again; in the very looking-glasses I saw the reflection of a lost
presence. Although I had moved myself for the purposes of sleep
to a little room at the further end of the building, footsteps
seemed to creep about my bed at night and I heard the rustle of a
remembered dress without the door. The place grew hateful to me.
I felt that I must get away from it or I should go mad.


One afternoon Bastin arrived carrying a book and in a state of
high indignation. This work, written, as he said, by some ribald
traveller, grossly traduced the character of missionaries to the
South Sea Islands, especially of those of the Society to which he
subscribed, and he threw it on the table in his righteous wrath.
Bickley picked it up and opened it at a photograph of a very
pretty South Sea Island girl clad in a few flowers and nothing
else, which he held towards Bastin, saying:

"Is it to this child of Nature that you object? I call her
distinctly attractive, though perhaps she does wear her hibiscus
blooms with a difference to our women--a little lower down."

"The devil is always attractive," replied Bastin gloomily.
"Child of Nature indeed! I call her Child of Sin. That photograph
is enough to make my poor Sarah turn in her grave."

"Why?" asked Bickley; "seeing that wide seas roll between you
and this dusky Venus. Also I thought that according to your
Hebrew legend sin came in with bark garments."

"You should search the Scriptures, Bickley," I broke in, "and