rt of emotional return as between equals who
had secretly recognized each other's value. Yet at the same time she
regretted not having been left in the dark; as much in the dark as Mr.
Travers himself or d'Alcacer, though as to the latter it was impossible
to say how much precise, unaccountable, intuitive knowledge was buried
under his unruffled manner.

D'Alcacer was the sort of man whom it would be much easier to suspect
of anything in the world than ignorance--or stupidity. Naturally he
couldn't know anything definite or even guess at the bare outline of the
facts but somehow he must have scented the situation in those few days
of contact with Lingard. He was an acute and sympathetic observer in all
his secret aloofness from the life of men which was so very different
from Jorgenson's secret divorce from the passions of this earth. Mrs.
Travers would have liked to share with d'Alcacer the burden (for it
was a burden) of Lingard's story. After all, she had not provoked those
confidences, neither had that unexpected adventurer from the sea laid on
her an obligation of secrecy. No, not even by implication. He had never
said to her that she was the _only_ person whom he wished to know that
story.

No. What he had said was that she was the only person to whom he _could_
tell the tale himself, as if no one else on earth had the power to draw
it from him. That was the sense and nothing more. Yes, it would have
been a relief to tell d'Alcacer. It would have been a relief to her
feeling of being shut off from the world alone with Lingard as if within
the four walls of a romantic palace and in an exotic atmosphere. Yes,
that relief and also another: that of sharing the responsibility with
somebody fit to understand. Yet she shrank from it, with unaccountable
reserve, as if by talking of Lingard with d'Alcacer she was bound to
give him an insight into herself. It was a vague uneasiness and yet so
persistent that she felt it, too, when she had to approach and talk to
Lingard under d'Alcacer's eyes. Not that Mr. d'Alcacer would ever dream
of staring or even casting glances. But was he averting his eyes on
purpose? That would be even more offensive.

"I am stupid," whispered Mrs. Travers to herself, with a complete and
reassuring conviction. Yet she waited motionless till the footsteps of
the two men stopped outside the deckhouse, then separated and died away,
before she went out on deck. She came out on deck some time after her