It was unfortunate that Mr. Trimblerigg, at this crucial stage of his career, not having Davidina to worry him, had no need to worry about Davidina. Some six months earlier she had started upon a career of her own on rather a big scale--a research expedition, which, though merely an extension of that taste for travel in strange places which she had already indulged, was now organized upon such novel lines and to cover so far-stretched a route that it had attracted public notice, and had won for her at the moment of departure many send-off paragraphs in journals of science and in the daily press. It was still something of a novelty for a lone woman to head an expedition into tropical wilds south of the equator, for no other apparent object than to collect botanical specimens, and incidentally study the habits of the native tribes encountered on the way. In addition, Davidina admitted that she had a theory which she wished to put to the test; for though not a Christian Scientist, she was one of those curious people who are without fear; and being without fear she believed herself safe; and as she did not mind dying she did not intend to carry fire-arms. The whole gist of the experiment lay in the fact that, disappearing from the eye of civilization to the south-east of trails which no white woman had ever yet penetrated, she intended to re-emerge 2,500 miles to the north-west, an unharmed specimen of that superior race-product which she believed herself to be. She and Jonathan had not been pleased with each other during the War; and for the first time in his grown-up life Mr. Trimblerigg had adopted toward his sister the superior moral tone which circumstances seemed to justify; for in this contention he had not only the world with him but all the Churches. He told Davidina that she was wrong. Davidina’s reply was: ‘Seeing is believing; and at present I don’t see much except mess, nor do you. In war nobody can.’ And having waited till travel by land and sea had once more become possible, Davidina sent him word of the object-lesson she was going to give him. ‘And if,’ she concluded, ‘you don’t see me again, you needn’t believe in my method any more than I believe in yours. In any case, I shan’t haunt you; and I’ve left you my love in my will.’ And with that cryptic remark she took herself off, leaving no address. It would be hard to say what exactly Mr. Trimblerigg wished, hoped, or expected to be the outcome of her attempt to give him the promised lesson. Probably he thought she would come back the way she had gone, with a good record of adventure to her credit, a safe failure; for he had great faith in Davidina’s powers of survival. What he did not expect in the least was what actually happened. Mr. Trimblerigg was inattentive to maps and unattracted to geography; and when Davidina started on her adventure she was more than 2,000 miles away from any part of the world in which Mr. Trimblerigg had interests.