"Yes," said Ernshaw, "I know that. He said he didn't see the necessity, and I am not altogether certain that he was wrong, but you——"
"Yes, I," she replied in a tone that had a thrill of angry reproach running through it, "I, as you know, am—well—a superfluous woman, one who isn't wanted, a sort of waste product of the factory that we call civilisation."
"I am afraid you people are getting far too serious in your conversation," said Carol from her end of the table opposite Sir Arthur. "No, Dora, I really can't allow it; social problems are not in the menu to-night, and you and Mr. Ernshaw will have to keep them for some other time. Meanwhile, suppose we leave the rest for their smokes, and you come with me and run through that song you are going to sing; we haven't tried it together for quite a long time, as Mr. Rayburn said when we were on the other side of the Atlantic. Come along."
As she rose from her chair, Koda Bux, who had been standing immovable behind his master, opened the door, and as Carol, daintily and yet most plainly dressed, passed through, his sombre eyes lit up as though by an inspiration of long past days, and his teeth came together and he said in his soul:
"It is the daughter of the Mem Sahib; what marvel is this! If there is vengeance to be done, may mine be the hand. Inshallah! I should die content, even if it was only a minute afterwards. He has his kismet, and I have mine. Allah will give it to me; but they may be the same. Once the roomal round his neck, and his breath would be already in his mouth. Dog and son of a dog, he would be better dead!"
It had been arranged that Carol and Dora should take up their abode with Sir Arthur, so that Carol might be married from her father's house. Under the circumstances it was only natural that the wedding was to be absolutely private, and it was already decided that immediately after the wedding Rayburn and Carol should leave for a month in Paris, and then go on to Western Australia, where most of Rayburn's mining properties were. He also owned one side of a street in Perth and a country estate with a big bungalow-built house on the eastern hills overlooking the Swan River.
The only difficulty appeared ahead to Sir Arthur was some mysterious connection with the Raleighs and the Garthornes. It was, of course, impossible that the wedding could take place without their knowledge, if Sir Arthur was to give Carol away as he intended to do, and yet the moment that Garthorne's name was mentioned Carol had turned white to the lips and a look of deadly fear had come into her eyes.
"No, no," she said, "not them, I can't tell you why, and you mustn't ask me. You have been very good to me, and you are going to do more for me than ever was done to a girl like me before, but sooner than meet them I would run away again as I did from Melville Gardens. I would, really, but you must not ask me why; there are some things that cannot be told."
After this Sir Arthur, finding it impossible to get any inkling of the mystery from Carol, asked Dora if she could tell him the meaning of it, and she too turned white. She did not reply for a few moments, and then she said:
"No, Sir Arthur, I cannot tell you. All I can say is that Carol is perfectly right. It would be utterly impossible for her to meet either Sir Reginald Garthorne or his son, and of course she could not meet Mrs. Garthorne without meeting her husband. There is a reason, and a very solemn one, too, for this, but I can assure you, Sir Arthur——"