"He will certainly blame us if we allow any opportunity for obtaining news to escape, and I must find somebody to take a note off to the purser. You are tired, Lily, and had better remain here while I go across to the agent's offices."
Lilian sat leaning back in a basket chair, shrouded from observation by two tall aloe plants, with her face still turned toward the cost of Africa. The silver shimmer faded from off the sea, the fires of sunset died out behind the cordillera, but Mrs. Chatterton did not return, and her niece waited with hands crossed idly in her lap. It was now some time since the steamer's anchor had rattled down. Presently, because the long windows behind her were open, she started at a voice in the adjoining room. It seemed the voice of one risen from the dead.
"It is impossible!" she thought.
"I have no baggage," the voice rose again. "Going on with the Southampton boat, due to-morrow. Send across to the offices and book a berth for me."
Lilian, rising, stood in the open window, and the speaker stared at her in astonishment.
"I could hardly believe my eyes, Mr. Maxwell," she exclaimed.
Maxwell strode out into the balcony, but his surprise, which vanished quickly, was surpassed by the girl's. His face was worn and hollow, and in the failing light he looked strangely frail. A great sense of pity came upon her.
"You are ill, and I must not keep you standing! Please sit down, because there is so much I—we all—wish to know," she said, striving to suppress her eagerness.
"I have been in the African forest," Maxwell replied simply, as though that were sufficient explanation. "Thank you, but I would rather lean against the railing here."
As he spoke, he drew out the basket chair, and bent his head with a gesture of invitation, while the girl, noticing the languidness of his movements, showed her compassion in her eyes. Maxwell saw the pity, and smiled wistfully; then as Lilian's gaze met his own, she glanced aside a moment with a sudden trace of color. She remembered their last meeting, and there was an awkward silence which Maxwell broke.