Miss Westonhaugh did not understand the language, and Isaacs would have been the last person to translate such a speech as the Brahmin had made.  We turned and strolled up the hill, and presently I bethought me of some errand, and left them together under the trees.  They were so happy and so beautiful together, the fair lily from the English dale and the deep red rose of Persian Gulistan.  The sun slanted low through the trees and sank in rose-coloured haze, and the moon, now just at the half, began to shine out softly through the mangoes, and still the lovers walked, pacing slowly to and fro near the well.  No wonder they dallied long; it was their last evening together, and I doubted not that Isaacs was telling her of his sudden departure, necessary for reasons which I knew he would not explain to her or to any one else.

At last we all assembled in the dining-tent.  Mr. Currie Ghyrkins was among the first, and his niece was the last to enter the room.  He was glorious that evening, his kindly red face beamed on every one, and he carried himself like a victorious general at a ladies’ tea-party.  He had reason to be happy, and his jerky good spirits were needed to counterbalance the deep melancholy that seemed to have settled upon his niece.  The colour was gone from her cheeks, and her dark eyes, heavily fringed by the black brows and lashes, shone out strangely; the contrast between the white flaxen hair, drawn back in simple massive waves like a Greek statue, and the broad level eyes as dark as night, was almost startling this evening in the singularity of its beauty.  She sat like a queenly marble at the end of the table, not silent, by any means, but so evidently out of spirits that John Westonhaugh, who did not know that Isaacs was going in the morning, and would not have supposed that his sister could care so much, if he had known, remarked upon her depression.

“What is the matter, Katharine?” he asked kindly.  “Have you a headache this evening?” She was just then staring rather blankly into space.

“Oh no,” she said, trying to smile.  “I was thinking.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Ghyrkins merrily, “that is why you look so unlike yourself, my dear!” And he laughed at his rough little joke.

“Do I?” asked the girl absently.

But Ghyrkins was not to be repressed, and as Kildare and the Pegnugger man were gay and wide awake, the dinner was not as dull as might have been expected.  When it was over, Isaacs announced his intention of leaving early the next morning.  Very urgent business recalled him suddenly, he explained.  A messenger had arrived just before dinner.  He must leave without fail in the morning.  Miss Westonbaugh of course was forewarned; but the others were not.  Lord Steepleton Kildare, in the act of lighting a cheroot, dropped the vesuvian incontinently, and stood staring at Isaacs with an indescribable expression of empty wonder in his face, while the match sputtered