The first time he saw a tiger in India was one of the landmarks in the history of his inner emotions. He had gone to shoot the beasts with a well-known Rajah, and it had chanced he came upon a magnificent creature at very close quarters and had shot it on sight. But when it lay dead, its wonderful body gracefully moving no more, a sickening regret came over Paul. Of all things in creation none reminded him so forcibly of his lost worshipped Queen. In a flash came back to him the first day she had lain on the skin which had been his gift. Out of the jungle her eyes seemed to gleam. In his ears rang her words, "I know all your feelings and your passions. And now I have your skin--for the joy of my skin." Yes, she had loved tigers, and been in sympathy with them always, and here was one whose joy of life he had ended!
No, he could never kill one more. After this expedition for weeks he was restless--the incident seemed to have pierced through his carefully cultivated calm. For days and days, fresh as in the first hours of his grief, came an infinite sensation of pain--just hideous personal pain.
So time, and his journeys, went on. But no country and no change of scene could dull Paul's sense of loss, and the great vast terrible finality of all hope.
The hackneyed phrase would continually ring in his brain of--Never again--never again! Ah! God! it was true he would hold his beloved one--never again. And often unavailing rebellion against destiny would rise up in him, and he would almost go mad and see red once more. Then he would rush away from civilisation out into the wild.
But these violent emotions were always followed by a heavy, numb lethargy until some echo or resemblance roused him to suffering again. The scent of tuberoses caused him anguish unspeakable. One night in New York he was obliged to leave the opera because a woman he was with wore some in her dress.
Thus, with all his strong will, there were times when he could not control himself or his grief.
He had been absent from England for over two years, when the news came to him far out in America of his Uncle Hubert's death. So he had gone to join the world of spirits in the vast beyond! Paul did not care! His only feeling was one of relief. No more fear of hearing, perhaps, some chance idle word. But he remembered his mother had loved her handsome brother, and he wrote a tender letter home.