“No, let us stay here,” she said, and passing her arm through his she stared for a few moments with a singular intentness into the darkness of the garden.

“Did you see anything?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, and he felt the tension of her body relax.  “No, there’s nothing.  And since you have come back, Dick, I am no longer afraid.”  She looked up at him with a smile, and tightened her clasp upon his arm with a pretty air of ownership.  “My Dick!” she said, and laughed.

The door-handle rattled, and Violet proved that she had lost her fear.

“That’s Miss Ralston,” she said.  “Let us go out,” and she slipped out of the window quickly.  As quickly Linforth followed her.  She was waiting for him in the darkness.

“Dick,” she said in a whisper, and she caught him close to her.

“Violet.”

He looked up to the dark, clear, starlit sky and down to the sweet and gentle face held up towards his.  That night and in this Indian garden, it seemed to him that his faith was proven and made good.  With the sense of failure heavy upon his soul, he yet found here a woman whose trust was not diminished by any failure, who still looked to him with confidence and drew comfort and strength from his presence, even as he did from hers.  Alone in the drawing-room she had been afraid; outside here in the garden she had no fear, and no room in her mind for any thought of fear.

“When you spoke about your window to-night, Violet,” he said gently, “although I was alarmed for you, although I was troubled that you should have cause for alarm—­”

“I saw that,” said Violet with a smile.

“Yet I never spoke.”

“Your eyes, your face spoke.  Oh, my dear, I watch you,” and she drew in a breath.  “I am a little afraid of you.”  She did not laugh.  There was nothing provocative in her accent.  She spoke with simplicity and truth, now as often, what was set down to her for a coquetry by those who disliked her.  Linforth was in no doubt, however.  Mistake her as he did, he judged her in this respect more truly than the worldly-wise.  She had at the bottom of her heart a great fear of her lover, a fear that she might lose him, a fear that he might hold her in scorn, if he knew her only half as well as she knew herself.

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he said, quietly.  “There is no reason for it.”

“You are hard to others if they come in your way,” she replied, and Linforth stopped.  Yes, that was true.  There was his mother in the house under the Sussex Downs.  He had got his way.  He was on the Frontier.  The Road now would surely go on.  It would be a strange thing if he did not manage to get some portion of that work entrusted to his hands.  He had got his way, but he had been hard, undoubtedly.

“It is quite true,” he answered.  “But I have had my lesson.  You need not fear that I shall be anything but very gentle towards you.”