Had she not been as
honest as the day, she would have prayed for her own soul too. I waited to
hear her do this, but she did not. Then I tried to get some of the mud off her
habit. Lastly, the 'rickshaw came, and I got her away--partly by force. It was
a terrible business from beginning to end; but most of all when the 'rickshaw
had to squeeze between the wall and the tonga, and she saw by the lamp-light
that thin, yellow hand grasping the awning-stanchion.
She was taken home just as every one was going to a dance at Viceregal Lodge--
"Peterhoff" it was then--and the doctor found that she had fallen from her
horse, that I had picked her up at the back of Jakko, and really deserved
great credit for the prompt manner in which I had secured medical aid. She did
not die--men of Schreiderling's stamp marry women who don't die easily. They
live and grow ugly.
She never told of her one meeting, since her marriage, with the Other Man;
and, when the chill and cough following the exposure of that evening, allowed
her abroad, she never by word or sign alluded to having met me by the Tonga
Office. Perhaps she never knew.
She used to trot up and down the Mall, on that shocking bad saddle, looking as
if she expected to meet some one round the corner every minute.
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