"It is I." His journey from Msala through the more civilised reaches of the lower river, his voyage in the coasting boat, and his arrival at Loango, had partaken of the nature of a triumphal progress.

Victor Durnovo was elated--like a girl in a new dress.
"I was coming along to see you," he said, and there was a subtle offence in his tone.
She did not trouble to tell him that Maurice was away for ten days.

She felt that he knew that.

There was a certain truculence in his walk which annoyed her; but she was wonderingly conscious of the fact that she was no longer afraid of him.

This feeling had as yet taken no definite shape.