Fortunately for him the pukka European has not been endowed with the gift of hearing himself speak as others hear him.

Like the broken flight of maimed birds over a lawn in the process of being mown is the Eurasian speech and intonation; with the inevitable dip in the middle, the rise at the end of each sentence, and the ceaseless clipping of syllables.

And Leonie frowned as she lay under the mosquito netting awaiting the warning of the dressing bell, and even felt thankful to a crow which suddenly perched itself on the top twig of a fir tree, and shrieked its condemnation of the sunset, the star just above its head, and the chatterers in the chairs.

In an effort to break through the overpowering lethargy which lately had fallen upon her at odd moments of the day, she lifted herself on to her elbow, only to sink listlessly back on the very hard bed.  After all, why worry over problems to which there seemed no answer?  Why fret over the silence of the man she loved when she had curtly refused his offer of companionship; for there always comes a time when mere man, subjected to the unsatisfactory daily menu of snubs and refusals, tense moods, and moody silences, will refuse it, and clear for a diet, which, although somewhat lacking in salt and spice, will have the advantage of being substantial, therefore satisfying.

Also there was no doubt about it the social ostracism of Calcutta had followed her to Benares; she had not failed to notice that the people packing the hotel looked at her furtively, smiling spasmodically when caught in the act, and seemed ill at ease when left alone with her.

Another thing which annoyed her intensely was the habit she had developed of peering into the shadows of the compound at odd moments, and listening for a sound she could not even describe to herself, and which she never heard; while through the blazing hours of the day, and the stifling hours of the night, like a black thread woven into a tissue of gold, ran the ghastly fear which had been with her since the day when a schoolgirl had taunted her, and to which she had given voice near the poinsettia bush to Jan Cuxson.

She had done Benares en tourist.

She had watched the worshippers thronging the Praying Steps at dawn from the deck of a boat rowed slowly up and down the holy river; had enticed the monkeys with gram from the niches in the Doorga Kond, the world-famed Monkey Temple; gazed fascinated and with reverence at the firing of the pyres about the dead bodies shrouded in white or red according to their sex upon the Burning Ghats; averted her eyes steadfastly from the bloated bodies in process of being torn to pieces by crows or vultures as they floated on the soft bosom of Mother Ganges to everlasting peace; and had passed restful hours in the wonderful ruins of the Buddhist temple some miles outside the city.

She had done all that others have done and will do, and still she waited, doing absolutely nothing and with no excuse for loitering in the hotel with its long broad verandah; learning much of the city’s history from the charming manager who walks with a stick, and has the blue-green-brown shadow of the peat bog in his eyes.