And then, by a natural corollary, his thoughts reverted to Hilda Ryder; and for the first time since her death he began to feel that now, after all these years, he might surely be considered to have atoned for his too hasty carrying-out of the promise he had made her in that rose-coloured dawn of a bygone Indian morning.
Never had man regretted an impulsive deed more than he had regretted the thing which had been done that day. The years which had elapsed since then had been indeed years of penance--a penance more cruel and far more hard to bear than any penalty inflicted by man could possibly have been.
He had been a prisoner indeed, bound fast in the captivity of his own remorse; but now it seemed to him as though the long black night of his imprisonment were breaking, as though a light, as yet very far off and faint, showed upon some distant horizon with a promise of another and more radiant day which should surely dawn ere long.
Whence came this blessed lightening of his gloom? He could not say. Was it perhaps due to the fact that even now he was risking his life in the service of another woman--it is to be feared he forgot all but Iris in this strangely exalted moment--that to him her life had been confided by the father who adored her, and that to him and to him alone could she look for comfort and for help in the bitter hour which he foresaw was even now at hand for the girl who loved Bruce Cheniston--and must see him die....
* * * * *
And as his thoughts played, lightning-wise, round the figure of the beloved woman, his footsteps led him on, more and more blithely as his spirit rose, ph[oe]nix-like, above the ashes of his burnt-out tragedy, and in an incredibly short space of time he approached the well whence he might draw the precious water for lack of which the little garrison he had left must perish and die.
It was a peaceful spot, this well. Just such a place as that to which Rachel and the daughters of Jacob must, long ago, have come to fill their pitchers--a quiet, palm-guarded spot where doubtless, in days gone by, the village women had congregated in search of water and of news--the chattered gossip of the East, punctuated by the tinkling of native bangles as the beautifully-moulded arms raised the pitchers to the finely-carried heads.
The well was deserted now, but the water was as clear and pure as ever, and with a sigh of relief Anstice set about filling his goat-skin water-bottle, and then, anxious to lose no time, he retraced his steps over the moonlit desert without delay.