and a little rifle in your hands.
There was no one else."

She ceased to argue; she sat looking straight in front of her with a
stubborn face and a resolution to cling at all costs to her chance of
happiness.

"Come, Stella," Thresk pleaded. "I don't say tell every one. I do say
tell him. For unless you do I must."

Stella stared at him.

"You?" she said. "You would tell him that you came back into the tent
and saw me?"

"Oh, much more--that I lied at the trial, that the story which secured
your acquittal was false, that I made it up to save you. That I told it
again this afternoon to give you a chance of slipping out from an
impossible position."

She looked at Thresk for a moment in terror. Then her expression changed.
A wave of relief swept over her; she laughed in Thresk's face.

"You are trying to frighten me," she said. "Only I know you. Do you
realise what it would mean to you if it were ever really known that you
had lied at the trial?"

"Yes."

"Your ruin. Your absolute ruin."

"Worse than that."

"Prison!"

"Perhaps. Yes."

Stella laughed again.

"And you would run the risk of the truth becoming known by telling it to
so much as one person. No, no! Another, perhaps--not you! You have had
one dream all your life--to rise out of obscurity, to get on in the
world, to hold the high positions. Everything and every one has been
sacrificed to its fulfilment. Oh, who should know better than I?" and she
struck her hands together sharply as she uttered that bitter cry. "You
have lain down late and risen early, and you have got on. Well, are you
the man to throw away all this work and success now that they touch
fulfilment? You are in the chariot. Will you step down and run tied to
the wheels? Will you stand up and say, 'There was a trial. I perjured
myself'? No. Another, perhaps. Not you, Henry."

Thresk had no answer to that indictment. All of it was true except
its inference, and it was no news to him. He made no effort to
defend himself.

"You are not very generous, Stella," he replied gently. "For if I lied, I
saved you by the lie."

Stella was softened by the words. Her voice lost its hardness, she
reached out her hand in an apology and laid it on his arm.

"Oh, I know. I sent you a little word of thanks when you gave me my
freedom. But it won't be of much value to me if I lose--what I am
fighting for now."

"So you use every weapon?"

"Yes."

"But this one breaks in your hand," he