'Open the door, please,' said Rose to Mrs. Boynton, who gasped also in the intense surprise of the girl's swift action. 'Don't struggle, fool!' she went on in the same hard tone, only the dead whiteness of her face and a catch as she drew breath telling of the wild passion surging in her veins. 'I won't choke you if you hold your tongue.' Once before Chândni had felt a girl's grip on her throat; a hot, straining grip. This was neither. It was the grip of a strong healthy hand made vigorous by constant use. Those fierce fights over bat and ball with the dead lad had had their share in the sheer muscle of her defence of him, before which Chândni's large softness gave way, leaving her not even a slandering tongue. 'Put the veil over her face, please! I won't even have it known who dared to come here!' continued the girl, forcing the woman backwards step by step till they reached the door. Then she pushed her from it magnificently. 'Now go! and tell what lies you like elsewhere.' But her face changed as she turned when the door was closed and bolted to Gwen Boynton. 'Is it true? For God's sake tell me if there is a word of truth in it, and I will find the money.' Gwen dissolved into helpless tears at once; tears at once of vague remorse, and a very real sense of injustice. 'True! oh, Rose, how can you ask? Of course it isn't true. I wouldn't have done it for the world. Indeed and indeed I never saw the Ayôdhya pot again, and I don't believe George did. He was the soul of honour, and so good--so good to me. It is all wicked, wicked lies, unless, indeed, that girl--but there, I daresay she was bad like that horrid creature. Perhaps they stole the pot between them and are now trying to blackmail us.' 'Stole the pot!' repeated Rose slowly, for the first time remembering her dream on the night of the storm at Hodinuggur. 'Yes! that is possible, and yet----.' She looked at Azîzan's picture, and then back at Gwen, who was dabbing her eyes with a soft pocket-handkerchief. 'You are sure?' she began again. 'Of course I am quite sure,' retorted Gwen, whose remorse had vanished in grievance at this impudent attempt to amend and enlarge the text of a past incident. 'I never saw or heard of the pot again. I may be weak, I may have done things for which I am sorry in the past, but whatever you may think, my conscience is clear. And as for the sluice? Dan opened it by order; besides, there was the flood. It is all an attempt to blackmail me, and I won't be blackmailed. I have done nothing they can take hold of, nothing--nothing.' Rose gave a sigh, almost of dissatisfaction. If it really was a case of blackmailing, payment would be but a temporary relief. Perhaps, as she had also suggested, the girl in the picture was in league with Chândni. She did not look that sort either. Nor did she look as if---- Rose glanced from the pure oval of the cheek and the fine long curves of the mouth to Mrs. Boynton's tear-stained face and frowned.