"A doctor must be summoned," he exclaimed; "qui hi--hollo, there, Chuttur Sing!"
"Oh, no, Cecil, dearest," said she, with something between a sob and a hysterical laugh; "it is only the heat that affects me--and the thunder," she added, as a peal went hustling through the sultry air overhead.
A storm came on; the rain fell in torrents, and Clare, while in the act of selecting the garments and necessaries she would have to take with her, and while carefully selecting and putting aside, for some _other_ and worthier wife, it might be, the few jewels her husband's moderate means had enabled him to give her (Delhi bracelets of champac-work, and so forth), actually began to hope that, if the tempest of falling rain continued, the very flight for which she was preparing might be arrested, ere it was too late, and thus that her sore temptation might pass away!
The innocent words, the tender anxiety and trusting goodness of the man she was about to abandon and deceive, and the knowledge, that in time to come, there would be an amount of grief, shame, and sorrow for her, that would be known in its degree but to God and himself, wrung her heart, and filled her eyes with hot and blinding tears.
But the storm passed; the thunder died away beyond the hills that look down on the Jumna; the rain cooled the atmosphere, and the arid soil around the sun-baked cantonment soon absorbed it, to the last huge, warm drop that had fallen; and Clare knew that her lover would be truly, tenderly, and inexorably awaiting her at the old tomb, when the time of their fatal tryst came.
The cantonment ghuries--little gongs that hung near the guard-house doors--clanged the hours in succession, and in one more Clare knew that the sun would set. She was alone, for her husband was away, attending some sick beds; when he returned, she knew that her place would be vacant, and that she could never look upon his grave, earnest, and handsome face again. She sunk on her knees beside her bed, buried her face in her cold hands, and while she shivered in the agony of her conflicting thoughts, she prayed for strength to avoid her temptation, or that she might die in her mingled remorse and yearning love.
But her prayer was unheard: the hour came, and saw her, with a little travelling bag in her hand, stealing like a culprit from her husband's home, and taking the most unfrequented path to the tomb of Abu Mirza, the tiny white marble dome of which was glistening in the last rays of the sun above the golden bloom of the baubool trees. The brain of Clare seemed to reel; her temples felt on fire; all within her soul and around her seemed a mass of chaos, she could arrange, disentangle nothing; and almost in despair gave up the attempt to do so; but not the fatal design of meeting her former lover; for the die was cast!