great endeavours, his career interested her enormously; and it gained
something mysterious as well because there were gaps in her knowledge of
him which no one seemed able to fill. He knew few people in London, but
was known in one way or another of many; and all who had come in contact
with him were unanimous in their opinion. He was supposed to know Africa
as no other man knew it. During fifteen years he had been through every
part of it, and had traversed districts which the white man had left
untouched. But he had never written of his experiences, partly from
indifference to chronicle the results of his undertakings, partly from a
natural secrecy which made him hate to recount his deeds to all and
sundry. It seemed that reserve was a deep-rooted instinct with him, and
he was inclined to keep to himself all that he discovered. But if on
this account he was unknown to the great public, his work was
appreciated very highly by specialists. He had read papers before the
Geographical Society, (though it had been necessary to exercise much
pressure to induce him to do so), which had excited profound interest;
and occasionally letters appeared from him in _Nature_, or in one of the
ethnographical publications, stating briefly some discovery he had made,
or some observation which he thought necessary to record. He had been
asked now and again to make reports to the Foreign Office upon matters
pertaining to the countries he knew; and Lucy had heard his perspicacity
praised in no measured terms by those in power.

She put together such facts as she knew of his career.

Alec MacKenzie was a man of considerable means. He belonged to an old
Scotch family, and had a fine place in the Highlands, but his income
depended chiefly upon a colliery in Lancashire. His parents died during
his childhood, and his wealth was much increased by a long minority.
Having inherited from an uncle a ranch in the West, his desire to see
this occasioned his first voyage from England in the interval between
leaving Eton and going up to Oxford; and it was then he made
acquaintance with Richard Lomas, who had remained his most intimate
friend. The unlikeness of the two men caused perhaps the strength of
the tie between them, the strenuous vehemence of the one finding a
relief in the gaiety of the other. Soon after leaving Oxford, MacKenzie
made a brief expedition into Algeria to shoot, and the mystery of the
great continent seized him. As sometimes a man