She paused to gather her strength for a final effort. "So much for Mr. Travers' and my partnership. I did my share of the work to shield myself and my mother from a trouble which must now go its way. But after that, I played my own game. I did not want to lose you—even though I knew quite well that you cared for me, and that I should never marry you. Months before I had made up my mind to marry a man with a high position and money. It was just a game I was playing with you. Even when you forced things to a head, I kept it up. I pretended innocency and high motives—because I wanted to feel you at my apron-strings always. We all treated you more or less badly, but I was the worst. I fooled you—for—for—"
"For what?"
His voice burst from him, harsh and terrible as though it had been torn from the bottom of a tortured soul.
"For the fun of the thing."
Among the seven present there was no movement, no sound. Scarcely one seemed to breathe or be alive except the woman who stood there, her breast heaving, a twisted smile of wild self-mockery on her ashy lips.
Nehal Singh turned and went to the door. There he stopped and looked back at her and the little group of which she formed the central figure. Then he made a gesture—one single gesture. He raised his hand high above his head and brought it down, palm downward. In that movement there was a contempt, a scorn, a bitterness so profound that it seemed to mingle with a terrible pity; but above all there was a final severing, a breaking of the last link which bound them. The next minute the door closed behind him.
How long the silence that followed lasted no one knew. It was broken by Mrs. Cary, who flung herself face downward on the table, and burst into wild, uncontrollable sobs.
"Oh, Beaty!" she moaned. "Our reputations—our good name! How could you have told such wicked stories about yourself and poor Mr. Travers! How could you!"
Colonel Carmichael shook his head. He was overwhelmed by a cross-current of conflicting emotions to which he could give no name.
"True or not true, your—eh—statement has got us into a pretty mess, Miss Cary," he said. "You have played with fire. Pray Heaven that it has not set light to Marut!"