Kate looked at him with a quick resentment flaming up in her face beneath the stain.
"I think you are mistaken," she said slowly. "I believe Tara would be better pleased if--if she knew the truth."
"You mean if I were to tell her you are not my wife?" he replied quickly. "Why?"
"Because I should be less of a tie to you--because----" She paused, then added sharply, "Mr. Greyman, I must ask you to tell her the truth, please. I have a right to so much, surely. I have my reasons for it, and if you do not, I shall."
Jim Douglas shrugged his shoulders. "In that case I had better tell her myself; not that I think it matters much one way or another, so long as I am here. And the whole thing from beginning to end is chance, nothing but chance."
"Your chance and mine," she murmured half to herself. It was the first time she had alluded openly to the strange linking of their fates, and he looked at her almost impatiently.
"Yes! your chance and mine; and we must make the best of it. I'll tell her as I go out."
But Tara interrupted him at the beginning.
"If the Huzoor means that he does not love the mem as he loved Zora, that requires no telling, and for the rest what does it matter to this slave?"
"And it matters nothing to me either," he retorted roughly, "but of this be sure. Who kills the mem kills me, unless I kill first; and by Krishnu, and Vishnu, and the lot, I'd as lief kill you, Tara, as anyone else, if you get in my way."