The Police Sergeant looked a little uncomfortable.

'Well, fact is, I wouldn't waste time going back to Breeza Downs head-station for that. Mr McKeith's there and they had a bit of an alarm. Those Unionist skunks tried to fire the shed one night, but no particular damage was done, and they've dispersed. But Windeatt is in such a fright of their making another attempt on his head-station that he's pushing the imported shearers on with the shearing for all he's worth, and keeps any man he can get hold of on guard night and day round the house and sheds, while I and my lot have been doing a bit of riding after Unionists.... Now, if you please, we'll have the key of the hide-house,' concluded Harris. 'I'd like to get my prisoner stowed away safe before I take an hour's spell myself. I'm pretty well knocked up, I can tell you. No sleep at all last night watching that n.i.g.g.e.r who was tied up to a gum tree, and I've been in the saddle all day.'

Maule proffered the usual refreshment with a deprecatory reference to Lady Bridget, who stood stonily apart. Then on pretext of getting the key of the hide-house, he had a few words with her in the office.

'I'm going to take care of this,' he said, as she gave him the key of the padlock which secured the hide-house door, and he forthwith fastened it to the ring of his watch-chain. 'Of course you want the black-boy to escape?'

'I shall let him out myself,' she answered.

'That would only make McKeith more angry. I have a better plan, in which you need not be implicated.'

'I would rather do it myself,' she said. 'I'm not afraid. If it had been possible, I would have cut those horrible thongs straight away and let the poor wretch get into the bush. He'll be safe at the head of the gully in the gidia scrub.'

'I promise you that he shall be safe in the gidia scrub before sunrise to-morrow. Trust me.'

She shook her head. 'But I can't take services from you, after....' she began hastily and then stopped.

'You call that a service! Yes--to humanity, if you like. Oh, I know.

After yesterday evening. NOW, you blame me for being true to myself....

All that has got to be settled between us, Bridget--for good and all. I thought it out as I rode behind the tailing-mob to-day. But for the moment,' he fingered the key agitatedly, 'Bridget, you MUST let me do this thing for you. Don't refuse me that small privilege, even if you deny me all others.'

She wavered--yielded. 'Very well. You can manage it better than I could. So I will accept this last favour.'

'The first, not the last. What have I done but cause you pain? ... If you knew the torture I have been going through....' He checked himself.

She was staring at him, half frightened, half fascinated.

'No, no. There must be an end.'

'Yes. There must be an end. Later on, we'll decide what the end is to be.'

He went out to the veranda carrying the key. Bridget did not follow him. She had no power either to resent or to compel him. She sat waiting. When, after about a quarter of an hour, he came back, she was still in the office as he had left her, seated by the rough table on which were the station log, the store book, and branding tallies.

He came in triumphantly, exhibiting the key.

'Harris wanted to take possession of this. It was lucky I had put it on my chain. However, he's satisfied that Wombo is securely locked up and an extra gla.s.s of grog and a hint that, as he hasn't provided himself with a warrant there's no obligation on him to stand over his prisoner with a loaded gun, eased his mind of responsibility. The man is in a beast of a temper though, he evidently expected to be entertained down here. I hope Mrs Hensor will give him a good dinner. He insists on sleeping in the little room off the store veranda where he says he can keep watch on the hide house. I suppose it's all right?'

Bridget nodded. 'I'll tell Maggie.' Maule asked for ointment with which to dress the black-boy's wounds and abrasions, and she gave it and left him.

The afternoon was drawing in. Then came the sound of the herded beasts being driven to the yard at sundown and, by-and-by, of Joe Casey's stockwhip as he got up the milkers. The shorthandedness and disturbance of Harris' arrival made everything late, and the goats which should have been penned by now, were busy nibbling at the pa.s.sion vines on the garden fence. But all this made little impression on Bridget's preoccupied brain. She had the thought of that coming interview with Maule before her. Oola's continuous wailing was an affliction, and she gave the half-caste a blanket and some food and told her to camp on the further side of the hide house where, with eyes and ears glued by turns against the largest c.h.i.n.k between the slabs, she might see and speak to the prisoner.

CHAPTER 4

Maule's and Lady Bridget's TETE-TETE dinner was an embarra.s.sed meal, with Kuppi and Maggie hovering about the table. The man's eyes said more than his lips, and the woman sat, strained and silent, or else uttered forced commonplaces.

They were alone at last on the veranda, with night and the vast distances enfolding them. The air was close and hot, the sky banked with storm clouds, and, occasionally, there were flashes of sheet lightning and low growls of thunder. Before long the head-station was very quiet. Harris had inspected the hide-house and, having a.s.sured himself of the safety of his prisoner, had retired to the veranda room, making a great parade of keeping his door open, his gun loaded, and his clothes on, ready for any emergency. Joe Casey had gone to his hut, the Chinaman and the Malay boy to theirs, and Maggie, the woman servant, to her own tiny room wedged in between the new house and the kitchen wing.

But it was all early. At that hour, Maule laughingly reminded Lady Bridget, the dining world of London would scarcely have reached the dessert stage.

She would not waste time on ba.n.a.lities.

'I've been waiting to tell you something. My mind is quite made up. I can't go on like this any longer. You must go away to-morrow.'

'To-morrow!' he echoed in dismay.

'Yes. I've thought it out. You don't know the country, but the mailman will be here to-morrow, and he can show you the road.'

'You are very kind.... Why are you so anxious to get rid of me?'

'Surely you understand. You made me a scene yesterday. You'd go on making me scenes.'

'And you?'

She gave a hard little laugh. 'Oh! I--don't want to play any more.'

'You call it play! To me it's deadly earnest. I let you go once. I do not mean to let you go again.'

'But you are talking wildly. Don't you see that it is impossible we can be friends.'

'Oh! that I grant you. We must be everything to each other--or nothing.'

In spite of her cold peremptoriness he could see that she was deeply agitated. That fact gave him courage. His voice dropped to the tender persuasive note which had always affected her like a spell.

'My dear--my very dearest.... We made a great mistake once. Let us forget that. Death has opened the gate of freedom--for me, at least--and I can only feel remorseful thankfulness. We have again a chance of happiness. We will not throw it away a second time.'

'You seem to forget that if you are free I am married.'

'What a marriage? Call it a mad adventure.'

'That may be,' she said bitterly. 'But it doesn't alter the fact that I did care very much for my husband.' She brought out the last words with difficulty.

'DID care. You put it in the past tense. You don't care for him any longer. It would be astonishing if you did. One has only to see you together.... Oh, Biddy, it was so like you to rush off to the other side of the world, and ruin your life for the sake of some strange impracticable idea! I can follow it all....'

'You are mistaken,' she put in.

'I think not. You married in a fit of revulsion against the conditions in which you were living--the hollow shams of an effete civilisation--that's the correct phrase, isn't it? And--well, perhaps there was another reason for the revulsion.... And you thought you had found the remedy for it all. Oh! I admit that he is very good looking, and, of course, he worshipped you--until he had you secure, and then he reverted to the ways of his kind. "Nature's gentlemen" usually do....'

'Be silent, Will,' she exclaimed vehemently. 'You don't understand.'

'My dear, your very anger tells me that I do understand. Why! naturally your imagination was set on fire. The Bush was painted to you in its most glowing colours. No doubt, as you said, it's a Garden of Eden in good seasons. Wonderful vegetation, glorious liberty--no galling conventions--vast s.p.a.ces--romance--and the will o' the wisp wealth of the Wild. Confess now ... are not my guesses correct?'

'Yes--partly.' She spoke with reluctance. 'But I remember that YOU used to talk to me about the joys of the Wild,' she added with sharp irony.

'Oh, yes, I know it all. I've been there myself. And it's only when El Dorado proves a delusion that one begins to hanker--I did before I met you--for the advantages of civilised existence.'

'Well, you have secured those. Why not go and enjoy them as I'm asking you to do.'