The Silent Sea......................................................................................................................................................1

As Miss Paget left the library after seeing that her father's armchair was in the right position and the Venetian

blinds adjusted according to the morning light, she glanced at the huge bronze clock that stood on a huge

bronze stand in the hall, and saw that it was only halfpast nine. At ten she expected a visitor, and ever since

she awoke at halfpast five she had been so preoccupied with the thought of his arrival that more than once

Seeing that she was in error, the lady went back to the library. It was a handsome large room, lined with dark

oaken bookcases from ceiling to floor, relieved at intervals with arched recesses lined with mirrors, before

which stood vases containing small palms and other evergreen shrubs. This was an arrangement that, like

many others which characterized the house, had been carried out according to Miss Paget's own design after

she became an heiress and bought Lancaster House.1 All the people who visited this mansion thought it was a

happy contrivance to relieve the severity of so learnedlooking a room with the comparative frivolity of

mirrors and foliage. Miss Paget shared the opinion, and often had the shrubs changed, so that the effect did

not sink into one of athese foregone conclusions that after a time make no further claim on the eye. But

neither the aesthetic nor the intellectual aspects of the chamber drew a glance or a thought from her at this

moment. She had merely returned to see whether there was anything more she might do to anticipate her

father's wants. She did not wish to be called away at a critical moment from an interview to which she looked

forward with more anxiety than she was willing to admit even to herself. For some time back her father had

got into the habit of depending on her to guard his notes from straying and his authorities from being

misplaced, in addition to exercising a sedulous care as to his physical wellbeing.

Mr. Paget was an exprofessor of the dead languages, and a man whose mental horizon was bounded by

illusions. Thus, he firmly believed that he was of a painfully sensitive temperament, and that he was devoting

the leisure which now embraced his whole life to the cause of unendowed research. In reality his

sensitiveness went no deeper than an excessive antipathy to everything he found disagreeable. As for his

studies, they were very versatile; and resulted now and then in one of those compilations that are widely

reviewed, sometimes bought, and occasionally read. It is well known that in Australia an M.A. of Cambridge

can always pass for a man of great erudition, as long as he refrains from explaining wherein his learning

consists. As most of the people with whom he comes in contact are profoundly indifferent on the point, there

is not much temptation for him to take society into his confidence in the matter. And thus it was that Mr.

Paget was invariably spoken of as a man of colossal parts, of profound research, of wide and disinterested

learning. As a matter of fact, he was a man of wide reading and some culture, with the smallest modicum of

But the reality of things has often no perceptible influence on the masquerade they cut in the tragicomedy of

life. And so it behoved Miss Paget to take her father and his beliefs as seriously as her own identity and the

vagaries of the climate to which she had returned after travelling with him for nearly two years in the Old

'It is Egyptology that papa is so much interested in just now. . . . He will like to have these big German

books3 near him,' she thought, placing certain volumes on the pedestal table. Then she consulted the

thermometer that stood upon it, and seeing this registered only 69 degrees,4 she thought it prudent to ring for

the housemaid and ask her to put a little more coal on the fire. After that she went into the drawingroom and

took a strip of crewelwork out of a little Eastern basket full of soft bright skeins of filoselle5 and balls of

pale yellow floss silk. She sat on a low rockingchair, threaded her needle, and put a tiny silver thimble on

her white tapered finger. As soon as she was equipped in this way for serious and sustained industry, she

dropped the strip of crewelwork in her lap and leant back in an engrossing reverie. It is not easy to render a

reverie into speech. The best and most that can be done is to give a free translation of the thoughts that follow

'A girlno, a woman of twentynine and a bitand a young man bfive months short of twentyone.6 It is a

story ready made for old gossips and old friendsone of the situations for which the comedians lie in

waitand yet how little I would care if I were only sure. . . . But don't I know well how it was from

Arrived at this point in her musings, a slow smile broke over Miss Paget's face. It all came up before her like

a picture, the first time she and her fellowpassenger of less than twentyone summers had spoken to each

other. It was the third day after leaving Plymouth, and she was half reclining on a couch in the big saloon full

of gilding and mirrors and velvetcovered impossible chairs.7 Enter a tall young man with coalblack hair

'I never read poetry,' she answered, and the next moment she was sorry for having told the truth. He looked so

undisguisedly amazed. She remembered having glanced languidly at the titlepage, and seeing 'V.

FitzGibbon, from his mother,' written in an elegant hand. 'A boy of this age always thinks a woman who is

'Not on board ship, I suppose you mean,' he said, drawing near her. Then he added, not waiting for an answer:

'I hope this rough weather has not made you ill, like most of the other ladies.'

'No, I cwould be quite well,' she answered, 'if it were not for the magnificent mummies of DehrelBahari.'8

He opened his eyes wide, and then laughed the ready, ringing laugh of a lighthearted boy. He had half an

hour before overheard an impressive description from her father don this subject for the third time since

coming on board. Miss Paget hardly expected that he would understand the allusion or take it all in so

quickly. She spoke, as she rarely did, on the spur of the moment, finding some relief in a spontaneous

confession from the strained feeling of irritation the subject had begun to produce.

'You see, it is really a very important discovery, and papa is so much interested in these things,' she said

'Yes; and these eare in family groups of from six or seven, each mummy with a valuable MS. inside him,'

'Oh, for Heaven's sake! don't you begin, too!' she said, raising her hands imploringly. They were good friends

from that moment. He declared she was malingering by stopping in the saloon, when there was such a fresh

breeze blowing and the sea one mass of immense green waves fringed with foam. They found a sheltered

corner in which they established their deckchairs, and when they were tired of talking they watched the

waves. The weather was very rough till they got into the Mediterranean. During this time Mr. Paget was

mostly in his own cabin. With the exception of his daughter, hardly a lady was to be seen on deck. All

conspired to make the new acquaintances into intimate friends. Miss Paget was slightly acquainted with the

young man's mother, though oblivious of his existence till they met on board the Mogul.9

And then an unparalleled event in Miss Paget's history took place. She fell in love, absolutely and heartily,

with the young man whom she had from the first treated as a boy, to whom a woman of her age could talk

with the frank kindliness of an elder sister. For a time she resisted the conviction with wondering incredulity.

Even now she tried to make herself believe that her affections were not so very deeply pledged.

'I always liked nice boys,' she mused. 'Their faces are not spoiled by cynical airs of knowingness, or of being

used up, or any of the disagreeable telltale lines that make the faces of male creatures disagreeable to look

on as they advance in life. . . . And what fun and good talks we had in fthese long charmed nights, flooded

with white moonlight, as we glided through the Mediterranean and up the Red Sea. . . . And then the

delicious excursions together at the ports of call,10 among the crowds of Arabs, Mahommedans, and Parsees,

and rascally traders. Shall I ever forget the king cocoanut we drank in the fruitmarket at Colombo, and the

furious rush back to the quay, gin a double 'ricksha, laden with white ivory elephants? White

elephantswere these a good omen?11 Then came the last evening, when we sighted Kangaroo Island. I felt

the tears rising fast hto my eyes. . . . I suppose they got into my voice as I said: "I am so sorry the voyage has

' "But, of course, we need not give up being friends," I added. I should not have said it.

' "Are we to be only friends, then?" he said; and hardly waiting to think what I said, I answered:

'Still less should I have said that. . . . And yet it was an exquisite moment, come what may, when he told me

that he loved me . . . that he wanted a deeper and a firmer bond than friendship. I can always recall him as he

looked then . . . the sort of lover that girls dream and rave of in their teens. . . . Yes, he looks young, even for

his agenot a line in his face, not a blurred contour; the perfect mouth, and white sculptural lids.

'It isn't, of course, such a very unheardof thing for a woman to marry a man nine or ten years younger than

herself. Only, when men are insignificant or commonplace, when they have plebeian noses and small pale

eyes and sandy whiskers, what does it matter how young they are? . . . But Victor, with superb good looks

Miss Paget rose and looked at herself with a keen scrutiny in one of several square panels of mirror that were

let into an ebony cabinet near her. Notwithstanding her twentynine years and a 'bit,' her appearance was

exceedingly attractive. She was over the middle height, with a slender upright svelte figure. She had dark

eyes and hair, and wellformed features. Her forehead was rather low; the mouth a trifle wide. But she had

such exquisite teeth, that this was hardly a defect, more especially when she smiled. In talking she often did

so, the predominant expression of her face being humorous. She had beautiful hands and feet, and was always

There was a knock at the door, and a servant announced 'Mr. Victor FitzGibbon.' If Miss Paget had seen her

own face as she turned to meet the young gentleman announced, she would have perceived that after all one's

face in a t te t te with iitself is never seen at its best. We may love ourselves sincerelysome of us are

happy enough to do soyet the sight of our own cheeks and eyes never makes them flush or brighten as they

Needless to say, this was no foe who stood holding Miss Paget's hands and looking at her with a bright smile.

'Oh, as for that, my visit is not so very disinterested. You have not forgotten why I asked leave, when we

'And two days on land, away from the shoreless waves and moonlight on the waters'

'Well, I will not. But I have been sitting here for ages, going over it all. . . . Oh, Victor, it is better not. Don't

'But that's just what I willall I know. Helen, can you say honestly you don't care for me?'

Suddenly, in spite of her apparent efforts to keep them back, the tears rose in Miss Paget's eyesrose and

'I am an ungrateful cat to cry at you in this way,' she said, smiling through her tears.

'You are not crying at me, Helen. . . . You are crying because something troubles you. Won't you tell me what

'But, you know, we agreed many times on the Mogul that we liked ridiculous things better than gold, or

'Yes, when they are ridiculous things about other people. . . . But . . . well, we were always good

They were still standing where they met, in front of that ebony cabinet whose mirrors afforded so many

opportunities for seeing the reflection of one's face and form. But Miss Paget shrank from the ordeal. She

resumed her seat on the rockingchair, and motioned Victor to an armchair near her.

'Is it that you think I'm too young to know my own mind, Helen?' asked the young man.

'You may know it just now. . . . But in a yeareven in a few monthsOh, Victor, I am afraid!'

There was real emotion in the lady's voice, yet her looks and words were not free from calculation. She knew

that her upward, appealing glance, her bright dark eyes dimmed with tears, her doubts and hesitation, would

not really rebuff her jyoung suitor. And her consciousness of having purposely led him on to make a

declaration of love rendered her all the more anxious to make him feel that she was not too lightly won.

'I promise you on my honour to grow older every day,' returned the young man buoyantly.

A wistful little smile on the lady's face warned him this argument was a twoedged weapon, and he hastened

'Let us talk of something else for a little, Victor. How does it feel, getting back to enter on a kingdom?'

'It feels as if Uncle Stuart and I would fight like the Kilkenny cats14 if we have much to do with each other. .

. . But, Helen, do you remember my telling you of an old house kin North Terrace with a beautiful garden

'Oh yesLindaraxa.15 Mrs. lSedley,16 my old friend Mrs. Tillotson's youngest daughter, lived in it at one

'Well, it is to be sold: I want to buy it for my mother, and tell her nothing about it till she returns. I wish you

There was a sound of voices at the door. The handle was turned, and a large matronlylooking lady,

'My dear, I felt sure that if I came early enough I should find you at home,' she said, kissing Miss Paget in an

'My dear boy, how delighted I am to see you! I have a thousand questions to ask you, and to congratulate you

on your good fortunethough, of course, it was a dreadful pity you were not in time to see your poor dear

'Well, and she'll find you with quite a fortune of your own. My dear, I'm afraid you'll turn all the young

'I haven't grown any for two years, Mrs. Tillotson,' said Victor, colouring, half vexed and half amused at the

Miss Paget, though as a rule very selfpossessed, also showed slight signs of confusion. Mrs. Tillotson,

however, was one of those who go through life much too immersed in affairs to see what is going on under

'Not for two years, my dear boy?' she cried, looking at Victor with beaming eyes, while she drew off her

tightfitting pale blue kid gloves, pulling them off like the skin of a banana, and disclosing very white plump

'You see, my dear Helen, I mean to stay for a good long chat this time; we had only a few seconds together

yesterday afternoon, and there is something I want to consult you about.' This was in a sort of halfaside to

Miss Paget; then, as if there had been no interruption in her discourse with him, Mrs. Tillotson turned to

'You are figuring me out nearly two years younger than I am,' returned Victor, twirling the points of his

'Oh dear! with what alarming speed boys and girls grow up! Haven't you noticed that, Helen?'

'But they are much more interesting grown up; don't you think so?' answered Miss Paget, smiling and trying

'Well, I don't know. They are safe over measles and chickenpox; but then they begin to fall in love, and

'But don't you think it's rather pleasanter?' asked Victor, smiling, though mentally he decided that Mrs.

'Now, Victor, tell me the truth,' said Mrs. Tillotson solemnly. 'Did you leave the Mogul, in your motherless

condition, without getting into some sort of entanglement? Helen, do look how the boy blushes!'

Miss Paget, instead of looking, stooped to pick up her crewelwork and restore it to the basket.

'You know,' continued Mrs. Tillotson, 'the Mogul is noted even among the P. and O. boats for the number of

engagements that get made on her. To be sure, very few of them come to anything.'

'Must you leave us?' cried Mrs. Tillotson; 'and I've heard so little of your dear mother. I kept thinking of her

as I walked across the square, and then, when I came in, here were you! Isn't that what they call theosophy,19

At last he extricated himself from the embarrassing coils of Mrs. Tillotson's random talk. As he was leaving,

'By the way, may I look at that picture in the diningroom we were talking about?'

Miss Paget looked at him inquiringly. As her eyes met his a charming blush overspread her face. Then she

asked Mrs. Tillotson to excuse her absence for a few minutes. When they were fairly in the diningroom she

'You,' he answered boldly. 'Did you think I was going to be cheated out of even asking when I might see you

again? Look here, Helen, can you come and look over Lindaraxa with me tomorrow?'

'Oh, morning will be the best time. It is my day at home20 tomorrow. Say from eleven to twelve.'

'Thank you so much; and in the meantime you will make up your mind to give me a definite answer

n'Hark, that is a summons for me!' cried Miss Paget, as the shrill sound of an electric bell was heard.

'Appuyez sur le bouton de sonnette deux fois pour la femme de chambre,'21 said Miss Paget, laughing. 'My

father often wants me in the library about one thing or another, and when he rings for the parlour maid it is

nearly always the prelude to my being summoned,' she explained; 'so, dear boy, I must go. Yes,22 I promise.

'Oh, poor Mrs. Tillotson! you must not be cross at her; she is my habitual Providence,23 when I want an

unexacting companion.' Footnotes record differences in wording between book and newspaper forms of the

'Hark, that . . . [l. 21] go. Yes,� ] 'What sort of answer do you think I am going to give?' said Miss Paget,

'Why, a nice Christian little answer, that it takes only three letters to spell.'

As Miss Paget spoke, she watched the young man's face curiously. Before he could reply, there was a low

knock at the door. It was one of the servants, who came to tell Miss Paget that her father wished to see her in

Mr. Paget did not long detain his daughter in the library. But when she was disengaged, instead of hastening

to join her old friend, Miss Paget went back into the diningroom, and stood looking out on the lawn in front,

with wideopen, unseeing eyes. Outwardly she was calm; but, in reality, she felt more deeply moved than she

had ever been in the whole previous course of her life. Often ahad it seemed to her that, in leaving the most

impressionable years behind her, without ever having experienced any absorbing affection, a premature

Her girlhood had not been a happy one. She was Mr. Paget's only daughter by a second wife. When he

married the second time he was a Professor in the Sydney University, with three daughters of a partygoing

age1 by his first wife. The three young ladies bitterly resented the intrusion of a stepmother. They were

eager for amusements, for elegant dresses, and for all the forms of social distinction which cannot be enjoyed

without money. And the new wife had very little of her own, beyond expectations from a wealthy

grandfather. But he belonged to the hardy old stock of pioneers who live for ever. The young stepmother did

not, however, live long to be an encumbrance on the family resources. She died a few months after Helen's

birth, entrusting the brighteyed little baby to the special charge of her eldest bstepdaughterthen in her

eighteenth year! Perhaps none of the stepsisters were purposely unkind. Yet Helen's first conscious

reflections regarding herself were that she was somehow one of the failures of life, and that she had entered it

without any reasonable pretext. And as she reached the dividingline between girlhood and womanhood

existence for a time became harder. The family for the first time fell into money straits. Mr. Paget quarrelled

with the cCouncil of the University of Sydney,2 and in a sudden access of wounded vanity he resigned his

post. For four years he maintained his family as best he could, by private tuition.

The change from an assured position worth over a thousand a year,3 to that of an unsuccessful coach, earning

a few precarious hundreds per annum, was a sufficiently bitter one. To make matters worse, the

exProfessor's elder daughters were still all unmarried. Without money and without prospects, without minds

to cultivate or amiability to fall back on, with thwarted ambitions and with a welldeveloped taste for the

good things of the world, this stagnant period of straitened means was marked by sordid discomfort,

discontent, and bickerings. And this crisis embraced Helen's life from seventeen to twentyonethe most

keenly susceptible and receptive years of a girl's experience. To be shabbily dressed; to go to parties and sit

dvery often without a partner, watching other girls dancing; to see happiness only in the eyes of others, when

Nature's blossoming time has come, and the physique is most exquisitely alive to enjoymentthis was

Then the fortunes of the family changed with a rush. Mr. Paget was successful in his application for a

professorship in the Adelaide University.4 A few months after settling there, the eldest Miss Paget

rapturously accepted an offer of marriage from a wealthy man well advanced in years. His hair was white,

and his pedigree unknown.5 He had acquired the art of writing late in life, but had never learned to spell.

There were many who gladly testified that he had been coachman to one of the few people who kept a

carriage thirty years before, that he had established a small secondhand shop in one of the streets before it

was made.6 Be these matters as they fmay, one thing quite certain now was that he had seven thousand a

year, and a handsome residence near town, adorned with pictures which never failed to excite in him a certain

respect for art. He could not get over the gfact some of the smallest of them were the costliest.

The other two sisters married in less than a year afterwards one a broker, the other a lawyer: both rather

Two hyears after these marriages, Helen's greatgrandfather died, at the ripe age of ninetyseven, and her

share of his wealth was �3,000 a year. Oh, if it had only come to her earlier! This was the first and most vivid

feeling which the news of her fortune awoke. How it would have redeemed her youth from those haunting,

It is to be feared that neither a course of poverty nor a sudden access of riches is a phase of experience likely

to raise an observant human being's opinion of mankind. Miss Paget had been subjected to both ordeals, and

it cannot be denied that her nature had suffered from each extreme. Perhaps, if her training had been more

delicate and loving, or if her disposition had been less iegoistic, her estimate of the meanness and vanity and

unscrupulous selfseeking that underlie society would have been less unsparingher mistrust of her

fellowcreatures less profound. And even as it was, her first impulses, after coming into her inheritance, were

unselfishly generous. She resolved always to be kind and helpful to othersto abjure selfseeking, to be

readily touched to action and sympathy by the tragic element in other lives. It needed but little persuasion to

make her father give up his professional work and devote himself to those leisurely pursuits which figured in

his imagination as laborious study and research. Thus, at jtwentyfour8 years of age Miss Paget found herself

with a great deal of money to spend, servants to rule, patronage of various kinds to bestow, and with a father,

a pseudosensitive bookish man, to shield from too promiscuous contact with a society whose less unselected

contingencies had, in his estimation, a vulgar trick of being either wearisome or futileoften both.

Miss Paget took up the r le of mistress of a household maintained on an opulent scale of expenditure, with

vague longings for remoteness from the commoner aims of life. Her position increased her sense of

individual responsibility, but lessened her opportunities for cleaving to ideal values. How can one reconcile

theories of selfsacrifice with the careful supervision of dinnerparties embracing a score of courses and

costly delicacies out of season? As mistress of a household of which her father was the head, her most

intimate relations were chiefly with elderly friends rather than young people of her own choosing. Of course,

elderly people really govern the world; its surface belongs to them; they make its laws and preach its

sermons; endow its charities and order its dinners. No doubt this is as it should be, seeing that calm kdays and

the processes of digestion, and the question of a future life are naturally of more moment to them than to the

young. It is the instinct of man as he loses the ardour of youth to guard himself against enthusiasms and

surprises, to become more acquiescent and prudent; and yet somehow it may be questioned whether to live

much with old people is a good moral tonic for the young. At any rate, in Miss Paget's case the plan did not

on the whole turn out a success. She became too wise for her years, la little too consciously superior.

She had not been long at the head of a large establishment when she was preternaturally alive to all the small

deceits and compromises, deepening into cant and duplicity, that enter so largely into the intercourse of

average society. She was shocked when she saw women, who had not a good word for each other apart, rush

on meeting into one another's arms; indignant when she realized how mentirely in her circle hospitality was

based on the give and receive principle. She became nTimonesque,9 and recorded her impressions omuch too

But she was early taken to task and admonished as to her duties and obligations.

'You know, Helen, a girl at the head of a house like yours and papa's has to be as careful as if she were a

married woman,' her elder sister said to her solemnly, after some too vivacious speech regarding the perfidy

'But she need not tell quite so many fibshaving the future of no babygirls to think ofand surely she

need not be as credulous as a married woman,' returned the younger sister, with a little temper.

None of her brothersinlaw seemed to her very admirable apart from their faculty for making money.

Indeed, most of the husbands she observed with her relentlessly keen eyes, at this period, were to her as

figures in a melodrama, devoid of the more delicate and interesting nuances of human beings.

Nor did the unattached men of her acquaintance appear much more attractive. She was perhaps too much

engrossed with her own individuality to be able to get at the best side of others. She was certainly too apt to

give expression to her scornful estimate of people in general to become very popular. Yet she enjoyed balls

and pretty dresses and expensive forms of pamusement. But the contrast between the homage she now

received and the neglect that had been her portion when she was much younger and more eager for pleasure

poisoned her qenjoyment; but she attributed her dissatisfaction to more impersonal grounds. In the midst of

rentertainments she liked to fancy herself haunted with a sense of anxiety for the greater happiness and

morality of the race, to believe that it was the negation of living selfishly in luxurious ease, in a world

crowded with lives paralyzed by poverty, which cast a shadow on her senjoyment, and gradually the more

abstract motives really moved her. tThese were days in which her thoughts were permeated with a strong

feeling of responsibility for the welfare of others; especially after reading some tale of everyday suffering in

the newspapers, or a vehement Socialistic pamphlet,10 her whole mind would be possessed with the spoiled

At such times, everything around her furnished examples of the reckless waste of those who enjoyed without

working; of the cramped, colourless lives of those who worked without enjoying. But how to take away

power from despots, and gold from capitalists, and sorrow from the lives of women and children? Or, without

aspiring to anything great or vague or general, how to rob even one social form of enjoyment of the

mortifications of neglect, the stings of disappointment, and the barbs of social inequality?

When overtaken with these moods of rebellion against the existing order of things, it seemed to Miss Paget as

if there was no form of recreation or pleasure known to her in society which had not some subtle elements of

At balls and dances she hated to see the way in which girls who had finer dresses or danced better than

others, or who were prettier, or wealthier, or enjoyed more social consideration, took full advantage of their

good fortune without considering the residuum, who looked on with mingled feelings of humiliation and

'If men ask each other to dinner, they are careful to provide the very best fare. But girls ask one another to

parties often only to be humiliated,' she would sometimes say on the very scene of action. At other times she

'Did you notice the Ryerston girls the other evening at their fashionable cousin's birthday ball? They sat in a

row like plucked pullets nearly the whole evening without dancing or conversation. They came in from the

country, and were introduced to no one. . . . I do believe girls are often meaner than men, if that is possible.'

Such speeches as theseand Miss Paget made many of them during the first year or so that she most

frequented Adelaide societydo not endear a girl to either sex; they seldom make her popular with those she

At first she had a certain pride in saying that she did not get on well with young people. She would often usit

half an evening without accepting any of the partners that came round her for dances. 'There are always some

wallflowers. I want to take my proper share of the system,' she would say; and from that she gradually passed

on to the neglect of dancing, and devoted a large share of her time and thoughts to works of charity and

She threw herself into movements for social regeneration with the ardour of a neophyte who regards every

effort for the moral improvement of society as a sort of root that infallibly promotes the growth of wings. But

gradually she found that the 'mutable rankscented many,'11 who are chosen with such pathetic belief as the

most fitting vobjects for the adventures of philanthropists, were for the most part impervious to ideas, and

capable of being converted many times with little improvement in their social condition, and no change of

morals. Gradually she was overtaken by something of that lassitude of mind, that wsemiindifference to wide

questions, which often falls on women whose ambition and capacity of thought are in advance of their power

of action.12 The pathos and struggles of other lives touched her less keenly. She lost her faculty of quick,

generous anger against injustice and wrongdoing. It was all very funny and mixed up, she said; but what

In the meantime she developed into the most charming of hostesses. In other matters she still retained the

strain of an ambiguous nature. She was moved by the same influences to conflicting issues, according to the

mood of the moment; but in social matters she became impeccably consistent. She had unbounded toleration

for all the little wiles and hypocrisies and acted falsehoods that used at first to fire her with scorn. From

toleration she insensibly passed on to the same practices. Agreeable little falsehoods and polite impositions,

simulated enthusiasms and makebelieve friendships, entered into the daily current of her xexistence, till at

'Ah, but this is realthis is my life!' she cried in a low voice passionately, and the unbidden tears rose in her

eyes. 'But will it come to anything?' she asked herself with that mistrust of happiness which ycomes so

readily to those zwhose early years are marked by privation and absence of affection. 'And, after all,' she said,

'what right have I to look for a happy ending? Other people lie to me, and I lie to them; but at any rate I can

be honest to myself. I know Victor would never have proposed a word of love if I had not led him on with all

the arts at my command. And yet I know that in time he may love me welland who is there on the whole

earth that would be a more devoted wife to him than I? But, oh, the endless cackle of foolish women, who

Here Miss Paget recalled all Mrs. Tillotson's speeches; and at the recollection her heart hardened against her

old friend, and she purposely delayed rejoining her for some minutes longer. When she at last returned to the

drawingroom, Mrs. Tillotson wore a halfresentful, halfresigned air, something like a parrot in a cage,

who does not like it, but has got used to it in the course of time. She was a lady of large means but uneasy

investments. Since her widowhood her life had been one long panic as to the safety of good mines, modified

by high dividends from risky ones. When she was alone there was generally a mine in the unknown regions

of Australia round which her thoughts played with varying emotions. And failing this, there were her two

sonsinlawone of them unsound in finance, the other in his lungs. But on this occasion her usual subjects

'It has just come into my head, Helen, that I interrupted you and Victor in some important business. You are

both people of considerable means. You have learned to know each other well on the passage. You were,

perhaps, buying or selling shares.' Mrs. Tillotson spoke with a long pause between each sentence.

'My dear Mrs. Tillotson, I have not been talking to Mr. FitzGibbon all this time. I have been in to my father,

'Oh, is that it, dear?' said Mrs. Tillotson, her manner thawing at once. 'Well, I should like to have talked a

little more with Victor. It is odd, the sort of manner boys get when they come to be nineteen or so. They seem

just as smiling and friendly as ever, but, somehow, they don't tell you things as they used to. Now, I did want

to know exactly how much a year he'll have when he comes of age. The Masons say he'll have about �2,000 a

year. The Sedleys aasay, Noabout �1,500. Well, what a pity it seems that his uncle should have kept it

from them all this time! Poor dear Mrs. FitzGibbon! she was one of those women that like elegance,

flowers, and china and old lace, and silver things with old monograms. But what a fight she has had with the

world! And her brothers never forgave her marrying that wild, handsome young Irishmanthough, indeed,

others thought he was rather a catch for Mary Drummond, being a captain of the Life Guards, and the

Mrs. Tillotson fairly talked herself out of breath. But Helen, instead of allowing her thoughts to play round

far different subjects, which was her usual plan when her old friend took up one of her wordy monographs,

drank in all she said with eager interest. She knew that Victor, after taking his B.Sc. degree at the Adelaide

University, had gone abroad to study metallurgy at Freyberg, with a view to becoming an assayer,14 and

acquiring a good knowledge of general mining. His uncle, he told her, had been an enthusiast about

goldmining, which he regarded as the most important industry of Australia. It was the old gentleman's wish

he should make a special study of this subject, but not until the week he started back to Australia, on

receiving his uncle's hasty summons, having been away only five months in all, did Victor know he meant to

make him his heir. Miss Paget feared that he had, perhaps, a large fortune left to him. It was with a thrill of

pleasure she learned that his income was a good deal less than her own. 'At least, people cannot say that it

was his bbmoney that allured me,' she thought. And then she began, for the hundredth time within the hour,

to plan what her answer should be on the morrow. 'A mailboat15 engagement!' How well she knew the

shrugs and sneers and endless grimaceseach one an insinuationwith which the words would be spoken;

carried from house to housefrom one coterie to the other! No, she would not allow the engagement to be

'There is such a discrepancy in our years. . . . Let there be a time of probation,' she would say to him; 'say,

four or six monthsa probation of which no one but our two selves will know anything.'

'My dear, I have been forgetting what made me come so early, so that I would be sure of seeing you,' cried

Mrs. Tillotson. 'Do you remember anything of the Mrs. Lindsay who stayed at the Seatons' place three years

'I remember seeing her with a lovely young girlher daughter, I think,' answered Miss Paget slowly.

'No, but you know the Seatons went away in a great hurry, and I promised Mrs. Seaton faithfully to write to

Mrs. Lindsay and explain to herand now I've lost the address. Of course Mrs. Seaton will write as soon as

'Does Mrs. Lindsay always live in the Bush?' asked Miss Paget, more for the sake of making conversation

'Yes, my dear, and she must have plenty of money, too. But her husband had the oddest notions. He quite

turned the cold shoulder to my poor Willy, because he helped to float a mine that had no gold. As if Willy

had anything to do with it beyond putting it on the market, and leaving it to Providence and the other brokers!

Perhaps he wished his widow to bury herself in the Bush; but her daughter must be growing up now. Why,

'Sixteen past!' echoed Miss Paget with a curiously wistful intonation in her voice. She had not hitherto found

girls of that age very interesting. She thought them for the most part vain, selfcentred, and exacting. But just

now she felt that she would give all she possessed for the power of putting back the dialhand of time. . . .

Oh, to be quite in the morning of life, and to walk in that enchanted garden of love's young dream,17 which

comes then or not at all! For with the clasp of her lover's hand warm on hers, and with the strong tumult of

emotion which had suddenly made her pulses throb, had come the knowledge that love had come to her too

late for that unreasoning, credulous, absorbed happiness which it brings to the young. Rather it brought to her

anxieties, and doubts, and a horde of restless questions that she could neither answer nor gainsay. She had

entered on a game in which the first stake she played was serenity of mindnay, of conscience itself. Could

any ccplay be worth playing at such a cost? Alas! she had no longer ddthe power to abide by the cold dictates

of reason. She realized with a sudden sense of suffocation that she had been caught in one of those currents

which sweep lives on to full consummation or to disaster. . . . And yetand yetto disentangle herself from

these hopes and fears, these swift, importunate emotions of a hitherto unknown passion. . . . At the thought a

strange famine of the soul18 seized her, in which for the first time she recognised the pallid negation of her

previous life. Its monotonous round of small formal duties, the dull interchange of visits with dull women, the

surfeit of tiresome details without aim or compensationall lay before her in the cold light of remorseless

disenchantment. . . . Better the tumult of emotion, better suffering, better even irretrievable disaster, than to

reach the limit of life without having really lived through all the years. . . . And, after all, why should she give

way to fear? Was it not possible that Victor's affection would strengthen rather than wane as the days went

on? From this out she must strive to cast fear from her. . . . Above allabove allshe must never let Victor

guess the tempestuous unrest into which the bare thought of his defection threw her. . . .

'Now that I think of it, I do believe the MaxGores would know Mrs. Lindsay's address. I think, my dear, I'll

If Mrs. Tillotson had said anything else before she rose to go, it was to unheeding ears. How curious, when

one comes to think of it, is this double drama which goes on eewherever two human beings are together! The

one so carefully selectedusually commonplace, spoken and acted with robust obviousness. The other

silent, inward, searching into the depths of ffthe heart, seldom communicated even in part, never wholly

b. stepdaughterthen in her eighteenth year!] stepdaughter, then . . . eighteenth year. Adl stepdaughter.

Though it was still early in August, many of the aearly rosebushes round the house known as Lindaraxa

were covered with blooms. The tremulous shadow of whitestemmed young birches over the roses and

'But the house looks rather old,' said Miss Paget as the two surveyed it from the front.

'Yes, but the garden, Helen, and the name,' replied Victor. 'Lindaraxadoesn't it call up pictures of

'She would in the spring and summer, all the autumn, and most part of the winter,' said the young man

He was in very high spirits, and broke out every now and then into snatches of song.

'And just here,' he said, pausing at the end of the house where there was a large window half buried in foliage,

'What have you discovered?' said Miss Paget, half amused at the sudden change in his face.

'Why, Helen, I have seen this spot in my dreams over and over again. Not the window itself, but what you

He was now standing with his back to the window, looking at the little orange grove opposite to it, and all the

They had met at the gate but a few minutes before, and the momentous question of their engagement had not

yet been approached. It suddenly occurred to Miss Paget that if Victor had seen in visions of the night1 the

spot in which perhaps her reply would be given, it might be a sign that this, after all, was the turningpoint in

his life. That it would be the central epoch of her own she could not for a moment doubt.

'Well, you know, it was one of those foolish, aimless dreams that stick to the mind, and yet seem to have no

meaning,' answered Victor. 'I just used to see these trees in a sort of semicircle, with a lot of blossoms on

'No, they're not fruitbearing; they are a late kind just coming into bud. Well, and then?'

'Well, I just used to see them and a heap of shrubs in flower, some lying across the path; and that and the

'Tell me what the room was like, and then we'll compare your dream with the reality when we go into the

'It was a long, narrowish room and rather low, with a wide fireplace and deep recesses on each side of it.

There was another window beside the one I looked out of, and that's about all I remember. You see, I didn't

'Let us ccome in and look at it now,' said Miss Paget, adding mentally, 'If the room is like the one in his

They rang at the front door, and in a few minutes the caretaker, a small humpbacked woman with large,

pathetic eyes, let them in. She seemed a little surprised as she looked from one to the other.

'Have you come for Mrs. North, ma'am?' she said hesitatingly to Miss Paget, the three standing in the hall.

'There is a notice that the place is to be let or sold. We want to have a look at the house, if you please,' said

'Oh, hasn't the board been taken down? It's let, sir, on a two years' lease to Mrs. North and her daughter, the

lady doctor.2 I thought as perhaps you was Miss North, ma'am,' she said to Miss Paget.

'Two months ago, ma'am. The climate tried her terribly, but she's getting on nicely now, I hear. I've only seen

the mother; Miss North has been to the place twice, but I was away, and it was John that showed her over the

'Excuse us for having troubled you,' said Victor, slipping half a crown into the caretaker's hand.

Now that Lindaraxa was out of the market, he felt surer than ever that it was the place which, of all others,

'Would you mind letting us look at the sittingroom with the large window on the western side?' dsaid Miss

She instantly eopened the door, and when they entered, the room corresponded in each particular with the

details of Victor's dream. The shape of the chamber, the fireplace with the wide recesses on each side, the

second window, which opened into a small conservatoryall were there. Miss Paget was agreeably excited;

'If I had been able to buy the place for my mother, there would have been some sense in it; but just to dream

of orange blossom, which I cannot stand, and a room in a house taken by people I don't even know!' he said,

'You think if you see a room in a dream something should happen in it?' said Miss Paget, smiling. 'Well, who

'And have an arm taken off when the orangetrees are in blossom. That would be charming!' said Victor with

'Helen, I have brought you a little souvenir of the East. Do you remember the gemstore where we bought the

moonstones in Colombo? Here are some of them in a braceletnot so nicely set as I should like, but I didn't

'Oh, how lovely!' cried Miss Paget, her eyes sparkling with pleasure as she looked at the large lustrously

gleaming stones, whose soft, dreamy light was enhanced by the keen, incisive sparkle of Brazilian

diamonds.3 She clasped the bracelet on her wrist, and then with a sudden impetuous motion bent her head

'Helen, tell me,' said Victor, drawing closer to her, 'is it because you are so fond of these moonstones that you

'You gave them to me.' A quick wave of colour rose in her smooth, soft, olivetinted cheeks as she spoke.

'Would you, perhaps, like to see the rest of the house, ma'am?' said the caretaker, appearing at the halfopen

door. The two started guiltily apart. They declined the offer, saying that this room was all they wished to see.

'Come home with me, and I'll tell you there,' said Miss Paget in a low voice as they went out at the gate. On

the way to Lancaster House, which stood in the midst of its own grounds on a rise beyond the Torrens, about

a mile to the northwest of the city, Victor spoke of the probability of his joining a prospecting party that was

'It would fgap over the time till I come of age,' he said. 'If I gam in town I hshould of course be in the

warehouse; and if there's one thing in the world I hate, it's being stuck on a stool all day like a sick ape.'

'Then I suppose, when you are your own master, you won't remain in partnership with your uncle Stuart?'

'I dare say Mr. Drummond is rather wroth that you are your uncle Shaw's sole heir.'

'Oh, I think not; in fact, I don't suppose he even thought of it in that way,' returned Victor.

Miss Paget half smiled, and repeated the words to herself, 'Oh, youth, youth! more beautiful than truth.'5 His

boyish, wholehearted belief in almost every human being with whom he came in contact was one of the

most marked features of Victor's temperament. 'That sort of confidence in mankind departs with one's early

years, and never, never comes back again,' was a thought that had often occurred to her during their

intercourse on board the Mogul. The same thought came to her now, for she knew Mr. Stuart Drummond to

be a hard, avaricious man with two spendthrift sons and several grownup daughters.

'You see, Helen,' continued Victor, 'it's partly a question of race, I expect. An Irishman, in Uncle Stuart's

'Ah, but you don't know how Irish I become when I'm with Uncle Stuart,' said Victor, in a halfpenitent tone

'It's the truth I'm speaking,' said Victor seriously. 'Only last night, I know, I drove him half wild with rage.'

'Yesand my old musicmaster, who plays Irish melodies in a way that would make a millstone sob.'6

'As a business investment, perhaps it was a trifle weak,' replied Victor, with a twinkle in his eyes. 'But you

know the sort of chap poor dear old O'Connor is about money. As long as he has any, the very crows are

welcome to it. This time he had put his name to a bill7 for over �150, not dreaming anything would go

wrong. So, for the luxury of signing his name to a dishonest bit of paper, he was going to be sold up,

Cremona violin8 and all, with his wife ill in bed, and seven youngsters wailing on his bosom.'

'Yes, what could a fellow do but come between him and his signature? But you should have heard Uncle

Stuart. By Jove! the old man can slang when he gives his mind to it. Anyone would think that to give money

away was the blackest crime on earth. Whereas, when you come to think of it, what is the good of money

'No. I didn't cheek him in the least when he was talking of the O'Connor affair. I was as meek as the Prodigal

Son.9 I listened till he was quite at an end about hereditary extravagancethat was me; and an idle,

goodfornothing fiddlerthat was O'Connor, etc., etc. And then I said, "Look here, sir! it would be

downright ingratitude on my part not to help a fellowcreature in distress. Here am I, without doing an ounce

of work for it, coming into a lump sum of �10,000, and over �1,500 a year, as soon as the clock strikes nine

'Well, you know, an old man doesn't always like to see a young one step into so much unearned wealth at one

bound,' answered Miss Paget, almost vexed to find herself returning to that theme again.

'I wonder if that can be the reason,' he said thoughtfully. 'I thought it was uncle's liver. I know he has suffered

from it badly sometimes. He got into an unaccountable scot10 when I said that. He said the 31st of December

had not come yet, which was too obvious to call for remark, and that there's many a slip between the cup and

the lip, which is often true. But when he went on to say that I had better not make a pauper of myself before I

They were by this time walking up through the wide planetree avenue that led to the border of the lawn

'Nearly all of itexcept some in mines. I think he owns the twentieth part of the Colmar Mine, which is

paying grand dividends at present. But, of course, Uncle Stuart has always been the managing partner of the

'Look here, Miss Paget,' said Victor, turning to her with laughing eyes; 'I'll have to take you to sea again. You

never mutilated your sentences in this way when we paced the deck of the good ship Mogul. You've lost all

'No. I have not . . . butwell, you wouldn't be penniless as long as I had any money.'

They paused in the shelter of the trees, and he possessed himself of her right hand.

'But if I thought there was any danger of my becoming penniless, you know, Helen'

'We won't consider that just now, Victor. . . . And after thinking it over, I am sure it is better there should be

'Not till I am twentyone; that is nearly five months.12 Surely that is long enough for anything?'

He held her hands in his, looking into her face with frank, affectionate eyes. It was with a strong effort that

'Until after December no one must know anything of this. . . . After that, Victor, there may be nothing to

know. Only if so, our own two selves will always remember that one of us was young enough, and the other

Though she struggled hard for composure, her voice vibrated with intense emotion, and tears forced

themselves into her eyes. Victor was suddenly and deeply moved. It is true that he was entering on this

weighty compact with a heart too little under the influence of the deeper feelings of which his nature was

capable. His youth and inexperience and impulsive friendliness had led him too far. But his generosity and

good feeling stood him at this crisis in the stead of a more profound affection. He could not realize all that

affected Miss Paget, but when he saw her so deeply moved he became conscious of an uneasy apprehension

lest he should fail her in some way. A heavier sense of responsibility fell on him. For a little time they were

both silent, and then Victor found relief from a vague mistrust and discontent iwithin himself by making a

'Dear Helen, I am not half good enough for you,' he said; 'you are ever so much wiser than I am. Now, don't

begin to speak of the disparity in our years. It isn't that so much as that you were born wiser.'

'But I've suddenly come to the end of my wisdom; it's a case of arrested development,' said Miss Paget,

smiling. 'While you are going to get sager every daywasn't that what you said yesterday?'

'I'm afraid you have a dreadfully retentive memory,' he said gaily; and then, suddenly relapsing into

seriousness: 'But jI tell you what, HelenI won't go away prospecting; I'll go into the warehouse for the next

five or six months, and try to understand the business, and be a doormat to uncle rather than have rows with

'Yes; the liveliest doormat on record, I should think,' said Miss Paget, laughing. The announcement made

They were strolling across the lawn, when one or two little decorous shouts and calls behind attracted their

attention. It was Mrs. Tillotson, hurrying up the avenue as fast as she could. She was of such an intensely

social disposition that she could not bear the sight of two talking in full view of her, without straining every

effort to join in the conversation. People who have this vivid partiality for their fellowcreatures seldom

'I'll say goodbye now, Helen,' said Victor, before the newcomer could reach them. 'This will be a good

time to find uncle in his office to talk over my new plan with him. . . . I don't think I could stand another dose

As he lit a cigar and walked into the city, one of the impressions which Victor drew from the history of that

morning was that, after all, dreams were an awful fraud. Why had the special view from that special window

at Lindaraxa come to him again and again in his dreams, and why, before he had ever seen it, was the form of

'When the mater talks solemnly about "presageful" dreams after this,' he thought with a smile, 'I'll bombard

And yet, though life, like an unskilful kdramatist, is crowded with details that explain nothing,13 and full of

seemingly significant beginnings that lead nowhere, this foolish dream came to have strangely significant

'Oh, my dear,' panted Mrs. Tillotson after she had warmly embraced Helen, 'it is so good of you to take such

an interest in Mrs. FitzGibbon's boy! But he is nicenow, isn't he? Something so boyish and genuine about

him! I am afraid the girls will run after him dreadfullythough it would be like infantstealing, till he is a

few years older. I expect some of them did their best to set their caps at him14 on the Mogul? But you would

be a sort of protection for him. He seems to have quite taken to you. But, my dear, I hope he doesn't bore you

There was something so cold and strained in Miss Paget's tones, as she replied, that even Mrs. Tillotson

'Perhaps I had better not come in. I just ran lin, in passing, to tell you that I have found Mrs. Lindsay's

address. I was afraid you might be giving yourself anxiety in making inquiries. You always take so much

Miss Paget, who had not given the matter a thought, felt a little consciencesmitten, and insisted on Mrs.

'Well, my dear, though I had to put everything on a more economical footing since the last fall in silver,15 I'll

never stint my friendships. Thank goodness! I need not give up my friends, though I put down my carriage;16

The lady whose address both when lost and when found had led Mrs. Tillotson to make an early call at

Lancaster House was at eleven o'clock on this sunny August morning deep in the perusal of a letter which

had that day reached her from an old friend and relative who, like herself, was a widow, and was then living

'I am well, dear friend, only that oftener than before I am overtaken by hours of cold, insurmountable languor

and indolence in which I can do nothing but remember. Memory, like an implacable little inquisitor, forces

me to go down to those soundless deeps of life in which happiness is lost and the soul jeopardized, and the

faith with which we consoled ourselves is resolved into beautiful cradlesongs that have lost the power of

lulling us to sleep.2 Do you know those days in which the rain beats perpetually on the roof, and the wind

rises in hollow moans, and we are crushed between two infinitiesthe days that are dead and those that are

'But noyou are one of those who, in the face of the bitterest assaults of fate, find a sure standingground, a

peace which the world can neither give nor take away.4 . . . All this morning I was rummaging among old

papers and letters. Yours I read in their order one year after the other, and suddenly the story of your life lay

before me as if for the first time. We are so blind, mostly going through life half asleep, waking up now and

then when there is a noise or a great flash of light, and the reality of things comes home to us only like

halfremembered dreams. As I thought of your history, dear Margaret, left almost alone in the world, with

the terrible memories of the Indian Mutiny5 shadowing your youth like a nightmareof the long years of

nervous prostration that followed, those in which our friendship began and the great happiness of your life

acame to youand then pondered over your sudden cruel bereavement, my heart was very wae.6 I came on

Here Mrs. Lindsay put down the letter and looked fondly at her daughter, a lovely girl bpast sixteen, who sat

near her engrossed in copying the border of an illuminated missal.7 After a few moments the mother resumed

'Ah, what a tender rapture breathes through this little letter! Baby was four weeks old; already she began to

notice. "When we put a finger within hers she closes them over it quite fast. . . . Oh what tiny morsels of

roseleaf fingers! Richard looks at them for twenty minutes at a time. 'Think of that third little left finger with

a weddingring on it one day!' I say to him gravely, and he looks at me reproachfully, as if I were already

intriguing for a soninlaw. It is all so exquisitely absurd we laugh till the tears come." '

Mrs. Lindsay gave a little start. It was now her turn to be looked at. Her daughter's eyes were fixed on her

'I have been watching you, and you are almost laughing and crying at the same time. I wish you would laugh

'Perhaps a little of both, dear: not merry exactly, but something that was so long ago.'

'Mother, I cshould like to know the sort of things that make you merry one time and sad another.'

'Oh, is everything to happen when I am older?' said the girl with a slight accent of weariness.

'No, my child,' said the mother with a little smile; 'you are my own good Doris without waiting for more

'You cunning little mother! Do you know, that is a way of petting and scolding one at the same time! Is it

'Yes, truly; he used to take it about with him on two white elephants, and when the black barbarians saw him

'Not at all, you almost naughty little mother! It was because after hearing it read they had to be good or die,

and mostly they had to die. He killed the Red Kalonoa terrible dragon. Where his shadow came the birds

stopped singing, and no more garlands could be made. I think it was Nan Ko who taught the people that a

'Doris, do you know, I knew a girl once' began the mother with smiling seriousness.

'Mamma, is that quite fair?' asked the girl, holding up a rosy forefinger in an admonitory way. 'I have told you

'And I am going to tell you an old one about a girl who could remember Chinese fables out of forty volumes,

'I believe I know that girl by heart. Don't let us talk of her any more, mamma.'

They smiled fondly in each other's faces, and then the girl went back to her painting of the wide intricate

border full of curling tendrils, of stiff, even leaves, of birds with strange beaks and plumages, and in the midst

angels now and then, with long lazuline blue robes, with wide gold halos round their heads, and folded

pointed wings snowwhite, all looking upward and making sweet melody, some on long reed trumpets,

others on viols, on cithers, on fantastically curled and manytubed instruments, whose names are unknown to

'And now Doris has passed her sixteenth birthday. Don't you think, dear Margaret, the time has come when

she should see a little more of the human species in her own rank of life? Do not wait till she is seventeen to

leave the charmed solitude of Ouranie. Not that it is really a solitude; what with your station people, your

little township six miles off, and the settlement of splitters in the Peppermint Ranges, and that wonderful

majordomo of yours, ShungLoo, who is so learned in the old lore of his country and the art of making

delicate cakes. Your Doris, with her direct, transparent nature, her charm of quick imagination, her love of

woods and birds and flowers, her inheritance of your gift of music and love of art, seems to have found in

your surroundings all the nourishment needed hitherto for the harmonious development of early years. But

now, has not the time come when you should leave Ouranie? Is it not because of Richard's austere

denunciations of the habitual frivolity of our down sex that you have lingered there so long?11

'I have been looking over some of his old letters to me. Dear, noblehearted Richard! I am glad that though

so many of the imperfections of our kind and sex always hung about me, the bond of kinship between us was

never ruptured. I think the fact that he first came to know you through me strengthened the bond of

relationship into real friendship. But though I revere your dear husband's memory, Margaret, today it has

been borne in on me that your idolatry of him has led you to remain overlong in the seclusion of the Bush.

' "After all," he writes in one of his letters now before me, "it is no wonder that women exercise so little

influence for good in the world. From childhood they live largely in an atmosphere of small intrigues and

deceptions and concealed jealousies; first in school, then in society. In school they are subjected to the

persistent push of teachers, ambitious for academic degrees and examination passes. Their most precious gifts

of spontaneous intuition and direct observation are hopelessly impaired or destroyed, in the worry and drive

of acquiring multifarious scraps of knowledge,12 which egives them neither more balanced capacities nor a

wider outlook on life. They are the victims of ideas they cannot digest, of ideals that add nothing to the

wellbeing of the world. . . . When they enter the immense fraud we call society, they are plunged into a

'Well, well, granted that the old seductive, finvincible pagan world in which we live is largely swayed by

passions that we do not name in our children's hearing, still it is the only one in which our poor bodies are at

home, the one in which we find our happiness or not at all; the world in which your Doris must take her place

as a woman among other women. She has been sheltered and reared as within convent walls; and up to a

certain age this may be right for girls; but she is now over sixteen. . . . You have told me that if you were

taken from her it is to my care, conjointly with her guardian in London, she would be entrusted. You do not

say much of your health, but through your later letters there seems to me an increasing detachment from all

the things of earth. And do I not know how frail and shaken you were for so many years? Would it not be

wiser to lose no time in bringing Doris to what would be her new home, while you are with her to make it

familiar and homelike? . . . Pardon me, Margaret, if I seem to plead overmuch; but today, after a

separation of seventeen years, reading your letters, so many scores of them, while the wind blows in shrill

gusts, and the rain is dashing furiously against the windows, I seem to have renewed our intimacy, to see

more clearly into the tenor of your ideas, to perceive that you shrink more and more from the thought of

increased communion with your kind. Is it that in these glatter years you have become more and more of a

Mrs. Lindsay, on reading this question, half folded the closelywritten pages and looked out through the open

French window into the garden, which on this side of the house came to within a few paces of the veranda.

Beyond the garden, forming its eastern boundary, lay a large lake fringed with gumtrees and titrees. The

surface of the water, faintly hrippling and sparkling in the sunlight, was one of the sights which familiarity

never rendered less beautiful. This lake was called Gauwari, a native name that signifies great depth13a

title justified by the fact that iit had never within living memory been greatly diminished. Mrs. Lindsay's eyes

rested for a long time on Gauwari; then she looked round the room that they were in, trying to imagine the

day on which she should leave Ouranie, the home that she had come to as a bride nearly seventeen years ago.

She was conscious of an immobility of disposition which made her shrink from the thought of change and

movement as from experiences she lacked strength and willpower to assimilate. And there was yet another

link that bound her to Ouranie. She felt that the bond which had been the strongest, deepest influence of her

life was here still unbroken, that in the spot which was consecrated to her by so many sacred memories her

This was a development of feeling that owed nothing to extraneous excitement or to any of the grotesque

manifestations usually associated with experiences that seem in any way to make a gap in the barrier that

guards the unseen from the material world. Orthodox forms of belief had never appealed to her keenly.

Perhaps the shipwreck of all her closest ties in the horrors of the Indian Mutiny disposed her little to find

consolation in professions that dwell overmuch on the benefits and comforts of the Christian faith, while the

renunciation that lies at its core is in practice profoundly denied. It was her misfortune to know Christians

solely of the type of those who turn the cross they profess to carry into a sectarian triangle, with which to

anathematize the rest of the world, and to secure pews for themselves in this world and that which is to come.

Her husband's influence had all been on the side of severance from creeds and formulas.14

When she was left alone the crisis of her spiritual life came. The conviction that death ends all, that all we are

or have the faculty of becoming is annihilated with the last pulsation of the heart, fastened on her like a

virulent disease. There are those who can accept the belief calmly, but to Mrs. Lindsay it brought that sense

of absolute ruin which we name despair. Then one radiant morning in midwinter, when the air was full of

the breath of violets and jessamine, and the delicate saffron of the dawn still lingered in the east, she knew

that her despair was a dark, wild atheism, and that the fuller life into which her husband had passed had

We are so browbeaten by the thrones and dominations15 of the material world that, when we hear of people

to whom a message of salvation has come apart from creeds and rituals consecrated by the roll of many

centuries, our habitual attitude is one of mistrust, if jnot hostility. And yet there may be powers which touch

human intuitions to the quick, in a mode hidden from the world as completely as the messages that came to

kHowever this may be, Mrs. Lindsay's experience not only rescued her from despair and the gradual decline

of all her functions, gave her not only courage to live for her child, but to cherish her life as a personal gift

and become serenely happy. Nothing henceforth shook her faith that our present existence, with all its

confusion and cruel enigmas, was but a passing phase of experience, and that, if we do not love the world

overmuch, we may often pass beyond its power, and habitually live above its influence. For some time of

late she had been conscious of declining strength. This was brought home to her very forcibly now by the

ltremulous agitation that seized her at the thought of leaving Ouranie. She had always looked forward to

doing so when Doris grew up, and she felt the full force of the argument used by her friend Mme. de Serziac;

but it was the mlatter portion of the letter that finally decided her. This was dated a few days after the earlier

'Raoul has given us a pleasant surprise. He has obtained a fortnight's leave of absence from his regiment two

months earlier than we expected. Yesterday he was prowling round my room, turning over my books and

photographs. Presently he came on the last photograph you sent me of yourself and Doris. It was the first time

he saw it, andwell, he fell in love with her. . . . Over and over again he comes to gaze at the beautiful

young face, and says: "Did you ever see such wonderful eyes! and what an exquisite mouth! . . . And I

believe I owe her a letter. I don't believe I answered the last note she sent me on my birthday." And then he

asks me impatiently when you and Doris are coming on that visit which we have talked about indefinitely for

so many years. Well, dear Margaret, I have no afterthought in telling you this, only if our children on

meeting. . . . Oh, you will be able to follow the trend of my thoughts. And you will not be surprised if, in the

course of a week or two, Doris gets a cousinly little letter from Raoul, congratulating her on her sixteenth

birthday. I send you his photo, taken a few days before he left Paris, also some of the girls.'

Mrs. Lindsay opened a small packet that had come with the letter. She looked a long time at the young man's

photograph. He was not yet twentythree, but already there was something in his face of that precocious

discontent which one sees in the eyes of those who early plunge into the glittering, vibrant life of great cities.

As Mrs. Lindsay examined the picture with a jealous scrutiny, the recollection came to her of the overture in

'Tannha ser,' in which the theme of the Pilgrims' march, austere, lofty, and devout, ends in the throbbing,

And then her eyes rested on her daughter. It was a face to make an old man young.18 Its deep, untroubled

serenity, the ambercoloured wavy hair parted on the forehead, and the classic poise of the neck, perfectly

upright on the shoulders, gave it something of a Greek expression.19 The eyes were extremely beautiful,

large, dark and radiant. The eyelashes were, if anything, a little too thick and long. They made a shadow

under the eyes which in repose imparted a pathetic gravity to the face, alien to its real expression. The

eyebrows, dark and pencilled, were exquisitely pure in arch. The slender creamy throat, and the flowerlike

bloom of the face, were thrown into strong relief by the closefitting crimson silk dress she wore. The fond

mother took in all nthese details with inexhaustible pleasure. That sweet, fair young face, with its

unmistakable seal of candour and purity, was a feast for her eyes of which she never tired. But as she now

regarded her after the lines she had read, a sudden pang shot through her heart. Could she in the nature of

things hope to keep Doris long to herself if they entered the busy selfseeking world, so keenly alive to all

the gifts of lifegifts in which youth and beauty and money have taken from time immemorial the foremost

'But I should be with her to guide and counsel her, to take care that no undue pressure was brought to bear on

her,' thought the mother, rereading the last page of her friend's letter, and then her resolution was taken.

'Mamma, do you know, you look so very serious!' said Doris, who had put away her painting, and now sat on

her mother's footstool. 'Your eyes are as big as Red Ridinghood's when the wolf was going to gobble her up.'

'You disrespectful child!' said the mother, smiling, and then smothering a little sigh. 'Do you know, a great

'Ah, one may write a long letter about anything almosta little puss, a sunflower, a spider catching a fly, a

'No, mother, I have no thorns,' said Doris, rubbing her satin soft cheek against her mother's hand.

'What would you say, Doris, to going away from Ouranie, from Australia altogetherfar across the seas?'

'I thought you would be pleased, Doris. . . . We should go to see Mme. de Serziac, and May, and Estella,22

'Yes, mother, I oshould be glad: only it seems as if the time would never come. So many, many years we

have spoken of it! If you said, "Doris, put on your hat with the white ostrichfeathers, and your long Su de

gloves and come away to Bagdadtell Shung he need not bring in afternoon tea," then you would see how

'But, dear, I mean that we should go quite soon now,' said Mrs. Lindsay, a little startled at the sudden

vehemence in Doris's voice. 'She has thoughts and longings and impatiences, then, which she keeps to

herself, just as I have my long memories, my solitary hours of communion and introspection,' thought Mrs.

Lindsay. It was a sudden curious glimpse into that unknown incommunicable depth of inner personality

which encompasses each human soul, dividing it in some measure from every otherfriend from friend,

'How soon, mother?' said Doris, with sudden interest, awaiting her mother's reply with flushing cheeks and

'This is the 9th of August,' answered Mrs. Lindsay slowly, and then she consulted a small diary. 'There is a

Messageries mailboat23 going on the 10th of next month. Suppose we fix that date for our departure,

'Oh, mamma, next month! And leave everything behind us, except our clothes and ShungLoo?'

'And our memories, dear,' said Mrs. Lindsay, who was bravely struggling to keep a smiling face. 'We should

have to leave a few days before the vessel sailedsay four daysso we have less than four more weeks at

'And Gauwari and the Silent Sea, mother. But how strange it will be to leave it all, and all the people we

As for Mrs. Lindsay, she went into her own room, feeling that the emotion with which she was struggling

The atime passed very rapidly. Hardly ba day passed cduring this interval without a visit to Buda, the

township six miles off, or the Peppermint Ranges, only three miles in an opposite direction from the home

At the latter, Mrs. Lindsay had formed a little school2 for the rather wild and neglected children of the

splitters who worked there. Her unvarying love and goodness had exercised a strong influence on the children

and parents. She had had a little weatherboard building erectedan edifice bought in town from a builder all

ready to be put together3and here on most days of the week she had assembled the seven or nine children

who were old enough to be taught. When unable to go herself, Mrs. Lindsay used to send Doris and the wife

In the township, too, Mrs. Lindsay was a constant and eagerlylookedfor visitor. dNo sight was more

welcome to the residents than that of the Ouranie buggy, with the two gray ponies that Doris liked best to

No township could cover a wider area in proportion to its inhabitants than Buda did. The forty nondescript

dwellings which composed it were scattered over an incredible number of acres. Perhaps the immense plain

on whose borders Buda was pitched had exercised some influence on the imagination of the first selectors.4 It

would seem a tame and creeping arrangement to be closely packed in view of that measureless expanse of

country. But the oldest resident had a different theory. The oldest resident kept a general store and the

postoffice; thus it will be seen that he had unrivalled opportunities for impressing his own views on the

public. eIn respect of the distance that separated the inhabitants, his view was, that when the township was

laid out the belief was current that the Government intended to bring the Great Northern line of railway bang

through Buda. Thus every man who pitched his tent, or bark hut, or wattle and daub leanto, or weatherboard

cottage, used his own judgment as to the spot that would be fixed on for the railwaystation.

'Every man jack of us expected to make his fortune, if only he got his nose against the railwaystation, and

everyone thought his own opinion sounder than his neighbour's. So here we are, dispersed as far as the

boundaries of the township would let ussome far beyond themand yet not one of us was on the job,'5 the

The Great Northern Railway passed within four miles of the township, with only a siding at the nearest point

thereto. Henceforth Buda was a blighted community,6 its sole compensation being that it had a large and

'To think, ma'am, as you should have to go four miles further on to a melancholy and miserable siding when

you expect a friend from town!' the storekeeper was saying to Mrs. Lindsay one fday within ten days of the

'It is from the North my friend is coming, and, you know, half a loaf is better than none,' answered Mrs.

She could not look upon the siding as an insult, a trait which some of the Buda people regarded as the one

It would only have cost the colony an additional twenty thousand pounds to bring the railway to their door.

'It is all very well for them that has horses and buggies,' the storekeeper said to a customer an hour later, as he

saw Mrs. Lindsay's trap returning, Doris driving, while her mother and the friend they had gone to meet were

'I believe it's Mrs. Challoner, the manager's sister, and Miss Doris's old governess,' said the customer, going

She had been a servant at Ouranie for some years before she married and settled at Buda, and still took the

As the buggy drew near the store, Doris stopped the horses, so that they might speak to their old servant, and

have some purchases put into the buggy that they made on their way to the siding. They heard how Jemima's

second baby had cut his first doubletooth,8 and how the first was growing out of gall his clothes.

'I suppose you don't remember me, ma'am?' said Jemima, glancing at the visitor, a pale little lady with bright,

kindly eyes. 'You came to my place with Mrs. Lindsay when you were up nearly two years ago. The moment

I saw you I said to the storekeeper, "That is Mrs. Challoner." I was so very sorry to hear of your house being

As they drove away, Mrs. Lindsay promised to come to see Jemima once more before htheir departure. She

'Bless their hearts, it will be an awful miss when they're gone!' she said to the storekeeper. 'I don't never

expect to see Mrs. Lindsay back. She is looking dreadful white and thin, to my mind.'

Nor was Jemima alone in this opinion. Mrs. Challoner was much struck with the alteration in her friend's

appearance since last seeing her. Mrs. Challoner had married from Ouranie, six years previously, a squatter in

the Saltbush country, who was then in affluent circumstances; but four years ago a terrible drought,

followed by the increasing ravages of the rabbits, had almost ruined him.9 To crown all, a fire had broken

iout which levelled the head station to the ground. Mrs. Challoner had visited Ouranie once a year since she

left it, and this accident had happened since her jprevious visit. Mrs. Lindsay had insisted on replacing the

furniture, and the Challoners had been able to secure a good dwellinghouse kat the Colmar mine,10 which

was within four miles of the home station. This was naturally one of the first topics of conversation between

'It was most fortunate lthe house was emptyin fact, it has not been occupied for years, and now we shall be

able to leave the district, when the lease of our run expires at Christmasthe date to which we took the

mplace. Oh, my dear, I have had to tell you of so many misfortunes, and now I have to tell you a piece of

'Mrs. Lucy, has your ship really come in?'11 said Doris, turning to her former governess with a beaming

'My dear, it has really and truly,' answered Mrs. Challoner, with an answering nsmile. In the old days, Doris,

from constantly hearing her mother address Miss Murray as Lucy, had called her Miss Lucy, and the sound of

her name on the girl's lips had grown so dear to the exgoverness that she would not allow her to relinquish

The story of the ship which had reached port was soon told. Some years before Mrs. Challoner had entrusted

all her savings to her brotherinlaw, a broker in Sydney, to invest as he thought most prudent. He had put

the money�500 in allin Broken Hill shares,12 while the prospects of the mine were still uncertain; now

'So Robert and his brother will be able to see their mother, after all. We oare going to London directly after

Doris, on hearing this, said they had better pall come on the 10th of September.

'The same thought has occurred to me,' said Mrs. Lindsay. 'We are going by a French boat, as I told you,

Lucy, because we can so quickly get from Marseilles to Mentone; and the route would be very little longer

'And I would teach Euphemia French on the voyage, when there would be no seaserpents to look at,' put in

Doris, with a saucy smile at her mother, who had within the last few weeks been urging her to greater

diligence in that language. qEuphemia, aged eighteen, was Mrs. Challoner's stepdaughter.

'I fear it would be impossible. Robert has to sell off the stock, and he wants his son to come with us. He is

now pearling in rWest Australia,'13 answered Mrs. Challoner. 'I would ask you to delay your departure, so

that we might travel together, dear Mrs. Lindsay, only you need the change, I am sure.'

'And you know, Lucy, when you make up your mind to have your teeth out, it is dreadful to have to wait too

long,' answered Mrs. Lindsay in a low voice; and though she tried to maintain a cheerful manner, it became

evident to Mrs. Challoner that the prospect of leaving Ouranie was a serious trial to her friend.

'I do not wonder you are loath to leave it, dear Mrs. Lindsay, it is such a lovely, peaceful spot! Oh, the relief

They were now in sight of the home station, which, with its detached groups of houses, looked like a little

village. The dwellinghouse, with a kitchen and servants' quarters semidetached behind it, was on a slight

rise. On the western side of the large shadowy garden was the manager's house, coachhouse, stable and

storerooms. A quarter of a mile to the southwest lay the woolshed, with its pens and yards; near it a long,

low dwelling for the shearers, known as the 'men's hut,' and close to this two small cottages for the

knockabout hands and their wives. Mrs. Lindsay made a point of having only married men engaged on the

station. In a place so remote from general society, she was of opinion that it was not good for man to be

'Oh, the garden is as full of flowers as ever!' cried Mrs. Challoner, as they drove through part of it to the front

of the house. The garden at Ouranie was watered from the lake by a windmill, and this fact speaks volumes to

those who know something of the fertility of Australian ground under copious irrigation. To Doris it had

always been a charmed region, in which she had spent many hours daily. Early in the winter the first sweet

violets began to make their presence known with their penetrating fragrance. A little later the almondtrees

were tfolded in an unbroken wreath of faint pink or moonlightcoloured cups, and the bowls of the white and

purple anemones quivered on their slender stalks in a way that made Doris say winter was the dearest season

But as the spring advanced and the great snowy clusters of the guelderrose tossed themselves in the air, like

a juggler throwing a hundred balls aloft in one moment, and the deep Bruckmansia bells,15 with the delicate

tracery of their softly curved rims, were perpetually haunted with the hum of bees, while the vivid tones of

crimson and purple passionflowers made deep snatches of colour on every side, and the stems of the narcissi

and jonquils bent under their fragrant loadsthese surely were the dearest days of all. Leaves and flowers

everywhere, and the whole air rifted with the songs of birds. . . . And yet, as the heat of summer advanced

and on every side tall rosebushes were bent under glowing cataracts of roses, and the ground was strewn

with fruits, which were so thickly clustered on each branch that the idlest wind uthat blew carried some away;

when through the crimsoned vevening atmosphere, palpitating with intense heat, a long array of waterfowl

might be seen winging their flight to the unperishing waters of Gauwari, this season, too, had its own unique

And autumn with its shorter days and cooler nights, with its gray tints stealing softly into the hard blue of the

sky, while trees from the old country broke into strange hectic flushes that gradually paled, till the leaves fell

to the ground in noiseless showers, this, too, had its own subtle fascination. Myriads of roses still remained,

countless asters, wdelicate vivid verbenas, Gaillardias, xand manycoloured yverbenas, and geraniums

Day and night; twilight and dawn; the soft gradations of the Australian year, as the zseason came and

departed; the sonorous voices of the wind when it rose to a great gale on a winter night, the aawhisperings of

the wind through the needleleaved sheoaks bbin the summer evenings; the return and departure of

migratory birds: all ccthese were entrancing pages in a book of which Doris never wearied. . . . When the old

vines, aridlooking as the stems of ancient grasssticks, began to kindle into gadding tendrils16 and woolly

buds, the girl would watch them, day by day, till in the still warm evenings of September flocks of them

would be found transformed into golden greenmore like the tips of flames than growing leaves. Later the

roof of the wide arcade, that ran through the length of the garden, would be a network of leaves so densely

woven that the fiercest sunbeams, beating on its roof, could find no ddentrance, except eeas a warm jonquil

light, flushing myriads of clusters into perfect ripeness. Where did they all get their wonderful coloursthe

crimson rose and the ivorycoloured lily, the purple grape and the carmineflushed peach, all swelling out of

tiny oblong buds, at first hardly thicker than a thread? These miracles of nature, yearly renewed, were for

Doris never masked by the indifference which so often comes of familiarity. Her early intimacy with nature

developed a talent for observation and a faculty for taking pains17 which became the strongest discipline of

There was so much to learn, and the lore she gathered was more enthralling than any tales of fairy adventures,

for underlying all there was a magic which could never be exhausted nor explained.

The vast melancholy waste of illimitable plain, that stretched into the gray distance to the east and north,

would make the casual traveller, on reaching Ouranie, keenly realize how fflovely it was, with its softly

swelling rises, its parklike woods, and wide permanent lake. But no casual observer could know how every

tree and nook round the gglittle head station throbbed with life and interest for the solitary child, who from

her infancy had learned to keep long vigils on all things that grew and lived around.

She knew when the first broods of the shell parrots would flit through the pale honeycoloured blossoms of

the gumtrees, and when the young laughingjackasses were fledged, and learned to take their first grotesque

flights with solemn awkwardness. She had learned when to look for the wild swans and ducks, hatching their

young in the coverts of Gauwari, and where the snipe and teal oftenest sought their food. She knew what

honeybirds came in pairs when the hhgumtrees first blossomed, and went away in flocks when the blossoms

were over. The full clear notes of the singing honeybird, which her mother likened to the misselthrush; the

rapid chirps of the longbilled kind; the single note long drawn out, with its short note quickly repeated, of

the fulvousfronted ones; the grating cry of the blackthroated, and the harsh quarrelsome notes of the

wattlebird18she recognised them all, and watched them clinging head downwards like little acrobats

'There must be a mother snipe somewhere in the titree; the fatherbird keeps on piping and flying all alone,'

she would say, and spend most of a long afternoon down by the lake till she discovered the whereabouts of

the motherbird. She loved to see the eyes of birds in their nests when they caught sight of a human face. No

moccasined Indian or Australian black in Kooditcha19 shoes could tread more softly than she did, when,

from day to day, she stole to look at the waterfowls that hatched their young on the borders of the lake. Here

she would sit so quietly under the great horizontal arms of an old gumtree, that oftentimes little birds

hopped as near her as if she were a shrub. Here she loved to watch the little blue wrens taking their feeble

flight from one tussock of grass to another. They were such poor fliers, but they filled the whole air with their

ecstatic roundelays, often ending with clear silvery tinklings like the chime of fairy bells. Mrs. Lindsay had

never allowed a shot to be fired in the vicinity since she had come to the station, and this, coupled with its

abundant waters and the blossoming gumtrees and wattles, made Gauwari a famous resort for birds.

jjDoris could hardly have said which she liked best to watch: birds kkbuild their nests or buds llswell on the

trees and the spearlike tips of annuals thrusting their way through the mould. Perhaps the mmlast days of

August more than any other time nnin the year saw ooher linger longest in the garden. It was here that Mrs.

Challoner found her on the afternoon of the third day after she had come to Ouranie. Doris was half

concealed by the shrubs that grew rather densely on the borders of Gauwari where it formed the garden

boundary. Here the ground was perfectly carpeted with violets. Mrs. Lindsay had an old recipe by which she

made violet scent, so that very few of these flowers were allowed to wither unseen in the Ouranie garden.

Doris was occupied in filling a basket with them when Mrs. Challoner found her, directed to the spot by the

'I have been looking for you, dear, all over the garden,' said Mrs. Challoner in a very grave voice.

She had come on a grave errand; no less than to warn Doris that her mother's health was very precarious. An

hour before she had suddenly fainted, and had lain for nearly twenty minutes in a halfunconscious state.

Mrs. Challoner, greatly alarmed, had sent one of the servants to the manager's house to summon her

sisterinlaw, Mrs. Murray. The two had administered the restoratives usual in faintingfits,20 and gradually

Mrs. Lindsay had recovered. Her first words expressed a wish that Doris should not know.

'I am glad she was not in, she would be so much alarmed, poor darling,' she said tremulously.

'But is it wise to keep her in ignorance, dear? Do you think this is the old heart trouble?'

'Oh yes; but there is a long interval usually between these attacks; I think this was merely brought on by my

inability to sleep well during the last few nights, and a sort of nervous agitation.'

If Mrs. Challoner had given expression to her thought just then she would have urged her friend to prevent

her mind from being too much concentrated on the invisible world. It seemed to her that the habit of

abstracting herself from outward things had greatly grown on Mrs. Lindsay since she had last seen her. But

she shrank from approaching the subject. After a little silence Mrs. Lindsay spoke again:

'Perhaps it would, on the whole, be wiser, Lucy, if you were to open this subject to Doris. I have never taught

'Of death! But, dear friend, I hope that is still far off,' said Mrs. Challoner with some agitation.

'The mysterious pass where two cannot walk side by side, and where for an instant souls lose sight of each

other,'21 she murmured softly. 'It is only for the child's sake I could wish this pass were still a little distance

off. . . . But within the last qqtwo days it seems as if the power of keeping alive were slowly leaving me. And

then I have thought the sea air would be a tonic. I think I wrote too long last night; I was anxious to post a

second letter to my friend, Mme. de Serziac, which she will get rra week or ten days before we land. But I'll

be more careful after this. Perhaps, Lucy, it will be better, on the whole, that you should speak to Doris. . . .

It was not until she stood face to face with Doris that Mrs. Challoner quite realized the difficulty of her

mission. The girl looked so serenely happy, so unconscious of any cloud lurking on the horizon of her young

'Have you been looking for me long, dear?' she said blithely; 'well, I'm glad you have come to the violet bank,

for you look pale, and if you just sit down on this little seat under the wattlenow lean back and hold this

Doris made Mrs. Challoner lean against the back of the little rustic bench, and put a great handful of violets

'Doris, I came to speak to you about something,' said Mrs. Challoner, a little faintly.

'Ah, you do put me in mind of the old days, when I used to write such shabby little compositions,' said Doris,

Mrs. Challoner was by nature of a timid, shrinking disposition, extremely faithful and affectionate, yet

without much force of character. During the seven years she had lived at Ouranie, she had been more of a

companion to Mrs. Lindsay than a governess to Doris, who had been chiefly taught by her mother. Mrs.

Challoner was apt to talk at great length and with much animation of things that Doris thought very trifling.

Constant intercourse with a mind as unworldly and disinterested as her mother's had unconsciously made the

girl a little scornful of themes that take a prominent place in the estimation of the generality of women. She

was very fond of Mrs. Challoner, and had got into the habit of petting her a good deal, without attaching

Mrs. Challoner, on her part, had always been of opinion that Mrs. Lindsay made Doris's life too happy and

beautiful to be a wise preparation for the world in which she must one day live; that she was too sedulously

guarded from the commoner influences of human intercourse, untouched by its vanities and frivolities,

knowing nothing of its temptations, its passions, its incurable miseries; yet, as the girl's happy laugh rang in

her ears, she felt a growing disinclination to fulfil her purpose. She looked at her with dimmed eyes as she sat

with her large straw hat on her lap, the basket of violets at her feet, holding up a peremptory finger at her

'Now, Spot, if you put your cold, inquisitive little nose into that basket, do you know what will happen?'

Spot dashed about, keeping his nose to the ground, and circling round the basket in a somewhat suspicious

'You rogue! I'll leave you on the station, with the other dogs, instead of coming abroad to see the

worldSamarcand, and the Valley of Diamonds, and the palaces of Pekin.22 But, Mrs. Lucy dear, you

haven't told me what you wanted to speak to me about. Ah, I can guess!' she said, a mischievous glance

'What is your guess, ssDoris?' asked Mrs. Challoner, trying to lead up to what she wished to say without

'You want to tell me that fairytales are not really true. That ShungLoo's stories are made up by mandarins,

'No, dear, that is not what I want to say,' answered Mrs. Challoner with a somewhat discouragedlooking

'Now, Spot, put your nose to the ground and lie down quite still,' cried Doris to the dog, who was in fact

gambolling perilously near to the ttbasket full of violets. Spot obeyed, and then Doris turned to Mrs.

Challoner. 'I'll give only one more guess You want to make me quite understand that the Silent Sea is not a

sea, but a great barren plain stretching from Buda to your station and the mine, and past that for hundreds of

Mrs. Challoner slowly shook her head, and then Doris saw that her eyes were dim with tears. In truth, Doris's

every look and gesture made her old friend's heart ache. The girl was so heartwhole, her radiant young

beauty so untouched by care or apprehension, that the thought of revealing to her what might be the great

sorrow which would overcast her opening life seemed barbarous and unwise. But Mrs. Challoner's

'She has been ill, Doris, but she is better; what I want to say to you isoh, my dear, don't look so frightened,

'Your mother, darling, has not been strong for years. I don't think you knowindeed, I am sure she has

concealed from you how ill she often is. About an hour ago she fainted away. It is her heart that is affected. I

'How serious! you mean that perhaps' Doris could not put into words the terrible thought that blanched

her face. But she maintained her selfpossession in a way that surprised Mrs. Challoner. As a matter of fact,

vvshe possessed a great fund of firmness and selfreliance. She broke into no tears nor lamentations. During

the next few days she kept more constantly with her mother, and insisted on taking her place in the little

school for the splitters' children in the Peppermint Ranges, to which Mrs. Challoner accompanied her each

forenoon. And so wwthe days passed until the one before that on which they were to leave Ouranie.

q. Euphemia . . . stepdaughter. 'I fear it would be impossible. Robert� ] (Euphemia . . . stepdaughter.) But

During the night that preceded this day Mrs. Lindsay lay many hours awake. When she at last fell asleep, her

slumber was fitful and broken. Towards morning she suddenly woke up in extreme agitation. She thought she

had heard Doris calling out, 'Mother! mother! mother!' in piercing tones. When she opened her eyes, with this

sound in her ears, her heart was throbbing so painfully that for a little time she could not move.

'It was a dream; it must have been a dream,' she said, holding her hand against her left side, as if to still the

stormy beatings of her heart. Yet she had no recollection of any event, or any other word that led up to this

wailing cry. As soon as she could move, she went tremblingly to the door that led from her own room into

her daughter's, but all was perfectly still. Then she opened the window and looked out. The east was faintly

touched with the pallor of the coming dawn. The first halfdrowsy notes of awakening birds1 began to break

the silence of the woods. It was the strangely beautiful hour in which nature, as if emerging from profound

repose, seems to swim gradually back from the oblivion of nightall forms and colours spiritualized by the

trembling approach of a new day. The dark masses of trees motionless as in a picture, the pale, unruffled lake,

the deep clear vault of heaven, with a luminous reach of light slowly spreading in the orientall were

And when the mother once more turned to the dim, sweet chamber of her child, it was pervaded by an equal

peacefulness. Near the window a bowlful of white roses glimmered in the uncertain light; on a little

oldfashioned spindle table lay an open missal, beside a box of watercolours; on a chair, daintily folded,

were the exquisitelywrought under garments; in the depths of a halfopened wardrobe gleamed some of the

crimson silk robes that Doris most habitually wore; and in the little bed, with its canopy of soft white Indian

silk, the girl lay afast asleep, her face, with its unruffled serenity, curiously resembling in expression the

angel children she was so fond of painting. Over the foot of the bed a crimson scarf lay in careless folds.

This caught the mother's eyes, and she shivered slightly. In the yet dusky light this vivid streak of crimson

somehow suggested to her morbidlysensitive eyes the stain of a wounded creature's blood. She stole in

Doris moved, and lay with her face towards the window. Her lips parted in a soft smile. She murmured a few

words in a low, glad voice, showing that some happy dream had come to her in sleep. At this the bagitation

which had taken so strong a hold on the mother was allayed. She went back into her own room, and though

Then ShungLoo, with his invincible punctuality, with which no shadow of past or coming cevents was ever

allowed to interfere, tapped at her door, and on a little table close to it in the hall left a tray, with two cups of

Mrs. Lindsay slipped on her dressinggown and slippers, and took the tray into Doris's room. She had just

'Is it really true, mother? Are we going away this very next day, into the strange countries where all the

'But, mother, how naughty of you! Promise me you will let me wait more on you after this. You know, I am a

She sat up in bed, holding herself erect, so that even under a silken coverlet and in the weakly feminine folds

of snowy lace that fell round her throat and slender white hands her heroic proportions should become

'I promise you, Doris,' said the mother, smiling fondly. 'I dare say I shall soon grow stout and lazy, and let

you come after me with my footstool and wrap; the voyage will be a fine opportunity. I wonder if the sea will

'Oh nonot a bit. Mother, I remember being on the sea quite well, and I dreamt of it a little before I woke.

Do you remember how blue it used to look from the Adelaide hills?2 And father sometimes took us sailing in

As always in mentioning her father, Doris's voice sank tenderly; and, as was her habit on such occasions, the

'I remember, Dorrie; and you were quite a brave little sailor. Papa used to hold you up when the seagulls flew

'Mother, I hope there will be great white seagulls, and albatrosses with wide, wide wings, and enormous

seaserpents, with green and gold eyes, sailing along with our ship,' said Doris, her cheeks beginning to flush

at the thought of all the evague wonders that might open out before her on leaving the calm monotony of

'Now, mammy, don't tell me that there are no seaserpents,' said Doris gaily. 'I shall tell the captain to go to

Sinbad's island, and to Ispahan.3 Oh, you don't know half the places we are to see!'

Doris sipped a little chocolate, but she could not eat even one biscuit. Now that the hour of departure drew so

'And the sea you saw in your sleep, Doris, was it blue and calm as we used to see it on summer days long

'No, I think it was stormy; and I was looking for you, mother, but I could not find you. Naughty little mother,

where did you go? And why are you looking so pale again this morning, and dark under the eyes? Don't you

hope the sea will be rough sometimes, mother, so that the waves will rise high with a white fringe to them, as

But the mother's heart, so sorely shaken by the tempests of life, was less adventurous. An old petition she had

'Grant, O God, that this sea may be to us and to all who sail upon it tranquil and quiet. To this end we pray.

'It is right down to my little toes, motherthe gladness of going!'5 she said, springing out of bed, and

disappearing behind the pink chintz curtains that were drawn round her plunge bath.6

Her mother had been so much better these last ffew days that Doris, with the buoyant disbelief of youth in

sorrow, had come to believe that the insidious weakness which for some days had prostrated her was quite

passing away. Mrs. Murray was still very anxious, and Mrs. Challoner hopeful and uneasy by turns.

ShungLoo, the faithful Chinese servant, said nothing, but was in these days always hovering near his

mistress. Shung was a marked personality in the Ouranie household. His connection with the family began in

a curious way. At seventeen years of age he had been on the point of committing suicide at Canton, on

account of failing to pass a literary examination.7 He had been rescued by Mr. Lindsay, the son of the British

Consul in that city. Shung became the young man's personal servant, and devoted himself heart and soul to

his interest. He was equally devoted to his late master's widow and daughter. He was now over forty years of

age, and his savings amounted to a sum that would keep him in competence in his native land, to which he

Shung's wages were paid to him halfyearlythirty pounds in six fivepound notes. He did not like

cheques, and Mrs. Lindsay indulged his prejudice. On receiving this money, Shung would count it over

carefully, fingering each note with respectful affection. He would put the amount into a wellworn

pocketbook, carry it about with him, and put it under his pillow at night for a week; then he would bring it

back to Mrs. Lindsay, and ask her to keep it for him with the rest at six per cent. The amount would be

entered in his passbook, and Shung would cover a sheet of ricepaper with strange characters, making

elaborate calculations as to the increase which this new deposit made to his capital and income. Shung was,

as a rule, up to his eyes in work, cheerful, capable, and immovably calm. But at times a great melancholy

would steal over him. At such seasons, Mrs. Lindsay, always a little apprehensive of that side of his character

which had so early led him to the thought of selfdestruction, would urge him to return to his own country.

'You have enough money now, Shung, and some of your relations are still living. You will be able to keep a

wife, and have a pretty garden and a ricefield of your own,' she would say to him, and Shung would listen

Who knows what visions of the Flowery Land,8 and of the almondeyed little Mongolian babies who might

be born to him, visited his imagination? Yet, though exile had for him something of that 'consumption of the

soul'9 which takes the savour out of life, his attachment to his mistress and his old home, and doubtless, too,

the fascination of rapidly accumulating capital, had always hitherto won the day.

It was gnow arranged that he should accompany them to hFrance and then itake ship from there to Canton.

He was pasting on labels and cording up boxes in the hall, when, at four o'clock on that afternoon, Doris

'Maman is sleeping now,' she said, 'and Mrs. Murray is near her, tacking a ruffle round the neck of my

travellingcloak. Everything I begin to do someone else comes and finishes it. Now, Shung, there must be

'Yes, Miss Dolis. You go out and take you walk lound Gauwali. Missee Challonel,' said Shung, turning to the

latter as she came into the hall out of the room she occupied, 'you vely good, vely kind. Take oul young lady

Mrs. Challoner promptly responded to this appeal. It was true that on this last day many callers had come

from near and far. As Mrs. Lindsay could not be allowed to overexert herself, Doris had been much to the

'I suppose that has hardly ever happened in your life before, except when you had the fever,' said Mrs.

'And once, two years ago, when mother was a little ill,' answered Doris. She stood and drew in full breaths of

the fresh air, which had in it poignant wafts of scent from the wattletrees that were now in full blossom on

the border of the lake, where they had been planted at intervals the year she was born. 'How strange it will be

at first,' she said, 'to be so far from our own birds and trees and sky, and the great Silent Sea!' she added,

looking towards the northeast, where, beyond the wooded rises that surrounded Ouranie on all sides, the

great rolling plain was visible, which sixty miles beyond Buda turned into the arid Saltbush country.

'Oh, my dear, the great sounding ocean will be much more entertaining than the Silent Sea,' returned Mrs.

Challoner; 'when you are fairly in that country, the gray look of it, the thirst that never seems satisfied, and

They were approaching a slight rise which was crowned with a group of sheaoak trees known as the

Brotherhood.11 Spot coaxed his mistress to take a run with him. When she reached the Brotherhood and

looked eastward for a minute or two, she gave a little cry of joy and danced halfway back to Mrs. Challoner,

'What a picture the child makes!' thought Mrs. Challoner, looking at her with fond admiration. Hers was one

of those rare faces never seen to such advantage as under the searching light of day. The fresh air brought a

warmer tinge of colour into her cheeks, her great radiant eyes were sparkling; her eyelashes no longer cast a

shadow under them, the amber tint of her hair was intensified by the sunlight. As she ran down from the

Brotherhood on tiptoe, and stood on the margin of the lake with its reeds and tall grasses, bending and

murmuring in the jbreeze with its wide, calm surface, absorbing the opulent afternoon sunshine, it would

seem as though there were some subtle affinity between her and these wooing sights and sounds of nature.

'Who can it be?' said Mrs. Challoner with an answering smile, but regarding Doris so intently that she gave

'It is Kenneth Campbell, and he has a gray horse this time with Jerry. What can have become of

'Rozinante kfell at the Mulga Ranges, Miss Dorrie, and I had to leave her. How do you find yourself today,

ma'am?' he said, standing with uncovered head as Mrs. Challoner shook hands with him with the cordiality of

Kenneth Campbell had been for fourteen years a shepherd on the Ouranie run,13 living most of the time

entirely alone. Four years previously he had given up shepherding, and bought a snug little farm in

partnership with a younger brother, but in a short time he wearied of farming. He bought a hawker's waggon,

and stocked it with religious books and publications, and returned to the district with which he had been so

long familiar, travelling in a very leisurely fashion from station to station, and from one small township to the

There was something in his appearance that contrasted oddly with his nominal avocation. He was tall and

lean, with a narrow face and narrow, stooping shoulders, on which a long gray alpaca coat hung loosely. He

had a high furrowed brow, a thin aquiline nose, long gray moustachios and whiskers, while his hair fell in

silvery locks on his shoulders. His whole face and bearing conveyed an impression of refinement, even

benevolence, though he had the indescribable air of one who holds little communion with his kind;

sometimes for days he would be silent as a dumb man. At such times there would be a brooding,

semiprophetic look in his large brown eyes, and in his face an air of abstraction as complete as if the world

and all that it contained were as remote from his thoughts as one of the fixed stars. At other times he would

be possessed by an irresistible impulse to give expression to lhis thoughts, and he would do so with forcible

nervous eloquence in a soft, flexible voice, with that halfplaintive cadence which sometimes marks the

People said that his long solitude, and the mystical sort of books he read day and night, had unhinged his

mind; and there may have been some truth in the supposition. It is certain that his most rooted and ardent

ambition was to do good to his fellowcreatures, 'to save souls from perdition,' as he himself would say,

though perdition and damnation with him meant moral evil rather than material torments. With his

bookselling he combined voluntary and unpaid missionary work, holding impromptu services14 for station

hands, splitters, miners and carters, or neven a solitary shepherd or hutkeeper who was willing to give him a

hearing. He would on occasion take incredible trouble over some poor belated15 man who had fallen a victim

Mrs. Lindsay had from the first recognised the rare qualities of mind and nature which distinguished

Kenneth, and through her Mrs. Challoner had learned to esteem him. He had been shepherding at Ouranie

when she lived there, and since her marriage she had seen him from time to time at her own home, and lately

at othe minealways with an increased longing that he would settle down comfortably on his little farm.

'You are just in time to see Mrs. Lindsay and her daughter before they leave, Kenneth,' said Mrs. Challoner,

'Yes, yes, but it little matters in our spanlength of time whether we say farewells. The great thing is that our

Mrs. Challoner thought he looked thinner than ever, and as if more rapt in those musings in which mundane

events were but as straws in the balance; when thus absorbed he would often lose all thought of creature

comforts. It was many years since he had given up animal food, and he seldom ate more than twice in the

twentyfour hours, his food consisting for the most part of a quartpot full of tea and a slice or two of

'I don't believe you have been well, Kenneth. Oh, I wish you would live on the farm once more! We should

all be more comfortable to think of you under shelter with your brother than living this lonely life,' said Mrs.

Challoner, her anxiety for him increasing as she noticed the deep hollow circles round his eyes and the

He was watching Doris as she skimmed rback by the water's edge, looking at some waterbirds that had

newly arrived; but as Mrs. Challoner spoke he turned to her with a kindling18 look.

'But why should not all friends be comfortable about me, dear Mrs. Challoner? Death is the thing that the

children of men dread most; and how many more die safe and sheltered in their beds than elsewhere!

Wherever we may be on this piece of beguiling, welllustred clay we call the earth, our lives must pass like

The old man's eyes glowed; his face lit up with a pale spiritual light. Mrs. Challoner recognised that he was in

one of those moods of exaltation in which the presence of a fellowcreature roused him to utter some of the

'A writer of the East20 says,' he went on, after a little pause, 'that there are none happy in the world but beings

who enjoy freely a vast horizon. And where in all the world shall you find it so wide and clear as on the great

Saltbush plains? There "like a man sbeloved of God"21 have I often stood at the dawn, and the earth lay

view beyond view, with tnot a tree, not a molehill to break the sight, and the air as pure as if man was never

created. Even in a region where there is no water, no grass, where the uvery Saltbush itself has withered,

where the very scorpion perishes, man, if so minded, can draw nearer to the Eternal22 than among throngs of

his fellowcreatures, eager to barter their immortal souls for the loan of a piece of dead clay, for the painted

image of a wormeaten happinessEsau's mess of pottage.23 No, no; do not fear for me, dear friend. Lonely

we come into the world, recognising no soul, able only to greet; alone vmust we pass through the Dark

Valley.24 It is but fitting that between two such strange journeys, so mysterious a coming, so solemn a

'CowdieCowdie! come away and have a run with Spot, and tell him if you know these waterfowls!' cried

Doris, her clear, glad tones ringing across the sombre utterances of the old shepherd like the wthrill of a bird

Cowdie was Kenneth's collie dog, whose grandparents he had brought with him from the rugged mountains

of Argyllshire sixteen years previously. He was lying at his master's feet with his head flat on the ground,

showing the whites of his eyes, as he glanced up now and then, waiting for his master's word of command.

'Go, Cowdie! go to Miss Doris,' said Kenneth; and the dog instantly responded to the girl's call with the

'Where were you last night, Kenneth?' asked Mrs. Challoner, anxious to divert Kenneth's thoughts from what

'At the boundary hutthe one five miles from here, between Ouranie and Mr. White's runwhere I

shepherded xmy line25 for nearly ten years. But all that time nothing happened so strange as what took place

last night. It was after ten. I was reading in my waggon when all at once I heard a loud, sharp screamthe

Kenneth paused, looking into the distance as if awaiting some approaching sight or sound.

'I am not quite sure, ma'am; but I will tell you all I know. As soon as I heard that cry I ran to the spot it

seemed to come from. Perhaps you know ythe stringybark grows very thick round the boundary hut? I could

see or hear nothing. Then I stood and gave a long, loud cooey. As the sound was dying away, I thought I

heard a curious cry, as if one called and it was suddenly stopped. On that I began to search again. I went

round and round for more than two hours. Then I thought of stories I had heard of strange creatures with

strange cries in the Bush that white people have never seen, and I tried to believe zit was not a human being.

Yet I felt I was trying to put a lie on myself. I went back to my waggon, but I could not sleep; so I lit my little

lamp, and read for some time longer. Then I got sleepy, and aaI was just going to put out my lamp, when I

heard bbthe sound of runningof someone passing quickly with naked feet. I jumped up and ran out; I saw

something like shadows disappearing among the trees, one after the other. I did not know what I ought to do.

My lamp was burning, and I thought if it was one in danger or lost he would surely make for the light. I

turned up the cclight higher, and fastened back the flap of my tarpaulin, so that the light would shine out

through the trees, and any creature lost or distressed could see it. I looked at my watch; it was one o'clock in

the morning. About half an hour later I heard voices; I went out, and two men, spent with running, came up to

'Yes, two black fellows. One of them an old man, half naked, and bleeding from a wound in his side; the

other a younger man, one that I knew by sighthe worked for some time on the Noomoolloo StationMr.

White's, you'll remember. The old man yelled out something in the native language. I only understood

"nape," which means wife. 26 Then the younger man asked me if I had seen any women. I told him I had not,

and asked him if it was black women he was looking for. He said one was ddhalfcaste, the younger almost

white, and both dressed like white women. Then they said they must look in my waggon; I held the lamp, and

let them search all through it. The old man's wound kept on bleeding; now and then he wiped the blood away

with his hand, and he got it over his face. He was awful enough without that. I have never seen anyone in the

shape of a human creature so like what we might suppose the father of darkness to be.'

'Kenneth, these poor creaturesdo you think they were from Noomoolloo?' said Mrs. Challoner hesitatingly.

'Ay, ma'am, they were the mother and daughter. Two miles from here I met a boundary rider of White's, and

he told me the poor halfcaste woman and White's daughter had run away two days ago for fear of being

Here Doris came tripping back, followed by the dogs, and the subject was dropped. She and Mrs. Challoner

When Kenneth visited Ouranie, he always stopped at the house of Mr. Murray, the manager. To get there he

'Come in soon after you take the horses out, Kenneth,' said Mrs. Challoner in parting. 'Mrs. Lindsay will want

to talk to you for a little time, and she keeps early hours just now. We want her to be strong and fresh for the

Kenneth promised to come early, and then slowly led his horses on their way. The evil that is in the world,

active and implacable, laying waste so many lives, oftentimes weighed heavily on his mind, making his face

sombrely earnest, with something of a fiery eagerness, like one crying in the wilderness,27 and ready to

A little time after the conversation between Mrs. Challoner and Kenneth Campbell had come to an end,

another encounter took place at Ouranie that afternoon near the woolshed. Mr. Murray, the manager, was

inspecting some repairs that had been made to the pens, behind this building, when he saw a man riding up

who turned out to be Mr. White, of Noomoolloo. 'He has either lost a lot of money in town, or one of his best

horses,' thought Murray as he greeted his neighbour. It turned out, however, that it was neither of these losses

'Have you seen anyone belonging to me about here?' he asked in a gruff voice after dismounting.

'Yes, damn it, I do! They've clearedrun awayI believe they're somewhere about here. They haven't gone

'Yes, perhaps among the wild niggers that were on their way to the corroborree near Wilkietown. Isn't that a

proper sort of place for a girl with four silk dresses to her back, who cost me nearly �100 a year at school for

three years. And now she's skedaddled with that halfcaste old mother of hers! By the Lord'

White was a man celebrated for the large and varied stock of sulphurous language at his command. Murray

waited with an uncommitted sort of expression till his neighbour had finished cursing, and then asked:

'Yes, next day, yesterday, before I began shearing. Not to clear into the woods, mind younothing of the

sort. I was going to allow her thirty shillings a week as long as she livedand that's not for very long, if I'm

not mistaken. She had a cough, as I dare say you've noticed, that you could hear half a mile off. In fact, I

'And why in God's name did you think of turning her off2 just now?' said Murray with a sombre light in his

eyes. He was a big strong man with a weathertanned face, his hair and long brown beard grizzled with gray.

He was undemonstrative in manner, reticent, and rather taciturn as a rule. But he had strong sympathies and

an active imagination, and was as easily moved to pity as a woman, with the difference that the feeling was

intolerable to him if it could be translated into action. He was well acquainted with the poor halfcaste who

had faced the perils of the woods rather than submit to separation from her only child. As he recalled her,

with her timid eyes and shy, kindly ways, cut off from her own people, avoided by others, her health ruined,

meek and submissive always to this tyrant, who talked of her more heartlessly than he would of one of his

'Why? Just because I couldn't wait any longerI've been on the loose too long. I'm going to turn a

respectable, Godfearing, tophat man on the a25th of September,3 at eleven o'clock in the morning, at St.

'What do you take me for? Do you think I'd disgrace myself by marrying a woman who is onethird a black

'She's a jolly sight too good for you. She hasn't a vice more than any honest white woman, except humility.'

'Let me tell you, White, that to have �5,000 a year isn't the whole art of being a decent human being.'

'Now, gently, old mangently; I'd put up with more from you than anyone else in the district, for you've

done me many a good turn. But I'm going to marry a ladyyou needn't screw up your nose like a colt in a

halter for the first timea devilish goodlooking woman, too, and a sensible one at that. She's been married

'I do; and though she's been married twice, I'm the only love of her life: think of that, old chappie!the only

'Yes, I knew everyone in the district knows, and so I confessed to her. It was just like a bit out of the

yellowbacks.4 "Lizzie," said I, "I ain't good enough for you. I haven't been quite as bad as most old

bachelors; I've acted too much on the square." By Jove! she forgave me before I half finished. I tell you what,

Murray, a good expression in the eyes, and �5,000 a year, go a good way with a woman of sense.'

Murray gave a disdainful grunt, and made a movement as if to turn away. White, as if not seeing this, went

'But of course she was jealous; she told me so plainlyha, ha! We'd be ashamed to confess that, you and I,

Murray; but it's a quality in a womanby Jove it is! However, she consented that I should keep Koroona.

Well, two nights ago I told Jeanie. She stared at me a bit, but she took it very quiet.'

'Yes, she's had a good training in the way of taking things bquiet,' observed Murray.

'Well, yes,' responded White, who seemed to take the remark as a compliment; 'whatever sort of woman I

have in the house, whether black or halfcaste or white, I mean always to be the master. I gave Jeanie �40 in

an envelope and told her to be ready to start early in the morning, and that she cbetter say nothing to

Koroona. She seemed dto be a bit dazed, you know. Still, I thought she understood. But enext morning they

'And I suppose you think, if they had come here, I would give them both up to you?' said Murray slowly.

'No, by the Lord I would not, as long as I had the use of my fists or a stockwhip!' cried Murray, with sudden

'You'd find yourself in the wrong box,5 though, if you tried to keep another man's property,' retorted White,

'Property? Allow me, as a justice of the peace, to tell you that you dare not take that girl from her mother.'6

Before White could make any reply to this, he caught sight of Kenneth Campbell coming round the

'I can't stand that lunatic at any price,' he said hastily, and, mounting his horse, he rode off at a gallop. He was

not the only man of irregular life in the district who was apt to give Kenneth a wide berth. Probably this is as

near as most preachers of righteousness get to changing the lives of their erring fellowcreatures. But it was

'Ah! I wish you had detained yon poor, poor creature, Mr. Murray, till I delivered the message laid upon me

The two men, who had become fast friends during the years that Campbell had been a shepherd on the run,

talked together for some time. Then Kenneth went to see Mrs. Lindsay, as the sun was setting. He found her

in the drawingroom on a couch near one of the French windows which opened into the garden. A massive

jewelcase was fopen on a table near her, at which Doris was seated, turning over the contents with Mrs.

'Maman, why didn't you tell me before this you had a valley of diamonds in the bottom drawer of your

wardrobe?' said Doris, holding up a diamond bracelet to the lightone of a set of very costly jewels.

'I had almost forgotten, dearie, I had these things; most of them belonged to your grandmothers,' answered

Mrs. Lindsay. Then she turned to speak to Kenneth, asking him about his journeys, and what he had been

doing since she saw him last. There was a great sympathy between the two, and often when his voluntary

labours seemed to him a vain and profitless thing,8 Kenneth found consolation and fresh encouragement in

'Kenneth, you look very sad and worn,' she said, after talking to him for a little time.

'Oh, it is well with me, dear ladyit is well with me,' answered Kenneth. 'I do not expect my earthly

pilgrimage to be a long one.' He avoided all mention of the special matter which was just then weighing on

'Oh, what a perfectly beautiful ruby! Look, when I hold it up, maman, how it seems to have a little crimson

lamp in its heart!' said Doris, turning to her mother. Then seeing she was absorbed with her old friend, she

did not again interrupt their talk. But Mrs. Challoner was ready with murmurs of admiration for every kind of

gem and fashion of setting. And so for some time the two currents of talk went on near each otherthe one

full of artless enjoyment in the beauty and flawlessness of precious stones; the other grave and solemn, yet

As the twilight deepened, Shung stole in noiselessly to light the candles. But the light that came in through

the open doors and windows was so soft and peaceful that Mrs. Lindsay would not have it changed. A few

minutes after Shung went out, Doris, whose sight and hearing were preternaturally quick, looked out into the

'No, it isn't Spot. I see he is lying on the veranda. But don't you hear a rustling sound? gThere, Spot has

Doris rose as she spoke to look out; but before she reached the open window, one came rushing in from the

darkening gardena young girl with torn clothes, with blood on her hands and face, bareheaded, with her

'Oh, save me, save me! do not let them catch me!' she cried; and with that she rushed in through the

windowrushed in and sank down, half kneeling, half crouching, at Mrs. Lindsay's feet. 'You will not let

them come after meoh, you will not, I know! I knoweveryone says you are an angel of goodness! And

Mrs. Lindsay, white to the lips, and trembling violently, attempted to rise, holding out her hands protectingly,

while her lips moved as if in speech, but no sound came from them. The next moment she had fallen back on

the couch, blood pouring from her lips. Doris was the first to see this, and her sudden cry of anguish, 'Mother!

mother! mother!' drew the eyes of the rest from the strange apparition of the girlyoung and slender, with

scarcely a trace of the mixture of races in her veins, who had thus suddenly flown out of the woods, crying

for protection in her forlorn state. Mrs. Lindsay became unconscious, and was inanimate so long, that they

almost gave up all hope she could ever revive. During this time of terrible suspense when all the remedies

they tried proved unavailing, and they awaited the arrival of the doctor from Buda, expecting only that he

ishould confirm their worst fears, Doris did not stir from her mother's side. Mrs. Murray took away the poor

fugitive girl, whose frantic grief at sight of the mischief, which she thought was entirely due to her action,

added to the distress of all. It was Mr. Murray who went for the doctor, driving a buggy and pair, so that no

time should be lost if he were at home. As Dr. Haining depended chiefly on his practice among the squatters

of the district, he was often absent from Buda, or, jas after a long journey, his horses were so jaded that to

undertake another with them was frequently attended with undue delay. Nor, if the truth must be told, was Dr.

Haining's skill of the kind which is of the first consequence in any intricate or subtle malady. But it was a

relief kfor Mr. Murray9 to find him at home, and he almost laid violent hands on the worthy old man to

They reached it at nine o'clock at night, to find that half an hour previously Mrs. Lindsay had shown

symptoms of returning life. There was a faint sigh, a llittle flutter of the eyelids, and mshortly afterwards she

looked at Doris with a smile so faint as to be almost imperceptible. But Doris saw it, and for the first time two

or three hot little tears came to her relief. The girl's moral courage and presence of mind nwas a revelation to

all. The doctor did everything that was in his power, but he knew at once that there was little hope of

recovery. He stayed at Ouranie for three days. Late in the afternoon of the third oday an urgent summons

came for him to Noomoolloo. White, who had come to see Koroona at Murray's house, vainly trying to

induce her to return home, and assuring her that her mother had been buried as expensively as any white

woman, had gone away in a state of considerable excitement. After getting home he was very badly bitten by

a large mastiff he was beating in a savage manner, for some real or imaginary act of disobedience.

As Dr. Haining was going away, he stood for a little time talking to Mrs. Challoner in the hall. Mrs. Lindsay

had not been removed from the drawingroom, and Doris was just then sitting by the bed, which had, under

her directions, been placed opposite the window that commanded her mother's favourite outlookacross the

'Put it round at this side, so that mother can look out when she is getting better,' she had said, in a low pfirm

whisper, when they were arranging the bed. Mrs. Challoner and the doctor exchanged glances, but they said

nothing; and Shung, who was engaged in arranging the bed, carried out this direction, and clung to the reason

with pathetic insistence. 'When Missie Lindsay bettel' was a phrase poor Shung was never tired of using in

the days that followed. And, as a matter of fact, during these three days Mrs. Lindsay had recovered speech

and full consciousness. It was true, she was extremely weak. qThough the bloodvessel she had broken was

but a small one, the action of the heart, which had been seriously affected for many years, was so defective

that from time to time she had great difficulty in breathing; but when these paroxysms were over, her face

was stamped with an expression of rapt and absolute peace, and often, when she murmured a few words of

meditative prayer, a smile that spoke of joyous expectation would flit over her face.

'Do not fatigue yourself for me, doctor,' she answered softly. 'I have everything that I can want, and so many

anxious to wait on me, especially this dear child of mine.' As she spoke she stroked Doris's hand lightly.

As the doctor was going out, Shung glided in with his young mistress's hat and gloves.

'Go, darling, out into the fresh air for a short time,' said Mrs. Lindsay. 'I feel a little stronger just now, and I

want to speak to you when you return. Tell Kenneth I should like to see him for a few moments.'

Doris felt a strange oppression falling on her at these words. Her beautiful eyes, so full of love and softness,

expanded with a startled expression; but there was also a look of intrepid courage on her facethe courage

and devotion of a great love, capable of rising above all thoughts of self. Only during the time in which her

mother had lain like one dead had Doris believed that her attack was fatal; and after the first overwhelming

sensation of entire loneliness, of helpless, despairing isolation, as of a creature suddenly taken from under the

measureless vault of heaven filled with warm blue air, and thrust in a dark corner, between cruel bars, an

inexplicable composure came to hera strong, unreasoning conviction that she would not long survive her

mother. Was it some undeveloped malady that lurked in her system, or some strong obscure link between her

own life and her mother's, which lent such force to the thought, devoid of all fear and without a touch of

But these thoughts and emotions vanished as quickly as they had come when her mother recovered

consciousness. From that moment Doris's mind was centred on one objectto be well and strong, so as to be

with her mother rin the day stime when she was most awake. Each night tthe girl had gone to sleep quite

early, sleeping the profound sleep of a child uwearied with the long day, and rising early veach morning,

radiant and refreshed, coming into her mother's room with the first sunrays with a great bowl of

freshlygathered roses. Oh, how the gentle happiness of her mother's smile as their eyes met suffused the

girl's whole nature with an ecstasy of gratitude, with an indefinable supreme sense of union, which nothing

could rupture! wThe look of conscious deep serenity on her mother's face was to Doris a covenant and an

xOnly on the previous day, after recovering from a swooning feebleness which had lasted longer than usual,

Doris10 had noticed her mother's eyes resting on her from time to time with something of solicitudeof

anxiety. She had remained for a long time motionless, yhands clasped, her lips moving from time to time, till

she fell asleep. After an hour she had awoke, a new radiance on her brow and in her eyes. Something of the

same look was on her face now, and yet her words zroused a vague apprehension in Doris's mind. She

lingered wistfully over her mother, with those tender and skilful little touches which impart to pillows a new

'Bring me a fresh story, Doris, about a new honeybird or a fresh flower bursting into blossom,' she

The girl's eyes were suddenly dimmed as she went out. She opened the door noiselessly that led into the hall.

'You see, it isn't one thing; it is a complication. She cannot recover. I don't expect that she can live more than

Warned by a sudden pressure on his arm, and a low 'Sh! sh!' from Mrs. Challoner, Dr. Haining stopped

abruptly. He would like to have retracted his words, or to have offered some modifying explanation, when he

'Oh, my poor dear child!' said Mrs. Challoner, putting her arms round her aaas to ward off this great sorrow.

'I would sooner see her cry, and show more distress,' she said. 'She hasn't been a single day or night away

On going out, Doris saw Kenneth Campbell reading in the garden, and went to give him her mother's

message. Then she went on to the rustic bench, near the violetbanks, and for some time the thought of that

incredible separation which seemed to be drawing near bewildered and overwhelmed her. When she left the

garden the sun had already set; but the air was so clear and transparent that for some time the light, instead of

fading, mellowed and deepened, with reddish glows from the western horizon falling upon the trunks of the

trees, and then gradually stealing upward to the topmost branches. Doris mechanically followed her mother's

'She cannot recover.' The words kept weaving themselves into every birdnote she heard, till gradually, as the

twilight fell, the birds became silent. The honeyeaters were the first to go to sleep; after that the tremulous

calls of the shellparrots died away; later the chirping of the sparrows ceased, then the swallows' last

twittering. As the reflections of the trees in the water were merged in a confused mass, the fairy carillons of

the blue wrens were hushed; but the trills of the reedwarblers among the tall sedges still went on, while the

slender brown reeds, and the dense clumps of titree at the far end of Gauwari, began to be haunted by the

longdrawn, plaintive calls of the curlews1one in the far distance answering the others with a measured

cadence that seemed to embody the very spirit of the waning conflict of two lights. In that calm, brooding

hour, when the dimness of night is still in suspense, while the light of day is neutralized by the tranquil

twilight shadowswhen even the steadfast trees that we know most intimately assume a ahalfmystic air as

of beings from another spherein such an atmosphere the heart is often lightened of its bmost importunate

fears. It is as though the mind became involuntarily conscious of the eternities to come, immutably sealed

with a peace which the darts of fate we now so much dread are powerless to assail. Doris's companionship

with nature had been too penetrating to leave her in this hour of deepest apprehension. She had been too long

and too deeply moved by the sacred silent influences around her to stand in their presence coldly wrapped in

her own sorrow. Her tears ceased as she looked around, suddenly pierced with the thought that earth and sky

breathed the selfsame peace which was imprinted on her mother's face. . . . Was that beloved mother indeed

to pass into the unknown realms which our Father keeps for His children infinitely beyond the reach of earth's

light and darkness? Looking up into the far silent spaces of the sky, which was so immensely vaulted that it

was as though the immeasurable heavens had broken asunder to the highest, a great strength of love nerved

her afresh. She would not mar the beautiful serenity of her darling's homegoing by futile tears and repinings.

She returned to the house to find her mother half sitting up and talking to Mrs. Challoner, without any

'Mother, you are a little better,' she said, her heart almost ceasing to beat with the sudden shock of joy.

'Yes, dear; I am well enough to talk to you for a little. We won't have the lights in; let us sit in the twilight . . .

There was silence for a little time, broken only by the notes of a fantail in the garden, who sang as if his small

'I thought they had all gone to sleep cexcept the little reedwarblers and the curlews, mother,' said Doris

softly; and the sound of her voice speaking steadily gave the mother courage for her task.

'We have been very happy together, my child, . . . and now I fear you will grieve. . . .'

'My dear one . . . you are going to be brave for me and for yourself. It is strange how much we forget that it is

only what we do not see which is eternalthat all around us is a passing dream from which our Father one

'You are going away from me, dmammaaway to the other home,' said Doris, with a little catch in her

'Yes, dearest . . . after you went out I grew heavy with care at the thought of leaving you. . . . I feared for you

in your grief and loneliness. . . . But as I looked after you I saw how our Father had put His own seal on the

whole world around you, and I felt somehow sure that He would touch your heart also with the peace which

'Oh, mother, was that why I could not cry any longer?' said Doris, in a low, eawestruck voice.

The mother's face was radiant. Her heart was full as she pondered over those mysteries of the soul and

miracles of nature for which our most ardent words of explanation are clouds of enshrouding darkness.

She repeated the words over more than once with a rapt look in her face. Her strength kept up wonderfully for

some time longer. For nearly an hour she went over many matters in detail with Doris regarding her future

lifeMme. de Serziac and her guardian, and the disposal of certain sums of money, and her wish that, if

Doris and Mr. Graham should at any time decide to sell Ouranie, Mr. Murray should have the first offer on as

'I think that is almost all the business we need talk, Doris,' she said at the close; 'but there is one thing I

should like you to decide for yourself, whether, after we must part, you prefer to stay here till the Challoners

are ready to take you to Mme. de Serziac, or go on with Mrs. Challoner to Colmar? You would have your

own rooms, of course, with Shung to fwait on you and your horses to drive and ride.'

Mrs. Lindsay spoke a little hurriedly, fearing that this ruthless necessity for realizing so closely the last

'I don't think I could bear to be here without you, mother,' answered Doris in a very low voice, as she stroked

her mother's hand in the old loving fashion. Then she stooped down and kissed it repeatedly and passionately.

'Oh, mother, do you remember long ago, when I had gthe fever and used to dream so often you had gone

away to the Eastto the Silent Sea?' she said, her tears now falling in the dusk as fast as summer rain.

'Yes, Doris, I remember. And then you thought you had gone after me, and found me; and for days, till the

fever left you, you thought that was where we were. I am going on a longer journey; but byandby, my

Then the mother spoke without tears or faltering of all she could do, of all the duties that awaited her.

'When your loneliness presses hard on you, Doris, remember that I wished you to work for othersthat I

'But, mother, if I am lonely all the time and want to come to you with all my heart, promise me you iwould

'No, darling, I kshould not be vexed,' answered the mother softly. She had faith in the power of time to heal

Then for a little space in the gathering darkness Doris did not try to check her tears. So much she yielded to

the cravings of the love that filled her heart and had ever been the centre of lher life. But after that evening

she regained composure, and even cheerfulness. Henceforward to the last hour of her mother's life these did

Early in the morning four days after this, as Doris stood drawing back the windowcurtains, she caught her

mother's eyes fixed on her in a mloving, long, untroubled look. An unusual pallor in the dear face made her

hasten to the bedside. Half an hour later ShungLoo glided in, bearing a tray with some little delicacy to

tempt an invalid's appetite. Mrs. Challoner was then in the room, her face bathed in tears. But Doris met him

She was dryeyed, but the deep thrill of anguish in her voice made Shung's palehued almond eyes very dim.

Hitherto no crisis had arisen in the girl's life in which Shung was unable to suggest some consolation, but he

Nothing in the room spoke of death or nof sorrow. Through the owideopened windows the clambering roses

hung in dewy clusters, white and mauve butterflies hovering over them in the clear early sunlight. There were

bowls of roses on the mantelpiece; even on the little table close to the bedside lay a great heap of

pblushroses,4 qof heliotrope, rof white lilac and a bunch of violets. 'Bring me some of our favourite flowers

out of the garden, Doris,' the mother had whispered less than an hour ago. After bringing these in Doris had

drawn the curtains back from the open windows. And here now were the dewy flowers giving out their

penetrating fragrance, the hum of bees with their tireless industry in the garden, and over all the warm, liberal

sunshine. And in the midst, after days of absorbed watching, of wakeful nights, of serene dawns, in which the

loving spirit seemed endued with fresh vitality, had come the moment of bitter severance.

For the first strange days, loneliness and sorrow, all thoughts of herself, were partially lost for Doris in an

overwhelming wonder, and a yearning stronger than the instinct of life, to penetrate the inexorable veil

which, in one supreme moment, had been drawn between her mother's life and her own. That beloved

mother, that gentle, selfforgetting, heroic soul, to the last full of thought and memory, and tender

responsiveness to the lightest whisper of love! And then in one moment she had passed beyond all intercourse

'Oh, maman! maman! can I never know anything more of you as long as I live?' Doris would say over and

over again, regardless of everything around her in that one engrossing thought. The waves were breaking

upon the rocks afar, where she could neither hear snor see them; ships were sailing across the seas to strange

lands; pictures that had been painted hundreds of years before were hanging in closed chambers; choirs of

singers separated by the whole length of the world sang the same hymns in churches and cathedrals. All

these, and innumerable sights and sounds, though hidden and unheard, could be verified; but was there no

possibility of reaching the lives that had passed beyond our ken? How far beyond the light of the moon and

the wealth of the midday's sunshine and the torbit of the planets was that unknown universe of the

The first sight of the sea, to a boy who has Viking blood in his veins, brings hitherto unknown emotions into

play. There are vibrations in the waves which awaken memories that have no part in his personal

recollections. And so all through our strange vhuman dramas, dim reminiscent pictures transmitted by

generations5 who have threaded their way through the short joys and wtragedies of life, seem suddenly

incorporated in individual experience, maturing the heart and mind when one of the great touchstones of

experience is reached. Then the innumerable sources from which knowledge of life is consciously and

unconsciously drawn seem in one short day to give up their messages. The events that were at the time hardly

noticed, the news that was heard with wonder and straightway forgotten, the broken scraps of conversation

that awoke a vague mistrust, the slow accumulations of perception and dawning instinctsall are suddenly

illuminated with this vital event that lays its seal on the world and redeems it henceforth from the haziness of

In the first days of loneliness, of separation that seemed too strange to be real, Doris would take up one of her

mother's xbestloved books, and in turning over the leaves with tender reverence, she would see a passage

marked that seemed to hold the whole history of her own loss in lines that long years before had told the story

'Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, One set slow bell will seem to toll The passing of the sweetest soul That

The strange story of human life, beginning in the mists of childhood, passing beyond an inscrutable veil,

repeated over and over from age to age, would at times hold her spellbound; and in the face of the universal

history of humanity, her own sorrow seemed to fall into a sober and ordered proportion. The restraint that

thought and a ywidening range of vision zputs upon all aapassion saved her from any morbid feeling of

'If I cry, it is for myself, not for you, darling maman,' she would say softly under her breath; and the mist of

tears would be stayed by bbthe recollection of her mother's face. The large serene eyes, the

delicatelymoulded features, the sweet quiet mouth, with its wistful little smile, would rise up so vividly

'What is our life but a little span7even the longest?' Kenneth would say, lingering, during these first days,

to give such stay and consolation as were in his power. 'A little fever in the town, or thirst in the desert, or a

storm in midoceanwhat are they but the messengers that are sent to summon us from this vale of tears?'8

'Ah, but, Kenneth, it is a very beautiful world . . . and now, although maman is gone, all these long years we

were togetheroh, how beautiful they were!' answered Doris, shrinking instinctively from that austere

contempt of the earth and all its belongings which so often marked the old shepherd's utterances. 'Listen to

this that maman taught me to sing when I was quite little, Kenneth,' she said, opening the piano, and striking

a few chords; and then she sang, in a sweet, low voice that gathered gladness as she sang:

'Plantons le mai, chantons le mai, Le mai du joli mois de mai; Et puis chantons quand on plante, Et puis

'Ah yes, Miss Doris; yes, that is true. There is joy even in this life for the hearts that are possessed by perfect

peace.' Then in a lower voice he said, as he looked at the girl's ccface: 'Out of the ddmouths of babes and

'I know that for some the world must be a terrible place,' said Doris, turning from the open piano, and looking

into her old friend's face with serious, wideopened eyes. 'Often I think of poor Koroona, who had to run

In the midst of her sorrow this story had fastened on Doris with a new power of interpretation. The thought of

so much fear and misery, of familiarity with trouble bitterer than the pangs of death, made her look back on

her own secure and happy childhood with a new power of observation. Her memory was stored with wide,

spacious chambers full of light and grace and protecting love. What an endless store of days steeped in

tangible beauty rose before her as she went from one familiar spot to the other, trying to say farewell, yet

vaguely feeling that they would be with her when she went away as much as when she was in their midst!

She could not have put the feeling into words, but it was in her heart, that the deepest reality of life had

somehow gone from her, and that now the world and all it contained was a little uncertain and unfamiliar, as

if seen through some softening medium like that of sleep, in which we see and hear and touch, and yet are all

Yet eeday by day she was attending with scrupulous care to details that devolved on her before leaving

Ouranie with Mrs. Challoner. An old friend of her mother's in town, one with whom she had become

acquainted on her first voyage to Australia, and to whom Mrs. Lindsay had left a small annuity for life, wrote

to Doris pressing her to come and stay in fftown till her friends, the Challoners, were able to take her to Mme.

'Perhaps you would like it better, dear. I am afraid the Saltbush country will seem terribly bare and dry to

'No, dear ggMrs. Lucy, don't send me away. I know you better than anyone else now. It does not matter so

much about the country. . . . You know it is the Silent Sea that maman and I talked about so often,' answered

The next day the drawingroom was to be dismantled, but Doris begged to have it left just one day more as it

used to be, and for one day more it was undisturbed, filled with a dreamy wealth of flowers as in the old days;

the windows wide open, overlooking the hhgarden filled with all September's overflowing abundance of

bloom and perfume; the lake beyond, reflecting in its clear depths a few filmy clouds faintly white and

vaporous, as foam tossed from the crest of waves, iiand everywhere there were the cries and calls of birds

The twilight deepened, warm and fragrant, like a beautiful reverie between day and night, and Doris stood for

the last time in the old familiar room, going from one spot to the other, looking at the books and pictures in

the fading light; at the cabinet, with its relics of the jjold aboriginal race12shellspoons, a chisel of

volcanic glass, necklaces made of small reeds and the stems of coarse grass cut into lengths and threaded, a

netted bag made from the stems of cottonbush and rushes, a messagestick, with close and involved

carvingkkone that had once passed from one tribe to the other as a signal of peace or war. From these

memorials of a vanished race Doris went, and stood looking for some moments at a watercolour painting, in

the foreground of which stood a dwelling, that had been for many generations in her mother's family. It was a

calm English landscape, with wide, shadowy trees; a little white village in the distance, with a slender

churchspire rising from the midst; a bluegray sky overhead, with a few red clouds trooping into the west,

while under foot llthe emeraldgreen meadows starred with buttercups and daisies completed a picture mmof

OldWorld repose and soft, cool tones. Often after days of intense heat, in which the very atmosphere at

Ouranie seemed to be on fire and burn with viewless flame, Doris had watched her mother turn to this picture

'Ah, darling mother,' she said in a wistful whisper, 'you were often very tired; but now all that is over, and, if I

Three days later Doris was in the heart of the barren landscape of the Saltbush country, where low desert

ridges with rocky outcrops, and vast flat spaces of sad, gray, creeping bushes, were outlined against nnan

immense sky of deep shadowless blue. It was a land so harsh and forbidding, so devoid of all charm, that it

seemed as if no tradition of human interest could cling around its vague formless regions. But as the light of

the first day faded, and oostars began to glimmer in the clear topaz of the upper sky, Doris, looking westward,

saw the long a'rial line of the Euckalowie Ranges in the far, far distance, like a silvery silhouette in the midst

of the faint vapour that at times creeps over these immense plains after sunset. The prospect restored to her

the old picture of the Silent Sea, and, like a home melody heard far from home, it brought her nearer to the

u. unknown?] unknown? These and kindred thoughts filled Doris's mind in place of the sunbright fancies of

her untroubled girlhood. Her loss was one of those events which effect a sudden change in one's conception

As might be expected in an arrangement that had so many elements of inequality and uncertainty, Miss Paget

gradually found that the understanding which existed between herself and Victor FitzGibbon was beset with

uneasiness. Her father had a sort of constitutional aversion to young men, due, doubtless, to the long years in

which he considered his talents had been wasted in abortive efforts to sharpen wits that, in most cases, it had

'My dear, don't you think that young man is rather more frivolous even than the average aof his species?' he

said one evening after Victor had gone away, having 'dropped in' for an hour's chat by prearrangement with

Miss Paget flushed, and a hasty answer rose to her tongue, for even a dispassionate critic might consider the

judgment unfair. Though it was true that Victor was not deeply learned in any sciences, yet he had a quick

and active intelligence, was wellread for his years, and had an easy fluency of expression, which sometimes

bordered on eloquence when his imagination was touched. On second thoughts Miss Paget smothered her

'No, papa; I don't think so. I cannot even guess why you come to that conclusion.'

'He smiles far too readily. What was there in the latest method of disintegrating nebulae1 to amuse one?'

'I assure you, papa, he was not disrespectful to the nebulae,' answered Miss Paget, smiling as she recalled the

little joke that had passed in an undertone between herself and Victor while her father read one of his 'notes'

on those glowing masses of incandescent hydrogen which look like mere stains of light in the sky. They

ought not, perhaps, to have exchanged any words; but it is hard to be kept among the stupendous mysteries of

the solar system while so many little earthly trifles have ban enchanting interest of their own.

The next time Victor paid an evening call he found Mrs. Tillotson in possession of Helen. The lady lived near

enough to Lancaster House to indulge in those promiscuous and unceremonious calls which are the growth of

a longstanding intimacy. If Mrs. Tillotson's favourite shares went up with a bound or had an alarming

downward tendency, if she had an invitation to Government House and felt uncertain which would be the

most appropriate dress, if a mutual friend was very ill, if her dressmaker had made an unconscionable

overchargein a word, if there was any news or no news at all to talk over, Mrs. Tillotson, cwhen

disengaged for the evening and knew that Miss Paget was at home, would drop in with her favourite maid,

who had a longstanding friendship with the Paget servants; and mistress and maid would dhave a cosy chat

On this occasion Mrs. Tillotson had come to consult her friend on an important point. Her only sister, married

to a delicate clergyman, had thoughts of accompanying her husband on a trip to Italy. The congregation were

going to pay his expenses; but as to ethat of his wife and two daughters, if they went, it could only be fwith

'Now, my dear, do you think that my means would justify me in presenting them with a cheque for �500?'

As a matter of fact, her means would genable her to do so twice over without any sensible diminution of her

daily comforts. But though Mrs. Tillotson was a woman of innumerable verbal enthusiasms, life was destitute

'I should like to do it for the sake of Blanche, my eldest niece. She has a real talent for drawing. My dear, you

would be surprised to see some of her later work, so full of soul, and very little touched up by Mr. Trim. He is

a most capable young man, and has a wonderful eye for genius, and such a sense of humour. Every pupil

taught by anyone else amuses him so much. He puts them back invariably, but then he brings them on most

rapidly again. He is delighted with Blanche's last design for a pair of bellows; and, of course, the Old Masters

and so on would be of immense advantage to her. And, do you know, my dear, there's another thing'

Mrs. Tillotson dropped her voice mysteriously, and drew her chair a little nearer to Miss Paget, who was

listening with a small portion of her mind, while the rest was occupied with conjectures as to whether Victor

would come soon, and, if so, whether Mrs. Tillotson would express her delight at his having a friend like

'Of course, one doesn't like to be a matchmaker; but still, the other evening at Maria's,2 when they were

having a musical evening, I thought Victor FitzGibbon was a good deal impressed by Blanche's singing. Of

'Oh, not at all, Mrs. Tillotson,' answered Miss Paget, with a bright smile. The thought of the numerous young

ladies with whom Victor would come into friendly contact did not invariably amuse her, but in this case she

felt that she could afford to be generous. 'You see, it is simply a question of means. Nearly all the Crown

'Well, my dear, he would be just twentytwo when they returned; for, if they all go, they won't leave till after

Mrs. Tillotson's confidences were interrupted by Victor's entrance. She gave a flurried, conscious glance at

'Talk of an angel, and you'll hear the rustling of his wings!3 Do you know, my dear Victor, Miss Paget was

just saying that, as you have ample means, you would most likely marry, like the Crown Princes of Europe, at

'Really? Then I hope Miss Paget will be at my wedding if I am to be ranked with such fortunate individuals,'

But Miss Paget, who was learning every nuance of his tones and expressions by heart, felt that there was an

inflection of annoyance in his voicefelt sure, too, that Mrs. Tillotson's halfembarrassed, halfconscious

manner would lead him to suppose that she had been taken into confidence as to their semiengagement,

though only on the previous day she had positively forbidden him to write to his mother on the matter. Some

further speeches of Mrs. Tillotson's, marked by the same good sense, must have deepened this impression; for

'Well, Helen, after finding your "habitual Providence" knew all about our affairs, I thought I might tell the

'Oh, the dreadful old woman! And she would stay till after you had gone, so that I had no opportunity of

explaining to you,' said Miss Paget, choking a little as she spoke. She knew enough of Mrs. FitzGibbon to

feel very sure that her first and last impulse, on learning that her handsome boy, with his newlyacquired

fortune, proposed to marry a woman so much older than himself, would be to throw cold water on the project

as much as lay in her power. 'Well, never mind, what must be must be,' she added sombrely, finding some

relief in that strain of fatalism which sooner or later invades the consciousness of all who try to plot and plan

Victor had followed his first impulse in writing to his mother of the understanding between himself and jher.

If Mrs. Tillotson had not, in a manner, driven him to this action, someone else no doubt would have done so.

In the meantime Mrs. Tillotson began to appear in so drearily objectionable a light to Miss Paget, that she

began to ask herself on what grounds their friendship was really founded. 'An old friend of your dear

mother's!' These were the words kwith which Mrs. Tillotson had embraced Miss Paget, but not until after she

had come into lthe fortune of three thousand a year! An old friend of her mother? Yes; so was that Mrs.

Selway, who had on Helen's eighteenth birthday volunteered to bring her out4 at a Government House ball in

Oh, how well Miss Paget remembered every detail of that squalid 'coming out,' which was burnt into her

memory as with brandingirons! They were in the mdepths of their poverty when the invitations came for

this special ball to Professor and the Misses Paget. It was a more than ordinarily brilliant affair, because of

the presence of some French royalties, and all Sydney was agog, as only a strictly democratic city seems to

have the secret of being when such an affair is in the wind. Everyone was talking of itthose who had

invitations and those who had none; the tradesmen who were busier because the great ball was coming off,

'It is a pity we could not sell our invitations to nthose people who would give their eyes to go,' said one of the

elder Miss Pagets; 'the price they would give would pay the oservant's wages and buy us new dresses all

Then Mrs. Selway had dropped inan old ancestral friend who somehow managed to live luxuriously on a

narrow income. She also had an invitation, but no excuse for going, having just then no young relatives to

'Couldn't Helen go?' she said. 'It is her eighteenth birthday too. It would be like her coming out. Oh, poor

dear! she ought to have a chance. I'll go with her myself rather than that she shouldn't have the pleasure.'

After a little discussion it was decided that Helen should go. There was a gown belonging to her eldest

stepsister which, with a little alteration, was found fit and proper for the occasion. It was a white Liberty

silk, which, after being carefully ironed, took to itself a lustre5 mendacious enough to deceive all but the eyes

of other women. At the last moment the fit was found a little defective, and pins were used in a great hurry.

One of them jagged Helen's shoulder cruelly, but she endured it without wincing. The other part of the

performance was pinfinitely harder to bear. She had lain awake at nights sleepless with pleasurable

excitement in anticipation of this joy. And it resolved itself into sitting out nearly the whole evening without

qa partnera pin lacerating her flesh! She longed to rshrink away somewhere sin the darkness, but not until

she had been twice in to supper would Mrs. Selway leave the brilliant scene. The new Governor spent more

than his income in the discharge of his Viceregal duties, and the suppers at Government House were then

'Just the sort of thing Mrs. Tillotson would do,' reflected Miss Paget, as hazy plans floated into her mind for

relaxing the intimacy between them, and her heart hardened with the halfvindictive feelings which

reminiscences of the days of her penury always brought to her. But it is difficult to devise a working scheme

for cutting an old friend who lives within sight of your chimneys. And, after all, Miss Paget could not long

keep a sense of grievance at an acute pitch. Only of late it seemed as if one cause of tuneasiness had hardly

It was in the nature of things that Victor's inheritance of a handsome competence should greatly enhance his

social value, and that he should be much sought after for those amusements in which the distinctively

youthful of both sexes play the most prominent part. Thus at balls and amateur theatricals, in which he so

often took a leading r le, Miss Paget, when present, was for the most part a mere spectator. When ladies at a

comparatively early age begin to speak slightingly of the commoner forms of amusement, they are apt to be

credited with a more enduring contempt of such pleasures than they really feel. Hostesses are usually

mothers, and readily resign themselves to the belief that a young woman who is by way of being an heiress,

and is still pretty and attractive, habitually despises dancing. An eligible bachelor, on the other hand, can

never hope to escape their invitations unless he marries, or begins to attend weeknight meetings of the

Victor began by being very much disappointed when he went to balls and parties and found Miss Paget so

'You ought to come, if only for my sake, you know, Helen,' he said two weeks after they had landed from the

Mogul. The words were sweet in her ears, and yet she tortured herself with the question, 'How much does he

really mind?' Victor had been at a large party at the house of a mutual friend on the previous evening, and had

'And were your partners very pretty and amiable, and nicely dressed, Victor?' said Miss Paget, not making

'Oh, they were very jolly, most of them,' he answered. 'But in the midst of it all I would think now and then,

'Or asleep. Didn't you think that I might be asleep, and dreaming I was with you at Mrs. Purdie's ball?'

'Let me see. Papa stayed a little later than usual in the library, so I had the tray taken in there with his whisky

and Apollinaris,7 and I heard how the great d b cles of the glacial epoch swept down the enormous d bris

of the moraines into the valleys,8 whose banks had been already eroded. What could be more fascinating?'

'But, Helen, you must find it dull. I know it is awfully good of you to devote yourself to your father as you

do, but, you see, you can't do it always; and couldn't one of the maids see to the tray if you were away?'

'But she wouldn't care to hear about the d b cles,' replied Miss Paget, smiling.

Then she asked Victor how he was getting on with his uncle in the warehouse. The young man's face clouded

'Oh, like a house on firethat is, I'm the house, and uncle puts me out at least twenty times a day. Perhaps

it's mostly my fault, but if it is, I had no idea I was such a crossgrained brute. I was copying out an indent

'And, faith, I'll keep up your interest by not going too much into detail,' he answered. 'There is nothing more

tiresome than relations who quarrel, except relations who admire each other. Uncle Stuart and I will never be

tedious in the last way. Helen, I think I'll be off to the Bush for a few months, if any decent excuse offers

itself. After all, we see very little of each other. What between your "habitual Providence" andby Jove,

It was shortly after this conversation that Miss Paget, in the halfcareless way in which a wellbred woman

can put a request without making it, said to one and another of her partygiving friends:

'Do you know, I am suffering under a revival of folly. I got quite fond of dancing once more on the Mogul,

but my friends keep on giving me credit for being quite beyond caring for the sound of dancemusic.'

Very soon Miss Paget had as many invitations to balls, dances, and even informal hops, as the youngest

debutante could desire, but in a uvery short time she felt convinced that it would be vdoubtful policy for her

to resume such gaieties seriously. She was constantly comparing herself with the youngest and

lightesthearted of the girls around herconstantly thinking how the record of her twentynine years, of her

buried embittered youth, was wall thrown into clearer xrelief when she stood near Victor, with his laughing

'A dear old thing, isn't she? And fancy taking to balls and dances now, after despising them so long!' she

overheard a girl say to Victor one evening, and she did not doubt that the words were meant for her ear, for

Victor had been teasing her for more dances than she could give him; and the speaker was one of those young

ladies who do not scruple at times to show a marked preference for the men they consider most eligible. 'A

dear old thing!' The words stung her, while she despised herself for heeding them. She noticed that for the

rest of the evening Victor carefully avoided the girl guilty of the impertinence, and her heart throbbed with

gratitude for his unflinching loyalty to her. But she knew well the more he exhibited any feeling beyond the

courtesy of casual acquaintances, the more tongues there would be to wag in a chorus of wonder and scorn

They met next day at a gardenparty, and Victor taxed her with keeping too much out of his way. Her father

stood near, speaking of some new astronomical discovery. Miss Paget and Victor moved a little away.

'For my part, I shall never believe in astronomers,' she said, 'till one of them demonstrates how the earth came

'Yes, where the connectinglink between people and their proper destiny is left out.'

'Helen, how dare you be inventing melancholy on such a day as this? Look at those roses, and the sea beyond

the trees, and the chickens of the Madonna9 singing little hymns all the time, and me by the side of you.

What do you want that you have not got?' said Victor, turning on her with laughing reproach.

'Youthyouthyouth!' were the words that rose to her lips with a passionate longing to utter them; but

instead she said, with a careless smile: 'Oh, just a guarantee from fate that I shall always walk the stage

'Yes, kept out of sight so that I may not be offended by the scraping of the fiddlebows. Joking aside though,

I do often think that life is more like the skeleton of a pantomime than a play, though your poets are so fond

'My poets! aren't you falling in love with any of them on your own account, Helen?'

Miss Paget shook her head with a slight smile. Books had never been much to her. As for the poets, they

seemed to her to be always attitudinizinginventing words for imaginary yraptures, and emotions that

entered little into real life. They wrote endlessly about constancy, and yet they generally ended by making

love to other men's wives, though they seldom indulged in the practice to their own. Nature, too, was little to

her beyond a setting which, apart from cultivation, had either too many trees or too fewalways some

A few days after the gardenparty Miss Paget wrote a note to Victor telling him that she had finally decided

not to go out in the aevenings henceforth except when her father went also. 'I have just sent an excuse to the

Masons,' she wrote, 'and it has occurred to me that you might wonder I did not turn up. I have, however,

made an arrangement by which I think we can always be sure of seeing each other, at least, on Saturday

bevening. I have engaged Mrs. Tillotson to lunch and spend the whole cof the afternoon of that day with me

For a short time Miss Paget felt sure she had done wisely in returning to her normal mode of life.

'It is very good of you to give up so much, Helen, without even a murmur,' Victor said admiringly.

'Poor papa, it is too bad to make a cat'spaw1 of him like this! He hardly knows whether I am in the house or

out of it after dinner dif we are alone, unless he has mislaid a dictionary,' thought Miss Paget. But though she

did not enjoy the deceit, her eyes brightened with pleasure at Victor's quick appreciation of her supposed

'Fortunately, papa is fond of the theatre, and we are to have some good opera comique2 soon,' she said. 'Oh,

the joy of looking at pinksilk bodices instead of watching old gentlemen dining; of seeing prettilypainted

Victor came much oftener than the appointed Saturday evenings. Miss Paget's vivacious talk, her enthusiasm

as to all he did or said, proved a centre for his thoughts. Events acquired an added interest for him from the

charm of reviewing them with her. She was never difficult or exacting with him. She was emuch above the

average run of girls he met, in intelligence, tact, and insight; there was a subtle flattery in the thought that she

so highly prized his companionship. Her influence over him was so largely of the moral kind, that it was in

reality increased by the thought of her renouncing the more seductive dissipations of society, so that her

But gradually the underlying strain of falseness in their relationship weighed on Miss Paget's mind. She was

conscious that she measured her words, modified her judgments, exaggerated her likes and dislikesin a

word, that she assiduously toned her mind to suit his. She knew that a part of her character was entirely

shielded from his observation, that his estimate of her was in many respects falsely favourable, and that she

'You are always so cheerful, Helen,' he would say. 'I think it must be the people who are constantly going to

'The solemn old dinnerparties, two hours long; the musical assemblies, where the youngest performer is a

'And don't forget the scientific conversaziones, where the aboriginal skulls are handed round,'3 said Victor,

'Yes; and the skeletons of rare beetles, which take away one's breath with love and admiration.'

'No, my dear boy, you would be quite an anachronism there. People would begin to ask how you came to

When Helen spoke like this, Victor felt how transparently sincere she was; how little she shrank from

dwelling to him on their disparity of years, which other girls would have done their best to ignore.

But while outwardly, and always in Victor's society, Miss Paget had more rippling spirits, and seemed

younger than was her wont of old, she secretly often fell into a nervous, morbid, anxious habit of mind, in

which she seemed constantly to be waiting for news of disaster. If she was longer than usual in seeing Victor,

if business or social engagements obliged him to hurry away after coming, if he appeared to be more

thoughtful or in higher spirits than usualall formed a subject for surmises, for doubts, for sickening

apprehensions. How could she tell when the hour might come in which the invincible fascination of

youththe dewy April charm of a girl of sixteen or seventeenmight lead him to perceive that his Mogul

proposal was a boyish freak cunningly encouraged? She knew that to see him, to be near him, to find his eye

resting on her, to feel the pressure of his hand, the touch of his lips, made the blood in her veins course with

strange, sharp tremors as if of imprisoned flame. It was like a revelation of what life really meant.

Yet all the time she fknew also that his feeling for her was essentially different. She made no illusions for

herself on this point. Her great and only hope was that, as time went on, his frank, affectionate nature would

gradually root itself in his attachment to her till it became a bond strong enough to weather all the storms and

chances of life. But to have time granted to oneis not that the supreme gift invariably denied, the supreme

In the midst of Miss Paget's ceaseless turmoil of hopes and apprehensions, a day came on which she seemed

'By the way, have you heard, Helen, that Florry4 Mason and Victor FitzGibbon are evidently falling in love

with each other?' said Mrs. Tillotson, looking up from a hideous Afghan blanket she was tricotting5 for some

Miss Paget could never recollect what reply she made, but doubtless it was found satisfactory by her good old

ancestral friend, who never went about without a packet of leaflet tracts6 and a large pouch of gossip, more or

She rambled on with divers other morsels of intelligence till her carriagewhich had been resumed once

more owing to a brilliant rise in silver shares7called to take her to some charity meeting in the city.

Miss Paget sat for some time overcome with a confused agitation, hardly knowing what thoughts passed

through her mind, the first coherent one of which she was conscious being: 'It is only what I have been

In the meantime she was stricken with a sensation of ha dull, physical prostration. She went to the window

and involuntarily pushed it open, feeling that the atmosphere had suddenly grown very heavy. There were

swallows wheeling over the fountain opposite, darting down to the water's surface, and then taking short

flights into the air, their clear twittering notes filling the whole atmosphere. An Ophir rosebush near at hand

drooped under a cataract of burning buds8 and early opening petals. In the near distance the city lay fringed

all round with the wide shadowy parklands.9 To the east the hills, in softly curved folds, rose in the blue air,

their slopes sprinkled with houses gleaming whitely in the midst of wide vineyards, orchards, and gardens, all

'It is all very peaceful and beautiful. How much there is in the world one might care for!' Miss Paget said to

herself, as she looked at the scene. Then she sighed, a short, halfsobbing sigh. 'Am I going to cry?' she said

half aloud, as if there were someone near whose presence would save her from such imbecility.

At that moment a messenger came from her father, and she hastened into the library.

'Helen, do you know anything of the second volume of my new Greek Anthology?10 Then where can it be? I

want to look it up. I am not sure, but I strongly suspect that my old friend Codrington has treated an

amphimacer as a dactyl.11 It is hard not to be able to consult anyone on a point like this. Can anyone tell me

'Unless it is, papa, that he sometimes wears a hood, and has, perhaps, cut open a toad,'12 answered Miss

After sundry tomes and magazines had been turned over, the missing volume was discovered. While

searching for it, Miss Paget suddenly thought that, of all the people she knew, no one retailed more baseless

tales than Mrs. Tillotson. She would not believe this. And yet again, as she mused over the past two weeks, a

hundred confirmatory proofs rose up. How very often of late had Victor been at the Masons' househow

often had he spoken of the family! Miss Paget, hardly knowing what she did, seized a pen, and for the first

time in her life gave expression to the tremulous, allabsorbing emotion with which this love had flooded her

life. Swift as the swiftest seaswallows thoughts came to her. . . . Never, never before had the flower of vivid,

adequate expression come so fully within her range. When she finished, she resolved to deny herself to Victor

till he wrote to say this letter had reached him. She sealed and addressed it, then stared at it for a few

moments and tore it into tiny fragments. No, never would she so humiliate herself for the sake of any human

At halfpast eight there was a ring at the halldoor. Miss Paget felt as if her heart were beating in her ears

'Helen, you are not well,' he said, holding her hand as he looked into her face. He was in evening dress, and

looked so young and lighthearted, istrong and well, it seemed as though his mere presence should give the

At the moment it was true, for she felt a dry, convulsive motion in it, and her voice sounded a little hoarse.

'Very likely you have been reading aloud to your father half the day?' he said a little reproachfully.

It darted through her mind like a sting that the picture limned of her in the young man's mind was much more

beautiful than the reality. For a moment she felt as if she must tell him allher corroding fears, her

'I have read very little today,' she answered; 'nothing, I believe, but an awfully stupid little story in a book I

'A mere nothing about an old French duke who had been very much in love, and then got very much out of it,

'He must have been a magnanimous child of nature,' said Victor, laughing. 'What could he find to say?'

'Oh, he said, "We loved each other once, but now it is quite over. Believe me, constancy is a very tiresome

and a very doubtful virtue. It is much better to forget things when they are once done with. This is a very

'Oh, he was jealous of her! Mind, you are never to take a little dog from anybody but me, Helen,' said Victor.

How buoyantly he laughed! After all, there could not be a shadow of truth in the Tillotson story. He would

not meet her eyes with such frank goodwill if there were. He was on his way to a musical evening at a house

not far off. He meant to come earlier, so as to be able to stay longer; but he had been kept at the office, going

over miles of figures with his uncle. When leaving, he expressed a hope that he should see her at a private

dramatic entertainment at the house of the Masons. She had accepted tentatively for herself and her father.

It is well established that no drama can have the distinction of being performed by amateurs unless it has a

rejected and successful lover. It seemed equally established just then with some of the people who went in for

such entertainments in Adelaide that their success hung on securing Victor for the r le of the triumphant

'Nature moulded him for that part,' was the verdict of a young married lady, who seemed to cherish a

conviction that nature had, with equal benevolence, designed herself for the part of the young woman who is

agreeably harassed by rival suitors. But on the present occasion this r le was sustained by Miss Florry

Mason, whose name had been coupled with Victor's by kMiss Paget's friend on the previous day. . . . Yes, she

was very young, and often very pretty, with that sparkling, irregular kind of prettiness that is far more

The play began with an amusing scene of a misunderstanding and a gradual reconciliation between the young

lady and Victor. They both acted with great verve and an absence of the stiffness that so often renders

Mrs. Tillotson, nodding and smiling, made her way to Miss Paget between the acts.

In the enthusiasm of watching a love affair in its nascent stages, the good lady had quite forgotten her vague

hopes regarding the niece whose designs for bellows were to be so much elevated by a study of the Old

Miss Paget gave an answering smile, and said they were just the right age to play at being lovers without

lbeing ridiculous. To others who hinted and speculated in the same vein she made replies equally nimble and

She found it an interminable evening. Now and then she had a little sensation of giddiness, as if she were

clambering over places with insufficient foothold. But she chatted and smiled, and looked grave and arch,

amused and sympathetic, quite at the right moments till the close. . . . She recalled posters she had seen on an

old carved gateway at Cairo, announcing the arrival of some jugglers in big scarlet words that were specially

eloquent as to the 'excentricit s a riennes par la jolie et l'in narrable equilibriste Mlle. Cardinale.'14 She felt

as if she were a second Mlle. Cardinale, but, fortunately, without any audience beyond herself.

She told her father he looked fatigued. He admitted feeling so, and their carriage was ordered early. Victor

'You are going, Helen, and I have not even spoken to you,' he said in an undertone after he had shaken hands

'Oh yes,' she answered, smiling, but there was no mirth in her eyes. 'All mthese pretty speeches you made as

Despite her smile and the studied carelessness of her words, there was a strained, hard ring in her voice, and

'Will you be at home tomorrow evening?' he said, as he followed her to the carriage. 'Then may I come for

When he came, the first thing he spoke of was a letter which had reached the office that morningthe

unexpected resignation of the purser15 at the mine in which he was now largely interested. Mr. Stuart

Drummond was chairman of directors, and one of his clerks acted as town secretary.

'So here's a chance for me to go into the Bush, Helen. Shall I go to the Colmar Mine?' he said, half jestingly.

Her heart leapt with a quick sense of deliverance at the thought. . . . Oh, if Victor were only safe in the social

'The Colmar Mine! Where is that?' she asked, to gain time while she debated with herself what would be the

They looked up a map of South Australia, and he showed her whereabouts in the midst of the Saltbush

country the Colmar reef stretched for miles from east to west. They both looked at it, neither of them

The evening was warm, and the doors and windows were wide open. In the distance rose the shrill whistle of

oa railway train; nearer at hand the rumble of tramcars and the roll of carriages. And in between these

common sounds of a city stole at intervals the longdrawn, plaintive calls of a curlew from the midst of a

'Wouldn't it be dreadfully dull for you if you went there?' asked Miss Paget slowly.

'If I were it would be a new sensation; and you know you told me once on the Mogul that was one of the

'Did I? I knew nothing about it then,' replied Miss Paget half bitterly, as she realized how the new sensations

of the past few weeks had robbed her of all peace of mind. 'And you would have to rough it a good deal,' she

'Not very much. It would be a halfandhalf sort of arrangement, without the joys of society or the bliss of

lawlessness. That's one reason why I didn't take so very kindly to the thought of goingthat and Uncle

Stuart's anxiety that I should take the billet16 for a couple of months. Now you see, Helen, what a

'Ah, yes. By Jove, if I go, Miss Mason will have me drawn and quartered! We were to give three

representations of the "Old Story"17 in the next two weeks in aid of some charities.'

'Oh yes. The travelling and camping out and cooking are qall so jolly! Did you ever eat potatoes roasted in

'Then, Helen, you don't know how really heavenlyminded a potato can be. And the teals cooked between

redhot stones in a hole in the ground, and the waking up at night with the stars shining through the gumtree

overhead, making their nightly procession across the sky, and all sorts of mysterious sounds in the woods!

That curlewdo you hear her?brings it all back to methe vacations we used to spend hunting on the

As Victor listened to the soft wailing notes a strange and sudden sense of disappointment fell on him. Fortune

had smiled on him far beyond his expectations in those boyish schooldays not long gone by, and he was an

affianced lover, for so in honour he considered himself. But what was it that had escaped him? what

inexplicable charm had eluded him? A lover!and accepted! The bare thought used to agitate him with

shudders of vague delicious expectations, and now it was all so calm, so matteroffact. Was it the sobering

Unconsciously he was overtaken by one of those brief, wistful reveries that come alike to age and early

youth. Age, with its fatigue and ennui, its weariness of disillusion and wasted effort, its growing indigence of

feeling and of the springs of action, takes refuge in memories of that vanished springtide when none of the

daughters of music were laid low.18 Youth, with its keen, unworn senses, with its capacities of sensation

deeper than the source of tears and laughter, vibrating to the verge of pain to all the mysterious calls of life,

finds in such reveries a foretaste of the thrilling adventures, prophesied by the fulness of life that throbs in its

Miss Paget saw the look of dreamy absorption in Victor's face, and the words 'evidently falling in love' came

'One sees that you have made sonnets of it all before now, Victor,' said Miss Paget, uneasy at this lapse of

He did not repel the insinuation. Indeed, it was over some of his boyish verses that their comradeship on the

'I think one gets rather sick of so much town,' he said, with a short, halfchecked sigh.

Victor looked a little taken aback at the calm seriousness of Miss Paget's manner. She went on in the same

'I have been thinking for the last week or two that our months of waiting would be a more real probation if

Victor closed the atlas, and stood up; strode to the open window, and then back to Miss Paget's side. The

prospect of plunging into a new mode of existence had in it some undefined element of relief.

'I'll take a hammer or two and go prospecting till I discover a new goldmine. I'll load you with barbaric

crowns of unalloyed metal when I return, Helen,' he said, with boyish glee. 'The greatest drawback is that

As for Miss Paget, she was so deeply moved that she could not at first trust herself to speak. She was

overcome with a feeling of relief and thankfulness at this unlookedfor solution of the miserable and

humiliating state of anxiety and unrest into which she had fallen. She despised herself for it, and fought

against it all the time, but unavailingly. She had told herself that she should in reality covet every opportunity

of putting Victor to the test of changing. But though she still retained the power of seeing things as they were,

she had lost that of being dispassionate, or acting sincerely. She had gone on her way so placidlywith so

cool and conscious a selfpossessionall these years. The nearest approach to lovemaking in her life

hitherto had been a few sober proposals of marriage from middleaged men. They made her smilethe idea

of people at their time of life risking their peaceful solitude by imitating the squires of rtroubadour songs. But

no, they had no thought of emotion; it was rather the prudent union of two sufficient incomes that had fired

the imagination of her elderly swains. . . . And now in the midst of her assured tranquillity she had been

suddenly snared. It seemed as if her limits in the range of other emotions, and those biting memories of an

unhappy, loveless girlhood, all combined to make her cling to this one passionate affection with a vehemence

'But though your uncle may be pleased, some others will be sorry. Remember, Miss Mason'

'Oh yes! Can you keep a secret, Helen? That young lady is to be my sisterinlaw. Lance has proposed, and

is accepted. They are waiting for her father's consent. Lance doesn't expect the paternal blessing till he gets a

uThat was all Miss Paget's response to the news which scattered her worst fears to the wind. But she did not

regret having helped Victor to decide on going to the mine. Still less so, when, vtwo days before he left town,

her father suddenly resolved to go to Colombo to meet an old friend there, who had been ordered by his

'Perhaps we may bring Professor Codrington back with us, Helen,' said her father.

And when Miss Paget made some rather irrelevant reply, he said, in a somewhat severe tone:

'My dear, I presume you are aware that he is the greatest living authority on classic metres?'

This information Miss Paget duly communicated to Victor when he came to say goodbye.

'Well, don't you let him present you with a little dog, else I'll be making speeches to you on the wisdom of

Then he kissed her and went away. When she was alone Miss Paget crouched down as if strength had

And she registered a great vow that, come what might, she would not, till the period of probation was over,

The Colmar Mine is three hundred miles to the northeast of Adelaide, in the Hundred1 of Colmar, in the

heart of the Saltbush countrya farreaching district, known variously according to local variations as the

Saltbush Wilderness, the Dwarf Desert, and the Waterless Country. But by whatever name it may be

familiar before it is seen, the region transcends in uncompromising bareness any mental vision that may be

A wilderness calls up a sombre uninhabited country; a desert, land that has never been tilled; while waterless

country is in itself a description of parchedup barrenness. But a wilderness may have luxuriant herbage. A

desert may consist of leafy scrub or shady forest.2 And a land in which rain is seldom seen, and rivers never,

yet sometimes has great rocks whose shadow, falling on the thirsty ground, may serve as a symbol of man's

salvation.3 But in this eerie waste there is no grass, no trees, no waterhardly the semblance of a hill. In

many parts the sole vegetation consists of the saltbush, a sadcoloured, lowcreeping bush, more gray than

In some places the saltbush grows in sparse clumps, in others the shrub is dense, and spreads more

continuously. And yet again there are wide stretches in which the earth lies almost naked, baked into reddish

gaping fissures. When rain falls, it is with a tempestuous rushin a fury that lashes the earth instead of

nourishing it into fruitfulness. The stony watercourses are at such times filled with water; but high as it may

rise, in a few days all traces of it disappear. The slender graygreen filaments of nameless plants die away.

The earth, lying in flat monotonous uniformity; the cloudless sky, pallid with continual heat; the wide

majestic sweep of the horizon, where the silent earth seems to pass into the quiet sky; the austere desolation

The air is seldom cloven with the beating of a bird's awings. Still more rarely does the presence of man break

the solitude. Sheepruns are few and far between. Many that were once fairly prosperous are now forsaken.

The squatter might struggle with the chronic drought, for the saltbush is an ascetic that has learned the

secret of living without water in bthe most barren soil, and sheep that are to the manner born can live on

saltbush. But a more implacable foe than drought came in the rabbit, who is fruitful, and multiplies in these

arid regions, till every other creature that has the breath of life is exterminated. The rabbits swarm in the

Hundred of Colmar, but they cannot affect its chief industry, which is mining. The country is here intersected

with low, sullenlooking reefs, running chiefly from east to west, marked at varying intervals by ironstone

outcrops. It is on the southern side, near the western end of one of these reefs, that the Colmar Mine is

situated, within eighteen miles of Nilpeena, a small township on the Great Northern Railway line. Half a mile

to the southwest of the mine there is a township, also called Colmar, that sprang into existence when the

mine was started. An inn, two stores, a blacksmith's forge, a schoolroom, a post and telegraphoffice, a

boardinghouse or two for the miners, comprise the bulk of the houses, all, with the exception of the front

The country between Nilpeena and Colmar is partly wooded, partly dotted with reefs, and the reefs are dotted

with the remains of many attempts at reaping an underground harvest out of the earth, whose surface looks as

barren as that of the barren sea. It is apparent to the least instructed eye that the country is rich in minerals.

Gold, silver and copper have been found there, but the land is mostly waterless, and operations for the most

part have been fitful, erratic, and unskilful. Thus out of cthirty socalled mines and diggings that have been

started within a radius of forty miles in the Colmar district, all except half a dozen remain ineffectual

Their sites are marked by dshafts and trenches and esqualid d bris of heaps of dirt and stones that look as if

burrowed up by larger rabbits than those that have come to be the normal proprietors of the country. Around

these heaps lie smaller onescrude chimneystacks of unmortared stones; rotting sacks, full of native

grasses, that have served as mattresses; broken tentpoles, with fluttering strips of tattered calico or duck;

smashed bottles; empty rusting tins; shreds of slopstore clothing; battered 'billy'cans; old hats, whose

slovenly greasy brims speak eloquently of the loafers that make up a large proportion of the nomads, ever on

the move to these shifting El Dorados, where in a few days some 'lucky beggar'4 has picked up enough gold

to keep him in grog and idleness for a couple of months or years, as the case may be. The Saltbush country,

as has been said, is, for the most part, a desert waste, with but few traces of man's presence. But those that are

found in the form of deserted shafts and the sites of small alluvial diggings, degrade and vulgarize the

Even the Colmar Mine, which, since it first came into existence twenty years ago, has never been quite

deserted, and is, as goldmines go in South Australia, on a large and prosperous scale, forms an unsightly

excrescence in the wide, austere and melancholy plain that stretches around it to unimaginable distances. The

enormous stack vomiting out smoke night and day, the long irregular enginehouse of galvanized iron, with

its perpetual roar of machinery, the great heaps of bluish mullock, the equally massive mounds of red and

chocolatecoloured tailings, the groups of squalid iron huts and motley patched tents in which the miners

live, fall speak of a form of existence radically divorced from all that constitutes civilized life; an existence,

for the most part, unlovely as that of a tribe of savages, but without the savage tribe's picturesque wanderings;

also, it may be added, without its occasional famines. But though the daily routine and surroundings of

gColmar are dull and prosaic to a degree,5 its history is not without some spice of adventure and variety.

Gold was first found there by a solitary bushman, who had gone prospecting, and came upon a rich gutter of

gold near the surface, from which he extracted over �500 worth of gold in a few weeks. He was robbed and

murdered by two tramps, who surprised him as he was about to carry away his treasure. The murderers were

convicted and hhung. The notoriety thus gained by the Colmar, as a place in which a man with a pick and

shovel and a digger's dish6 might pick up a couple of hundred pounds a week, caused a great rush to the

neighbourhood. But once the gravelly drifts of an old watercourse had been exhausted, the place proved to

have little alluvial gold. A long low reef close to the iold creek was found, however, to have a very rich

Expensive machinery was bought; a large substantial house for the mining manager and numerous offices

were erected. In short, everything was done on that handsome jand lavish scale in which business is so often

conducted when it consists kin paying away other people's money. After a few years, during which the

directors drew handsome fees, and the shareholders' experience largely consisted in paying unexpected calls,

the English company was wound up, and the Colmar Mine was bought by a Melbourne syndicate. The new

company had a shaft sunk la quarter of a mile away from the old one at what proved to be a junction of lodes

in 'kindly country.'8 The results were for a time sensationally good. The sweet simplicity of high monthly

dividends was maintained for nearly mfour years. During that time the Melbourne syndicate placed the shares

on the Adelaide market and sold them all at an astonishingly profitable rate. It was then that Mr. Shaw

Drummond became so large a shareholder. nA year afterwards the dividends waned, and then finally stopped

for more than two years. People said the lode had pinched out, and shares were very low indeed.

Then came a succession of sensational crushings. New shares were issued, and the capital thus called up was

devoted to fresh development. Dividends were once more resumed in an intermittent way. So the Colmar

Mine went on for years after it was owned by an Adelaide companysometimes almost coming to a

standstill, at others galvanized into feverish popularity by extraordinarily good crushings; sometimes paying

phenomenal dividends, at other times none. One year it would be well managed; another well robbed. One

month yielding forty per cent. on the capital invested; the next, perhaps not oyielding enough to cover

At last, after the history of the pmine had been for two years more erratic than ever, an American manager9

of great skill and experience was secured. For more than a year Mr. qJoseph S. Dunning worked the Colmar

Mine at a wonderfully reduced cost and a rapidly increasing profit. But once more, what people began to call

the bad luck of the rColmar reasserted itself. One afternoon Dunning went down into the mine hale and

well, and half an hour safterwards was taken out a corpse through the carelessness, or ignorance, of a new

'shiftboss,'10 who had at the wrong time set a fuse to a charge of dynamite. The directors despaired of

finding anyone worthy of coming after the lamented American manager. But in the course of a week they

succeeded in inducing an exceptionally good allround man to take the position of manager at least

tentativelyone whose mining experience was wide and thorough, and whose character stood high for

probity. This was William Trevaskis, a justice of the peace and late M.P. for a town constituency. He had

made a fortune chiefly by mining, but through two financial disasters, which occurred almost

simultaneouslythe tskilful roguery of a man with whom he had been in partnership as a landagent, and

the failure of ua local bank11 in which he had been largely interestedTrevaskis had in a short time been

He reached the mine one morning vin September,12 nine days before Victor FitzGibbon came there as

purser. One of the periodic droughts of the district was raging that season, and a high north wind was

blowing, which blurred the light of the sun and made the air thick with grit and blinding dust. This was more

especially the case in the vicinity of the mine, where the vast heaps of mullock and tailings dispersed

'Thick enough to cut with a shovel, isn't it, captain?'13 said Searle, the then purser of the mine, who was

'Is it often like this?' asked Trevaskis in a gruff voice, rubbing the dust out of his eyes.

'What in thunder is the use of that long iron passage?' said Trevaskis in a tone of amazement.

The two had come round out of the assayroom14 and the purser's office, which were at the southern end of

the row of buildings generically termed 'the offices.' At the northern end was the manager's office, with a

bedroom opening out of it at the back. There were six rooms in all, one opening into the other. The three

'I was waiting for you to exclaim about that passage, captain,' said Searle, with a wdelighted chuckle. He was

a plump, redfaced little man, in a continual effusion of garrulity, without the power of discriminating

between a contemptuous and a deeply interested listener. He had been four years in the mine off and on, and

was never so happy as when he was showing a newcomer round the place for the first time, telling endless

stories about it, dwelling with immense complacency on all that made it, 'taken all in all, the most remarkable

mine in the whole of South Australia, perhaps, indeed, on this side of the Southern Cross.'15

As Trevaskis stood staring at the long narrow passage of corrugated iron, six feet high, with a flat roof of the

same material, lit at intervals by small single panes of glass let into the sides, Searle felt that the moment had

come for him to fire off this sentence on the 'captain.' But he had hardly made a beginning when Trevaskis

'Is this the key of my office?' he said shortly, fumbling among the bunch Searle had given him. The purser

stood openmouthed, hardly crediting his senses. He had impatiently awaited the proud and happy moment

when this strange passage, which started from the manager's office and terminated at the other end in an

irregular circular iron building on the side of the xreef,16 should strike the stranger with unbounded

astonishment and curiosity. And now the new ymade manager gave an illmannered grunt, and turned his

back on one of the most distinctive zand mysterious features of the Colmar Mine!

'Allow me, captain,' said Searle, recovering his scattered senses, and unlocking the door. When he turned

round he caught Trevaskis' eyes fixed on the passage with a puzzled look. This was balm to Searle's wounded

feelings, and he instantly attacked the subject once more. 'Did you ever see the like of that at a mine before,

'You see the length of itor at least you would if the wind was not so thick with dust. It is three hundred and

twenty feet in lengththree hundred and twenty feetsix feet high and six feet wideand'

But Searle, who never stopped talking as long as he could get a listener, was too often forced to tell a

thricetold tale.17 He was consequently not inclined to waste a subject so criminally as to come so soon to

'You see this key, captain?' he said, holding up one of the doorkeys on the manager's bunch that was smaller

than the rest. 'Well, that key opens this door at the end of your office, and when you open that door you're in

the passage. You go along that passage for three hundred and twenty feet, and then you come to a caveaaa

regular cave made into a bbgoodsized roomscooped out of the side of the reef, and ventilated with a

ccstope,18 full of old machinery that belonged to the English companya couple of furnaces, retorts,

Searle paused to take breath. He fully expected that before he had reached so far in his description, Trevaskis

would have set off down the passage to examine the place for himself. But instead of this his face wore a look

'It's simply marvellous!' he gasped, making a despairing effort to infect his listener with a little becoming

'Why, that big underground place ddscooped out of the side of the reef, and connected with the manager's

'eeDamn the three hundred and twenty feet!' cried Trevaskis, in a tone of intense irritation. 'What is the thing

'First there was some sort of natural cave, they say, and this was much enlarged. ffThis enlargement was

ggundertaken by hhDoolan,' returned Searle, in a grave, unmoved, historical kind of voice. 'That was before

my time. They iisay he felt the heat dreadfully, and used to stay down there cool and quiet, without noise or

dust, when the thermometer went above 115� in the shade. The next manager took it into his head that he got

on the track of a good lode there, and set some men to work it. This made the place still larger, but I don't

know about the gold. There were a lot of queer yarns floating round, I believe.'

'Did you ever know a mine that hadn't a bagful of lies told about it every week?' said Trevaskis, who was

longing for an opportunity to have done with these reminiscences of his predecessors.

'Well, every manager that comes seems to think the one before him was a fool or a rogue.'

'I think some of the managers you've had here were both,' said Trevaskis. 'I'm sure the man who made this

'The same, captain. I don't want to make anyone out blacker than he is, but I'd just like to tell you what I

'Thank you, I'm afraid I haven't got time today,' answered Trevaskis, pulling out his watch. 'We must

confine ourselves for the rest of the time to business. It isn't a very cheerful subject. Webster became a raving

lunatic; Dunning was killed in the twinkling of an eye. It only remains for me to cut my throat to finish up the

record. Well, I only came for a month to try it. I don't fancy I shall stay longer than that.'

Never had Searle been more bitterly disappointed in his anticipations of acting as showman to the Colmar

Mine. It was bad enough to treat the cave room and the passage three hundred and twenty feet long with surly

contempt, but to have the history of Websterof whom Searle could never think without a certain shiver in

the marrow of his backboneput by and passed over like an old woman's ghost story! The little man's heart

swelled within him, and he went through the rest of his duties with Trevaskis observing the most dignified

When at halfpast one he watched Trevaskis going to dinner at the Colmar Arms with a lowering brow and a

set look on his face, the purser, though the least vindictive of men, felt assured that if the new captain took

himself off at the end of a month he would be no loss to goodfellowshipan opinion he felt no scruple in

expressing to the engineer, with whom he boarded at the threeroomed weatherboard hut of one of the shift

'I believe you're right there, Tom,' said the engineer. 'You see, he was at the top of the tree a short time ago in

town. I think having to come here has put him off his chump so much he'll never have a civil word to throw at

a dog.19 But as to chucking up jj�600 with times so badwhy, that's another matter.'

This was exactly the aspect of the case which was at that moment forcing itself on Trevaskis. When he

reached the Colmar Arms, he was met at the front door by the landlady, a lean, untidy looking woman with a

very tired and discouraged face, who showed him into the diningroom talking all the time.

'I thought you was the new captain. Long Ben the driver told us kkas you 'ad come, but I didn't think as you

was coming to dinner, not bein' 'ere at one. Poor Cap'en Dunning always come at one to the minute. Did you

'ear, sir, as he 'adn't gone half an hour from the Colmar Arms, after a dinner of young duck and cauliflower,

'Ever since I came within a hundred miles of the Colmar, every soul I see tells me about Dunning's sudden

The landlady, with subdued volubility, said she would do the best she could, but she had expected him at one.

Poor Cap'en Dunning always came so regular at one, and things was very mixed with them then at the Arms.

They had just moved into the front part, which the cap'en no doubt noticed was of stone. The baby, who was

a little over two year old, was cutting some back teeth; the cook had married at an hour's notice, just because

there was a man handy to have her, and a Methody20 parson chanced to pass through; and the housemaid was

down with a bad cold. These details were imparted in detachments, while the good woman placed on the

table half a dozen fried chops, a loaf of bread, a twopound tin of apricot jam, a pound of oily butter, and a

The new manager made a valiant effort to make some sort of a meal off these viands. But the attempt only

sickened him and took away all appetite. The chops were tough, raw, cold, and greasy, the tea barky22 and

bitter, the milk slightly sour. Trevaskis pushed away the meat, and drew the jam towards him. There were

two large flies firmly embedded on the surface. . . . They were everywhere, these flies, large and small,

buzzing in his ears and eyesgreat fleshflies beating heavily against the windowpanes. The big bare

room, with a long table covered with a spotted cloth and an array of dim glasses; the woman in the soiled

print dress, with her dull, jaded face and wearied eyes, and the whining child dragging at her skirts; the smell

of raw llcolza oil23 in the new paint, of damp mortar in the newly built walls; the burst of loutish merriment

that came wafted from time to time through the open mmdoors from the barroom; the look of the country as

seen through the windowall weighed on the man's mind like a hideous nightmare. He had been deeply

miserable and irritated all dayindeed, for many days back. But at this moment it was no longer misery, it

'Good God! what a hole to come to after all these years!' muttered Trevaskis to himself. He was a stalwart,

powerfullybuilt man, with a long and rather narrow face, the lower part completely covered with a thick

grizzled beard and moustache. His nose was long, and slightly curved a little to one side at the end, through

an accident in early life. His eyes were pale, with a greenish light in them, keen in expression, and very close

together. In moments of excitement the pupils would seem to elongate in a way that gave oohim rather a

sinister look. The head was well formed, the forehead square. Ordinarily he had the alert, determined air of

one who does not let his thoughts travel beyond the matter in hand, ppno superfluous words or imagination to

bestow on any subject beyond his own especial routine. But just now his face wore the strained and haggard

look of one who qqhad been badly beaten in the race of life. The landlady, seeing that he had eaten nothing,

brought in a plate of biscuits and some cheese. But Trevaskis gruffly declined rrthese delicacies, and ordered

her to bring him some whisky and sodawater. Then he lit a strong Havana cigar, and as he smoked and

sipped sshis whisky his courage revived. He would face the risk of being out of employment and out of

pocket in civilized life rather than stay on at the Colmar. The directors, in their eagerness to secure him, had

employed him on his own terms. It would be better to let them know at once he would not stay beyond the

He pulled a large flat pocketbook out of the breastpocket of his coat, and turned over some papers, looking

for a blank halfsheet on which to draw up a draft of the communication he would send on the morrow. The

first letter that caught his eye was one from his brother, expressing rather clumsily the pleasure it gave him to

hear Trevaskis had got a good job with high wages. Dick, he said, was getting on well in the bank, and they

It was a very illiterate, illspelt scrawl, and ttbrought back to Trevaskis the days of his early boyhood, when

he and his brother worked together in a Cornish mine. It was a squalid, hard lifeboth of them unkempt and

uncared for, their mother dead, their father rough and intemperate. From eight years of age till sixteen,

uuTrevaskis thought, that was a long spell to work twelve hours out of the twentyfouroften hungry, most

of the time barefooted.24 Then he reviewed his long fight for wealth in Australia. Poverty and the squalor of

his early life had so bitten into him that he had sworn a great oath he would make himself independentyes,

And gradually through long years of ascetic abstinence and the most rigid selfdenial he achieved his

purpose. He stuck to mining; it was the work he understood bestfirst on the tribute plan,25 then on claims

of his own; and all his money as he saved it he put into careful investments. He had gone almost hungry,

certainly very dirty, and in very broken boots, once when he was working in a poor patch of country, which

did not yield 'tucker' money.26 And yet at that time the savings on which he would not encroach had swelled

to �4,000. After that crisis his gains had increased by leaps and bounds. And at last, after seventeen years of

toilsome lonely work and rigid saving, he found himself the master of over �60,000. He had determined he

When he did so he lived in Adelaide, rented a handsome house, kept his carriage, went into Parliament, and

married the daughter of a welltodo doctor, 'a lady born,' as he often proudly said to himself. Even if he had

knownand he did notthat his fatherinlaw was the son of a retired butcher,27 the knowledge would not

have modified this exultant feeling. His long apprenticeship to work in its grimiest form, moiling in the dirt

with soiled skin and filthy clothing, made him keenly sensible of all the graces and pleasantness of affluence.

He never quite lost his first vivid impression of delight in the soft ease, the luxury, the perfect cleanliness of

welltodo households. The feel of soft carpets underfoot, the gleam of pictures on the walls, the glitter of

silver on the table, the taste of dainty food well cooked, the rustle of ladies' silken gowns, the gleam of jewels

on their arms and necks: these things would always have a higher worth for him than for those to whom they

were familiar from childhood. To him they represented the highest good, the greatest enjoyment, of which

vvman is capable. They were the symbol of that privileged exalted life of which his forefathers had caught

passing glimpses behind barred gates and through the corridors leading from servants' halls.

'And, after all, I've come back to it againthis wwdamned mucky life among dirty labourers, and in a worse

place than I've ever set foot in before. I might as well be a wombat in an earthedup burrow,' he said to

himself, closing up his pocketbook. He could not frame a draft of the letter he thought of writing; the fear of

absolute want stared him in the face. He could do nothing but ponder in bitterness of heart on the record of

his life: his twentyfive years of ignominious toil, his aspirations, his determination to succeed, his eight

years of complete and assured success, and then his complete and bitter failure. He took up his hat, and,

crushing it over his eyes, strode away to the lonely, cheerless rooms that now formed his only home.

'Are you busy, captain? may I come in?' said Searle, knocking at the halfopen door of the manager's office

'Yes, come in,' said Trevaskis, without raising his eyes from the letter he was reading.

Searle waited a few moments, and then, with a rising choler that was new to him, he said:

'I want to give notice; I must leave the mine as soon as possible,' said the purser, with a quiver in his voice.

And then he explained how a letter had come to him by that morning's post from his brother, who was a

'I have an interest in the business; in fact, all my savings are in it, and now my brother offers me a

partnership, and wants me to start at once if I can. I would like to give a month's notice, but I'm afraid I can't.'

'All right; just put it in black and white, and I'll send it on; I don't suppose it matters about a long notice.

There are scores of poor devils looking for a job in town just now who'll be glad of the billet.'

'They might be glad of it; it doesn't follow they would be fit for the position,' answered Searle.

'The position! Do you call it a position, then?' said Trevaskis, with a harsh laugh.

Further acquaintance had not improved the relations between the two. It seemed to Searle that the manager

had from the first an unaccountable 'down' on him. As a matter of fact, a 'fellow with too much of a gab,'1 as

he would phrase it, was always antagonistic to Trevaskis; and in the bitter mortification that possessed

himthe sense of intense irritation, which grew greater instead of diminishing, as hour by hour brought

home to him more aclosely the complete social annihilation that had fallen on himit afforded him a certain

gratification to inflict annoyance on others. And to make matters worse, Searle found out that Trevaskis had

spoken slightingly of him. It was told to him with the kindest intentions, but the result was not an increase of

Robert Challoner had called on Trevaskis the day after he came, and invited him to Stonehouse, as the

managerial dwellinghouse had been called when erected nineteen years before, and it enjoyed the

distinction of being the first stone house in the Colmar district. It was at the foot of the reef on the northern

side, where the reef was at its steepest, completely closing in the view southward, so that from Stonehouse

nothing could be seen of the mine bor its surroundings. There was also an avenue of blue gums and

peppertrees2 call round the house, which dhelped to mitigate the stern aridity of its surroundings. It faced

the west, where the flat, illimitable plain all round was faintly broken in the efar distance by fthe paleblue

lines, one beyond the other, known as the Euckalowie Ranges. The house was surrounded by a deep veranda,

and there was a bay window on each side of the front door. One of these was open, and as Trevaskis went in

with Challoner, who had met him at the gate, he saw a young girl looking out, whose face, with its rare

The exquisite orderliness and tokens of refinement in the place, the welcome accorded to him by Mrs.

Challoner, and the generous nature of the bottle of wine he drank with his host, all disposed Trevaskis to a

'You see, if you feel inclined to gtake your family here after we leave at Christmasindeed, we may leave a

'Mrs. Trevaskis is rather delicatealways accustomed to plenty of servants and society and all that; and we

have five young children. She would never consent to come, and I wouldn't ask her. Searle has a bedroom

'Yes; he always slept in the house to take care of it before we came; now we take care of him,' said Challoner,

Then, noticing a hard, irresponsive look in Trevaskis' face, and knowing through Searle that the two didn't hit

'But what a tongue! I think it would be a very good thing for him to be put in solitary confinement for twelve

months, so as to get him out of jabbering eternally. I never could stand a very talkative man,' said Trevaskis,

He could not deny Searle's garrulity, but he felt that the new manager was unjust to him in laying so much

During the pause, the strains of a very sweet, plaintive melody, played on a pianoforte in ithe adjoining room,

'That is Miss Lindsay playingthe young lady you saw as we came in,' said Challoner.

'I should like to hear her nearer,' replied Trevaskis'if it is convenient,' he added, as he noticed a certain

'No, no! I see it is later than I thought,' said Trevaskis, starting up, a deep hot flush rising in his face. He

stared at his watch hardnot that the time was of any importance to him, but because in the sudden revulsion

of feeling, the deep annoyance and confusion, he hardly knew what he did. He bade Challoner a hasty

goodbye, and without waiting to see Mrs. Challoner, or leaving any message, he strode away, deeply,

'I ought to have put it more gracefully, I suppose,' said Challoner, staring after him.

Mrs. Challoner came into the room a few minutes later, and looked round in amazement at finding her

'He is gone; I am afraid he is a little huffed,' Challoner said, in his slowly contemplative way, and then he told

his wife what had happened. 'I would have explained to him that Miss Lindsay was not so much our guest, as

a young lady in our care with her own rooms and servant, and that we could not ask anyone into her room

without leave; but he went off in sparks,3 as James would say. And you know, wife, I can't take people by the

throat to put them into good humour, and reel off a speech in half a minute to make them see how things

'I am afraid he will be a bad successor jfor poor Dunning if he has such a disagreeable nature. And I am sorry

'It's conceitmy dear, it's conceit,' returned Challoner. 'You may speak of the pride of the people in the old

country, whose genealogy didn't stop this side of Adam, but they're humble and companionable compared to

men like Trevaskis,' said Challoner, who was a quietly observant man, with an innate perception of character,

strengthened by that eyetoeye intercourse with his kind which prevails in these lonely spaces of the earth,

where human nature plays a larger part than convention. He returned to the subject kagain that evening.

'You can see Trevaskis is the sort of la man who can be uncommonly nasty if he chooses, and I'm afraid he

has taken a dislike to poor old Searle.' Then he repeated to his wife what Trevaskis had said, and she

'Just tell him, Robert, that you can see the new manager is one of mthese people very reticent and disliking

'Yes, he has no more gall in him than a pigeon;4 I wish' Before the wish found expression there was a

'Now, Robert, have a talk with him; just try and smooth matters,' said Mrs. Challoner as she left the room, for

they both recognised Searle's footsteps. His bedroom was on the reefend of the house, with a door opening

on the veranda, so that he could get into his room without going through any other part of the house. But it

was understood when there was a light in the general sittingroom Searle should come in and have a crack5

if he felt so disposed. He did so on this occasion, and soon gave Challoner the opening which he did not

'The new manager is, no doubt, a very clever man,' said Searle, in a wouldbe dispassionate tone; 'but if he

doesn't learn to keep a civiller tongue in his head, I'm mistaken if he won't have the miners by the ears before

On this Challoner rushed in medias res.6 He found himself, at the end of what he had to say, with Searle

aggrieved, disturbed, and questioning. Challoner had little of the diplomat in him. What he had to say must

come out square and unabashed, with no gentle inferences, no halftones. All these might exist in his

intentions, but he had not the power of turning words to exquisite purposes and curious niceties of speech. He

could not express the finer shades of sentiment, although he felt them. He was astonished at the look of deep

resentment on Searle's face. Garrulous people are never without a deep substratum of selfcomplacency, and

the purser was wounded to the quick. If there was one thing on which he prided himself it was non his ability

to talk well and fluently, to be by turns grave and gay, instructive and amusing.7

During the days that followed he spoke to the manager only in monosyllables. But the joy of revenge was

sobered by a suspicion that the less he talked the more pleased Trevaskis was. It ois very likely Searle would

not have so promptly responded to his brother's proposal to join him in storekeeping if it were not for the

craving to startle Trevaskis with such a bombshell. And after all, the bombshell had fallen as flat as a

But there was balm in Gilead8 for Searle's ruffled feeling when, pin less than a week after his resignation was

sent in, the following note came from 'the Honourable Stuart Drummond, M.L.C., Chairman of the Directors

of the Colmar Mine Company,' as Searle, swelling with importance, styled him in telling the event to

'My nephew, Mr. V. FitzGibbon, has decided that he would like the post of purser and storekeeper at the

Colmar Mine, at least till Christmas. The directors and myself are satisfied that Mr. FitzGibbonwho, by

the way, is a B.Sc. of the Adelaide Universityis qualified for the position. You are probably aware that, on

coming of age, he succeeds to my late brother's property, and, as his heir, Mr. FitzGibbon will have a direct

stake in the Colmar. We hope you will find it convenient to let him gain, under your skilful supervision, a

'So it seems my successor isn't to be one of those poor devils who qare walking the streets for a job, after all,'

'Do you think so? Generally, a colonial degree means a young fellow's head has been muddled with books he

'I'll give him a good dig, though, before I leave; I'll let him have it hot9 somehow,' thought Searle, staring

after him. 'A young gentleman, with a fortune behind his back, with a direct stake in the Colmar: he can't

bully him as he does everyone else. I believe he dislikes the new purser more than the old one,' said Searle,

But if the surmise was correct there was no sign of it in the manager's manner when Victor reached the mine

'I'm afraid you won't find this a very entertaining place,' said Trevaskis, as the two were on their way to

'Oh, I think I'll like it, for a few months, at any rate; the country is so unlike anything I've been in before,'

'Oh yes, there's novelty in more than the landscape here,' said Trevaskis, with a short laugh.

He found a malicious satisfaction in anticipating the novelty of a hostelry like the Colmar Arms for the young

Mrs. West, the landlady, was still waiting for a cook. Her baby was still getting his teeth, a process that seems

'It's always like this; that wretched kid hardly ever shuts up,' said Trevaskis, as the mother and child

disappeared, the latter keeping up an easy singsong sort of wail, that swelled threateningly if he were too

'Poor little beggar! He wants a little more nursing than he gets, I expect,' answered Victor; and when the two

returned, he called out cheerily to the culprit, holding out his watch as a bait.

The child looked hard at the watch and then into the syoung men's faces.10 After making this preliminary

inquiry into their character, he seemed rather to approve of them. He gave a feeble smile, and then he slowly

and gravely walked up to the newcomer, making a wide circuit round Trevaskis, looking at him in the

meanwhile with a gloomy interrogative expression which greatly tickled Victor. He piled some

sofacushions on a chair, and placed the child on them beside him, and gave him his watch to wind up. It was

a robust, silver stemwinder, and after listening to its creaking sound for some minutes, as he turned the stem

round, the child began to watch what went on tat the table, and then stretched out his chubby hands for a

When the mother next entered the room, she found uDick munching a slice of breadandbutter, and trying

'Your baby is a long way ahead of me in language, Mrs. West,' said Victor. 'What can be the meaning of a

'He is trying to tell you vabout the big dog in the back yard,' answered the mother. wOn hearing Victor's

hearty laugh at this translation, she recalled a few more of Dicky's speeches equally xremote from the

common tongues of humanity. Presently the landlady was deep in a detailed account of her trials with

'Why don't you get middleaged women, who wouldn't zbe likely to marry?' said Victor sympathetically,

after listening to a heartbreaking aaaccount of successive cooks and housemaids who had been obtained at

high wages with passagemoney paid, bbwhose career at the Colmar Arms came abruptly to an end with the

catastrophe of a brief wooing and cca speedy weddingeven of clandestine departures without a wedding at

'Oh, blesh you, sir, if they was that old as they was likely to die of their years, they'd marry at the Colmar.

You see a 'atter's life is a very lonesome oneI mean one as lives to hisself.11 When you go among the

miners' huts and tents you see some closed up, with a padlock on the doorthat's dda 'atter's place. West, my

'usband, he was comin' along with you from Nilpeena, and he heard as you was the new purser. "But what a

'But I'm not in the least a swell; I could rough it far more than I'll have to do here,' said Victor, a little

chagrined that his rough suit of navyblue serge, his bluestriped shirt, with an unstarched turndown collar,

'Indeed, sir, swell and all, you're a kind'earted young gentleman! To see the way as that crabby child took to

you! An' though I'm 'is mother, I know he ain't sweettempered; but what can you expect, sir, with three

'Lays himself out to be popular, that's evidently his eetack,'12 thought Trevaskis as he listened. As for being

depressed by the crudeness of his social surroundings, they all seemed to strike FitzGibbon as so many

points of interest. He laughed more than once on the way back to the mine, recalling Mrs. West's despair at

'That's the place of one of the hatters who will be on the lookout for the new cook,' he said, as they passed a

little oneroomed hut with a big padlock on the door. 'By the way, captain, shan't I be a hatter, too?' he

Trevaskis explained that there was a manager's residence on the north side of the reef, now let to some

family, in which the purser had a bedroom. As they drew near the purser's office, Searle came to the door.

Trevaskis had taken Victor down into the mine, etc., before dinnertime, so that he and the expurser had as

'I should like to stay a few days, if possible, to explain the books and that to you, Mr. FitzGibbon, but I am

'Oh! don't trouble yourself, Searle. After all, it is a very simple matter. Just to keep the timebook, pay the

men on Saturday, ffand see that a proper account is kept of the consumption of stores,' said Trevaskis

'It may be very simple when it's done by an expert like Mr. Searle, captain, but it's different for me. I know I

shall be a bit of a duffer at keeping the books at first. If you could stay a few days, I should be awfully glad,'

he said, addressing Searle, who expanded under this speech like a bud in the sunshine. He would try. He

thought, perhaps, he could manage to stay two or three days longer, if Mr. FitzGibbon thought it would be a

'The greatest in the world. I know how very well you have done your work; I heard of you in my uncle's

office,' said Victor, who had, indeed, heard Searle's work highly commended, and was glad to proclaim the

'Soft sawder.13 An Irishman all over!' thought the manager, as he strode away, leaving the two together.

Surely none of the duties of a mine purser were forgotten that afternoon by Mr. Searle. There was the

daybook, in which things bought and sold were kept; the cashbook, showing receipts and expenditure; the

invoicebook, the costbook, the ledger and the timebook. It was over the latter that Searle took his most

spreadeagle flights, impressing on Victor the profound importance of entering each man's time and

avocation correctly from shiftbosses' records. Underground there were the ablebodied miners, the

shovellers, the truckers, the rockdrill foremen, the rockdrill labourers, the airwinch boys; above ground,

the engineer, the enginedrivers, the stokers, the batteryfeeders, the pan men, the hands at the

stonecrackers, etc., nearly all at different wages. Sometimes a man would be engaged as a shoveller half of

his shift, and as a trucker the other half. Care must be taken that he was entered at the two rates of wages,

At last Victor declared that his head was ringing, and that he began to suspect it was as difficult to be a good

purser as it was to be a great poet. It made him lowspirited to look at the immaculate figures and

copperplate writing in that pile of books, of which he greatly feared he would make a howling mess. Searle

was radiant, and administered fitting consolation. Then the two went to have a look round the mine, and

Searle of course made straight for the iron passage, and detailed its marvellous history, sparing no detail as to

its length or cost, or the number of sheets of galvanized iron in it. Then he made such mysterious allusions to

Webster's history, that Victor begged him to relate the story, which Searle promised to do before he left.

Finally, after the two had tea together at the Colmar Arms, and a bottle of Bass's ale,14 and a game or two at

billiards, he insisted on making up a bed for himself on the bunk that was in the office, and then went across

to Stonehouse, to introduce the new purser to Mr. and Mrs. Challoner. And there, in the room facing the reef,

Victor wrote his first letter to Miss Pagetone which would reach her a few days after she landed in

'You know,' he wrote, 'how I came prepared to "hump my bluey,"15 metaphorically speaking? Well, as far as

that goes, my coming to the mine is up to this an A1 swindlea sham as complete as the little Arabian birds

you bought at Aden. Figure to yourself that you are peeping into my bedroom. Let me assure you that there is

not the slightest impropriety in the suggestion, for it is a very pearl of bedroomsin a stone house! with a

Kurdistan rug before the bed!! another before the washhand stand!!! a third before the toilettetable, made

up in pink and white, like a young lady going to a ball!!!! pillows with ruffles round them, on the outside of a

knitted counterpane!!!!! I ggbetter not use up all my store of exclamation points in this one letter, for I

foresee I may need a few more later on. I had some thoughts of concealing some of these details from you,

for it is rather galling to come away to the heart of the barren Saltbush country to the "diggings,"16 and find

hhoneself in a room overflowing with voluptuous splendour. I could put up with the rugs and the ruffles and

the lady in pink and whitenow don't be suspicious (vide top of iipage)and even with the cake of almond

soap I found in the soapdish when I went to put my great square piece of plebeian yellow soap into it; but

what do you say to long white muslin curtains to the window!!!!!! But this is upholstery. I must come to

actual people. And first, one of my college chums, Maurice Cumming,17 is within fifteen miles of the mine.

He and a brother have a little sheeprunat least it used to jjbe a sheeprun, but the rabbits are eating them

out. As to the managerit is etiquette to call him captain on the mineif you were not preternaturally

English, Helen, and me so fearfully Irish at times, I should tell you that when I first saw him I had a

Presentimentwith a capital letter, as you may notice. When he is not on guard, there is a hard, angry look

in his eyes. At all times his manners resemble the snakes in kkIceland;18 but he has lost all his money, and

llhas to come away from his wife and children. Wouldn't I be savage, too, if I had to leave my wife?' etc.

w. On hearing . . . laugh at] Seeing that FitzGibbon was much amused on hearing E1

It was not till the evening before he left that Searle gave up the last insignia of his office.

'What! more keys, Searle,' cried Victor. 'Good heavens! how many am I to have in all? This makes seven,

nine, thirteenand two more fifteen. What is this long bright one for? it has no label.'

'That is the second key of the strong safe in which the gold is kept,' answered Searle slowly. 'On the last

cleaningup day,1 just three days before you came, we put two bars of gold into it, each worth one thousand

'Then there ais three thousand pounds of gold in that safe now?' said Victor, regarding it with curious interest.

It was a massive fireproof safe, standing in the northeast corner of the purser's office, opposite the door

which opened into the assayroom, containing several furnaces and a large collection of chemicals in jars and

'Yes, and when there's about another three thousand pounds' worth in it, Wills, our mounted trooper,2 will

take the lot in an iron box into Nilpeena by the mail coach, and there he is met by a trooper from town. You

keep this key, the manager has the other, so you can neither of you open the safe alone.'

'Oh, come! this begins to be like a chapter in a shilling shocker,'3 said Victor, smiling. But Searle maintained

'It is part of Webster's story, the strangest affair I ever was mixed up with. And do you know, Mr.

FitzGibbon, it's come across my mind once or twice that perhaps I dbetter not tell you.'

'Because it seemed to me that after I told it to Dunning, the late managera splendid fellow, clever and

welleducated, and such a pleasantmannered mana greater contrast to the present captain you could not

'Nor he with me; but before I leave tomorrow I'll give ehim a little punch in the ribs.' Searle's cheeks grew

Though Victor had during the last three days been often amused at the solemn importance with which Searle

would dwell on matters of small consequence, he began to perceive that there must be something tragical

'You can't expect me to let you off telling it after raising my curiosity to such a pitch,' he said. 'There's just an

hour before we go to tea. You must come to the Colmar Arms with me, as it is your last evening. Can you tell

As the story which Searle told is closely bound up with succeeding events at the Colmar Mine, it is necessary

to give the substance of his narrative, leaving out the devious wanderings in which he indulged, especially in

the earlier portion, when he gave an elaborate account of the way in which one of his eyes was affected with

a cataract that at last obliged him to go under an operation in town, where he remained for nearly six months

before he could return to his duties as purser. Webster had been manager at the mine for five months before

'There was a man who went by the name of Oxford Jim at the winding engine4 for a few weeks before I

leftI have heard that he's somewhere prospecting about here now,' said Searle; 'and Webster took him on to

keep the books and so on while I was away. When I left, the mine was never more prosperous, and Webster

was giving immense satisfaction all round. He was a great one for experiments. Before I left he had heaps of

tools and machinery removed to the cave room. He got on fwell with the men, and everything was as cheerful

as possible. When I got back and first saw Webster, I could hardly believe my eyes.'

'That's hardly the word for it; he was like another man entirely. He used to be rather plump and

freshcoloured; now his face was gray, with deep lines round his eyes, and a sort of quick twitch about them

sometimes, and fearfully restlessalways on the move, especially at night. It was a very rainy season when I

got back, and Webster used to wear a big black cloak, and a hat slouched over his face. In these he was seen

by people at all hours of the night, hanging round the mine, and some said as if he were carrying things. He

had loads of some old tailings carted into the caveground room. The yield from the mine had fallen almost

to nothing while I was away, and we thought this was working on the manager's mind, and that he was trying

'Not very well without special machinery. Some said he did it only for a blind. At any rate, he used to be

hours and hours in the cave room at night; and when I got back the iron passage was half done. He bought up

secondhand iron from little mines and companies that had come to grief in the district; and though he said

the passage would do to store things in, he had it gup entirely at his own cost. He said it was a little fad of his

own, and he wouldn't put the company to any expense. Well, after I came back things began to look up again.

Oxford Jim went away. The morning he left he said to me, "Be careful about what you drink with the captain

on cleaningup days." When I asked him what he meant, he just laughed and went away. He was a queer

fellow, with a curious twist in his mind that gave him a very bad opinion of everything in this world, and I

may say in the next. He used to take opium and things; people did say he was hardly ever quite straight6 hthe

'Here the whole process, down to smelting, takes about a day, sometimes a little longer. Your first experience

will come off in nine or ten days. Webster and I always had something to drink together. Well, the second

time we cleaned up, after I got back I felt rather stupefied. Next morning, when I saw the quantity of

amalgam, I was simply thunderstruck; it was about half less than it ought to have been. Time after time the

same thing happened, and Webster seemed to be getting queerer. He was brotherinlaw to two of the

directors, and had a good deal of influence, else I think he could not have carried on such a strange game so

'I wonder you didn't draw up a report or clear or something. It must have been deucedly uncomfortable.'

'It was more than uncomfortable; but you know, Mr. FitzGibbon, I'm not as young as I was, and I like things

quiet; I'm afraid, too, Webster buttered me over7 a good deal. Still, in less than four months after I came

back, the worry and fidget of it all brought on a weakness of my eyes, and I had to go away for two months.

The mine had fallen off so much then that Webster took no one on as purser; and as it seemed that the Colmar

'Well, when I came back the second time there were the most curious rumours about an iextraordinary rich

lode, which had been opened up, and ja vugh of gold,8 and all the rest of it. But there was hardly a soul in the

mine that I knew; the engineer and shift bosses, all except Roby,9 were new. As for the miners, of course

they're always shifting about, except a few old hands who have their families here. The yield had improved,

and Webster spoke of resigning. He had a claim at Hooper's Luck, nine miles from here, at which he had a

'Surely it was rather irregular for a manager to have a private job on hand while he was working for the

'Oh, as for that, nothing can be more irregular than mining companies from beginning to end,' answered

Searle, who had been in some way or another interested in mining for many years, and could speak with more

authority on this subject than on any other. 'A man who can't earn his tucker in any other line calls himself a

mining expert. He goes into the heart of the Bush, and makes assays and reports; and a company gets floated

with directors that know no more of mining than I do of Hebrew. And there's no doubt that in some ways

Webster was a very good manager, and a captain who has knowledge, and is believed to be honest, can do

Someone at this moment came into the assayroom, but neither Searle, who was absorbed in talking, nor

Victor, who impatiently awaited the denouement of the narrative, took any notice. The assayroom was at the

southern end of the offices, and the outer door often stood open until the offices were locked for the evening.

It was Trevaskis who had come in and stood behind the halfopen door leading into the purser's office,

looking for some kchemical among the rows of bottles that were ranged on shelves behind the door. While

'At any rate, Webster had this claim lat Hooper's Luck, and he was always riding across to it, and always got

very much excited when he began talking of it. He had bought an American waggon10 and a pair of horses,

and he was buying up a lot of the old machinery that was about the mineold furnaces and crucibles and so

' "I'll have a good many loads to cart to Hooper's Luck when I go there," he would say, chuckling and rubbing

his hands, and then he would walk about and his eyes would begin to gleam. It used to come across me, that

his mind was getting affected. One curious change that had come over him was that he had become most

awfully miserly. An old friend of his that I met in town the second time I was there about my eyes, told me

that Webster's father had become a perfect miser in his old age. A real miser, mind you, a monomaniac who

lived alone and grudged himself proper food while he had great strong boxes full of gold and silver, and

fiftypound notes sewn into his old mcoat. One day when I was out shooting and had left my key nto the safe

'Oh, it isn't imperative on the purser, then, never to give up his key?' said Victor, who had been gradually

absorbing the thought that it owas a minepurser's duty to see that the manager did not commit theft.

'Oh no; we've often given each other charge of our keys when we were going away for a day or so. Once the

gold is smelted and stamped and weighed, there's no chance of playing tricks with it. It's the white gold as the

Chinese call amalgam that gets stolen by everyone in turn, from the manager to the panman.'11

'Damn the fellow's impudence!' thought Trevaskis, and he felt inclined to give Searle a piece of his mind

there and then for making so free with his superiors. But certain vague hints which had reached him regarding

Webster of late, made him curious to hear the upshot. He stood at the shelves with his hand on the bottle he

was in search of, so that if anyone appeared at either of the halfopen doors, he might hurry away with the

'Well, I came back after dusk earlier than I expected. I found the safe unlocked and the gold gone. You might

have knocked me down with a feather, as the saying is. I instantly went through to the manager's office. The

doors were kept open then, from one room to another, so that you could go through without going outside;

and there are duplicate keys for the manager and purser, but the doors were hardly ever locked. However,

when I got to the room next the manager's office the door was locked, but when he heard my voice he opened

at once. "Ah!" he said, "you missed the gold; it is here, it is quite safe; but aren't they beauties, aren't they real

beauties, shining solid and yellow? The more there is of it in a heap the lovelier it looks! Sovereigns are

pretty to look at, but what are they qto ingots12 weighing three hundred ounces?"

'The bars of gold were lying on the table, and he had scattered handfuls of sovereigns over them, and he rkept

bending over them and handling them, his eyes glittering as if he were in high fever. "Think of getting gold

enough," he said, "to make fifteen of these barsfifteen! think of it, piled one upon the other in a splendid

glittering mass! Bah! when I make my pile at Hooper's Luck, I won't sell itnot till I have a little mountain,

not till I have enough to make fifteen bars weighing each three hundred ounces. Good God! think of having a

'He must have gone out of his mind; yes, he must have been mad. That evening I found it hard to calm him

down. All of a sudden he cried out sthat the men at Hooper's Luck were robbing him. He was sure of it. But

he would take them unawares, and search their tents and find a heap, a heap, a heap of nugget gold! He had

put them on the claim, and paid them wages and given them tools, and now they were cheating him. He knew

it. But he would steal a march on them, and I'm afraid he did it, too,' said Searle, dropping his voice.

Trevaskis was surprised to find himself breathing hard with rising excitement. His imagination was strangely

fired by thoughts of those gleaming heaps of gold which had been conjured up by the distempered ravings of

'It was two nights after that,' said Searle, with a certain tremor in his voice, 'that I was coming very late, early

I should say, from the Colmar Arms. I kept a little more to the left than I ought to have done, and struck the

stable instead of passing between it and the offices on my way across the reef to Stonehouse. The stabledoor

was open, and there was Nick, the manager's black horse, in a lather of sweat, and quivering all over. Next

day news reached the mine that Hooper's Luck had been robbed and one of the men killed. His mate had got a

lift in Mr. Challoner's buggy from Hooper's Luck to Nilpeena, and it was good for thim he had such a

trustworthy witness to answer for him. For at the inquest he admitted that he and the murdered man were

concealing the fact that they had got about two thousand pounds' worth of nuggets, and that they had planned

'No, but if my suspicions are right, the hand of God was heavy on him,'13 answered Searle. 'I kept on

thinking of what the manager had said of stealing a march on the tributers, and of his horse in a lather of

sweat between one and two in the morning, and the murdered man, and the stolen gold, and one thing or

another, so that when I saw him I used to feel choked, and couldn't look him in the face. But there wasn't a

breath of outside suspicion against him. I knew many a man has been hung on circumstantial evidence

stronger than I possessed, and yet was proved innocent when it was too late. I would have resigned, but

Webster was going as soon as they could get one in his place. And he was more than ever in the cave

'Everyone began to notice something very queer in his manner. At last one night, nine days after the murder, I

was sitting here at this desk, making up the approximate cost, the door of the assay office was on the latch, as

it generally was till I left for the night. It was thrown uopen as if by a whirlwind, and Webster rushed into the

office here, his face as white as a sheet, his eyes starting out of his head, the sweat in big drops on his

forehead. "I saw him," he said, "I saw him, I saw him with his head all battered in, as sure as God is in

heaven!" and with that he fell into a fit, foaming at the mouth. When he came to, he was so completely off his

head that Wills, the police trooper, had to handcuff him and watch him till he got him down into the

'And he is there now, isn't he? I heard something of his going insane, from the mine secretary in town,' said

Trevaskis, who had listened to the close with breathless interest, was in the act of turning away with the bottle

of nitrate of mercury, for which he had come, when again Searle's speech arrested him.

'That is the first act, and the second was nearly as strange. No, you wouldn't be likely to hear any whisper of

the Hooper's Luck affairfor Dunning and I were the only two who knew; I told him in the greatest

confidence. I would have told it to the new captain, too, for in a way I thought he ought to know, but'

Then came a few words which Trevaskis did not hear. Searle was lighting his pipe as he spoke. But he heard

'I may teach you to laugh on the wrong side of your mouth before I've done with you, young man,' was the

thought that rose in his mind, but more as an expression of quick anger than any serious resolution of

'And you,' continued Searle, 'will be none the worse for having your eyes and ears open. For more than seven

months after Dunning came, I didn't say a word about the Hooper's Luck affair. I did go into the cave room

with him one day, to have a search round. But there wasn't a thing in the place except old machinery and all

sorts of odds and ends, down to an invalidchair that one of the early managers had after breaking his leg.

Then one night I told him, and the whole affair made the strongest impression on him. I fancy he began to

prowl round in the cave room from that very night. He said to me one day, half joking, "What would you say

if I discovered a great lode in that old cave room?" and I just told him, in the same way, not to begin to

'It was about six weeks later, I think, that Webster was discharged as being sane. We heard nothing of it till

he came. He made straight for the mine. He got into Nilpeena by the train that reaches it at four o'clock in the

morning, and tramped it here on foot, so that no one should know he was coming. There was a tremendous

duststorm on. You couldn't see from one end of the offices15 to the other. I was coming across after the

three o'clock shift had gone to work. Near the assay office here I met a man bareheaded, his face as black as a

pot, nothing white but the white of his eyes, and they were glaring like a wild cat that has a dog's teeth in its

' "He has turned me out!" he said; "he won't let me into the passage or the old cave room."

'At that moment Dunning came out of his office and locked the door. Webster gave a howl like a dingo, and

rushed on him. If I hadn't been there, I think it would have gone hard with Dunning. It was as much as we

could do to hold him down till Wills got him handcuffed. He was worse than the first time, all the way down

Trevaskis heard footsteps approaching the outer door of the assayroom, and noiselessly slipped out, carrying

vaway with him the nitrate of mercury. He had been in the room for about a quarter of an hour, and when he

came out the wind had risen, and the dust was thick in the air. Looking eastward from the front of the offices,

the great wide treeless plain, sweeping to the verge of the vague horizon, was enclosed in a lurid, reddish

haze. The country in that direction was in places entirely destitute even of saltbush, and the hard red earth

lay gaping in wide cracks, which in a dry season, when the wind blew high, infected all the atmosphere with

'I don't wonder Webster went madliving in a place like this for two years,' thought Trevaskis, with a dull

sinking of the heart. The reddish sultry air, thick with dust, throbbing with the din of the battery and

aircompressors,16 the smoke from the tall stack hanging in dense clouds overheadall combined to make

the atmosphere dark, heavy, and oppressive. To Trevaskis, who from time to time found himself stricken with

attacks of acute depression that bordered on physical prostration, the place just then wore a menacing and

He was still standing at whis office door, looking blankly round with a sort of dazed impassiveness, when

'I suppose, captain' began Searle as he drew near. But before he could get any further, Trevaskis

deliberately turned away, walked into his office, and slammed the door behind him.

'Never mindI can have a look at it from the outside,' he said hurriedly. He had been so much interested by

what he had heard regarding the cave room that he wished to see it there and then. It struck him that there

might be some indications which would throw light on the strange fascination the place had possessed for

Searle had at once proposed that they should ask the captain for the key that opened the door leading from his

office into the passage; and this was the result. Searle was voluble as to the captain's unprecedented rudeness,

'After all, no man would indulge in such an extraordinary freak without some strong motive,' he said, as they

walked down by the side of the passage till they reached the irregular, halfcircular iron structure that

'Or without being mad,' answered Searle. 'That was the conclusion Dunning came to after the most careful

examination. But he, too, got quite fond of it for a workshop; there's a heap of his things down there. As I

was telling you, the shock of Webster's attack seemed to affect Dunning most strongly. The first thing that

did him good was a visit from an old friend of his, an actor who was out of a billet, and came from

Melbourne and stayed over a month with him. Then just before he was killed his health was out of sorts; he

was afraid of some inward growth, and he had arranged with the directors that he should go once a month for

a few days to Melbourne to be treated by some specialist. He was going to start the very day after he was

killedhad everything ready. The directors thought themselves lucky to get hold of Trevaskis in his place,

Victor discouraged reversion to this subject. Searle, however, had his innings when he bade the captain

'In some xways I am,' answered Searle. 'The company have always treated me well; I'm not like the man who

' "First I was a master, Then I was a grieve; At last I got the dogs to keep, And then I got my leave."17

But then, again, I'm glad that the company have sent a young gentleman of good position with an interest in

the mine; there have been some curious tricks in connection with it before, and'

Searle's heart failed him a little as he met the furious glare that came into the captain's eyes, so he cut his

sentence short, and it was not till he was on the boxseat of the mailcoach bowling along to Nilpeena at the

rate of ten miles an hour that he thoroughly enjoyed the 'dig' he had given the new captain.

Victor did not find that the manager developed more companionable qualities as the days went on. There is,

doubtless, often a great satisfaction to the unregenerate man in taking change out of1 an offender by what

Searle called giving a 'dig,' especially when the one who gives it is going beyond the reach of an inept

pleasantry in return. The amazement which FitzGibbon's voluntary sojourn at such a place as the Colmar

caused Trevaskis was changed by Searle's parting words into a fast suspicion that athe young man had, by

reason of his large interest in the mine, come to play the spy on the new manager. Thus to the moroseness

which his misfortunes and rankling sense of failure had induced was added the animus of a private grudge.

The result of this was not, however, at first bad for Victor; it had merely the result of making him work rather

hard. During the first week he made several clerical slips which Trevaskis commented on with so much

severity and rudeness that it was with much difficulty the young man kept his temper.

'Good heavens! how the animal sets my teeth on edge!' he said, and then he resolved that he would never give

For the next two weeks he worked late and early, mastering all the details of his work, making out lists of the

stores on hand, so that he should not forget to order in time. As for the variations in the men's wages, he

learned them off by heart, bso that he should make no errors in writing out their weekly cheques. After this

spurt of work was over, Trevaskis set him to take stock of all the mining materials in the various storerooms.

In this he had the assistance of Michael the cwater carrier. The mine was dependent for drinking water, as

indeed were all the inhabitants of Colmar as well, on the Government tank,2 halfway between the mine and

'And very bad it do be getting, that same tahnk, Mr. FitzGibbon. The dhry season is powerful bad for the

They were in the ironmongery store, Michael calling over shovels, sieves, coils of fuse, picks, leather belting,

kegs of nails, etc., Victor checking them off in his stockbook. After an hour and a half of this, Victor cried

out, 'Smoke oh!' and the two were talking as they spelled.3 Michael was a nervouslooking little man, with a

brickred face, keen little brown eyes, and very red hair. As he talked, quick spasmodic twitches would from

time to time pass over his face, especially round the mouth and eyes and across the nose.

'But, surely to goodness, Michael, you have no dead things in the tank out of which our drinkingwater

'Indade, sor, and there is, an' mahny's the time I've had to hould me nose while I'm taking a draught of wather.

It isn't so bad as that this saison yet, and the Government they do be puttin' off cleaning the tahnk. We'll have

a spreadin' illness, the typhy faver or some such, and then we'll be forced to keep a docthor to our own

'By the way, Michael, what sort of a doctor is the man you subscribe so much a month for?'5

'Well, sor, he's a big fat mahn, wid half the alphabet at his heels, living on the other side of Hooper's Luck.

Iviry month there's a shilling stopped out of our wages, as you know, to dgive him, for living beyand the

reach of ahny rale disthress, I may say. We did just as well when he wasn't there, and we died quietly, widout

the help of medicine, if the hour had come. Mahny a time I do be wondering, sor, how mankind will come

and shtay in a place like this, and from all parts of the worrld. There's Runaway Hansa mahn that used to

ego whan voyage from Chiny to the Pyreamaids, where I am tould the corps of holy cats6the blissid saints

forgive them!and of moighty monarchs is kept as on the day they died, maybe shortly after the Flood; and

yet that mahn left his kit and his Sunday breeches and three months' wage, to run away to the Colmar.'

'Runaway Hans!' repeated Victor, who was smiling broadly, and by this time decided that Michael was one to

be cultivated; 'ah! that's the yellowhaired young man with a strong German accent?'

'Yes, the same; he do thry to spake English a little, but what he mostly talks is, as you say, sor, the German

ahccent. Well, and he left all that behind him, and frun away for what? To scrape dirt underground till his

guernsey pours over wid sweat gliked a rag soaked in the washtub, and live undher a sthrip o' calico wid an

Victor laughed; and at that moment Trevaskis looked in at the open door. His face darkened as he took in the

frank, friendly relations which the young man had so quickly established between himself and Michaelthe

veriest drudge at the mine. Trevaskis' own manner to all who were under him was marked by a certain

peremptory roughness, which is, as a rule, the note of the proletariat who has developed into the master.7 In

his most genial moments he would never dream of entering into any talk with one like Michael beyond giving

him orders, and perhaps occasionally blaspheming his eyes for not being more prompt.

'That's his lay8to worm himself into the confidence of everyone, and that old fox Drummond hasking me

to let him have an insight into the working of the mine. But I'll put a spoke in his wheel there!' thought

'Barzilla9 Jenkins is going off by the afternoon mail. I want you to make out his cheque, FitzGibbon.'

When Victor went into the office he found Jenkins, a big, brawny Cornishman, standing at the door as he had

come up out of the mineihis face and hands black, his moleskin trousers stiff with clay and earth stains.

The man gave a muffled sort of assent. The men were paid each Saturday; this was Friday, but Jenkins was

'Why, you are only down for two shifts, besides today's, since last payday, Jenkins!' said Victor, as he

As he looked up, to hand this to Jenkins, he was struck with the look of profound gloom in his face. There

'It's just the inikity o' the oud Adam 'isself,' he burst out passionately. 'I missed two days' work, bein' on the

drink, and now I've not enough to take me hum; and when I coom up this afternoon, I found this 'ere.'

As he spoke, he handed Victor a telegram, which ran: 'Your wife is much worse. Come at once.'

'I 'ad a letter last week, as she was onwell,' he went on, 'and I knowed some'ow last night she were weered. I

By this time Victor had produced his private chequebook, and was rapidly writing out a cheque for five

'Take this, 'Zilla,' he said, putting it folded into his hand. 'You can pay me back when it is convenient,' he

It was the personal relations into which he came with the miners that gave the strongest element of interest to

the purser's work. Victor had strongly the sympathetic fibre, which is rarely absent from the Irish

temperament when it has fair play. He had also that quick sense of humour which, under all circumstances,

gives an enlivening strain to the seriocomedy of life. And at the Colmar, as in all other parts of the

Australian Bush, there was a great deal of human nature about. It is true that most of it was quite in the rough;

that there was little of those finelyspun hypocrisies, those keen but veiled rivalries, those subtle and

contradictory nuances of character, which are developed among superior people, under the high pressure of

civilization. Those politely ironical little stories that invigorate the languors of conversation, at the expense of

mutual friends, were las unknown as the faculties sharpened only to invent means of killing time. But though

there were no polished raconteurs ripely skilled in relating events which never happened, in a sparkling way,

there was no lack of men who enjoyed hearing and telling such stories as came in their way in a somewhat

At the Colmar, as in politer walks of life, those whose social instincts were most highly developed were not,

as a rule, among the more admirable characters. They belonged rather to the habitual procession of the

streets, with the chronic idlers left out, greedy for enjoyment in some form, and reckless as to the future. They

alternated hard work with 'betting drinks to the crowd,'11 and going twentyfour hours without sleep. They

preferred to give a fillip to one day at the expense of another, rather than have all days alike monotonous.

Speed with an equivocal result fascinated them more than the undeviating pace of safety. Some of the older

miners were Cornish Wesleyans,12 who combined to hold 'services' on Sunday, to get up teetotal

entertainments, and generally influence the laxer brethren to adopt a more decorous mode of life. But early in

his experience as a purser, it occurred to Victor that the miners would be a much duller lot than they were if

the more serious among them had it all their own way. It is indeed a melancholy reflection that the good

qualities of some people are aesthetically, oftentimes more unsatisfactory, at least to the mere lookeron, than

'Zilla Jenkins was one who hovered between the two campsmsometimes severely virtuous in his conduct,

and rigid in his condemnation of all carnal indulgence. During such periods he was a total abstainer, and had

even been known to give rousing addresses on the evils of intemperance. But these were adventures in the

higher ethics, which time after time ended in disaster. 'Brother 'Zilla hev backslid again' was the testimony

that had noften to be given regarding him at the chapel and blueribbon meetings.13

Two of these more serious miners interviewed Victor on Saturday after Jenkins had left by the mailcoach.

'About 'Zilla, sir; we does wish as you 'adn't abe'd so kind to 'e,' the elder said in an expostulatory tone.

'You see it's like this, sir,' struck in the other man, before Victor, who was amused and a little taken aback,

could make any response. 'Jenkins hev gone back agin an' agin to rowl like the swine in the Scripther14 in the

slime o' evildoin'. 'Zilla gets sorry, but the repentance don't stick to 'e. Now, we was a watchin' for this 'ere

oppertoonity. 'Zilla's been bad on the oburst.15 News comes as 'is missus is hill, she's gen'ally hillthat's 'ow

she can't leave 'er mother to cleave onto 'er man, which is the rule o' Gord and o' nature,16 but she's got weerd

and weerd, and 'Zilla he wants awful to git away; but he spent 'is money at the public'ouse an' so did those

as 'e goes wi' there. Why, sir, they're on the tick17 and on the borrowr from one month's end to the other. We

was waitin' to the larst moment, an' then to come forrard and say: "'Ere, 'Zilla Jenkins, your missus is maybe i'

the last gapse. 'Tis a gashly18 thing for a man to swaller 'is money an' make a beast o' 'isself onto the bargain,

'You were going to say all that to the poor fellow, when he was in such a fix!' said Victor, keeping a serious

'Ay, sir, but 'ow much better to slang 'e now than let 'e go straight to Berlzebub. We was goin' to lend 'im the

money at 's awn 'count on a Hi Ho U, an' that 'ud 'ave 'elped to bring 'e back to the paths o' righteousness, so

to speak, for 'e 'd abeen ashamed to spend 'is substance at th' Colmar Harms till 'e 'd apaid us back, an' by

A teamster came into the office just then, to tell Victor that four teams were waiting at the weighbridge to

have their loads checked, so that he had to leave before Rehoboam Hosking had quite finished.

Rehoboam, or Roby, as he was usually called, was one of the three shift bosses of the mine, and the one who

most frequently conducted services in the little iron schoolroom which stood midway between the Colmar

Arms and the post and telegraph office. He had what some of the miners called 'a great gift for spouting,' and

was fervid in organizing meetings of all sorts, in which he took a leading part. On Sundays he often preached

morning and evening. His sermons and exhortations were of a very rousing, not to say overbold, description.

Thus, on one occasion when he was carried away by his zeal for conversions, he cried out in stentorian tones:

'Descend upon us, O Holy Ghost, descend: if there's any damage done to the roof, there's not a shoveller on

One or two Episcopalians who were present afterwards accused Roby of blasphemy. He denied the charge

with great vigour, and affirmed that they and the Church they belonged to were 'lukewarm Ladoshians, that

the Amen of the beginning of Creation had long ago spued out of His mouth.'20 This was a flight in metaphor

which reduced one of Roby's opponents to silence, while it confirmed the other in his worst opinions of the

shift boss's divinity, and even of his moral sincerity. Henceforth qthe Episcopalian believed all that was said

against Roby, for there were unfortunately stories abroad about him that somewhat told against his influence

as a social reformer. In preaching, he was fond of describing himself as a brand snatched from the burning,21

and with that complete deliverance from reserve and modesty, which so curiously marks the members of

some religious sects, he would give graphic details of the rway in which aforetime he had distinguished

himself in evil doings. At teetotal meetings, also, he would relate with gusto how at one period of his history

he had been such a slave to drink that his first wife had died from the effects of destitution and misery.

'But at the same time 'e sdoesn't tell 'ow when he was a local preacher and classleader at the Burrar, 'e

prilled22 samples o' copper ore, and 'elped to start a little bogus company,' an old acquaintance of Roby's

would say, and another would recall an equally discreditable story. Were they all true? Whether or no, the

man was a very 'stirring' pulpiteer and blueribbonner. No newcomer was long at the Colmar without being

importuned by Roby to give some assistance at the Saturday night temperance meetings, which were chiefly

'The Lord did not make everybody smurt,' he would explain with great unction, 'but I blaiv iveryone as tries

can do summat for a blue mitting23sing a song or give a bit o' recitation, or music on any sort o' machine

And thus Victor found himself pledged to Roby, to play a violin solo on the evening of each Saturday from

the first week he came to the mine. Now it was four o'clock in the afternoon. The last of the men had been

paid, and Victor had the office to himself. He took tout his violin, tuned it, and began to play over the 'Last

Rose of Summer'24 with variations. He had not played more than a minute or two, however, before he put the

violin down with a little exclamation. The last time he had played this melody was at uthe concert on board

the Mogul, accompanying Helen on the piano. The first few bars recalled the place and scene with the

vividness which belongs to the associations of music, and with these Victor recalled that he had not finished

reading her letter which had come by that morning's mail, posted the day after she and her father had reached

Colombo. He had been interrupted in reading it; then he had gone to dinner; then he had paid the men; then

he had gone to the weighbridge; and thenhe had forgotten it. He admitted this to himself with a pang of

selfreproach. It was vnew to him, this discovery that his thoughts and actions often fell below his own

And it was such a bright, amusing letter, the people on board so capitally hit off, and the landing in Colombo;

the drive among the swarming native quarters, where you see the craftsmen in their tiny shops without door

or xwindows, the coarse screens of split bamboos rolled up; here a blacksmith sitting crosslegged beside his

anvil, there an enamelworker, then a brazier's shop full of glowing copper vessels, the richer shops with

tinselcovered skullcaps, with soft white silks and muslins, petticoats and trousers for women, with

spangles and gold and embroidery; the softfaced bronze babies, arrayed in tiny loincloths and heavy

bangles, toddling after the Sahibs, to sell them a big scarlet flower; the traders, with a single basket of

mangoes and a small branch of bananas, under a cocoanut palm by the roadside; the Hindoos with their

castemark on forehead and chest sitting sideways on bullocks; the big funny vehicles with a pagoda roof;

the little bamboo carts drawn by tiny humped oxen that run as fast as ponies; the yellowrobed Mollahs25

under yellow umbrellas; the people who run after belated travellers with palm fans and screens of coarse

bamboos, and great pineapples for threepence, and iced sodawater under the scorching sun. All was just as it

'But what I like best to see are the natives of high caste in voluminous folds of pure white and majestic

turbans,' wrote Miss Paget; 'their unmoved calm, their statuesque attitudes, their imperturbable mouths, make

one feel that, as compared with Orientals, Europeans have, on the whole, degenerated into commis

Then he turned to the letter again, and looked over it from beginning to end, while some feeling yhe could not

have defined of loneliness zfell over him. Was it because existence at the Colmar, like a Chinese picture

without shading or perspective, had begun to pall on him, or was it that the discipline under which Miss Paget

purposely kept her feelings left a void that, with the roofless sort of sensation which had begun to creep over

him, struck him with a feeling akin to physical chill? Only just on the last halfsheet, after the close of the

'I think I have told you almost everything, except that I often felt sad at the thought of sailing, sailing, sailing

farther away from you every day. I am at this moment in a charming room at the Mount Lavinia Hotel,27

where father's friend is established. They are both on a balcony somewhere, talking about classic odes. When

I look out aaof28 the window, I see that lovely stretch of bright yellow sand, and the sea of an unfathomable

blueness dying away on the beach. When I look through the doorway, with its khuskhus screen29 half

drawn up, there is a vista of polished floor and whiterobed natives with bare feet gliding noiselessly about.

Still I am rather sad, because you are not here. Dites moi quelque chose de tendre qui me fasse oublier ces

'Dear Helen! I must write her quite an epistle tomorrow,' said Victor to himself, after reading these lines

Then he went outside and stood looking westward across the mine, with its groups of low iron buildings, the

long engineroom in the centre, with its reverberating throb of machinery, the heavy folds of smoke rising

above it and hanging low over the adjacent groups of the miners' huts and tents, and beyond the little

township, with its small iron buildings equally bare, without the sign of a tree, or even a fence, to break the

dull dead level. For the first time the austere, inexpressible aridity of the country seemed to weigh on him. It

was now many months since a shower of rain had fallen in the district. The graygreen saltbush was frayed

and thickly coated with dust, the bare earth showing between the low bushes in baked gaps. Was there any

other spot of the earth more desolate than this?flat, parched, and gray, without shade or water, lying in

measureless vistas, with an atmosphere so pure and clear, and a sky so cloudless and widely vaulted, that

frequently the mirage we call the horizon was entirely absent? For how many hundreds of years had the sun

beaten remorselessly upon the thirsty waste? As he looked at it, an immense longing came over Victor to see

once more the deep dull green of hills densely covered with stringy bark, or to see autumn leaves whirling

'Well, Mr. FitzGibbon, are you admiring the western view?' said someone close behind him.

'Yes; admiring it all so intensely that it has given me a fit of the blue devils,'31 said Victor, as he shook hands

'You've been working too hard since you came here. My wife bbonly said last night you've never been at

Stonehouse in the daytime, though you have been sleeping there for over ccfour weeks.32 You come away

'Not before six, my dear sir. Don't make me out stupider than I am. I ride for an hour or so, then breakfast at

the Colmar Arms at ddhalfpast seven, and at eehalfpast eight I am in the office. Up to this, it has taken me

'Well, you know, Rome was not built in a day. I came across to steal a little keg of blastingpowder, but as

you are about I suppose I'd better borrow it; and then just lock your office and come back with me to

'Thank you; I'll come with pleasure,' returned Victor; and after he had got the keg of powder for Challoner,

Victor had several times before this spent an hour or so with the Challoners, but always in the evening,

between eight and ten o'clock. On these occasions he had become acquainted with all the occupants of the

house but one: the host and hostess; Euphemia, the host's stout, rosycheeked daughter, placid and silent, and

much given to blushing; ShungLoo, who had learnt the secret of swift and noiseless action; and the cheerful

noisy Irish general servant, whose good intentions were far in excess of her performances. He had heard Miss

Lindsay named from time to time, and building a theory on some of those inferences, too vague to be called

thoughts, concluded she was a middleaged lady, probably something of an invalid. His intercourse with Mr.

and Mrs. Challoner had been from the first on a pleasant and friendly footing. They had invited him to spend

his Sundays at Stonehouse any time he felt inclined. But hitherto he had spent them with the aUniversity

chum he mentioned in his first letter to Miss Paget, at Wynans, the rabbitinfested station.

On this afternoon he chatted with Mr. and Mrs. Challoner for some time, and then went into his own room to

write. As he was going there, Mrs. Challoner told him that if he felt inclined to sit on the western veranda at

any time, he would always find a comfortable chair there. After writing several pages to Miss Paget he

availed himself of this invitation. Taking a book and a cigar with him, he went round to the western veranda.

The curtains1 were all drawn. Before his eyes had grown used to the semigloom, he heard a sound that

startled him strangely. It was the sound of one sobbing in bitter grief. A young girl, in an armchair, at the

open French window, her face buried in her hands, was within a few paces of him. She had not heard his

approach, and he tried to steal away without attracting her attention. But he could not for a moment withdraw

his eyes from the slenderly rounded, graceful figure, from the exquisite head, with its wealth of deep amber

hair, bent low in an abandonment of sorrow. And thus trying to do two things at a timea performance

against which we have all at one time or another been warnedhe stumbled heavily over a chair.

'I am awfully sorry,' began Victor, and then he stood, colouring deeply, unable to take his eyes off the face

upturned to him, to look away from those wonderful eyes, radiant even in their sorrow.

Doris got up as if to go inside. There was a little wicker table by the chair on which she had been sitting,

'Pray do not let me disturb you. I will go back to my room again. I did not know there was anyone here,' said

'Oh no, don't go away, please,' said Doris softly. She tried to look at him, but the great tears were again rising

'I am afraid you are hurt, or in pain. I am so sorryso very sorryto see you in distress.'

There was so much kindness and heartfelt sympathy in his voice that Doris felt constrained to make some

'Oh no, no! I am only sorry I cannot do something for you. I am afraid you have had some bad news.'

'Nonot news; there is nothing more that could happen to me,' she replied, speaking in a very low tone, so

'II did not know of your coming; I had not heard,' said Victor; and then he suddenly paused, asking himself

why he made so sure that ShungLoo's mistress was an invalid middleaged lady? Had anyone ever said so?

Had anyone, in fact, said anything beyond speaking of Miss Lindsay? But how was one to imagine that this

represented a beautiful young girl with an air of distinction and refinement rare anywhere, but little less than

astounding in a spot so isolated from the higher graces of civilization. These thoughts passed rapidly through

his mind, ending with the reflection that he had made a most foolish and inept reply to the pathetic words the

'I am so vexed I disturbed you,' he said. 'Would you like me to raise the curtains before I go?'

'Oh, but you must not go; you came to read. You are Mr. FitzGibbon, I think; I have heard Mrs. Challoner

and Euphemia speak of you.' It seemed to Victor a distinction conferred on him to hear his name spoken by

that softly modulated, musical voice. There was something too irresistible in her direct simplicity, her clear,

'I shall be only too glad to stay if I do not disturb you,' he said, and on that Doris resumed her seat and took

Victor rolled up the curtains, and sat in the chair over which he had stumbled, and took up his book, but the

words danced before him and the lines ran together. Then he perpetrated felony with his eyes. Still holding

the book before him as if he were reading, he stole glances at the girl who was sitting barely six feet away

from him. She was in a thin black dress, relieved only with narrow white lisse3 at the throat and wrists. She

began to sew, her long thick lashes downcast, and as he looked he saw a great tear roll down her cheek, and

then another. He felt choked with compassion, yet when she had spoken of her trouble he had made so

imbecile a reply. There was something infinitely touching in the grief of one so young, and so much alone in

the world. If he could only say somethingsomething to distract her thoughts! He rustled the leaves of his

book and cleared his throat. Doris furtively wiped her eyes and bent a little lower over her work, and the

Then ShungLoo came cin in his usual noiseless way with a white silk shawl. 'It neal sunset now, Miss

Dolis.' She took the shawl from him with a little smile of thanks, and put it over her shoulders. 'Oh, Miss

'No, Shung; I am not going to again,' she said humbly. Then ShungLoo disappeared as noiselessly as he had

come. As soon as she was alone againshe felt satisfied that Mr. FitzGibbon was buried in his

bookDoris took up the corner of the shawl and held it to her lips, and her tears flowed afresh

'Miss Lindsay, I ought not perhaps to speak to you when you are in such trouble; but you kindly asked me to

Victor had put down his book and drawn his chair closer. His voice vibrated with emotion, and, in fact, his

'Oh, I thought you were reading,' she said brokenly. 'Everyone tells me I ought not to cry, and I seldom do.'

'Would you find it very hard to tell me why you are so sorrowful? But don't if it hurts you; only'

'It is because my mother has left me. She is gone; she can never come back to me.' She did not sob, but the

tears were falling as fast as raindrops, her filmy laced handkerchief was soaked, her lips and hands were

'I would give the world if I could say something to comfort you,' said Victor, speaking little above a whisper.

'But you cannotno one can,' she said through her tears, vainly struggling for composure.

Even in the midst of his distress, Victor felt a halfinclination to smile at the uncompromising sincerity of

this little speech. It was evidently hopeless to trot out any of the serviceable platitudes that people use to

bridge over those depths of grief in which they have no personal share. Still, even to make her talk a little

helped to stem the tears which gave him so horribly uncomfortable a sensation in the throat. This constrained

him to make another effort. 'You know, everyone feels badly hurt at some time,' he said lamely enough,

keenly conscious, even as he uttered the words, that any small efficacy they may dhave ever possessed in

binding up a broken spirit would be now ruthlessly weighed in the balance and found wanting.4

'Has your mother died, too?' asked Doris, looking up with tears trembling on her lashes.

'Then you came away from her? You left her?' said Doris, a little shade of mistrust creeping into her manner.

'Don't they love their mothers as much as girls do, then?' asked Doris. She glanced up at Victor, her lips

slightly parted, a look of dawning interest in her face, as if the incongruities of his sex were for the first time

'Oh yes; I think most of them doonly, you know, there is a difference,' he replied, anxious, he could not say

why exactly, to make her believe as well of his kind as possible. 'Girls, of course, mostly stay with their

'I would never have left my mother, nevernever,' she answered with slow emphasis.

'What a pretty place this is!' he said, picking up one of the watercolour sketches which had fallen eto the

ground. He felt all the absurdity of this abrupt change. But he wanted above all things to lead the talk away

'That is Ouranie, our old home, where I was born, and where maman and I always lived together,' she

Then she turned over the rest of her mother's sketches and showed him the shadowy corner in the garden

where the violets used to carpet the ground, and the tangled banks of Gauwari, with the tall trees growing

overhead. Doris had by a great effort recovered her composure, but her grief had been too suddenly arrested,

and the pictures of her old home awoke too many tender memories; fearful that she might again break down

'If you would like to see them, I will show you some more of mother's drawings another time;' and then, with

She had been for some time that afternoon looking over fthese too wellremembered scenes, the last her

mother had sketched and painted, till it seemed to her as if her mother gwere quite near. 'Oh, maman darling,

it is sometimes so very strange without you!' she said. Then she had fallen asleep, and in her sleep she dreamt

a dream dear and beautiful as the innermost circle of heaven could have been. Her mother came to her with

the old tender smile and words, the old caressing touch. But in the moment that her heart was throbbing for

exceeding joy,5 she awoke to find herself alone. In the cruel reaction, she was overcome with a grief keener

than that of the first days of her bereavement. It was then that Victor had come. When he was left alone, he

sat for some moments looking blankly at the sketch he had first taken up, and which Doris had left behind

'Well, I was a fearful jackass! I might have known that these were probably the very things that made her cry

so. Poor little darling! . . . Well, she is hlittle more than a child. . . . What wonderful eyes, what a perfect face

altogether! . . . It is curious, but it seems as if I had often seen a face like hers in my dreams. . . . The

expression is just that of the beautiful little Virgin in Titian's picture of the Presentation6that serious

These and divers other thoughts, more or less confused, passed in rapid succession through the young man's

mind. He looked at the sketch a long time, taking in all the details of the tranquil home where this beautiful

young girl had probably lived all her life, with the mother she would never have left.

'She seemed to be a little suspicious of me because I had left my mother,' he reflected, smiling. 'If I had only

known what to say! . . . It must have been dreadful for the poor dear child to lose her mother. . . . To think I

have been ifor so many nights under the same roof with her, without knowing it. . . .' Then he reflected with

immense chagrin that he had declined to spend the evening at Stonehouse because of 'Zilla's7 blueribbon

meeting. He felt half inclined to go to Mrs. Challoner and ask her to let him come, after all, as it did not

matter so very much about playing a stupid little melody to a lot of rowdy miners.

But when he played his stupid little tune an hour later in the small schoolroom, crowded with the miners and

their families, and a large proportion of the inhabitants of Colmar, 'Norah Creina'8 was so rapturously

encored that he had to play again. It was a rough assembly with several larrikins in the back seats who joined

in the choruses when there were any, invented parodies on certain recitations, and called out to the performers

by name to cheer or depress them. This latter was especially the case if anyone gave a reading of a didactic

'We didn't come 'ere because of our bloomin' souls; we come 'ere to 'ave a lark,' would be shouted out if the

unfortunate reader still persisted in the reading with a purpose. But no musical performer, unless very

'Angkore! angkore! go it, young un! you knows 'ow to handle the fiddle!' 'Give us another chune, Mr. Purser!

they're worth twenty tractses.' On being thus adjured, Victor played from memory Beethoven's 'Adelaide'

with variations.10 The melody, weighted with impassioned yearning, swept him into hitherto unsuspected

depths of feeling: The winds of evening in the blossomheavy bowers, May's silvery lilies of the valley,

streams in their leafy channels, nightingales pouring out their souls in ecstasy, all whispering and breathing

What had given such unaccustomed skill to the young man's fingers? what had suddenly kindled his instincts

and imagination and heart with such swift intuition of the inner meaning of the great musician's masterpiece

of a lover's incommunicable rapture and sorrow? The applause of the audience at the close was noisier than

ever, the room more stifling. Victor was glad to get out under the starlit sky, cutting short Roby's profuse

On leaving the township, he walked back to Stonehouse by a circuitous route. He approached the house by

the western veranda. There was a light in one of the windows; he stood looking at it for some time. Then,

with a profound sigh, he went round to his own room, and there was his unfinished letter to Miss Paget

He ought to finish it tonight, so that it might be posted tomorrow, and reach town in time for the outgoing

mailboat. But what an age it took him to write a page and a half, and how stiff and fragmentary the close of

the letter seemed on reading it over! He decided it would be better not to write at all when one felt so

incomprehensibly stupid. As he reached this conclusion, he found himself staring hard into vacancy, recalling

the sweep of heavy goldenbrown lashes wet with tears. And this made him ask himself the question why he

had made no mention of an event that had interested him so deeply. He went on with a sort of wrathful

catechism, with eloquent blanks by way of answer. He lay long awake that night, and the upshot of his night

vigil was that, instead of spending part of Sunday at Stonehouse as he had thought of doing, or going across

to Wynans as he had half promised Maurice,11 he went for a solitary ride towards the northwest.

After going four or five miles from the mine in this direction, the country became more diversified. There

were numerous low reefs, ridged in places with deadwhite, milkylooking quartz, and others with

innumerable ironstone 'blows.'12 Watercourses, too, were much more frequent than in any other part of the

districtwatercourses with wide shallow beds, filled with gravel and red dust, with broken pieces of

hungry and crystalline quartz, mingled in places with fine specimens of glassy sixsided prismatic crystals.

The region was full of experimental shafts and the remains of small alluvial diggings. Challoner's run verged

on the western side of this auriferous tract,13 the boundary between being marked in one spot by a large

brokendown whim,14 the massive posts bleached white with the fiery suns of many summers. Behind this

whim was an abrupt blackish rock, that gave weird echoes of any sound that broke the silence. It was a

desolate spot, speaking eloquently of the drought that had ravaged the district four years before. Striking off

from this in a northerly direction, Victor rode towards Broombush Creek, which was four miles off. This

creek took its name from being near its rise densely lined with that shrub.15 It was the largest watercourse

in the district, with wide gravelly reaches, closely neighboured by innumerable little reefs and rises, with a

'There ought to be alluvial gold here, if anywhere,' thought Victor as he struck the creek. He had heard it was

seldom found without a lonely prospector here and there prowling in its vicinity. There was evidently one not

far off now, for as he rode on, following the sinuous windings of the watercourse, he saw a film of smoke

ahead of him, rising in wavering fragments till they were lost in the blue air. The sight gave him a feeling of

pleasurable excitement. Perhaps he was going to come on the early beginnings of a great goldfield. As he

went on, he noticed innumerable trenches and small pits, now partly choked up, most of them evidently of

old date. They were on each side of the wide shallow watercourse, some on the face of the banks and in the

bed of the creek. Two or three of the latter were quite recent. Near one of these he noticed a broken shovel.

It was a curious little encampment, in the vicinity of an old well. Near it stood a horse in hobbles, looking

around with a contemplative air, as if he were accustomed to a country in which it was easier to think than to

feed. A little further on stood what at first glance looked like an irregular sort of tent. It was a cart, covered

with a large discoloured tarpaulin, held down with stones at the back and sides. In front it was fastened back

Close to the cart a wood fire was smouldering. Between the fire and the cart an elderly man was sitting on a

low threelegged stool before an empty deal case turned upside down. He was smoking a pipe with a long

manyjointed stem, and dealing out a pack of cards in two heaps. He was under the shade of a group of

sandalwood trees on the bank of the creek, yet his soft felt hat was pulled so low over his eyes, that as

Victor approached he could see little of the man's face. Neither did he seem to notice the sound of the horse's

Victor halted within a few feet of the fire, expecting that the solitary smoker would look up. But he went on

dealing out the cards in unbroken silence, so engrossed in his occupation that he seemed oblivious of the

The man did not start, nor show any appearance of surprise. Holding the cards he had in his aleft hand

'You may come under such shade as there is, certainly, young man; but to ask you to come in is beyond my

'Ah, I see, you really don't want to be interrupted. Well, please excuse my intrusion.'

'Intrusion? Not a bit of it! Come under the shade and have a pannikin of coffee.1 By the way, do you like

'Oh yes, very much,' said Victor, who was really loath to go away without having some talk with this

At the first glance he did not look very much unlike ban ordinary Bush labourer. But as soon as he spoke, it

'I cannot offer you a chair,' he said, after Victor had dismounted and fastened his horse to one of the

sandalwood trees; 'and I fear there is a slight weakness in one of the legs of this stool. But I ought to have a

He dived in under the cart and brought out an empty kerosene case,2 on which Victor seated himself, with an

'It's no trouble at all,' returned his host. 'In fact, I should probably not give you a seat if it involved any

trouble. If you'll excuse me for a few moments, I'll finish this game with Jack.'

'He is not visible to the material eye,' answered the man gravely. 'He formed my acquaintance shortly after I

dropped out of the ranks.3 I think he had some vague idea of setting up in the ghost business; but I didn't

approve of that line, so I adopted him into the bosom of the family, so to speak. He plays a very good game in

He went on smoking and dealing out the cards very slowly. It was apparent from the heaps already on the

table, and the number still in his hand, that there must be two packs of cards required for the game that 'Jack'

played. Victor watched its progress with great interest, pleased with the thought that he had, by chance, come

in contact with one of those solitary men who are sometimes known in the Australian Bush as 'real

'By the Great Llama,4 Jack has won!' said the player, as he faced the last card.

'Well, perhaps not. It just means that I may go on to Colmar tomorrow; that is, Sunday. I made a bet with

'Monday I gave up fossicking; Tuesday I came here; Wednesday I went to the little shanty at Starvation

Creek, where they sell grog on the sly; Thursday I returned with a furious headache and a few bricks for the

pavement of hell;5 Friday I went across to see Van Diemen's Nick;6 and Saturday, that is today, I sank an

experimental trench till three o'clock, and broke a shovel. In face of such an alibi, how can you explain your

'Anger is a moral luxury in which I have long ceased to indulge. Let us have your explanation.'

' "The next time I get drunk it shall be with those who have the fear of God in them."7 That carries my

The man's face slowly relaxed into a smile, and he looked at his visitor with some interest.

'You young rascal!' he said, in a tone of amusement; 'you think because you get tipsy yourself with boon

companions, that a man of my standing indulges in the same weakness. . . . Perhaps you are right about the

day. I suppose you've lived all your life in places crowded with the human species, where you knock every

day into hours full of appointments, with men who cheat you and women who deceive you. I slung up8 that

'And cin the meantime you lose a Sunday occasionally, and find Jack stealing a march on you. But do you

think he won this game fairly, seeing that tomorrow is Monday?' said Victor, who longed to glean more

information regarding the habits of the partner who was not visible to the material eye.

But the man did not at once reply. He went to the fire, and pushing the smouldering sticks together till they

burst into a flame, he put a copper saucepan half full of coffee on the fire. Then he produced a second

pannikin and handed it to Victor, nearly full of that beverage, very strong and of excellent flavour.

'Did you see anyone at work on your way here,' he asked, as he relit his pipe and resumed his seat. 'An old

man, for instance, with a battered profile, as if people had been shying stones at him for half a century?'

'I give you my word that I can add two and two at the first shot,' said Victor with a smile.

'Oh, I don't doubt it! But why a young fellow like you should be at the Colmar bothers me. I should have

thought you would at least be feeling pretty down on your luck, instead of which you go about with violet

'It must be your very good coffee that's getting into my head if I look so benevolent.'

'Ah, you find the coffee good? I'll give you the recipe for making it. Get the best Arabian beans; green, mind

you. Roast them till they are quite brown, but not black. Then take two handfuls and bruise them between two

stones. Put that amount to two pints of water in a copper saucepan, and let the water come to boilingpoint

slowly without the lid. That's the way the M'zabites of ElAghouat10 made coffee when I lived in Sahara for

some time, several years ago. But now tell me about the Colmar. Who is robbing that mine now for the

'You don't mean that!' said the man with a start. 'William Trevaskis, eh? The last time I had the honour of

seeing him he was rolling to Government House in a carriage lined with violet velvet, or something of that

'Because I have for the last three months been not living, but hiding, like the modest peony;11 burrowing

little shafts, turning over gravel drift in dry tributaries of the sandy Broombush Creek, most of the time two

miles from here, where no man comes. Excepting Van dDiemen's Nickmy friend with the battered phizI

'For eleven weeks entirely alone! Why, it's like solitary confinement!' said Victor, looking round at the eerie

desolation of the great neutraltinted plain, which, in the declining light of the afternoon sun, assumed more

'Yessolitary confinement with hard labour thrown in. And yet most likely six months from this, when I am

spending my nuggets, eating the husks which the swine did eat,12 I shall be sorry I left the Saltbush

'Oh, a little more than the colour,'13 answered Oxford Jim, with a satisfied laugh, and glancing behind him

under the cart. Victor looked also, but all he could see were a few ordinary digger's tools, a roughly

constructed cradle, a shovel or two, a pick, and two rusty edishes. But somehow the conviction grew on him

'Yes; a little more than the colour,' he went on, still smoking. His pipe had a very deep bowl, and the smoke,

which ascended in blue spiral columns, seemed to Victor to have an acrid odour, foreign to ordinary tobacco.

'But what is gold to a man like me, an exile, an outcast, with a hateful past and no possible future; with every

chance in life exhausted, every avenue closed? Someone says that each man bears his own tragedy about with

A vague look had come into the man's eyes, but there was a sort of mild exaltation in his face, and

notwithstanding the melancholy despair of his utterances, he seemed to find a certain enjoyment in giving

'You are too much alone, you are morbid in consequence,' said Victor, who was touched by the thought of the

'Morbid! Good Lord! what can make you as morbid as your fellowcreatures, when you begin to understand

them? Snakes and dingoes and lizards are amiable sentimentalists in comparison with the bulk of mankind.'

'For my own part,' he said, 'I should like to be spared the amiable weakness of a carpet snake!'

'Oh, as for that, a carpet snake is a harmless worm, compared to your own kind of both sexes. He does not

come to you with a smiling face till he gets a good opportunity to sting you. Ah, you may smile; you'll find it

out for yourself one day. Now, take that man Trevaskis as an instance. I worked with him, for a year and a

half, fifteen years ago. He was making money fast, and had thousands of pounds invested. I said to him one

' "Oh," he said, "I made up my mind when I was quite a boy that I would make enough money somehow or

other to live like a gentleman; and I mean to do it. None of your poky, stingy little incomes, but something

'Poor old chap! it's rather rough on him to have lost fall his money, after all.'

'Yes; but my feeling is that, on the whole, it served him right,' said Oxford Jim vindictively. 'When he said

that to me, I said half jokingly: "Wouldn't it be a good thing to learn to speak like a gentleman, Bill, before

you come on gto the stage as a man of money and fashion?" He took up the idea quite seriously there and

then. "Suppose you give me lessons," he said, "in pronouncing and writing? I'll pay you well for it." I didn't

want to make a money affair of the matter. Indeed, I thought it would drop through in a month or so. But no,

he was too determined. I never saw a man that stuck to any plan in all my life as he did, once his mind was

made up. Every evening during a whole year he worked away for hours like a nigger; and then he would get

up by candlelight and study again, writing out pages of dictation. Of course we grew very chummy in that

time. I used to vary my lessons, in pronouncing and spelling, by telling him of the ways of living among the

civilized races of the earth, developing his conceptions of society, as if I were a sort of unedited Manual of

'If you don't know much of the vagaries of Bush life,' he said, 'this may serve as a specimen for you. A man

of fiftyfive who grubs about in the wilds as a labouring drudge, and has lived the life of a wandering savage

for over twenty years, can still give instruction in the social ethics of society.'

'The upshot was that when I returned, after being in Africa and the East, some time ago, I drifted to Adelaide

on my way to Blanchewater.16 Five years ago I saw Trevaskis face to face, in his r le of gentlemanI, as

'Oh yes, he did; I caught his eye. Well, I believe I'll take the change out of him yet. I'm at a loose end just

now. I want to wait for an old friend of mine who is coming down from the Far North.17 I might as well stay

at Colmarbetter than going to town, indeed. I'll most likely trundle across tonight or tomorrow. You

'Oh, you have an interest in it, have you? Then just let me tell you a little secret,' said the man, with a sudden

gleam of excitement, overcoming a drowsiness which began gradually to make itself apparent in his voice

'Dunning, the man who was killed, you mean. Ah, I know a little about the sort of search he was making.

Never mind, you take my advice. Tell Trevaskis you met an old man prospecting out at Broombush Creek,

who advised you to turn over the floor of hthat cave room, with a passage between it and the manager's

office. Don't tell him it was Oxford Jim who gave the advice, and don't let him search it alone!'

'Perhaps we had better have a couple of policemen to look after us both,' said Victor, in a jesting tone.

'Oh no, you haven't been long enough in the world, or in the gold business, to acquire the usual morals. . . .

But there is a scientific classification of liars that I should advise you to keep in mindthe simple liar, the

'Well, goodbye! I expect I'll see you again, though I should do better to stay in the Saltbush country than

The sun was low on the horizon as he rode back to the mine, his mind full of speculations regarding the

lonely prospector. How had he come to have such a profound sentiment of the inutility of life, to be so

penetrated with the conviction that henceforth nothing could change the course of his own existence, or make

the world a fascinating place to live in? The thought that a human being could be so joyless and stranded, and

perhaps, too, the solitary desolation of the country around him, gave the young man an unusual feeling of

depression. But as he passed Stonehouse a curious glow of gladness stole over him, and his ride appeared to

him in the light of an interesting event, one that might lead to the discovery of an unsuspected treasure.

Next day he and Trevaskis were engaged together in cleaning up the fortnight's yield of gold. Before the day

was over, the gruff coldness of the manager's manner had thawed a little. He began to suspect that he might

be doing the purser an injustice in supposing that he had any motive in coming to the mine beyond that of

wishing to get a little experimental knowledge as to the working of a property in which he was interested. He

worked so cheerfully, was so much interested in everything, sang snatches of 'Rory O'More' and 'Rich and

rare were the gems she wore,'19 and countless other songs, in such a clear, blithe voice, and repeated some of

Mick's stories with such an inimitable accent, that almost in spite of himself Trevaskis was drawn into a more

'I think you must have ihad an extra loveletter today, FitzGibbon, you are in such good spirits,' he said

jokingly as they were in the assayroom, after taking off the crucible in which the gold had been smelted.

Victor coloured consciously. He had felt like a bird on the wing all day, because he was to spend the evening

at Stonehouse. Yes, this was all that had come of the stoical resolution which on Sunday had led him to

explore the wilds so as to keep out of the way of temptation. It is one thing, however, to do this on a given

'Me get a loveletter! I'm surprised at you, captain, to be putting such notions into my head,' he answered

gravely. Trevaskis laughed incredulously. Then it struck Victor that this would be a good opportunity to ask

'Did you ever turn over that cave room at the end of the iron passage?' he asked somewhat suddenly.

Trevaskis, who well remembered the narrative told by Searle regarding this place, replied in a somewhat

'No; I have not felt much tempted by the look of the place. A lot of Dunning's things are there; and old

'Because, when I was out riding yesterday I came across an old fellow prospecting all alone, who'

'Told you there was some gold hidden away there?' interrupted Trevaskis, with a scornful smile.

'Oh, I've never been near a mine in my life without hearing four and twenty lying rumours about it.'

'Oh, just to make a thorough search, with Mick to help me when he isn't busy, or 'Zilla Jenkins when he

returns. . . . I would be careful not to injure the place. Anything that's in it of value'

'Of value? I think the most precious article in it is an invalid chair. One of the managers broke his leg, and

used to be trundled about in it; so Roby told me when I went down there with him the other day to look at

some old machinery. . . . If there are many of Dunning's things, you might have them removed into one of the

'Thank you; that could be easily managed,' said Victor, taking this as a grudging consent. 'I'll begin my

'You better20 have 'Zilla to help when he returns; he'll be a handy man in a job of that kind,' answered

But though in contact with Victor that day his suspicious mistrust of him had lessened, yet as soon as they

'What should he want to go fossicking about in that place for? Perhaps to make sure that the late manager's

belongings are not tampered with, or something of that kind,' he thought, with a sombre look in his face.

It was partly the inflexibility of his mind and partly the invincible suspicion of his nature which made it

almost impossible for him to renounce a prejudice or an evil opinion once entertained. It was characteristic,

too, that the lower motives of conduct always appeared to him more credible than any jothers.

It was after dark that evening when Trevaskis went across to the Colmar Arms for his evening meal. When he

came out at his office door, he saw Victor going across the reef towards Stonehouse. He did not turn up at the

inn for tea, so it was evident that he was spending the evening with the Challoners. As the manager sat alone

at the long dreary table of the dreary diningroom, he fell into one of those brooding fits of utter depression

At such times his past life would rise up before him, year by year and period by period, till he felt almost

suffocated by despair, and a bitter sense of the injustice of his lot. He had earned his money so

hardlybuilding up his wealth without help or bequest from anyone. And then, when he had achieved his

purpose, how far removed he had been from plunging into reckless extravagance or speculation! The only

faults he could charge himself with were trusting his partner too blindly, and putting so large an amount into

bank shares, with the purpose of being quite safe. But now, after all his long years of toil, and those brilliant

ones during which all his hopes were realized, he was beggared, and with no prospects in life that he could

see beyond dragging out a deathinlife existence at some miserable mine, in the heart of some miserable

desert. He had no knowledge nor training for commercial life; all his business aptitude lay in one direction.

He had, after coming to the mine, some faint hopes that enough would be saved out of the wreck of his

fortune to enable him to start as a sharebroker. But affairs had turned out even worse than he had anticipated.

It was now certain that, in common with other shareholders of the bank that had failed, he would have to pay

As he sat plunged in the gloomiest reflections, feeling the weight of his misfortunes, and his loneliness

pressing upon him like a heavy, physical load, he heard the sound of voices and loud laughter in the bar.

Sometimes of late, when these fits of profound gloom overcame him, Trevaskis felt a nervous horror of

returning to the solitude of his own rooms. He would have been ashamed to confess it openly, even to

himself; but he would, in reality, have preferred to join the boisterous miners and stray swagmen drinking in

the barroom rather than remain alone with his despairing thoughts. He had sometimes compromised

between the two plans, by sitting for an hour or two after tea in the barparlour, where the sound of voices of

noisy merriment, and occasionally the strains of a banjo, an accordion, or a fiddle, gave him a certain sense of

companionship. The barparlour faced the diningroom, being on the opposite side of the narrow passage

which divided the newer portion of the Colmar Arms. Trevaskis went into the room on this evening, and

found it as usual unoccupied, with a small apetroleum2 lamp on the mantelpiece, bwhich diffused more odour

There was a large horsehair sofa in the room, one end against the door that opened into the barroom.

Trevaskis threw himself down on this, with a newspaper in his hand. But he did not read it. His move into

this room, with its staring wallpaper, its cheap vulgar oleographs, its strong fumes of negrohead tobacco3

and coarse spirits, seemed to bring home to him more forcibly than before the hopeless slough into which his

life had been resolved. He recalled, with a vividness strange in his experience, all the external aspects and

pleasures of the years during which he had enjoyed the delights and luxuries of wealth. His entrance into

parliamentary life; the gratified sense of importance that came to him as his name began to figure in the daily

papersnow introducing a deputation, then giving utterance to some pregnant comment regarding the

mineral laws of the country, ever and anon as one of the guests at the more important social gatherings; at

banquets to distinguished visitors; at official dinners given by the Governorevery detail had been precious

He recalled the long evenings at the clubs; the pleasant excitement of hurrying from the theatre to go to an

evening assembly; the malicious rumours and surmises regarding other people's affairs; the unexpected

d nouements and amusing gossip which his wife never wearied of retailing to himall in his present cruel

isolation had an exaggerated interest and value. But though, like the newly enriched of other spheres and

countries, Trevaskis had developed a marvellous affinity for luxury and the more material aspects of

refinement, he had no resources in himself. He read the newspapers, and there his reading began and ended.

As soon as he had left the solitude of the Bush and the engrossing toil that had been sweetened by rapidly

accumulating gain, he had taken with extraordinary avidity to all forms of amusement. Though he did not

dance, he would pass hours watching people at a ball, enjoying the spectacle more thoroughly than most of

those who took part in it. The music, the light, the flowers, the elegant dresses, the soft movement of costly

fans, the fragrance of dainty perfumes,all had an irresistible attraction for him. He was an habitual

theatregoer, and never missed an opera if he could help it. He had not the least technical knowledge of

music, yet he would listen to a solo or a chorus with a sort of tranced rapture that had in it something almost

Now, he was exiled from all this, and worse still, he was separated from his wife and children. He recalled

them as he had often watched them in the luxurious nursery of his big handsome househis little fairhaired

girls kneeling in their snowywhite nightdressesand hot tears which refused to be shed dimmed his eyes.

Then, crowding side by side with these reminiscences, came thoughts of his present surroundingsthe mine,

with its unceasing din and smoke, with the tents and hovels4 of the minersthose squalid abodes through

which he passed and repassed thrice a day to his meals at the dreary inn. The earth floors, sometimes half

covered with duststrewn sacks; the dingy little deal tables, heapedup with dirty dishes of tin and

earthenware; the narrow bunks, with heaps of soiled clothing; the empty kerosene cases, that served for seats;

the flapping partitions in some of the squalid interiors, covered with tattered cnewspapers; groups of children

playing at digging mines, everything strewn with the grime of perpetual dustall seemed stamped on his

At times he would overhear the sound of women's voices in angry contention. In such settlements as the

Colmar Mine woman is seldom anything more than the female of the man, with an emphatic tendency to

shriek on insufficient grounds. Often he would meet groups of the miners on their way to the Colmar Arms

laughing and talking merrily. They had washed and changed their clothes after coming up out of the mine,

having put in their 'shift' of eight hours out of the twentyfour, at from eight to ten shillings a day. Many of

them looked as if they had not a care in the world. Frequently he found himself envying them. He had left his

own classto do so had been the aim and the pride of his life. And yet, on this evening, after all that had

come and gone, to sneak into a room where he could overhear men who belonged to his original rank in

society, was the nearest approach to enjoyment which existence presented to him. He ground his teeth at the

thought in a paroxysm of impotent rage, muttering half aloud, 'God in heaven! is there nothing I can do to get

He had of late been troubled with a dull aching in his head and eyes. Tonight the latter were worse, with that

acute sensation as of hot sand below the eyelids which foretold an attack of sandy blight.5 He rose and turned

the light low, so as to relieve the tension of his eyesight. Then he lay down on the couch, with his face to the

wall. Someone in the barroom was playing a plaintive air on a zither; when it was ended there was a shout

of applause, and several men spoke at once, asking the musician to have a drink in the various forms of

Trevaskis was astonished to find the voices penetrate the barparlour as distinctly as if the door were open.

He went to see whether it was ajar, and found it was closed and bolted as usual. But the upper half, which

was of glass, covered with a dingy cretonne curtain, had been broken in some recent scuffle. Hence all that

'Mein Gott! I gannot trink mid you all at once, my frentsvon at a dime, if you blease,' said the musician.

'You better have a good blow out while you can, Hans,' said one of the men; 'Roby will be making a

blueribboner of you soonnow that he's got you to play at his Saturday concerts.'

'Ach Gott, even such a goncerts is better than fnodings,' answered Hans. 'I haf few books, and I read small

'And little good they are when a bloke does read 'em,' said one, in a tone of conviction. 'It's allays the same

sort o' onpossible chaps and females, with a lot o' rot about the sun ggoing down, as if 'e didn't every day

follow out the same lines, since he first got 'is billet. . . . Now in my hopinion if you gives yourself over to be

a liard, you ought to spin a good stiff yarn out o' your own 'ead. It's laziness and not the fear o' Gord as makes

'You're not far wrong, sonny,' said an elderly man in an encouraging tone. 'For my own part, I'd more rather

'Does Roby hold forth on Sundays as much as he used to?' said a man, whose voice Trevaskis thought he

'More so, from all I 'ears,' answered one of the miners. 'As for I, I gives un a wide berth. Go to 'ear a effigee

of a man like 'e bawling out what 'e felt and what 'e thought and what 'e did? Not much. Ef 'e trampled on 'is

conscience and 'is female, why can't the bloomin' idjit keep it to 'isself? Wash your dirty linen to 'ome,9 say

'Go it like a good un, old chap! Why, you could give us a stunning sermon off your own bat,' said another.

'As for jsermings, I'd like to know what was the good of ever takin' out a patent for 'em, from the beginning,'

said another. 'I was one Sunday in town, wandering about, and I sees a place with ka door open and people

goin' in. I followed 'em. There was Bibles, and hymnbooks, and other utensils more or less religious, but not

a soul said a word for 'arf an hour by my watch. At the end o' that, I got nervous like, and I came away.

Someone told me lafterwards they was Quakers.10 If ever I jines a church it 'll be them, where people sits

quiet and decent, keeping holy the Sabbath day, instead of setting a silly man to give a lot o' foolish jaw that

There was some laughter as the speaker ended, and then a man, in a thick crapulous voice, declared his

conviction that all this chapelgoing and preaching and creeds and Bibles was a madeup thing to keep

Someone remonstrated, saying in a reflective tone that in the old days 'the 'eathen rubbed ile into the karkiss

'And then what sort of enjoyment is it?' said another, who spoke with a strong Scotch accent; 'pouring a lot of

raw speerits down your throat till you're a beast, and then sleeping till you wake up a poor sick creature with

'Ach Himmel! dat is von way to trink,' said the German. 'Bud in mein gountry it nis not so. There two

kameraden will sit for a whole day and night making joy and singing over their schoppen. In Ausdralia if von

trink doo mooch id is othe teufel; bud if von trink doo mooch in pthe Vaterland,12 id is yoost right.'

'Holloa, Nick, have you turned up too, old man?' said the voice which Trevaskis half recognised.

'You here, Oxford Jim?' cried the newcomer in a tone of surprise. 'Why, I thought you was far away,

'No, mate, I'm here instead. I'm going to take up a new line: write epitaphs, irrespective of the character of the

deceased, for bereaved families, or something of that sort. I got kind of tired of regions red with black men's

'That be damned for a yarn! You haven't been much beyond Broombush Creek all the time. Now, West, you

look sharp, and give me a grown man's dose of your best Threestar brandy, dark,' said Van Diemen's Nick,

The landlord, who was seldom sober after dark, broke into a string of lurid adjectives, winding up with the

'I don't owe you a qsanguinary copper, not a farden,14 and you knows it, you cheatin' rvagabond!' shouted

There was a scuffle amid loud exclamations; Trevaskis blew out the lamp which was on the mantelpiece, and

standing by the door that led into the bar, lifted a corner of the cretonne curtain to watch the proceedings.

West had jumped over the bar and seized Nick by the shoulders. They were separated by those who stood

nearest them; the landlady, half crying now, stood behind the bar imploring her husband not to make another

'Come, come, Nick! don't spoil good comradeship in this way,' said the man who was known as Oxford Jim,

Trevaskis, on catching sight of him, at once recognised his old instructor in the arts of spelling and correct

'I don't want to spoil no good comradeship, but I sorder this tvarmin15 of a man to give me the refreshment I

order. He's bound by his license to shelter man and beast and give nourishment when it's ast for.'16

'I won't do neither till you pay me; and you've come without a copper to blesh yourself, as usual. I know

'I'm an old penniless tramp, am I?' retorted Nick. 'Well, now, I'll just give you a lesson!'

He disengaged himself from Oxford Jim as he spoke, and thrust his right hand under the soiled blue woollen

'Oh, hold 'im! hold 'im!' shrieked the landlady; 'he's got firearms; don't you see them abulging out all round

The landlord retreated behind the bar, and opening a small door which communicated with the back premises

'I want the ostler!' roared the landlord. 'Tell him to go at once for Wills, the policetrooper. This very instant,

Trevaskis, standing in the darkness holding back a small portion of the curtain, watched Nick's uproceedings

with growing interest. He saw him take a long thick looking package, wrapped up in a red cotton

'Have you got the policetrooper handy, West?' he cried in a shrill voice that had in it a strange note of

The landlord, backing away a little while his wife wpassed in front of him, watched the man's proceedings

'xYou had better play none of your revolver pranks 'ere, or, as sure as your name is old Nick'

'Call the trooper, I say! Let him bring his revolver. You yallus gives people in charge that has stuff like this.'

He was untying one end of the irregularshaped parcel as he spoke. All eyes were fastened on him. Slowly he

'That's the sort of thing that gets a bloke into the "tin Maria"18 in this part of the world, ain't it, mates?' he

cried, his voice almost rising into a yell of triumph, as he flung a large piece of heavy metal on the bar. It fell

'By the Lord in heaven, it's all pure gold!' cried one of the men nearest the bar, in a tone of incredulous

wonder, taking up the nugget. It passed from hand to hand, while the barroom became full of confused and

broken murmurs. The landlord stood looking on, eyes wide open, mouth agape, zwhen Nick turned to him

West carried out the order as to the dose of Threestar brandy without a single comment.

Where had Nick been prospecting? Was there much gold? Was this all? How far away from the Colmar

Mine? Did anyone else know of his find? To all of which Nick returned no answer, beyond smiling blandly

'This weighs over seventy ounces,' said the landlord, when he had at last got possession of the nugget,

'So this is what you were up to, Nick, when you were lying low and keeping dark all these weeks! It was

rather hard to put me off the scent, though, and let me waste the sweetness of my old age among these

'Don't let the cat out of the bag, Jim!' cried Nick. 'I'll give you a nugget or two, bbold bloke, and some

'Thank you, Nick, thank you kindly,' answered Oxford Jim. 'Why, man, this nugget alone will enable you to

sit on a post and swill beer among the aristocracy of Colmar for a year to come!'

'Do you think I've got no better idea than that of enjoying myself?' said Nick indignantly. 'Ah, you're allays

makin' game of a chap, and I think you're a little jealous, after all! You said you was getting the colour of

'Broombush CreekBroombush Creek!' The name passed from one to the other; one or two made a motion

But Nick took no notice. He kept his eyes fixed on Jim as he said, in a dogged tone:

'Come, man, let's see the colour you got. Show it to us! This is not my only nugget; I've plenty more where

As Nick spoke he put down three more nuggets on the bar. The men around began to look at him with a new

expression on their faces. He was a small, lean man, with a flat, battered sort of face, who had led a flat,

battered sort of life from his first entrance into the world. He had been for years prowling about in auriferous

districts, chiefly because he had a rooted dislike to steady work. He ran up scores in the inns and stores that

would give him credit, and then disputed the validity of the claims. His face and hands were perennially

stained with earth; no one had ever seen him in clean clothes. The one solace of his existence had hitherto

been to obtain a bottle of strong drink, and lose all thought and capacity of action in those strange bouts of

absence from consciousness which we term drunkenness. And now, in the midst of the base and sordid

accidents ccthat made up the record of his years, this strange thing happened to him. Alone in the arid desert,

grubbing in the dirt, he had accidentally come upon a certain heavy glittering metal, more precious to the

majority of his kind than the loftiest achievements of human genius, the progress of science, or the perfection

of holiness. Nick enjoyed the unusual importance of being looked at without pity or contempt. Added to this,

the old brown brandy, of which he had imbibed what he called 'a grown man's dose,' ddadded something to

his feeling of importance. As he watched the crowd of men in the barroom pressing round his nuggets, he

'Well, I don't mind if I do, since you are so pressing,' answered the man thus addressed, as he rose to leave the

He came towards the door leading into the barparlour, in which Trevaskis stood absorbed in listening to and

observing all that passed. But before Jim reached the door the landlord interposed eagerly:

As Jim disappeared through the door behind the bar, West said in an exultant voice:

'I bet you a drink all round this chap's got somethin' worth lookin' at. He come here early this mornin' with a

tumbledown little one'orse cart, and an 'orse as you could count ee'is ribs arf a mile away; and he carries

two or three swags into ff'is room, and locks it most careful behind 'im when he goes out.'

No one made any reply to this; all eyes were fixed on the door through which Jim had disappeared. A curious

silence had fallen on the noisy crowd. Each one believed, without knowing exactly why, that the man who

had accepted Nick's challenge with an air so selfcontained and unboastful had something to show worth

In a few minutes he reappeared, carrying a bundle folded up in a blue blanket in his arms. A low murmur

Jim stood by the counter and unstrapped his bundle. The men pressed round him like a swarm of bees.

Trevaskis, secure in the darkness of his retreat and the absorbed excitement of all the men, stood close to the

'There, that's one bit of colour, Nick!' said Oxford Jim, holding up a great nugget of gold that weighed nearly

There was a hushed, breathless silence for a brief space, and then a wild shout went up, and there was soon a

'Mein Gott, ggis vas drue all de hhdimes. I iiwas begin to tink Ausdralie was like other goundries, where von

vork hard for liddle pay and no bleasures. But now I see it mid mein own eyes. . . . A man can get a gread

'There's plenty more gold where these nuggets were found. They're the biggest ever seen in the Colony.

Here's news for you, Ben, here's news for you!' cried one to a newcomer who entered at that moment.

He was a correspondent for one of the daily newspapers in town, and no sooner had he seen the jjnuggets and

heard the tale of their discovery, and kkheard that the lucky diggers had been working in the vicinity of

Broombush Creek, than he rushed off to the telegraphoffice to endeavour to send a late message to town.

'There will be a great rush in no time; and we'll all be off to the diggings. Hurrah, hurrah for the new

The cry was taken up on every side. When the tumult had a little subsided, Oxford Jim said, in a tone of quiet

'Well, now, you fellows who are miners at the Colmar Mine, llyou better buy up the old cave room and

search it well. You'll find it a better spec than going off to the new diggings, I can tell you!'

There was a roar of laughter at this; but Trevaskis, whose blood seemed to be on fire at sight of the gold, and

who knew Oxford Jim well enough of old to feel sure he did not speak in jest, stole out of the barparlour

unseen and unobserved, resolved that he would on this very night see for himself whether there was any truth

When Trevaskis left the Colmar Arms, his intention was to go at once into the cave room and make a

vigorous search without a moment's loss of time. On reaching the mine he found it was nearly eleven o'clock.

According to his usual habit, he went across to the mouth of the shaft, and saw the night shift go below.

This was composed of thirty miners in all. To a man they were greatly excited by the news, which had

already spread, of the pure nuggets exhibited in the barroom by two diggers who had been prospecting not

'I got gold gravel there myself two year ago, out of which I made a tenpun note,'1 said one man not given to

Ten of the men there and then gave notice of their intention to leave at the end of two daysthe shortest

'If I were wise, I'd throw up my billet here, and make for Broombush Creek before the rush sets in,' thought

Trevaskis, as he recalled some of his past experiences at newlyfound alluvial diggings. Various schemes

flitted before his mind. One was to ride across at daylight to Broombush Creek, and make an examination of

With his long experience and practical knowledge of gold diggings, there might be a certain fortune for him

in that place, if he pegged out a good claim2 and telegraphed to the directors of the Colmar aMine to accept

his resignation from the earliest possible moment. He was so engrossed with these plans that, when he went

into the cave room and looked around at its huddled confusion, his first impulse was to leave it without

The excavation was at its highest from nine to ten feet in height. The roof sloped away irregularly, extending

on the north or reef side in a sort of low wide passage a little over three feet in height. The floor in the main

body of the place was littered with old mine tools and disused machinery. Only the middle part was kept

clear. Here there was a space of ten feet by twelve, covered with a square of linoleum. In the centre stood a

small deal table, a canvasback lounging chair, a stool, etc. Close to the table there was a large shoetrunk,

on which were placed two or three old cases with empty and halfempty bottles, containing various

chemicals, such as nitric and sulphuric acid, mercury, borax, and carbonate of soda. There were, besides,

strips of buckskin, canvas, and chamois leather.3 At a little distance from this space, and near the entrance,

stood a bunk with a narrow paillasse and one or two rugs over it. Close to it stood the invalidchair, covered

Trevaskis placed the lantern he had brought on the small deal table, and turned over the contents of these

cases. The last he examined contained the usual solvents for gold, and all that was necessary for assaying it

by cupellation.4 He was familiar with the way in which some men became infatuated in the matter of

experimenting with gold and with the minerals that bcontained it. He perceived that some of the previous

managers of the mine had been bitten with this mania. Webster, probably, in particular, the man who was

now in the lunatic asylum, constantly raving about the three hundredweight of gold which had at one time

been in his possession. All this would be more than sufficient to account for the stories in circulation as to the

As this thought passed through Trevaskis' mind, he glanced round at the piles of discarded or wornout

machinery, elliptical sheetiron buckets, broken handpumps, a little champion rockdrill with the cylinder

smashed, a doubleended boring hammer, a few rollpicks, longhandled shovels, claying bars,5 cetc. Then

he looked with some attention at the two furnaces close to the western side. He found they were fixed in a

strong and workmanlike manner. As he was examining these, he noticed a watertap in the wall hard by. This

tap was very stiff, but after some pressure he succeeded in turning it, and water poured out. So, then, it was

connected by a line of underground pipes with the tank at the end of the offices, which was supplied with

It suddenly struck Trevaskis that a tremendous amount of ingenuity and labour had been expended on this

place in one way or another. Could it all have been the freak of a man dgoing mad? 'I don't believe it,' he said

Then, for the first time, Trevaskis became convinced that some person or persons had carried on experiments

to a singular extent in this place. This conviction made him begin to search in a methodical and careful

He began with the large shoetrunk. Having removed the cases that were on top, he tried to open it, but found

that it was locked. A nearer examination showed that the lock was of the frail description usually found eon

such trunks. He further noticed that a small label was gummed on the top of the trunk. On wiping away the

dust which covered it, he found that this label bore Dunning's name. He could not open the trunk without

forcing the lock. After a brief pause he resolved to do this. Looking round the room, he soon found a hammer

The trunk was almost empty. There were some papers, some halfworn clothes, a large bottle of laudanum,6

almost full, and a bunch of keysfive in all, two very small. Trevaskis took these out and looked around

with increasing interest. It seemed unlikely that these keys should be kept here unless they were used to open

boxes stored in the same place. There gwas a pile of wood and some bags heaped up near the furnaces. He

turned the bags over, and found that they contained coke. There were six bags in all, and as he displaced the

last he noticed that the ground close to it, in a southerly direction, was slightly raised. He instantly got a

doublepointed pick to turn the earth over. At the first stroke he felt the concussion of the pick against a hard

unyielding surface. Upon this, he got a shovel and worked more cautiously. In less than two minutes he had

uncovered the lid of a large strong wooden box. It was fixed in a recess in the ground, and in front there was a

slight cavity facing the lock. The largest of the keys fitted it, and Trevaskis turned it with a somewhat

This box, unlike the other, was quite full. On top there was a suit of clothes which seemed very much out of

place in a receptacle so jealously guarded. To wit: an old wellworn gray overcoat, very large, and not free

from stains; a pair of dark moleskin trousers, with some earthstains; a soft brown felt hat with a large brim,

and a corduroy waistcoat. Trevaskis regarded these articles with some wonder. They were exactly of the kind

that old Bushmen have by them as a best suit. After putting these aside, the next object that attracted his

attention was a large carpetbag. He took it by the handle to lift it out with one hand, but he could not move

'There's gold in it! there's gold in it!' he cried in a voice hoarse with excitement. His hands trembled as he

fitted one of the small keys into the lock. But though he uttered the words over and over again, and in a

manner believed them, the sight that met his eyes when the bag was fairly opened, and the upper layers of

There were in all seventyeight nuggets of gold, each folded in a piece of buckskin. Some of them weighed

from seven to ten ounces, others a few pennyweights. He unwrapped them one by one, till they were all

uncovered, lying in a great heap of almost pure gold. As Trevaskis looked at this, his breath came fast and

'It isn't Colmar goldit's nuggetgold.7 It's the gold that Webster took from the tributers near Hooper's

Luck!' he said in a low, horrified whisper. And close on this came the thought that this gold was stained with

blood, and that he would not touch it, that he dared not take it for his own. But the thought carried no

Some of the kindly old divines who write with ardour of the beneficence with which the world is governed,

would have us believe that temptations are sent in proportion to the degree of man's strength to resist them.8

When we leave the optimism of the cloister, we are unfortunately met by the fact that many temptations come

with cruel psychological exactness at the moment when the one who is tempted is least able to bear the strain.

Never before had gold, and all that it can buy, been so passionately coveted by Trevaskis as on this night.

'There must be two thousand pounds' worth of nuggets here,' he thought, taking hthem up one after the other

slowly. Then a hazy recollection shot across his mind, of having seen an old pair of scales isomewhere

among the d bris around. In a few moments he had discovered them, with the weights, hard by, wrapped in a

piece of brown paper. To weigh the nuggets of gold, from the largest to the smallest, was the work of a

quarter of an hour. There were five hundred and forty ounces in all, and so little of quartz or foreign mineral

matter that barely twenty ounces need be deducted on this score. Yes, there jwere over two thousand pounds'

There could be no doubt that it was the gold kthat Webster had committed murder for; and after Searle told

his tale to Dunning, the late manager had discovered the gold here. Was there any more? What of those ten

months during Webster's management when the weekly yield of the Colmar Mine had fallen from a thousand

ounces a week to less than six hundred? What about Searle's statement as to the strange diminution in the

amalgam? In face of the possibilities that these thoughts suggested, the gold he had discovered began to

appear but as a paltry stopgap in Trevaskis' eyes. For the first time in his life, a feeling of voracious,

overpowering avarice seized him. Gold, gold, in masses, in heaps, in quantities to represent twenty or thirty

thousand pounds! This was what would really mean restored wealth and prosperity for him. Was it, perhaps,

hidden in heaps somewhere within this cave room? Was it for nothing that these furnaces had been so firmly

Trevaskis, feeling as if his brain were on fire, renewed his search in the box with feverish haste. But very

soon he was arrested by a strange and ghastly object. After removing a large flat portfolio, which lay under

the carpetbag, there was a square wooden box without a lid, the top covered over with several layers of

tissue paper. In the act of removing these, Trevaskis became conscious of a faint, sickly odour. The next

moment, as he lifted a sheet of paper, he caught a glimpse of human hair. He stared at the sight for a moment,

in incredulous dismay. Then he removed the last sheet. Now there could be no mistake about it. The back of a

human head, with long, thick gray hair straggling at the ends, lay fully revealed, and the nauseous smell had

Trevaskis retreated some steps. The sweat stood in great cold drops on his forehead; his whole body was llike

a branch of shaking leaves. Should he replace the articles he had taken out of the box, close it, and flee? The

thought of murder had been present with him from the moment he had sighted the nuggets. Involuntarily he

had been, from time to time, on the track of the man who had ridden so hard to Hooper's Luck, and then back

with these gold nuggets, leaving behind him a man stark and stiff, with his head horribly battered. Was this

Trevaskis could not have told how long he stood overcome with horror and a feeling of miserable

irresolution, when a sudden sullen reverberating sound seemed to shake the earthen walls and roof that

environed him. He started violently, overcome with guilty fear. The next moment he knew that it was the

sound of a blast in the mine, and with this the thought of his surroundings arose before him as vividly as they

had pressed on his mind when he lay in the semiobscurity of the barparlour in the Colmar Arms.

He closed the lid of the strong box hurriedly, and carried the portfolio and the carpetbag containing the gold

to the little deal table. On opening the portfolio he soon saw that it contained some of Dunning's private

papers and letters. Among the latter he took one up at hazard, and began to read it without any thought of

making a discovery that should affect his present position. It began with expressions of gratitude for the

hospitality and kindness which the writer had received at the Colmar Mine, during a visit of four or five

'And now let me tell you,' said the writer on the second page, 'that so far from having forgotten our talk the

night before I left, as you seem to fancy, I have been more successful in carrying out my commission than I

could have hoped. My dear boy, you may consider that your bet of �200 with your old Sandhurst9 mate is in

your pocket! I tell you what, old manI'll stake my professional reputation as a man of thirty, whose fate it

is to take the part of an aged father and a doting grandfather more frequently than any other r les, that the

wig and beard I send you, coupled with a few other precautions, will render you absolutely unrecognisable.'

'The wig!' repeated Trevaskis half aloud, with a dawning light in his eyes. In a moment he was back again at

the strong box. He opened it and pulled out what looked like a human head. It was a wig, and under it was a

long gray beard and moustache. At the bottom of the box lay a dead rat. Trevaskis hauled it out by the tail

and flung it with all his might to the further end of the cave room. Then, with a feeling of growing triumph,

the elation of a man who is gradually assured of victory, he returned to the table and began to turn over the

Presently he came upon a plan of the cave rooman exact drawing that showed the conformation of the

hanging wall and the floor, with welldefined circles in sixteen spots, five of them in the narrow passage10

running northward. Trevaskis took one of the picks and dug cautiously, but with extraordinary rapidity. In a

very short time he unearthed a large strong blue glass bottle, of the kind known as mthe Winchester pint.11 It

was closed with a glass stopper, and over this was tied several folds of newspaper. The bottle contained a

solid grayish mass of matter, being about threequarters full. It was amalgam. The quantity in the bottle

Trevaskis briefly reckoned was worth one thousand three hundred pounds. If there were sixteen of these

hidden in the cave room, the total value would be something over twenty thousand pounds!

His brain reeled at the thought. For a few moments a sort of paralysis of mind and body overtook him. He felt

like one who in a dream stands upon a precipice where one false step may be fatal. The treasure was within

his grasp: only, in the first moment of success, his joy and elation were quenched by the thought that in a few

days FitzGibbon would, as he had said, make a thorough search! But with the thought rose a fierce

determination to prevent this in some way or anotherin some way or another to secure the wealth around

him. But the first thing was to make sure that it was here. With this thought, Trevaskis set to work once more.

The five spots marked on the plan as being in the northern passage each yielded up its precious deposit of a

large bottle containing, on the average, half a hundredweight of amalgam, which would, when retorted and

After that, Trevaskis turned over one by one the other spots marked on the plan. Not one failed; each held its

own share of the treasure. As he looked around, making calculations, and adding up the amount of this

strange and suddenly discovered wealth, Trevaskis' attention was attracted by the look of the bottles which

had been hidden in the northern passage. They looked much fresher than the rest. The nnewspapers which

owere tied round the stoppers, though earthstained, pwere not worn. He unwrapped one of these. It

contained a date, and the date went back no further than three months. At sight of this, Trevaskis gave a low

'So it wasn't only Webster, and the other fellow before him . . . for I'm certain the one who first began to

creep into this place was stealing the amalgam . . . it was the extremely able and clever and trustworthy

Dunning as well,' he thought. And then for the first time some misgivings, questions, scruples and remorseful

qualms overtook him. One by one he replaced the bottles, and lightly covered them over. Then he went back

to the strong wooden box. He turned over the wig and examined it attentively. He slipped it on his head, and

found that it fitted him as if he had been measured for it, coming well down on his forehead and the back of

his neck. There were fastenings in the wig a little above each ear, qon which the patriarchallooking whiskers

and moustache rshould be fastened. Trevaskis replaced both carefully in the wooden box without a lid. Close

beside this he noticed a smaller one; it was locked, but the second of the two small keys fitted the lock. On

opening the box he found it contained a fluid for darkening the skin, an adhesive gray powder for the

eyebrows, and a crayon for deepening wrinkles. There was half a sheet of paper, with instructions on these

It was apparent, then, that, on the pretext of winning some bet, Dunning, the able, honest, and trustworthy

manager, had through his actor friend secured the means of completely disguising himself. At the bottom of

the sheet of instructions, Trevaskis read the words, 'The wig and whiskers are those of a hairy old man who

had been for some time remote from a barber. I think it would be well, in making your eyebrows gray, to

brush them backward with a weak solution of gum. This will not only give them a hairy aspect, but aid

'He intended to go away the very day after that on which he was killed,' reflected Trevaskis. 'He was going to

Melbourne, and going to take this nugget gold with him; that would be less suspicious than the amalgam. In

Trevaskis paused at the word, and then uttered it half aloud: 'A thief.' It had an ugly sound. Yes, Dunning's

plans had all been carefully laid; so were the plans of the men who had got the gold on tribute at Hooper's

Luck; so were Webster's plans. As the ugly sequence of murder, insanity, and sudden death rose before him,

Trevaskis felt an impulse to take a solemn oath not to touch this gold, to let it come to the company to whom

it belonged of right, to let FitzGibbon discover the lot, all but the nuggets, which would in the natural course

of events revert to Dunning's heirs, when they came to claim the property he had left at the mine. It was so

much mixed up with the company's property that it would be difficult in some cases to decide which was

which. Another fact that had come to Trevaskis' knowledge, since he had been at the Colmar Mine, was that

the directors had made an advance of salary to Dunning, to the extent of �150, a few weeks before his sudden

death. Hence all his books, papers, and belongings were kept as security by the company, till a brother of

Dunning's in one of the other colonies, with whom they had communicated, should repay the amount and

Trevaskis pictured to himself this man's surprise and delight on finding that a box in an underground

lumberroom contained over two thousand pounds' worth of gold; he pictured to himself FitzGibbon's

excitement and wonder on finding this great store of stolen amalgam. What a commotion there would be

among the shareholders! Yes, it would be a nine days' wonder, and then it would be forgotten, and things

would go on as usual, and he would remain in miserable exile in the heart of the Saltbush country. Such a

'Ah, what shall I do, what shall I do?' he cried, suddenly flinging himself down on the bunk that was close to

the entrance into the room. His temples and pulses were throbbing stormily. His mind was in a whirl. He

started up after a few minutes, and took up a doublepointed pick, with the purpose of beginning there and

then to dig a great hole in which to hide all the amalgam. But the next moment he threw down the pick with a

bitter smile at the senility of the plan. No possible hidingplace could be devised with any certainty of being

secure, in a place that would be subjected to a 'thorough search' by one looking for a treasure. His thoughts

wandered to other modes of secreting this fortune. All around lay hundreds of miles of waste and uninhabited

country. And yet there was no safety, no security, for such a treasure as this, except in the bowels of the earth,

'If I could retort the amalgam in here. . . if I had even a month to turn round in. . . I could take up a claim

somewhere near, and carry the gold awayaccording to Webster's plan. Once I had the gold in my

possession, safe away from hereOh, I'll do it, I'll do it, somehow or another, somehow or another'

Trevaskis was pacing up and down rapidly, restlessly, with something of the fierceness of a caged animal,

when suddenly a shrill whistle12 broke the silence. He drew out his watch and stared at it incredulously. It

seemed impossible that this should be the summons at six o'clock in the morning for the miners who were to

take the place of the nightshift an hour later. His watch had stopped, he had forgotten to wind it up; but he

now noticed that the candle, which he had put into the lantern whole, was burning low. He stood for a

moment irresolute. Then he took the carpet bag, containing the nugget gold, out of the box, and after shutting

it he sprinkled some shovelfuls of earth over the lid. Taking the lantern, he went out of the cave room and

into the passage, the long, narrow iron passage, whose length had won Searle's fond admiration. Now its

purpose was apparent. It had been built by Webster so that he could pass to and fro, when he was robbing the

When he reached the first little square window, Trevaskis found that the sun was rising. As his eyes

encountered the clear morning light, he became conscious of a sharp, smarting pain in them. The excited

vigils of the night had made them worse. Yet so engrossed was he with the thought of his strange discovery,

that as soon as he reached his office, and had locked the door leading into the passage, and put the gold into

the strong safe in his office, his first act was to walk slowly down beside the passage, to examine its

construction more closely, and to see whether any of the sheets of iron were loose. As he looked in at one of

the little windows, he noticed for the first time that they were furnished with blinds of darkgreen American

leather.13 These were now closely wound up, so that he had not previously noticed them.

'Ah, he forgot nothing!' thought Trevaskis, still gazing in at the little window.14 At that moment he heard

approaching footsteps, and a cheery voice calling him by name, which he recognised as FitzGibbon's.

'Goodmorning, captain! Have you been having a look at the new claim? I dreamt last night there was a

tremendous heap of gold there. If that's true, you'll be forced to take it seriously, you know,' said Victor.

Trevaskis could not afterwards recall what his answer was to FitzGibbon's remarks, as they walked together

across to the offices. He retained his wits sufficiently, however, to avoid the common intriguer's folly of

overreaching himself by elaborate explanations of what might be taken for granted. The iron passage and

the underground room were in his chargeunder his sole key; and the conversation that had taken place

might naturally have led him to view them with more interest. 'Whatever I do in this affair, I must always try

'Yes, I'm going for a agood long ride. I couldn't sleep, somehow, once the daylight dawned this morning.'

Anyone observing Victor would have noticed a look of curious preoccupation in his face. Now and then he

seemed to be on the point of smiling, and then he would knit his brows and walk a little faster, as if pursuing

a troublesome thought, which he was determined to bring down. He went into the office for his ridingwhip,

and when he stood within the threshold he looked around inquiringly. Was it only a few hours since he had

gone out of this room and walked down to Stonehouse in the gathering twilight? As he rode through the fresh

morning air, he went over all that had then happened for the hundredth time. He did not see the ashy plains

lying in monotonous uniformity under the fresh blueness of the morning, nor the majestic sweep of the

horizon all round where the gray earth seemed to be folded within the edges of the jewelclear sky. He was

going over the few simple events of the past evening minute by minute, word by wordnay, step by

stepwhen, after leaving the office, he crossed the reef, not following either of the paths, but taking a longer

route and approaching the house by the western entrance, instead of coming, as his wont was, by the southern

end, where his own room stood with its separate door opening into the avenue that encompassed the house on

The hope that led him to do this was fulfilled. Doris was on the veranda, looking towards the west, her face

touched with that wistful inquiry which, since her mother's death, had come to be her more habitual

expression when alone. It was the opportunity he wanted, because, as he told himself, it would be bso

intolerable to meet her before others, after that sad little first meeting and abrupt parting, without giving voice

to something of the sympathy that had been pulsing in his heart ever since. There was no awkwardness in

their meeting, for the moment Doris saw him drawing towards her, she turned to meet him with grave

'I was so sorry, after you had gone on Saturday evening,' she said, returning his bow and meeting his glance

with the confiding cwideeyed gaze of a child who has never known fear. There was no trace of tears now on

the thick sweeping lashes; the sweet low timbre of the voice was not strained; and the pure soft oval cheeks

'Not sorry on my account, I hope, unless because of my fearful stupidity,' he answered. He tried to speak

lightly; but he was so deeply moved that he was conscious of a treacherous unsteadiness in his voice. In the

instant that her eyes met his, and that he heard the sound of her voice, he admitted to himself that, from the

moment he had set eyes on her, he had been constantly thinking about her in one way or another, especially

'Why, when I wanted to say something to you so very much, that would make you feel a little better, and

'Ah, but, don't you know, sometimes nothing can make you feel better until you have cried all you want to,'

'But it is bad for one to grieve too much; and I am sure good and wise people can often say things that help

'Ah, you see, I am not one of them. I am not able to do more than feel I would do anything in the world to

'But what do you think they would say to you if you had lived all your life with your mother? You two

'By George! she is not going to forget that against me,' thought Victor, twirling the point of his moustache a

'You see, it is because you are not a girl,' Doris said half apologetically, feeling that she had perhaps reflected

'But suppose good and wise people knew a girl,' she went on, moved at the picture rising before her, and

deeply in earnest in her inquiry'one who had been with her mother day and night all her life, never away

from her, and her mother was the noblest and dthe best and ethe dearest, always sweet and gentle, and doing

everything that was good; and the mother was taken away, and the girl was left alone, and could never see her

mother again as long as she was in this world; only sometimes when she slept her mother would come, and

the girl would fold her arms tight so as not to be left alone again, but when she woke up they were empty?

Her lips were quivering, and there was an intensity of pathos in her voice which went direct to her listener's

heart. Indeed, it is probable that this voice would have done that without the deep thrill that pervaded it. For a

passing moment he feared that the keen edge of her grief would again overcome her. But he soon perceived

that her sorrow was of that calm and pervasive kind which trains even the young and inexperienced into

dignified selfrestraint, which is swept away only by those floodtides that arise when in solitude.

What could anyone say to make the trouble less? Her great radiant eyes were raised to his face awaiting his

reply. And he, instead of being able to make answer with some serene and lofty maxims culled from the

sayings of saints or sages, was insanely asking how it was he had never before seen eyes anything at all like

these, and then, where could these violets have grown, whose breath was around her with such delicate

'I think they would say different things, you know, in different ages,' he said, feeling acutely the abject

lameness of his words. And then, a little inspired by the expectant look on Doris's face, he went on to say that

in the old heathen world wise men bade people remember various things that should moderate human grief,

but fthat Christians gdwelt on other thoughts, such as the happiness of those who hwere taken from us. 'Not

because they have left us, you know,' said Victor, feeling acutely that he ought not to have ventured on a

Doris explained who her old friend was, and how they expected to see him on one of his rounds in the

Colmar district in a few weeks. Then, after a little pause, inspired by a growing confidence in her new friend,

whose voice and eyes were so full of gentle kindness, she said, a little hesitatingly:

'There is one thing, though, that often keeps me from being too sad: though mother cannot come back to me

'But, you know, we all must go away one day, just like the woodswallows who used to come to Ouranie.

Today they would be in the trees singing and flying across the lake, with their pretty silvery breasts and

wide dark wings, and tomorrow they would be all gone. One could never tell the reason why. The

almondtrees would be loaded with blossom perhaps, the violets out thick, and the Indian doob grass1 would

have lost the last bit of brown, down by the shores of Gauwari, where it grew so thick; and yet they went,

because the day had come. . . . I do not believe you like what I am saying,' she said, suddenly noticing that a

'Yes; I would like anything you said. But I don't like you to think of such sad things; you are too young.'

'But I am more than sixteen; and even little children often dielike that boy last week of poor Mrs.

'She was burnt out today. Did you know,' said Victor, who, having escaped the isnares of explaining how

the good and wise administered consolation, was now anxious to divert Doris's thoughts from so grave a

theme as that of departing from this world like a woodswallow who forgets the secret of returning.

'Oh yes; Mrs. Challoner has had her brought here with her baby. She had only time to snatch it up and run

'No, thank you, not at all,' answered Victor, with junnecessary fervour. It was not that he disliked babies more

than the average of his sex, but there are moments when no kinfantile charms can soothe the pain of an

'It is a very nice little thing; we are going to make clothes for it, and for the mother. It is not you who send

'No. I just have to put down how many hours they work, and pay them, and help to clean up the gold, and so

'I like it best when the offices are locked and I come across to Stonehouse,' said Victor, with a little smile.

'Yes, isn't it a nice house to be in this place?' said Doris, looking around, 'and with trees round it! but they

cannot get flowers to grow here. I sometimes feel as if I would be ill for flowers.'

'What kind of flowers do you like best?' he asked, making a rapid calculation of how long it would take one

of the best florists in town to make up a box of his rarest and choicest flowers to send on to the Colmar Mine.

'I can hardly tell you; I think I like them all best in turn. If I said I liked roses best, I would at once think of

violets, and then I would think of waterlilieslike those, with lovely waxen cups and saffron hearts, that

'No, except, perhaps, white ones. All white flowers are so lovely. But I do not like any hothouse flowers as

much as those that grow out in the sunshine, and in the light of the moon and the starswhere the birds sing,

'Well, I never thought of it before,' said Victor; 'but now that you speak of it, how sickening it must be to be

shut up with a thermometer and warm pipes, instead of being out where the dawn and twilight come! All the

outlines become so visionary, and there is a faint, dreamy light. It is like a gentle swooning away, like things

you half remember in a pleasant dream. I think these are the loveliest hours of all, especially in the woods.'

'I am glad you think that,' she answered quickly. 'And have you noticed how there is always one bird that

keeps on singing after the restvery often a honeybird, when the gumtrees are in blossom. Oh, do you

know, I am really very idle,' she said suddenly. 'That poor woman who was burnt out,' she went on in

explanation, 'has nothing left for herself and the baby. Her husband was sent away from the mine, and he is

somewhere looking for work. She had two onepound notes, and they were burnt tooeverything gone. We

A little later, when they were in the drawingroom that had been more especially set aside for Doris, the

industry that prevailed was remarkable. Mrs. Challoner was changing one of her own serviceable dresses to

fit the homeless woman; Euphemia was busied with another garment; and Doris worked with skilful, rapid

fingers at a little pink dress. Challoner and Victor tried their skill one against the other at a game of chess.

And always in the pauses during which his opponent studied the moves that might gain him the victory, the

young man's eyes wandered round the room, noting some of the things that had before given its air of delicate

culture and refinement to the Ouranie home. The rows of moroccobound books in the dwarf bookcases of

ebony, touched with gold moulding, ranged against the wall; the graceful antique vases; the rare china; the

pictures; the delicatelycarved fans; the brackets with their photographs of gently nurtured men and women;

the soft, silken curtains that draped the windows; the branched candelabra of old massive silver, with their

manyshaded candles diffusing a rosy light over the room, and above all, the exquisite young face with the

heavy, upward curving eyelashes, casting a pathetic shadow under the radiant eyesall these enchained

Victor's eyes. It seemed like a dream, that a scene in such curious contrast with its outward surroundings

should be found in the heart of the Saltbush country, and closely neighboured by the Colmar Mine. Perhaps

it was little wonder that once and again Victor came off secondbest at chess on this evening.

'But still you have more skill than I have. I look for a beating the next time,' said Challoner, as he gathered up

the chessmen. Then, before going out to smoke on the veranda, he begged Doris to play a little. 'You are just

quite a Dorcas meeting2 tonight,' he added, with his slow, benevolent smile. 'So I'll only ask for that piece

On this, Doris put down the little pink dress and went to the piano. After a few preluding bars, she played one

of those improvisations which her mother used to find so full of woodland charm. The flutelike warblings of

the magpies as they sing, when the faint vapours that hover over the woods begin to swim out of sight in the

clear dawn; the fantails' chorals of exceeding gladness; the sweet tinkling calls of the superb warblers,3 first

a solitary bird mtrilling its magical notes, then another and another, till all the air is rifted with ecstatic

soundsall were cunningly interwoven on a rippling accompaniment which Doris had transposed from an

old cradlesong. Her mother had found delight in listening to her nreproduce these snatches of birdsongs,

and this was the first thing the girl could bear to play after leaving Ouranie. She had played it over and over

again, trying to fancy that it might somehow reach her mother's ears, and that it pleased her as in the old,

happy days, till she had caught the keen, fluctuating nuances of birdnotes with marvellous precision.

'That was a little troop of singing honeybirds, I think, at the end,' he said in a low voice, with a lambent

'Yes; I was trying to remember how they called to each other when they first found our Murray wattles4 in

'Do you know this bird?' she added, striking a few chords which made deep, reechoing cries of hubuh huh!

'Oh yes, I do,' answered Victor eagerly. 'Where did I hear them one Michaelmas vacation when I went to

Mount Gambier? I remember now it was in the reedy marshes of the odismal swamp.5 That is the booming of

Doris, it turned out, had long watched for psight of one by the shores of Gauwari, and after she had resumed

her work, Victor sat on a chair near her to glean information as to the plumage and habits of the bittern.

Rather a large bird, the neck very long, mottled chestnutbrown and black, with what avidity he learned these

details! And then when the bittern was exhausted, his eyes fell on a chairback bordered with the most

grotesque little figures, outlined in light and dark crimson silks, others in pale and dark blue.

A faint smile rose on Doris's face, and he guessed that the needle which flew so nimbly in her slender

rosetipped fingers was responsible for these funny little effigies in Chinese clothing.

'They are Gooloos,'7 answered Doris, smiling more broadly, 'and they used to live on the far side of the Wall

'Because the poor little mites are always trying to do things they qbetter not.'

'To make shadows stay in the same place, to turn sunshine into fogs, to make the moon and the stars keep

'Yes, and because it is easier to hide their faces in their hands than to make them look properly sorry.'

'They must all keep their own colours,9 you see; they belong to the crimson faith and the blue faith.'

'Oh, I think it is what they want other people to believe,' answered Doris thoughtfully.

Victor smiled as he recalled it all. And yet, in thinking of Doris, even in solitude, the expression uppermost

on his face was a deeply serious, appealing look. The austere silence of these vast plains began to insensibly

colour his thoughts. Not even the cry of a bird or a breath of wind broke the stillness, which the golden

sunshine, growing stronger and fuller, seemed to intensifya stillness deep and breathless as that which

broods over the landscape in the background of Raphael's 'Vision of Ezekiel.'10 In such a scene, with an air

so light and pure that one becomes unconscious of inhaling it, the mind which has not yet lost the freshness

of youth is readily touched to finer issues than those that prevail in a grosser atmosphere.

What stores of buoyant fancies, what sunlightenfolded thoughts, what radiant communion with Nature, the

child must have possessed before the shadow of grief fell on her young life! But she would gradually

roverlive this sorrow; she would laugh and be gay once more in the light of the sun. Happy the hours that

would win her back to the unspoiled gladness of her childhood! So ran the thoughts of the young man; and

then, in thinking of the maiden, a curious mood of exalted impersonal rapture grew on himless keen than

joy that is solely individual, but warmer and closer than the glow which comes at times with the onrush of

thoughts as to the glad vague possibilities of life. The hunger which had at times gnawed at his heart, as if for

wider and deeper emotion than he had yet known, was satisfied. And yet with this newborn felicity, the

consciousness of disloyalty towards Helen, which had dismayed him in the tumult of his thoughts on first

seeing Doris, was now absent. It was as though, in addition to all that he knew of good in life, he had

suddenly come on a revelation of its ideal glamour and preciousness. The face and form, so exquisite in their

beauty and innocence, seemed to him a type of that spiritual loveliness which man worships rather than

dreams of possessing. He would see her from day to day; he would find out ways of serving her, of bringing

the rare smile oftener into her face. He pictured her looking at the beautiful flowers for which she

pinedwhite fragrant flowers. In two days from this he would bring them to her. His heart beat tumultuously

Then, as he rode into Colmar and passed by the post and telegraph office, the thought struck him that he

would save more than a day by telegraphing to the florist. The office would be open in half an hour. He left

his horse in the stable of the Colmar Arms and went into the diningroom. He passed one or two groups of

men in eager, excited talk about gold finds and diggings and large nuggets. But he was too much absorbed in

'I've had a glorious ride, captain,' he said, taking his accustomed place at the table, where breakfast awaited

him. One sat reading a newspaper with his back to the window, whom Victor on entering took for Trevaskis.

But on being thus addressed, he made his face visible above the paper, and Victor recognised the man he had

'This is a pleasant surprise!' said Victor, and the two shook hands like old friends.

'You know my given name, with its Bush prefix, is Oxford Jim. Allow me to introduce myself in proper

formJames Vansittart. Oh, so you're a FitzGibbon? Are you any relation of the Captain FitzGibbon who

came out as aidedecamp with Governor Somebody early in the sixties?1 His youngest son? Well, in

appearance you're a proper chip, etc.,2 but otherwise the pendulum seems to have swung back. . . . You know

what I mean. The father can't exist without clubs and high play, and all the other little effete sophistications

of society. But the son returns to the primal sanities of life, grilled chops and steel forks at eight o'clock in the

morning, and a pursership at the Colmar. . . . I'm waiting with some impatience for the captain. I'm going to

keep on the lay3 that he doesn't know me, you see. It's a little bit of comedy, and nothing is rarer in life. You

pay for it at the theatre, but they give you instead a slavey with a smudge on her face.4 I shall stay here for

two or three weeks, probably. aI've sent about a thousand pounds' worth of gold on with the trooper to a bank

in town. . . . Of course you've heard all about the gold. I had a good mind to tell you on Sunday, but I was

going to keep it a dead secret till I got to town and started a company. I'm not sure I hadn't some floating

ideas of playing the big man, and riding in my carriage, and losing my memory when I saw some poor devil

trudging it on foot who worked with me for a year and a half. Lord, Lord! what funny little guineapigs we

Vansittart laughed softly, and sipped a little coffee, but made no pretence of eating. He had discarded his

digger's costume, and was attired in fresh white linen, and a tolerably fitting dark suit of clothes. He had also

paid a visit to the barber, who combined his professional duties with a little temperance bar of what he called

American drinks;5 and the change that these little concessions to the usages of civilized society bhad effected

cwere much to his advantage. But that curious expression of vagueness in his eyes had deepened rather than

decreased. He had been smoking his longstemmed pipe, and Victor was again sensible of that faint

poppylike odour which he had noticed the first time he was in Vansittart's company. He evinced also the

same proneness to speech, falling into complacent monologues, in which his own observations seemed to

afford him that glow of enjoyment booklovers find in reading a favourite author.

When he found that Victor had not heard even a rumour of the exciting gold scene in the barroom on the

previous evening, Vansittart gave a graphic description of the event. Nothing had escaped him, except, of

course, the man who had heard all in the next room, and whose part in the drama was to affect Victor in so

unforeseen a manner. It was like dthose plans we form of life in which we leave nothing out except the

master weaver, whose cunning threads are to form the most fateful pattern of our lives.

'I shouldn't wonder if you found a few of your miners non est6 today,' said Vansittart, looking out at the

'Oh, if we have a deadlock,7 I'll turn digger myself,' answered Victor gleefully.

'Here he comes; now for a little fun!' said Vansittart, taking his place at the table. 'Another cup of coffee, if

Trevaskis came in hurriedly, and sat down with a slight nod to Victor. His eyes were bloodshot, his face

flushed, and there was a tremulous motion in his hands which he could not wholly control. He stared at

Vansittart returned his look with a blank expression. Then, with a slow smile, he said:

'You must have a good memory. I remember seeing you five years ago in a carriage going into Government

House. There was a block,8 and your coachman had to rein in his fiery steeds for three or four minutes. I was

one of the vagabonds looking on, you know, feasting my eyes on the colonial aristocracy.'

'Oh, I met your eyes; I looked at you particularly, for I thought to myself, "Now, there's a man who was

probably not born in the purple. But by thrift and industry, and fairdealing and perseverance, he has made

his way to the front ranks. He is one of the men the newspaper fellows call the backbone of this great, young,

'Stow your jaw!9 what are you giving me such impudence for?' broke out Trevaskis savagely.

He had caught a passing smile on Victor's face, when, having finished breakfast, he took out his pocketbook

to ephrase the telegram he was going to send when the office should open ten minutes later. . . . 'It's a putup

thing between the two of them. He's taking notes to make a good story out of it, for his friends in town,' was

the thought that rose in Trevaskis' mind, and goaded him into fa sudden explosion of wrath.

'Impudence, my dear sir! I assure you I know my place better,' answered Vansittart with unmoved suavity.

' "Bless the squire and his relations; Give us, Lord, our daily rations; Make us know our proper stations,"10

were the first lines I lisped. Probably they will be the last I shall breathe when I "shuffle off this mortal

'I suppose the big nuggets have got into your head, Jim. No doubt you're one of the fellows who came here

with the swags of gold last night, that everyone is talking about,' said Trevaskis, trying to carry off the matter

'Jimand pray who is Jim?' said Vansittart in a tone of amazement, and drawing himself up with a haughty

'You say you do not remember the occasion on which I had the honour of seeing you, and yet you address me

Trevaskis looked at Vansittart with baffled rage, and then glanced at Victor. But he was now oblivious of

what was going on around him. They were a curious trio: Vansittart happy in the little farce he was acting,

and revelling in the consciousness of his newlyfound fortune, soothed into forgetfulness of the past by the

treacherous nepenthe12 with which he had learned to drug his mind against memories of his wasted life.

Trevaskis with his brain inflamed by that cruellest of all lusts, the lust for gold; his imagination alternately on

fire with inchoate schemes for getting possession of the treasure he had discovered, and dazzling visions of

returning to his family, to his lost place in society as a man of money and influence; then dashed with cold

fears by thoughts of the doom that had overtaken his predecessors. And with these two, the young man,

immersed in one of those charmed episodes in which all the world is full of opening roses, and dreams that

have more ideal bliss than any vision of happiness that is translated into the implacable prose of existence.

'I suppose the telegraphoffice is open by this time,' he said, glancing at his watch before he went out. The

words brought a dew of cold perspiration out on Trevaskis' forehead. For a moment the certainty seized him

that Vansittart had given such information regarding the underground room to Victor as had induced him to

telegraph the news direct to his uncle. The next moment he gmade a mock of himself for his fears.

'Remember the man's head and the dead rat,' he said to himself; and this became a sort of rallyingpoint when

moved by any sudden fear. Yet the hope that he might glean some inkling of what had passed between the

two, induced him to make one more effort at a better understanding with Jim. But Vansittart, with a gleam of

enjoyment in his eyes, rebuffed him as before, and left the diningroom a few minutes after Victor had gone.

'Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.' He counted over the days that might intervene till 'Zilla returned.

FitzGibbon would then expect to carry out his proposed search. The excitement about the new diggings, and

the rush that would be certain to take place, might prevent his securing 'Zilla's help for a thorough

examination for some little time, but would offer no bar to FitzGibbon's making investigations on his own

account. And how could this be prevented without raising suspicionssuspicions, too, which the slightest

examination of the cave room would more than verify? If he could only have a clear month, in which to retort

the amalgam!13 Nothing could be more fortunate than this discovery of gold in large quantities in the Colmar

district, for it would enable him, if once he secured the treasure, to dispose of it without much difficulty. He

could, for instance, remove the gold in a waggonette, and take up a solitary claim after resigning his post as

minemanager, and gradually invent his luck. Or if the diggings that started had any importance, he could, as

he had often done before, act as a sort of middleman and buy up gold on the spot. He was well acquainted

with the average digger, and could count without fear of disappointment on buying up gold very readily for

poundnotes paid on the spot. . . . And, besides, if there was a rush he would only need to buy just as little or

as much as suited him. The wildest rumours were always afloat as to the quantity of gold raised, and it was

well known that a large proportion of hthe diggers habitually concealed their findings.14 He had once before

smelted nuggets, so as to prevent the banks from overreaching him,15 and there would be no difficulty in

the way of his selling the gold in pure bars, assigning the same reason for his action. . . . Only let him safely

On his way back to the mine, Trevaskis' brain was in a whirl as to what plan he should pursue. Near the

enginehouse he was met by some of the miners who wished to leave there and then, forfeiting two days'

'Go on and get your cheques,' he answered laconically. He went into the smithy and watched one of the men

at work as he sharpened some rockdrills. Then he passed on to the carpenter's shed, where the carpenter was

preparing some joists for repairing the roof of the powdermagazine, which was at the foot of the reef half a

mile off. Roby consulted him as to the necessity of ordering an additional stock of shoes for the

'We shan't want 'em for some time, but if there's a big isturt17 at these new diggings we may be left in the

'All right; send in a memo. to the purser of any articles you think should be sent for. I'll look over the list

'I'm afeerd, cap'en, you're not very well; you're lookin' jsomewhat white today,' said Roby.

The flush on Trevaskis' face had subsided, and his eyes, besides being much bloodshot, had a curiously

'No, I'm not at all well,' he answered. 'The fact is, I don't believe I can stand the heat here at all. Just see how

the sun is blazing down at halfpast ten in the morning, and we're only at the end of October.'

'I tell 'ee what it is, cap'en, you'll 'ave to take to the underroom, as poor Cap'en Dunning did klast summer.'

'Well, I'll go down and try it, after I finish my morning round,' answered Trevaskis in an indifferent voice.

He did not go, however, until he saw Victor on his way to the Colmar Arms at one o'clock. When he

descended, he went direct to the hidden trunk and took out the box containing the wig and beard. He also

took the portfolio containing Dunning's letters, and carried them into his room. So much of his many plots, at

least, should take active form. He would make sure of the gold locked in his safe, and he would invent some

means of selling it, secured against detection. He had a kind of groping intuition that some plan would

suggest itself, by which he could make use of Dunning's preparations for disguise.

He knew it would be useless for him to attempt to sleep. He locked the doors of his office and room, drew

down the blinds, and fitted on the wig and false beard and moustache, and put on a pair of smokecoloured

sunglasses. The transformation was sufficiently striking. But it became still more so when that night, after

darkness closed in, and he was secure from any interruption, he went through the process of deepening the

lines in his face, of giving it that sunbronzed hue which the mixture in the phial produced, and finally

ruffling and powdering his eyebrows in the way that Dunning's actor friend had suggested. Then he once

more put on the wig and beard. They were so well made, so naturallooking, so closely fitting, that it was

difficult to believe they would have disguised anyone else as they disguised him.

This completeness of disguise gave him a curious feeling of confidence. Dangers and difficulties lay in the

way, no doubt, but the greatest difficulty of all was surmounted in lhaving the means of hiding his identity so

completely when he disposed of the gold. How to do that without running the risks which seemed inseparable

from long delay, kept him awake till long after midnight, though this was the second night through which his

vigils extended. He was up next morning, notwithstanding, in time to see the men of the first shift go to work.

There were no fresh departures for the diggings; but the daily newspapers reported the sensational find of

gold which had been revealed by two men who had been working within a few miles of each other in the

locality of Broombush Creek, and prophecies were made as to the rush that was inevitable. It was further

surmised that other solitary diggers had been for some time in the neighbourhood with more or less success.

Trevaskis glanced hurriedly over the mnewspapers. Then he looked over his letters. There was one from the

secretary of the company, informing him that a letter had been received from a brother of the late manager,

intimating his intention of coming to the colony in the course of six weeks after the date of writing, to look

into his brother's affairs, and take possession of the effects which were at the Colmar Mine.

'The letter was dated from Sydney,' wrote the secretary. 'So that Mr. Raphael Dunning may come by way of

Broken Hill.18 In order to prevent mistake, the directors request me to say that the late manager's personal

belongings at the mine are to be handed over only on the production of their authorization to that effect.'

Trevaskis' first action after reading this letter was to turn to the portfolio and ransack the rest of the papers, at

which he had not yet looked. Two or three were concerned with unimportant matters, one nconcerning a little

cottage which Dunning was apparently renting on behalf of someone not named. The next letter he took up

'oHenclos pleas find recet for p�19 10s. for Six mounth rent19 of Cotage noomber 4 in bendigorow

hindmarsh20 from 1 July to 31 decembur, hit bein' cloas to the railway Station he won't find no deferculty in

findin' hit, and whativer Date he come within the six mounth he can take posission but I must have a mounth

Notis if he want to leeve at the end of the leese there is shutters to the Winders of the two front qrooms so if

any pains is smarshed I dosnt hold myself Rispoansable witch the naybors is desent and not likely to brake in.

'What the devil was the fellow up to with this?' he said half aloud, and then in a moment it flashed across

himall the more readily because it offered a solution of one of those lame gaps which stared him in the

face, the moment he tried to think out a working scheme for disposing of over two thousand pounds' worth of

gold, in the guise of an old digger. He steadied his mind now by a strong effort in the tumult of excitement

which arose with the feeling that he saw his way clear before him. Step by step he went over his scheme: he

foresaw every difficulty; he provided against every contingency; he made sure of his safety from every point

of view; and he swore a great oath that what one man had failed to do because of insanity, and another

'No, nothing will happen to me, nothing will cross me. I'm the thirdno, the fourth man; for there was the

digger who was murdered. I'm the fourth man that set his heart on enjoying this gold, and it's against the law

When the mailcoach came in on Thursday morning, it was crammed with passengers, all bound for the new

diggings.1 Half an hour later a large American waggon drawn by four horses, also crowded with people

bound for the same place, passed by the Colmar Mine. Then, all during the day vehicles of various

descriptions were seen rumbling slowly on their way to this new Golden Jerusalem2 of the Saltbush

country. It turned out that over four hundred men had reached Nilpeena that morning by the early train, all

bent on being afirst in the field. Most of those who had money clubbed together and hired all the vehicles

available in the township to convey themselves and their impedimenta to the goldfields. Many of these were

well equipped with tents, tools, and a couple of weeks' rations. But the larger proportion were men who, on

getting out at the railway station, tramped it on foot, with neither purse nor scrip,3 with a shovel rolled up in

the blue blankets slung on their backs, carrying in one hand a 'billy,' black with use and a rigid absence of

outer scouring. bBesides the pick or shovel there was perhaps a loaf in the swag, certainly a modicum of tea,

They tramped on in a long straggling line, their route marked here and there by columns of smoke, where

some alone, some in groups of from three to five, halted to boil a billy of tea and smoke a pipeful of the

strong fig tobacco which Bushmen habitually use. Many were found among them who were without even

these elementary necessities for tramping it to an unknown goldfield. But when they were in company with

others who were better off, the more destitute ones were not left in need. Nor was any surprise felt at the

faith, or recklessness, of men who had neither tea nor tobacco, nor food nor tools nor money to buy

cthemthus swelling a rush in which to the uninitiated a store of some at least of these would seem to be the

only safeguard against starvation. But a rush in quest of gold is a species of gambling that has many queer

features. The man who has a little knowledge and experience, and the one who even without these has

brawny arms, and is not afraid of work, has without money or tools a better chance than the men who lacking

these come with stores of danything else. Many of the men who have most experience in alluvial

golddiggings are chronically hard up. Whether they make hundreds of pence or of pounds in any given rush,

they are equally likely to be penniless a month or two after it is over. They are invariably ready to start at an

hour's notice when the rumour of a fresh huntingground within a practicable distance reaches them. There is

sure to be many a 'tenderfoot' and greenhorn4 who will be glad to give food, and find tools, in return for

The amateur element was stronger than usual in the Broombush Creek rush by reason of being less than two

days' journey from the capital, and within thirty miles from a railway station. All day the long irregular

procession straggled on. After the mailcoach and the fourinhand, as the American waggon was styled,

came horsemen, bullockdrays, trollies, spring carts;5 even the one vegetablecart of which Nilpeena

boasted, drawn by a sturdy donkey, was there, piled up with the swags and shovels of half a dozen men, who

walked before and after the rickety little machine, which in ascending the gentlest eminence, creaked as if its

last moment ewere near at hand. And in advance of the vehicles, side by side, and after them, came the men,

who fhad walked with light or heavy burdens, some with none at all. Even at this early stage, those who had

adventured the rush without money or baggage began to ascend the social scale. They were paid in money or

kind by the more heavily laden to help them with their burdens. Already, too, some of those who had put

their hand to the plough looked back.6 Though there were no scrubby heights to scale, or unknown deserts to

cross, the arid, waterless nature of the country, and the unexpectedly large number who were making for the

'Not much danger, 'pears to me, of our 'aving to shut up shop on haccount of the new diggings,' said Roby

'Well, when you come to figure it out, eight or ten bob a day7 sure, is better than the 'ope o' turnin' gentleman

by Hact go' Parlyment, with the chance o' perishing by starvation thrown in,' observed an old miner.

All the men who had worked on the nightshift were standing at the doors of their huts and tents, or down at

the Colmar Arms, where the barroom overflowed with dusty hswagsmen8 quenching their thirst, and

listening with greedy eyes to the landlord's frequently repeated narrative of the fabulous swags of gold, that

had dazzled the eyes of all beholders in his barroom three nights ago. No tale of enchantment or adventure

was ever listened to with such devouring interest. In the bar and elsewhere nothing was to be heard but talk of

claims and pegging out, of pockets and gutters and nuggets of gold; of halfforgotten reminiscences of old

diggings, and tragic stories of lucky diggers. There was an electrical thrill of excitement in the very

atmosphere. Even Trevaskis, who had so many grim problems of his own to solve regarding gold, was in a

measure carried out of himself, by the wave of eager expectancy which stirred the place, as to the experiences

that awaited the mixed multitude, hurrying in search of fortune to Broombush Creek.

But one at least among all this goldfever hubbub was occupied with far other thoughts. The mailcoach that

had brought the first instalment of diggers had also brought Victor the flowers for which he had telegraphed

on the Monday morning.9 There had been a delay of two days in sending them, because of an error made in

transmitting the message from the Colmar office. But here they were at last. As soon as Victor had the office

to himself, he cut the cords and opened the boxes to sprinkle the flowers with water. His eyes sparkled at

isight of their loveliness, and thoughts of the pleasure they would give Doris. He counted the moments till he

could bring them to her. Yet he purposely delayed going with them till it was close on seven.

He had observed that after sunset she almost invariably sat for some time on the western veranda, watching

the dying light in the sky above the immense landscape, into which the feverish seekers for gold had been

hurrying all day. This evening the afterglow was unusually vivid, spreading jfar up to the horizon in waves

of pure firecolour,10 embracing the most delicate nuances of tint, from a broad line of deep carnation low

down on the vast horizon, to a faint silvery pink far overhead. As soon as he crossed the reef and began to

descend towards Stonehouse, Victor saw the slender, darkrobed figure clearly outlined in the warm evening

light. Spot and Rex, a young kangaroo dog,11 bounded to meet him with the animation of dawning

'You are quite loaded, and yet Rex ran to meet you! That shows he quite approves of you,' she said, as she

'Doesn't he like people who carry things, then?' asked Victor, putting his boxes on the little wicker table that

'No; because, you see, most of the people he used to see with any kind of load were sundowners.'12

'Perhaps he knew somehow that these boxes hold something for you,' said Victor, colouring a little as he bent

And now the lids were off both the boxes, and the light layer of white cottonwool removed. And lo! in the

first box at which Doris looked there was the most enchanting array of white fragrant flowers: feathery sprays

of white lilac, clusters of white Indian musk kroses, of the white fairy and exquisite Niphetos roses; white

heliotrope and picotees,13 tuberoses with their perfumed waxen buds, clustered sprays of stephanotis with

their delicate yet penetrating fragrance. In the centre there was a group of magnificent orchids, pure white

petalled, with yellow and mauve labellum. The flowers had been skilfully packed, their stems wrapped round

in wet moss, so that they bore little trace of their journey. But a drooping petal here and there made Victor

apologize for not having brought them to Stonehouse as soon as the mail came in.

'I will bring up the next lot the moment they come, and then they will last longer,' he said, eager to say

something that would carry off the keen emotion visible in Doris's face. She had seen no flowers since she

had left Ouranie, and the sight and perfume of these, awakening so many chords of memory, moved her

'You got these lovely, lovely flowers for me! They must have come hundreds of miles,' she said in a

'Oh yes, it is really nothing, you know. You just mention to someone in town you want a few flowers,' said

Victor with a tincture of mendacity of which he was not often guilty. And then he took the folds of

cottonwool off the flowers in the second box, talking so as to give Doris time to recover herself.

'These are not so fatiguedlooking; you see they have more colour. I really know hardly anything about

flowers, except roses. These are the Catherine Mermets. I know them by the sweet scent; my mother llikes

It was a Cattleya with deep rosy crimson labellum and pink petals. This second boxful was little less lovely

than the other. The La France, Malmaison and Gloire de Dijon roses were superb. There was a wealth of

daphne pouring its poignantly sweet fragrance on the air, and a great crowd of pansies, carnations, and yellow

'Shall I go and ask ShungLoo to get some basins and water for you to put them in?' said Victor, who, after

seeing Doris stealthily kissing a plume of white lilac with quivering lips, cast about for some excuse to leave

'Oh, please do not trouble! I can ring for him after I have looked at them a little longer,' she answered, taking

up one flower after the other, with a caress in every touch and look. Then, after a little pause: 'I cannot say

how grateful I am for your kindness! I have been longing for flowers more than I can tell; it sounds foolish to

'Yes; because the pleasure they give is more mthan thanks enough!' said Victor eagerly.

'But I would sooner you gave half to Mrs. Challoner and Euphemia. We can divide them;' and with that Doris

'You are too unselfish; you know you like white flowers the best,' said Victor, who stood watching her.

'Well, you see, I am keeping a larger share of the white lilac,' said Doris, who fixed a spray of these flowers at

her throat, and then made an equal division of the rest. 'When I wrote letters at Ouranie I used to date them by

the flowers that were coming out. If I were going to write a letter tonight, I should date it "the day of all the

flowers." Now, I am going to tell Mrs. Challoner and Euphemia that there is something too wonderfulas if

'Yes, I'm afraid my weight is against me in that line. You had better say a sundownerone of the kind that a

Well, whatever name might be applied to the giver, there could be no difference of opinion as to the extreme

pleasure the flowers gave. Mrs. Challoner, who was easily moved to enthusiasm for her kind, found a depth

of friendly thoughtfulness in the offering which increased the goodwill she already bore towards Victor. Even

the placid Challoner was moved to unusual enthusiasm, when, on being invited to spend the evening in the

drawingroom, he saw the lovely multitude of flowers, set out in the old china and fine cutglass bowls, to

the number of a score or so. They were ranged on the bookcases, the little tables, the piano, and mantelpiece,

giving the room that air of ngrand tranquillity which it is the privilege of beautiful flowers to impart.

'I must sit where I can look at these roses, my dear, while I am waiting for you to let me checkmate you,' he

said to his wife as they sat down for their usual ogames of chess, while the young people played, Victor

accompanying Doris on his violin in some of Moore's melodies, with which they were both familiar. Then,

when Euphemia went away to finish one of those endless letters to her brother and 'a friend,' which she

seemed always to have on stock,15 Victor, noticing a reversiboard,16 ventured to ask Doris if he might play

a game with her. But though the game was entered upon with much seriousness by Doris, the contest very

soon lagged. In fact, no twohanded game has yet been invented whose rules prevent this, when the one who

humbly asks another to play does so for the express and perfidious purpose of an uninterrupted talk.

'I have been wondering,' said Victor, after a few moves, 'whether you know anything more about the Gooloos

'I used to fable a great deal about Gooloos and other queer little people, when I was a child. But, of course, it

'I can hardly do pthat, seeing I have to look up when I speak to you. I might, perhaps, fancy that you are not

'Oh, Shapes and Yangs. Shapes are always flying and changing; but Yangs would sooner die than change,

and they never wish to fly. They just want grass, and the sun on their backs. If they went into society, perhaps

you would call them pigs. No, I don't think I shall tell you any more, I can see you think my little people very

silly,' said Doris, noticing that Victor was trying in vain to repress the amusement afforded by the

'I don't think them silly at all; they are very amusing. I wonder how you came to think of such things.'

'Ah, you had other children to play with; I had no playmates but myself. I used often to play at having a

brother. He was so grand and brave. He was a great soldier, and used to go to the Holy Land17 and make the

infidels give up the prisoners. When we went out driving I used to ask my mother to let the ponies go very

fast, and then I used to fancy that I was Richard, on his Arab horse, chasing qdragons and going after savage

'No, he sometimes came home and told me where he had been, and what strange things he had seen. I used to

live under a nectarinetree in the garden, and watch for him to come across the seathat was Gauwari, our

big lake; it bordered the garden on one side. But I used to like best to ride and drive in the direction of the

great plain. I could fancy always such wonderful things about that, for it was like a great strange seaso

gray and wide and quiet. Mother and I always called it the Silent Sea; but now that I am in the midst of

'It is very bare and desolate, and nothing very wonderful in it, except that it is such a huge plain and reaches

so far,' said Victor, who was listening to these revelations of a solitary childhood with the keenest interest.

'I am afraid things are often like that,' she responded thoughtfully. 'When we used to visit Mrs. Seaton, the

girls had a brother, and he was not in the least noble or chivalrous. He was greedy about tarts, and sometimes

'But, on the other hand, there are many things quite as beautiful as we can imagine them.'

'Ah, yes! The "Arabian Nights" are quite poor compared to what is going on all the time. Even among the

grass, where a tiny brown seed swells and pushes up a thin little green lance; and byandby it is a feathery

tassel, shivering if you even whisper near it. . . . Often when Kenneth used to speak so much about heaven,

and say it was a great deal more beautiful than this world, I used to wonder whether there are corners there

where the violets come out early, and where one might put down an old fairybook with its face against the

canary lavender, to watch the whiteeyebrowed swallows18 when they come the first day.'

There was a wistful thrill in the girl's voice, but she spoke more rapidly than was her wont, and with the

'I do not believe you were lonely at all, though you had no playmates,' said Victor, after a little pause.

'I did not want anyone else when I had mother,' she answered in a very low voice.

And then there was silence between them for a little. The flowers poured their sweetness on the air, and

through the open windows, with the curtains half drawn back, the moonshine was visible lying over the great

Silent Sea, that hemmed them round with that mystic light which gives a magic of its own to the barest

'We are not getting on very well with our game, are we?' she said after a little, and on this Victor tried his best

to lose his rpawns.19 But it was little he could think sof just then, except the sweep of those heavy lashes and

the wonderful eyes they revealed when they were uplifted; the sweet cadence of her tones, and that

enchanting mixture in her talk of bright, taerial fancies and direct childlike simplicity. Altogether, that

evening was formed of those supreme, fugitive hours which, once flown, useldom have a tomorrow.

On the following Saturday morning the mailman brought Victor two more boxes of flowers. These he sent

across at once to Stonehouse by Mick, and then went to the postoffice for the mine letters, as was his

custom each morning, half an hour after the mail had been delivered. As he walked leisurely along smoking a

cigarette, he gave himself up to the pleasure of imagining Doris's delight on finding one of athese boxes

entirely filled with white and Parma violets.1 He pictured her to himself bending over these, holding them to

her face, talking to them, kissing them. . . . His cigarette went out and he threw it away, hastening his steps

with that rapt expression on his face, and that unseeing look in his eyes, which tell of entire abstraction from

He still in some fashion kept up the fiction to himself, that his feelings were of the most benevolent and

disinterested friendship. But in the midst of his happy, engrossing thoughts this morning he became

conscious of an inner voice struggling to ask him questions. None are so deaf, however, as those who won't

hear.2 But it may be taken for granted that a week is the utmost limit of time during which one can be happy

under false pretences. Among the letters that Victor received was a bulky one from Miss Paget. At sight of it

he drew a long breath, and capitulated to the inward monitor, without even attempting to make terms. It was

on last Sunday he sent away his reply to Helen's previous letter. Not a line had he written to her since; how

often had he thought of her? What dreams and visions and reveries, on the other hand, had been with him day

and night of a certain face and form! How constantly the thrilling tones of a low sweet voice had been in his

'But what else could happen, after once seeing Doris?' he asked himself helplessly. The bare thought of her

prevented him from being as unhappy as he felt he ought to be; for the longer he looked at Miss Paget's letter

the more clear it became that he had made a frightful mistake in supposing that he loved her. Perhaps she

knew, perhaps that was why she put off bthe engagementafter all, they were not engaged. The relief he

found in this thought made him feel ashamed of himself. He took refuge in trying to think of something else.

There was that cave room he was to search on Monday; whether it contained treasure or not, it would make

the subject of a long letter to Helen. He could tell her about his first cmeeting Vansittart, and the comical

interview between him and Trevaskis. . . . 'Even if at the end of the probation appointed by Helen'here

Victor paused, and then, with the felicity of his father's race, he put the point'we neither of us wish to make

our friendship into an engagement, we shall still remain friendsI am sure of it. I must not send a miserable

'I suppose I can begin my search of the underground room on Monday, as we arranged,' he said.

Trevaskis had opened one of his letters. He read it rapidly, and said in a hurried voice: 'I half expected this: I

am called away on urgent private business. I must telegraph to the secretary at once. Will you kindly take this

He got a form and wrote: 'Called away on urgent private business; forced to apply for a week's leave of

In less than two hours a reply came, granting the leave asked for. Trevaskis was in the purser's office talking

'There is a man near Malowie I have to see,' he was saying to Roby. 'Do you know whether the train stays

Trevaskis glanced over his telegram, and then a sudden thought seemed to strike him.

'I could be sure of finding him at home on Saturday night. . . . I ought to have applied for my leave from

'Oh, as for the matter o' that, what be the differ, shouldst 'ee leave today or Sunday a'ternoon?'

'Then if I went by the second train, the one that only goes to Malowie, I could catch it this afternoon?'

'That's what I'll do, then,' said Trevaskis in a tone of sudden determination. 'Just send word to the maildriver

to call round, will you, Roby? I don't think there's anything else to arrange about during my absence besides

'Oh, everything will be all right, cap'en. You see, I'm used to bein' left in charge at a hour's notice. I've had

Trevaskis discussed one or two business matters with Victor. Then, as he was going away, he said in the

careless tone in which one speaks of an indifferent matter: 'Oh, and, by the way, the search business had

'Just as you wish, captain,' answered Victor, who was in reality not very much engrossed by the affair.

Trevaskis had studied every move beforehand, taking precautions against each contingency, by giving

himself a wider margin of time. He had chosen Malowie as the station at which he would get out, because

there, the crush of people and the hurry and bustle of changing carriages made any chance encounter less

dangerous. On reaching this station, he took the carpetbag containing the gold and the disguise out of his

portmanteau. The latter he booked to go on by the early Monday train. It was some time before he could get

even this simple detail attended to. The rush to Broombush Creek, which had subsided for a day or two, had

now assumed phenomenal proportions. Gold had been discovered in large quantities over a wide area, several

nuggets weighing over sixty and seventy ounces. And there were the usual sensational rumours of even larger

nuggets, whose lucky finders were not anxious to spread the news of their good fortune. More than seven

hundred men were on their way to Nilpeena by the train that would reach it on Sunday morning. The railway

people were unprepared for so unprecedented a crush of passengers, in addition to the ordinary numbers, and

the platform and offices presented a solid mass of excited, struggling, noisy men, each one fighting for

himself. A rumour had spread that the carriage accommodation was insufficient, and the confusion that

Trevaskis saw several faces he knew in the thick of the crowd, but they did not notice him, and he did not

speak to anyone. He breathed more freely when he got away from the railwaystation. He took a short cut

through the township, and walked on rapidly till he reached a creek thickly lined with titree, two miles and a

half away from Malowie, in an easterly direction. Here he assumed his disguise, beginning with his clothes.

He put on a dark loose, earthstained pair of trousers over those he wore; he took off the coat he had on, put

it into the carpetbag, and in place of it wore a long shabby dustcoat. Then he lay down, making a pillow of

his carpetbag. He dozed fitfully for a couple of hours. As soon as daylight reddened the east, he fixed a

pocket lookingglass in the fork of a tree, and performed the more delicate shades of his toilet. He put his

soft silk beaver in the carpetbag, and wore instead an old gray hat, with a slouching brim, which he pulled

well over his eyes, and knotted a large red silk handkerchief round his throat. When he looked at himself,

with his brickred complexion, his straggling gray hair falling over his neck, his thick grizzled moustache

and long silvery beard, he could not repress a triumphant exclamation of pleasure. All that remained for him

to do now was to transform the carpetbag into a swag. He took out a little black billy, one which he had

found in one of the storerooms and blackened over an impromptu fire of deal boards in his room on the

previous night, and a thin, brownishred rug which he had rolled round the gold. He got a slender piece of

wood the length of the carpetbag, which he folded within it, so as to stiffen the outline. He tied up the whole

in the rug, turning in the edges well over the bag, and strapped the swag with an old saddlestrap at each end.

Then he fastened a loose cord between the two, and slipped the swag over his shoulders, carrying the billy in

He struck across country till he gained the highroad, and followed it on to the second railwaystation beyond

Malowie, and twelve miles distant therefrom. He chose this rather than the nearer station, partly to pass the

time, and partly because he wanted to have a good long tramp, so as to get the dust well into his boots and

face and clothes. As there was a high easterly breeze with a strong touch of hot wind, this purpose was well

effected by the time he reached Kilmeny. It was a straggling little township, its chief features being a big

flourmill and two publichouses. He went to the one nearest the railwaystation, a shabby, onestory

building in which no one seemed to be astir, though it was now close on eight o'clock. The only inmate

visible was the landlord, a big, fat man, who was shambling about the house in an aimless and discouraged

manner. He was keeping house, he said, and didn't know where the things were kept very well. He offered

Trevaskis brandy and water and cold beef and bread for breakfast, adding, 'Every soul 'bout the place has

gone off to the diggings except my wife, who was confined of two twinses a couple of days ago, and a female

'I want no speerits; if ye can't give me a dish o' decent tay I med as well be goin' to th' next house,' he said in a

On this the landlord bustled into the kitchen, and in twenty minutes brought him a teapot full of tea.

'One o' they crossgrained old Cousin Jackses5 as go mouching alone for gold,' said the landlord, speaking of

Trevaskis to a customer who had dropped in for an early 'phlegmcutter.'6 'You can see by the look of him

he's been living alone somewheres like a wombat, till ehe has got out fo' the way of havin' even a proper

His reminiscences were cut short by the sound of a bell forcibly rung. Trevaskis had finished his breakfast,

and now ordered a bedroom. As soon as he was shown into one, he locked the door, took off his wig and

beard, put his swag under the bed, and, throwing himself on it in his clothes, he was fast asleep in a few

minutes. He slept till sunset, and then rose and had another nondescript sort of meal, in the course of which

the landlord entertained him with anecdotes of the 'twinses' and the sudden exodus of more than half the male

'It's close to that there Colmar Mine, as is so gcelybrated for 'ankypanky tricks,' he said, and then, without

receiving any encouragement from his listener, he launched into a description of some of the more notorious

episodes in connection with the Colmar. 'They get managers there up to all the tricks going for to line their

own pocketses. They say they've got hold of a very straight man this time, but that wicious in his temperhe

Trevaskis cut short this pleasing picture of himself by asking for his account, including bed and breakfast; he

paid it, and then, having secured the window and locked the door of his bedroom, he went out for a stroll. He

passed a little wooden chapel, through whose open door and windows the sound of a powerful voice was

plainly audible. The wind had fallen, and the twilight hush was unbroken, except for that deep resonant voice.

As Trevaskis leant against a post and rail fence smoking, close to the side of the chapel, the preaching man's

'When the devil wants to get hold of you,' he said, 'he don't come all hoof and claws, abutting his horns into

you, and driving you head foremost into crime. No; at first he takes slim liberties, so to speak, and they are so

like something you've been doing before, you don't find it out all at once. Then, after a bit, you do something

shadier than beforestill, not so very black; and you feel sorry about it when you lie awake at nights. But

byandby you get over that, and you go on and on, till' Here the preacher dropped his voice

impressively, and Trevaskis went on his way with a hot, deep flush surging up into his face, under the

He had in early life been intimately associated with an ardent section of the Cornish Primitive Methodists,

who dwell on every incident of individual life as a special act of overruling Providence. At this moment, old

associations returned to him, with all the vividness that hcharacterize the early impressions of a strong and

tenacious nature, whose forces have for the most part been concentrated in a narrow groove. Ideas had played

so small a part in his adult life, that those which had been early implanted in his mind slumbered there as hard

'It is a warningas sure as God is in heavenit is a warning sent to me,' he said over and over to himself,

striding on he knew not whither. Year by year his past life unrolled itself before him, and he saw as by a

lightning flash of quickened observation the steps by which he had been gradually familiarized with dishonest

practices. As a boy of fourteen, he had in working on tribute with his father come to learn by experience that

cheating, when practicable without detection, was reckoned no disgrace,8 among a large proportion of

miners. Even some of those who held forth as classleaders and localpreachers would, when the opportunity

arose, act without scruple on the maxim, 'Fear God and cheat the company.' He himself, since he had come to

man's estate, had little qualms in overreaching his fellowmen, in grasping at a larger share of profits in

mining work, or mining speculation, than rightly belonged to him. But never before had he been concerned in

any act that would, if unveiled to other men, have placed him on the list of criminals. Now he seemed

vaguely to perceive that his previous life had been an insidious preparation for crime; that at the critical

moment the avarice of a lifetime, intensified by poverty, made the opportunity of being rich by secret theft an

'Then after a bit you do something shadier than before . . . byandby you get over that, and you go on and

on till' That blank, which his mind involuntarily invested with a sombre fascination, daunted him more

than the most voluble catalogue of crimes. His disguise, which at dawn of day had given him a sensation of

gratified triumph, seemed to him in the gathering twilight as ignominious as convict chains. 'I'll sling up the

whole affair,yes, I'll sling up the whole affair,' he repeated to himself at intervals, with the iteration usual

Night fell, and a luminous space of silvery light in the sky heralded the moon's rising. He found himself on

the outskirts of the township, near a cottage with a little garden in front full of flowers. The windows were

wide open, and he saw by the lamplight in the room within a quiet family group. The mother with an infant in

her arms, the father with a large book and two or three children grouped round him, an older girl seated at ia

harmonium playing a hymn tune. Presently she began to sing, in a sweet though untrained voice, 'Shall we

gather at the river?'9 and the younger children clustered round her and joined in. Then the father stood up,

and his deep bass gave body to the clear high treble of the children's voices. It was all as commonplace as the

light of heaven. But to Trevaskis, in the awakened forecasting state of his imagination, it all seemed part of a

plan by which he was led to review his deeds before it was too late. The man in there sang peacefully with his

children, while he skulked about, disguised like one who had shed bloodno, he would go no further on this

What should he do with the gold while he went on to town? But now, the moment he began to consider how

he should relinquish it, the love of this thing stirred his heart with a deep masterful yearning. The thought of

resigning it to other hands filled him with vindictive jealousy. It was not as if it could be handed over to the

rightful owner. Probably it would be claimed by the Government, and what would Government do with it?

Squander it, as jit had squandered millions before, on foolish railways to nowhere through desert country, on

crooked jetties from which to load wheat that would not be grown, on marble staircases and Persian carpets

for fancy viceregal country houses.10 Could not he make a better use than that of ithe who had lost his

khardly earned thousands through the knavish duplicity of other men? He had wronged no one by taking this

gold . . . and he had gone too far to retreat. As for the remaining lstores of gold, that clearly belonged to the

'But if I take this, I'll be sure to struggle somehow for the rest. Twenty thousand pounds is a fortune; but as

for two or three thousand . . . I've had a warningI've had a warning. What made me come away and leave

the gold there under the bed, and stop by that little chapel and listen to the way the devil tempts and tempts a

man to the very brink of hell?' He stood on the brow of a little hill beyond the confines of the township,

whose lights gleamed here and there through open doors and windows. The tinkle of a bullockbell11 or two

in the distance was the only sound that broke the profound calm, while in the heart of this solitary man raged

All mround, as far as the eye could travel, lay small habitations of wood and iron, in the midst of wide

wheatfields, where the crops were stunted and meagre with the longcontinued drought. Three or four

weeks back, prayer for rain had been offered in all the churches throughout the colony; but as yet no rain of

any consequence had fallen, and in this northern region much of the wheat must perish in the ear.12 Thinking

over this, Trevaskis asked himself what reason there was for believing that Heaven was really much

As the impulse towards rightdoing had been awakened by material fears, so the reascendancy of the

strongest motives that swayed his nature was strengthened by like tawdry misconceptions of spiritual

influences. And yet he did not revert to his former purpose without a further effort at resistance.

'It is close on nine o'clock now,' he said, looking at his watch in the nbright soft moonlight. 'I won't go back to

the publichouse till near twelve; the publican will before then make sure I'm not returning, and he has of

course a masterkey to open the locked door. Well, if he or anyone else has found that gold he can keep it. I'll

ask no question, or hold up my finger, but take it as a proof that what I heard tonight was not a chance, but a

He passed part of the time resting against the trunk of a gumtree, part in striding about and watching light

after light disappear in the houses as the inmates retired to rest. Sometimes he was overpowered with dread

lest the gold might be discovered and tampered with, and again he found himself hoping that it might be all

stolen. . . . 'They say they've got hold of a very straight man this time.' The words came back to him

mockingly again and again. He had always prided himself on his reputation for integrity. To hear the estimate

in which he was popularly held thus spoken of by an entire stranger, in a remote little township, curiously

quickened his determination, once this trip was accomplished, to run all risks rather than that of detection.

Within the last day or two he had sometimes thought out the plan of removing all the great jars of amalgam

into his bedroom, while FitzGibbon searched the cave roomof making some excuse to Roby's wife, who

came daily to tidy up his rooms, and dispense with her services while the treasure was in them. But from the

first the risks daunted him. Now, during the hours of his selfimposed vow, he reviewed all the mishaps that

might lead to detection if he took the stolen amalgam into his actual possession on the mine. He reflected that

both Webster and Dunning had, under the most disastrous circumstances, been saved from being found out,

by keeping their booty hidden in the cave room. As he slowly pondered over these things, he bound himself

by a solemn resolution, in the name of his wife and children, that he would not allow any consideration to

tempt him to remove the gold from its hidingplace till he could take it entirely away from the mine.

'After all that has happened in connection with the Colmar, in the way of murder, insanity, and sudden death,

I'd rather let the young jackanapes go down and discover the lot than fill my room with stolen stuff,' he

thought. 'But, no, no! as sure as my name is William Trevaskis, I'll find some means or another of keeping his

nose outside that iron wall until I've turned the gray stuff13 into bars of yellow gold, and carried them safe

So, after all his impulses of repentance, remorse, and fear, these were the thoughts that filled the mine

manager's mind as he returned to the inn. When he examined his nuggets by the light of a scrap of tallow

candle, flaring in a dirty tin candlestick, and found them untouched, the thought floated dimly through his

brain that the best result of his hearing part of a sermon in that little wooden chapel had been, that in those

solitary hours in the tranquil moonlight he had perceived how foolish and dangerous one of the plans was

The train passed through Kilmeny at halfpast eight in the morning. Ten minutes before it came in, Trevaskis

bought a thirdclass ticket to Adelaide. There were several men in the compartment he entered, two of them

miners, who had come down from Broken Hill. One of these Trevaskis recognised as a man he had

discharged from the Colmar Mine three weeks previously for insubordination. He was an inveterate talker,

whether at work or play, and kept up his reputation on this occasion with unstinted energy. His companion

was much more reticent, and responded for the most part by an occasional grunt. On one topic, however, the

silent miner was moved to express himself with confident vigour. This subject was the mine in which he had

'Pay dividends, indeed!' he exclaimed scornfully. 'Not for a couple of years to come. There's too much lead

and too little silver, and that will soon be well known. Mark my words, the shares will be down with a bang

Trevaskis, leaning back in a corner of the compartment next one of the windows, with his aslouch hat1 pulled

well over his face, seemed to have fallen fast asleep soon after he got into the carriage. But these observations

regarding Block Twenty were not thrown away on him. He did not utter a word, and hardly changed his

It wanted a few minutes to one when the train stopped at BowdenontheHill. This is within a quarter of an

hour's walk of Hindmarsh. Trevaskis made for the railwaystation there, and asked one of the guards the

nearest way to Bendigo Row.2 The man asked in what street. This Trevaskis did not know, only that it was

'Hi, young shaver, come here!' cried the guard to a lad of nine or ten, who was dawdling about the platform.

Yes, the boy knew. Gussy Heinemann's mother lived there. Then Trevaskis told him if he showed him the

way he would give him sixpence, and, thanking the guard, he followed his guide. They crossed a street, and

went up another for a few minutes in a westerly direction till they came to a narrow lane. The first row of

'bThere isn't nobody living there,' said the boy, when Trevaskis stood at the door of No. 4.

'I know that,' said Trevaskis, fumbling in his pocket for the key. 'This is my house just now, though I didn't

quite know where it was. And if you want to earn another sixpence, you can wait here a little and show me

The boy assented with a joyful grin. As a matter of fact, the bank was almost within sight.3 Five minutes later

Trevaskis was inside it, waiting to see the manager, having left all that the carpetbag contained in No. 4,

except the gold. He found only a youth in charge, who looked wonderingly at the hairyfaced old Bushman

when he asked to see the manager in a gruff Cornish voice, and replying laconically, 'Won't be in for a

quarter of an hour,' resumed his work at a tall desk. It was evidently the slack time of the day, for no other

customer came in while Trevaskis waited. He sat at a little inkstained table on a stiff leathern chair, trying to

read the daily newspaper that lay before him. But now that his journey was over, and his purpose so nearly

accomplished, an indescribable feeling of uneasiness took possession of him. For the first time the thought

flashed across him that Dunning, for aught he knew, might have used the disguise he now wore in disposing

of gold at this very bank. He felt tempted to go away without waiting for the manager, and walk across to

'Yes, anything up to a ton,' answered the manager jocosely. 'Have you come down from the Broombush

But to this the silverybearded Bushman made no reply. He took out the nuggets one after the other, without

pausing or taking any notice of the wondering admiration of the manager and his clerk.

'I make it five hundred eand forty hounces,' he said briefly, when the whole lay in a yellow, glistening heap

On being weighed and tested, the gold was found to be a few pennyweights over this.

'I expect you were in the field some time before this rush took place?' said the manager, looking at Trevaskis

'Don't 'ee fret about me, sir, but do 'ee just figure out 'ow much this coom to at �3 18s. 6d. a hounce,'

answered Trevaskis, on which the manager laughed, and put him down as a regular old Cornish digger, of the

'Do you consider it so pure as to be worth that much?'4 he said, turning over a large nugget fspecked here and

'Well, I'm pushed for time. I make you a gift o' the sixpennies,' answered Trevaskis curtly.

Trevaskis counted over the notes with slow deliberation, and then crushed them into an inner pocket in the

carpetbag, nodded brusquely to the manager, and walked away. When he got into the sunlight and the fresh

air, he was astonished to feel a momentary sensation of numbness creeping over him. It was the lassitude of

excessive fatigue, of which he had until then been unconscious. There was a raggedlooking little square

near, with seats here and there under the trees. He sat on one of these, and for a little time he revelled in a

drowsy, luxurious feeling, in which weariness and a sense of triumphant success were curiously mingled. All

his limbs ached with fatigue, and his eyes felt so heavy that he could scarcely keep them open. Yet all the

time the blood was coursing swiftly in his veins, and his heart was beating vehemently. There was plenty of

time for him to rest and indulge in the myriad plans that floated hazily through his mind. The evening train,

by which he would be supposed to have come, did not reach town till nine, or after.

But the day did not seem long to him. On the way back to No. 4 he passed a little general store, at which he

bought some tea and sugar, a loaf of bread, a mug, and half a pound of butter. He gathered up some chips and

sticks in the little backyard, got a billy full of water from the tap, and made himself some tea.

As he sat eating and drinking in his curious solitude, in the dim light he admitted by half opening one of the

shutters, his eye suddenly fell on some gilt lettering on the mug he had bought. He read the words, 'For a

good boy,' and suddenly burst into loud laughter. Yet the next moment the grotesque irony of the thing made

him reflect with quickened perception on the contrast between his secret actions and the place he held in the

world's regard. A justice of the peace, an exmember of Parliament, the soninlaw of a leading

doctorwhat could this man have to do with a vagabond skulking about in disguise, disposing of stolen

The thought came home to him still more acutely when he sat at breakfast next morning with his wife and

children. He had managed everything without a slip. Strolling across from Hindmarsh on the previous night,

he reached the Adelaide railwaystation, just as the northern train came in, and mingling with the throng of

passengers, he in a few minutes obtained his portmanteau, and placed the carpetbag in one of its

'Zoo won't do away no moe, pappy, will gnoo?' said a blondeheaded little boy of three, who was mounted

After all, would not that be best?leave his weary, hateful exile at the mine, and put hthis money, of which

he thought now in its hidingplace with a sort of abhorrence, into a decentsized farm near town, and work

the land for a living, like an honest man who had no cause to be ashamed in the presence of his prattling little

ones. As he looked over the morning paper he noticed a place which he knew well advertised to be let on

easy terms. A farm of two hundred acres, with a large orchard and orangery, and a comfortable eightroomed

house, a few miles beyond Norwood. He determined to go and have a look at the property in the course of a

After breakfast he went to the Exchange5 with his bundle of notes subdivided in a roomy pocketbook. He

had explained to his wife on arriving, that it was business connected with the share market which had

'I hope you will make a lot of money out of it, whatever it is,' she now said, as he went out, with that vague

belief in the moneymaking power of shares, universal in communities largely bitten with gambling in

'People are making such a lot of money on 'Change lately,' added Mrs. Trevaskis, in the regretful tone of one

who has been on the losing side. 'There is Winny Berger's husband, who helped to float a silver company iat

Beltana.7 He made over �3,000, and now the shares are worth absolutely nothing. Winny was so awfully

delighted about his selling out just at the right moment. She ordered a dress from Worth, and has gone to the

'I expect, my dear, the people who bought her husband's worthless shares are not quite so pleased,' said

'Oh, well, that is their lookout,' answered his wife indifferently; and then, with renewed vivacity: 'The

Bergers are putting a new wing to their housea ballroom and conservatoryI was over it the other day

with Winny. The whole of this wretched little house would go inside the ballroom.'

'Well, I'll consult Moses Co. Perhaps they'll put me in the way of jewing the public,' said Trevaskis, as he

Whether he jewed the public much or little, the fact remained that before his week's leave of absence expired,

Trevaskis had, by buying Block Twenties on Tuesday and selling them on Thursday, added �700 to his

money. By this time he had abandoned all thought of the farm with the orchard and orangery. The bare

mention of the project had filled his wife with disdainful horror. 'A farm! a place with pigs and cows, and

sunbonnets and bad seasons!' she ejaculated a little incoherently, as if the latter was a commodity laid on like

gas or water, wherever agriculture was concerned. 'It's bad enough for you to be managing a mine away from

home,' she went on, 'and our furniture getting spoiled in this poky little house, with one general servant9 and

an incompetent nurse; but to go on a wretched bit of land, and sell apples and oranges'

'You speak as though I had asked you to go round with a donkey cart, full of fruit and a pair of scales!'

retorted Trevaskis, whose nerves had been so much strained by his recent experiences, that he was unable to

listen to his wife's unreasoning querulousness with his accustomed forbearance. On this she burst into tears.

She had been trying to bear up as well as she could, she said, in a voice broken with emotion. What with five

young children and a small poky house of six rooms, where part of the furniture was being spoiled, and the

rest ruined in a warehouse; with a general servant jwho invariably spoiled the gravy, and a young nurse who

was always on the point of tipping the perambulator over; and now on ktop of it all to be taunted in this

'She will never know a contented day again till we have a big house and servants and a carriage once more,'

thought Trevaskis, and these biting ambitions accorded but too well with his own. The addition made by his

lucky investment in Block Twenties to the proceeds of the stolen gold merely served to strengthen his fixed

determination to secure the rest of the hidden treasure. His thoughts were constantly reverting to this subject,

and to the obstacles that had to be surmounted. . . He would have to work entirely by night in retorting the

gold. As for disposing of it afterwards, he could not bear the thought of repeated journeys in the disguise he

had first assumed. But he was now certain that the fortunes of the new diggings at Broombush Creek would

offer an easy solution. The low reefs in the vicinity of the creek had been tested by experts, and found to

contain gold in sufficient quantities to pay for crushing.10 Already four or five companies had been started,

and the necessary plant was on the way to the diggings. Trevaskis was too familiar with the histories of

goldfields, not to know that in a short time one or two of these companies would come to grief, and that the

plant, etc., could be bought for less than half the cost. He could start working on his own account, and all the

rest would be easy. A more serious obstacle now than the disposal of the gold was the arrangement he had

made to let FitzGibbon investigate the hidingplace. How could this be prevented without raising

suspicion? If he postponed the investigation from time to time, the young man might, in sheer weariness,

But on the day before he left town, he made a very unpleasant discovery, which still further complicated the

situation. He was in the company's office discussing various mining matters with the secretary, who said to

'Ah, by the way, isn't Mr. FitzGibbon going to search some underground place for a pot of gold that some

'Yes, yes, we're going to get a great fortune there,' answered Trevaskis, without a change of countenance,

'Mr. Drummond, his uncle, had a letter from him the other day, in which he mentioned it. We've heard some

rumours about that place before. Yes, of course, there's always yarns about mines one can't believe. But Mr.

FitzGibbon will have plenty of time; it seems he'll remain till Christmas after all. I didn't believe he would

'He may or he may not stay till Christmas,' thought Trevaskis, as he left the office; 'but at any rate he don't

This, then, was the fixed purpose with which he returned to the mine. The prize at stake was too precious to

be lforgotten. To occupy a good position, to be above the necessity of work, to eat and drink well, to drive in

a carriage, and have 'everything handsome,'11 is an ideal of life so ardently prized, so universally scrambled

for, that, in its achievement, lying, cheating, hypocrisy of all kinds, robberies of every grade, are constantly

enacted. It is by no means a new play. The cast has been on the world's stage from time immemorial, the

actors are perpetually renewed, and the drama is now as popular at the Antipodes as it could ever have been

Victor, after bidding Trevaskis goodbye, as he climbed into the mailcoach that took him on the first stage

of his journey to town, returned to the office and read over that thick letter from Miss Paget which had

suddenly thrown a kind of gray light athwart certain rosetinted illusions. It was a long, bright, pleasant

letter, but perhaps, if it were received under the best auspices, there was too little in it that spoke to the heart. .

. . Her father and Professor Codrington were just then ecstatically happy over the rubbings of antique stones

from some antediluvian quarry in a remote part of Asia.1 Among these rubbings they had discovered a new

sort of metre!2 Had she told Victor in her previous letter that among the residents of Colombo they had

unexpectedly met a relativea young clergyman newly wedded? A gentle little cherub of a man, with big

blue eyes and a dimple or two, who apologized for the decrees of Providence in two short sermons each

Sunday, and for the usages of AngloColomban society3 during the rest of the week. His bride had an

inexhaustible trousseaua new dress for every emergency of life; and when there was no emergency at all

she looked all the more like a lyric out of a Parisian fashionbooka pretty lyric, too, only a little too much

colour, especially in the matter of yellowishgreena little too suggestive of a 'resolute angel that delights in

flame.'4 There was a long, vivid description of a journey to Kandy and backof a reception and dinner at

Government House, and various other social functions, at which the vanity of cliques and the pretensions of

littlegreat5 officialdom and its wives and daughters were noted with an unsparing pen. But there were no

tender fancies, nor foolish little fondnesses, nor any lingering on those feelings that are the food of love. All

these Miss Paget, of set purpose, denied to herself. Only near the close, as in her previous letter, were a few

words which might be interpreted as a sign that she was not all the time in brilliant spirits. 'It is all very lively

and amusing; nevertheless, at times je m'ennuie horriblement; pensez donc un peu moi.'6

Victor felt as he had done on receiving Miss Paget's previous letters, that there was something lacking in

them. But now he felt strongly that there was something lacking in his own heart yet more unmistakably. He

contrasted the strong emotion with which he anticipated seeing Doris from time to time with the feeling that

had suddenly surprised him on seeing Helen's letter, and the flimsy disguises with which he had, during the

last few days, beguiled himself, were torn aside. He lingered over his evening meal at the Colmar Arms,

though there was little in the way of food or company to attract him. Vansittart had for a day or two past kept

entirely to his own room. 'He wasn't ill, but queer like, and didn't care to eat, or see anyone,' the landlady

explained. There were several strangers at the table, men coming or going to the new diggings. Their only

talk was of the finds there, or athe companies to be startedof the diggers and various adventurers, whose

numbers were swelling daily. Victor listened to them with a dull amazement at the avidity with which they

harped on these details, long after every fibre of novelty had been threshed out of them. His little friend Dick,

now happy in a toy stemwinder7 of his own which Victor had bought for him from a travelling jeweller,

It was all very dull, and there was nothing to tempt him to linger as he did, except to pass the time till it was

halfpast eight, when he was due at the little schoolroom of corrugated iron, where he played a solo on the

violin, and stayed to play a second later on, at Roby Hoskings' pressing entreaty.

It was close on ten when he got to Stonehouse. The moment he opened the door of his room the sweet,

penetrating breath of flowers saluted him. And lo! there on the toilettable was a bunch of white and Parma

violets in a little S vres bowl. He was still bending over them, all the torpor and dulness of the day replaced

by an incredible thrill of happiness, when there was a tap at the door. It was ShungLoo with a small tray, on

which stood a cup of chocolate and some biscuits, and an invitation from Mrs. Challoner to breakfast on

'I could not do anything else,' he reasoned. As if he wished to do anything else! As if he did not lie awake for

hours half intoxicated with joy at the prospect of feasting his eyes on a certain face that now haunted him day

and night with radiant, serious eyes! As if he did not rise with the first sunrays and wander round the house

And at last he saw her coming out in a loose white morning robe, her hair in tumbled masses on her

shoulders, damp from the showerbath, as if they had caught dewdrops in their folds of tawny amber. She

'You did not come last night, and we wanted so much to thank you,' she said; and with that she gave him her

And as he held it for a moment in his, timidly touching the firm, slender fingers for the first time, it seemed to

him as if this quiet Sunday morning in the heart of the arid Saltbush country would henceforth become the

great date of his life. He could not have told what he said in reply, but it was doubtless something

appropriate, for Doris went on with an enchanting look of gladness that seemed of right to belong to her,

'Such a great boxful of violets! You would hardly believe how many little dishes we filled with them. And it

is late in the season for them. We had very few at Ouranie in November. Did you see the little bowlful we put

in your room? . . . Oh, it is we who have to thank you more and more! I wonder if you know how much I love

'I felt sure you did. Although I could not see any, it seemed as if you always had some.'

'Ah, that is because at Ouranie we made scent from them. They did not last long there, and we gathered

themmother and Iin great basinfuls, and got all the scent out of them by an old recipe. cDo you like it?

She held it out to him, and he took the soft, daintilylaced bit of gossamer in his hand and held dit for some

'It is sweeter than the violets themselves,' he averred; and he turned the little handkerchief over with a

Did she guess that he coveted it? It would seem so, for after he restored it she went into her roomthey were

by this time on the verandaand presently came back with a white Indian silk handkerchief, embroidered

round the edge with those fanciful little Gooloo figures in palest dogrose pink.

'I worked them a long etime ago, and I have put some of our extract of violets on it for you. Will you please

'I shall keep them as long as I live,' he said, taking these little gifts from her with a stormy beating of the

'But no; the handkerchief will wear out in a year or two, and you will use the scent in a few months,' she said,

'At any rate, you will allow that I may keep this pretty little cutglass bottle for a long time,' he said, half

laughing, ready to treat his unguarded speech as a meaningless trope, though he felt in every fibre of his

Could it ever dawn on her how much they were to him, those simple little tokens of goodwill? What would

she have thought if she could have seen him that evening in his own room, pressing her silk handkerchief to

his lips over and over again? As he pictured to himself the wondering surprise in her sweet grave eyes, he

coloured and smiled, and thrust the precious embroidered morsel of silk into an inner breastpocket of his

Mrs. Challoner's invitation to breakfast had been warmly extended to the rest of the day, and the hours had

passed by with something of the unreality of a happy dreamwith something, too, of that cold awakening to

the complications of everyday life, that too often comes after moments of visionary bliss.

Near sunset they all walked a couple of miles across the western plain. Its most marked feature was the track

that led through the frayed Saltbush to Broombush Creeka track now wide and trodden into a

welldefined road by the ceaseless traffic of the crowds on foot, on horseback, and in vehicles, ceaselessly

pushing on to seek their fortunes at the new diggings. A few stray passengers were in sight, and here and

there in the distance were to be seen films of smoke floating up from brushwood fires, kindled by the

travellers to boil their billies of tea. Challoner and his wife walked in advance, the three young people a little

'We must drive across to see the diggings,' said Challoner, turning round, 'one day before the rush is over. It

will be something for you to remember, Miss Doris, when you get to the Old World.'

It was then, from some further talk that passed, Victor learned for the first time how near this departure was.

Directly after Christmas! Something seemed to obscure his sight for an instant. It seemed as though the vast

melancholy plain, that made an interminable landscape wherever one looked, had suddenly engulfed his joy,

his dawning expectations, his vague hopes. All his life he would recall with strange vividness the sensation

that overcame him that moment, as if the vital forces of being were suddenly lowered, and the world had

resolved itself into an illimitable ashcoloured wilderness, over which human lives passed like flying

shadows, like the phantoms of a dream lost in infinite abysses of unremembering sleep. For a brief space an

inexplicable melancholy fastened itself on him with a virulence which had hitherto been totally unknown to

him. It was as if for one implacable moment he saw, as in a vision, the struggling, restless, tragic futility of

human hopes, begotten in ignorance, snatched away in a passion of anguish, eternally lost in a little mound of

dust. But such sombre reflections were foreign to his temperament, and the next moment he was almost ready

'Yes; distant relations on my father's side. But fbeside the relationship, Mme. de Serziac was my mother's

After they returned to the house she showed him their photographsthe mother, the two daughters, and the

son, taken at various ages. The last one of the latter represented a young man with a pointed moustache, and

the immaculatelyfitting uniform of a souslieutenant9 in the French Guards. It was on this photograph that

'He looks very different there, doesn't he?' said Doris reflectively, turning to this photo from the previous one,

in which he had been taken with his sisters, looking rather an awkward youth with overlong limbs.

'Yes; you see, he is quite grownup here, and a soldier. Of course you like the soldier one best?' replied

Victor, looking at the young officer with a sombre brow. He hated himself for making the suggestion as soon

as he had spoken the words. But Doris answered without the slightest hesitation.

'No, I don't think I do; for, you see, he seems more like a stranger, and I don't like to write to him as I used to

'You see, it was like this,' answered Doris, leaning her cheek on one hand and looking up at him. 'We always

wrote to each other two or three times a year when we were childrenon birthdays and at Easter and

Christmas timesending cards and little gifts. Then for four or five years Raoul did not write at all. I

suppose he was too busy, for he left St. Cyr10 and went into the army when he was only eighteen, and only

sent messages and birthday remembrances in his sister's letters when he was at home. But after we sent them

our photographsthese,' turning the leaves of the album to the picture in which she was taken with her

mother on her sixteenth birthday, 'Raoul wrote a nice long letter to me, asking for a picture for himself, and

begging that I would write just as I used to long ago. But I think it would be silly to write like that now.'

'Yes, and Doris said the other day she would ask you about it, Mr. FitzGibbon,' said Euphemia, who was

sitting near Doris with her accustomed gift of silence, but listening to all that passed with deep interest.

'Ask me?' repeated Victor. The gloom that had gathered on his face sensibly lightened.

'Yes; I thought you gshould know what sort of ha letter a boy quite grownup would really like to get,'

But this assurance, though spoken with that perfect veracity which seldom animates human intercourse, did

'Isn't that the sort of thing one says for the sake of politeness?' she said hesitatingly; and then, after a little

pause, as if to soften the inquiry: 'Of course you cannot tell how very stupid I am at writing letters. You see I

know, because my cousins write such very clever lettersquite different from mine.'

'I have been wondering what sort of letters you used to write,' said Victor slowly, having with difficulty

resisted the temptation of making various assertions during the pause that ensued.

'Well, mostly about the flowersthere were always flowers at Ouranie; and the birds, and the look of the sky

She looked out through the open window and into the tranquil heavens, where the moon, almost at the full,

was slowly mounting into sight. Her eyes grew large and humid as she slowly replied:

'I would say that the dark half of the moon was over, and that it was like a great silver basin heaped up with

soft white lilies. And all the time, you see,' she said, turning round and looking at him earnestly with her great

candid eyes, 'the moon is like ka cinder, as dry as ashes, full of dreadful scars and lextinct volcanoes. I was so

disappointed when mother told me about it when I learned a little about astronomy.'

Victor looked into the pure sweet face upturned to his with a growing thrill of emotion. It was with difficulty

'Well, if a good fairy came to me and gave me my choice of gifts, I know what I should choose.'

'Because there are so many things more important than getting any letters. If you had your choice, would you

Victor turned quickly, and looked out at the window. He was forced to smile, and he feared that if Doris saw

'Well, there isn't much chance of fairies giving us the embarrassment of choosing,' he said, evading a direct

answer. 'But some kinds of letters would rank very high with me. . . . I suppose you like getting your

'Oh yes, especially Eugenie's. She is just a few months older than I am, and she is going into society this

season.11 There has been so much for her to tell about, and she makes you feel as if you knew the people.'

'Like that letter in which she told you about the Duchess, Doris,' remarked Euphemia.

'For my part, I would much sooner hear about the silver basin heaped up with soft white lilies,' said Victor.

'Then do you think I might write to Raoul as I used to?' asked Doris, a little anxiously.

'It is difficult to advise about another person, especially one you know nothing about. Of course I can answer

for myself. I'll tell you what I think we might dothat is to make my opinion of any value'

The young Machiavelli paused and looked as grave and reflective as if he were trying to decide a knotty

'You might fancy I was a long way off, and that you wanted to write to me and let me know what this place

'Oh yes, that would be nice; but what a shame to practise on you! Don't you mind?'

'Not in the least. I was going to say that I could help you nto make it into an ordinary letter, like the prosy

sensible things people generally write, and then you could send it to your cousin.'

'It is no use, I must write and tell the whole truth to Helen,' Victor was saying to himself half an hour later in

his own room. 'It will be horrid, I know. . . . What in the name of heaven made me fancy I was in love! . . .

Oh, what a beautiful darling she is! . . . And going away in six or seven weeks. . . . I shall take my passage by

the same ship. I shall find it necessary. Will she ever care for me a little? But what a fearful donkey I was! . . .

Some days later Victor received two letters that served to tranquillize the contending emotions and purposes

that so often assailed him during the interval. The first was one from Miss Paget, telling him that her father

had persuaded Professor Codrington to accompany him back to Adelaide on a long visit, that they might

probably be leaving in less than a month from the date of writing, so that any future letters of his to Colombo

would be peradventure ones.1 If the Professor received certain tidings from England when they were due,

they might be leaving a little earlier than four weeks. They were perhaps going to get out at Albany and take

the train across to Perth2 for a short visit. There were friends of the Professor's there, and he had little

difficulty in persuading her father to break the journey back. As for herself, she was at present a sort of

classic chorus, whose remarks might be from time to time audible regarding events without in the least

affecting their course.3 Personally, she would much sooner have stayed longer at Colombo, with its Bengalis,

Moslems, Punjabis, Ghoorkas,4 etc., hustling each other in the streets; its swarms of bronze children in dingy

sarees, of women clothed in slim cotton robes and a baby on the hip, to say nothing of the funny little boards

of smeared sweetmeats under coarse mats, supported on four slender bamboo canes. . . . The bride, too, was

far from having exhausted the resources of her trousseau. Only the other day the barometer fell a little, and

she instantly went into feathersplumes on her jacket and skirt, plumes on her head, and a long white

feather boa. It was just as if an enchanter had been turning her into a bird, and the process was arrested

halfway. She was full of those fols enfantillages5 some brides were fond of indulging in. . . . Well, if no

more letters reached her from Victor in Colombo, she would at least expect a few lines at Perth or Albany,

The other letter was from his mother, written after she had got his, telling of the attachment between himself

and Helen, and the engagement imminent after the period of probation. Mrs. FitzGibbon wrote with some

'Dear boy,' she wrote, 'what put it into your head that you were in love with a lady almost old enough to be

your mother, and to propose before you attained your majority? When I read the cool, matteroffact

announcement, and then thought of the lavatorrent of eloquence, into which you would have plunged as to

the eyes, lips, etc., of the adored one, if your heart had been really touchedpardon me, dear, if I tell you

that I could not help laughing. You rash, impulsive boy! Not that perhaps it is surprising you should have

mutually whiled away some of the tedious days by a little lovemaking. . . . Apart from the question of age,

Miss Paget has many attractions. She is intelligent and very nicelooking. But the discrepancy is too

preposterous, and my own belief is that it was only to let you down gently that she suggested the

compromise. She has too biting a sense of humour, not to appreciate the ludicrousness of the matter; for you

are not only very young in years, but young for your age, as your father was before you. Please allow a little

It may be doubted whether this was altogether a judicious letter, or would have gone far to effect the object of

the writer, had not a more potent cause been at work. Even though Victor would now be glad to believe, that

Miss Paget had not seriously looked forward to their engagement, his mother's letter vexed and irritated

'But at any rate, my dear boy, you will come to bring me home, before you take any further steps in the

matter. Now that we have not to study economy so painfully, there is no reason why we should not have our

longprojected little tours together. I shall meet you on the Continent according to the line you prefer to

When his officework was over that day, Victor saddled his horse and rode out towards Broombush Creek.

As he galloped across the plain, his hopes became boundless as the high, wide horizon round him. He would

write a short letter to Helen at Colombo, and then a note to Perth, telling her he would meet her as soon as she

landed. He would run down to town for the purpose. . . . After all, she had been wise enough to see from the

first that there was an impossible element in his wooing. He went further, and began to feel sure that his

mother's view of Miss Paget's action was the true one. . . . Well, she would always be his friendshe had

often said soirrespective of any closer bond; and she would love Doris. Who would not that once saw her?

Then, in fear and trembling, he suddenly asked himself whether it was possible that he could ever win so

dazzling, so overwhelming, a gift as Doris's love. But as he recalled her growing gaiety and confiding air, the

sweet little smile with which she now gave him her hand on meeting and parting, his hopes rose high. He was

near her; he would see her day by day; he would go by the same ship that the Challoners chose for their

voyage after Christmas. Yes, he was sure now all would be well. A great unreasoning wave of joy swept over

him as he rode on, and he gave vent to his afeelings by singing at the pitch of his voice:

'Hurrah, hurrah, let's sound the jubilee! Hurrah, hurrah, the flag that sets us free! Hurrah, hurrah'6

He was arrested by the sound of a clear, mocking echo, as distinct as his own voice. It was from the low rock

near the brokendown whim, to which he was quite close, though he had not noticed it, in his joyous

selfabsorption. Two men were half reclining on their swags at the foot of this rock, resting while they boiled

a billy of water for tea. Victor slackened his pace. As he approached them, a dog rose up and began to bark

joyously, struggling to get away; but one of the men held him back by a stout cord. It was Doris's Spotthe

friendly young collie who bhad accepted everyone as a possible friend. The tramp made a feeble statement

about being followed by the dog from somewhere near the Colmar, and refusing to turn back.

He went no further, but rode back at once, with Spot running ahead. When they came in sight of Stonehouse,

che bombarded the place with his short, excited barks. Before Victor reached the front avenue there was

Doris rejoicing over her vagrant, with Rex looking on, saying as eloquently as eyes and a tail can speak, 'I

As Victor anticipated, Doris had been in great trouble at Spot's disappearance. They missed him shortly after

midday, and waited for his return in vain. Then Doris and Euphemia had gone across to the mine to see if he

'Now here he is, all safe and sound, the naughty old darling!' and both girls embraced him and patted him, a

'Do you know, after all, there is something of the good fairy about you,' said Doris. 'You get boxes of flowers

for us, as if by making a sign over the Saltbush, and now you rescued Spot when he was being stolen.'

'Well, and do you know what this good fairy advises, so as to make Mr. Spot give up following chance

The bare suggestion won more caresses for Spot. Then Doris told Victor how, during their search, they had

seen a dog that in the distance looked like hers disappearing into a tent. They went to the door to inquire.

'Only there was no real door,' she said, 'but just a sack hanging in the opening; and inside there was a poor

woman looking dreadfully ill, with two children in bed, sick of a fever. Oh, such a miserable place!the

floor, bare earth, dirty and unevenno chairsnot even a table; and the woman thinks it is the water out of

'Yes, I know they are rather bad, the sort of places some of the miners live in,' assented Victor, but without

Doris, however, was not content with being merely sorry. She wanted to have something done. Hesitating a

little, and looking down, while a deeper tinge of colour stole into her cheeks, she said she had some money to

spend as she liked, and she wanted to do something for this family. Could Victor suggest some way of getting

dthem a better place to live in? At Ouranie they had got a little wooden house from town, all ready to be put

'Couldn't we do something like that for the Connels?'7 asked Doris, looking at the minepurser with her

But was this a matter to be decided in half a minute of time, while one is holding one's horse by the bridle?

No; it was a question to be talked over for an hour and a half, by the light of many candles, softened by pink

shades, with an elderly couple playing their habitual elderly games of chess, with the breath of late violets

and sheaves of white lilac pervading the room, and the cool evening wind stealing in through the open

Victor found the advertisement of a firm of builders, in one of the weekly newspapers, illustrated by a

seductive woodcut, of a little threeroomed wooden building, with doors and windows all complete. Doris

'I think it is better for the price than the building we got for the schoolroom,' said Doris, with quite a

businesslike air. Then she took up a pencil and wrote some figures on a piece of paper. 'I think I should like

to order three of these houses. There are some others with children who are ill,' she said, after a pause.

'But you mustn't begin to present people with houses as if they were Christmas cards,' said Victor, smiling.

Euphemia was summoned into the kitchen in consultation over a cake that was being made. When she was

'But I know mother would like me to help these poor people. I like to do things that seem to bring us nearer.'

Victor felt something like a pang of jealousy at the thought that Doris's love for her mother was so deep that

it might exclude the growth of a new affection. This was succeeded by the reflection that he might help his

own cause with her, by cooperation in this matter. 'Zilla had a few days ago returned part of the loan he had

made to him, at the same time expressing a wish that there were some place to which he could bring his wife

'You have put a plan in my mind,' he said; 'that is, if you order one of these wooden places, I'll order another

for 'Zilla Jenkins. But, you know, I think we ought to charge a little rent. The miners here get good wages,8

The next day she went further, and told Victor the people who were getting money out of the mine, ought to

provide houses for the miners. Altogether, he found this business of ordering two prosaic little wooden

buildings, a wonderfully enchanting affair. Indeed, at this period he lived in a world of enchantment. There

was a light in his eyes, and a glow on his face oftentimes, that might draw the eyes of the leastinterested

'Smiling at angels9 again, FitzGibbon?' said Vansittart, a few evenings after the weatherboard cottages had

been ordered. It was the fifth day after Trevaskis' return from town, and the three were sitting at tea in the

diningroom of the Colmar Arms, when Vansittart abruptly broke the silence with this inquiry.

'What do you mean?' said Victor, turning to him, his unconscious look of beatitude replaced by one of

'Ten minutes ago I was talking to you most profoundly about the destinies of the human race. I said they were

unable to achieve any real lasting good, and that the divinities who tried to help them had all ended with

failure. There was the Indian god who tried to carry the world to salvation, and lost his hands and arms;

another who developed a liver with a fowl snapping it out of him through ages; another who was put to death

on a cross.10 "Yes," said you softly, staring into your teacup with a little smile. After that your

minemanager spoke of the great drayloads of machinery that are on the way from Nilpeena to Broombush

Creek. On that, you looked out through the window, again smiling ineffably. Are you in love?'

Much, no doubt, may be forgiven to a very young man who is for the first time passionately in love; but when

his state of exalted preoccupation was so crudely brought home to him, Victor felt that his behaviour had

been very boyish and undignified, and in momentary confusion he seized the first explanation that offered

'Don't you know,' he said, 'that when people smile into their teacups and at windows, it is money they are

thinking aboutgold heaped up in an old cave room? By the way, captain, I suppose I can go on now with

Trevaskis shot a quick look at Vansittart, and then at Victor, the blood surging violently into his face. He had

been several hours for four nights running at work in the cave room, retorting and smelting the amalgam, and

his first thought, when thus addressed, was that he had somehow been spied upon.

'Don't mind my presence in this matter, sir,' said Vansittart, with icy politeness. 'You see,' he went on, fixing

his eyes steadily on the manager's face, 'it was I who first told Mr. FitzGibbon that the cave room was well

worth looking into. I wonder he has taken so long about the matter. For a young man who is so much

Trevaskis emitted an ejaculation that was between a snort and a gruntone of those sounds of defiant

indignation which ehas perhaps descended to us from the days preceding the evolution of speech, still

retaining a primitive eloquence that defies translation into language. He felt certain for one brief moment that

all was known, that these speeches were prearranged, and the prelude to openly denouncing him as a thief.

But he recalled his terror on fthat first night, when he made sure that he was uncovering a mutilated corpse. 'It

may be another dead rat, after all,' he said to himself. He drained a cup of tea, and then went to the sideboard

to pour himself out another. His hand shook like a leaf, but with a strong effort of will he controlled himself.

'Did I tell you that Dr. Magann is coming to settle at the mine?' he said to Victor, resuming his place at the

table. . . . 'Oh yesnext week. There's not a soul left at The Ridges and Hooper's Luck except a few women

and children and an old man or two. The rush to Broombush has thinned a lot of the townships between this

and Adelaide; but as for The Ridges, it's simply cleaned out. It's lucky the old doctor is coming here; there's

In his determination to ignore the terror that had for a moment overtaken him, he talked gmuch more than

was his wont. He even retailed some old mining stories, over which he and Victor laughed heartily.

Altogether he was a much more genial being through the rest of the meal than he had ever been at that table

Vansittart sat listening and looking on in gloomy silence. A curious change had come over him since his

illness. That pervasive ecstasy of the nerves, evoked by what he called his Australian 'keef,'11 had entirely

forsaken him. It had no longer power to charm him into pleasing visions, or complacent monologues,

alternated with drowsy, voluptuous reveries. When he spoke, it was in bitter discontent with the world and all

that it contained. But for the most part he sat silent, with an expression of unmoved sombreness on his face.

He fixed his attention on Trevaskis from the moment that the cave room was mentioned till he left the

diningroom. Then, turning to Victor, who was lighting a cigarette preparatory to leaving, he said:

'What is that man up to? You noticed nothing unusual in his manner? Why, the moment you mentioned gold,

the blood rushed to his face in a torrent. His eyes, too, are much worse again, and when he lifted his teacup,

his hand trembled as if he were in a fit of D.T.12 . . . Hasn't he made some excuse so as to prevent your going

'It has not yet been convenient. I haven't been thinking much about it, to tell the truth.'

It always gave Victor an uncomfortable feeling to hear a man impute a baseness to another. Perhaps he was

as much in danger of being misled by his belief in people generally till they proved themselves unworthy of

confidence, as Trevaskis was by his unfailing suspicions of all with whom he came in contact. This trait of

his character had from the first forced itself on Victor, and he thought he now recognised the same tendency

'I have often heard of the melancholy of the Bush, and, do you know, Vansittart, I begin to think that it makes

'Yes, because you have plenty of time for reflection and concentrated observationthat is, if you have come

to years of discretion. As for you, young man, if I am not mistaken, you live and move in an artificial

paradise just at present. You have inhaled more keef than I have swallowed in all my life. Take care that your

He stared hard into the bright, handsome young face opposite to him. Its indomitable gladness seemed to

'Yes; but don't forget that happiness in a world like this is the last refuge of an idiot!'14 said Vansittart

On this Victor laughed outright, and rose to go. But something in the sombre eyes, the forlorn, stooping

'I say, old man, I don't believe it's a good thing for you to be staying on here with nothing to do. Wouldn't you

find it more amusing to wait for your friend in town?' he said, putting his hand on Vansittart's shoulder as he

'It wouldn't make any real difference to me,' answered Vansittart, after a little pause. . . . 'I came across an old

blackfellow dying from a wound and from thirst once in the Bush. "Wirinap yarntil, wirinap yarntil!"

he kept on saying a score of times to the minute, which means, "I am sick from a spearwound."15 That's

about the size of it with me. My life has been a claim that didn't pan out well. I'm better waiting here than in

'Poor old chap! I wonder what came over him?' thought Victor, as he walked across to his office. 'I might

have offered to play a game or two of euchre with him. . . . But, then, there is this letter about the

Trevaskis, though outwardly calm, was in a state of indescribable excitement as he walked across from the

Colmar Arms to the mine. His throat felt parched; his pulses seemed to be thundering in his ears. So it was

Vansittart who had first told FitzGibbon about the probable treasure that was secreted at the mine. Vansittart

had been for some months acting as purser while the amalgam was being stolen. Now he was staying on at

the Colmar Arms, on the pretext of waiting for an old mate, who was coming down from the Far North. Was

this a plant?1 Had he any certain knowledge? Was he, perhaps with FitzGibbon's aid, gathering up evidence

that would be incontestable? Would the two, with the assistance of a policeman summoned from town, one

But when his fears had reached this climax, Trevaskis reflected that even in such an extremity it would be

impossible to convict him of actual guilt. No searchno discovery that might possibly be madecould

connect him with stealing the amalgam. It was characteristic of the dogged tenacity with which he kept to a

purpose once formed, that even the gold which he had retorted and smelted during the past four nights he had

secreted underground, though he had been much tempted to put the bars in the strong safe that stood in his

But he had already taken action towards securing a place to which he would convey the treasure. The day

before this he had ridden out towards Broombush Creek. In a secluded spot at some distance from it he had

pegged out a prospector's quartz claim, and sent in an application to the Government. As soon as this was

granted he intended to set a man working there,2 providing him with a small hut to live in.

These would be the preliminary steps. Afterwards, when his three hundredweight of gold was ready for the

market, he would take it all away and elaborate his plans. He would buy up athe disused machinery at the

Colmar Mine, and in common sacks, among old tools, he would take away this fortune without a breath of

suspicionif only this doublefaced young Irishman and this crazy opiumeater3 did not make mischief.

'If I can only tide that time over somehow or another!' he said, clenching his right hand rigidly.

So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he was close to his officedoor before he saw that someone stood

there awaiting hima powerfullooking, thickset man, half a head shorter than Trevaskis.

'Why, Dan, where did you spring from? I am so very glad to see youvery glad indeed!' said Trevaskis

Perhaps he felt there was call for this assurance, for it was his brother, older than he was by five years, but

still a working miner, as he had been in early youth. It was now some years since they last met. On that

occasion Dan had come one evening unexpectedly to his brother's house; he happened to be entertaining a

number of guests at dinner. He would not ask Dan in among them, and he could not send him to the kitchen.

He tried to compromise the matter by pressing a tenpound note into his hand, and asking him to call on the

'Studdy there, Bill, studdy! I come to see c'ee, not for money. I can't clunk5 that, man,' he said, and then

'Come in, Dan, come in,' said Trevaskis, unlocking his door. 'I expect you've come a good distance, and want

'No, I've had tay wi' my old mate, 'Zilla Jenkins. I met 'im close by as I got off Circus Bill's trap.6 I dcom'

'Circus Bill's trap' was a passenger coach, which had within the last week begun to run daily between

It turned out that Dan had been at the diggings, not on his own account, but summoned there by a

''E had pretty good luck, but 'e was took bad, and 'e sent for me. 'E seemed to know from th' first as 'e

wouldn't git over it, and ehe just wanted to give me safe what 'e 'ad got. Poor old chap! he died yistiday a'

four o' the marning. I feel quite whizzy like. They'll die there like flies before long; such a shaape7 'ole I

never seed. I wouldn't stay there for no money. 'E give me this, poor fellow! 'twas 'ard to die for the sake o'

Dan produced a soiled cotton handkerchief with a round lump knotted in the middle. It was a number of small

'I reckon 'tis about fifty pun worth o' gold?' he said interrogatively. There was a good deal of quartz mixed

'I'll give you seventy pounds for them, Dan,' said Trevaskis, turning the nuggets over.

All the sombreness had left his face. There was a ring of gladness in his voice, and a light in his eyes. Here

was the one man in all the world who could best help him to carry out his fplans. He wondered now he had

not thought of Dan before. He was a man who would be bound to him by the strongest tiesone of a

faithful, trusting naturewho, if the facts of the case must eventually be revealed to him, would not be

greatly shocked or surprised. But only under urgent necessity would he make a confidant even of Dan. He

would at first tell him as much or as little as the emergency called for. These thoughts passed with lightning

'Seventy pun, Bill! Why, you're making me a present o' some o' that, sure 'nough,' said Dan, smiling.

'Oh, I'm going into the goldbuying trade before long,' answered Trevaskis. . . . 'Now, isn't it a funny thing

when you come to think of it?' he went on reflectively. 'Here have I been for the last week thinking every day

of writing to you, not only to answer the letter I got when I was coming here, but because I wanted to make

'I am going to take up a prospector's claim a few miles away from Broombush diggings, and I want you to

'I know it,' said Trevaskis; and then he went on to explain that, in some way which he could not then divulge,

he had found out that a quantity of gold had been hidden in gthe locality years before; that the two men who

were chiefly concerned in it were dead, and that no one else had now a better right to it than he had himself.

'In fact,' he said, lowering his voice, 'it's for the sake of that I'm staying on here. I don't want to throw up my

billet till I can make a proper search, and to make a proper search, a man must fossick about, perhaps for

months. You've turned up just in the nick of time. I'll provide you a comfortable crib to live in, and a horse

and some sort of ha machine.9 There's a lot of old secondhand tools here that I can buy cheap from the

Trevaskis, in his excitement, walked up and down the room, hardly giving his brother time to put in a word.

The longer he thought over the plan of having Dan at the claim, the more certain he felt of ultimate success.

Dan had never risen a step above the class he was born in; but he was a safe man and a true, noted from

childhood for being well able to keep his own counsel under all circumstances. He had, it iis true, a weakness

'But what tools should we want, Bill, if it's only just to fossick round? A biddix or two for diggin', and a buss

'My dear man, we don't want to advertise to all the world and his wife11 what our schemes are. The plan will

be for you to begin working at the rock, as if we were going in for crushing and all the rest of it. When all is

'Well, Bill, you're no bufflehead at making money, and I'm no snaildew12 at work, and I'm sure it 'ull be

all'ays fair sailin' 'twixt thee and I; we'll chait neer another nor each other, but it fills me o' wonder you should

make so cocksure o' finding the gold. Now, in a body o' troode,13 thee mayst take the word o' a man that j'ull

'I know that, Dan, I know that,' answered Trevaskis, laughing. 'But you may be pretty sure I'm not going to

engage and send you to my claim on a fool's errand. Now we'll drink success to our venture.'

'Softly, softly, Bill! Yes, if you have a few biskies,14 I don't mind if I taste one or two,' said Dan. Then they

clinked their glasses to drink success to the goldsearching. As they were in the act of doing this, a loud, hard

single knock was heard at the window. Trevaskis instantly went out, but there was no one in sight.

'Oh, nonsense, man! it was la dumbledory15 with wingsone of those creatures that come out on warm

''Twas a mtremenjous row for a hinsek to make, Bill,' said the elder brother incredulously.

'But, then, a man couldn't get out of sight for three minutes, at the very least, Dan. You see, there's the rest of

the offices in a row to the south, and the galvanized iron passage that reaches to an old sort of underground

place on the north side. You haven't got the old Cornish superstitions16 in you still, have you?'

Trevaskis laughed and drained his glass. Dan also drained his, but he did not laugh. He did not like a loud,

solitary knock, with no one visible when it was answered. How often had it been proved to be a sign, that of

those who heard it one would be beyond the reach of all sounds of earth before a year had run? Trevaskis

guessed the thoughts that darkened Dan's brow, and, lighting a candle, he went out and searched about round

the window. Presently he came in with a great winged beetle, dead, on the palm of his hand.

'There, Dan, there's your prophetdashed himself dead with one blow, trying to get in to the light. Help

yourself to another nip. This is proper old Martell.17 None of your fiery new rubbish!'

They spent the next hour in arranging the details of Dan's search at the claim. He was to work alone, but

would ride across every second evening or so. All would be ready for him by the time he came back. He had

to return to Bendigo to let his cottage, perhaps sell it, and set his little affairs in order. But he would be back

in nine or ten days at the longest, including half a day's stay at Mount Lofty to see his son Dick, the bank

'That's one thing I'm allays thankful to you for, Billgettin' that boy a dacent, easy berth,' said Dan; 'for he's

took arter his poor dead mother, not fit for a full shift o' hard work. He's growed fustrate though, hoyer by a

Trevaskis knew that this youth was the pride of his father's heart, and he let him talk on, throwing in a

eulogistic phrase now and then, while his thoughts were busy elsewhere. At ten o'clock he made a bed for

Dan in the office on the sofa, which could be broadened at will for that purpose.

'I'll clear out the next room to this for you, Dan, and you can take a bed here when you come over from the

claim,' he said, as he bade Dan goodnight. 'It will be a fine thing for us both, for we've seen too little of each

other all these years, and yet I'll be bound we'd do as much for one another as most brothers.'

Trevaskis seldom spoke with much effusion, but when he did he usually had an object to gain. At present this

consisted, in the first instance, in inspiring his brother with complete confidence in his goodwill.

At dawn the next morning Circus Bill made a very early start nfor Nilpeena, so as to return on the same day

to Broombush Creek. The brothers parted on the heartiest terms. On that day, and during the greater part of

the succeeding week, Trevaskis omanaged to have his dinner at the Colmar Arms alone, by going there an

hour later than the usual time. His breakfast and phis evening meal he managed to get in his own rooms, by

having a spiritlamp18 to boil water for tea, and getting the baker to leave a pound of butter and a loaf of

bread now and then. He was, when hard at work, a spare eater, and had hitherto rarely passed the bounds of

temperance in drinking. But now, with the constant strain of working half the night, and often sleeping badly

the other half, he got into the way of depending more and more on stimulant, to meet the heavy demands he

made upon his endurance. During these days he kept out of Victor's way as much as possible. He expected

him daily to renew his proposition about the search, and the only plan which he could at present devise was

simply to decline doing anything in the matter till the brother of the late manager came to take delivery of his

effects. It was a pitifully lame excusehe knew thatone which would give colour to the strongest

suspicions as to his motives; but every day's delay was worth hundreds of pounds to him. Night by night, as

he retorted and smelted the gold, and added to his heap of shining bars, he became more indifferent to the

thought of mere suspicionto anything short of losing the fortune that each night brought more and more

Apart from this robbery, he was most devoted to the interests of the Colmar Mine, seeing to all the details of

the work above and below ground with a feverish restlessness that knew no pause. Then, about nine in the

evening, he would go down to the cave room, put five hundred ounces of amalgam in the retort, plaster its top

edge with carefullyworked clay, before putting on the lid, which he made airtight by driving in the

holdingdown wedges. Then he kindled the fire in the furnace, slowly bringing it up to red heat. At eleven

o'clock he would go to see the nightshift go below, scrutinizing each of the men with an eagle eye. If one of

them showed the least symptom of intoxication he instantly ordered him away. One of the shiftbosses would

'No, I won't have itI won't have it! There's been too much of that sort of thing at this mine,' Trevaskis

would say in iron tones. 'Rockdrills are destroyed and slovenly work is done, if the men are not perfectly

sober. I'm here to protect the company and the shareholders, not to coddle drunken rascals.'

Then he would return to his gold. About midnight, when the retorting was completed, he turned out the

spongy cake of gold, broke it up with a qhammer into small lumps, placed them in a crucible with the

necessary fluxes, and put the crucible in the assay furnace, which he had ready heated with gartshore coke,19

out of the bags he had found near the furnaces. The smelting took from fifteen to twenty minutes. Then he

poured the molten gold into a long, narrow iron mould, and, when solid, turned it out into a dish of muriatic

acid to eat away all impurities. The acid boiled and bubbled when the redhot gold was put in it, filling the

air with yellow suffocating fumes,20 from which Trevaskis escaped by retreating for some minutes into the

iron passage. Last of all he put the gold into an enamelled basin full of water, and washed the acid, etc., off

with a strong scrubbing brush. Then the pure, massy bar, two hundred and fifteen ounces in weight, was

ready to be made into golden vessels for royal tables, into jewellery for fair women, into washhand basins

for barbarians, into sovereigns for the joy or misery of mankind. There it was, without a stain of the earth

from which it came, ready to feed the hungry and tempt the weak, to clothe the naked and pay the wages of

For ten nights Trevaskis worked with the same brilliant result. Each night he watched by his retort and

crucible, the flaming fire casting strange shadows in the gloomy recesses of the cave room. His eyes, which

were nearly well when he returned from town, had again become much inflamed. When he went about he

wore a darkgreen shade over them, and the protection this afforded was valuable to him, mentally as well as

physically. He had never before quailed at the sight of any man, but now he found it a comfort not to be

obliged to speak eye to eye with the most insignificant employ at the mine. In the anticipation of the purser's

renewed request to search the cave room, Trevaskis had a conviction that the excuse he meant to make for

delaying the event would gather much force, from the indifference with which he could speak when his eyes

were veiled from observation. But day after day passed by, and Victor made no sign. He was too deeply

preoccupied with more delightful thoughts to waste any on a matter so trivial as a problematical treasure. But

Vansittart, without any strong personal interests, and absolutely idle while he waited for his friend, watched

and thought intently over the little drama which he felt convinced was now going on at the Colmar Mine.

When he found that day after day Trevaskis came for his dinner an hour later than the usual time, and did not

come there at all for breakfast and tea, he knew that the arrangement was solely to avoid contact with him, for

He occupied a small bedroom opening into the diningroom, with a window that overlooked the front

veranda. Daily he would station himself at this window, and watch Trevaskis as he came and went away,

noting every movement and gesturehis eager haste, his anxious abstraction, his eyes jealously guarded by

the broad green shade. He even went, one still, dark night, and watched by the enclosure round the entrance

to the cave room, with sleepless vigilance, from ten o'clock till the dawn reddened the east; but not a sound,

rnot a sign, not a gleam of light rewarded his long vigil. As a matter of fact, Trevaskis, on this particular

night, suffered so much from his eyes that he could not face his secret nightwork. But he exercised such

stringent precautions against detection, that it may be doubted whether the most vigilant swatchers would

have been able to find a clue to his proceedings. Vansittart, who knew something of the capacities of the cave

room for concealment, felt baffled, but not convinced. He tried his best to rouse Victor to some enthusiasm

on the subject, but the young man, half in impatience and half in fun, at last forbade him ever to mention the

'You cast reflections upon stage comedy once,' said Victor; 'but at any rate it has this advantage, it comes to

'Now, don'tdon't mention it any more, or I shall change my dinnerhour,' said Victor, laughing. 'Your

pretending you didn't know Trevaskis was a little amusing the first day; but, then, you kept it up too

Next morning Vansittart got a letter from his friend, telling him he would be at Nilpeena in two days. He

determined to have a say once more regarding the cave room in Trevaskis' presence before leaving the

Colmar Arms. With this object he told the landlady that they all wanted dinner at the later hour on this day.

Then he walked across to see Victor at his office, as he had done several times before, and chatted with him

'By the way,' he said, as he was leaving, 'Mrs. West wants to know if you can make it convenient to come

tlater to dinner utoday. Some domestic rupture, I suppose, about having two dinnertimes.'

Victor for the first time doubted the explanation when, after he and Trevaskis were seated at the table,

Vansittart came into the diningroom. There was a look of devilry in his dark eyes that betrayed some latent

excitement. A moment or two later the three were joined by two men who were on their way to Broombush

Creekone of them the manager of a company that had started crushing with tolerable results. Trevaskis

entered into animated talk with this man on mining. Victor talked a little to the other stranger. Vansittart sat

on in silence till dinner was half over. He looked annoyed, as if his plans had been upset. But at last his

'Ay, it will maybe turn out a great place yetthis Broombush Creek,' said the new manager.

'And repeat the history of all other places in which gold is found,' said Vansittart, in a lowpitched, deliberate

'I expect so. Do you know much about goldmining and diggings, sir?' said the unsuspecting stranger affably.

This statement produced what the law reporters call a sensation. That is, one of the strangers said 'Oh!'

A deep flush mounted into Trevaskis' face. He longed for the shade over his eyes. If he had known he would

not be alone, he would not have removed it when he sat down to dinner. But he went on with his meal

without once looking at Vansittart. Victor felt sure that a disagreeable 'development'22 was to take place, and,

according to the fashion of his age and sex, he awaited the d nouement with a certain amount of enjoyment.

'Yes, gentlemen,' said Vansittart, in emphatic tones, 'quite a fortune! The story is a short one, and can be

briefly told. I was at a mine in a colony not far from here. It seems that one or two previous managers had

been making a pile for themselves in a slightly irregular way. Don't let this surprise you overmuch. I assure

you that nature and human society abound with bravos who are ready to rob and devour each other for the

sake of a few mouthfuls and a little gold. Well, there was another man employed on this mine, and he went

out one day looking for daisies. He was young and simple, and loved daisies to distraction; in fact, he had as

many illusions as a young girl, and this was one of them. He did not find any daisies that day, but he found

another man. Now, I am sure it is very inartistic to keep on finding another man in this way; but, being

neither a poet nor va comedian, I have to take things as they happened. Well, the man who didn't find a daisy

' "There's gold hidden in an old cave room hereso wI am told. Shall I go and have a look?"

'However, I thought I'd have a glance myself beforehand, and alone; and what do you suppose I found?'

'Won't you give a guess too, sir?' said Vansittart, looking fixedly at Trevaskis.

Trevaskis was by this time livid in the face, but xstill he made a feint of eating. On being thus directly

'No, sir; I'm afraid that, in some respects, would be impossible,' returned Vansittart, with unmoved urbanity.

'But I'll tell you what I did find. I found white gold24 in heaps and heapsin hundredweights, I may

sayand I went night after night and made it into yellow goldinto gold yellower than sovereigns and

' "You go and find some daisies for yourself. As for going into that enclosed rooma horrid cave and very

'Mind you, gentlemen, I had that receptacle under lock and key. . . . So now I'm like the lilies who neither toil

Trevaskis, who had finished eating, sat with his hands tightly clasped underneath the table. But though he

'If I wanted to stuff a greenhorn with a tall mining yarn, I wouldn't have far to go to better that,' he said

'Very likely; but, you see, I'm limited to facts, sir,' returned Vansittart, with grave politeness.

Then they all aaarose from the table, Trevaskis and the manager who was going to Broombush Creek

'I'm going away tomorrow, FitzGibbon, to meet my friend at Nilpeena; so that's the last scene of the

'I fear your audience wasn't educated up to enjoying it. That young simpleton, for instance, who doted on

'I wonder,' said Vansittart, 'whether the curtain conceals a tableau26 of this little drama that will interest you

On his way back to the office, Victor saw 'Zilla Jenkins standing at the door of his new weatherboard

'Come and 'ave a look at the residence, sir. I'm that pleased I want to dance the letterpooch1 all over it!' he

It was a snug little place, with wellfitting doors and windows. 'Zilla's broad, massive face shone with the

'This 'ull be the kitchen. I'm putting up a dresser with a few boards. The missus would come next week, but I

want her to wait till this illness is over at the mine. Some says as it's catchin'.'

'But isn't this your time for being asleep, 'Zilla?' asked Victor, after he had admired the neatlyplaned shelves

'Iss, sir; but a man don't want so much sleep when he 'ave a place like this to put in order. Snell's 'ouse 'ull

soon be ready, tooand badly they need it. They say the youngest child is very ahill, and there's more

The Snells were the invalids for whom Doris had the cottage ordered. It was now being put together not far

from 'Zilla's abode. It occurred to Victor that he would ask Doris and Euphemia to come and see how this

new addition to the mine was progressing, as soon as his work was over for the afternoon. He had not been at

his desk more than five minutes, when Mick came with a message that Trevaskis wished to see him in his

office. The moment Victor entered, the manager turned on him, his face distorted with rage.

'I want to know,' he said in a loud, insolent tone, 'why you are conspiring to treat me with contempt?'

Victor, on hearing the tone in which he spoke, looked at Trevaskis in amazement.

'No; but perhaps you'll understand both before we part,' said Trevaskis. He was not only in a great rage, but

he was using purposely offensive language, with the hope that FitzGibbon would, in a moment of anger,

throw up his pursership, or commit some grave breach of discipline which would furnish a pretext for asking

On hearing the last remark Victor's nostrils quivered, and a gleaming light came into his eyes.

'I decline to bandy personalities.2 Will you kindly explain what you mean by saying I conspire to treat you

'I mean your conduct with that blackguard Vansittart; telling him tales about the minesetting him on at me

'You are talking utter nonsense, and I think you must know it. I never told Vansittart anything about the mine;

I never set him on to you. Why should I? Do you suppose, if I wanted to say anything to you, I wouldn't say it

'It's conduct I won't put up with, turning me into ridicule. I've never suffered anyone to do so before, and, by

'I think we had better finish this talk when you have recovered your memory,' said Victor, beginning to be

'What do you mean by thatwhat about my memory?' cried Trevaskis, drawing his breath hard.

'You made a certain accusationI denied it entirely; yet you still repeat your ungrounded cassertion. You

forget that you are talking to a gentleman. That is what I mean by saying your memory has failed you,'

'And you forget that you are talking to your superior officer,' retorted Trevaskis, still using the tones of an

angry man. But it was becoming clear to him that his shots had missed their mark, and that, in making

'I think not,' answered Victor. 'I do not see that it is part of my official duty to listen to unwarranted

'Then do you say that nothing at all has passed between you and Vansittart about me and the mine?'

'Pardon me, but that isn't the question. You began by accusing me of conspiring to treat you with contempt. I

'Then I'll ask you one thing. Did you know nothing of the attack he was going to make on me today, by

'And yet you purposely changed your dinnerhourand that scoundrel was with you in the office for some

'You are using exceedingly offensive language, and you are again returning to the charge I have denied. I

went to dinner later because Mr. Vansittart told me that this was the landlady's wish.'

'He is a liar! If he attempts to insult me again as he did today, I'll break every bone in his body. I think, as

'Excuse me, but I shall do nothing of the sort. I suppose you are not afraid to deliver your own messages,'

The two were by this time equally infuriated, and stood glaring at each other with venomous eyes.

'I shall report you to the office. You think because your uncle is a director that you can play the master here.'

'You must do as you think fit about reporting me,' answered Victor; 'but remember that this disagreement has

nothing to do with my work as purser. It is altogether owing to insinuations thrown out by Vansittart

regarding that cave room. As we are on the subject, I may tell you straight that, all things considered, I should

think it more satisfactory for me to search that place, as you agreed I should some time ago.'

'And I may tell you in return that, until the late manager's things are removed, I shall not have that place

touched. I never thought much of the rumour from the first; but now that I know who's at the bottom of it, I

'I don't quite agree with you there; for my own part, I should feel inclined to advise the company to have a

thorough search made,' said Victor. For the first time, the thought took hold of his mind that Vansittart's

suspicions might not be unfounded, as he considered how very inadequate was the reason given for delay,

more especially as Trevaskis had at first suggested that Dunning's effects should be removed into one of the

'Well, if I believed as much in your friend Vansittart as you do, perhaps I should feel the same,' returned

Trevaskis, with a forced laugh. 'But, you see, I don'tperhaps I know a little too much about himand at

The mine engineer knocked at the door just then, and came in to consult the manager about part of the

'I suppose I had better return to my office, then,' said Victor, as he withdrew.

'I was in a bad scot when you first came in, FitzGibbon,' he said, in a conciliatory tone. 'But I see that I was

Victor did not respond very cordially. Once his wrath was aroused he was apt to be vindictive. 'The

impertinent underbred cad' were the words with which he described Trevaskis, as he returned to his office.

Then he sat down and wrote a note, in which he called on him for a written apology for the insinuations he

had madefirst as to his conduct, then as to his veracity. After he had relieved his feelings in this way he

tore up the letter. He would not risk making a final breach between himself and Trevaskis.

'I should most likely have to go if I made this into a big row,' he reflected, 'and I don't want to do that till

Doris leaves with the Challoners. It won't be so very long now. Still, I should like to take a rise out of this

fellow for his insolence.' As he thought over the matter, he hit on a diplomatic way of doing this.

There was a letter from his uncle, chiefly on business details, which had been unanswered for more than a

week. Victor wrote an exhaustive and concise reply to this, and towards the close said: 'Things are going on

prosperously at the mine. dNow I have got well into the work, I find I have a egood deal of spare time on my

hands. I should like to spend some of it in that old underground place of which I told you. If the search turns

out to be unremunerative, I should be willing to pay any extra labour I employ out of my own pocket. The

only obstacle now is that some of the late manager's effects are stowed there, and Trevaskis has some

scruples about interfering with them till Dunning's brother takes possession. But there is ample room in one

of the unused offices, in which the articles in question could be kept under lock and key. An order from the

office to shift them would relieve Mr. Trevaskis of any responsibility in the matter, and give me the chance I

wish for, before my time at the mine is up. I shall be glad, therefore, if you give instructions to the secretary

to this effect, without delay. I did not at first attach much importance to the matter, but a man who was

employed here during Webster's tenure of office is certain that gold was concealed in the place in question,

and some events which I would rather not commit to writing have of late made me incline to the same belief.'

As Victor read this over before closing the letter, he felt satisfied that it would effect his object. If after the

order came for removing Dunning's effects Trevaskis still invented objections, it would be pretty evident that

he had some sinister motive, and that the sooner action was taken on behalf of the company the better. It was

only when Victor was crossing the reef, on his way to Stonehouse, that all thoughts of the disagreeable scene

between himself and Trevaskis were replaced by pleasanter musings. It was close on sunset, and he lingered

on the crest of the reef as if lost in contemplation of the scene before him. It was now well on in November,

and week by week the days were getting warmer, the sky paler and more cloudless, the Saltbush more

deeply coated with dust, the fspace between the bushes barer, and baked in places into a more vivid tinge of

red. As the summer came gin, the hprospect of later rains lessened. During the previous twelve months only

eight inches had fallen in the district. The hot winds were frequent, fraying and mangling the graygreen

saltbush, till it looked in some places like neutraltinted fodder trampled under foot. Tall clumps of

overblown mallows were beaten to the ground in pallid masses of sere leaves; and in all the wide desolation

of the vast plains no sign of life was to be seen, except the trailing clouds of dust that hung perpetually in

these days above the road that led to the new diggings. It was a strange, weird scene, but it is questionable

He was looking through the avenue iof trees that surrounded Stonehouse, when suddenly his face was lit with

'There she is! Oh, my beautiful darling!' he murmured, looking at her with all his soul in his eyes. Then he

went a few paces to the left, so that he might see Doris better as she stood looking westward, across the gray,

limitless plain, above which the sun, in going down, seemed to set the sky on flame. Doris had a letter in her

hands and her dogs were close beside her, Spot evidently doing his best to decoy her into walking with him.

But his mistress was more irresponsive than usual. Even at the distance which separated them, it seemed to

Victor there was something pensive and fixed in her attitude. Would she look up with a happy smile when

she saw him? Of late he had got into the habit of expecting this, and he was seldom disappointed. But was it

the gladness of mere friendliness orVictor did not finish the conjecture, for Spot had run to meet him at

'You were reading a letter. Don't let me disturb you,' he said, making a movement to pass on, and then

'Then post it to me at once, please, or be the postmaster. I am come to see if there are any letters for me.'

'You know, when people are anxious about their letters, they always read them at the postoffice,' Victor

said, as he began to read. There were a few preliminary formal phrases, and then the writer said:

'You must not expect a very interesting letter, for I feel too old now to make up fairy fables, and nothing

happens here but people passing in crowds to search for gold, or crushing stone for it at the Colmar Mine,

with machinery that goes on day and night. Nothing but this, and the rising and setting of the sun, moon and

stars, the sky growing red and pale by turns. It is all so dreadfully barethere are not even long shadows;

and always the immense naked plainsthe strange, silent sea, without waves or ships, with no sounds but the

voices of the wind, when the hot wind blows all day, and cries all night. Does it take all the leaves, the buds,

the waters, all the waterfowl and the honeybirds, and the beautiful blossoms, to make gold down deep in

the earth, or lying in nuggets near the surface? For that is nearly all jthat is to be found here, and it cannot be

'Oh yes; but do you care for it? Do you think if I wrote one like that to Raoul'

'No; don't write kit to anyone else. Let it be only for me,' said Victor, with so vehement a note of entreaty in

his voice that Doris looked up at him quickly, with a little expression of wonder in her eyes.

'I suppose you think I am very selfish,' he said; 'but sometimeswhen I think of your going away'

'Do you think of that, too? I do oftenI am sometimes sorry. But as for letters, I used to think that I would

'Because they seem to make people sad afterwards. . . . Perhaps if one lives long enough, everything makes

'Yes. The right faith for your thoughts is that everything is to love you and serve you and make you happy.'

She was little given to analyzing her own thoughts, but it was undoubtedly the case that of late something of

During the week that followed, Victor obtained Mrs. Challoner's consent to take Doris and Euphemia out

riding early in the morning. Challoner was much occupied in disposing of what was left to him of his sheep

and cattle. He was engaged each day on some part of the run with men who came to buy or look at the stock.

He might as well give them away as lto take the prices offered, he said. He seemed depressed and out of

sorts, and his wife longed for the day when he would finally leave the scene of so much financial disaster. In

'Let me, Mrs. Challoner. I know every inch of the ground about here now. You can trust them to my care,

can't you?' pleaded Victor. And when, to the unconcealed satisfaction of all three, the request was granted,

Victor felt assured that the arrangement had come bodily out of the heart of the 'Arabian Nights,' or some

equally enchanted region, in which the sun rose chiefly to compass adventures, untouched by the prose of the

Morning by morning he would awake with the dawn, get into a knockabout suit of clothes, and go into the

stable to groom the horses with ShungLoo's help. Then, by the time he had his bath and was dressed, the

girls would be ready in their ridinghabits, and ShungLoo in his linen suit, impeccable as though no duties

had ever been performed by him beyond treading on carpets, with a dainty Japanese tray4 in his hands, would

bring in cups of chocolate, and a plate of delicious little flaky cakes, of which the secret seemed destined to

die with him. 'Many a man has immortalized himself for less than making such cakes,' Victor said more than

once, and, finding that they had no distinctive names, he christened them 'ShungLoos.'

'When I have a house of my own,' he declared one morning, 'there will always be a plate of ShungLoos on

'Now, how are you so sure about that?' asked Victor, a dancing light in his eyes.

'Oh, because he'll always be with Doris, and she'll be away on the other side of the world.'

'And do you suppose I'll be tied by one leg to the mine all my life, like one of those chuckies5 of yours who

It must be observed en parenth se that Euphemia, though not yet a 'notable housewife,'6 kept a keen

lookout on the fowls, and when she suspected one of them mmaking a felonious nest for herself in a casual

unknown saltbush, she promptly tied the defaulter by the leg near a domestic nest, till her evil habits were

abandoned and she had sorrowfully taken the truth to heart that the way of transgressors is hard.7

'No, of course you'll not always be at the mine; but won't your house be in Adelaide?' said Euphemia,

'Oh, not necessarily. A little event will sometimes change the course of one's lifea book, or a sermon, or a

couple of verses. With me it's the ShungLoo cakes. I must fix my house near enough to borrow Shung. "V.

FitzGibbon presents his compliments to Miss Lindsay, and will she be kind enough to lend him her Celestial

manservant for an hour and a half?" That will be the sort of note I'll be nafter writing day by day.'

One morning they went as far as the brokendown whim, and spoke to each other at a little distance, so as to

hear the strange distinct echoes, that had a curiously mocking, ironical undertone.

'It is what we say, but not our voices,' said Doris. 'This rock has a voice that has no kindness in it.'

'Away! away!' The words died slowly, with a suspicion of laughter in the dying syllables, but laughter

without mirth. Victor, who had reined his horse in close beside Doris, thought he saw her face falling a little

'If the voice has no kindness, it has sorrow,' he said. 'If you were going away and I had to stay at the

He had been on the eve of telling her a hundred times before, and a hundred times he had checked himself;

'What I should like to do would be to leave on the same day, and go down by the same train from Nilpeena,

'And come all the wayto France? Oh, that would be charming! It would be no longer the Silent Sea then, as

She looked round beyond the echoing rock, northward and southward, where the great expanse of gray naked

land was in the distance half concealed by a light mist, which veiled the inequalities of the low reefs.

'Oh, I am so glad!' Her voice, with its spontaneous gaiety, thrilled the young man with a sudden keenness of

They were both silent for a little, a vague halfconsciousness invading the girl's serenity.

And then Euphemia's robust, cheerful voice came from a little distance, awakening sudden startling

'What can that be over there?' she cried, pointing with her ridingwhip in a southerly direction.

Here beside it, their horses for a moment held in check, were two young creatures, with radiant eyes and

quickly throbbing pulses, a vague mist of happiness on their faces, all the glad possibilities of life seeming to

'I do not much like your echoing rock,' said Doris, as they rode up to Euphemia, to see what had attracted her

'It is a little hutone of the weatherboard kind, I suppose,' said Victor, 'for it was not there six days ago.

Someone must have taken up a claim, but diggers don't generally put up a hut of any sort. Why, this is going

to be one great goldfield,' he added, as he looked around, and noticed that a mile or two away from the

brokendown whim, towards the north, on the road to Broombush Creek, a large irregular edifice was in

'That must be the place Mrs. West's brother is putting up,' he said. 'She told me it is to be called the Halfway

'Couldn't we go as far as the diggings this morning?' said Euphemia. 'Mother said the other day we might go

Doris, however, objected on the ground that she wanted to get back a little earlier than usual, because of

something she wanted to do for the Connell children. This was a second family in which two children had

lately fallen ill. Sickness had of late been spreading at the mine, and Dr. Magann, who had removed from the

partiallydeserted Ridges, bringing with him his movable wooden dwelling, announced that the malady,

which had attacked several adults as well as children, was in some cases aslow fever,1 in others typhoid.

'I wish you wouldn't visit these poor people so often,' said Victor, as they turned homewards.

'Because I bdidn't like to see you out in the dust and heat, going into places where they have fever.'

'But you ought not cto wish that I were selfish,' she answered, looking at him with grave seriousness. 'When I

see these poor people's hot, bare, untidy little huts and tents, and then come back to Stonehouse, and think

how I have had everything soft and pleasant all my life, I feel as if I could not bear to have so much and they

'But you have sent all your own easychairs to the sick people, Doris, so there's one thing you have not got

Victor, on hearing this, stole a look at Doris that had in it much of the respectful adoration with which devout

people regard a patron saint. Indeed, to him those radiant eyes, full of sweet tenderness for all suffering, were

'I think, though, mother is getting frightened that you might take the illness, for you had fever when you were

a little girl, and might get it again, so perhaps it will be only Shung and me dwho go with flowers and things,'

Euphemia went on, after a pause. She was very loath to turn her back on the 'diggings' for the sake of the

'But really, you know, the people eof our mine are not so badly off. They all have plenty of food and fresh air,

though perhaps a little too much dust and mullock. And now that 'Zilla has lent his cottage to the

Connellshe won't bring his wife while there is so much illnessnone of the larger families are in tents or

oneroomed huts. And if they would only boil the water before they drank it, it wouldn't hurt them. Besides,

you know, they are very kind in helping one another,' he added, trying to imbue Doris with a stronger motive

for being reconciled to Mrs. Challoner's wishes than the fear of personal danger would be likely to afford.

'I cannot do very much,' she answered, 'but I like to sit by the sick children and do little things for themput

a few flowers into a pretty vase where they can look at them. You should see their eyes when they see those

Provence roses3 that come from your friends in Adelaide! If I gave them to the mother, she would most likely

put them down somewhere and let them fade. Mrs. Snell would not do thatshe knows how the children

'She keeps on gossiping with the other women; she doesn't mind the children properly, nor keep the house

clean, nor anything,' broke in Euphemia, with a note of indignation in her voice. But Doris seemed to shrink

from direct faultfinding. In small things, as in great, she had that gentle charity which leads the rare natures

endowed with it to regard the defects of their fellowcreatures with invincible forbearance. 'Pity, and

sympathy, and longsuffering, and fair interpretation, and excusing our brother, and taking things in the best

sense, and passing the gentlest sentence,'4 was the girl's inalienable inheritance from her mother.

In the end Victor felt rebuked, as he realized that there was a taint of selfishness in his anxiety that Doris

might be spared even the thought of squalor, or suffering, or hardship. Her impulse to give not merely money,

or the things that money could buy, but a part of her own life, her own gentle ministering, made him reflect

penitently on his partial indifference to such matters, while largely absorbed in happy thoughts and happy

plans for the future. Gradually, contact with her enlarged his moral consciousness. He felt that the things to

desire most for Doris' sake were not luxury and ease, but that one's own heart and nature should be touched to

But these early morning rides were by no means always tinged with grave thoughts and reflections. They

would often break into songs, and laughter when one of them failed to catch up the tune, as they rode through

the exhilarating morning air, their horses' hoofs seeming to keep time in a perpetual refrain; and on other

occasions Doris would recount one of the stories ShungLoo told her when she was a little girl, beginning

'There was once a Lahto prince who bribed the world with elephanttusks, and oxen with humps, and

buffaloes that live in the water. When he went out he was surrounded with flags, and the sky was full of

feather fans, and the big kingfisher birds came and made umbrellas of their wings. And twoandtwenty

elephants came in a train after him, loaded with big cowries to fgive the poor people, and sixteen cowries was

the price for a bowl of rice. At night men with gold on their teeth played flutes, and women in gold chains

sang songs to make him go to sleep. Then when he slept the black barbarians,5 who wear only their skins, a

'Oh, Doris, a peachblossom fan, when they had no clothes!' remonstrated Euphemia.

'That's the way it is in the Shih Ch'ing ya ch' ,'6 answered Doris; 'and as you don't believe every word

This was a hard saying,7 but Doris was forced to adhere to the rule, for the reason that ShungLoo had been

'Well, you ought to finish it for Mr. FitzGibbon, for he believes every word and never asks any questions,'

urged Euphemia, which was true to the letter. For always when Doris spoke, her soft musical voice, with its

varying intonations giving emphasis to all the grotesque little nuances of ShungLoo's stories, fascinated

Victorif that were possiblemore than ever. He would listen in rapt silence, stealing a glance from time to

time at the darkling little shadows cast by those heavy lashes, at the delicatelymoulded cheeks, to which

exercise had brought a delicate damask glow. And as he listened and looked, it seemed as if he had in

absolute fact penetrated one of gthese charmed regions of Oriental supernaturalism whose lore so curiously

How completely, how dangerously happy he was! The poet upon whom the Muses keeping ward over Mount

Helicon, and dancing with delicate feet round the violethued fount, bestowed laurelleaves, hand a staff of

luxuriant olives, and the breath of an inspired voice, saw a vision of the beginning of all things,8 in which the

earth gave birth to the starry heavens, that they might shelter it upon all sides, and so make it for ever a secure

seat for the blessed gods. But this was the revelation of a singer born into the world in its nonage, before the

story of man's darklystained, incomprehensible existence had filled so many sombre tomes, and before so

many wise men had risen up to prove to us that there are no gods. Yet from generation to generation there

come brief spaces into most lives in which the old poetic tradition is verified, and the earth is once more a

secure seat for the blessed gods. Yes, even in regions where nature is as arid and destitute of icharm as is the

Saltbush country, where, though the air, the sky and the sunshine are early in the day perfect in their

loveliness, yet the earth in its level, neutraltinted barrenness is more like a vague outline than a finished

picture. . . . Now, after two weeks of these long early rides, they were coming to an end, though the riders did

On the last occasion they rode close to Broombush Creek, very early in the morning, and saw the diggings,

with now close on five thousand men at work. They passed the Halfway House, a low rambling structure of

wood and galvanized iron, the bar already open for travellers; its signboarda piece of calico stretched on a

board nailed over the doorbore the inscription, 'Halfway House. T. Smith:9 jLicensed to sell wines, bears,

sperits,' in letters of extraordinary variety as to size. In half an hour after passing this, the outskirts of the

diggings came in sight, and a medley of confused sounds broke the calm of early morning.

The continual rumble of diggers' cradles, the ring of shrill voices, of axes cleaving wood, of sawing and

hammering, of creaking watercarts, carting tanks of water from the one permanent well, which was over a

mile from the centre of the diggings, all made up a great volume of sound. The scene altogether conveyed an

indescribable impression of confusion. The diggers' tents were of the motliestdingy canvas, duck, calico,

ksacking and hessian, roughly cobbled together; old tarpaulins also were fastened over vehicles of every size

and description. Among these there was a sprinkling of iron edifices, chiefly stores, boardinghouses, and

Government offices. The telegraph line had been extended from Colmar, and the post and telegraph office,

with the quarters of the Warden of Goldfields10 and the police troopers, a branch bank, etc., were near the

centre of the wide, irregular encampment. A public hospital had been built, with a medical man in charge.

But typhoid fever had broken out, and the accommodation was inadequate for the increasing patients. A

private hospital was now in course of erection, on a slight rise near the road by which one approached the

new diggings from Colmar. Everywhere all round, the earth was turned over in mounds, and everywhere men

were sinking and tunnelling in the ground, with shovels, gads, pickaxes and crowbars. Machinery had been

erected in two places, and already the sound of the batteries was heard. For the sun was now rising, and all

The sky, so clear and immensely vaulted, full of warm, paleblue air, with that look of youth inseparable

from pure and joyous colouring, formed the strangest contrast to the world which it overarched herewhere

the ashgray saltbush was replaced by tumbled heaps of soil, and by the squalid abodes of thousands of

dirtstained men. The immense flat, featureless landscape all round held nothing to break the sharpness of the

contrast between the heaven above, majestic in its noble sweep of outline, and the earth below, gray and

formless and naked, as if it had been worn into sallow desolation by the march of countless aeons of

centuries, till in this spot it was torn and mangled by an irruption of strange reptiles that had learned the use

As the riders stood at some little distance looking on, a great shout was heard in the vicinity of the hospital,

The cry flew like wildfire, and strange excitement ensued. From every quarter men came running and crying

out: those who were at work throwing down their tools; those who had been preparing breakfast, some with

flour on their arms up to their elbows, with steaks or chops in their hands, as they were about to put them on

the coals, gridirons, or frypans, with dishcloths on their arms, with soiled tin plates in their lhandssome

even with handfuls of tea which they were about to put in teapots, or billies, or quart pots. When that shrill,

sudden cry reached them, there were scores who did not wait to put these things down, but rushed as they

stood, as if fearful that this lump of yellow metal, speckled over with quartz, might vanish like a celestial

visitant before the sight of it gladdened their eyes. There were some who even ran half naked as they tumbled

When they had all satisfied themselves that this thing was true, and not a dream or a false rumour, then the

great hubbub increased, and the clamour of voices swelled on the air mightily. But after a little this died

away, and gave place to a feverish industry that nerved thousands as one man. There were many who did not

taste food that morning for hours. They gulped down pannikins full of hot tea, and then worked on with

frenzied haste. Might they not at any moment come upon a boomer nuggetturn it over in the dirt, or hear

the dull thud of their tools as they struck against a solid lump of the precious metal? Many who had been on

the point of leaving, sickened and wearied out with toiling for weeks and finding not even the colour of gold,

while they lived on credit or the generosity of their fellowworkers, now took heart of grace,12 and stayed to

labour on with renewed energy. Others, who had been lying ill of fever for days or weeks, crawled out of

their bunks, and sat watching their mates at work with hungry, wistful eyes; for who could tell whose luck it

would be next to come on a big nugget? It is the gambling element that lends so strong a fascination to

digging for gold, not the naked lust for its possession, as one is apt at first to suppose, on witnessing the sort

of humiliating frenzy that oftentimes takes possession of men, when searching for it in its primitive and most

When the sudden tumult had subsided, the riders turned their horses' heads homewards.

'Wherever men come to this country they make it ugly,' said Doris. 'Instead of planting gardens or trees, or

'I was just thinking I should like to go and make dreadful holes myself,' said Victor, smiling. 'At any rate,

'The saltbush is a very good creature,' said Euphemia quickly. 'Cows that eat it give good milk, the hens lay

good eggs, saltbush sheep make the best mutton, and the sky is nowhere more beautiful.'

Euphemia was born in the Saltbush country, and it would seem that in the hearts of most human beings

Heaven has implanted a love for the spot in which they first see lighta token, perhaps, that life is a gift,

As the sun ascended the heavens they returned on their 'happy morning track,'13 all unconscious that it was

'You will remember Broombush Creek in the old world,' said Victor, as he helped Doris to dismount.

'Yes. I am so glad that you are coming, too. I think of that so often!' she answered, in a low voice.

The words sent the blood tingling through his veins and surging in his ears. He was intoxicated with joy as he

Doris and Euphemia hastened to get out of their ridinghabits and dress for breakfast. They were a little later

than usual on account of their long ride, and they were consequently much surprised, when they went into the

diningroom, to find that though breakfast was ready, and ShungLoo in his accustomed place behind his

young mistress's chair, neither Mr. anor Mrs. Challoner had yet bmade their appearance. Presently Mrs.

Challoner came in, looking very fagged and anxious. Her husband had hardly slept all night. Towards

morning he had fallen into a troubled sleep, and now he had wakened up with a burning headache and

slightly delirious. She had been anxious1 regarding him cfor several days, noticing that an unusual languor

hung about him, and that he neither ate nor slept well. But he had made light of all this, saying it was only a

little overwork, and that working too much between meals did not now agree with him. He had refused to

consult the doctor, partly because he was very busy disposing of his stock just then, and partly because

something to be shaken up every two hours2 had never done him any good when he was out of sorts.

The doctor was now sent for, and promptly confirmed Mrs. Challoner's fears. It was fevermost likely

typhoidand the patient was worse because he had not 'caved in' as soon as he ought. He had, judging from

'Oh, my dear, I think I ought to send you to Adelaide, or perhaps back to Ouranie, till the worst is over,' said

Mrs. Challoner to Doris in the afternoon, when, her husband having fallen into a sleep, she came into the

drawingroom, where the two girls were arranging how they could best help in the trouble that had fallen on

'Go away!when you want all the help we can give you! Oh, Mrs. Lucy, how can you even think of it?' said

Then Mrs. Challoner, who was very dtired and very anxious, cried a little, and confessed it would be a great

comfort, she knew, to have Doris in the house. On this Doris made her lie on the couch, and bathed her

temples softly with eaudeCologne, and after a little Mrs. Challoner fell into a deep sleep, and Euphemia

took her place in the sickroom. It was nearly sunset when Mrs. Challoner awoke, much refreshed.

'You always had wonderful little hands for soothing headaches away,' she said to Doris, who now went on to

tell her that she and Euphemia had been making certain plans. Doris was to take all household cares off Mrs.

Challoner's hands, and ShungLoo would help to nurse part of each night, and Euphemia part of each day.

eThen Shung would have nothing else to do, but have his whole time for Mrs. Challoner, and she was never

'Then, my dear, as I understand it, you are going to do all my work, and allow Shung to do nothing for you,'

'Yes, I am going to be the housekeeper,' answered Doris undauntedly; 'go to sleep quite early, and get up

early in the morning and waken Bridget, and see that she does things nicely, and always has hot water in the

fountain.3 Shung will cook all the things that you want in the sickroom, or go on messages. Oh, we have

Mrs. Challoner might exclaim against Doris taking her place so valiantly in the performance of unaccustomed

responsibilities, yet it was an immense comfort in the face of a perhaps dangerous and tedious illness to have

one at her right hand so able, willing, and resolute. Euphemia was willing and docile, but she lacked

initiative. This Doris would supply, and the two, working harmoniously together, with Shung as ally and

coadjutor, would form a strong stay. Only, as so often happens in drawing up domestic as well as political

programmes, there was one element left out of the reckoning, which, on this first night, made itself strongly

feltthe unforeseen. So far from going to sleep 'quite early,' it was nearly twelve o'clock before Doris closed

It was a little after eight when ShungLoo, who had gone to the doctor for medicine, returned with it in some

excitement. The Colmar Arms was on fire, and nothing could be done to stop it. It was in one great blaze;

they could see it from the top of the reef. Shung had heard that someone was burnt in one of the rooms, but

there was so much hurry and confusion he did not know who it was, or whether it was true.

'Oh, I hope Mr. FitzGibbon was not hurt there!' cried Euphemia. Doris turned very pale.

'I think he was going to play at the miners' concert this evening. But of course they would all turn out to try

They went with Shung fto the top of the reef. It was a sultry, still night. The flames, which had now

completely enveloped the house, cast a brilliant illumination around, and figures could be seen hurrying

about, evidently concentrating all their attention on saving the places near the inn. Fortunately, it stood a little

apart from the other dwellings, and there was no sign that any of them had so far caught fire. As the maid was

out this evening, at a sister's on the mine, who was married to one of the miners, Doris and Euphemia did not

stay long looking at the sight. Mrs. Challoner met them as they came in, and was alarmed at the pallor of

'The shock has been too much for you, Doris,' she said, when Euphemia had breathlessly related the

catastrophe at which they had been looking. 'I must order my little housekeeper to bed in good time,' added

Mrs. Challoner, as she kissed both girls before returning to the sickroom for the night. Shortly afterwards

Euphemia went to her own room, saying it seemed as if it were two days ago since they got up at daylight to

go to Broombush Creek. She could hardly keep her eyes open. Doris stood looking after her with a feeling of

blank amazement. It was Euphemia who had suggested that perhaps Mr. FitzGibbon had been hurt, yet now

she seemed to think no more about the matter, while she herself felt almost stunned with terror. The thought

had fastened on her mind that Victor might have tried to save someone from the firethat when it broke out

he might have been in the house. A hundred conjectures kept passing through her mind, each more

disquieting than the other, till her agitation grew so that she could hardly stand. She went to the southern

veranda, from which she could see the red angry glare in the sky. Looking at this, her fears became

insupportable. She went round to the back, to the little leanto room that ShungLoo occupied, to send him

down to the township. He would find out if anyone had been hurtif Mr. FitzGibbon was safe. But as she

reached the door the light that shone through the window was put out, which meant that ShungLoo had gone

to bed. As she stood debating with herself whether she should call him, she heard someone hurrying to the

'Oh, Miss Doris, did ye hear about the fire, and Mr. FitzGibbon and the landlord being burnt to death?' she

cried, flourishing the rumours she had heard in their most gruesomely dramatic form.

She went on with great excitement, retailing all that she had heard, and various surmises on her own account,

bewailing the mishap with facile sympathy, and that glow of halfgratified importance with which some

But Doris heard nothing beyond the first awful intelligence. She stood in the wan starlight as if turned to

'It was just a mercy av the Lard that me brotherinlaw wasn't there when the fire bruk out, for he's just the

very wahn to get into throuble on the first opportunity. Well, it's after noine, Miss Doris; I musht be turning

in, so as to be up broight and early, for there's always shlops4 to be made ahl the toime whin there's illness in

the houseand I'd like to see the funerals if I can be shpared. We seem to be getting a dale av throuble all

gat once. Goodnight, Miss Doris; ye're enjoying the coolth av the air. If ye cast you're oi round as you go in,

And so, in entire unconsciousness of the crushing blow she had dealt the girl, who stood in speechless horror

leaning heavily against a lounge beside her, the good Bridget bustled into the kitchen. In imagination, she

was already putting a bit of crape on her Sunday hat, as a sign of her sympathy and sorrow for the father of a

family, and perhaps that handsome young gentleman, so pleasant spoken, and generous in the matter of

frequent tips. She was not quite sure he was a corpse yet, but, at any rate, he was badly burnt, and would most

Groping her way into the house, Doris somehow reached the sittingroom. The door and windows were

open, and the shaded candles were throwing a flood of soft light into the dusky stillness of the night. She

tottered towards the couch under one of the windows, but before she reached it, it seemed to swim out of

After what seemed long hours, but was in reality only a few minutes, hshe5 found herself on the ground, her

hands outspread on the couch, and her head resting on them. She tried to remember how she had come there,

and looked round the room with startled eyes. Nothing was changed. There was the little flannel nightgown

she had been sewing for one of the Connell children on the wicker gipsy table;6 above her hung the picture of

the beautiful old English home in which her mother was born; her mother's watercolours of Ouranie iwhere

she had arrayed them on the opposite wall; near her, on the low bookcases, were the radiant flowers, but at

the sight of these a terrible sorrow seized her. Moaning like a creature stabbed to the heart, she covered her

face with her hands and began to tremble like an aspen leaf in the wind. 'Burnt to death! burnt to death!' The

words turned into scarlet letters around her. But as the horror and tearless anguish were again half lost in a

creeping stupor, the sound of approaching footsteps reached her. There was a gentle knock at the open door.

'Is there anyone here?' said a wellknown voice; and then there was a quick exclamationa low cry of

For a moment Doris hardly dared to believe her ears, hardly dared to look, fearing she was betrayed by one of

those happy dreams that jfled when one kwas fully awake. But this vision was too eager, too much alive, and

It was Victornot indeed scathless, for one arm was in a sling, and one side of his face was darkly flushed,

He stood for a moment transfixed with that low cry on his lips, and the look of sudden alarm that had come

into his eyes on first catching sight of Doris, lying with her head against the couch, her face rigid and white as

'You have hurt yourself? you are ill, Doris?' he cried, looking at her, as she leant back on the couch, her face

still deadly pale, and a strange, strained look in her eyes. 'Perhaps it is you who are ill, not Mr. Challoner, as I

heard in the office today. But where are the rest? Why are you all alone, looking so dreadfully pale?' he

said, looking around, for it was not yet ten. And as his first affright passed away the wonder of it all grew

It was all too sudden; the revulsion from the horror and anguish which had overwhelmed her was too great at

first to permit her to feel or think. For a few moments she was only conscious that the terrible misery was

unreal. Here was Victor, but with no vital hurt. The violence of the reaction shook her almost as much as the

brutal tidings. But gradually a great and solemn gladness put new life into her failing pulses.

'You have come!' she said, looking up at him with the dawn of a smile as he stood before her, his face full of

The fact was so obvious that one might deem the words little to the purpose. But they were spoken with a

'You were not very badly hurt, after all?' she said, looking from his flushed cheek to his bandaged arm.

'Oh, very littleit is nothing! But, Doris, does Mrs. Challoner know that you have been lill? You are

trembling even now, and your hands are quite cold,' he added, touching them as they lay folded over the end

He was looking at her intently, and saw that at the question a faint wave of colour slowly overspread her face.

Her eyes deepened with unshed tears, which gave a blurred, misty outline to all around her. She felt as if a

great gulf of unknown emotion threatened to overpower her. She mshrank,7 she knew not why, from

'I will tell Mrs. Challoner you are here. I know she would like to see you,' she said, rising.

But her gait was a little unsteady. She leant on Victor's offered arm till she reached the door of the

'Please don't frighten her about me. You see, I am well now,' she said in an almost inaudible whisper as he

'Oh, you were at the fire!you have been hurt!' cried the latter, as soon as she caught sight of him.

And then the story of the fire was gone over as far as Victor knew it. He had gone with 'Zilla Jenkins to the

'I got Roby to let me play my tune the first thing, as I wanted to come up at once to see if there was anything I

could do for you here. I heard through the doctor that Mr. Challoner was down with the fever. Before I

finished there was a great cry of fire, and we all rushed out pellmell. It must have been going on for some

time before it was noticed. West, it seems, had been drinking rather heavily; he was in bed most of the day,

'Oh, poor thing! Was she hurt at all? Was anyone injured besides you?' asked Mrs. Challoner anxiously.

'Yes, the landlord. It must have been in his room the fire began. He was behind the bar in the wooden part of

the house, which was as dry as chips. They noticed a strong smell of burning, but they thought it came from

some rubbishheaps the ostler set on fire towards sunset in the backyard. When the flames broke out

beyond the room where the fire began they could do nothing but run out for their lives'

'He never came out at all,' answered Victor, in lowered tones, glancing anxiously towards Doris.

'Yes; and the people who were in the bar had only just time to clear out. Some door or partition gave way,

and the flames swept over it like an avalanche. The bar and all the back part of the house was one mass of

flames when we reached the place from the schoolroom. Mrs. West was struggling to get away from some

people to rush into the house for her little boy. They thought he was in the same room with his father. But,

fortunately, I happened to know that he was in an end room of the stone part of the house. Dick and I were

rather chummy, poor little chap! The house was all at sixes and sevens for a day or two backthe cook gone,

a dazed housemaid in the kitchen, and Mrs. West having to see to the bar. This evening, while I was having

tea about seven, Dick came in in his nightdress from a little room that opened out of the diningroom. He had

been put to bed early, so as to be out of the way, but he said he wasn't "s'eepy," and so he had some tea with

me, and then went back to bed. I got in through the diningroom window all right, but by the time I got back

with Dick a spark through the open window had set the curtains on fire. I had to tear them down before I

'Oh, Mr. FitzGibbon, you saved the poor nchild's life at the risk of your own life!' said Mrs. Challoner,

'There was not much risk, really,' answered Victor. 'The great thing was that I knew where the poor little

beggar slept. The smoke was getting rather bad in his room, but the diningroom was very little on fire when

'But your cheek is a little hurt, and your arm perhaps very much,' said Doris, speaking for the first time, with

an adorable little quiver in her voice and a dovelike, melting softness in her eyes.

'Well, and that was through stupidity,' said Victor, who could hardly help laughing aloud for sheer

lightheartedness. He would in truth have endured twenty times as much pain for the sake of hearing that

faltering intonation. 'As I pulled the curtains down, I let the burning edge of one brush my face and

coatsleeve. It must have been on fire for some little time before anyone noticed it, and then when I pulled it

off my shirtsleeve flared up. But Dr. Magann dressed the burn for me after I had taken Dick to the Olsens'

place. That is where he and his mother have found shelter. Mrs. Olsen is Mrs. West's sister. . . . And I have

had the offer of being boarded by the amiable oScroogses,' said Victor, with a smile.

Scroogs8 was a man who kept a large, rough boardinghouse at Colmar. He had been twice fined within the

last two months for sly grogselling and for riotous goings on at his establishment.

'But you must not go there; the place is not fit for you. We can very well manage to board you here,' said Mrs.

It goes without saying that this arrangement had great charms for Victor, only he was loath to add to the cares

of the household at this juncture. Finally, they compromised the matter by arranging that he should breakfast

and dine in the evening at Stonehouse. He could easily manage about lunch in his office on weekdays.

'But you must be carefulyou should not irritate your arm. I must have a look at the burn tomorrow,' said

'Oh, it is nothing; it will be all right in a day or two. Fortunately, it's my left arm,' answered Victor.

But though he made light of the part he had played in the catastrophe, no one else at Colmarwith perhaps

one exceptionwas disposed to follow suit. The risk he had run and the hurt he had received were both

much exaggerated. Bridget was not the only one who consigned him to an untimely grave. It was found to be

a kind of artistic emotion to say that he had been burnt alive. The next day being Sunday, there was leisure to

dwell on all the harrowing details, and there was a constant stream of pinquiries at Stonehouse as to Victor's

condition. The first to arrive was Mick, who would not be satisfied with Bridget's assurance that the 'young

gintleman was qlike a May daisy, and 'ating a hearty breakfastglory be to God!' She had offered Victor her

own congratulations on his safety with the eloquence of her race, maintaining a discreet silence as to her too

'If I might make so bould, I would like to shake hahnds wid you, Mr. FitzGibbon,' said Mick, when Victor

'Why, Mick, one would think I had been singed all over like a plucked hen,9 to hear you speak so solemnly!'

'Indade, sor, some av thim made me belave that a singed fowl was a fool to10 the shtate ye wor in. I was

sound ashlape through it all in my little tint, and rwhen I got up and wint out, the first mahn I met was Ben

Combrie, and the flare sof the Colmar Arms in the sky like the day av judgmint. And two min roasted in the

'But surely you know Ben Combrie's gift for saying the thing that is not,11 Mick?'

'I do, sornone bettherbut ye cahnt thrust him even at the loying, for he sometimes tells the trut and shlips

you up whin you laste tixpicts itand the half was thrue. Poor Wisht, his wife will mourn, though maybe

widout reason, and we all sorrow for the good grog'twas a sinful washte! And here's a tiligraph for ye, sor;

I met the boy coming up, and I thought I might as well save him. It came ulast night in the middle of the

combushtion. He mintioned vlikewise, sor, that the choild ye saved out av the flames was running about as

hearty as a young wallaby this wmorning, though the poor mother is lying xspeechless crying on the poor

omadhan that yshpilte12 zhimsilf and the good grog intoirely. 'Tis loikely the funeral will be early

'I wonder if this is something further about the cave room,' thought Victor, turning the telegram over, as he

went into his own room with it. By Saturday's mail a letter had reached him from his uncle, telling him that

instructions had been sent to Trevaskis to have the late manager's effects removed and afford the purser full

scope to investigate the acavity, on behalf of the company. The delay in answering Victor's letter had been

caused by Mr. Drummond's absence in Tasmania. Within half an hour of the receipt of this, Trevaskis had

'I suppose you have had instructions about this?' he said, in a tone pitched at a deliberate calmness, yet with a

curious vibration underlying it of strong emotion. Victor, in reply, read the portion of his uncle's letter which

'I can't possibly have the things removed for a day or two,' said Trevaskis in accents which suddenly jumped

by a note above the bdiapason1 of his usual voice. There was an odd smothered fierceness in his manner that

made Victor suddenly look at him with inquiring wonder. It seemed as if the man had aged by years in the

past few weeks. Perhaps, considering all the circumstances, the change was not surprising. For nine

consecutive nights he had worked in the cave room, his eyes gradually getting worse. At the end of that time

he was unable to stoop, or read, or walk in the sunshine, without torturing throbs of pain in chis eyeballs. The

doctor, whom he at last unwillingly consulted, strongly urged him to go away from the mine for a change.

'Why, man, you'll blind yourself,' he said two days later, exasperated into brutal frankness by the patient's

obvious disregard of his instructions. At the words, a sudden cold dread shot through the manager's mind. For

the next eight days and nights he rested almost absolutely. Once in the twentyfour hours he went below, and

took a turn all round the mine. For the rest of the day he sat in his room with the blinds down. When solitude

and enforced idleness became unbearable, he would go into the cave room and gloat over his bars of shining

Then he would pace about in the obscurity of the place, pausing at the spots where the great bottles of

'Oh, if Dan would only come! if Dan would only come!' he would sometimes say at such times half aloud.

He was not one who indulged much in the habit of addressing remarks to himself audibly; but the constant

strain of anxiety, of harassing uncertainty as to whether he could after all secure this treasure, culminated at

times in fits of such intense restlessness, that to walk about speaking to himself, in the solitude and obscurity

But Dan's coming was indefinitely delayed. He wrote to say that he had been stupid enough 'to get upon the

spree,'2 and that when he was getting over this he had a feverish attack. He was now in the hospital and the

doctors wouldn't tell him when he could get out, but he hoped he would soon be well enough to travel.

This might mean the delay of a few days or weeks. It might mean that Dan would not come till it was too

late; for in a couple of weeks at the most Raphael Dunning would arrive to take possession of his brother's

belongings, and once that was done, the last vestige of excuse for delaying the search of the cave room would

Trevaskis did not fail to grasp the weak points of his situation; but these, somehow, only inspired him with a

sort of desperate, despairing resolution to use every possible and impossible means to secure the gold. If the

worst came to the worst, he would secrete the bars, at least, in his own room. Could there be anything among

At the thought, Trevaskis instituted a rigorous search of all the letters, documents, and boxes which would be

handed over to the late manager's brother. In one of the latter he discovered two duplicate keys of the strong

safe for the gold. He regarded them curiously for some moments, wondering to which of his predecessors

belonged the credit of having them manufactured. Webster most likely, so as to enable him to steal some of

This discovery curiously enough lessened the accidental scruples which still visited Trevaskis from time to

time, especially when his conscience was illuminated by the fear of detection. He thought, with something

akin to indignation, of dinnumerable 'dodges' by which the majority of mining managers contrived to rob the

'I wouldn't, and I couldn't, so help me, God! steal an ounce of gold or amalgam from the mine on my own

account,' he thought; 'but to keep a treasure that you have discoveredah! that is quite another matter. No

After all, the fact that a man's forefathers have fastened a lantern to a cow's head on a dark night by the

seashore, so as to lead a casual trading smack to founder on the rocks for the sake of its cargo,3 must impart

At any rate, after discovering these keys Trevaskis was more than ever upheld by the consciousness that his

moral rectitude would never allow him to stoop to the base pilfering which had been so largely practised by

other managers of the Colmar Mine. Yet, side by side with this, his determination grew stronger not to let any

untoward circumstances cheat him out of the enjoyment of the fortune he had discovered in the cave room.

When his eyes became strong enough to bear the sunlight, his first care was to ride across to the

weatherboard hut erected on the quartz claim which he had secured in the vicinity of the brokendown whim.

It reassured him to prowl about this hut and reflect on the treasure that might soon be hidden there.

As he was riding back he finally determined that, as soon as ever Dan came, the best thing would be to take

him fully into his confidence and secure his help in hiding the gold and amalgam in the hut, away from the

'I'll send a message to Dan on Monday or Tuesday, begging him to come on, even if he's half dead. If he

became much worse at the little hut it would be a fine opportunity for me to resign suddenly. I'd just say that

the company ehad better send another manager as soon as possible. "My only brother has been taken very ill

all by himself; I must give him my whole time. In any case I fintended to resign soon, as I find my health will

He wrote these lines and several more, finding a certain relief in picturing this conclusion of his suspense.

'It is now some time,' he reflected, 'since FitzGibbon and I had that barney. He has never said a word about

the search since; I don't believe he even thinks of it. Ah, there's nothing like a good bluff sometimes!'

Such were the halfcomplacent reflections that passed through Trevaskis' mind on Thursday evening, after he

returned from visiting his quartz claim. On Friday night he felt well enough to resume operations in the cave

room. But by Saturday morning's mail came an official letter, written by the mine secretary at the dictation of

the chairman of directors, instructing the manager to permit the purser to remove the late Mr. Dunning's

effects from the cave room and institute a careful search of the place. For a short time after reading this letter

Trevaskis sat perfectly motionless, staring hard before him. The meshes were closing round him; he was

snared, and not only so, but he had been perfectly hoodwinked by this doublefaced young Irishman.

'But I won't lose it! I won't! I won't!' he muttered to himself, clenching his hands and teeth.

He had need of all his decision and energy to quell the rising passion that threatened to overmaster him.

When Victor, struck by the curious intonation of his voice, looked at Trevaskis, he saw that his face looked

gray and lined. His eyes were uncovered. The space between them, as has been said, was unusually narrow;

but now the pupils had lengthened in a curious way, so that they almost seemed to meet in a sinister glittering

The expression of his whole face gave Victor a certain shock. He concluded that Trevaskis was furious at

having his objections set aside. Or was there, after all, some truth in Vansittart's conviction? The last surmise

led Victor to answer with a certain reserve that, as soon as Dunning's things were cleared out, he was ready to

On that, Trevaskis strode away without making any reply. For the rest of the day he purposely kept out of

'If this telegram is to hasten operations,' he thought, as he opened the envelope, 'the old fellow will certainly

But the first glance showed him that the message touched him much more nearly than any event connected

with the Colmar Mine. It was from Miss Paget, dated Saturday morning, from Albany, and ran:

'Left Colombo sooner than anticipated. Not going to Perth. Caught in a tornado three days ago; vessel almost

foundered. Stay here till Tuesday to recoup. Expect to reach Adelaide on Friday next.'

When the doctor, after paying his morning visit to Challoner, interviewed his second patient at Stonehouse

'Why, both your cheeks look as if they were scorched, and your pulse is going nineteen to the dozen. You'll

have to be careful, young man; that's a nastier burn than you think for. You'd better lay up for a day or two,'

But Victor, who was in his own confidence more than the man of healing, did not propose to take this advice

seriously. He knew it was the prospect of his interview with Helen, which was now so nearthe thought of

the moment when he should be free to put his fortune to the touch and win or lose it all4that made his

pulses bound and his temples throb. What would Doris say when he first uttered the words that had been the

refrain of his thoughts and the burden of his dreams so long? Not so very long, perhaps, counting by the mere

duration of time. But in periods of vivid emotion, when the hours he doles out are counted by heartbeats,

and not by the clock, Time is found to be an old bankrupt, who has not the wherewithal to pay his debts.

He was dramatizing the scene to himself, as gis the manner of young lovers, sitting in the western veranda

late in the afternoon, staring hard at an open book which he held right side up, just as if he were reading it

page by page. Would the words startle her too much? Would the moist, radiant eyes look at him in troubled

wonder? He had sometimes feared that she would hardly understandthat the guarded seclusion of her life

and the dewy simplicity of her youth would make his words of love a strange tale which as yet could find no

response in her heart. And now he began to recall all that had fed his timid hopes, and the unreasoning

happiness that of late had taken possession of him, and then began to fear lest he had built too much on her

candid friendliness, her unembarrassed pleasure at the prospect of his travelling with them. And yet was there

He was in the very heart of these reflections, when she came out with the hushed footfalls that so soon

'I want you, please, to let down the curtains. I have made Mrs. Challoner lie down in my room, and I want to

make it quiet and shady, so that she may have a good sleep while Euphemia takes care of her father,' she said,

'You have been going about working all day, I believe. Now don't you think it is time you rested?'

'Oh, you ambitious child! Didn't you give Shung directions three hundred and twenty times, and beat up eggs,

'But you and Phemy helped me with the flowers. As for scolding Bridget, I only just remonstrated with her

She suddenly stopped short, and Victor, who had merely invented the accusation at random, said gravely:

'I suppose you gave it to her well5 till she cried, and promised she would do so no more?'

She gave a shy little nod by way of answer, and then said, with a halfmysterious smile:

'Well, I think it will be only fair for you to help me, as we used to do when we played at hiding things indoors

The whimsically old and sedate words that Doris sometimes used amused Victor intensely, but he kept his

'The other iyoungsters jgo out, and you hide a penknife, or a big glass marble, or anything, in some secret

place; then, when he tries to find the article, if he goes near it you say "Hot," if he goes away from it, you say

'You are in the Polar regions,' she said, gently swaying the rockingchair backward and forward, in

comfortable security that Bridget's b tise6 and her own foolish credulity were too much beyond the ken of a

Victor looked profoundly dejected for a moment, but so far he had not an inkling that an lincredibly happy

'Ah! I won't come away from the township. It was last night when the fire broke out?'

Doris, who had so little practised the art of concealment that even the evasion of a question half offended her

instinct of absolute sincerity, began to see that no alternative remained but to confess the whole story.

'I will tell you how it was,' she said slowly. 'When Shung told us about the fire last night he said some people

had been hurthe did not know who. Euphemia said she hoped you were not, and that made me feel so

'That I was hurt?' said Victor, a quick flush rising on his face as he leant over towards Doris, drinking in

'Yes. I went round to send Shung down to see if you were safe, but he had just put out his light. Then Bridget

came, andyou mustn't think I was very foolish for quite believing iteven now it seems terrible to say

He could not for a moment utter a word in reply. Doris, glancing up at him, thought he looked strangely glad,

'And was that what made you feel so ill, Doris?' asked the young man, in a low, shaken voice.

'Yes. I quite believed it till I heard you speaking, andoh, I felt as if I would die!'

'Oh, Doris, my darling! you do care for me, then? I love youI love you with all my heart and soul! but I

She shrank back a little as he bent closer to her, and the look in her face was partly what he had conjured up

half an hour before. Only with the wonder and timidity there was something of dawning comprehension, even

There was a long pause, and then, whether she knew all that it conveyed or not, she answered in a perfectly

'And do you know how much I love you?' he asked after a little, trying hard to keep down the rising torrent of

A vivid colour had risen in her cheeks, but Victor was quite pale, and his hand, as he placed it on the arm of

the chair on which she sat, shook a little. Seeing him so pallid and agitated, a troubled look came into her

And then he was more than content. Only one more petition would he make just then.

A smile parted her lips as she gave him her hand. It trembled like a little reedwarbler whose wings are

suddenly pinioned as his lithe brown fingers closed over hers. Very gently, fearing to frighten her, yet unable

to resist the impulse, he bent his head and imprinted one tremulous kiss on the palm of the imprisoned hand;

and then he released it, hardly daring to glance at her, for fear he might see a look of trouble or displeasure in

'One day this little hand will be given to me, Doris, and I shall place a plain gold ring on the third finger.'

'Oh no! We're wise enough at this moment, Doris, and we'll be quite old enough7 in another yearperhaps

'Oh, to assure him that I have some money and come of decent peoplethat I am the very one to make you

'He'll know that as soon as he sees you,' said Doris, with a slow, thoughtful utterance.

And then he rose and paced up and down the veranda. The temptation to kneel down and enfold her in his

'Come into the avenue for a little walk, Doris,' he said, after a moment or two.

They walked side by side, for the most part in silence. When Victor spoke, it was of indifferent subjects, for

he saw that gradually Doris had become a little more agitated. When she turned to reenter the house he said:

She looked up at him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes full of a soft, deep light, some luminous touch of

emotion in every line of her faceall her young, pure beauty made more beautiful by the great enchanter.

A kind of hushed awe had fallen upon her. What was this new divine influence that wrapped her round,

making the thought of sorrow faint and far away, enclosing her as if in a new world? She had no word or

phrase for it all. She could only feel it thrilling every fibre of her beingfeel it keenly, physically, as one

feels the touch of a hand, or hears the melody of a bird's song, or inhales the mpenetrating breath of the early

violets; but more mysterious than any of these ecstasies of feeling, seeing that this new faculty of her nature

embraced them all, and yet was centred in another. The consciousness of being so happy apart from all the

influences of her past life, apart even from thoughts of her mother, struck her with a kind of amazement. She

was glad to be in the silence and solitude of her own room that night to ponder over the strange wonder and

As for Victor, he was lost in that tide of unreasoning, tumultuous bliss which comes to a man but once in his

lifetime, and in his youth or not at all. He reflected when it was too late that his purpose had been to speak

no word of love to Doris till after he had seen Miss Paget; but it was all too inevitable, and now he was too

restlessly happy to sleep. The night was very still, but cool, and full of starlight. He went outside, and walked

to the top of the reef. The throbbing of the aircompressors and the din of the engine travelled far into the

night. By that sound he knew it must be after twelve, for on Sunday work was not resumed till midnight.1 As

he stood looking into the vast spaces of the plains all round, vague and gray and level, without form or

motion, he was thrilled with wonder as he thought of the sequence of events which had brought Doris into the

heart of so desolate and melancholy a regionthrilled with the thought that here, where nature was at its

sternest and man's existence in its barest form, they two should find each other and the great happiness of

their lives. While lost in these reflections, a man came hurrying up the reef from the mine, and paused within

'I bait and bait at a'is door, but 'e ain't in, and I thoft 'e must acome to ask for Mr. Challoner.'

On hearing the captain was not at Stonehouse, 'Zilla stood for a moment in deep thought.

'Perhaps he's in by this time. He may have gone for a stroll somewhere,' suggested Victor.

But 'Zilla didn't fall in with this view. It was now nearly half an hour since he had first gone to the captain's

rooms, just ten minutes after he had been at the shaft's mouth seeing the men go below. 'Zilla had waited and

gone again, but the rooms were in darkness, and still no sign of Trevaskis. Victor suggested that he might be

''E may be took in a fit, but 'e couldn't be asleep and not 'ear the knocks I give. I wish you'd come down, sir,

and go to 'is rooms by the inside way, and make sure. The cap'en looks very bad to me lately, and very

badtempered; like a hedgaboor2 at the least word, and when a man don't mean nothin' in the world.'

They were descending the reef by this time. Victor went into his office as suggested, and through the four

rooms intervening, followed by 'Zilla. He knocked at the door and called out 'Captain!' repeatedly in a lusty

voice. But there was no response. As they were leaving the purser's office the engineer came up. The

drivingwheel of the panshaft had got out of gear, and he was anxious to hang up the battery3 and stop the

'But if I do it off my own hook he'll most likely make a devil of a row,' he said; 'more especially as the

They walked back to the panroom and waited another halfhour. The drivingwheel had worked loose and

'But if I stop without his orders he'll bdamn my eyes till he's black in the face, and want to know who's master

here,' said the engineer, a quiet, steadygoing Scotchman, who found the Trevaskis r gime rather an

exasperating one. 'cI'll tell you what, Mr. Purser,' he said, when the halfhour was up, 'you come with me to

the manager's office, and if I can't make him hear I'll break a pane, open the window, and go in to make

dsure; and if he isn't on the premises I'll stop the machinery on my own responsibility. If he goes gallivanting

Victor agreed to this arrangement, and the three once more walked up to the manager's office.

They knocked and shouted with the same result as before. Then the engineer got a stone, and, making a clean

break in one of the lower panes, ehe opened the window of the manager's office and got in. He struck a light

and passed into the bedroom. It was empty, and the bed had not been slept in. As he was getting out, the door

of the office that led into the iron passage was unlocked, and Trevaskis entered, a bull'seye lantern4 in one

hand, a parcel in the other. He gave a savage yell when he caught sight of a man disappearing through the

window. Either by accident or design, the lantern fell from him with a crash and the candle was extinguished.

He rushed to the window, and, seeing three men dimly in the darkness, broke into an excited volley of abuse,

in a thick, strange voice. The engineer attempted to speak, but could not at first make himself heard. They

were thievesthey were consigned to eternal and active perdition; but first they would be hauled to gaol.

'If you've quite finished, sir, perhaps you'll allow me to tell you that I'm the engineer.' He drew nearer to the

open window as he spoke, and Trevaskis gave a muffled exclamation. 'Please take notice,' the engineer went

on, in tones quivering with anger, 'that it was on the business of the company I forced my way into the

The mention of this name had a singular effect on Trevaskis. He remained quite silent for a moment, fneither

attempting to light candle or lamp nor to make any reply. The engineer had again to ask for instructions

before Trevaskis spoke. Then, seeing Victor turning to leave, he called out to him to wait a moment.

'I'll be down after you in five minutes,' he said, and on this Bruce and 'Zilla returned to the engineroom.

Trevaskis went into his bedroom and came out in a few minutes, locking the gdoors after him.

'Of course you're making all sorts of conclusions about my being in the cave room, Mr. FitzGibbon? And

your being about here at this time of night proves that you are full of suspicions.'

He had begun in a calm tone, but again that curious sudden change ensued: a loud, uncontrollable fierceness

crept into his voice. Victor could see in the starlight that the manager's eyes were glaring wildly, that his

'He must be drunk,' was the thought that passed through his mind. And there was some truth in the

supposition, though there was much more than ordinary intoxication to account for Trevaskis' uncontrollable

excitement. He had been working on Friday night till near daylight. On Saturday night, after receiving official

instructions to clear out the late manager's effects, he had not gone to bed at all. He had worked all night and

part of hSunday; now it was two o'clock on Monday morning, and after all he had been almost caught with

his pots and bars of gold. All his sleepless nights and brilliant visions of success, all his schemes and

contrivances, had been in vain. This boy, who had from the first come to spy on him, had overreached him

in the end. His brain whirled and everything swam round him as he spoke. A sudden murderous instinct rose

within him to take Victor by the throat and crush the life out of him. The paroxysm passed away, leaving him

miserably shaken, and with an almost insane longing to tell FitzGibbon the whole truthto take him into

the cave room there and then, and show him the great iglittering heap of gold in jmassive bars, the bottles full

Victor, perceiving that the man was labouring under some cruel emotion, and believing that his brain and

imagination were demoralized just then by strong drink, answered him in the tones that turn away wrath.5

Great personal happiness makes even hardened natures magnanimous, much more one that is innately

generous and khas not as yet been indurated leither by time or calamity. The imputations thrown out against

him by Trevaskis would, under ordinary circumstances, have prevented Victor mfrom offering any

explanation as to his presence at the office with the engineer. But it had been forced on him that the

manager's morbid suspicions were like a disease which he was unable to get rid of. He therefore fully

explained his meeting with Jenkins, and Trevaskis listened and believed. But when, after midday non the

morrow, he met Victor coming out of the telegraphoffice, all his old suspicions returned. He himself had

gone there to send a message to his brother, imploring him to come at all hazards, without a day's longer

Trevaskis had resolved, as a last resource, to shift all the gold and amalgam to the hut he had erected on the

claim near the brokendown whim as soon as his brother could arrive. He had this morning bought a strong

springcart and a stout horse from a man who had left the diggings at the Creek very much down on his luck.

He was negotiating with the company for the purchase of certain old machinery, which they were only too

glad to sell. There would be two or three loads in all. In the dead of night he would load the cart with the gold

and amalgam, tied up in old sacks. In the morning he would have some of the machinery fixed in the cart,

with Dan to help, and after Dan started he would overtake him on horseback, and explain that his load was

Even in the thick of all his terrors and anxieties, and the profound physical nervousness that assailed him

from time to time, he would dwell with a sense of intoxicating elation on the sense of getting the gold all safe

away. He would see Dan driving slowly on the big dusty track towards Broombush Creek, looking from time

to time around him as he got halfway for the great white posts of the brokendown whim, beyond which he

was to slue7 off to the left for a mile and a half to the lonely hut, which could be clearly seen from the

Then he would go galloping after him, and that night they would make a recess in the floor of the hut in

'That quartz claim will turn out the richest in the history of Australian mining, only this won't get into

history,' he thought. And then he chuckled to himself as he pictured FitzGibbon going solemnly into the

cave room and making his ineffectual search. But all this hung on Dan's speedy arrival. He despatched his

telegram, wording it as strongly as possible. As he came out of the telegraphoffice, he met Victor face to

face. Was he going to send a message as to the further delay in his search of the cave room? He resolved to

keep a brave front to the last, and fight to the uttermost for delay, hoping for Dan's speedy return. A few

minutes after he had seen Victor go back to his office, Trevaskis followed him, to make a certain statement

regarding the search of the cave room. As soon as he entered Victor rose, saying:

'I was just coming to see you, captain. I want to get away to town for a few days.'

'Oh, that will suit me famously. I can then start by the afternoon coach on Friday, and pay the men when I

'Not more than four or five days?' repeated the manager, in the same mechanical voice in which he had first

It would be impossible to disentangle the chaos of thoughts that darted through his mind. But clear above all

else rose the conviction: 'He is now sure about the treasure; he is going to secure police assistance.' Trevaskis

struggled to act on the belief. It seemed as if he spent several moments in trying to utter the words: 'oYou

better come down into the cave room this morning and have a look round. The halfsearch I made last night

But every instinct of his nature rose up in revolt against this surrender. Each faculty of his mind became

centred in one supreme effort to gain time. To have so much wealth in his possessionthe end and aim of

his dearest ambitions, the object of his most jealous passionsand pto give it all up! No, no! not so long as

'I suppose I could put off paying the men till I returned on Tuesday or Wednesday?' said Victor, looking a

'Certainly, that will be all right; I came in to say that, owing to the arrears of work caused by my sore eyes, I

The manager looked at him narrowly. Then, sinking his voice and speaking in a semiconfidential tone, he

'The fact is that, judging from a cursory examination, I am under the impression that Dunning's effects were

tampered with after his death. It will be therefore better that we should act conjointly in this matter.'

'But the keys were in Searle's possession till he delivered them to you,' said Victor quickly.

'Exactly, and therefore I am going to write a note to him asking a few leading questions,' answered Trevaskis

coldly as he walked away. When he reached the door he turned as if struck by an afterthought.

'It will be about the eighth of December when you get away. You have spoken about leaving the mine at

Christmastime. Do you think of making any arrangement about resigning when you are in town?'

Victor hesitated before replying. He could not explain that his movements depended on the course of events

at Stonehouse, nor did he think it advisable to say that he knew of a suitable candidate ready to apply for the

pursership as soon as it was vacant. His friend Maurice Cumming had recently bespoken Victor's interest in

the matter, finding that a little extra ready money for a year to come would materially aid himself and his

brother in their strenuous fight at Wynans against the rabbits. Victor by this time knew enough of the

manager's jealous and suspicious temperament to feel sure that to speak of his friend's appointment as a

foregone conclusion would be an impolitic measure. He therefore compromised the matter by saying:

'I don't think I shall decide about the date of my leaving till later on. I believe we shall find no difficulty in

Of course, the halfembarrassed pause and the cautious reply could bear but one interpretation to Trevaskis.

'I knew itI knew it! He is going to try and snare me like a rat in a hole!' he muttered to himself as he strode

He hurried into his office, fearful of betraying the passion of impotent rage which he felt threatened to carry

him beyond all bounds. As soon as he had gained his own room he broke into a volley of the most horrible

His first coherent thought was one of terror. 'I am going madI am going mad!' he said to himself

repeatedly, staring at his face in a small square lookingglass that hung above the washstand in his bedroom.

His wild, distorted eyes; his livid skin; the great cold drops of perspiration that stood on his forehead; the

tremor which at short intervals shook him from head to foot, were all repetitions of the paroxysm that had

He tried to reason, but thought failed him. He lost all grasp of the subject or the plan that struggled through

his mind. One after the other, terrible pictures rose before him, irrespective of mental volition. He followed

one man who crept with treacherous footsteps to commit murder; he saw another suddenly stricken down

When he grew calmer, he reasoned with himself that it was not incipient madness that had attacked him, but

the result of constantly dwelling on exciting thoughts; of utter sleeplessness for three days and two nights; the

want of proper food; a dangerous use of stimulants; and, to crown the whole, this sudden overwhelming terror

that all would be in vainthat FitzGibbon had acquired a certain knowledge of the stolen gold, and was

dogging rall his actions. Probably he had last night bribed the engineer to tamper with the panshaft, so as to

Now he was going to the directors with his tale; of what use would it be to try and hide so great a quantity? A

black tracker, or even an ordinary detective, would trace it like a beaten highway. He must think of some

plansomething that would give him time, that would save him. But the moment that he tried to think or

frame a plan, a throbbing came in the back of his head, like the rapid echoes of a hammer beating

He took one of his accustomed rounds, seeing to all that was being done; he gave some directions to the

shiftbosses who would be in charge of the nightgangs underground. Then he summoned Mick, and told

him to let no one knock at his office door, or disturb him in any way; he was feeling ill, and was going to

have a good sleep. He undressed and went to bed at four o'clock in the afternoon. But the room seemed full of

sounds; sudden cries, strange voices and violent shouts rent the air. He drank glass after glass of almost

undiluted brandy; but instead of serving as a soporific, this for a time made him more acutely conscious of

the ruin that stared him in the face, while his power of connected thought had absolutely deserted him. At last

he fell into a deep dreamless stupor, from which he did not awaken till near sunrise the next morning.

His head was aching, but the long rest and unconsciousness had in a measure restored his mental balance. He

brewed himself a pot of tea, and drank cup after cup, hot and strong, till his headache was almost gone. But

the moment his anxieties and fears and surmises returned upon him, he felt that dull, persistent, allabsorbing

beat in his brainthat vague wandering of mind; his train of thought lost suddenly, as if in an unsounded

deepwhich had before terrified him. He went about the business of the mine all that morning, resolutely

turning his mind away from the torturing and distracting thoughts of the cave room. He reflected that the

cleaningup on Thursday would yield the largest average to the ton of quartz which had ever been reported at

the Colmar. There had been a steady and continuous increase of gold since he came, while at the same time

the working expenses of the mine had been, by his unrelaxing vigilance in every department, considerably

Nor had any of these points escaped recognition by the directors. Within the last month they had given him a

considerable rise in his salary, at the same time complimenting him highly on the unprecedented success

which had marked his tenure of management, and expressing a hope that he would see his way to enter on a

fixed term of office. This Trevaskis had so far refrained from doing, on the ground that circumstances might

Thinking over these things as he went through the routine of his mine work on Tuesday forenoon, Trevaskis

reflected that though Drummond might lend a willing ear to his nephew's tales, the directors as a body would

be very loath to take any action that would reflect on a manager who had in less than three months made his

value felt in so marked a manner. . . . If he could only by some means fasten a quarrel upon FitzGibbon

apart from the matter of the cave roomsome stigma of carelessness, of neglect of duty!

It would be so readily believed that a young man of independent means, who came to the mine for a mere

freak, and who could leave it at any moment without the least detriment to his prospects, should fail in some

respects to work like a man whose daily bread depended on his daily work. . . . But as Trevaskis reviewed the

manner in which Victor discharged his duties, he failed to recall any instance of negligence more serious than

forgetting to lock the officedoor on one or two occasions when he left sit for the night.

Arrived at this point tin his cogitations, Trevaskis suddenly stood motionless. He was in the panroom, where

the loosened wheel was giving some trouble. But he had decided not to have it touched till Thursday, so that

the yield of gold should not be impaired by any stoppage. The din around him seemed all at once to sharpen

his faculties, so that he saw, as in a completed picture, the scheme after which he had been vainly groping. He

Towards sunset he saddled his horse and rode across to his claim near the brokendown whim, so as to get

his scheme all clear and straight before him. This was the plan he formed; on Thursday, after he and

FitzGibbon had cleaned up the gold and locked it in the safe as usual, he would hand his key to the purser

and ask him to keep it till Friday morning, as he was going across to Broombush Creek and would most

likely stay there that night. He had done this three weeks ago, so there would be nothing unusual in either

action; the unusual part would come later on. He would return shortly after midnight, get the duplicate keys

which he had found in Dunning's private box, go into the purser's office through the inside entrance, and take

In the morning, when Victor gave him back the key, he would, as was customary under such circumstances,

have the safe unlocked, so as to make sure that all was right. The safe would be empty! A hue and cry would

be raised. His first duty as manager would be to send an official telegram to the directors. The police trooper

would at once begin to search round; so would heTrevaskis; and that night he would discover the gold

where the thief had secreted it. Then FitzGibbon would no doubt go on to town as he proposed. He might,

perhaps, be confident that the keys had not been out of his possession; but there the facts would be public and

patent to all. The same train that conveyed FitzGibbon to town would carry a letter to the directors from the

minemanager, declining to act any longer with a purser whose negligence had so nearly cast an irretrievable

slur on them both. He would point out that if the thief had succeeded in carrying off the gold as easily as he

had obtained possession of the keys and rifled the safe, the consequences to him as a poor man, with a wife

and ufamily dependent on his sole exertions for a livelihood, would have been serious in the extreme. Any

insinuations made against him by FitzGibbon would then bear a very suspicious aspect. If he went to the

trouble of stirring up an inquiry as to the cave room, he would take up the position that he had special reasons

for not caring to interfere with Dunning's effects till his legal representative was on the spot. By the time that

a week or two was consumed, the treasure would be secured in a way that would leave no possibility of

Trevaskis laughed aloud in his glee as he saw himself at last vtriumphant over all dangers and obstacles. He

went over the whole scheme time after time, strengthening lame places and elaborating little details, during

his ride to and from his quartz claim. He worked that night in the cave room again for several hours, after

During the next two days his demeanour to Victor was more friendly than usual. He was most of the time

slightly under the influence of drink. He tried to refrain, feeling that in his excited state wstimulant was

dangerous. But the tension of his nerves, the fits of miserable uncertainty which assailed him, the almost total

lack of appetite, and the loss of sleep, made it impossible for him to bear up without a liberal recourse to the

old Bordeaux brandy of which he had a case in his office. Nor had he any dread that the habit to which he

yielded at this pinch would take a mischievous hold of him. He regarded his drams as a sort of medicine that

'I am going over to Broombush Creek, to see one of the managers there. I'll most likely stay the night, and

perhaps have a little turkeyshooting8 on the way back. I'd better leave my key in your charge,' said

Trevaskis, as he was leaving the office, after the two bars of gold were locked up.

A celebrated Greek philosopher was of opinion that women were only created when Nature found that the

imperfection of matter did not permit her to carry on the world without them.1 It is possible that some might

demur to this; but most of us would be ready to admit that letters are written chiefly because of the imperfect

development of our senses. And yet there are certain communications which one might prefer to make in a

Of this kind was the announcement that Victor had to make to Miss Paget. He had put away the thought of

their actual meeting as often as it had arisen; but now that he was to set out on the morrow, and the hour was

drawing so near in which his story must be told, its awkwardness came home to him more and more.

He reflected how very frequently he had found Mrs. Tillotson installed with Helen for the afternoon or

evening, how often she was summoned by her father into the library, and, still more embarrassing, he thought

how very foolish he would feel when it gradually dawned on Miss Paget that he had come, not to woo,2 but

to make a confession and ride away. Yes, on the whole, it would be better to write a little noteone which,

without going into tedious details, would put Helen en rapport with his position. This he would leave at

Lancaster House personally as soon as he reached town, leaving a message that he should call an hour later.

He had almost succeeded in persuading himself that his mother's suggestion was truethat Miss Paget had

fixed a term of probation not so much to test his fidelity as to let him down gently without too abrupt a

refusal. But as he sat at his desk to write his little preparatory letter after Trevaskis had left the office, certain

He wanted to find words that would put the matter adroitly and delicately, but all the finer nuances of

expression seemed to escape from his pen. After writing half a sheet he stared at it discontentedly, and then

sat resting his head on his hand. The day had been sultry and airless. He had been at work from five in the

morning, and it was now nearly seven. The pen slipped from his hand. He did not fall asleep, but he went off

A look of beatitude overspread his face. Suddenly he was startled by the sound of a dull loud report, speedily

followed by a second and a third. He thrust his unfinished letter into the drawer of his desk and went to the

outer door of the assayroom. Roby stood talking to the mine blacksmith a few paces away.

'Ah, Mr. Purser, in the midst o' life we are in death!'4 answered Roby, with the strong nasal accent habitual to

him when giving expression to any serious sentiment. Then he explained that one of the Connell children had

died of fever that morning. The father and another miner were now employed in blasting out a grave in the

little cemetery, which was within half a mile of the mine, where the ground was so adamantine that it could

not be dug out in athe ordinary way. Victor had recognised the sounds, having heard them on a few occasions

previously. This process of forcing a last restingplace from the blue clay slate rock had always seemed to

him a rather horrible preface to being buried. Just then, when he was lost in blissful waking dreams, the

thought of death struck a sudden chill to his heart. He was turning impatiently away from Roby, who seemed

inclined to improve the occasion, when Michael reached the door of the assayroom with a message for the

purser. It was to the effect that Circus Bill's trap with passengers from Broombush Creek was going to start at

'I thoht, as ye were going, sor, tomorrow, ye moight loike to start early, so as to save the waiting at

Nilpeena. 'Tis a sthrange droiver, Circus himself being laid up at Broombush wid a touch av sunsthroke. It's

glad oi am he washn't tuk wid the same on the way from Nilpeena, for the sake av the lady that come to

'Has a lady come to Stonehouse?' asked Victor. 'At what time? Have you heard who she is?'

Michael, who spoke of the new arrival solely because he divined that anything which related to Stonehouse

was of passing importance to the young purser, was not surprised to find the eager interest with which he

received the news. He, however, knew nothing beyond the fact that a lady had arrived by Circus Bill's trap

half an hour before the mailcoach came in. As soon as Victor had despatched the little man to ask the driver

to secure a seat in the early trap, he went across to Stonehouse. When he reached the house he found an air of

unusual bustle pervading it. ShungLoo was flitting about the place with as near an approach to a smile as his

face ever wore. Bridget was hurrying in and out between the kitchen and diningroom; Euphemia had a large

basket of flowers in the veranda, which she was arranging in vases on the little wicker table. When Victor

joined her she had a great deal to tell him. Her aunt, Mrs. Murray, had come from Ouranie, Doris's old home.

She had all at once made up her mind when she found that Mr. Challoner's illness was likely to be a lingering

'She has come to stay and help bto nurse father, and see that mother gets plenty of sleep, and that Doris does

'But there is nothing wrong with her. She was well this morning,' interrupted Victor anxiously.

'Oh yes; she isn't ill, you know,' answered Euphemia placidly. 'But she went to see Mamie5 Connellthat

little girl who has been so illand found she had died. Then aunt came and brought a lot of things from

Ouranie. . . . Doris is in her own room now, reading over and over a little dold book that belonged to her

mother. You can always tell when she thinks of her mother . . . she sits so still and her eyes get so large and

A summons to dinner put an end to Euphemia's confidences. As the patient had fallen into a sound sleep, all

the household assembled at this meal. Victor was duly introduced to the newcomera bright, active little

woman, who treated her journey of over two hundred miles to the Saltbush Country as if it were an

'You all look as if you needed twelve hours' sleep on end,' she said, glancing at her sister and the two girls. 'I

But there was a general outcry against this. One who had come off a long fatiguing journey could not be

'It is you who must go to bed soon after dinner, auntie, and in my little room,' said Euphemia.

But Doris objected to this proposition. Her room was much larger; besides, there was a couch in eit on which

'I know it is not fin human nature to sleep in three rooms at once; but as my room will be empty, I think it

He went on to explain that as he intended to start by Circus Bill's trap, which was going to Nilpeena in the

small hours of the morning, it would be more convenient for him to sleep on the bunk in his office, where he

would be nearer Scroog's place, from which the trap started. As Victor made this announcement he met

Doris's eyes with a half inquiring, wistful little look in them, which made him thrill with pleasure.

'Tell me, Doris, are you sorry I am going away for a few days?' he asked a little later, with all the egotism of a

They had adjourned to the drawingroom, where Mrs. Murray, instead of taking it easy, as behoved a

wearied traveller, began to write a long letter to her husband. Mrs. Challoner had returned to the sick room,

and Euphemia was engaged in rifling the numerous vases she had recently filled of some of the white flowers

'Yes. I am a little sad even when you go away to the mine in the morning. I always look after you, though you

'Oh, you perfect little darling!' murmured the young man in a voice made tremulous with joy.

'How strange it would be,' continued Doris, 'if one of us two died like that little'

'Oh, don't, Dorisdon't speak or think of anything so dreadful!' said Victor, in an imploring voice.

'But, Victor, you must think of it one day. Even if we lived here a hundred years, what a tiny speck of time it

is gcompared to the thousands and thousands that have come and gone! Everything and everyone goes away

after a little time. That is why I try so often to think what the other world can be like.'

'But, my own Doris, is not this world enough for you just now? Why think of any other?'

'I must think of another, because hmamma is no longer here,' she answered, fixing her ieyes, wide opened, on

his face. Then, after a little pause: 'Did you ever lose anyone that you loved very much?'

'Ah, that is the reason that you like to think only of this life. If you had lost anyone that you loved as I jloved

mother, you could not help trying to imagine day by day where she is, kwhat she is doing or saying. You

could not help feeling oftentimes that she still thinks about you. Oh, how much I lwould like to know whether

the flowers that she loved so much grow there, and whether "the river of water of life, clear as crystal,

proceeding out of the throne of God,"6 looks to her like the waters of Gauwari! Perhaps you do not like me to

'Oh yes, Doris. OnlyI know I am a selfish wretchI would rather that thoughts of me pushed nearly all

'So they often doall but mother. And today, more than ever, I keep thinking of her all the time. First,

when I went down to see little Mamie Connell, and found that she had gone away in the night'

'Yes; that is what really happens, you know, when people die. The mother was crying in a loud way. I don't

know why, but it made me feel almost unkind to her, when she made such a noise. She kept on sobbing

because there was no priest. As if that could matter, when the poor dear child went home to God!'

'Oh, you little Protestant! You must know that I am of Mrs. Connell's way of thinking. If I were dying I

should be very uncomfortable if there were no priest to look after me. Not that there need be the same fear for

'Dearie, I would rather not say. I am awfully weak in theology. Besides, I want to hear you talk. I want to

'When I saw Mamie she made me think so much of darling mother. I felt as if I wanted to go to her that

'Not just then; I could only think of mother. As I stood at the door of Mrs. Connell's house, telling her I would

bring some of the flowers that Mamie used to like so much, a trap passed by quickly, with a lady on the front

seat. I thought she looked very much like Mrs. Murray, only I couldn't be sure. Then when I reached home

here she was. She brought a boxful of things from Ouranie: some of the early fruits; flowers from the garden,

and grasses from the banks of the lake; pictures and books. One of them is full of little old French rhymes

'Oh yes; I shall never forget them. They are old berceuses with words strung together that have a sleepy

' "Som, som, som, b ni, b ni, b ni, b ni, B ni md'endacon, Som, som, b ni nd'endacon." '7

'That sounds very dreamy and wise,' said Victor. 'Perhaps I should not ask what "Som, som, som," means.'

'It is like asking sleep to come. They are not all nonsensewords; they are chants to make you happy and

good. "Come, Sleep," say some of them, "and keep the child safe and quiet. Mother has to work, and father

has to go into the woods." Often these little chansons8 come to me when I am asleep, just as mother used to

sing them. Sometimes the little "Som, soms" promise to give a good child towns and villageseven

' "Sleep, sleep, gentle bird of the plain; take thy repose, redbreast, take thy repose; God will awake thee in

His good time. Sleep is at the door, and says: 'Is there not here a little infanta little infant sleeping in its

cradlea little infant swaddleda little infant reposing on a blanket of wool?' Here" '

'Doris, do you think there will be enough to make this cross for Mrs. Connell?' said Euphemia, approaching

the two with a basketful of white flowers, chiefly moss roses, marguerites, and jasmine.

'Yesmore than enough, I think,' answered Doris; 'only I hardly know how to make it. Mrs. Connell said she

would like the flowers made into a cross,' she said, turning to Victor, who sat looking at Euphemia,

On hearing Doris's explanation he, of course, volunteered his help. He went out into Mr. Challoner's

workshop, and soon returned with a cross formed by nailing together two small flat boards, fashioned

according to the proportions of a small gold cross which he had on his watchchain. He watched Doris

covering this artless wooden cross with flowers, fastening them by the stems with a narrow white ribbon,

'Sing me another little "Som, som," ' said Victor, after some moments, half resenting Doris's absorption in

' "Dedans le bois, dedans le bois, Savezvous ce qu'il y a? Il y a un arbre Le plus beau des arbres; L'arbre est

At last Victor was forced to go and pack his portmanteau. When he returned to say goodbye Mrs. Murray's

letter was finished and she sat talking with the two girls. Doris had completed her last offering to the little

one who had 'gone away' so early that morning. It lay on the table, the great symbol of renunciation, wreathed

with soft snowwhite blooms. Doris held it up for Victor to see; but he hardly looked at ithis eyes were

There was no further opportunity for speaking to her alone; but as he bade her goodbye, she held out both

hands to him, her face irradiated with an expression of confiding love, which made him feel that it was worth

It was after ten when he reached his office. He had to write up some entries in the cashbook. He began to

nod over this, and it was with difficulty he kept himself awake till the work was finished. At last the books

were put away, and merely removing his coat, waistcoat, and boots, Victor threw himself on the bunk with a

But just as he was falling asleep, he recollected that he had the manager's key, and that he would be gone

hours before Trevaskis returned. With an effort he roused himself to consider how he should leave it in a

place of safety. He relit the lamp, put the safekey in an official envelope addressed to Trevaskis, locking it

in the righthand drawer of the table at which he habitually sat. Then he wrote a memo. to say that he was

taking advantage of Circus Bill's trap going so early, so as to save waiting at Nilpeena; that he had locked the

safekey in the drawer, and that the key thereof was enclosed in this memo. He took both to the manager's

office, going to it through the intermediate storerooms. He took his bunch of officekeys with him,

expecting that he should have to unlock at least two of the three doors which intervened between his own and

the manager's office; but they were all unlocked, and feeling sure that Trevaskis must have left them thus for

This excursion wakened him up so thoroughly that it was close upon twelve when he dozed off again. Before

he could be said to have fallen asleep he was roused by some movement; but he was so loath to get up the

second time that he did not move till he distinctly heard the sound of a key being thrust into the lock of the

Trevaskis returned to the mine at a quarter to twelve, after drinking heavily at the leading hotel at Broombush

Creek. He had abstained from all stimulant during the day, and meant to keep absolutely cool and sober till

this crucial affair of temporary theft was done with; but the fatigue and aheat of the day, combined with his

inability to eat, and the tense excitement under which he laboured, combined to break down his resolution. So

far, however, from feeling incapacitated for carrying out his plans, it seemed to him that the fillip which

brandy gave his spirits and imagination formed an additional element of success.

He put his horse in the stable, and then went into his rooms by the outer door of his office. He had, in the

course of the afternoon, come through the intermediate rooms from Victor's, leaving the doors unlocked, so

that he might pass through in the dark without a light. After much consideration, he had decided to hide the

gold in the safe in his own room. It would be the safest plan. Then, as soon as darkness fell, on the

succeeding night, he would go out with the gold, and come down the face of the reef with it, nearly opposite

the engineroom, triumphantly displaying the two bars, as he had recovered them, wrapped round with a

piece of stained cloth, where they had, no doubt, been hidden by the thief, under some stones, till he should

It was these afterdetails that occupied his mind as he reached the safe with the pair of duplicate keys. He

was so sure of his ground that he could manage all without lighting even a match. He knew that there were

always some of the miners who lingered at the inn till after midnight, and who, on returning, would

sometimes stroll to the enginehouse. If they saw a light at so unusual an hour in the purser's office, they

would as likely come as not, in their idle irresponsible way, to see what 'was up.' He shot back both bolts, and

was in the act of taking up the first bar of gold, when he thought he heard footsteps at the door. He had not

time to withdraw his bhead from the safe, when a strong grip on his arm for a moment paralyzed him, and a

In a moment he had recovered from his stupefaction. With the fury of a beast of prey suddenly attacked, he

closed in the darkness with the man, whose grasp warned him that he was not one who could be lightly

shaken off. Backing out from the safe, and without uttering a word, he threw both arms round his antagonist

like a vice, and flung him fiercely round. As he did this, the man's head came against the edge of the iron safe

with a horrible dull thud. At once his hold relaxed. He gave one low shuddering moan, and Trevaskis felt him

in his arms a limp, inanimate burden. He slowly released him, letting him slide to the ground without

allowing him to fall heavily. He lay there without a movement, or even the sound of breathing. And then an

Trevaskis was incapable of coherent thought. His first instinct was to recover the keys and make off; but he

had dropped a bar of gold. It was under the man's motionless form. As he groped about, he came on a fine

cambric handkerchiefone that had a suspicion of the breath of violets on it. Then, with a cold, trembling

hand, he touched the man's face. The cheeks were smooth; on the upper lip there was a slight silken

moustache. A suspicion of the truth flashed on him. He remembered that a lamp usually stood on the

windowsill; he groped for it, and lit it after he had ineffectually struck two or three matches. He could never

recollect the first instant in which the prostrate man's face became visible to him. After what seemed long

moments, he found himself with a heart that throbbed to bursting, his eyes riveted on FitzGibbon, who lay

as he fell, without sound or motion. And, as he looked, the words came to him like the hiss of a serpent:

'Byandby you get over that, and you go on and on till' Now the blank was filled. Trembling in every

'My God! I have killed him! I have killed him! I have killed him!' He murmured the words over and over

For some moments the power of thought was suspended. He tried in a stupefied mechanical way to recollect

what he had proposed to do. But here, even if his memory had been clear and active, it would have afforded

him little assistance. It was all the work of less than three minutes; but in that infinitesimal space of time he

found himself in the grim clutches of a deed wholly at variance with the purpose which had called it into

It is this tragic, unlookedfor evolution of events that, all through man's history, makes him so largely the

puppet of forces with which he may gamble, but which he can never wholly control. Nearly all the criminals

who become such through accident, rather than temperament, owe their first plunge into lawlessness to the

'No, no; he doesn't move nor breathe; he is deadhe is deadhe is dead!' moaned Trevaskis under his

breath, his eyes fixed on the livid bruise above Victor's right temple. He felt for a pulse in vain; he held the

glass of his watch against the parted lips; he placed his dhands above the heart; but he found no symptom of

life. Trevaskis rose up, elooking wildly around. His brain, which had been demoralized for so many days by

fiery stimulant, by ceaseless excitement, without proper rest or nourishment, had at this crisis lost all power

Twice he essayed to blow out the lamp, with a vague purpose of going away, of saddling his horse and riding

back to Broombush; but no, even already he felt himself in the toils. He had kept away from the main track

on his return, so as to avoid anyone he knew, and yet, within two miles of Colmar, he had been accosted in

the starlight by three horsemen, one of them the manager who had dined at the Colmar Arms on the day that

Vansittart made up his story about the fortune he had discovered at a gold mine. The thought of this chance

encounter made him feel as if all effort at concealing his guilt would be abortive. Whichever way he turned

he seemed to see himself beset by unknown risks, from which he could find no ultimate escape.

'I have murdered him! I have murdered him!' he gasped hoarsely, staring at the prostrate body, his face gray

with terror. Presently, with a wild rebellion against the horror of it all, he flung himself down once more by

Victor's motionless form, chafing his hands, uncovering his chest, and raising his head. Then he got some

water, with which he wetted the young man's lips, face, and hands. But there was no tremor of returning

lifeall its pulses seemed to have ceased. Oh God! he was already growing cold and stiff!

As this conviction fastened fupon him, Trevaskis stood once more rooted to the spot. He was overtaken by a

nightmare sort of horror, in which all his consciousness was centred gon one awful thought. He saw, as if in a

series of pictures, the ghastly consequences of this night's work. His arrest, his trial, the witnesses that would

harise on every side, the damning evidence that would be supplied by the contents of the cave room.

'They won't believe I didn't mean to kill him,' he said, uttering the words in a horrified whisper, his parched

lips cleaving to his teeth. 'And yet I didn'tI didn'tso help me God! I had no thought of harming him.'

One or two hot tears trickled down his cheeks. Gradually the very poignancy of his sufferings seemed to

restore his stricken faculties. Part of one of the projects that had floated ihastily through his brain, when

rendered desperate by the thought of seeing the cave room searched, now came back to him. He hurried

through the storerooms to his office, and opened the door leading into the iron passage. Then he put a

At first it seemed as if he were wholly unequal to the task. But as he thought of all that lay at stake, the blood

leapt in his veins with those throbs that chronicle moments during which physical impossibilities disappear.

He lifted Victor in his arms, and, without once pausing on the way, carried him through the offices and the

iron passage into the cave room. On reaching it he placed the inanimate form on the bunk near the entrance.

As soon as he had done this, he hurried back into one of the stores in which a small quantity of dynamite was

kept. He took five plugs and a cartridge, with the necessary wire to explode the charge, from a

magnetoelectric1 battery in his own office. Then he took the lamp back to the purser's office, intending to

extinguish it and leave it there. But he dared not. A sudden unreasoning, overwhelming horror came over

him, that, if he went back in the dark, the face of the dead would stare at him from every side. Even at that

moment, with the light full in his eyes, a conviction seized him that close behind, just over his shoulder if he

looked, he would see a sight that would freeze his blood with terror. He leant across the desk at which Victor

'O God! O God! is this to be my life after this? Wherever I go, wherever I am, whatever I do, is this thing to

be with menever to leave me? And I was warned, I was warned, but I would go on my way! But, oh, God

in heaven! though no one else would believe it, you know I did not mean to kill him, nor to lay a finger on

him.' Tears coursed down his cheeks as he spoke, half in prayer, half in exculpation. No, he had not meant it;

surely that would take away the guilt of the deed. This little outburst seemed to lessen the pressure on his

Yet, as he went back, he peered with wild eyes from side to side. When he reached the cave room he put the

lamp on the little deal table, taking care not to let his eyes wander towards the bunk on which Victor was

Trevaskis' plan was to let this charge off, so that it might appear Victor's death was due to the discharge while

engaged in searching the place prior to his going to town. There would be the letter which he, the manager,

had received on the subject less than a week ago, to bear witness to FitzGibbon's wish to overhaul the cave

room. Everyone that knew anything of it knew that the place was littered with all sorts of odds and ends. A

few plugs of damaged dynamite accidentally ignited would be the supposed cause of jexplosion, and kof the

young man's death. But before firing the charge he would remove the smelted gold. He had hidden the bars

As he was about to uncover them his gaze involuntarily rested on Victor. The next instant he was kneeling

beside him with a low cry. If his eyes had not deluded him there was a slight tremor of the eyelids. Now, as

he felt the pulses afresh, he thought he could detect a faint, uncertain beat. When he put his hand over the

Like most men who have lived much in the bush with workmen under them, Trevaskis had picked up some

rough knowledge of surgery. Now that the first overmastering terror and excitement had passed away, leaving

him comparatively sober, he noted symptoms in Victor's condition that pointed to concussion of the brain.

The inflexibility of the limbs, the coldness of the body, the all but imperceptible pulse and breath,2 he had

noted these before in such cases. But as he recollected this, he also recalled how, in the two worst instances

lof concussion of the brain that had come under his notice, the patients had, after lingering some days, died

With this thought arose the question as to what should be done with him under these altered circumstances.

Should he take him back to the office and leave him till he was found lying there? No one would have any

clue as to the way the accident happened. Only, if he died, would not a chain of evidence be somehow forged

that would incriminate the real culprit? At this thought Trevaskis stood for a moment irresolute. At last he

determined to take Victor back and leave him on the floor in the office, with his head slightly raised.

But when he attempted to carry him, as he had done before, he found himself quite unequal to the task. The

stimulus of extreme terror was gone. The reaction had set in. The varying emotions he had passed through

had dissipated his strength. He went to his room to fortify himself with a dose of brandy. All the time he was

torn in two directions, whether to hide Victor in the cave room and tend him till he found whether he died or

recovered, or take him back and allow him to be discovered in his unconscious state on the morrow in the

He lit a candle in his room and helped himself to some brandy and water. As he was in the act of drinking

this, he noticed Victor's note on the table, with the key of his drawer. He had barely taken in the fact that the

young man's presence in the office was due to his intention to start by Circus Bill's trap at four in the

morning, when he heard a mcontinuous knocking at his office door. He instantly blew out the light and

waited in silence, to find whether he was the victim of the insane fears that in so short a time had taken fast

hold of him. But no, the knocking after a short intermission was renewed. He went to the office window and

'Be 'ee there, Bill?' said a voice which he recognised as his brother's. He went out to him at once, finding a

strange relief in the prospect of friendly companionship. At first he heard his brother's voice as if from a great

ndistance. Dan Trevaskis was in dire trouble, and, all unconscious of the wild dismay in which he found his

brother, he began to relate his tale. On the journey from Melbourne he had met his boy Dick on the way

theretoran against him accidentally at one of the stations at which both trains called. He was looking

miserably ill, and on being questioned he confessed to his father that he had embezzled some money, that he

had left the Bank on ten days' leave of absence, and meant to run away somewhere. His father had brought

him back with ohim; had walked with him from Yarranalla, twelve miles further off than Nilpeena. They had

'I want to hide 'e, Bill. The lad can stay by me at that claim where I'm to work alone. Why, what 'ud be the

good of 'e trying to run away? I'll make the money good to the Bank; but I can't abear to let 'em 'ave the boy

''E's prestin' a bit away from here. . . . I didn't like to bring 'e up, in case anyone might be about with q'ee.'

Gradually, as Trevaskis listened to his brother, a scheme unfolded itself, vague at first, but gathering

In this youth fleeing from justice, and in his father eager above all things to screen him from the reach of the

law, he might find the very instruments needed to free him from the horrible dilemma in which he found

himself. To send this youth away under the name of Victor FitzGibbon would afford him all the rmeans

necessary to secure the treasure and to see whether Victor recovered. If he did, he could be drugged, and left

in the wastes around somewhere till he was discovered. Others might be suspected, and others might suffer,

but at any rate this great crisis could be tided over. Only, till the boy was safely despatched, secrecy would be

necessary as to that stricken life now hidden underground. If the worst came to the worstif he died, he

could get rid of the remains in a way that would absolutely defy detection. There was the limestone kiln3 all

this week and the next, and at any time that the manager would choose to set it going, ready to calcine any

A short time before Trevaskis left town, he had seen a play in which a murderera man who had designedly

'This is what people mean when they say the stage has such good moral effects,' he thought; 'it helps them to

scheme how to get away from a coil of suspicions. No one would believe that I hadn't killed FitzGibbon

because he was on the track of the hidden gold. But I didn't; it was all accidental. Now here's the way to get

'What do you think, Bill? Can't I keep him with myself all unbeknownst to anyone else?' said Dan, in an

'No, Dan, you can't; the thing has been tried over and over again, and always comes to grief,' answered

Trevaskis coldly. And then, in the pause that ensued, he keenly noted the despair of the unhappy man, who

was ready to embrace any scheme to save his boy from the shame and open disgrace that threatened him.

'There's only one plan that I can see to save him,' said Trevaskis in a moody, yet half indifferent tone.

There was silence for a moment or two, and then Trevaskis answered, in the tones of one who is not

'There is a young swell here who wants for some sreason of his own to be quit of his friends for a time

without leaving the country. There is a woolship5 leaving Port Pellew the day after tomorrow. If anyone

'Oh, Bill! Bill! would 'e let my boy go?but tell me, has this young swell done nothing 'isself?' cried Dan

'Nothing in the world, in the way you mean,' answered Trevaskis, still maintaining the cold aspect of a man

'I believe he would, and pay his way,' answered Trevaskis, turning to fumble for his pipe and tobaccopouch.

He smoked as a rule only at night, and kept these on the mantelpiece of his office. He had lit only a candle,

and he felt somehow safer to be away from his brother's observation while he threw out these baits as if they

'Then, Bill, for God's sake let my boy go for him!' cried Dan, standing up and placing his hand on Trevaskis'

'Go and call him in,' said Trevaskis curtly. Dan at once hurried outside. Then Trevaskis unlocked the iron safe

in his office and took out a little leathern bag which held a hundred sovereigns. He had thought it safer to

keep some gold coin by him, and now his forecasts were strangely confirmed. He was fast approaching the

old selfcomplacent standpoint, in which his 'luck' appeared to him as a definite valuable possession, to be

calculated and acted upon. With this bag of sovereigns in his tpocket he went with a lighted candle into the

purser's office. There was Victor's Gladstone bag all ready packed, with his ulster and travelling cap on a

chair by the sofa on which he had thrown himself down under his travelling rug. He unlocked the drawer of

the desk at which Victor habitually worked, and found the large envelope enclosing the safe key addressed in

The envelope had been so hurriedly closed that by slipping in the point of his penknife the paper yielded

Trevaskis reflected that someone might call by arrangement to waken the purser before four. He therefore

threw the window wide open, poured water into the washhand basin, which stood in an uiron frame near it,

washed his hands, and threw the wetted towel carelessly on the edge of the stand, and then flung various

articles about on the bunk, giving the place that air of disorder which a room wears when one leaves it

hurriedly. Then he gathered up Victor's effects and took them to his own room. There the father and son

'I'm going to help you out of this mess you've got into, Dick, but mind, you have to keep your wits about you.

You'll get out of the train at Oswald township, and change into the one for Port Pellew at midday. You'll get

into the Port at seven in the evening, and put up at the Kangaroo Inn. It's about the middle of the township,

facing the jetty, and the nearest inn to the station. Here's a notebook and pencil; just enter these directions. .

. . Yeswellthere are two woolships advertised to sail on Saturday, early in the day. Go by the first one

that sails. Now, mark me, your line is to leave evidence which will lead people to believe you are one Victor

FitzGibbon, but you are not to go in his name. Dan, what name had this unfortunate boy better go under? W.

T. had better be the initials, because he'll have to take a stock of my things. William Thompsonthat will

'And 'ow's 'e to give out that 'e's FitzGibbon, Bill? Is 'e to make any statement?' said Dan, who was

'Nothing of the sort,' answered Trevaskis. 'In the first place, he's to post me this letter the first thing.' He

produced the envelope Victor had addressed, and into it he put two or three folded official documents that he

took off his own tablepapers of the kind that might have been casually in the purser's possession.

'See, I'll put a stamp on it, and it will be all ready for posting, and mind you post it the very first thing before

you go to the inn. Then, in your bedroom, be careful to forget this little packetlook, there are three letters,

all addressed "Victor FitzGibbon, Colmar Mine, Colmar," as well as a couple of his visitingcards. Go into

your room the last thing before starting, and put these into a drawer in the toilettable or some such place.

Your name won't appear at all; they don't treat these ships like passenger vessels. You'll pay the captain for

your passage. You'll go first class, and directly you land in London go to the postoffice; there will be letters

awaiting you there, and I'll make arrangements with a friend in the City to give you some work in an office

till we can see our way to your coming back. Here's a hundred sovereigns for you.'

Trevaskis, as he spoke, emptied the little leathern bag on the table, and the money fell in a glittering shower.

'Oh, uncle, that is too much! You are too good to me,' said Dick, penetrated with the thought of his kinsman's

He was a tall, loosejointed youth, with pale eyes and rather a foolish mouth, but there were as yet no vicious

lines in his face, and the sight of his father's silent misery pierced him to the heart.

Trevaskis filled one of his largest portmanteaus with clothes and linen. As the preparations drew to a close,

'Oh, Bill! don't 'ee think if 'ee spoke for my lad to the directors and managers they'd look over this? I'd be

more nor willin' to make up the money. 'Twas only fifty pound, all told,' he said, speaking to Trevaskis in a

'Just enough to get him four years in the stockade,6 and put the stain of a convict on him for life,' answered

Trevaskis, closing the portmanteau with a sharp click. 'As for my speaking to anyone on his behalf, if I was a

wealthy member of Parliament, and all the rest of it, I might do some good; as it is, I vwould only give them

Dan shrank back as if he were struck, and offered no further resistance. At three all was ready.

'You had better walk down with your portmanteau, and wait a little beyond Scroog's inn till the coach starts,'

'Just 'alf a minute for myself and the lad, Bill!' he said in a tremulous voice, and then he stepped outside with

'Dick, my boy, wyou're going far from me. I want to say a few words to you, but I'm whizzy like.'

Dan stopped abruptly. He made an effort to go on, but the words ended in short stifled sobs. There was so

much he would like to have said, now that the moment of parting had come, and he thought bitterly that to

send his son away to the far ends of the earth, with a lie in his mouth as it were, was not a hopeful antidote for

the evil courses into which he had fallen. But probably no form of set words or remonstrances could have

reached the heart and conscience of the lad as did the sound of his father's broken voice.

'I oft to have set you a better ensample, I know,' he went on, when he could make his voice audible.

'Oh, father, don't say that; you've always been too good to me!' cried Dick, his own voice shattered and full of

tears. 'You kept me long at school, and got me a good easy billet, and now xI have given you nothing but

'If you was only a little youngster once more, Dick, and I could keep you! but to be going from me like this, it

Dan looked round, as if with some wild and sudden thought of escape. The silent and desolate saltbush

plains did not seem to him as forbidding as the wide, cruel world beyond, to which his boy was fleeing in

'But if I kep' you they would tear you from me, and make a gaolbird of you. Oh, Dick! will you come to that

'No, father, no! I promise you on my knees!' cried the lad in an agony of remorse and grief, kneeling down

'Say your prayers to me, Dick, as you used to when you was a little chap,' whispered the father.

When they reentered Trevaskis' office it was halfpast three. He had some tea and breadandbutter ready,

and Dick did his best to eat and drink; but it was rather a melancholy failure. The first gleams of daylight

were struggling through the warm dustladen air as he went on his way. Half an hour later the coach started

from Scroog's inn, amid a lusty chorus. Several of the passengers were lucky diggers, who had spent the night

fell on Dan's ears with a mocking hilarity, as he watched the trap whirling away, with Dick wedged in

l. of concussion . . . his notice] that had come under his notice of concussion of the brain Adl E1

It would be hard to say which of the two men who watched Circus Bill's trap disappear in a great cloud of red

'I wish to Gord I 'ad atook 'e back to the boss o' the bank, sooner than let 'e slide alike this,' said Dan slowly,

Trevaskis made no reply. In the calm dawn of bthe day the conviction grew on him that his action in hiding

Victor in the cave room was a plan so dangerous that it could have originated only in an intoxicated brain; but

now the die was cast, and so far chance had favoured him. All the passengers, except Dick, were people from

the diggings, and the driver who had taken Bill's place was a stranger to the mine.

He pondered how and when he should reveal the real situation to Dan. Suppose FitzGibbon should die?

Trevaskis felt the possibility had to be faced, and he decided that in such an event he must have no confidant.

He decided, too, that in any case it would be best to let his brother remain in ignorance till Dick was beyond

'You're low and miserable, Dan, and I don't wonder at it,' he said kindly, putting his hand on his brother's

shoulder. 'Come in, old man, and have a good stiff nobbler or two of brandy, and go to bed. I'll make one up

for you in the room off my office; I've had it cleared out on purpose. But perhaps you'd better not go to bed

for an hour or two. Hang about and show yourself when the night core1 comes up, and the morning one goes

'You're right there, Bill,' answered Dan; 'I'll go across to the inginroom and 'ave a pitch wi' 'Zilla. . . . And,

Bill, do'ee not leave the grog about. . . . Thee know'st 'tis not pors'ble for me to 'ave just one nip, and be ended

. . . and I want to keep feer2 sober and daicent, and say a word or two to the Lord for my boy, night and day.

But Trevaskis had no thought of furthering those good intentions. He prepared a bed for Dan in the empty

room between his own office and the ironmongery store, locking the door that led into the latter. On a box

beside the bed he put a tin of biscuits, a jug of water, a tumbler, and a freshlyopened bottle of brandy. On

the evening of the next day this was empty, and Trevaskis filled it once more with the same liquor. It was late

on Monday before Dan recovered his senses, sick and sorry, and ashamed and miserable, to the last degree.

In these four days Trevaskis felt as if he had lived as many years. During the first day every succeeding hour

seemed to deepen his despairing hopelessness, his impotent rage at his own imbecility. If he had only left

Victor lying senseless with the keys in the safe! But his brain had been paralyzed. At first the plan of making

it appear that Victor had taken ship from Port Pellew had seemed a godsend; now he perceived quicksands on

every side, and felt that each step he took to avoid suspicion and inquiry might eventually become a strong

At the end of fortyeight hours Victor showed signs of returning consciousness. After that, when Trevaskis

attended him, he wore the wig and long gray beard which transformed him into an old man. To ensure

himself still more against recognition, he also wore the smokecoloured sunglasses. On Monday morning,

after giving Victor an egg beaten up with water and sugar, Trevaskis noticed him looking round, and trying to

raise one of his hands. If he were well attended to, he might be himself again in a few days. As this accident

had taken place without any design on his part, might it not be better to leave the young man alone for a day

As Trevaskis pondered the question, he went out through his office door and walked round the mine. 'Stone

dead hath no fellow.'3 The words seemed to resound in his ears, to be hissed at him by everything he passed.

Could hewould he do it? In imagination, he followed himself, on a dark night, with a strange burden to the

edge of the limekiln pit, with its lurid flames leaping high. . . . Was this what he was coming to hour by

'No, no, no! never! never!' he cried, starting back as if from an obstructing barrier. He returned to his office.

On the table lay the mail, as it had been delivered to him untouched. Now, on turning over the papers and

letters, he found two from Port Pellew. One was for Dan. He opened it, and read the following lines:

'Don't be uneasy about me. I'll never, never forget what you and uncle have done for me. I'm sailing by the

Arcadia4 in an hour. I've done everything uncle arranged. Father, I'll never forget my promise to you.

The look of the other envelope, addressed in Victor's bold, careless handwriting, with the Port Pellew

postmark and date, sharp and clear, revived Trevaskis' courage in a wonderful way. He instantly wrote a few

lines to Mr. Drummond, expressing a little surprise that Mr. FitzGibbon had gone to Port Pellew, without

mentioning his change of plan. At least he (Trevaskis) inferred he had gone there, from the receipt of the

enclosed envelope, which merely contained a few official documents. He had entrusted some commissions to

Mr. FitzGibbon, which needed prompt attention, and he would be glad therefore to know whether he had yet

reached town. In order to save time, he was making inquiries at Port Pellew by the same post.

Then he wrote to the landlord of the Kangaroo Inn, asking whether a Mr. Victor FitzGibbon had put up at

He found him murmuring some words over and over. He listened intently, and heard him say:

Helen? Was it, then, possible that the young man's abrupt change of plan was due to some woman, and had

nothing to do with the question of searching for gold? Here Trevaskis saw himself threatened with a hitherto

unsuspected danger. He knew that Victor's mother was on the other side of the world, and that he had no

sister. An uncle's anxiety might be easily satisfied; a brother would in all probability calmly accept the first

version furnished by circumstantial evidence; other friends would smile and suspect the young man had some

good reason for secretly setting off on a long voyage. . . . But a womanone who perhaps loved him? Each

circumstance that served to satisfy others might in her estimation be a ground for added suspicion.

Trevaskis listened again with laboured breath, and a dull, heavy beating in his temples.

After a short time Victor fell fast asleep. Trevaskis, devoured with fresh terrors, went to the purser's office,

with the purpose of searching for some clue to this new complication. In the table drawer he found the letter

'When, at the close of our voyage in the Mogul, I asked that our friendship might have a firmer basis, and you

laughingly suggested that the sea breezes had got into my head, I thought you were laying too much stress on

the difference in our ages; and when, a few days after landing, I asked you to become my wife, I thought you

were a little hardhearted in stipulating for a period of probation, so that the strength of my affection might

be tested. But now I find that you were wise. For though my esteem for you is and always will remain

That was all. The letter broke off abruptly. But after reading this fragment, Trevaskis opened Victor's desk,

and read one by eone the letters which he had received from Miss Paget since coming to the mine. Then the

telegram from King George's Sound5 completed the record. Trevaskis locked the unfinished letter where he

had found it with a lightened mind. If this young lady were harder to satisfy than Victor's other friends, as to

his hurried departure, this halfsheet of writing would probably prove very useful.

It was after sunset when Dan, haggard and miserable, with throbbing temples and confused faculties,

staggered out of the room in which he had been lying most of the time unconscious since Friday afternoon.

Trevaskis met him with a hot, strong cup of what he called 'coffee royal,'6 which Dan took and gulped down

'Thank Gord 'e's got safe away!' he murmured. 'But what's the use o' me taking Gord's name in vain? . . . I'm

'You'll be better after this, Dan,' said Trevaskis, who, now that the moment for making his revelation had

come, felt as if all capacity of emotion had been left far behind. He was conscious only of a cold curiosity as

'Yes, I'll be better,' repeated Dan slowly. Then after a pause, 'If I could only resist the devil. You meant it for

the best, Bill; but I'd give anything I 'adn't 'ad this burst of drink. It's more 'n a year that I didn't give way till I

went back to Bendigo, and now there's all that time to make up. For a few months at a time I don't feel no

satersfaction for keeping from the drink, for I allays says to myself, "You've gone this length before, old boy,

but you was overcome at the end." There's some people as says there ain't no devil but what's in our own

insides. But when a man finds 'isself doin' something as drags him down and down, and makes ghim bad in

Dan was not skilful in dialectics, but probably the most subtle metaphysician could not better define that

tragic contest which is constantly going on in human life, between conscience and appetite, with such varying

'I don't know! Sometimes to forget everything that's ever happened or can come to you is the best you can do,'

'Well, I'm thankful, Bill, that though you've your hups and downs in money, you don't know nothing of that

'Just come with me for a bit,' said Trevaskis, and in silence the two men walked down through the narrow

iron passage till they came to the entrance of the cave room. Here Trevaskis lit a shaded kerosene lamp, and

went to the recess on the righthand side of the room, in which Victor was lying.

When Dan caught sight of the still, stretched form and white face, he gave one of those sudden violent starts

which may often be seen on the stage, and occasionally in real life. As for Trevaskis, he stood holding the

lamp in his right hand, and staring straight before him, till his brother's hoarse, terrorstricken whisper broke

'O Lord in heaven, Bill, what is this? You didn't do it, you didn't! Tell me you didn't strike 'e down, and that 'e

The horror of Dan's voice and face and action gave a curious stimulus to Trevaskis' imagination.

'No, Dan, I didn't do it, not wilfully. I'm as innocent in the matter as the babe unborn: only who would believe

that? I'll tell you how it was in a few words. I found the buried gold I told you about, partly smelted, partly

amalgam. I put it here for safety till you should come and cart it to the brokendown whim. This young man,

who was purser at the mine, must have htaken into his head to come prowling about the night before he was

to go on a journey. It was after midnight on Friday night.8 I was here, stooping over the gold, with only a

candle stuck in a bottlethe one you see broken there. All at once some one rushes at me, catching me round

the throat. I closed with him and flung him down in the dark, for the bottle with the candle was thrown down

before I could turn round. When I lit it again I found it was FitzGibbon, badly hurt.'

'Yes, I found out isomehow FitzGibbon had reasons of his own for clearing out of the colony for a bit,'

answered Trevaskis, plunging deeper into falsifications than he had any intention of doing when he began his

garbled story. 'Then, as I was in the thick of it all, wondering what I was to do, you and Dick came along. . . .

I was stupid to go so far for the sake of your boy; but it was in my head, like the beat of a hammer, how our

name would be all over the country as criminalsyour boy for theft; me for a murderous assault. But it will

be all right yet, Dan; only let us stick by each other like men. I've written to the manager of the bank,

'Don't, Bill, don't call it by that name; it go to my heart, it do,' said Dan, in a smothered voice.

Ultimately he fell in with all his brother's proposals. He consented to nurse Victor until he was sufficiently

recovered to be conveyed by night, and left where he would be speedily found, either near Broombush Creek

or Hooper's Luck. He fed and tended him day and night, sleeping on a shakedown near him. At the end of

five days the drowsy stupor in which Victor lay the greater part of the time began to pass away; he was still

When this improvement took place, Trevaskis thought it advisable to keep his faculties clouded till he should

be strong enough to be moved; he therefore measured doses of laudanum from time to time out of the bottle

he had found among Dunning's effects, and these doses Dan administered, knowing nothing of the nature of

the drug. Its effects were varied. At times Victor became feverish and wildly delirious; at others he lay

completely stupefied. At last Dan's suspicions were aroused. On the tenth night following the Monday on

which he had taken charge, he slept very soundly. It was after six on Friday morning when he awoke; he

found Victor lying awake, and talking at intervals, more calmly than he had done for days back.

'Have you any letters for me?' he asked, as Dan was busy warming some preserved chickenbroth over the

It should be here noted that Trevaskis had telegraphed to one of the grocers in town for a complete store of

invalid requisites, and these had speedily arrived by the mailcoach from Nilpeena.

'I don't think there's any letters today; perhaps we may get some tomorrow. . . . But just now take this mug

He helped Victor into a sitting position, propped him up with some pillows, and fed him.

'You are very good to me. . . . Have I seen you much before this?' asked Victor, in a puzzled tone; and jhe

then began to look around him, into the dim slopes and irregularities of the place, in the midst of which the

In half an hour after he had taken food, Dan gave his patient the dose of medicine that had been, as usual,

mixed by Trevaskis on the previous night. In a quarter of an hour Victor sank into a state of stupor. When he

After dark the manager came in with a brisk, cheerful air. From the hour that he was relieved from attendance

on his victim, he had gained in health of mind and body. On the Monday night, when Dan took charge,

Trevaskis had gone to bed at nine o'clock, and slept without a break till seven next morning. By Wednesday's

mail he received two lettersone was from Victor's uncle, the other from the landlord of the Kangaroo Inn at

Mr. Drummond was surprised at his nephew's sudden change of plan, but felt no alarm. He knew nothing of

his proposed journey to town, and could only suppose that some circumstance, of which he was as yet

ignorant, had caused Mr. FitzGibbon to go to Port Pellew instead. He asked the manager to lose no time in

communicating any further particulars that might come to his knowledge regarding the matter.

This Trevaskis was able to do to good effect. By that day's return mail he forwarded the note received from

the landlord at Port Pellew, enclosing the visitingcards and the envelopes addressed to Mr. V. FitzGibbon

which had been found in a drawer of the room occupied by that gentleman at the Kangaroo Inn on the

previous Friday night. On the next morning, Saturday, he had taken passage by one of kthe sailing vessels

which had left Port Pellew that day. In reply to this letter, one came from Mr. Drummond on Saturday,

thanking Trevaskis for the trouble he had taken in the matter, saying that no letters had been received from

Mr. FitzGibbon prior to his departure, and that his brother had suggested Victor must have written some

letters which had gone astray, and inquiries were accordingly being made at the Pellew postoffice. Then,

with this an official letter had come from the secretary of the company, relative to the appointment of a new

purser at the Colmar. No word was written as to working or searching the cave room for gold, so it was

evident that no importance had been attached to the matter, apart from FitzGibbon's whim.

And now Trevaskis saw himself successful all along the line. Day by day the gold which he had first stolen

and invested in mining shares was increasing. He was constantly studying the sharelist, and telegraphing

some fresh instructions to his lbroker. Almost every fresh sale, and each new investment, added to his wealth.

What could he not do with the command of �20,000 in ready money? The longer he dwelt on the dazzling

prospects before him, the more blind he became to the miserable fears which beset Dan in his strange and

'Why, Dan, you are a firstrate nurse,' he said in high goodhumour, as he came into the cave room on this

Friday evening. 'I think you'd better take a turn in the open air, and I'll sit by your patient till you come back,'

he added, either not seeing or ignoring the fixed, questioning look with which his brother regarded him.

'I don't much care to go out, Bill,' answered Dan slowly. 'Hanyone as meets me looks at me in a curious way,

as much as to say, "This is the bloke as is down with fever." The larst time I went out I met 'Zilla'

'What the devil does it matter who you meet?' answered Trevaskis roughly. 'You'd better have a mouthful of

fresh air, for on Saturday I shall be busy all day, and in the evening I may have to ride across to Nilpeena, and

not be back till late Sunday. He sleeps well, don't he?' he added, glancing carelessly at Victor.

'I think he sleeps too well, Bill. This mornin' he was nearly 'imself, lookin' at me and speakin' quite

'And then after his medicine he wasn't quite so clear in the head,' put in Trevaskis, who thought it, on the

whole, more prudent at this juncture to let his brother know the real state of affairs.

'Don't you see,' said Trevaskis, 'that if he's to be kept here another two weeks or so'

'Two weeks!' cried Dan, starting to his feet. 'Ah, you're druggin' 'eyou're druggin' 'e! You want to make 'e

whizzy and gone in the mind. . . . I won't do it . . . I won't . . . I'll nurse 'e right or not at all.'

A tempestuous scene followed between the two. It ended in Trevaskis consenting to have Victor removed

from the mine in five days from that time. After receiving this assurance, Dan went out into the fresh air. He

walked towards Broombush Creek, and was away for two hours. During his absence Victor woke up and

called Trevaskis by name several times. In his terror, Trevaskis gave him a larger dose of laudanum than he

meant to administer. All that night, and till late in the afternoon of the next day, Victor lay in a torpid state,

Dan sleeping and watching beside him, waking up now and then from miserable dreams, in which he was

constantly occupied in carrying a corpse, and vainly seeking some spot in which it might be hidden. He

became at last wild with the horror of it all. The rigid form and white, set face of the young man, the

loneliness, the silence, the underground gloom, broken only by the feeble light of a lamp, drove him to

At last, within an hour of sunset, he made a sudden resolve to take Victor into Trevaskis' room, where he

could have light and fresh air. He cleaned the invalid chair that was lying among the lumber of the cave

room. One of the wheels was off, but he replaced it, and speedily improvised a linchpin out of an old

wirenail. Then he placed Victor in the chair, with a pillow under his head and a rug folded round him, and

'I don't care what Bill says to this,' he thought. 'The boy is dwinin'9 away for fresh air and light, and I won't

sit by and see 'e die. Oh, A'mighty Gord, if everything is in your hands, give me a lift just now,' he said,

pausing when close to the offices, near one of the little square windows that lit the iron passage, and gazing

with affrighted eyes at Victor's livid face. To Dan's distempered brain it seemed as if the young man's

breathing had entirely ceased. He knelt by him, feeling his pulses with rough, tremulous fingers. Presently his

growing terror was relieved by hearing Victor give a long low sigh. At the same instant a dog sprang up

outside against the four small panes of glass, with short, joyous barks of recognition. A clear sweet voice

called out 'Spot, Spot!' but the dog did not move. And then, as Dan was in the act of beginning to wheel the

chair once more, he suddenly caught sight of a beautiful young girl looking in at the window. He reached it

with one leap, and tore down the darkgreen blind which was fastened above the panes of glass. In less than

Solomon Olsen's general store was a great resort for the miners' wives on Saturday afternoons. On these

occasions the weekly bills were paid, and supplies for the coming week were bought. Those who had young

babies nourished them with frank unreserve, sitting by the counters on each side of the store, and giving their

orders after a very leisurely fashion. They filled up the pauses between their purchases with such gossip as

the Colmar Mine afforded them, after they had exhausted the more engrossing events of a domestic nature.

'And did you hear that Jack Teague was sent to the rightabout1 because 'e missed two shifts through illness?'

one would say. 'Yes, when 'e went back at 'leven at night, the cap'en said to 'e, "'Ump your bluey and clear."

But 'tis not so easy clearin', I think, wi' a wife and motherinlaw and three youngsters.'

'The manager be getten' more and more onreasonable,' another would respond. 'There's my boy Jan, as

hardworkin' a chap as ye'll find. And the cap'en 'e come along t'other day. "Jan," sez 'e, "thee beest a pretty

man for an 'ammer. Thee beat'st just like a thing.2 Can't a'e thump better 'n that?" ' and so forth.

On this special Saturday afternoon, however, the great theme was the conduct of Dr. Magann, the

minedoctor, as he was generally called, being in point of fact almost entirely supported by the miners, who,

since he settled at Colmar, were pledged to pay him so much weekly out of their wages. A few days

previously a woman had been taken suddenly ill, but the doctor, when sent for, was found to be too unwell to

leave his bed. So the patient had died 'without the help of no doctor,' as the people phrased it.

'Mind you, I don't say as he'd do she a mossel o' good,' one voluble woman explained. 'But it don't seem right

to 'ave a postmortor affair on a decent female in bher own 'ouse, as if she was can unbeknown tramp, as died

'And what is this deep larned complaint the doctor said at th' inkwest she died of?' said another, who had

'dHannererism,'3 said a neighbour, peeping over her shoulder. 'Who'd athought that 'ad anything to do with

the 'eart. It's just wonderful 'ow them doctors efind things out, and calls 'em by names as nobody would think

'Indeed, as for that, Mrs. Penlevin,' said the woman who held the newspaper, 'I fthink they inwents diseases,

the same as they does pills. It don't seem reasonable as they can tell so many things from another as goes on

'Well, but that's why they cut open frogs and corpses, Mrs. Piersen, so as to find out the proper nateral name

'Indeed, then I can't believe as 'ow the karkiss o' a toad, be it iver so wise as some people says, can learn them

so much about the inside o' a Christian,' said another sceptic. 'An' if we're to be cut hopen, and put in the

papers for dyin' peaceable to 'ome, I don't see much good in paying for a doctor. Why, Miss Lindsay, as

comes about to us, does three times more good, wi' 'er flowers, an' jellies, an' sweet looks.'

'Oh, she's a hanjull, she is, and no mistake!' said a darkfaced little woman, who was nursing a

twomonthsold baby near the open door. 'And there she is acomin' at this moment,' she added, looking

Doris had alighted from the ponychaise and given the reins to ShungLoo. When she came into the store

she stood speaking to one and all of the women assembled there. Mr. Olsen was at one counter, his wife at

the other. Solomon Olsen was a large, thickset man, with a swarthy complexion, a big hooked nose, black

hair and whiskers, a retreating forehead, and restless black eyes swimming in fat. He had a loud, voluble

utterance and an invincible selfassurance. He looked as if his whole heart and soul were perpetually

engrossed in small, mean plots for making more money than he ought out of his fellowcreatures. Yet on

entering the little sittingroom behind the store, the first object that caught the eye was a faded picture on a

parchment, hanging on the eastern wall. Above this was inscribed, in halferased Hebrew characters, the

words 'From this side blows the breath of life.'4 It was a picture of Jerusalem, that wonderful old ruined city,

which has so long lain desolate in the sight of 'all that passed by,'5 and yet towards which, through the long

ages, so many wistful eyes are turned from farseparated and alien lands in prayer, and at the hour of death,

looking for the fulfilment of the words that were traced under this picture, also in Hebrew: 'Then the heathen

that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was

It was opposite this curious oldworld picture, with its mystical inscriptions, that Doris waited for Mrs. West,

who was making a very slow recovery from the nervous illness which had followed the shock of her

husband's terrible death and the total destruction of her home and all that it contained.

Doris had been to see her several times previously. The last occasion was five days before this, and Mrs.

West had then expressed a great wish to accept her brother's invitation to stay with him for some time at the

Halfway House, the inn which he had opened midway between Colmar and Broombush Creek. But the

passenger van was always so crowded with rowdy men, and she and Dick were so weak and easily shaken,

that she could not yet undertake the journey. Poor little Dick had an attack of low fever hanging about him,

which did not lay him up quite, but grew worse and better from day to day with lingering tediousness.

'He's laying down just now, and don't seem quite hisself, poor little man!' his mother said, as she came into

the sittingroom. 'He keeps on talkin' o' the fire, and the smoke being in h'is heyes. I'm most sure if I could

'That is partly why I came today,' said Doris. 'I know of a good way to get you over to your brother's. An old

'The old man as sells awful religious books, and carries on so about people's souls and the Sabbarth day, is it,

'Yes, he sells books, and often gives them away,' answered Doris, who hardly recognised Kenneth under this

description. 'The day before yesterday he took poor Mick Doolan, and another man who had been very ill of

fever, across to the hospital at Broombush Creek. He has a nice roomy waggon, covered in, and when I told

him about you and little Dick, he said at once he would take you to your brother's.'

'I know 'e's very good and kind like, and always ready to do things for everybody as is in trouble; but it just

seems to me as if I couldn't bear the thought of being spoke to about my soul, and what's to become o' me in

the other world, Miss Lindsay,' said the woman tearfully. 'You see, I'm so hard put to just now in this one,

and it's so dismal about ipoor West, for if it's all true ole Campbell says, my pore man 'ud 'ave a bad time of it

altogether, for I know he wasn't very sober. But I do think as the Lord 'ud take into account 'is jbein' burnt to

'Oh, don't think about such dreadful things, please don't,' said Doris in a pained voice. As she had never been

taught anything regarding eternal torment, and had read very little on the subject, she had but a vague

comprehension of Mrs. West's meaning.7 'Poor dear Kenneth would never think of talking in a way that

'An' bein' Sunday, too. Oh, Miss Lindsay, 'e could never keep 'is tongue off o' me.'

'Well, I will come with you; you'll see that poor old Kenneth is just the soul of kindness,' said Doris, half

'Oh, if you come, Miss Lindsaybut isn't it a deal too much, a young lady like you to come in that waggon,

and all for me? Poor little Dick 'ull be that pleased; but it's just too much trouble.'

'It's no trouble at all. I thought of taking you over in my ponytrap before, but Mrs. Challoner did not like me

to go with only Shung to take care of methe working men are so rude to the Chinese8and I want you

and Dick to be safe away before we leave. Yes, we are to go a day or two after Christmas. Mr. Challoner is

well enough to travel. The change to a cooler climate will do him good, and he wants to see his brother before

Mrs. West was incoherently voluble as to the sorrow that would be felt at Doris's departure, and, indeed, kof

all the Stonehouse household. Then, as Doris rose to go, she said with sudden animation:

'There, now, I was as near as could be to forgettin' agin to ast you about Mr. FitzGibbon. I've lheered so

many rummers. Is it true, Miss Lindsay, as he went right off in a wool or wheat ship to England or the Cape?'

At the mention of Victor's name a quick tinge of colour mounted in Doris's face; but there was no perceptible

'He spoke about the ships at Port Pellew to the manager the day before he left; but we think he could not have

'Well, it may seem conceited, but I can't believe some'ow as he meant to go like that, when he started without

saying a word to me. I don't know as you knew him much, Miss Lindsay. He was boardin' at the Arms with

us till we was burnt out; and, of course, you know as he saved poor little Dick from the flames. A nicer,

mkinderhearted young gentleman never lived. Not a day after the accident but he come in to see me and Dick.

Last Wednesday was a fortnight the last time he come. "I'm going to town for a few days," sez he. "Can I do

anything for you, Mrs. West?" he says; and then he turns to Dick, and Dick climbs up on 'is knees. Blesh you,

ma'am, that little chap was friendlier with him the first day he come to the Arms than ever he got to be with

'is own poor par, who 'adn't what you might call a sweet temper at no time. And we was out of a cook, and

the way he would put up with everything, and smile and be nso pleased! . . . "Well, Dick," he says that

Wednesday, "what shall I bring you from town?" "A little cock to crow in the morning," says Dick; and then

Mr. FitzGibbon says: "Is there jam on your fingers, Dick? No, there isn't; nor butter, nor treacle. You're a

wonderful young man this afternoon. Now, here's a oletter for you; hold it tight in your hand so, and don't

open it till I'm gone, and give it to your ma to take care on." I just thought it was his pleasant way to amuse

Miss Lindsay admitted her inability to guess, but she was listening with a look of vivid pleasure.

'Well, it was a fivepound note inside o' a little henvelope. No, I'm sure he never knowed he was going that

there journey, and why should he? I don't know whether it's on account o' hillness and bein' pnervous through

qmisfortunes, Miss Lindsay, but several nights since I hear this tale I've lay awake hours and hours, wonderin'

if nothin' hasn't gone amiss, or if it isn't one o' them strange things as 'appens sometimes.' Mrs. West's voice

'I think it is perhaps because you are feeling ill,' said Doris, after a little pause. 'What we think is, that he got a

message from someone at Nilpeena; that he was wanted at the Cape of Good Hope, and that, as he knew a

wheatship was going there direct, he went by it. He posted a letter to the manager from Port Pellew, and

very likely he sent some others that went astray. I know several of our letters were lost at Buda.'

Doris was going over in detail the laboured explanation that had been arrived at by several people in

succession, in face of an inexplicable event. A loss her mother had sustained of some important documents,

through the carelessness of the local postmaster, whose children were found to have amused themselves with

opening and tearing up letters, was fresh in Doris's recollection. Some similar catastrophe appeared to her to

be the clue to Victor's strange silence, when, instead of going to Adelaide as he had arranged, he went and

A few days after Victor's supposed departure, before anything had taken place to make it apparent that his

plans were not carried out, Trevaskis had gone to Stonehouse to ask after Challoner. In the course of

conversation with Mrs. Challoner, he had casually mentioned that it appeared Mr. FitzGibbon, instead of

going to Adelaide, had taken a trip to Port Pellew; that he had received a letter from him, posted from there.

'Perhaps he'll take a trip to the Cape or to England from there,' he added, half laughingly.

'Oh, it just struck me, when I got his letter posted from there, enclosing some papers without saying a word as

to his altered arrangements. The day before he went away he said something about these sailingships. . . .

But, at any rate, I'll know in a day or two, for there was something I wanted to find out, and I sent him a

Trevaskis all through maintained an easy, unperturbed tone, as if there would be nothing after all to surprise

'It is as I thought about Mr. FitzGibbon,' he said, after a little talk on indifferent subjects. 'I got a letter from

the landlord of the principal inn today. The young gentleman who had stopped a night at his place sailed on

Saturday last by one of the ships, and in his room he had found a little packet, which he enclosed to me. That

little packet held three of Mr. FitzGibbon's letters and two of his visitingcards. So there's snow no doubt of

'But why should he go like that, without telling any of us? Did Mr. FitzGibbon say anything to you girls

about going to England shortly?' said Mrs. Challoner, turning to Doris and Euphemia, who were sitting near

'He spoke of going about the same time that we did to meet his mother,' said Doris, after a little pause.

'Ah, that's it, you may depend. Perhaps she came as far as the Cape, and, who knows? he may have written

letters that have gone astray. I expect his uncle may know more. I've written to him all I know, and sent him

So the evidence had been gradually built up. In the midst of the perplexity that often overcame Doris when

she thought over this strange, sudden voyage, this firm conviction was her stayVictor must have written to

her, to explain all, and the letter must have been lost. She had not at any time been actively unhappy, but

within the last two days a moral and physical languor had fallen upon her. She ate very little, her head often

felt heavy, her sleep was uncertain and full of disturbed dreams. On the previous night she had been in a

curiously clairvoyant state. The night was warm and the wind high, swaying the avenue trees around

Stonehouse ceaselessly with weird melancholy sounds that awakened vague misgivings of she knew not what

indefinable ills. She fell asleep and woke up, again and again, repeatedly dreaming evil dreams. She saw

things as they actually were in life, without any of the haze or uncertainty of visions. Faces and tones floated

round her of all the people she had ever knowna strange zone of foreboding sounds, of countenances

averted, and fixed on someone who was lying motionless on a low couch underground. She could not get

near this couch, and she did not see the face of the one who was lying on it; but gradually the conviction grew

upon her tit was Victor. And when she awoke, feelings of dread and uneasiness for the first time took

'I can't think as 'ow everythink should 'appen together like that,' she said in answer to Doris's supposition

about letters having gone astray. 'Do you know, Miss Lindsay, whether he was taking any gold with him to

Doris had heard nothing of his doing so. Why should such an event, if it had occurred, have any significance?

'I dunno,' said Mrs. West slowly. 'There's so many wicked things done for the sake o' gold.9 When my

brotherinlaw Olsen told me as Mr. FitzGibbon 'ad gone off secret like and sudden, I up and said at once,

"There's suthin' at the bottom of this as isn't right. Perhaps someone is makin' believe in the matter because of

The words kept ringing in Doris's ears as she drove slowly back. They so completely engrossed her thoughts

that it was not until she had been in the house for some little time she remembered that she was to have called

to see Mrs. Connell's elder little girl, who was now convalescent, and who looked forward to her visits from

day to day with eager expectation. Doris could not bear the thought of Norah's disappointment. As it was now

close on sunset, she could not stay any time, but she hastened down with a little coloured picturebook,

As Doris was returning, Spot behaved in a strange way. He ran up and down alongside the iron passage

sniffing and barking, and absolutely refusing to leave it. Doris went out of her way and followed Spot along

the passage for a little time, trying to coax him to follow her. She came opposite to one of the little square

windows. At this Spot jumped up and began to bark with noisy joy. Doris looked in. At the same moment

someone rushed to the window violently and drew down a blind. But not before a sight met her eyes so

Doris stood motionless for a few moments, supporting herself against the iron wall. Before any coherent

purpose had formed itself in her mind she saw Trevaskis leading a saddled horse towards the office.

In a few seconds she had reached him. Before she could speak he had turned to her, his face full of concern,

'Do you know that Mr. FitzGibbon is in there?' she said, pointing to the iron passage, her hand trembling,

Aided by the information he had gleaned through reading Victor's halfwritten letter to Miss Paget, Trevaskis

'You are ill and nervous, Miss Lindsay,' he said in a studiously quiet and impressive voice. 'Would you like to

Trevaskis fastened his horse to a bridlepost in front of the offices. Then he opened the outer door of his

own, saying, 'I will just get the key.' He passed into his bedroom. Dan was sitting by the bed: on it Victor was

lying in a state of somnolent unconsciousness, muttering from time to time in a thick inarticulate voice. Dan

Trevaskis, with a face afull of dull misery, fanned the sick man feebly from time to time.

'I've took 'e up, Bill. But, Gord 'elp us, 'e don't seem to me like as 'e'd live. 'Twas dreadful close down there;

but 'tain't so much better 'ere. Bill, I must get a doctor to 'e some'ow or other. It breaks my b'art to see and

'Shut up, you miserable blatherskiter, will you!' cried Trevaskis, in an access of sudden fury. 'You went on

mumbling and jabbering like this last night, and I told you we would get him away shortly; now you dared to

take him up here without my leaveand what's the consequence? A girl comes to me with a white face,

Without waiting for a reply to dhis speech, muttered in a low menacing tone, Trevaskis closed the door after

him, and rejoined Doris with a bunch of keys in his hand. To open the door leading into the passage, to

traverse it to the end, to light a bull'seye lantern and let the partial gleam of it fall on the outer portion of the

'I suppose you have been hearing rumours of Mr. FitzGibbon's disappearance, and have become anxious on

his account, Miss Lindsay?' said Trevaskis in a suavely sympathetic tone, as he walked beside Doris on her

Spot, whom Trevaskis had been careful to keep outside, made a dash at the door when it was opened, and

now that it was shut he stood close against it with his nose to the ground, his eyes full of fiery animation. But

'At any rate, you see that your strange fancy was a delusion. I took you in without a moment's delay, so that

you could be under no mistake. You see, Miss Lindsay, the key of this passage never goes out of my

possession; so that whatever motive Mr. FitzGibbon might have for hiding, he couldn't do it without my

'Hiding!' repeated Doris, raising her head with a sudden haughty gesture. 'He would never hidewhy should

'There were some words running in my head,' returned Doris in a faint colourless voice. ' "Perhaps someone

is making believe in the matter, because of some wickedness or another." And then I looked in at the little

window where Spot was bounding up, and therehalf lying down, his eyes closed, and his face whiteoh, I

'I am glad that I was on the spot,' said Trevaskis, speaking in a tone of kindly solicitude. His face had

blanched visibly while Doris was speaking; now a dull red mounted in his cheeks, and settled in a deep rim

under his eyes. 'I know what it is to be bothered with strange ideasto fancy you see faces and things.'

'Have you sometimes seen things like that, then?' asked Doris, with a feeling of relief.

'I had a touch of fever on me once, and I couldn't close my eyes but I saw crowds of faces and animals, and

heard people talking and shouting,' answered Trevaskis slowly. 'And not only so, but at last, when I went

aboutI was so placed that I could not keep in bed, as I should have doneI began to fancy I saw people in

Doris drew a long sigh. They had now reached the top of the reef, and looked down on Stonehouse with its

surrounding trees, and the illimitable western plain, gray and silent, and lightly flushed with the crimson

'You are sure that no one but yourself can get into that iron passage?' she said. And then, without waiting for

'I was down there for some hours this afternoon,' said Trevaskis, repressing with an effort the strong irritation

roused by the persistence of her impression. 'It is very good of you to be so much interested in one who is

almost a stranger to you. I had a letter from his uncle this morning. He does not seem so very much surprised.

'The young lady?' repeated Doris, looking up with a puzzled look, as if she had not heard aright.

'Yes; Miss Helen Paget. Mr. FitzGibbon is engaged to be married to her, I believe,' answered Trevaskis with

slow emphasis, watching the girl's face as he spoke with malicious keenness. But he was not rewarded by any

signs of distress or confusion. Her calm gravity was undisturbed, outwardly at least. A look of perplexity,

perhaps of unbelief, rose in Doris's eyes. Trevaskis, disconcerted by her clear, unconfused gaze, took refuge

in pulling out his watch, awaiting with nervous eagerness her reply. But she made none. Seeing Kenneth

Campbell approach on his way towards the mine, she bowed to Trevaskis with simple dignity, saying:

'I am obliged to you for taking me into the passage, but I must not keep you any longer. I think I must talk to

my old friend Mr. Campbell about poor Mrs. West. We are going to take her across to her brother's place

Trevaskis retraced his steps with a feeling of baffled uncertainty which added fuel to the rage that smouldered

in his mind against his brother. He had long ere this found the futility of endeavouring to act as though he

were 'quite on the square.'1 He was terrified lest he should make some move that might eultimately wreck all

in the end. For in the involved, dangerous game he was playing, circumstances were constantly forcing him

to go on the hand to mouth plan.2 A much greater man than he was fwill be prone to commit blunders in such

circumstances, because the want of proportion between his means and his ends progressively increases, and

his mind is exhausted in fruitless efforts. He had to go on to see two of the directors of the Colmar, who had

been examining an old mine further north and had telegraphed to him to be at Nilpeena to meet them on their

way back to town. He had not much time to spare, but he could not go on without a word of warning to Dan.

The word of warning turned into a violent altercation. Dan sat as if he had not moved during the last half

hour, staring at Victor, who still lay for the most part motionless. Now and then he tossed feebly, and now

and then he murmured half audible words. But he did not open his eyes, and there was no gleam of

When Dan saw his brother coming to the room a second time, he started up, his heavy eyes aflame. He said

nothing till Trevaskis had entered the room, then he planted his back against the door with a look of dogged

despair and determination, which checked the furious reproaches that rose to the lips of the younger brother.

'Look 'ere, Bill, if this job is to go on it must be at the awner's 'count,'3 he said in a low husky voice.

'Then I'll put it feer, so as there cussn't be a mistake. Yistidday was a fortnight that I parted from my awnly

cheeld to go as it were in the place of one as was anxious to make b'law 'e 'ad left the country. Friday and

'Why did g'ee keep the drink to my 'and, knowin' well that in the low, haafsared4 state I were in I would

keep on drinkin'? Why did h'ee draw the coortins and keep the place quiet, so 'ut I might lie there without

'Suppose I don't choose to be crossexamined by you like this, as if I were a country bumpkin in the hands of

'And then, when I coom a little to myself, you took me down to a hawl of a place, where this young man was

lying, and you patched up some sort of a yarn, and I sucked in every word like Gospel truth. You didn't wait

till I was clever and feelin' like a man,' said Dan, with a catch in his throat. But he overcame the weakness,

and went on, with that tense indignation which sweeps all artifice before it: 'No, you made me b'law as 'twas

for the sake of my lad partly, and that you wanted to take care o' the young manto nuss 'e, to be good to 'e.'

'So you did not. All the time you've been pizening k'e with drugs. Shame on you to do such a cowardly thing,

'You fool! what is the good of exciting yourself like this?' cried Trevaskis, beyond himself with rage, his eyes

'A murderer!' cried Trevaskis, starting up with a threatening movement of his hand.

'Yes, a murderer, a murderer, a murderer!' cried Dan, raising his voice and drawing nearer to his brother, who

'For the good Lord's sake, hold your tongue!' said Trevaskis in a low voice. 'Do you want to draw a crowd of

miners round the place? Do you want to have me accused of what I never meant to do? Do you want to have

your own boy exposed to all the world as a thief? What good will all this do you? Come, Dan, be reasonable.

We've both lost our heads a little. Give me your hand, like a good fellow. You needn't be afraid that anything

will happen to this young man. A little laudanum won't kill anyone; and you must see that if he got his senses

Dan, who was rarely moved to great excitement, listened to his brother in stolid silence. In silence he took his

'I don't mind your keeping him in this room tonight, only be careful, Dan, be careful. After I come back

Dan sat for nearly an hour after his brother went away, close to the bed on which Victor was lying. A terrible

thought had fastened on his mind. It was a close, sultry night, with a hot wind blowing from the northeast.

The sky was deeply overcast, the daylight was fading, and a darkness heavier than that of night had fallen on

'I want to get upI want to get awaywhy do you tie me like this?' Victor muttered, over and over again,

throwing his hands about with a convulsive, helpless gesture. After a time he turned over, and gradually fell

'Bill means to kill 'eto give 'e a big dose when 'e gets me away, and then when I come back 'e'll make me

bury 'e somewheres. 'E'll make me do everything. But I won't, I won't! I'll take 'e away somehow before he

Dan's brain seemed to be on fire. Even as he gasped out his determination to take prompt action, he was

conscious of a creeping lassitude, of a total inability to plan or act. He felt dizzy, and the walls seemed to

close around him. He went out, locking the outer door behind him, feeling that if he did not get away for a

little time he would choke, or fall down in a fit. There was no fresh air to revive him; yet even the dismal

wailing wind, full of sulphurous smoke, warm as if it had escaped from a seething caldron, thick with dust

and mullock grit, was better than the close room in which Victor's motionless form and pale face struck an

indefinable fear into Dan's soul. The longcontinued tension, the morbid nervousness that had seized him on

the day he had met his boy under such unhappy circumstances, had now come to a climax. He walked

bareheaded along the foot of the reef above the mine, with its dull roar of machinery and its flaring lights. A

sort of blurred confusion fell on him; he gave up trying to think what he should do. He saw someone coming

towards himsomeone who came close up against him. Dan stood aside to let him pass. But the man did not

'Dan, Dan, what's come to ye? mTomorrow I leave this mine for good, and I've been nlooking for you to say

goodbye. I ast for you of the cap'en, and he shut me hup as if I was a cutthroat. My missis is bad again, and

I won't come back 'ere no more.' Dan made a hoarse murmur by way of reply. 'P'raps 'tain't my business, but

'Iss, 'Zilla, iss,' burst out Dan, not waiting to think or parley with himself, 'summat is wrong with me in body

'Tell me what it be, Dan. You as good as saved my life once, and I don't forget that.'

'No, don't wait; you can help me tonight. But swear on your knees, in the hearin' o' the living Godif so be

as 'E cares to listen to wethat you'll never, never speak to anyone of what I tell ye, that you'll ax no

question over what I say. Swear to me on your soul, as you hope to be saved from eternal damnation; swear

Dan's voice was hoarse with anguish. He was trembling, and his hands were cold and clammy. At that

moment he clung to his old friend as to one providentially sent to save him from the terrible fate that, to his

'I swear, Dan, I swear to do what I can for you, short o' foul sin, and that you wouldn't ax o' me,' answered

'A man on the minea young man?' cried 'Zilla, with a strange suspicion rising in his mind.

'I didn't mean to do 'e 'arm, and it's no fault o' mine, and you must keep to your promise, 'Zilla, and ax no

'And I've been trying to nuss 'e. I've been on the job for some time. Lord in heaven, I've lost count o' days!'

'On the mine here, Dan, without no doctor? There, I don't want a hanswer; only when you're swellin' with

sore amazement you must let it off some'ow. You've been on the job for some time, Dan?'

'Yes, and I dussent tell a livin' soul, for fear o' being took by the throat and clapped into prison.'

'And now this night a hawful fear 'as come upon me, 'Zilla; a fear o' crime and bloodguiltiness that 'ud hang

round my neck like the nether millstone,6 and drag me low down below the very foundations o' hell.'

'Oh, Dan, Dan! 'e ain't adyin'? I won't ax another question; but tell me 'e ain't adyin'?'

'No, 'Zillano, no; but I want 'e to get better quicker nor I can make 'e ow' drugses out o' a bought box, made

up by people as never saw the sick ones as swallers 'em. I want 'e to be took care of above ground, not down

'Down in a cave place, Dan? Slinkin' there alone and in secret with a man badly hurt? 'Ow in the name o' the

'Zilla's voice was full of consternation and wonder. He spoke without any afterthought as to his friend's

veracity. Dan understood this, feeling that the whole affair was so full of perplexing mystery, that it was

taking an unfair advantage of his old mate to appeal to him for help, while giving him so little confidence. It

was a sudden fear, lest he should be tempted to betray his brother, that led him to reply in a gruff tone.

''Zilla, the world is full o' liards. Don't you go ahaddin' to the number. You promised not to ax questions?'

'I did, Dan, I did, and I won't go back on my word. You want to have this man took to a place where 'e'll be

'There's a private 'orsepital been lately opened at Broombush, for those as can pay well.'

'In course, you want to get him took there without pyour appearin' in the matter?'

'I know that. Did you ever see a hold Scoty as goes about with an 'awker's waggon, sellin' religious books,

and preachin' on Sundays and weekdays, when 'e can get chaps to listen as 'ow's there's few to be saved, and

'And 'ave you some sort of a machine and a beast as you can make a start with this very night?'

'I could qborrow the light 'Merican waggon as belongs to the place, and there's a beast in the stable. But what

'Zilla briefly explained that Kenneth Campbell was going on the morrow to take Mrs. West to her brother's at

the Halfway House. That he was a man who was always on the lookout to do things for people in need, and

had already taken several men, who were suffering from fever at the mine, to the hospital in Broombush

'My idear is, if you was to make a start tonight, and meet him somewhere on the way' said 'Zilla,

pausing a little dubiously, as he saw that there were some grave obstacles. If Dan had a horse and trap, even

one as fanatical for serving his fellowcreatures as Kenneth was, might wonder why the man who, with such

conveniences, had come upon a helpless invalid in the bush, did not at once convey him to a place of refuge,

instead of appealing to a casual passerby. But here the thoughts which had been slowly revolving in Dan's

mind during the last endless days and nights, in connection with this matter, came to his aid.

'I won't meet the ould chap o' the road at all, 'Zilla,' he said eagerly. 'I 'aven't told youwe 'adn't much talk

together sin' I coom this timebut I was goin' to work a claim theer, about a mile to the south o' what they

'That's feer within two miles and a arf o' the Arfway 'Ouse, Dan! That 'ull be most on the track.'

'Iss, and there's a bit of a shanty there. I'll go this very night. I'll rsturt in two hours, with sthe sick man on a

mattress tand quite comfortable like, 'Zilla. Oh, 'Zilla! the weight as is took off my 'eart. I'll be like camped

there, and this ould chap as is so given up to doin' things for people, he can coom along from the Arfway

'As sure as there's breath in 'is body, and anyone needin' 'is help,' answered 'Zilla solemnly.

An hour later, 'Zilla went across to Stonehouse to see Kenneth. He was not in his waggon, and 'Zilla went to

''Tis about this journey o' his utomorrer,' he explained to Bridget, who stood at the door, fanning herself

'Shure, thin, and if it's to take vahny more sick people it cahn't be done; for the mistress hersilf is going as far

as the Halfway House, besides the sick woman and Miss Doris. Ye see, it's loike this,' said Bridget, who

was always ready to offer elaborate explanations of every domestic project. 'Mrs. Challoner, she haven't been

shlaping at ahl at ahl for days and noights; and it just tuk Mrs. Murray in the head, if she went for a dhroive in

Before Bridget's flowing narrative had come to an end, Kenneth came round the back veranda, and 'Zilla gave

him the note, which he had received from an old mate of his, who was at work somewhere not far from the

It was close on four o'clock in the afternoon of the following day before Kenneth's roomy waggon reached

the Halfway House. During the latter part of the journey Mrs. Challoner began to doze. As soon as they

entered the little inn, which was empty of customers and very quiet, they induced her to lie down, and in a

few minutes she was sound asleep. This was the result for which Mrs. Murray had so fervently hoped, when

she induced her sister to take a long, slow drive. 'If she falls asleep, my dear, don't wake her up on any

account,' were her last whispered words to Doris. And now Doris closed the door of the little bedroom softly,

and went out to tell Kenneth that they must put off their return till Mrs. Challoner awoke.

Kenneth, with a somewhat blotted sheet of paper in his hand, was talking to the landlord, who was pointing

out a slight rise some distance south aoff the highway, which led to the diggings. Doris waited till the two

men had finished their talk, and then delivered her message to Kenneth. She was surprised to learn that he

was going to a place beyond the brokendown whim, to take a sick man to the hospital at the diggings.

'It was nearly nine last night when I got this,' he said, folding up the sheet of paper. 'Mrs. Murray thought I

better say nothing about it to Mrs. Challoner; she might want to come on, or it might distract her mind.

Thanks be to the Most High that He has sent her sleep,'1 said Kenneth, uncovering his head in his slow

'Someone illaway in a place like thatquite alone, Kenneth? Has there been anyone looking after him?'

As so often happens when the mind is much engrossed with any subject, her thoughts instantly reverted to the

'This is all I know of the matter, Miss Doris,' answered Kenneth, handing her the sheet of paper with a few

'i hev come acrost a young man as badly wants looken arter in a orsepetal or some such, wich cbeen onable to

do so myself, ef you nows of enyone kumin' along shortly to the dDiggins would you ax him to kindly call at

It was a little difficult for Doris to make out the meaning conveyed by the unfamiliar orthography, but as

soon as she had caught the gist of the lines a curious change came over her face. The pallid languor which

had been settling on it within the last few days was replaced by a vivid flush; her eyes glowed, her lips parted

'Kenneth, I know where the brokendown whim is; I want to come with you,' she said, in a voice but little

And Kenneth, who had from her childhood obeyed the girl's slightest wish, found the few gentle objections

'But you won't come to the diggings, dear Miss Doris,' he said, as he turned his horses' heads towards the rock

that rose near the brokendown whim, and looked across the complete flatness of the intervening country as

if it were within half a mile of the Halfway House. 'Mr. Keltie tells me that I'll have to come back to this

road almost in a straight line, so as to get eon the highroad to the diggings. So I'll leave you here on the way

back; the journey would be too fatiguing for you, and forbye,2 it's very like this poor man is suffering from

This 'poor man.' The words woke a strange deep pain in the girl's heart. Could there be any grounds for the

thought that had lodged itself so obstinately in her mind? All through the past night she had lain in a sort of

waking dream, seeing over and over again the prostrate form, and the blanched, motionless face, which for

one brief instant had been as absolutely visible to her as the earth under her feet or the sky above. She was

forced to believe that the sight was in some way a repetition of the feverish dreams that she had perpetually

dreamt on the previous night. Some of her earliest childish recollections were of faces and voices seen and

heard in sleep, that were as real to her as the voices and faces of waking hours. But might not these repeated

dreams, and that vision seen in the daylight, be forecasts of what she was now about to see?

She recalled an old book fof dreams, and what was called second sight,3 she had once been reading, and

which, at her mother's wish, she put away, on being told she was not yet old enough to read such things.

'There was so much that darling maman used to tell me I would understand better when I was older,' she

thought, 'but I think things seem stranger and harder to understand the older I grow.' She put her head down

wearily with a stifled sigh. The languor of the past few days weighed on Doris more than any of the

'Oh, Kenneth, can we not go a little faster?' she said, after a few moments, finding that Kenneth's horses

Kenneth was in truth deep in one of his beloved mystics, and the brooding reveries habitual to him when

travelling. When Doris spoke he remonstrated with his horses, and soon afterwards they passed the

Doris recalled every word and incident of the day she first saw this place, and Victor had spoken of going

with them when they went across that other mysterious sea, full of colour and sound and motion; not gray and

uniform and silent as this was. And yet not quite silent. A few sounds broke the torpor of the monotonous

plain, and were thrown back in lengthened echoes by this solitary rock beside a waterless well.

The rumbling of the waggon, the solitary call of a white eagle4 poised in midair, the strokes of an axe in the

distance, were repeated with clear lengthened reverberations that magnified the original notes into a cadenced

volume of sounds with weird mocking undertones. The weatherboard hut, standing over a mile beyond the

brokendown whim, was on the border of a watercourse, lined with small sandalwood trees. As Kenneth

drove up to the front of the hut, Dan came out to meet him. For a little time after Kenneth got out, Doris

remained in the waggon. Now that they had reached the place the thought of finding her waking vision

'Oh no, no; it is impossible,' she said to herself, looking at the little hut, and overcome by a sudden conviction

of the unreality of her imaginings. It must be true that her senses had been tricked by some touch of fever.

Was it not fever which at this moment made her head so hot and heavy, her sight so uncertain, and her hands

so unsteady? Yet, as she doubted and reasoned with herself, she leant forward, eagerly watching for the next

As her eyes fell on Dan, a troubled recollection shot across her brain. Had she not caught a swift glimpse of

his face yesterday, when that torturing vision of Victor had flashed on her for one incredible moment? For an

instant her memory seemed sane and trustworthy, but then doubt and confusion fell upon her. She could but

dumbly wait and watch. As for Dan, the moment he saw Doris, he recognised with a terrible misgiving the

beautiful young face that for a few seconds had looked in through the little window of the iron passage. This

was the young lady who had gone to his brother to declare that she had seen Mr. FitzGibbon. Had she come

Dan, though in many respects quick to perceive, was slow to act, more especially when placed in

circumstances where prompt and masterful deception was necessary to ensure his safety. He had little of his

brother's power of instantaneously producing a plausible gtradition, according to the requirements of an

unlookedfor emergency. Neither the bent of his mind nor the course of his life had fostered this gift. He

stood listening to Kenneth without hearing a word he said, expecting that every second this girl with her deep

wonderful eyes would step to his side, saying, 'Why did you hide this ailing man underground at the mine,

and then carry him off to the wilds?' Had she done so, Dan in hthe first imoments could no more have

attempted to lie to her than to an angel from heaven. But nothing of this kind happened. After the first quick,

wondering look at him, the girl sat back in the waggon, neither moving nor speaking. As for Kenneth, his talk

was not of a kind to call either for a ready answer nor for great vigilance on the part of anyone wishing to

When Dan recalled his scattered wits sufficiently to catch the drift of the old man's words, he found he was

'In the wilderness I have ever found the posterns of the dwelling of peace,' he was saying. 'It is in the midst of

the world that the flesh gets its most signal victories, till it grows insolent and domineering, and drugs its

poor fettered companion the spirit with carnal opiates till it loses all sight and hearing. . . . It was into the

wilds of Arabia that St. Paul departed after his conversion, and saw visions and dreamed dreams it was not

lawful to utter to uncircumcised ears.5 But why do I speak of mere man? Did not the King of Heaven, who

was born for our sakes among the beasts of the field, who was fed on a little breast milk, and gave up His life

between two criminals, also often go away into the unpeopled wastes?6 My friend, I hope that the solemn

'No, siroh no,' stammered Dan, quite at sea as to Kenneth's meaning. 'Gosh! 'Zilla didn't say as he was

crazed,' was his inward reflection. But as the conviction grew on him that he had to do with a man of unsound

'I am glad of that, sincerely glad,' said Kenneth fervently. 'It is in such scenes as these that we recollect our

'Was you goin' to take this poor young man as 'as come acrost me suffering from fever or some such to the

diggins orsepital, sir?' asked Dan, who began to fear that, if he did not cut short the spates of the old man's

'Ah, yes, yes. You have sheltered him and nursed him. But tell me, have you spoken to him of more

'He don't look much alive in any way just at present, I'm sorry to say,' answered Dan, leading the way to

Victor's side, where he was lying with a rug over him on a mattress, on which Dan had conveyed him in the

American waggon. Before leaving the mine, he had deemed it prudent to give him a dose out of the bottleful

of medicine which Trevaskis had left. Dan would much sooner have given his patient no more of this,

knowing it was a narcotic. But things being as they were, he recognised the necessity of keeping Victor

unconscious while removing him. But either the jamount Dan had administered was too small, or repeated

doses of the sedative for more than a week had rendered it partially ineffective. At any rate, this first dose,

instead of making Victor sleep, had acted as a stimulant, so that, on the way to the hut, he made repeated

efforts to get out of the waggon. Miss Paget, he said, wanted to see him; she was waiting for him; he had

something very important to tell Helen, and he had been tied and kept in the dark for so long. Dan was

reassured to find how much strength he retained. It was hard work to make him keep in the waggon, and

when, after a little time, he complained of thirst, Dan had mixed a dose of laudanum with the beeftea he

Now, as the two men stood by him, he turned over and muttered a few inarticulate words. Kenneth felt his

'I suppose it's fever he has, he seems greatly reduced. How long has he been with you?' he said, fixing his

'A good few days. 'E speaks a lot sometimes, and a deal more wandering of late. From what kI've picked up, I

should say as 'e's been wanting to 'ide from his people for some reason,' said Dan, plunging with many

qualms and pricks of conscience into the fictitious statements he had ready in case of being questioned.

'Ah, poor young man! poor young man! He cannot hide from the eyes of lthe Most High,' said Kenneth.

It was curious how the old man's readiness to speak of things not of this earth lessened Dan's fear of being

''Ere's some gold as 'e 'ad on him,' he said in a calm, confident voice, handing Kenneth the purse of

sovereigns he had filled from his own store. 'I b'law there's a private orsepital now at the diggins. It'ull be best

to take him there, bein' by all happearances a gentleman, and used to softer 'andling than 'e'd get among

common folks. Now, sir, if you mdrawer the nmattress from under o'im, I'll take it and fix it in your machine.'

Dan, as he spoke, lifted Victor in the rug and placed the pillows under his head. As he took up the mattress to

carry it to the waggon, he asked Kenneth whether there was not someone in the vehicle. Kenneth replied that

there was a young lady, the daughter of an old master of his, who had come with her friend, Mrs. Challoner,

on an errand of mercy as far as the Halfway House. Dan was relieved of all apprehension by this reply. Yet,

when on reaching the waggon he found Doris, after alighting and waiting on the further side, with an

expression of strained expectancy on her face, he divined that all danger was not over. He touched his hat

'I am going to laid the waggon a little nearer, so as to lift the sick man in,' he said, speaking without any sign

of emotion, though his pulses were beating hard and fast as he anticipated the moment in which this lovely,

'Is he so very ill?' she asked softly. She did not hear what Dan said in reply. He was leading the horses, and

the rumbling of the wheels as the waggon was drawn as close as possible to the front of the hut overpowered

his speech. Doris followed, and stood at a little distance. And then, as Kenneth and Dan carried the sick man

out between them, she caught sight of his face. For an instant her heart seemed to stop, and then it fluttered

'Oh, Kenneth!Kenneth!it is Victor!' She thought she was crying the words out aloud; but though her lips

moved, her voice did not even reach whisperingpoint. She stood as if riveted to the ground, not even

drawing nearer as they placed Victor on the mattress in the bottom of the waggon. They were very gentle and

careful in handling himplacing a pillow under his head and folding the soft striped rug round him. He

moaned and murmured some words in an indistinct voice. Doris noted it all, standing speechless and

motionless, pbut her lips slightly parted, her face blanched and colourless as a lily.

As soon as Victor was safe in the waggon, Kenneth began to look in the big miscellaneouslyfilled locker for

a book of devotions he wished to give Dan, who took advantage of this interval to approach Doris. He knew

that she was overpowered with emotion, but he pretended to notice nothing of this, and spoke in his ordinary

'It ain't a putty place this for a man to be ill in. I've done my best for the gentleman sin' he coom to me;

'Ah, I know himhe is a friend of oursMr. Victor FitzGibbon, who used to be at the mine,' broke out

Doris, who, like one in a nightmare, suddenly recovered the power of speech on being spoken to.

Dan threw as much astonishment as possible into his face and voice on hearing this. Then Doris falteringly

reached the end of the waggon, and looked, with all her soul in her eyes, at Victor lying in such strange

''E's not so bad as 'e looks'e's 'ad some medicine to make 'e sleep'e'll wake up fo'mby7 quite freshlike,

and be 'isself in a few days,' said Dan soothingly, forced in spite of himself to say something to relieve the

The sound of his voice, and Dan's consoling assurance, lightened Doris's worst fears. Looking from Victor

into Dan's face, she told him of the strange sight she had seen, or thought she had seen, in the iron passage at

'And you thoft you saw me as well as the young man?' said Dan in a wondering tone. 'Ah, 'tis just 'nough to

'But I was wide awake; and I looked in because Spot would stay and bark, as if there was someone he knew.

If he were here now you would see how he would recognise Mr. FitzGibbon; we left him at home for fear

The longer Dan spoke to her, the more completely he fell under the spell of those wonderful eyes, with their

clear sincerity of gaze. He felt in a vague way that it was more disgraceful to lie to this girl than it was to

deceive the common ruck of mankind. But he had to protect his boy fleeing from justice, and his brother from

detection: his brother, the exMember of Parliament, the trusted manager, and upright Justice of the Peace,

whose crafty dangerous game was now nearly at an end, leaving him scatheless, untouched by a breath of

suspicion as to violence or fraud or falsehood. And the thought that this strange episode of imposition and

concealment and sickening apprehensions was now really at an end stimulated Dan's imagination. He told

Doris, in his homely, unpolished phrases, how he was fossicking about for gold, and how, more than a week

ago, this young man came along, not feeling very well, and how he had gradually got worse; how he seemed

to have some reason for concealing from his friends where he was; and how since he had been delirious he

kept on often calling on a young lady'Helen' he sometimes called her'Miss Paget' at other times.

In saying this, Dan studiously looked away. He had not the slightest doubt that the young lady before him

was the subject of Victor's troubled snatches of talk; that it was her name which had so often lingered on his

lips as he made restless efforts to get to her. He divined, too, that his knowledge would not displease the girl,

whose agonized anxiety on the young man's behalf had so clearly revealed her feelings. On hearing the names

Dan repeated, Doris started, drawing in her breath like one who had received a sudden blow.

'And to think as ye who was wide awake had a sort o' vision of me, too, so many miles off,' said Dan in a tone

of wonder, still looking towards the wavering course of the Broombush Creek, which in the vicinity of the

brokendown whim was more thicklylined with slender sandalwood trees than the shrub from which the

watercourse took its name. Rough and untutored as he was in the conventions of polite conduct, his

instinctive delicacy led him to keep his eyes turned from the young lady's face for some little time after the

revelation he had made to her. 'It 'minds me,' he went on reflectively, 'of what appeared to myself many years

'Here is the book I have been searching for,' said Kenneth, approaching the two with a small thick volume in

his hands, turning over the leaves and glancing from passage to passage with the familiarity begotten by a

long friendship. He gave it to Dan, saying, 'Take it, my friend, in remembrance of the Samaritanlike

kindness9 you have shown to this young man. Read it day by day, and prize the privilege you enjoy of living

here, in total abstraction from the carnal pleasures and excesses of the world.'

Dan made an uneasy motion, and gave a deprecatory little grunt. He understood enough of Kenneth's speech

to make him recall with dismay the two bottles of brandy he had 'put away' a short time before, in the course

of four days. But the glamour of solitary reverie and absorption in the inner life was at this epoch strong on

'Here where you do not go abroad at all, where you labour much and seldom talk, where you eat sparingly,

without any of those dainty cates10 which tempt the senses, where you are clothed in homely attire, you have

precious opportunities of living the higher life. You may rise at dawn to pray and meditate, you may read

long and often, be vigilant against the snares of the enemy of souls, and persevere in the practice of holy

'The yowling of the dingoes is sometimes hawful, sir,' said Dan, anxious to bring the old man back to plain

matters of fact. 'Do you know,' he added, lowering his voice, 'that this sick man is a friend of the young lady

Dan glanced at Doris as he spoke, his eyes full of puzzled apprehension. She was standing by the waggon,

looking eastward into the vast gray plain with a tense fixed gaze. The pallor of her face was startling. Her silk

dustcloak12 and gauze veil were blown backward, and as her face and slight girlish form were fully

revealed there was something in her look and attitude that brought a climbing sorrow into Dan's throat. It

seemed as though she ought to be sheltered even from the dustladen breath of the hot wind in her mother's

arms. Yet here she stood in this arid solitude, with a strange seal of sorrow and loneliness on her face. Dan

expected that Kenneth would receive the news he told him with interested surprise, and that he would

instantly question the young lady as to the name, etc., of the sick man; but Kenneth merely replied:

'Ay, ay, he must have been at the mine then. The sun is lower than I thought; we must be going on our way.'

With a few parting injunctions as to the true welfare of the soul, Kenneth returned by the track he had

followed in coming. As the vehicle started, Dan gave a parting look at Victor lying in motionless slumber; at

Doris, who, sitting sideways, kept her eyes almost constantly fixed on him; at Kenneth, whose lean grave face

had already assumed the dreamy absent look which usually settled on it when slowly driving through the

'If I 'adn't told so many whoppers,' thought Dan, 'I'd fall on my knees and thank God for a hour on end.'

As soon as night set in he was on his way back to the Colmar mine, which he reached an hour after Trevaskis

Kenneth's horses, which he had driven together for nearly five years, had gradually acquired the art of

seeming to walk briskly, while in truth their pace was very slow. But on the way from the hut beyond the

brokendown whim Doris took no note of this. For the first mile she sat as she had done in coming, on the

front seat beside Kenneth, but watching Victor intently. She saw that when the waggon went over uneven

ground the motion jolted him roughly. His head rolled from side to side, and he muttered uneasily. She could

'Kenneth, don't you think I had better sit so that I can support Mr. FitzGibbon's head?' she said timidly, after

'Yes, Miss Doris dear, it is very thoughtful of you. Then you know his name? To be sure, that good

manmaybe I ought to have asked who he wastold me you had seen the sick man before. Perhaps you

would wish to come all the way to the diggings, so that he should be better cared for?'

'Oh, yes, yes! Please don't go to the Halfway House at all, Kenneth, till we return,' pleaded Doris.

'Just as you wish, Miss Doris. If Mrs. Challoner wakes before we get back, she'll know you're safe with me.

I'm thinking, by the look of the sky, that there's a duststorm coming on. But we're safe in the keeping of the

Kenneth took one of the movable seats of the avan, and fixed it for Doris close beside the invalid. Then they

went on their way once more. At sundown Kenneth halted to make some tea. Victor half woke up and drank a

cupful. He looked at Kenneth as he supported his head and held the cup to his lips, and murmured some

broken words. The next instant he was once more in a state of drowsy unconsciousness. A quarter of an hour

later, when within a mile of the diggings, a duststorm broke over them with terrific violence. The horses

refused to face it. Kenneth stopped on the sheltered side of a clump of sandalwood trees, and made the tilt of

the waggon as fast as possible against the dust. But it came in driving showers through every chink and

cranny. Doris, stooping over Victor, shielded his face with her dustcloak. Now that the motion of the

As Doris sat holding her cloak over him, his head resting against her knees, all the conflicting emotions

which had taken possession of her, when the incredible assertion made by Trevaskis on the preceding day had

been so strangely confirmed by Dan's words, died away. He was safe, and he would live, and reach 'Helen'

after he had been nursed back to health. As for herself, she was confused and very weary. Oh, if she could

only go to her mother! The vital forces, which had been subtly undermined for some days back, flagged

lower. She did not cling to the world or any of its bewildering, cruel stories. She could not understand them.

She longed only for the profound love that had wrapped her round all her life, and never deceived or

wounded her. She did not fear death. In her mind it was associated solely with the great peace that had

reigned in that quiet room in her old home, full of roses and sunlight, in which but a few months ago her

mother had awakened from the dream of life2 with a look of rapturous serenity on her face.

The very memory of that dear countenance, stamped with a profound and unutterable peace, seemed to

soothe every lingering regret. She could see the sky growing darker, even the sunset flush trembling into

wanness, as the duststorm raged with the fitful wails of a wind that rushes at its own wild caprice over

boundless plains, without a solitary wall or hill, or even a line of trees, to impede its course. The grayness of

the earth, in this region perpetually clad in dead colours, became even dimmer. The light waned in the sky,

and the wind blew more furiously. To Doris it seemed as though all around were mounting billows, ready to

float her to the verge of the unknown shore which at some unknown distance must bound this unmeasured

sea, before so silent, but now full of commotion, of shrill, tumultuous voices. But gradually they died away;

they swooned into the silence that sooner or later falls upon all the sounds and tumults of the world.

The sickle of a young moon hung low on the horizon, and stars trembled into sight;3 the cries of a long line

of waterfowl, flying from some droughtstricken district, sounded far and thin overhead; the rumble of the

wheels, the beat of the horses' hoofs, the cries of the birds, the light of bthe moon and stars in the sky, the

sudden arrest of the emotion that formed the dominant pulse of her young life, happy, tender memories of her

motherall were woven by the mysterious shuttle of sleep into a delicate tissue that bore the mask of reality.

The wind had changed. It was soft and low, breathing from the west, with long lines of dreams in its

wakedreams that were at first like vaguely luminous pictures. They seemed to fall from successive heights

in slender streams of transparent foam, and then slowly invade the gray plains with silvery waves of light,

lapping against the shore in numberless battalions that were perpetually renewed. . . . She was gliding over

the yellow sands, and the light of the moon mingled with the glow of the dying sunlight; she could hear the

beat of the waves, and the calls of the white seagulls wheeling above them. A boat drew near the shore, with

milkwhite sails, crowded with tall, strong angels, whose wings were folded on each side of them. She

watched them idly sailing by, but as they passed she saw that at the further end her mother sat with

outstretched arms. On that she called out; but the waves rose, and her voice was lost in their hissing . . .

Now it was night, and darkness was around her, the wind was rising into a storm; deep calling unto deep,4

and she was alone. The darkness thickened round her, and she was alone in a strange, desolate country; but in

a moment one came calling her by name and holding her by the hand. It was Victor, and as she clung to him

the light came back once more; . . . but someone came between them and led him away, and she was alone.

Then a strange terror fell on heran inexpressible, unreasoning, creeping fear; a fear, not of death, nor of the

ghastly legends that men tell each other with blanched faces of how the soul, ardent, conscious, full of love

and hope and infinite tenderness, is plunged in a moment of time into eternal oblivion like the carcase of a

stallfed ox.5 The horror that had fallen on her was a horror of lifea shrinking cterror from the days full of

gay sunshine, carrying away with them, like the petals of faded roses, all that the heart clings to, all that

She was in the midst of the Silent Seagray, voiceless, sinister, for ever the sameand she was alone. In

the sleep that had overtaken her, Doris knew for the first and last time what is symbolized by the word

'despair.' She looked with conscious eyes into those remorseless depths of being in which the bereavements

of death are seen to be gentle and loving and merciful, as compared with the robberies of life. She could not

cry; but it was as though tears of flame were slowly falling one by one on her heart, and consuming it within

her. The whole world seemed full of mounds, overgrown with grass, beneath which human souls were

dropping piecemeal into clods of dust; and all around her the dead sombre colours of the Silent Seathe

gray, vague formlessness, the darkness on which no shadows could be cast.6 . . . How many, many hundred

years had stealthily crept between her and the happy serenity of the days in which she had lived with her

Her mother! The word was like a spell. As she breathed it, moving uneasily in her sleep, the terrors that had

overpowered her fell away one by one. They were not true, they were part of a mocking nightmare; now she

was dawakening to the truth, and the truth was peace and blessedness, and light and healing. She heard a faint

rustling, as of one drawing near her in flowing robes. Oh, joy unspeakable,7 and consolation never more to be

wrested from her! her mother had come to her! Her arms were round her, her lips pressed on her cheek.

'Oh, maman, maman! did you hear mehave you come for me?' she murmured in a happy whisper, and with

that she looked up into her mother's face. It was as gentle, as beautiful, as full of love, as real to her, as it had

ever been. She waited in breathless eagerness for her mother's answer. And her mother's answer was to take

her in her arms once more, and kiss her on her brow; and then she awoke, her eyes wet with happy tears, her

brow warm with her mother's kiss. 'That was her answerI am going to her,' she said to herself half aloud.

Then she knew that she had been asleep, that their journey had come to an end, that Kenneth stood talking to

someone in the doorway of the hospital in which Victor was to be nursed. The waggon stood quite close to

the front of it; the tilt had been drawn aside, and the light was shining in, so that she could see Victor's face

distinctly. As she looked at him he moved and murmured some words. She bent over him. 'Helen, you

understand, don't you?' he was saying, in a troubled tone. But the sound of another woman's name on his lips

had now nothing of sorrow or fear for her. The bliss of her mother's summoning kiss wrapped eround her like

a garment which could be penetrated no more by the darts of any selfregardful sorrow.

'Dear Victor, goodbye! God make you well and happy!' she murmured softly, stooping over him, and

fslightly touching his brow with her lips. He moved at the touch; he seemed struggling to awake.

In that instant Kenneth came with two men, one holding a light, the other to help him to take the patient

inside. It was all the work of a few moments, and then they were on their way back to the Halfway House.

When they reached it Mrs. Challoner was still asleep; only the landlord and one or two late travellers were

astir. The landlord pressed them to stay for the night, as it was now ten o'clock.

But Kenneth, looking steadfastly at Doris, saw that her eyes were shining, as if her heart were full of happy

'Miss Doris is often pale,' he replied; and then he explained that he was pledged to set out on a long journey

on the morrow, and that it would be better for Mrs. Challoner to travel in the cool of the night.

So Mrs. Challoner was awakened from her long sound sleep, and said she felt like a new creature.

Early next day Kenneth departed. Doris, who had slept very fitfully, was up to say goodbye to him. As he

' My dear Miss Doris, I hope the fever is not on you,' he said, looking into her face anxiously. Surely it was

very pallid, and the shadows under her eyes very deep. Yet when she looked up at him there was that calm,

exalted gladness in those wonderfully radiant eyes which gstruck him on the previous night.

'I am well, thank you, Kenneth,' she answered, smiling at her old friend. 'Here is something I want you to

keep always,' she added, giving him a small sandalwood box. It held a large gold locket, with a photograph

Kenneth looked from one to the other. As he looked at Mrs. Lindsay, he said with the soft, pensive

intonations which had always in them something of the solemnity of solitary musings:

'Dear heart, sweet gentle lady, of thee it might always be said, "God hath given His angels charge over thee,

to keep thee in all thy ways."8 Now thou art among the companies of the blessed, enjoying the sweetness of

'Kenneth, if you heard that I had gone to her, you would not think it was anything to grieve for, would you?'

'No, dear child; you have ever had one of those sweet and welldisposed natures which need little chastening

to make them fit for the companionship of the sinless ones. . . . But though your life may be long in the land,9

something tells me we shall not meet again. To me the hour of my deliverance can never come amiss. Though

we are drenched with matter, yet the better part of us faints oftentimes for converse with the spiritual world.

If you return from over the sea and find that I am gone, you may know, dear Miss Doris, that what my soul

During that and the following day the Challoner household were occupied with the manifold duties of their

departure from the mine. Shung was, as usual, equal to two or three ordinary servants. But he kept a keen eye

on his young mistress, and was more insistent than usual that she should spare herself all fatigue. One and

another noticed her increasing silence, her lack of appetite, and an air of curious abstraction. It was a touch of

the fever, they thought, and the doctor ratified the conclusion. It was a good thing they were going away, he

said, for the change would most likely arrest the disease. At times she heard and saw nothing of what went on

around her. A whole world lay between her and the accustomed familiar details of life. The wondering

speculations, the absorbing thoughts, which had taken possession of her when her mother died, returned to

her with overwhelming vividness. Only the sting of separation was wonderfully removed. The earth and all

that it contained had come to wear to her the aspect of a scene in which she had no stake.

The world was enclosed in a pearly light, shot through with golden sunbeams, the morning they left Nilpeena

by the early train. Near midday they passed the confines of the Saltbush country. The wide shadowy

woods and softly swelling rises that succeeded the boundless horizons and arid monotony of that region

exhilarated the spirits like an escape from captivity. Later they passed through districts full of great fields of

wheat ripe for harvest. Flocks of sheep stood under the shade of old spreading gumtrees, by permanent

waterholes in the creeks; herds of cattle were feeding leisurely in wellgrassed paddocks; enclosed hillsides

were dotted with vineyards; the townships had their meanest habitations surrounded by fruittrees, bending

Almost every hsurrounding scene on the way was intimately associated in Doris's mind with memories of her

mother. They had made the journey so often together, that each little station at which they stopped, each

township they passed, was perfectly familiar. To several dwellings, of which they caught merely brief

glimpses in passing, Doris had given names, had even fitted them with stories to which her mother listened

'The boy that went away from Pearblossom Farm to get rubies as big as eggs has come back, maman, and

they have built a new room for himsee it there, at the end of the house!' Doris would say eagerly, pointing

out the new addition as they passed a house a little way off the railway line, surrounded by peartrees, that in

their season were clothed with a delicate splendour of blossom seldom equalled elsewhere. She had fallen

asleep after looking out through the window all the morning, but as they passed this wellknown spot she

'We are too late for the blossoms this time, Doris; but see how the trees are bending under their young pears!'

She looked out at the window, and lo! there was Pearblossom Farm with another new room to ita large

'What has happened now, maman?' she said, smiling softly. And then she remembered that her mother was no

longer beside her. But the thought had no sting in it, till she overheard some whispered words in the carriage.

A guard, who on this route had often seen Mrs. Lindsay and her daughter travelling together, came iin to

check the tickets. He looked at the young lady, now in black, and without her mother, and said something in a

low voice to jChalloner. 'Dead?' Doris heard him krepeating the word in a low, startled voice, and divining

who was meant, her heart rose in rebellion against the thought. The things that had been for a short time so

close and dear to herthese were dead: they had fallen from her like the fruitblossoms whose time is

overpast. But her mother, whose welcoming, reassuring kiss had released her from all pangs of sorrow, when

her hour of desolation had come in the very heart of the Silent Sea, ah, she had never died! she had but

From the moment that Nature was once more around her in the dear familiar aspects of beauty and fertility,

the old close bond between Doris and her mother was more strongly renewed: not so much through memory,

as a constant pervasive sense of communion which made all other interests dim, even a little unreal, in

comparison. Not that she was indifferent, least of all to memories of that brief space during which an emotion

more absorbing than she had lfelt before had overcome her. It was impossible to forget that, but she looked

on it as something irreparably past, while this quickening of the old life embraced almost the whole of her

past, and would be linked with those coming experiences of which her chief forecasts came in dreams and

'Does your head ache, dear? Are you very tired?' Mrs. Challoner asked repeatedly during the latter part of the

They were met at the railwaystation by those old friends of Mrs. Lindsay who had written to ask Doris to

stay with them in the early days of her bereavement. She now gladly consented to visit them for a week or ten

days, according to the date at which Mr. Challoner's health enabled them to leave the colony. Her first care

the next day was to send Shung to post a short letter she had written to Victor the day before she left

Stonehouse, intending to send it that same evening; but it had been somehow overlooked. As Kenneth had

said nothing of the invalid he had taken to the private hospital, Doris also maintained silence on the point.

She felt sure that Victor's presence in the district under such strange circumstances, after his supposed

departure by ship from Port Pellew, would lead to much wonder, very likely to much blame; and blame for

him she could not bear. She was mlittle given to analyzing her thoughts, but even in their unprobed recesses

there was no shade of anger against Victor. Though she felt there was something strange, something she

could not comprehend, in what had happened, yet she did not pass any judgment. 'And what is life that we

should moan? Why make we such ado?'10 These words, marked by her mother's hand years before, now

It was on the sixth day after her return from Colombo that Miss Paget heard the first rumour of Victor's

abrupt departure for England or the Cape of Good Hope. There seemed to be a difference of opinion as to his

destination even among those who knew the most, and in the end she found that no one knew very much

except by implication. It was at a gardenparty she heard the tidingsat the same house and near the

selfsame spot on which Victor three months before had charged her with inventing melancholy.

The entertainment was given in honour of a German nobleman who had travelled all over the Old World and

the New, chiefly with the result of proving that cosmopolitan dining did not impair his digestion. The house

was moderately old, as awe reckon age in Australia, and the surroundings picturesque. The sea was quite

near, and the grounds laid out in lawns, and numerous walks lined with Oldworld trees mingled with those

of native growth. There were winding lanes almost buried in shrubs and creepers, and the daintilytrimmed

lawns were sprinkled with dwarf yellow honeysuckles, scented verbena, daphne bushes, and many others of

the perfumebreathing kind. It was a warm day about the middle of December, and the sunshine seemed to

extract their inmost essences from flowers and leaves, so that the air was loaded with perfume which, in

places, might be too heavy, were it not for the fresh, keen savour of the seabreezes.

Miss Paget, with her father and Professor Codrington, were among the last to arrive.

'It is all the fault of the Delphin Ordon,'1 she said, excusing herself to the hostess smilingly. 'Oh, don't ask me

what it is! I only know it is shelves of old books, over which bold learned gentlemen cannot keep the peace.'

'But Professor Codrington is not as old as your father, Helen,' returned the hostess, with a meaning smile,

which made Miss Paget feel sure that already the pundit's mild infatuation for herself was the subject of

gossip; for it was a fact that his intimacy with Miss Paget opened the Professor's mind for the first time to the

thought that to form the subject of equivocal odes in the dead languages was not woman's sole function.

There were over three hundred people present, not counting the large blonde Count who was the centre of

attraction. Miss Paget, after chatting with a group of ladies near the hostess, passed on with her father and his

friend, talking to scores of people, many of whom they saw for the first time since their return. There was a

band playing, and on every side much talk and laughter. Miss Paget, in one of her most becoming gowns, and

with a constant succession of smiles, did honour to the occasion. But anyone observing her closely would

have noticed an expression of anxious scrutiny, of inquiring observation, in her face, as she looked round her

Would Victor make his appearance perhaps today? If not, she would, at any rate, surely fall in with

someone who could perhaps throw light on what was beginning to look like a mystery, and which, whether it

was a mystery or not, filled her with insupportable apprehensions. Victor's telegram, saying that he would be

in town on the evening of the day she landed, had awaited her on reaching home. It had been sent after his

telegram to her at King George's Sound. She looked for him to come on Saturday evening, after the arrival of

the late north train. But he neither came nor sent. On Sunday she made an excuse of not feeling well, and

stayed at home from church, thinking he might turn up at any moment. Had something detained him at the

mine? Or was he ill? Oryes, she had said to herself repeatedly during the past few weeks that a certain change

had come over Victor's letters; and the thought was confirmed when she found that there was nothing beyond

a telegram for her at the Sound. But then it was delightful that he should hurry down the very day she

returned. And she resolved that she would show all the joy she felt. She would voluntarily shorten the time of

probation, and their engagement would be announced forthwiththat is, if there was nothing wrong; and if

there was She did not try to face the alternative. 'I suppose I shall pull through somehow,' she thought,

and the words fairly express the history of the succeeding days of strained suspense.

She had shoals of visitors, and a rush of all sorts of social engagements. On the Tuesday succeeding their

return, her father spent hours with her arranging a list of the friends he wished to be asked to a succession of

small dinnerparties, to meet Professor Codrington, before they went away to Port Callunga for their annual

stay at the seaside. Though Mr. Paget thought that he was easily bored, his partiality for this form of

entertainment in his own house, cunder his daughter's careful supervision had, up to this, resisted the

There were the momentous questions as to the relations between certain peopleas to the advisability of

asking two men at once, otherwise suitable, but whose wives conspired in being so immovably stupid that no

party of ten could survive such absolute deadweights, etc., ad infinitum. Then there was the even more

important task of deciding on soups and entr es and wines to suit the company. It seemed as if the discussion

would never, never come to an end. Yet Miss Paget did not flinch, though each time the doorbell rang, or

the sound of footsteps passed the halfopen door of the morningroom, in which this domestic conclave was

'My dear Helen, why do you persist in having the door open?' her father cried at last in a tone of irritation,

seeing her eyes fastened on it when there was a subdued murmur of voices in the hall. 'It is almost the sole

point in which you seem to betray your Australian origin,' pursued Mr. Paget, who felt that the subject was

serious enough to call for a digression from the point on hand. 'Professor Codrington said only the other day

At another time Miss Paget would doubtless have indulged in some mental or audible remark as to the comic

inability under which Professor Codrington, like the majority of the deeply respectable British middle classes,

laboured, of being absolutely unable to imagine people are civilized in a country not even mentioned in their

parents' geographies. But just then she merely said, with the greatest meekness:

'Did he, papa? I am glad; for I am sure it would worry him to have one different from the people he is used to.

. . . But about the door. I would sooner have it a little ajar, if you do not mind much. I find it so close; I seem

'I hope to goodness, Helen, you are not going to fall ill with all these arrangements on hand. I wish you would

'I assure you, papa, that has nothing to do with it. It is chiefly my throat; it sometimes ails a little like this in

Her father resumed his suggestions and instructions, and Miss Paget did not allow her eyes to wander again

towards the door. But when the conference was over she went out and took a cab off the nearest stand, and

went into the General Post Office in the city, and sent a message to Victor at the Colmar: "Have you been

unable to leave? Please send an immediate answer." That was all, dbeside her name and address. The reply

came as they were leaving to go to the theatre. It was from the post and telegraph master at Colmar, with

whom Victor had been on very friendly terms, and the answer was: "Mr. FitzGibbon left here early on

'Is that from anyone unable to come to dinner tomorrow, Helen?' said her father, after they got into the

'Oh no, papa; it's a mere bagatellenothing so important as that,' she managed to say with a smile, and all

the time her heart was throbbing like the throat of a singing bird. Oh, how sick she was egetting of this

double life, and of everything around her: the great situations in dramas, which produce an immense effect,

and the small situations in life, that make no outward change at all, and yet paralyze the very springs of

On the next day, Wednesday, they had their first dinnerpartyseven of their most intimate neighbours.

Mrs. Tillotson was not among the number. Her daughter Jane had influenza, and the good lady was waging

an internecine strife with the nurse fand doctor on the subject of antipyrine,2 reading extracts to the patient

out of the wrong magazines, and goading her soninlaw to desperation, by imploring him each morning at

breakfast, and every evening at dinner, to have new and more enlightened advice as to the state of his lungs.

'Yes, my dear, Jane, I am glad to say, is a little better. What it has cost me to save her from being the victim

of antipyrine I would not like to tell you! However, I have the consolation of having done my duty, and I am

coming home tomorrow,' she said to Helen, when they met at the gardenparty on Thursday, where here

and there, through the vistas of shadowy foliage, shimmering expanses of the Southern Ocean caught the eye.

It was on a slight rise at the end of an elm avenue, commanding one of these views, that Miss Paget first

caught sight of Mrs. Tillotson, sitting with another gold friend on a rustic bench under a big gumtree.

'You must tell me all the newsyou know how hungry one is for news after being away so long,' said Miss

Paget, who had been feverishly anxious to see Mrs. Tillotson, feeling sure she would be one of the first to

hear if anything strange or unusual had happened to 'Mrs. FitzGibbon's boy.' But she did not mention his

name. She made Helen sit down beside her, and drenched her with showers of vapid twaddle, or what seemed

so to her listener, who was indeed tired to death of perplexity and doubt and wonder. Once or twice she

essayed to say in a careless tone, 'I wonder whether Victor FitzGibbon is still at the mine'; but after saying 'I

wonder' she gave the sentence a new turn, and the longer she delayed, the more impossible it became to utter

All through the previous evening she had felt that she might at any moment step out of the room from her

smiling guests, into one adjacent, to meet the tragedy of her life. . . . 'A tragedy only to myself, no matter

what happens,' she thought. To these people, to everyone else, it would be a story to smile and wink over. A

woman of her years breaking her heart over a boy just out of his teens! She cherished no illusionsshe did

not spare herselfbut this did not lessen the pangs she endured. She had come out today determined in

some way to end the suspenseto ask anyone or everyone who would be likely to know.

'But at least he has not been killed or had a bad accidentthere would be a paragraph in the papers,' she said

to herself, as the two old friends between whom she sat gossiped on, and she sat staring at some whitesailed

boats on the blue waves at the end of the avenue, motionless, as if asleep, with the shadow looking exactly

like the substance, even to the tear at the tip of one of the sails. She knew the scene was one over which some

people would rave as being very beautiful, but there was not a fibre of her nature that vibrated to its charm. It

gave her rather a feeling akin to repulsion, almost one of helpless terror, like the presence of a great, serene

implacable force profoundly indifferent to the sorrows and destinies of human beings.

She saw her father and Professor Codrington walking towards a marquee, near which the band was playing.

She thought of asking her two old friends to hcome in a devious direction towards the same centre, on the

chance of meeting someone who would know something of Victor, of meeting himself, perhaps. At that

moment some words spoken between two ladies, who had met just behind the rustic bench on which she sat,

'No, not a word. In fact, none of us in town knew he had left the mine till father heard from the captainyou

know they call the men who manage the mines captains.Ah, how do you do, dear? Isn't it too lovely? The

band, and the views, and the Countsuch a droll creature! . . . I hear he speaks every known tongue.'

'Ah, the version I heard is that he eats every known tongue, down to that of a jewlizard,3 and you know

Miss Paget had risen on catching the first words about one who 'had gone away in a sailingship.' The

speaker, as she had divined by the voice, was Miss Stuart Drummond,4 talking to two or three other young

'Doesn't the sea look exquisite just from this point of view?' said Miss Paget, leading her a little away from

the rest. She had not seen them, but a troop of seagulls opposite the avenue vista, circling widely over some

booty of the waves, with outspread snowy pinions and faint, complaining calls, gave a special point to the

scene. Miss Mason, feeling she was expected to admire it all, made some polite remarks and then spoke of

Colombo. Miss Paget must have enjoyed it very much, and then the getting home was always so nice. Wasn't

'Oh, about Victor FitzGibbon? Isn't it the most curious affair? but it can only be some whim, you know.

There is nothing whatever amiss to account for it, as is so often the case when people go off like that, without

Miss Paget had rightly judged that Miss Mason would know all there was to tell. She went over in detail all

that had been learned, and what Lance said and thought. Victor had written indefinitely of coming to town

'We thought when he came down that he would be sure not to go back again, for, after all, it was a little

'In three or four weeks,' answered the girl with a jdimpling smile; 'and Victor was to be kbest man.5 Oh, I

shall scold him! You know Lance is almost sure he must have written, and that the letters were somehow

lostperhaps entrusted to some "sundowner," like poor old Bertie Grayson's letters, when he wasn't heard of

from that station beyond anywhere for months and months. As it is, no one had a letter from him but the

The theory of lost letters was confirmed by Miss Paget's own experience, though she could not make use of

the confirmation. But it did not seem to be much needed. None of his people were greatly disquieted, only

'If his mother were here, you know, she would be distracted; but we others take it calmly enough,' Lance

FitzGibbon explained to Miss Paget a few minutes later. 'But I don't suppose it would have happened if the

mater were at home,' he added; 'indeed, I sometimes think perhaps it was on account of some letter from her

he went. I found out that the English mail had been delivered the day before he left. Only why go by a tub of

a sailingvessel, and from Port Pellew? It seems as if the boy had determined on something, and wanted to

'Not a syllable. We didn't write to each other very often, you know. I had some idea of having an inquiry

made, but uncle poohpoohed the thought, as everything was so clearhis letter posted to the

minemanager, and his letters and cards left at the inn.' It was more the anxious, questioning look in Miss

Paget's face that made FitzGibbon go over these details than any real anxiety in his own mind. She was at

first too startled to adopt the explanation supported by everything except direct proof. Afterwards it amazed

her that she should in so short a time adopt the suggestion that, strange as Victor's abrupt departure was, yet it

afforded no reasonable ground for anxiety. Of her own special reasons for lying awake at night, and getting

up restlessly before dawn kindled the sky, of growing pale and losing her appetite, she was, of course, mute

On the second day after hearing the news Miss Paget horrified herself by going into a fit of violent hysterics

for the first time in her life. The servants' wonder, her father's shocked amazement, and his insistence in

sending for his doctor and explaining that his daughter had sobbed and cried at the pitch of her voice as she

had never done in childhoodall were details full of such keen annoyance that for a short time she could

think of nothing else. She took herself to task severely for succumbing too easily to those fears that had been

in the background from the first. Henceforth, amid the conflict of her thoughts, she clung to the belief that

Victor could not have gone as he did without some good reason altogether unconnected with her, and that no

reason would have induced him to go without writing to her. His letter was lost, and until further tidings

She bent herself resolutely to a disposal of her days that would leave no idle moments. She gave more of her

time to household duties, trying to win back some of the old girlish sense of elation in the perfect order and

completeness of the household of which she was mistress; going oftener into the great bright airy kitchen,

with its tiled walls and lfloors of spotless purity, its gleaming utensils of plated ware and copper and agate,

and its wide range, so perfectly adjusted that it would almost cook of itself. She supervised some repairs to

the servants' rooms, with their pretty outlooks, and flowers growing at the windows. She went now and then,

as in olden times, for a chat with them in their sittingroom, into which she had conveyed so many artistic

knickknacks, till some of her older friends solemnly warned her against making her servants' lives so

luxurious that they would be unfitted for their own sphere in life. Had she ever undertaken anything in which

some danger was not found to lurk? But all other dangers, real or imaginary, sank into insignificance

compared to this, of finding her whole life made waste and void, by centring all its vital interests on an

unrequited attachment. It was with a sort of vague terror of this that she took up her old pursuits with

She went more frequently to charity meetings, visited the destitute asylum6 and the hospitals and the

suffering poor with steadfast regularity. And then all during the first week after she learned the inexplicable

tidings of Victor's departure there was the succession of dinnerparties, which claimed so much attention.

The stir in the household created by such parties, the sound of beating and pounding, the fragrant essences

and condiments that impregnated the atmosphere, the savour of roasts and joints, of sauces and dainty soups,

often affected her with a feeling that amounted to nausea. But she went through all the duties of a careful

hostess with relentless exactitude. She tripped down the broad stairs, shimmering in delicate summery

fabrics, to await her guests, and said the right things at the right moment as seriously as if the dearest aim of

her being was compassed, when, on bidding her father goodnight, he said: 'Well, Helen, I think our little

party went off very well.' And, as a matter of fact, she tried very hard to make herself realize that in the midst

of so much that was maimed and spoiled in the world through sheer poverty, the rich, flexible, delicately

And thus somehow time wore on till nineteen days had passed from the one on which Miss Paget heard the

news of Victor's departure. And now it was the second of January. She had for the first time evaded the

annual sojourn with her father at Port Callungaat least, for the first four weeks. It was possible for her to

do this without incommoding him, because Professor Codrington bore him company, and the older and more

experienced servants could be relied on to do everything for their material comfort. Their mental harmony

must largely depend on their conclusions regarding the Cretic and tetrameteriambic metres.7

Miss Paget felt that the seclusion of Port Callunga, with its beautiful monotony and the unbroken loneliness

of seashore, would be more than she could bear, while she watched and waited for tidings, and counted the

days till it would be possible to get a cablegram from Victor. The serious illness of one of the maids gave her

sufficient excuse for staying at Lancaster House, and her father agreed to the arrangement with that docility

which always characterized him when neither his pursuits nor mdinners were threatened by the vagaries of

'But about Mrs. Tillotson, Helen?' he said, a few days before his departure. 'I would not like to say anything

unkind; but without you to listen to her fears about her investments and her sonsinlaw'

'Of course Mrs. Tillotson stays with me, papa. Why'with a rising smile'I am not quite sure that it would

be proper for her to go with you and Professor Codrington and all those reckless metres.'

Since she was left a widow six years previously, Mrs. Tillotson had spent part of most summers with the

Pagets at the seaside. But she, too, found reasons for being better contented to stay just then at Lancaster

House, instead of going to Callunga. She had let her house furnished at an exorbitantly high rent to a

newlyenriched Silver King,8 and she wanted to keep an eye on the premises. Then Jane was really very

delicate, though George would not or could not see it, nor take any steps to go away for part of the summer.

But she, at least, had her eyes open, and would try to do her duty, and her duty was not to be beyond reach if

Jane should want her. . . . As for Matilda, she was so taken up with embroidering altarcloths, and so

devoured with grief at the spread of 'heresy,' that a mere mother hardly counted in her life at all. . . . But

George was more like a ghost than ever, and if he really became one, no doubt Jane would remember that her

mother was still living. And then there were those Banjoewangie9 shares. She had implored Richard to put

the last money that fell in from mortgages into something that would be quite, quite safe, and now, after

paying such high dividends, these shares were steadily going down. That was so often the way with mines

Mrs. Tillotson's first care each morning was to glance over the sharelists in the daily papers, and her spirits

would rise and fall with the Banjoewangies in a way that Miss Paget would no doubt have found trying if she

had not been partly oblivious of the matter. As long as her companion put in a sympathetic monosyllable now

and then, Mrs. Tillotson gently pottered on in the manner of an insensitive, selfinvolved, garrulous woman,

who takes no impression from any personality foreign to her own. Each day furnished her with events, visits,

On the date mentioned, the two sat on a veranda overlooking a shadowy part of the lawn, at two o'clock in the

afternoon, when Lance FitzGibbon came in through the side gate. On seeing him Miss Paget turned very

'You will be surprised at my errand,' he said, by way of preparing her, when she had stepped in with him to a

She murmured something by way of reply, and then he handed her a little note. The lines were wavering and

uncertain, but not more so than her sight. When the letters ceased to dance before her eyes, she read these

'Can you come nto me at once? The journey has knocked me up so much that Lance insists on my resting.

'He is at the house in which I lodge, less than half a mile away,' FitzGibbon said, meeting her eyes as she

looked up in hopeless bewilderment, after slowly reading this note the second time through.

To get a hat and oa pair of gloves and a sunshade, to excuse her absence to Mrs. Tillotson for an hour or so,

and to find herself walking rapidly beside FitzGibbon to his lodgings in Jeffrey Street, was the work of a

few minutes. On the way he told her all he knew. Four days ago a telegram came to him from the Broombush

Creek private hospital from Victor, saying he was well enough to travel. He had started for the diggings at

once, and returned by the first north train that day. Victor insisted on travelling straight through, and wished

to drive to Lancaster House direct from the railwaystation, which FitzGibbon had prevented his doing by

They had reached the house before Miss Paget comprehended that the report of Victor's departure from Port

Pellew was absolutely untruethat he had been hurt, and lying in some place unknown to him for two

weeks, according to the date of his admission to the hospital, whither he was taken by some person in a

hawker's waggon. He had been unconscious for days in the hospital, and for days, when he tried to explain

where he had been and how he had been hurt, his talk was taken to be the delirium of fever. Indeed, he was

not free from fever now. It would be better to postpone talking of the mysterious events, as far as possible, till

he was stronger. They had telegraphed to the minemanager, and were going to put the matter in the hands of

Miss Paget listened as if she were walking in a dream. But amidst all the confusion and inexplicable mystery,

one thought rose up clear and beautiful as a star. His first anxiety was to see her. The weary, endless days of

strained perplexity and harassing uncertainty had tried her more than she herself knew. Now it was as though

a great load pwere suddenly taken off, but as if she were too weak and weary from the burden to feel greatly

relieved. But soon she would be rested, and able to rejoice that her dismal apprehensions and mistrusts were

But even as she waited in the drawingroom, while FitzGibbon went to tell Victor that she had come, a

'O, God, I thank Thee!it is more happiness than I have dared to hope for!' were the words that rose in her

heart. . . . The next moment she was following FitzGibbon into the room in which Victor was resting.

He was in a dressinggown in a halfsitting position on a couch, awaiting her with a look of such eager

He pressed his hands against his temples, and lay back with halfclosed eyes, with an expression of intense

'That you had seen her, and then that Doris had writtenthat you knew where she was.'

'Just five days ago, after what seemed long years of darkness and ceaseless struggle, I woke up. Everything

was unreal. Then I got her letter. Oh, Helen, think of it! My poor darling believes that I do not love her as she

Miss Paget's hands were so tightly clenched that her nails made livid dents in the delicate flesh.

'Yes, it is whirling in chaos. But I have one thing to steady meone thing to hold by. It is not all black

confusion. Only the thought that she may be sailing away. . . . Oh, it is too intolerable!'

Victor turned away with a movement of extreme impatience, and lay back looking weak and spent. His face

was white and thin, his eyes looking unnaturally large and hollow. Miss Paget noticed that they glittered with

excitement when he spoke, and that, until overcome with exhaustion, there was a vehemence of emotion in

his face and voice she had never seen in them before. This, coupled with his strange conduct and inexplicable

speech, gave her a quick thrill of fear. Was it the delirium of fever or of a more fixed and dangerous

'Dear Victor, what is it that distresses you? Is it any news of your mother, or'

'No, no, no! It is Dorismy Doris! She has gone away. I must find her. She must know the truth . . . and

No; never before had Miss Paget seen him touched with this absorbing intensity. But here a sudden chill fell

on hera doubt that his cwords did not spring from imaginary events or a disordered brain.

'Doris! My Doris!' What could these words signify? The first dread that Victor's mind was temporarily

unhinged gave place to the dread that it was not. Yet she tried to hope against hopeto lead him from the

feverish thoughts that had taken hold of him. She spoke in the soothing tones in which one seeks to dsoothe

'All these days we have been thinking of you as on your way to England; but now you are safe here.'

'Good Heavens! what fantastical notions you have all got hold of!' he cried, epassing his hands once more

against his temples. 'I made so sure you would know something about Doris. Not that you would have made

her believe I did not love her. You would have understood it all. The last time I saw her was a few hours

before I was made insensible. . . . I was coming to you, Helen, to tell you all.'

Miss Paget drew her breath in suddenly. For a little ftime it seemed as if she were spending her last breath in

Again there was silence in the room for a short time. Victor had turned ihis head aside, and Miss Paget saw

In that moment, had it been in her power, she would have restored to him without a moment's hesitation the

lost love who had so entirely effaced her own claim that he seemed to have forgotten its existence. But as the

first tumult of bitter disappointment subsided, the past returned to him in clearer proportions.

'You were wiser than I was, Helen, when I thought I loved you well enough to ask you to be my wife.'

'Tell me about it now, Victor . . . all you were coming to tell me when these strange things happened,' she

And by degrees she heard the storythe old simple, ever new and imperishable idyll of two young human

'No one knew but our two selves. . . . I did not mean to speak till I had told you. . . . I would have come at

once to you . . . only you were away. . . . But I was glad to remember that from the first you thought my

'Yes, I thought it was not likely to last,' she said with her invincible little smilea smile which mentally she

considered equalled Mdlle. Cardinale's most signal feat of balancing in the air.

'Now, how clever it was of you to find that out,' she said, shifting one of the cushions to make his head more

'I don't think I did quite find it out, Helen, till I was really in love myself,' he answered slowly. He raised one

of her hands to his lips, and added: 'I knew you would understand how it all happened.'

The words hurt her horribly. But beyond speaking in a very low voice, she betrayed no emotion as she

The longer she was with him, the more she realized that his hurt, and the bitter disappointment which had

come to him with the recovery of full consciousness, had for the time entirely changed him, making him

selfengrossed, impatient, and profoundly melancholy. It was an effort of memory to recall his face as she

had last seen it, beaming with health and boyish gaiety, with every thought tuned by that love of the bright

But there was no effort of memory required to make her realize that nothingnothing made any difference

to the place he held in her heart. 'Oh, thank Heaven, no one knowsno one ever will know!' she said to

herself, bending her head as it all rose before her, bringing a hot sudden flame into her face. The steadfast,

unalterable vehemence of her feelings, notwithstanding that the fears which had from the first beset her were

now certainties, was the last drop in her cup of bitterness. . . . She recalled stories that had come to her

knowledge, of women who had clung to men even when they had outraged every instinct of humanity. Love,

which, according to the poets, should exalt and transfigure human beings, did it not in reality as often

humiliate and disgrace them, and render them recklessly egoistic? But she had always known the poets were

'At least there are some depths of humiliation I shall be spared,' she thought bitterly, as she glanced at Victor's

face. Sombre and changed it might be, but it would never bear traces of cruelty and deceit and shameless

During the short silence in which these reflections passed through Miss Paget's mind, Victor had drawn a

'It is jall so awfully mixed up, Helen,' he said, his voice weak from mental and physical weariness. 'You may

be wondering why I made so sure you would know something about Doris. . . . Well, I will give you her

precious little letter to read. I got it the last thing as I was leaving the hospital. The doctor had it for a day or

two, I think. He said I had been drugged after being hurt, and must be kept perfectly calm. At first he would

do nothing I told him, only try to keep me quiet. It was only when a telegram came from Lance, in answer to

one I bribed the wardsman to send, that the doctor believed a word of what I said . . . "Deliriumall

delirium," he kept on muttering, till one day I flung my boot at him; and after that he said it was a case of

'You see, Helen, lthere is nothing to show whether it was the mine or Adelaide. I sent a telegram to Trevaskis

on the journey down, and instead of giving me a date, he merely telegraphed that the Challoners had left

'Then we can look up the shipping intelligence,2 and find out from thator some of the agents,' said Miss

'Oh yes, yes! this very day. I knew you would help me. I seem to have lost all power of thought.'

' "And I want to say goodbye, and to thank you for all your kindness: I will never forget it." '

'What now, Victor?' said Miss Paget, who was holding the letter on her lap, so that the tremulousness of her

'What now?' he repeated. 'I want to go away. I want to find out where Doris is, and, if she has sailed, to take

the next ship. Why, there may be one starting now! My kindness to her. . . . Good God! as if I would not lay

down my life to save her a pang! . . . And all this time she thinks. . . . Helen, why don't you go on? But I

To lessen the temptations of breaking this promise, Miss Paget read to the end rapidly, not pausing if any

' "I think, dear Victor, I must have made a mistake as to some things you saidI mean, in the way you love

me. I do not blame you, for I am sure there is some explanation I cannot guess, and I am afraid you were

unhappy when you went away so that we shouldn't know where you were. Perhaps that is why you fell ill,

' "Mother and I lived so much alone, and were so very, very dear to each other. But even with maman there

were a great many things she did not explain to me. . . . Once when we were returning from town we

travelled with Koroonathe girl I told you maboutmother was so angelkind to everyone, yet she would

never take me to see Koroona at Noomoolloo, and Koroona was never at our place till she came flying out of

the woods that terrible evening. . . . Often, too, when mother was talking to Mrs. Murray or Mrs. Challoner,

or even some of the poor splitters' wives, she would speak in a low voice and look at me; or other times I

would come in from the garden, and they would speak of something else. One day, not very long before we

parted, I asked mother why there were so many things she did not explain to me, and she said I was not old

enough yet to understand. . . . And this is another of these many things. . . . But you must soon get well, and

Miss Paget drew a deep breath at the mention of her own name. Victor's face was very pale and set, but he

' "I think I shall write one letter to you from France, to know how you are. This is a real letternot like the

little makebelieve one when you let me practise so that I might write to Raoul. . . . But that would be quite

different, for I know you and love you so much better. I hope you will not think I am vexed or unhappy. I will

tell you a secret: darling maman now seems quite near me all the time, as if she had in some way come in

place of what made me so happy without her. . . . I am glad you got so many beautiful flowers for me, for

flowers will always speak to me of you, and remind me of the great pleasure they gave to the sick children.

Poor little dears! they were starved for beautiful things, and there is nothing in all the world more beautiful

than flowers, except the swallows flying. . . . I am glad you are now in a place where you will be nursed well

' "oCome to Helen and be happy!" When I read that I made sure that in some way you had met Doris here,'

said Victor, speaking in a dull tone. 'No one else, except, perhaps, Mrs. Tillotson, knows.'

'She does not knowno one knows from me,' replied Miss Paget, who, in the midst of a whirl of confused

thoughts, discerned one thing clearly: this letter, in its girlish simplicity and uncomplaining renunciation, in

some way inspired her with new hopes and confidence. Only, if she had really gone, would Victor at once

follow, or would he wait till the delirium of fever left him sane and collected? She insisted pupon his taking a

little wine before he tried to give her some idea of all that remained with him of the past strange days.

He drank almost a wineglassful, and as soon as he was strengthened by its reviving influence he became more

excitable and unreasonable. Why was he being kept like this, inactive? Why was not Lance doing something?

'Not on groundson suspicion. Oh no, nothing could or would be done unless he were allowed to act, and he

was tiedfastened down as of old. . . .' This was the light in which his feebleness appeared to him. He had in

the journey spent more than his reserve of strength, and his brain was cruelly clouded by the long days in

which, after his violent hurt, he had been kept insensible by doses of laudanum.

Miss Paget made him lie down again on the sofa. She bathed his head, and rubbed his temples softly with the

palms of her hands. She allowed him to talk, for she felt qit would be worse than useless to try to impose

silence while he was in such strange perplexity. He told her that his brother as yet knew nothing of Doris; he

could not bear beginning to explain. Everything he said aroused only wonder and doubt. And then he told her

how he had been falling asleep on the bunk in his office, when he heard someone unlocking the iron safe, and

he sprang up to catch the thief. The keys had been left with him, and it was only Trevaskis who knew of

them. . . . He was seized and struck on the head. After that, all he could remember was a cavernous place with

dim lights coming and going, borne by menone with his face almost covered with long gray hair, the other

shorter in statureand when he was alone a feeble light burning in a distant corner. They were gentle in

attending to him, but one seldom spoke, and his own eyes seemed always heavy and dull with sleep. . . . Such

memories could hardly hold a clue. They bore too much the impress of those fragmentary visions of fever

And then the journey to the hospital! That, too, was like a dream fitfully remembered. He was borne out of

the darkness; the rlights of the stars and the fresh wind were round him, and he thought Helen came to him.

He even remembered calling on her by name to tell her. The horrible shadowy figures were gone, and later he

felt sure that Doris was there. He could remember her bending over him, or near him. He seemed to have

wakened up from time to time. He thought at first it was heaven, and then he knew it was much better, for

Then he woke up in the hospital, and no one even knew who had brought him there. At least, they did not

know his name. An old hawker, the wardsman said, who had brought people to the other hospital from

Colmar. But he had not been brought from the mine. He had been brought from someone working a claim.

'But, after all, everything is well, Victor,' said Miss Paget gently, gratefully noticing that the look of

anguished perplexity was gradually leaving his face. 'Even if Doris has gone away, she is with her friends.

She will be taken care of, and you will in a short time be strong and well again.'

She soothed him and talked to him till he dropped into a sound sleep. She heard footsteps coming to the door,

and softly opened it in time to prevent anyone from knocking. It was Victor's brother, followed by the

landlady with a tray, on which stood a little basin full of beeftea. 'Half a pound of gravy beef, quickly boiled

in a common saucepan,'3 thought Miss Paget, giving the preparation a brief glance. She whispered that the

patient had fallen asleep, and had better not be disturbed. Then she went into another sittingroom to speak to

'You have succeeded in quieting him, Miss Paget,' he said, looking at her with a little smile. Then he showed

her a telegram which he had a few moments before received from Trevaskis, announcing that he would be in

'Poor old Victor has some dark thoughts about this man,' said Lance. 'But of course it is part of the fever. The

doctor at the Broombush hospital said he was no more fit to travel than he was to fly. However, short of tying

him, he could not be kept. But now, Miss Paget, do you think you could prevail on him to have a doctor and a

'A doctor and nurse here? I am afraid the bare idea would irritate him. He is so anxious to go about.'

'But now that he has seen you? Don't think sI am trying to force your confidence. But I thought, before Victor

went to the wilds, that he had lost his heart to you. And certainly his intense anxiety only to come to you at

once confirmed the impression. . . . I know that you would be likely to hesitate. No, don't tell me a word more

'You are right in supposing that there has been a little more than mere friendship between me and your

'Then I will just say only one thing, Helen. Excuse the liberty, but I have known your name a long time, and

Miss Paget, who was extremely pale, responded by a friendly little nod and smile. Despite her agitation, her

'There would not, I am certain, be the same risk in Victor's case that there would be with some young men.

He is the soul of fidelity. I won't say any moreperhaps I should not say so much.'

'Thank you. We will put that aspect of the question quite aside just now. Victor needs nursing and society.

We have so much room, and quiet, and everything that is necessary, at tLancaster. And I have just been

'Oh, that would indeed be good for the poor fellow! He is in such a state of intense irritation. I think strangers

about him would make him wild, and, then, people would come who should not see himlike Uncle Stuart.'

'Well, yes, as long as he comes looking so black, and saying he must have an explanation from Victor of all

'Furious! I think I should like to see him when he comes,' said Miss Paget thoughtfully.

'Well, I told uncle he could not possibly see Victor today. He'll very likely call the day after tomorrow with

the manager, and you must just use your own discretion. I thankfully accept your offerat any rate, for some

After talking over various details as to Victor's removal, his brother went back to Lancaster House, to order

Victor awoke calmer and more collected, but with a more settled purpose of losing no time in finding out

whether the Challoners had already sailed, and, if not, whether they were in Adelaide.

'The first thing to do is to get a file of the daily papershere is today's,' said Miss Paget. 'I'll see if the

Lance had gone to telephone to his bank, and the landlady went vaguely searching in various rooms till she

had newspapers for six consecutive days. But when Miss Paget returned with these, there was no longer any

need to consult them. Victor sat with that day's paper in his hand, with a stunned look on his face.

'They are gonethey are gone,' he said, speaking like one hypnotized, and then in silence he pointed to the

passengerlist of a French mailboat that had sailed on the previous day: 'Mr. and Mrs. R. Challoner and two

Misses Challoner.' 'Doris is put down as their daughter, and they are gone,' he repeated in the same tones.

'Oh, to think that I am only a day too lateone miserable little dayand all the days that I was lying tied

The very cruelty of the blow seemed to take away all power of further emotion. Doris was goneacross the

great salt dividing oceanbelieving that he did not love her with all his heart and soul, and yet speaking no

word of blame, acquitting him from all faults. There was nothing now to be done but suffer and wait till he

'She is with her friends, you know, Victor. She is safe. It is not as if any harm would come to her,' said Miss

Paget, more dismayed by his calm and settled misery than she had been by his irritable impatience.

'Yes, she is with her friends,' he answered slowly; 'but I am not with her. And we were to have made this

voyage togetherwith the great sea around us, full of motion and lustre. So unlike that other gray inland one

'The one thing that you must now set your heart on is to get well. You can then make plans and carry them

'To take care of me?' he repeated, as if the thought were too novel to be grasped all at once.

'Yes, to see that you have proper nourishment at proper times, that you rest when you ought, that you do not

'But then you'll have some doctor hanging round, who will try to give me remedies for everything except

But Miss Paget undertook to obviate all and every disagreeable contingency. Lance returned and put up1

some of Victor's clothes which he had not taken with him to the mine. Then he supported Victor to the

'You are walking more firmly and looking better already,' he said, taking the silence which had fallen on his

'I am going to take him for a drive,' said Miss Paget, after giving her directions to the coachman, and

The day had been very warm, but a slight rapid shower had lightened the atmosphere. They drove in a

westerly direction through quiet wide streets, where each house was fronted with flowergardens still full of

roses, great masses of petunias, and beds of heliotrope, bleached ashy pale by long days of summer. The

slopes of the Adelaide hills, shadowy with vines and olives, aand tall pomegranatetrees and groves of

oranges and lemons, were lying in the warm sunshine, with white houses gleaming through the foliage like

quiet, soft scenes in pictures, each with some individual feature of its own as the point of view was changed.

They passed through Walkerville, where so many of the houses are enclosed in roomy gardens, band crossing

by the Company's Bridge, they drove into the Botanic Park, skirting the Torrens bank, with its sloping

terraces planted with fastgrowing trees and drooping willows along the water's edge. Then they passed

through the length of the exquisite avenue of planetrees,2 one long unbroken arch of pure emerald flame.

Victor, whose eyes had grown accustomed to the naked monotony of the great Saltbush plains, found his

spirits gradually reviving under the influence of these benign and tranquil aspects of Nature, breathing only of

wellbeing and man's enjoyment of her gifts. The calls and laughter of children at play, the rumble of trams

and vehicles in the distance, the roll of carriages near at hand, the clear, melodious whistle of the blackbirds

who are here acclimatized,3 the rapid cries of shell parrots rifling the honey blossoms of the gumtrees, were

all blended into a harmonious symphony of friendly, familiar life, carrying an assurance to the young man's

heart that all must yet be well, though fate had of late dealt him so heavy a blow. The constant feeling of

heavy apprehension that had been created by the narcotics with which his system had been poisoned grew

The two were silent for the most part, and Miss Paget, glancing at Victor's face from time to time, saw

something of their light coming back to his eyes. The thought arose, what happiness to be once more beside

him, if only this girl had not crossed his path! And then she reflected how every joy that came in her way was

marred by some gray spectre of what had been or might come to pass, and with that came the resolution that

she would postpone her life no longerthat she would be glad in the light of the sun,4 and take with a

grateful heart the gifts that came in her way. Yesterday her life was bitter with forebodings and uncertainty;

she did not know whether Victor were dead or alive, or in what latitude he might be of the great, treacherous

sea. Today he was safe beside her; she would rest in that, be glad in it, let tomorrow bring what it might.

She leant back with halfclosed eyes, and when Victor, stooping a little forward, leant against her arm, the

He, looking at her for the first time without being engrossed with his own emotions, noticed that she was

unusually pale. She had, perhaps, been suffering since they parted. It was not her way to say much of herself.

She looked up and found his eyes fixed on her, full of their old kindness; her heart began to beat wildly.

'Are you well, Helen? I have been so full of my own troubles, you have hardly told me anything about

'Oh, you see, father and I belong to the happy people who have no history,'5 she answered lightly.

And then she went over in detail the record of their days since her last letter had reached him; that is, she told

him everything, except those moments of poignant feeling which sum up more of actual life than months of

outward eventsexcept those wakeful nights in which the years that might await her, empty and shorn of all

the happiness she coveted, swept by in a ghostly procession. But who, to hear her laugh and talk, dwelling on

every ludicrous little episode, would have guessed aught of this? Not Victor, certainly, who felt something of

his accustomed buoyancy of spirits returning as he listened, and even laughed from time to time.

As they ascended the rise on which Lancaster House is situated, they caught glimpses of the sea, its silver

radiance softened by a paleblue haze penetrated with sunshine. Did it look like this to Doris at that moment?

Was she perhaps talking to Mrs. Lucy, and recalling some mysterious legend of China, or of the time when

'Oh, God bless her! God bless my little darling, and take care of her for ever and ever!' Victor's heart swelled

and his eyes grew dim. What a wonderful thing was this new emotion that had taken such tyrannous

possession of hima companion before whose magic that of genii or fairy was a mere creature of weight or

pence!7 A glimpse of the sea, the folded slope of a hill, the chance trill of a bird's songall had now a thrill

This came home to him still more forcibly next morning. During the night he slept well; before waking he

dreamt of Doris most vividly. She seemed to be quite near himso near that if he had stretched out his hand

he could have touched her. But he was so enraptured by the smile with which she looked at him that he stood

motionless, feasting his eyes on her face; so that when he woke his whole frame was suffused with that

vague, delicious sense of wellbeing which comes with happinessthat supreme contentment in the present

The impression remained with him so strongly that he escaped soon after breakfast to muse over his thoughts

alone. He walked very slowly at first, going up the little rise that to the west of the house commanded a view

of the sea. He seemed to draw nearer to Doris as he looked. How she would love this sight of the great

waters, as they lay limpid and shimmering in the distance, enveloped in magical light, with faint shadows

flitting now and then across the quivering blueness, pale and visionary as a world apart, which might

somehow vanish from sight at any moment! It was like waking to life anew to look on the familiar sights of

earth, while his nature was so profoundly stirred that it seemed as if he were endowed with new senses of

perception. There was more colour in the sky, more melody in the songs of cbirds, more oxygen in the air,

deeper and more tender associations bound him to the world, this beautiful morning, while every breath he

drew gave him an added sense of vigour. And the stronger he felt, the clearer grew the light, as of a perfected

memory, in which he recalled Doris sitting near him, in that strange night journey across the Silent Sea. He

'You are looking dreadfully independent this morning,' she said, taking his arm.

'Yes, Helen; I think to be near you makes me better,' he answered, suddenly touched with the thought of her

She thrilled all over at this speech. What if, after all, Doris were separated from him beyond recall? Thoughts

arose which she dared not dwell don; hopes leapt to life she would not consciously entertain.

She had come to tell him that his cousin, Miss Drummond, and his brother's fianc e, Miss Mason, had called.

Was he well enough to see them? If not, she would make eexcuses; they would understand. But he almost

laughed at the thought of not being strong enough to stand a little talk. Why, he was almost well enough to

He might pride himself on feeling so strong and well, but one at least of the young ladies had as much as she

could do to keep her tears back at sight of him. This was his future sisterinlaw, Florry Mason. She was at

all times an affectionate, tenderhearted girl, and just then she was in that slightly exalt e,8 easilytouched

mood which many girls experience on the eve of marriage, and Victor had been always a great favourite with

her. To see him so changed, with all the bloom gone out of his face, and his hands so white and bony! She

tried hard to keep her voice steady and her eyes bright, but Victor noticed a huskiness in her utterance. Was

This was fin allusion to an old joke. Florry had confided to him, when they were acting together, that she

liked getting engaged immensely; but she was sure when the time came she would take fright, and put off the

His gaiety helped to restore her. She had so much to tell him. The wedding was to be in nine days, and

tomorrow there was to be a weddingdress bee at their house. Did he know what that was? All her dearest

friends assembled to help to make her dress. Well, she had nine very intimate friends altogether, and besides

these there would be one who was a great friend of her mother'sMiss Northwho was quite a clever

doctor. And wouldn't Victor come out with Miss Paget tomorrow? Lance would turn up to keep him in

'To sew a bit of your weddingdress? I haven't got a thimble,' answered Victor. But this was too shabby an

excuse, and before she went away Miss Mason had Victor's promise that he would come out to Broadmead,9

her mother was so very anxious to see him. 'And oh, you poor dear, dear Victor, to think you have been so

She cried a little, after all, but gafter she felt so much better, and Victor, declaring that she had taken fright

after all, shifted his chair so that no one saw her but himself. And then she went to Mrs. Tillotson, to include

her in the invitation to the weddingbee, and Miss Drummond had a little talk with Victor.

Her father wished to know whether he would be well enough to see him tomorrow morning, and the man

'Yes, certainly, I want to see that manTrevaskis, I mean,' he answered in an altered voice, while a curious

change came over him. A shiver passed through his frame, as if touched by a slight current of electricity.

Suspicion, repulsion, and a longing for revenge, sentiments hitherto so foreign to his nature, brought a

sombre shadow on his face. Miss Paget noticed the alteration, but she was not prepared for the hard, cold,

steady look of hatred that settled in Victor's eyes as soon as he saw Trevaskis on the following forenoon. Mr.

Drummond had first entered the morningroom in which his nephew sat writing. The elder man murmured

something about an extraordinary affair, and an investigation, and wishing for light on the matter. Victor,

without making any reply to these feeblyjointed statements, asked where Trevaskis was.

At this moment Miss Paget entered, followed by the manager. He was very well tailored, and had improved

'Well, Mr. FitzGibbon, this is a strange meeting!' he began, with a little more effusion than was usual with

Victor ignored the manager's extended hand, and looked at him fixedly with a malignant expression that gave

'A strange meeting! I wonder whether it is the strangest we have had?' he said, not speaking till she had left

A curious scene followed. Trevaskis let himself go, partly because his fear and confusion were so great that

he felt his safety lay in an assumption of violent anger. He called on Mr. Drummond, as chairman of the

directors of the Colmar Mine, to witness the studied insult conveyed by the young man's manner and words. .

. . He suspected that there was something fishy behind this suspicious sort of disappearance; but to begin to

make insinuations against himagainst him of all menas if he could have a single reason under God's sky

to wish Mr. FitzGibbon any harm! At this point he choked a little, and his voice broke with emotion.

'Have you taken leave of your senses altogether, Victor?' said his uncle, turning on him with austere

Victor, from the first moment that consciousness returned, had felt a strong suspicion that the attack on him

in his office, and his subsequent disappearance, were in some way due to Trevaskis. The moment they met

this suspicion turned into a conviction, and yet seemed more incredible than before. In spite of himself, he

found Trevaskis' resolute and intrepid attitude throwing ridicule on his belief.

'You can surely bring forward some grounds for such a serious charge against a man,' said Trevaskis in a

calmer voice. 'Only mind you,' he added after a little pause, 'I can see well enough that you are not yet

yourself. I know what it is to have the mind full of cranky ideas left by a sharp stroke of fever, and there's no

doubt that there has been some foul play somewhere, which will soon very likely be traced up by the police.

At any rate, they shall have all the help that I can afford them. But I should like to know what you can

'I woke up from time to time in some dark underground place,' returned Victor slowly, his eyes fixed on

'Underground? Have you any proof, or is your recollection quite clear on the point?'

'I cannot say that anything is clear,' answered Victor sombrely. At this admission the manager looked at the

'Do you recollect seeing anyone attending you or speaking to you?' said Mr. Drummond.

'Yes, very well. There were two men, one of them I should imagine about Mr. Trevaskis' height and build, but

with gray hair, a long gray beard, and sunglasses. As far as I can remember, he never spoke. The other was a

shorter man, and, if my memory does not deceive me, he resembled the other. Latterly I seldom saw the taller

Victor looked hard at Trevaskis as he spoke, but the manager's expression of eager interest was perfectly

'Two men, and in an underground place,' he repeated thoughtfully. As he spoke he took a notebook out of

his breastpocket, and wrote one or two short entries. Victor watched him with a baffled, lowering

'You telegraphed to me about Challoner,' said Trevaskis, as he closed his notebook.

'I know! I know! They sailed the day before yesterday,' said Victor, turning away with a motion of passionate

impatience. Could this really be the scoundrel who had spoilt some of the most glorious days of a lifetime? he

asked himself, with an excess of impotent rage, as he thought of Doris sailing leagues and leagues further

away from this, hour on hour, believing that he did not love herthat he had deceived her. The belief could

hardly be laid to Trevaskis' account. This mystery within mystery made his brain reel with the old chaotic

bewilderment which used to overtake him when he was drugged in his unknown hidingplace.

He felt so weak and shaken that he pushed open the window and leant hout for a little fresh air. On hearing

ithis statement as to Challoner's departure, a look of pleased surprise came into Trevaskis' face.

'Oh, you knew about the Challoners?' he said, and then, finding that Victor made no jfurther remark, he

turned to Mr. Drummond, saying: 'It seems Mr. FitzGibbon has nothing more to say to us.'

'I need hardly tell you, Victor, that this affair has caused me great annoyance, and I must ask you for your

own sake never to breathe to anyone a word of the most unjust, and I may say extraordinary, suspicions you

first seemed to harbour. I cannot help thinking that your mind is still very unsettled.'

Victor looked at his uncle without replying. 'I wonder if he was very much discomposed by my

disappearance?' was the thought that passed through his mind. As a matter of fact, the old gentleman had

saved himself from insolvency by appropriating to his own use most of the ready money that was to come to

Victor on his twentyfirst birthday.10 But the young man was still oblivious of this, and his first feeling after

his uncle parted from him was one of selfreproach. 'It is horrible to get a blow on the head and be drugged

for a hundred years; it fills one with suspicions,' he said to himself wearily. But it was not only the physical

blow. It was one of those wounds of destiny that distil a subtle clairvoyance of evil into the moral nature. It

was not only that the early swell of quick emotion unspoiled by any afterthoughts had deserted him, but

already his confiding disposition was touched by invincible mistrust. This is a common element in the story

of human lives. Youth under the action of time is like a palimpsest exposed to a biting acid, that brings

'I have persuaded your uncle and Mr. Trevaskis to stay to luncheon, Victor. Will you join us?' said Miss

Paget, coming in so softly that Victor did not hear her till she stood kbehind him.

'No, Helen, unless you promise to poison them both,' he answered, half laughing. But in reality he looked so

pale and exhausted after lhis interview, that Miss Paget, in her capacity of nurse, decided he must have no

After luncheon was over Miss Paget sat talking to Trevaskis at an open French window.

'You don't know what it is to see all these beautiful trees and flowers after being in a place like Colmar,' he

said, his eyes riveted on a tall hibiscus shrub, all aflame with widecupped flowers, of a delicate, bright pink

'Would you like to look at our roses? We have still a great many left,' she said; and, taking a sunshade from a

table in the veranda in passing, she walked beside him, pointing out those of the rosebushes whose buds and

blooms were still untouched by the heat of summer. Standing near some tearoses in the shadow of a tall,

slender gumtree, whose palepink myrtle blossoms were in possession of some pugnacious pairs of black

and yellow honeyeaters, Miss Paget said suddenly: 'There is something I want to ask you, Mr. Trevaskis. Do

you know why Mr. FitzGibbon is so anxious about the movements of the Challoners?'

At this unexpected and direct question Trevaskis' face flushed deeply. From the moment he entered the house

his mind had been actively occupied with what he knew of the relations between Miss Paget and Victor. His

mobservation, sharpened by what he had learned through having overlooked the contents of his desk, as well

as the halfwritten letter, was keen to detect signs and glances which would otherwise have held no meaning

for him. He had seen Miss Paget's eyes full of telltale tenderness as they rested on Victor's pale and agitated

face. She loved him. Did she know that there was someone who had supplanted her? He judged that she did

from the nature of her inquiry. And he knew that the tale which would best serve his purpose would be the

one she would most joyfully, most readily believe. These considerations passed through his mind in a flash.

'Yes, Miss Paget, I do; and I wish, for Mr. FitzGibbon's own sake, that he would get rid of the ideas this

'Yes, the fever,' returned Trevaskis, in a slow, emphatic voice. 'nI'm not going to say what I think of this

mystery of his being thrown down and hurt. I know he was far from well at the time. People have done

'Youyou don't think thatthat Mr. FitzGibbon had an accident out alone when he was in a feverish

'It is what I do think, Miss Paget; and I think, too, he must have wandered and fallen in with some prospectors

who thought they would make a good thing of keeping him till they would somehow make money out of him.

People who, perhaps, got some chum of theirs on his way to England to drop Mr. FitzGibbon's card at the

inn at Port Pellew, and an envelope addressed to me that was in his pocket, so that a hueandcry wouldn't

be raised after him. . . They must have got funky12 over keeping him, and then one night took him to the

hospital. . . . However, it will be the business of the police to find out all about that if they can. . . . But what I

wanted to say about this young ladychild she was, more than anything elseis, that it would be a

thousand pities if Mr. FitzGibbon were to risk his health, or even to lose his time. . . . It is no use my telling

him this. . . . The first question he would put to me would be: "How do you know this young lady does not

care for me?" And in honour'Trevaskis italicized the words with magnificent effect'I could not tell him.

It would be a breach of confidence, and I may say it was something of the nature of an accident that I came to

know it. . . . But I think those who have any influence over him should prevent his going on any journeys till

he is quite well . . . and when he is quite well it's very likely he won't want to go.'

'Yes, and I think the fever is still on him. . . . I think there was very littlevery little indeedbetween

himself and the young lady at all. . . . They just met now and then at Mrs. Challoner's, andwell, I can't go

into all the reasons that make me think it, but it's my belief that it was mostly the fever put this into his head. .

. . Why, I've known men to take an idea into their heads like that, and not get rid of it for monthsfor

'Nothing but the fever!' Oh, what a melody the words were in her ears, and how many little incidents took to

themselves breath, and wings,13 and bore living testimony to the truth of this! If only Victor could be wooed

back to perfect health, to wholeness of mind and body, before he took any rash step! 'Nothing but the fever.'

The words penetrated her soul with a rapture that had in it something of exquisite pain. Happiness! She had

hardly known it till this moment. But she refrained from thanking God, as she had fervently done when she

first went to see Victor. The practice seemed to have in it something dangerous for her.

She wandered round in the shady avenues for half an hour after the visitors had gone, too agitated, and too

much engrossed in othought that left no room for others, to be able to meet Mrs. Tillotson's endless prattling.

When she went in she found that Victor had fallen asleep, looking so pale and spent that she half relinquished

'Oh, my dear, not go to the pweddingdress bee? I haven't heard of such an arrangement before, but I am sure

it must be quite exquisite. And an afternoon tea of that numbernot more than fifteen or twenty

altogetheris always so very, very enjoyable. It will do Victor goodthe drive there, and the young people.

My dear, you and I are very quiet, you knowand his sisterinlaw to be, and all; it's like going to his own

Victor, having qawakened, joined the two, and Mrs. Tillotson instantly appealed to him.

Did he really think it would be too much for him? He begged leave to be left at home. Then Miss Paget

suggested a compromise. They would go early. Victor would see his friends before the other guests had

come, and then she would drive him back, leaving Mrs. Tillotson at Broadmead if she wished. The carriage

would return for her later. Mrs. Tillotson was not quite happy. It was so entirely an affair of the young

What happened was that, when they got to Broadmead, Victor was so pale and dejected, and, in short, looked

so much the invalid, that Mrs. Mason insisted upon his lying down in a cool, quiet room, where no sounds

reached him but the faint tinkling of a fountain close to the window, and the cries of honeybirds rifling the

pale honeycoloured blossoms of a tall young white gum hard by. She further insisted upon his taking some

nourishment and drinking some dry champagne, and promising to go to sleep. In a little time she came

tiptoe into the room, and found that he had kept his promise. And then nothing remained to be done but to

see that the horses were taken out of Miss Paget's carriage, and that she resigned all thought of going away

Miss Florry1 Mason's weddingdress bee formed a pretty and animated gathering. The nine or ten dearest

friends were chiefly in white or delicately tinted dresses, and each was adorned with a profusion of blooms

worn in bouquets, clusters, wandering sprays, or plastrons,2 according to the nature of the wearer's favourite

flowers. There was a swelling ripple of talk and laughter as they settled down, and a little consternation on

finding that the dressmaker had not prepared 'seams' enough. Some had swelling lengths of ivory satin, but all

'What is the use of putting a pocket in a weddingdress?' asked one of the elder girls. 'It is only in your sanest

At last all were provided with some portion of the satin, into which more or less stitches could be put, by

'Now that we are all at work, I think the "sanest and calmest" of us should tell a story,' said the brideelect.

'I wish I had been married for a few days, and then I would tell you girls a story that would make your flesh

creep,' said a young sister of Florry's, who had but recently escaped from the schoolroom.

There was some laughter and expostulation, and the elder sister said a little severely, 'Now, Mab, don't begin

'I wonder you allow yourself such a common phrase, looking as you do so much like an exalted cherub,'

retorted Mab. 'And as for "carrying on," nothing will make me believe that it is not rather dreadful to go away

'Certainly; you just see him for a little time in the evening after he has spent the day in trying to look

goodnot always successfully. Besides, if it weren't rather gruesome, why should one's mother give the

'Oh, don't laugh, girls! it will only make her worse,' said Florry, in a vexed tone. But the girls were too much

amused not to laugh, and one of them pursued the subject by asking how one's mother 'gave the institution

'Why, for weeks before a girl marries,' replied Mab very seriously, 'her mother never calls her anything but

"poor dear!" and "poor darling!" and the last day of all it is "poor dear darling!" and tears.'

'Yes. Florry is the fourth girl married out of this house, and two brothers have followed the same broad path,

and even they, I believe, breakfasted on coloured sodawater4 the morning they were led to the altar,

'Really, Mab, I'll get mother to ask you to go into the schoolroom if you run on at such a rate,' said Florry.

'I can call spirits from the vasty deep, and so can you, and so can any man, but will they come?'5 said Mab, in

Fortunately a diversion was caused just then by the entrance of Mdlle. Clemente, a young French lady whose

'Come here, dear, till I admire "le dernier chic"7 in millinery,' cried Mab, between whom and this young lady

a warm friendship existed, unimpaired by the fact that neither was very fluent in the other's mother tongue.

'Ma bch rie, rien de plus simple et de moins compliqu . Ce qui manque en g n ral un chapeau moderne

c'est l'id alit ,'8 said mademoiselle, taking her chapeau to bits like a Chinese puzzle, by pulling out a few

Mab insisted on mademoiselle sitting by her, 'de causer chiffons,'9 and gradually the 'bee' fell into amicable

pairs and groups, till a burning discussion arose regarding a recent tennis tournament,10 in which sides were

vehemently taken regarding two champion playersA, an Englishman, and B, an Australian.

'A is so much more graceful; look at his splendid underhand strokes: he puts the pace on a ball entirely with

'But his volley is nothing to B when smashing, and the brilliant way B plays his strokes overhand, and takes

'Ah, but look at the splendid length A kept on his cball, hardly any falling inside the service line.'

'But then B's double play! Did you notice him in the semifinal? A cannot come near him in some things; for

'Do you compare the two? "For as sunlight unto moonlight, and as water unto wine" '11

'I think, Miss Paget, I must make you mistress of the ceremonies,' said Mrs. Mason, advancing with a smile

from the baywindow, in which she had been engrossed in talk with Mrs. Tillotson till the rising tide of too

Miss Paget was laying a fold12 on a long slip of bridal satin, smiling from time to time at the girlish chatter

going on around her, but don the whole too much engrossed with her own thoughts to have a very clear idea

'I think she sorts those who are enot of the ffaith in tennis into packages not wanted on the voyage,' said a

'That is too burning a question. As I am in authority, I think I'll second Florry's original proposal, and call on

the oldest and wisest of you for a story. I am the oldest, but I wouldn't like to say I am the wisest.'

'For my own part, I believe a girl is as wise as ever she will be at sixteen,' said Mab, holding up her chin

'Oh, Mab, Mab, you don't really think so!' said a girl with velvetsoft voice and eyes who sat near the enfant

'Then, if you think you are aeons wiser than I am, you tell a story, Jessie,' responded Mab with a determined

Jessie laughed, and then held up a trailing breadth of the thick shining satin she was overcasting with minute

'Oh, you awfully mean thing!' said Mab impetuously. 'I would sooner be a stewed rabbit than try to get out of

'Why, smothering the point in dispute by holding up ivory satin to a lot of girls'

'Because no question of truth or justice has the slightest show, compared to the tail of a weddingdress,

'Oh, really, Mab!' began Florry in a pained voice. And then Jessiebeing one of the fierily sympathetic kind

who go through life responding to every call, and seeking above all things to save others from the pain which

'Yes, I suppose it is true. I did try to get out of the challenge. The thing is to show that at sixteen or

'Yes; if the theory functions, you can easily spot an incident,' said Mab with the calm certainty which belongs

Thus goaded on, Jessie looked pensively thoughtful, diving into her past life for a 'case in point.'

'Well, it is hardly a story; it is about myself, and it makes me rather ridiculous,' she said, laughing a little.

'It was when we were returning from England some years ago. Among the passengers there was a Lord Guy

'And you were cringing enough to fall in love with him?' said someone, laughing mischievously in the

shadow of the grand piano, near ga foldingdoor that opened into a conservatory radiant with exotic flowers.

'A scion of the effete British aristocracy, and your father a fiery republican!'14

'No, I did not,' answered Jessie, blushing a little. 'I admit I admired his filbert nails very much, for I know

'Well, we forgive you enthusing about filbert nails, which probably require generations of people living on

'Not in the way of being goodlooking. He was quite a little man, not at all young, with rather a red face, and

hardly any hair: none on his face, and hardly any on his head. He told father he had about three sous16 a day

to live on. I suppose it was true, for we heard he often lost forty or fifty pounds a night at cards. However, we

got very friendly, as people do on shipboard. And really he had not a thread of affectation in him. He was

going to a cattlestation in North Queensland, to live there, you know, not just on a visit. I said to him one

day, how different he would find it from his previous life, for he had lived nearly always in big cities.'

'Oh, Jessie, you were making it easy for him to ask you to share his solitude!' said the irrepressible Mab. But

'Well, he said he thought he would rather like "roughing it," and then I don't quite know how it came in'

'Oh, conversation is often very inconsequent in real life, especially on board a mailboat,' said someone in a

'Well, I fancy it was to prove that he had roughed it a little, even in England, for he told me how, a short time

before he left, he had been staying at a rectory in the country, and how he thought a bourgeoisie dinner at six

o'clock was so nice and interesting. How there was a whole leg of muttona whole leg on the table at

onceand potatoes and things standing in dishes, and not removed till they were nearly all eaten; and how,

when these were taken away, the maid brought in a piequite a large dishand after that came the most

curious part of the performance: the maid went round the table with a funny little brush, with a crooked ivory

back to it, and swept the tableactually swept it, by Jove! with this oddlooking brush, before putting down

'I would have laughed outright, and told Lord Guy that it was only on Sundays we used a crooked brush with

'Well, I know I was a dreadful little snob, but it gave me a sort of humiliated feeling to hear our everyday

dinners described as if they were the customs of some newlydiscovered savages. But I was only seventeen

at the time, and if you think, Mab, I would be guilty of such silliness now. . . . And what followed was worse,

for father asked him to dinner. Lord Guy stayed a fortnight at Government House, and I just felt I would die

if our maid went round sweeping the table before him. So I implored mother to have ha dinner la russe.

'My dear Florry,' said the mother of the brideelect, entering the room at this juncture, 'Miss North has come;

but she has a young lady with her, something of an invalid, and thinks she had better not stay, perhaps.'

She excused her absence for a few moments, warning the narrator of the crumbbrush story not to proceed

till she returned. In a short time she came iback and placed a large easychair opposite the open

baywindow, explaining, as she did so, that Miss North and her young charge would come in for a short time

'She is the loveliest girl you ever saw,' she was saying when the stranger entered, leaning on Miss North's

arm. She bowed with grave simplicity as she was led to the armchair, and as they looked at her with kindly,

interested faces, each felt that her rare loveliness could not have been exaggerated. The deep radiant eyes,

with their heavy sweeping lashes, the flowersoft oval face, the white wide brow framed with masses of deep

amber hair, but, above all, the curiously spiritual expression of faceall made a picture which, once seen,

could not but linger long in the memory. But why was the face of one so young and beautiful stamped with

that strange look of remoteness alike from the turmoil, excitement, and careless gaiety of youth? It seemed as

if the careless chatter around her could have as little part in her thoughts as if she already belonged to another

She looked out through the open window, and into the valley below the lawn, which was filled with the

delicate downy foliage of olivetrees, whose graygreen leaves, in clustered masses, have something of the

'I do not know those trees, I think,' she said, turning to Miss Mason, who had drawn a chair to her side.

'Yes, I remember reading about them a short time ago,' she said, mentally recalling the words: 'And He came

It was on the day before her mother died she had read this passage. But the interval between that time and the

There was some demand on Miss Mason which called her to another part of the room. Seeing Miss Paget

near at hand, looking at Doris with fixed interest, she introduced the two, and asked Miss Paget to take her

'Miss Paget, there is something I should like to ask you,' said Doris, when they were left alone.

'It was in the midst of the Silent Seathe gray lonely plains where the gray saltbush, bending before the

'No; he had gone away. I do not quite understand. But the man who took care of him in a little hut said Victor

'No; it was KennethKenneth Campbell, our old shepherdwho took him. I was with Kenneth, and sat

near lto Victor to make his head easier. And then I heard him call on you, as the man who took care of him

'Yes. Can you tell me how Victor is? I have been wishing to know so much before we go away.'

Miss Paget drew a long quivering breath. For a moment she thought her answer would be: 'He is hereyou

'Dear Miss Paget, I know you will be so good and kind!' There was oa scarcely perceptible tremor in the girl's

By way of answer, Miss Paget pressed Doris's hand. There was a mist before her eyes, and a faint, faroff

tumult in her ears. It seemed as if her heart were torn by two contending impulses, and as if she waited

'I am happy you are taking care of him, for I know he loves you,' said Doris, after a little pause.

A servant brought them some tea. Miss Paget looked round to see if perhaps Victor had come into the

drawingroom. She saw Mrs. Mason leaving it with a small tray, and she divined that this was some tea for

Victor in his own room. Should she hasten after Mrs. Mason, and tell her that Miss North's young charge was

a friend whom Victor would be glad to see? Should she tell Doris that he was here? She did neither, and the

'My dear, I think we must be going now,' said Miss North, coming to the baywindow in which the two sat.

When going away, Doris asked Miss Paget to come to see her on the morrow, and Miss Paget gladly

consented. The hour was fixed for five o'clock in the afternoon by Miss North. She was a lady of

considerable talent, extremely hospitable to new ideas, and perhaps more willing still to impart them. She

'I am glad you are coming to see the dear child. I want her to get as well as possible before she leaves. She

has a touch of intermittent fever, and you know the average doctor's oldfashioned way of putting people to

bed! Now, I am certain that the sources of life are profoundly influenced by our will; and this girl, young and

beautiful as she is, and in a way happy, would be perfectly content to die. She has lost her mother, in whom

she was pentirely wrapped up. She was brought up too much alone. It was partly, I believe, a fad of her

father's. Now, my theory is, that girls should not be subjected to experiments. They may do no harm, and

Miss Paget watched Miss North's neat little brougham drive away, and then heard a chorus of voices discuss

'But I like eyes with more "go" in them,' said Mab. 'Hers are just holy. One would not dare to speak to her of

'I cannot tell Victor on the way home, because Mrs. Tillotson would overhear,' thought Miss Paget. But

Broadmead was situated at the foot of the Adelaide hills, and, as is aso often the case there in the summer

time, a strong easterly gully breeze1 sprang up after sundown. The wind was full of unquiet voices in Miss

Paget's ears as they drove homeward. The first stars were beginning to swim into sight; the daylight still

lingered in the west in a wan, diffused light. Away in the distance beyond the town the sea lay dark and

motionless, touched here and there with long lines of silvery blight that distinguished the sea waters from the

Victor lay back in the carriage lost in thought. He had slept for many hours. Now that he was calm and

collected, he was trying afresh to find some clue to the network of problems by which he was surrounded. For

the first time it occurred to him that his desk, containing all his private letters, would be at the manager's

mercy. Then he recollected something about a letter to Helen. Had he addressed it?

'Helen, did you have any letter sent to you from the mine later than my telegram?' he said suddenly in an

'I wonder if that is the clue?' he said half aloud. Was it Trevaskis who had told Mrs. Challoner of the

relationship between himself and Miss Paget, and had Doris been thus misled? In the midst of the fury this

conjecture aroused, Victor was overcome by a feeling of disgusted weariness. What was the use of spending

himself in angry thoughts when all the time Doris was csailing away beyond recall? He would start by the

very next boat. It did not matter whether he were well or not. To follow in the wake of the vessel that bore

Miss Paget, on her part, was equally absorbed in her own reflections, while Mrs. Tillotson prattled gently on

from one subject to another. Now she was describing the last grand balldress that Helen's eldest sister had

'Bleut , I believe they dcalled it, my deara sort of white damask spangled with goldd collet en coeur

and down the back, on the shoulders white satin bows fringed with gold. I don't know what there is in

shoulderbows, though, that don't seem to accord well with yearswell, of maturity.'

Mrs. Tillotson, without pursuing the subject, went on to other dresses, in which skyblue velvet, opening

over a skyblue cr pe de chine, and oldrose brocade, with oldrose esatin panels, etc., figured luxuriously.

'It is such a comfort, don't you think, that our papers have taken to describing dresses at the more fashionable

parties. It really gives quite a tone to society. And yet sometimes one can't help thinking beauty when

unadornedhow does it go?3 There was that young girl who came in with Miss North. I thought I ought to

Miss Paget's heart seemed to leap into her throat, but she kept silent, and Mrs. Tillotson went on:

'There she was just in black and white, you know. I didn't catch her name. I think you spoke to her. I believe

'No, I am wide awake,' answered the young man, sitting up, and, shaking himself free for a little from his

engrossing thoughts, he talked at intervals all the rest of the way. His first care on reaching Lancaster House

was to consult one of the daily papers, to see when the next mailsteamer sailed. There was a P. and O. going

in six days. He could land at Brindisi,4 and get across to Mentone within twentyfour hours. Why, he might

be there within a day or two of the time the Challoners reached the place! In six days he would be sailing in

the wake of the vessel that bore them awayvery likely gaining on herfor it was the Bendigo that was

going, and the Bendigo was well known to be fthe swiftest of the mailboats. Suppose the Marly,5 the boat

by which the Challoners and Doris had gone, lost a few days on the way, why, at Aden, or Port Said, or

He conjured the scene of meeting Doris on shore at one of these ports. He saw her eyes lifted to his with all

their sweet radiance; he heard the thrill of gladness in her voicethe thrill with which it vibrated that night at

'Yes, Doris, I have come. Oh, my darling! how could you for one moment believe that I had deceived you? . .

. And she would not even blame me,' he reflected, coming back from Ismailia to the veranda at Lancaster

Here the hot east wind was not so high as at the foot of the hills, and was, besides, modified by surrounding

acres densely planted with trees, by many fountains falling in continuous cascades of water in soft cooling

Yes, he would start in six days from this evening. A note to his tailor, an order on his banker, and all was

ready. To others he would say nothing till the day before his departure. His uncle would want to detain him

on business, Lance because of his wedding, the police because of the search that had been instituted to bring

to light those who had assaulted and confined him; Helen would be anxious to keep him till he was stronger.

But all these things were as packthreads exposed to flame in face of his ggetting away. . . . Oh, to be on the

face of the great deep, speeding hour hafter hour nearer to the moment in which he should see Doris once

The heavy weight that seemed at times to press upon his brainthe drooping languor, the ennui, the

vindictive, revengeful thoughts against Trevaskisall these had fallen from him as he gave himself iup to

thoughts of Doris and of his speedy journey. After all, how much better it was to think of those we love, than

As this thought crossed Victor's mind, he stood opposite one of the open French windows of the

drawingroom in which Helen and Mrs. Tillotson were sitting. The latter was drinking tea, and talking as

'Poor dear Helen, how that old woman must bore her at times!' he thought, glancing at her. His gaze was

arrested by the harassed expression and the extreme pallor of her face. He recollected how this had struck him

the first day she drove out with him after his return to town. He reflected, too, how she was always ready to

sacrifice herself for others. With this reflection he seemed suddenly to regain the point of view from which he

had tried to write on the evening before he was to leave the mine. She had no warning of the news this letter

was to have conveyed; she had waited in ignorance and uncertainty till she had come to him the instant she

had received his messageand then, he remembered it well, without even a word of greeting, he had asked

her only concerning Doris. . . . Yes, he was ill and desperate, stupid with drugs and wild with disappointment,

and he was misled into believing she must have known something of the origin of Doris's letter. All that had

In the effort a great wave of compunction, and jfeeling akin to shame, swept over him. How good and

generous she had been to him! He was glad that she khad never really loved him; but how grateful he ought

to be for her loyalty and friendship! He sat on a cane lounge by the open window waiting for her to look up.

But she did not look up, she looked down; she drew a book towards her, not to read, but to hide her tears. She

was crying. He looked away instinctively, knowing she was unconscious of his observation.

Miss Paget murmured some excuse to Mrs. Tillotson, and escaped to her own room. She was in a state of

miserable indecision as to her action. At times the thought was lstrong with her that Trevaskis' assertions

were truethat Doris did not love Victor, and that his own thoughts respecting her were partly the result of

fever. 'I am happy you are taking care of him, for I know he loves you!' The words still sounded in her ears.

But also with the words rose before her the girl's sweet, candid lookher childlike trust and direct

'Oh, what am I going to dowhat am I going to do?' she murmured to herself on reaching her room. If Doris

were going to sail in a few days, should she allow her to go without making a sign to Victor, on the mere

chance that, as he grew better and stronger, his love for Doris should prove to be partly the phantasm of

fever? But what of the girl herself? Was there no lurking wistfulness in her voice and lookno tones or

'It is wrongit is wrong not to tell him, come what may!' she said, covering her face with her hands in an

agony of uncertainty. Each beat of the pendulum seemed to be offering her the choice of free action. Yet

mevery moment seemed also to bring her the consciousness that not her will nor her better aspirations would

prevail, but this preponderant, irresistible passion, which had given a treacherously negoistic warp to all the

impulses of her naturethis passion which said to her: 'Risk all, risk everything, but do not give him up.

'But I shallI shall consider othersI must!' came the contending impulse. She threw open her window to

get more air. She heard the sound of Victor's footsteps. He was near her. She would go to him at once, and

tell him before she could change her mind. She went out, and the moment she drew near he turned to her,

He took her hand in his, and held it in the firm affectionate clasp of a younger brother.

Then at the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice a sort of moral dislocation took place. Her purpose

was reversed as completely as if a brief and inexplicable delirium of the brain had destroyed all sequence of

thought. The hot air, heavily scented with orangeblossoms, blew in her face, making her feel faint and

She made an effort to speak, but, instead of uttering any words, she gave a long, low sigh.

'No, my head feels rather heavy and confused. I think perhaps the sea air might do me good.'

'Oh yes, Helen, you ought to go. You are always thinking of others. You do not care enough for yourself.'

'I begin to think it would be nice to go to Port Callunga. It is so cool and quiet. But, Victor, I would not go

unless you cameunless you let us take care of you till you are quite recovered.'

She sat on a lounge where her face was in shadow, but where she could see his face in the soft glow of the tall

lamp in the drawingroom,7 whose wide square shade was draped with rosetinted silk and lace.

Victor reflected rapidly that it would be better not to tell Helen at that moment of his unalterable

determination to sail by the Bendigo. After all, he could spend two or three days at Port Callunga, and she

'We have plenty of room at Port Callunga for a small regiment, and we shall only be five in all,' pursued Miss

'Oh, that will be grand! Part of the road winds by the seashore, between tall rocks,' said Victor, with

something of his old vivacity. 'The stars overhead, and a moon either waning or comingI have lost all

count of the moon; the immensity of the hollowsounding sea on one side, you taking care of me, and me

'Yes, Victor, what is it?' said Mrs. Tillotson, who had been listening to the sound of voices for some time,

'Oh, did you really overhear me?' said Victor, in a tone of contrition; 'and me abusing you likeyour dearest

friend. Well, it isn't my faultit's history: "Listeners never hear any good of themselves." '8

'Hark to the boy!' said Mrs. Tillotson, laughing, as she settled herself comfortably in the cane rockingchair

that Victor drew forward for her. 'You really are getting quite yourself again, Victor.'

'I am getting more than myself,' replied Victor, half in play and half in earnest, as the memory of the

contradictory emotions which had in turn governed him in the course of the past day flitted across his mind.

'Besides my proper self that I have hitherto known, there's an oold creature coming along, who takes me by

the ear from time to time, and tells me I have been an irreparable young "dolt." '

'Is it about your disappearing like that, and as suddenly coming back?' asked Mrs. Tillotson eagerly.

She virtually felt an ache in every joint of her system for fuller information on these points. On that first day

when Miss Paget, at a moment's notice, had been summoned away, and had returned late in the afternoon,

with Victor looking incredibly changed, pale and anxious, without a trace of his old merry self, Mrs.

Tillotson, instead of having any sort of a satisfactory explanation given to her, had been taken aside by Helen,

and told in the most explicit terms that under no circumstances was the patient to be worried with questions

or surmises. He had been dreadfully ill, and some people had been telling liesthat was pall the sum of the

But perhaps the patient himself, now that he seemed to be getting into his old proper spirits, might be more

liberal in giving those details after which a kindly heart naturally hankers. With this hope Mrs. Tillotson

ventured for the first time on a direct question. But on being thus squarely summoned before an assize which

he knew was bent chiefly on gathering news for vague and widely disseminated gossip, Victor speedily

'Oh, as to my disappearance, we all have to wait to see what the police tell us,' he answered; and then, swayed

by the one dominant purpose which had come to him within the last few hoursthat of getting well as soon

as possible, and in any case sailing for the Old World in the course of six dayshe shortly afterwards availed

Miss Paget was in the meantime trying to believe that for once in her life she had acted in a rational manner.

Lance FitzGibbon's conjecture as to having noticed that Victor seemed to have lost his heart to herthen

Trevaskis' words, and Doris'sand now Victor's own: she thought over all these, trying to reassure herself.

The fever, and some chance meetings with this lovely child, in which he had perhaps said a little more than

he meant seriously or permanently, had put qthese confused thoughts into his head. But how quickly he had

fallen in with her suggestion of going to the seaside! how his spirits had risen at the prospect! how quickly he

had disappeared as soon as Mrs. Tillotson came upon the scene! She could not dog them in this way once

they had gained the shores of Port Callunga! When there, she and Victor could take long walks on the

'I know, my dear, it is very good of the Archdeaconthese "brotherhood of man" assemblies,' Mrs. Tillotson

was saying. 'But, oh! how much more comfortable they would be if he could tell the poor people to take a

batha good brown soap and fleshbrush bath, you know! We could supply them from the Blind Asylum9

at sixpence each, Helen dear. . . . But although I could easily suggest this to the dear, good Archdeacon, I

suppose it would be rather difficult to speak to the people he invites, beforehand.'

'It would be rather a delicate social nuance,' said Miss Paget, smiling as she roused herself to some perception

'This is the sort of thing into which I used rto throw all the ardour of my life,' she thought, as she sat in the

solitude of her sroom, and contrasted the intense vibrant emotion which now flooded her thoughts with the

wintry pallor of the halfhearted work in which she had been endeavouring to forget her own immediate

interests. . . . 'And yet,' she reflected, 'I may in the end find myself like one of those couriers10 of medical

science who poison themselves in a clinical experiment.' Then she fell into a long reverie, recalling how from

the first dawn of consciousness one of her most abiding thoughts had been that she was one of the failures of

lifeone born to endure the sensation of defeat perpetually renewed. She argued that this was one reason

why she was so sceptical of happiness for herself; why she had expected from the first that Victor's affection

would not last; why, now that proof upon proof came to her that this fear was misplaced, she was still beset

Yet, notwithstanding the arguments and considerations with which she fortified herself, Miss Paget did not

sleep much that night. Every now and then Doris's face would rise up before her, irradiated with a strange,

spiritual light, the radiant eyes fixed lovingly on her face. She rose before it was dawn; then after sunrise she

fell into a short, troubled sleep. From this she awoke with an insupportable sense of wrongdoing. She

seemed to herself to have, by some strange impulse, contradicted all the traditions of her past life. And why?

Why, indeed! No human being could be really worth that fatal moment in which passion, like a volcanic

eruption, sweeps before it all the tenderer growth of which the soul is capable.

She bathed and dressed hastily, putting on a clinging robe of pale violet Cashmere, giving no thought to the

make or hue of the robe she wore. In reality, she could have chosen no tint more calculated to throw her pale

cheeks and anxious, unquiet eyes into strong relief. The day was unbearably close, with that dull, suffocating

kind of sultriness which comes in an Australian summer as the climax of a stretch of burning days and hot

nights. She wandered out on the lawn. A quarter of an hour before the breakfastgong sounded she was

'Oh, Helen, you must be ill!' he said, in a tone of alarm. 'Why not acome to the seaside this afternoon?' he

went on. 'The heat is intolerable; at least, bfor those who are ill. You see, I am all but off the sick list. Let me

'First, that you are not to be worried in the slightest degree for anything or anybody. I'll take Mrs. Tillotson

She longed infinitely to adopt this plan, but she could not. As she noted the marked improvement in Victor's

'I cannot very well go this afternoon. I met a very charming young girl at the Masons' yesterdayone who is

staying at Lindaraxa, and I promised cI would call and see her. Wouldn't you like to see the house once more

'Oh, don't speak about dreams! Last night, for the first time since I was knocked on the head, I slept without

seeing demons and monsters. But, if you'll allow me, I'll drive with you to town. I have some matters of

business to attend to before we go to the seaside. I have your gracious permission, have I not?' he added

'Yes, if you don't attempt to walk much. Drop me at Lindaraxa and then go on in the carriage, and call for me

Miss Paget reached the house a little after four. Miss North was out, and Doris was just then asleep. Mrs.

North, a kindly, mouselike little woman, who was in a chronic state of halfpanic as to the results of her

daughter's brilliancy, confided her fears to Miss Paget in a rather mixed fashion. She felt sure Miss Lindsay

was slightly worse, though she did not say so, and Rachel was always so hopeful as long as people kept out

'Oh yes, my dear. But she has so many ideas, and that is always rather risky. Now, the first day I saw Miss

Lindsay, when the dear child reached townI can't think of her as anything but a child; I was staying with

her mother at Ouranie when she was born. We came out on the same ship from England, and my husband

died on the voyage. Everyone said Australia would be so good for his lungs, and no doubt it would, only he

never reached the country. And as for the Lindsays, they were like a providence to us, only more so in a way,

for Providence doesn't seem to mind much at times about us. Well, as I was saying, the dear child is asleep

just now. Rachel has a great ideayou had better keep moving about and be chatty if you are ill, because, as

I think she says, of the force of the will, and all that; but if you are getting thinner all the time'

'I hardly know what to think, dear. If only Rachel would come back. . . . She seems to be praying so much

'Oh, my dear, Rachel never prays; she has got far beyond that. . . . She is quite up to the cleverest doctors in

many things,' answered Mrs. North, evidently quite scandalized at the inference which her own words had

naturally conveyed. 'I mean Miss Lindsay. I have sent a messenger for Mrs. Challoner. . . . I hope Rachel

'Yes, just so, my dear. It was when they came in yesterday I thought Doris dlooking more unusual than

ebefore, so to speak. But Rachel would have it her plan was answering beautifullyI mean, keeping her

about and seeing people, and all that, instead of laying up and having things made for her. "Mother, the

greatest happiness of your life is having slops made for people," Rachel says to me sometimes, laughing, and

At the end of half an hour Mrs. North went to see whether Doris was awake and prepared to see her visitor.

'I am so glad you have come,' she said, rising and holding Miss Paget's hands in her own.

Almost at the same moment they both noticed one pacing up and down in the garden opposite the window. It

was Victor, who, having transacted his business in town, had called in returning for Miss Paget as had been

arranged. Instead of waiting in the carriage, he had, after a few minutes, wandered into the garden. He had

that afternoon secured his passage by the Bendigo. The near prospect of setting sail made him restless, and

the mere act of walking with the tide of returning vigour in his veins was a luxury. He was engrossed with

thoughts of his journey, and did not once notice that the path which he was pacing traversed that portion of

But Miss Paget recollected this well, and she turned to Doris with a question on her lips. The girl, with her

face transfigured, her hands clasped, had sunk on a low chair near the halfopen window. She was partly

hidden by the curtains. At last she met Miss Paget's fixed look with a little smile.

There was silence for a few moments, during which the trilling of a canary in the little conservatory adjacent

to the room seemed to rise and swell into strange volumes of sound. The extreme pallor of the young girl's

face, the look of deep, wistful pain in her eyes, the tightening clasp of her hands, all were apparent to Miss

'Dear, dear Victor! God bless you, and take care of you for ever,' murmured Doris in a low voice. Her lashes

were wet as she looked up, but her smile had something of its old radiance. 'I think I understand why he does

'But he doeshe does!' It seemed to Miss Paget as if she had surely uttered the words aloud. But her lips had

hardly moved. She no longer asked herself what she should do. She stood like a spectator watching a drama

Victor was slowly passing the window, going towards the gate. Doris looked at him fixedly till he was out of

'Yes, yes. It reached him shortly before he left the hospital. I think he was glad to get it,' added Miss Paget.

'Oh no, you are not, indeed. You are very good to comeand will you come again, perhaps?'

She did not finish the question. Victor was strolling back. He was repeating some lines half aloud, a glad

Miss Paget, white to the lips, stood regarding Doris as she sat bending forward, her hands rigidly clasped, her

whole soul in her eyes. Victor repassed the window, and after that Doris turned to Miss Paget.

'I am glad to see him . . . but I think it would fbe perhaps . . . not quite right. I think he knows best.'

The moral torpor which had fallen on Miss Paget seemed to affect her also physically. It was with difficulty

she spoke or moved. Suddenly this inertness left her. She was roused by an insane fear lest Miss North should

return and ask Victor to come ginto the house. She now hastily hbid Doris goodbye, and exchanged a few

words with Mrs. North as she left the house. She had of set purpose spoken that morning of her visit to

Lindaraxa, and suggested that Victor should accompany her. The impulse was similar to that which leads

some people to decide upon a certain course of action by tossing a coin. . . . Victor had come to the house,

and Doris had seen him, but had refrained from making any effort to speak to him. It seemed as if fate had

willed that they should not meet. Doris would soon sail away, and live among new scenes and companions.

She would forget with all the happy elasticity of youth. Even now she could not be said to be unhappy. And

as for Victor, was it not after all quite apparent that fever and not an absorbing passion had been at work with

him? The stronger he grew the less he seemed to be haunted by melancholy regrets.

During the drive home, which Miss Paget lengthened by going round by way of the Botanic Park, both were

apparently in high spirits. Victor was anxious to impress Miss Paget with the belief that he was nearly if not

quite recovered, so that when, on getting to Callunga, he showed her his ticket as a passenger by the Bendigo,

she should not be anxious on his account. She on her part was striving with all her might to drive away all

thoughts and recollections of Doris; and at first her mind was obedient to her wishes.

All through dinner she laughed and talked incessantly, although the atmosphere was heavier than ever, and

even ice seemed to acquire something of a sultry taste. But dinner was barely over when she found herself

struggling with a ihorrible, an all but irresistible, inclination to sob aloud. She made her escape on some

pretext from the drawingroom, where Mrs. Tillotson and Victor were engaged in some languid game with

lettered bits of pasteboard. The twilight was closing in, and the hot northeast wind was higher than ever.

Some change was approaching; the sky was covered with heavy clouds; in the west a long lurid line of

sweltering crimson hung low in the horizon. Miss Paget wandered out among the trees for a few minutes.

Then, going into her own room, she threw herself down on the bed and broke into hard, dry sobs, that

'Oh, how could Ihow could I?' she moaned to herself, in a hoarse, broken voice. The look on Doris's face,

the pleading wistfulness of her eyes, were before her vividly, sweeping away the laboured impositions with

There was a flash of lightning, followed by a long roll of thunder. A thunderstorm of great violence raged for

more than a quarter of an hour. She stood looking out all the time, a feverish colour mounting into her cheeks,

her temples throbbing vehemently. During that interval her resolution was taken. She would not go to the

seaside tomorrow, and after she had seen Doris once more she would tell Victor, and then let things take

their course. After all, if life became unbearable, there were a hundred paths that led out of it.1 With the

thought a strange calm fell on her. She did not again return to the drawingroom; she sent an excuse by a

servant to Mrs. Tillotson and Victor. The thunderstorm had given her a nervous headache, and she thought

she would be better if she slept; but she did not sleep. She sat down and wrote a short note, and sent one of

the servants across to the family chemist for a bottle of chloral.2 A good deal of this medicine had been used

in the case of the maid who had been ill, but always under the doctor's prescription. The chemist, however,

sent the required amount on reading Miss Paget's note, merely taking the precaution of writing a

memorandum to ask that the phial should not be entrusted to the charge of the servants.

'It is evident,' thought Miss Paget on reading this, 'that one of the chief advantages of belonging to the

classes3 is that one may get a dose of poison at will.' 'Poison!' She repeated the word, and turned the bottle

over curiously. Often during the days in which she had waited in suspense as to Victor's movements, the

thought had come to her how little necessary she was to anyone's happiness. Tonight she sat going over the

She saw the scene of her funeral: the hideous blackplumed carriages going slowly to the graveyard, then

returning at a cheerful trot; the mourners talking to each other complacently, with the relief of a disagreeable

duty over. Her father would be so much put out by the interruption to the usual routine of his days, that he

would dine that evening with one of his married daughters, without being sure beforehand that he should not

be offended by the sight and smell of mockturtle soup. They would all put black on, and utter her name with

a becoming sigh for a few weeks, and then they would begin to reckon what extra luxuries they could indulge

in, with the addition her money would make to their incomes. Ah, how odious, malicious, and brutal, human

life was at bottom!4 Even the greatest catastrophe that overtook human beings was but the counterpart of the

ruin that sometimes comes to an antheap. . . . When a draywheel passes over it, the ants who have not been

crushed rush about distractedly; but in a short time they are thieving the grubs of other insects, and carrying

And Victorhow would her death affect him? Oh, he would be happy, as long as Doris was spared to him!

Miss Paget had been too willing to blind herself to the truth, but now she swept aside the meshes of

imposition which her own hopes, and the words spoken by Trevaskis and Doris, had woven. It was only a

misunderstandinga deception practised perhaps by Trevaskis himself on Doris, that had led her to the

conclusion as to Victor's love for 'Helen.' Yes, Doris had heard him repeat that name during his

unconsciousness. But this was only owing to the anxiety which possessed him to come and tell her that he no

longer loved her, or rather, that he perceived he had never done so. . . . She knew so well. . . . Had she not

What happiness had all the years of her life hitherto brought to her, that she should expect bliss in any form

nownow that she was no longer young, and had never been beautiful? Why did she expect more success?

Love and devotion, like every other good, were purchased. Yes, purchased by some definite charm.

Miss Paget slept till long after sunrise. A cold, raw wind had succeeded the excessive heat of the past few

days. Mrs. Tillotson was loud in her exclamations as to Miss Paget's ailing looks.

Helen caught at the idea. The complaint was just then spreading in the province. She lay on a couch most of

the day. She tried to make herself believe that the impulse which had carried her away on the previous

evening was spent; but all the time she was conscious of a deep undercurrent, whose swell would bear her

'There is no question of our going to the seaside by starlight this evening, Helen,' said Victor, coming into the

drawingroom within an hour of sunset. Up to that time Miss Paget had remained in her own room.

'No. I fear I am going to be ill,' she answered slowly; 'but before I am laid up'

jThe housemaid brought in two notes on a little silver tray. Neither was of much importance, but as she

glanced over one of them Miss Paget decided on her line of action. Half an hour later she was at Lindaraxa,

and in Doris's room. Mrs. Challoner was with her, and ShungLoo came noiselessly into the room to draw

the curtains and light the candles. Mrs. Challoner looked extremely anxious. On coming into Doris's room

early that morning she had found her very lightly clad, sleeping by the open window, with the cold west wind

blowing over her. The change from the late sultry weather had been more than usually severe, and though

Doris complained of no pain, her voice was seriously affected. Miss North was apprehensive that she had

caught cold, and had, before going out on her professional round, regulated the temperature of the room, and

But Doris, though conscious now and then of a heavy sensation in her head and chest, had been wrapped

round with such happy dreams that her thoughts were constantly wandering from things around her. All day,

at intervals, she had spoken to Mrs. Lucy and ShungLoo as if they were back at Ouranie again and her

mother quite near her. Now Mrs. Challoner awaited Miss North's return with some anxiety.

'I will leave you two alone for a short time,' she said, divining by Miss Paget's manner that she wished for

'I am afraid, dear, you are not well,' said Miss Paget, holding the girl's hands in her own. The feverish

brilliancy of Doris's eyes and the flush in her cheeks filled her with strangely conflicting emotions. She had

come fully determined to tell how she had deceived both Doris and Victor. But she hesitated. 'Your name is

Doris, is it not?' she said. And then in rapid confused phrases she told how she had been under some strange

mistake. . . . And now she was quite sure Victor wished to see herdid not know that Doris was really here.

'Oh yes, only tell me. You are so good and kind. I shall be happy to do something for you.'

At these words Miss Paget lost all selfcontrol. Deadly pale, with the tears streaming down her face, her

'Oh, Doris, Doris, let me tell you,' she cried in a choking voice. 'I deceived you yesterday, and hid the truth

She told her tale, with bent head, not sparing herself, but she said something of that hunger for love, that void

in the life of the affections which from her earliest recollections had been with her like a chronic heartache.

'If only my mother had lived even for a few years, so that I might remember her arms around me, her lips

pressed upon mine, I think all might have been different,' she said at the close.

And then she found Doris's arms around her neck, and the girl's flowersoft face wet with tears pressed

'Dear, dear Helen, how terrible never to know your mother! No one else can ever make up for that. But,

dearie, do not be miserable any longer. In the end all will be well. Tell Victor I should like to see him once.

The tender sensibilities and delicate imaginative perceptions which formed so strong a feature of Doris's

nature seemed at this juncture to enable her to divine what she could not clearly understand.

As Miss Paget drove back, she found herself from time to time blinded by tears, but when she reached the

She bathed her face and put on a warmer dress, and then went into the library. She stood as the housemaid

turned up the gas, looking round the room with the halfbelated air of one who is trying to realize the aspect

of a partly forgotten scene. As the maid was leaving the room, Miss Paget asked her to see whether Mr.

FitzGibbon was in the drawingroom. She returned to say that only Mrs. Tillotson was there. She had been

'Tell her, Jane, that I will come into the drawingroom in ten minutes; and if Mr. FitzGibbon is in his room,

'Good God! Helen, how pale you are! Has anything happened to the ship? Tell me in one word.'

'At Lindaraxa? She is there this moment? Oh, I must go! I must go at once. Did you know before? Don't try to

'She has not been well. It is too late. She expects you in the morning,' said Miss Paget, almost in a whisper.

The fiery impatience, the rapture that transfigured the young man's face, were not so unbearable for her as the

'Not well! But then I can see the light in her window. Helen, don't try to persuade me. I couldn't rest all night.

I promise you I won't make myself ill. Ill! How could I be ill, and Doris still on this side of the world?'

'But let me tell youthere is something I want to explain,' said Miss Paget. 'You will perhaps think it

strange, that it was only today I went to her to ask if she were Doris. She was introduced to me as Miss

'It was Doris you went to see? And I waited outside, and she was in there all the time, and you did not know?

Oh, Helen, I must go, if only to hang round the place for a few minutes. . . . I shall take a cab there and back.'

It was impossible to detain him. It was eleven o'clock before he returned. He was pale and agitated, but he

had seen the light in Doris's window, and he had talked for an hour with Mrs. Challoner. It had been a strange

meeting, both thinking the other was in distant latitudes on the sea. Doris had told her nothing, so after all he

must bonly have dreamt that Doris had been beside him on the way to the hospital. It was strange, too, how

the impression strengthened as he grew stronger. But all was now well. He repeated the words with a short

impatient sigh. Then he told Helen how he had fallen into the error about the Challoners' departure. It was

Challoner's brother Richard who had sailed with his two daughters. Mr. Robert Challoner was still too ill to

travel. He was recruiting at the seaside, and Mrs. Challoner had left him only yesterday. Doris had not been

'At nine tomorrow morning,' he repeated, walking up and down the room, too excited and preoccupied to

rest. 'Just think, Helen, if we had gone to the seaside still in ignorance; and then four days later I should cbe

on the water. It would dbe like that terrible little tragedy of "Evangeline."2 I never could bear to read that

'Yes. I knew you would think it was dangerous, but you see how well I am. I did not wish you to be uneasy,

but here is my ticket, which I bought yesterday.' She looked at it with a strange expression in her eyes. 'What

do I not owe you, dear Helen? Think of itto get to Mentone, and find Doris was in Adelaide when I left! . .

. It would be too unbearable. . . . I often wonder how Longfellow could bear to write that poem. It was too

cruel. To find each other at last when one was dying and both were getting old.'

'But there are some cruel things in life, you know,' said Miss Paget in a low, colourless voice.

'Ah, but, Helen, think of the beautiful, happy things, the idylls lovely and tender, as if they were let down to

earth straight from the inner courts of heaven. . . . How strange you shouldn't have known at once it was

Doris. There is no one else in the least like her. And you made friends with each other as soon as you met?

'Feverish! After I parted from Mrs. Challoner I had the strongest impulse to go back again, and implore her to

'And not be able to go in the morning? Oh, how absurd!' He broke into a low, glad laugh at the thought, and

' "My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead, Would start and tremble under her feet And

'You repeat the lines as if you believed them; to me there is something absolutely revolting in such hyperbole.

"Had I lain for a century dead"as if we did not all know what happened to us long before we were a

Something cold and strained in her voice struck him. But he answered in a light tone:

'Well, but is this a time to talk of being dead gafter a century or a thousand years? . . . Helen, I have so often

thought I should like you and Doris to be friends. And now you are, without any help from me.'

He would have talked to her of Doris all night. But as the clock chimed twelve he obeyed her injunctions to

try and get to sleep. It was some time before his glad restlessness would allow him to close his eyes, but at

It was a strangely beautiful world into which he woke next morning. All the sudden harshness of the

atmosphere had died away. The mellow warmth of summer, tempered by a cooling wind, lay over all the

land. The delicate primrose of the dawn still lingered in the east. The softlyfolded hills below this divine

glow, their valleys and curves touched with the tremulous vapour of early morning, had something of a

dreamlike indistinctness. But the sleeping town in the foreground was sharply distinct in the clear air.

'She is there, and I shall see her in less than four hours,' Victor said, looking across towards North Terrace

The first sunrays were catching the wide expanse of the sea westward. Above it, as if in a faint reflection of

the east, a wide band of pale roselilac encircled the horizon. As the sun rose higher, this space of exquisite

colour was beaten into transparent flakes of gold, till they were lost in the blue air, like a legend of visionary

beauty. All was surpassingly lovely. It seemed as if the magic of earth and air and sea was for the first time

fully revealed to him. He looked on the most familiar scenes with the keen enjoyment with which one catches

the first aspects of a new country before any of the old links of habit have dulled the incisiveness of outline.

The tall snowy groups of Christmas lilies, the deeply accented forms of the Nipa palms round a fountain, the

wide leaves and lotus buds of eastern lilies4 on the water's surface, the rose bushes loaded with cataracts of

roses, the deep bruckmansia bells, the great beds of heliotrope, all poured their poignant exhalations on the

air, till the colour, the fragrance, and the almost incredible thought of soon seeing Doris, overcame him with

But would the time never pass? At breakfast he heard Mrs. Tillotson as if from a great distance urging him to

eat. He heard her bewailing the abandonment of the seaside plan. 'For I am sure, Helen dear, you are not well.

But if hit is influenza you are getting, let me advise you beforehand not to take antipyrine.'

Victor looked at Miss Paget, but he could hardly discern whether she was pale or flushed.

'You ought to walk among the trees and flowers, Helen, and hear the birds sing,' he said to her, as they rose

'Their songs are for you, not me,' she said, with her unconquerable little smile.

But the next moment she was in her own room, lying prone on her bed, beyond the relief of words or tears. It

was not one emotionit was all the longhoarded bitterness of a lifetime that seemed to be distilled into a

cup which she must drain to the very dregs. Her loveless childhood, her spoilt youth, the sordid shifts of

poverty which had burnt themselves into her memory at the most susceptible period of life: day by day and

hour by hour she lived them all over again in one of those swift moments of recollection, in which the past is

seen and felt rather than recalled. Why had she been always the puppet of a destiny, relentless in denying her

one complete and unmutilated joyone day, nay, one whole hour of vivid happiness?

And nownow to crown all, what had come to her? Through the long years in which she had been starved

of affection and the tender graces of life she had never lost sight of the wish to help othersto be to few or

many a stay in the hour of need. She seemed to see a long defile5 of the old, the maimed, the morally

But how poor and meagre and profitless it had all been! A few score of poor people were a little better

housed, a little better fed, in cleaner apparel for a few days or weeks, than they would have been without her

aid. But always she had asked herself in the end, what did it signify? Now, for the first time, she seemed to

see clearly what had been at the root of her dissatisfaction. She had longed to give moral helplonged to

stand between poor driven human creatures and the malice of their destinyto shelter them from the storms

that were driving them to shipwreck. And now? It was not only the cruel deception she had practised on the

previous day. But at this moment, revolt and despair, and some dark tinge of hatred for those whose lives

were crowned with a happiness denied to her, were surging up in her heart. What subtle thrill of hope had

come to her when she observed yesterday the igreater hold that the fever seemed to have taken on Doris?

'Oh, no, no! not thatnot that!' she said to herself, half aloud, in a choked voice. Then she opened the drawer

of her mirror, and took out the bottle of chloral, and held it in her hand as if weighing it.

A fever, a lingering tumour, the mistake of a railway pointsman, the bite of a dog, the most trivial accident,

the most malignant disease, these might at any moment end existence. Then why not an overdose of chloral?

It would be a far more kindly and judicious accident than those that nature so often and so ruthlessly

employed. And there would be no scandal to lacerate the feelings of those who had never loved her.

'The deceased lady, who was widely known for her social gifts and jher unfailing benevolence, had been

suffering for some time from insomnia,' etc., etc. She knew so well the decorous sort of newspaper paragraph

in which the event would be recorded. 'I am not sure, but I am afraid that she took a great deal of antipyrine

after all,' she imagined Mrs. Tillotson saying, with a lugubrious shake of the head. And as this crossed her

mind she began to laugh. There was a tap at her door, and she put away the bottle of chloral before calling out

'Victor is going to town, and do you know, dear, I'm not quite sure he should go alone. He seems to me a little

'Yes, but it is the sort of lightheadedness that seldom lasts,' returned Miss Paget, hardly defining to herself

But when she met Victor in the hall, hat in hand, ready to set out to see his Doris, with all the radiance of

youth and happiness unclouded by a single fear in his face, she was conscious for a moment of a strange pang

He proposed walking across the Park Lands. But now that the last moments of waiting had come, he could

not bear the delay. It could not matter if he got to Lindaraxa a little earlier. He hailed the first cab he saw, and

was at the gate in twelve minutes, having repeatedly urged the cabman to faster speed. A carriage was

waiting near the gate, and half way between it and the house Victor met a rosyvisaged old gentleman, whom

'This is a nice thing, young gentleman, to try and pass me with a lift of the hatthe venerable doctor who

'Not more than half a century, doctor,' said Victor, half distracted by the delay. He speedily got away, after

giving more or less incoherent answers as to his reported journey to England. The halldoor stood open, and

before he could ring, Mrs. Challoner, who had seen him coming, came out kto him.

'I know I am a little early; but perhaps Doris is ready to see me?' he said, his voice shaken by the passionate

She showed him into the drawingroom, and hastily left the room. His overpowering happiness made him

deaf and blind, or he would have seen that Mrs. Challoner's eyes were red and dim, and her voice unsteady.

She had on the previous evening heard Victor's little story with the strongest interest and sympathy. She

could not then bear to dash his joy by expressing any of the fears that oppressed her as to the unfavourable

development of Doris's illness. But now concealment would be impossible. Doris was threatened with

congestion of the lungs.6 She had been delirious through the night, and the old medical friend whom Miss

North had called in for consultation took a very gloomy view of the case. On going into the symptoms he

declared that she had been taken about when she should be in bed, and that the insidious inroads the fever had

But Miss North still kept up her courage. She knew her old friend was of the rigidly oldfashioned order,

who go in for the heroic remedies of bed and blisters on the shallowest pretextone of the people, in short,

to whom new ideas and theories figure hazily as a kind of moral lymph, to be used under quarantine

regulations7 for the gradual vaccination of respectable society; unfit for a family practitioner at first hand.

Even at this moment, as Miss North came out of Doris's room, she was smiling half abstractedly at the

neatness of this comparison. She resolved to note it down for future use. When she saw Mrs. Challoner with

'Really, Mrs. Challoner, you and mother and Doctor Mellersh get upon one's nerves a little, with your long

faces. . . . The child is looking quite radiant just now; who is this Victor she keeps on talking lto now and

'Oh, Miss North, I come to ask you to break the news to him. He is waiting to see Dorislooking so happy

'My dear lady, the human heart is in reality a tremendously strong muscle, though people speak so glibly of

breaking it, like eggshell china,' said Miss North with kindly gravity. And then, always on the alert as she

was to seize any new possibility, she explained that she should say nothing to Victor beyond telling him that

Doris was rather feverish, and must not talk much. But he might sit in her room at intervals. . . . His

happiness and confidence, and Doris's pleasure in seeing him, would all help to swell those odic forces8 that

Surely no other ten minutes in the course of all the ages were so long as those that elapsed between mVictor

entering the house and his being taken by Miss North into Doris's room. He followed his guide closely, a

The words came to him low and broken, and Doris held out both hands to him with a strangely beautiful

smile. He knelt down by her side and covered them with kisses. Then the mist slowly cleared away. They

were alone. Doris was beside him, softly calling him by name. But for a little time he could make no reply.

And then, as he grew calmer, and held her hands and looked into her face, his joy, which was almost

unbearable in its intensity, received the first little check. Doris was supported by pillows in a deep armchair,

in one of the white cashmere robes in which he had so often seen her in the early mornings at Stonehouse.

Her eyes were strangely brilliant, but her face was no longer flushed; and, oh, what was itwhat was it that

smote him, as if a hand fumbling awkwardly had suddenly touched his heart? A look of evanescence . . . a

'Darlingyouhave been ill. . . . You areill now,' he said in a broken voice, with an odd pause between

'But, Victor, don't be sorry. I cannot tell you how beautiful it is. Always at night, and sometimes in the day, I

hear nmaman's voice as in the dear old times. And now you have come there is nothing more to wish for.'

'Except that you should be well and strong, my own dear one. . . . Oh, Doris, how did you come to think that

there should ever be room in my heart for anyone but you? Your letteryour dear little cruel letter . . . see, I

have carried it next my heart . . . but now I want you to take it backto tell me that you understand.'

Poor child, she whose ways and thoughts and associations had been so far removed from those of ordinary

lifehow could she grasp those complex and conflicting interests? But as she looked oin Victor's face, as

she listened to the sound of his voice, telling her with eager rapidity his reasons for wishing to start for town,

and the mystery which still hung over those days during which he lay in helpless darkness, she knew that she

'Did you not like my letter, then, Victor?' she said, taking it from him and turning it over.

'Yes, dearest, because, though you were under a strange delusion, you still somehow trusted me. . . . After all,

I will not give up this letter till I have many more in its place. Tomorrow, when you are better, you shall

She took a pencil and traced the words at the bottom of the letter. Her small, quaintlyformal writing was a

little uneven, but it sufficed. Before the time expired when Victor should leave, Doris had told him of the

strange way in which she thought she saw him in the iron passage, and of her journey with him to Broombush

'It was so strange and lonely part of the wayoh, so dark and strange over that gray, gray Silent Sea! And

then it was silent no longer . . . it was full of loud, shrill calls . . . the voices of the wind . . . calling, calling, as

if they, too, were lonely and sorry, and they could find no home, and no answer.'

'But don't be too sorry, Victor dear. . . . I hear it in your voice. . . . And you know after a little time it was all

beautiful again. Mother came to me . . . mother, with her face as glad and beautiful as the day she went away.'

Her breathing became a little hurried, and her cheeks flushed. She lay back silent for some little time. The

high, clear, musical whistle of a blackbird came in through the halfopen window. And then she spoke again,

'I am glad you are at Ouranie, Victor. . . . You see, it is full of flowers . . . if you open the window a little

The sunshine was now beyond the prescribed temperature of the room. He rose and opened the window wide,

drawing back the curtains; and lo! there were the shrubs and blossoms he had so often seen in his fragmentary

dream. The air was embalmed with orangeblossoms. Great rosebushes were still heavy with blooms; the

sprays of an Ophir rosebush lay half across the path in torrents of flaming, wideopened roses. The gladioli,

white, scarlet, and crimson, stood in clustering masses waisthigh; Banksia roses in pink and honeypale

masses were lying in swathes close to the window. One touch that now came back to him as ppart of his

dream he misseda magnolia tree with a few wideopened chalices; but looking a little to the left of the

orangegrove, he saw ita few late blooms with their great petals still folded, like the wings of a dove that

has come with a message from afar. Then, seeing that his dream was so literally reproduced, something of

It was not until qnext day, however, that he felt any real apprehension of the great calamity that was to fall on

him. In the morning he was told that Doris was worse. During the afternoon he was allowed to see her for a

short time. She was then halfunconscious, but on seeing him she smiled, and held out her hands. A little

'Say it again, maman darling,' she murmured; and then she repeated the words slowly, as if saying them after

some one: ' "Dors, dors, doux oiseau de la prairie. . . Dieu t' veillera dans son bon temps!" '9

Victor endeavoured to control his grief, in order to save her pain. It was in the deepening twilight she last

spoke to him. Consciousness had then partly returned, and she knew by the sound of his voice that the

'When maman was going away, she put her hands on my head, and said, "God bless and keep my darling."

He knelt beside her, and she placed her hands on his head, and said in a tremulous voice:

Before the sun had set on the next day she had awakened from the brief dream which comprised the span of

After the first strange days were over, Victor found his thoughts constantly turning on schemes of unmasking

Trevaskis. The inquiry which had been undertaken by the police, aided by the manager's eager suggestions,

had, of course, come to nothing. It now seemed that there was no certainty at all as to the departure by any of

At last he resolved to prosecute a search on his own account. Day and night he was pursued by the thought

that Doris's untimely death and his own irretrievable bereavement were largely due to the chain of

circumstances woven by the action of the man who, for his own purposes, had first rendered him insensible

'I could not get him hanged for it. Perhaps the worst villains always die in their beds with troops of admiring

friends round them; but I could get him disgracedbrandedbranded for life as a thief and a cheat and an

impostor,' he would think over and over again in a dull, mechanical round, till at times he was almost beside

himself with the thirst for vengeance. He often reasoned with himself that Doris's memoryher last loving

words, and the pressure of her beloved hands as she uttered them, should serve as a benediction to keep this

But nevertheless it returned on him again and again. About the end of January he went to look for Kenneth

Campbell. He had been reported dead by the special policeman who had undertaken the investigation, but he

resolved to search for himself. His mother would be soon on her way out to Australia. He resolved to occupy

the time till she arrived in hunting up every possible clue. After that he had no plans. His uncle had from time

to time put off carrying out the instructions of the will under which Victor was heir to the late Mr. Shaw

Drummondbut his income on coming of age, irrespective of the property in Mr. Stuart Drummond's hands,

was more than enough for his wants, so that he granted the delay without a second thought.

He got on Kenneth Campbell's track at Nilpeena, where he had stayed two days after leaving Colmar.

Seventy miles further on towards town he was met by the news of his death. But after fully testing the

evidence he became convinced that it was a case of mistaken identitythat it was a man of the same name

who had died in the Burra hospital, not the old exshepherd. At last he found someone who knew where the

brother lived with whom Kenneth had farmed for a short time. This was in the Wimmera District in Victoria.

It was a long, uninteresting journey, and the results very uncertain. But he was now possessed aof that dogged

obstinacy which in one who has the two strains of Scottish and Celtic origin is sometimes driven to the verge

of a mania. He had not yet picked up a single clue that did not end in a 'possum track up a gumtree.'1 He

had sometimes thought of setting off himself to meet the woolship that was bound for Plymouth, and

engaging a detective to meet the other at Cape Town. But he was now convinced that no one had really taken

the journey, and that the whole ruse had been managed by Trevaskis with the same adroitness with which he

When he reached Thomas Campbell's little farm he found Kennethnow a confirmed invalidso wrapped

in the study of Persian theosophy,2 that he could hardly make him carry his thoughts back to the journey he

had taken with ba sick man from near the brokendown whim. He received the news of Doris's death without

any surprise. But though he said it was ground for rejoicing when those who were beloved of Heaven were

called to their real home, some tears slowly coursed down his cheeks. When he heard that ShungLoo had

departed for China he lifted his eyes, and clasped his hands in fervent supplication that the seed of knowledge

'But I believe there is not a nation under the sun without true worshippers. Today I read the life of a Persian

saint who sat seven years long in a hermitage with cstopped ears,3 day and night calling upon Allah, till wall

and door at last to him were one. Ay, the cup of spiritual knowledge is not put into the hand of man in the

Victor was very patient with Kenneth, because of those tears he had shed; but in the end all he could extract

from him was that the man who had cared for him in the little weatherboard hut was stronglooking and

thickset, and that he spoke as the Cornish miners do who have grown to manhood before they leave

Kenneth deliberated. 'Yes, he did. As soon as I saw him he reminded me of the captain at the Colmar

Victor gave a low exclamation. He had, in the course of the inquiries he had made, learned that Trevaskis had

a brother, who stayed for some days at the mine on two occasions. Three days after his interview with

Kenneth he had engaged the services of a private detective, who had the reputation of being the cleverest in

South Australia, to ascertain where Daniel Trevaskis had been employed during the two weeks from dthe 9th

It is now pretty well established that the cleverest detectives in Australia are the most easily recognised

members of the communities in which they reside. In this case the detective returned to town in a few days,

reporting that he had been blocked in his inquiries by being everywhere publicly denounced as a spy by the

miners, and threatened with the most unpleasant consequences if he did not at once clear out. Dan Trevaskis

had been off and on at fa claim near the brokendown whim, but he had left it, and made frequent journeys to

places at a distance from the mine. Now he was staying with his brother, preparatory to going to England in a

On hearing this, Victor at once started for the mine. He would at least see this man for himself. He stayed at

the inn till he saw Trevaskis coming to dinner. Seeing that he was alone, he did not meet him, but went out

through the bardoor as Trevaskis entered by the main entrance. Victor walked up towards the mine, keeping

a sharp lookout on the men he saw about. Presently he noticed a little in advance of him one who had been a

fellowpassenger by the mailcoach from Nilpeena. He had not then taken much notice of him. As a matter

of fact, he was often so sunk in thoughts of Doris during these solitary wanderings as to be quite oblivious of

Now he was struck by something secretive, furtive, and sinister in the man's appearance. He was extremely

thin, closelyshaven, and wore a loose alpaca overcoat, with a rather bulgy look about the breast. He carried

a small bag, and kept glancing rapidly from side to side, and walking faster and faster as he drew nearer the

Colmar Mine. He did not go to the mine or the offices, however, but struck off in an easterly direction

But before the stranger reached this, Victor's attention was drawn by the figure of a man who disappeared

into the engineroom as he drew near it. He instantly followed him. Roby met him with an outstretched

Dan heard the answer and the question, and quickened his footsteps, going out by a sidedoor of the

Victor, too excited to remember the nearest way, lost a little time. As soon as Dan got inside he rushed from

one storeroom to the other. When he gained the manager's office he tried to lock the door, but the key was

missing. The door leading into the iron passage was half ajar, however, and rushing through this, he closed

Without a moment's pause, Victor rushed back and got a large mallet out of one of the storerooms. With a

few strokes he splintered the door, and then he laughed alouda laugh not pleasant to hear.

He hurried through the passage. As soon as he entered the cave room he knew that this was the place in

which he had been lying for thirteen days. This was the accursed place, and this man who had fled into it had

He peered around in the darkness. The light from the panes of glass in the enclosure of the entrance to the

cave room did not penetrate beyond a third part of the cavity; the rest was in impenetrable gloom.

'You are in there, Daniel Trevaskis . . . and you may as well come out!' cried Victor.

'You hound! This is where you and that infamous blackguard, your brother, drugged me and kept me.' He was

beside himself with rage as he thought of all that had followed upon this. 'If you wait here till the Day of

After waiting for twenty minutes, Victor began to consider that it would be better to get a light, and call on

some of the men for assistance, or, at any rate, to bear witness to what should happen. The one thing he was

determined on was not to let this man escape him till he should get him under police surveillance, and take

'He cannot get out; he must come back along the passage,' he reflected. At that moment he thought he heard a

curious sound of tapping on one side of the iron wall round the entrance to the cave room. He went back as

far as the first little window, and then he saw Trevaskis coming, his face drawn and gray.

'I have. . . . I am on your trail now, you lying scoundrel! You coward, to come and attack a sleeping man.'

'How do you dare to mention His name with such a falsehood? You stole into the office, you flung me down

when I was half asleep, and then you drugged meyou and your brother. But I have himI have him now

'You have no proofnot one!' he gasped at last. 'You go on the paltry fact that my brother came in here

when he saw you. Let me tell you he has been drinking hard, and has had a touch of the "horrors." '

'Gord ha'mighty! what it is to be born a iliar. You don't get into no scrape without bein' able for to crawl out

It was not bodily fear that had made him flee, but the convic tion which he had all along that he would never,

face to face with Victor, be able to deny that he had been with him during his imprisonment in the cave

roomthat and the terror of exposure for his boy. He had been well paid by Trevaskis for his assistance, and

now that the gold had all been safely disposed of, Dan was to start next week by jthe mailboat, so as to meet

The sound which Victor had heard ten minutes earlier had been going on all this time. It was the sound made

by a chisel being inserted under a sheet of iron, to force the nails back that held it in its place. Now the sheet

was bodily removed, a man came quickly through the opening, and went hurrying through the entrance of the

cave room. Victor at once advanced from the passage, fearing his quarry should escape him. The first glance

showed him that the man, who was on his knees lighting a small lamp, was his fellowpassenger from

Nilpeena. As soon as the lamp was lit, leaving it on the ground, he began groping on all fours, feeling the

ground, and turning the loose earth over with long lean fingers. Then he cried, with a voice that had the

Victor then knew that this was Webster, and he stood watching him in the semidarkness with a sort of

fascinated horror. Trevaskis also crept nearer to look and listen, half fearful that this strange apparitionthe

gauntlooking man who had effected an entrance through the wall, who had come provided with a lamp, who

crouched on the ground burrowing in the earth, whose voice had a shrill, savage ringwas somehow in

The man rose and carried the lamp further into the cave room. His hand shook so that the light flickered like

an aspen leaf. When he reached the narrow portion running northward, he knelt down and burrowed in the

'No, no, no! not an ouncenot an ounce!' he shrieked, in an insane voice that had lost all balance of

Presently, from a dim recess beyond him, Dan crept out shaken and unnerved. Could this be FitzGibbon,

who had suddenly gone mad, or was it an emissary of the Evil One come to destroy him with terror because

of the part he had played in this hateful underground place? In any case Dan could no longer remain where he

was, for this man, with his awful cries and carrying a light, was steadily drawing nearer to him. He glided

stealthily from his hidingplace, keeping in the shadow, and hoping to avoid notice. But in the obscurity he

Webster instantly started up with a maniacal cry, drawing some weapon from under his coat.

He was too late; it was a fivechambered revolver, loaded and cocked, that Webster had drawn. Dan was shot

through the heart, and fell without a sound. The next moment Victor felt a sharp, stinging pain in his head. He

knew no more till he became conscious weeks later, to find that he had been nursed back from the brink of

the grave by Miss Paget. As soon as the news of the catastrophe at the Colmar MineDan murdered, Victor

dangerously wounded, and Webster killed by his own handreached town, Miss Paget came without a

moment's delay, accompanied by one of the best surgeons in Adelaide. For many days the young man

hovered between life and death; but, with a devotion and endurance extraordinary even in a woman, Helen

stood sentinel between him and the roar of greedy Acheron.5 For days and nights in succession she scarcely

In the kearlier stages of Victor's convalescence his mother reached Adelaide, and at once came to him at the

new Colmar Innthe one for which Scroogs had obtained a license while it was still a curious medley of

tents and weatherboard cribs. Now it had a frontage of stonerooms, and in the best of one of these the

patient was lying on a couch under a window looking leastwards, towards that great flat space, interspersed

with naked patches of reddish earth, broken up here and there into gaping fissures.

Victor lay looking out on the scene with the languid, unseeing gaze of one who has, without much heart in

the affair, battled his way back to a fresh hold on life. Presently his notice was attracted by a halfstifled sigh,

and looking round, he saw that his mother, who had been reading, had let the book close on her lap, and was

looking at him with dimmed eyes. Mrs. FitzGibbon was a very handsome, wellpreserved woman, who at

'Of course there were other thoughts as well as gratitude. When I look at you . . . and compare you with the

'Handsome as an Apollo' were the words that rose to the mother's lips; but though she had been exceedingly

vain of her son's good looks from his childhood upwards, she was of Puritan descent, and she checked

'Isn't it strange,' she went on, after a little pause and in a different tone of voice, 'that you should ever mhave

come to a place like this at all, and that, having come once, you should have been nearly assassinated, and

'And yet, mother,' said Victor after a little silence, 'I would not for all the world have missed coming here.'

He meant this to be the prelude to telling his mother about Doris; but even the memory of strong emotion

invaded his brain with an irresistible languor. He sighed heavily, and turned away from the window so that he

should not see that great level, naked plainthe Silent Seain which the supreme joy of life had come to

'I believe Helen would scold me if she heard me broaching such topics at all,' said Mrs. FitzGibbon

presently. She had never possessed that finer tact which leads people to perceive without making perception a

matter of comment, and to understand those half shades which so often convey more than stronger colours.

She reflected a little as to the cause of her son's continued silence, and then said, 'I must ask your forgiveness

for one thing, Victorthat letter I wrote when I knew less than nothing of dear Helen.'

'How like you are to your dear father in some things! That was exactly his way of making it pleasant for one

At this moment Miss Paget came in with a great boxful of flowers that had come from Lancaster House. At

sight of them the vision of those other flowers, that used to come to this arid wilderness in all their delicate

beauty for Doris, rose before Victor with strange distinctness. She brought him a plume of white lilacone

of those late blossoms that bud and come into bloom after the almanack says they are over. Its faint yet

poignant fragrance seemed to sum up for him all the unspeakable longing and regret of which a lifetime is

'Was it worth all the pains you have taken to keep me in life, Helen?' he asked as she stooped to arrange his

pillow. 'That means you ought to have a bowl of chickenbroth,' she answered, laughing. Then, in a lower

Four months later they were married. The paper which announced the marriage contained an enthusiastic

description of a testimonial presented to William Trevaskis, J.P., on the occasion of his retirement from

managing the Colmar Mine. The Chairman of Directors, in making the presentation, said that Mr. Trevaskis

was a man who had long ago made his mark in mining. The indefatigable industry, the downright John Bull7

honesty which had characterized his management of the Colmar Mine, were beyond all praise. While deeply

regretting his loss as a manager, they alldirectors and shareholders alikewere gratified to know that the

trained sagacity with which Mr. Trevaskis had dealt in Broken Hill mining shares now enabled him to resume

the position in society of which his unmerited misfortunes had previously deprived him. Mr. Trevaskis was

about to enter Parliament once more, and his friends were confident that he would make his mark in politics

as he had in mining. The tea and coffee service (of sterling Broken Hill silver, artistically relieved with

Colmar gold) was a slight mark of the esteem in which he would nalways be held by those who knew him