and its lame result. 'So you see,' he concluded, 'I am
not likely to risk a repetition of the incident.'

'But,' said she, 'surely there's no risk now?'

'Very likely, but there is just a little. This next fortnight will, I
think, make everything secure, but I must wait that fortnight.'

'Well, I believe you are unwise.' Drake turned to her quickly. 'Why?'

'Mr. Mallinson takes your place for the fortnight. Of course I don't
know. Clarice has given up confiding in me. But I really think you
are unwise.'

Drake sat staring in front of him. He was considering Mallinson's visit
in conjunction with the reappearance of the emerald ring upon Miss Le
Mesurier's finger. 'All the same,' he said at length, 'I shall wait.'

The reason for this hesitation he explained more fully to Clarice herself
some half an hour afterwards. He found her standing by herself upon the
terrace. She started nervously as he approached, and it seemed to him
that her whole figure stiffened to a posture of defence. She said
nothing, however, and for a while they stood side by side looking
seawards across the breadth of the island. The ground stretched away
broken into little hollows and little hills,--downs in vignette. A cheery
yellow light streamed from the windows of a cottage in a dip of the
grass; the slates of a roof glistened from a group of sycamores like a
mirror in a dark frame; the whole island lay bared to the moonlight.
Towards the edge of it the land rose upwards to a ridge, but there was a
cleft in the ridge opposite to where they stood, and through the cleft
they looked downwards to the sea.

Clarice spoke of the moonbeams broken into sparkles by the ripple of
the water.

'Like a shoal of silver coins,' said Drake.

'Wouldn't you like to hear them clink?' she asked petulantly.

Then he said: 'Miss Le Mesurier'--and the change in his voice made the
girl turn swiftly to face him--'I leave Sark to-morrow morning by the
early boat, so I thought I would say good-bye to you to-night.'

'But you are coming back,' she said quickly; 'I shall see you, of course,
when you come back. What takes you away?'

'There's some land in Matanga which bounds my concession on the north,
and I want to get hold of it. It's, I believe, quite as good, and may be
better, than mine, and I know that some people are after it. It wouldn't
help me if another company was to be started; and as the President of the
Matanga Republic is on his way to England, I t