"Why do you come to this place ?" Ameerah answered her with simple fluency in Hindustani, with her manner of not realising that she was speaking to a foreigner who could not understand her.

What she explained was that, having heard that Jane's Mem Sahib came here to meditate on account of the stillness, she herself had formed the habit of coming to indulge in prayer and meditation when the place was deserted for the day.

She commended the place to Jane, and to Jane's mother, whom she believed to be holy persons given to devotional exercises.

Jane shook her.
"I don't understand a word you say," she cried.

"You know I don't.