"But that means your travelling alone," he argued. "Wouldn't it be much pleasanter for you to come with me?"
"Don't worry about me for goodness' sake, Frank. I'm not a helpless person. I came across India by myself to get here; and surely I'll be able to manage to do a twenty-four hours' journey alone."
"Very well, dear," he replied with an inward, unacknowledged feeling of relief that the decisive step had not to be taken yet. "I'll come down from Ranga Duar with an elephant to meet you at the railway station when you arrive. Now, while you're changing for breakfast, I'll rush round to the Oriental and see if Mrs. Dermot has more news."
When he reached the hotel he found Noreen busily packing. She was pale and evidently deeply distressed, although outwardly calm and collected.
"You have heard?" she asked, as he entered her sitting-room.
"Only that your husband is starting for England on sick leave and that I'm to return at once. What's the matter? I hope it's not serious."
"Mr. Macdonald wires that Kevin must go at once to England for an operation. He says I'm not to worry, as there is no immediate danger. But of course I can't help being alarmed. It's all so sudden. I didn't know that Kevin was ill. Mr. Macdonald is travelling with him to the junction on the main line where the children and I are to meet them. Isn't it kind of him? I'm so glad to know my husband will have someone with him until I come."
"We'll meet at the railway station after lunch, then," said Wargrave. "We'll be together as far as the junction."
Noreen made no comment; and having learned all that he could he returned to his hotel.
He dreaded the ordeal of the parting with Mrs. Norton, but when the time came for it he found his fear of a distressing scene quite uncalled for. She said goodbye to him in a pleasantly friendly, though somewhat casual, manner, and did not offer to accompany him to the station as she had a previous engagement. And long before the little train had zig-zagged down the seven thousand feet to the foot of the Himalayas she had dismissed him from her mind.
The truth was that the gay and admired Mrs. Norton, caught up in the whirlwind of social amusement in a lively hill-station, was not the woman who passed weary days of _ennui_ in the company of a dull and unattractive husband in a small, dead-and-alive station. Nor was the dejected man who so plainly showed that he was pining for someone else the good-looking, heart-whole subaltern who had fascinated her in the boredom of existence in Rohar. Was he worth incurring social damnation for? Would his companionship--for she knew that she had not his love--make up for a life of loneliness, debt and poverty in a frontier outpost? If she were resolved on giving up her present assured position--and Violet felt that existence with Norton would be more than ever unendurable after the exciting pleasures of Poona and Darjeeling--would it not be wiser to do so for someone who could amply compensate her for the sacrifice? Love in a cottage--or its Indian equivalent, a subaltern's comfortless bungalow--did not appeal to her. Her statement that she had written to tell her husband that she was leaving for Wargrave was false. It had served the purpose for which it was made, and that was the defeat of her rival. So now, content with her victory, she put all burdensome thought from her and dined, danced and flirted to her heart's content in the gaieties of the Darjeeling Season.