“‘I’d like to tell you, sir,’ said Carter, ‘how we first got acquainted, me and Mr. Blount, to put him right with you, because I heard a whisper that you thought he must be in with us, in the “cross” butchering line.’

“‘I don’t deny,’ I answered, ‘that I thought it very suspicious that a man like him should be living with you fellows, and yet have no idea that dishonest work was going on?’

“‘All right, Mr. Bruce, don’t spare us. It was dishonest, there’s no two ways about it, and we chaps ought to be ashamed of ourselves, as are well able to get a living straight and square, and under fear of no man. Now we’ve had a fright and been let off you’ll never hear another word against us. But I wanted to have a word about Mr. Blount. If he had been copped along with us, it would have been a cruel shame, a regular murder, and him as innocent as the child unborn. His horse was knocked up, or next door to it, when I came across him a few miles from the “Lady Julia”; I’d a few cattle with me, and asked him to help me drive them. He stayed at our place that night. The man I was selling them to sent for them before daylight, and all he could hear was them being let out of the yard.’

“‘He was a dividing mate after that, though?’ said I, knowing that such mining agreements comprehend all knowledge in heaven and earth, and under the sea.

“Carter answered my unspoken thought when he said, ‘He bought Tumberumba Dick’s share, him as went to Coolgardie, and if he knew mullock from wash dirt, then, it’s as much as he did. As for cattle, he hardly knew a cow from a steer. Then he lost his moke and went down the river to get word of him.’

“‘Yes!’ I said. ‘I met him then; he came on me just as I was shooting a small mob of wild horses. I had been watching for them for months. They seldom came so far in; but I dropped the stallion first shot, a noted grey, said to be thoroughbred; the mares and foals wouldn’t leave him, so I got them all, one by one.’

“‘Mr. Blount was astonished, I suppose? Seems a pity, too, they were a well-bred lot. I’ve had many a gallop after the same lot, thinkin’ to yard ’em, but they always got away. Anyhow, they’re no blessed good, if you do yard ’em; mostly sulk and always clear the first chance. His cob, it seems, joined your horses, and was run in to the paddock. So you put him up for the night and sent him home on his own horse. Came part of the way with him, you and the ladies, and Black Paddy. Nigh hand to the “Lady Julia” you spotted your “E. H. B.” bullock with a fresh brand on. And he never said nothen’. Next day Black Paddy ran our tracks to the claim and the stockyard, found where the last bullocks had been driven to the Back Creek slaughter yards. That was as plain as A B C, and we had to clear. Phelim waited on to get his horse back that he’d lent him, and start after Pat and Lanky, who were well on their way to Omeo.’

“‘All quite correct,’ I said; ‘but why didn’t he act straightforwardly and tell me like a man that he had been working in your claim?’

“‘Because he didn’t want to give us away, and if he said what he knew, but didn’t understand, the police would have been up next day and collared the lot of us before we had a chance to cut it.’

“‘But why was he so tender about your party?’ I said. ‘You had deceived him, and he might naturally have felt angry at being let in for aiding and abetting cattle stealers, and all the more anxious to see you punished.’

“‘That’s all right, Mr. Bruce; but you see there was another reason why he stood by us, though he didn’t wait an hour after he knew we were on the cross; wouldn’t take his share of the gold neither, which he’d worked as hard for as any of us.’

“‘What was the other reason?’

“‘Well, sir,’ rather shamefacedly, ‘he thought I’d saved his life, as it were.’

“‘Saved his life? How could that be?’

“‘It was this way, sir.’ As he spoke, he looked quite sad and confused. ‘You know that Razor Back ridge on the short track to Bunjil?’

“‘Yes! I was over it once, and a brute of a track it was. That was where Paddy Farrell was killed.’

“‘The same; well, when we was coming along it from Bunjil to the claim, that cob of his—a flat-country horse—got frightened, and had half a mind to back over the edge. I was thinkin’ of somethin’ else; when I looked back I saw Mr. Blount was confused-like, he didn’t know how to stop him. I slipped off, and held the cob, while he did the same, and started old Keewah along the track, with the reins tied to the stirrup-iron. My old moke trotted on, and the cob after him, till they came to the trap-yard, where we found them when we came up, half an hour after. There wasn’t much in it. Any man who’d lived in rangey country couldn’t have helped doin’ it; but he chose to believe I’d saved his life. So it was chiefly that that made him not let on to you about where he’d lived. Nothing might have come of it; but it was a close shave, and no mistake.’

“‘I’m very glad to hear the explanation, Carter. I don’t see how he could have acted differently, as a man or gentleman. I shall write and tell him so. And now, a word with you; which you can pass on to your mates. Make no mistake, you’ve got a fresh start in life! You three fellows are young. Anything there is against you, as far as I know, is over and done with. These warrants are just waste paper. But be careful for the future. If you stick to the Nundooroo station till the drought’s over, you’re made men. I’ll let the Inspector-General of Police know how you behaved.’

“‘All right, sir; we’re on. We won’t go back on you,’ was his reply.

“‘You may expect to see me at Marondah, within the month, though travelling through a desert, as this country is virtually now, is very slow and unsatisfactory. I must pick up a riding camel, a “heirie,” such as I’ve seen in the East, warranted to keep going for twenty-four hours on end, without water or food. However, I suppose rain will come some time or other.’”

Thus fully exonerated, it may be believed that Blount made the best use of his time at Marondah, where he had the field all to himself with the advantage of the most considerate of chaperons, in the person of Mrs. Bruce, who had always been, as she told him, his staunch supporter, even in the dark days, when her husband forbade his name to be mentioned, and when from adverse circumstances no letters had arrived to clear his character.

“I never doubted you for a moment,” murmured Imogen, “but it must be confessed, it was hard work holding to my trust in you, when so many rumours were flying through the country. I never could make out why you joined such people at all, or what you were to gain by it. If you wished to know what a miner’s life was like, there are plenty of gentlemen glad enough to go into any venture of the sort, with the aid of a little capital—men such as you have described at the ‘Comstock’ or at Zeehan.”

“But how was I to find them?”

“Just the same way in which you would have done in England, through introductions to men of mark out here. They would have advised you for your good. And there would have been no risk of your being compromised by any action of theirs.”

“No doubt it was indiscreet of me, but I wanted to see for myself, and form my own opinion by personal experience of a society so different from any I had known before.”

“That is where you conceited Englishmen”—here she held up a warning finger—“make a mistake, indeed tons of mistakes. In vain we tell you that there is no special difference here between the classes of society, or the laws which rule them, and those of your own beloved country, which we are proud to resemble.”

“But are they not different?”

“Not radically, by any means. Any departure from English manners and customs is chiefly superficial. Your squire, or lord of the manor, says ‘Mornin’, Jones! crops doin’ so-so, too dry for the roots,’ and so on. ‘Nice four year old of yours. Looks as if he’d grow into a hunter.’ But there’s no real equality, nor can there be. Jones doesn’t expect it.”

“Mr. Bruce, I suppose, has much the same feeling for the farmers here, and they meet on much the same terms. Except when the suspicion of ‘duffing’ comes in, eh? then—then—relations are strained, indeed, as between the same classes, if poaching was discovered, and brought home to the guilty ones.”

They had these, with many other, talks and disquisitions, such as are interesting to lovers, and lovers only, in the long delicious evenings and unquestioned idlesse which are the prerogatives of the halcyon days which follow a declared engagement, and before the completed drama of marriage.

The soft, mild months of the southern spring were now heralding the less romantic season of the Australian summer. The sun god was daily strengthening his power, without as yet the fierce noonday glare or burning heat. Chiefly precious to them were the moonlight walks by the river side when the shadows of the great willows which fringed the river bank fell over the hurrying tide, when star sheen or moonrays glinted through the close foliage or sparkled diamond bright on the rippling bars. There was a winding path a few feet from the bank, accurately marked by the cattle and horses, which roved unchecked through the great meadows.

Here the lovers were at liberty to indulge in fullest confidences. He told her that he had loved her from the very first moment that his eyes fell upon her, when, not knowing that any other than Mrs. Bruce was in the house he had been almost unconventional in the surprise of the meeting and his instant admiration. “That moment sealed our destiny,” he said, “or rather, would have left me a lifelong regret had I never set eyes on you again. And what was your feeling, Imogen?” looking suddenly into her eyes, which, lit up by a fairy moonray, seemed to his eager gaze to glow with unearthly radiance. So, in old days did the fabled Oread enthrall the heart of the doomed shepherd or woodsman, luring him to follow into her enchanted bower, which he was fated never again to discover, wasting life wandering through the forest aisles, wearing out health, youth and passion, in the ever-fleeting, illusory pursuit.

“I think,” she answered softly, as her eyes fell before his ardent gaze, “that I must have been similarly affected, why, I cannot tell, but the fact remains that if you had never returned—and we had not much time for love-making, had we, between that day and your return to the ‘Lady Julia’ claim, and the fascinating society of Mr. Little-River-Jack?—I should have ‘fallen into a sadness, then into a fast, thence into a weakness,’ and so on. As it was, I was very melancholy and low for a while, and between that and influenza, very nearly ‘went out,’ as my maid, Josephine Macintyre, phrased it. Then, when I was coming round, and reaching the stage of ‘the common air, the sea, the skies, to “her” are opening Paradise,’ and would have written to you, we heard that you had become a millionaire or a ‘silver king’ in Tasmania. It was foolish, I know, but I thought it might look as if I wanted to recall you because of your wealth—a vulgar idea, but still one that works for good or evil in this silly life of ours. But now, all will be forgiven, ‘if this should meet the eye,’ &c., as the advertisements say. You will forgive me, and I will forgive you, and there will never be any more doubts or despair, will there?”

That Mr. Blount made a short but impressive reply to this query may be taken for granted. The river marge, the sighing, trailing willows, the rippling murmuring stream, the friendly moon, all these were conditions eminently favourable to “love’s young dream.” Nor did they fail in this instance to ratify the solemn, irrevocable vow, often lightly, rashly, falsely sworn, but in this instance repeated with all the passion of ardent manhood, responded to with the heart’s best and truest affection, the sacred, intensely glowing flame of the maiden’s love, imperishable, immortal.

“You told me, the last time we met,” she whispered, “that some day I should know why you came here to lead an aimless, wandering life. I always thought there was some mystery about it. Will you tell me now? It is lovely and mild, there could not be a better time. How clearly you can hear the ripple in the shallows. Was there a woman in it?”

“Of course there was, but mind, it all happened seven years ago. So if what I say may be used against me on my trial, I shall be dumb.”

“I’ve copied out depositions now and then, for Edward,” replied the girl, archly. “Having heard the evidence, do you wish to say anything? comes next. So I’ll promise not to take advantage of your voluntary confession, if you make a clean breast of it, once for all. I have no fear of the dear, dead women, whoever they were.”

“You need not,” said Blount, as he drew her more closely to him, “not if Helen of Troy were of the company.”

On their return to the verandah, where they found Mrs. Bruce still occupied with the needlework, which took up (so she said), fortunately, so much of her time, Imogen pleaded fatigue and retired, leaving the field free to her sister and the guest, who thereupon commenced a long, and apparently serious conversation.

Mr. Blount spoke more unreservedly of his private affairs than he had hitherto thought it expedient to do. Independently of his share in the Great Comstock Company, for which he had already been offered a hundred thousand pounds—he had a handsome allowance from his father—as also, thinking it might be needed, a letter of credit upon the Imperial Bank for five thousand pounds.

“It will always be a puzzle to me and Imogen,” said Mrs. Bruce, “how, with all that money at your disposal, you should ever have run the risks you did in this gipsy business, with the people we found you with, or would have done, if you had remained a few days longer with them. You didn’t want to learn their language, like Borrow—what other reason could there be?”

“My dear Mrs. Bruce,” he replied, “you have been so good, considerate, and friendly to me, that I must make a clean breast of it. I have already told Imogen all there is to tell of a by no means uncommon event in a man’s life, when one of your adorable, yet fatal sex is mixed up with it.”

“I see, I understand, the ‘eternal feminine’; we have not many romances of the kind in these quiet hills, but of course they are not wholly unknown, even in our sequestered lives. You are going to tell me of your tragedy.”

“It was not far removed from the ordinary run of such adventures, though there might easily have been a catastrophe. I was young, I said it was seven years ago, since which I have industriously wasted life’s best gifts, in trying to forget her. Beautiful, yes, as a dream maiden! a recognised queen of society, flattered, worshipped, wherever her fairy footsteps trod; but vain, ambitious and false as the Lorelei, or the mermaiden, that lures the fated victim. More than one man had thrown life, character, or fortune at her feet, unavailingly. I had heard this, but with the reckless confidence of youth, I heeded not. I met her at the quiet country house of a relative; men being scarce, she condescended to play for so poor a stake as the heart of a younger son, an undistinguished lover’s existence, and she won!

“How could it be otherwise? She turned the full battery of her charms upon the undefended fort. We rode together, we fished the trout stream, more dangerous still. We read in the old library, morning after morning, and here my not unmarked university career served me well, as I thought. I had been reading aloud from a novel of the hour, when, looking up suddenly I saw a light in her eyes, which gave me hope, more than hope. I took her hand, I poured out protestations, entreaties, vows of eternal love; whatever man has distilled from the inward fires of soul and sense, under the alembic of love at white heat, I found words for and poured into her not unwilling ear.

“She was visibly agitated. Her cold nature, serenely lovely as she always was, seemed to kindle into flame under the fire of my impetuous avowal. I gained her other hand, I threw myself on my knees before her, and drew her down to the level of my face. I clasped her yielding form, and kissed her lips with soul-consuming ardour. To my surprise, she made no resistance, her colour came and went, she might have been the veriest country milkmaid, surprised into consent by her rustic lover’s eagerness. ‘You are mine, say you are mine for ever!’ I whispered into her shell-like ear as her loosened hair fell over her cheek.

“‘Yours,’ she said in a low intense murmur, ‘now and for ever.’ Then gently, disengaging herself from my arms, ‘This is a foolish business. I confess to being rather unprepared, but I suppose we must consider it binding?’

“‘Binding,’ said I, shocked at the alteration of her tone and manner. ‘To the end of the world, and afterwards, in life, in death, my heart is yours unalterably—to wear in true love’s circlet or to break and cast beneath your feet.’

“‘Poor Val!’ said she, smoothing my hair with her dainty jewelled fingers, ‘yet women have played false before now to their promises, as fondly made, and men’s hearts have not been broken. They have lived to smile, to wed, to enjoy life much as usual—or old tales are untrue.’

“‘Do not jest,’ said I, ‘a man’s life—a woman’s heart, are treasures too precious to win—too perilous to lose; say you are not in earnest?’

“‘Perhaps not,’ she said, lightly. ‘Yes! you may have your good-night kiss,’ and we parted. You would not think it was for ever.

“The house-party was not large at Kingswood, but it was as much disturbed and excited when our engagement was given out, as if it had been a much more exalted gathering.

“My devotion had not been unmarked, but the betting had been against me. I was too young, too undistinguished—what had I done? not even in the army—in literature, beyond a few tentative minor successes, I was unknown. How had I presumed to propose to—indeed to win this belle of the last two seasons—the admitted star of the most aristocratic, exclusive, socially distinguished set? I was fairly good-looking—so much was admitted—my family was unimpeachable, old and honoured, but where is the money to come from to uphold the dignity and pay the bills of a queen of beauty and fashion such as Adeline Montresor?

“She had not come down from her room next morning when we men adjourned to the grounds for a smoke, and the usual after breakfast stroll.

“I was in the stable examining a strain which had lamed my hunter a few days since, and which had accounted for my presence in the library on the eventful afternoon, when my attention was attracted by an observation made by one man to another who held out a morning paper for his friend to see.

“‘I thought there was something “by ordinar,” as our Scotch gardener says.

“‘Death of Sir Reginald Lutterworth, all his money and the lovely place left to his nephew, Valentine Blount, the younger son of Lord Fontenaye.’

“‘By Jove!’ said his friend. ‘What a throw in! This accounts for the unaccountable, to put it mildly. The fair Adeline sees something beyond the personal merits of our enthusiastic young friend.

“‘A house in town—a place in the country, etc., presented at Court, Marlborough House in the future—what girl of the period could say no to such a present—with a still more gorgeous perspective?’

“‘Certainly not Miss Montresor, nor any of her set. But what about Colonel Delamere?’

“‘He’ll receive a neat, carefully worded note, which being interpreted, needs only one word of translation, “farewell.”

“‘Perhaps to soften the blow, as the phrase runs, something like “my people so badly off, pressure brought to bear—feelings unchanged—bow to Fate, etc.”’

“‘Wonder if she saw it?’

“‘My man says it’s in all the evening papers, but we were so hard at work at bridge, that no one thought of looking at them. She couldn’t have seen it, unless the maid took it up to her room when she went to dress for dinner. Ha! didn’t think of that.’

“On inquiry, I found that my enslaver and her maid had left for London by the early train. A note had been left for me, containing only a few words. ‘Dearest, I feel I must go home. See you at Oldacres. Au revoir.’

“I felt disappointed. Still I had no rational ground for distrust. It was most natural that a girl under such circumstances should wish to go home to her mother, and relieve her heart, when such an important step had been decided upon. I sent a telegram in answer, and arranged to leave for London, having to make certain arrangements in accordance with what would doubtless be my altered position.

“We wrote to one another daily. The letters, though not particularly ardent on her side, were affectionate and apparently sincere. A few days passed in making necessary financial arrangements, in receiving congratulations, freely tendered by friends and acquaintances.

“By my own family, I was regarded as a Spanish galleon, laden with treasure, which had come to redeem the faded glories of the estate, and to aid the wearer of a title, unsupported by an adequate income. Life was roseate, radiant with dazzling splendour.

“What cared I for the wealth? Was I not the proud possessor of the heart of the loveliest girl in England? I was invited to her father’s place in the Midlands, for the forthcoming hunting season.

“The kindest, semi-maternal letter informed me that ‘darling Adeline’ had overtaxed her nervous system, and not been quite herself for the last few days. I could understand why. However, she was looking her best once more, and all impatience to greet me at Oldacres, next week, when some of their more intimate neighbours would be able to pay their respects. I made rather a wry face at the extra week’s delay, thus imposed upon me, but suppressed any impatience as much as was possible, while thinking of the rapturous delight awaiting me, at the end of the probation. On the morning of the day on which I was to leave London, I received another of the extra-legal, important-looking documents, with which I had been so familiar lately. I was on the point of throwing it into the drawer of my writing table to await my return when I should be able to settle all formal matters in one morning’s work. Something, however, urged me to open the bothering thing, and have done with it, so as not to have it hanging over me when I was impatient of business of any sort or kind.

“I read over the first page twice before I fully grasped its purport.

“‘My Dear Sir,—We regret deeply the unpleasant nature of the communication which we are reluctantly compelled to make. We cannot sufficiently express our surprise at the apparent carelessness of Messrs. Steadman and Delve, who have been your uncle’s trusted lawyers and agents for fifty years, and in point of fact acted in that capacity for your grandfather, the late Lord Fontenaye, and we apologise, with sincere regrets, for not having verified with greater care the precise nature of Sir Reginald’s last will and testament.

“‘It now appears that the testator made another will a year after the one by which you were to benefit so largely. That other will has been found in a secret drawer, and is now in the possession of Messrs. Steadman and Delve. By it all former wills are revoked, and there is a total omission of your name as a beneficiary. With the exception of comparatively trifling annuities and legacies, the whole of the testator’s very large estates, together with the sum of £300,000 invested in the three per cents, is willed to your elder brother, the present Lord Fontenaye.’

“This was a thunderclap; indeed, apart from the natural distaste felt by most men at having been suddenly displaced from a position of wealth and importance, my chief regret arose from the feeling of disappointment which my change from wealth to moderate competence would cause to my beloved Adeline.

“No doubt of her loyalty and good faith troubled me. A legacy from my mother provided a sufficient, if not unusual income, as well as a fair estate, upon which we could live in something more than moderate comfort. Surely no girl would hesitate to declare her willingness to share the fortunes of a man to whom she had plighted her troth, though dissociated from the splendour which surrounded the former position. I lost no time in telegraphing to her father the change in our circumstances, at the same time writing a full explanation and requesting a day’s delay before visiting Oldacres, on account of necessary arrangements. But little time was lost in telegraphing an answer to my communication. ‘Much shocked by your news. Please to await letter. Miss Montresor much overcome.’

“The first news had been disastrous; the second intimation was unpleasant in tone and suggestion. I could not but regard it as showing a disposition to retreat from the engagement. But was this possible—even probable? Could I think my adored one guilty of withdrawing from her solemnly pledged troth-plight, entirely on account of the change in my fortunes from those of a rich man with an historic rent-roll and estates hardly exceeded by those of any English proprietor? Was it then the rents and the three per cents which this angel-seeming creature accepted without reference to the man? It would appear so. My youth and inexperience, how inferior in worldly wisdom had they shown me to be to this calculating worldling in the garb of an angel of light.

“If so, of course it was not fully decided so far. Let the end try the man. I trusted that I should be able to stand up to my fight, heavy and crushing as might be the blow Fate had dealt me. But all light and colour, all sympathy with and savour of pleasure, so-called, died out of my life. My premonition was but too accurate. Following the statement in my legal adviser’s letter, every paper in England had a more or less sensational paragraph to the effect that the announcement of the late Sir Reginald Lutterworth’s testamentary disposition was premature and incorrect. The bulk of that gentleman’s property, his great estates, and large deposits in the funds, goes to Lord Fontenaye, the head of the house.

“Soon after this, through some channels of intelligence, came a harmless looking paragraph in the personal column of the Court Circular:—‘We are authorised to contradict the report of the engagement of Miss Adeline Montresor to the Honourable Valentine Blount. The arrangement, if any, was terminated by mutual consent.’ A note of studied politeness from her mother left no doubt on my mind that her daughter’s engagement to me, too hastily entered into in the opinion of Mr. Montresor and herself, must now be regarded as finally terminated. ‘Mr. Blount would understand that, as no good purpose would be served by an interchange of letters or an interview, he would consult the feelings of the family by refraining from requiring either.’

“Such, and so worded in effect, was my congÉ. It was a hard fall. In more than one instance within my knowledge a fatal one.

“Last week, fortunatus nimium, I had stood on the very apex of human happiness. Rich—more than rich, the possessor of historic estates, with a commensurate rent-roll, above all ecstatically happy as the fiancÉ of the loveliest girl in England—high-born, highly endowed, the envy of my compeers, the admired of the crowd—a few short days saw me bereft of all but a moderate fortune, reduced in position, socially disrated, discarded by the woman of my passionate adoration.

“What remained, but as was suggested to the victim of an earlier inrush of disasters? To curse God, and die? The teaching of my youth, combined with a substratum of philosophic disdain of the ills of life, forbade the ignominious surrender. I took counsel with my calmer self, with my best friends, made no sign, arranged for regular remittances, and took my passage for South America.

“How I lived among the wild people and wilder adventurers, whom debt and dishonour, or Bohemian love of freedom had driven from the headquarters of art, civilisation and luxury, may be told some day; sufficient to say that during the five years I lived abroad much of my unhappiness and despair of life wore off by the slow but sure attrition of new occupations amongst strange companions. From time to time I sent home articles to scientific societies which gave me a certain vogue in literary circles. At length, and not until the end of the sixth year of wandering had been reached, a desire arose to see England and my people once more. Six months after my departure, Adeline had married an elderly peer, when, as Lady Wandsborough, she gained the position and consideration which I had been unable to offer her. Two years afterwards another excitement was caused among the smart set by her elopement with Colonel Delamere, ‘a distinguished military man,’ said the Court Circular, concerning whom there had been a growing scandal. Socially condemned, dropped and disowned, what was to be the end of the brilliant woman, whose entertainments, dresses, jewels, and friendships, made up so large a part of English and Continental chit-chat?

“Lord Wandsborough without loss of time obtained a divorce. There was no appearance of the co-respondent. Since then, there had been no authentic information about the arrant pair—neither, though I searched the fashion journals with unusual industry, did I come across the marriage of Colonel Delamere to the heroine of so many historiettes in high life. It was not that I had any strong personal interest in her career, fallen as she was now from her high estate finally and irrevocably.

“But I couldn’t attain to complete detachment from all human sympathy for the fallen idol of my youthful dreams, though perhaps my strongest sentiment connected with her was one of heartfelt gratitude for the brusque manner in which she had discarded me, and so saved me from the keenest—the most exquisitely cruel tortures to which the civilised man can be subjected.

“Of all people in the world she was the last whom I expected, or indeed desired, to see again; yet we were doomed to meet once more. I told you that I came from Hobart, the day after my arrest (save the mark!), in a vessel from Callao, of which the crew and passengers were strangely mixed, various in character as in colour and nationality; South Americans, Mexicans, Americans of the States, both Northerners and Southerners. Among them I noted, although I was far from troubling myself about their histories, a tall, handsome man, who bore on him the impress of British military service. It was Colonel Delamere! I could not be mistaken. I had formed a slight acquaintance with him in earlier days; had watched him at cards, with some of the least villanous-looking of the foreigners, to whose excitable manner and reckless language his own offered so marked a contrast. I did not intend to make myself known to him, but accident was stronger than inclination. Seeing a lady struggling up the companion (the weather was still rough), I moved forward and helped her to a seat. She turned to thank me, and after an earnest surprised glance at my face—‘But, no! it can’t be! Am I so changed?’ she said reproachfully, ‘that you don’t know Adeline Montresor?’ She was changed, oh! how sadly, and I had not known her. The second time, of course, I recognised the object of my youthful adoration, the woman by whose heartless conduct I had been so rudely disillusioned. She glanced at the Colonel, who, engrossed in the game, had not observed her coming on deck, and motioned me to take a seat beside her, saying, ‘How you have changed since we last met! I treated you shamefully—heartlessly, I confess, but it was all for your good, as people say to children. You would never have been the man you are if Fate and I had not sent you out into the world with a broken heart. Now tell me all about yourself?’ she continued, with a glance which recalled the spell of former witchery, harmless however, now, as summer lightning. ‘You don’t wish to cut me, I hope?’

“‘Far from it,’ I replied, ‘you will always find me a friend. Is there any way in which I can serve you? you have only to say. What is your address?’ She looked over at the Colonel and his companions with a melancholy air, and replied in a low voice, ‘We are travelling as “Captain and Mrs. Winchester.” Poor fellow, he cannot marry me, though he would do so to-morrow, if he were free from his wife, as I am from my husband. But she will not go for a divorce, just to punish us; isn’t it spiteful? You can see—’ here she touched her dress which was strictly economical—‘that it is low water with us. I have tried the stage, and we have been doing light comedy in Callao, and the coast towns. You have seen me in the amateur business?’

“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘how I admired you!’

“‘I know that,’ and she smiled with a strangely mingled suggestion of amusement and sadness; ‘you were a first-class lover in the proposal scene, though a little too much in earnest. I really was touched, and if—if indeed—everything had been different, my heart, my previous experiences, my insane love of society triumphs, dress, diamonds, etc. These I thought I had secured, and so accepted your honest adoration. But even then I was in love with poor Jack—never loved any one else in fact. I have been his ruin, and he mine. I see he has finished his game, and is coming over. You may as well know each other.’ The Colonel looked at me fixedly, much wondering at our apparent friendly attitude, then bowed politely and formally. ‘No, Jack, you don’t know him, though you’ve seen him before. He’s an old friend of mine, though, to whom I did a good turn, the best any one ever did him, when I broke our engagement short off, after hearing he’d lost his money. Now you know.’

“‘You’re a queer woman,’ said he, putting out his hand in frank and manly fashion, which I shook warmly. ‘I always said you treated him brutally. It didn’t break his heart, though it might have suffered at the time. We’re all fools; I nearly shot myself when I was just of age over Clara Westbrook.’

“‘Yes, I know,’ assented ‘Mrs. Winchester,’ good-humouredly; ‘now she’s eighteen stone and can hardly get into her carriage.’

“‘She was dashed handsome then,’ pleaded the Colonel; ‘but hang the past, it’s the future we’ve got to look at—not a gay prospect, either. Some people make money here, I suppose; we were nearly getting off the boat at Hobart and trying our luck at that new silver mine, the Cornstalk, or something like that. Do you know anything about it?’

“‘I’m a part proprietor, and so on,’ said I, trying vainly to divest my manner of any trace of importance, cruel as was the contrast between my position and that of this forlorn pair. ‘It was a chance investment when I came out here.’

“‘The devil! Tregonwell, Blount, Herbert and Clarke. Forgotten your name, you know. Why, they say you’re all worth £100,000 each?’

“‘At least!’ I said; ‘quite a fluke, though. My partner, Tregonwell, who is a good man of business, wanted to throw it up. I held on out of pure obstinacy, and it turned up a “bonanza.”’

“‘Your luck was in, and ours is dead out,’ said ‘Mrs. Winchester,’ ‘there’s no denying that, but ours may turn again some day. Where are we going next, Jack?’

“‘Checked through to Coolgardie, West Australia,’ said the Colonel. ‘Know some fellows. Believe there are immensely rich gold mines there. Saw some quartz specimens in a window in London, as much gold as quartz.’

“‘Quite true. There have been wonderful yields there,’ said I; ‘it’s an awful hot place, very primitive and rough. Still, the women—there are ladies, too—manage to live and keep up their spirits.’

“‘What do you say, Addie, hadn’t you better stay behind for a while, at any rate?’

“‘All places are alike to me now,’ said she wearily; ‘but where you go I go. We’ll see it out together, Jack.’

“‘We’re to be in Melbourne to-night, the steward told me,’ said the Colonel; ‘perhaps Mr. Blount will kindly recommend an hotel?’

“‘I know a good one,’ said I, ‘handy to your boat. I’ll see you on board to-morrow. The Marloo leaves in the afternoon. I can give you letters to some people on “the field” as they call it.’

“We went to ‘Scott’s,’ where I arranged certain things with the management. So that when the Colonel paid his bill next day, and we left together in a cab for the Marloo, he told his wife that the charges were most reasonable. She looked at me with a meaning glance and wrung my hand as the Colonel hurried off with the luggage. ‘You’re a good fellow,’ she said, ‘though it’s late in the day to find it out. You’ve had your revenge, haven’t you? Are you going to get married?’

“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘next week.’

“‘I wish you joy, with all my heart, what there is of it, that is. Is she beautiful, innocent, devoted to you?’

“‘All that,’ said I, ‘and more.’

“‘Then tell her my story, and when for vanity, pleasure, or the tinsel trappings of society she is tempted to stray from the simple faith of her youth (I had it once, strange to say), let her think of me as I am now, poverty-stricken, degraded, and, except for poor Jack, whom I have dragged down to ruin with me, without a friend in the world.’

“‘While I live,’ said I, ‘you must not say that.’

“‘I know—I know,’ and the tears fell from her eyes, changed as she was, from all that she had been in her day of pride. ‘But we can take nothing from you, of all men. God bless you!’

“Here came the Colonel. ‘Come along, Addie, we shall be left behind. Ta-ta, Blount, you’re a dashed good fellow, too good altogether, if you ask me. We’ll let you know how we get on.’

“As the coasting steamer churned the far from limpid waters of the Yarra, I waved my hand once and turned my head. They went their way. She and her companion to a rude life and a cheerless future, I to love and unclouded happiness, with fortune and social fame thrown in as makeweights. So there you have the whole of it. Last dying speech and confession of a sometime bachelor, but henceforth able to proudly describe himself ‘as a mawwied man,’ like the swell in the witness-box, ‘faw-mally in the awmy!’”

Edward Bruce came back from Queensland, and for fear of accidents the wedding was solemnised quietly, but with all due form and observance, between Valentine FitzEustace Blount, bachelor, and Imogen Carrisforth, spinster, of Marondah, in the parish of Tallawatta, district of Upper Sturt, colony of Victoria, Australia. The day was one of those transcendant glories of a summer land, which, as combining warmth with the fresh dry air of the Great South Land, are absolutely peerless. The lightly-wooded downs, verdant as in spring in this exceptional year, were pleasing to the eye as they stretched away mile after mile to the base of the mountain range. The exotic trees, oaks and elms, with a few beeches, walnuts, and an ash-tree, hard by the back entrance were in fullest leaf, most brilliant greenery. The great willows hung their tresses over the river bank, swaying over the murmuring stream, while they almost covered the channel with their trailing wreaths.

The glory of the wattle gold had departed; the graceful tender fern-frond appearing chaplets were no longer intertwined with the lavish spring gold which, following the windings of every streamlet and ravine, seems to penetrate the dim grey woodlands with golden-threaded devices. Herald and earliest note in tone and tendril of that manifold, divinest harmony, the Voice of Spring. A souvenir of the ocean in the form of a gladsome, whispering breeze came through the woodland at noon, tempering the sun’s potent influence, until all comments and criticisms united in one sincerest utterance, an absolutely perfect day, fitting, indeed, as the youngest bridesmaid asserted, for such an ideal marriage.

Nothing went wrong with train or coach this time. Fate had done her worst, and was minded to hold off from these persistent seekers after happiness. Edward Bruce had arrived from Queensland, sunbrowned, rather harder in condition than when he left home, but hale, strong, in good spirits, and even jubilant, having heard by wire of a six-inch rainfall since his departure.

Little-River-Jack and the O’Hara brothers had crowned themselves with glory on Crichel Downs since they had been employed there. Energetic, athletic, and miraculously learned in every department of bush lore, they had thrown themselves into the work of the drought-stricken district with an amount of enthusiasm that rejoiced the manager’s heart, moving him to declare that they were worth their weight in gold, and had saved the lives of sheep and cattle to the value of their wages six times over. He was going to give Little-River-Jack the post of overseer at a back outstation, and felt certain that no one would get hold of calf, cow, or bullock with the Crichel Downs brand as long as he was in charge. Phelim and Pat O’Hara were kept on the home station, and for driving a weak flock of sheep at night, or “moonlighting” the outlying scrub cattle, no one in all Queensland, except Jim Bradfield, was fit to “hold a candle” to them.

It was for various reasons, the bride’s recent illness and other considerations, that what is known as “a quiet wedding” took place, yet were there certain additions to the family circle.

Pastoral neighbours, such as the MacRimmons, the Grants, the MacAulays, the Chesters, the Waterdales, could not decently be left out. Besides the seniors, they included large families of young men and maidens born and reared among the forests and meadows of the Upper Sturt. The climatic conditions of this Highland region proved its adaptability for the development of the Anglo-Saxon and the Anglo-Celt, for finer specimens of the race than these young people who rode and drove so joyously to this popular function would have been difficult, if not impossible, to find. The men, tall, stalwart, adepts in every manly exercise; the girls, fresh-coloured, high-spirited, full of the joyous abandon of early youth, as yet unworn by care and with the instinctive confidence of all healthy minded young people in the continuance of the joie de vivre, of which they had inherited so large a share.

It was noticed by some of these whose eyes were sharp and general intelligence by no means limited, that at the breakfast there was a new damsel who assisted the waiting maid, Josephine Macintyre (chiefly known as Joe Mac), a smart soubrette of prepossessing appearance.

With her the bride and bridegroom shook hands warmly before they departed “for good.” Well and becomingly dressed, she was an object of more than ordinary interest to some of the youthful squirearchy.

“Why, it’s Sheila Maguire, from Bunjil!” said one youngster to his comrade. “Thought I’d seen her before, somewhere. Doesn’t she look stunning?”

“My word,” was the reply. “They say she’s been left a lot of money by old Barney, her uncle.”

“She’s a fine, straight, jolly girl, with no nonsense about her,” declared the first speaker, “a man might do worse than make up to her, if he had to live in the back blocks.”

“Why don’t you try the experiment?”

“Thanks, awfully! Hope I shall do as well—but I’m not ‘on the marry’ just yet. Want to see another Melbourne Cup or so first.”

There was no “marriage bell,” yet all went well without that obsolete summons. Every one turned up at the right time, not even the best man was absent. He came the evening before—a cool, unpretending person, very correctly dressed, and with “soldier” written all over him—in spite of the vain disguise of mufti. He was presented as Colonel Pelham Villiers, D.S.O., Royal Engineers, just down from Northern India. That he had “assisted” at such functions before was evident by the air of authority with which he put the bridegroom through his facings, and even ordered the bridesmaids about—“like a lot of chorus girls”—as Susie Allerton observed.

She had (she said) “a great mind to refuse to obey,” but after once meeting the look in a pair of stern grey eyes—hers were hazel—she capitulated. He took her in to breakfast, it was noticed, where they seemed excellent friends.

Punctually at three p.m. the drag came round with Edward Bruce on the box—behind such a team as only one station on the Upper Sturt could turn out. The leaders—own brothers—cheap at a hundred apiece, were a “dream,” as an enthusiastic girl observed, while the solid pair of dark bays in the wheel were scarcely behind them in value.

Out came the bride in travelling suit of grey, on the arm of “the happiest man in Australia,” as he had that day professed himself to be. Black Paddy noiselessly relinquished the rein of the nearside leader, a fine tempered, but impatient animal, and like one horse, the well-broken, high-mettled team moved off. The road was level, and smooth for the first half mile, then came a long up grade pretty much against collar, the team, at a touch of the rein, broke into a hand gallop, which they kept up easily until the crown of the hill was reached. There on the long down-grade—high above the river bank on one side, and scooped out of the mountain side on the other, the powerful leg-brake was applied, and the laden vehicle rolled steadily, and well controlled, until the level track of the river meadow was reached. There was a full quarter of an hour to spare when the railway station was neared, and with the luggage checked through to Menzies Hotel, Melbourne, and an engaged carriage for Imogen and himself, Mr. Blount decided that the first stage of matrimonial happiness was reached.