"I have no doubt of it."

"Then you will gather them and dry them, won't you?"

"I think it is very possible I may."

"I wish you wouldn't go! O Mr. Rhys, tell Eleanor about that place; she
don't know about it. Tell her what you told me."

He did; perhaps to fill up the time and take Eleanor's attention from
herself for the moment. He gave a short account of the people in
question; a people of fine physical and even fine mental development,
for savages; inhabiting a country of great beauty and rich natural
resources; but at the same time sunk in the most abject depths of moral
debasement. A country where the "works of the devil" had reached their
utmost vigour; where men lived but for vile ends, and took the lives of
their fellow-men and each other with the utmost ruthlessness and
carelessness and horrible cruelty; and more than that, where they
dishonoured human life by abusing, and even eating, the forms in which
human life had residence. It was a terrible picture Mr. Rhys drew, in a
few words; so terrible, that it did take Eleanor's attention from all
else for the time.

"Is other life safe there?" she asked. "Do the white people who go
there feel themselves secure?"

"I presume they do not."

"Then why go to such a horrible place?"

"Why not?" he asked. "The darker they are, the more they want light."

"But it is to jeopardize the very life you wish to use for them."

Mr. Rhys was silent for a moment, and when he spoke it was only to make
a remark about the fern which lay displayed on the floor before Julia.

"That Hart's-tongue," said he, "I gathered from a cavern on the
sea-coast--where it grew hanging down from the roof,--quantities of it."

"In a dark cavern, Mr. Rhys?" said Julia.

"Not in a dark part of the cavern. No, it grew only where it could have
the light.--Miss Powle, I am of David's mind--'In God I have put my
trust; I will not fear what flesh can do to me.'"

He looked up at Eleanor as he spoke. The slight smile, the look, in
Eleanor's mood of mind, were like a coal of fire dropped into her
heart. It burned. She said nothing; sat still and looked at the fern on
the floor.

"But will you not feel _afraid_, Mr. Rhys?" said Julia.

"Why no, Julia. I shall have nothing to be afraid of. You forget who
will be with me."

Julia with that jumped up and ran off to see about her fire and kettle
in the other room. Eleanor and Mr. Rhys were left alone. The latter did
not speak. Eleanor longed