dia at the first possible moment. He
had been delayed by one or two accidents, but now he had really arrived;
and Anstice had come down to meet him, knowing that before he himself
could leave this fatal country there must be an explanation between the
man who had loved Hilda Ryder, and the one who had been too hasty in
carrying out a promise.

To say that he shrank from this interview would hardly be true. As a
matter of fact, in the weeks which had elapsed since that fatal morning
Anstice had wandered in a world of shadows. Nothing seemed real, acute,
not even the memory of the thing he had done. Everything was mercifully
blurred, unreal. He was like a man stunned, who sees things without
realizing them; or a man suffering from some form of poison--from
indulgence in _hashish_, for instance, when time and space lose all
significance, and the thing which was and that which is become strangely
and unaccountably interchangeable.

That there must be a reckoning between himself and Cheniston, Anstice
vaguely knew. Yet he felt no dread, and very little curiosity as to the
manner of their meeting; and although he recognized the fact that the
man to whom Hilda Ryder had been engaged might well look on him with
horror, inasmuch as his hand had sent her to her death, Anstice felt
little interest in the matter as it concerned himself.

Possibly he was still feeling the effects of that morning's happening,
although unaware of it. He had received a nasty wound--even now his
shoulder was stiff and painful--and since he had discontinued the use of
opiates he had had little or no sleep; but he was a man of good
physique, and only an unaccustomed pallor and a few finely-drawn lines
round his mouth betrayed the fact that he had suffered--was suffering
still.

One or two men glanced at him curiously as he sat in a corner, gazing
ahead of him with an unseeing stare; but only one man, a young officer
called Trent, recognized him as the hero of the tragedy which had shaken
the district of Alostan a few weeks earlier.

Being a talkative person he could not refrain from pointing Anstice out
to his companion.

"See that chap over there--the tall fellow in grey?" Trent had been one
of the picnic party which had ended in disaster; and although a
good-hearted boy was thrilled with the importance of his own position.
"Know who it is? Well, it's that chap Anstice--you remember, the fellow
who shot that girl up in the hills when they were in