"Oh, the voyage has done you good. You look ever so much better than when you came on board."
"Yes, I think that is so," said Ormond, reaching for the volume she held in her hand. He opened it at the frontispiece, and gazed long at the picture.
The girl sat down beside him, and watched his face, glancing from it to the book.
"It seems to me," she said at last, "that the coincidence is becoming more and more striking. Have you ever seen that portrait before?"
"Yes," said Ormond, slowly, "I recognize it as a portrait I took of myself in the interior of Africa, which I sent to a very dear friend of mine—in fact, the only friend I had in England. I think I wrote him about getting together a book out of the materials I sent him, but I am not sure. I was very ill at the time I wrote him my last letter. I thought I was going to die, and told him so. I feel somewhat bewildered, and don't quite understand it all."
"I understand it!" cried the girl, her face blazing with indignation. "Your friend is a traitor. He is reaping the reward that should have been yours, and so poses as the African traveller, the real Ormond. You must put a stop to it when you reach England, and expose his treachery to the whole country."
Ormond shook his head slowly and said:
"I cannot imagine Jimmy Spence a traitor. If it were only the book, that could be, I think, easily explained, for I sent him all my notes of travel and materials; but I cannot understand his taking of the medals or degrees."
The girl made a quick gesture of impatience.
"Such things," she said, "cannot be explained. You must confront him, and expose him."