Chapter 9

AN EPISODE IN BALLANTYNE'S LIFE

The Reptons lived upon the Khamballa Hill and the bow-window of their drawing-room looked down upon the Arabian Sea and southwards along the coast towards Malabar Point. In this embrasure Mrs. Repton sat through a morning, denying herself to her friends. A book lay open on her lap but her eyes were upon the sea. A few minutes after the clock upon her mantelpiece had struck twelve she saw that for which she watched: the bowsprit and the black bows of a big ship pushing out from under the hill and the water boiling under its stem. The whole ship came into view with its awnings and its saffron funnels and headed to the north-west for Aden.

Jane Repton rose up from her chair and watched it go. In the sunlight its black hull was so sharply outlined on the sea, its lines and spars were so trim that it looked a miniature ship which she could reach out her hand and snatch. But her eyes grew dim as she watched, so that it became shapeless and blurred, and long before the liner was out of sight it was quite lost to her.

"I am foolish," she said as she turned away, and she bit her handkerchief hard. This was midday of the Friday and ever since that dinner-party at the Carruthers' on the Monday night she had been alternating between wild hopes and arguments of prudence. But until this moment of disappointment she had not realised how completely the hopes had gained the upper hand with her and how extravagantly she had built upon Thresk's urgent questioning of her at the dinner-table.

"Very likely he never found the Ballantynes at all," she argued. But he might have sent her word. All that morning she had been expecting a telephone message or a telegram or a note scribbled on board the steamer and sent up the Khamballa Hill by a messenger. But not a token had come from him and now of the boat which was carrying him to England there was nothing left but the stain of its smoke upon the sky.

Mrs. Repton put her handkerchief in her pocket and was going about the business of her house when the butler opened the door.

"I am not in--" Mrs. Repton began and cut short the sentence with a cry of welcome and surprise, for close upon the heels of the servant Thresk was standing.

"You!" she cried. "Oh!"

She felt her legs weakening under her and she sat down abruptly on a chair.

"Thank Heaven it was there," she said. "I should have sat on the floor if it hadn't been." She dismissed the butler and held out her hand to Thresk. "Oh, my friend," she said, "there's your steamer on its way to Aden."

Her voice rang with enthusiasm and admiration. Thresk only nodded his head gloomily.

"I have missed it," he replied. "It's very unfortunate. I have clients waiting for me in London."

"You missed it on purpose," she declared and Thresk's face relaxed into a smile. He turned away from the window to her. He seemed suddenly to wear the look of a boy.

"I have the best of excuses," he replied, "the perfect excuse." But even he could not foresee how completely that excuse was to serve him.

"Sit down," said Jane Repton, "and tell me. You went to Chitipur, I know. From your presence here I know too that you found--them--there."

"No," said Thresk, "I didn't." He sat down and looked straight into Jane Repton's eyes. "I had a stroke of luck. I found them--in camp."

Jane Repton understood all that the last two words implied.

"I should have wished that," she answered, "if I had dared to think it possible. You talked with Stella?"

"Hardly a word alone. But I saw."

"What did you see?"

"I am here to tell you." And he told her the story of his night at the camp so far as it concerned Stella Ballantyne, and indeed not quite all of that. For instance he omitted altogether to relate how he had left his pipe behind in the tent and had returned for it. That seemed to him unimportant. Nor did he tell her of his conversation with Ballantyne about the photograph. "He was in a panic. He had delusions," he said and left the matter there. Thresk had the lawyer's mind or rather the mind of a lawyer in big practice. He had the instinct for the essential fact and the knowledge that it was most lucid when presented in a naked simplicity. He was at pains to set before Jane Repton what he had seen of the life which Stella lived with Stephen Ballantyne and nothing else.

"Now," he said when he had finished, "you sent me to Chitipur. I must know why."

And when she hesitated he overbore her.

"You can be guilty of no disloyalty to your friend," he insisted, "by being frank with me. After all I have given guarantees. I went to Chitipur upon your word. I have missed my boat. You bade me go to Chitipur. That told me too little or too much. I say too little. I have got to know all now." And he rose up and stood before her. "What do you know about Stephen Ballantyne?"

"I'll tell you," said Jane Repton. She looked at the clock. "You had better stay and lunch with us if you will. We shall be alone. I'll tell you afterwards. Meanwhile--" and in her turn she stood up. The sense of responsibility was heavy upon her.

She had sent this man upon his errand of knowledge. He had done, in consequence of it, a stronger, a wilder thing than she had thought, than she had hoped for. She had a panicky feeling that she had set great forces at work.

"Meanwhile--" asked Thresk; and she drew a breath of relief. The steadiness of his eyes and voice comforted her. His quiet insistence gave her courage. None of her troubles and doubts had any place apparently in his mind. A nervous horse in the hands of a real horseman--thus she thought of herself in Thresk's presence.

"Meanwhile I'll give you one reason why I wanted you to go. My husband's time in India is up. We are leaving for England altogether in a month's time. We shall not come back at all. And when we have gone Stella will be left without one intimate friend in the whole country."

"Yes," said Thresk. "That wouldn't do, would it?" and they went in to their luncheon.

All through that meal, before the servants, they talked what is written in the newspapers. And of the two she who had fears and hesitations was still the most impatient to get it done. She had her curiosity and it was beginning to consume her. What had Thresk known of Stella and she of him before she had come out to India and become Stella Ballantyne? Had they been in love? If not why had Thresk gone to Chitipur? Why had he missed his boat and left all his clients over there in England in the lurch? If so, why hadn't they married--the idiots? Oh, how she wanted to know all the answers to all these questions! And what he proposed to do now! And she would know nothing unless she was frank herself. She had read his ultimatum in his face.

"We'll have coffee in my sitting-room. You can smoke there," she said and led the way to it. "A cheroot?"

Thresk smiled with amusement. But the amusement annoyed her for she did not understand it.

"I have got a Havana cigar here," he said. "May I?"

"Of course."

He lit it and listened. But it was not long before it went out and he did not stir to light it again. The incident of which Mrs. Repton had been the witness, and which she related now, invested Ballantyne with horror. Thresk had left the camp at Chitipur with an angry contempt for him. The contempt passed out of his feelings altogether as he sat in Mrs. Repton's drawing-room.

"I am not telling you what Stella has confided to me," said Mrs. Repton. "Stella's loyal even when there's no cause for loyalty; and if loyalty didn't keep her mouth closed, self-respect would. I tell you what I saw. We were at Agra at the time. My husband was Collector there. There was a Durbar held there and the Rajah of Chitipur came to it with his elephants and his soldiers, and naturally Captain Ballantyne and his wife came too. They stayed with us. You are to understand that I knew nothing--absolutely nothing--up to that time. I hadn't a suspicion--until the afternoon of the finals in the Polo Tournament. Stella and I went together alone and we came home about six. Stella went upstairs and I--I walked into the library."

She had found Ballantyne sitting in a high arm-chair, his eyes glittering under his black thick eyebrows and his face livid. He looked at her as she entered, but he neither moved nor spoke, and she thought that he was