"Except by you," she retorted.
"Except by me," he said. "You see I'm here to weigh things. I'm here to look after you all. You think I should have told you of your danger, and shut you up in the safety of Sar. But there is no safety in Sar. That's the mistake. Your riding was a risk, but it helped our chance to make Sar safer; safer for every one, safer for you."
"And suppose I had been killed?"
"Well," he said, "you can fancy what I should have paid for it. But the safety would have been there, though it was only there for others. And it was to make that that I am here."
She met his musing observation of her with hard clear eyes.
"Haven't you wasted an unusual lot of time talking to me this morning, Captain Terrington?" she said.
He took the deep breath of a man whose heart is sick for sleep, and threw back his shoulders.
"Yes," he smiled, rising; "I was quite exceptionally tired."