"She is actually in India now?"

"To be sure she is!"

Thresk was quite taken aback by the news.

"I had no idea of it," he said slowly, and Mrs. Carruthers replied
sweetly:

"But lots of people live in India, Mr. Thresk. Didn't you know that? We
are not the uttermost ends of the earth."

Thresk set to work to make his peace. He had not heard of Mrs. Ballantyne
for so long. It seemed strange to him to find himself suddenly near to
her now--that is if he was near. He just avoided that other exasperating
trick of treating India as if it was a provincial town and all its
inhabitants neighbours. But he only just avoided it. Mrs. Carruthers,
however, was easily appeased.

"Yes," she said. "Stella has lived in India for the best part of eight
years. She came out with some friends in the winter, made Captain
Ballantyne's acquaintance and married him almost at once--in January, I
think it was. Of course I only know from what I've been told. I was a
schoolgirl in England at the time."

"Of course," Thresk agreed. He was conscious of a sharp little stab of
resentment. So very quickly Stella had forgotten that morning on the
Downs! It must have been in the autumn of that same year that she had
gone out to India, and by February she was married. The resentment was