Certainly he was more affectionate and thoughtful than before.  He would have liked to give her money, of which he seemed to have an unusual store; but she bade him keep what he had for his own needs.  Her own little bit of money, saved from the wreck of their fortunes, was enough for her.  Then he went into Ryde and brought her back a Shetland shawl and a new table-cloth for her little sitting-room, which she accepted with a warmer kiss than she had given him for years.

He left her on a bright, windy morning which flecked the blue Solent with foam and sent the clouds racing to westward.  She walked back along the sands, thinking anxiously of the African climate and the desert hard-ships he was going to face.  And she wondered what significance there might be in the fact that he had written twice during his stay with her to a Miss Le Breton, whose name, nevertheless, he had not mentioned in their conversations.  Well, he would marry soon, she supposed, and marry well, in circles out of her ken.  With the common prejudice of the English middle class, she hoped that if this Miss Le Breton were his choice, she might be only French in name and not in blood.

Meanwhile, Warkworth sped up to London in high spirits, enjoying the comforts of a good conscience.

He drove first to his club, where a pile of letters awaited him—­some letters of congratulation, others concerned with the business of his mission.  He enjoyed the first, noticing jealously who had and who had not written to him; then he applied himself to the second.  His mind worked vigorously and well; he wrote his replies in a manner that satisfied him.  Then throwing himself into a chair, with a cigar, he gave himself up to the close and shrewd planning of the preparations necessary for his five weeks’ march, or to the consideration of two or three alternative lines of action which would open before him as soon as he should find himself within the boundaries of Mokembe.  Some five years before, the government of the day had sent a small expedition to this Debatable Land, which had failed disastrously, both from the diplomatic and the military points of view.  He went backward and forward to the shelves of the fine “Service” library which surrounded him, taking down the books and reports which concerned this expedition.  He buried himself in them for an hour, then threw them aside with contempt.  What blunders and short-sight everywhere!  The general public might well talk of the stupidity of English officers.  And blunders so easily avoided, too!  It was sickening.  He felt within himself a fulness of energy and intelligence, a perspicacity of brain which judged mistakes of this kind unpardonable.