ing content. In the keen, direct, steel-blue eyes now
there was a shadow lurking behind, that might have been of some old
memory, or might have been of some new pain, but which vaguely hurt
the millionaire host.

Meryl's eyes were less smiling than her lips, turning a little
unsteadily this way and that, with a restlessness that added a touch
of vivacity to her quiet beauty. But that, he knew, was the thing we
baldly name pluck. It was not to-night he need fear what he should see
in her eyes, nor perhaps to-morrow. It was any day, any hour, any
moment in the weeks to come, when she believed no one was observing
her.

So the evening passed, and the last rubber of bridge was played, and
the first move made towards departure.

"Shall we have your company for a day or two? I must stay here over
to-morrow!" Mr. Pym said to Carew.

"I leave early in the morning," was the quiet reply. "I only came here
to see Mr. Ireson, and now I go to Salisbury."

Meryl, with her face turned away, blanched a little in the shadow.
This was the end then. This casual, conventional good-bye at a
dinner-party. To-morrow he would go east before they were up; and the
next day she would go back to Johannesburg, and later England. She
turned quickly to make a gay remark. Something in her heart tightened.
She felt suddenly appalled at the future, and was afraid she might
show it.

But the evening had still one little unexpected treat in store for
her. Lord Elmsleigh had a big-game trophy in his room that he wanted
to show Mr. Pym and their other guests--something that he had shot in
the Kafue valley. And in consequence, while Diana and Carew and Meryl
were standing together by the open window that led on to the wide
balcony, he took them both off with him.

And then Diana said to Carew, "As you are going to-morrow, I will give
you those snapshots to-night. I have them in my room," and she went
away, pulling the door to after her.

So Carew and Meryl were left alone by the window, looking out into the
pulsing southern night. Meryl, quite suddenly, felt a little dizzy,
and she drew back into the corner, leaning against the woodwork,
feeling glad of some support. Carew remained upright and rigid, with
something in that very rigidity that suggested a special need to keep
himself well in hand. If he had stopped to think about it, he might
have felt that Fate was treating him a little unkindly. So far he had
done the strong thing every time, and