The train twisted among the mountains and crawled up their steep sides on a line that wound about in bewildering fashion, in one place looping the loop completely in such a way that the engine was crossing a bridge from under which the last carriage was just emerging.  Noreen delighted in the journey.  She chatted gaily with her companion, asking him questions about anything that was new to her, and striving to ignore the looks of curiosity, pity, or disgust cast at her by the other European passengers, among whom speculation was rife as to the relationship between the pair.

The leisurely train took plenty of time to recover its breath when it stopped at the little wayside stations, and many of its occupants got out to stretch their legs.  Two of them, Englishmen, strolled to the end of the platform at a halt.  One, a tall, fair man, named Charlesworth, a captain in a Rifle battalion quartered in Lebong, the military suburb of Darjeeling, remarked to his companion: 

“I wonder who is the pretty, golden-haired girl travelling with that native.  How the deuce does she come to be with him?  She can’t be his wife.”

“You never know,” replied the other, an artillery subaltern named Turner.  “Many of these Bengali students in London marry their landladies’ daughters or girls they’ve picked up in the street, persuading the wretched women by their lies that they are Indian princes.  Then they bring them out here to herd with a black family in a little house in the native quarter.”

“Yes; but that girl is a lady,” answered Charlesworth impatiently.  “I heard her speak on the platform at Siliguri.”

“She certainly looks all right,” admitted his friend.  “Smart and well-turned out, too.  But one can never tell nowadays.”

“Let’s stroll by her carriage and get a nearer view of her,” said Charlesworth.

As they passed the compartment in which Noreen was seated, the girl’s attention was attracted by two gaily-dressed Sikkimese men with striped petticoats and peacocks’ feathers stuck in their flowerpot-shaped hats, who came on to the platform.

“Oh, Mr. Chunerbutty, look at those men!” she said eagerly.  “What are they?”

The Hindu had got out and was standing at the door of the compartment.

“Did you notice that?” said Charlesworth, when he and Turner had got beyond earshot.  “She called him Mr. Something-or-other.”

“Yes; deuced glad to hear it, too,” replied the gunner.  “I’d hate to see a white woman, especially an English lady, married to a native.  I wonder how that girl comes to be travelling with the beggar at all.”

“I’d like to meet her,” said Charlesworth, who was returning from ten days’ leave in Calcutta.  “If I ever do, I’ll advise her not to go travelling about with a black man.  I suppose she’s just out from England and knows no better.”

“She’d probably tell you to mind your own business,” observed his friend.  “Hullo! it looks as if the engine-driver is actually going to get a move on this old hearse.  Let’s go aboard.”