straight to his arms. She lowered her head and partly broke
down and wept a little.

"Ah, it's so good to have some one to lean on!" she murmured.

"Your father--what is the matter with him?" asked Ambrose.

The look in her eyes and her piteous shaking warned him to expect
something worse than the tale of an illness.

She lifted her white face.

"Father was shot last night," she said.

"Good God!" said Ambrose. "By whom?"

"We do not know."

"He's not--he's not--" Ambrose's tongue balked at the dreadful word.

She shook her head. "A dangerous wound, not necessarily fatal. We
can't tell yet."

"You have no idea who did it?"

Colina schooled herself to give him a coherent account. The sight of
her forced calmness, with those eyes, was inexpressibly painful to
Ambrose.

"No. He went out after dinner. He said he had to see a man. He did
not mention his name. He came back at dusk. I was on the veranda. He
was walking as usual--perfectly straight. But one hand was pressed to
his side.

"He passed me without speaking. I followed him in. In the passage he
said: 'I am shot. Tell no one but Giddings. Then he collapsed in my
arms. He has not spoken since."

Ambrose heard this with mixed feelings. His heart bled for Colina.
Yet the grim thought would not down that the tyrannous old trader had
received no more than his deserts. He soothed her with clumsy
tenderness.

"Why do you want to keep it a secret?" he asked, after a while.

"Father wished it," said Colina. "We think he must have had a good
reason. The doctor thinks it is best. There has been a good deal of
trouble with the natives; many of them are ugly and rebellious. And we
whites are so few!

"Father could keep them in hand. They are in such awe of him; they
regard him as something almost more than mortal. If they learn that he
is vulnerable--who knows what might happen!"

"I understand," said Ambrose grimly.

"So no one knows, not even the servants. I have hidden all
the--things. Of course, the man who did it will never tell." The calm
voice suddenly broke in a cry of agony. "Oh, Ambrose!"

He comforted her mutely.

"It is so dreadful to think that any one should hate him so!" said poor
Colina. "So unjust! They are like his children. He is severe with
them only for their good!"

Ambrose concealed a grim smile at this partial view of John Gaviller.

"He lies there so white and still," she went on. "It nearly