“Thank Heaven it was there,” she said.  “I should have sat on the floor if it hadn’t been.”  She dismissed the butler and held out her hand to Thresk.  “Oh, my friend,” she said, “there’s your steamer on its way to Aden.”

Her voice rang with enthusiasm and admiration.  Thresk only nodded his head gloomily.

“I have missed it,” he replied.  “It’s very unfortunate.  I have clients waiting for me in London.”

“You missed it on purpose,” she declared and Thresk’s face relaxed into a smile.  He turned away from the window to her.  He seemed suddenly to wear the look of a boy.

“I have the best of excuses,” he replied, “the perfect excuse.”  But even he could not foresee how completely that excuse was to serve him.

“Sit down,” said Jane Repton, “and tell me.  You went to Chitipur, I know.  From your presence here I know too that you found—­them—­there.”

“No,” said Thresk, “I didn’t.”  He sat down and looked straight into Jane Repton’s eyes.  “I had a stroke of luck.  I found them—­in camp.”

Jane Repton understood all that the last two words implied.

“I should have wished that,” she answered, “if I had dared to think it possible.  You talked with Stella?”

“Hardly a word alone.  But I saw.”

“What did you see?”

“I am here to tell you.”  And he told her the story of his night at the camp so far as it concerned Stella Ballantyne, and indeed not quite all of that.  For instance he omitted altogether to relate how he had left his pipe behind in the tent and had returned for it.  That seemed to him unimportant.  Nor did he tell her of his conversation with Ballantyne about the photograph.  “He was in a panic.  He had delusions,” he said and left the matter there.  Thresk had the lawyer’s mind or rather the mind of a lawyer in big practice.  He had the instinct for the essential fact and the knowledge that it was most lucid when presented in a naked simplicity.  He was at pains to set before Jane Repton what he had seen of the life which Stella lived with Stephen Ballantyne and nothing else.

“Now,” he said when he had finished, “you sent me to Chitipur.  I must know why.”

And when she hesitated he overbore her.

“You can be guilty of no disloyalty to your friend,” he insisted, “by being frank with me.  After all I have given guarantees.  I went to Chitipur upon your word.  I have missed my boat.  You bade me go to Chitipur.  That told me too little or too much.  I say too little.  I have got to know all now.”  And he rose up and stood before her.  “What do you know about Stephen Ballantyne?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Jane Repton.  She looked at the clock.  “You had better stay and lunch with us if you will.  We shall be alone.  I’ll tell you afterwards.  Meanwhile—­” and in her turn she stood up.  The sense of responsibility was heavy upon her.

She had sent this man upon his errand of knowledge.  He had done, in consequence of it, a stronger, a wilder thing than she had thought, than she had hoped for.  She had a panicky feeling that she had set great forces at work.