“You—­comfort me, Hanani,” she said after a moment.  “I don’t think I am really grieving for the baba yet.  That will come after.  I know that—­as you say—­he is at peace, and I would not call him back.  But—­Hanani—­that is not all.  It is not even the half or the beginning of my trouble.  The loss of my baba I can bear—­I could bear—­bravely.  But the loss of—­of—­” Words failed her unexpectedly.  She bowed her head again upon her arms and wept the bitter tears of despair.

Hanani the ayah sat very still by her side, her brown, bony hands tightly gripped about her knees, her veiled head bent slightly forward as though she watched for someone in the dimness of the broken archway.

At last very, very slowly she spoke.

“Mem-sahib, even in the desert the sun rises.  There is always comfort for those who go forward—­even though they mourn.”

“Not for me,” sobbed Stella.  “Not for those—­who part—­in bitterness—­and never—­meet again!”

“Never, mem-sahib?” Hanani yet gazed straight before her.  Suddenly she made a movement as if to rise, but checked herself as one reminded by exertion of physical infirmity.  “The mem-sahib weeps for her lord,” she said.  “How shall Hanani comfort her?  Yet never is a cruel word.  May it not be that he will—­even now—­return?”

“He is dead,” whispered Stella.

“Not so, mem-sahib.”  Very gently Hanani corrected her.  “The captain sahib lives.”

“He—­lives?” Stella started upright with the words.  In the gloom her eyes shone with a sudden feverish light; but it very swiftly died.  “Ah, don’t torture me, Hanani!” she said.  “You mean well, but—­it doesn’t help.”

“Hanani speaks the truth,” protested the old ayah, and behind the enveloping veil came an answering gleam as if she smiled.  “My lord the captain sahib spoke with Hafiz this very night.  Hafiz will tell the mem-sahib.”

But Stella shook her head in hopeless unbelief.  “I don’t trust Hafiz,” she said wearily.

“Yet Hafiz would not lie to old Hanani,” insisted the ayah in that soft, insinuating whisper of hers.

Stella reached out a trembling hand and laid it upon her shoulder.  “Listen, Hanani!” she said.  “I have never seen your face, yet I know you for a friend.”

“Ask not to see it, mem-sahib,” swiftly interposed the ayah, “lest you turn with loathing from one who loves you!”

Stella smiled, a quivering, piteous smile.  “I should never do that, Hanani,” she said.  “But I do not need to see it.  I know you love me.  But do not—­out of your love for me—­tell me a lie!  It is false comfort.  It cannot help me.”

“But I have not lied, mem-sahib.”  There was earnest assurance in Hanani’s voice—­such assurance as could not be disregarded.  “I have told you the truth.  The captain sahib is not dead.  It was a false report.”