The fatigue would wear off, no doubt, when she realised that she must fight for her life, but now she stood in front of him indifferent and docile--much as one of the native levies was wont to stand before her husband.

The words which the levies used and the language in which they spoke them rose naturally to her lips, as the only words and language suitable to the occasion.
"You see, Mrs.Ballantyne," he said gently, "there is no reason to suspect a single one of your servants or of your escort." "And there is reason to suspect me," she added, looking at him quietly and steadily.
The Inspector for his part looked away.

He was a young man--no more than a year or two older than Stella Ballantyne herself.

They both came from the same kind of stock.

Her people and his people might have been friends in some pleasant country village in one of the English counties.