These visitors, friends of former days, were social derelicts, who had, so to speak, “gone ashore” in Rangoon.  One was chained to Burma by dire poverty and a drunken husband; the other, who had been a wealthy woman of considerable local importance, was now a childless widow, supporting herself with difficulty by means of a second-rate boarding-house.  To these old friends, and in many other cases, Mrs. Krauss had proved a generous and tactful helper.  Both visitors were wearing costumes which had been worn and admired at “Heidelberg” and were still fairly presentable.

After a stay of an hour the ladies withdrew, leaving their hostess well entertained but completely exhausted.  Then they hastily sought out Sophy in order to express to her, in private, their horror at the terrible change in her aunt.

“Her spirit is there all right,” said Mrs. Dowler (who had a hundred-rupee note in her glove), “but oh, my dear Miss Leigh, how she’s wasted!  I felt like crying all the time I was sitting with her.”

“Yes, she should see a doctor, and that this very day,” added Mrs. Vansittart.

“Oh, but you know Aunt Flora,” protested Sophy; “she cannot bear doctors, and Lily, her ayah, knows pretty well what to do.”

“Tell me, Miss Leigh, what is the real truth about your aunt’s illness?” said Mrs. Dowler, suddenly dropping her voice to a mysterious whisper.  “It has been so long and so tedious—­off and on for at least three years.  She has been worse the last four months, and indeed ever since you went up to May Myo.  It is not a malignant growth, please God?”

“Oh, no, nothing of that sort; just weakness and this relaxing climate.”

“She should have returned home years ago,” said Mrs. Vansittart; “and when she does go—­oh, it will be a bad day and a sad day for me and many others, not to speak of all the animals she has befriended.  She is wonderfully sympathetic to dumb creatures and indeed to everybody.”

“That’s true,” echoed her companion, “no one knows of your aunt’s good deeds and charities, not even her own servants, and that is saying everything.  Her hand has raised many an unfortunate out of the dust.”

Thus whispering, advising and hoping and bemoaning, the two ladies were conducted by Sophy to their jointly-hired ticka gharry, and were presently rattled away.

Sophy, too, had her own particular visitors, Mabel Pomeroy, Mrs. Gregory and Fuchsia—­Fuchsia, almost daily.  To her it seemed that Sophy’s confidences were frozen; she rarely mentioned her aunt, and gave evasive answers to her friend’s probing inquiries.  At last the brave American spoke out: 

“You are frightfully changed, my Sophy girl—­changed in a month.  You have become so dull and absent-minded, and have lost all your pretty colour.  Of course, I know the reason, but you can do no good—­no, not a scrap.  You had much better have gone home when you discovered the secret—­you are as thin as a walking-stick, and look as if you sat up all night and never went to bed.”