eturn when the siege was over, and the
soothing and the restfulness and the splendour had come back.

Wondering still, and with the sore regretfulness growing, he looked
round to make sure all was safe, and that no further danger need be
feared from blowing sparks or creeping flames; and then went gravely
into his hut to read.

The next morning he told Stanley that he might be obliged to go east
the following day on important business, and leave him to receive the
travellers, and remained imperturbably grave and non-seeing when
Stanley raised his eyebrows and regarded him with a little amused
twinkle of understanding.

But in the afternoon the party quite unexpectedly turned up, and
somewhere away in the blue, dreaming kopjes the voice of a following
fate laughed softly.

VIII

TWO UNEXPECTED MEETINGS

Early in the afternoon Carew rode to the mission station to tell Ailsa
Grenville and her husband of the expected visitors, and of how he was
likely to depart in the morning for M'rekwas and be away about a
fortnight.

Ailsa Grenville smiled at him archly when he told her. "Why do you run
away when, for once in a way, you have the chance of a little
companionship? It would do you more good to stay."

"I think not; and besides," he added, hastily, "I am going on
business."

"A convenient sort of business, I fancy. Why not wait and see them
first?"

"Well, I could hardly go away immediately after their arrival, when
Mr. Pym probably knows of the letter despatched to me from
headquarters. It is far simpler to send a runner back with excuses."

"But why go at all?" in a persuasive voice.

Carew walked to the door and knocked the ashes out of his pipe against
the heel of his boot; and Ailsa knew by his face that, though he did
not resent her questioning, he would take no notice of it. And it made
her a little sad, for of all the men she knew, next to Billy, her
husband, she admired Carew, and she regretted deeply his insistent
determination to stand aloof from mankind generally behind the
barriers he had built up.

Then Billy himself came in: khaki-clad, vigorous, and gay as ever; and
when he heard the news he was less reticent, and exclaimed outright,
"But what do you want to go away for? Why, it will be quite a treat
for you to have ladies there; and who knows, one of the heiresses may
be very charming--charming enough even for your fastidious taste!"

"I prefer the company of the veldt," was all h