I was silent for a moment. "He was planning to force you to marry him," I said presently. "Not thinking of how you might feel for Arthur." "Arthur was like a brother," Alicia said sadly. "I was very, very fond of him. We were engaged, but we had nearly agreed that we did not care for each other enough to marry. I was very fond of him, though. I could not have cared for him more if he had really been my brother." The great white African moon was silvering the whole earth with its pale rays. From the village came negro voices, singing the native words to an old, old devotional melody. From within the house came the rustle of papers. The padre and Mrs. Braymore were going over the details of the small hospital she proposed to erect for the mission. The padre is an old man, and more than forty years of his life have been spent at his little mission station, trying to help the natives despite the Portuguese and the _servaçal_. Now, at last, he was to have adequate equipment through Mrs. Braymore's generosity. She was going back to her beloved England, where she would go to her five-o'clock teas and discuss the neighborhood gossip and hear the curate talk about the possibility of repairing the parish house. I knew she was glad that she could again sink into the pleasant rut of well-to-do English country life. Alicia would go too, and I would see her no more. It suddenly seemed unbearable that she should leave me. "I shall be leaving Ticao soon," I said abruptly. Alicia turned. Her face was grave and sweet in the half light. "Why? I thought----" "This is an evil country. White men denigrate and black men are like beasts. I am sick of the place. I shall go back somewhere in the States and see what I can find to do there." "I'm glad you're leaving Ticao," she said slowly. "I should not like to think I would never see you again. We have grown to be very good friends." I waited a moment or so and then said quietly: "When Evan was explaining to us after he had shot me, he said that he would force you to do as he said by threats of my death by torture. You remember?" Alicia nodded silently. "He said that he believed you cared a little for me. I have been hoping very much that he was right. I'm more or less of a ne'er-do-well, but if there's any hope for me, I'll try hard to change." I waited breathlessly for her to answer. She looked out at the moonlight for what seemed an age-long time. At last she turned again to me. I had a moment of panic, and then I saw that she was smiling. "Why, Murray," she said in a flash of mischief. "I may call on you to change after a while, but for the present, say for the next ten or twenty years, I think you're perfectly all right as you are." I had not thought myself so strong, but when I saw her smiling at me with her face close to my own, my fever weakness left me and I reached out my arms. Alicia was quite considerate of me. She struggled only a very little.