omed for so long to
the wilderness of Africa.

The gods were favourable to his wishes that day, for Lucy was at home;
she sat in the drawing-room, by the window, reading a novel. At her side
were masses of flowers, and his first glimpse of her was against a great
bowl of roses. The servant announced his name, and she sprang up with a
cry. She flushed with excitement, and then the blood fled from her
cheeks, and she became extraordinarily pale. Alec noticed that she was
whiter and thinner than when last he had seen her; but she was more
beautiful.

'I didn't expect you so soon,' she faltered.

And then unaccountably tears came to her eyes. Falling back into her
chair, she hid her face. Her heart began to beat painfully.

'You must forgive me,' she said, trying to smile. 'I can't help being
very silly.'

For days Lucy had lived in an agony of terror, fearing this meeting, and
now it had come upon her unexpectedly. More than four years had passed
since last they had seen one another, and they had been years of anxiety
and distress. She was certain that she had changed, and looking with
pitiful dread in the glass, she told herself that she was pale and dull.
She was nearly thirty. There were lines about her eyes, and her mouth
had a bitter droop. She had no mercy on herself. She would not minimise
the ravages of time, and with a brutal frankness insisted on seeing
herself as she might be in ten years, when an increasing leanness,
emphasising the lines and increasing the prominence of her features,
made her still more haggard. She was seized with utter dismay. He might
have ceased to love her. His life had been so full, occupied with
strenuous adventures, while hers had been used up in waiting, only in
waiting. It was natural enough that the strength of her passion should
only have increased, but it was natural too that his should have
vanished before a more urgent preoccupation. And what had she to offer
him now? She turned away from the glass because her tears blurred the
image it presented; and if she looked forward to the first meeting with
vehement eagerness, it was also with sickening dread.

And now she was so troubled that she could not adopt the attitude of
civil friendliness which she had intended in order to show him that she
made no claim upon him. She wanted to seem quite collected so that her
behaviour should not lead him to think her heart at all affected, but
she could only watch his eyes hungrily. She