"There are other people besides ourselves on deck, remember."
"I don't believe it," said Ormond, gazing fondly at her. "I can see no one but you. I believe we are floating alone on the ocean together, and that there is no one else in the wide world but our two selves. I thought I went to Africa for fame, but I see I really went to find you. What I sought seems poor compared to what I have found."
"Perhaps," said the girl, looking shyly at him, "Fame is waiting as anxiously for you to woo her as—as another person waited. Fame is a shameless hussy, you know."
The young man shook his head.
"No. Fame has jilted me once. I won't give her another chance."
So those who were twain sailed gently into Southampton Docks, resolved to be one when the gods were willing.
Mary Radford's people were there to meet her, and Ormond went up to London alone, beginning his short railway journey with a return of the melancholy that had oppressed him during the first part of his long voyage. He felt once more alone in the world, now that the bright presence of his sweetheart was withdrawn, and he was saddened by the thought that the telegram he had hoped to send to Jimmy Spence, exultingly announcing his arrival, would never be sent. In a newspaper he bought at the station, he saw that the African traveller, Sidney Ormond, was to be received by the Mayor and Corporation of a Midland town, and presented with the freedom of the city. The traveller was to lecture on his exploits in the town so honouring him, that day week. Ormond put down the paper with a sigh, and turned his thoughts to the girl from whom he had so lately parted. A true sweetheart is a pleasanter subject for meditation than a false friend.
Mary also saw the announcement in the paper, and anger tightened her lips and brought additional colour to her cheeks. Seeing how averse her lover was to taking any action against his former friend, she had ceased to urge him, but she had quietly made up her own mind to be herself the goddess of the machine.
On the night the bogus African traveller was to lecture in the Midland town, Mary Radford was a unit in the very large audience that greeted him. When he came on the platform she was so amazed at his personal appearance that she cried out, but fortunately her exclamation was lost in the applause that greeted the lecturer. The man was the exact duplicate of her betrothed.
She listened to the lecture in a daze; it seemed to her that even the tones of the lecturer's voice were those of her lover. She paid little heed to the matter of his discourse, but allowed her mind to dwell more on the coming interview, wondering what excuses the fraudulent traveller would make for his perfidy.