His listener writhed. The deputy commissioner's rhetoric was certainly most trying.
"I don't suppose," he pursued, "that in the history of the world there has ever been a married pair more lied about than the Darlings. Nothing has been too bad for the victims of her charms to say about her; and for years the gossips from here to Singapore have been telling wild tales of the colonel's cruelty, wreaked in vengeance on his wayward _mem-sahib_.
"They've had her drawn and quartered, cut, bruised, and dislocated. To believe the hundredth part of these stories she must, long ere this, if she managed to survive, have been resolved into a more helpless, unsightly cripple than the most distorted _Sadhu_ that makes hideous the twice-yearly festivals at Tirupankundram. Yet I know there's not a scintilla of truth in any one of them."
"I heard something of that sort at Simla," said Andrews, frowning.
"You can hear it anywhere. Whenever conversation flags in Anglo-India some ass or knave will introduce the Darlings, and rehearse the latest invention of the prolific and never-failing scandal-makers."
"He's only cruel to himself," answered Dinghal. "He's killing his body and soul with strong drink, and he's risking his temporal and eternal future as an officer in his majesty's service and as a Christian gentleman.
"I give you my word, Andrews, he's never spoken a harsh word to her nor laid a heavy hand on her fair person. And yet he suffers the torments of the damned because of her. It's a very painful situation."
Andrews said he didn't pretend to understand the thing, and would like to have the key.
Dinghal hesitated a moment. Then he looked very impressive, and when he spoke it was with lowered voice.
"I can give you the key in three words," he said.
"It is this," Dinghal divulged gravely: "He loves her."
The young man from the Bombay side was thoughtfully silent for a space. Then, as the revelation sank in, he murmured, half to himself and out of the abundance of his own recent experience:
At the time of this conversation Andrews had not seen Darling. He met him a night or two later at the Umballa Club, and a strange emotional mix-up resulted. The young man's sentimental side was oddly stirred. Darling appealed not only to his sympathy, but to his admiration.