t I'm no good at business. I see
now that I shall never make money enough to carry out the scheme
myself; but at least I can clear out, and not go on being _his_
pensioner--seeing his dreams turned into horses and carpets and
clothes--"

He broke off, and leaning on my desk hid his face in his hands. When he
looked up again his flush of wrath had subsided.

"Just understand me--it's not _her_ fault. Don't fancy I'm trying for
an instant to shift the blame. A woman with children simply obeys the
instinct of her sex; she puts them first--and I wouldn't have it
otherwise. As far as she's concerned there were no conditions
attached--there's no reason why she should make any sacrifice." He
paused, and added painfully: "The trouble is, I can't make her see that
I am differently situated."

"But, Ned, the climate--what are you going to gain by chucking yourself
away?"

He lifted his brows. "That's a queer argument from _you_. And, besides,
I'm up to the tricks of all those ague-holes. And I've _got_ to live,
you see: I've got something to put through." He saw my look of enquiry,
and added with a shy, poignant laugh--how I hear it still!--: "I don't
mean only the job in hand, though that's enough in itself; but Paul's
work--you understand.--It won't come in _my_ day, of course--I've got
to accept that--but my boy's a splendid chap" (the boy was three), "and
I tell you what it is, old man, I believe when he grows up _he'll put
it through_."

Halidon went to the Mananas, and for two years the journals brought me
incidental reports of the work he was accomplishing. He certainly had
found a job to his hand: official words of commendation rang through
the country, and there were lengthy newspaper leaders on the efficiency
with which our representative was prosecuting his task in that lost
corner of our colonies. Then one day a brief paragraph announced his
death--"one of the last victims of the pestilence he had so
successfully combated."

That evening, at my club, I heard men talking of him. One said: "What's
the use of a fellow wasting himself on a lot of savages?" and another
wiseacre opined: "Oh, he went off because there was friction at home. A
fellow like that, who knew the East, would have got through all right
if he'd taken the proper precautions. I saw him before he left, and I
never saw a man look less as if he wanted to live."

I turned on the last speaker, and my voice made him drop his lighted
cigar on his com