The little crowd outside, negroes, mind you, laughing at the troupe, passing from one to the other any sort of low jest at their expense, and inside the four white people--the old woman, clumsy, heavy-footed, shining with heat, lumbering round slowly, panting with her exertions; the girl, lissom and young; the two men with their discordant, torturing music; and just above you the great planets and stars of an African sky, and just about you the great silent and spacious dignity of the moonlit desert.

Imagine it! The very ineptness of the entertainment actually hurt one." He paused for a moment, while Ethne pictured to herself the scene which he had described.

She saw Harry Feversham bending over his zither, and at once she asked herself, "What was he doing with that troupe ?" It was intelligible enough that he would not care to return to England.

It was certain that he would not come back to her, unless she sent for him.

And she knew from what Captain Willoughby had said that he expected no message from her.