A spectre at my door,

     Shall mortal Fear make Love immortal² fail—

       I shall but love you more,

     Who from Death's house returning, give me still

       One moment's comfort in my matchless ill.

 

                                     Shadow Houses.

This tale may be explained by those who know how souls are made, and where the bounds of the Possible are put down. I have lived long enough in this country to know that it is best to know nothing, and can only write the story as it happened.

 

Dumoise was our Civil Surgeon at Meridki, and we called him “Dormouse,” because he was a round little, sleepy little man. He was a good Doctor and never quarrelled with any one, not even with our Deputy Commissioner³, who had the manners of a bargee and the tact⁴ of a horse. He married a girl as round and as sleepy-looking as himself. She was a Miss Hillardyce, daughter of “Squash” Hillardyce of the Berars, who married his Chief's daughter by mistake. But that is another story.

 

A honeymoon⁵ in India is seldom more than a week long; but there is nothing to hinder a couple from extending it over two or three years. This is a delightful⁶ country for married folk who are wrapped up in one another. They can live absolutely alone and without interruption—just as the Dormice did. These two little people retired⁷ from the world after their marriage, and were very happy. They were forced, of course, to give occasional dinners, but they made no friends hereby, and the Station went its own way and forgot them; only saying, occasionally, that Dormouse was the best of good fellows, though dull. A Civil Surgeon who never quarrels is a rarity, appreciated as such.

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