lyn moved away and busied herself noiselessly with one or two of
those small duties of the sick-room which women see and men ignore. But
she could not keep away. She came back and stood over him with a silent
sense of possession which made that moment one of the happiest of her
life. She remembered it in after years, and the complex feelings of
utter happiness and complete misery that filled it.

At last a fluttering moth gave the excuse her heart longed for, and
her fingers rested for a moment, light as the moth itself, on his
hair. There was something in the touch which made him open his
eyes--uncomprehending at first, and then filled with a sudden life.

"Ah!" he said, "you--you at last!"

He took her hand in both of his. He was weakened by illness and a great
fatigue. Perhaps he was off his guard, or only half awake.

"I never should have got better if you had not come," he said. Then,
suddenly, he seemed to recall himself, and rose with an effort from his
recumbent position.

"I do not know," he said, with a return of his old half-humorous manner,
"whether to thank you first for your hospitality or to beg your pardon
for making such unscrupulous use of it."

She was looking at him closely as he stood before her, and all her
knowledge of human ills as explored on the West Coast of Africa, all her
experience, all her powers of observation, were on the alert. He did not
look very ill. The brown of a year's sunburn such as he had gone through
on the summit of an equatorial mountain where there was but little
atmosphere between earth and sun, does not bleach off in a couple of
months. Physically regarded, he was stronger, broader, heavier-limbed,
more robust, than when she had last seen him--but her knowledge went
deeper than complexion, or the passing effort of a strong will.

"Sit down," she said quietly. "You are not strong enough to stand
about."

He obeyed her with a little laugh.

"You do not know," he said, "how pleasant it is to see you--fresh and
English-looking. It is like a tonic. Where is Maurice?"

"He will be here soon," she replied; "he is attending to the landing
of the stores. We shall soon make you strong and well; for we have come
laden with cases of delicacies for your special delectation. Your father
chose them himself at Fortnum and Mason's."

He winced at the mention of his father's name, and drew in his legs in a
peculiar, decisive way.

"Then you knew I was ill?" he said, almost su