"But since you last spoke of that I have been thinking it over. Alie, you must not come to England, the risk would be too great."
"There will be no risk at all, and I shall take every precaution to ensure my own safety. You may rest assured of that," she answered. "But before you go I have a little keepsake for you, something that may serve to remind you of the Beautiful White Devil and the days you have spent with her, when you are far away."
As she spoke she took from the table, beside which she was now standing, a large gold locket. Opening it she let me see that it contained an excellent portrait of herself.
"Oh, Alie," I cried, "how can I thank you? You have given me the one thing of all others that I desired. Now, in my turn, I have a present for you. This ring" (here I drew a ring from my finger) "was my poor dead mother's last gift to me, and I want you to wear it."
I placed it on her finger, and having done so, took her in my arms and kissed her on the lips. This time she offered no resistance.
Then we said good-bye, and I went up on deck. An hour later the Lone Star had faded away into the night, and I was aboard the Pearl Queen bound for Thursday Island and the Port of London.
When I came to think of it I could hardly believe that it was nearly four months since Walworth had found me out in the Occidental Hotel, Hong Kong, and induced me to become the servant and at the same time the lover of the Beautiful White Devil.
CHAPTER XII.
Arriving in Thursday Island, one of the hottest and quaintest little spots on earth, I was fortunate enough to catch a British India mail boat in the act of starting for Brisbane. I accordingly had my luggage conveyed to her and was soon comfortably installed aboard her. The voyage from Torres Straits, along the Queensland coast, inside the Great Barrier Reef, though it boasts on one hand a rugged and almost continuous line of cliffs marked with such names as Cape Despair and Tribulation, and upon the other twelve hundred miles of treacherous reef, is quite worth undertaking. I explored the different ports of call, and, on reaching Brisbane, caught the train for Adelaide, embarked on board a P. and O. mail boat there, and in less than six weeks from the time of booking my passage was standing in the porch of my own house in Cavendish Square, had rung the bell, and was waiting for the front door to be opened to me.