With the sight of her in that sleep, however, the pull on his forces

slackened, though he was still too strung-up to think of snatching even

an hour's sleep for himself. He watched, alternately, the Bush fire and

Bridget's face, thinking his own dour thoughts the while. Every now and

then, he would creep on tip-toe to the veranda railings and gaze out

upon the lurid smoke which it seemed to him was thickening over the

horizon. When the sun was risen he washed and dressed and went up to

the Bachelors' Quarters where Mrs Hensor was already about and gave him

tea and food, which he badly needed. From her he learned a considerable

amount of what had been going on at Moongarr. From the Police

Inspector, a little later, he learned a good deal more.

Harris' manner was portentous; he asked for a private interview in the

office, saying that he had stayed on purpose to see the Boss, because

his tale was impossible to write. Then he told his own version of the

capture and locking up of Wombo, taking blame on himself for having

left the key of the hide-house in Maule's possession.

'But you see, Boss, he twitted me a bit about not having a warrant, and

there's no doubt, wherever he's learned it, that the chap has got the

whole constabulary lay-out at his finger ends--besides having the ear

of the Governor and the Executive down in Leichardt's Town. He's got

money too, no end of it. They were saying in Tunumburra that his wife

left him a quarter of a million.'

'Go on--that's nothing to do with us,' put in McKeith gruffly.

'He's an old friend of her Ladyship's, I understand,' sniggered Harris.

'What the devil has that got to do with Wombo?' said McKeith furiously.

Harris drew in his feelers.

'I wouldn't swear that it had, Mr McKeith, and I wouldn't swear that it

hadn't. All I know is, that Mr Maule had the key of the hide-house in

his bedroom that night, and, being a close friend of her Ladyship's, he

was no doubt aware that she didn't relish the notion of Wombo's being

had up for theft and murder--I'm not saying who it was let out Wombo.

It's a mystery I don't take upon myself to fathom--I'll leave that to

you.'

'There's one easy solution of the mystery that doesn't seem to have

occurred to you,' said McKeith. 'The gin Oola could easily have stolen

the key--they're cunning as the devil--half-castes--and as

treacherous--I know them--I've had my own good reasons for not letting

one of them inside the fence of my head-station.'

'That may be--I can only say what I know, and you can form your own

opinion.'

'Say what you know then--I'm waiting to hear. But be quick about it,

man, I've no time to waste this morning.'

Harris began his tale--how he had watched at the window of his little

room, till after midnight, his gun ready, his eyes glued on the

padlocked door opposite; how overcome with drowsiness against which he

had vainly struggled--'for a man that's been pretty near two days and

nights in the saddle may be excused if his eyes begin blinking,' Harris

put it. He had dropped dead asleep--he confessed it--at his post. Then,

how on awakening suddenly, for no apparent reason, all seeming quiet

around, he had got up as he was, half dressed and in his boots--had

stepped across to the hide-house, had found the padlock intact and,

hearing no sound, had concluded the black-boy was inside safe asleep.

How then, with a relieved mind, he had been going back to his

stretcher, when the noise of a goat bleating had set him on the

look-out from his veranda. How, presently, looking at the veranda

opposite, he had seen the door of Mr Maule's bedroom open, and a woman

come out, how she had stood a few moments facing him, with the

moonlight straight on her, so that there was no possibility of his

making a mistake. Harris paused. McKeith glared at the man, who, had he

been quick at psychological interpretations, would have read an awful

apprehension underlying the ill-restrained fury in the other's face.

The question came in hoarse jerks.

'What--Who--Who was it you saw--?'

'It was the Lady Bridget, Boss.... I--'

Before he could proceed, a strong arm struck out and McKeith's hand

clutched at the Police Inspector's neck.

'You hound! You contemptible skunk! Take back that lie, or I'll

throttle it in your throat.'

Harris was of powerful build also, and, moreover knew some tricks of

defence and assault. He freed himself by a dexterous duck of his head,

and a sharp shake of his body, and stepped backward so that the office

table was between him and his antagonist.

His face was scarlet, his bull's eyes protruded from their full

sockets. But he was wary, and not anxious to provoke the devil in

McKeith.

'Wait a bit,' he said thickly. 'If you'll keep your hands off me, and

let me finish what I was going to say, I'll show you the proof that I'm

not telling you lies--though you're mistaking my meaning in regard to

her Ladyship....

'Leave her Ladyship out of it, will you,' McKeith snarled, his teeth

showing between his tense lips.

'I would do that willingly, Boss, for there's no disrespect intended I

can assure you. Only it means that this Wombo business will have to be

reported, and if you can help me to the right evidence--well, so much

the pleasanter for all parties,' returned the Police Inspector craftily.

McKeith made a slight assenting movement of his head, but said nothing.

His brows puckered, and he stiffened himself as he listened, strung to

the quick, while Harris continued.

'Well--I did see--that lady,'--the volcanic gleam from McKeith's eyes

stopped him from pronouncing Lady Bridget's name. 'I saw her come out

of that room,' he jerked his thumb along the veranda. 'The moon was

right on her just then. I saw her give a shiver--she'd been out in the

wet. Then she walked up the veranda to where there's the covered bit

joining on to the Old Humpey, and I noticed her sit down on the steps--'

'Stop,' broke in McKeith. 'If you were on the veranda over there, you

couldn't have seen as far as the steps.'

'Right you are, Boss. But I wasn't waiting on the veranda. When the

lady turned her back, I moved into the yard, and I was standing by that

flower-bush'--Again he jerked his thumb, this time to the centre bed,

and a young bohinia shrub covered with pink blossoms 'If you try

yourself from there, you'll find you can look slick through to the

front garden. That's where I saw Maule step out of--I guessed he'd come

round by the back of the Old Humpey. I guessed too, he thought she

oughtn't to be sitting out there in the damp--She was shivering

again--she'd put a rug that was lying on the steps round her. He just

picked her up in his arms, and carried her right along, and when I

stepped across I saw him take her into one of those rooms at the end of

the front veranda....'

A muffled growl, something like the sound a hunted beast might make

when the dogs had got to touch of him, came from McKeith. Again he

stiffened himself; his lips hard pressed; his eyes on Harris' face. The

Police Inspector avoided his gaze; but he too was watchful.

'You see I was thinking of my prisoner, and wondering if there could be

anything afoot about him. So as I knew there was nobody then--in Mr

Maule's room, I went back and looked in. I wanted to make sure, if I

could, where the key of the hide-house might be. There was a candle

left alight, and I saw the key right enough on the chest of drawers

beside Maule's watch and chain. It never came into my mind then, that

anybody could have used it. I noticed a bit of folded paper under the

watch. That's it, Mr McKeith. There's the proof that I am not lying

about what I saw.'

Harris had taken out of his breast pocket, a piece of newspaper in

which was wrapped the leaf torn out of Maule's notebook, folded and

addressed. He opened it out, and laid it on the office table in front

of McKeith, keeping his own stubby finger on one corner of the sheet.

Still McKeith maintained his difficult self-restraint.

'So you stole--a private communication that had been left in another

person's room, and was intended for his eyes alone?'

'Come now, Boss. You know well enough that a constabulary officer who's

up against tricks to release a prisoner has got to keep his eyes

peeled, and mustn't let any clue to mischief escape him. How was I to

know that there wasn't some plot to cheat the law? How do I know that

there wasn't? That's why I'm showing you the paper. I'm not a French

scholar--I suppose that's French--and as I suppose you are, I'll ask

you to translate what's written there.'

McKeith pushed aside the man's finger, and taking up the paper carried

it to the window, where he stood with his back to Harris, spelling out

Lady Bridget's hurriedly written sentences.

He seemed a long time in getting at the sense of what he read. As a

matter of fact, he had only a limited acquaintance with any modern

languages except his own. He had picked up some colloquial German, and

once when laid up in hospital, had set himself to read Balzac's PERE

GORIOT with the aid of a dictionary. Thus he had acquired a fairly

extensive if somewhat archaic vocabulary. But Lady Bridget's veiled

intimation of Wombo's escape couched in up-to-date and highly idiomatic

French which would have been perfectly intelligible to Willoughby

Maule, conveyed little to him beyond the fact of a secret understanding

between his wife and a man whom he knew had once been her lover. That

idea drove every other into the background of his thoughts. He did not

care in the least how Wombo had escaped. It seemed clear to him that

Oola had stolen the key after Harris had gone back to his room, while

Maule and his wife were together--together in Lady Bridget's own

chamber. The blood surged to his brain, and his temples throbbed as

though they would burst. In the madness of his jealousy, the words of

the paper, combined with Harris' revelations were damnatory

confirmation of his wife's guilt. He felt now that he had foreseen what

would happen, from the moment that he had surprised the look on Lady

Bridget's face, when Maule had unexpectedly appeared before her. She

had given herself away then. And, a little sooner, rather than a little

later--as might have been the case had he not left them together--the

inevitable had come to pass.

Yes, through the agony of that conviction now brought home to him, a

dogged resolve formed itself in his mind--the determination not to

betray himself or her. It beat upon him with insistent force. Though

his goddess must be dethroned from her shrine in his heart, she should

not be cast down for a vulgar brute like Harris to gloat over her

shame....

'Well, Boss,' the Police Inspector asked with affected nonchalance that

bordered on insolence. 'Can you make anything that's satisfactory to

you out of that?'

McKeith turned, Harris thought he was going to leap upon him in a fit

of blind fury, and started up from his seat by the office table.

McKeith's eyes blazed, his taut sinews quivered; his face was now quite

pallid, and the hand in which he held the piece of paper was clenched

so tight that the veins stood out like thick cords, and the knuckles

were perfectly bloodless.

But suddenly the pitch on his nerves was eased. His eyelids dropped,

and when he lifted them, the eyes were quiet and intently observant.

He moved into his usual office chair.

'Sit down again, won't you, Harris?' he said, and Harris resumed his

former place.

'What were you asking?' McKeith continued. 'Satisfactory to me is it?

Yes, perfectly satisfactory, thank you.... I'm only amused--as you

see... to find that I was quite right in my suspicions.' And he laughed

in what Harris thought a very odd way.

'Eh? I don't take your meaning.' Harris' manner was distinctly

objectionable.

McKeith gave him a sharp look, and his teeth went over his under lip.

Then, to the man's evident surprise, he laughed again, throwing his

head back so that the muscles of his throat showed under his beard,

working, as it were, automatically. It really seemed as if the man's

mechanical merriment were no part of himself. He was, in fact, gaining

time to propound an explanation which he did not believe in the least,

but which happened to be almost the exact truth.

He answered with an air of ironic indifference.

'Well, you know, I wouldn't go in for the detective line, if I were

you, Harris. You aren't subtle enough for it. You jump too quickly at

conclusions which have nothing to do with the main point. In fact,

you're a fool, Harris--a damned fool.'

Harris' puzzled expression turned to one of extreme indignation. 'Seems

to me, Mr McKeith, that it's you who are--well, damned queer about this

affair. I'm sure I don't know what you've got to laugh at. But if

you've found out who let the black-boy out of the hide-house, I'd be

glad to know, that's all.'

McKeith ceased from his mirthless laughing and his sarcastic bluff. He

leaned forward, facing Harris with his hands on the paper which he had

laid on the table before him. He picked up the other's last words.

'Yes, that IS all. It's the only part of this note which concerns you.

Well, I can tell you that it was the half-caste woman, as I thought,

who let Wombo out of the hide-house. She stole the key from Mr Maule's

room when HE was asleep, and let Wombo out when YOU were asleep--a

longer time perhaps than you imagined, Harris. The black-boy made for

the scrub, and I suppose they were in too great a hurry to think of

shutting the door. Oola sneaked back--they've got the cunning of whites

and blacks put together, those half-castes--and no doubt she guessed

there'd be a hue and cry directly the door was found open. So she

locked it again--and brought the key to her ladyship.'

McKeith seemed to force the last words from between his teeth.

'Well, that's quite simple, isn't it?'

'Now, I shouldn't call it as simple as you make out, Boss. It appears

mighty odd to me that the gin should have worried round after her

ladyship when she might have sneaked back with the key to the place she

took it from. And then there's all the rest--the putting the key back

and fitting in times and all that.... Seems to me a bit too much of the

Box and Cox trick--a sort of jig-saw puzzle, d'you see.'

Manifestly, Harris was endeavouring to square probabilities. McKeith

still held himself in.

'I've given you the facts. You can figure out your details for

yourself. I've my own business to attend to, and I must be off on it.'

He got up, and folding Lady Bridget's note, deliberately put it in his

breast pocket. Harris stretched forth a restraining hand.

'Boss, I say--that's important--for my report, you know.'

McKeith's temper burst out.

'Damn your report. I'm a magistrate, and I've taken your report, and

the blacks are in the scrub and you can go and find them for yourself

if you choose. You have no warrant, remember. No, I'm not going to be

bothered any more about that black-boy. What.... Not I--with a fire

raging on my run, and not enough hands to put it out.'

'But her ladyship....' spluttered Harris.

'Listen here you....' McKeith's face and attitude were menacing. 'I

came back to find her ladyship down with dengue as bad as could be. It

was on her that night, and if she had to be carried to her room in a

fit of shaking, what business is that of yours? Understand me, Harris.

Don't you go mixing up my wife's name with this beastly black-boy

affair, or you'll have to reckon with me--and I can tell you, you won't

relish that reckoning.'

'There was no offence meant. I only wanted to do my duty,' protested

the Police Inspector, cringing after the way of bullies.

'You'll find opportunity enough for doing that if you ride back to

Breeza Downs and lend the Specials your valuable assistance in

protecting the sheep-owners against the Unionists. And I might remind

you, as I reminded that damned Organiser who's fired my run, that

there's a hundred pounds reward still waiting for anybody who catches

the men that robbed my drays and killed my horses.'

McKeith paused a moment before going out by the further door of the

office which looked out on the plain.

'I'll leave you now to run up your horse and make your own

arrangements. As soon as I can, I shall start to help in getting the

bush fire under. You can arrest that Organiser if you are keen on

arresting somebody. Send in when you're saddled up, and if I'm ready

we'll ride to the turn-off track together.'

McKeith went back to his wife's room. She was still sleeping. Then it

was that spasms of mortal agony began literally to rend the man. He

left her side and seated himself on the bed in his dressing-room. He

sat with his arms folded across his chest. His shoulders heaved. Deep

dry sobs shook his huge frame. He would not let a groan escape from

between his clenched teeth, but there was blood on his lower lip where

he had bitten it in the effort to control himself. Presently, he heard

a sound in the next room--a half moan--a name spoken. No, it would not

be his name that she would utter first on her return to consciousness.

The man got up; stretched his long, lean frame, shuddering as if it had

been on the rack. He drew two deep breaths, braced himself, wiped the

blood from his lip, put on the stony mask which Bridget saw when she

opened her eyes and found him looking down at her.

CHAPTER 8

Next morning, Lady Bridget was better and her mind clearer. There had

been no return of fever, and, though the physical weakness was great

and her temperature--had she taken it--would have been found a good

deal below normal, her fierce determination not to remain helpless any

longer gave her strength to get up and dress. She was not able,

however, to do anything but lie in a half-alive condition in the

hammock at the end of the veranda. All night the fire had blazed, but

more fitfully, and this morning the lurid glare had died down. Only a

murky haze, faintly red here and there, spread over the north-eastern

sky. Small, isolated smoke-clouds rose above the stretches of forest,

and an irregular-shaped tract of charred grass at the edge of the plain

showed how far the flames had encroached upon it before they had been

got under. One might well conceive with what almost superhuman

exertions the beaters had at length accomplished their task. A large

number of cattle had been driven by the fire on to the pasture beyond

the home paddock--a pasture that had so far been carefully nursed in

view of possible later necessity.

Bridget was bushwoman enough to comprehend the crippling effect upon

McKeith's resources of the calamity, had she allowed her mind to dwell

upon that aspect of affairs. But her mind was incapable just now of

dealing with practical issues. She felt utterly weak, utterly lonely.

Although she was glad Maule had gone, she missed his sympathetic

companionship to an extent that she could hardly have thought possible.

As the hammock swayed gently at the slight touch of her fingers on its

rope edge, her imagination drifted dangerously and her senses yielded

to the old drugging fascination. He seemed as close to her as had been

his bodily shape a few days previously. She was conscious of the pull

of his will upon the invisible cords by which he held her. If it were

an unholy spell, it was, now, at least, in her desolation, a consoling

one. He loved her; he wanted her. She knew that he was passionately

eager to devote his life to her. He would wait expectantly until she

wrote. With a few strokes of her pen she might end her irksome

captivity in this wall-less prison of desert plain--this wilderness of

gum and gidia.

As she lay there in the hammock, a child's clumpy boots pattered along

the garden path and Tommy Hensor came up the steps with a big cabbage

leaf gathered in his hand. He opened it out when he reached the veranda

and displayed three Brazilian cherries, the first fruits of a plant

growing in the Chinaman's garden.

'La-ship ... La-ship! I got these myself. I made Fo Wung give 'em me

for you.'

At any other time the child's offering would have been received, at any

rate, graciously. Now Tommy shrank away, startled by the look on Lady

Bridget's face and the forbidding gesture with which she warned him off.

'Go away! ... Go away! ...' she cried. 'I don't want you.'

Tommy's common, freckled little face crumpled up and his blue eyes

filled with tears. He dropped the cabbage leaf and the cherished

Brazilian cherries and ran down the steps again, blubbering piteously.

Lady Bridget got up as soon as the child had clicked the garden gate

behind him. She was ashamed of the spasm of revulsion that had seized

her. She wanted to cast away from her the dreadful thought his

appearance had suddenly evoked. She picked up the cabbage leaf with the

fruit and flung them over the railings into a flower bed, where the

butcher-birds and the bower-birds quarrelled over them, and the big,

grey bird in the gum tree on the other side of the fence cachinnated in

derisive chorus to Bridget's burst of hysterical laughter.

A little later Maggie came out from the bedroom with some letters in

her hand.

'I've laid holt on your mail, Ladyship, turning out your room. I expect

you forgot all about it.'

Yes, she had forgotten, absolutely; it seemed years since Harry the

Blower had passed by and Willoughby Maule had departed. She languidly

inspected the envelopes. Nothing among them of any importance--except

one.

It was a blue telegraph-service envelope, and had been forwarded on by

the postman from Crocodile Creek, the nearest telegraph station. In the

last fifteen months they had brought the bush railway a good deal

further up the river, and Crocodile Creek was the present terminus.

Thus the road journey was now considerable shorter than when Colin

McKeith had brought his bride home.

Lady Bridget read the several lines of the cabled message over two or

three times before the real bearings of it became clear to her

fever-weakened intelligence.

At last she grasped the startling fact that the cablegram was from her

cousin, Lord Gaverick, and that it had been despatched from London

about seven days previously. This was what it said.

'ELIZA GAVERICK DIED TWENTIETH LEAVES YOU CASTLE AND FIFTY THOUSAND

DIFFICULTIES EXECUTORS YOUR PRESENCE URGENTLY DESIRED WIRE IF CAN COME,

GAVERICK'

Lady Bridget let the blue form drop on her lap. She stared out over the

brown plain and the herds of lean beasts all shadowy in the smoky mist

over the horizon, then round, along the wilderness of gidia scrub, with

its charred patches afar off, from which there still rose thin spirals

of smoke.

Destiny had spoken. Here was the order of release. There was no gaoler

to keep the prison doors locked any longer--except--except--No, if she

wished to break her bonds, Colin would never gainsay her.

Late that night the men came back from fighting the fire which they had

now practically put out. Even in the moonlight they looked deplorable

objects, grimed, covered with dust and ashes, their skins and clothes

scorched by the fierce heat.

They seemed drunk with fatigue, and could scarcely sit their horses.

When they dismounted they could hardly stand.

Their feeble COO-EES at the sliprails brought out Ninnis, who had been

sent home in the afternoon and had been taking some well-earned repose

so as to be ready for the next shift--happily not required. He and the

few hands left to look after the head-station and the tailing-mob held

the men's horses when their riders literally tumbled off them. Ninnis

made McKeith take a strong pull of whiskey and supported him along to

the Old Humpey. For Colin had had strength to say that Lady Bridget

must on no account be disturbed. Ninnis led him to the room lately

occupied by Willoughby Maule, and was surprised at his employer's

vehement refusal to remain in it.

'I'll not stop here.... No, I won't go to my dressing-room. In God's

name, just let me stretch myself on the bunk in the Office and go to

sleep.'

He threw himself on a bush-carpentered settle, with mattress and

pillows covered in Turkey-red, which was used sometimes at mustering

times when there was an overplus of visitors. There he lay like a log

for close on twelve hours.

By and by, Lady Bridget, at once longing and reluctant, came softly in

to see how he fared.

A storm of pity, anger, tenderness, repulsion--the whole range of

feeling, it seemed, between love and hate--swept over her as she looked

at the great gaunt form stretched there. Colin was still in riding

clothes and booted and spurred. His moleskins were black with smoke and

charcoal; his flannel shirt, open at the neck, showed red scratches and

scorch-marks on the exposed chest and was torn over the arms, where

were more excoriations of the flesh. And the ravaged face! How hard it

was. How relentless, even in the utter abandonment of bodily

exhaustion! The skin was caked with black dust and sweat. The darkened

thatch of yellow hair was dank and wet. The fair beard, usually so

trim, was singed in places, matted, and had bits of cinder and burnt

leaves sticking to it.

A revolting spectacle, offending Lady Bridget's fine, physical

sensibilities, but a MAN--THE Man. She could not understand that

tornado of emotion which now made her being seem a very battle-ground,

for all the primal passions. She turned away with a sense of nausea,

and then turned to him again with a kind of passionate longing to take

him in her arms--brutal as she thought him, and unworthy of the

affection she had once felt for him--felt still alas!--and all the

romance she had once woven about him.... She saw that a fly was

hovering over the excoriated arm and drew the ragged sleeve over its

bareness. Then she noticed the mosquito net reefed up on a hoop above

the bunk, and managed to get the curtain down so that he should be

protected from the assaults of insects. But as she touched him in doing

this, he stirred and muttered wrathfully in his sleep, as though he

were conscious of her tenderness and would have none of it; she fled

away and came to him no more.

She had been racking her brain since receiving the cablegram as to what

answer she should return to it.

After that pitiable sight of her husband, Bridget moved restlessly

about the house, with intervals of lassitude in the hammock, for she

still felt weak and ill. But quinine was keeping the fever down, and

she resolved that her husband should not again be required to nurse

her. She did not go into the Office any more, but busied herself in a

defiant fashion upon little cares for his comfort when he awoke. He

should see that she did not neglect her house-wifely duties--at least

while she remained there to perform them. The qualification was

significant of her mood.

Thus, she gave orders that the veranda of the Old Humpey should be kept

free from disturbing footsteps, and saw that the bathroom was in order,

and a change of clothing set ready for him when he should awake. Also

that there should be a meal prepared.

He did not wake till the afternoon. She heard him go straight in to

take his bath, and hastened to have the dining room table spread. But

she saw him go out of the bathroom--all fresh and more like

himself--and cross the yard on his way to the Bachelors' Quarters,

making it clear to her that he wished to avoid the part of the house

she occupied. Bridget went back to the front veranda in a cold fury,

pierced by stabs of mental pain. She watched him from the end of the

veranda go into the living room of the Quarters, and thought bitterly

that he would ask Mrs Hensor for the food he required. No doubt too, he

would obtain from Mrs Hensor, information as to how she herself had

been getting on during his absence, and Mrs Hensor would give him a

garbled report of her own dismissal from the sick room.... How dared

he--oh! how DARED he treat her, Lady Bridget, his wife, with such cruel

negligence, such marked insult!

It did not occur to her that he might wish to see Ninnis, who, when at

the station, was usually about this time, in his office at the back of

the Bachelors' Quarters.

After a time, she heard Colin's voice again in the yard, and his step

on the Old Humpey veranda. He came now by the covered passage on to

that of the New House, and advanced towards her.

He only came, she told herself, because it would have seemed too

strange had he continued to ignore her existence.

And he was conscious of her resentment. By a curious affinity, his own

spirit thrilled to the unquenchable spirit in her. Qualities in himself

responded to like qualities in her. He admired her pride and pluck. Yet

the two egoisms reared against each other, seemed to him--could he have

put the thought into shape--like combatants with lances drawn ready to

strike.

He believed that it was love which gave her strength--love, not for

him, but for that other man whose influence he was now convinced had

always been paramount, and who with renewed propinquity had resumed his

domination.

Certain phrases in that letter he had read long ago on Joan Gildea's

veranda, and which had been haunting him ever since Willoughby Maule's

re-appearance, struck his heart with the searing effect of lightning.

He felt, at the first sight of her there on the veranda, before she

turned full to him, a passionate yearning to take her in his arms, and

cover her poor little wasted face with kisses--to call her 'Mate'; to

remind her of that wonderful marriage night under the stars. But when

he saw the proud aloofness of her look, his longing changed to a dull

fury, which he could only keep in check by rigorous steeling of his

will against any softening impulse.

So his face was hard as a rock, his voice rasping in its restraint,

when he came near and spoke to her. 'You have not had any more fever?'

'No.'

He put two or three questions to her about her health--whether she had

taken the medicine he had left for her, and so on, to which she

returned almost monosyllabic replies, sufficiently satisfactory in the

information they gave him.

'That's all right then,' he said coldly. 'I thought it would be, though

I didn't at all like leaving you in such a condition.'

'Really! But it doesn't seem as if you had felt any violent anxiety

about me since you came back. I heard you go to the bathroom a long

time ago, and I saw you going up to the Quarters.'

He did not appear to notice the latter implication.

'I had to sleep,' he said curtly. 'I was dead beat.'

'Yes, I saw that,' she answered.

'A-ah!' The deep intake of breath made a hissing sound, and he flushed

a brick red. 'You came and looked at me?'

'I went into the Office.'

'I didn't want you to see me. You must have loathed the sight of me. I

was a disgusting object.'

She said nothing.

If he had glanced at her he would have seen a piteous flicker of

tenderness pass over her face--a sudden wet gleam in her eyes. And had

he yielded then to his first impulse, things might have gone very

differently between them. But he kept himself stiffened. He would not

lift his eyes, when she gave him a furtive glance. The expression of

his half averted face was positively sinister as he added with a

sneering little laugh.

'One can't look as if one had come out of a bandbox after fighting a

bush fire.'

She exclaimed, 'Oh! what does it matter?'

He utterly mistook the meaning of her exclamation.

'You are quite right,' he retorted. 'When it comes to the end of

everything, what does ANYTHING matter!'

For several moments there was dead silence. She felt as if he had

wilfully stabbed her. He on his side had again the confused sense of

two antagonists, feinting with their weapons to gain time before the

critical encounter.

'Well?' He swung himself savagely round upon her. 'That's true, isn't

it? The end HAS come.... You're sick of the whole show--dead sick--of

the Bush--of everything?--Aren't you? Answer me straight, Bridget.'

'Yes, I am,' she replied recklessly. 'I hate the Bush--I--I hate

everything.'

'Everything! Well, that settles it!' he said slowly.

Again there was silence, and then he said:

'You know I wouldn't want to keep you--especially now,'--he did not add

the words that were on his lips 'now that bad times are coming on

me,'--and she read a different application in the 'now.' 'I--I'd be

glad for you to quit. It's as you please--maybe the sooner the better.

I'll make everything as easy as I can for you.'

'You are very--considerate....' The sarcasm broke in her throat.

She moved abruptly, and stood gazing out over the plain till the

hysterical, choking sensation left her. Her back was to him. He could

not see her face; nor could she see the dumb agony in his.

Presently she walked to a shelf-table on the veranda set against the

wall; and from the litter of papers and work upon it, took up the

cablegram she had lately received.

'I wanted to show you this,' she said stonily, and handed him the blue

paper.

There was something significant in the way he steadied it upon the

veranda railing, and stooped with his head down to pore over it.

The blow was at first almost staggering. It was as though the high gods

had shot down a bolt from heaven, shattering his world, and leaving him

alone in Chaos. They had taken him at his word--had registered on the

instant his impious declaration. It WAS the end of everything. She was

to quit.... He had said, the sooner the better.... Well--he wasn't

going to let even the high gods get a rise out of him.

He laughed. By one of those strange links of association, which at

moments of unexpected crisis bring back things impersonal, unconnected,

the sound of his own laugh recalled the rattle of earth, upon the dry

outside of a sheet of bark in which, during one of their boundary rides

at Breeza Downs lately, they had wrapped for burial the body of a

shepherd found dead in the bush. Both sounds seemed to him as of

something dead--something outside humanity.

He handed her back the telegram, speaking still as if he were

far-off--on the other side of a grave, but quite collectedly and as

though in the long silence he had been weighing the question.

'It seems to me that this has come to you in the nick of time, to solve

difficulties.'

'Yes,' she assented dully.

'You've got no choice but to go as your cousin says. There's money

depending on it.'

'Money! ... Oh, money!' she cried wildly.

'Money is apt to stick on to lawyers' fingers when they're left to the

handling of it .... This is a matter of business, and business can't be

put on one side--especially, when there's as large a sum as fifty

thousand pounds in the proposition. I guess from this that you're

wanted.'

'Yes,' she said again. She was thinking to herself, 'That's his Scotch

carefulness about money; he wouldn't consider anything in comparison

with that.'

'You had better take the northern route,' he went on. 'There ought to

be an E. and A. boat due at Leuraville pretty soon--I'll look it out.

... Perhaps you'd like to make the start to-morrow?'

'To-morrow--oh yes, to-morrow--just whenever suits you.'

'I couldn't take you down myself. There are things--serious matters

I've got to see to on the station. And besides, you'll allow it's best

for me not to go with you. Ninnis could drive you to Crocodile Creek,

and put you into the train; and Halliwell will look after you at

Leuraville, and see you on board the steamer.'

'Oh, I wonder that you can spare Ninnis,' she returned bitterly. 'I

suppose you'd want Moongarr Bill still more on the run. But there's Joe

Casey--I daresay somebody else can milk the cows, and get up wood and

water. Or there's Cudgee--I don't mind who goes with me.... I can drive

myself.'

'My God! do you imagine I'd put a black-boy--or anyone but my own

trusted overseer in charge of you! What are you thinking of to talk

like that?'

He took a few steps along the veranda, moving with uncertain gait; then

stopped and leaned heavily against the wall. In a few seconds he had

recovered himself, and came back to her, speaking quietly.

'I will think out things and arrange it all. You'll be perfectly safe

with Ninnis, I think it would be better for you to sleep one night at

old Duppo's place. There's fresh horses for the buggy there--I've got

Alexander and Roxalana in the paddock now--they're the best....'

Oh, how could he bear that those horses, of the dream-drive, should

take her away from him! He went on in the same matter-of-fact manner.

'I expect the answer to the cablegram will get as quickly as if Harry

the Blower took it, if you send it from Crocodile Creek yourself. And

there's your packing--there's not much time, but you won't want to take

a lot of things. Anything you cared about could go afterwards.'

'Go afterwards--What do you mean? I want to take nothing--nothing

except a few clothes.'

'Ah well--it doesn't matter--As you said--nothing matters now.... Well,

I'll go and see Ninnis, and settle about to-morrow.... Then there's

money....' he stopped at the edge of the steps leading down to the Old

Humpey, looking back at her--'what you'll need for the passage--and

afterwards--I know what you'll be thinking; but I can arrange for it

with the Bank manager at Leuraville.'

A mocking demon rose in her.

'Please don't let yourself be inconvenienced. I only want the bare

passage money. And directly I get to England I will pay you back.'

His hands dropped to his sides as if she had shot him. His face was

terrible. At that moment, she could have bitten her tongue out.

'I don't think--you need have said that, Bridget,' and he went slowly

down the steps, and out of her sight like a man who has received a

mortal hurt.

CHAPTER 9

If purgatory could hold worse torture than life held on that last

evening Lady Bridget spent at Moongarr, then neither she nor her

husband would have been required to do any long expiation there. It

would be difficult to say which of the two suffered the most. Probably

McKeith, because he was the strongest. Equally, he showed it the least

when the breaking moment had passed. Yet both husband and wife seemed

to have covered their faces, hearts and souls with unrevealing masks.

No, it was worse than that. Each was entirely aware of the mental and

spiritual barrier, which made it absolutely impossible for them to

approach each other in the sense of reality. A barrier infinitely more

forbidding than any material one of stone or iron. Because it was

living, poisoned, venomous as the fang of some monstrous deadly

serpent. To come within its influence meant the death of love.

There was not much more of the day to get through. Husband and wife

both got through it in a fever of activity over details that seemed

scarcely to matter. He busied himself with Ninnis--first explaining to

the overseer as briefly as he could, the necessity for Lady Bridget's

voyage to England--a necessity that appealed to Ninnis' practical mind,

particularly in the present financial emergency. It surprised him a

little that McKeith should not himself see his wife off; but he also

recognised practical reasons--against that natural concession to

sentiment. On the whole, it rather pleased him to find his employer

ignoring sentiment, and he fully appreciated the confidence reposed in

himself.

The two men went over questions connected with the journey, overhauling

the buggy so that springs, bars and bolts might be in order, seeing

that the horses were in good condition, sending on Cudgee that very

hour, with a second pair in relay for the long stage of the morrow,

when over fifty miles must be covered. There would be another pair at

old Duppo's, and, after a day and night of comparative rest, Alexander

and Roxalana would be fresh for the last long stage of the journey.

They calculated that under these provisions the railway terminus at

Crocodile Creek, might be reached on the eve of the third day. And

there were many instructions, and much careful arranging for Lady

Bridget's comfort during the journey.

Then there were letters to write, business calculations, a further

overdraft to be applied for to the Bank, pending the cattle sales....

Would there be saleable cattle enough to meet demands and expenses of

sinking fresh artesian bores--now that the fire had destroyed all the

best grass on the run?

McKeith found no consolation in the prospect of his wife's riches. That

only added gall to his bitterness, new fuel to his stubborn pride, new

strength to the wall between them.

He sat brooding in his office, when the business letters were

written--to the Bank-manager; to Captain Halliwell, the

Police-magistrate at Leuraville; to the Manager of the Eastern and

Australian Steam Navigation Depot, Leuraville, enclosing a draft to pay

the passage; to the Captain of the boat advertised for that trip, who

happened to be an acquaintance of his--all recommending Lady Bridget to

the different people's care--all anticipating and arranging against

every possible drawback to her comfort on the voyage--all carefully

stating the object of her trip to England--business connected with the

death of a near relative. Then, after the ghastly pretence of

dinner--during which appearances were kept up unnecessarily before

Maggie and the Malay boy, by a forced discussion of matter-of-fact

details--looking out the exact time of the putting in of the next E.

and A. boat at Leuraville--all of which he had already done, and

pointing out to Bridget that she could catch it, with a day to spare.

There was food for the journey too, to be thought of, and other things

to talk about. As soon as the meal was ended, McKeith went back to the

office, and Bridget saw or heard no more of him that night. He did not

come even to his dressing-room. She concluded that he was 'camping' on

the bunk in the office, and when her own packing was done, she lay in

wakeful misery till dawn brought a troubled doze.

Her packing was no great business--clothes for the voyage, and a big

furred cloak for warmth, when she should arrive in England in the depth

of winter--that was all.

Everything else--her papers, knicknacks, personal belongings--she left

just as they were. Colin might do as he liked about them. She felt

reckless and quite hard.

Only one among those personal possessions moved her to despairing

tears. It was a shrivelled section of bark chopped from a gum tree,

warped almost into a tube.

She placed this carefully in the deepest drawer of her wardrobe. Would

Colin ever find it there--and would he understand? All the time,

through these preparations, strangely enough she did not think of any

possible future in connection with Willoughby Maule. The events of the

past few days seemed to have driven him outside her immediate horizon.

When she came out in the morning dressed for her journey, she found her

husband in the veranda waiting to strap up and carry out her baggage.

Scarcely a word passed between them; they did not even breakfast

together. He said he had been up early, and had had his breakfast

already, but he watched her trying to eat while he moved about

collecting things for her journey, and he poured out the coffee, and

begged her to drink it. While he was there, Chen Sing brought in the

basket of food he must have ordered for the buggy, and there was Fo

Wung too, the gardener, with fresh lettuce and water-cress, and a

supply of cool, green cabbage leaves in which he had packed a few early

flat-stone peaches, and some Brazilian cherries.

Lady Bridget thanked them with the ghost of her old sweetness, and they

promised to have the garden 'velly good--TAI YAT number one' and to

'make plenty nice dishes,' for the Boss during her absence.

While they stood at the French window, McKeith filled flasks with wine

and spirits, and packed quinine and different medicines he had prepared

in case of her needing them. Then after shewing her the different

bottles, he took the supply out to Ninnis to be put in the buggy.

Everything was ready now--the buggy packed, the hood unslung so that it

could be put up and down in protection against sun or rain--this last

alas! an improbable eventuality. Alexander and Roxalana were champing

their bits. Ninnis in a new cabbage-tree hat and clean puggaree,

wearing the light coat he only put on when in the society of ladies he

wished to honour, was standing by the front wheels examining the lash

of his driving-whip. McKeith had given him his last directions. There

was nothing now to wait for. McKeith went slowly up the steps of the

back veranda, and in at the French window of the sitting room, where

Bridget had been watching, waiting. At his appearance, she went back

into the room. She stood quite still, small, shadowy, the little bit of

her face which showed between the folds of her motor veil, where it was

tied down under her chin--very pale, and the eyes within their red,

narrowed lids, dry and bright.

'Are you ready, Bridget?' he asked.

'Yes.'

He came close, and took a little bag she was holding out of her hands,

carried it to the back veranda, and told one of the Chinamen to give it

to Mr Ninnis--all, it seemed to her, to evade farewells. She called him

back in a hard voice.

'Colin--I've left my keys,'--pointing to a sealed and addressed

envelope on her own writing-table. 'There are a few things of

value--some you have given me--in the drawers.'

'I will take care of them,' he answered hoarsely.

They stood fronting each other, and their eyes both smarting, agonised,

stared at each other out of the pale drawn faces.

'Colin,' she said; and held out her hands. 'Aren't you going to say

good-bye?'

He took her hands; his burning look met hers for an instant and

dropped. There was always the poisonous wall which their soul's vision

might not pierce--through which their yearning lips might not touch.

For an instant too, the hardness of his face was broken by a spasm of

emotion. The grip of his hands on hers was like that of a steel vice;

she winced at the pain of it. He dropped her hands suddenly, and moved

back a step.

'Good-bye--Bridget.'

'Is that all you have to say? All?'

He stuttered, helplessly. 'I--I--can't.... There's nothing to say.'

'Nothing! You let me go--like this--without one word of apology--of

regret. I think that, at least, you owe me--courtesy.'

Her tone lashed him. He seemed to be struggling with his tongue-tied

speech. When words came they rushed out in fierce jerks. 'I'll say

this--though where's the good of talking.... What does it amount to

anyway, when you're down on the bedrock, and there's nothing left but

to give up the whole show and start fresh as best you can? I'll say

this--I've never pretended to fine manners--I leave them--to others.

I'm just a rough bushman, no better and no worse. Apology!--that's my

apology--As for regret. My God! isn't it all one huge regret? No, I

won't say that.... Because there are some things I CAN'T regret--for

myself. For you, I do regret them. I was an insane ass ever to imagine

that I and my way of living could ever fit in with a woman brought up

like you. The incompatibilities were bound to come

out--incompatibilities of temper, education, breeding--outlook on

things--they were bound to separate us sooner or later, I'm glad that

it's sooner, because that gives you a chance of getting back into your

old conditions before you've grown different in yourself--dried

up--soured--maybe lost your health, roughing it through bad times in

the bush.... As it is, you'll get out all right--Never fear that I

won't see you get out all right.'

'And you?' she put in.

'Me! I don't count--I don't care.... A man's not like a woman. I've

always been a fighter. And I've never been DOWNED in my life. I'm not

going to be DOWNED this time. I shall make good--some time--somehow.

I'm not the sort of small potato that drops to the bottom of the bag in

the big shake-up.'

She winced visibly. He read distaste in her slight gesture, in the

expression of her eyes. It was true that the man's pugnacious egoism--a

lower side of him asserting itself just then--had always jarred upon

her finer taste. He recognised this subconsciously, and his self-esteem

revolted at it.

'You needn't be afraid,' he exclaimed harshly. 'If I wanted to hold to

my rights, and keep you here with me--what has happened would prevent

me--I've got too much pride to hang on to the skirts of a rich wife.

But you won't be harmed.... I don't know yet, but I believe there's a

way by which you can win through straight and square--no smirch that

you need mind--And if there is--whatever the way of it is, I'll do my

best to bring you out all right.'

'You are generous.' Her eyes flashed but her voice was coldly bitter.

'May I ask what you propose to do?'

'There's no use....' he said heavily. 'I told you talking was no

good--now. I've got my own ideas....'

'Then, if that's how you feel, the sooner I go the better pleased you

will be,' she returned hysterically. 'Oh, I'm ready to go.'

He moved to the steps, not answering at once. Then he said:

'The buggy is waiting, will you come?'

He went down the steps in front of her, but stopped at the bottom to

help her, for her foot had stumbled on the edge of the veranda. His

strong arm upheld her until she was on the gravel. The touch of his

fingers on her arm, brought home the incredible horror of it all--the

suddenness, the brutality. She pulled her veil hastily over her face to

hide the gush of tears. She could not speak for the choking lump in her

throat. He released her at once and strode on. Not another word passed

between them. Ninnis greeted her with gruff cordiality--began a sort of

speech about the cause of her departure--condolence and congratulations

stupidly mixed. McKeith impatiently cut him short.

'All right, Ninnis. Get up. And mind, the horses are fresh. They'll

want a bit of driving at the start.'

He helped Bridget to her seat, tucked the brown linen coverlet round

her knees. In doing so, he bent his head--she thought he had dropped

something. Then through the thin linen of the covering, and her light

summer garments, she felt the pressure of his burning lips as though

they were touching her flesh.

She bent forward. Their eyes met in a wild look, just for a second. The

horses plunged under Ninnis' hands on the reins. McKeith sprang back.

'Wo-oh! Gee on then!' Ninnis called out. 'Good-bye, Boss. You can trust

me to look well after her ladyship.... Be back again as soon as I can.'

And if Colin spoke, the sound did not carry to his wife's ears. Her

last impression of him as the buggy swayed and rattled down the hill

was again the dogged droop of his great shoulders.

It was too late now. She felt that the Furies were pursuing her. Ah,

but the end had come--come with such hideous misconception--every word

spoken--and there had been so few in comparison with the immensity of

the occasion--a hopeless blunder. It had been the tussle of two

opposing temperaments, it was like the rasping steel of a cross-cut saw

against the hard, heavy grain of an iron-bark gum log. Then the

extraordinary involvements of circumstance. Each incident, big and

little, dovetailing and hastening the onward sweep of catastrophe. It

seemed as though Fate had cunningly engineered the forces on every

plane so that there should be no escape for her victims. Like almost

all the tragedies of ordinary human life, this one had been too swift

in its action to allow of suitable dialogue or setting.

CHAPTER 10

From Joan Gildea to Colin McKeith.

Written about a year later.

MY DEAR COLIN,

I find it impossible to recognise my old friend in the hard,

businesslike communication you sent me from Leichardt's Town. I almost

wish that you had allowed the lawyer you consulted to put the case

before me instead; it would have seemed less unfitting, and I could

have answered it better. But I quite appreciate your objection to

taking the lawyer into your confidence as regards the personal matters

you mention to me. It would be cruelly unjust--I think quite

unpardonable in you to bring forward the name of Mr Willoughby Maule in

connection with Bridget. Not that HE would mind that. I honestly

believe that he would snatch gladly at any means for inducing Bridget

to marry him. Whether she would do so, if you were to carry through

this amazing scheme of yours, it's impossible for me to say. At present

she certainly prefers to keep him at a distance. He has never been to

Castle Gaverick. And except for a few visits on business to London that

is where she has lived since she came over here.

Your letter followed me to Jamaica where I've been reporting on the

usual lines for THE IMPERIALIST, but, of course I couldn't answer it

until I had talked it over with Bridget and, as you desired, had

obtained her views on the matter. It was a shock to her to realise that

your reason for never writing to her and for refusing to let her write

to you, was lest that might affect the legality of these proceedings,

which I understand you have contemplated from the beginning of your

quarrel. Bridget is too proud to show you how deeply she is wounded by

your letter. All she has to say is, that if you really wish to take

this action, she will not oppose it.

But Colin, do you really wish, it? I refuse to believe that you

seriously contemplate divorcing your wife. You must know that you have

not the accepted grounds for doing so. As for the law you quote which

allows divorce in cases of two years' so-called desertion, I can only

say that I consider it a blot on Leichardt's Land legislation. Divorce

should be for one cause only--the cause to which Our Lord gave a

qualified approval; and Bridget has never been unfaithful--in act or

desire, to her husband. I would maintain this in spite of the most

damning testimony, and you must in your heart believe it also. Besides,

your testimony is ridiculously inadequate.

I am glad, however, that you have at last made your accusations in

detail--in order, as you say--that I--and Bridget, incidentally, I

suppose--should fully understand why you are adopting this attitude

towards her. I'm glad too, that you do not mean to make any use of the

evidence against her and are prepared to take all the blame for the

unhappy state of affairs between you! I write sarcastically. Why, it

would be monstrous if you had any other intention! Oh, how I hate this

pedantic roundabout way of writing! I feel inclined to tear up these

sheets--I've torn up two already. Really, you've made it so difficult

for me to treat you naturally. If I could talk to you, I'd make you

understand in five minutes--but I can't--so there!

Naturally, I had heard of your bringing Mr Willoughby Maule to the

station, and when I learned what followed, naturally also, I concluded

that you had discovered his identity with that of the man Bridget had

once cared for. I blame myself horribly. But for my carelessness you

would never have read that letter of Biddy's--she knows all about it

now--and your insane jealousy would not have jumped to conclusions--at

any rate so quickly. And perhaps if I had not bound you to secrecy

you'd have had the matter out with her, which would probably have saved

all this trouble. Anyhow, I can't imagine that you would have left her

alone with him as you did--and with bad feeling between you--at the

mercy of her own reckless impulses and that of Willoughby Maule's

ardent love-making. She doesn't pretend that it wasn't ardent, or that

he did not do his best to get her to run away with him--or that the old

infatuation did not come back to a slight extent--Is it surprising

after your conduct? No wonder she compared his devotion favourably,

with yours. Colin, your leaving her in such conditions wasn't the act

of a MAN, of a gentleman. I speak strongly, but I can't help it. I know

your stubborn pride and obstinacy, but you were wrong, you have

disappointed me--oh! how bitterly you have disappointed me!

Then there was that business about the blacks. What a fool you

were--and how brutally self-opinionated! I don't wonder Bridget thought

you an inhuman monster.

Now I have said my worst, and you must take it as it is meant and

forgive me.

As for the true story of that night's adventures, out of which your

Police Inspector seems to have made such abominable capital--I used to

think Police Inspectors were generally gentlemen--but they don't seem

to be, out on the Leura--I've got all the details from Biddy. A

tragi-comic business--so truly of the Bush, Bushy! I could laugh over

it, if it weren't for its serious consequences. Of course, Biddy got up

to turn out the goats which were butting with their horns under the

floor of her bedroom. I've often got up myself in the old days at

Bungroopim, when stray calves got into the garden, or the cockatoo

disturbed our slumbers. Do you remember Polly? and how she would keep

shouting out on a moonlight night 'The top of the mornin' to

ye'--because we'd forgotten to put her blanket over the cage--I believe

there were several occasions when you and I met in midnight dishabille

and helped each other to restore tranquillity. If anyone was to blame

for Biddy's adventure, it was your wood-and-water joey--or your

Chinamen--or whoever's business it may have been to see that the goats

were properly penned.

Naturally, Mr Maule, when he was disturbed too, came and did the

turning out for Bridget and shepherded the creatures to the fold.

Then meanwhile, she saw the black-gin sneaking in at Mr Maule's back

window to steal the key; and WOULD it have been philanthropic,

impulsive Biddy, if she hadn't helped in the work of rescue, and sent

the two sinners, with a 'Bless you, my children!' off into the scrub?

It was like Biddy too, to go and put the key back in Mr Maule's bedroom

and to scribble that ridiculous note in French so that he shouldn't go

blundering to the hide-house and hurry up the pursuit. I told Bridget

how the Inspector had watched her go out of Mr Maule's room, and had

grabbed the note afterwards, and shown it to you. She had forgotten

altogether about that note--supposed that, of course, it had reached

its proper destination. She couldn't remember either exactly what she

had written--except that she wanted to word it so that if there should

be any accident, nobody--except Mr Maule, for of course, they'd

determined on the release before that--should understand to what it

referred. So she didn't mention any name--she believes she dashed off

some words he had quoted to her about Love triumphant, and securing

happiness and freedom by flight. And then she put in something

referring to a scene they'd had that day in which he had begged her to

fly with him, and she had made him promise to leave next morning,

pacifying him by a counter promise to write.

She told me about her fever and ague--you don't need proof of that

after the state in which you found her--and how Mr Maule carried her to

her room and left her there after a few minutes. She doesn't remember

anything after that, until she came out of the fever and saw you--with

the face and manner I can well imagine--standing by her bedside.

I am sure that Bridget began to 'find herself' then, and that the way

in which she left Moongarr was one of those shocks which make a woman

touch reality. It may be only for that once in her life, but she can

never be the same again. You have put your brand on your wife,

Colin--that is quite plain to me. She has changed inwardly more than

outwardly.

But she is extremely reticent about her feelings towards you. That in

itself is so unlike the old Bridget, and I have no right to put forward

my own ideas and opinions--they may be quite wrong. Really, the news of

Eliza Lady Gaverick's death, and of Bridget's change of fortune, coming

just at that moment, is the sort of dramatic happening, which I--as a

dabbler in fiction--maintain, is more common in real life than in

novels. I am certain that if I had set out to build up the tangled

third act of a problem play on those lines, I couldn't have done it

better. All the same, I'm very sorry that this change of fortune didn't

come off earlier or later, for I am well aware of how you will jib at

it.

Well, I can tell you, on her own authority, that Bridget never wrote to

Mr Maule as she had promised. She had no communication with him from

the time he left the station until they met on the E. and A. boat. He

joined her, as you know, at the next port above Leuraville. It was

rather canny of him to go there--yet I don't see how, in the

circumstances, he could have loafed round Leuraville without making

talk--though I think it was a great pity he didn't. Of course he had

his own means of communication with the township, and knew she was on

board. No one was more surprised than she at his appearance on deck

next morning. I don't think, however, that she saw much of him on the

voyage. She said that she got a recurrence of the malarial fever off

the northern coast and had to keep her cabin pretty well till they

reached Colombo. Then she asked him to leave the steamer and take a P.

and O. boat that happened to be in harbour--and this he did do.

I am bound to say that Willoughby Maule must have improved greatly

since the time when young Lady Gaverick decided he was a 'bounder.' I

daresay marriage did him good. I believe that his wife was a very

charming woman. Or, it may be that the possession of a quarter of a

million works a radical change in people's characters. Or, again, it

may be that he is more deeply devoted to Biddy than I, for one, ever

suspected. There is no doubt that given the regrettable position, his

behaviour in regard to her now is commendable.

But Bridget, doesn't love him--never has loved him. I state that fact

on no authority whatsoever except my own intuition. Also I am honestly

of opinion she has cared for you more than she has cared for any man.

You don't deserve it, and I may be wrong. But, nevertheless, it is my

conviction. Make of it what you please. I have been, I candidly own it,

surprised to see what discretion and good feeling she has shown through

all this Gaverick will business. There has been a good deal of

disagreeable friction in the matter. Lord Gaverick has not come off so

well as he expected. He has got the house in Upper Brook Street, which

suits young Lady Gaverick, and about fifteen hundred a

year--considerably less than Bridget. The trouble is that Eliza

Gaverick left a large legacy to her doctor--the latest one--and there

was a talk about bringing forward the plea of undue influence. That,

however, has fallen to the ground--mainly through Biddy's persuasion. I

believe it is Bridget's intention to make over Castle Gaverick to her

cousin, but this is not given out and of course she may change her mind.

And now, Colin, I think I have said everything I have to say. The main

point to you is, no doubt, the answer to your question. As I said at

the beginning of this letter, Bridget will not oppose any course you

choose to take in order to secure your release from her--that is the

exact way she worded it. But I cannot believe that, in face of all the

rest I have told you, you will go on with this desertion--divorce

business--at least without making yourself absolutely certain that you

both desire to be free of each other. Remember, there has been no

explanation between you and Biddy--no chance of touch between the true

selves of both of you. Can you not come to England to see her? Or

should she go out to you. I think it possible she might consent to do

so, but have never broached the idea and cannot say. Yes, of course I

understand that this might invalidate the legal position. But as only

two years are necessary to prove the desertion--even if you should

decide together that it is best to part--isn't it worth while to wait

two years more in order to make quite sure? No doubt, you will say that

I am shewing the proverbial ignorance of women in legal questions. But

I can't help feeling that there must be some way in which it could be

arranged. I do beseech you, Colin, not to act hastily.

You say that if this divorce took place, Bridget's reputation would not

suffer, and that she could marry again without a stain upon her

character as they say of wrongfully accused prisoners who are

discharged. But again--is that the question?

I know nothing of your present circumstances--health, outlook on

life--anything. Bridget once hinted to me that you might have your own

reasons for desiring your freedom. She would give no grounds for the

suspicion that there is any other woman in your life. I do not think

anything would make me credit such a thing and I put that notion

entirely out of court. I do not know--as your letter was dated from

Leichardt's Town--whether you still live at Moongarr. It is possible

you may have sold the place. I hear of severe droughts in parts of

Leichardt's Land, but have no information about the Leura district. Now

that Sir Luke Tallant has exchanged to Hong Kong, Bridget hasn't any

touch with Leichardt's Land, and I have very few correspondents there.

Write to me--not a stilted, legal kind of letter like the last. Tell me

about yourself--your feelings, your conditions. We are old

friends--friends long before Bridget came either into my life or yours.

You can trust me. If you do not want me to repeat to Bridget anything

you may tell me, I will faithfully observe your wishes. But I can't

bear that you, whom I should have thought so well of--have felt so much

about--should be making a mess of your life, and that I should not put

out a hand to prevent it.

Always your friend,

JOAN GILDEA.

CHAPTER 11

It was a long time before Mrs Gildea received an answer to her letter.

She had begun to despair of ever getting another line from Colin

McKeith, when at last he wrote from Moongarr, six months later.

MY DEAR JOAN,

Your letter has made me think. I could not write before for reasons

that you'll gather as you go along. I shall do as you ask and tell you

everything as straightly and plainly as I can. I feel it is best that

you should know exactly the sort of conditions I'm under and what a

woman would have had to put up with if she had been with me--what she

would have to put up with if she were going to be with me. Then you can

judge whether or not I'm right in the decision I have come to as the

result of my thinkings. You can tell my wife as much as you please--of

the details, I mean. Perhaps, you had better soften them to her, for

you know as well as I do--or better--that her impulsive, quixotic

disposition might lead her into worse mistakes than it has done

already. Of course, she'll have to know my decision. I am sure that if

she allows her reason play, she will agree it is the only possible one.

I'm not going to talk about what happened before she went away, or

about that evidence--or anything else in that immediate connection. I

was mad, and I expect I believed a lot more than was true. I don't

believe--I don't think I ever did really believe--what I suppose you

would call 'the worst.' But that doesn't seem to me of such great

matter. It's the spirit, not the letter that counts. The foundation

must have been rotten, or there never would have been a question of

believing one way or the other--because we should have UNDERSTOOD.

Explanations would not have been needed between true mates. Only we

were not true mates--that's the whole point. There was too great a

radical difference between us. It might have been a deal better if she

HAD gone off with that man.

But to come now to the practical part of the situation. You know enough

about Australian ups and downs to realise that a cattle or sheep owner

out West, may be potentially wealthy one season and on the fair road to

beggary the next. It will be different when times change and we take to

sinking artesian bores on the same principle as when Joseph stored up

grain in the fat years in Egypt against the lean ones that were coming.

That's what I meant to do and ought to have done at any cost. But--well

I just didn't.

The thing is that if I could have looked ahead, perhaps even six

months, I might not have thought it acting on the square to a woman to

get her to marry me. If I could have looked a year ahead, I wouldn't

have had any doubt on the subject.

But you see I justified it to myself. One thousand square miles of

country--fine grazing land most of it, so long as the creeks kept

running--and no more than eleven thousand head of stock upon it,

seemed, with decent luck, a safe enough proposition, though you'll

remember I was a bit doubtful that day on your veranda at Emu Point,

when we talked about my marrying. The truth was that directly I saw

Bridget, she carried me clean off my head--and that's the long and

short of it.

Besides, I'd been down south a good while, then, figuring about in the

Legislative Assembly and swaggering on my prospects. I'd left Ninnis to

oversee up here, and Ninnis didn't know the Leura like some of the old

hands, who told me afterwards they'd seen the big drought coming as

long back as that.

I remember one old chap on the river, when he was sold up by the Bank

in the last bad times, and his wife had died of it all, saying to me,

'The Leura isn't the place for a woman.' And he was right. Well, I saw

that I was straight up against it that spring when we had had a poor

summer and a dry winter, and the Unionists started trouble cutting my

horses' throats, and burning woodsheds and firing the only good grass

on my run that I could rely upon. I didn't say much about it, but I

have no doubt that it made me bad-tempered and less pleasant to live

with.... That was just before the time Biddy went away. Afterwards, the

sales I'd counted on turned out badly--cattle too poor for want of

grass to stand the droving and the worst luck in the sale-yards I'd

ever known.

First thing I did was to reduce the staff and bar everything but bare

necessaries--I sent off the Chinamen and every spare hand. Ninnis and I

and the stockman--a first-rate chap, Moongarr Bill--worked the

run--just the three of us. You can guess how we managed it. A Malay boy

did cooky for the head-station.

After Christmas I left Ninnis and Bill to look after the place. I had

to go to Leichardt's Town. I had been thinking things out about Biddy

all that time--you know I'm too much of the Scotchy to make hasty

determinations. Well, I had that Parliament Bill, allowing divorce

after two years desertion in my head, from the day Biddy left me. It

seemed the best way out--for her. I had heard about that fellow going

Home in the same boat with her, and never guessed but that it was a

concerted plan between them. That note Harris showed me made me think

it was so. I don't think this now--after what you told me.

But what did rub itself into me then was that I ought to let her marry

him as soon as she decently could. I couldn't see the matter any other

way--I don't now. He has lots of money--though a man who would buy

happiness with another woman out of the money his wife had left

him--well, that's a matter of opinion. Besides, she has got the fortune

the old lady left her and can be independent of him if she chooses.

There's nothing to prevent her living any kind of life that pleases

her--except me, and I'm ready and willing to clear out of the show. One

thing I'm sorry for now, and that is having torn up the draft she sent

to pay me back her passage money, and putting the bits in an envelope

and posting them to her without a word. I suppose it should have been

done through a lawyer, with all the proper palaver. Perhaps she didn't

tell you about that. I somehow fancy she didn't. But I know that it

would have hurt her--I knew that when I did it. And perhaps that is why

I did it. You are right. I haven't acted the part of a gentleman all

through this miserable business. But what could you expect?

For you see, my father worked his own way up, and my grandfather was a

crofter--and I haven't got the blood of Irish kings, on the other side,

behind me.

Now I'm being nasty, as you used to say in the old Bungroopim days when

I wouldn't play. YOU were my Ideal, in those days, Joan--before you

went and got married. I've been an unlucky devil all round.

Well there! I had to try and arrange things for an overdraft with the

Bank in Leichardt's Town, but I went down chiefly to consult lawyers

about the divorce question, so that it should be done with as little

publicity and unpleasantness as possible. It appeared that it could be

done all right--as I wrote you. What would have been the good of my

havering in that letter over my own feelings and the bad times I had

struck? It never was my habit to whine over what couldn't be helped.

Luck was up against me down there too. I got pitched off a buckjumper

at a horse-dealers', Bungroopim way. I had been 'blowing,' Australian

fashion, that I could handle that colt if nobody else was able to. The

end of it was that the buckjumper got home, not me. I was laid up in

hospital for close on two months, with a broken leg and complications.

The complications were that old spear wound, which inflamed, and they

found that a splinter from the jagged tip had been left in.

Blood-poisoning was the next thing; and when I came out of that

hospital I was more like the used up bit of soap you'll see by the

COOLIBAH* outside a shepherd's hut on ration-bringing day, than

anything else I can think of.

[*Coolibah--a basin made from the scooped out excrescence of a tree.]

As soon as I could sit a horse again I went to work at Moongarr. I had

found things there at a pretty pass. Not a drop of rain had fallen up

to now on the station for nearly nine months. YOU know what that means

on the top of two dry seasons. As soon as I was fit, we rode over the

run inspecting--I and Ninnis and Moongarr Bill. There's a lot of riding

over one thousand square miles, and we didn't get our inspection done

quickly. Day after day we travelled through desolation--grass withered

to chips, creeks and waterholes all but empty, cattle staggering like

drunken men, only it was for WANT of drink. The trees were dying in the

wooded country; and in the plains the earth was crumbling and

shrinking, and great cracks like crevasses were gaping in the black

soil where there used to be beautiful green grass and flowers in spring.

The lagoon was practically dried up, and the little drain of water left

was undrinkable because of the dead beasts that had got bogged and

dropped dead in it. They were short of water at the head-station, and

we had to fetch it in from a waterhole several miles off that we fenced

round and used for drinking--so long as it lasted. When we were

mustering the other side of the run, it came to our camping at a sandy

creek where we could dig in the sand and get just enough for horses and

men. The water of the Bore I'd made, was a bit brackish, but it kept

the grass alive round about and was all the cattle had to depend on.

You can think of the job it was shifting the beasts over there from

other parts of the run which was what we tried to do, so long as they

were fit for it.

We were selling what we could while there was still life left in the

herd, but the cattle were too far gone for droving. We managed to

collect a hundred or so--sent them in trucks from Crocodile Creek

Terminus, for boiling down and netted about thirty shillings a head on

them. That was all. I guess that--by this time, out of my eleven

thousand head with No. 666 brand on them I'd muster from four to five

hundred. The mistake I made was in not selling out for what I could get

at the beginning of the Drought. But it was the long time in

Leichardt's Town that had me there.

It was bad luck all through from first to last. Mustering those beasts

for boiling down started that old spear wound afresh. Until it got well

again, there was nothing for it but to sit tight and wait.

Moongarr Bill left to make a prospecting trip on my old tracks up the

Bight--took Cudgee and the black-boy with him. He had an idea that he'd

strike a place where we'd seen the colour of gold on our last

expedition, but weren't able then to investigate it. I've never been

bitten by the gold fever like some fellows, and I daresay that I've

missed chances. But I thought cattle were a safer investment, and I've

seen too much misery and destruction come from following that gold will

o' the wisp, for me to have been tempted to run after it.

Old Ninnis was the next to leave, I made him take the offer of a job

that he had. When it came to drawing water five miles for the

head-station, and keeping it in an iron tank sunk in the ground, with a

manhole and padlocked cover for fear of its being got at, the fewer

there were of us the better. Now the station is being run by the Boss

and the Malay boy, who is a sharp little chap, and more use in the

circumstances than any white man. We've killed the calves we were

trying to PODDY*. And the dogs--except one cattle dog--Veno--Biddy

would remember her; how she used to lollop about the front veranda

outside her room. Now, what the deuce made me write that!--Well, the

dog goes with me in the cart when I fetch water, and takes her drink

with the horses at the hole.

[*Poddy--to bring up by hand.]

I'm getting used to the life--making jobs in the daytime to keep myself

from feeling the place a worse hell than it really is. There's always

the water to be fetched and the two horses and the dog to be taken for

their big drink. If you could see me hoarding the precious

stuff--washing my face in the morning in a soup plate, and what's left

kept for night for the dog. When I want a bath I ride ten miles to the

bore. Then there's saddlery to mend, and dry-cleaning the place and

pipes between whiles--more of them than is good for me. Stores are low,

but I've still got enough of tobacco. I daresay it's a mercy there's no

whiskey--nothing but a bottle or two of brandy in case of

snake-bites--or I might have taken to it.

Thank God I've got a pretty strong will, and I've never done as I see

so many chaps do, find forgetfulness in drink--but there's no saying

what a man may come to. It's the nights that are the worst. I'm glad to

get up at dawn and see to the beasts. And there's that infernal

watching of the sky--looking out all the time for clouds that don't

come--or if they do, end in nothing. You know that brassy glare of the

sun rising that means always scorching dry heat? Think of it a hundred

times worse than you've ever seen it! The country as far as you can

look is like the floor of an enormous oven, with the sky, red and

white-hot for a roof, and all the life there is, being slowly baked

inside. The birds are getting scarce, and it seems too much trouble for

those that are about to lift their voices. Except for a fiend of a

laughing-jackass in a gum tree close by the veranda that drives me mad

with his devilish chuckling.

Well, how do you think now, that her ladyship would have stood up

against these sort of conditions? Many a time, walking up and down the

veranda when I couldn't sleep, I've thanked my stars that there was no

woman hanging on to me any more. Most of the men on the river have sent

away their women--stockmen's wives and all. There was one here at the

Bachelors' Quarters, but I packed her off before I went to Leichardt's

Town.

I'm just waiting on to get Moongarr Bill's report of the country up

north--how it stands the drought, and what the chances are for pushing

out. As for the gold find--well, I'm not banking on that. As soon as I

hear--or if I don't hear in the course of the next two or three

weeks--I shall pull up stakes, and burn all my personal belongings,

except what a pair of saddle bags will carry.

Before long, I'm going to begin packing Biddy's things. They'll be

shipped off to her all right.

When the divorce business is over, I shall make new tracks, and you

won't hear of me unless I come out on top. I've got a queer feeling

inside me that I shall win through yet.

Well, I'm finished; and it's about time. I've run my pen over a good

many sheets, and it has been a kind of relief--I began writing this

about three weeks ago. Harry the Blower--that's the mailman--comes only

once a month now, and not on time at that.

I suppose the drought will break sooner or later, and when it breaks,

the Bank is certain to send up and take possession of what's left. So

I'm a ruined man, any way.

Good-bye, Joan, old friend. I've written to the lawyer, and Biddy will

be served with the papers soon after this reaches you. I'm not sending

her any message. If she doesn't understand, there's no use in

words--but YOU know this. She's been the one woman in the universe for

me--and there will never be another.

He signed his name at the end of the letter; and that was all.

CHAPTER 12

Harry the Blower came up with his mails a day or two later. Among the

letters he brought, there were three at least of special importance to

Colin McKeith.

One was from the late Attorney General of Leichardt's Land, in whose

following he had been while sitting in the Legislative Assembly, and

whom he had consulted in reference to the Divorce petition. This

gentleman informed Colin that proceedings were already begun in the

case of McKeith versus McKeith, and that notification of the pending

suit had been sent to Lady Bridget at Castle Gaverick, in the province

of Connaught, Ireland.

The second letter was from the Manager of the Bank of Leichardt's Land,

regretfully conveying the decision of the Board that, failing immediate

repayment of the loan, the mortgage on Moongarr station must be

foreclosed and that in due course a representative of the Bank would

arrive to take over the property.

The third letter was from Moongarr Bill, dated from the furthest Bush

township at the foot of the Great Bight, which had formed the base of

Colin's last exploring expedition. A mere outpost of civilisation it

was--that very one which he had described at the dinner party at

Government House where he had first met Lady Bridget O'Hara.

Apparently, in Moongarr Bill's estimation, its only reason for

existence lay in the fact that it had an office under the jurisdiction

of the Warden of Goldfields, for the proclamation of new goldfields,

and the obtaining of Miner's Rights.

Moongarr Bill's epistolary style was bald in its directness.

Dear Sir-- he began:--

The biggest mistake we ever made in our lives was not following up the

streak of colour you spotted in that gully running down from Bardo

Range to Pelican River. If we had stopped, and done a bit of stripping

for alluvial, for certain, we should have found heavy, shotty gold,

with only a few feet of stripping. But I've done better than that--got

on the lead--dead on the gutter. To my belief, that gully is the top

dressing of a dried up underground watercourse. It's a pocket chock

full of gold.

You see, it's like this:

Here followed technical details given in local gold-digger's

phraseology which would only be intelligible to a backwoods prospector

or a Leichardt's Land mining expert. McKeith read all the details

carefully, turning the page over and back again in order to read it

once more. There was no doubt--making due allowance for Moongarr Bill's

exaggerative optimism--that the find was a genuine one.

The writer resumed:

'I've pegged off a twenty men's ground, this--being outside the area of

a proclaimed goldfield--our reward as joint discoverers. The ground

joins on to your old pegs; and the wonder to me is that nobody has ever

struck the place. However, that's not so queer as you might think, for

there has been very little talk of gold up here--in fact the P.M. does

Warden's work. Besides, the drought has kept squatters from pushing

out, and it's too far off for the casual prospector. Luckily, the

drought has driven the Blacks away too, further into the ranges; and I

haven't seen any Myalls this trip like the ones that went for us last

time. It's a pity Hensor pegged out then. He'd have come in for a slice

of luck now--we three being the only persons in the world--until I

lodged my information at the Warden's office this morning--who had ever

raised the colour in this district or had any suspicion of a show. I

reckon though that if the find turns out as I think, you'll be making

things up to little Tommy.

I'm to have my Miners' Right all properly filled up to-morrow, and

shall make tracks back to the gully at once, so as to leave no chance

of the claim being jumped. I've named it "McKeith's Find" so your name

won't be forgotten. I don't count on a big rush at first--all the

better for you--but I shall be surprised if we are not entitled at the

end of four months to our Government reward of 500 pounds, as there are

pretty sure to be two hundred miners at work by that time.

I'm writing to Ninnis--though I don't know if he has done his job

yet--telling him to lose no time in getting here; and you won't want

telling to do the same. I reckon that whether the drought has broken by

this time or not, it will pay you better to start for here than to wait

at the station until there are calves coming on to brand and muster.

Ninnis will be in with us all right, and it would be a fine thing if

you came up together. He's a first-rate man, and has had a lot of

experience in the Californian goldfields. Poor luck, however, or he

wouldn't have come over to free-select on the Leura.

It took me a good three weeks to get as far as the Pelican Creek, and I

couldn't have done it in the time if there had been Blacks about.

Knowing the lay of the country too, made it easier than it was before

for us. Cudgee has turned out a smarter boy than Wombo was. No fear of

Myalls with their infernal jagged spears being round without his

sniffing them. One of the horses died from eating poison-bush. Don't go

in for camping at a bend in Pelican Creek, between it and a brigalow

scrub, first day you sight Bardo Range going up the Creek, where

there's a pocket full of good grass one side of a broken slate

ridge--IT'S NO GOOD. But I wouldn't swop the other horses for any of

Windeatt's famous breed. There's some things it would be well for you

and Ninnis to bring, and a box of surveyor's compasses would come in

handy.

Here followed half a page on practical matters, and then the letter

ended.

McKeith pondered long over Moongarr Bill's letter, as he sat in the

veranda smoking and watching a little cloud on the horizon, and

wondering whether rain was coming at last.... If Moongarr Bill was

right, the gold-find would mean a fresh start for him in his baulked

career. At any rate, it behoved him to take advantage of the chance and

to go forth on the new adventure without unnecessary delay. But the

savour was gone for him from adventure--the salt out of life. The

stroke of luck--if it were one--had come too late.

And now the Great Drought had broken at last.

Next evening there came up a terrific thunderstorm, and a hurricane

such as had not visited the district for years. It broke in the

direction of the gidia scrub, and razed many trees. It passed over the

head-station and travelled at a furious rate along the plain.

Hailstones fell, as large as a pigeon's egg, and stripped off such

leafage as the drought had left. Thunder volleyed and lightning blazed.

Part of the roof of the Old Humpey was torn off. The hide-house was

practically blown away. The great white cedar by the lagoon was struck

by lightning, and lay, a chaos of dry branches and splintered limbs,

one side of the trunk standing up jagged and charred where it had been

riven in two.

Upon the hurricane followed a steady deluge. For a night and a day, the

heavens were opened, and poured waterspouts as though the pent rain of

nine months were being discharged. The river 'came down' from the heads

and filled the gully with a roaring flood. The lagoon was again almost

level with its banks. The dry water-course on the plain sparkled in the

distance, like a mirage--only that it was no mirage. No one who has not

seen the extraordinary rapidity with which a dry river out West can be

changed into a flooded one, could credit the swiftness of the

transformation.

Then the heavens closed once more. The sun shone out pitilessly bright,

and the surface earth looked, after a few hours, almost as dry as

before. But the life-giving fluid had penetrated deep into the soil;

the rivers and creeks were running; green grass was already springing

up for the beasts to feed upon. The land was saved. Alas too late to

save the ruined squatters. There were so few of their beasts left.

Nevertheless, the rain brought new life and energy to the humans.

Kuppi, the Malay boy fetched buckets of water from the replenished

lagoon, and scoured and scrubbed with great alacrity. He came timidly

to his master, and asked if he might not wash out with boiling water

the closed parlour and Lady Bridget's unused bedroom. He was afraid

that the white ants might have got into them.

McKeith's face frightened Kuppi. So did the imprecation which his

innocent request evoked. He was bidden to go and keep himself in his

own quarters, and not show his face again that day at the New House.

Since Lady Bridget's departure, McKeith had slept, eaten and worked in

the Old Humpey, his original dwelling.

But Kuppi did not know that the white ants had not been given a chance

to work destruction upon 'the Ladyship's' properties. Regularly every

day, McKeith himself tended those sacred chambers. Bridget's rooms were

just as she had left them.

He had done nothing yet towards dismantling that part of the New House

in which she had chiefly lived. He had put off the task day after day.

But since receiving Moongarr Bill's letter, and now that the drought

had broken, and the Man in Possession a prospect as certain as that

there would come another thunderstorm, he knew that he must begin his

preparations to quit Moongarr.

To do this meant depriving himself of the miserable comfort he found

during wakeful nights and the first hour of dawn--the time he usually

chose for sweeping and cleaning his wife's rooms--of roaming,

ghost-like, through the New House where every object spoke to him of

her. In the day time, he shrank from mounting the steps which connected

the verandas, but in the evenings, he would often come and stroll along

the veranda, and sit in the squatter's chair she had liked, or in the

hammock where she had swung, and smoke his pipe and brood upon the

irrevocable past. And then he would suddenly rush off in frantic haste

to do some hard, physical work, feeling that he must go mad if he sat

still any longer.

To-day however, after Kuppi had fled to the kitchen, he went into his

old dressing room and stood looking at the camp bed, and thought of the

day of Bridget's fever when Harris had given him her note to Maule, and

he had sat here huddled on the edge of the bed wrestling dumbly with

his agony. The association had been too painful, and in his daily

tendance he had somewhat neglected this room and had usually entered

the other by the French window from the veranda. Thus, he saw now that

a bloated tarantula had established itself in one corner, between wall

and ceiling, and an uncanny looking white lizard scuttered across the

boards, and disappeared under a piece of furniture, leaving its tail

behind. A phenomenon of natural history at which, he remembered now,

Bridget had often wondered.

He opened the door of communication--where on that memorable night, he

had knocked and received no answer--and passed through it treading

softly as though he were visiting a death chamber. And indeed, to him,

it was truly a death chamber in which the bed, all covered over with a

white sheet, might have been a bier, and the pillows put lengthwise

down it, the shrouded form of one dearly loved and lost. He gazed

about, staring at the familiar pieces of furniture, out of wide red

eyes, smarting with unshed tears. In her looking glass, he seemed to

see the ghost-reflection of her small pale face with its old whimsical

charm. The shadowy eyes under the untidy mass of red-brown hair, in

which the curls and tendrils stood out as if endowed with a magnetic

life of their own; the sensitive lips; the little pointed chin; and, in

the eyes and on the lips, that gently mocking, alluring smile.

There were a few poems that Colin had taught himself to say by heart,

and which he would recite to himself often when he was alone in the

Bush. THE ANCIENT MARINER was one, and there were some of Rudyard

Kipling's and he loved THE IDYLLS OF THE KING--in especial GUINIVERE.

Three lines of that poem leaped to his memory at this moment.

'THY SHADOW STILL WOULD GLIDE FROM ROOM TO ROOM

AND I SHOULD EVERMORE BE VEXT WITH THEE

IN HANGING ROBE AND VACANT ORNAMENT.'

He went to the wardrobe where her dresses hung as she had left them,

only that daily, he had shaken them, cared for them so that no hot

climate pest should injure them. And in so doing, he had been

overwhelmingly conscious of the peculiar, personal fragrance, her

garments had always exhaled--an experience in which rapture and anguish

blended.

How he had loved her! ... God! how he had loved her! ... And yet,

latterly, how he had got to take his supreme possession of her as a

matter of course; had allowed the joy of it to be blunted by depression

and irritability over sordid station worries. He remembered with

piercing remorse how often he had neglected the trivial courtesies to

which he knew she attached importance. How he had been prone to sullen

fits of moodiness; had been rough, even brutal, as in that episode of

the Blacks.... Brutal to her--this dainty lady, his fairy princess! ...

And now he had lost her. She was gone back to her own world and to her

own kin.

If only he had yielded to her then about the Blacks! If he had curbed

his anger, shown sympathy with the two wild children of Nature who were

better than himself, in this at least that they had known how to love

and cling to each other in spite of the blows of fate! He had

horse-whipped Wombo for loving Oola, and swift retribution had come

upon himself.... That he should have lost Bridget because of the loves

of Wombo and Oola! It was an irony--as if God were laughing at him. He

set his teeth and laughed--the mirthless laugh which had startled

Harris.... Well, whether it were automatic or planned retribution on

the part of the High Powers, the trouble could be evened up and done

with. 'I was a damned fool,' he said to himself; 'and I've been taught

my lesson too late for me to benefit by it. Except this way--I'm not

going to be DOWNED for ever. I'll go through my particular piece of

hell, on this darned old earth if I must, and then I'll wipe the slate

and come out on top of something else that isn't love. There's

possibilities enough along the Big Bight to satisfy most men's

ambition. And it's not much odds any way, so long as SHE isn't

seriously hurt.'

With that summing up of the matter, he seemed to gain stoic energy. Now

he went back to his dressing room, and pulled out to the veranda a

couple of worn portmanteaux. Into these he put a variety of personal

belongings. Among them, pictures from the walls, and old photographs in

frames that had been on the dressing table. It was significant that

none of these were portraits of his wife. The portmanteaux he dragged

along the veranda to the side of the steps leading down to the front

garden. Then, instead of returning to Lady Bridget's room, he attacked

an escritoire in the parlour in which he had kept family and private

papers, and which flanked her Chippendale bureau. He brought out

another collection--notebooks, papers, bundles of letters dating much

further back than his occupation of Moongarr--salvage from the wreck of

his old home. His mother's workbox; his father's SHAKESPEARE; the

family Bible--a piteous catalogue. He looked long at the book and the

photographs. These last were portraits of his father, his mother and

his sisters, who had all been massacred by the Blacks, when he was a

boy. He separated all such relics from the general lot, placing them,

and also two or three packets of papers upon a shelf-table in the

veranda--it was that table where Lady Bridget had laid the cablegram

from Lord Gaverick, which she had shown him the day before she had left

Moongarr. Now it seemed to him an altar of sacred memories. He brought

various other small things out of the parlour--things he had not the

heart to destroy--all belonging to his youth--and placed them there. As

he looked at them, a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and a wave of

emotion passed over his face, softening its hardness for an instant.

But the grimness came back. He made a quick movement back to Lady

Bridget's room; and when, after a minute or two, he came out again, he

was carrying a curious object which he had taken out of the deep drawer

beneath her hanging wardrobe. It was a dry piece of gum-tree bark,

shrivelled and curled up at the sides, so that the two edges almost

met. At first he put it on the heap that he had turned out of the

portmanteaux for destruction. His grim thought had been to top with

this strange memorial of his marriage-night, the funeral pyre he had

intended to build. But again the spasm of emotion contorted his

features. His shoulders shook, and a dry choking sound came from his

lips. He took up the piece of bark too, and laid it with the

daguerreotypes on the table. He seemed afraid to give himself time to

think, but went from room to room here and in the Old Humpey, dragging

one thing after another out on to the veranda. Some of the heavier

articles he had to hoist over the steps connecting the two verandas,

and then to drag them down the other steps into the front garden, where

they strewed the gravel round the centre bed.

In spring and summer, when the Chinamen had been there to water and

Lady Bridget to superintend the planting and pruning, this bed had

always been gay with flowers, banking a tall shrub of scented verbena

the perfume of which she had been particularly fond of. Now there were

weeds--most of them withered--instead of flowers. The verbena bush had

long been dead, and the dry leaves and branches, beaten down by the

late storm, made a bed of kindling.

Never was there garden so desolate--the young ornamental trees and

shrubs all dead; the creepers dead also; even the hardy passion vines

upon the fence, mere leafless, fruitless withes of withered stems.

McKeith paused after lugging down two squatters' chairs--the first

house carpentering he had done for his wife after their arrival at the

head-station, and in which, he had resolved, no future owner of

Moongarr should ever sit. That was the thought fiercely possessing him.

Rough chairs and tables and such-like that had been there always, might

remain. But no sacrilegious hands should touch things made for her, or

with which she had been closely associated. They should be burned out

here in the deserted front garden, where not even Kuppi--the only other

occupant of the head-station--would witness his preparations. He

himself would lay and kindle the funeral pyre, and to-night, when there

would be only the stars to see him, he would light the first holocaust.

He stood considering. Sweat dropped from his forehead. His gaunt frame

was trembling after his effort, which had been heavy, and he leaned

against one of the tarred piles supporting the veranda to rest. But

only for a few minutes. Then, his feverish activity recommenced. He

piled up the wooden furniture on the bed of withered verbena branches,

filled the interstices with dead leaves that he collected from the

garden, laid the smaller things--books, papers, pictures--where they

would assist the conflagration, and did not stop until the pyre had

reached to the level of the veranda railing. He reflected grimly that

there was a chance of sparks setting fire to the house itself, and

calculated the extent of the gravel between, deciding that if he was

there to watch there would be no danger.

All the time, the old kangaroo dog, Veno had been nosing round him,

sniffing at the objects lying round, then looking up at him with

bleared, wistful eyes, and evidently unable to understand these strange

proceedings. Once or twice, he had roughly pushed the dog away, but,

when he had finished the work and seated himself from sheer fatigue on

the veranda steps, Veno came and squatted beside him, the dog's head

upon his knee. He filled his pipe and smoked ruminatively; the exertion

had had one good effect; it had dulled the fierceness of his pain.

As he sat there--a faint breeze that had risen with the approach of

sunset, cooling his heated body--he thought again about Moongarr Bill's

letter. He looked at the great pyre in front, and caught the gleam of

the lagoon below through the bare branches of the trees the little

ripple on its surface, the freshening green at its marge. Then he gazed

out over the vast plain towards the horizon. From his low position on

the steps, the middle distance was hidden from him. Through the reddish

tinge cast by the lowering sun, he could discern, far off likewise, the

unmistakable signs of new-springing grass and the course of the river,

for so long non-existent. From the gully he heard the sound of rushing

water. It had been a roaring torrent just after the storm, and he knew

that a flood must have come down from the heads.

Yes, the Drought had broken. The plain would soon be green again.

Flowers would spring up as they had done for Bridget's bridal

home-coming. If the rain had fallen a few months sooner the station

might have been saved.

And even now, with the remnant of three or four hundred cattle,

provided there were no crippling debt, no spectre of the Man in

Possession, he might still hang on, and in time retrieve his losses,

lie low, sink artesian wells, make the station secure for the future.

He had been so fond of the place. He had taken up the run with such

high hopes; had so slaved to increase his herd, to make improvements on

the head-station. He had looked upon this as the nucleus of his

fortune; the pivot on which his career as one of the Empire-builders

would revolve.... And now....

Well, some clever speculator no doubt would buy it at a low price

during the Slump, stock it with more cattle, work it up during a good

season or two, and, when cattle stations boomed once more, sell it at

an immense profit. That was what he himself would have done had he been

a speculator in similar conditions. Even still, he could do it with a

small amount of capital to supply a sop for the Bank.... Now that the

Drought had broken they would be more likely to let him go on.... He

thought of the 3,000 pounds Sir Luke Tallant had made him put into

settlement on his marriage. He had not wanted to do that at the time;

his Scotch caution had revolted against the tying up of his resources,

and his instinct was justified. If only he had command of that money

now! It was his own; his wife was rich; that was the one benefit he

could have taken from her.... But it was impossible to broach the

question.

Suddenly the dog stirred uneasily, sniffed the air and leaped to the

gravel walk where it stood giving short, uncertain barks, as though

aware of something happening outside for which it could not account.

McKeith lifted his head, bent in the absorption of his thought, and

looked about for the disturber of Veno's placidity. But Kuppi was

nowhere in sight, nor was there sign of other intruder. Where he sat,

the garden fence, overgrown with withered passion vines, bounded his

vision, and had anybody ridden or driven up the hill through the lower

sliprails, he would not have seen them, probably would not have heard

them. For there were no longer dogs, black boys, Chinamen or station

hands to voice intimation of a new arrival. All the old sounds of

evening activity were hushed. No mustering-mob being driven to the

stockyard; no running up of milkers or horses for the morrow; no goats

to be penned--they had been killed off long ago; no beasts grazing or

calling--no audible life at all except that of the birds, who, since

the rain, had found their notes again and were telling each other

vociferously that it was time to go to bed. Indeed, the silence and

solitariness of the once busy head-station had enticed many of the

shyer kinds of birds from the lagoon and the forest. Listening, as he

now was, intently, McKeith could hear the gurgling COO-ROO-ROO of the

swamp pheasant, which is always found near water--and likewise rare

sound--the silvery ring of the bell-bird rejoicing in the fresh-filled

lagoon.

But Veno was still uneasy, and Colin got up on to the veranda. He stood

there, listening all the while, strained expectancy in his eyes as if

he too were vaguely conscious of something outside happening....

And now he did hear something that made him go white as with uncanny

dread. It was a footstep that he heard on the veranda of the Old

Humpey--very light, a soft tapping of high heels and the accompanying

swish of drapery--a ghostly rustle--'a ghostly footfall echoing.'...

For surely in this place it could have no human reality.

It approached along the passage between the two buildings, halted for a

few seconds, and then mounted to the front veranda.

The man was standing with his back to the Old Humpey. He would not

turn. A superstitious fear fell upon him and made his knees shake and

his tall, lean frame tremble.... He DARED not turn his head and look

lest he should see that which would tell him Bridget was dead.

But the dead do not speak in syllables that an ordinary human ear can

hear. And Colin heard his own name spoken in accents piercingly clear

and sweet.

'Colin.'

To him, though, it was as a ghost-voice. He stood transfixed. And just

then the dog bounded past him. It had flown up the steps barking

loudly. That could be no immaterial form upon which the creature flung

itself, pawing, nosing, licking with the wildest demonstrations of joy.

He heard the well-remembered tones:

'Quiet Veno.... Good dog.... Lie down Veno--Lie down.'

The dog seemed to understand that this was not a moment for

effusiveness. Without another sound, it crouched upon its haunches

gazing up at the new-comer.

Then Colin turned. Bridget was standing not a yard from him. A slender

figure in a grey silk cloak, with bare head--she had flung back her

grey sun-bonnet and shrouding gauze veil.... He saw the face he

knew--the small, pale face; the shadowy eyes, wide and bright with an

ecstatic determination, yet in them a certain feminine timorousness;

the little pointed chin poked slightly forward; the red-brown hair--all

untidy curls and tendrils, each hair seeming to have a life and

magnetism of its own. It was just as he had so often pictured her in

dreams of sleep and waking.

He gazed at her like one who beholds a vision from another world. And

then a great sob burst from him--the pitiful sob of a strong man who is

beaten, broken with emotion. The whole being of the man seemed to

collapse. He staggered forward, and such a change came over the gaunt,

hard face, that Bridget saw it through a rain of tears which fell down

her cheeks.

'Oh, Colin--Won't you speak to me?'

'Biddy!' He went close to her and gripped her two wrists, holding her

before him while his hungry eyes seemed to be devouring her.

'It's you--it's really you. You're not dead, are you?'

'Dead! Oh no--no.... I've come home.'

'Home!' He laughed.

'Oh don't--don't,' she cried. 'Don't laugh like that.'

'Home!' he repeated, grimly. 'Look round you. A nice sort of home. Eh?'

'I don't care. It's the only real home I've ever had.'

'But look--look!'

She followed his eyes to the great pyre in the garden, with the dead

leaves, and the pieces of furniture, the squatters' chairs, the little

tables he and she had covered together, the hammock that he had cut

down leaving the ropes dangling--many other things that she recognised

also. Then her gaze came back to the veranda. To the open portmanteaux;

the different objects still strewing the ground; and then to the

shelf-table against the wall near the hammock, and, there, to his most

cherished possessions. She knew at once his mother's work-box, the

shabby SHAKESPEARE--the portraits, and, on top of all, the piece of

gum-tree bark.

She snatched her wrists from his grasp, darted to the shelf, seized the

shrivelled pice of bark, and pressed it against her bosom as though it

had been a living thing.

'Oh, you COULDN'T burn this! ... You were going to burn it with the

rest--but you COULDN'T--any more than you could have burned your

mother's things.... I thought of it all the way--I knew that if you

could burn this, too, there would be no hope for me any more. I PRAYED

that you might not burn it.'

'But how--how did you know I was going to burn the things?' he

stammered bewilderedly.

'I saw it all--I saw you--just like this, on the veranda--so thin and

hard and miserable--and so proud, yet--and stubborn--I saw it all--saw

the bonfire ready--And I saw this piece of bark--And then something

made you stop and you put it with your mother's things instead. You

remembered--Oh! Mate, you DID understand? You DID remember--that first

night by the camp fire--and we two--just we two'--she broke off sobbing.

'You saw--you saw--' he kept saying. 'But how--how did you know? Tell

me, Mate.'

'I saw it all in a dream--at Castle Gaverick. Three times I dreamed the

same dream; and I felt, inside me, that it was a prophetic warning.

We're like that, you know, we Irish Celts. And you--though you're a

Scotchman--you used to laugh at such things! But they're true; they're

true--I've had glints of second sight before. Joan Gildea understood.

When I told her, she believed it was a warning God had sent me, and she

said I must go to you--go at once lest it should be too late. She

wanted to come with me, but it would have been difficult for her to

leave her work, and I didn't want her--I wanted to come to you all on

my own.'

'And then?--then?' he asked breathlessly.

'Oh, then I left Castle Gaverick at once, and, in London, I took my

passage--there was an E. and A. boat just going to start. Of course I

knew the route. I got out of the steamer at Leuraville, and came

straight on by train--I didn't wait anywhere. I thought I'd get out at

Crocodile Creek and pay somebody to drive me up here. But you've got

the railway brought nearer, and when I got out at Kangaroo Flat there

was a most extraordinary thing--Then, I knew why the voice inside had

been urging me on so quickly.'

'An extraordinary thing--? What was it?' he said in the same

breathless, broken way.

'It was Mr Ninnis. He was there, standing on the platform just off his

droving trip--he was going to take the next train to Leuraville. If I

had stayed there as Captain Halliwell wanted me to, I should have

missed him. He'd got a letter from Moongarr Bill--Oh, I know all about

that. But it doesn't matter--it doesn't matter in the least. You can go

if you like and find the gold--I'll stop at Joan Gildea's cottage in

Leichardt's Town and wait for you--I don't care about ANYTHING if

you'll only let me be your Mate again. But Colin--' she rushed on, for

he could not speak, and the sight of a great man struggling with his

tears is one that a woman who loves him can scarcely bear to see. And

yet the sight made Bridget happy for all its pain--'Colin, when I first

saw Ninnis, do you know what I thought--? That you had sent him to meet

me. That you, too, had been warned in a dream?'

'No, I wish I had been--My God, I wish I had been.'

'What would you have done, Colin?'

'I'd have been there myself,' he said simply. 'It would have been me,

not Ninnis, that you saw at Kangaroo Flat Station.'

She held out her arms. The roll of bark dropped on the boards of the

veranda. In a moment he was pressing her fiercely to his breast, and

his lips were on hers.

And in that kiss, by the divine alchemy of true wedded love, all the

past pride and bitterness were transmuted into a great abiding Peace.

End of Project Gutenberg's Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land, by Rosa Praed