from doing an unjust, a despicable, and a dreadful thing? Was it only to
help the Soudan? Was it but to serve a high ideal, through an ideal
life--through Gordon?

It came upon her with embarrassing force. For none of these things was
she striving. She was doing all for this man, against whose influence
she had laboured, whom she had bitterly condemned, and whose fortune she
had called blood-money and worse. And now...

She knew the truth, and it filled her heart with joy and also pain. Then
she caught at a straw: he was no slave-driver now. He had--

"May I not help you--go with you to England?" he questioned over her
shoulder.

"Like Alexander Selkirk 'I shall finish my journey alone,'" she said,
with sudden but imperfectly assumed acerbity.

"Will you not help me, then?" he asked. "We could write a book
together."

"Oh, a book!" she said.

"A book of life," he whispered.

"No, no, no--can't you see?--oh, you are playing me like a ball!"

"Only to catch you," he said, in a happier tone.

"To jest, when I am so unhappy!" she murmured.