an to talk of other things, and after dinner, tired with their
early rise, they separated and slept. When they awoke, though the sky
was still grey and the clouds hung low, it was not raining and they went
for a walk on the high road which the Americans had built along the bay.

On their return they found that Davidson had just come in.

"We may be here for a fortnight," he said irritably. "I've argued it out
with the governor, but he says there is nothing to be done."

"Mr Davidson's just longing to get back to his work," said his wife,
with an anxious glance at him.

"We've been away for a year," he said, walking up and down the verandah.
"The mission has been in charge of native missionaries and I'm terribly
nervous that they've let things slide. They're good men, I'm not saying
a word against them, God-fearing, devout, and truly Christian men--their
Christianity would put many so-called Christians at home to the
blush--but they're pitifully lacking in energy. They can make a stand
once, they can make a stand twice, but they can't make a stand all the
time. If you leave a mission in charge of a native missionary, no matter
how trustworthy he seems, in course of time you'll find he's let abuses
creep in."

Mr Davidson stood still. With his tall, spare form, and his great eyes
flashing out of his pale face, he was an impressive figure. His
sincerity was obvious in the fire of his gestures and in his deep,
ringing voice.

"I expect to have my work cut out for me. I shall act and I shall act
promptly. If the tree is rotten it shall be cut down and cast into the
flames."

And in the evening after the high tea which was their last meal, while
they sat in the stiff parlour, the ladies working and Dr Macphail
smoking his pipe, the missionary told them of his work in the islands.

"When we went there they had no sense of sin at all," he said. "They
broke the commandments one after the other and never knew they were
doing wrong. And I think that was the most difficult part of my work, to
instil into the natives the sense of sin."

The Macphails knew already that Davidson had worked in the Solomons for
five years before he met his wife. She had been a missionary in China,
and they had become acquainted in Boston, where they were both spending
part of their leave to attend a missionary congress. On their marriage
they had been appointed to the islands in which they had laboured ever
since.

In the course of all the c