t strike you that if
Mr Sellon has done you one good turn, you have done him several. If he
saved your life by nursing you through that fever, as you say--though it
is by no means certain you would not have pulled through it without
him--you have saved his on another occasion. Where would he have been
with that snake crawling over him, for instance?--Ugh!"

"I say, Marian. It isn't like you to be so ungenerous," was the
astonished reply. "Wasn't it awfully good of the chap to stick there in
my hovel all those weeks, boring himself to death just for the sake of
looking after me? Come now!"

"Where would he have been if your `hovel' had not come so opportunely in
sight when he was lost in the veldt, exhausted and without food or
water?" came the calm, ready rejoinder.

"Oh, I say, come now. We can't count that. It wouldn't be fair. But--
look here, Marian. You don't like Sellon? Now, why not?"

"There you're wrong," she answered after a pause. "Within the ordinary
meaning of the word, I do `like' him. I think him a very pleasant,
well-informed man, and good company. But he is not a man I should
trust."

"Not, eh? But, in the name of all conscience, why not?"

"That I can't tell you, Renshaw. I don't quite know myself, except that
somehow or other he doesn't seem to ring true. It's a question of ear,
like a false note. There, though, this is shameful. Here I am taking
away a person's character in the most reckless way, with nothing more
definite to go upon but my woman's instinct. I wouldn't mention such a
thing to any one else in the world--not even to Chris or Hilda. But I
always did make a father-confessor of you," she added, with a smile.

"And I hope you always will. Still, Marian, with all due deference to
your woman's instinct, it's just on the cards it may in this instance be
erroneous."

"Perhaps so. I hope so. I mean it sincerely, not ironically. But,
Renshaw--how much do you know of this Mr Sellon? Who is he?"

"Well, the fact is, I don't know much--beyond that he's knocking around
here on the look-out for anything that may turn up trumps--like a good
many of us. He's a man who seems to have seen a good deal of the
world--and, as you say, he's good company. Seems well bred, too."

"Oh yes," acquiesced Marian, half absently. "But we had better forget
that I ventured an unfavourable opinion on him." And as at that moment
they were invaded by twelve-year-old Effie, the subjec