It was deserted.
Baring led her straight along it till he came to the two chairs outside
the drawing-room window. They were empty. A servant had just lighted a
lamp in the room behind them.
"Go in!" said Baring. "I will come back to you."
She obeyed him. She felt incapable of resistance just then. He passed on
quietly, and she stood inside the room, waiting and listening with
hushed breath and hands tightly clenched.
The seconds crawled by, and again there came to her straining ears the
cry of a jackal from far away. Then at last she caught the sound of
Baring's voice, curt and peremptory, and her heart stood still. But he
was only speaking to the _punkah-coolie_ round the corner, for almost
instantly the great fan above her head began to move.
A few seconds more, and he reappeared at the window alone. Hope drew a
great breath of relief and awoke to the fact that she was trembling
violently.
She looked at him as he came quietly in. His lean, bronzed face, with
the purple scar of a sword-cut down one cheek, told her nothing. Only
she fancied that his mouth, under its narrow, black line of moustache,
looked stern.
He went straight up to her and laid his hand on her shoulder.
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