(for women
analyse love), but which in her brother puzzled her.

"Well, old chap," said Maurice, "glad to see you. I AM glad to see
you. Thank Heaven you were bowled over by that confounded malaria, for
otherwise we should have missed you."

"That is one way of looking at it," answered Meredith. But he did not
go so far as to say that it was a way which had not previously suggested
itself to him.

"Of course it is. The best way, I take it. Well--how do you feel? Come,
you don't look so bad."

"Oh--much better, thanks. I have got on splendidly the last week, and
better still the last five minutes! The worst of it is that I shall be
getting well too soon and shall have to be off."

"Home?" inquired Maurice significantly.

Jocelyn moved uneasily.

"Yes, home."

"We don't often hear people say that they are sorry to leave Loango,"
said Maurice.

"_I_ will oblige you whenever you are taken with the desire," answered
Jack lightly; "Loango has been a very good friend to me. But I am
afraid there is no choice. The doctor speaks very plain words about it.
Besides, I am bound to go home."

"To sell the Simiacine?" inquired Maurice.

"Yes."

"Have you the second crop with you?"

"Yes."

"And the trees have improved under cultivation?"

"Yes," answered Jack rather wonderingly. "You seem to know a lot about
it."

"Of course I do," replied Maurice boisterously.

"From Durnovo?"

"Yes; he even offered to take me into partnership."

Jack turned on him in a flash.

"Did he indeed? On what conditions?"

And then, when it was too late, Maurice saw his mistake. It was not
the first time that the exuberance of his nature had got him into a
difficulty.

"Oh, I don't know," he replied vaguely. "It's a long story. I'll tell
you about it some day."

Jack would have left it there for the moment. Maurice Gordon had made
his meaning quite clear by glancing significantly towards his sister.
Her presence, he intimated, debarred further explanation.

But Jocelyn would not have it thus. She shrewdly suspected the nature
of the bargain proposed by Durnovo, and a sudden desire possessed her
to have it all out--to drag this skeleton forth and flaunt it in Jack
Meredith's face. The shame of it all would have a certain sweetness
behind its bitterness; because, forsooth, Jack Meredith alone was to
witness the shame. She did not pause to define the feeling that rose
suddenly in her heart. She did not know that it was merel