ed Captain Gregson. "Where's the sense
of it? I believe in you, Pastor, and your work and your church. Yes, and
I feel the need of the church myself, and a chance to visit a fine
respectable home like this.... Why shouldn't I have it?"

Miss Matilda carefully avoided looking toward him, where he sat wedged
between the fragile bamboo what-not and the lacquer tabouret, well
knowing that she must cross his smoldering gaze and shunning it.

"And perhaps, by the same token, perhaps you might need me too and not
know it," he continued. "I've a notion I might be of some service to the
cause, d'y see?"

"Undeniably, Captain," said the pastor, eagerly. "A man so
influential--so experienced as yourself--"

"Could help, hey? It's what I think myself. I could. Why even now I'll
lay I could tell you matters--things going on right under your nose, so
to speak--that you'd hardly dream yourself."

"Among my people?" asked the pastor, wrinkling.

"Aye. Right among your own people--at least some of the wild ones that
you want to be most careful of. They're a devilish bold, sly lot for all
their pretty ways--these brown islanders--an astonishing bold lot. You'd
hardly believe that now, would you--?" His voice dragged fatly. "Would
you--Miss Matilda?"

Taken aback, she could not speak, could scarcely parry the attack with
a vague murmur. She feared him. She feared that slow, glowering and
dangerous man, whose every word came freighted with obscure and sinister
meaning. The instinct dimly aroused by her glimpses of him had leapt to
vivid conviction. She knew that he was staring across the room; staring
avidly at the fresh whiteness of her there, the precise, slim lines of
her dress, the curve of her neck, the gleam of her low-parted hair. And
it seemed as if he were towering toward her, reaching for her with hot
and pudgy hands--

But he had merely risen to take his leave.

"Well, I won't be lingering, Pastor," he said. "Not this time. You stop
by my shack to-morrow, and we'll talk further. Maybe I might have some
facts that would interest you. What I really came for to-night was to
bring a bit of news."

"News?" blinked the pastor.

"You should go below and look to your chapel," chuckled Gregson. "I
minded what you said about new lamps being wanted, d'y' see? And so I
made bold to hang two fine brass lights in the porch there myself--as a
gift-offering."

"For us! For the church--?"

"Aye. It's a small thing. But I've noti