“Dear me, no,” interposed Harold Hazlewood.

“But I say yes,” Pettifer continued imperturbably.  “Conventional man awakes in him and cries loudly against the marriage.  Then there’s myself.  I am fond of Dick.  I have no child.  He will be my heir and I am not poor.  He is doing well in his profession.  To be an Instructor of the Staff Corps at his age means hard work, keenness, ability.  I look forward to a great career.  I am very fond of him.  And—­understand me, Mr. Thresk”—­he checked his speech and weighed his words very carefully—­“I wouldn’t say that he shouldn’t marry Stella Ballantyne just because Stella Ballantyne has lain under a grave charge of which she has been acquitted.  No, I may be as formal as my brother-in-law thinks, but I hold a wider faith than that.  But I am not satisfied.  That is the truth, Mr. Thresk.  I am not sure of what happened in that tent in far-away Chitipur after you had ridden away to catch the night mail to Bombay.”

Robert Pettifer had made his confession simply and with some dignity.  Thresk looked at him for a few moments.  Was he wondering whether he could answer the questions?  Was he hesitating through anger at the trick which had been played upon him?  Pettifer could not tell.  He waited in suspense.  Thresk pushed his chair back suddenly and came forward from behind the table.

“Ask your questions,” he said.

“You consent to answer them?” Mr. Hazlewood cried joyously, and Thresk replied with coldness: 

“I must.  For if I don’t consent your suspicions at once are double what they were.  But I am not pleased.”

“Oh, we practised a little diplomacy,” said Hazlewood, making light of his offence.

“Diplomacy!” For the first time a gleam of anger shone in Thresk’s eyes.  “You have got me to your house by a trick.  You have abused your position as my host.  And but that I should injure a woman whom life has done nothing but injure I should go out of your door this instant.”

He turned his back upon Harold Hazlewood and sat down in a chair opposite to Robert Pettifer.  A little round table separated them.  Pettifer, seated upon a couch, took from his pocket the envelope with the press-cuttings and spread them on the table in front of him.  Thresk lolled back in his chair.  It was plain that he was in no terror of Pettifer’s examination.

“I am at your service,” he said.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE WITNESS

The afternoon sunlight poured into the room golden and clear.  Outside the open windows the garden was noisy with birds and the river babbled between its banks.  Henry Thresk shut his ears against the music.  For all his appearance of ease he dreaded the encounter which was now begun.  Pettifer he knew to be a shrewd man.  He watched him methodically arranging his press-cuttings in front of him.  Pettifer might well find some weak point in his story which he himself had not discovered; and whatever course he was minded afterwards to take, here and now he was determined once more to fight Stella’s battle.