“Was there any mention of Mr. Oscard's partner, Mr.--eh--Meredith?” asked Millicent, glancing at the clock. “Yes, miss, there was that name, but I don't rightly remember in what connection.” “It didn't say that he--” Millicent paused and drew in her breath with a jerk--“was dead, or anything like that?” “Oh, no, miss.” “Thank you. I--am sorry we missed Mr. Oscard.” She turned and went back to Lady Cantourne, who was sitting in the carriage. And while she was dancing the second extra with the first comer at four o'clock the next morning, Guy Oscard was racing out of Plymouth Sound into the teeth of a fine, driving rain. On the bridge of the trembling tug-boat, by Oscard's side, stood a keen-eyed Channel pilot, who knew the tracks of the steamers up and down Channel as a gamekeeper knows the hare-tracks across a stubble-field. Moreover, the tug-boat caught the big steamer pounding down into the grey of the Atlantic Ocean, and in due time Guy Oscard landed on the beach at Loango. He had the telegram still in his pocket, and he went, not to Maurice Gordon's office, but to the bungalow. Jocelyn greeted him with a little inarticulate cry of joy. “I did not think that you could possibly be here so soon,” she said. “What news have you?” he asked, without pausing to explain. He was one of those men who are silenced by an unlimited capacity for prompt action. “That,” she replied, handing him the note written by Jack Meredith to Marie at Msala. Guy Oscard read it carefully. “Dated seven weeks last Monday--nearly two months ago,” he muttered, half to himself. He raised his head and looked out of the window. There were lines of anxiety round his eyes. Jocelyn never took her glance from his face. “Nearly two months ago,” he repeated. “But you will go?” she said--and something in her voice startled him. “Of course I will go,” he replied. He looked down into her face with a vague question in his quiet eyes; and who knows what he saw there? Perhaps she was off her guard. Perhaps she read this man aright and did not care. With a certain slow hesitation he laid his hand on her arm. There was something almost paternal in his manner which was in keeping with his stature. “Moreover,” he went on, “I will get there in time. I have an immense respect for Meredith. If he said that he could hold out for four months, I should say that he could hold out for six. There is no one like Meredith, once he makes up his mind to take things seriously.” It was not very well done, and she probably saw through it. She probably knew that he was as anxious as she was herself. But his very presence was full of comfort. It somehow brought a change to the moral atmosphere--a sense of purposeful direct simplicity which was new to the West African Coast. “I will send over to the factory for Maurice,” said the girl. “He has been hard at work getting together your men. If your telegram had not come he was going up to the Plateau himself.”