ttle girl was born who lived a few weeks, and then she also died.
Since then there had been no children. Many women would have claimed
sympathy for their sorrow, most women would at least have accepted it.
Mrs. Ogilvie, with her health somewhat impaired, came back to the world
and assumed her place in it without any expressions of regret for her
disappointment. Probably not even her husband knew whether she felt
her loss deeply or not. No one else was ever permitted to speak of it.
Colonel Ogilvie's own disappointment was never expressed. He had too
much tenderness for his wife to say anything about it.

'If ever I am to be a mother again,' Mrs. Ogilvie said once, 'my child
shall be born out of reach of kind inquiries or deep sympathy. If he
lives, let those rejoice with me who will. But pity is always
offensive, and is generally meant to be so.'

As the years came and went Colonel Ogilvie lost interest in his
property, and handed over the care of the greater part of it to agents
and stewards, and came very near to hating the lands which some day
would go to his nephew. A queer restlessness was upon him, and his
wife watched him and said nothing; until one day, seeing him reading a
certain paragraph in a newspaper, she said to him, smiling slightly, as
they stood together on the broad stone terrace at Bowshott, 'Why don't
you go with them on this exploring expedition?'

Colonel Ogilvie protested. He was a married man, he said, and his
travelling days were over. It is probable, however, that never was a
suggestion more welcome. The past years, in spite of his deep love for
his wife, had been full of fret and shadowed by disappointment, and he
longed, with a traveller's intensity of longing, for the wild
untroubled places of the world, the primitive life, and if possible
some dangers on the road. An exploring party sent out by the British
Government to discover a lost missionary and to punish a warlike tribe
was exactly the thing to suit his adventurous disposition. In spirit
he was already in the dangerous places of Central Africa, far from
human habitation, and with very often his own right hand the sole thing
between him and a barbarous death. Even while he protested with
conscientious emphasis against his wife's proposal, he already saw the
dim forests of Africa, the line of bearers on the difficult march, the
tents struck at nightfall, and all the paraphernalia of an interesting
campaign.

He was awa