“Yes,” replied Repton.  He was leaning forward over a table and looking up to the chandelier as if he fancied that its light burnt more dimly than was usual.

“That’s true,” and he spoke in the same strange mechanical voice he had used before.

“That he was found dead outside his tent,” Thresk added.

“It’s quite true,” Repton agreed.  “We are very sorry.”

“Sorry!”

The exclamation burst from Thresk’s lips.

“Yes.”

Repton moved away from the chandelier.  He had not looked at Thresk once since he had entered the room; nor did he look towards his wife.  His face was very pale and he was busy now setting a chair in place, moving a photograph, doing any one of the little unnecessary things people restlessly do when there is an importunate visitor in the room who will not go.

“You see, there’s terribly bad news,” he added.

“What news?”

“He was shot, you know.  That wasn’t in the telegram on the tape, of course.  Yes, he was shot—­on the same night you dined there—­after you had gone.”

“Shot!”

Thresk’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“Yes,” and the dull quiet voice went on, speaking apparently of some trivial affair in which none of them could have any interest.  “He was shot by a bullet from a little rook-rifle which belonged to Stella, and which she was in the habit of using.”

Thresk’s heart stood still.  A picture flashed before his eyes.  He saw the inside of that dimly lit tent with its red lining and Stella standing by the table.  He could hear her voice:  “This is my little rook-rifle.  I was seeing that it was clean for to-morrow.”  She had spoken so carelessly, so indifferently that it wasn’t conceivable that what was in all their minds could be true.  Yet she had spoken, after all, no more indifferently than Repton was speaking now; and he was in a great stress of grief.  Then Thresk’s mind leaped to the weak point in all this chain of presumption.

“But Ballantyne was found outside the tent,” he cried with a little note of triumph.  But it had no echo in Repton’s reply.

“I know.  That makes everything so much worse.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ballantyne was found in the morning outside the tent stone-cold.  But no one had heard the shot, and there were sentries on the edge of the encampment.  He had been dragged outside after he was dead or when he was dying.”

A low cry broke from Thresk.  The weak point became of a sudden the most deadly, the most terrible element in the whole case.  He could hear the prosecuting counsel making play with it.  He stood for a moment lost in horror.  Repton had no further word to say to him.  Mrs. Repton had never once spoken.  They wanted him away, out of the room, out of the house.  Some insight let him into the meaning of her silence.  In the presence of this tragedy remorse had gripped her.  She was looking upon herself as one who had plotted harm for Stella.  She would never forgive Thresk for his share in the plot.