IT was about half-past nine o’clock on a bright crisp morning in early Spring; the sun shone gaily into Miss Verinder’s drawing-room, eclipsing the genial red glow of the fire; the leafless branches of the plane tree tapped against the window panes; and, although one could not see it, one had a feeling of there being a blue wind-swept sky with little white clouds racing giddily above the highest chimney pots. Miss Verinder herself, seeming if not quite as sunny and bright as the weather, at least strangely gay and alert, had been in and out of the room two or three times; while Louisa bustled hither and thither, giving last touches to the breakfast table that she had set forth between the sofa and the fire.

Louisa was indeed laying out a lovely breakfast, and her mistress glanced with pleasure at the honey, the various jams, and the hot-plate and the kettle, under both of which a lamp burned cheerfully. Over the back of the sofa were about half-a-dozen different newspapers. With a smile upon her unusually carmine lips, Miss Verinder unfolded one of these and read the account of how Mr. Anthony Dyke had arrived in London yesterday afternoon. This particular journal stated that the famous explorer appeared to be in the most robust health and the highest spirits. He would say little about the ill-fated expedition or the series of mishaps that had led to the return of the ship and the postponement of her voyage to another season; but he explained that he would give the fullest details of results so far achieved in the lecture that he proposed to deliver shortly. “He left at once for Devonshire, to pass a few days in complete quiet with his relatives.”

Louisa brought in three silver dishes, a glass jar of marmalade, a china basket full of apples; but Miss Verinder was thrown into slight agitation by the discovery that there was still something wanting to perfect the breakfast. The hot rolls had not arrived. Louisa, even more distressed and worried by this failure, said the baker had faithfully promised. “It’s that wretched boy of his who has played us false”; and Louisa used an odd expression, and using it laughed in spite of her annoyance. “I’d like to break his bones for him, I would.”

She had left the hall door ajar at the top of the flight of stairs, and for about the fifth time she pushed it open and looked down. There was not a sign either of the boy or the rolls. She went into her neat little pantry, fuming. Then after a minute she heard a footstep on the stairs, and, rejoiced that the rolls had come at last, she called gaily, “Put them down, you imp. And shut the door.”

“What is that?” said a totally unexpected voice.

Next moment Mrs. Bell of Queen’s Gate had passed through the hall and entered the drawing-room. Miss Verinder, turning, was really much agitated by the sight of the visitor with Louisa behind her in the doorway showing a scared face. She made desperate signs to Louisa, who precipitately sprang away; and kind Mrs. Bell in her astonishment nearly let fall the large parcel of hot-house grapes that she was carrying.

Yesterday Mrs. Bell had been refused admittance because of an indisposition that had overtaken Miss Verinder. This morning, being out earlier than was customary, she had come to bring the grapes and to inquire after the state of her cherished invalid. Naturally she was now amazed to find Miss Verinder up and about, and, as she said at once, “looking better than I’ve seen you for years.”

Miss Verinder said that she was indeed quite well again. Her slight illness had entirely passed off.

Then Mrs. Bell noticed the breakfast table, so nicely prepared, here, in the drawing-room, with silver dishes and cups and plates for at least two people—yes, with two chairs, one on each side of it.

Miss Verinder explained that she had a friend staying with her.

“Now that’s very wrong of you,” said Mrs. Bell in good-natured reproof. “You have struggled up to entertain your friend when you ought to have remained in bed. I can see now that you are not at all well, really. You are feverish, I believe—yes, feverish and shaky. Why did you allow her to come at such a time? Why didn’t you put her off? You should not have studied her convenience. Who is she? Do I know her?”

Miss Verinder said “No.”

“Take care of yourself,” said Mrs. Bell, going. Then she paused, one of her usual kindly ideas having come into her mind. “Listen, dear. If your friend is on your nerves—you didn’t mention her name—send her round to me. I’ll take her off your hands for the day.”

“You are too good, dear Mrs. Bell. But really I wouldn’t think of it.”

Miss Verinder saw her safely out of the hall, and bolted the door behind her—that door at the top of the stairs that had been left open in such a reckless, dangerous, unheard-of fashion by Louisa, merely because it was early in the morning with nobody about.

“You old goose,” said Miss Verinder to the culprit, as she returned to the drawing-room. “It’s all right. Mrs. Bell has gone. But that was a narrow squeak.”

“All right,” said Louisa, loudly repeating the words of her mistress. “She’s gone.”

And next moment a great big laughing man came into the drawing-room.

“Anthony,” said Miss Verinder, “you’re a very naughty boy to be so late. Your breakfast is getting cold.”

“Oh, this room,” he cried ecstatically. “This room! Let me look at it.”

“You saw it last night.”

“But by lamp-light. It’s by daylight that I always see it in my dreams. I want to feel that I am really in it—awake and not dreaming. Let me touch things.” And he moved about, putting his hands softly on pieces of furniture, cautiously picking up delicate fragile bits of china, admiring them, and putting them down again.

“Tony, your breakfast.”

“Oh, damn the breakfast. Don’t you understand what these moments are to me?” And he told her for the hundredth time how he carried with him always the whole of this room in his thoughts—a picture of it and its minutest details so indelible that thought instantaneously recreated it. He was verifying the picture now. If there was anything changed, anything missing, he would certainly know. “And now let me look at you.” He said this with infinite pride and love. “My girl—my own little girl.” He was holding her hands apart, as he always did, while these first transports lasted, so that her arms were opened and she could not push him from her. “Emmie—my darling.” Emmie, under this attack, was vainly struggling to maintain her dignified primness of manner; she uttered bashful remonstrances, hanging her head, laughing and blushing, but was in rapturous joy all the while. “Angel of my life”; and suddenly he took possession of her, hugged her, and smothered her warm face with kisses.

Louisa brought in the tardy rolls while he was doing it, and as if blind and preoccupied went out again.

“You’re too silly—really too silly,” said Miss Verinder. She had withdrawn to the bevelled looking-glass in the front of the Queen Anne bureau and was arranging her hair.

They sat down to breakfast, and she made the tea for him exactly as she would have made it for Mrs. Bell or the vicar of the parish, had either been visiting her; but her eyes were bright, and the colour still glowed in her cheeks. Dyke watched each precise little movement with a sort of swooning ecstasy. First she warmed the tea-pot, then she began to load her tiny shovel from the silver tea-caddy, and as she transferred each shovelfull she demurely recited the habitual incantation. “One for me; one for you, Tony; one for the pot—and one for luck. Shall we have one more? Yes, I think one more for luck. Now the kettle, please.”

“Go on,” cried Dyke, with a roar of delighted laughter. “Say it.” He wanted the rhymed couplet to finish the unchanging rite, that foolish rhyme that he himself had taught her. “Say it, Emmie.”

And she said it, quietly and gravely, as if there was nothing ridiculous about it. “‘For if the water not boiling be, filling the tea-pot spoils the tea.’ Push back that little bolt under the kettle. Thank you, dear.”

They spent four or five heavenly days together in the flat, never issuing from it till after dark, and not then without a preliminary reconnaissance by Louisa and her report that the coast was clear. All day long they were perfectly blissful, making up to each other in endless talk for the vast tracts of time during which neither could hear the other’s voice. It was during one of these secret visits that Dyke taught the parrot to say “Look sharp, Louisa.” Emmie could never have done it without aid.

Under the friendly cloak of darkness they used to take long walks about the huge town. They had jolly little treats too. Dyke loved the “moving pictures” from their very first introduction, and Emmie was devoted to this form of entertainment for the reason that it afforded her an opportunity of holding Dyke’s hand and squeezing it while the lights were down. They also attended representations of the legitimate drama, going to the cheaper seats of unfashionable theatres on or beyond the four-mile circle; and they found and cherished the strangest sort of restaurants or cafÉs far from the more frequented haunts of well-to-do mankind, where they dined and supped with the utmost enjoyment. Some of these eating-places were almost too humble and doubtful, scarcely better than cabmen’s shelters; for Dyke, fresh from New Guinea or an uninhabited island, was almost incapable of differentiation. To him, at any rate for a while, the Ritz Hotel and a refreshment room at an Underground railway station seemed equally magnificent and luxurious.

Emmie’s favourite restaurant was at least clean and respectable, a little place kept by Italians in a side street near Hammersmith Broadway; and thither she guided her illustrious traveller when he wished to invite a guest to join them at dinner. These guests were always of the same class, rough simple fellows, generally colonials, with whom Dyke had sailed the seas or plodded the earth at some time or other in the past. He had promised to have an evening with them when the chance came and was anxious not to break his word. So, Emmie consenting, he sent off a slap-dash line inviting them to meet him at Spinetti’s.

One night dear old Captain Cairns of the Mercedaria dined with them there.

“Well, upon my life, Tony, it’s a sight for sore eyes to see you again,” said Cairns. “And you too, miss.”

He was just as he had been when she first saw him at that Johnsonian chop-house in the City; wearing a pea-jacket with a blue shirt collar, and, although so short, seeming excessively broad and powerful. His stubby beard was perhaps a little greyer, his big round head balder, and the network of wrinkles on his sun-burnt cheeks had become more intricate. His weight and solidity inspired confidence in her just as they had done at their very first meeting; but Emmie had a premonition that he would certainly break the fragile cane chair on which he had seated himself, and gracefully vacating her own place, she manoeuvered him to the more substantial foundations of the velvet-covered bench against the wall. He sat there, beside Dyke, and beamed at her across the table.

“Oh, how he did make me laugh about them Papuans. Yes, I can see the old chap’s going as strong as ever. Meanin’ to have another bang at the South Pole, isn’t he, miss?” And Captain Cairns’s sense of humour induced a fit of chuckling. “Him and that Pole! I wrote and told him he’s like the baby with the cake of soap. He won’t be happy till he gets it.”

They had a jolly evening.

“Ah well.” Captain Cairns sighed when taking leave. “Here’s my address, Miss Verinder, if you should have news you’d like to send me at any time—for he doesn’t answer my letters. Good-night, and thank you. Those were happy days on the poor old Mercedaria.”

“What is she doing now?” asked Emmie.

“She’s broke up”; and Captain Cairns sighed again. “She was a good ship, she was—in her time. But her time was mostly over, when you honoured us, miss.”

Then Dyke, laughing, said he had a little tale to tell; and he insisted that Cairns should sit down again and have another whisky and soda.

“If so, it must be a small one,” said Cairns. “Really only a spot.”

They sat down and Dyke gleefully narrated how, after saying good-bye to the Mercedaria, they got into a tight place—and Miss Verinder saved his life by killing a man.

In vain Emmie protested; he would go on.

“It’s too bad of you, Tony. I asked you never to remind me of all that—never to speak of it to anybody.”

“Only to Cairns. Such a real true pal as old Cairns!”

“Well, I’m blessed,” said Cairns, when he had heard the story; and he looked at her with the deepest admiration. “That was grit, and no mistake. Whips out a revolver, and—”

“Mr. Cairns,” said Miss Verinder, pulling on her black suÈde gloves and speaking rather primly, “please forget this nonsense. You know Tony’s way. In order to make out that I did something remarkable, he is led into exaggerations. Good-night. It has been so pleasant to see you, and I hope we shall meet again before very long.”

After five or six days spent in this manner Dyke would disappear from the flat and give himself to the public. There were interviews in the newspapers; he delivered his lecture, asked for financial support, visited his publisher, was seen at his club, attended one or two public dinners. Some time was spent with his father at that old house called Endells. Then perhaps he was secreted at the flat again. Then once more he was gone from England; and Miss Verinder, shopping with Mrs. Bell at Knightsbridge, or taking a walk by herself in Kensington Gardens, felt that she herself, all that was real and solid in her, had gone too.

It was she who had decided on the necessity of this long-sustained concealment of their love, and not he. Truly she was not a woman to shirk consequences—she had proved that handsomely; but not for nothing had she been born at Prince’s Gate and reared in the Verinder tradition. She knew her England, which never really changes, however much people talk of change. She knew that to this day, just as in the time of Parnell, no public man is allowed to have an unauthorized intimacy with a person of different sex—in other words, if he cannot show his wife, he must not show anybody else. And more especially would this be so in the case of a man appealing to the public for money to carry on his public work. Had the fact been discovered, it would have meant an extinguishing cap (of the requisite size—very big) over the head of Anthony Dyke.

It had been necessary to hide him, and she had hidden him. With regard to this achievement one may perhaps for a moment consider how excessively difficult it is for a woman to hide a man in a life that to all appearances is being conducted on a conventional pattern, a life that seems open to observation by every curious person; and one may further remark that of all men Anthony Dyke was obviously the most difficult to hide, because of his large proportions, his loud voice, his terrific explosiveness—not to mention the fact that he was, if not yet as famous as he desired, at any rate sufficiently so to be a well-known, closely-marked public character; some one worth following by newspaper reporters, always remunerative for a chatty interview, and of market value as a snap-shot, take him how or where you would.

Nevertheless she had done it. If the truth must be owned, since there was but a single aim to her existence, she had welcomed as likely to aid her, the very hardships under which she was supposed to be suffering acutely; such as, the loss of reputation, ostracism by near relatives, coldness at the hands of friends.

Louisa, the tried and faithful servant, had also been a heaven-sent gift. But perhaps the real key to the triumphant deception had been her own unflinching audacity—the bold idea carried out with a boldness that never faltered. For at the beginning, when people were naturally most suspicious and keeping a sharp watch for the man Dyke, not the most suspicious of them all could suspect that the place to look for him was so outrageously near home as Oratory Gardens.

She was successful, then, and as time went on the thing grew easier. At those queer haunts of theirs they scarcely ever met anybody who knew him, and never anybody who knew her. They had no accidents; that narrow shave with her solicitous kind-hearted Mrs. Bell was the closest approach to catastrophe. But on the last evening of this same visit of Dyke to his native land they had a really unfortunate encounter.

They were coming along the Brompton Road, past the top of Thurloe Square, when a small elderly woman caught sight of Dyke in the full light beneath a lamp-post, and accosted him. He told Miss Verinder to go on, and stopped to talk to the woman. Miss Verinder, obeying him, went by herself slowly to the corner of Oratory Gardens and round it. Then, turning, she strolled back again to meet him. He was hurrying towards her, waving his arm as if as some kind of signal, and the woman was following him and calling after him angrily.

“Straight on, Emmie,” he whispered, taking Miss Verinder’s arm, “and step out.”

He led her rapidly past the two corners that would have taken them home, round into Ovington Square, Pont Street, Sloane Street, and thence by devious twists back to Oratory Gardens; explaining while they took their sharp bit of exercise that he wished “to shake off that old devil,” who was by no means to learn where Miss Verinder resided. When they were safe in the flat he further explained that the old devil was an aunt of his wife, a dangerous objectionable person with whom Emmie must never come into contact. He was sorry that Emmie had made that rather significant turn towards the flat, but he hoped that it had not been noticed.

But next day, after Dyke had gone, the woman called at the flat, and, as reported by Louisa, asked who lived there. Louisa refused to say, and shut the street door in the woman’s face. Then, after a little while, opening it, she saw the woman come out of the auctioneer’s office. Either from the auctioneer or somebody else the woman obtained the information she desired. She was in fact that connection by marriage whom the elder Mr. Dyke had described as a pertinacious writer of abusive or blackmailing letters to him and his son. Soon now she wrote a letter to Miss Verinder.

The last post brought it one night when Emmie was sitting by the fire and thinking of the man who had gone. Louisa, looking stately in her black silk dress and apron, laid it on the small table beside her mistress; and there for a little while it remained unopened.

The evening had begun with desperate sadness as Emmie lived again in memory those perfect days, and thought that once more the joy had fled and life for another merciless stretch of time could be summed up by the two words, waiting and hoping. She must get through it somehow, as she had hitherto got through these dreadful empty intervals, and fortunately he had left her work to do. Work was always a comfort. Then she thought of his recent disappointment—the first failure of the scientific expedition—and of his anxiety that the second attempt should be a complete success. She felt, although he had not said so, that he was dissatisfied with the reception given to him in England. Some of the newspapers had annoyed him by taking the wrong side of the quarrel with that French explorer Saint-Bertin, had condemned him for hastiness and overbearingness. She remembered with burning indignation something really rude that had been said about him by one newspaper. None of them, as it now seemed to her, had been as eulogistic as they used to be; they did not recapitulate sufficiently the magnificent achievements of the past; they dwelt too much on a temporary set-back.

As much as he himself, she was eager that he should ultimately attain undying fame. She knew too that he would never settle down and be quiet until he had reached the goal. And, alas, he was growing older; the years, however lightly they dealt with him, left some marks. The time available was not infinite. He himself asked for luck; and the luck was always against him.

Sitting by the fire, and feeling the natural depression of spirits caused by the sense of loneliness after companionship, she was attacked again by a horrible doubt with which more than once she had been compelled to fight. Was bad luck the only explanation? It was most horrible to her when, as now for a few moments, she seemed to hear mocking questions which she disdained to answer, but which she could not silence. Why always the bad luck? That little trip of his to the Andes was typical; representing on a small scale the big adventures of his life. Again and again, if not always, the tale had been the same. He fitted himself out for an expedition, plunged into the wilderness, and was heard of no more, until he emerged starving, with nothing but the shirt on his back. Should not this make one doubt his powers, and admit that, splendid as he is, there may be some flaw in his mental equipment—some clumsiness of thought that, in spite of his brilliant qualities, makes him less than the truly great; so that he will never really achieve what he desires? As on previous occasions, she fought with all her strength against this disloyal and treacherous doubt, and drove it away to-night perhaps for ever.

It is love that kills doubt of every kind. She thought of the love, and of that only. These seemingly interminable absences must be supported with joy and pride as a part of the love itself; far from spoiling it, they made it what it was, unique and glorious; they lifted it high above the common bond of any ordinary marriage. She need not envy any woman who ever lived or think any more fortunate than she.

There was a smile on her lips now; she folded her hands and half closed her eyes, as she thought with an immense pride that no woman ever made a man more completely hers or gave herself to a man so utterly. He was her lover, whom she loved with a flaming passionate strength; he was her faithful mate, her partner, so that, as much as in any business partnership, any firm, all that struck at him struck her also; he was her child too, over whom she yearned with more than a mother’s tenderness—her wayward noble boy, who sometimes acted with rashness from sheer nobility of spirit; who must be thought for, cherished as well as encouraged; who must be subtly guarded and secretly aided by the poor weak half of him that watched, waited, hoped at this fireside while his other splendid half battled magnificently in the frozen darkness twelve thousand miles away. Still preserving that characteristic attitude, with meekly folded hands, she thought thus rhapsodically of her love, and the glory of it—yes, the wonder and the glory of it.

Then she opened the letter, which tried to put everything in a different light. Cruelly abusive, it produced the effect upon her of something vile and incongruous and stupid, seen suddenly in a beautiful or sacred place—as, shall one say? mud-stained feet upon a marble floor or a bundle of filthy rags dropped by a passer-by on the steps of a cathedral altar. The writer signed herself “Mrs. Janet Kent”; she headed the letter with the name of a midland town; and she began by saying that she had just paid a visit to “the Assylam” and seen her niece, Mrs. Dyke.

And lapsing from the abusive to the blackmailing habit, the writer threw out a not ambiguous hint that it would be wise to avoid exposure by prompt generosity.

This letter remaining unanswered, Emmie soon received another of the same sort; and after that more letters until at last one came with very direct threats in it. Writing to Dyke, Miss Verinder refrained from speaking of the annoyance to which she was subjected. Why worry him? It would be time enough to tell him when she had him safe home again. But she went now for advice to a solicitor—not to Messrs. Williams, the family solicitors, but to some one whose name she had chanced to read of in a newspaper as connected with criminal proceedings.

This gentleman appeared to be as clever as he was sympathetic; surprisingly few words enabled him to grasp the whole matter, but he told Emmie that hers was one of those cases in which the law unfortunately could be of little assistance to the injured party. He pointed out that the only way of bringing the horrid old woman to book would be by police court proceedings, and it did not seem to him they could very well face the publicity that such action would entail. Indeed there could be little doubt that the old woman understood this quite well. It was probably her perfect understanding of it that made her so bold and impudent. He thought that perhaps the best chance would be for him to write her a “frightening” letter.

He wrote his letter, but Mrs. Janet Kent was not frightened; and his final regretful advice was that in his opinion it would be worth while giving her a little money “to shut her mouth.” He said he would do it for his client, adding that of course if the abominable old wretch were paid once she would probably have to be paid again. The pride of Miss Verinder revolted from the advice; but she saw no escape from following it.

In this manner the last living relative of Dyke’s wife became a humble pensioner on the bounty of the lady whom he was precluded from marrying.

He knew nothing about it, and perhaps would never know. He was busy. The good ship Commonwealth with all the scientific gentlemen on board was skirting the northernmost fringe of the pack-ice. The last letter that Emmie received from him for many many months contained a photograph taken on deck just before they left New Zealand—Anthony, looking enormous, in the middle, Mr. Wedgwood, the physicist, on his right; Mr. Cleeve, the biologist, and Mr. Hamilton, the geologist, on his left; Lieutenant Barry and the rest of the officers with their names written underneath them, and the crew unnamed. She put it away carefully with her collection of similar pictures.

And she went on with her work. He had left her all the materials for the short volume that was to appear later on under the title of The Third Cruise. All those studies of hers, the classes in logic and rhetoric and composition, at which Mrs. Bell and others smiled indulgently or contemptuously, had been undertaken in order to render herself capable of helping him with his books. Dyke, as often happens with authors of his character, had no notion of style or of construction. When he first honoured her with the task of knocking his stuff into shape for publication and she found herself confronted with the mass of manuscript, the muddle and tangle of it threw her into such despair that she, the assistant, called for assistance, and the publisher sent her a real literary person to put the opening chapters into literary form. It was the book called Sand and Sunshine, and the expert strongly objected to Dyke’s initial sentences, condemning them as naÏve and childish. “Sand and sunshine,” Dyke had begun, “are very nice things in their way, but you can’t eat them.” She herself did not much care for this turn of phrase, and she connived at very large modifications. But when the proofs of those early chapters were sent out to Dyke, then eleven thousand miles away, he almost went mad with indignation; so that the explosion of his wrath, even at that great distance, made the flat in Oratory Gardens tremble and shake. He said he would break the bones of the literary man. He cursed his impertinence, for tampering with “a document.” She finished the book herself; and then, and afterwards, Dyke allowed her to take any liberties she pleased. He would accept anything from that hand—in fact he never appeared to observe that she had changed things; and she always, with great tact, minimised what she had done. “A word here and there, Anthony, and of course the punctuation; but my effort is simply to make your meaning clear—never to alter it in the slightest degree.”

Each year becoming more skilled, she altered just as she chose, anything or everything—except the titles of the books. Those she dared not touch. They were idiosyncratic. A certain arrogance or assumption in the sound of them had meaning for her, although the rest of the world might not understand. They linked themselves in her mind with that other mannerism, the habit of speaking of himself in the third person—“Dyke will be heard of again; Anthony Dyke is not conscious of failure,” and so on; speaking as he wished the universe to speak of him. Thus the bare simplicity of these titles—The First Cruise, The Second Cruise, The Third Cruise—meant that they were chosen for posterity rather than for the passing hour. In future generations when people saw these words, The First Cruise, they would be in no doubt as to whose cruise it was. They would all know that the cruises made by Dyke were the only ones that had really counted in the century-long siege of the South Pole.

So skilled was she now that she saw The Third Cruise through the press without submitting the proofs to anybody, but not without those fears and agonies from which all very conscientious people suffer when they feel that they are engaged upon a task of supreme importance. She had nightmare dreams about the maps and the illustrations, dreaming once that three photographs of herself and Dyke, taken years ago at Buenos Ayres, had crept into the binding; and she woke early in the morning after she passed the last revise with a cold certainty that she herself had made some such abominable slip as saying seven hundred degrees South Latitude instead of seventy degrees. But everything was correct. She had done her work well, and the book was so favourably received that she soon had a fine batch of press-cuttings laid by for Dyke’s gratification on his return.

That fourth cruise was a long business. Throughout one year she thought he was coming home, and waited full of hope. In that year she did not see him; he never came. Then during the next year she saw him once—for half an hour.

In a letter despatched from New Zealand he told her what she had already learnt by reading the telegraphic news. The fourth cruise had not been very successful. Those scientific gentlemen had squabbled among themselves and Dyke had squabbled with all of them; at a certain point he wanted to let science go hang and push boldly south, while each of the others wanted special facilities for his own line of research—ocean-sounding, magnetic observation, dredging, scraping, altitude-measuring, or whatever it might be. Dyke, making his southern dash, soon got the ship tight-locked; provisions ran scarce, scurvy appeared, one of the scientists died; then when the ice set them free and he reluctantly turned northward, they encountered terrible weather. Moss scraped off rocks, stuff dredged up from the bottom of the sea, and other treasures, were lost; the dead man’s diary was destroyed by salt water; the homeward voyage of the battered ship became a chapter of accidents.

Dyke wrote with the best attempt at cheerfulness that can be made by a sick man who is heavily bruised in spirit. He was ill—he had to confess it—and as soon as the ship reached Brisbane they would put him into a hospital. He said he knew he would get well again directly, but, oh, how he wished that he had his little Emmie there to console him.

Of course he had not meant that she was to go to him; but she sent off a cable message and started next day. At Marseilles she overtook and caught a steamer of the Orient Line. Many people on the vessel noticed her and several talked with her—that old maid who used to sit out on deck knitting, always knitting, looking up with a pensive smile sometimes while her fingers continued to move the needles busily.

At Brisbane she found him strong and well, entirely recovered, but in the very act of departing for New Guinea, whither he was being sent again on government work. Delay was impossible. They had thirty minutes together in an hotel drawing-room.

Half-an-hour. It was enough—if there could be no more. It was worth all the trouble. She came back to England at once, by a steamer of the P. & O. Line—sitting on deck, knitting, the old maid to whom people spoke because of her loneliness and her gentle smile.