He held something up which caught and reflected all the diffused light that had stolen outside the illuminated circle; and she saw it was the Andrews automatic. Still she couldn't have spoken had death threatened her for her silence.
"I found it in the drawing-room. Its magazine lacks a single cartridge. I've talked to Jowar, and everything fits. But there's something that Kneedrock won't say and that Jowar doesn't know. So I've come to you for it, and you'll tell me. You must."
He waited a moment for her to say something, but she was still mute. Her eyes were all pupils. They appeared like two black holes in a face devoid of any tint of color, for her lips were blanched and her lifted brows were hidden behind her drooping hair.
"I must know what it was that Kneedrock saw," he pressed.
Her hands were gripping the mattress on either side of her--gripping it until her finger-nails doubled and then broke.
"And I must know why he was shot at," he added.
And then Nina, who had been doubling all the while, broke, too. Before Darling could reach her she pitched forward, a hunched heap on the floor.
It was the next morning, and Nina's _ayah_ sat on a chair in the passage, guarding the door of her mistress's room. To all comers she gave the same answer--her _mem-sahib_ was sleeping after a night of wakefulness and must not be disturbed.
She gave it to Colonel Darling no less than three times--once before breakfast, once after, and again before he rode away for parade, his eyes bloodshot and his hands all a-tremble.
And all the while the room behind the door was as empty of life as a hatched egg-shell. For in the darkest hour of a gray dawn, closely veiled, Nina had stolen away with her _ayah_ escorting, and had taken refuge with the Ramsays, who had a small bungalow within the hotel compound--the same hotel, be it added, which sheltered "Mr. Henry Scripps, Bombay."
Of course she told the Ramsays her story--or, which is closer to fact, _a_ story. Some of it was truth, but it was neither all the truth nor nothing but the truth. She believed dissemblance necessary, and so she had no hesitation in dissembling.
Her main purpose was to escape for a while from Darling and his unanswerable questions, and in the meantime to obtain at all hazards an interview with Kneedrock. She hadn't the faintest idea what the viscount purposed doing, but whatever it was she must stop him.