The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India

But Barclay turned and crossed the crowded verandah and stumbled down the steps. Afterwards he ran like a madman. He had not seen Tristram's detaining hand. He thought he heard...

"I'll do whatever you want, Anne," he said heavily. "Everything on earth I can do. But I've got to think. I'll tell Martin I've had marching orders, or some lie. He knows the ca...

"No, not exactly." She slipped down into the long grass beside him with an effortless, unconscious grace. "We're rather like each other," she went on, "both of us--how shall I s...

Tristram lingered a moment. His pipe had gone out, and he lit it again with an affectionate care, which covered tension. An instinct, more delicate than a seismograph, inherited...

They looked away from one another, finding no word of comfort. The glamour of the night dropped from them. They had drunk of death, and of that intoxicated hour nothing remained...

Dawn was still afar off as Barclay rode his horse over the narrow bridge. Once on the farther bank he turned and looked back furtively. Nothing was visible. The forest-clad moun...

His voice failed, and died into a shaken silence. The reptile, lying with its head on the back of Vahana's fleshless hand, held the Eurasian in the malevolent circle of its watc...

The regimental band glided into a Viennese waltz, and the intoxicating measure came swaying through the silence. The eyes winced, and then steadied angrily, scornfully. Tristram...

"No--not now--you must go--for pity's sake. I've carried you here--here--so long--through the burning days--since that night. You don't know--no other woman--there had been fanc...

"Yes, isn't it? And utterly forsaken. Mr. Radcliffe found it somewhere with a rope and a brickbat round its neck. That's why I thought you'd like it. At first, I meant to get yo...

She got up abruptly and moved away from him. She felt as though a chasm had opened at her feet. Or had it always been there? Had she been blinded by her girlish worship of his s...

"I am," he returned grimly. "It was damnable." His voice was lowered for the benefit of the syce balanced on the back seat, but it was no less vibrant with bitterness. "But that...

It was Anne Boucicault's birthday--her twenty-second--and Owen Meredith had proposed her health in lemonade--a beverage which he was assured had no unlucky superstition attached...

At the end of the half-hour Mrs. Compton found her husband near the gates, disconsolate and alone, guarding the rather shabby little turn-out which they called a dog-cart. He wa...

He turned his haggard, moody eyes towards distant Gaya and laughed. Even now he was a little theatrical. He wore the native dress, and it was like a masquerade. All that was Eng...

"Yes, quite gay. And very upset into the bargain. It's like living on an eruption or a volcano or whatever it is I mean. I suppose you've heard, Tristram? The regiment is just s...

"I know. But I wish you'd make Christians of our own people first. If you did that thoroughly, you'd find my villagers would come of themselves. They hear a lot about Christiani...

"You disappoint me horribly," she said, and went out on the verandah. A minute later she called the two men after her and pointed an indignant finger in the direction of the hig...

Bagh Sahib rode down the avenue at a walk. He did not hurry, though the sinister light swept down on him amidst a pandemonium of rattling drums and trumpet calls. His face was r...

"Or a living one. Ghosts, if there are any, are men's deeds which live after them. But there are no ghosts." He shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Look about you, Lalloo. A gh...

He walked through hours and nights of darkness. At last there were lights in front of him--great yellow balls of haloed flame, which danced in ecstasy to a passionate rhythm. He...

And now today there was added to this emotion the heat and intoxication of his own prowess, and the consciousness that, if she was not beautiful, she possessed something much mo...

"Oh, yes, you may speak to him. You won't mind a monologue, will you? You've heard about it, I expect--spinal column affected or something--but I'm so stupid about these things....

"My mother's in here," she said, scarcely above a whisper. She held the door open for him, and he went past her into a room so carefully darkened that for a moment he hesitated...

He knew the horror that had forced the appeal from her--the terror which can change a man's heart to water--the horror of those pitiless trampling feet--of those mad mob rushes...

"What we poor devils have to put up with! If this blessed thing doesn't hold--I'm dished. Bah--India! What the dickens are we doing in this _galere_? The very elements are again...

"He was murdered by my mother's husband. You see, he had betrayed her. It was a sort of insult to my people." The match went out almost at his finger-tips. He threw it away. "St...

At that moment, seated there with her back to the light, she looked elfish, something aerial and inhuman. Her fair hair, smoothed down with a delicious primness on either side o...

The very poignant feeling which underlay her desperate humour touched Mrs. Smithers to the quick. At all times she was inclined to treat facetiousness seriously, most of life's...

"And others. Believe me, there will be no living white man or woman in Gaya by midnight--my wife excepted." He made Sigrid a little satirical bow. "In spite of circumstances, I...

"I did--I don't deny it. I kow-towed. Figuratively, I licked her boots. She could have walked over me if she'd had a fancy for mountaineering. She could have done a high-kick un...

I.--The Story of Kurnavati II.--Tristram the Hermit III.--Tristram Becomes Father-Confessor IV.--The Interlopers V.--A Vision of the Backwater VI.--Broken Sanctuary VII.--Anne B...

George, seated three places lower down on the opposite side of the table, looked up anxiously and, meeting his wife's eyes, signalled a denial. "Yes, I'm sure it was you, George...

It was by this first break of light that Tristram saw the way over which they had still to travel. He sat motionless and upright, scanning the seeming limitless expanse, and per...