Muriel had no information to bestow upon the subject.  She hoped and believed that Daisy was getting stronger, and had promised, all being well, to spend Christmas with her.

Lady Bassett shook her head over this declaration.  The dear child was so headlong.  Much might happen before Christmas.  And what of Mr. Ratcliffe—­this was on her way to the door—­had she heard the extraordinary, the really astounding news concerning him that had just reached Lady Bassett’s ears?  She asked because he and Mrs. Musgrave used to be such friends, though to be sure Mr. Ratcliffe seemed to have thrown off all his old friends of late.  Had Muriel actually not heard?

“Heard!  Heard what?” Muriel forced out the question from between lips that were white and stiff.  She was suddenly afraid—­horribly, unspeakably afraid.  But she kept her eyes unflinchingly upon Lady Bassett’s face.  She would sooner die than quail in her presence.

Lady Bassett, holding the door-handle, looked back at her, faintly smiling.  “I wonder you have not heard, dear.  I thought you were in correspondence with his people.  But perhaps they also are in the dark.  It is a most unheard-of thing—­quite irrevocable I am told.  But I always felt that he was a man to do unusual things.  There was always to my mind something uncanny, abnormal, something almost superhuman, about him.”

“But what has happened to him?” Muriel did not know how she uttered the words; they seemed to come without her own volition.  She was conscious of a choking sensation within her as though iron bands were tightening about her heart.  It beat in leaps and bounds like a tortured thing striving to escape.  But through it all she sat quite motionless, her eyes fixed upon Lady Bassett’s face, noting its faint, wry smile, as the eyes of a prisoner on the rack might note the grim lines on the face of the torturer.

“My dear,” Lady Bassett said, “he has gone into a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.”

Calmly the words fell through smiling lips.  Only words!  Only words!  But with how deadly a thrust they pierced the heart of the woman who heard them none but herself would ever know.  She gave no sign of suffering.  She only stared wide-eyed before her as an image, devoid of expression, inanimate, sphinx-like, while that awful constriction grew straiter round her heart.

Lady Bassett was already turning to go when the deep voice arrested her.

“Who told you this?”

She looked back, holding the open door.  “I scarcely know who first mentioned it.  I have heard it from so many people,—­in fact the news is general property—­Captain Gresham of the Guides told me for one.  He has just gone back to Peshawur.  The news reached him, I believe, from there.  Then there was Colonel Cathcart for another.  He was talking of it only this afternoon at the Club, saying what a deplorable example it was for an Englishman to set.  He and Mr. Bobby Fraser had quite a hot argument about it.  Mr. Fraser has such advanced ideas, but I must admit that I rather admire the staunch way in which he defends them.  There, dear child!  You must not keep me gossiping any longer.  You look positively haggard.  I earnestly hope a good sleep will restore you, for I cannot possibly take that wan face to the Rajah’s ball’.”