get
along--somehow ... so long as you are not keen on someone else," he
added. It seemed he would never be able to stand that!

"I am not keen on--any one else," she said, lifting her head with a
resolute air. "But I do want you to know that I am not the marrying
sort. I love the idea of being an old maid and having crowds of
friends--and perhaps a special pal--that's you, if you like, old boy,"
she added graciously holding out her hand which he gripped with energy.
"So that's all right, eh?"

While he made the expected reply, which was naturally insincere,
considering the state of his sore heart, both observed a cloud of dust
moving rapidly towards them which quickly resolved itself into a rider
galloping at full speed.

When he was nearer his pace slackened from exhaustion, and Honor
recognized one of the pastors of the Mission, an Eurasian, his face pale
and stricken and dripping with sweat.

A chill of foreboding struck at her heart as she asked for news of the
sick girl, Elsie Meek.

"She is dead," came the blunt reply. "I am now on my way to the doctor
who should have seen her last night, but he never came." He rode on
without waiting to hear Tommy exclaim, "Good God!" and Honor give an
inarticulate cry of surprise and sorrow.

"I thought she was going on all right," said Tommy gravely.

"I had no idea she was so bad!" said Honor. Both had pulled up uncertain
what to do. "Poor, poor Mrs. Meek!" said Honor, thinking of the lonely
woman who struggled to live her life happily in surroundings which had
failed to prove congenial, and whose one compensation was the
companionship of her daughter,--the one being in the world she loved and
lived for. She thought of the unsympathetic husband whose Christianity
savoured of narrow prejudices and exacting codes, and she pitied the
bereaved mother from the bottom of her heart. "I feel so guilty to think
that we had the doctor to dinner last night when he might have spent
that time at Sombari!" Honor cried regretfully.

"That was for him to judge. At any rate, he need not have finished the
evening at the Bara Koti singing love-songs to Mrs. Meredith."

"Poor little Elsie!" Honor sighed, ignoring the allusion to Joyce. She
was guiltless of blame as she did not know. "Tommy, you had better
return and tell Mother. I am going straight on. There is now more reason
for my calling on Mrs. Meek."

"It will be a painful visit--can't you postpone it?"

"I would rather not. I