"No. I am sure of making a living, for I have always done so. Therefore, answer my question: Mary, do you think I would have any chance?" And he placed his hand softly over hers, which lay on the ship's rail. The girl did not answer, but she did not withdraw her hand; she gazed down at the bright green water with its tinge of foam. "I suppose you know," she said at length, "that you have every chance, and that you are merely pretending ignorance to make it easier for me, because I have simply flung myself at your head ever since we began the voyage." "I am not pretending, Mary," he said. "What I feared was that your interest was only that of a nurse in a somewhat backward patient. I was afraid that I had your sympathy, but not your love. Perhaps that was the case at first." "Perhaps that was the case--at first--but it is far from being the truth now--Sidney." The young man made a motion to approach nearer to her, but the girl drew away, whispering: "There are other people besides ourselves on deck, remember." "I don't believe it," said Ormond, gazing fondly at her. "I can see no one but you. I believe we are floating alone on the ocean together and that there is no one else in the wide world but our two selves. I thought I went to Africa for fame, but I see I really went to find you. What I sought seems poor compared to what I have found." "Perhaps," said the girl, looking shyly at him, "fame is waiting as anxiously for you to woo her as--as another person waited. Fame is a shameless huzzy, you know." The young man shook his head. "No. Fame has jilted me once. I won't give her another chance." So those who were twain sailed gently into Southampton docks resolved to be one when the gods were willing. Miss Mary Radford's people were there to meet her, and Ormond went up to London alone, beginning his short railway journey with a return of the melancholy that had oppressed him during the first part of his long voyage. He felt once more alone in the world, now that the bright presence of his sweetheart was missing, and he was saddened by the thought that the telegram he had hoped to send to Jimmy Spence, exultingly announcing his arrival, would never be sent. In a newspaper he bought at the station he saw that the African traveller Sidney Ormond was to be received by the mayor and corporation of a midland town and presented with the freedom of the city. The traveller was to lecture on his exploits in the town so honoring him, that day week. Ormond put down the paper with a sigh, and turned his thoughts to the girl from whom he had so lately parted. A true sweetheart is a pleasanter subject for meditation than a false friend. Mary also saw the announcement in the paper, and anger tightened her lips and brought additional color to her cheeks. Seeing how adverse her lover was to taking any action against his former friend, she had ceased to urge him, but she had quietly made up her own mind to be herself the goddess of the machine.