“Go in!” said Baring.  “I will come back to you.”

She obeyed him.  She felt incapable of resistance just then.  He passed on quietly, and she stood inside the room, waiting and listening with hushed breath and hands tightly clenched.

The seconds crawled by, and again there came to her straining ears the cry of a jackal from far away.  Then at last she caught the sound of Baring’s voice, curt and peremptory, and her heart stood still.  But he was only speaking to the punkah-coolie round the corner, for almost instantly the great fan above her head began to move.

A few seconds more, and he reappeared at the window alone.  Hope drew a great breath of relief and awoke to the fact that she was trembling violently.

She looked at him as he came quietly in.  His lean, bronzed face, with the purple scar of a sword-cut down one cheek, told her nothing.  Only she fancied that his mouth, under its narrow, black line of moustache, looked stern.

He went straight up to her and laid his hand on her shoulder.

“Tell me what frightened you!” he said, looking down at her with keen blue eyes that shone piercingly in his dark face.

She shook her head instantly, unable to meet his look.

“Please,” she said beseechingly, “please don’t ask me!  I would so much rather not.”

“I have promised not to laugh at you,” he reminded her gravely.

“I know,” she said.  “I know.  But really, really, I can’t.  It was so silly of me to be frightened.  I am not generally silly like that.  But—­somehow—­to-day—­”

Her voice failed her.  He took his hand from her shoulder; and she knew suddenly that, had he chosen, he could have compelled.

“Don’t be distressed!” he said.  “Whatever it was, it’s gone.  Sit down, won’t you?”

Hope dropped rather limply into a chair.  The security of Baring’s protecting presence was infinitely comforting, but her fright and subsequent exertion had made her feel very weak.  Baring went to the window and stood there for some seconds, with his back to her.  She noted his height and breadth of shoulder with a faint sense of pleasure.  She had always admired this man.  Secretly—­his habitual kindness to her notwithstanding—­she was also a little afraid of him, but her fear did not trouble her just then.

He turned quietly at length and seated himself near the window.

“How long does your uncle expect to be away?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I never know; he may come back to-morrow, or perhaps not for days.”

Baring’s black brows drew together.

“Where is he?” he asked.  She shook her head again.

He said nothing; but his silence was so condemnatory that she felt herself called upon to defend the absent one.

“You see, he came here in the first place because I begged so very hard.  And he has to travel because of his book.  I always knew that, so I really can’t complain.  Besides, I’m not generally lonely, and hardly ever nervous.  And I have Ronnie.”