our o'clock."

He turned and deliberately went back to the bungalow.

There are some friendships where the intercourse is only the seed
which absence duly germinates. Jocelyn Gordon and Jack had parted as
acquaintances; they met as friends. There is no explaining these things,
for there is no gauging the depths of the human mind. There is no
getting down to the little bond that lies at the bottom of the well--the
bond of sympathy. There is no knowing what it is that prompts us to say,
"This man, or this woman, of all the millions, shall be my friend."

"I am sorry," he said, "that he should have had a chance of causing you
uneasiness again."

Jocelyn remembered that all her life. She remembers still--and Africa
has slipped away from her existence for ever. It is one of the mental
photographs of her memory, standing out clear and strong amidst a host
of minor recollections.

CHAPTER XVIII. A REQUEST

It surely was my profit had I known
It would have been my pleasure had I seen.

"Why did he come back?"

Jocelyn had risen as if to intimate that, if he cared to do so, they
would sit in the verandah.

"Why did Mr. Durnovo come back?" she repeated; for Jack did not seem to
have heard the question. He was drawing forward a cane chair with
the leisurely debonnair grace that was his, and, before replying, he
considered for a moment.

"To get quinine," he answered.

Without looking at her, he seemed to divine that he had made a mistake.
He seemed to know that she had flushed suddenly to the roots of her
hair, with a distressed look in her eyes. The reason was too trivial.
She could only draw one conclusion.

"No," he continued; "to tell you the truth, I think his nerve gave way
a little. His health is undermined by this climate. He has been too long
in Africa. We have had a bad time at Msala. We have had small-pox in the
camp. Oscard and I have been doing doughty deeds. I feel convinced
that, if we applied to some Society, we should get something or other--a
testimonial or a monument--also Joseph."

"I like Joseph," she said in a low tone.

"So do I. If circumstances had been different--if Joseph had not been my
domestic servant--I should have liked him for a friend."

He was looking straight in front of him with a singular fixity. It is
possible that he was conscious of the sidelong scrutiny which he was
undergoing.

"And you--you have been all right?" she said lightly.

"Oh, yes," with