I shall miss you
horribly, but you have done what you came to do, and I shall get on
all right now. So I am not going to keep you with me any longer. My
reasons are not Lady Bassett's reasons, but all the same it would be
selfish of me to let you stay. Later on perhaps--in the winter--you
will come and make a long stay; spend Christmas with us, and we will
have some real fun, shall we, Will?" turning to her husband who had
just appeared.
He stared for an instant as if he thought he had not heard aright, and
there was to Muriel something infinitely pathetic in the way his brown
hand touched his wife's shoulder as he passed her and made reply.
"Oh, rather!" he said. "We'll have a regular jollification with as
many old friends as we can collect. Don't forget, Miss Roscoe! You are
booked first and foremost, and we shall keep you to it, Daisy and I."
Two days later Muriel was on her way back to Ghawalkhand. She found
the heat of the journey almost insupportable. The Plains lay under a
burning pall of cloud, and at night the rolling thunder was incessant.
But no rain fell to ease the smothering oppression of the atmosphere.
She almost fainted one evening, but Will was with her and she never
forgot his kindly ministrations.
A few hours' journey from Ghawalkhand Sir Reginald himself met her,
and here she parted with Will with renewed promises of a future
meeting towards the end of the year.
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