Rutton's eyes met his stonily; out of the ashen mask of his face, that
suddenly had whitened beneath the brown, they glared, afire but
unseeing. His hands writhed, the fingers twisting together with cruel
force, the knuckles grey. Abruptly, as if abandoning the attempt to
reassert his self-control, he jumped up and went quickly to a window,
there to stand, his back to Amber, staring fixedly out into the
storm-racked night. "I knew her father," he said at length, his tone
constrained and odd, "long ago, in India."

"He's out there now--a Political, I believe they call him, or something
of the sort."

"Yes."

"She's going out to rejoin him."

"What!" Rutton came swiftly back to Amber, his voice shaking. "What did
you say?"

"Why, yes. She travels with friends by the western route to join
Colonel Farrell at Darjeeling, where he's stationed just now. Shortly
after I came down she left; Mrs. Quain had a wire a day or so ago,
saying she was on the point of sailing from San Francisco.... Good
Lord, Rutton! are you ill?"

Something in the man's face had brought Amber to his feet, a prey to
inexpressible concern; it was as if a mask had dropped and he were
looking upon the soul of a man in mortal torture.