“I’ll try, dear,” she said.  “But I think the less I see of him the better it will be.  Are you quite sure of winning the Cup?”

“Oh, quite,” said Ronnie, with confidence.  “Quite.  Do you remember the races we used to have when we were kids?  We rode barebacked in those days.  You could stick on anything.  Remember?”

Yes, Hope remembered; and a sudden, almost fierce regret surged up within her.

“Oh, Ronnie,” she said, “I wish we were kids still!”

He laughed at her softly, and rose.

“I know better,” he said; “and so does Baring.  Good-night, old girl!  Sleep well!”

And with that he left her.  But Hope scarcely slept till break of day.

VIII

BEFORE THE RACE

Hope had arranged to go to the races with Mrs. Latimer after previously lunching with her.

When the day arrived she spent the morning working on the veranda in the sunshine.  It was a perfect day of Indian winter, and under its influence she gradually forgot her anxieties, and fell to dreaming while she worked.

Down below the compound she heard the stream running swiftly between its banks, with a bubbling murmur like half-suppressed laughter.  It was fuller than she had ever known it.  The rains had swelled the river higher up the valley, and they had opened the sluice-gates to relieve the pressure upon the dam that had been built there after the disastrous flood that had drowned the English girl years before.

Hope loved to hear that soft chuckling between the reeds.  It made her think of an English springtime.  The joy of spring was in her veins.  She turned her face to the sunshine with a smile of purest happiness.  Only two months more to the zenith of her happiness!

There came the sound of a step on the veranda—­a stumbling, uncertain step.  She turned swiftly in her chair, and sprang up.  Ronnie had returned to prepare for the race, and she had not heard him.  She had not seen him before that day, and she felt a momentary compunction as she moved to greet him.  And then—­her heart stood still.

He was standing a few paces away, supporting himself against a pillar of the veranda.  His eyes were fixed and heavy, like the eyes of a man walking in his sleep.  He stared at her dully, as if he were looking at a complete stranger.

Hope stopped short, gazing at him in speechless consternation.

After several moments he spoke thickly, scarcely intelligibly.

“I can’t race to-day,” he said.  “Not well enough.  Hyde must find a substitute.”

He could hardly articulate the last word, but Hope caught his meaning.  The whole miserable tragedy was written up before her in plain, unmistakable characters.

But almost as quickly as she perceived it came the thought that no one else must know.  Something must be done, even though it was at the eleventh hour.