rectness of his eyes disconcerting in a way it had not been
before. Meryl felt a pink flush stealing over her face, and turned her
head away to hide it.

"I wonder what you were thinking about just then?" he said, with the
slightest softening. "I awoke you from a very deep reverie."

She raised her eyes, and they fell again upon the scarlet flowers.
Something born of her own deep understanding told her, give this man
straightness for straightness always if you would stand well with
him; no begging the question, no subterfuge.

"I was thinking," she answered simply, "that those scarlet petals of
the Kaffir boom, falling on these ancient walls, suggest great blood
drops offered, upon the altar of the world's pain throughout the
ages."

"Ah!..." The exclamation escaped him quickly, unheedingly--sharp,
short, abrupt. It was as though she had struck him suddenly in a
vulnerable place. It told her, as perhaps nothing else could have
done, she had gauged rightly when she remarked to Diana that sometime
something had hurt him very much.

For a moment there was a tense, pulsing silence, and then he turned
aside towards the sacred enclosure which stood behind them. Meryl
turned also, and ventured as she did so to glance into his face. It
was stern again now, but she knew for a brief moment as he made the
exclamation it had not been so, and for a reason she did not seek to
fathom her heart was strangely glad.

XIV

THE ANCIENT RUINS

When Carew had started up into the Acropolis Hill an hour previously,
he had not had the faintest intention of fulfilling his engagement and
going in search of Meryl. On the contrary, he had gone there to avoid
her.

All day long, as Stanley described, he had been grinding away at his
native report in a gruff, determined silence: a silence even gruffer
and more determined than usual. Because of his thoughts the previous
evening and of his decision in the morning, he had finally made up his
mind not to visit the temple with Meryl Pym, and not to run any
further risk of slipping unconsciously into the friendly attitude he
was so anxious to avoid. When Stanley set out towards the tents, he
mentioned casually that he was going up the valley to the store, which
is also a most attractive and comfortable hostel for Zimbabwe
visitors, and should ask the two girls to go with him. A little later,
glancing in the valley direction, Carew saw the khaki figure for a
moment going up the pathway,