The Witness for the Defense | Page 6

beauty of the girl who had ridden along the South
Downs with him eight years ago. There was more of character in the
face now, less, much less, of youth and none of the old gaiety. The
open frankness had gone. The big dark eyes which looked out straight
at Thresk as he stood before them had, even in that likeness, something
of aloofness and reserve. And underneath, in a contrast which seemed
to him startling, there was her name signed in the firm running hand in
which she had written the few notes which passed between them during
that month in Sussex. Thresk looked back again at the photograph and
then resumed his seat.
"Tell me about her, Mrs. Carruthers," he said. "You hear from her
often?"
"Oh no! Stella doesn't write many letters, and I don't know her very
well."
"But you have her photograph," said Thresk, "and signed by her."
"Oh yes. She stayed with me last Christmas, and I simply made her get
her portrait taken. Just think! She hadn't been taken for years. Can you
understand it? She declared she was bored with it. Isn't that curious?
However, I persuaded her and she gave me one. But I had to force her
to write on it."
"Then she was in Bombay last winter?" said Thresk slowly.
"Yes." And then Mrs. Carruthers had an idea.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "if you are really interested in Stella I'll put Mrs.
Repton next to you to-night."
"Thank you very much," said Thresk. "But who is Mrs. Repton?"
Mrs. Carruthers sat forward in her chair.
"Well, she's Stella's great friend--very likely her only real friend in
India. Stella's so reserved. I simply adore her, but she quite prettily and
politely keeps me always at arm's length. If she has ever opened out to
anybody it's to Jane Repton. You see Charlie Repton was Collector at
Agra before he came into the Bombay Presidency, and so they went up
to Mussoorie for the hot weather. The Ballantynes happened actually to
have the very next bungalow--now wasn't that strange?--so naturally
they became acquainted. I mean the Ballantynes and the Reptons did..."
"But one moment, Mrs. Carruthers," said Thresk, breaking in upon the
torrent of words. "Am I right in guessing that Mrs. Ballantyne lives in
India?"
"But of course!" cried Mrs. Carruthers.
"She is actually in India now?"
"To be sure she is!"
Thresk was quite taken aback by the news.
"I had no idea of it," he said slowly, and Mrs. Carruthers replied
sweetly:
"But lots of people live in India, Mr. Thresk. Didn't you know that? We
are not the uttermost ends of the earth."
Thresk set to work to make his peace. He had not heard of Mrs.
Ballantyne for so long. It seemed strange to him to find himself
suddenly near to her now--that is if he was near. He just avoided that
other exasperating trick of treating India as if it was a provincial town
and all its inhabitants neighbours. But he only just avoided it. Mrs.

Carruthers, however, was easily appeased.
"Yes," she said. "Stella has lived in India for the best part of eight years.
She came out with some friends in the winter, made Captain
Ballantyne's acquaintance and married him almost at once--in January,
I think it was. Of course I only know from what I've been told. I was a
schoolgirl in England at the time."
"Of course," Thresk agreed. He was conscious of a sharp little stab of
resentment. So very quickly Stella had forgotten that morning on the
Downs! It must have been in the autumn of that same year that she had
gone out to India, and by February she was married. The resentment
was quite unjustified, as no one knew better than himself. But he was a
man; and men cannot easily endure so swift an obliteration of their
images from the thoughts and the hearts of the ladies who have
admitted that they loved them. None the less he pressed for details.
Who was Ballantyne? What was his position? After all he was
obviously not the millionaire to whom in a more generous moment he
had given Stella. He caught himself on a descent to the meanness of
rejoicing upon that. Meanwhile Mrs. Carruthers rippled on.
"Captain Ballantyne? Oh, he's a most remarkable man! Older than
Stella, certainly, but a man of great knowledge and insight. People
think most highly of him. Languages come as easily to him as
crochet-work to a woman."
This paragon had been Resident in the Principality of Bakuta to the
north of Bombay when Stella had first arrived. But he had been moved
now to Chitipur in Rajputana. It was supposed that he was writing in
his leisure moments a work which would be the