ed the upper hand with her and how extravagantly she had built
upon Thresk's urgent questioning of her at the dinner-table.

"Very likely he never found the Ballantynes at all," she argued. But he
might have sent her word. All that morning she had been expecting a
telephone message or a telegram or a note scribbled on board the steamer
and sent up the Khamballa Hill by a messenger. But not a token had come
from him and now of the boat which was carrying him to England there was
nothing left but the stain of its smoke upon the sky.

Mrs. Repton put her handkerchief in her pocket and was going about the
business of her house when the butler opened the door.

"I am not in--" Mrs. Repton began and cut short the sentence with a cry
of welcome and surprise, for close upon the heels of the servant Thresk
was standing.

"You!" she cried. "Oh!"

She felt her legs weakening under her and she sat down abruptly on a
chair.

"Thank Heaven it was there," she said. "I should have sat on the
floor if it hadn't been." She dismissed the butler and held out her
hand to Thresk. "Oh, my friend," she said, "there's your steamer on
its way to Aden."

Her voice rang with enthusiasm and admiration. Thresk only nodded his
head gloomily.

"I have missed it," he replied. "It's very unfortunate. I have clients
waiting for me in London."

"You missed it on purpose," she declared and Thresk's face relaxed into a
smile. He turned away from the window to her. He seemed suddenly to wear
the look of a boy.

"I have the best of excuses," he replied, "the perfect excuse." But even
he could not foresee how completely that excuse was to serve him.

"Sit down," said Jane Repton, "and tell me. You went to Chitipur, I know.
From your presence here I know too that you found--them--there."

"No," said Thresk, "I didn't." He sat down and looked straight into Jane
Repton's eyes. "I had a stroke of luck. I found them--in camp."

Jane Repton understood all that the last two words implied.

"I should have wished that," she answered, "if I had dared to think it
possible. You talked with Stella?"

"Hardly a word alone. But I saw."

"What did you see?"

"I am here to tell you." And he told her the story of his night at the
camp so far as it concerned Stella Ballantyne, and indeed not quite all
of that. For instance he omitted altogether to relate how he had left his
pipe behind in the tent and had returned for it. That seemed to him
unimportant. Nor