snowy linen,
who advanced between a tall, young Zanzibar Arab and a small, limping
white man, with the step of a convalescent, but with eyes that were
filled with an extraordinary resolution. That evening, at the club
house, one brought word to the rest that she was Lawrence Teck's wife.

There was a chorus of profane surprise in half a dozen tongues; for
this was the end of March, the climax of the rainy summer, when the
land was full of rotting vegetation and mephitic vapors, of mosquitoes
and tsetse flies, malaria and fever.

"Is he coming out, then?" said one. "Where is he this time, by the
way?" "All the same," another remarked, "I'll wager that he isn't
aware of this. Looks as if she were planning a reconciliation by
surprise!"

"She seems ill already. She'll last in this place about as long as an
orchid in a saucepan."

"But, my friend, she wants to go in after him, it appears. She's with
the governor now."

At that moment, indeed, the governor was patiently repeating his
remonstrances to Lilla.

They sat in a large, white room with shuttered windows, beneath a
punkah that kept churning up the dead air, beside a carved table on
which stood a tray of untouched coffee cups. The governor was a
studious, sick-looking gentleman with a _pince-nez_ over his jaundiced
eyes, and with long mustaches frizzed out before his ears. He wore a
white duck uniform adorned with gilt shoulder straps, an aiguillette,
and a bar of service ribbons brilliantly plaided and striped. Anaemic
from malaria, and harassed by fever, he showed while he was talking to
Lilla a look of exhaustion and pain. Now and again, after puffing his
cigarette, he gave a feeble cough and rolled up his eyes. Then, in a
monotonous, dull tone he began again to express his various objections.

Mr. Teck had gone in from a northern port a month ago. He had passed
by Fort Pero d'Anhaya, telling the commandant there that he was bound
back for the region in which his principals might presently seek a
concession. He was, no doubt, at present in the gorges beyond the
forests of the Mambava. He had with him a strong safari and a
gentleman friend.

"What friend?" asked Lilla, who had been listlessly waiting for this
monologue to cease.

"I don't remember. But I can, of course, find out."

"It's not worth while. All that I want is----"

The governor raised his hand, which trembled visibly.

"Pray let me finish, madam. Mr. Teck is in a very