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Updated: July 26, 2025
She wrote to him frequently short, airy epistles, wholly inconsequent, often provocatively meagre. "There is a Captain Silvester here," she wrote once; "such a bounder. But he is literally the only man who can dance in the station. So what would you? Poor Mrs. Feathery hints of this description were by no means unusual, but though Merryon sometimes frowned over them, they did not make him uneasy.
A sudden awful doubt smote through Merryon. He turned to the girl sobbing at his breast. "Puck," he said, "for Heaven's sake what is this man to you?" She did not answer him; perhaps she could not. Her distress was terrible to witness, utterly beyond all control. But the newcomer was by no means disconcerted by it. He drew near with the utmost assurance.
"I've considered everything," Merryon said, rather heavily. "But she came to me through that inferno. I can't send her away again. She wouldn't go." Colonel Davenant swore under his breath. "Let me talk to her!" he said, after a moment. The ghost of a smile touched Merryon's face. "It's no good, sir. You can talk. You won't make any impression."
"I shall not set her free. And wherever I go, she will go also." "If you can take her, you infernal blackguard!" Merryon threw at him. "Now get out. Do you hear? Get out if you don't want to be shot! Whatever happens to-morrow, I swear by God in heaven she shall not go with you to-night!" The uncontrolled violence of his speech was terrible.
The lad spoke uncomfortably, as if against his will. "She asked questions, then?" Merryon's voice was sharp. "Yes, a few. She wanted to know about Forbes and Robey. Robey is awfully bad. I didn't tell her that." "Who is looking after them?" Merryon asked. "Only a native orderly now. The colonel and Macfarlane both had to go to the barracks. It's frightful there. About twenty cases already.
"But really it's much better for me to be with my husband here. I stayed at Shamkura just as long as I could possibly bear it, and then I just had to come back here. I don't think I shall get ill really. And if I do" she made a little foreign gesture of the hands "I'll nurse myself." As Merryon had foretold, it was useless to argue with her. She dismissed all argument with airy unreason.
It comes harder to a man, doesn't it?" "I don't know why it should," said Merryon, moodily. "I do," said the Dragon-Fly. "It's because men were made to boss creation. See? You're one of the bosses, you are. You've been led to expect a lot, and because you haven't had it you feel you've been cheated. Life is like that. It's just a thing that mocks at you. I know."
The monsoon was drawing near, and the whole tortured earth seemed to be waiting in dumb expectation. Night after night a glassy moon came up, shining, immense and awful, through a thick haze of heat. Night after night Merryon lay on his veranda, smoking his pipe in stark endurance while the dreadful hours crept by. Sometimes he held a letter from his wife hard clenched in one powerful hand.
Merryon said the words over oddly to himself; and then, still fast holding her, he began to feel for the face that was so strenuously hidden from him. She resisted him desperately. "Let me go!" she begged, piteously. "I'll be so good, Billikins. I'll go to the Hills. I'll do anything you like. Only let me go now! Billikins!"
He was never voluble. To-day he seemed tongue-tied. Macfarlane continued with an uneasy effort to hide a certain doubt stirring in his mind. "I hear there was a European died at the dâk-bungalow early this morning. I wanted to go round and see, but I haven't been able. It's fairly widespread, but there's no sense in getting scared. Halloa, Merryon!" He broke off, staring.
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