Far to Seek A Romance of England and India

Sanctuary--at last! The garden of his dreams--of the world before the deluge--in the quiet--coloured end of a July evening; the garden vitally inwoven with his fate--since it wa...

The blue rug under Roy's beech-tree was splashed with freckles of sunshine; freckles that were never still, because a fussy little wind kept swaying the top-most branches, where...

It was the last day of the year; the last moon of the year, almost at her zenith. Of all the Christmas guests Lance alone remained; and Thea had promised him before leaving, a m...

But neither the work he loved, nor his budding intimacy with Miss Arden, deterred him from accepting a week-end invitation from the Maharajah of Kapurthala--the friendly, hospit...

"It has long been a grave question whether any Government not too strong for the liberties of the people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies."--...

But as days passed, both grew increasingly aware of the patch; and both very carefully concealed the fact. They spent a week of peaceful seclusion from Simla and her restless ac...

They parted on the understanding that Roy would come in to tiffin on Sunday. Instead, to his shameless relief, he found the squadron detailed to bivouac all day in the Gol Bagh,...

It was all over--the strenuous joy of planning and preparing. Christmas itself was over. From the adjacent borders of British India, five lonely ones had been gathered in. There...

For weeks every potter's wheel had been whirling, double tides, turning out clay chirághs by the thousand, that none might fail of honouring Mai Lakshmi--a compound of Minerva a...

Only once Roy had a glimpse of the true Dyán, when he presented Arúna's '_prasád_,' consecrated by her touch. In silence Dyán set it on the table; and reverently touched, with h...

The great Gymkhana was almost over. The last event--bare-back feats of horsemanship--had been an exciting affair; a close contest between Lance and Roy and an Indian Cavalry off...

After all, human perversity decreed it should be Roy himself who shrank most acutely from the wrench of parting, when it loomed near enough to bring him down from Pisgah heights...

Some five weeks later, Roy sat alone--very completely and desolately alone--in a whitewashed, unhomely room that everywhere bore the stamp of dák bungalow; from the wobbly teapo...

Oxford on a clear, still evening of June: silver reaches of Isis and Cher; meadows pied with moon daisies and clover, and the rose madder bloom of ripe grasses; the trill of uns...

Roy drove home with Barnard in the small hours, still too overwrought for clear thinking, and too exhausted all through to lie awake for five minutes after his head touched the...

The lofty pillared Hall--an aristocrat among Station Clubs--was more crowded than usual. Half the polished floor was uncovered; the rest carpeted and furnished, for lookers-on....

"Darkness and solitude shine for me: For life's fair outward part, are rife The silver noises: let them be. It is the very soul of life Listens for thee, listens for thee." --AL...

The house of Sir Lakshman Singh, C.S.I.--like many others in advancing India--was a house divided against itself. And the cleavage cut deep. The furnishing of the two rooms, in...

And away up in Simla, Rose Arden was enduring her own minor form of purgatory. The news of Lance Desmond's sudden death had startled and saddened her; had pierced through her su...

On an unclouded afternoon of October, Roy sat alone with Thea Leigh in a shady corner of the Residency garden, smoking and talking, feeling blissfully at ease in body, and very...

It was a clear mild Sunday afternoon of November;--pale sunlight, pale sky, long films of laminated cloud. From the base of orange-tawny cliffs, the sands swept out with the tid...

"Broadly speaking, there are two blocks of people--East and West; people who interfere and people who don't interfere; ... East is a fatalist, West is an idealist, of a clumsy s...

"In you I most discern, in your brave spirit, Erect and certain, flashing deeds of light, A pure jet from the fountain of all Being; A scripture clearer than all else to read."...

Roy, after due consideration, decided that he would speak first to his father--the one doubtful element in the home circle. But habit and the obsession of the moment proved too...

Roy's recherché little dinner proved an unqualified success. With sole and chicken sauté, with trifle and savoury, he mutely pleaded his cause; feeling vaguely guilty, the while...

Left to herself, Lilámani moved back to the window with her innate, deliberate grace. There she sat down again, very still, resting her cheek on her hand; drinking in the sereni...

In the verandah of Narkhanda dák bungalow Roy lay alone, languidly at ease, assisted by rugs and pillows and a Madeira cane lounge at an invalid angle; walls and arches splashed...

Roy spent ten days in Delhi--lodging with one Krishna Lal, a jewel merchant of high standing, well known to Sir Lakshman--and never a word or a sight of Dyán Singh. The need for...

That very problem was puzzling Roy as he lay on his bed, with Prince's head against his shoulder, aching a a good deal, exulting at thought of his new-born knighthood, wondering...

While Broome and Lady Despard were concerned over indications of a critical corner for Roy, there was none--save perhaps Arúna--to be concerned for the dilemma of Dyán Singh, Ra...

On the night after the Gymkhana the great little world of Lahore was again disporting itself, with unabated vigour, in the pillared ballroom of the Lawrence Hall. They could tel...

Not least among the joys of Arúna's return to the freer life of the Residency was her very own verandah balcony. Here, secure from intrusion, she could devote the first and last...

Nevil's fears were justified to the full. Lady Roscoe was one of those exasperating people of whom one can predict, almost to a word, a look, what their attitude will be on any...

"She had a step that walked unheard, It made the stones like grass; Yet that light step had crushed a heart As light as that step was." --W.H. DAVIES.

Tara was right. The Boy-of-ten (Roy persistently ignored the half) was rather a large boy: also rather lumpy. He had little eyes and freckles and what Christine called a "turnip...

The middle of March found Roy back in the Punjab, sharing a ramshackle bungalow with Lance and two of his brother officers; good fellows, both, in their diametrically opposite f...

As early as 1819 there had been a Desmond in India; a soldier-administrator of mark, in his day. During the Sikh Wars there had been a Desmond in the Punjab; and at the time of...

Next morning, very early, he was closeted with Roy, sitting on the edge of his bed; cautiously, circumstantially, telling him all. Roy, as he listened, was half repelled, half i...

Lilámani read and re-read that letter curled among her cushions in the deep window-seat of the studio, a tower room with tall windows looking north, over jagged pine tops, to th...

"Comfort, content, delight, the ages' slow-bought gain, They shrivelled in a night. Only ourselves remain To face the naked days in silent fortitude. Through perils and dismays...

Lithe and noiseless as a cat, Roy crept through the archway into outer darkness. It was hateful leaving Arúna; but rage at her hurt and the primitive instinct of pursuit were no...

It was the morning of the great Gymkhana, to be followed by the Bachelors' Ball. For Lahore's unfailing social energy was not yet spent; though Depot troops had gone to the Hill...

Crash on flash, crash on flash--at ever-lessening intervals--the tearless heavens raged and clattered round his unprotected head. Thunder toppled about him like falling timber s...

By the shimmer of blue under the beeches Roy knew that summer--"really truly summer!"--had come back at last. And summer meant picnics and strawberries and out-of-door lessons,...

It was distinctly one of Roy's great moments when, at last, they four stood together in Sir Lakshman's room: the old man, outwardly impassive--as became a Rajput--profoundly mov...

For Roy himself, no less than Arúna, the passing of those golden October weeks had been an experience as beautiful as it was unique. The very beauty and bewilderment of it had b...

And while Lilámani reasoned with the son--whose twofold nature they had themselves bestowed and inspired--Nevil was pacing his shrine of all the harmonies, heart and brain distu...