"Hal! Hal! Take me with you. I won't—I can't let you go from me again!"
Already he had swung the door ajar and stood now in the opening.
"I'm afraid you'll have to," he said, his tone cold and hard as steel. "Still I'm glad you asked me. It has paid me for coming half-way round the world."
The door swung sharply shut with Kneedrock on the outside.
At the same moment the door at the opposite end of the room opened, and Jane Ramsay stood on the threshold.
"I was peeping," she cried. "He's homelier even than his name. And—and I hate him!"
"So do I," cried Nina, bracing herself. But she didn't in the least; and Jane Ramsay knew she didn't.
When Colonel Darling returned from parade the ayah was gone from the passage-way outside his wife's room. He entered to find Nina up and dressed. And he found her quite ready to answer his questions.
She told him truthfully what Kneedrock saw through the window, and she told him with equal truth why Andrews fired the shot.
More than that, she told him that his false identification of Kneedrock at Spion Kop had wrecked three lives, and that it was a dear price to pay for one man's carelessness or stupidity.