"I'll relieve you for a spell.

Go and satisfy yourself--and me! None but an infernal fool would have kept her here," he added, in a growling undertone, as Merryon lifted a hand in brief salute and started away through the sodden mists.
He went as he had never gone in his life before, and as he went the mists parted before him and a blinding ray of sunshine came smiting through the gap like the sword of the destroyer.

The simile rushed through his mind and out again, even as the grey mist-curtain closed once more.
He reached the bungalow.

It stood like a shrouded ghost, and the drip, drip, drip of the rain on the veranda came to him like a death-knell.
A gaunt figure met him almost on the threshold, and he recognized his messenger with a sharp sense of coming disaster.

The man stood mutely at the salute.
"Well?
Well?
Speak!" he ordered, nearly beside himself with anxiety.
"Why didn't you come back with an answer ?" The man spoke with deep submission.