Ferrers wondered at the decision with which she spoke, not knowing what was in her mind. On the night he mentioned, she had remembered, while lying awake, that she had left the book she was reading--one of Sir Dugald’s--on the ramparts. Fearing it would be spoilt by the dew, she roused her ayah and told her to go and fetch it, but the woman whimpered that she was afraid--there were always ghosts in these old forts--and hung back even when Penelope said she would come too. They reached the rampart safely, however, the clear starlight making a lamp unnecessary, and rescued the book. As they turned to descend the steps again, the pad of a horse’s feet upon the sand reached their ears, and looking over the parapet, they saw Major Keeling ride past on Miani. There was no possibility of mistake, and Penelope had never dreamt of imagining that the rider in undress uniform and curtained forage-cap could be any one but the Commandant. He was bound on one of his restless wanderings over the desert, and her heart sent forth a silent entreaty to him to be prudent. But now, as she said, she was willing to disbelieve the evidence of her own eyes if it gave support to this story of Ferrers’. “I suppose you think I am a liar?” he demanded resentfully. “I think you have either made a mistake or been deceived. Do you believe it yourself? What are you going to do.” Ferrers was nonplussed. He had disobeyed the Mirza’s injunction, and spoken without waiting for the further evidence promised him. He might have put himself into a very awkward position if Penelope should tell any one of what he had said, and he decided to temporise. “Of course I should never think of saying anything about it. As you say, it’s a case in which one can’t take seeing as believing. You won’t say anything about it, of course?” “Is it likely?” demanded Penelope indignantly. Ferrers surveyed her with growing interest, and became suddenly sorry for himself. “You flare up if any one says a word against the Chief, and yet you believed a whole string of accusations against me, simply on Lady Haigh’s word,” he said. “I thought you acknowledged they were true? At any rate, you did not value my opinion of you sufficiently to take a single step to justify yourself.” “What was the good? You were prejudiced against me. If you had cared for me enough to give me a chance, it would have been different, but I saw you didn’t, so I set you free.” “And bound me again the next morning.” “I had seen you by that time, and I couldn’t let you go. But what sort of life have you led me since--keeping me at arm’s-length all these months? Surely you might have been a little kinder----” Ferrers stopped abruptly, for there was something like scorn in Penelope’s eyes. “The fact is, you don’t care a scrap for me,” he broke out angrily. “Why should I?” asked Penelope.