My father, the Maharajah, said so. I am not well now.' He turned imperiously to a favourite groom at the back of the carriage. 'Soor Singh'--he spoke in the vernacular--'what is it when I become without sense? I have forgotten the English.' The groom leaned forward.
'Heaven-born, I do not remember,' he said.
'Now I remember,' said the child suddenly. 'Mrs. Estes says it is fits. What are fits?'
Tarvin put his hand tenderly on the child's shoulder, but his eyes were following the dustcloud. 'Let us hope she'll cure them, anyway, young 'un, whatever they are. But who is she?'
'I do not know the name, but she will make me well. See! My father has sent a carriage to meet her.'
An empty barouche was drawn up by the side of the road as the rickety, straining mail-cart drew nearer, with frantic blasts upon a battered key-bugle.
'It's better than a bullock-cart anyway,' said Tarvin to himself, standing up in the carriage, for he was beginning to choke.
'Young man, don't you know who she is?' he asked huskily again.
'She was sent,' said the Maharaj Kunwar.
'Her name's Kate,' said Tarvin in his throat, 'and don't you forget it.' Then to himself in a contented whisper, 'Kate!'
The child waved his hand to his escort, who, dividing, lined either side of the road, with all the ragged bravery of irregular cavalry. The mail-carriage halted, and Kate, crumpled, dusty, dishevelled from her long journey, and red-eyed from lack of sleep, drew back the shutters of the palanquin-like carriage, and stepped dazed into the road. Her numbed limbs would have doubled under her, but Tarvin, leaping from the barouche, caught her to him, regardless of the escort and of the calm-eyed child in the golden drapery, who was shouting, 'Kate! Kate!'
'Run along home, bub,' said Tarvin. 'Well, Kate?'
But Kate had only her tears for him and a gasping 'You! You! You!'
IX
We meet in an evil land,
That is near to the gates of Hell--
I wait for thy command,
To serve, to speed, or withstand;
And thou sayest I do not well!
Oh, love, the flowers so red
Be only blossoms of flame,
The earth is full of the dead,
The new-killed, restless dead,
There is danger beneath and o'erhead;
And I guard at thy gates in fear
Of peril and jeopardy,
Of words thou canst not hear,
Of signs thou canst not see--
And thou sayest 't is ill that I came?
—In Shadowland.
Tears stood again in Kate's eyes as she uncoiled her hair before the mirror in the room Mrs. Estes had prepared against her coming--tears of vexation. It was an old story with her that the world wants nothing done for it, and visits with displeasure those who must prod up its lazy content. But in landing at Bombay she had supposed herself at the end of outside hindrances and obstacles; what was now to come would belong to the wholesome difficulties of real work. And here was Nick!
She had made the journey from Topaz in a long mood of exaltation. She was launched; it made her giddy and happy; like the boy's first taste of the life of men. She was free at last. No one could stop her. Nothing could keep her from the life to which she had promised herself. A little moment and she might stretch forth her hand and lay it fast upon her work. A few days and she should stoop eye to eye above the pain that had called to her across seas. In her dreams piteous hands of women were raised in prayer to her, and dry, sick palms were laid in hers. The steady urge of the ship was too slow for her; she counted the throbs of the screw. Standing far in the prow, with wind-blown hair, straining her eyes toward India, her spirit went longingly forth toward those to whom she was going; and her life seemed to release itself from her, and sped far, far over the waves, until it reached them and gave itself to them. For a moment, as she set foot on land, she trembled with a revulsion of feeling. She drew near her work; but was it for her? This old fear, which had gone doubtfully with her purpose from the beginning, she put behind her with a stern refusal to question there. She was for so much of her work as heaven would let her do; and she went forward with a new, strong, humble impulse of devotion filling and uplifting her.
It was in this mood that she stepped out of the coach at Rhatore into Tarvin's arms.
She did justice to the kindness that had brought him over all these leagues, but she heartily wished that he had not come. The existence of a man who loved her, and for whom she could do nothing, was a sad and troubling fact enough fourteen thousand miles away. Face to face with it, alone in India, it enlarged itself unbearably, and thrust itself between her and all her hopes of bringing serious help to others. Love literally did not seem to her the most important thing in the world at that moment, and something else did; but that didn't make Nick's trouble unimportant, or prevent it, while she braided her hair, from getting in the way of her thoughts.. On the morrow she was to enter upon the life which she meant should be a help to those whom it could reach, and here she was thinking of Nicholas Tarvin.
It was because she foresaw that she would keep on thinking of him that she wished him away. He was the tourist wandering about behind the devotee in the cathedral at prayers; he was the other thought. In his person he represented and symbolised the life she had left behind; much worse, he represented a pain she could not heal. It was not with the haunting figure of love attendant that one carried out large purposes. Nor was it with a divided mind that men conquered cities. The intent with which she was aflame needed all of her. She could not divide herself even with Nick. And yet it was good of him to come, and like him. She knew that he had not come merely in pursuit of a selfish hope; it was as he had said--he couldn't sleep nights, knowing what might befall her. That was really good of him.
Mrs. Estes had invited Tarvin to breakfast the day before, when Kate was not expected, but Tarvin was not the man to decline an invitation at the last moment on that account, and he faced Kate across the breakfast-table next morning with a smile which evoked an unwilling smile from her. In spite of a sleepless night she was looking very fresh and pretty in the white muslin frock which had replaced her travelling dress, and when he found himself alone with her after breakfast on the verandah (Mrs. Estes having gone to look after the morning affairs of a housekeeper, and Estes having betaken himself to his mission-school, inside the city walls), he began to make her his compliments upon the cool white, unknown to the West. But Kate stopped him.
'Nick,' she said, facing him, 'will you do something for me?'
Seeing her much in earnest, Tarvin attempted the parry humorous; but she broke in----
'No; it is something I want very much, Nick. Will you do it for me?'
'Is there anything I wouldn't do for you?' he asked seriously.
'I don't know; this, perhaps. But you must do it.'
'What is it?'
'Go away.'
He shook his head.
'But you must.'
'Listen, Kate,' said Tarvin, thrusting his hands deep into the big pockets of his white coat; 'I can't. You don't know the place you've come to. Ask me the same question a week hence. I won't agree to go. But I'll agree to talk it over with you then.'
'I know now everything that counts,' she answered. 'I want to do what I've come here for. I shan't be able to do it if you stay. You understand, don't you, Nick? Nothing can change that.'
'Yes, it can. I can. I'll behave.'
'You