purdah-nashin (veiled women)" he muttered. "What would she be
doing up here in the heights? She walked like a Khanam (khan's
wife) and I saw the gleam of gold under the boorka."

I turned with some curiosity as he spoke, and lo! there was no
human being in sight. She had disappeared from the track behind
us and it was impossible to say where. The darkening trees were
beginning to hold the dusk and it seemed unimaginable that a
woman should leave the way and take to the dangers of the woods.

"Puna-i-Khoda - God protect us!" said Ali Khan in a shuddering
whisper. "She was a devil of the wilds. Press on, Sahib. We
should not be here in the dark."

There was nothing else to do. We made the best speed we could,
and the trees grew more dense and the trail fainter between the
close trunks, and so the night came bewildering with the
expectation that we must pass the night unfed and unarmed in the
cold of the heights. They might send out a search party from The
House in the Woods - that was still a hope, if there were no
other. And then, very gradually and wonderfully the moon dawned
over the tree tops and flooded the wood with mysterious silver
lights and about her rolled the majesty of the stars. We pressed
on into the heart of the night. From the dense black depths we
emerged at last. An open glade lay before us - the trees falling
back to right and left to disclose - what?

A long low house of marble, unlit, silent, bathed in pale
splendour and shadow. About it stood great deodars, clothed in
clouds of the white blossoming clematis, ghostly and still.