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decide to leave the island I’ll book my own passage.”
    “It’s no use getting hot,” Matt yawned. “We’ve still an ace up our cuffs. You can marry Crawford.”
    “I can’t. I’m not ... I like him, but not enough.”
    “Oh, I thought you two seemed pretty snug together last night.”
    “We were saying goodbye. He’s gone on leave this morning.”
    “The devil he has!” Matt raised his head, a sly smile on his heavy features. “Why not pretend to be engaged to him . . . just for Caswell’s benefit? You can call it off when Roger returns, if you want to.”
    ‘That would only postpone the problem. Besides, I couldn’t treat Roger so rottenly. You’ve no scruples, Matt.”
    He grunted himself upright. “Well, maybe not. I must agree with Caswell that you’re a difficult wench. I’ve eaten too much. See you later.”
    Vexedly, Phil watched him go. Though she had not admitted as much to Matt, she was becoming really frightened. Supposing Julian Caswell succeeded and she was shipped to England. What could she do in a country that she knew more from Roger’s descriptions than from her own memories? She was already acquainted with the coldness and unfriendliness of large cities. The island had meant home and security for so long; till she had definite ideas for the future where else could she live?
    During the whole of that stifling afternoon Phil rejected one absurd plan after another. She saw herself aboard the Bassington and leaving it at Lagos; searching for Roger and seeking a judge’s permission to marry; their joint return to the island and Julian’s discomfiture. But she had a horrid feeling that Julian’s reaction would sink into unimportance when Roger came to share this house . . . and her privacy. No, that was no good, either.
     

CHAPTER IV
    THE Bassington docked just before sunset on Sunday evening. Phil viewed the arrival of the ship from the harbour end of the promontory. The boat out there gave her a trapped feeling. Somehow, since Matt had lunched with Julian she seemed to have lost his allegiance. He had agreed with Julian’s verdict, had even accepted an invitation to dine this evening with the captain of the Bassington . Presumably the three men would conclude arrangements for her transport. It rather looked as if Matt were a traitor.
    Yet when he called in on his way to the store the following morning Matt gave her the usual friendly wink.
    “Thought you’d be itching to hear the decision of the council of three,” he said.
    She was, but she answered coolly: “Too bad if it doesn’t coincide with mine. Did you have fun?”
    “Not what you’d call fun. I learned that the Bassington is equipped to carry eight passengers. She’s picking up six at Lagos, and you’ll be the seventh—if you go. Caswell reserved a cabin for you, and he’s coming here this afternoon to see you about it.”
    “You told them what I said?”
    “Yes, but they remained unimpressed. Don’t worry, Phil,” he said airily. “There’s time for a miracle between now and noon on Wednesday.”'
    “Matt!” Her tone changed, became eager and hopeful. “Are you planning something?”
    “Tut, tut,” he adjured her sternly. “Would I hobnob with Julian Caswell and double-cross him at the same time? Be a good girl, keep your smile handy and let him believe you’re giving in. And be sweet to the man when he shows up—it may pay dividends. So long.”
    Julian drove up at about three-thirty, and entered her hall with the same faintly mocking smile as before. He dropped his helmet on to a stool and, without invitation, reached for a cigarette from the crystal box on the table and set a match to it. The spurt of flame in the dim room illumined a strong, pleasantly bony face.
    Today he sat well down in a comer of the chesterfield, one bare knee over the other. His gaze flickered over her small pointed face and straight shoulders against the flowered linen back of her chair, and it moved downwards, to her