went on somewhat
gloomily, "a sure and certain instinct that this net will close round
me. Everything in life looked too bright since I succeeded in ridding
myself of this incubus, and, then I found _you_. After that everything
was positively radiant. Of course it couldn't last."

"But it can last, and it shall. Dear one, you said just now that you
were placing your life in my hands, and that precious life I shall guard
with a jealous care. I have means of hearing things from outside which
you would hardly believe, and shall set them working at once. No, it
would take a great deal more to part us now--Do you remember the day we
first met," she broke off, "and they were talking of this very affair in
the hotel? Well, I volunteered the remark that you had just come
through the Makanya, but nobody heard. They were all talking at once,
but I didn't repeat it. Some instinct warned me not to."

"Ah, that first day! We little thought what we were going to be to each
other then."

Verna shook her head. "I'm by no means so sure of that," she said.

"No more am I, now I come to think of it."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

After this Denham threw off his depression as though by magic. As the
days went by and no news came from outside, he was almost dazzled in the
sunshine of happiness that flooded his heart. He had dreaded the effect
of the revelation upon Verna, and now that he had made it, so far from
her love for him lessening it had, if possible, deepened tenfold.

Then fell the bolt from the clear sky.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

VERNA'S DILEMMA.

Alaric Denham had disappeared.

He had gone out by himself early in the afternoon on foot, taking with
him his collector's gun. At sunset he had not returned; then night fell
and still no sign of him.

Verna's anxiety deepened. She could hardly be persuaded to go into the
house at all. Her eyes strove to pierce the gathering gloom, her ears
were open to every sound that could tell of his approach. Yet no such
sound rewarded them. Her father was disposed to make light of her
fears.

"Denham's no kind of a Johnny Raw, girlie," he said. "He knows his way
about by this time. Likely he's wandered further than he intended,
after some `specimen' maybe, and got lost. He'll have turned in at some
kraal for the night, and be round again in the morning."

But morning came and still no sign, then midday. By that t