"There is one point we have to keep in view, for the thing may be remembered against me still," he said. "I was turned out of the service of a British Colony."
"Ah," said the girl, "I felt it cruelly at the time, but, after all, it happened more than four years ago—and not very many people heard of it."
Ormsgill sat still a minute, and his grasp grew a trifle slacker on her arm. "I told you I didn't do the thing they accused me of," he said.
"Of course! Still, everybody believed you did, and that was almost as hard to bear. The great thing is that it was quite a long while ago. Tom," and she turned to him quickly, "I believe you are smiling."
"I almost think I was," said Ormsgill. "Still, I don't know why I should do so. Well, I understand we are to stay here a month or two, and we will have everything arranged before we go back to England."
It was half an hour later when his companion rose. "The time is slipping by," she said. "There is to be some singing, and one or two of the people we have met lately are coming round to-night. I must go in and talk to them. These things are in a way one's duty. One has to do one's part."
Ormsgill made no protest. He rose and walked quietly back with her to the hotel, but his face was a trifle grave, and he was troubled by vague misgivings.
CHAPTER IV
THE SUMMONS
The month Ormsgill spent at Las Palmas was a time of some anxiety to Mrs. Ratcliffe. He had, as she complained to her brother, no sense of the responsibility that devolved upon a man of his means, and was addicted to making friends with all kinds of impossible people, grimy English coaling clerks, and the skippers of Spanish schooners, and, what was more objectionable, now and then bringing them to the hotel. He expressed his regret when she pointed out the undesirability of such proceedings, but, for all that, made no very perceptible change in his conduct.