“ Not squalidly, not in misery and decay and ugliness, but in beauty. That is the goal of life."
"I don't understand, Sigrid. And I can't believe it all. I can't. Never to wait for you in the wings—never to hear men shout for you—and see the women crying for love of you. Never to hear you silence them all so that they don't even seem to breathe. Lawks a-mercy, when I think of that there waltz—Chopin, wasn't it—the tune runs in my head now—I can see the faces in the front row, white as death, Sigrid, as though they had seen——"
Her voice cracked. Sigrid Fersen turned away from her. ”

“ The desolation of rain and grey, lightless sky pressed down upon him like a stupefying burden. He went on thinking of Anne, wondering dully how it was he knew so well that he would never see her again. He thought of Tristram and pitied him. In that hour he forgot creed and principle. He saw, perhaps for the first time, humanity as one in suffering.
Two beggars slunk through the mud towards him. They were almost naked. The water ran in streams off their glistening brown skins and matted their beards into black masks. They came up, one to Meredith, one to the Rajah, whining for alms. ”

“ Vahana bowed his head in assent.
"I have told you the truth," Barclay went on. "The best and the worst. I have risked life to tell it you. I knew what might await me here—a knife in the dark perhaps without a word spoken—and yet I had to come. Life can be more bitter than death. A man cannot live alone as I have done—there comes a time when his soul cries for his people."
They looked at him silently, without pity. The agony in his hoarse voice did not touch them. For them also he was the Pariah—the outcaste. He read their answer in their eyes and turned back to Ayeshi with a burst of passion. ”

“ He lay so still that a golden lizard flashed out from the long grass and lingered almost at his elbow and a water-hen gliding down on to the breast of the water preened herself in complacent security.
The patch of sunlight moved on. It left the lotus-flower in an emerald shadow, and rested like a bright, watchful eye on a patch of flaming poppies on the farther bank. The silence deepened. Even the gentle parting of the undergrowth behind the spot where Tristram slept brought no sound. With a noiseless strength the lean hands of Vahana, the Sadhu, pressed back the opposing branches. ”

“ Tristram dragged himself to his feet. Out of the deepening blackness of things, an instinct asserted itself dimly.
"Help—we've got to get help—somehow——"
He said it aloud. It seemed to him that it had been shouted by the invisible monitor at his side. He stumbled over the prostrate figure lying so simple and still in the dust, reeling back from it, his face turned from Gaya. Then he began to walk. He walked long after the blackness had become impenetrable. He was no more than the one instinct, tragically dominant over the body which had betrayed him. His body was dead. ”

“ The headman had been swept away in the last epidemic. Ayeshi was gone. He would never sit again by the red firelight and listen to the story of the Rani Kurnavati. He would never lie and stare up through the fret-work of peepul leaves and dream his boyish dreams of her. Gone—all gone.
He walked on rapidly. He had no consciousness of distance or any purpose—only a desire to be always moving. But at last a sound broke through to him—the dull, menacing roar of unseen water sliding past him into the darkness. He knew then that he had reached the limit of his respite. The menace was for him. ”

“ Ayeshi shivered a little, and his slender, dark hands resting on the carved wooden bed, tightened their grasp.
"Mem-Sahib!" he said, softly.
"Yes, Ayeshi?"
"Mem-Sahib—I have seen so many die of late. Death at its best is sleep. The Sahib sleeps deeply. Perhaps it is the will of his God that death should come to him now that he has given so much for those he loves. Is there not a saying in your Book, Mem-Sahib—-'Greater love hath no man than this, that he layeth down his life for his friend'?"
Sigrid Fersen lifted her head.
"Yes," she answered steadily.
"Meredith Sahib taught it me. ”

“ His mouth under the short ruddy moustache hardened.
"I am going back to find them."
"That's well—go back, Tristram. They may be all that are left any of us at the end. Our dreams are real—reality is nothing. See—!" She laid her hand on her breast with a curious gesture of self-accusation. "I am all your wife would call me—just a mean, soulless fortune-hunter. You've found me out. There is not one fine or noble or high thing in me—and yet your vision of the woman who danced that night, who has played to you the finest music in the world is no illusion, but the truth. ”

“ No hand was raised against her. Ayeshi and his followers watched her in motionless, superstitious silence. Even Barclay felt himself incapable of action. It was as though the apparition had for them a deeper, as yet unread significance.
With a low growl, not of anger but of fear, the beautiful animal trotted with long, loping strides between Ayeshi and the herded crowd of tensely watching natives. No sound was uttered until the lean, striped body had vanished. Then a cry went up—at first isolated—then swelling to a shout:
"An omen—an omen!"
"Vishnu has spoken!"
"The gods are against us!" ”

“ Sheer futility lamed all movement, all expression of what they felt. It was as though a frail, beautiful ship had broken from its moorings in a great tempest and they stood there and watched it drift out seawards beyond the reach of their voices, of their help or pity.
Only Mrs. Bosanquet cried openly—the tears rolling down her fat cheeks.
Sigrid went out through the silence. She found Barclay already in the driving seat of his dog-cart and without a word clambered up beside him. He glanced at her and brought the whip down savagely across the horse's head. The animal did not need the blow. ”

“ And he struck like a madman, blow after blow, slaking his thirst for vengeance, making with each stroke a fresh breach in the wall behind which men imprison their infamous insanities. And sometimes the dog whined and sometimes, like a human being, set its teeth in stoic fortitude, and sometimes, as the pliant stick fell across its body, screamed uncontrollably.
It was one such scream that Tristram heard as he rode up from the plain towards Gaya. He hung in the saddle like a man whose backbone has been snapped, and the reins trailed from Arabella's weary neck. ”

“ Anne heard the last words and smiled bitterly to herself. She went out on to the verandah and stood there looking down into the sunlit garden with eyes that were blind with misery and anger and contempt. In that quiet room, listening to the doctor's pleasantly modulated voice, she had been through purgatory. She knew that the ways of God were inscrutable—it was the all-covering explanation of her creed—but they were sometimes hard to tread. Why had He given a bad woman the power to save the life of a good man? Why had He allowed Evil to creep in and take possession of peaceful Gaya? ”

“ Then Gaya had begun to whisper, and those whisperings had been more than she could bear. She had meant only to seek the truth—instead she had poured out her overladen heart to the woman she most hated.
Sigrid got up slowly and went to the verandah. She stood for a minute with her raised hand resting on the lintel, gazing out into the rain-soaked gardens. The moist air was full of fragrance and reviving life. When she turned at last there was a splash of colour in her pale cheeks.
"Mrs. Tristram, send for your husband—go to him. He is the sort of man who doesn't need to forgive." ”

“ Then came the crunch of sugar and the sound of Arabella's affectionate nozzling in the region of coat pockets. The Dakktar swung himself on to her lengthy back. "Now, then, Ayeshi; now then, Wickie!"
The three strange companions trotted out of the shadow, threading their way through the long, coarse grass in the direction of the river; but once the Englishman turned in his saddle and looked back. By some atmospheric freak, the temple seemed to have drawn all the green phosphorescent haze into its ruined self and hung like a great, dimly lit lamp against the wall of jungle. ”

“ He fought against her, against the light which he saw gathering in her eyes—against himself.
"It's a hideous impossibility."
"The hideousness isn't ours. It isn't impossible."
"Decide—can't you?" Barclay flung at them.
Tristram turned to him with a gesture of immeasurable contempt.
"So you betray all your masters?" he said.
"I am the son of a betrayal," Barclay retorted, smiling bitterly. "Has that ever troubled you? Why trouble yourself now about me?"
Sigrid's eyes avoided Tristram's face. The grey horror of it shook her.
"It's as Mr. Barclay says—we've only got to consider our own actions." ”

“ His mind foresaw each mile, each obstacle. If it could be done, Arabella would do it. No thoroughbred had her pluck and stamina. But it would be a close finish. Night was coming on. It would be dark within an hour. He would have to rely on his instinct to guide him. The lights of Gaya would not carry half a mile through the rain which fell in a finely woven curtain from the loaded sky.
He had ceased to question Barclay's action or Ayeshi's curious acquiescence. Possibly they had not meant him to escape—possibly they had relied on his coming too late or on the futility of his warning. ”

“ Ayeshi did not move or speak. One of the two priests crept closer, avoiding Barclay's shadow.
"What can you do for us?" he whispered.
"You know very well, O Heera Singh! The drought is on us. The crops will fail. Is there a man in your village who does not owe all that he has to me? What if I make our Lord Ayeshi their deliverer—if he should free them from me? And I have money. Is all that nothing?"
The priest was silent, fingering his sacred cord with eager fingers. But Ayeshi knelt down and looked full into the Eurasian's face. ”

“ Ayeshi, he knew, had found Boucicault and Wickie's body, and probably had buried the latter out of sight. He had shielded Tristram. Probably, too, he now sweated in the Calcutta University with bitter thoughts of a man who had prated so much of life and half-killed a fellow-creature for the sake of a dog. The idea did not hurt Tristram. He ached for the comradeship of the mysterious, romantic boy, but he had no sentimental reverence for himself. He had never realized that he had ever been so much as an ideal—idealizing in his own life too ardently to consider himself at all. ”

“ Men are just like babies in a crisis—always fussing about the unessentials. Of course, Major Tristram must stay—at any rate, until he is out of danger. And, Sigrid, as a sop to a hopeless passion, let me help nurse him."
"We'll pull him through together," Sigrid answered.
"Mr. Meredith, don't you think with Mrs. Compton and Mrs. Smithers on guard, the situation should pass muster?"
He shrugged his broad shoulders. He was looking at Anne—Anne whose white, tear-stained face peered out of the shadow like a pitiful, frightened ghost's, and somehow the sight filled him with a cold anger. ”