t been out of sheer expediency? Or
had there been some deeper and more subtle reason? She knew full
well that there was probably not another man in Africa to whom she
would have thus entrusted herself, however urgent the
circumstances. How was it then that she had accepted Burke?

And then, looking into Guy's tense face, the answer came to her,
and she had uttered it almost before she knew. "I married him
because he was so like you."

The moment she had uttered the words she would have recalled them,
for Guy made an abrupt movement and turned so white that she
thought he would faint. His eyes went beyond her with a strained,
glassy look, and for seconds he stood so, as one gone suddenly
blind.

Then with a jerk he pulled himself together, and gave her an odd
smile that somehow cut her to the heart.

"That was a straight hit anyway," he said. "And are you going to
stick to him for the same reason?"

She turned her face away with the feeling of one who dreads to look
upon some grievous hurt. "No," she said, in a low voice. "Only
because--I am his wife."

Guy made a short, contemptuous sound. "And for that you're going
to let him ride rough-shod over you--give him the right to control
your every movement? Oh, forgive me, but you good people hold such
ghastly ideas of right and wrong. And what on earth do you gain by
it all? You sacrifice everything to the future, and the future is
all mirage--all mirage. You'll never get there, never as long as
you live."

Again that quick note of passion was in his voice, and she tingled
at the sound, for though she knew so well that he was wrong
something that was quick and passionate within her made instinctive
response. She understood him. Had she not always understood him?

She did not answer him. She had given him her answer. And he,
realizing this turned aside to open the window. Yet, for a moment
he stood looking back at her, and all her life she was to remember
the love and the longing of his eyes. It was as if for that second
a veil had been rent aside, and he had shown her his naked soul.

She wondered afterwards if he had really meant her to see. For
immediately, as he went out, he broke into a careless whistle, and
then, an instant later, she heard him fling a greeting to someone
out in the blinding sunshine.

An answer came back from much nearer than she had anticipated. It
was in the guttural tones of Hans Schafen the overseer, and with a