"Don't you think, as we're only ten miles from Kuttahpore, we'd better go straight in to-morrow?" I suggested.

the heat is knocking you up."

"I'm sure

"Not at all," he answered; "I've only got a headache from standing out so long in the sun. I never go into the station till I can't help myself, and I don't mean to alter my rules this year more than any other. Besides, there is a great deal that wants attending to just about here."

"But really, Andrew, this sort of weather in tents is simply unbearable. I can't sleep for the heat or eat for the flies."

"My dear Josie, you're mistaken. You would find it even hotter in the station. The heat is not at all unbearable, and of course I shall take you in directly it becomes seriously hot."

Andrew shut his mouth with a snap, which was a signal that further remonstrance was useless, so I went on with my breakfast in silence, while my husband fidgeted restlessly in his chair and now and then fanned himself with his table napkin, though nothing would induce him to own that he felt hotter than usual.

However, when the breakfast things had been cleared away, he did not settle to his work, but walked up and down the tent, sitting on each chair in succession, and seeming very restless and out of sorts, which was no wonder, for the heat was appalling.

I myself could do nothing but lean back in my hard, uncomfortable chair, with only just enough energy left in me to flick away the flies that settled persistently on my face.

The air grew hotter and hotter, and Andrew's complexion assumed the colour of a brick.

"I think we're going to have a storm," he gasped; "it's hotter than it ought to be."

"Andrew," I implored, "you're not well; you can't say you Do make arrangements to go into the station.".

I felt almost on the verge of tears, and a strange leaden presentiment took possession of me for which I could not account. But indeed it seemed as if something unusual must be going to happen, for the wind suddenly ceased, and there was an ominous calm in the air, while the patch of sky visible through the tent door looked scorched and burnt to a livid metallic hue.

There was a singular absence of all sound. No murmuring of servants' voices, not a bird's cry, nor so much as the bark of a dog from the village near. Every thing living seemed to be in

hiding, only some huge brown kites turned and wheeled silently in the air.

The stillness was suffocating, and I looked at Andrew in alarm. "What is going to happen?" I cried. I had never seen the signs of an approaching dust storm before.

Andrew was sitting forward in his chair, with his lips parted, and his face flushed to a deep dull red. He was certainly feeling the heat very severely, as well he might, for in the last few minutes it had increased a hundred-fold.

However, he still would not own it, and scarcely answered me when I asked him rather anxiously if his head was worse.

Feeling as if I could hardly breathe, I rose to go to the tent door, when something odd in his expression made me turn towards him instead, and as I did so he stretched out his arms with a sudden desperate movement and called my name twice. Then he fell forward like a log, and lay senseless on his face at my feet.

For one second I stood, hardly able to move, looking at the figure on the ground, while a slow grumbling sound rose on the heated atmosphere, and the air grew dark with a dense volume of copper-coloured dust.

Then I knelt down by my husband's side, and, putting my arms round him, I exerted all my strength and turned him over. His breath was coming in slow, noisy puffs, and there was a little froth on the corners of his mouth; his eyes were open, but looked dull and glassy, and his hands, when I felt them, were deadly cold.

I called aloud for the servants, but they had all taken refuge in the kitchen tent from the storm, and no one heard me. The air grew almost quite dark, and the wind rose shrieking and screaming with mad fury, whirling the thick masses of dust about and flinging them down on to the tent, shaking it with such violence that every moment I expected the poles to fall. I sat trembling on the ground, with Andrew's head in my lap, peering through the gloom at his face, which had so strangely altered in a few short minutes.

I groped with one hand for the table, which was close to me, and, pulling off the cloth, I rolled it into a bundle and placed it under Andrew's head, and then I rose and went out into the blinding dust to find somebody to help me. I could hardly see two yards ahead. Leaves and little pieces of stick and stone

struck me in the face, and the wind nearly lifted me off my feet; still I groped on, with my hands stretched out, calling for the servants with all my strength.

At last to my relief I heard an answering shout, and presently saw the figure of old Nazuf Ali struggling through the turmoil of dust and wind.

"Come quickly!" I screamed; "run! run!"

I turned back to the tent, and as I did so the air began to clear a little, and a large drop of rain fell on to my bare head.

I found Andrew as I had left him, the thick snoring sound still issuing from his lips, and with Nazuf Ali's help I loosened his clothes and bathed his head and face with water. We tried to force some whisky down his throat, but his teeth were tightly clenched, and it only ran out at the corners of his mouth.

I sat in terror and perplexity, with Andrew's head resting against my shoulder like a lump of lead, as the other servants dropped in one by one and stood looking on with awe-stricken faces while Nazuf Ali alternately rubbed his master's hands and feet, and implored him to speak to him, or "wake up."

There seemed no sign of his regaining consciousness, and I did not know whether to take him straight in to Kuttahpore, or send a man to fetch Dr. Herring out to us.

I finally decided, with the help of the servants' advice, to adopt the first course, and in a few minutes, when the storm had cleared off with a few heavy, pattering drops of rain, leaving the air cooler and fresher, and a thick white covering of dust over everything, the wagonette was ready to take us into the station.

The servants had arranged a board across the body of the carriage, on which they laid Andrew, still unconscious, supported with rugs and pillows, while I stood watching them, the full force of my utter helplessness rushing over me.

It had all happened so suddenly. I had scarcely begun to realize that it was Andrew who lay there, with his face so distorted as to be hardly recognizable, and the only sign of life about him the heavy, stertorous breathing. I felt numbed, and incapable of thinking or feeling, as I took my place on the front seat of the wagonette, and the long drive of ten miles that followed, through the now rapidly-cooling air, seemed as unreal as a dream.

(To be continued.)

Pride's Punishment.

CHAPTER I.

"You shall not sin,

If you do say we think him over-proud."

"Troilus and Cressida."

BERNARD FILMER was to be married on the morrow. He and Helen Lermitte had been engaged exactly two months, and during that time he had done much. His regiment had been stationed in India three years, and the very day the news came that it was ordered home, he proposed to Helen Lermitte, was accepted, and sent in his papers at once. He also wrote to his mother, telling her of his engagement, of his impending marriage, and of his speedy return home. Then he gave a series of bachelor parties to his brother officers in such style that they declared him to be a very decent fellow, and now, this last night of his freedom, he sat alone, satisfied with himself and his future and dreaming blissful dreams.

Helen Lermitte was the daughter of Judge Lermitte, who came out a young lawyer to India early in the "fifties," had married a girl with money and never returned to England. He belonged to a good English family, with whom he had quarrelled ; why, no one knew or cared. Nor did it signify, for in India, ten years is the utmost extent that one looks back for a man's antecedents, and the judge's had been irreproachable for more than forty. Moreover he had great wealth. For his money Bernard Filmer cared nothing; for his descent-a very great deal. He was a fastidiously proud man. More rather than less, he had known Helen for two years, but had foreborne to speak to her until he could retire. Then, as I said before, the very day that he heard that his regiment was ordered home, he spoke, and was at once accepted.

He had finished his last pipe, and was about to turn in for the night, when his man appeared in the doorway. Before he could open his lips, Filmer said very decidedly:

"I'll not see a soul, Jones. Tell them I've gone to bed."

'Certainly, sir. It's the judge, sir."

"The judge! Oh, by all means show him in," and when the man had gone he thought, "What the dickens does he want at this time of night? Nothing the matter with Helen, I hope."

Judge Lermitte was a tall, fine-looking man of about sixty. His life in India seemed to have agreed with him, for he was hale and fresh-coloured. Nevertheless, he looked anxious and uneasy. Filmer observed it, and giving him a chair waited for him to speak.

"It's of Helen-No, she's quite well. Don't be frightened." "All right. If she's well, nothing else can matter much."

"I'm glad to hear you say so," replied the judge. "But there's something that-er-perhaps I ought to have told you before. Although I love her as much as any father could, she's no child of mine."

Filmer jumped to his feet, and demanded in a furious tone: "Whose child is she, then?"

"I don't know. Twenty years ago my wife-she was alive then and I went up to Mudgepore for a little change; we were only able to get a few days, and the day before we came away a baby of about a month old was found in a box in the compound of our bungalow. There were a few air holes in the lid of the box, but not a mark of any kind to lead to identification, either on the child's clothes-which were of the poorest description-or on the box itself. My wife took a fancy to the child and implored me to adopt it. I refused at first, but finding that her heart was set on my doing so I consented. We had her baptized Helen, my wife's name, and from that day to this she has always been with me, for when my wife died I was too fond of the child to part with her."

"And you haven't the faintest idea who her parents are?"

"Not the faintest. There were only eight white people-all told-when we were at Mudgepore, and there had been no white child born there for six months."

Filmer's rage burst forth.

The judge waited quietly until he had finished, then he simply said:

"I presume you wish to break the engagement."

"Break the engagement," he thundered; "jilt a girl at the eleventh hour! What do you take me for?"

"For an honest gentleman," replied the judge warmly; “but I