“You have done wonders for my wife,” Will said one day to Muriel.  And though she disclaimed all credit, she could not fail to see a very marked improvement.

She herself was feeling unaccountably happy in those days, as though somewhere deep down in her heart a bird had begun to sing.  Again and again she told herself that she had no cause for gladness; but again and yet again that sweet, elusive music filled her soul.

She would have gladly stayed on with Daisy, seeing how the latter clung to her, for an indefinite period; but this was not to be.

Daisy came out on to the verandah one morning with a letter in her hand.

“My dear,” she said, “I regret to say that, I must part with you.  I have had a most touching epistle from Lady Bassett, describing at length your many wasted opportunities, and urging me to return you to the fold with all speed.  It seems there is to be a State Ball at the palace—­an immense affair to which the Rajah is inviting all the big guns for miles around—­and Lady Bassett thinks that her dear child ought not to miss such a gorgeous occasion.  She seems to think that something of importance depends upon it, and hints that I should be almost criminally selfish to deprive you of such a treat as this will be.”

Muriel lifted a flushed face from a letter of her own.  “I have heard from Sir Reginald,” she said.  “Evidently she has made him write.  I can’t think why, for she never wants me when I am with her.  I don’t see why I should go, do you?  After all, I am of age and independent.”

A very tender smile touched Daisy’s lips.  “I think you had better go, darling,” she said.

Muriel opened her eyes wide.  “But why—­”

Daisy checked the question half uttered.  “I think it will be better for you.  I never meant to let you stay till the rains, so it makes little more than a week’s difference.  It sounds as if I want to be rid of you, doesn’t it?  But you know it isn’t that.  I shall miss you horribly, but you have done what you came to do, and I shall get on all right now.  So I am not going to keep you with me any longer.  My reasons are not Lady Bassett’s reasons, but all the same it would be selfish of me to let you stay.  Later on perhaps—­in the winter—­you will come and make a long stay; spend Christmas with us, and we will have some real fun, shall we, Will?” turning to her husband who had just appeared.

He stared for an instant as if he thought he had not heard aright, and there was to Muriel something infinitely pathetic in the way his brown hand touched his wife’s shoulder as he passed her and made reply.

“Oh, rather!” he said.  “We’ll have a regular jollification with as many old friends as we can collect.  Don’t forget, Miss Roscoe!  You are booked first and foremost, and we shall keep you to it, Daisy and I.”

Two days later Muriel was on her way back to Ghawalkhand.  She found the heat of the journey almost insupportable.  The Plains lay under a burning pall of cloud, and at night the rolling thunder was incessant.  But no rain fell to ease the smothering oppression of the atmosphere.