'I am not thinking anything about it yet. I suppose she will go back to England. As for me, I expect I shall carry on this place. We have been doing first-rate since we came here three months ago. Of course it won't be the same when she has gone. We three were equal partners in it, but I am sure we shall have no trouble in arranging about that. I don't know what I shall do without her; you will hardly believe me, but the eight or nine months we have been together I have got to love that girl just as if she had been my daughter. You see I always doubted that Truscott meant fair by her. Of course, he would have used her as long as she was useful to him, but he would have thrown her off in a minute if it had suited him. She knew I meant fair by her, and when we happened to be alone together she talked to me quite different to what she did to him. It seemed to me that with him she always had in her mind that it was a bargain which she was carrying out. She regarded him as her master in a sort of way, but I do really think she looked on me as a friend. She would not have stayed with us long. At New Orleans she got a partnership deed drawn out. She would not move without it, and one of the conditions she insisted on was that she could leave us when she liked, and if Truscott had pressed her to do anything, such as marry a man she did not fancy, or anything of that sort, she would have chucked it up at once. But she has got lots of spirit and pluck, and though, of course, she is awfully cut up at present, she will get over it before long, and she particularly begged you would not write to England about all this till she has seen you.' 'That I certainly will not do. I don't know that I shall write at all. My idea at present is that it will be better for me to take her home, and then to tell them the story gradually before introducing her to them. I intended going down to San Francisco and taking passage direct to India, but I must give up that idea now. It is clear that she cannot go by herself, and that I must hand her over to her father.' It was not until four days later that Ned heard from Murdoch that Linda, as they still called her, would see him next morning. On going in he was struck with the change that a week had made. She was paler and thinner, there were dark circles round her eyes and a certain air of timidity had taken the place of the somewhat hard expression of self-reliance that had before characterised her.