“Meanwhile—­” asked Thresk; and she drew a breath of relief.  The steadiness of his eyes and voice comforted her.  His quiet insistence gave her courage.  None of her troubles and doubts had any place apparently in his mind.  A nervous horse in the hands of a real horseman—­thus she thought of herself in Thresk’s presence.

“Meanwhile I’ll give you one reason why I wanted you to go.  My husband’s time in India is up.  We are leaving for England altogether in a month’s time.  We shall not come back at all.  And when we have gone Stella will be left without one intimate friend in the whole country.”

“Yes,” said Thresk.  “That wouldn’t do, would it?” and they went in to their luncheon.

All through that meal, before the servants, they talked what is written in the newspapers.  And of the two she who had fears and hesitations was still the most impatient to get it done.  She had her curiosity and it was beginning to consume her.  What had Thresk known of Stella and she of him before she had come out to India and become Stella Ballantyne?  Had they been in love?  If not why had Thresk gone to Chitipur?  Why had he missed his boat and left all his clients over there in England in the lurch?  If so, why hadn’t they married—­the idiots?  Oh, how she wanted to know all the answers to all these questions!  And what he proposed to do now!  And she would know nothing unless she was frank herself.  She had read his ultimatum in his face.

“We’ll have coffee in my sitting-room.  You can smoke there,” she said and led the way to it.  “A cheroot?”

Thresk smiled with amusement.  But the amusement annoyed her for she did not understand it.

“I have got a Havana cigar here,” he said.  “May I?”

“Of course.”

He lit it and listened.  But it was not long before it went out and he did not stir to light it again.  The incident of which Mrs. Repton had been the witness, and which she related now, invested Ballantyne with horror.  Thresk had left the camp at Chitipur with an angry contempt for him.  The contempt passed out of his feelings altogether as he sat in Mrs. Repton’s drawing-room.

“I am not telling you what Stella has confided to me,” said Mrs. Repton.  “Stella’s loyal even when there’s no cause for loyalty; and if loyalty didn’t keep her mouth closed, self-respect would.  I tell you what I saw.  We were at Agra at the time.  My husband was Collector there.  There was a Durbar held there and the Rajah of Chitipur came to it with his elephants and his soldiers, and naturally Captain Ballantyne and his wife came too.  They stayed with us.  You are to understand that I knew nothing—­absolutely nothing—­up to that time.  I hadn’t a suspicion—­until the afternoon of the finals in the Polo Tournament.  Stella and I went together alone and we came home about six.  Stella went upstairs and I—­I walked into the library.”

She had found Ballantyne sitting in a high arm-chair, his eyes glittering under his black thick eyebrows and his face livid.  He looked at her as she entered, but he neither moved nor spoke, and she thought that he was ill.  But the decanter of whisky stood empty on a little table at his side and she noticed it.