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Then it ran straight to the big beech-trees and passed between them, a wide glade of sunlight, and curved out at the upper end by the road and dipped down again to the two lodges. "And the ridge at the back of Charlton forest, all the weald to Leith Hill in view?" She rose suddenly from her chair. "Oh, I am sorry that you came." "And I am glad," repeated Thresk.
Don't let go! Stay here and don't let go," he said, and running up the tent raised his voice to a shout. "Baram Singh!" and lifting the tent-door he called to others of his servants by name. Without waiting for them he ran out himself and in a second Thresk heard him cursing thickly and calling in panic-stricken tones just close to that point of the wall against which the bureau stood.
She was delicately yet healthfully fashioned, with blue eyes under broad brows, raven hair and a face pale and crystal-clear. But her lips were red and the colour came easily into her cheeks. She pointed downwards to the track slanting across the turf from the brow of the hill. "That's Stane Street. I promised to show it you." "Yes," answered Thresk, taking his eyes slowly from her face.
"Why did you do that?" he asked, pushing his face close to hers. But he could not stare her down. She looked him in the face steadily. Even her lips did not tremble. "You told me to wear them. I wore them. You jeer at me for wearing them. I take them off." And as she sat there with her head erect Thresk knew why he had bidden her to wear them.
Given all that was known of Stephen Ballantyne and of the life he had led his unhappy wife, the defence would have been a good one, but for a single fact the discovery of Ballantyne's body outside the tent. No plea of self-defence could safely be left to cover that. Thresk himself wondered at it. It struck at public sympathy, it seemed the act of a person insensate and vindictive.
It came at the first note of reproach in his voice and with such completeness that it gave him the shock of a conjurer's trick. One moment the bearer was before him, the next he had disappeared. "What did you do with the letter?" Thresk asked and was careful that there should be no exasperation in his voice. The bearer came to life again, his white teeth gleamed in smiles. "I leave the letter.
That I told it again this afternoon to give you a chance of slipping out from an impossible position." She looked at Thresk for a moment in terror. Then her expression changed. A wave of relief swept over her; she laughed in Thresk's face. "You are trying to frighten me," she said. "Only I know you.
Thresk, however, though he smoked had not during his stay in India acquired the taste for the cheroot; and it interested him in later times to reflect how largely he owed his entanglement in the tragic events which were to follow to that accidental distaste. For conscious of it he had brought his pipe with him, and he now fetched it out of his pocket. "This, if I may," he said. "Of course."
But it was Henry Thresk who had saved her before. She clung to that fact now. "Mr. Thresk arrived a few minutes ago." Just before old Hazlewood had come forward out of the house to welcome her! No wonder he was in such high spirits! Very likely all that great show of kindliness and welcome was made only to keep her in the garden for a few necessary moments. "Where is Mr. Thresk now?" she asked.
Mrs. Repton was satisfied. But while he had been speaking a new fear had entered into her. "There's something I should have thought of," she exclaimed. "Yes?" "Captain Ballantyne is not generous. He is just the sort of man not to divorce his wife." Thresk raised his head. Clearly that possibility had no more occurred to him than it had to Jane Repton. He thought it over now.
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