c remembered how he had come back to the camp in which he had
left George, to find the men mutinous, most of them on the point of
deserting, and George drunk. He had flown then into such a rage that he
could not control himself. He was ashamed to think of it. He had seized
George by the shoulders and shaken him, shaken him as though he were a
rat; and it was with difficulty that he prevented himself from thrashing
him with his own hands.

And at last had come the final madness and the brutal murder. Alec set
his mind to consider once more those hazardous days during which by
George's folly they had been on the brink of destruction. George had met
his death on that desperate march to the ford, and lacking courage, had
died miserably. Alec threw back his head with a curious movement.

'I was right in all I did,' he muttered.

George deserved to die, and he was unworthy to be lamented. And yet, at
that moment, when he was approaching the shores which George, too,
perhaps, had loved, Alec's heart was softened. He sighed deeply. It was
fate. If George had inherited the wealth which he might have counted on,
if his father had escaped that cruel end, he might have gone through
life happily enough. He would have done no differently from his fellows.
With the safeguards about him of a civilised state, his irresolution
would have prevented him from going astray; and he would have been a
decent country gentleman--selfish, weak, and insignificant perhaps, but
not remarkably worse than his fellows--and when he died he might have
been mourned by a loving wife and fond children.

Now he lay on the borders of an African swamp, unsepulchred, unwept; and
Alec had to face Lucy, with the story in his heart that he had sworn on
his honour not to tell.

XIII

Alec's first visit was to Lucy. No one knew that he had arrived, and
after changing his clothes at the rooms in Pall Mall that he had taken
for the summer, he walked to Charles Street. His heart leaped as he
strolled up the hill of St. James Street, bright by a fortunate chance
with the sunshine of a summer day; and he rejoiced in the gaiety of the
well-dressed youths who sauntered down, bound for one or other of the
clubs, taking off their hats with a rapid smile of recognition to
charming women who sat in victorias or in electric cars. There was an
air of opulence in the broad street, of a civilisation refined without
brutality, which was very grateful to his eyes accust