Boulte ate his breakfast, advised her to see her Arab pony fed in the verandah, and went out. The morning wore through, and at mid-day the tension became unendurable. Mrs. Boulte could not cry. She had finished her crying in the night, and now she did not want to be left alone. Perhaps the Vansuythen Woman would talk to her; and, since talking opens the heart, perhaps there might be some comfort to be found in her company. She was the only other woman in the Station. In Kashima there are no regular calling-hours. Every one can drop in upon every one else at pleasure. Mrs. Boulte put on a big terai hat, and walked across to the Vansuythens’ house to borrow last week’s Queen. The two compounds touched, and instead of going up the drive, she crossed through the gap in the cactus-hedge, entering the house from the back. As she passed through the dining-room, she heard, behind the purdah that cloaked the drawing-room door, her husband’s voice, saying, ‘But on my Honour! On my Soul and Honour, I tell you she doesn’t care for me. She told me so last night. I would have told you then if Vansuythen hadn’t been with you. If it is for her sake that you’ll have nothing to say to me, you can make your mind easy. It’s Kurrell.’ ‘What?’ said Mrs. Vansuythen, with a hysterical little laugh. ‘Kurrell! Oh, it can’t be! You two must have made some horrible mistake. Perhaps you you lost your temper, or misunderstood, or something. Things can’t be as wrong as you say.’ Mrs. Vansuythen had shifted her defence to avoid the man’s pleading, and was desperately trying to keep him to a side-issue. ‘There must be some mistake,’ she insisted, ‘and it can be all put right again.’ Boulte laughed grimly. ‘It can’t be Captain Kurrell! He told me that he had never taken the least the least interest in your wife, Mr. Boulte. Oh, do listen! He said he had not. He swore he had not,’ said Mrs. Vansuythen. The purdah rustled, and the speech was cut short by the entry of a little thin woman, with big rings round her eyes. Mrs. Vansuythen stood up with a gasp. ‘What was that you said?’ asked Mrs. Boulte. ‘Never mind that man. What did Ted say to you? What did he say to you? What did he say to you?’ Mrs. Vansuythen sat down helplessly on the sofa, overborne by the trouble of her questioner. ‘He said I can’t remember exactly what he said but I understood him to say that is But, really, Mrs. Boulte, isn’t it rather a strange question?’ ‘Will you tell me what he said?’ repeated Mrs. Boulte. Even a tiger will fly before a bear robbed of her whelps, and Mrs. Vansuythen was only an ordinarily good woman. She began in a sort of desperation: ‘Well, he said that the never cared for you at all, and, of course, there was not the least reason why he should have, and and that was all.’ ‘You said he swore he had not cared for me. Was that true?’ ‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Vansuythen very softly. Mrs. Boulte wavered for an instant where she stood, and then fell forward fainting.