more flurried with every second that passed. She had so little time.
Ballantyne was not going as far as the station with Thresk. He merely
intended to see his visitor off beyond the edge of the camp. And it must
all be over and done with before he came back. She heard Ballantyne call
to Thresk to sit firm while the camel rose; and still she had not found
them. She heard Thresk's voice saying good-night.

"The last words, Henry, I wanted to hear in the world. I thought that I
would wait for them and the moment they had died away--then. But I hadn't
found the cartridges and so the search began again."

Thresk, watching her as she lived through again those desperate minutes,
was carried back to Chitipur and seemed to be looking into that tent. He
had a dreadful picture before his eyes of a hunted woman rushing wildly
from table to table, with a white, quivering face and lips which babbled
incoherently and feverish hands which darted out nervously, over-setting
books and ornaments--in a vain search for a box of cartridges wherewith
to kill herself. She found them at last behind the whisky bottle, and
clutched at them with a great sigh of relief. She carried them over to
the table on which she had laid her rifle, and as she pushed one into
the breech, Stephen Ballantyne stood in the doorway of the tent.

"He swore at me," Stella continued. "I had taken the necklace off. I had
shown you the bruises on my throat. He cursed me for it, and he asked me
roughly why I didn't shoot myself and rid him of a fool. I stood without
answering him. That always maddened him. I didn't do it on purpose. I had
become dull and slow. I just stood and looked at him stupidly, and in a
fury he ran at me with his fist raised. I recoiled, he frightened me, and
then before he reached me--yes." Her voice died away in a whisper. Thresk
did not interrupt. There was more for her to tell and one dreadful
incident to explain. Stella went on in a moment, looking straight in
front of her and with all the passion of fear gone from her voice.

"I remember that he stood and stared at me foolishly for a little while.
I had time to believe that nothing had happened, and to be glad that
nothing had happened and to be terrified of what he would do to me. And
then he fell and lay quite still."

It seemed that she had no more to say, that she meant to leave
unexplained the inexplicable thing; and even Thresk put it out of
his thoughts.

"It was an accident then