rs _sahib_ went with
him. I did not see the captain _sahib_ again."

He spoke wistfully, as one who longed to help but recognized his
limitations.

Stella received his news in silence, her face still and white as the
face of a marble statue. She felt no resentment against Peter. He had
acted almost under compulsion. But she could not discuss the matter
with him.

At length: "You may go, Peter," she said. "Please let no one come to my
door to-night! I wish to be undisturbed."

Peter salaamed low and withdrew. The order was a very definite one, and
she knew she could rely upon him to carry it out. As the door closed
softly upon him, she turned towards her window. It opened upon the
verandah. She moved across the room to shut it; but ere she reached it,
Everard Monck came noiselessly through on slippered feet and bolted it
behind him.

CHAPTER IX

THE CONSUMING FIRE

As he turned towards her, there came upon Stella, swift as a stab
through the heart, the memory of that terrible night more than a year
before when he had drawn her into his room and fastened the window
behind her--against whom? His wild words rushed upon her. She had deemed
them to be directed against the unknown intruder on the verandah. She
knew now that the madness that had loosed his tongue had moved him to
utter his fierce threat against a man who was dead--against the man whom
he had--She stopped the thought as she would have checked the word
half-spoken. She turned shivering away. The man on the verandah, that
vision of the night-watches, she saw it all now--she saw it all. And he
had loved her before her marriage. And he had known--and he had
known--that, given opportunity, he could win her for his own.

Like a throbbing undersong--the fiendish accompaniment to the devils'
chorus--the gossip of the station as detailed by Tessa ran with glib
mockery through her brain. Ah, they only suspected. But she knew--she
knew! The door of that secret chamber had opened wide to her at last,
and perforce she had entered in.

He had moved forward, but he had not spoken. At least she fancied not,
but all her senses were in an uproar. And above it all she seemed to
hear that dreadful little thrumming instrument down by the river at
Udalkhand--the tinkling, mystic call of the vampire goddess,--India the
insatiable who had made him what he was.

He came to her, and every fibre of her being was aware of him and
thrilled at his coming. Never had she