-his peace-offerings. And Thresk listened. But
before his eyes stood the picture of Stella Ballantyne standing alone in
the dark corridor beyond the grass-screen whispering with wild lips her
wish that she was dead; and in his ears was the sound of her sobbing.
Here, it seemed, was another story to add to the annals of Rajputana.

Then Ballantyne tapped him on the arm.

"You're not listening," he said with a leer. "And I'm telling you good
things--things that people don't know and that I wouldn't tell them--the
swine. You're not listening. You're thinking I'm a brute to my wife, eh?"
And Thresk was startled by the shrewdness of his host's guess.

"Well, I'll tell you the truth. I am not master of myself," Ballantyne
continued. His voice sank and his eyes narrowed to two little bright
slits. "I am afraid. Yes, that's the explanation. I am so afraid that
when I am not alone I seek relief any way, any how. I can't help it." And
even as he spoke his eyes opened wide and he sat staring intently at a
dim corner of the tent, moving his head with little jerks from one side
to the other that he might see the better.

"There's no one over there, eh?" he asked.

"No one."

Ballantyne nodded as he moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.

"They make these tents too large," he said in a whisper. "One great blot
of light in the middle and all around in the corners--shadows. We sit
here in the blot of light--a fair mark. But what's going on in the
shadows, Mr.--What's your name? Eh? What's going on in the shadows?"

Thresk had no doubt that Ballantyne's fear was genuine. He was not
putting forward merely an excuse for the scene which his guest had
witnessed and might spread abroad on his return to Bombay. No, he was
really terrified. He interspersed his words with sudden unexpected
silences, during which he sat all ears and his face strained to listen,
as though he expected to surprise some stealthy movement. But Thresk
accounted for it by that decanter on the sideboard, in which the level of
the whisky had been so noticeably lowered that evening. He was wrong
however, for Ballantyne sprang to his feet.

"You are going away to-night. You can do me a service."

"Can I?" asked Thresk.

He understood at last why Ballantyne had been at such pains to interest
and amuse him.

"Yes. And in return," cried Ballantyne, "I'll give you another glimpse
into the India you don't know."

He walked up to the door of the tent and d