A. E. W. Mason

“ No, this was the only chance: to come away to Bombay, to write to her that the first day, the first night she is able to slip out and travel here she will find me waiting."
Mrs. Repton was satisfied. But while he had been speaking a new fear had entered into her.
"There's something I should have thought of," she exclaimed.
"Yes?"
"Captain Ballantyne is not generous. He is just the sort of man not to divorce his wife."
Thresk raised his head. Clearly that possibility had no more occurred to him than it had to Jane Repton. He thought it over now.
"Just the sort of man," he agreed. ”

“ The picture of him was impressed during that instant upon Thresk's mind, so that he could never afterwards forget it.
"Copper's up one point," he was saying, "that's fine. Who's Captain Ballantyne, I wonder? United Steel has dropped seven-eighths. Well, that doesn't affect me," and so he ran on.
Thresk heard no more of what he said. He stood wondering what news could have come up on the tape of Captain Ballantyne who was out in camp in the state of Chitipur, or if there was another Captain Ballantyne. ”

“ That makes everything so much worse."
"What do you mean?"
"Ballantyne was found in the morning outside the tent stone-cold. But no one had heard the shot, and there were sentries on the edge of the encampment. He had been dragged outside after he was dead or when he was dying."
A low cry broke from Thresk. The weak point became of a sudden the most deadly, the most terrible element in the whole case. He could hear the prosecuting counsel making play with it. He stood for a moment lost in horror. Repton had no further word to say to him. Mrs. Repton had never once spoken. ”

“ I have wanted her for eight years," and then suddenly she got, not heroics, but a glimpse of a real passion. A spasm of pain convulsed his face. He sat down and beat with his fist upon the table. "It was horrible to me to ride away from that camp and leave her there—miles away from any friend. ”