“I believe you know perfectly well what you are doing.”

“No!  I don’t know,” she said, more quickly than he had ever heard her speak before.  “First of all, I don’t think he is so safe as you imagine.  Oh, yes, he has prestige enough, I don’t question that.  But you are apportioning life and death with too much assurance. . . .”

“I know my portion,” murmured d’Alcacer, gently.  A moment of silence fell in which Mrs. Travers’ eyes ended by intimidating d’Alcacer, who looked away.  The flame of the fire had sunk low.  In the dark agglomeration of buildings, which might have been called Belarab’s palace, there was a certain animation, a flitting of people, voices calling and answering, the passing to and fro of lights that would illuminate suddenly a heavy pile, the corner of a house, the eaves of a low-pitched roof, while in the open parts of the stockade the armed men slept by the expiring fires.

Mrs. Travers said, suddenly, “That Jorgenson is not friendly to us.”

“Possibly.”

With clasped hands and leaning over his knees d’Alcacer had assented in a very low tone.  Mrs. Travers, unobserved, pressed her hands to her breast and felt the shape of the ring, thick, heavy, set with a big stone.  It was there, secret, hung against her heart, and enigmatic.  What did it mean?  What could it mean?  What was the feeling it could arouse or the action it could provoke?  And she thought with compunction that she ought to have given it to Lingard at once, without thinking, without hesitating.  “There!  This is what I came for.  To give you this.”  Yes, but there had come an interval when she had been able to think of nothing, and since then she had had the time to reflect—­unfortunately.  To remember Jorgenson’s hostile, contemptuous glance enveloping her from head to foot at the break of a day after a night of lonely anguish.  And now while she sat there veiled from his keen sight there was that other man, that d’Alcacer, prophesying.  O yes, triumphant.  She knew already what that was.  Mrs. Travers became afraid of the ring.  She felt ready to pluck it from her neck and cast it away.

“I mistrust him,” she said.—­“You do!” exclaimed d’Alcacer, very low.—­“I mean that Jorgenson.  He seems a merciless sort of creature.”—­“He is indifferent to everything,” said d’Alcacer.—­“It may be a mask.”—­“Have you some evidence, Mrs. Travers?”

“No,” said Mrs. Travers without hesitation.  “I have my instinct.”

D’Alcacer remained silent for a while as though he were pursuing another train of thought altogether, then in a gentle, almost playful tone:  “If I were a woman,” he said, turning to Mrs. Travers, “I would always trust my intuition.”—­“If you were a woman, Mr. d’Alcacer, I would not be speaking to you in this way because then I would be suspect to you.”