The Unwelcome Throne

The strange elusive Hindu had disappeared after Hongkong. That was a
weight off her soul. She was now assured that her imagination had
beguiled her. How should he know anything about her? What was more
natural than that he should wish to hurry back to his native state?
She was not the only one in a hurry. And there were Hindus of all
castes on all three ships. By now she had almost forgot him.

There was one bright recollection to break the unending loneliness.
Coming down from Hongkong to Singapore she had met at the captain's
table a young man by the name of Bruce. He was a quiet, rather
untalkative man, lean and sinewy, sun and wind bitten. Kathlyn had as
yet had no sentimental affairs. Absorbed in her work, her father and
the care of Winnie, such young men as she had met had scarcely
interested her. She had only tolerated contempt for idlers, and these
young men had belonged to that category. Bruce caught her interest in
the very fact that he had but little to say and said that crisply and
well. There was something authoritative in the shape of his mouth and
the steadiness of his eye, though before her he never exercised this
power. A dozen times she had been on the point of taking him into her
confidence, but the irony of fate had always firmly closed her lips.

And now, waiting for the ship to warp into its pier, she realized what
a fatal mistake her reticence had been. A friend of her father!