“ Unceremoniously picking her up, he returned to Stara, the little girl faintly whimpering in his arms.
"The idea of holding a child like that," said Stara indignantly, snatching his burden from him; "no wonder the poor mite was beginning to cry. Oh, you darling," bending rapturously over the baby, who was now smiling up at her, her hands playing with Stara's coral chain, "how perfectly sweet you are, and how I wish you were mine. Look at her little feet and legs, Colonel Graeme; oh, you're not interested a bit."
"I confess I'm not; babies have no attraction for me." ”

“ Fool that he was to have forgotten; fighting, there would be no fighting; there was, there could be, no one in that valley below. No, the darkness would lift, the emptiness be revealed, and all his labour would be gone or nothing—worse still, unrecognised.
Hector did not fear the consequences to himself once the fraud was discovered, for that was the gamble, and if he lost, he was prepared to pay, but to know himself a leader of men, and for that knowledge to go unshared by all save him, that to Graeme was bitterer than death. ”

“ Hector, meanwhile, was left standing alone in the black-and-white tiled hall, for Lucy, on their entrance, had disappeared and the maid was already busy on her knees upstairs with the unpacking of portmanteaux. But now that he was alone and had time to marshal his thoughts, for which he had been praying all through that nightmare drive, the same deadening sense of unreality descended on his mind like a pall, and he stood there, his brain a whirling chaos. Only a few hours before he had felt himself to be of steel, inflexible of will and insensible to all human emotions save that of love ”

“ The cloud of dust drew nearer, taking shape as it came, till a Cape cart drawn by mules could be plainly seen. In the cart there were two figures—one in black, with a conical hat, sitting bolt upright and brandishing a whip; the other seemed strangely misty and indistinct to Stara.
She rose, turned her eyes towards the browsing pony, and moved away; then stopped, with her mouth firm-set, and sat down once more.
"What a woman I am, after all," she muttered, "flight, hide for him to pursue and find; we're all the same, pretend as we like. ”

“ He, a general, Graeme, had to rely on another man's knowledge; he admitted it himself when he said, 'Ah, Gneisenau, what a general I should have been had I only read!'"
"I'd read fast enough, Godwin," said Graeme, "if I'd got any incentive to do so. It's recognition I want; give me a start, I'll do the rest."
"Bah!" replied the other, "some men go without recognition all their lives, and still struggle on. And it may come yet, who knows? Be prepared for it when it does, that's my point; don't handicap yourself with ignorance. ”

“ As the days wore on, the monotony began to pall, the long rides to lose their charm, for, lover of the veldt though Hector was, solitude was also essential to his enjoyment of it. Silence and freedom to think undisturbed were what he craved, not talk of trifles, which only passion's glamour could render interesting. But Stara saw nothing of this, for she was blind, as she had said she would be blind, and when he was lying dreaming of future greatness she would irritate him with gentle caresses, asking him if he was thinking of her ”

“ The hours flew by, the beat of feet and rattle of wheels died to a dull murmur, and ceased.
The heap of rugs stirred and were cast aside. Graeme got up, unfastened the tent-flaps, and looked out.
The muffling canopy of storm-clouds was gone from overhead, leaving the black vault a-glitter with a myriad points of flame. It was Christmas Eve and freezing hard.
Through the darkness a figure loomed dimly, its footsteps crushing the rapidly hardening ground.
"That you, Glover?"
"No, sir, it's I—Godwin, may I come in? It's urgent." He lowered his voice as he spoke.
"Men refused to turn out?" ”

“ God knows—I don't, when's the next train back to town?"
"Ain't no more to-night, sir, Colonel, that is, beg pardon, sir," said the man, staring at him and then questioningly at Lucy, whom he knew and liked well, as did already all the natives of Cuddingfold village.
"Take them to the luggage cart, Sims," said Lucy, her voice become suddenly level; "the Colonel's tired with his long journey; and you," smiling at Hector, "come with me. That's our trap standing over there with the white pony. Get in; I'll drive you; he knows my hand, and he's always a little playful at starting. ”

“ Hector heard the sigh, and, instantly opening his eyes, sat up and gazed meditatively at the mob of men and horses below.
"Hard as nails, those horses," he observed cheerfully, "do their thirty miles a day easy now; never so fit in their lives before."
"I don't know what you call fit, Graeme," was the moody answer, "they're all skin and bone. Worn out, that's what they are; look at the way they're standing."
"Only healthily tired, they'll be bucking after a night's rest. The men seem a bit sullen though, the brutes. What the dickens do they want, I wonder? ”

“ Straining his eyes downwards, he lay till the last patch of shadow clothing the valley below had melted away, when, with a sudden cry of exultation, Graeme flung his helmet into the air, and rolled over and over on the grass, laughing hysterically at what he had seen. In the centre of the valley, or, rather, horseshoe-shaped indentation in the mountains, stood a rough farmhouse, with a cluster of large cattle kraals close by, and around the house and filling the kraals were dark masses of horses. It was Van der Tann's commando beyond a doubt. ”

“ Tell her brother, not for a thousand worlds, though ten times a thousand would Stara have given to be able to say, "I'm going to marry him," instead of telling a lie—the first of many.
"There's nothing to tell you, Dick," she answered, looking away; "he's a friend, that's all. You know I have men friends without any thought of other things."
"I'm aware you have, though the poor devils themselves think differently, I should say. Never mind, old lady, you carry on and do what you like; it's no business of mine; and it's dull enough for you here, God knows, with only Polly and me." ”

“ Hector, obeying him, went, and riding fiercely away into the mountain flung himself down on the ground, where he lay, a prey to one of those secret wild fits of passion, the first he had given way to for four years—in his room at Fort Hussein.
Limp and white-faced, he returned to his quarters, to find Godwin awaiting him; and a long conversation followed, the first of many, for the long-nosed man had taken a liking to Graeme, one of those occasionally awakened—which are almost invariably strong and lasting—by the universally unpopular. ”

“ Birds are curious things; they like coming to the best shot; and that I am, here anyway. Gad, I don't believe I could miss to-day. Confess, Miss Caldwell, you don't often see such shooting as mine, now do you?"
Lucy frowned. She had been taught to look upon bragging of any sort as an impossible thing, and the remark jarred.
"Of course you're a good shot, Mr. Graeme," she said rather coldly; "but it's hardly necessary to proclaim the fact, is it? As for the birds coming to you, you may know better than I do. ”

“ For, though from a perished universe it comes, it is not gloom but passion it stirs in most human hearts, and in this alliance of Azrael and Eros can be read the great secret of the world—that death is but the passing to another birth, and, without love, birth cannot be.
It was not of the latter that Hector was thinking now, but of that something within him, revealed that afternoon—though but in a paltry game. ”

“ Sir Reginald was seen to raise his weapon, a dull boom echoed through the ravine, followed by a "Woof, woof," a commotion in the bushes, and then the silence of death. The bear was slain.
"Damn!" muttered Graeme, and was turning sharply away when a gasp from Lucy stopped him, and looking round he beheld another bear, which, having emerged unseen from below, was now hastily shuffling off. ”

“ Thus the dull, material being is as dull and brutish in his loves as he is in all else; the rare, steadfast nature, knowing no satiety, loves on till death; the ardent and imaginative invests his mistress with a halo of romantic fancies. And so, Hector loved Stara, with an exalted, passionate adoration, rendering him, for the time, ready and longing for any manifestation of self-sacrifice, and, as he truly believed, incapable of the very wrong to the accomplishment of which his whole present energies were nevertheless directed. ”

“ Hullo, there's Cyclops, I'll go and have a look at him." He walked away to where a native was standing holding a pony, a dun-coloured beast, rusty-coated and hideous. One of his eyes was gone, the result of a blow from the fork of a revengeful sais, whose arm Cyclops had playfully chawed; the other was small, and, as usual, vindictive-looking.
Not an engaging-looking mount for a steeplechase, it must be admitted, though the look of the brute appeared at the present moment to give satisfaction to Graeme, particularly the red eyeless socket, at which he attentively gazed. ”

“ Far away behind him, the solid walls and ramparts of Fort Hussein rose from the plain, a former Sikh stronghold, and now the temporary abode of her Majesty's 1st Regiment of Lancers.
Screening its mass, arose a thick haze of dust and smoke, through which now and again could be seen the faint twinkle of lance-point and sword-scabbard, and, the dust at times clearing, strings of mules and horses moving to and from a pond of muddy water. ”

“ Stara! we're here, your spirit and I come to say good-bye to the body they're burying to-morrow. It's only for a few minutes; I mustn't stay. They won't let me, Stara, for they say I killed you. But I know better than that, for your spirit has told me the truth, and I honour you for it and adore you, Stara. Wiser than all, you knew that love for a body must die, but love for the spirit lives for ever. ”

“ For the moment I seem to lose consciousness of my present self and become another, and that other always knows and tells me what to do. Then I sort of wake and do it. D'you think I'm mad, Miss Selbourne?"
"I think," said Stara slowly, looking at him, "you're going the right way to make yourself so. That other self you talk about is—call it the subconscious, if you like; and let that—and you're encouraging it to do so—gain the upper hand over the conscious, and madness results. I should stop it at once, Colonel Graeme; it's deadly dangerous." ”

“ Some two miles inland the square, white shape of a house could be seen nestling in a clump of trees, an unpretentious-looking place, despite its appellation of Hall—Cuddingfold Hall, to give it its full title—but solidly built and comfortable, nevertheless. This was the home of which Lucy had written to her husband, and here for the last four months she had been installed, living now in one room, now in another, for painters, paperers and their kind had been plying their respective trades, and life had been full of discomforts. ”

“ And then with a choked scream he fell forward, his face a red, featureless mask from the smash of the knobkerrie; a second time the club rose and fell, a dull crushing sound was heard, and Cornelius Van der Tann rolled sideways from his horse and fell on the ground dead.
"On, men, on," shouted Hector, "now's the time to drive it home," and he rushed on, waving the bloody knobkerrie as he went, "Ah!" and a shout of exultation burst from his lips, for again the horsemen had turned, and were galloping back to the farmhouse and kraals, where they lay for a while undisturbed. ”

“ It's played the devil with me, Miss Caldwell. I used to lie awake at night often and shriek with terror, and I'm not much better now at times. That's the way I was brought up, nobody to care twopence about me; and gradually I got not to care too, till now I think I hate everybody just as they do me."
"Oh, surely, not everybody," began Lucy, and then stopped suddenly. At something in her voice, Graeme turned and looked at her, a queer thrill of excitement running through him. He tried to see her face, but it was turned from him; the feeling of excitement grew, and his heart began to beat fast. ”

“ The fair valley of Kashmir lay drowsing in the August sunshine—a strip of green and gold nestling amid a waste of rocky mountains. All around rose the great hills, bare and sun-scorched for the most part towards the west and south—at which point enters the main road from India—but to the east draped with heavy mantles of fir and towering pine; far away, a glittering rampart of eternal snow and ice, the great mass of the Himalayas barred the way to the north, its jagged peaks and saw-like ridges fretting the deep cloudless blue of the sky. ”

“ For his own love for Stara was equally great, and yet indulgence in that love, so far from proving the incentive he had hoped, was fast suffocating ambition and rendering him a mere lotus-eater, content to idle away the hours on a God-forsaken African farm.
Gradually, fight against it, blind himself as he might, the bitter truth became known to Hector, that whereas passion denied, even vexed or hindered, is the greatest incentive to ambition man's nature can know, passion indulged without let or hindrance becomes inevitably its murderer. ”

“ He paused, and then again seizing her by the shoulders while the glow in his eyes became a leaping flame, went on: "We love each other, Stara, and love such as ours must be satisfied. What do conventions matter to you and me; leave them to the weak fools whose lives they trammel. Belong to me you shall, not, as you think, by paltry deceit, but openly, for the whole world to see. It's marriage I offer you, not dishonour."
Stara looked up at him bewildered.
"Are you mad, Hector, your wife?" ”