s leaving
for the north tomorrow. He has taken a great fancy to you, and just
asked me to say to you that he'd be glad to have you accompany him.
Good night, Baynes."

At Bwana's suggestion Meriem kept to her room the following morning
until after the Hon. Morison Baynes had departed. Hanson had come for
him early--in fact he had remained all night with the foreman, Jervis,
that they might get an early start.

The farewell exchanges between the Hon. Morison and his host were of
the most formal type, and when at last the guest rode away Bwana
breathed a sigh of relief. It had been an unpleasant duty and he was
glad that it was over; but he did not regret his action. He had not
been blind to Baynes' infatuation for Meriem, and knowing the young
man's pride in caste he had never for a moment believed that his guest
would offer his name to this nameless Arab girl, for, extremely light
in color though she was for a full blood Arab, Bwana believed her to be
such.

He did not mention the subject again to Meriem, and in this he made a
mistake, for the young girl, while realizing the debt of gratitude she
owed Bwana and My Dear, was both proud and sensitive, so that Bwana's
action in sending Baynes away and giving her no opportunity to explain
or defend hurt and mortified her. Also it did much toward making a
martyr of Baynes in her eyes and arousing in her breast a keen feeling
of loyalty toward him.

What she had half-mistaken for love before, she now wholly mistook for
love. Bwana and My Dear might have told her much of the social
barriers that they only too well knew Baynes must feel existed between
Meriem and himself, but they hesitated to wound her. It would have
been better had they inflicted this lesser sorrow, and saved the child
the misery that was to follow because of her ignorance.

As Hanson and Baynes rode toward the former's camp the Englishman
maintained a morose silence. The other was attempting to formulate an
opening that would lead naturally to the proposition he had in mind.
He rode a neck behind his companion, grinning as he noted the sullen
scowl upon the other's patrician face.

"Rather rough on you, wasn't he?" he ventured at last, jerking his head
back in the direction of the bungalow as Baynes turned his eyes upon
him at the remark. "He thinks a lot of the girl," continued Hanson,
"and don't want nobody to marry her and take her away; but it looks to
me as though he was doin' her more