ife: "Stella! Stella!
Mr. Thresk is going," and he went out through the doorway into the
moonlight.

CHAPTER VIII

AND THE RIFLE

Thresk, alone in the tent, looked impatiently towards the grass-screen.
He wanted half-a-dozen words with Stella alone. Here was the opportunity,
the unhoped-for opportunity, and it was slipping away. Through the open
doorway of the tent he saw Ballantyne standing by a big fire and men
moving quickly in obedience to his voice. Then he heard the rustle of a
dress in the corridor, and she was in the room. He moved quickly towards
her, but she held up her hand and stopped him.

"Oh, why did you come?" she said, and the pallor of her face reproached
him no less than the regret in her voice.

"I heard of you in Bombay," he replied. "I am glad that I did come."

"And I am sorry."

"Why?"

She looked about the tent as though he might find his answer there.
Thresk did not move. He stood near to her, watching her face intently
with his jaw rather set.

"Oh, I didn't say that to wound you," said Stella, and she sat down on
one of the cushioned basket-chairs. "You mustn't think I wasn't glad to
see you. I was--at the first moment I was very glad;" and she saw his
face lighten as she spoke. "I couldn't help it. All the years rolled
away. I remembered the Sussex Downs and--and--days when we rode there
high up above the weald. Do you remember?"

"Yes."

"How long was that ago?"

"Eight years."

Stella laughed wistfully.

"To me it seems a century." She was silent for a moment, and though he
spoke to her urgently she did not answer. She was carried back to the
high broad hills of grass with the curious clumps of big beech-trees upon
their crests.

"Do you remember Halnaker Gallop?" she asked with a laugh. "We found it
when the chains weren't up and had the whole two miles free. Was there
ever such grass?"

She was looking straight at the bureau, but she was seeing that green
lane of shaven turf in the haze of an August morning. She saw it rise and
dip in the open between long brown grass. There was a tree on the
left-hand side just where the ride dipped for the first time. Then it ran
straight to the big beech-trees and passed between them, a wide glade of
sunlight, and curved out at the upper end by the road and dipped down
again to the two lodges.

"And the ridge at the back of Charlton forest, all the weald to Leith
Hill in view?" She rose suddenly from her chair. "Oh, I