Bushmen or Korannas, or
whatever they were. We had to give them leg-bail, I can tell you. They
pinked him with one of their poisoned arrows. He's done for."

"Oh! Poor Renshaw!" cried Violet, in horror. "But you--you are unhurt,
dearest? You have--have come back to me safe!"

"Safe as a church. I got a trifle damaged too. Sprained my ankle just
at the wrong time--those Bushmen devils coming on hard in our rear.
Touch and go, I'll tell you all about it by-and-bye. I shan't tell the
others about Fanning all at once--break it gradually, you know. So
don't you cut in with it."

"Poor Renshaw!" That was all. In those two words she dismissed the
memory of the man but for whose unselfish heroism the lover in whose
embrace she nestled so restfully, so gladsomely, would now be lying in
ghastly fragments among the weird mountains of that far-away land.
"Poor Renshaw!" Such was his epitaph at her lips. Truly her
all-absorbing clandestine passion had exercised no improving, no
softening influence upon Violet Avory--as, indeed, how should it?--for
was it not the intensely selfish absorption of an intensely selfish
nature! "Poor Renshaw!"

And the man--he who owed his life to the other many times over, but
never so much as in the last instance--what of him?

Nothing! For from such a nature as his nothing was to be expected.
This modern Judas, unlike his prototype, was prepared to enjoy to the
full the price of blood. No compunction on that head troubled him.

"Oh, Maurice. I must warn you!" cried Violet, suddenly. "Everything
has come out."

He started then. A grey scared look came over his face. His conscience
and his mind flew back to those grim, iron-bound deserts.

"Everything?" he stammered, blankly.

"Yes, dear. About ourselves, I mean. I can't imagine how, but it has.
They have been leading me such a life. Hilda has been perfectly
hateful. The way in which she has treated me is absolutely scandalous.
And Marian--sanctimonious sheep! Pah! I hate them all," she broke off,
her eyes flashing.

"My poor darling. But how do you suppose it happened? You haven't been
leaving any letters about?"

"No--no--no," she interrupted quickly. "No, no. My belief is--
she--_she_--has found out where I--I am--where you are--and has written
to them."

His face grew dark.

"That devil!" he muttered between his teeth. "That she-devil would do
anything--anything."

"I want to warn you, Maurice. The