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.
'Some one has the pearls,' she said, 'and George's memory must be saved--somehow.'
[CHAPTER XXIII]
'Come in!'
The words were given in an impatient tone, for Lewis Gordon was busy, and he hated being disturbed; especially when, as now, he had taken his coat off, literally as well as figuratively, before a difficult file.