed her passionately, and then he left her. As he passed through the door she fell upon the bed with her face hidden in her arms. She lay so for a few seconds and then sprang up and I went to the window. Perhaps she might catch sight of him turning the corner of the path on his way down; she was just in time. As he came to the corner he looked back for an instant, and she saw his face. She called out to him, 'Guy, Guy!' but she was under the shadow of the verandah roof, and he did not see her or hear her. It was all over.

Guy walked down to the road and got into the front seat of the tonga, and fastened the veil over his face as he had promised to do. Then the jhampánis salaamed, and the driver got in beside Guy, and blew another blast from his bugle, and the ponies jumped off, and they went jangling down the muddy road. Guy's heart was full of love and pity for his wife, but he was glad the parting was behind him.

A few minutes later Helen came out into the south verandah. She had mastered herself and could face the servants now, and she knew that from one point she could see the tongas when they came to a piece of road near the gap two or three miles away. It seemed to her that Guy's tonga was a long time getting to the place, but it came at last; and she stood leaning against a pillar and watching it going round the corners of the winding road,

until it crossed the gap, dwindled almost to nothing, and finally disappeared behind Tara Devi; then she turned with a deep long sigh and went indoors.

How empty the house seemed,-empty and lonely and silent. She could not settle down to anything, and yet she felt that she must find some employment or she should give way altogether. She went into Guy's room and packed up his things, tenderly, as if they were sacred. When this was done she came back into the drawing-room and sat down.

How difficult it was to realise. Twenty-four hours ago she had been perfectly ignorant of what was coming, and now it was all over and he was gone! It seemed like a week since yesterday morning. If every day was to go as slowly as this, how could she bear weeks and months of solitude? How little use she had made of the time she had had. There were so many things she might have said to him. She seemed to have thought of nothing. It had all been so sudden. He had gone without her having time to think. She had never really said good-bye to him.

About mid-day her first ray of comfort came. Mrs. Aylmer had walked over to see her. Helen was in the verandah again, looking out through the gap towards the plains, and thinking that Guy was still only half-way down to them, almost in sight, if it had not been that the road wound about among the great hills. Mrs. Aylmer remembered what she had gone through when her husband was on service, and she understood what Helen was feeling now; her sympathy was very tender and loving. She stayed until the afternoon, and when she went Helen's heart was less sore. At all events she had one good friend near her; she was not quite alone.

CHAPTER XXXII

ON SERVICE

BEFORE starting Guy Langley had received orders from his commanding officer to join the regiment in the Kurram valley instead of going to Sangu, which was out of his way. The advance was to be from Kurram, because at this point we had already secured a gateway into Afghanistan. The direct route would have been the historic route from Peshawar on Kabul, through the Khyber; but during the first campaign we had forced another entrance through the long wall of the Afghan hills, and this had remained in our hands. It was more convenient now to use this circuitous route, where the physical obstacles were less formidable and our troops already held a forward position, and to open out the direct route at leisure. Guy Langley nevertheless made for Peshawar, whence he was to march down the frontier to Thull, at the mouth of the Kurram valley. Lawrence was to bring on the horse he had left with the regiment. Remus could not be brought from Simla, as there was not time to march him up to the front from the line of rail.

Guy found that there was crowding and excitement everywhere. In the railway carriage with him were three officers of the Ninth Lancers who were rejoining their regiment in the hope that it would be sent to the front. At Jhelum, where he left the hot and dusty railway, it was very difficult to get a conveyance, and he could only do so after more than a day's delay. The road was crowded with officers going northward, and the posting service was completely overdriven.

Guy utilised the time by seeing the place, and writing a long and loving letter to his wife. She seemed very dear to him then. At Peshawar the crush was greater than ever. In his innocence Guy had hoped to be able to get a good second horse here, a good pony at least, as the town was very large, and on the high

road for Kabuli horse-dealers. But Peshawar had been swept clean.

After some hours of search the only four-legged things that he could find were a screaming cream-coloured tattoo, under thirteen hands high, and a gaunt chestnut Waler of immense age with protruding ribs and a Roman nose, either of which he could have for one hundred and fifty rupees. He chose the Waler; it would, at all events, be able to carry him till he could join the regiment. It trotted with its feet within an inch of the ground, snorting, its ugly ewe neck bent back, and its ugly head in the air; but it was better than the pink-nosed tattoo.

But for private kindness Guy would not have found a bed. He owed that to the Commissioner, Colonel Waterfield, who came upon him by chance, and immediately took him in and made him comfortable. Many scores of men had reason to bless that hospitable house, and its graceful mistress, during the two years that the war lasted.

After a day's stay in Peshawar, Guy pushed down the frontier to Kohat, forty miles away. For the first half of the distance, up to the Kohat Pass, he had managed to secure a cart which carried him and his servant. At the entrance of the Pass he was to mount his new purchase, which he had sent on in advance the afternoon before.

The start was not promising. Guy found his horse picketed in the open, and walked up to it to make friends. As he did so, he heard a warning shout, and at the same moment the beast came at him open-mouthed, with mad white eyes and gleaming yellow teeth. He jumped hastily aside and it missed him, and then lashed out savagely with its heels. Happily the picket ropes held. 'You devil!' Guy said when he was in safety, and he called up the syce, Purai, who had taken service with the horse. 'Why did you tell me yesterday the horse was quite quiet?'

The man put his hands together. Sahib, what was I to do? I am a poor man. I will never lie to your honour. He is slightly a budmásh; but he won't bite while I am holding his head.'

'You idiot! Supposing I want to dismount when you're not there, or get a fall?'

'Sahib, I have committed a fault; without doubt this horse is an evil liver. He does not like the Sahib-lóg.'

Purai's calm confidence in his good nature made Guy laugh in spite of himself. 'Well,' he thought, 'I must manage not to get pipped, that's all.'