the raven's wing. There is a little grey--just here--above the
temple. I am getting on in life, and I know how to deal with Durnovos."

"Thank you," said the girl, with a little sigh of relief. "The feeling
that I have some one to turn to will be a great relief. You see how I am
placed here. The missionaries are very kind and well-meaning, but
there are some things which they do not quite understand. They may be
gentlemen--some of them are; but they are not men of the world. I have
no definite thought or fear, and very good persons, one finds, are
occasionally a little dense. Unless things are very definite, they do
not understand."

"On the other hand," pursued Jack, in the same reflective tone, as if
taking up her thought, "persons who are not good have a perception of
the indefinite. I did not think of it in that light before."

Jocelyn Gordon laughed softly, without attempting to meet his lighter
vein.

"Do you know," she said, after a little silence, "that I was actually
thinking of warning you against Mr. Durnovo? Now I stand aghast at my
own presumption."

"It was kind of you to give the matter any thought whatever."

He rose and threw away the end of his cigar. Joseph was already before
the door, leading the horse which Maurice Gordon had placed at his
visitor's disposal.

"I will lay the warning to heart," he said, standing in front of Jocelyn
and looking down at her as she lay back in the deep basket-chair. She
was simply dressed in white--as was her wont, for it must be remembered
that they were beneath the Equator--a fair English maiden, whose
thoughts were hidden behind a certain gracious, impenetrable reserve.
"I will lay it to heart, although you have not uttered it. But I have
always known with what sort of man I was dealing. We serve each other's
purpose, that is all; and he knows that as well as I do."

"I am glad Mr. Oscard is going with you," she answered guardedly.

He waited a moment. It seemed as if she had not done speaking--as if
there was another thought near the surface. But she did not give voice
to it, and he turned away. The sound of the horse's feet on the gravel
did not arouse her from the reverie into which she had fallen; and long
after it had died away, leaving only the hum of insect life and the
distant ceaseless song of the surf, Jocelyn Gordon sat apparently
watching the dancing shadows on the floor as the creepers waved in the
breeze.

CHAPTER XII. A MEETING