"If you had gone sooner," she murmured, pressing her hands tightly together till the rings on them cut and hurt, as if she were glad of pain, of something to appease her own self-condemnation; "if you had not been delayed, you might have persuaded him to be more cautious." Philip almost smiled, a smile of vexed surprise at her perversity. "My dear Belle! Am I a man to preach caution when I am opposed? Was John a man to listen to such caution when the time for action had come? Nonsense! I don't wish to be hard, dear; I don't say, mind you, that the remembrance of his anger is not very bitter--God only knows how bitter--for you to bear. But, Belle, if he knows anything now, he knows that he was wrong." "He was not wrong; he was right. I chose you and forsook him." Philip gave a little impatient shake of his head, then walked away to the window feeling how hopeless it was to argue with a woman in Belle's position. A man was absolutely helpless before such weakness and such strength. Yet, after a pause, he returned to the attack by a side route. "Besides," he said, coming back to where she was seated, and standing beside her resting one hand on the back of her chair, "it was not really you who delayed me. It was something else of which you know nothing. If I had seen you I would have told you, but there was no use mentioning it to others because the man had gone and there was nothing to be done. It was Afzul kept me. He came to my room when I went to fetch my revolver, and barred the door. He wanted me to listen as you did. I think he was mad, but I had to fire ere he would let me pass. You see it was he who delayed me, not you. One reason why I did not mention it was this: the man was a deserter, but he had saved my life and,--I think--I think he must have been mad." But Belle made no answer. With her head resting on her hand she was frowning slightly in pursuit of a fugitive memory. "Afzul!" she echoed at last in puzzled tones. "I had quite forgotten; but surely he came to me in the drawing-room. He gave me something and he said something; surely about Dick! Could it have been about Dick?" Her eyes sought Philip's for the first time with appeal, and he was sorry to chill the interest in them with a negative. Yet what could Afzul possibly have to say about poor Dick Smith? "Hardly, I should think; I doubt if they ever met even at Faizapore. But this reminds me,--you had something tight clasped in your hand when I found you close to the river;--so close,--did they tell you how close it was to death, my dear, when I came upon you lying--Oh, Belle, so close!" "Something in my hand," echoed Belle coldly. "What did you do with it?" "Like you I had forgotten," said Philip, recovering from the break in his voice. "I put it in the pocket of my coat when I was trying to bring you back to consciousness in the hut. I dare say it is there still. Shall I go and see?"