So ran the tide of gossip and surmise.  And in Hone’s pocket lay the twisted note which the woman he loved had left behind—­the note which he had read with an unmoved countenance under a host of watching eyes.

“Good-bye, St. Patrick!  It has been an amusing game, has it not?  Do you remember how you beat me once long ago?  I was but a child in those days.  I did not know the rules of the game, and so you had the advantage.  But you could not hope to have it always.  It is my turn now, and I think I may claim the return match for my own.  So good-bye, Achilles!  Perhaps the gods will send you better luck next time.  Who knows?”

No eye but Hone’s ever read that heartless note, and his but once.  Half an hour after he had received it, it lay in ashes, but every word of it was graven deep upon his brain.

IX

It was in the early hours of the morning that Nina Perceval reached Bombay.

She had sat wide-eyed and motionless all through the night.  She had felt no desire to sleep.  An intense horror of her surroundings seemed to possess her.  She was like a hunted creature seeking to escape from a world of horrors.  She would know no rest till she reached the sea, till she was speeding away over the glittering water, and the land—­that land which had become more hateful to her than any prison—­was left far behind.

She had played her game, she had sped her shaft, and now panic—­sheer, unreasoning panic—­filled her.  She was terrified at what she had done, too terrified yet for coherent thought.  She had taken her revenge at last.  She had pierced her conqueror to the heart.  As he had once laughed at her, as he had once, with a smile and a jest, broken and tossed her aside—­so she had done to him.  She had gathered up her wounded pride, and she had smitten him therewith.  She was convinced that he would never laugh at her again.

He would get over it, of course; men always did.  She had known men by the score who played the same merry game, men who broke hearts for sport and went their careless ways, unheeding, uncomprehending.  It was the way of the world, this world of countless tragedies.  She had learned, in her piteous cynicism, to look for nothing else.  Faithfulness had become to her a myth.  Surely all men loved—­they called it love—­and rode away.

No, she did not flatter herself that she had hurt him very seriously.  She had dealt his pride a blow, that was all.

She reached Bombay, and secured her berth.  The steamer was to sail at noon.  There were not a great many passengers, and she managed to engage a cabin to herself.  But she could not even attempt to rest in that turmoil of noise and excitement.  She went ashore again, and repaired to a hotel for a meal.  She took a private room, and lay down; but sleep would not come to her, and presently, urged by that gnawing restlessness, she was pacing up and down, up and down, like a wild creature newly caged.