something which should be true or to lie. Yet she was too staunch to
betray the confidence of her friend unless the betrayal meant her
friend's salvation. But just as the woman at the end of the table ceased
to talk an inspiration came to her. She would say nothing to Thresk, but
if he had eyes to see she would place him where the view was good.

"I have this to say," she answered in a low quick voice. "Go yourself to
Chitipur. You sail on Friday, I think? And to-day is Monday. You can make
the journey there and back quite easily in the time."

"I can?" asked Thresk.

"Yes. Travel by the night-mail up to Ajmere tomorrow night. You will be
in Chitipur on Wednesday afternoon. That gives you twenty-four hours
there, and you can still catch the steamer here on Friday."

"You advise that?"

"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Repton.

Mrs. Carruthers rose from the table and Jane Repton had no further word
with Thresk that night. In the drawing-room Mrs. Carruthers led him from
woman to woman, allowing him ten minutes for each one.

"He might be Royalty or her pet Pekingese," cried Mrs. Repton in
exasperation. For now that her blood had cooled she was not so sure that
her advice had been good. The habit of respect for authority resumed its
ancient place in her. She might be planting that night the seed of a very
evil flower. "Respectability" had seemed to her a magnificent poem as she
sat at the dinner-table. Here in the drawing-room she began to think that