violet eyes were widely serious, the pallor of her pretty
cheeks was unchanged. But whatever the emotions that inspired these
things she lacked all those outward signs of feeling which few women,
under similar circumstances, could have resisted. There were no tears.
Yet her brows were puckered threateningly. She was absorbed, deeply
absorbed, but it was hardly with the absorption of blind grief.

She paused abruptly. The startled look in her eyes displayed real
apprehension. The sound of someone or something moving in the
low-growing scrub beside her had stirred her to a physical fear of
woodland solitudes she had never been able to conquer.

She stood glancing in apprehension this way and that. She was utterly
powerless. Flight never entered her head. Panic completely prevailed.

A moment later a man thrust his way into the clearing of the path.

"Hervey!"

His name broke from Nita in a world of relief. Then reaction set in.

"You--you scared me to death. Why didn't you speak, or--or something?"

Hervey Garstaing stood smilingly before her. His dark eyes hungrily
devouring her flushed face and half-angry eyes.

"You wouldn't have me hollering your dandy name, with him only just
clear of Ross's house? I'm not chasing trouble."

"Has Steve only just gone?"

"Sure. I waited for that before I came along."

The man moistened his lips. It was a curiously unpleasant operation.
Then he came a step nearer.

"Well, Nita," he said, with a world of meaning in eyes and tone. "We're
rid of him for two years--anyway."

The girl started. The flush in her cheeks deepened, and the angry light
again leapt into her eyes.

"What d'you mean?" she cried.

The man laughed.

"Mean? Do you need to ask? Ain't you glad?"

"Glad? I--" Suddenly pallor had replaced the flush in the girl's cheeks,
and a curious light shone in eyes which a moment before had been alight
with swift resentment. "--I--don't know."

The man nodded confidently, and drew still closer.

"That's all right," he said. "I do."

CHAPTER IV

UNAGA

It was the last of the night watch. The depths of the primeval forest
were alive with sound, those sounds which are calculated to set the
human pulse athrob. Steve Allenwood crouched over the fire. He was
still, silent, and he squatted with his hands locked about his knees.

The fitful firelight only served to emphasize the intensity of
surrounding darkness. It yielded little more than a point of attr