"You missed it on purpose," she declared and Thresk's face relaxed into a
smile. He turned away from the window to her. He seemed suddenly to wear
the look of a boy.

"I have the best of excuses," he replied, "the perfect excuse." But even
he could not foresee how completely that excuse was to serve him.

"Sit down," said Jane Repton, "and tell me. You went to Chitipur, I know.
From your presence here I know too that you found--them--there."

"No," said Thresk, "I didn't." He sat down and looked straight into Jane
Repton's eyes. "I had a stroke of luck. I found them--in camp."

Jane Repton understood all that the last two words implied.

"I should have wished that," she answered, "if I had dared to think it
possible. You talked with Stella?"

"Hardly a word alone. But I saw."

"What did you see?"

"I am here to tell you." And he told her the story of his night at the
camp so far as it concerned Stella Ballantyne, and indeed not quite all
of that. For instance he omitted altogether to relate how he had left his
pipe behind in the tent and had returned for it. That seemed to him
unimportant. Nor did he tell her of his conversation with Ballantyne
about the photograph. "He was in a panic. He had delusions," he said and
left the matter there. Thresk had the lawyer's mind or rather the mind of
a lawyer in big practice. He had the instinct for the essential fact and