Hermann Heideck lived in a dak bungalow, one of those hotels kept going
by the Government, which afford travellers shelter, but neither bed nor
food. On returning home from the camp he found his servant, Morar Gopal,
standing at the door ready to receive his master, and was informed that
a newcomer had arrived with two attendants. As this dak bungalow was
more roomy than most of the others, the new arrivals were able to find
accommodation, and Heideck was not obliged, as is usual, to make way as
the earlier guest for a later arrival.

"What countryman is the gentleman?" he inquired.

"An Englishman, sahib!"

Heideck entered his room and sat down at the table, upon which,
besides the two dim candles, stood a bottle of whisky, a few bottles of
soda-water and the inevitable box of cigarettes. He was moody and in a
bad humour. The exciting scene in the officers' mess had affected him
greatly, not on account of Captain Irwin, who, from the first moment
of their acquaintance, was quite unsympathetic to him, but solely on
account of the beautiful young wife of the frivolous officer, of whom
he had a lively recollection from their repeated meetings in social
circles. None of the other officers' wives--and there were many
beautiful and amiable women among them--had made such a deep and abiding
impression upon him as Edith Irwin, whose personal charms had fascinated
him as much as her extraordinary intellectual powers had astonished
him. The reflection that this graceful creature was fettered with
indissoluble bonds to a brutal and dissolute fellow of Irwin's stamp,
and that her husband would perhaps one day drag her down with him into
inevitable ruin, awoke in him most painful feelings. He would so gladly
have done something for the unhappy wife. But he was obliged to admit