Mr. Jervis, Volume III by B. M. Croker — Read

A powerful and determined temptation, that was deaf to reason or argument, struggled hourly to drag Mark Jervis to Hawal Bagh. It changed its fierce wrestlings, and passionate and even frantic pleadings to soft alluring whispers. It whispered that life was but an hour in the eons of time -- a drop in the ocean of eternity. Why not taste the drop -- enjoy the hour? Snatch the sunshine and live one's little day, ere passing for ever into eternal darkness and oblivion! It even quoted the Scriptures, and vehemently urged him to take no thought for the morrow -- that sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. It seized the brush from the hand of memory, and painted Honor Gordon as an angel. It babbled of a visit to Mrs. Brande -- _she_ had always been his friend. Surely there was no harm in going to see _her_! But the young man sternly silenced alike whisperings or pleadings. He beat the mad tempter to its knees, choked it, and, as he believed, put it to death. Why undergo the anguish of parting twice -- why walk across red-hot plough-shares a second time?

For four whole days he held aloof, and never visited the cantonment -- save in his thoughts and dreams. On the fifth he conscientiously set forth in the opposite direction, and after a long and aimless ride was astonished to find himself -- no, not exactly on the enchanted ground, but close to the old rifle-range, which lay at the back of its encompassing hills. To the left dipped a long valley, on the right of the path towered a forest of rhododendrons and ever-green oaks, carpeted with ferns, and a blaze of delicate autumn flowers; here and there the Virginia creeper flared, and here and there a pale passion-flower had flung abroad its eager tendrils and attached two noble trees. All at once, a fat white puppy came bustling through the undergrowth; he was chasing a family of respectable elderly monkeys, with the audacity common to his age and race. Truly the pup is the father of the dog; and Jervis, who was walking slowly with his pony following him, recognized this particular pup at once as an old friend. He had bought him and presented him to Mrs. Brande, when her grief was as yet too fresh -- and this same rollicking, well-to-do animal had once been indignantly spurned! To whom did he now belong? Who was his master or his mistress? There was a sound of light young footsteps, a crashing of small twigs, a glimpse of a white dress, and an anxious girlish voice calling, "Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!"