The door stood open, and must
indeed have stood open for many years, for the broken hinges were rusty
and seemed to be clinging to the torn woodwork only by the strength of
undisturbed custom.
Stafford came to a halt.
"That is where--" he began, and then abruptly left his sentence
unfinished.
"Yes," she said, "it is here. I don't think, as long as we live in India,
that my guardian will ever have it touched. He calls it the Memorial. My
father was his greatest friend, and the terrible fact that he came too
late to save him has saddened his whole life."
Stafford looked down at her. The light from a lantern which Mrs.
Carmichael, with great dexterity, had fixed among some overhanging
branches, fell on the dark features, now composed and thoughtful. She met
his glance in silence, with large eyes that had taken into their depths
something of the surrounding shadow. He had never felt so strongly before
the peculiarity of her fascination--perhaps because he had never seen her
in a setting which seemed so entirely a part of herself. The distant
music, the hum of voices, and that strange charm which permeates an Indian
nightfall--above all, the ruined bungalow with its shattered door and
silent memories--these things, with their sharp contrasts of laughter and
tragedy, had formed themselves into a background which belonged to her, so
that she and they seemed inseparable.
"Oh, Lois, little girl!" Stafford said gently.
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