e mortgaged the greater
part of his income. I don't blame him for anything he did. A man needs
some responsibility, or some one dependent upon him to keep straight. To
be frank with you, I don't think he did."

"Poor dad," she murmured, "of course he didn't! I know I'd have gone to
the devil as fast as I could if I'd been treated like it!"

"Well, he drifted about from place to place and at last he got to the
Gold Coast. Here I half lost sight of him, and his few letters were more
bitter and despairing than ever. The last I had told me that he was just
off on an expedition into the interior with another Englishman.
They were to visit a native King and try to obtain from him certain
concessions, including the right to work a wonderful gold-mine somewhere
near the village of Bekwando."

"Why, the great Bekwando Land Company!" she cried. "It is the one
Scarlett Trent has just formed a syndicate to work."

Davenant nodded.

"Yes. It was a terrible risk they were running," he said, "for the
people were savage and the climate deadly. He wrote cheerfully for him,
though. He had a partner, he said, who was strong and determined, and
they had presents, to get which he had mortgaged the last penny of his
income. It was a desperate enterprise perhaps, but it suited him, and
he went on to tell me this, Ernestine. If he succeeded and he became
wealthy, he was returning to England just for a sight of you. He was
so changed, he said, that no one in the world would recognise him. Poor
fellow! It was the last line I had from him."

"And you are sure," Ernestine said slowly, "that Scarlett Trent was his
partner?"

"Absolutely. Trent's own story clinches the matter. The prospectus of
the mine quotes the concession as having been granted to him by the King
of Bekwando in the same month as your father wrote to me."

"And what news," she asked, "have you had since?"

"Only this letter--I will read it to you--from one of the missionaries
of the Basle Society. I heard nothing for so long that I made inquiries,
and this is the result."

Ernestine took it and read it out steadily.

"FORTNRENIG.

"DEAR Sir,-In reply to your letter and inquiry, respecting the
whereabouts of a Mr. Richard Grey, the matter was placed in my hands by
the agent of Messrs. Castle, and I have personally visited Buckoman, the
village at which he was last heard of. It seems that in February, 18--he
started on an expedition to Bekwando in the interior with