“Ah, miss,” said the man, “I'll take my oath it wasn't of your pa you were thinking all that time. Ah, these young fellows have a lot to answer for.” This was not very subtle humour, Colonel Gerald felt; he found himself wishing that his daughter had owed her life to a more refined man; but on the whole he was just as glad that a man of sensitiveness had not been in the place of this coarse stranger upon that beach a few hours before. “I don't think I am wrong in believing that you have travelled a good deal,” said Colonel Gerald, in some anxiety lest the stranger might pursue his course of humorous banter. “Travelled?” said the stranger. “Perhaps I have. Yes, sir, I have travelled, not excursionised. I've knocked about God's footstool since I was a boy, and yet it seems to me that I'm only beginning my travels. I've been----” And the stranger continued telling of where he had been until the oak avenue at Mowbray was reached. He talked very freshly and frankly of every place both in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The account of his travels was very interesting, though perhaps to the colonel's servant it was the most entertaining. “I have taken it for granted that you have no engagement in Cape Town,” said Colonel Gerald as he turned the horses down the avenue. “We shall be dining in a short time, and I hope you will join us.” “I don't want to intrude, General,” said the man. “But I allow that I could dine heartily without going much farther. As for having an appointment in Cape Town--I don't know a single soul in the colony--not a soul, sir--unless--why, hang it all, who's that standing on the walk in front of us?--I'm a liar, General; I do know one man in the colony; there he stands, for if that isn't Oswin Markham I'll eat him with relish.” “It is indeed Markham,” said Colonel Gerald. “And you know him?” “Know him?” the stranger laughed. “Know him?” Then as the wagonette pulled up beside where Markham was standing in front of the house, the stranger leapt down, saying, as he clapped Oswin on the shoulder, “The General asks me if I know you, old boy; answer for me, will you?” But Oswin Markham was staring blankly from the man to Daireen and her father. “You told me you were going to New York,” he said at last. “And so I was when you packed me aboard the _Virginia_ brig so neatly at Natal, but the _Virginia_ brig put into Simon's Bay and cut her cable one night, leaving me ashore. It's Providence, Oswin--Providence.” Oswin had allowed his hand to be taken by the man, who was the same that had spent the night with him in the hotel at Pietermaritzburg. Then he turned as if from a fit of abstraction, to Daireen and the colonel. “I beg your pardon a thousand times,” he said. “But this meeting with Mr. Despard has quite startled me.” “Mr. Despard,” said the colonel, “I must ever look on as one of my best friends, though we met to-day for the first time. I owe him a debt that I can never repay--my daughter's life.”