Scott could walk dizzily by the time Hawkins’s inspection vas ended, and he flushed all over when Jim said of his work in the district that it was ‘not half bad,’ and volunteered, further, that he had considered Scott his right-hand man through the famine, and would feel it his duty to say as much officially.

So they came back by rail to the old camp; but there were no crowds near it, the long fires in the trenches were dead and black, and the famine-sheds stood almost empty.

‘You see!’ said Jim.  ’There isn’t much more for us to do.  Better ride up and see the wife.  They’ve pitched a tent for you.  Dinner’s at seven.  I’ll see you then.’

Riding at a foot-pace, Faiz Ullah by his stirrup, Scott came to William in the brown-calico riding-habit, sitting at the dining-tent door, her hands in her lap, white as ashes, thin and worn, with no lustre in her hair.  There did not seem to be any Mrs. Jim on the horizon, and all that William could say was:  ’My word, how pulled down you look!’

‘I’ve had a touch of fever.  You don’t look very well yourself.’

‘Oh, I’m fit enough.  We’ve stamped it out.  I suppose you know?’

Scott nodded.  ’We shall all be returned in a few weeks.  Hawkins told me.’

’Before Christmas, Mrs. Jim says.  Sha’n’t you be glad to go back?  I can smell the wood-smoke already’; William sniffed.  ’We shall be in time for all the Christmas doings.  I don’t suppose even the Punjab Government would be base enough to transfer Jack till the new year?’

’It seems hundreds of years ago—­the Punjab and all that—­doesn’t it?  Are you glad you came?’

’Now it’s all over, yes.  It has been ghastly here.  You know we had to sit still and do nothing, and Sir Jim was away so much.’

‘Do nothing!  How did you get on with the milking?’

‘I managed it somehow—­after you taught me.’

Then the talk stopped with an almost audible jar.  Still no Mrs. Jim.

’That reminds me I owe you fifty rupees for the condensed milk.  I thought perhaps you’d be coming here when you were transferred to the Khanda district, and I could pay you then; but you didn’t.’

’I passed within five miles of the camp.  It was in the middle of a march, you see, and the carts were breaking down every few minutes, and I couldn’t get ’em over the ground till ten o’clock that night.  But I wanted to come awfully.  You knew I did, didn’t you?’

‘I—­believe—­I—­did,’ said William, facing him with level eyes.  She was no longer white.

‘Did you understand?’

‘Why you didn’t ride in?  Of course I did,’

‘Why?’

‘Because you couldn’t of course.  I knew that.’

‘Did you care?’

’If you had come in—­but I knew you wouldn’t—­but if you had, I should have cared a great deal.  You know I should.’

’Thank God I didn’t!  Oh, but I wanted to!  I couldn’t trust myself to ride in front of the carts, because I kept edging ’em over here, don’t you know?’