heard a man say of his own work by word of mouth by word of mouth not though you die to night o sweet and a at my door shall mortal fear make love immortal fail � i shall but love you more who from death s house returning give me still one moment s comfort in my ill 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 was our civil surgeon at and we called him because he was a round little sleepy little man he was a good doctor and never quarrelled with any one not even with our who had the manners of a and the tact of a horse he married a girl as round and as as she was a miss daughter of of the who married his chiefs daughter by mistake but that is another story a 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 delightful country for married folk who are wrapped up in one another they can live absolutely alone and without interruption � just as the did these two little people retired from the world after their marriage and by word op mouth s were very happy they were forced of course to give occasional dinners but they made no friends and the station went its own way and forgot them only saying occasionally that was the best of good fellows though dull a civil surgeon who never quarrels is a appreciated as such few people can afford to play robinson anywhere � least of all in india where we are few in the land and very much dependent on each others kind offices was wrong in shutting himself from the world for a year and he discovered his mistake when an of broke out in the station in the heart of the cold weather and his wife went down he was a shy little man and five days were wasted before he realized that mrs was burning with something worse than simple fever and three days more passed before he ventured to call on mrs the s wife and timidly speak about his trouble nearly every household in india knows that doctors are very helpless in the battle must be fought out between death and the nurses minute by minute and degree by degree mrs almost s ears for what she called his criminal delay and went off at once to look after the poor girl we had seven cases of in the station that winter and as the average of death is about one in every five cases we felt certain that we should have to lose somebody but all did their best the women sat up nursing the women and he men turned to and tended the who were down and we with those cases for fifty six days and brought them through the valley of the shadow in triumph but just when we thought all was over and were going to g ve a dance to the victory little mrs got a j word of mouth and died in a week and the station went to the funeral broke down utterly at the brink of the grave and bad to be taken away after the death crept into his own house and refused to be comforted he did his duties perfectly but we all felt that he should go on leave and the other men of his own service told him so was very thankful for the suggestion � he was thankful for anything in those days � and went to on a walking tour is some twenty from in the heart of the hills and the scenery is good if you are in trouble you pass through big still forests and under big still and over big still grass downs swelling like a woman s breasts and the wind across the grass and the rain among the says � hush � hush � hush so little was packed off to to wear down his grief with a full plate and a rifle he took also a useless bearer because the man had been his wife s favorite servant he was idle and a but trusted everything to him on his way back from turned aside to through the forest reserve which is on the spur of mount some men who have travelled more than a little say that the march from to is one of the finest in creation it runs through dark wet forest and ends suddenly in bleak hill side and black rocks is open to all the winds and is bitterly cold few people go to perhaps that was the reason why went there he halted at seven in the evening and his bearer went down the to the village to engage for the next day s march the sun had set and the night winds were to among the rocks leaned on the of the waiting for his bearer to by word op mouth the man came back almost immediately after he had disappeared and at such a rate that � he must have crossed a bear he was running as hard as he could up the face of the hill but there was no bear to account for his terror he to the and fell down the blood from his nose and his face iron gray then he � i have seen i have seen i where said down there walking on the road to the village she was in a blue dress and she lifted the veil of her bonnet and said � ram give my to the and 