outh Pacific islands, but he was anxious to join in
somewhere with a clever observation. But they never seemed to settle in
one place sufficiently long for him to recollect what he knew of it. He
hoped they would get around to the west coast of Africa in time. He had
been Governor of Sierra Leone for five years.

His success that night at dinner on the yacht was far better. The others
seemed a little tired after the hours of sight-seeing to which he had
treated them, and they were content to listen. In the absence of Mr.
Clarges, who knew them word by word, he felt free to tell his three
stories of life at Sierra Leone. He took his time in the telling, and
could congratulate himself that his efforts had never been more keenly
appreciated. He felt that he was holding his own.

The night was still and warm, and while the men lingered below at the
table, the two women mounted to the deck and watched the lights of
the town as they vanished one by one and left the moon in unchallenged
possession of the harbor. For a long time Miss Cameron stood silent,
looking out across the bay at the shore and the hills beyond. A fish
splashed near them, and the sound of oars rose from the mist that
floated above the water, until they were muffled in the distance. The
palms along the shore glistened like silver, and overhead the Southern
Cross shone white against a sky of purple. The silence deepened and
continued for so long a time that Mrs. Collier felt its significance,
and waited for the girl to end it.

Miss Cameron raised her eyes to the stars and frowned. "I am not
surprised that he is content to stay here," she said. "Are you? It is so
beautiful, so wonderfully beautiful."

For a moment Mrs. Collier made no answer. "Two years is a long time,
Florence," she said; "and he is all I have; he is not only my only
brother, he is the only living soul who is related to me. That makes
it harder."

The girl seemed to find some implied reproach in the speech, for she
turned and looked at her friend closely. "Do you feel it is my fault,
Alice?" she asked.

The older woman shook her head. "How could it be your fault?" she
answered. "If you couldn't love him enough to marry him, you couldn't,
that's all. But that is no reason why he should have hidden himself from
all of us. Even if he could not stand being near you, caring as he did,
he need not have treated me so. We have done all we can do, and Robert
has been more than fine about it. H