to him when they meet on board a ship, as must happen sometimes."

I remarked that this surely was an old story by now.

My friend assented. But it was Jacobus's own fault that it was
neither forgiven nor forgotten. He came back ultimately. But how?
Not in a spirit of contrition, in a way to propitiate his
scandalised fellow-citizens. He must needs drag along with him a
child--a girl. . . .

"He spoke to me of a daughter who lives with him," I observed, very
much interested.

"She's certainly the daughter of the circus-woman," said my friend.
"She may be his daughter too; I am willing to admit that she is.
In fact I have no doubt--"

But he did not see why she should have been brought into a
respectable community to perpetuate the memory of the scandal. And
that was not the worst. Presently something much more distressing
happened. That abandoned woman turned up. Landed from a mail-
boat. . . .

"What! Here? To claim the child perhaps," I suggested.

"Not she!" My friendly informant was very scornful. "Imagine a
painted, haggard, agitated, desperate hag. Been cast off in
Mozambique by somebody who paid her passage here. She had been
injured internally by a kick from a horse; she hadn't a cent on her
when she got ashore; I don't think she even asked to see the child.