" It was a ghastly and yet in some
indefinable way a marvelously dear experience. Could it be
possible, I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a second time
the woman I had killed by my own neglect and cruelty?
I met Kitty on the homeward road--a shadow among shadows.
If I were to describe all the incidents of the next fortnight in their
order, my story would never come to an end; and your patience
would be exhausted. Morning after morning and evening after
evening the ghostly 'rickshaw and I used to wander through Simla
together. Wherever I went there the four black and white liveries
followed me and bore me company to and from my hotel. At the
Theatre I found them amid the crowd or yelling _jhampanies_;
outside the Club veranda, after a long evening of whist; at the
Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my reappearance; and in broad
daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the
'rickshaw was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood
and iron. More than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from
warning some hard-riding friend against cantering over it.
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