"Well, I suppose it is all off with me so far as being a missionary under my own Church is concerned."
"I am afraid that it is. I had set my heart on it. We could have done so much together. You have won the hearts of the natives in a wonderful way. I could have left the medical work all to you. You would have done great good. But it is an unrealized dream. I am disappointed. But I am not discouraged. I am accustomed to disappointments. I meet them often. But discouraged? Never!"
Sinclair gripped MacKay's hand in his powerful grasp:
"I am glad to have known you, MacKay. It has done me good."
"And I, you. But we'll say no more of that. What are you going to do? Have you anything in view?"
"Nothing. But something will always turn up for a doctor. I'll find work somewhere, where the sins of my past are not known."
Just then there was a whoop outside. Then another and another. Then the sound of a heavy footfall in a war-dance on the verandah.
"That's Gorman!" exclaimed Sinclair. "What is the matter with him?"
He sprang to the door, followed by McKay. There was Gorman, executing the wildest kind of a dance, bringing his feet down with a vigour which threatened to split the tiles of the verandah, and all the time waving a letter over his head to the accompaniment of wild yells:
"Whoop! Docther! Hurroosh! Be the blissin' of the saints! Whoop! Me mother-in-law's gone to glory. Hurroosh!"