“Of course,” he went on, “his death was really of enormous advantage to me. They say that I shall have two or three thousand a year, instead of five hundred, paid quarterly at Cox's. He could not prevent it coming to me. It was my mother's money. He would have done so if he could, for we never disguised our antipathy for each other. Yet we lived together, and--and I had the nursing of him.” Millicent was listening gravely without interrupting--like a man. She had the gift of adapting herself to her environments in a marked degree. “And,” he added curtly, “no one knows how much I wanted that three thousand a year.” The girl moved uneasily, and glanced towards the conservatory. “He was not an old man,” Guy Oscard went on. “He was only forty-nine. He might have lived another thirty years.” She nodded, understanding the significance of his tone. “There,” he said, with an awkward laugh, “do you still believe in me?” “Yes,” she answered, still looking away. There was a little pause. They were both sitting forward in their chairs looking towards the conservatory. “It was not the money that tempted me,” said Guy very deliberately; “it was you.” She rose from her chair as if to join her aunt and the horticultural old gentleman. “You must not say that,” she said, in little more than a whisper, and without looking round she went towards Lady Cantourne. Her eyes were gleaming with a singular suppressed excitement, such as one sees in the eyes of a man fresh from a mad run across country. Guy Oscard rose also, and followed more deliberately. There was nothing for him to do but to take his leave. “But,” said Lady Cantourne graciously, “if you are determined to go away you must at least come and say good-bye before you leave.” “Thanks; I should like to do so, if I may.” “We shall be deeply disappointed if you forget,” said Millicent, holding out her hand, with a smile full of light-heartedness and innocent girlish friendship. CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE LINE Enough of simpering and grimace, Enough of vacuity, trimmed with lace. “Curse this country! Curse it--curse it!” The man spoke aloud, but there was no one near to hear. He shook his skinny yellow fist out over the broad river that crept greasily down to the equatorial sea. All around him the vegetable kingdom had asserted its sovereignty. At his back loomed a dense forest, impenetrable to the foot of man, defying his puny hand armed with axe or saw. The trees were not high, few of them being above twenty feet, but from their branches creepers and parasites hung in tangled profusion, interlaced, joining tree to tree for acres, nay for miles.