s--although, for the honesty of human nature, I hope
not very often."

"Did you act under your own name, or did you follow the fashion so
many of the profession adopt?" asked the girl, evidently interested
when he spoke of the theatre.

The young man laughed, for perhaps the first time on the voyage. "Oh,"
he answered, "I was not at all noted. I acted only in minor parts and
always under my own name, which, doubtless, you have never heard; it
is Sidney Ormond."

"What!" cried the girl in amazement, "not Sidney Ormond, the African
traveller?"

The young man turned his wan face and large, melancholy eyes upon his
questioner.

"I am certainly Sidney Ormond, an African traveller, but I don't think
I deserve the '_the_,' you know. I don't imagine any one has heard of
me through my travelling any more than through my acting."

"The Sidney Ormond I mean," she said, "went through Africa without
firing a shot; his book, 'A Mission of Peace,' has been such a success
both in England and America. But of course you cannot be he, for I
remember that Sidney Ormond is now lecturing in England to tremendous
audiences all over the country. The Royal Geographical Society has
given him medals or degrees, or something of that sort--but I believe
it was Oxford that gave the degree. I am sorry I haven't his book with
me; it would be sure to interest you. But some one on board is almost
certain to have it, and I will try to get it for you. I gave mine to a
friend in Cape Town. What a funny thing it is that the two names
should be exactly the same!"

"It is very strange," said Ormond gloomily; and his eyes again sought
the horizon, and he seemed to relapse into his usual melancholy.

The girl left her seat, saying she would try to find the book, and
left him there meditating. When she came back after the lapse of half
an hour or so she found him sitting just as she had left him, with his
sad eyes on the sad sea. The girl had a volume in her hand. "There,"
she said, "I knew there would be a copy on board, but I am more
bewildered than ever; the frontispiece is an exact portrait of you,
only you are dressed differently and do not look"--the girl
hesitated--"so ill as when you came on board."

Ormond looked up at the girl with a smile, and said:

"You might say with truth, so ill as I look now."

"Oh, the voyage has done you good. You look ever so much better than
when you came on board."

"Yes, I think that is so," said Ormond, re