"I was thinking that perhaps
they might be messengers, for our sepoys are not stationed here, and
come but on such errands."
"And if they were lulled, and the message stolen, it would cause
trouble?"
She felt him tremble as he looked down into her eyes.
"I don't know. But the messages of a Raj are not for the ears of men
to whom they have not been sent."
Barlow had an intuition that the girl's words were not prompted by idle
curiosity. He was possessed of a sudden gloomy impression that she
knew something of the two men who rode. And it was strange that they
had not been seen upon either of the roads. The officer spoke of them
frankly, and not as a man hiding something.
Suddenly he took a firm resolve, perhaps a dangerous one; not dangerous
though if his men had really gone through.
"Gulab," he said,--and with his hand he turned her face up by the chin
till their eyes were close together,--"if the two bore a message for
me, and it was stolen, I would be like that one you loved was lost."
The beautiful face swung from his palm and he could hear her gasping.
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