m important enough to be in
any real danger. You will excuse me now, won't you? I have just got a
new _ayah_, and they always need superintending. Perhaps you will join
my brother-in-law. I know he will be delighted."

She extricated herself with a gentle aloofness more difficult to combat
than any open opposition, and he went away to express himself more
strongly to Bernard Monck from whom he was sure at least of receiving
sympathy if not support.

Stella returned to her baby with a stunned feeling of having been
struck, and yet without consciousness of pain. Perhaps she had suffered
so much that her faculties were getting numbed. She knew that the
Colonel was surprised that his news concerning Everard had affected her
so little. She was in a fashion surprised herself. Was she then so
absorbed that she had no room for him in her thoughts? And yet only the
previous night how she had yearned for him!

It was the end of everything for him--the end of his ambition, of his
career, of all his cherished hopes. He was a broken man and he would
drop out as other men had dropped out. His love for her had been his
ruin. And yet her brain seemed incapable of grasping the meaning of the
catastrophe. The bearing of her burden occupied the whole of her
strength.

The rest of the Colonel's news scarcely touched her at all, save that
the thought flashed upon her once that if the danger were indeed so
great Everard would certainly come to her. That sent a strange glow
through her that died as swiftly as it was born. She did not really
believe in the danger, and Everard was probably far away already.

She went back to her baby and the _ayah_, Hanani, over whom Peter was
mounting guard with a queer mixture of patronage and respect. For though
he had procured the woman and obviously thought highly of her, he
seemed to think that none but himself could be regarded as fully
qualified to have the care of his _mem-sahib's_ fondly cherished _baba_.

Stella heard him giving some low-toned directions as she entered, and
she wondered if the new _ayah_ would resent his lordly attitude. But the
veiled head bent over the child expressed nothing but complete docility.
She answered Peter in few words, but with the utmost meekness.

Her quietness was a great relief to Stella. There was a self-reliance
about it that gave her confidence. And presently, tenderly urged by
Peter, she went to the adjoining room to rest, on the understanding that
she s