"Still asleep, thank G.o.d," was Morris' report. "Give you my word I dread his awakening."

"Seems a pity he's got to wake at all," said Payton moodily. "Couldn't you have given him a double dose while you were about it, and put the poor devil out of his misery?"

"That's not the way we work," returned the other dryly. "There's been one--miscalculation--to-day, and we can't afford any more. If he likes to do it himself, when he comes round, that's a different matter. I don't think he will, somehow. He doesn't strike me as that sort. He'll face it out, I believe, though it will go hard with him in the doing."

"When will he be himself again?"

"I don't know. I shall keep him under as long as I dare. After all"--the doctor, who prided himself on his lack of emotion, for once betrayed a glimpse of the real humanity beneath the rather grim exterior--"he'll have to serve a life-sentence in the way of regret, and one can't grudge the poor wretch an hour or two's Nirvana."

And:

"By G.o.d, sir, I agree with you," was all Rex Payton could find to say.

III

One evening three weeks later Anstice sat in the smoke-room of a well-known hotel in Bombay waiting for the arrival of the one person in the world whom he might have been expected to avoid.

The P. and O. boat had docked that afternoon; and among the pa.s.sengers was the man to whom Hilda Ryder had been engaged--the man to whom Anstice must answer for the deed done as the sun rose on that fatal morning twenty-one dawns ago.

The news of the girl's death had been cabled to the young engineer in Cairo immediately, followed by a letter from Colonel G.o.dfrey relating so much of the affair as he himself knew; and in response had come a laconic message to the effect that Bruce Cheniston had sought and obtained leave, and would be in India at the first possible moment. He had been delayed by one or two accidents, but now he had really arrived; and Anstice had come down to meet him, knowing that before he himself could leave this fatal country there must be an explanation between the man who had loved Hilda Ryder, and the one who had been too hasty in carrying out a promise.

To say that he shrank from this interview would hardly be true. As a matter of fact, in the weeks which had elapsed since that fatal morning Anstice had wandered in a world of shadows. Nothing seemed real, acute, not even the memory of the thing he had done. Everything was mercifully blurred, unreal. He was like a man stunned, who sees things without realizing them; or a man suffering from some form of poison--from indulgence in _hashish_, for instance, when time and s.p.a.ce lose all significance, and the thing which was and that which is become strangely and unaccountably interchangeable.

That there must be a reckoning between himself and Cheniston, Anstice vaguely knew. Yet he felt no dread, and very little curiosity as to the manner of their meeting; and although he recognized the fact that the man to whom Hilda Ryder had been engaged might well look on him with horror, inasmuch as his hand had sent her to her death, Anstice felt little interest in the matter as it concerned himself.

Possibly he was still feeling the effects of that morning's happening, although unaware of it. He had received a nasty wound--even now his shoulder was stiff and painful--and since he had discontinued the use of opiates he had had little or no sleep; but he was a man of good physique, and only an unaccustomed pallor and a few finely-drawn lines round his mouth betrayed the fact that he had suffered--was suffering still.

One or two men glanced at him curiously as he sat in a corner, gazing ahead of him with an unseeing stare; but only one man, a young officer called Trent, recognized him as the hero of the tragedy which had shaken the district of Alostan a few weeks earlier.

Being a talkative person he could not refrain from pointing Anstice out to his companion.

"See that chap over there--the tall fellow in grey?" Trent had been one of the picnic party which had ended in disaster; and although a good-hearted boy was thrilled with the importance of his own position.

"Know who it is? Well, it's that chap Anstice--you remember, the fellow who shot that girl up in the hills when they were in a tight place."

"Oh! That the man?" The other, who was a portly civilian, looked at the unconscious Anstice with open interest. "Shocking affair, what? If he'd held his hand five minutes they would both have been rescued. Wasn't that it?"

"Yes. Looks a bit sick about it, doesn't he?"

"Um ... yes. Good-looking fellow, in a hard-bitten sort of way." The civilian looked Anstice over, approving the thin, well-cut face, the tall, loosely-built figure, the long hands lying idly on the arms of his chair. "Rather foreign-looking, with that black hair and those dark eyes, isn't he?"

"Yes. Looks years older than he did before it happened," said Trent, speaking the truth. "I expect, though, it _is_ the sort of thing to age one."

"Yes. What's he doing here? Going home?"

"Yes, but I fancy he's got an appointment with Cheniston first,"

explained the younger man importantly. "Boat got in this afternoon, and I expect Cheniston wants to hear the affair at first-hand."

"Daresay. Rather rough on the poor devil." The civilian, beneath his pompous exterior, had a kind heart. "Bad enough to have to shoot the girl first, without explaining it all afterwards. Hope to goodness the other chap lets him down lightly."

"Oh, well, he can't say much." Trent broke off abruptly. "Here is Cheniston ... by Jove, I wouldn't like to be Anstice at this moment."

Unconscious of the interest he was arousing, a young man had just entered the room. He was of medium height, broad-shouldered and bronzed, with a good-looking, square face and a resolute chin. Just now he was pale beneath his tan, and his eyes, which were narrow in shape and of a rather hard blue, were strained and anxious.

Inside the room, he looked uncertainly round; and the next moment Anstice rose slowly to his feet.

"You are Mr. Cheniston?" They might have been alone in a desert for all the notice he took of any onlookers. "I think you are looking for me. My name is Anstice."

Bruce Cheniston nodded abruptly.

"Yes. I'm Cheniston. We can't talk here. Will you come up to my room?"

"Thanks." He moved forward, and Cheniston turned to the door.

"This way. I'm some floors up--we'll take the lift."

In silence they made the ascent; and now to his own unwelcome surprise Anstice felt himself awaking from the merciful stupor in which he had been sunk for so many unnoticed days.

Suddenly he began to realize what this interview must mean to Cheniston; and the knowledge that he must tear the knife from his own wound in order to plunge it into the heart of the young man opposite him made him feel as though he were already inwardly bleeding to death.

From being vague and blurred his senses now became preternaturally acute. His surroundings were no longer dim and formless, rather everything grew inhumanly sharp and vivid. To the end of his life he would preserve an extraordinarily faithful recollection of the room into which Cheniston presently ushered him--the usual hotel bedroom in India, with high green walls, mosquito curtains, and an entire absence of all superfluities in the way of furniture or adornment.

On the floor lay a Gladstone bag, half open as the owner had carelessly left it; and Anstice found himself idly speculating as to whether the white and purple striped glory which protruded from it was a shirt or a pair of pyjamas....

His wandering thoughts were suddenly recalled to the affair of the moment; and the minor things of life were forgotten in the onrush of the vital things, the things which matter....

"Now, Dr. Anstice"--Anstice's professional instinct, so long in abeyance, warned him that the man's self-control was only, so to speak, skin-deep; and a quite unexpected and inexplicable rush of pity overwhelmed him as the cold voice went on speaking--"I think you will realize that I should like to hear your account of--of the affair that took place in that accursed Temple."

"I quite realize that." Anstice spoke slowly. "And I am ready to answer any questions you may like to ask."

"I--I think----" For a second Cheniston wavered, then spoke more humanly. "Won't you sit down? I should like, if I may, to hear the whole story from the beginning."

"I see. Well, you are quite within your rights in wishing to hear the story. No, I won't sit down, thanks. It won't take very long to tell."

Cheniston moved a step backwards and sat down on the edge of the bed, pushing the mosquito curtain impatiently aside. Then he took out his cigarette case, and, still with his steel-blue eyes on the other man's face, selected a cigarette which he held, unlighted, as he listened.

Standing in the middle of the floor, his hands in the pockets of his coat, Anstice began his story, and in spite of the fact that this man had robbed him of all that he held dear in life, Cheniston was forced to admit that at least he was proving himself no coward.

"When we set off on that fatal picnic"--Anstice took it for granted that his hearer knew the details of the occasion--"Miss Ryder and I went on ahead. We were both well mounted, and she was, as you know, a fearless horsewoman. We very soon out-distanced the others, and had gone a good way when Miss Ryder suggested we should visit a certain Temple of which it seems she had heard a great deal from a native servant. Had I known then, as I know now, the reputation of the place, and the intense hatred which the priests felt for any of the white races since that unlucky American affair"--he realized suddenly that he appeared to be excusing himself, and his manner hardened--"well, I can only regret that I allowed Miss Ryder to set foot in the place."

"You went?"

"Yes. It was only a few miles off the track, and we were so far ahead of the party that we should easily have had time to get to our original destination for lunch. Well, we went on, found the Temple, apparently deserted----"

"Apparently?" The question shot out like steel. "There was someone there?"