where there were
trees.

"You are not to think about it," he said. "I have been doing all the
talking to-night. Now tell me something of your wanderings abroad."

These two already understood each other without the spoken word. He
respected her desire to sheer off anything that might be construed as
establishing a new relationship between them, and she appreciated his
restraint to the full. They discussed foreign lands and peoples until
the road bent toward the river again and the ferry was reached--at a
point quite half a mile below the hotel.

And there was no boat!

A wire rope drooped into the darkness of the opposite bank, but no
voice answered Medenham's hail. Cynthia said not a syllable until her
companion handed her his watch with a request that she should hold
it.

"You are not going into that river," she cried determinedly.

"There is not the slightest risk," he said.

"But there is. What if you were seized with cramp?"

"I shall cling to the rope, if that will satisfy you. I have swum the
Zambesi before to-day, not from choice, I admit, and it is twenty
times the width of the Wye, while it holds more crocodiles than the
Wye holds salmon."

"Well--if you promise about the rope."

Soon he was out of sight, and her heart knew its first pang of fear.
Then she heard his cry of "Got the boat," followed by the clank of a
sculling oar and the creak of the guiding-wheel on the hawser.

At last, shortly before midnight, they neared the hotel. Lights were
visible on the quay, and Medenham read their meaning.

"They are sending out a search party," he said. "I must go and stop
them. You run on to the hotel, Miss Vanrenen. Good-night! I shall give
you an extra hour to-morrow."

She hesitated the fraction of a second. Then she extended a hand.

"Good-night," she murmured. "After all, I have had a real lovely
time."

Then she was gone, and Medenham turned to thank the hotel servants
and others who were going to the rescue.

"I wonder what the guv'nor will say when he sees Cynthia," he thought,
with the smile on his face of the lover who deems his lady peerless
among her sex. He recalled that moment before many days had passed,
and his reflections then took a new guise, for not all the knowledge
and all the experience a man may gather can avail him a whit to
forecast the future when Fate is spinning her complex web.

CHAPTER X

THE HIDDEN FOUNTS OF EVIL

It was a flushed and somewhat breath