He kept Baring talking for several minutes; and, when they finally parted, his opportunity had gone.

Baring went into the weighing-tent, but Ronnie was nowhere to be seen.  And he wondered rather grimly as he walked away if Hyde had detained him purposely to give the boy a chance to escape.

X

THE ENEMY’S TERMS

It was nearly dark that evening when Hope stood again on the veranda of the Magician’s, bungalow, and listened to the water running through the reeds.  She thought it sounded louder than in the morning—–­ more insistent, less mirthful.  She shivered a little as she stood there.  She felt lonely; her uncle was away for a couple of days, and Ronnie was in his room.  She was bracing herself to go and rouse him to dress for mess.  Slowly, at last, she turned to go.  But at the same instant a voice called to her from below, and she stopped short.

“Ah, don’t run away!” it said.  “I’ve come on purpose to see you—­on a matter of importance.”

Reluctantly Hope waited.  She knew the voice well, and it made her quiver in every nerve with the instinct of flight.  Yet she summoned all her resolution and stood still, while Hyde calmly mounted the veranda steps and approached her.  He was in riding-dress, and he carried a crop, walking with all the swaggering insolence that she loathed.

“There’s something I want to say to you,” he said.  “I can come in, I suppose?  It won’t take me long.”

He took her permission for granted, and turned into the drawing-room.  Hope followed him in silence.  She could not pretend to this man that his presence was a pleasure to her.  She hated him, and deep in her heart she feared him as she feared no one else in the world.

He looked at her with eyes of cynical criticism by the light of the shaded lamp.  She felt that there was something worse than insolence about him that night—­something of cruelty, of brutality even, from which she was powerless to escape.

“Come!” he said, as she did not speak.  “Doesn’t it occur to you that I have been a particularly good friend to you to-day?”

Hope faced him steadily.  Twice before she had evaded this man, but she knew that to-night evasion was out of the question.  She must confront him without panic, and alone.

“I think you must tell me what you mean,” she said, her voice very low.

He shrugged his shoulders indifferently, and then laughed at her—­his abominable, mocking laugh.

“I have noticed before,” he said, “that when a woman finds herself in a tight corner, she invariably tries to divert attention by asking unnecessary questions.  It’s a harmless little stratagem that may serve her turn.  But in this case, let me assure you, it is sheer waste of time.  I hold you—­and your brother, also—­in the hollow of my hand.  And you know it.”

He spoke slowly, with a confidence from which there was no escape.  His eyes still closely watched her face.  And Hope felt again that wild terror, which only he had ever inspired in her, knocking at her heart.