y.
To-morrow you go on board your ship and in twelve days afterwards you'll
be in England."

Thresk leaned forward across the table.

"When did you go home last?" he asked.

"I have never been home since I married."

"Never!" exclaimed Thresk.

Stella shook her head.

"Never."

She was looking down at the tablecloth while she spoke, but as she
finished she raised her head.

"Yes, I have been eight years in India," she added, and Thresk saw the
tears suddenly glisten in her eyes. He had come up to Chitipur
reproaching himself for that morning on the South Downs, a morning so
distant, so aloof from all the surroundings in which he found himself
that it seemed to belong to an earlier life. But his reproaches became
doubly poignant now. She had been eight years in India, tied to this
brute! But Stella Ballantyne mastered herself with a laugh.

"However I am not alone in that," she said lightly. "And how's London?"

It was unfortunate that just at this moment Captain Ballantyne woke up.

"Eh what!" he exclaimed in a mock surprise. "You were talking, Stella,
were you? It must have been something extraordinarily interesting that
you were saying. Do let me hear it."

At once Stella shrank. Her spirit was so cowed that she almost had the
look of a stupid person; she became stupid in sheer terror of her
husband's railleries.

"It wasn't of any importance."

"Oh, my dear," said Ballantyne with a sneer, "you do yourself an
injustice," and then his voice grew harsh, his face brutal. "What was
it?" he demanded.

Stella looked this way and that, like an animal in a trap. Then she
caught sight of Thresk's face over against her. Her eyes appealed to him
for silence; she turned quickly to her husband.

"I only said how's London?"

A smile spread over Ballantyne's face.

"Now did you say that? How's London! Now why did you ask how London was?
How should London be? What sort of an answer did you expect?"

"I didn't expect any answer," replied Stella. "Of course the question
sounds stupid if you drag it out and worry it."

Ballantyne snorted contemptuously.

"How's London? Try again, Stella!"

Thresk had come to the limit of his patience. In spite of Stella's appeal
he interrupted and interrupted sharply.

"It doesn't seem to me an unnatural question for any woman to ask who has
not seen London for eight years. After all, say what you like, for women
India means exile--real exile."

Ballantyne turned upon hi