r, I have no doubt they would have died. Or would
you have preferred me to take up my quarters on board that man's brig?
We were all fairly safe there. The real reason why I insisted on coming
in here was to be nearer to you--to see for myself what could be or was
being done. . . . But really if you want me to explain my motives then I
may just as well say nothing. I couldn't remain outside for days without
news, in a state of horrible doubt. We couldn't even tell whether you
and d'Alcacer were still alive till we arrived here. You might have been
actually murdered on the sandbank, after Rajah Hassim and that girl had
gone away; or killed while going up the river. And I wanted to know at
once, as soon as possible. It was a matter of impulse. I went off in
what I stood in without delaying a moment."

"Yes," said Mr. Travers. "And without even thinking of having a
few things put up for me in a bag. No doubt you were in a state of
excitement. Unless you took such a tragic view that it seemed to you
hardly worth while to bother about my clothes."

"It was absolutely the impulse of the moment. I could have done nothing
else. Won't you give me credit for it?"

Mr. Travers raised his eyes again to his wife's face. He saw it calm,
her attitude reposeful. Till then his tone had been resentful, dull,
without sarcasm. But now he became slightly pompous.

"No. As a matter of fact, as a matter of experience, I can't credit
you with the possession of feelings appropriate to your origin, social
position, and the ideas of the class to which you belong. It was the
heaviest disappointment of my life. I had made up my mind not to mention
it as long as I lived. This, however, seems an occasion which you have
provoked yourself. It isn't at all a solemn occasion. I don't look upon
it as solemn at all. It's very disagreeable and humiliating. But it
has presented itself. You have never taken a serious interest in the
activities of my life which of course are its distinction and its value.
And why you should be carried away suddenly by a feeling toward the mere
man I don't understand."

"Therefore you don't approve," Mrs. Travers commented in an even
tone. "But I assure you, you may safely. My feeling was of the most
conventional nature, exactly as if the whole world were looking on.
After all, we are husband and wife. It's eminently fitting that I should
be concerned about your fate. Even the man you distrust and dislike so
much (the warm