"He was my husband," said Marie in her clear, deep tones; "the father of
this little one, which you call Nestorius."

Oscard bowed his head without surprise. Jocelyn was standing still as a
statue, with her hand on the dying infant's cheek. No one dared to look
at her.

"It is all right," said Marie bluntly. "We were married at Sierra Leone
by the English chaplain. My father, who is dead, kept a hotel at Sierra
Leone, and he knew the ways of the--half-castes. He said that the
Protestant Church at Sierra Leone was good enough for him, and we were
married there. And then Victor brought me away from my people to this
place and to Msala. Then he got tired of me--he cared no more. He said I
was ugly."

She pronounced it "ogly," and seemed to think that the story finished
there. At all events, she added nothing to it. But Joseph thought fit to
contribute a post scriptum.

"You'd better tell 'em, mistress," he said, "that he tried to starve yer
and them kids--that he wanted to leave yer at Msala to be massacred by
the tribes, only Mr. Oscard sent yer down 'ere. You'd better tell 'em
that."

"No," she replied, with a faint smile. "No, because he was my husband."

Guy Oscard was looking very hard at Joseph, and, catching his eye, made
a little gesture commanding silence. He did not want him to say too
much.

Joseph turned away again to the window, and stood thus, apart, till the
end.

"I have no doubt," said Oscard to Marie, "that he would have sent some
message to you had he been able; but he was very ill--he was dying--when
he reached Msala. It was wonderful that he got there at all. We did what
we could for him, but it was hopeless."

Marie raised her shoulders with her pathetic gesture of resignation.

"The sleeping sickness," she said, "what will you? There is no remedy.
He always said he would die of that. He feared it."

In the greater sorrow she seemed to have forgotten her child, who was
staring open-eyed at the ceiling. The two others--the boy and girl--were
playing on the doorstep with some unconsidered trifles from the
dust-heap--after the manner of children all the world over.

"He was not a good man," said Marie, turning to Jocelyn, as if she alone
of all present would understand. "He was not a good husband, but--"
she shrugged her shoulders with one of her patient, shadowy smiles--"it
makes so little difference--yes?"

Jocelyn said nothing. None of them had aught to say to her. For each in
that ro