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CHAPTER VII
THE RUBY BRACELET

 
Once was my shield as white as driven snow,
Once was mine honour clean, and I, a man,
Could gaze upon my fellows, meet their eyes
With eyes as honest-but all that is past.
 

Old Play.

"See," said Ma Mie, holding her arm to the light and displaying the splendour of the bracelet, "is it not beautiful, Hawkshawe?" The pale amber of her silken robe fell partially on the jewels as she said this, and flinging it back with a graceful gesture Ma Mie again raised the soft outline of her arm, and with lips half parted gazed upon the red glow of the rubies with a childish delight. They were standing near a window of Hawkshawe's house, at the very window from which the light streamed out, a long banner of brightness, when Jackson went back from his solitary ramble on the jetty. The glare that dazzled outside fell softly through the bamboo jalousie, and warmed the scarlet of the rubies on Ma Mie's arm to a thousand different tints.

A curious steely blaze came into Hawkshawe's eyes, and the wrinkles around them gathered into deeper folds as he bent over the gems. For the time the look of avarice in his features gave them a wondrously Jewish cast. His aquiline nose seemed to fall over his lips, and the lips themselves tightened into a long, hard outline. He gently unclasped the bracelet and held it in his hand, then he tossed it lightly in the air, and as it fell back like a star he caught it deftly. "The stones are of the purest water, Ma Mie, but I alone have the right to clasp them on you. Let me do so now." He fastened the jewel once more on her. "Now," he said, "they look perfect-now that I have put them on you myself, and you can feel that they have come from me. Is it not so?" He drew her toward himself, while all the time his eyes remained fixed on the gems with a terrible greed in their expression. She remained as he had placed her, her head leaning against his shoulder and her eyes half closed. "Shall I break it to her?" muttered Hawkshawe. "It has to be done very soon, and might be done now." They remained for a moment silent. "Ma Mie," said Hawkshawe, "would you be very sorry if I were to go away for a short time?"

She looked up at him with a startled air and drew back. "You go away; you are not ill, are you? Yes, I think you are ill. You were ill that night when that man Jackson came to dine here and cast his spell on you. You have never been well since. At night I have heard you call out strange things. Yes, if you like, we will go away-you and I, to Ava; it is cool and pleasant there, and you will get well. You want rest, and you are tired. Is it not so? You said so that night." The woman seemed to know of the evil that hung over her, and was making a desperate fight. All the pleasure that had brightened her face left it, and left it in a moment haggard and wan. She had expected this crisis a hundred times, and a hundred times nothing had come. Still, the feeling that she was on the brink of a precipice never left her. She knew that some day would come to her, as it came to all women of her class, that parting which left the man free as air and the woman in reality still in an abyss. This spectre was always in shadow before her, unseen but felt, and now-she knew that it was coming-she gave a quick gasp after her speech and waited.

"No, Ma Mie," said Hawkshawe, and he threw a very tender inflection in his voice. "No, we can not go together this time. I want to go home to my own country. I have not seen it for many years. I will come back again, and in the meantime you must wait for me at your home. You have money. This" – he touched the bracelet on the shuddering arm-"and other things. Besides, I will see that you have more. I intend to go in about a month, and it would be well if you were to start for Ava in, say, a fortnight. Bah Hmoay will take you-or shall I send for some of your people? There, don't cry!" He tried to draw her again toward him, but she broke from his arms with an angry sob.

"You! you! you! To do this!" she gasped. "You, the father of my dead child! You, who vowed and swore-you, who came with humble entreaty to me! Oh, I was a fool, a fool! All women are fools, and all men liars! Do you think my heart is a stone? Have I not been faithful? Ah, Hawkshawe, do not send me away! See, I will follow you as a slave to the uttermost parts of the earth. Don't go; I know you are not coming back-don't," and she sank on her knees with a cry that came from the soul. It would have melted any heart but Alban Hawkshawe's.

"Confound it!" he said, pulling savagely at his mustache, "I must end this somehow. – Look here, Ma Mie, look at the matter sensibly; don't be a fool."

"Fool!" and she sprang up-"fool! Yes, I am a fool to have trusted you-trust a liar to lie!" and she laughed bitterly. "See, I have given you my all, I have given my soul for you, worthless as you are, and you are mine. You say you are going for a short time and that you will come back to me. You lie, and you know it! You never mean to come back. To think that you should perjure yourself at such a moment! You are mine, I say; I have paid too great a price for you. Where you go, I am; where you live, there shall I be. We shall never part-never-until that which we call death comes between us!"

"Be sensible! I will give you plenty."

"Ah, heart of stone! It is nothing but gold with you. Yes, I will buy you. Here, take this. Is it a fair price?" and, unclasping the bracelet, she tossed it to him with an imperial gesture, and it fell with a tinkling crash on the polished wood of the floor. Hawkshawe paled to an ashy gray. He raised his hand as if to strike the proud face before him, but his eyes sank as he met Ma Mie's fearless gaze, and his hand slowly drooped again. Then he stooped and picked up the bracelet. "It is worth ten thousand," he murmured to himself, and the elvish light in his eyes answered the wicked sparkle of rubies in his hand.

Gathering up her robe, Ma Mie stepped out of the room with a breaking heart and head held erect and defiant, and when Hawkshawe looked up he was alone. He slipped the jewel into his pocket, and, going to a side-table, poured himself out a glass of brandy, and then another and another, and while he stood near the table drinking feverishly Ma Mie watched him through the curtain from the door of her room, her hand clasping the jade hilt of the stiletto she wore at her girdle.

"Ah!" she thought aloud, "I could kill him now as he soddens himself with drink. But he is mine, and- Oh, the shame of it! I love him! He is mine, and will remain mine if I have to drag his soul to hell!"

CHAPTER VIII
THE SIRKAR'S SALT

 
Have I not eaten the Sirkar's salt?
Wherefore then shall I tell a lie?
Wherefore lie? Nay, mine oath is true,
True as above us spreads the sky.
We lost, but a traitor hand was there,
And the soldier fell in the liar's snare.
 

Lays of the Punjab.

Loo-ga-lay said it was only a mistake, but the childlike innocence of his face, his oaths and protestations, the twenty hired witnesses he brought to prove him guiltless availed him not, and the richly deserved three months' "rigorous" was duly awarded. With the giving of this sentence, the details of which are of no account, the official programme of the day was over, and Peregrine free from office routine until Monday morning. He was to see Ruys this afternoon, and her face appeared to flit before him and his heart bowed down to the vision; but he set his teeth and put away the thoughts that came whether he would or not. Was he not measuring the strength of his soul or will, as he would have called it, against the strength of his passion? He was going to pit the ideal against the real, and to his strong young heart the struggle could have but one issue. He knew-none better-that he was running a desperate risk, but there was no doubt in his mind that the danger had to be faced, and there was a curious pleasure in facing the danger. And all this war, which was to make or mar him, was to be silently fought out in the drawing-room of a very pretty woman. He found her there, looking the picture of repose, her little dog coiled snugly at her feet, and a yellow-backed novel before her. She put the book down with a smile as he came in, and held out her hand.

"I am so glad to see you, Mr. Jackson. You must be horrified to see me, a parson's wife, reading a yellow-back; but it is Armorel of Lyonesse, and books like that make one feel good, do they not? One seems to want so much support to keep on the straight path through life."

He picked up the volume from the table.

"Yes," he said, "Armorel was a woman who would have made any man great. She was one to die for."

"Or to live for, don't you think? I should certainly not like the man I loved to die for me."

A subtle inflection of the voice made him almost start as he looked up, but the gray deep of her eyes was pure and unruffled. "I would rather," she continued, "die for the man I loved. I think women were made for sacrifice."

"Don't you think that men are capable of it?"

"Of sacrificing women-yes. Is it not done daily? Look at that man in this book-what do they call him? Ah, yes, Roland-Roland Lee. What a worthless wretch he was, to what an abyss he sank! Did not Armorel fling herself away on him? Is it not a terrible thing for a man to bind a pure woman to him, knowing that she must find out things that tell her her idol has feet of clay? Oh, yes! the woman builds herself such castles in the air, and how they crumble and fade!"

"And does this never happen to man?"

"I don't think so. I don't think that a man ever loves in the sense that a woman wishes to be loved." She bent forward and took the book from his hand as she spoke.

The touch of her fingers almost made his limbs tremble as he put down with a mighty effort the rush of words that came to his lips. He said quietly enough, however, "I do not think you judge us fairly, and you, at any rate, have nothing to complain of." Not a muscle of her face moved as she folded the book, held half open in her hand, and placed it in a small wickerwork basket that stood on a table near her. Over this she cast a piece of embroidery work, and a moment after her husband entered the room. He greeted Peregrine cordially, and then, disjointing himself, sank into a chair with a weary look in his eyes.

"Are you feeling very tired?"

How the worn look passed from the man's face at his wife's question! "No, Ruys; tired-not a bit of it." Peregrine cut in here and asked if it was not an off day with the mission schools. "Yes, and that's the worst of it. It means that on Monday one has to start fresh again. Satan takes a long pull on Saturday and Sunday, and these Burmans seem to have a natural affinity for him."

"I suppose I should hardly say it to you, but it seems to me we are beginning at the wrong end. We are giving these people the Gospel before they have been put in a state to understand it. How can they understand the greatest of all mysteries, which even we-I say it with all deference-do not understand?"

"'Knock, and it shall be opened,'" quoted Habakkuk. "Mr. Jackson, I was once as you are, searching for a light, groping about in darkness and-"

The flutelike voice of Mrs. Smalley intervened. "Come, and finish your speech in the garden. I have had my tea-table set out there, and it looks as if it were expecting us. Come along, Mr. Jackson, and come, husband."

She put her hand slightly on Habakkuk's shoulder as she said these words, and the face of the priest shone with a great joy; but underneath the long lashes of her eyes she glanced softly on Peregrine. Jackson's honest heart rebelled against this; he felt that there was a double game being played, felt it indistinctly, but still that perception gave him a little extra strength, as if there was a flaw in the chain that bound him. Yet the thought was horribly disloyal to this peerless woman, to impute to her the motives of a common flirt, and it was with a conflict within a conflict in his heart that he took his seat on the rustic bench near the tea-table and watched the white hands of his hostess as she busied herself over the delicate teacups. Habakkuk declined to sit down. He helped himself to a huge slice of cake, and, holding this in one hand and his tea in the other, paced up and down ready to carry on the discussion. He cut a half-moon out of the cake with an enormous, bite, and, waving the remnants in the air, resumed his speech. "Wal, as I was saying, I was searching for a light. I had not then received my call to the ministry, and while hunting for food for the soul was compelled to shift round considerable for food for the body. I had taken my medical degrees, but the Lord was good to the folk of Derringerville, and they flourished and were strong. Hence I concluded to betake me down south, and near the Sierra Blanca found an ideal spot for a doctor. There were thousands of typhoid microbes in every square inch of air-in fact, it was where typhoid had its office-but the inhabitants were spry. At first they died rather than call me in, but Elder Bullin, a real smart man he was, convoked the estates one day, and then a deputation waited on me-there was Calvin Snipe, Dacotah Dick, and the elder himself. They drank the half bottle of whisky I had left, and then put the matter squarely to me. I was to be paid a thumping good salary as doctor to the town. If any one was ill, however, the salary should cease until he was well again or died; the committee was to decide in the latter event if I had done my best, and, if the decision was favourable, arrears would be paid me on the first clean bill of health. I was, however, bound down for five years, and, seeing I was on the hard pan, they offered to pay down an advance. I rose to the situation, papers were signed then and there, and Dacotah Dick paid me my advance on the nail. Next day the whole place was down with fever, and I went to work-had to take off my coat to it. There was, of course, no pay for me, but I had the advance, and rubbed along on that. By-and-bye the money dwindled away, and I was once more stranded. I applied for more, but was sternly refused. I then suggested resigning, and Calvin Snipe pulled out his six-shooter and asked if I could read the maker's name on it for him. Wal, things were looking very blue, so one fine night I-"

"Good gracious! Here is Mr. Hawkshawe, and half a dozen men with him. I wonder what the matter can be? He is coming straight up to us." And, sure enough, there was Hawkshawe riding into the gate with a tail of policemen behind him. He halted the men with a quick order, and, dismounting, walked rapidly across the lawn toward the tea drinkers, accompanied by one who appeared from his dress to be a subaltern police officer. The man was travel-stained and bespattered with mud, and he held one arm tightly to his side as he leaned heavily on a long curved sword as if to support himself.

"How are you, Mrs. Smalley? Very sorry to interrupt your tea party, but this is pressing business. – Good afternoon, doctor. – Look here, Jackson, they've looted the treasury at Yeo. Here is Serferez Ali, my inspector, who will tell you all about it-and great news, too, with the bad. I think we have that scoundrel Bah Hmoay redhanded at last. I heard you were here, and stopped on my way to tell you. I have, of course, made an official report; you will find that the garrison was weakened on the strength of a forged order from me-the order is with my report."

Jackson was struck dumb for a moment by the enormity of the disaster; he found voice, however, to ask if the whole of the money had been stolen, and if Bah Hmoay had been arrested.

"The money's all gone," said Hawkshawe, "and Bah Hmoay isn't arrested, but he will be, I hope, in twenty-four hours. In the meantime I've placed a watch on the pagoda, and now there is not a moment to lose. Stay" – he bent and whispered a few words in Jackson's ear, and then with a hasty good-bye turned and went off. When Hawkshawe had gone Jackson turned to the inspector and asked him to briefly detail what had happened. Dr. Smalley's knowledge of the language was of great help at this moment, and Serferez Ali, presenting the hilt of his sword for Jackson to touch, began:

"I beg to represent that I was placed in charge of the money at the sub-treasury at Yeo with a guard of twenty men. Night and day the proper watch was kept. I have served the Sirkar for thirty years, and was I going to neglect this? On the night before last Moung Sen, the letter carrier, brought me a letter from Hawkshawe Sahib. That letter has been sent to you with the Sahib's report. It was a forgery, as Hawkshawe Sahib's letter will show; but I am a man little skilled in writing, and I obeyed. Ten of our men were ordered back next morning to Pazobin, as a disturbance was expected there, according to the letter. In the morning I sent back the ten men and told the engineer Babu what had happened, and said that until the guard came back payments should not be made, as there were not enough men to attend to these duties. The Babu sat down to write to you about it, and I determined with the few men I had to double my precautions. There was a bright moon that night, and during the day I had the trees near the treasury gate cut down, so that men might not steal upon us unawares. At eleven that night, after going my rounds, I sat down to my meal with Hashim Khan, a fellow-countryman of mine from the Punjab. As we sat down before the fire a shot was fired, and Hashim fell forward on his face a dead man. Then I heard the sentries coming back, and I knew the dacoits had attacked the treasury. There were nine men besides myself, and we answered the fire of the dacoits; but presently the woodwork of the building blazed up, and we, being choked with the smoke, had to come forth, having Beni Sing and Jowahir dead, and another, a man from Amritsur, was burned in the flames. Then we seven who were left formed in a ring, and the dacoits closed in upon us. With mine own eyes I saw Bah Hmoay, the priest, leading them on, and struck at him twice, but God preserves him to die at the end of a halter, and Moung Sen was there too, leading the robbers on. I will swear that I saw them, for the light of the burning building was as day. And we fought until all died, one by one, except myself, and I too had died but that fate preserves me to see Bah Hmoay pass to hell, and, making a dash into the darkness, I escaped. I travelled all the rest of the night and all day, only meeting Hawkshawe Sahib an hour ago-"

He swayed gently backward as he said this, and Smalley caught him as he was falling. "He is wounded, I fear, and must be seen to at once."

CHAPTER IX
HIS LADY'S GAGE

 
Belle Mabel gathered a blood-red rose,
To give to her own true knight.
 

The Ballade of the Rose.

There was a price on Bah Hmoay's head, and if Moung Sen had come within the pale of the law it would have gone hard with him. Their stronghold in Pazobin was now a thing, of the past, for the pagoda was watched night and day, and every little township and village was placarded with a minute description of the robber priest and his lieutenant. When Hawkshawe dashed out in pursuit, after the first news of the robbery, he meant death to Father Fragrance. He was well aware of the truth of the proverb that dead men tell no tales, and assuredly Bah Hmoay would have found Nirvana if Hawkshawe had met him. The policeman made a forced march all that night, and in the early gray of the morning was at Yeo. He scoured the country for miles, and one by one the dacoits fell into his hands. And when, three weeks later, he was recalled to headquarters by an urgent letter from Jackson, there were but two left of the Knights of the Silk Cotton Tree-two of the ten who had taken the water of the oath-namely, the reverend priest and the Red Diamond. It is true that there were a number of others who had joined in the assault on the sub-treasury, and who, if caught, would have paid for their crime with their lives; but these ten formed the regular gang, and now eight of them were taken alive and two were hunted men. Old Serferez Ali recovered from his wound, which was after all but slight, took Hawkshawe's place on the track, and vowed by the prophet's head that Hashim's death should be revenged tenfold, for was not Hashim of Gugar Khan his father's nephew's cousin on the sister's side? Moreover, he was a friend, and it was not the law that would avenge his death, but Serferez Ali himself, who had learned many ways of doing this. Serferez swore that they should not hang until he had satisfied himself; the law could then work its will on what remained of them, and the grim old man, hollow-eyed and gaunt, was relentless in his pursuit. Information came to him somehow, and it was only the impassable jungles that saved the criminals from his vengeance. Hawkshawe was puzzled and annoyed at Jackson's letter recalling him to headquarters. He had been working splendidly when this sudden stoppage came. It will be remembered, however, that it was no ordinary interest that spurred him on. The priest knew too much, and Hawkshawe's one hope was to seal his lips forever, for now that he was hunted in this way there was no knowing to what the dacoit might turn and cling for safety, and it was in his power to do incalculable harm to, if not to ruin, Hawkshawe. And therefore it was galling to think that, after all, his prey had escaped him. As he rode back he pulled out and read the official letter he had received and thrust angrily into his breast pocket. There was nothing in it but an urgent request to come back at once. "Confound him!" said Hawkshawe, "he might have written a line to tell me what it was about." And it was with rage in his heart that he rode into his house and, flinging the reins to his groom, went upstairs. A big envelope marked "Urgent" was on the table, and Ma Mie was there, with a troubled look on her face. As he came in she could contain herself no longer, and with a cry flung herself on his breast and called out:

"They have found out! they have found out! Fly, Hawkshawe!"

"What the devil does this all mean?" said Hawkshawe angrily, and yet with a sickening foreboding in his heart. He snatched up the great brown envelope and read with whitening lips. It was, in brief, an order from government suspending him pending certain inquiries that were to be made, and adding as a rider that he was not to leave Pazobin until the final orders of the governor had been communicated to him. He did not notice a small note that dropped out from the official inclosure, but Ma Mie stooped and, picking it up, handed it to him. It contained a few lines from Peregrine telling him to keep up heart; that he, Jackson, was sure the charges were trumped up and would fall to the ground. The letter closed with an earnest assurance of sympathy and a brief intimation that his successor, Phipson, had already arrived, and was of necessity staying with Jackson, there being no other house available for him. The blow had fallen at last, and fallen just as Hawkshawe had almost completed his most brilliant departmental achievement. He guessed instinctively whose hands had struck it-the wretched half-caste Pozendine and his former enemy Iyer were leagued together in this. Perhaps they had no proofs, but that was, after all, a straw to clutch at. He knew he was guilty, and for the moment he was overcome. He sank back into a chair with an oath, and his hand slid of its own accord to the butt of his revolver; but Ma Mie was quick.

"Not that way! not that way!" she cried as she clung to his wrist and wrenched the weapon away from his after all not unwilling hand.

But a still more terrible trial awaited Hawkshawe, and that was the formal delivering over of his office to Phipson. He was treated with the greatest consideration, but this sympathetic treatment only added to the agony, though it was difficult to say who felt it most, honest young Phipson, with his soft heart, or the proud and guilty man whose place he had taken. When it was all over, Hawkshawe went back to his house and shut himself up, going nowhere-not even to his garden gate-doing nothing, but morosely sitting in his long cane chair smoking and drinking.

"It is too cruel of them not to let the poor man go away," said Mrs. Smalley; and Habakkuk thought that if he were to go and see him Hawkshawe might be cheered up a bit.

"There is no use, doctor," said Jackson. "I went myself, but could gain no admittance; perhaps it would be wiser to leave him alone. He will come out of this trial all right, I hope-"

"If ever he lives through it," said Phipson, and they all understood, though no one spoke another word.

Smalley now turned the conversation by speaking of a mission school he had founded at Dagon, which had flourished in so remarkable a manner that he almost thought it advisable to go and live there himself.

"And leave Pazobin?" said Jackson. "Why, we couldn't do without you, doctor."

Habakkuk was flattered at the compliment, and explained that after all it was only an idea that might never come to anything, and he and Phipson strolled off together to look at some plants, for Phipson was an amateur gardener and Smalley an enthusiast.

Ruys and Jackson were, alone. "You surely do not think that Dr. Smalley will move to Dagon?" he asked.

"Why not?" was the reply. "If his work takes him there, and he feels a call, he must go-and of course I."

"I know," interrupted Jackson, "of course you will go also to aid and help him." Their eyes met, and his fell before the limpid light in hers.

"Of course," she said slowly, "there is no other thing for me to do, unless I were to stay here and look after what is left. There is much to do, you know. And now take me to the garden. I want to see what those two are looking at."

It was a wilderness of a garden for all Smalley's care, and one might easily have been lost in it. Side by side they walked down a pathway, and in the far distance they caught a glimpse of Phipson and his host poring over a row of flower pots. Jackson was about to keep straight on, when Mrs. Smalley deliberately turned into a bypath, and he followed her, admiring the perfect outline of her figure and the easy grace of her walk. "Isn't this an odd place?" she said, as on taking a turn they came upon what was evidently the ruin of an old temple. All that remained, however, was the plinth and a single griffin of monstrous size, that stood up above the shrubbery around it and glared down upon the intruders. "Fancy if such things really lived," and she dug the silver-mounted cane she carried into the plaster.

"They did, I think, in the old days," replied Jackson. "It must have been just such a monster who guarded Castle Dolorous and carried away the White Lady to keep her a close prisoner."

"And of course a youthful knight came and blew on a silver bugle, and then there was a fight."

"Yes, and the knight won, and the fair lady gave him a gage to wear, and perhaps-"

"Oh, never mind the perhaps-she gave him her gage, did she? What did she give?" and as Ruys said this she loosened with her hand a bunch of mignonette that was pinned to her dress.

"Oh, a ribbon or a kerchief, or maybe a flower, and the knight wore it as a charm against all evil, and a light to guide him on his quest."

"Yes," she said dreamily, "the good old days-I would we were now in them. I can not picture a knight in a tweed suit-can you? How would a gage look on that?" and with a sudden movement of her hand she placed the flowers against Peregrine's breast and held them there.

"Will you let it rest there?" His voice sounded strange and hollow to himself. Ruys bent forward and fastened the flowers in his coat slowly and deliberately, standing close to him as she did this, and a mad longing came over the man to clasp her to him, to ask her to put her white arms round his neck and say she loved him, to tell her she was loved with a love that could only end with his death. But he held out somehow, God alone knows how, and when Ruys had pinned the flowers over his heart she said softly:

"There, that is my gage; remember, it is to be an amulet to guide you to the right."

The sweet scent of the mignonette floated around him, there was a dreaming look in Ruys's face as she met his look, and now her eyes fell before him, and she half turned her face away to hide the pink flush that came into her cheek. There was a moment of breathless anxiety to the man when he felt that he must yield, but he righted himself with a mighty effort as he said:

"I will keep the gage forever, Mrs. Smalley, although I am afraid I am but an unworthy knight."

Neither spoke a word after that, but, as it were, instinctively turned to leave a place which was so dangerous to both. They walked back together until they once more reached the broad road, and then Ruys turned abruptly.

"I have got a headache, Mr. Jackson, and I think I will go in. Don't tell my husband; it is a mere trifle. See, there are Mr. Phipson and he talking; go and join them. I-I-want to be alone."

She turned and walked slowly down toward the house, and Jackson stood still, staring after her with an uncomfortable feeling that her last words suggested an understanding between them that did not exactly exist. He bent his head down till his lips touched the flowers she gave him, and then he went forward to meet his host and Phipson. In the meantime Ruys reached her room, and, having carefully shut the door, deliberately proceeded to have a good cry. It was a sheer case of nerves with her, and the nerves had given way. She had played with edged tools and now found that they could cut, and began to realize that she was almost if not quite in love with this impassive youth. The woman was a curious mixture of good and bad. She laid herself out to do a wrong thing, and took a keen pleasure in so doing, then would come the reaction and bitter regret. She went down on her knees in an impulsive manner and prayed to God to forgive her sin, and she vowed then and there to dedicate her life to his service. Then she got up, washed off the traces of her tears, and came down to her husband. The mail had come in, and Habakkuk was seated reading his paper. "Have they gone?" she asked.