Flora Annie Steel

“ Graham's bearer was in too great a funk to be useful, but a new khansâman, who had been put on when Graham's wife went to the hills taking the regular cook with her, did very well. It's a digression, but I've always thought that filching away of the best servants by our wives is simply brutal; perhaps they think it is the only way of impressing the horrors of absence on our minds. Well, Elahi Baksh showed such a knowledge of what ought to be done that I complemented him on his unusual skill. The man's impassive face never relaxed. ”

“ Windows set wide open to the summer air, let in the noisy vitality of London streets, yet memory grasped many of us with her resistless hand, leading us back to silent, solitary days when the punkah throbbed intermittently in darkened rooms, and we sat wondering—more with a vague curiosity than fear—what havoc the cholera fiend was wreaking outside in the blaze of yellow sunlight. ”

“ She had been found late one morning dead at her writing table, her head resting on her clasped hands, beneath which lay a telegraph form on which was traced an illegible scrawl. Whether, feeling ill in the night she had risen, intending to telegraph for her husband who was away at the time, or whether she had fallen asleep for ever as she sat writing late into the night, as was her wont, no one could say. ”

“ Beyond one illegible scrawl nothing was to be seen. After that he never rallied, and before the doctor came, his holsters crammed with remedies, poor Graham was gone. It is curious how trifles strike one more strongly than the important factors in these tragedies of life. I remember thinking the scatter-brained Irish doctor was more sorry at losing the chance of trying some new nostrum than at the actual death of my poor friend. He waxed eloquent in regret at the delay; asserting that one little half hour might have saved a life ”

“ Nor could any one decipher the secret of the telegram. It was an Indian form, but as others of the same sort were found in her desk even this clue was lost.
I put my hand on Graham's shoulder, feeling as it lay there the long-drawn breath of a strong man's grief. “Graham,” I said, “there was more than a thought—more than a message. She kept her promise and came to you when you sent for her.”
Then I told him Elahi Baksh's story. And he was comforted.
There was a pause. Then the young doctor spoke. “A clear case, as I said, of suspended animation. It is not in the least uncommon.” ”

“ One sees a lot of sham sentiment of the motherly sort in India, but now and again one comes across a real case of adoption. This was Graham's luck, and as the years went by the tie of confidence between him and the mem sahib grew closer than that of most mothers and sons. I was stationed with him several times in outlying districts, and have often watched his face brighten when a letter from her came to cheer the long monotonous days. ”