h he had never
heard. He heard a heavy breathing and a bubbling noise and then into
the fan of light which spread from the window of the bungalow a man in
a scarlet livery rode on a camel. The camel knelt; its rider
dismounted, and as he dismounted he talked to Thresk's bearer.
Something passed from hand to hand and the bearer came back to Thresk
with a letter in his hand.

"A chit from his Excellency."

Thresk tore open the envelope and found within it an invitation to
dinner, signed "Stephen Ballantyne."

"Your letter has reached me this moment," the note ran. "It came by your
train. I am glad not to have missed you altogether and I hope that you
will come to-night. The camel will bring you to the camp and take you
back in plenty of time for the mail."

After all then the quest had not failed. After all he was to see for
himself--what a man could see within two hours, of the inner life of a
married couple. Not very much certainly, but a hint perhaps, some token
which would reveal to him what it was that had written so much
character into Stella Ballantyne's face and driven Jane Repton into
warnings and reserve.

"I will go at once," said Thresk and his bearer translated the words to
the camel-driver.

But even so Thresk stayed to look again at the letter. Its handwriting at
the first glance, when the unexpected words were dancing before his eyes,
had arrested his attention; it was so small, so delicately clear.
Thresk's experience had made him quick to notice details and slow to
infer from them. Yet this handwriting set him wondering. It might have
been the work of some fastidious woman or of some leisured scholar; so
much pride of penmanship was there. It certainly agreed with no picture
of Stephen Ballantyne which his imagination had drawn.

He mounted the camel behind the driver, and for the next few minutes all
his questions and perplexities vanished from his mind. He simply clung to
the waist of the driver. For the camel bumped down into steep ditches and
scuffled up out of them, climbed over mounds and slid down the further
side of them, and all the while Thresk had the sensation of being poised
uncertainly in the air as high as a church-steeple. Suddenly however the
lights of the camp grew large and the camel padded silently in between
the tents. It was halted some twenty yards from a great marquee. Another
servant robed in white with a scarlet sash about his waist received
Thresk from the camel-driver