“He sat back staring out of the port-hole. The smoke-room was empty, and I fairly let myself go. “‘You very silly idiot,’ I exploded, ‘do you imagine I’ve been delivering a homily on the sins of kissing another man’s fiancée. What I want to get into your fat head is this. You’re going to a place where the only white woman you’ll see from year’s end to year’s end is that girl, if she marries Morrison. You can prattle about honour, and forgetting yourselves, and not letting it occur again, and it’s worth the value of that used match. Sooner or later it will occur again, and it won’t stop at kissing next time. And then Morrison will probably kill you, or you’ll kill him, and there’ll be the devil to pay. For Heaven’s sake, man, look the thing square in the face. Either marry the girl, or cut her right out of your life. And you can only do that by cabling the firm—or I’ll cable them for you from Rangoon—asking to be posted to another district. I shall be sorry, but I’d far rather lose you than sit on the edge of a young volcano.’ “I left him to chew over what I’d said and went to bed, feeling infernally sorry for both of them. But the one fact over which there was no doubt whatever in my mind was that if Morrison married Molly Felsted, then Jack Manderby would have to be removed as far as geographically possible from temptation. “My remarks apparently had some effect, because the next day Jack buttonholed me on deck. “‘I’ve told Molly what you said last night, old man, and we’ve been talking it over. Morrison is meeting her apparently at Rangoon, and she has agreed to tell him what has happened. And when he knows how the land lies it’s bound to be all right. Of course, I’m sorry for him, poor devil, but——’ and he went babbling on in a way common to those in love. “I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention; I was thinking of Morrison and wondering whether Jack’s optimism was justified. Apart from his moroseness and drinking, there were other stories about the man—stories which are not good to hear about a white man. I’d never paid any heed to them before, but now they came back to me—those rumours of strange things, which only the ignorant sceptic pretends to scorn; strange things done in secret with native priests and holy men; strange things it is not well for the white man to dabble in. And someone had it that Rupert Morrison did more than dabble.” The Ordinary Man paused and sipped his whisky. “He met the boat at Rangoon,” he continued after a while, “and came on board. Evidently the girl wasted no time in telling him what had occurred, because it was barely ten minutes before I saw him coming towards Jack and myself. There was a smouldering look in his eyes, but outwardly he seemed quite calm. He gave me a curt nod, then he addressed himself exclusively to Jack. “‘Miss Felsted has just made a somewhat unexpected announcement to me,’ he remarked.