"Do you distrust him?"
Ballantyne looked steadily at his visitor and said:
"I don"t answer such questions. But I"ll tell you something. If that man were dying he would ask for leave. And if he would ask for leave because he would not die with my scarlet livery on his back. Are you answered?"
"Yes," said Thresk.
"Very well." And with a brisk change of tone Ballantyne added: "I"ll see that your camel is ready." He called aloud to his wife: "Stella! Stella!
Mr. Thresk is going," and he went out through the doorway into the moonlight.
CHAPTER VIII
AND THE RIFLE
Thresk, alone in the tent, looked impatiently towards the gra.s.s-screen.
He wanted half-a-dozen words with Stella alone. Here was the opportunity, the unhoped-for opportunity, and it was slipping away. Through the open doorway of the tent he saw Ballantyne standing by a big fire and men moving quickly in obedience to his voice. Then he heard the rustle of a dress in the corridor, and she was in the room. He moved quickly towards her, but she held up her hand and stopped him.
"Oh, why did you come?" she said, and the pallor of her face reproached him no less than the regret in her voice.
"I heard of you in Bombay," he replied. "I am glad that I did come."
"And I am sorry."
"Why?"
She looked about the tent as though he might find his answer there.
Thresk did not move. He stood near to her, watching her face intently with his jaw rather set.
"Oh, I didn"t say that to wound you," said Stella, and she sat down on one of the cushioned basket-chairs. "You mustn"t think I wasn"t glad to see you. I was--at the first moment I was very glad;" and she saw his face lighten as she spoke. "I couldn"t help it. All the years rolled away. I remembered the Suss.e.x Downs and--and--days when we rode there high up above the weald. Do you remember?"
"Yes."
"How long was that ago?"
"Eight years."
Stella laughed wistfully.
"To me it seems a century." She was silent for a moment, and though he spoke to her urgently she did not answer. She was carried back to the high broad hills of gra.s.s with the curious clumps of big beech-trees upon their crests.
"Do you remember Halnaker Gallop?" she asked with a laugh. "We found it when the chains weren"t up and had the whole two miles free. Was there ever such gra.s.s?"
She was looking straight at the bureau, but she was seeing that green lane of shaven turf in the haze of an August morning. She saw it rise and dip in the open between long brown gra.s.s. There was a tree on the left-hand side just where the ride dipped for the first time. Then it ran straight to the big beech-trees and pa.s.sed 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.
The stubbornness with which he repeated his words arrested her. She looked at him--was it with distrust, he asked himself? He could not be sure. But certainly there was a little hard note in her voice which had not been there before, when in her turn she asked:
"Why?"
"Because I shouldn"t have known," he said in a quick whisper. "I should have gone back. I should have left you here. I shouldn"t have known."
Stella recoiled.
"There is nothing to know," she said sharply, and Thresk pointed at her throat.
"Nothing?"
Stella Ballantyne raised her hand to cover the blue marks.
"I--I fell and hurt myself," she stammered.
"It was he--Ballantyne."
"No," she cried and she drew herself erect. But Thresk would not accept the denial.
"He ill-treats you," he insisted. "He drinks and ill-treats you."
Stella shook her head.
"You asked questions in Bombay where we are known. You were not told that," she said confidently. There was only one person in Bombay who knew the truth and Jane Repton, she was very sure, would never have betrayed her.
"That"s true," Thresk conceded. "But why? Because it"s only here in camp that he lets himself go. He told us as much to-night. You were here at the table. You heard. He let his secret slip: no one to carry tales, no one to spy. In the towns he sets a guard upon himself. Yes, but he looks forward to the months of camp when there are no next-door neighbours."
"No, that"s not true," she protested and cast about for explanations.
"He--he has had a long day and to-night he was tired--and when you are tired--Oh, as a rule he"s different." And to her relief she heard Ballantyne"s voice outside the tent.
"Thresk! Thresk!"
She came forward and held out her hand.
"There! Your camel"s ready," she said. "You must go! Goodbye," and as he took it the old friendliness transfigured her face. "You are a great man now. I read of you. You always meant to be, didn"t you? Hard work?"
"Very," said Thresk. "Four o"clock in the morning till midnight;" and she suddenly caught him by the arm.
"But it"s worth it." She let him go and clasped her hands together. "Oh, you have got everything!" she cried in envy.
"No," he answered. But she would not listen.
"Everything you asked for," she said and she added hurriedly, "Do you still collect miniatures? No time for that now I suppose." Once more Ballantyne"s voice called to them from the camp-fire.
"You must go."