He was wondering how much share in the blame he had himself, he who had ridden with her on the Downs eight years ago and had let her speak and had not answered.

He sat in this tent to-night with shame burning at his heart.

"It wasn't as if I had no confidence in myself," he argued, unable quite to cast back to the Thresk of those early days.

"I had--heaps of it." Ballantyne lifted himself out of his chair and lurched over to the sideboard.

Thresk, watching him, fell to wondering why in the world Stella had married him or he her.