“Does he talk about himself?”

I had to confess that he had told us practically not a word.  He had discussed everything under heaven in his brilliant, erratic way, with a fleer of cynicism toward it all, but he had left himself out completely.  He had given us Farquharson with relish, and in infinite detail, from the time the poor fellow first turned up in Muloa, put ashore by a native craft.  Talking about Farquharson was second only to his delight in talking about volcanoes.  And the result for me had been innumerable vivid but confused impressions of the young Englishman who had by chance invaded Leavitt’s solitude and had lingered there, held by some attraction, until he sickened and died.  It was like a jumbled mosaic put together again by inexpert hands.

“Did you get the impression that the two men had very much in common?”

“Quite the contrary,” I answered.  “But Major Stanleigh should know—­”

“My uncle never met Mr. Farquharson.”

I was fairly taken aback at that, and a silence fell between us.  It was impossible to divine the drift of her questions.  It was as if some profound mistrust weighed upon her and she was not so much seeking to interrogate me as she was groping blindly for some chance word of mine that might illuminate her doubts.

I looked at the girl in silent wonder, yes, and in admiration of her bronze and ivory beauty in the full flower of her glorious youth—­and I thought of Joyce.  I felt that it was like her to have fallen in love simply but passionately at the mere lifting of the finger of Fate.  It was only another demonstration of the unfathomable mystery, or miracle, which love is.  Joyce was lucky, indeed favoured of the gods, to have touched the spring in this girl’s heart which no other man could reach, and by the rarest of chances—­her coming out to this remote corner of the world.  Lucky Joyce!  I knew him slightly—­a straightforward young fellow, very simple and whole-souled, enthusiastically absorbed in developing his rubber lands in Malduna.

Miss Stanleigh remained lost in thought while her fingers toyed with the pendant of the chain that she wore.  In the darkness I caught the glitter of a small gold cross.

“My.  Barnaby,” she finally broke the silence, and paused.  “I have decided to tell you something.  This Mr. Farquharson was my husband.”

Again a silence fell, heavy and prolonged, in which I sat as if drugged by the night air that hung soft and perfumed about us.  It seemed incredible that in that fleeting instant she had spoken at all.

“I was young—­and very foolish, I suppose.”

With that confession, spoken with simple dignity, she broke off again.  Clearly, some knowledge of the past she deemed it necessary to impart to me.  If she halted over her words, it was rather to dismiss what was irrelevant to the matter in hand, in which she sought my counsel.

“I did not see him for four years—­did not wish to....  And he vanished completely....  Four years!—­just a welcome blank!”