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A visitor may see the surface of Rajputana much as Thresk had done, may admire its marble palaces, its blue lakes and the great yellow stretches of its desert, but to know anything of the life underneath in that strange secret country is given to few even of those who for long years fly the British flag over the Agencies.
But his voice shook and his eyes strayed again to the ground by the wall of the tent. "It was just there the arm came through," he said. "Yes, just there," and he pointed a trembling finger. "Arm?" cried Thresk. "What are you talking about?" Ballantyne looked away from the wall to Thresk, his eyes incredulous. "But you saw!" he insisted, leaning forward over the table. "What?"
She was wearing about her throat now a turquoise necklace. It was a heavy necklace of Indian make, rather barbaric and not at all beautiful, but it had many rows of stones and it hid her throat just as surely as her hand had hidden it when she first saw Thresk. It was to hide her throat that she had fled.
We have not too much time." He seated himself opposite to Thresk and drew the despatch-box towards him. He had regained enough mastery over himself now to be able to speak in a level voice. No doubt too his fright had sobered him. But it had him still in its grip, for when he opened the despatch-box his hand so shook that he could hardly insert the key in the lock.
Mrs. Repton rose too. "What are you going to do?" she asked breathlessly. "I must know I have a right to, I think. I have told you so much. I was in great doubt whether I should tell you anything. But " Her voice broke and she ended her plea lamely enough: "I am very fond of Stella." "I know that," said Thresk, and his voice was grateful and his face most friendly.
Thresk watched the case from his rooms at the Taj Mahal Hotel. Every fact which was calculated to arouse sympathy for her was also helping to condemn her. No one doubted that she had shot Stephen Ballantyne. He deserved shooting very well. But that did not give her the right to be his executioner. What was her defence to be? A sudden intolerable provocation?
She did not stop to consider whether Thresk, too, had that way in his mind. It came to her so naturally; it was so easy, so simple a way. She never thought that she misunderstood. She had come to the end of the struggle; the battle had gone against her; she recognised it; and now, without complaint, she bowed her head for the final blow.
"Shall I ask at the office?" the waiter asked. "By no means," answered Thresk, and he added: "I will have dinner served up here to-night." There was just a possibility, he thought, that he might after all escape this particular payment. He took from his pocket his unposted letter to Stella Ballantyne. There was no longer any use for it and even its existence was now dangerous to Stella.
While Baram Singh was clearing the table Ballantyne lifted the box of cheroots from the top of the bureau and held it out to Thresk. "Will you smoke?"
Margaret Pettifer had taken little part in the conversation about the tea-table. She sat in frigid hostility, speaking only when politeness commanded. She accepted her brother's invitation with a monosyllable. "Thank you," said Stella, and she faced Henry Thresk, looking him straight in the eyes but not daring to lay any special stress upon the words: "Then I shall see you to-night."
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