ght's rest if they don't ask me to their dirty
parties."

But now it irked him a little.

The little dark baby screwed up its face. That was his son. He thought
of the half-caste children in Apia. They had an unhealthy look, sallow
and pale, and they were odiously precocious. He had seen them on the
boat going to school in New Zealand, and a school had to be chosen which
took children with native blood in them; they were huddled together,
brazen and yet timid, with traits which set them apart strangely from
white people. They spoke the native language among themselves. And when
they grew up the men accepted smaller salaries because of their native
blood; girls might marry a white man, but boys had no chance; they must
marry a half-caste like themselves or a native. Lawson made up his mind
passionately that he would take his son away from the humiliation of
such a life. At whatever cost he must get back to Europe. And when he
went in to see Ethel, frail and lovely in her bed, surrounded by native
women, his determination was strengthened. If he took her away among his
own people she would belong more completely to him. He loved her so
passionately, he wanted her to be one soul and one body with him; and he
was conscious that here, with those deep roots attaching her to the
native life, she would always keep something from him.

He went to work quietly, urged by an obscure instinct of secrecy, and
wrote to a cousin who was partner in a shipping firm in Aberdeen, saying
that his health (on account of which like so many more he had come out
to the islands) was so much better, there seemed no reason why he should
not return to Europe. He asked him to use what influence he could to get
him a job, no matter how poorly paid, on Deeside, where the climate was
particularly suitable to such as suffered from diseases of the lungs. It
takes five or six weeks for letters to get from Aberdeen to Samoa, and
several had to be exchanged. He had plenty of time to prepare Ethel. She
was as delighted as a child. He was amused to see how she boasted to her
friends that she was going to England; it was a step up for her; she
would be quite English there; and she was excited at the interest the
approaching departure gave her. When at length a cable came offering him
a post in a bank in Kincardineshire she was beside herself with joy.

When, their long journey over, they were settled in the little Scots
town with its granite houses Lawson re