"
"But what has happened to him?" Muriel did not know how she uttered
the words; they seemed to come without her own volition. She was
conscious of a choking sensation within her as though iron bands
were tightening about her heart. It beat in leaps and bounds like a
tortured thing striving to escape. But through it all she sat quite
motionless, her eyes fixed upon Lady Bassett's face, noting its faint,
wry smile, as the eyes of a prisoner on the rack might note the grim
lines on the face of the torturer.
"My dear," Lady Bassett said, "he has gone into a Buddhist monastery
in Tibet."
Calmly the words fell through smiling lips. Only words! Only words!
But with how deadly a thrust they pierced the heart of the woman
who heard them none but herself would ever know. She gave no sign of
suffering. She only stared wide-eyed before her as an image, devoid of
expression, inanimate, sphinx-like, while that awful constriction grew
straiter round her heart.
Lady Bassett was already turning to go when the deep voice arrested
her.
"Who told you this?"
She looked back, holding the open door. "I scarcely know who first
mentioned it. I have heard it from so many people,--in fact the news
is general property--Captain Gresham of the Guides told me for one. He
has just gone back to Peshawur.
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