------------------------------------------------------------------------ End of Volume One. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER ONE. STRANGE BEHAVIOUR. In a tropical climate, where the days are too often one long punishment of heat and weariness, people believe in the dim early mornings and in the comparative coolness of the dark star-spangled nights. The day seems there a time for shelter, rest, and often for siestas of a protracted kind. Hence it follows that an evening-party is often drawn out long into the night, and guests who are comfortably seated upon a cool, dimly-lit lawn feel in no hurry to leave the open air for the mosquito-haunted heat of a sleeping-chamber. But all pleasant things come to an end, and guests began to leave Mr Perowne's. The absence of the two young officers passed unnoticed, and several friends took their departure after a glance round, not seeing Helen, and concluding that she was engaged. Mrs Doctor Bolter had been, to use her own expression, "on pins and needles" for quite two hours, trying to get the doctor home; but to every fresh appeal he had something to say by way of excuse. This one had to be seen--that one had said he wished to have a few words with him--it was impossible to go at present. "Helen Perowne will think it rude of you, my dear," he said, reproachfully. "Go and have a chat with her again." Mrs Bolter tightened her lips, and made up her mind, as she subsided, to talk to the doctor next day; but at last she was driven to extremity, and captured her husband after a long hunt--in every minute of which she had made more and more sure that he was flirting with some lady in one or other of the shady walks. She found him at last under a tree, seated upon one bamboo chair with his legs on another, in company with Grey Stuart's father, who was in a precisely similar attitude. A bamboo table was between them, upon which was a homely looking bottle and a great glass jug of cold water to help them in the mixings that took place occasionally as they sat and smoked. "Oh, here you are, Dr Bolter," said the lady, with some asperity. "Yes, my dear, here I am," he replied: "arn't you nearly ready to go?" Mrs Doctor Bolter gasped, for the effrontery of this remark was staggering after she had been spending the last two hours in trying to get him away. "Ready to go!" she exclaimed, angrily. "I think it is disgracefully late; and I can't think how Mr Stuart can sit there so patiently, knowing all the while, as he does, that his child ought to be taken home." Mr Stuart chuckled. "Bolter, old fellow," he said, "you'd better go. That's just how my wife used to talk to me." "Mr Stuart, I'm surprised at you," said Mrs Doctor, in her most impressive manner. "Yes, it was very rude," he said drily. "Perhaps you wouldn't mind taking Grey home with you? I don't think I shall come just yet."