my troubles, like other people," she answered softly.

Joseph inclined his head to one side and collected his breadcrumbs
thoughtfully.

"Always seems to me," he said, "that your married life can't have been
so happy-like as--well, as one might say, you deserved, missis. But
then you've got them clever little kids. I DO like them little kids
wonderful. Not bein' a marrying man myself, I don't know much of such
matters. But I've always understood that little 'uns--especially cunning
little souls like yours--go a long way towards makin' up a woman's
happiness."

"Yes," she murmured, with her slow smile.

"Been dead long--their pa?"

"He is not dead."

"Oh--beg pardon."

And Joseph drowned a very proper confusion in bitter beer.

"He has only ceased to care about me--or his children," explained Marie.

Joseph shook his head; but whether denial of such a possibility was
intended, or an expression of sympathy, he did not explain.

"I hope," he said, with a somewhat laboured change of manner, "that the
little ones are in good health."

"Yes, thank you."

Joseph pushed back his chair with considerable vigour, and passed the
back of his hand convivially across his moustache.

"A square meal I call that," he said, with a pleasant laugh, "and I
thank you kindly."

With a tact which is sometimes found wanting inside a better coat than
he possessed, Joseph never again referred to that part of Marie's life
which seemed to hang like a shadow over her being. Instead, he set
himself the task of driving away the dull sense of care which was hers,
and he succeeded so well that Jack Meredith, lying between sleep and
death in his bedroom, sometimes heard a new strange laugh.

By daybreak next morning Joseph was at sea again, steaming south in
a coasting-boat towards St. Paul de Loanda. He sent off a telegram
to Maurice Gordon in England, announcing the success of the Relief
Expedition, and then proceeded to secure the entire services of a
medical man. With this youthful disciple of AEsculapius he returned
forthwith to Loango and settled down with characteristic energy to nurse
his master.

Meredith's progress was lamentably slow, but still it was progress, and
in the right direction. The doctor, who was wise in the strange maladies
of the West Coast, stayed for two days, and promised to return once a
week. He left full instructions, and particularly impressed upon the
two nurses the fact that the recovery would necess