THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Sister Sorrow
 
 Sister Sorrow 
 
 :: A Story of Australian Life :: 
 By Mrs. Campbell Praed .. Author of 
 
 "Lady ^Bridget in the ^Cever-^Cever Land," "The 
 Other Mrs. Jacobs, 1 ' "As a Watch in the Ki&ht" etc. 
 
 LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.. 
 PATERNOSTER ROW :: :: 1916.
 
 PR 
 57*7, 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 THk MAX OF THE DREAM 
 
 14?
 
 SISTER SORROW 
 
 THE Beginning began at breakfast time, that first 
 morning after our arrival at the Bellevue Hotel 
 in Leichardt's Town. The whole family of us had come 
 down from Barolin — Father, my stepmother Clara, my 
 half-sisters Bee and Bel, myself and Dolores Lloyd, 
 the girls' governess. 
 
 We did not usually descend in so large a body for the 
 winter session. But The Bunyas — our house on Emu 
 Point — had been let to some rich barbarians from the 
 back blocks for the summer. I suppose that, after the 
 climate of the Never-Never Land, Leichardt's Town 
 seemed cool to them, whereas we Leichardtstonians were 
 only too glad to stay up in the Ubi mountains from 
 November till March. It was the end of March now. 
 
 This was the first time, however, that we had let The 
 Bunyas. The fact was that drought was killing cattle 
 in hundreds and thousands on the northern stations and 
 Clara thought the barbarians' rent might help to square 
 accounts. 
 
 That was one reason for our all going together to the 
 Bellevue. A week's rent would cover the extravagance 
 of our day or two at the hotel, and, by bringing the whole 
 family, we should be saved a second sixty-mile buggy- 
 journey. Also, there was shopping to be done. Bee had 
 to be put into almost long frocks : she was so big for 
 
 3 i*
 
 4 SISTER SORROW 
 
 fifteen ; and Bel, in spite of being in the clothes' succession, 
 wanted a lot of fresh things. Then the tenants had only 
 yesterday given up The Bunyas, and it was certain the 
 place would not be habitable until it had been cleaned and 
 rearranged. Besides, the new Parliament was to open 
 in a few days and Father had accepted the post of Chair- 
 man of Committees and must be up to time. Hitherto, 
 he had disdained minor political emolument, but the 
 salary was a consideration just now. Clara, who had no 
 notion what a Chairman of Committees' appurtenances 
 and obligations might be, fussed like a clucking hen over 
 Dad's official rig-out. It was no use pointing out to her 
 that the Chairman of Committees is, publicly and sartori- 
 ally speaking, a less ornamental personage than the 
 Governor or the President of Council or even the Usher 
 of the Black Rod. The lace lappets Dad would wear at 
 the Opening perturbed Clara's soul. She seemed to 
 regard it as a sacred matrimonial duty that she and she 
 alone should purchase this Insignia of Office. 
 
 Which from a practical point of view was nonsense. 
 If it had been a question of buying a patent churn or an 
 incubator or a garden roller, she would have proved herself 
 a first-rate shopper, but in the matter of lace, Clara was 
 incapable of distinguishing between machine-made Cluny 
 and genuine Honiton. 
 
 I came in first for breakfast that morning, and not 
 being used to hotels, felt shy in making my way among 
 the tables to the one we had dined at the night before. 
 We didn't have much paraphernalia of waiters showing 
 folks round in Leichardt's Town then — I am writing of 
 a good many years back — though the Bellevue was 
 considered quite smart and European, the proprietor being 
 Swiss, and some of the waiters, relatives he had imported. 
 
 It was a large room with windows round three sides, 
 and, through them, one got glimpses of bamboos, orange 
 trees, poinsettias and different Leichardt's-Land shrubs 
 and flowers. The tables were nearly all taken. Such 
 a number of people together was an unusual sight for me. 
 A few globe trotters ; some members of the Legislative
 
 SISTER SORROW 5 
 
 Assembly and their wives ; various brown-faced men 
 from up north and sallow women ; bachelor-bushmen 
 and town residents, who made their homes at the hotel. 
 I thought it all looked very gay and pretty and interesting. 
 
 The Bellevue stands in that open part of the North 
 Side near to Parliamentary Buildings and close to Govern- 
 ment House and the Botanical Gardens — the North Side 
 being the middle-land loop which the river makes as it 
 winds three times in queer snake-like curves. I could 
 see the broad grey-blue stretch of water through the bay 
 window, in the recess of which our oval table was placed 
 — when at last I got near it. Emu Point lies across that 
 bend of the river, and I stood a minute or two trying to 
 make out the roof of The Bunyas in a dip of the ridge. 
 
 I was thinking more of the scene outside than of that 
 within. The window was framed in creepers — one, a 
 thumbergia with thick dark green leaves and a mauve 
 bell flower, and another with paler green crinkly leaves 
 and clusters of yellow trumpet-shaped blossoms. I don't 
 know why those creepers should stand out in my picture, 
 but they do. It was rather a hot morning, though a 
 breeze coming up from the river made a funny murmuring 
 sound in a clump of bamboos, just as if the leaves were 
 talking. I had approached our table by a side entrance 
 and had not observed two small tables set at the angles 
 of the bay. Sounds from these tables made me notice 
 them and wonder whether I should pass behind one of 
 them or between the two in order to reach my place. 
 I remembered that last evening they had been vacant 
 when we had dined rather late. This morning there sat 
 at each a solitary man. 
 
 The two men are very vivid in my mind-picture. That, 
 however, is not surprising, considering after events. Also, 
 they both struck me then as being striking personalities, 
 each in his different way. The one on the left, less so, 
 at the moment, for he was taking his bill from the waiter 
 and I could not see him so well. The other, on the right, 
 gave me a distinct sense of repulsion, but I could not 
 help being impressed by something forceful and dominant
 
 6 SISTER SORROW 
 
 about him. He looked as if he resented not having the 
 waiter's first attention. He drummed angrily with his 
 knuckles on the table, and then leaned forward with his 
 elbows on the edge, making twitchy, irritated movements 
 with his hands, opening out the palms and spreading and 
 closing the fingers. Hands have a sort of fascination for 
 me. This man's gave me the idea of some creature of 
 prey. The fingers were long, smooth on the outer side, 
 the nails well shaped and shiny, but badly kept, and the 
 finger-tips curled inward in a peculiar way. I thought 
 to myself that if you once got into that man's clutches 
 you wouldn't easily get out of them. I noticed that the 
 inside of his hands were rough as if he had done manual 
 labour not exactly that of a bushman. The mount of 
 the thumb was very fleshy and the reasoning phalange 
 well developed. Plenty of will-power and a shrewd animal 
 mind to direct it, but not much idealism or real intellect 
 there, I judged. In studying the hand, I noticed, too, that 
 the skin, yellowish brown, was patched with dark freckles 
 about the wrist and that on the left wrist there was a long 
 scar partly hidden by the shirt-cuff — a broadish, slightly 
 curved seam, as if the man had been wounded by some 
 peculiar bladed knife. 
 
 As he sat there, I judged this man to be large-limbed 
 and of great physical strength. He carried his head 
 poised forward between the powerful shoulders. A re- 
 markable head set on a long bony neck which had some- 
 thing of an Adam's Apple, beneath which, in front, were 
 wrinkles on the browny-yellow skin. A watching, alert 
 head, wedge-shaped, slanting back in a particularly long 
 and diagonal line from the square jaw to the angle of the 
 crown, where a certain bump — that of self-esteem I think 
 — was prominently developed. The chin and jaw were 
 strong, the cheek-bones high, showing hollows below them, 
 the nose longish, slightly concave above the bridge. 
 Mouth, heavyish, but a good deal hidden by a drooping, 
 yet scrubby and ill-kempt moustache — the only hair on 
 the face — light brown in colour. Eyes, deep-set under 
 a marked forehead-ridge with lightish scanty eyebrows —
 
 SISTER SORROW 7 
 
 small eyes, narrowing into a concentrated gaze that seemed 
 to send out glints of grey light. Hair, not plentiful but 
 wiry, darker than the moustache, and glossy where it was 
 plastered down on the top of the head, but lightening at 
 the ends which stuck out beyond the coat-collar and 
 twisted upward in a sparse wave, giving the suggestion, 
 however, of coarse virility. 
 
 That was the man. He wasn't handsome and I took 
 a great dislike to him. But every detail of him fixed 
 itself in my mind like an over-exposed photograph. I 
 don't think anybody could have helped being impressed 
 by him. 
 
 He was evidently burning with impatience. He wanted 
 his breakfast — the other man had finished his. The 
 knuckle tattoo began again, then suddenly stopped. He 
 called out sharply. 
 
 " Waiter ! " 
 
 His voice struck me as peculiar and dominant — like 
 everything else about him. The accent wasn't Australian, 
 it certainly wasn't English. I thought it might be Ameri- 
 can, but he hadn't said enough for me to be sure. The 
 note was harsh. It had a ring as of sounding metal. I 
 didn't dislike it as much as I disliked the rest of him. 
 
 " Waiter ! " 
 
 " Yes, sare, I come directly, sare." The waiter 
 was a Swiss ; a weedy, hectic youth. He went on talking 
 to the other man who had pointed out an error in the 
 bill. 
 
 " I am sorry, I nevare see the mistake. I go to have 
 it made right." 
 
 " Please be quick. I've got to catch the Princess 
 Maud — the northern steamer, you know." 
 
 I liked that man's voice. It was deep and soft and 
 was musical in timbre. It had power too, though of a 
 different quality from that of the first one's utterance. 
 He spoke slowly, with deliberation, in a balanced, rhythmic 
 fashion. I felt sure he would read poetry well. His 
 voice wasn't Australian either — nor was it American. 
 He did have a sort of accent but it was unplaceable.
 
 8 SISTER SORROW 
 
 The other man called a third time, more angrily : 
 ' Waiter ! " But the waiter had wriggled round the angle 
 of the bay window and disappeared. The angry man 
 swallowed an oath. I saw the Adam's Apple shut down 
 on the big " D." He began the knuckle tattoo again. 
 The second man remained imperturbable. Now that the 
 waiter was not bending over him, I could see him better. 
 He gave me quite a different feeling from that which 
 I had for the angry person. If I had understood then 
 anything about human vibrations I should have known 
 that this man's were even, harmonious, under control. 
 He seemed to send out quietude, understanding, sympathy. 
 Force too, but of quite another kind. I judged him to 
 be of a smaller build. He was distinctly of a more refined 
 nature, yet an athlete, if I was not mistaken, and in good 
 fettle. I had an opportunity of observing his hands, like- 
 wise, as I stood there, half pretending to be still looking out 
 at the view. But he was almost in my line of vision. These 
 were idealistic hands — of course you will see that I had 
 studied Desbarolles. Tapering fingers — the third one 
 longest — firm and capable. Strong, generous thumbs, 
 the tips of the fingers sensitive. Yet, though the hands 
 were those of a student, I could tell that they had done 
 real physical work sometimes. 
 
 The face was of the student type, I thought — the skin 
 naturally fair, but well bronzed as if the man lived an 
 open-air life. 
 
 ' The Idealistic Student," I called him straightaway in 
 my mind. A high, full forehead : yellow hair, almost 
 golden, waving back from the brow and curling close to 
 the head : nose, thin and straight : lips, well shaped, 
 firm but sensitive, with a slightly humorous twist at the 
 corners and a half-smile, gentle, kindly, discriminating — 
 I could have trusted that man's judgment even then. 
 A short, soft, fair beard, a little darker than the hair : 
 eyebrows level and definite : really beautiful eyes, 
 large, clear, penetrating blue in colour and dreamy in 
 expression just now, as they gazed abstractedly out of 
 the window.
 
 SISTER SORROW 9 
 
 The Angry Person's head fidgeted on his lean neck, 
 and he turned sharply as if he had become suddenly aware 
 of me. Then, copying the waiter's tactics, I crossed 
 swiftly with my back to him and wriggled round the 
 intervening space between the other man's table and the 
 window angle, hoping to get to my own table unobserved. 
 
 But as luck had it, the sleeve of my dress caught for 
 an instant on a blind-fastening, and, in undoing it, I jerked 
 the table. The man at it started, said apologetically, 
 ' I'm afraid I'm in the way," got up, and we stood for a 
 few seconds staring at each other. Now I saw that the 
 eyes which had seemed so dreamy were clear dark blue 
 and extremely penetrating. It seemed to me that they 
 were seeing right into me. But only for that second or 
 two. I had got myself free ; and, with a slight bow and 
 a word of apology, passed to my place. 
 
 He had stood up stiffly, with his chair pushed in, and 
 again seated himself. It was my turn now to meet the 
 concentrated, grey fire of the Angry Person's stare — an 
 uncompromising stare, the brows and jaw protruding and 
 the head hunched forward. I suppose I looked offended — 
 I felt so — for he took away his eyes, and when I looked at 
 him again out of the corner of mine, he was staring in 
 just the same concentrated way at two men seated at a 
 table in the middle of the room. I knew them for share- 
 holders in a reef at Nagbar Diggings, the new goldfield 
 near Malpa Downs, one of our northern stations. Father 
 had lately taken up a claim at Nagbar and was hoping 
 great things from it. 
 
 Presently the waiter came back with the amended bill. 
 He had to go past the Angry Person who instantly seized 
 on him. 
 
 " Look here. I guess I've been kept waiting long enough. 
 You've got to attend to ME. Just take my order. D'ye 
 hear ? " 
 
 ' Yes, sare." The waiter sent an appealing glance to 
 his other customer, who calmly took out his watch, looked 
 at it, nodded, put it back and resumed his absorbed survey 
 of the clump of bamboos outside.
 
 io SISTER SORROW 
 
 The Angry Person gave his order. 
 
 " I want coffee — real hot, mind. And strong. None 
 of your beastly wash for me. Milk boiling, understand ? 
 What's this you've got down here ? " He pointed to 
 an item on the breakfast menu. 
 
 " But that is eet, sare. Caje au lait — coffee and milk." 
 
 " Well, why couldn't you put down coffee and milk ? 
 English is good enough for me. And I say " — in a slightly 
 lowered tone, " I'll have a stick in it." 
 
 " Veray good, sare. Cognac or rum ? " 
 
 " Brandy, you fool. I'm not taking any of your rum 
 cure for consumptives. I leave that to chaps like you." 
 
 I felt furious at the insulting way in which he looked 
 at the poor boy's narrow chest and thin shoulders. And 
 I wasn't the only one who resented the insolence. Glancing 
 at the other table I saw a quick tightening of that man's 
 lips and a flash of indignation — literally a blue flame — 
 leap from his eyes. Oh, yes, he might look dreamy, but 
 he was really " all there." It was as if that blue ray 
 had pierced the thick hide of the Angry Person. A bricky 
 flush came on the yellow-brown face. He suddenly threw 
 back his head. Now, it was grey flame that darted forth 
 as he stared straight across at his neighbour with the air 
 of one who fears not God, nor Devil, nor Man. I rather 
 admired him at the moment in spite of my fury. I don't 
 know what made me sure that these two men knew each 
 other, for there was not the faintest sign of recognition 
 from the Idealistic Student. The blue flame died and 
 his gaze was quietly averted. Then the vicious grey eyes 
 dropped to the menu, and the Angry Person went on with 
 his order. 
 
 " Fried mullet first and liver and bacon to follow. 
 That'll do for the present. And look slippy — 
 understand ? " 
 
 The waiter murmured incomprehending acquiescence, 
 but instead of flying to obey, brought the bill to the 
 second table. It was paid. The waiter gave thanks 
 for what I judged to be a generous fee and I heard him 
 say:
 
 SISTER SORROW n 
 
 " There is a man from outside to carry down the 
 baggage. He take a short cut to the Wharf. The steamer 
 bell have not yet begun to ring." 
 
 But the waiter had not finished speaking when the 
 half-hour warning signal sounded from the Leichardt's- 
 Land-Steam-Navigation-Company's Wharf. The traveller 
 got up. As he was leaving the table, he looked at me 
 and I looked at him. I fancied somehow that there was 
 a question in his eyes. " Shall we meet again ? " I 
 don't know whether mine said what I felt : " I hope so." 
 His seemed to say : " Yes, we shall." He bowed more 
 ceremoniously than the men I was accustomed to meet. 
 It was partly the manner of bowing which made me 
 guess suddenly that he was of a foreign strain. Scandi- 
 navian I guessed intuitively. 
 
 The Angry Person watched him too, as he went down 
 the room to the accompaniment of the distant ting-tang 
 of the steamer bell. My gorge rose again at the audible 
 snort of relief which escaped the Angry Person's lips. 
 He attacked the waiter once more : 
 
 " Here ! You ! If you think I'm going to play this 
 game any longer you're mistaken. You've got to attend 
 to ME at once, or I go straight out and ask the Manage- 
 ment WHY. See ? " 
 
 My whole Australian soul determined upon asserting its 
 feminine rights. I leaned forward and said with frigid 
 politeness : 
 
 " Pardon me, but I also have been here some time 
 expecting to be served. . . . Waiter, please take my 
 order." 
 
 II 
 
 MY neighbour stared at me afresh, a different ex- 
 pression on his face, as if he had found in me 
 something for which he had not been prepared. I have 
 been told that usually, on first acquaintance, people 
 take me for a smooth-lipped, characterless sort of female
 
 12 SISTER SORROW 
 
 and are surprised when they come upon an upstanding 
 bit of Australian bed-rock. 
 
 His manner changed and became floridly polite. He 
 made a roundabout explanation. He hadn't known there 
 was a lady close by waiting to be looked after or he'd 
 certainly have put her before himself. But when it was 
 a case of playing second fiddle to a man you'd got a down 
 on, well, that was another story : and anyway he begged 
 to make his humble apology. 
 
 There wasn't anything to be said after that, though I 
 should have liked very much to know why he had a 
 ' down " on the other man and felt secretly triumphant 
 that my intuition had been correct. I took a mean, 
 malicious satisfaction in delaying over the menu and in 
 making my order as lengthy as possible, telling the waiter 
 that the rest of my party would surely be down in a 
 minute or two, and making provisional arrangements — 
 porridge for the two young ladies to begin with and cocoa 
 for two, coffee for three and tea for one. Hot scones for 
 all and toast, and plenty of butter and jam for everybody. 
 Then, scrambled eggs and mushrooms and fish and mutton 
 chops. And would the waiter please say that Mr. Carfax 
 liked his chop very well cooked and Worcester sauce with 
 it, and that very likely he would require boiled eggs to 
 follow. 
 
 I saw that the Angry Person pricked up his ears at 
 the mention of Father's name and that he was possessing 
 his temper in exemplary patience, while all the time, his 
 sharp bright eyes were on me, sizing me up with that 
 animal shrewdness of his which I had sensed and knew 
 to be quite another thing from the mental quality of the 
 man he had a " down " on. And I sensed in him a certain 
 unwilling admiration of me and a desire to be con- 
 ciliatory. For some reason he wished to stand well with 
 me. But I knew that though he might admire me in a 
 fashion, he did not like me. Presently, he said : " You 
 are Miss Carfax, aren't you ? " 
 
 I answered coldly : " Yes, I am Miss Carfax." 
 
 ' There are three of you — three Miss Carfaxes, eh ? "
 
 SISTER SORROW 13 
 
 If you mean my two half-sisters who are not grown 
 
 up " 
 
 " Oh ! I didn't know that. I saw three Miss Carfaxes 
 in the Hotel Register this morning." 
 
 I did not reply. He went on. 
 
 ' I've met your father — in fact I've had business dealings 
 with him. It's some time ago — at Nagbar. You knew 
 Nagbar Township ? " 
 
 " I've never been there." 
 
 " Your father has got a station up that way. I know. 
 I bought a mob of store cattle off him for my island." 
 
 " Oh ! " I said non-committally, pretending to examine 
 my bread. But on second thoughts, I added more socially 
 with an interrogative note : 
 
 " Your island ? " 
 
 I did not want to make friends with the Angry Person, 
 yet I couldn't help feeling interested about the island. 
 Islands have a kind of mystery about them that appeals 
 to me. 
 
 " Oronga Island. I bought the place six months ago 
 when the Leichardt's-Land Bank came down on the chap 
 before me " — A pause. 
 
 " He didn't make it pay. / intend that it shall. And 
 I generally do what I intend to do." 
 
 " Oh ! " I broke my bread into four symmetrical pieces. 
 He was not rebuffed. It would have taken a good deal 
 to rebuff that gentleman. 
 
 " Anyway, that's the reputation Phil Wilkins has got 
 for himself in more countries than this one. See ? I'm 
 introducing myself: T. P. E. Wilkins— Phil Wilkins for 
 short, of Oronga Station, Pacific Ocean. See ? " 
 
 I couldn't find any monosyllable but " Oh ! " again. 
 
 " Nothing between me and South America except the 
 Great Barrier Reef and a few peaks of extinct volcanoes. 
 I suppose you know Oronga Island on the map ? " 
 
 I said that of course I'd seen it on the map. " It 
 doesn't look very big." 
 
 ' Isn't it just ! My run will carry ten to fifteen 
 thousand head of cattle, and it stretches two-thirds of a
 
 i 4 SISTER SORROW 
 
 degree and forty minutes on top of the Tropic of Capricorn. 
 You couldn't call that so very small ? " 
 
 I said I hadn't thought of counting by degrees and 
 minutes. 
 
 " It's the proper geographical way of counting. And 
 I own the lot — barring the Pilot Station at the North End 
 and the Selection of that fellow who went off just now to 
 catch the steamer. . . . You noticed him ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I noticed him," and I made my manner more 
 encouraging. " Do tell me what is his name." 
 
 " His name's Helsing. Not that I'm a friend of his. 
 Never spoke to him in my life. I'm not taking any in 
 free-selectors — I don't like 'em." 
 
 The waiter coming in with both our breakfasts stopped 
 the talk for a few minutes. But Mr. Wilkins began again 
 after his first mouthfuls. 
 
 " I say, Miss Carfax, I was trying to explain. If I cut 
 up a bit rough just now — about playing second fiddle to 
 that chap Helsing — which is a part I'm not accustomed 
 to play and don't hanker after — it was only because I've 
 no use for neighbours of that sort. Don't want him on 
 my territory — See ? " 
 
 " I suppose Mr. Helsing had a right to free-select on 
 anybody's station, hadn't he ? " 
 
 " No, he hadn't. He ought to be in a lunatic asylum. 
 That's where he should free-select. ... I say, there's 
 your lot coming in, ain't they ? " He jerked his head 
 towards the entrance door and I saw Bee and Bel pushing 
 their way up among the tables, Dolores ambling along at 
 right angles with them. Bee, a perfect Bush hoyden, 
 was swinging her large hips and her thick plaits of corn- 
 coloured hair, and Bel, younger by eighteen months, 
 equally fair but slimmer, cleverer, equally unembarrassed 
 but quieter, walked, with head preened observantly, 
 behind her sister. 
 
 There was certainly not any shyness about Bee and Bel. 
 Nor any fear of their getting " bushed," either among 
 people or gum-trees. They were making straight for 
 where I was seated.
 
 SISTER SORROW 15 
 
 You couldn't say the same for Dolores. She would 
 never have made her way straight anywhere — unless it 
 had happened to be in dream-land. She had turned off 
 on the wrong track among the tables, and, as she stood 
 uncertainly, her large, round, dark eyes peering about, 
 her soft plump figure all graceful curves and helpless 
 droopings, she looked more pathetically appealing than 
 usual. She had on a white dress, I remember, with some 
 cherry coloured ribbon at the neck. The tint suited 
 her creamy skin and limp dark hair which tumbled unevenly 
 over her rather prominent forehead, and was gathered 
 into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. 
 
 " That's a pretty girl," remarked my neighbour. 
 " Seems a bit off her bearings. Who is she ? — Oh ! I 
 see ! She belongs to you." 
 
 " She is Miss Lloyd. She teaches my sisters," I said. 
 
 Bee had just attracted Miss Lloyd's attention by giving 
 a Coo-ee, which made people look up startled from their 
 plates and confused Dolores more than ever. Father, 
 at the door, shook his fist at the girls and rounded up 
 Dolores, making believe that she was a stray heifer — till 
 he had brought her up with the rest of the mob, as he 
 put it, and settled her in our own window place. 
 
 The mob as a whole seemed to be making a little sensa- 
 tion in the dining-room — those wild bush-girls, Dolores 
 Lloyd so distinctive in her own curiously attractive way, 
 and Father himself — the type of the early Australian 
 pioneer, I have heard him called — so distinguished looking, 
 with his white hair, his fine features and kind, clever 
 black eyes under his grizzled eyebrows. And then poor 
 Clara following him, quite unconscious that she was the 
 most striking of the lot — in her second-best silk dress — 
 plum coloured with panels embroidered in impossible 
 flowers. Clara reminded me of a drawing-room cushion 
 set on end, tied round the middle, and with a big blue- 
 eyed, red and white, worse-for-wear doll's head stuck into 
 the top of it. I often wished that Clara was not quite 
 so big and so noticeable in dress and figure. I can 
 remember her when she married Father and came to
 
 16 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Barolin — a handsome girl on a large scale — a sort of rough- 
 hewn child of nature — all pink and white and yellow — 
 Bee has her colouring combined with Father's features. 
 I was about seven then. 
 
 Clara was the kind of woman who can't bear to wear 
 any but loose garments, and she had just let herself go. 
 At forty, she was all over the country — mentally as well 
 as physically. Not that Clara had much of what you 
 would call mind. You wouldn't expect to find intellectu 
 ality in such an elementary type of bush-girl — the daughter 
 of a small station-owner — roughest of the rough — in the 
 wild country at the head of the Ubi. When I grew old 
 enough to form my opinions on what I heard said around 
 me, I wondered how Father could have married a person 
 who was not considered his equal and I despised Clara 
 as not being technically a " lady." Afterwards, I hope 
 I got rid of some of those snobbish ideas, and I came to 
 be very fond of Clara. For one thing, she never tried to 
 boss me ; and when I went home for the holidays from 
 my boarding-school in Sydney, she treated me more 
 like a younger sister than a step-daughter. Still, Clara 
 was always — Clara. And this morning she seemed more 
 Clara-ish than ever. 
 
 For a little while, we were all — including Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins — too busy with our breakfasts to pay much heed 
 to our neighbours. He and I however had this in common 
 that the first pangs of our hunger were already assuaged 
 and that our minds were soonest disconnected from our 
 appetites. I noticed presently that Mr. Wilkins was 
 observing our table with interest and was clearly waiting 
 an opportunity to put in his word. I saw that Father 
 was the one of the party on whom his attention was 
 mainly concentrated, which surprised me after his admir- 
 ing comment on Dolores Lloyd. The more so because 
 Dolores looked particularly attractive as she took her 
 seat. Her eyes were bright, her face animated and she 
 had a pretty flush on her usually sallow cheeks. Father 
 had been chaffing her in stockman's terms upon her 
 invariable tendency to get lost and upon the difficulty
 
 SISTER SORROW 17 
 
 he had just had in " yarding " her. Nothing provoked 
 Dody so much as being made the subject of Bush chaff, 
 and, on rare occasions, she even roused herself to a retort. 
 No doubt that was the reason why they all delighted in 
 teasing her, so that I had often to come and act as her 
 champion, 
 
 I left her now to fight her own battle while I helped 
 Clara over the breakfast cups. When next I turned to 
 her, I was astonished at the sudden change in her appear- 
 ance. All the animation and the pretty colour had gone. 
 She was sitting silent, her plate of food untouched, looking 
 as if she had received a great shock. Her face was like 
 marble, her eyes, round and dazed, stared blankly at Mr. 
 Phil Wilkins, who was calmly eating liver and bacon. 
 I thought at first that he must be connected in some 
 painful manner with Dolores' former life, but when he 
 looked up from his empty plate and his eyes went round 
 our table in a comprehensive survey of our family party, 
 the frank unconsciousness — except for a certain vague 
 curiosity — and the absolute non-recognition in his gaze 
 as it rested on her for a moment and then went on to 
 Father, convinced me that the shock, whatever might 
 be its cause, was entirely on Dolores* side. Mr. Wilkins 
 was not bothering about Miss Lloyd then. What he 
 wanted was to get into friendly relations with Father. 
 I concluded that some business motive lay at the back 
 of his anxiety in this respect. I whispered in Dolores* 
 ear as I put down her cup of coffee. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " 
 
 She started like an awakened sleep-walker and took a 
 few moments to collect herself. 
 
 ' Nothing," she murmured. " At least, I can't tell 
 you now." 
 
 She swallowed some coffee and made a pretence of 
 eating. As long as I watched her, she kept her eyes 
 from Mr. Wilkins' table. The man got his opportunity 
 with Father or made it for himself. There he was, 
 presently, leaning across towards the end of our table, 
 having sidled his chair as near to it as possible, and
 
 1 8 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Father accepting in his own happy-go-lucky fashion Mr. 
 Wilkins' claim of acquaintanceship. But I suspected 
 from Dad's air of puzzled geniality that the business 
 dealings Mr. Wilkins had referred to were carried on 
 through the Manager of Malpa Downs and that he and 
 Father had never had any personal intercourse until this 
 morning. 
 
 Ill 
 
 AH ! Wilkins of Oronga Island ! . . . Yes, of 
 course. . . . Now I remember. Oronga Island. 
 . . . Yes, I heard it had changed hands ..." 
 
 Father was jerking forth confused little feelers, and 
 Mr. Wilkins was firing out equally jerky explanatory 
 remarks in much the same strain as when he had 
 introduced himself to me." 
 
 " Yes, yes," Father went on. " Yes, I understand, 
 you bought two hundred head of store cattle off my 
 station, Malpa Downs. — Know my Manager, Pringle, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 Mr. Wilkins intimated that he did know Mr. Pringle, 
 and his manner implied that he had not altogether agreed 
 with the views of Mr. Pringle. Father laughed. 
 
 ' Sharp hand at a deal, Pringle — sharper than I am, 
 and knows the northern markets better than I do. . . . 
 You haven't had the Island very long, have you ? W T ell, 
 I hope you'll do better with it than the last owner did. 
 . . . Yes, an unlucky sort of chap. Nice fellow though 
 — unlucky chaps very often are nice fellows, don't you 
 think ? " 
 
 Mr. Wilkins didn't altogether agree with that statement, 
 and said he certainly hoped he should do better with the 
 Island than his predecessor had done. At which Father 
 laughed again tolerantly. 
 
 ' We all think that way when we start on a new business 
 — a good job we do. . . . Not that I've any doubt of your 
 making a fine thing of yours. . . . Well, and how do you
 
 SISTER SORROW 19 
 
 like the Island ? And how's the Malpa Downs herd 
 getting on ? " 
 
 " Oh, the Island suits me well enough," answered Mr. 
 Wilkins. " But as you know, it is understocked. As 
 for the Malpa Downs lot, I like your breed of cattle and 
 I want to buy another mob off you." 
 
 Father jumped warily to the bait : and the two began 
 a cattle-talk which had no particular interest for the rest 
 of us, especially as we had affairs of our own to settle. 
 All except Dolores Lloyd, who remained silent. I noticed 
 that she had left off her make-believe of breakfast and 
 that she was staring again in that queer way at Mr. Wilkins, 
 and apparently drinking in absorbedly every word that 
 he uttered. It was incomprehensible, for Dolores loathed 
 horned beasts, and we had all found it impossible to make 
 her understand anything about the working of a cattle 
 station. 
 
 Clara, who had been expounding chaotic plans for 
 our day's occupation, called to her : 
 
 " Miss Lloyd ! " 
 
 It was amusing, the tacit convention prevailing among 
 the elders by which Bee and Bel's governess was always 
 " Miss Lloyd " in her official capacity. In ordinary 
 social conditions, she became "' Dolores," and this was 
 affectionately relaxed to " Dody " on occasions such as 
 bedroom talks and moments of emotional confidence — 
 chiefly occurring between her and myself. 
 
 Clara had to ask her question twice before Dolores 
 answered. 
 
 ' Miss Lloyd, did you tell Andrew Catt what time 
 you'd be over with the girls to sort out the schoolroom 
 things when he's unloading the dray ? " 
 
 Again Dolores started like a sleep-walker awakened. 
 
 " Oh ! . . . I didn't understand exactly, Mrs. Carfax. 
 . . . Agatha arranged with the Catts. . . . I'm afraid I 
 shouldn't be much good . . . about unloading the 
 dray." She turned helplessly to me — as Dody usually 
 did when it was a question of work outside her own 
 vocation. 
 
 2*
 
 zo SISTER SORROW 
 
 Clara tartly rejoined that she had never yet found Miss 
 Llo3^d much good in ordinary commonsense matters. 
 ' Not that you haven't other gifts, Dolores," Clara added 
 hastily, with her wide bland smile and the droop of her 
 left eyelid over that prominent eye of washed-out blue 
 which generally preluded some wobbly outburst of her 
 natural kindliness, or of self-deprecation. " Gifts that 
 are beyond me. Your work is to art up Bee and Bel in 
 languages and accomplishments. And it's certain there's 
 more of us at Barolin than Bee and Bel who'd be the 
 better for a bit of your ' arting up ' " — which was Clara's 
 phrase for the comprehensive word Culture. 
 
 Dolores smiled nervously and Clara launched upon an 
 anxious disquisition concerning the dray, laden with 
 family properties, which was to have arrived last night 
 at The Bunyas in charge of Andy Catt and his wife, our 
 knock-about man and kitchen-woman at Barolin. Clara 
 worried over a crate of live poultry and the question of 
 suitable accommodation for broody hens. Also, as to 
 who was to do what in preparing the Emu Point House 
 for immediate occupation. Of course, Miss Lloyd and 
 the girls would take on, as their share, the schoolroom and 
 their own rooms. 
 
 Bee struck in : "I say — this is our holiday time and 
 I don't see why we should have to bother about getting 
 the schoolroom ready — though I don't mind putting my 
 clothes into the drawers. But, first thing, I shall mark 
 out the tennis courts, and I bet you anything the tenants 
 won't have kept the grass watered, and it will be dead 
 down to the roots." 
 
 " And I shall gather all the flat-stone peaches they'll 
 have left on the trees," said Bel. 
 
 ' Silly ! The flat-stones are over by now : and the 
 tenants wouldn't have left any if they weren't." 
 
 " Anyway, there'll be pine-apples." 
 
 But Clara detailed a lugubrious story which Mrs. Catt 
 had got from an Emu Point resident — of how the tenants 
 had sold all the fruit and had tethered goats in the banana 
 patch, and otherwise trampled on Clara's pet hobbies.
 
 SISTER SORROW 21 
 
 ' I just shudder to think of the revelations there'll be 
 for me, when I get over after seeing to Mr. Carfax's things 
 — which is my first duty," she said and sighed — " that 
 comes of letting your home to strangers — which I will 
 never consent to do again, no matter how low cattle go 
 down. . . . And now that your Father will have to stop 
 in Leichardt's Town when the House is sitting. . . . And 
 with no preserving done this summer and even the bananas 
 gone to waste. I know we shall find candied pie-melon 
 a poor substitute for pine-apple in syrup, to say nothing 
 of brandied strawberry guavas, which was what they 
 always called the bon booch at our winter dinner-parties." 
 
 It must have seemed a cryptic sort of announcement 
 to Mr. Wilkins who, while Father figured out some cal- 
 culations on the table-cloth, was listening and staring 
 at Clara. 
 
 " Where's the connection ? " he asked, " it beats 
 me. 
 
 ' Well, you see, pine-apples and bananas and strawberry 
 guavas won't grow on the Upper Ubi, and when The 
 Bunyas was empty, I could always come down at the 
 end of summer for a spree among the fruit," explained 
 Clara. 
 
 Father interrupted with : "I might manage a couple 
 of hundred steers," and he and Mr. Wilkins hammered 
 back at the cattle question. Clara's commentary on 
 the domestic situation went gurgling on like the Ubi 
 River, in shallow streamlets, with an occasional snag of 
 irrelevant matter breaking the flow of talk. 
 
 ' Very well then, Miss Lloyd can settle the schoolroom 
 and take stock of the upstairs rooms — Goodness only 
 knows what they've been used for. Lumber, babies 
 and pets, Mrs. Catt heard from somebody — instead of 
 being kept as decent bachelors' quarters like we have 
 them. ... As for you girls — well, I suppose you must 
 rummage the garden. And if that's what you're after, 
 you can tell me what you find in it — or rather what you 
 don't find. And mind, Bee, if you do begin tidying your 
 drawers, see you put clean paper in the bottoms of them.
 
 22 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Though there's not much good in me making suggestions, 
 for you'll all want to do something different." 
 
 None of us had anything to say to that. Clara prattled 
 away, weakly lugubrious. 
 
 " Then about the dray. ... I know Miss Lloyd is no 
 use, therefore you needn't tell me, Bee. . . . You might 
 have seen to it yourself. It's certain somebody must give 
 the orders to Andy Catt, for he hasn't three ideas outside 
 of a load of wood and a cart-horse ; and Mrs. Catt will 
 have her work cut out cleaning up the kitchen — that 
 you may be sure of. . . . Well, I'm glad you're going 
 over, Agatha, to boss the show. I will say you're first 
 rate at organizing ; my head gets flustered and I lose hold 
 of myself. Though I could always count a flock of sheep 
 going through the hurdles, and when I was a girl, I'd take 
 my turn on the drafting-camp and cut a beast out of the 
 mob as well as any stockman. . . . And you can't say 
 that I'm a bad housekeeper," Clara added with modest 
 pride. " Cooking a plain dinner I do understand, and, 
 give me the eggs, and there's not a confectioner on the 
 North Side that can beat me at a birthday or a wedding 
 cake. . . . But it's the ' arting up ' business that has 
 always bothered me." 
 
 She sighed, and for a few minutes gave abstracted 
 attention to her breakfast, while I administered con- 
 solatory platitudes to the effect that " arting up " was 
 a very inferior branch of feminine efficiency. Bee and 
 Bel giggled and munched scones and jam. Mr. Wilkins 
 was probing Father in regard to the price of cattle, and 
 Dolores sat silent, making a ridiculous pretence of eating. 
 
 Clara pushed away her plate of liver and bacon, and 
 began again on the domestic question. 
 
 " And that reminds me, Agatha, you might do what 
 you can to make the drawing-room over there look nice 
 before your Father goes across. It never seems the same 
 room after you've had your fingers on it. . . . Well, as 
 I said, that's beyond me. ... I never was artistic — which 
 is the reason I've insisted on my girls being given advan- 
 tages in the way of governessing that my parents were
 
 SISTER SORROW 23 
 
 not able to give me. . . . Bee ! what are you making 
 faces at Miss Lloyd for ? . . . It's lucky for you that 
 she and your Father aren't taking notice of you. . . . 
 Nobody is taking any notice of anybody except of that 
 new man you've picked up, Agatha," Clara's voice had 
 sunk to a stage aside. ..." Just look at Dolores ! 
 Why, he might be the Pope, the way she gapes at him. 
 And Bee and Bel giggling as if he was an actor they'd 
 paid to be amused by. He does look rather like an actor, 
 don't you think, Agatha ? " 
 
 Yes, undoubtedly Mr. Wilkins was dramatic in talk 
 and gesture. He had just started on a thrilling recital 
 of his exploits in mustering cattle while purchasing 
 Oronga Island. I had noticed his glance round the table 
 a minute before, when, no doubt, he had seen that he was 
 not dominating the situation. And that was a thing I 
 felt sure Mr. Wilkins always aimed at doing. The girls 
 were all eyes and ears. Clara ceased babbling and listened. 
 
 " He's sharp," she whispered to me. " My word ! he 
 was sharp over that sale-muster. I hope he won't best 
 your Father in this deal." 
 
 Clara had a shrewd business instinct in her way. Just 
 now, however, the Chairman of Committees' lappets lay 
 on her mind and she dismissed the cattle-deal and went 
 back to lace. " If I could only have tatted them," she 
 said. " You know that I'm a beautiful tatter, Agatha, 
 for I tatted the edging for your last set of underlinen, and 
 you said it was much nicer than torchon lace. Still I 
 know that I'm not a judge of real lace, and I'd like you to 
 tell me what sort I'd better ask for." 
 
 I advised Clara as best I could, keeping at the same 
 time an eye on Dolores Lloyd, who, though Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins did not resemble a snake, was gazing at him 
 again like a fascinated bird. 
 
 " I don't mind if it's Honiton or Brussels so long as 
 your Father goes one better in lappets than the Usher 
 of the Black Rod." Clara went on, clinging to her fixed 
 point. " I just couldn't bear for your Father to have 
 worse lace than Black Rod."
 
 24 SISTER SORROW 
 
 I was glad when presently Clara rose, declaring that 
 she couldn't possibly get through all that had to be done 
 unless she made a start at once. 
 
 The cattle-deal was postponed in a confidential mutter- 
 ing between the two men, and we all went our several 
 ways, including Mr. Wilkins, who, beyond a series of 
 rather gauche bows, took no further notice of us womenfolk. 
 
 IV 
 
 I'VE often thought that telling a story of real life is 
 something the same kind of process as building up 
 the model of an antediluvian animal from a few fossilized 
 bones. It seems as though what had once been, must 
 be again, just as it once was. So you start your story 
 with the description of a scene, a person, or some scraps 
 of talk ; then other scenes and persons and talks follow 
 on as by some natural order of evolution. You can't 
 alter or leave out, for, if you tried to make the picture 
 different you would, speaking artistically, lose your values 
 and get into a hopeless muddle. 
 
 Yet, going over the happenings of that morning, as they 
 come back to me, I feel a shamed wonderment at having 
 remembered so vividly all the stupid little characteristics 
 and personal details of Clara and the rest of us. It doesn't 
 look kind. But the brain-process, such as it is, seems 
 outside myself, and I cannot change its methods. I suppose 
 that when one's mind gets into focus for reproducing 
 what has taken place in the past, one is, in a sense, starting 
 a machine of which science doesn't know enough to have 
 got it under perfect control. So a system of selection is 
 impossible and one can only make the best of the stuff 
 which comes forth. 
 
 It is queer, all the same, that process of reproduction. 
 I remember having been taught as a scientific axiom that 
 by the Law of Nature nothing in existence can ever be 
 wholly lost ; but that a force having once been set in
 
 SISTER SORROW 25 
 
 motion it must go on vibrating to all eternity. That's 
 rather a staggering idea, and I took it on trust. ... I 
 take it on trust still, that all things that have been, big 
 and little, are there — printed on the Ether. Perhaps the 
 little things which form the mosaic background of the 
 picture are more easily registered by a certain class of 
 mind. 
 
 As if memory were a kind of cinematograph-roll unfolding 
 itself automatically. Or a sort of psychological gramo- 
 phone, which, when the machine has been wound up, 
 gives back just the record you have put into it. Every- 
 thing would depend on the capacity of the instrument — 
 the human instrument, I mean — and the quality of the 
 record. I am sure that some people's memory-instruments 
 must be very poor things — and their records extremely 
 limited and commonplace, whereas some people's records 
 would be blurred by over-detail, and others again would 
 give a vigorous and original view of life. Well, as Clara 
 herself says sometimes : "It takes all sorts to make a 
 world." 
 
 I TACKLED Dolores Lloyd as we walked down to the 
 Emu Point Ferry. Our way went through a 
 recreation -ground where were cricket pitches and clumps 
 of bamboos growing beside a stretch of ornamental water, 
 with black and white swans preening their long necks, 
 and water-birds swimming upon it. 
 
 Bee and Bel were making a devious course in order to 
 inspect the young broods. 
 
 ' Dody, what could you possibly see in that loud, 
 underbred man to fascinate you like that ? " I said. 
 
 Dolores looked at me blankly with her large misty 
 eyes. 
 
 " Fascinate me — fascinate ? " she stammered as though 
 she hardly understood. " I suppose you thought I was 
 behaving rather oddly ? "
 
 26 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " You so often do that, my dear ! Only sometimes, 
 a little more oddly than at others. It certainly did seem 
 strange the way you kept on looking at Mr. Phil Wilkins, 
 as he calls himself." 
 
 " Tell me exactly how, Gagsie ? " 
 
 " As if you were spell-bound by the boastful rubbish he 
 talked — how he had yarded I don't know how many 
 hundred head of wild cattle and had had his horse horned 
 under him by a furious bull and had lassoed the bull with 
 his stock whip ! I really hadn't patience to listen to 
 him. You never hear any properly decent bushman 
 * blowing ' like that." 
 
 " I don't think he was ' blowing.' I really think he 
 could do big things. I think he's — strong." 
 
 " Oh, he's big enough, got fine thews and sinews," I 
 admitted. 
 
 " I didn't mean that. I think he's strong in himself. 
 . . . Like Fate." 
 
 " Like Fate ! Has the man bewitched you ? " 
 
 I pleaded and admonished — begged her not to give 
 herself away, as she had been doing at breakfast this 
 morning ; reminded her how, though on previous occasions 
 other men had been ready enough to flirt with her — had 
 indeed been really in love with her — she had never seemed 
 in the least affected by them, but had always behaved — 
 to quote Clara — like a girl who was above that sort of 
 nonsense. All she would answer was : 
 
 " He's not the same as those other men." 
 
 I retorted at last that I should have suspected him of 
 deliberately hypnotizing her, if it hadn't been that he 
 took very little notice of her. " Perhaps, however," 
 I added, " he was clever enough to do it without seeming 
 to pay you any attention." 
 
 Dolores stopped in the path and put her hand on my 
 arm. She looked very strange. 
 
 "No, of course it wasn't that. . . . But, Agatha. . . . 
 Don't you remember ? " 
 
 " Remember ! What ? " 
 
 " That dream I had."
 
 SISTER SORROW 27 
 
 Dody often had curious dreams. There had been a 
 phase of making stories out of her dreams. That was 
 just after we had read " Peter Ibbetson." One — a 
 particularly adventurous dream — I had sent to the Editor 
 of the Leichardt's Land Monthly, but, like most of my 
 early literary attempts, it had in due time come back to 
 me. I cited that experience. She shook her head con- 
 temptuously : 
 
 " How could you imagine I meant that dream ? . . . 
 I mean. . . ." she paused, and then the words came out 
 in a whisper. ..." The sea . . . The Face." 
 
 It flashed back. Yes, I remembered her strange dream. 
 
 " Dody ! You don't mean — that. Of course it must be 
 all fancy. — But did he — did he seem like your Dream 
 Man ? " 
 
 " He is the Dream Man." 
 
 We stood looking at each other. Dolores' own face 
 startled me : it was so white, so impressive. I tried to 
 laugh at her, but the attempt was feeble. We moved 
 slowly on. Bee and Bel scampered up from behind. 
 
 " Don't speak of it before them," Dolores whispered 
 urgently. 
 
 " Is it likely ? " I said. 
 
 We let Bee and Bel rattle on about a hew family of black 
 swans and a pair of red-legged cranes, till we reached the 
 steps from which in those days the ferry-boat plied to and 
 from Emu Point. The river is broad here, and the ferry- 
 man had a longish pull. He was an old friend and had 
 a lot of unimportant news to tell as well as to receive. 
 From the opposite steps we climbed a rather steep hill 
 and crossed the road leading down Emu Point, where the 
 river makes another loop and where, then, there was a 
 horse-ferry. 
 
 Through a gate in a paling fence, and down a short 
 avenue of bunya trees, and there we were. The house 
 faced the further bend of the river — a long stone cottage 
 with wide verandas and an attic story. The garden lay 
 in terraces, with a big banana and pine-apple plantation 
 at the bottom. It was a straggling, delightful old garden,
 
 28 SISTER SORROW 
 
 with trellises of grapes and granadillas and plenty of 
 fruit trees. Thither, by a side path, rushed Bee and Bel. 
 
 Outside the back veranda, the Barolin dray was tilted. 
 Crates, trunks and general baggage strewed the place. 
 Andy Catt and his wife were busy with the live-stock. 
 
 After having made a short and depressing survey of 
 dilapidations, we found there was indeed plenty to be 
 done. No time now to discuss prophetic dreams and 
 emissaries of Fate in the shape of Mr. Phil Wilkins, and 
 perhaps — I thought — another stranger suggesting — to me 
 at least — even more romantic possibilities. 
 
 The drawing-room certainly needed " arting up." 
 The house looked as a house always does when tenants 
 have recently vacated it — only much more so. 
 
 It was a comfortable and substantial house — I believe 
 one of the early Commissioners of the Colony had lived 
 in it, and, unlike many of the early houses, it was built 
 of stone. The living-rooms and chief bedrooms gave by 
 French windows on an enormously wide veranda — a 
 living-room in itself, closed in at one end and with deep 
 eaves, and a high railing — railings, eaves and veranda- 
 posts festooned with creepers. A broad flight of steps 
 led to the first terrace of the garden. The oleanders were 
 in blossom and a magnificent coral-tree dropped red 
 petals. Second-bloom roses rioted everywhere. The wind 
 from the river brought a load of mixed perfumes. 
 
 The day passed with amazing swiftness,- work broken 
 only by a scrap luncheon. Clara arrived late in the 
 afternoon, dusty, perspiring and incongruous, her head 
 more than ever like that of a weather-beaten doll, with 
 a wisp of flaxen grey hair falling over her left cheek and 
 the skin of her face looking as if the wax had begun to 
 melt. One of the embroidered panels of her plum-coloured 
 silk dress dipped round her feet : the other she held up 
 with a podgy hand, the wrist of which showed scarlet 
 above the moist patches on her purple kid gloves. Her 
 shopping had been successful. The Clerk of the Council's 
 wife, whom she had opportunely encountered, had helped 
 her to choose the lappets " better than you could have
 
 SISTER SORROW 29 
 
 done, Agatha — for of course she knew what the old 
 Chairman's had been like." 
 
 Then after a full description of the purchase, Clara 
 walked round, pleasantly surprised. We had contrived 
 to mask the worst of the dilapidations. 
 
 " My word ! you have done wonders. Why, you've 
 made the place seem quite homelike. No more of that 
 horrid hotel for me. Your father and any of the rest of 
 you that like, can stop there to-night, but I shall camp 
 here in my own room." 
 
 Clara sank into a squatter's chair on the veranda and 
 held a parade of the fowls which were officered by Andy 
 and Mrs. Catt — the Spanish layers — the stately Brahmas 
 and a " broody " Cochin China hen who had been sitting 
 conscientiously on a mock egg during her journey in the 
 dray. 
 
 Clara admonished the prospective mother : she always 
 talked to her hens as if they were reasoning beings. 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Gracchus, you've got to provide a pair of 
 fine fat chickens for Father's Ministerial dinner-party," 
 she said, and paused doubtfully. " I wonder if it will 
 be quite right for a Chairman of Committees to invite 
 the Executive Council to dinner. Will it, Agatha ? " 
 
 I asked " Why not ? " 
 
 As senior member of the Legislative Council it had 
 been Father's custom to give a homely sort of dinner to 
 his circle of male friends — which included the squatting 
 members of the Executive Council — during our yearly 
 stay in Leichardt's Town, while the House was sitting. 
 
 " Well, I suppose in a kind of way they're his bosses 
 now," said Clara. " And being Chairman of Committees 
 seems a sort of come-down for your father. ... At 
 least, I know that's how he feels it. . . . Anyway," she 
 added, " I'll get him to put off his dinner till nearer the 
 end of the session, and that would give Mrs. Gracchus 
 more time — nothing looks so well on the table as a pair 
 of fine Cochins. — And besides, the Executive — or some 
 of them — will have asked us to dinner, and of course we 
 should have to make a proper return."
 
 30 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Mrs. Gracchus clucked irritably. The Cochin cock 
 strutted on to the veranda. A quarrel arose among the 
 Spanish laying hens and some of them flew over the 
 railings into the garden. Andy Catt and his wife and 
 Bee and Bel went helter-skelter after them. In the 
 midst of the scrimmage, the bell of a big steamer sounded 
 from the river. 
 
 " Why, whatever are they bringing the Princess Maui 
 back for ? " exclaimed Clara. " It was only this morning 
 she started north and now here she is, being towed back 
 up the river." 
 
 Dody and I both turned from the step-ladder, on which 
 I had been perched, nailing up draperies at the drawing- 
 room windows, while she steadied the ladder and held 
 hammer and nails in readiness. We looked at the river 
 over the veranda railings. 
 
 It was evident there had been an accident. The big 
 passenger steamer was wobbling helplessly behind a 
 noisy tug which puffed volumes of black smoke. 
 
 Talk of Fate ! Here was the other stranger forced to 
 put back into port. Was it written that we should meet 
 again — so soon ? Instantly, I felt ashamed of the thought 
 having come into my mind. W T ell, Mr. Helsing would 
 reach the wharf in time to get to the hotel for dinner. 
 
 Father came presently to see if we were going over to 
 dine at the Bellevue. But Clara would not be parted 
 from her hens and her household gods and still said she 
 meant to camp in her own room. 
 
 I promised to keep her company, though my bedroom 
 was in a state of chaos. No, after my lecture to Dolores, 
 I would certainly not go a step to meet the Idealistic 
 Student that evening. 
 
 Dolores and the children went back with Father. It 
 was arranged that they should pack up that night and 
 return to The Bunyas for good, early the next morning. 
 
 " And at this rate we shall have the house perfectly 
 ready by dinner-time to-morrow — straight enough to 
 receive thejaovernor if he wanted to come," said Clara 
 gleefully.
 
 SISTER SORROW 31 
 
 Not that there was any conceivable likelihood of the 
 Governor wanting to come. 
 
 I hadn't a chance of saying a word to Dolores about 
 that dream of hers which I still only vaguely recalled in 
 detail, though I had a distinct remembrance of the 
 " creepy " feeling her way of telling it had given me. 
 
 VI 
 
 I THOUGHT of the dream later on as I lay awake 
 on my own bed under hastily put up mosquito- 
 curtains which had gaps that let the pests in. Mosquitoes 
 are always more vicious at the end of summer. We 
 had none among the Ubi mountains, but here to-night 
 they buzzed round my head and put me into a fever of 
 wakefulness. 
 
 I put on my dressing-gown and tucked myself into a 
 cane chair on the veranda. It was very lovely out there. 
 The moon, close on the full, was shining over the river, 
 making a broad slanting road of milky light. Along the 
 opposite shore, lay strange-shaped blotches of shadow 
 where clumps of bamboos and a few tall gum-trees were 
 eerily reflected so that they looked like monstrous crea- 
 tures floating on the water. The lights of river-craft 
 and their reflections seemed double red stars dropped into 
 the stream. The humped shapes of cida retusa and lantama 
 shrubs which grew in the little paddock between our garden 
 and the river, made me think of heraldic, couchant beasts. 
 In the garden were more ghostly shapes of trees and 
 blossoms — the black pyramids of bunyas : the pale 
 oleanders : the spectral sheaves of white yucca, and a 
 datura, shaking great creamy bells. A wind from the 
 river, drove before it a blend of strong odours, and as 
 the gusts went sweeping through the broad banana- 
 fronds in the plantation, they made strange sibilant 
 noises, tearing the great leaf-banners into tatters. 
 
 Except for the wind in the leaves, everything was
 
 32 SISTER SORROW 
 
 still. Only, every now and then, a boatman's call, the 
 long musical " O-O-O-ver" of the ferryman starting to 
 cross the river. 
 
 There on the veranda, as I lay curled up in my chair, 
 feeling now a sort of dreamy wide-awakeness, I thought 
 of many things concerning, chiefly, Dolores Lloyd. A 
 crowd of incidents and impressions pressed on my mind, 
 which went back now over the year and a half that she 
 had lived with us. 
 
 To me the coming of Dody was an Event, and there 
 seemed to me something fatalistic in the way in which 
 she became governess to Bee and Bel. 
 
 It had been Father's dream for years to make a trip 
 " Home." He was only waiting for this until financial 
 matters should look up a bit and till the two girls were 
 old enough to benefit by foreign travel. That was Clara's 
 idea. Certainly, her own educational shortcomings had 
 imbued her with the desire to make accomplished women 
 of her daughters. She wished them to learn French and 
 German and music, and to be generally instructed as to 
 the art and literature of the countries they were going 
 to visit in that wonderful Grand Tour which, alas ! was 
 never to be. Clara did not put it in those words when 
 she talked to me about the Great Project, but that was 
 what she meant. Except as listener and elementary 
 adviser I didn't count to her for much in her plans. She 
 didn't seem to think it of any consequence that I didn't 
 speak French, and did not know a word of German. Save 
 in so far that 1 served as an example of how little a Sydney 
 boarding-school education was worth in those primitive 
 times. Her girls were going to do better than that. 
 Neither Father nor she had ever thought of getting an 
 accomplished English governess for me. 
 
 Inwardly, I resented the neglect, but it made me all 
 the keener when Dody did come, to get help towards 
 repairing my deficiencies. 
 
 Of course! I knew that Clara had never classed me with 
 her own children. She had never looked upon me as 
 a, charge in regard to whom she held any responsibility.
 
 SISTER SORROW 33 
 
 I am not sure even whether they reckoned me in as a 
 member of the party in their calculations about the 
 European trip. Now that I was of age, they considered, 
 no doubt, that I should choose for myself. For, you see, 
 I had my mother's money — five hundred a year of my 
 very own — from my twenty-first birthday. 
 
 My coming of age had happened a year and a few months 
 previously — not very long before Dolores Lloyd appeared 
 on the scene. 
 
 Somehow, my having that money, seemed to make a 
 difference in my relations with Father. I do not remember 
 his ever being the same to me as he was to my half-sisters. 
 I never understood why, but I was conscious of the fact 
 even when I used to come home for holidays from that 
 boarding school in Sydney where I was mainly brought 
 up. It was not a very good school, judging by results. 
 But I know that Father chose it as being the best 
 then available. I know, too, that he was ultra conscien- 
 tious in his expenditure upon me. There was a certain 
 bitterness in his allusions to that expenditure which, on 
 thinking it over after I had grown up, I could only account 
 for on the supposition that he had assumed he would have 
 the use of my mother's money during his lifetime and 
 was annoyed that, beyond a maintenance allowance, she 
 had put the whole in trust to accumulate until I should 
 reach twenty-one. The fortune had been left her un- 
 expectedly shortly before her death. Perhaps that fact 
 added to Father's bitterness. Perhaps also, it had had 
 something to do with his speedy second marriage. 
 
 I was happy enough at the school though I am sure that 
 I learned much more from the books I read at Barolin and 
 in my thinkings during solitary rides and walks among 
 the gum-trees after I came home, than I had ever done 
 in the class-room. 
 
 When the time came, my fortune was handed over to me 
 to do with it as I might please. Father refrained scrupu- 
 lously from advice or question concerning it, and curtly 
 refused to let me invest part of the money, as I wished 
 to do, in any of his own stations. So I was thrown upon
 
 34 SISTER SORROW 
 
 the counsels of my bank -manager and upon such small 
 business faculty as I possessed for guidance in the manage- 
 ment of my affairs. Then, besides, Father was too proud 
 to let me pay anything towards my keep, much as I 
 wanted to supplement the family funds. One might 
 imagine, therefore, that my position at home was rather 
 a difficult one and that I often felt lonely and misunder- 
 stood. It was natural that in the Bush, where we had 
 few neighbours, I should welcome the companionship of 
 a girl near my own age. 
 
 Clara had for some time been trying to find an accom- 
 plished English governess for Bee and Bel. There had 
 been applications by several calling themselves accom- 
 plished, who had not justified their claim. / knew enough 
 to assure Clara of that. She got me to make inquiries 
 among Sydney friends and one of these recommended 
 a certain Miss Lloyd. 
 
 The friend had brought Miss Lloyd out from England 
 as companion to her young daughter. But the daughter 
 had become engaged on the voyage, had married soon 
 after landing in Australia, and almost immediately had 
 gone back to Europe with her husband. 
 
 So, there was the accomplished governess going begging. 
 Miss Lloyd's late employer wrote enthusiastically about the 
 shy, quiet and exceptionally well-educated young woman. 
 An orphan ; the only child of a Welsh mining speculator 
 who had given his daughter every purchasable advantage 
 at home and abroad, and who then, after suddenly losing 
 everything he possessed, had died of heart disease, leaving 
 the girl penniless on the world. 
 
 She was described in such glowing terms — as sweet, 
 gentle, refined, a little dreamy and naturally still saddened 
 by trouble, but so eminently suited to be the companion 
 and instructress of young girls, that Clara engaged her 
 straightway on the report. Father took the buggy down 
 to Leichardt's Town, met her on the steamer and drove 
 her up to Bar5lin. 
 
 I remember well that summer evening — nearly two 
 years ago — when she arrived. There were floods — Father
 
 SISTER SORROW 35 
 
 told us it had been a swim for the buggy-horses crossing 
 the Ubi. A fearsome experience for a timid English girl 
 who had never been in the Bush in her life. 
 
 I can see her now standing in the doorway — drenched, 
 dazed ; dark, limp hair loose ; dark wild eyes with pupils 
 distended like the eyes of a frightened animal : little round 
 face ghastly white ; pale lips, scarcely able to stutter replies 
 to greetings and questionings. Then, all of a sudden, 
 collapse on the floor in a dead faint. 
 
 Things didn't look promising when, after a few days, 
 she recovered strength. Clara's common sense fought with 
 her kind heart. At the outside, she gave Miss Lloyd 
 three months, though oddly enough, Bee and Bel took 
 to their lessons and to the new governess also — perhaps 
 because she was totally incapable of dominating them 
 and because she made their lessons interesting as none 
 of their other governesses had been able to do. Still, 
 it seemed that as a bush governess Miss Lloyd had mistaken 
 her vocation. She could not ride, and shrank at first from 
 any attempt at mounting a horse. She was terrified at 
 the gum-grown wilderness, shuddered at the sight of 
 blacks and ran for her life if she happened to meet a 
 working bullock or a harmless milker. Snakes, scorpions 
 and centipedes were a haunting terror by day and night, 
 which would have been quite excusable if she had not 
 been equally filled with alarm at every other unfamiliar 
 living thing. Except the little birds. She would watch 
 the bower-birds adorning their runs for hours together, 
 though she loathed hawks and regarded the laughing- 
 jackass as an incarnation of the Fiend. She fled shrieking 
 from an iguana scuttling through the blady grass. She 
 had a fit of hysterics one night when a few dingoes howled 
 in the scrub. Nothing would persuade her that they 
 were not a pack of fierce wolves waiting for the lights 
 of the head-station to go out before descending upon its 
 sleeping inhabitants. 
 
 It was lucky for all that when she had been at BarSlin 
 two or three weeks and Clara had made up her mind 
 that Miss Lloyd must be " given notice " at the end of
 
 36 SISTER SORROW 
 
 her month, there came along a German geologist to examine 
 the formation of the Ubi hills. He put up at Barolin for 
 a week. His English was poor and he found considerable 
 difficulty in explaining himself. What was his delight 
 to discover in the governess someone who spoke his language 
 fluently, was acquainted with his country's literature and 
 played his country's music ! He put it beyond all doubt 
 that Miss Lloyd's German was all right. It was Clara's 
 plan to include Germany in the Grand Tour, and so after 
 the Professor's visit, she changed her mind about giving 
 Miss Lloyd notice. 
 
 But this was not all. By the oddest coincidence, 
 following the German, a French globe-trotter turned up 
 at Barolin — a certain Marquis d'Avesnes, keen after 
 kangaroo-hunting. Again Dolores scored a triumph, and 
 now, there was no question at all of her being sent away. 
 
 On the contrary, foreign languages boomed. We bought 
 and tackled grammars and " First Courses " with 
 enthusiasm. We held conversation classes on the veranda 
 — Miss Lloyd of course presiding — amid bursts of laughter, 
 which effectually broke any ice that could possibly have 
 existed that hot summer weather. There was no longer 
 a slump in governesses. 
 
 Even Clara learned a few elementary French phrases, 
 and I got Dolores to give me private lessons out of school 
 hours — she wept indignantly when I hinted at supple- 
 mentary fees. And this was the starting-point of a 
 friendship which — apart from my love for husband and 
 child — has been the deepest affection of my life. Yet 
 " apart from " is not the right expression. My love for 
 Dolores has been strangely and inextricably bound up 
 with those closer ties of flesh and spirit. Indeed, some- 
 times it has seemed to me that my feeling for Dolores in 
 its later phases had spiritual potencies which no other 
 love has ever equalled. As time and conditions developed 
 the bond, bringing into it some of the higher elements, 
 and as my own mind grew more receptive of world-old 
 truths, I was brought to the belief that there could be no 
 such recent starting-point for an association like ours. It
 
 SISTER SORROW 37 
 
 seemed far more reasonable to conclude that it had existed 
 in past lives and that our attraction towards each other 
 in this one, was the result of subconscious recognition. 
 
 We should never then, however, have thought of that 
 explanation, nor did I realize for a considerable time 
 afterwards that the bond between us was a very different 
 thing from the enthusiastic friendship of two young girls. 
 
 Father and Clara used to chaff us about our romantic 
 devotion, and I think poor old Clara was a little bit jealous 
 of it, both on her own account and on that of Bee and 
 Bel. But she soon got over the small resentment when 
 she saw that instead of leading my own life more or less 
 outside hers and my half-sisters', I now joined in the 
 schoolroom life and that the companionship resulted in 
 a more general harmony. 
 
 There is no doubt that it was the element of romance 
 in Dolores which first appealed to me. Her very name 
 was romantic. " Sister Sorrow " I sometimes called her, 
 half in jest when we were very happy. For one of Dody's 
 earliest confidences was the tragic little story of her 
 baptism. 
 
 We had been reading in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, then 
 just published, that wonderful bit of writing which describes 
 how Tess baptized her dying baby, and Dody said seriously : 
 
 " My name too is Sorrow." 
 
 " Dolores ! " I said. 
 
 " No. Sorrow — the English word. . . . It's because 
 I meant to my father the worst sorrow he could possibly 
 have had to bear. . . . You see," she went on, ' he 
 adored my mother, and they had not been married a 
 year when a carriage accident brought on my birth pre- 
 maturely, and she died. My old nurse Hersey told me 
 about it when I was grown up. Father was mad with 
 grief and for days would not speak nor eat and he 
 couldn't bear to see me or to hear of my existence. Nobody 
 expected that I would live, but they thought I ought to 
 be christened and Hersey was sent to ask him what I 
 should be called. She told me how he was sitting reading 
 his Bible and that his finger was on the words . . . ' behold
 
 38 SISTER SORROW 
 
 and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.' . . . He 
 looked up at her and shook his head at the names she 
 suggested and then all the answer she could get from 
 him was ' Name her Sorrow.' ... So I was christened 
 Sorrow." 
 
 " Poor little baby-child ! But surely they didn't 
 really call you Sorrow ? " I said. 
 
 " I hadn't got any other name. . . . The worst of it 
 was that I didn't die though they almost despaired of 
 rearing me. I had water on the brain when I was a baby. 
 . . . Have you noticed my forehead ? " She lifted the 
 lock of soft dark hair which hung over nearly to her eyebrow 
 hiding the middle of her forehead : and I saw there a 
 slight puffiness and an indentation like a small dimple — 
 not enough to be the least disfigurement, but I used to 
 notice that when she was not well or worried about 
 anything, the indentation hardly observable ordinarily, 
 would become more marked. 
 
 ' I got quite over all that," she said ; " and do you know 
 I've heard that children with a tendency to water on the 
 brain often grow up very clever. Not that I'm clever 
 exactly. . . . But I have ideas ... I have ideas." . . . 
 She paused ruminatively. 
 
 " Perhaps you might think the ideas — me altogether — 
 a little queer," she said, smiling whimsically. " At 
 least other people have thought so. . . . But I've always 
 had the ideas — they seem to me perfectly natural. . . . 
 And I do assure you, Agatha, that I am a good governess. 
 Wherever I've taught, they've said that. . . . It's because 
 I make my pupils interested in what I'm teaching them 
 — that is if they are not so terre-d-lerre as to be absolutely 
 impossible ... I did think at first that it would be 
 impossible here. . . . But now — you see ! " 
 
 I recalled her to the question of her name. She had 
 a way, ' I soon discovered, of wandering off on bypaths, 
 in her talk. 
 
 " Yes, my name. No, they didn't call me Sorrow. 
 When my poor father saw that I wasn't going to die, 
 he troubled very much about having given me such an
 
 SISTER SORROW 39 
 
 unlucky name and tried all he could to counteract the 
 bad omen — not with great success, I'm afraid. He wanted 
 to change the sound, if he could not alter the meaning, and 
 hit upon Dolores — my mother was partly Spanish. — So 
 I became Dolores — much too fanciful, isn't it, for a gover- 
 ness ? It's only in legal papers that I have to sign myself 
 Sorrow. Then I had a lot of pet names besides — Lola — 
 Lorie — and Dody which was what my father called me." 
 
 That was how I came to call her Dody. 
 
 Dolores was quite right in what she said about her 
 management of her pupils. She had entirely conquered 
 those two hitherto impracticable Bush tomboys, my 
 half-sisters. Clara was amazed at their unaccustomed 
 docility towards their new governess. For the first 
 day or two, they watched her in open-mouthed curiosity 
 and wonder. Then they tried bullying tactics and found 
 there was nothing there to bully nor any need for tactics. 
 Miss Lloyd only stared at them with round, frightened 
 eyes and shrank from them as she shrank from blacks, 
 iguanas, jew-lizards and other monstrosities of the Bush. 
 Bee and Bel did not like being regarded as monstrosities. 
 They preferred to take up the role of protectresses. This 
 called forth some shy expression of gratitude from Dolores 
 and a timid attempt to amuse and interest them. She 
 succeeded in interesting them extraordinarily. They 
 adopted her as a new sort of pet. She was so different 
 from anyone else who had ever been put in authority over 
 them. But it never would have occurred to Dolores 
 herself to assert her authority. She could not possibly 
 have enforced it. On ordinary levels, the girls held her 
 in pitying contempt. It was they who had to take care 
 of her out of school instead of her taking care of them. 
 She was so stupid — as they said — except about " booky 
 things." They used to tell me their observations and 
 conclusions concerning her, though they carefully concealed 
 her deficiencies from their mother. . . . She was ridiculously 
 stupid — never could give an answer back ; hadn't a 
 notion of chaff or playing up to people. When she wasn't 
 teaching or talking about " booky things " she just mooned
 
 40 SISTER SORROW 
 
 along " like a stray calf," said Mrs. Catt, who never fancied 
 Miss Lloyd, and did not hold with " arting up " principles 
 as applied to Bee and Bel, whom she considered perfect 
 as they were. Clara's verdict was, in Bush vernacular, 
 " that Miss Lloyd was short of a sheet of bark," and Father 
 agreed with her. 
 
 But in time they admitted that it was a form of lunacy 
 which rather added to her attractiveness and certainly 
 did not detract from her merit as a governess — in this 
 particular situation at any rate. She put romance into 
 the lessons in a quite natural and unconscious manner 
 just as she herself had imbibed romance. She did not 
 seem to be teaching : she seemed to be merely taking 
 one back upon her own steps — unwinding her own particular 
 roll of cinematograph records and so making all that she 
 herself had learned vivid and vital. I suppose that was 
 her secret when she made history — the bits she knew — 
 so picturesque and living. Though I am certain she never 
 thought of it at all in that light. 
 
 She knew a lot of quaint folklore of different countries 
 she had lived in, and would tell it in her queer, dreamy 
 way as we sat by the river-bank or walked in the Bush : 
 and she would make our scrubs and gum-grown gorges 
 interchangeable as a background for legend with German 
 pine-forests, Swiss mountains and the volcanic hills, chest- 
 nut woods and medieval castles of Auvergne where she 
 had spent a year or two. 
 
 " Oh, but she is queer," said Bel. " But she is sort of 
 fascinating when she likes." 
 
 All this, however, evolved gradually. At the very 
 beginning, the German professor and the French Marquis 
 did a great deal towards stimulating romantic apprecia- 
 tion. They opened vistas. The German professor's 
 bow and the way in which he kissed the hands of Clara 
 and the governess at his departure were a revelation of 
 courtly manners. He was a " Herr Baron " — he had 
 confided in Dolores and she told the children — who for 
 the sake of socialism and science had given up a good 
 position and come wandering. And then the Marquis,
 
 SISTER SORROW 41 
 
 — that was another revelation. The vistas he opened up 
 — through Dolores' interpretations — were of the nature of 
 a coup d'ceil from the terraces of Versailles. The magnifi- 
 cences of the old regime all in keeping with his beautiful 
 manners and the exquisiteness of his compliments to Miss 
 Lloyd upon her mastery of his language. He stayed only 
 three days at Barolin, but those three days convinced 
 Clara anew, that at any cost and in spite of any short- 
 comings and drawbacks, the new English governess must 
 remain. 
 
 Fate had intervened. The Baron and the Marquis 
 were Destiny's instruments. That was how it seemed 
 to Dody and to me when we talked it over — we very soon 
 touched tentatively the " Dody " and " Gagsie " stage. 
 Fate had not intended that our friendship with all the 
 new interests and ideas and the companionship for which 
 we both hungered should be nipped before it had even 
 begun to bud. 
 
 VII 
 
 THE Dream ! Ah, yes, the Dream ! 
 I knew that I had it, written down as she had 
 told it to me, and all my interest and the thrill of its 
 creepiness, revived. I wanted to read it over again. So 
 I got out of the cane chair. The mosquitoes had slackened 
 their onslaught and taken refuge in the creepers from the 
 heightened wind. 
 
 The terrace, the veranda boards were still blotched with 
 strange shadows, but the moon's silvery track across 
 the river had shifted. The clock of Emu Point church 
 struck one as I relighted the candle in my room. 
 
 Groping under the bed, I found and pulled forth a 
 locked tin box — a lawyer's deed-box with my name, 
 " Miss Agatha Carfax," painted in running white letters 
 upon it — which always lived in that place and had been 
 carefully put there when the dray was unloaded. 
 
 The box was supposed to contain legal documents to
 
 42 SISTER SORROW 
 
 do with my inheritance. As a matter of fact, my business 
 papers were mostly at the bank and the most precious 
 things in my tin box were manuscripts of stories and 
 diaries. These last were not records of private events, 
 nor of my own heart-searchings, for I had no personal 
 drama in those days, had never been even faintly brushed 
 by Love's wings and knew only one consuming desire. 
 That was to express my soul in the writing of novels. 
 I wanted to be a real novelist — some day. So my diaries 
 consisted almost entirely of ideas, impressionist studies 
 of people and realistic studies of nature, designed, after 
 the method of Flaubert, as a means of perfecting myself in 
 the art of description. My diaries had swelled enormously 
 since the coming of Dolores Lloyd. Indeed, my literary 
 aspirations, the fund of romance in her : the sympathy 
 and help she gave me, made in large part the bond 
 between us. 
 
 Yet I confess that I was sometimes disappointed in 
 Dolores as a critic. You could not put her intelligence 
 into technical harness. Though she taught languages 
 so well, she seemed to know them by instinct, not by rule, 
 and to impart them by the grace of her own personality. 
 The same with her history lessons, delightful as they 
 were. She was hopeless about dates and simply could 
 not have traced in approximate sequence, the course of 
 civilization in the rise and fall of great nations. There 
 were big gaps in her knowledge on most subjects and 
 links missing everywhere, just as there were strange gaps 
 and lapses in her own individuality. 
 
 I found The Dream with difficulty in the last but one 
 of my diary volumes, which was filled almost entirely 
 with impressions of Dolores. 
 
 Here is the entry under date of June the 12th in the 
 previous year. 
 
 THE DREAM 
 
 Dolores told me this morning of a strange dream she 
 had last night, which has made a great impression upon 
 her. It was her way of telling it that impressed me. I
 
 SISTER SORROW 43 
 
 told her she looked like Cassandra and that of course no 
 one would believe in the dream being prophetic. Dolores 
 doesn't know anything about the Greek dramatists, and 
 so I am going to read her The Agamemnon in my Bohn 
 translation as soon as she has got over a little of her scared 
 feeling about the dream. She believes firmly that some 
 day she will meet the man she saw in her dream and that 
 he will influence her life. . . . Well, I wonder ! . . . Any- 
 how, I hope the dream may not come true yet awhile. 
 I am going to write it down so that we may not forget it. 
 Not that Dolores seems at all likely to forget it. 
 
 I shall write it as nearly as I can in her own words. 
 
 She said : 
 
 " I dreamed that I was by the sea-shore, in a place 
 that I have never seen. I think it must have been in 
 Australia because I have an impression of gum-trees and 
 scrub at the back, though they did not come into the 
 dream-picture. 
 
 " I was standing on the shore of a sort of inlet of the 
 sea. It looked almost like a lake for there was a row 
 of tiny islands across the entrance of the little bay — some, 
 mere bare bits of rock, some, a little larger, with two or 
 three cocoanut palms growing on them. I could see water- 
 ways between the islands, and the open sea beyond as far 
 as the horizon. I saw, too, many sea-birds perching on 
 the rocks and swooping and circling above them. 
 
 " There were two small but high headlands closing in at 
 each end the bay in which I stood. One of these headlands 
 was a rounded bluff from which in places the earth had 
 fallen away leaving big red rocks sticking up in the side 
 near me in jagged points and fantastic shapes. I noticed 
 one rock in particular because it reminded me of those 
 enormous white-ants' nests of reddish clay that are on 
 the ridge at the foot of Mount Ubi. . . . 
 
 ..." And that was a strange thing about my dream 
 and made it seem quite real," Dody said. " I knew all 
 the time that I was myself and I remembered that I 
 lived at Barolin. . . . 
 
 " Well, my dream-rock was like one of those ant-beds
 
 44 SISTER SORROW 
 
 with two peaks, only that between the peaks there grew 
 an old bread-fruit tree : its roots — you know — like the 
 spikes of an umbrella turned upside down — broken off 
 and splintered from age and the tuft of big leaves 
 half withered and flopping down where the stem of the 
 tree slanted out from the rock against the sea. It im- 
 pressed me — that tree — so old and solitary — so weird 
 and desolate. . . . 
 
 " The whole place seemed weird. There was a very high 
 cliff behind the beach, and it threw a dark shadow. The 
 bay went back in a curious shape like the letter ' S,' with 
 the point of the cliff, at the other end, turning round on 
 itself and the top edge seeming sharp as a knife. Looking 
 beyond that point, I saw stretching out a short distance 
 off, a long promontory with a rocky hump at the end and 
 a lighthouse upon it standing up grimly against the sky 
 which was purplish red and stormy. The sun was setting 
 behind my cliff and threw a red tinge over everything. 
 The sea beyond the lighthouse had streaks on it of red 
 and purple : the little bay was purple-red too — I thought 
 of a lake of wine. . . . There were strange-shaped clouds 
 low down in the sky, over the lighthouse and the little 
 islands — clouds half human in form . . . like great angels 
 in wine-coloured robes, and their feet seemed to touch the 
 sea. . . . 
 
 " . . . In my dream I had it pressing on me that 
 there was something I must do. . . . Something — someone 
 was urging me along. ... I seemed to have no will of 
 my own : it was a power I could not resist. ... I didn't 
 want to resist. . . . The power carried me out of myself. 
 . . . But the beach was dreadfully rough to walk on — 
 all strewn with sharp-pointed stones that hurt my feet. 
 All the time, I was stumbling, falling, picking myself up 
 . . . but always going on — my eyes on the sand in which 
 the stones were partly embedded. I felt that I should 
 have liked to stop and gather some of the beautiful shells 
 and the sea-weed and coral in the pools and on the patches 
 of sand : but I knew that I must not stay. . . . Then I 
 felt myself being called across the water, and I looked
 
 SISTER SORROW 45 
 
 over the bay and saw a boat with one man in it, rowing. 
 He lifted his oars for a minute and leaned over the boat 
 and beckoned me. . . . The red light shone on his face 
 and made it look red too. ... Oh ! such a strong face — 
 something unlike every other face about it . . . rough- 
 cut — bony. I can't describe it, but I should know it if 
 I ever saw it in reality. . . . Then when I looked into 
 the man's eyes, the face was nothing. . . . There was 
 nothing left of it but the eyes. ... I couldn't have turned 
 mine away. . . . The eyes fascinated me . . . they held 
 me. . . . They seemed to be drawing my strength — my 
 very self into them . . . taking all my will out of me. 
 . . . But there was a kind of ecstasy in letting myself 
 go. ... I didn't wish to have any will of my own. ... I 
 wanted only, to be with him ... to do only what he willed. 
 . . . He was willing me to go to him . . . through the 
 waves . . . forcing me. . . . And I wanted to go. . . . 
 I remembered in the dream that I couldn't swim, but that 
 didn't matter. ... I didn't think about being drowned. 
 . . . His eyes were magnets . . . drawing me. ... I 
 couldn't have held back any more than the needle can 
 hold back when the magnet pulls it. . . . My feet were in 
 the water. ... I could feel the shock of its being cold — 
 though that was just for a moment. ... I walked out 
 into the sea. . . . All the while, his eyes were drawing 
 me, and there was a wild sort of gleam in them, and he 
 laughed as if he were glad. . . . The water came up to 
 my knees — and then round my body ... it didn't feel 
 cold any longer ... I was so happy. ... I should reach 
 him ... he would put out his arms to me and take me 
 into the boat and row me away . . . away . . . away. 
 ... I seemed to know now that this was what 
 all my life I had been longing for. . . . The water came 
 up higher . . . past my waist ... to my breasts. . . . 
 And he laughed again. . . . And then I saw that the 
 boat was moving — that he was pulling with the oars — 
 bending over them . . . pulling hard ... to get away 
 from me. ... He was pulling to the islands. . . . And 
 I had lost my footing. ... I was in deep water. . . . He
 
 46 SISTER SORROW 
 
 turned his head once and looked at me again. ... I 
 screamed to him to save me . . . that I was drowning. 
 . . . And he laughed . . . laughed : and pulled on again. 
 . . . The water went over me. . . . Through the roar 
 of the sea I heard his laugh. . . . And then I sank . . . 
 down . . . down . . . down. . . . And I awoke." 
 
 Reading over Dolores' account of her dream, then, in 
 the dead of night by the light of my guttering candle, 
 I certainly felt for the first minute or two, something of 
 the old eerie thrill come back upon me. But when I 
 got up from the floor and deliberately tried to reason the 
 thing out, I found the echo of that first impression weaken- 
 ing and told myself that the experience was not so very 
 wonderful after all. 
 
 The description, as she has given, might apply to any 
 man with a strong rather rugged face, a peculiar intensity 
 of gaze. She hadn't even mentioned the colour of his 
 eyes, nor the marked ridge of brow. However clear the 
 dream-vision may have been in her subconscious mind 
 it had become vague of outline when put into words, 
 and what outline there was lacked distinctive detail. The 
 only one — that poking forward of the head would have 
 been natural to the man's position in the boat. She had 
 said nothing of the great hunched shoulders : the long 
 lean throat : the diagonal, wedge-like conformation of 
 the head. Nothing about the hands, though she had 
 said that he beckoned to her. Nothing of the red seam 
 in the wrist — though again distance might have prevented 
 observation in that respect. Nothing of the most charac- 
 teristic points in Mr. Wilkins' gestures and appearance. 
 No. The more I thought about it all, the more I felt 
 that Dody's vivid imagination was responsible for her 
 belief. And then pondering upon Dolores herself, I 
 realized how very weird she was. The uncanny side of 
 her had never come so forcibly before me as it had done 
 to-day. I began to be almost afraid. Could it be that 
 there was something much more wrong with her than a 
 mere " shingle loose " — that she was subject to_fits of
 
 SISTER SORROW 47 
 
 mental aberration — obsessing ideas, seizing her suddenly 
 as this one had done ? 
 
 Well, however it might be, I was not going to let myself 
 fall under the spell of a dream. If Dody were hysterical, 
 I wouldn't be hysterical too. 
 
 There was a good deal of excuse for Dolores — and perhaps 
 for any silliness in me too. We had had all the excitement 
 of packing and leaving Barolin, and upon that, the fatigue 
 of a long rough journey. . . . Then the stir and rush of 
 the hotel, and the meeting with those two men, both so 
 different from the ordinary run of bushmen, had been 
 stimulating to the imagination. . . . 
 
 Come to that, I had only to shut my eyes — not even 
 to shut them — and another pair of eyes, dark blue, grave, 
 questioning eyes, rose up before me. . . . Why, I might 
 even dream of those eyes. 
 
 Glamour ! 
 
 I was sitting on the side of the bed : for when I had got 
 up from the floor, with one side cramped and a foot asleep, 
 I had had to wait till the pins and needles ceased pricking, 
 before even my reasoning faculty could become active. 
 Now I put away the diary book, relocked the tin box 
 and pushed it back into its place beneath the bed. Three 
 minutes later, I lay under the sheet again, the guttering 
 candle blown : and in three more minutes I was fast 
 asleep. 
 
 I did not dream of those dark blue eyes. I slept as 
 sound and lay as still as a dead gum log for the rest of 
 the night. 
 
 VIII 
 
 DOLORES LLOYD, Bee and Bel, and the hotel 
 luggage came in a cab across to Emu Point by the 
 Punt Ferry. 
 
 Clara had told them to breakfast early and get over 
 in good time to begin the day's settling in.
 
 48 SISTER SORROW 
 
 I was thinking of the Idealistic Student when I asked 
 Dolores : 
 
 " Did you see anyone before you started ? " and she 
 showed with utter simplicity the trend of her own thoughts 
 when she answered : 
 
 " No, Mr. Wilkins wasn't down. . . . Nor Mr. Carfax," 
 she added as an after-thought. Bee put in : 
 
 " Dad sat up ever so late. I could hear them all talking 
 in the smoking-room, through my window, long after 
 I had gone to bed." Then, to her mother's question : 
 " Yes, Dad did all the paying and the tipping for us, last 
 night." 
 
 " It'll have come to a pretty penny, just for that day 
 and a half," grumbled Clara. ' We should have done 
 far better if the whole boiling of us had driven straight 
 here and camped on the dirty floors." 
 
 " Then Dad wouldn't have sold his second lot of 
 cattle to Mr. Wilkins, and we shouldn't have had 
 half such a good time either," retorted Bee in her pert 
 fashion. 
 
 " Mr. Phil Wilkins told a lot of splendid yarns at dinner 
 last night. My word ! he did make us laugh," put in 
 Bel. 
 
 " What sort of yarns ? " 
 
 ' Oh ! about Indians trying to scalp him, and about 
 gold-digging and shooting buffaloes and all kinds of 
 things. ... I say, Gagsie, Miss Lloyd took a regular 
 rise out of Mr. Wilkins with her thought-reading — didn't 
 you, Miss Lloyd ? " 
 
 Dolores' eyes were shining mistily and she smiled in 
 a vague way. 
 
 " Thought-reading ! " Clara exclaimed sharply. " Miss 
 Lloyd, what do they mean ? " 
 
 " I — I don't know," stammered Dolores. 
 
 " She always says she doesn't know," said Bel. " So 
 silly — I think she's half asleep when she does it. But she 
 can thought-read. You know you can, Miss Lloyd." 
 
 ' Silly rubbish ! " said Clara. She was sorting house- 
 pnen on a table in the front veranda and spasmodically
 
 SISTER SORROW 49 
 
 unfolding towels, sheets and pillow-cases to see if they 
 wanted mending. 
 
 " But she does thought-read," persisted Bel. " Only 
 you all of you laughed when we said anything. You 
 wouldn't believe it. But it's solemn truth that she has 
 told us what we had been doing when we were out riding 
 and she had been stopping in the house. And we hadn't 
 said a syllable to her, and she could only have known 
 by our thoughts, or because she saw us." Bel's eyes 
 grew very round. " Miss Lloyd does have a funny way 
 of seeing things inside her head," she added. 
 
 I could have testified to the truth of Bel's statement. 
 But Dolores' gift of " seeing things " was one that she 
 was extremely shy of exercising or talking about, perhaps 
 because she knew that Clara was half-contemptuous, 
 half-disapproving of what she termed " silly rubbish." 
 Now, Clara laughed heartily. 
 
 ' I bet it wouldn't take much thought-reading to 
 guess at the pranks you girls were up to when you went 
 out riding together . . . any more than to know what 
 Dad was willing Miss Lloyd to do when he wanted his 
 pipe fetched out of the back veranda at Barolin, where 
 she must have known he'd left it. Goodness ! I've 
 seen you at your willing games and I never was fetched out 
 of myself by them." 
 
 " Oh ! but, Mum, the willing game last night wasn't 
 till after the thought-reading. And then, Mr. Wilkins 
 really did will Dolores. And it wasn't an easy thing 
 like bringing Dad's pipe from the back veranda to the 
 front one. He willed her to go up to his bedroom and 
 find a letter-case and bring it to him right down to the 
 lounge — before everybody." 
 
 Clara dropped a bath towel, the ragged edges of which 
 she had been ruefully contemplating. 
 
 " I don't like such games. I don't call them proper. 
 Up to his bedroom ! — And in a public hotel ! I'm surprised 
 at your father allowing it. Did your father allow it ? " 
 
 ' Dad wasn't bothering about us when it began. He 
 was talking to some digging people. . . . Well, I suppose
 
 S o SISTER SORROW 
 
 he didn't like it," Bee admitted when pressed, " because 
 he told Miss Lloyd she'd better take us up to bed and 
 stop fooling." 
 
 Clara's left eyelid indicated approval. 
 
 " I should think it was fooling. . . . And now I want 
 to know how all this tomfoolery began. What's that 
 about Mr. Wilkins and thought-reading ? Miss Lloyd 
 didn't say anything to me about it. I should think she'd 
 be a bit ashamed of setting you girls such an example." 
 ' I expect she didn't remember. You see she was sort 
 of asleep," said Bee. " I believe she's been sort of asleep 
 ever since. She couldn't help it. Don't be cross with 
 her, Mum. I'll tell you exactly what happened." 
 
 Dolores had turned to the veranda railings, and was 
 looking out over the river. She really seemed, as Bee 
 said, to be half asleep, and one would have thought she 
 had not heard what was being said. 
 
 " Go along then and let me know exactly what did 
 happen," said Clara, and Bee began an involved narrative 
 with funny jerks and interpolations and appeals to Bel 
 for corroboration. 
 
 " Well, it was just when we went into dinner, and Mr. 
 Wilkins was talking to Dad, and he picked up the menu — 
 Mr. Wilkins, I mean — they're written in French, you 
 know. Such nonsense — Jules ought to understand by 
 this time that not one of the bushmen there had any 
 idea of what they'd got to eat — I call it foreign flashness. 
 . . . Well, after he'd looked at it — Mr. Wilkins, you know 
 — and done a sort of swear — he put it down, and Dad and 
 he went on talking. That was while we were waiting 
 for Miss Lloyd to come in. — She didn't come in for two 
 or three minutes after, did she, Bel ? " 
 
 " No, she didn't," said Bel. 
 
 " And the very first thing she said when she sat down 
 — she hadn't looked at the menu — had she, Bel ? " 
 
 " No, she hadn't — she only looked at Mr. Wilkins," 
 responded Bel. 
 
 " The menu wasn't at our end of the table — was it, 
 Bel ? "
 
 SISTER SORROW 51 
 
 " Of course it wasn't. He had it under his hand — he 
 was playing a tune on it with his finger-nails." 
 
 " Well, the first thing she said — " proceeded Bee. " You 
 see, Mr. Wilkins wasn't taking any notice of her — my 
 word ! he did look cross. — She said to him just as if 
 something made her — you know Dolores' way — like 
 when she is being willed. ' You were wanting to know,' 
 she said, ' what's the meaning of Potage Fausse Tortue — 
 it's mock-turtle soup with calves' head — and Fillets de 
 Cabillaud ; Sauce Hollandaise ; and Queue de Boeuf d la 
 Jardiniere ' — and she translated the lot as if she was 
 reading a lesson — and Chapon de Bresse — such tommy- 
 rot ! — as if there could be a Bresse in Leichardt's Land. 
 
 " Well, he did stare at her. . . . Flabbergasted he was. 
 ' By Jove ! you've hit it,' he said, ' but how the dickens 
 you should know ! I was just waiting to ask somebody 
 the English of this lingo. It beats me.' And of course, 
 at first, he insisted that she must have seen the menu 
 before, and we had to tell him she couldn't have : and then 
 he said she was a witch and that she ought to have been 
 born a Red Indian medicine woman. . . . And he was 
 dowr right rude — he said he hated all that kind of thing, 
 and that when a chap was up against it he might know 
 the devil had a hand in the game." 
 
 " I wouldn't like to think that Dolores Lloyd was in 
 league with the devil," said Clara severely. " If I did 
 think so, why, she'd be sent packing this very day." 
 
 Clara looked at Dolores who wasn't even listening, 
 but was putting out crumbs for the birds just as if they 
 had been talking about somebody else. "I'm glad 
 anyhow," Clara went on, " that it's not spirit-rapping or 
 planchette — that's a thing I couldn't abide, and that I'm 
 certain is the work of the Evil One. Thought-reading is 
 different somehow. — Do you remember, Agatha, that 
 party we went to at the Minogues when he was Minister 
 for Lands — and Molly Minogue was showing off at it — 
 ' willing ' people to do things ? " 
 
 Clara's reminiscences became involved with the Chair- 
 manship of Committees, the Opening of Parliament and 
 
 4*
 
 52 SISTER SORROW 
 
 her own politico-social status in relation to the ladies 
 of the Executive. But presently she pulled herself back 
 with a jerk to the ethics of occult games. " No, I can't 
 abide planchette : and in my house I will not countenance 
 dealings with Satan. . . . But thought-reading and willing 
 are different somehow, and the Minogues were tremendous 
 church-goers, Agatha, you remember. ... All the same, 
 girls, I'd rather that Miss Lloyd taught you some other 
 kind of game. However . . . well, go on, Bee. What 
 happened after that ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing particular, until it came to the willing 
 game after dinner. He and Dad — Mr. Wilkins I mean — 
 began to chaff Dolores and asked her if she had known 
 that morning that the Princess Maud was going to break 
 down in the Bay and be towed back again : and she got 
 cross too and would not answer. 
 
 " Was the other man there — Mr. Helsing ? " I asked : 
 and then remembered that he had gone off to the steamer 
 before the family came down to breakfast that morning, so 
 had to explain him in reply to their questions. It ap- 
 peared that at dinner, he hadn't occupied his former 
 place in the window. 
 
 " Perhaps he was at another table," Bee suggested : 
 and then, Clara having gone through the box of linen, some 
 other household matter cropped up, and the incident 
 was shelved. 
 
 IX 
 
 WE were all frightfully busy that morning. By 
 luncheon time the place looked all ready for 
 family occupation, as Father remarked when he put in 
 an unexpected appearance at the end of the meal. He 
 himself had lunched at the hotel and he had brought over 
 his own baggage. He had just looked in, he said, to see 
 how we were getting on. I noticed an expression of 
 furtive guilt on his face which turned to relief at seeing
 
 SISTER SORROW 53 
 
 us seated round the dining-table finishing an extemporized 
 meal that did Mrs. Catt credit. 
 
 " How about the spare room ? " he asked with an 
 affectation of carelessness. " That ready, too, for occupa- 
 tion ? " 
 
 Clara put down the breakfast-cup of tea, with which 
 she always concluded her lunch, and looked at him with 
 an anxious expression in her lustreless blue eyes. 
 
 " And why should the spare room be ready for occupation, 
 Duncan ? You've not come to tell me that you've invited 
 anybody to sleep in it ? " 
 
 ' That's just what I did come to tell you, Missus, and 
 I thought I'd get a wigging for it. But you said last 
 night you'd be ready to receive the Governor if he came 
 to dinner this evening, so I took you at your word." 
 
 " Not — not the Governor ? He's up in the hills," 
 gasped Clara. 
 
 " Well, it's somebody I can tell you who considers 
 himself quite as important in the scale of creation as the 
 Governor. Anyway, he blows a good deal more about 
 it, and I'm not sure that I cotton altogether to the chap. 
 But business is business, and he's going to buy a mob 
 of cattle off me that I'm not sorry to sell." 
 
 " D'ye mean Mr. Wilkins ? " and Father nodded. 
 
 " But what do you want him to come staying here for ? " 
 objected Clara. " Isn't he staying at the hotel ? " 
 
 " No, he isn't — or rather, he won't be to-night. He'd 
 given up his room to-day and there doesn't happen to 
 be another he can have. They're chock full and have 
 had to turn away some of the people who came back 
 in the Princess Maud. However, he's used to roughing 
 it. You needn't bother yourself about ' arting up ' his 
 quarters, Agatha." 
 
 I said that I had no intention at all of bothering myself 
 about Mr. Phil Wilkins. I said that I didn't like 
 him. 
 
 Father made an irritated sound with his tongue and his 
 teeth. 
 
 " Tsha . . . Tsha. . . . You don't like him, don't you ? "
 
 54 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " No, I don't : " and I added with reckless want of 
 tact, " Personally, I shouldn't want to have any business 
 dealings with Mr. Wilkins. I'd rather keep my cattle — 
 if I had any — than sell them to him." 
 
 " Ah, well ! if you were in my position you might take 
 a different view of the subject," said Father sarcastically. 
 " Luckily for you, your money is in a less fluctuating 
 investment than station property and you haven't an 
 overdraft at the bank which you have been requested 
 to reduce. In such circumstances, you might feel better 
 disposed towards Mr. Wilkins." 
 
 " Oh, you know I wanted to put some of my money into 
 the northern station — you know I wanted to help . . ." 
 I exclaimed, hurt by his speech, which was unjust. 
 
 " Thank you, my dear. I have no doubt of your generous 
 intentions. But I have preferred to take no responsibility 
 in regard to your investments. That would have been 
 defeating the intention with which your fortune was left 
 to you," answered Father coldly. 
 
 I turned away and went through the French window 
 on to the veranda. That was the kind of thing which 
 wounded me to the heart and made me realize the bitter- 
 ness with which Father resented — indeed, I hardly know 
 what. That wretched money seemed to have raised up 
 a wall between us which not even our real affection for 
 one another could knock down. But that was not all. 
 It seemed also to have thrown a dark cloud over his memory 
 of my mother. I could count the occasions on which 
 Father had spoken to me of her. That too deepened the 
 sense of aloofness. 
 
 He must have been vexed with himself now, for he 
 came out to the veranda after me and put his hand on 
 my shoulder. 
 
 " Never mind, Gagsie " — he did not often call me 
 Gagsie, the old baby name that had clung. " I'm not 
 in the least nervous of the bank coming down on me, and 
 I've every intention and prospect of clearing out in a 
 year or two, a rich man. As for Wilkins . . . he's 
 welcome to the cattle at my price, but I'm hanged if
 
 SISTER SORROW 55 
 
 he shall have them at his. You needn't worry about 
 being agreeable to Wilkins. Here's somebody who will 
 take kindly to the job. Eh, Miss Lloyd ? What do 
 you say to that ? " 
 
 Dolores was sprinkling crumbs again for the birds 
 —she had a great love of birds. Father began to chaff 
 her and, at first, she looked positively bewildered and 
 asked him in a frightened way what he meant. 
 
 " Why, that you are the right person to do the ' arting 
 up ' for Mr. Wilkins. It's a case of affinities if ever there 
 was one. You showed us last night that you could read 
 his thoughts, and of course you understand his tastes and 
 will know exactly how he likes his room prepared." 
 
 Dolores' pale face went crimson. The tears came into 
 her eyes. Clara, coming out of the dining-room, interposed. 
 
 " Don't tease her, Duncan. You know Dolores can't 
 bear being chaffed and we've been at her already about 
 that thought-reading last night. Silly game I call it. 
 If / had been there, I'd have kept Mr. Phil Wilkins in 
 better order. . . . Oh, I know " — at a titter from Bee 
 and Bel and a " Hear, hear " from Father. " You're 
 laughing at the idea of me keeping anybody so bumptious 
 in order. And I daresay you're right." Clara always 
 began to drop her left eyelid after any unusual display 
 of pugnacity. " I know I'm a better hand at preserving 
 pie-melons and even strawberry guavas — which will 
 always stick to the pan — than I am at preserving my 
 own dignity. — Which is why I want you girls taught how 
 to do it." " 
 
 Clara's eyelid lifted suddenly as was its way when 
 a new idea struck her. She looked at Dolores and it was 
 easy to read the doubt that had come into her mind. 
 But she lost the idea before she had fully envisaged it, 
 and wandered on discursively. 
 
 " About that spare room. ... I believe they put all 
 the upstairs beds into the servants' room outside. . . . 
 Such a mistake letting to animal-lovers and children — 
 though I don't see how one could tell. And it's not that 
 I'm against animals. But to keep a tame kangaroo
 
 56 SISTER SORROW 
 
 and a family of native bears in what should have been a 
 bachelor's bedroom is not my notion of treating other 
 people's property as it ought to be treated. There's only 
 the one room fit — the tenant had it for a day nursery and 
 never used Bel's old cot which is all the bed left in it. . . . 
 And when Mrs. Catt has fish to clean for frying and fowls 
 to stuff for dinner — well, to fix up a grown man's bedding 
 would be the last straw. . . . Still, if he's got to be put 
 up — and there must be the bed somewhere — someone will 
 have to see about it. And if I can't — with our own rooms 
 and the fowls and all the glass and silver on my shoulders 
 ■ — and if Agatha won't, then Miss Lloyd must. So you'll 
 go and rummage round for furniture and do your best, 
 won't you, Dolores ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Carfax." 
 
 " And if you can't find a looking-glass for his dressing- 
 table or anything else he'll want, you might give him 
 yours and share with Bel ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Carfax." And Dolores departed with an 
 appealing glance towards me, at which I only, hard- 
 heartedly, shook my head. 
 
 " You'd think that girl hadn't an original idea in her 
 brain — with her ' Yes, Mrs. Carfax,' and ' No, Mrs. 
 Carfaxes," said Clara irritably. " She makes me think 
 of a gramophone — what are you smiling at, Agatha ? 
 That's just what she is — a gramophone wound up for 
 music and foreign languages. I declare if it wasn't for 
 her accomplishments " Clara paused darkly. 
 
 " Oh ! she's all right. Not used yet to Bush ways, 
 that's all," said Father. ..." Look here, though, Clara, 
 you may find that somebody will be wanting to annex 
 your gramophone. Mr. Phil Wilkins has made an im- 
 pression there and no mistake." 
 
 " Duncan ! — If you think I'm going to let that strange 
 bushman flirt with the children's governess ! " cried 
 Clara. 
 
 "I'm bound to say that she seems the one who wants 
 to do the flirting. She can't take her eyes off the man," 
 said Father.
 
 SISTER SORROW 57 
 
 I struck in, in defence of poor Dody. " No — no, it 
 really isn't that." 
 
 ' What is it then ? " he asked, and I could only answer 
 that I didn't know. 
 
 " If it is that, I must say it's queer," said Clara. " I've 
 never seen any signs of flirting in Dolores Lloyd before 
 and I can't understand why she should begin those tricks 
 now." 
 
 " Mr. Right hadn't come along. There you have it," 
 said Father. " He's not a bad-looking chap, this Mr. 
 Phil Wilkins — and he can do things on his own showing. 
 What do you find the matter with him, Gagsie ? " 
 
 " I do not like thee, Dr. Fell. 
 The reason why I cannot tell," 
 
 I quoted. 
 
 " How long have you asked him here for ? ' said 
 Clara. 
 
 " He said he'd got to go to-morrow up the river to 
 Koorong to look at Minogue's imported bull. If he can 
 afford to pay Minogue's price for that bull — I know all 
 about it — then he can afford to pay my price for the 
 cattle. He's got some money, that chap. But never 
 mind now about Mr. Phil Wilkins. There's something 
 else, Missus, I have to confess." 
 
 " Not another man ! Duncan, you haven't asked 
 another man to sleep ? " cried Clara, aghast. 
 
 " No — only to dinner. Pot-luck I told him — seven 
 o'clock." 
 
 " Then Andy Catt must run at once and get something 
 from the butcher." Clara was going out to the kitchen, 
 but Father stopped her. 
 
 " You needn't bother about the butcher ; he doesn't 
 eat meat." 
 
 " Not eat meat ! A man ! What does he eat ? " 
 ' He said he was a vegetarian. He said that he chiefly 
 ate rice." 
 
 " Rice ! How can he live on rice ? Well, I'll tell 
 Mrs. Catt to make an egg curry."
 
 58 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Clara lumbered off. I asked Father, " Who is this 
 man ? Is he really a vegetarian ? 
 
 " He says so. A peculiar sort of cuss. I liked him. 
 He's got ideas. I was talking to him this morning. He 
 wanted to see a book about the blacks that we've got 
 in the Parliamentary Library." 
 
 " What about the blacks ? " 
 
 " Pituri — the blacks' opium — that's what he wanted 
 the book for. He's growing it. Finding out all he can 
 about the blacks' way of preparing it. He's trying 
 experiments in cultivation — for medicine. Science, 
 Botany. That sort of thing is what he goes in for. He 
 owns what he calls a garden-selection up north. He 
 started in the Princess Maud and had to come back. A 
 fellow by the name of Helsing — Torvald Helsing, that's 
 it. A Norwegian, I believe, but speaks English as well 
 as I do. You look as if you knew something about the 
 man. What is it, Gagsie ? " 
 
 " I saw him at the Bellevue Hotel. His Selection is on 
 Mr. Wilkins' island. — Didn't you know ? " 
 
 " No. He never said anything about that." 
 
 " Mr. Wilkins told me. He was very rude to him. I 
 couldn't help seeing that he hates Mr. Helsing and I 
 shouldn't think Mr. Helsing could like Mr. Wilkins." 
 
 " Nobody likes a fellow who comes and plants himself 
 down on your station — however much right he may have 
 to free-select there. Not that Wilkins should complain. 
 Helsing had taken up his Selection long before Wilkins 
 bought Oronga Island run," Father said, and added : 
 " Well, if they don't like each other — and for no other 
 reason in particular — it may be a very good thing that 
 they should meet on neutral ground and be obliged to 
 behave civilly. I shouldn't wonder if it ended in their 
 becoming first-rate friends." 
 
 I shook my head. Inwardly, I was convinced that, 
 in the nature of things, those two men never could become 
 friends. 
 
 " Ah I Well ! Perhaps you're right. One can't make 
 people friends by Act of Parliament. But all the same,
 
 SISTER SORROW 59 
 
 I shall have a try at it," said Father, cheerfully. " Helsing 
 is going north again to-morrow," Father went on. ' The 
 steamer wasn't as much damaged as they thought — 
 screw twisted and a bit of patching to be done — that's 
 all. She goes out by to-morrow's tide." 
 
 X 
 
 OUR two guests came within half an hour of each 
 other. Mr. Phil Wilkins first, carrying his own valise 
 from the ferry. He had left his dictatorial manner behind 
 him at the hotel, was effusively appreciative of Father's 
 invitation and was evidently bent upon making an agree- 
 able impression. He had taken pains too with his appear- 
 ance, and to considerable effect. Cheeks and chin were 
 freshly shaven. The scrubby moustache was trimmed 
 and part of the stubbly curl that stuck out over his collar 
 at the back had been removed. He wore a well-cut 
 dark suit, and apologized to Clara for having no " evening 
 togs." 
 
 Much to my annoyance it fell to me to show Mr. Wilkins 
 where to deposit his valise. Of course one doesn't stand 
 on ceremony in the Bush and I had often shown male- 
 visitors their rooms, when none of our men were about. 
 To-day there was nobody else to do it. Father was in 
 the paddock at the bottom of the garden with Andy 
 Catt and the horses. Mrs. Catt was cooking : the girls 
 were away in the pineapple patch, and Clara frankly 
 declared she was too tired and too fat to enjoy mounting 
 a steep staircase. So I led the way to the upper landing 
 and pointed through the open door to the newly-arranged 
 spare-room. As I did so, I saw that Dolores Lloyd was 
 within, in the act of placing on the dressing-table a vase 
 containing two beautiful rosebuds. The way she did 
 this — the tender touch of her fingers on the blossoms as 
 she put in a spray of maidenhair-fern behind them, and 
 the expression of her face which I saw reflected in the
 
 60 SISTER SORROW 
 
 looking-glass — Dolores' own looking-glass — she had robbed 
 her room of various prettinesses, I perceived — all this 
 together gave me a shock. It was not our custom to 
 put flowers on the dressing-tables of stray bachelor- 
 visitors. Even Clara's lax preservation of her dignity 
 would not have permitted that. And Dolores — so reserved, 
 so shy and stand-offish with men ! Such flowers too ! 
 So suggestive ! Perfect buds just opening ; one, deep 
 crimson, the other, pale cream. And now that I moved 
 to a different angle and could look right round the room 
 — nothing would have induced me to enter it — I saw 
 how daintily it had been prepared. Dolores must have 
 spent the whole afternoon over it. Fresh muslin curtains : 
 rose-striped dimity valances ; rose-patterned quilt, 
 usually reserved for some honoured lady-guest. It was 
 absurd, in the circumstances, all this panoply of decoration. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins seemed to swell with gratification. I hated 
 him for it. He walked in, in front of me, and stood for 
 a few minutes taking in everything. I am sure he too 
 had seen Dolores' face in the looking-glass and had observed 
 her tender way with the flowers. He looked at the bed, 
 at the rose-patterned quilt, at the muslin curtains looped 
 with pink ribbons in the fashion that Dolores looped her 
 own. He called out in exultation. 
 
 " My hat ! You have done me proud ! Mr. Carfax 
 told me the place was upside down and that I might have 
 to sleep on the floor and wash at the pump, and here, I 
 come and find myself in what seems to me next door 
 to a Fifth Avenue millionaire's palace. I assure you, 
 ladies, that I most uncommonly appreciate these kind 
 attentions. Why ! here's even a buttonhole bouquet 
 ready for me to pin in. I know I haven't got to thank 
 you for this, Miss Carfax. You don't like me well enough 
 to trouble yourself on my behalf. — No ill feeling about 
 that, mind. I'm the first to recognize that if you take 
 a dislike to a person, you ain't going to get over it in 
 five minutes — not until you've proved your man — see ? " 
 
 He had turned and faced me, his head forward between 
 his big shoulders and his bright grey eyes narrowed under
 
 SISTER SORROW 61 
 
 the protruding brows, boring into me, as it were, like a 
 steel gimlet. Or rather it was like a shot from a gun, 
 with the flash but without the explosion. Only for a 
 moment or two. Then, he threw back his head and up- 
 lifted his chin with that characteristic, defiant gesture, 
 and laughed : 
 
 " No, I don't owe you any thanks, do I, Miss Carfax ? " 
 
 I answered frigidly that it was quite certain he did 
 not. 
 
 1 Then it's this little witch of a thought-reader who 
 knows my favourite colours and my favourite flowers and 
 what I like best for my buttonhole." He made a quick 
 step towards Dolores Lloyd who stood with the vase 
 in her hand. 
 
 His manner and the way he looked at her made me 
 furious. I drew up my head and tried to speak with 
 dignity. 
 
 " Mr. Wilkins, I am sure that you must be mistaken. 
 Miss Lloyd could not possibly have understood that this 
 room was for you." I turned pointedly to Dolores. 
 " There's no need for you to trouble any further about 
 the room, Dolores. Come downstairs with me and if you'll 
 bring the flowers, I'll show you where to put them." 
 
 But Mr. Wilkins squared his shoulders and a nasty look 
 came over his face. He wasn't going to be crossed even 
 in a trifle. 
 
 " No. I won't have that," he said. " I'm not going 
 to be done out of my buttonhole bouquet." He took the 
 vase from Dolores' unresisting fingers. " See here, I'm 
 a poetic sort of chap in my own way though you might 
 not guess it to look at me. Ideas strike me and I just 
 fancy that these two roses stand for her and me — man 
 and woman, eh ? The red one for the man and the pale 
 one for the woman. Why ! that creamy-yellow is the 
 very colour of her complexion. No ! by Jove ! though, 
 it isn't," he added with a laugh. " It's the red one that 
 matches her cheeks at this minute." 
 
 He held the vase near her face to point the comparison. 
 Dolores' cheeks had crimsoned. She stood covered with
 
 62 SISTER SORROW 
 
 confusion beneath his bold gaze. But as their eyes met 
 — hers soft, dark, misty, his hard and flashing at her their 
 steely glint — she went suddenly white and stared at him 
 like a person mesmerized. 
 
 " Dolores," I called sharply. " Come here, I want you." 
 
 Dolores started, and her body half turned but she did 
 not move her feet. Mr. Wilkins laughed again. He 
 stepped back and waved his hand to the door. 
 
 ' Miss Carfax wants you," he said. " You ought to 
 go." Dolores stirred reluctantly and made a sideway 
 step towards the door. Still Mr. Wilkins laughed. ' My 
 word ! one would think I'd been willing her again. You 
 heard of our game at the hotel last night ? Queer, wasn't 
 it? " 
 
 I answered in icy disapproval. 
 
 " Yes, we heard of it. I must tell you that Mrs. Carfax 
 strongly objects to games of that kind. Please don't try 
 them again." 
 
 " It wasn't my fault," he said eagerly. " It wasn't 
 I who began it. Fact is, I don't like those sort of games 
 myself, I've seen enough of Red Indian hanky-panky 
 to prefer to give that sort of thing a wide berth. Not in 
 my line at all, I assure you." 
 
 " Dolores," I said again, more insistently. Then, as 
 she still hesitated, I walked deliberately into the room, 
 took her by the hand, led her out and shut the door after 
 us. When I got her halfway down the stairs, I turned on 
 her. I was really very angry, but I spoke low. 
 
 " Dolores ! I couldn't have believed it of you. Can't 
 you see what you're laying yourself open to ? Can't you 
 see that the man is not a gentleman ? What made you 
 do it ? " 
 
 " I don't know. . . . Don't be cross, Agatha. It must 
 have been my dream." 
 
 She exasperated me. " Oh, bother your dream ! I 
 suppose you have got some shred of self-respect ! Well 
 do try and buck yourself up with it." 
 
 Dolores began to cry. I took my hand from her arm 
 and left her to follow me. I was looking back at her,
 
 SISTER SORROW 63 
 
 when at the foot of the staircase, I collided with a strange 
 man who was making his way in, uncertainly, from the 
 entrance door off the back veranda. 
 
 I drew aside with an " O — oh ! " and the strange man 
 also exclaimed " O — oh ! " following his exclamation 
 with a quick " Pardon." 
 
 ' Hullo, Agatha ! Look where you are going," Father 
 called out, from behind the stranger. And now I saw 
 who he was. 
 
 " This is Mr. Helsing . . . Helsing, my eldest daughter 
 . . . and Miss Lloyd. Oh, she's off, is she ? " 
 
 For Dolores didn't wait to acknowledge the introduction 
 but made a bolt for the schoolroom, which was at the back 
 of the house, a room opening off the little hall. 
 
 Father conveyed his guest through the drawing-room 
 to the front veranda. He must have caught him at the 
 gate. Mr. Helsing hadn't said anything more to me. He 
 had only made me a formal bow. But now, in the room 
 where there was more light, I saw that he was looking 
 at me. Our eyes met. I thought how very blue his 
 were. And they were full of expression. " Yes," they 
 seemed to be saying, " you see we have met again : and 
 very soon too." 
 
 Clara, in the veranda, was choosing fruit for dessert, 
 with the assistance of Bee and Bel, from a miscellaneous 
 collection the girls had brought in from the garden. She 
 asked the newcomer whether he grew pineapples, and 
 when he said he did, began upon horticulture. 
 
 ' I have been hearing about your garden — on Mr. 
 Wilkins' island, isn't it ? And you've taken up a little 
 selection there ? Gardening is your hobby : and I'm 
 so glad, Mr. Helsing, for that's one of the things I do 
 know something about. But I'm sure you can't have all 
 the difficulties I have to fight against — what with drought 
 and our having to wait for a rise in cattle before we can have 
 waterpipes laid on from the creek. And Andy Catt 
 being continually called off from the vegetables to fetch 
 up wood or do some odd job. . . . And then the Chinese — 
 and all this talk about White Australia ; and the blacks
 
 64 SISTER SORROW 
 
 going wrong with opium . . . and then worst of all . . 
 the tenants. ... Do you have tenants to ruin your 
 garden ? " 
 
 " No ; but I've got birds and beasts and reptiles which 
 are destructive at times," said Mr. Helsing. 
 
 " Not so destructive as two-legged beasts from the 
 Never-Never Land," and Clara launched on an inconsequent 
 diatribe, punctuated by Bee and Bel, against the people 
 who had rented The Bunyas, and who were held responsible 
 for grubs in the guavas, the sad remains of the grape- 
 season and the failure of the pineapple crop. 
 
 In the middle of it, appeared Mr. Phil Wilkins, ostenta- 
 tiously displaying poor Dolores' flowers in his coat-lapel. 
 Bee and Bel spotted them directly and stopped him in 
 the progress. 
 
 "Oh! I say ! Now I know why Miss Lloyd was hunting 
 about to get those roses," said Bel. 
 
 " It's too big. They're too full-blown. Just one 
 flower — a kind I know — would have looked ever so much 
 nicer and better." Bee addressed Mr. Wilkins confi- 
 dentially. " If it had been me, I could have got you a 
 scrumptious buttonhole : and if it had been to-morrow 
 instead of to-day." 
 
 " That's all right. For I wouldn't be parted from my 
 roses this evening for anything. Why to-morrow though, 
 and not to-day ? " 
 
 " Because my flower is a teeny bit too shut up yet. 
 You know a gardenia wants to be just right. Mine's 
 the only one out in the garden : nobody knows where it 
 is but me. I shall get up first thing to-morrow morning 
 and pick it before anybody else can find it." 
 
 " What do you bet that I don't get up earlier and find 
 it ? And if I do, there'll be a forfeit, mind, for you to 
 pay." 
 
 Bee accepted the wager after a good deal of haggling 
 about the terms. Finally, a box of chocolate creams was 
 decided upon as the forfeit. 
 
 " Very well," said Mr. Wilkins. " It's to be a box 
 of chocolate creams — the best in Leichardt's Town — with
 
 SISTER SORROW 65 
 
 the picture of a pretty girl like you on the cover of it. But 
 I shall want something sweeter than chocolate creams for 
 my forfeit if you lose." 
 
 Bee bluffed, with a toss of her thick Gretchen plaits 
 — she was a handsome girl in her undeveloped way — neither 
 child nor woman — with her rosy sunburnt bloom, dancing 
 eyes and full red lips. 
 
 ' That would be easy to find," said she, " if I did lose 
 — but I shan't. I'd run down the garden and bring you 
 in a fat stick of sugar-cane. Sweetest thing I can think 
 of." 
 
 " Oh, no, it isn't. There's something sweeter to the 
 lips and easier for you to pay with than running down the 
 garden for sugar-cane, because you could give it to me 
 without stirring from where you stood." 
 
 " What's that ? " Bee asked innocently : and Mr. 
 Wilkins laughed. 
 
 " If you haven't discovered yet what it is, young lady, 
 you will — take my word for that — before you're a year 
 older." 
 
 The laugh and the look he gave her, which made me 
 hate the man worse than I did already, seemed, in my 
 fancy, to rouse some latent womanly instinct in the 
 child, for she lowered her saucy eyes, reddened to 
 the roots of her hair, and swung away from him with a 
 swish of her short skirts and hanging plaits. Mr. Wilkins 
 only laughed the more : and I am sure if the others had 
 seen into his horrid mind they would have read his thoughts 
 as plainly as I did. I knew quite well he was thinking 
 that Bee would be pleasant to kiss when she was a little 
 older and understood more of the game. But Father, 
 Clara and Mr. Helsing were all deeply absorbed in some 
 spots upon an undersized pineapple and hadn't noticed 
 what was going on between Mr. Wilkins and the children. 
 Just then Mrs. Catt showed herself at the French window 
 of the dining-room carrying a smoking dish of fried 
 bream. 
 
 She stood there a minute before putting it on the table 
 and announced dinner after her elementary fashion.
 
 66 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " I'm just after bringin' in the fish," she said, " and 
 Andy's dishing up the meat and vegetables in the kitchen." 
 
 Mrs. Catt always reminded me of Clara though I really 
 don't know why except that they were both very large 
 women and both their faces had the same flat, doll-like 
 expression. But whereas Clara's face was round and 
 waxen-soft and melting with human kindness, Mrs. Catt's 
 was wooden of surface and hard of colouring — brick-red 
 cheeks, scanty black hair and eyes like jet beads — while 
 her figure was square and thick as if it had been shaped 
 from blocks with only the sharp edges taken off them. 
 
 XI 
 
 CLARA shooed us all into the dining-room as if we 
 had been a flock of fowls — she was asking Mr. 
 Helsing at the moment if he reared fowls and how he 
 managed to keep them out of his garden. There could 
 not be much ceremony with Mrs. Catt in sole attendance. 
 Clara began explaining her difficulties in regard to settling 
 in, as she sat down, and nobody seemed to notice that 
 our two guests had not spoken to each other. The plates 
 of fish had been almost all passed round before that fact 
 dawned on Father. He was helping Dolores Lloyd, who 
 had slipped quietly into her place after we were seated, 
 and, following the turn of her eyes, which went like a magnet 
 to the pole-star, he looked along the table first at Mr. 
 Phil Wilkins and then at Torvald Helsing on the opposite 
 side. 
 
 " I declare, I never thought of it," he exclaimed. " I 
 say, Wilkins. Seems a queer coincidence that I should 
 have stumbled by chance on you two fellows and asked 
 both over here together when you actually live on the same 
 island — that's queer in itself, for there are not so many 
 islands along the Leichardt's Land coast big enough to 
 hold cattle and white men as well. But the queerest
 
 SISTER SORROW 67 
 
 thing is that you don't seem to have made each other's 
 acquaintance." 
 
 Mr. Helsing was sitting next to Clara and beside me, 
 while Dolores was on the other side of me, next Father. 
 I didn't look at Mr. Helsing, but I felt that he stiffened. 
 Mr. Wilkins leaned over in that characteristic attitude of 
 his — head forward, wedge-like jaw protruding — and said 
 with his disagreeable laugh — at least / found it disagreeable : 
 " By face — not by word of mouth. Never been regularly 
 introduced. But you bet, a squatter and the free-selector 
 on his ran always fight a bit shy of each other. Sort of 
 trade antagonism, eh ? " 
 
 " I thought that was only when the free-selector owned 
 a little live-stock and happened occasionally to encroach 
 on the larger herd," said Mr. Helsing, addressing Father. 
 " A free-selector can be a nuisance without owning 
 live-stock. No personal application of course," said Mr. 
 Wilkins sourly, and Father interposed with genial alacrity. 
 " Oh, but that kind of feeling belongs to the period of 
 the first Land Act when we squatters had got so used to 
 bossing our hundreds of square miles, that we forgot we 
 were only leaseholders from the Crown. Now I buy all 
 my greenstuff at Barolin from my free-selectors. A first- 
 rate chap one of them. Dairy-farming and poultry-rearing 
 — he goes in for. He and the missus are always hob- 
 nobbing over their chickens." 
 
 Clara was beginning an involved story about Brahma- 
 poutras and an incubator, which Father cut short. 
 
 " All right, old lady. Tell us out in the veranda. 
 Once you start on fowls and gardening, there's no edging a 
 word in. Now I want to introduce you two chaps — 
 Wilkins — Helsing. Shake hands across my table, won't 
 you ? I'd be pleased if I was the means of starting a 
 friendship between you." 
 
 Mr. Helsing half rose and made a sort of bow including 
 Father and Clara. After a momentary hesitation Mr. 
 Wilkins rose too, and his lean, yellowy-brown throat 
 with the ball in front seemed to elongate like the neck 
 of a scavenging bird, I thought. He made a funny little 
 
 5*
 
 68 SISTER SORROW 
 
 gurgle in it which was not exactly a laugh and answered 
 as Father had answered me a little while before. 
 
 " Well, you know, Carfax, you can't make people friends 
 by Act of Parliament," he said, unconsciously quoting 
 Dad's very words. His tone might have been inter- 
 preted as amicable jest or truculent earnest. ' But I'm 
 quite agreeable," he added. " You see I've studied 
 human nature enough to be able to size it up pretty 
 accurately. Understand ? " 
 
 " I trust that in my case, human nature has been sized 
 up favourably ? " said Mr. Helsing, with, it seemed to me, 
 a faint touch of sarcasm in his voice. He appeared to 
 be waiting for the other man to take the initiative in the 
 matter of handshaking. 
 
 " Oh, that's all right," returned Mr. Wilkins in an 
 offhand way and put his hand out, — that long capable 
 hand with the finger tips curving inwards and the brown 
 freckles on the wrist, which I had already noticed. A 
 cruel hand, I thought. 
 
 " Pleased to meet you," Mr. Wilkins said patronizingly, 
 " though of course, we've seen each other, at the near 
 distance, so to speak." 
 
 The two hands touched and were withdrawn ; — 
 the men settled into their places again, Mr. Wilkins 
 went on : 
 
 " I believe I just missed you at the Pilot station on the 
 Island, one day when I'd ridden up to send a wire to my 
 Sydney agents. A great convenience, that telegraph 
 station. Don't you find it so ? " 
 
 " It would be — if one wanted to keep in touch with the 
 world." 
 
 " You don't, eh ? Not even with the cattle-market ? ' 
 
 " No, certainly not. You see I'm not a buyer of meat 
 for my own consumption, far less a seller for the con- 
 sumption of other people." 
 
 " Oh, I'd forgotten," Clara exclaimed with sudden 
 
 compunction ; noticing he had nothing before him. 
 
 ' You don't eat meat, Mr. Helsing — not even fish ! How 
 
 extraordinary ! " Then a look of relief came over her
 
 SISTER SORROW 69 
 
 face. " Yes, I remember now, Mr. Carfax told me, I 
 asked Mrs. Catt to do some curried eggs and there's plenty 
 of vegetables." 
 
 Mr. Helsing made his slightly formal, foreign sort of 
 bow. " I shall fare sumptuously. Thank you for your 
 kind thought." 
 
 " But don't you ever use the wire for finding out what 
 you want to know about business matters ? " Mr. Wilkins 
 persisted. 
 
 " Not exactly. I might want to use it for finding out 
 about scientific matters, but I haven't quite arrived at 
 that necessity. So far, I'm merely an experimenter." 
 
 ' Oh, yes, I heard. On the scientific line, eh ? Botany, 
 Geology — old fossil-bones and what you call tribal tradition 
 — you see I know the lingo. I've come across more than 
 one scientific buffer — in the States and other places. But 
 I've never heard of one that had made the thing pay." 
 
 " I suppose not," Mr. Helsing answered quietly. " As 
 a rule they are not business men. It is only occasionally 
 that a scientific discovery pays, — when a man is so happy 
 as to make one of economic importance. Oh, yes, you 
 are right. Scientific experiments seldom pay in hard cash, 
 whereas butcher's meat in the living carcass works out 
 to the producer, I believe at somewhere about eight pounds 
 a head." 
 
 " The price I got the other day for a mob of fats," put 
 in Father. " I see, Helsing, you know more about the 
 squatting business than you try to make out." 
 
 " Not such a new chum as " Mr. Wilkins pulled up 
 
 with his irritating laugh which, in my mind, I likened to 
 the crackling of thorns or the rattling of brass. 
 
 Mr. Helsing laughed too, — but his was a mellow well- 
 bred laugh. He gave the full sentence, " Not such a 
 new chum as he looks. I expect that's true. I've knocked 
 about on stations a good bit. Know Carl Lumholtz' 
 expedition ? " he asked Father, who said he knew about 
 Lumholtz but that he himself had no pretensions to be 
 scientific. 
 
 It then appeared that Mr. Helsing had, as he expressed
 
 70 SISTER SORROW 
 
 it, followed the tail of that expedition among the northern 
 coast blacks and, incidentally, the northern coast stations. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins began again about the convenience of being 
 able to telegraph and cable from the Island and explained 
 with an air of proud proprietorship that you could send 
 a message from the Pilot station at the end of Oronga 
 Island to the four quarters of the globe, and that all 
 vessels of whatsoever nationality, bound north or south, 
 were sighted and reported from Oronga Island Lighthouse. 
 Then he turned with a conciliatory air to Mr. Helsing, 
 reiterating. 
 
 " I'm really very pleased to meet you, Helsing, though 
 I'll own up to having had a bit of a grudge against you 
 when I bought the Island : and now I'll apologize for it. 
 Of course, I had no right to grudge you your Garden- 
 Selection for you had squatted there before me. Only 
 you have picked out the beauty spot of the place and the 
 very one I'd have chosen for a seaside humpey for myself. 
 My head-station is in the middle of the Island, as you 
 know, and on poor land, I'm bound to confess." 
 
 " Yes, but the north end of the Island has several other 
 beauty spots and more than one good site for a beach- 
 humpey," said Mr. Helsing. " I've only got a small 
 Selection." 
 
 ' That's so, but it happens to be the best watered, best 
 grassed, most convenient little pocket for a stud farm and 
 cultivation patch on the coast. And that tiny island 
 you've got that joins on to the big one at low tide ! It 
 would come in uncommonly useful. . . . What do you 
 do with it ? " 
 
 ' I give it up almost entirely to birds. You would be 
 astonished at the number of kinds I've tabulated," he 
 said, speaking to me now. " I'd like to show you my 
 garden and talk over some of my ideas and experiments." 
 
 I asked him to tell me something about them now, 
 but he shook his head. " It would be a complicated sort 
 of proposition to start on at this moment," he said, and 
 added, " Your father has a station up that way. Don't 
 you ever go north ? and might it not be conceivable
 
 SISTER SORROW 71 
 
 that you would want a look at the Pilot station on Oronga 
 Island some day ? Or that you might be signalling a 
 steamer from there to take you up to Leuraville ? " 
 
 It was conceivable, but it wasn't at all likely. So I 
 told him, I wished that it were within the bounds of 
 probability. 
 
 XII 
 
 WE couldn't exchange views to any extent at 
 dinner — Torvald Helsing and I. Mr. Wilkins 
 was one of those talkers who expects everybody to listen 
 to him, and his loud voice dominated the table. 
 
 His talk was mostly about himself. Father naturally 
 had his say, but even he took second place. Bee and Bel 
 cackled softly and giggled over their private joys : and 
 Miss Lloyd did not reprove them, because she was listening 
 silently and absorbedly to every word that passed Mr. 
 Wilkins' lips. I am sure that he noticed this and was 
 flattered. Or perhaps, the good meat and the good 
 drink had something to do with his being so loud and 
 loquacious. Father is a genial soul and likes an excuse 
 for a small festival. This was to be one, and we were all 
 to drink champagne in celebration of our return to The 
 Bunyas and to wish him success in his new office. 
 
 Which, after the first glass involved dear old Clara in 
 another dissertation on lappets and the difficulties of 
 domestic life. " How was one ever to get a ' finished 
 feeling ' and be able to settle down to enjoy oneself ? " 
 she asked, " what with having to clean up after the tenants, 
 giving a fresh coat of paint to the back premises, and 
 Andy Catt wanted so badly in the garden, and to put 
 new veranda posts where the white ant had got into them. 
 . . . And your father making a mess of that Nagbar gold- 
 mine — taking up a claim that was no good, where the 
 gold turned out to be nothing but iron pyrites " — Clara 
 pronounced it " pirates."
 
 72 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " What's that you're saying, Missus ? " Father called 
 out as he came down the table behind our chairs with a 
 foaming bottle of champagne in his hand. He stopped to 
 fill Mr. Wilkins' glass and waited to hear his verdict. 
 
 " You ought to be a judge, Wilkins. How do you find 
 my tipple ? " 
 
 Mr. Wilkins tossed off half his glass. " That the best 
 is good enough for me," he said. And there was a refill 
 which Mr. Wilkins again tossed off with a jovial bow to 
 Clara. 
 
 " Your health, Mrs. Carfax — and success to the ' pirates.' " 
 
 " She doesn't know the difference between an iron pirate 
 ■ — as you call it, Missus, and the bona fide ' colour,' 
 laughed Father. " I can tell you though, old lady, that 
 you and the girls will owe a nice lot to those ' pirates ' 
 before we're done with them. They blazed the track to 
 the genuine find." 
 
 Father told a story that we had often heard of how 
 some time back he had, as he believed, found gold not far 
 from Nagbar and had been disappointed, so that he had 
 not hurried to peg out a claim on the present Nagbar 
 gold-field, when the rush started. " But Fve got gold 
 all right now, close on my old ' pirates ' and a bit off the 
 regular diggings. We're straight on to the lead," he 
 added. 
 
 " Straight on to the lead," echoed Clara derisively. 
 " Yes, Fve heard that before, Duncan. But it's always 
 been other people that have got straight to the gold. You've 
 always missed it. No, Fve no faith in gold-mining, Mr. 
 Wilkins. I wonder how many gold-mines my husband 
 has gone into that were to have bought me that barouche 
 and pair I was to drive about Leichardt's Town in ! And 
 here I am still paying my visits in a shabby old one-horse 
 buggy." 
 
 " Cheer up, missus. We shall see. Oh, by the way, 
 I asked Burt and Hichens to come over and smoke a 
 pipe in the veranda to-night." Those were the two 
 mining men from the North who had sat at a table near 
 us at the hotel. " They're just down from Nagbar, and
 
 SISTER SORROW 71 
 
 if what they say about the output lately is true, we're 
 in for a big boom." 
 
 He was still going round with the champagne. 
 
 " What, Helsing ! No fizz ! Why, man, you don't 
 mean to tell me that you add teetotalism to your other 
 crimes ? " 
 
 " That's the melancholy truth — if you call it a crime," 
 Torvald Helsing confessed. 
 
 (I write of him as Torvald, because after that evening 
 I always thought of him as " Torvald," and later on, as 
 will be seen, I called him Torvald.) 
 
 Father grumbled on jestingly. 
 
 " Not a wine-bibber, not a flesh-eater. Good Lord ! 
 what are you then ? — A Buddhist, or a 'New Thought ' 
 crank, or one of those long-haired chaps in the Bible they 
 called Nazarenes ? " 
 
 " No, I'm not a Jew ; I shave, and, as you see, I have my 
 hair cut occasionally. But I was born with an abhorrence 
 of meat, and my parents were wise enough not to force 
 it upon me. As for alcohol, I find my brain works better 
 without it." 
 
 " You're right there," suddenly interjected Mr. Wilkins. 
 " When I've got to work out a difficult job in my head 
 I keep clear of alcohol." 
 
 " What sort of work do you do in your head, Mr. 
 Wilkins ? " Bel asked from her end of the table. " Do 
 you learn languages like us ? Or do you write down 
 stories and dreams and poetry like Agatha and Miss 
 Lloyd ? " 
 
 Dolores roused herself to hush her pupil, and I frowned 
 forbiddingly at Bel. At the same time, I found 
 Torvald Helsing's eyes fixed in interested questioning 
 upon me. 
 
 " You write poetry and you dream stories ? " he asked, 
 in so low a tone that only I could hear. 
 
 I shook my head. " No." 
 
 His eyes seemed to search my face, and he smiled 
 quizzically. 
 
 " I understand. You don't want to discuss the
 
 74 SISTER SORROW 
 
 children of your imagination with a stranger. But I 
 shall not always be a stranger ... I hope." 
 
 The " I hope " was added after a perceptible pause, as 
 a tribute to conventionality, I thought. 
 
 " The children of my imagination exist as yet only in 
 my imagination," I answered bluntly. " No, that's not 
 the right way to put it. They're like boomerangs : they 
 always come back to me." 
 
 He laughed outright. I noticed that when he looked 
 at me intently his eyes were large and very blue, gazing 
 straightly from under a level line of eyebrows. Then, 
 his expression was grave, slightly awe-inspiring for so 
 young a man. . . . Was he really a very young man, 
 though ? In his grave moments, I doubted it. But 
 now when he laughed, his face broke up and changed. 
 He ceased to be the idealistic student. His laugh was 
 like the laugh of a school-boy. The blue eyes wrinkled up 
 merrily and the straight eyebrows made a little kink near 
 the nose. He looked quite young, and I felt that we could 
 be splendid comrades. Before, I had been just a wee bit 
 afraid of him. 
 
 " That's the first stage," he said. " I've thrown 
 boomerangs myself — plenty of them. After a time, they 
 don't come back if one has patience to stick at the game 
 — at least, not all of them. I wish you'd tell me how 
 you dream stories." 
 
 " I don't. It's Miss Lloyd who dreams stories and 
 makes poetry. I'm only the phonograph that takes the 
 records." 
 
 His eyes unwrinkled and he gave me another of his 
 searching glances in which, I fancied, there was something 
 of pleased expectancy. 
 
 "That's very interesting," he said; and his eyes went 
 past me along the table to Dolores, whose head was bent 
 towards the girls and who was now rebuking Bee in low, 
 agitated tones for supporting Bel's statement. Mr. 
 Helsing's eyes seemed to be searching her face too, but 
 I did not think satisfactorily. Perhaps he had seen, like 
 myself, her absorption in Mr. Wilkins.
 
 SISTER SORROW 75 
 
 I knew that it was the mention of dream-stories that 
 had brought Dolores back to a sense of her position as 
 the girls' governess. Also, that she had only one dream 
 in her mind, and that it was the memory of that particular 
 dream, in combination with the presence of Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins, which was having such an odd, hypnotic effect 
 upon her. Mr. Wilkins had not been troubling himself 
 to address her directly. I am sure that he was still much 
 more concerned as to the impression he was making upon 
 Father. Now, however, his attention was directed towards 
 her, and I noticed him looking at her in a half-puzzled, 
 half-suspicious way, as if he were sizing her up — reckoning 
 her as an unknown quantity which might conceivably 
 prove dangerous. 
 
 " So you dream queer dreams as well as read thoughts, 
 eh ? " he said to her. 
 
 Dolores started, and for a moment her face reddened. 
 Then as quickly it grew pale again. She stared at Mr. 
 Wilkins in a vacuous manner but did not answer. Bel 
 broke in again. 
 
 " Oh, but none of Miss Lloyd's and Gagsie's stories 
 are half as exciting as yours, Mr. Wilkins. I do like your 
 stories. I expect you write them down, and that's what 
 you meant when you said that you worked out things in 
 your head." 
 
 ' No, I don't. You can work out plans for doing things 
 in your head as well as by writing them down ; and I can 
 assure you, Miss Bel, that it takes more brains for that 
 than it does for inventing dream-stories. I can tell you 
 that I've been in pretty tight places, times in my life, 
 and if I hadn't worked out plans in my head for squeezing 
 through those exceedingly tight places, I shouldn't be 
 sitting here now, drinking this excellent champagne." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins gulped the wine excitedly. I saw that 
 Dody's eyes, which were fastened upon him, looked like 
 round, dark balls filled with light. I wished that Clara 
 would make a move, but she was talking about scrub- 
 turkeys' nests to Torvald Helsing. 
 
 Besides, Bee leaning eagerly forward, had at the moment
 
 76 SISTER SORROW 
 
 caught Mr. Wilkins' attention. He was looking now at 
 her young flushed face and the bright blue eyes peering 
 out of the fuzz of short curls round her forehead. He 
 smiled at her with patronizing admiration. 
 
 " Oh, do tell us about it all, Mr. Wilkins," she pleaded. 
 " I did like hearing about your cowboys and gold-diggers 
 and Mexicans and wild Indians and people. Were you 
 fighting with Indians when you got into your tightest 
 place ? " 
 
 Mr. Wilkins finished his glass of champagne. 
 
 " Well, there were Indians in my tightest place. And 
 there was a Mexican too — a half-breed, and he used a 
 machete — that's a Mexican knife, you know." I saw him 
 glance, as if involuntarily, at the inner side of his left 
 wrist — the wrist that showed the red mark of a cut. He 
 had his elbow on the table-edge, the arm upraised, and 
 the hand open, and he was gesticulating with the long, 
 grasping fingers. Then he seemed to recollect himself. 
 " But I can't tell you about that now, Miss Bee. Any 
 way, you may take it from me that I came out on top." 
 
 " After dinner, when we're all in the veranda — you'll 
 tell us then ? " urged Bel. " I am sure it is a beautiful 
 story." 
 
 At last I caught Clara's eye and got her out of the 
 dining-room, Dolores likewise. Clara spoke rather sharply 
 to her, telling her to keep the girls in order, and the three 
 of them went down the steps into the garden and walked 
 in the moonlight along the upper terrace. Clara was a 
 little while lighting the kerosene lamps in the drawing- 
 room, and Torvald Helsing and I stood by the veranda- 
 railings and watched the moon on the river, and he gave 
 me an account of the accident to the Princess Maud, which, 
 though it had ended in nothing, must have been sufficiently 
 alarming at the time. 
 
 ' You see, it was fated that we were to meet again," 
 he said, echoing my own thought. 
 
 Meanwhile, Father and Mr. Phil Wilkins smoked and 
 discussed business matters over their wine in the dining- 
 room. It struck me afterwards that Mr. Wilkins' avowed
 
 SISTER SORROW 77 
 
 resolutions about keeping clear of alcohol when he used 
 his brain on important business, did not apply to the 
 cattle-deal, which I had reason to suppose was concluded 
 during that sitting. 
 
 One of my household duties was to keep the decanters 
 clean and replenished when necessary, and when, next 
 morning, I took stock of the remains, I found very little 
 left of the bottle of old port which Father had produced 
 at dessert, not counting in the empty champagne bottles. 
 I knew that we women-folk had complied merely per- 
 functorily with Father's health-drinking request, and 
 that he, dear old gentleman, if he could not be called 
 exactly abstemious, was at all times a moderate toper. 
 
 Of course, a fair amount of whisky had been consumed 
 as well, but the two mining gentlemen who arrived after 
 we had left the dining-room, were no doubt mainly re- 
 sponsible for that. These were hard-headed bushmen, 
 members of the Legislative Assembly and down for the 
 Opening. They had struck gold at Nagbar Diggings 
 and could talk of nothing else. All four men were in 
 jovial mood, with tongues well loosened when they came out 
 of the dining-room to the veranda. 
 
 It was one of our heavenly nights in late summer. Just 
 a faint foretaste of autumn in the air — a luxurious, mellow 
 feeling of heat that was not steamy, and the most delicious 
 sea-breeze blowing up the river reaches. Between the 
 veranda-eaves and the railings, you could see the broad 
 expanse of dark blue sky, the moon making a silvery track 
 across the river, where the stars above and the red lights 
 of river-craft below, were reflected in irregular, luminous 
 streaks. 
 
 A typical Australian veranda scene under the more 
 primitive social condition of those older days. A fantastic 
 medley of light and shadow. Moonbeams finding their 
 wa}^ through the creepers and meeting broad rays from 
 the lamps in dining-room and drawing-room which streamed 
 out through the wide-open French windows. There was, 
 too, a funny little circle of radiance from a small lamp 
 with a burnished reflector that Clara had brought out
 
 78 SISTER SORROW 
 
 from the drawing-room, with a cutting from the Leichardt's 
 Land Weekly, concerning silk-worms and the cultivation 
 of the white mulberry, which she had been speaking of to 
 Torvald Helsing and now wanted him to read. She 
 had put the lamp on a small high stand beside one of 
 the squatter's chairs ; and by a fateful chance, as it after- 
 wards turned out, Mr. Phil Wilkins plopped himself down 
 in that very chair, which happened to be empty. There 
 were plenty of these chairs in the veranda — long canvas 
 things, some of them with broad wooden arms to hold 
 a glass or an ash-tray. Father and the two mining 
 men pulled their chairs close to the railings. Mr. Helsing 
 and I were sitting on a settee between the two French 
 windows of the drawing-room. We were just opposite 
 the veranda steps and in a line with Mr. Wilkins, whose 
 long chair almost barred the approach. When Bee and 
 Bel, on the terrace with Miss Lloyd, saw that he was 
 there, they bounded to the veranda-edge and placed them- 
 selves upon it, within convenient hearing-distance of him. 
 Dolores Lloyd moved up quietly behind them and took 
 a camp-stool that stood at the back of Mr. Wilkins' chair. 
 She drew it up nearer the steps and seated herself 
 between him and the railings, just behind Bel, whose head 
 was on a level with her knees. 
 
 That was the staging of the scene, and I am describing 
 it in detail, because, as things turned out, so much depended 
 upon the way Fate stage-managed that grouping. 
 
 Thinking back now, I can see it all as distinctly as I 
 saw it then from the settee, where Torvald Helsing and 
 I had placed ourselves. For no particular reason ; we 
 were not talking in any intimate fashion. He was smoking, 
 and, most of the time, we were both just silently looking 
 out on the night, thinking our thoughts and enjoying the 
 beauty of it all, feeling — at least I did — a strange dreamy 
 content. Everything seemed to melt into my sense of 
 well-being — the rustling breeze and murmurous night : 
 the shadows of the trees : the white pyramids of rhinka 
 sporum and yucca bloom ; the oleanders, like stage trees 
 trimmed with pale, pink paper flowers : the great trumpets
 
 SISTER SORROW 79 
 
 of the daturas and their heavy scent mingling with the 
 scent of stephanotis and the odours of all the many shrubs 
 and blossoms. . . . The shadows too, and the moonbeams 
 and lamp-gleams — especially, that brilliant ray of widening 
 light from the reflector-lamp near Mr. Wilkins' chair. It 
 spread out, illuminating all that corner of the veranda 
 steps. It fell across Mr. Wilkins' great shoulders, taking 
 in a slanting section of the wide arm of his chair with the 
 ash-tray upon it and an almost full glass of whisky and 
 water, which, like Father and the mining men, he had 
 brought out from the dining-room. That broad ray of 
 light illuminated something else as well. It was a woman's 
 hand — Dolores' hand — which curled round the inner edge 
 of the wooden arm, for the purpose, ostensibly, of steadying 
 the rickety camp-stool on which she was sitting. Her face 
 and most of her form were in shadow. Only her forearm 
 showed above the hand, and her knees, against which 
 rested Bel's head. The bright light turned Bel's yellow 
 curls and Bee's thick corn-coloured plaits, an inch or 
 two beyond, into shining gold. 
 
 XIII 
 
 I SAW that the children were restless and alert, waiting 
 an opportunity to put in their claim for one of Mr. 
 Wilkins' thrilling tales of his own mighty exploits. He 
 was sprawling in the deep chair, one leg over the other, 
 a big cigar in his mouth, which he removed at intervals 
 to contribute his share to the men's conversation. He 
 talked in loose-lipped, blatant fashion, and it was then 
 I got the idea, that, this evening at any rate, he had 
 allowed himself too liberal a relaxation of his principles 
 in regard to alcohol. When he was not fidgeting with his 
 cigar, he kept his hands clasped over his knees and seemed 
 quite unconscious of the proximity of that limp little hand 
 on the bar of his chair.
 
 80 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Dolores sat very silent — but then she was so often silent. 
 The mining men's talk — with Father mostly — went from 
 drought on the Never-Never and the difficulty of droving 
 cattle, to the conditions upon various stations round 
 Nagbar Diggings and the prospect of a good meat-market 
 for the squatters if the rush to the gold-fields continued. 
 
 " I am anticipating that market," put in Mr. Wilkins. 
 " I've been buying store cattle for fattening, to meet it." 
 
 " Don't you find it a job swimming your cattle across 
 the Narrows ? " asked Mr. Hichens. " Only to be done 
 at full and new moon, isn't it — when the tide's at its 
 lowest ? " 
 
 " Oh, that's nothing — splendid fun. Got to be pretty 
 smart in the water though ; and splash about freely to 
 scare the sharks," replied Mr. Wilkins. And he told a 
 story of how he, single-handed — " except for a useless fool 
 of a stockman, and a couple of raw black-boys " — had swum 
 his first mob across the Narrows. 
 
 The Narrows, I understood to be the stretch of sea, at 
 its narrowest part, which divided the island from the 
 mainland. 
 
 " You make it a ride of about thirty miles, don't you, 
 from your crossing at the Narrows to Nagbar Diggings ? ' 
 I heard Mr. Burt ask. 
 
 Mr. Burt was the second mining man. Torvald Helsing 
 had left me for the moment by myself on the settee. He 
 had seen that Clara was alone in the drawing-room, hemming 
 kitchen towels, under the large, shaded kerosene lamp, 
 and had gone in to make her solitude more agreeable to 
 her. I admired him for the little act of courtesy. As 
 a rule, men smoking in the veranda did not trouble much 
 about Clara, who usually occupied herself in the evenings 
 with household sewing. I felt that I ought to be there 
 helping Clara with the towels. But after all, there was 
 no particular reason why she should hem kitchen rubbers 
 in the drawing-room after dinner. Mrs. Catt could have 
 done quite well for a day or two without them. 
 
 That, however, was Clara's way. 
 
 I wasn't much interested in the question of distances
 
 SISTER SORROW 81 
 
 up in the Nagbar region. Apparently, Father settled it, 
 demonstrating that our station, Malpa Downs, the Narrows 
 crossing to Oronga Island, and the Diggings as the apex 
 inland, made the three points of a perfect triangle. So 
 if we women should ever pay Malpa Downs a visit, it would 
 not be at all improbable, as Torvald Helsing had suggested, 
 that we should find ourselves some day at the Pilot station 
 on Oronga Island signalling the passenger boat to pick us 
 up and take us to Leuraville or south to Leichardt's Town. 
 
 As I sat, thinking of this possibility and wondering 
 whether indeed I should ever see that Island garden of 
 which I had been hearing from Torvald Helsing, snatches 
 of the men's talk drifted across my ears. Somebody 
 asked Mr. Wilkins whether he had gone in for gold-digging 
 at Nagbar. 
 
 ' Not I," he answered, " I'm not taking any in that 
 show. Gold-mining dropped me down pretty heavily in 
 New Mexico State. Now I've come over to Australia, I 
 mean to stick to cattle." 
 
 " All the same, Wilkins, I'd have pegged out a claim 
 and gone into the gamble, if I had been in your place," 
 said Father. " You could have worked it easily from the 
 Island." 
 
 " Swimming across a good strip of water and through 
 an army of sharks all by myself as I should probably have 
 to do. No thank you. The gold I might get wouldn't 
 make it worth my while," retorted Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 Mr. Burt took him up : 
 
 ' I'm not so sure. The yield has been astonishingly 
 good this last month or two. But it's the devil of a job 
 getting the gold to Currawilli or Leuraville. We are going 
 to petition Government for a regular police escort. It's 
 a rotten business that old Cobbs' coach and our amateur 
 guard. If there were a gang of bushrangers about they'd 
 have an easy haul." 
 
 " There hasn't been a bushranger in these parts since 
 Gardiner," said Father. " The Kelly gang finished up 
 professional bushranging in Australia." 
 
 The other mining man maintained that you didn't need 
 
 6
 
 82 SISTER SORROW 
 
 professional bushrangers to hold up a gold escort. " It's 
 daring that does it. Two or three stockriders could 
 bluff a coach-load that had an armed man in front and 
 behind. They could do it even without rifles, provided 
 they made the others believe they had them." 
 
 And then followed an argument as to the number of 
 men and the amount of bluff required to hold a careless 
 gold escort. Father cited a well-known instance, and 
 Messrs. Burt and Hichens had each a case in point. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins craned his neck forward and began to 
 quote excitedly from the archives of mining-camps in the 
 Western States of America. Mr. Burt capped these 
 recitals with the evidence of a mining engineer in British 
 Guiana. Father smoked and listened with a good- 
 humouredly satiric smile on his fine, old face. The other 
 three men took pulls at their whisky glasses. The contest 
 as to which one should place the coping-stone upon bur- 
 glarious adventure, grew wilder and yet more fierce. 
 
 I became once more aware of the presence of Torvald 
 Helsing. He had strolled out of the drawing-room and 
 was standing against the lintel of the French window, 
 smoking a fresh cigar and listening without taking any 
 part in the battle of comparisons. Once, when I looked up 
 at him, I found his eyes fixed upon me and I did not look 
 again. 
 
 Besides, at that moment, as I let my eyes wander across 
 the veranda, I saw something which startled and made 
 me very angry. 
 
 Following the broadening ray of light from the reflector- 
 lamp, I noticed that in the heat of discussion, Mr. Wilkins 
 must have shifted his chair, and have come more fully 
 into the lamp's focus. The ray now took in a larger 
 portion of him and likewise of Dolores Lloyd on the camp- 
 stool. Her face was still in shadow, but the fore part of her 
 figure was visible. She had her elbow on the broad wooden 
 shelf of the chair and her arm and hand lay along it. It 
 was such a pretty arm, soft and creamy, with a wrist like 
 that of a child, the inner side upturned showing the blue 
 veins. And — this was the thing which startled and angered
 
 SISTER SORROW 83 
 
 me — Mr. Wilkins' large hand covered her hand, which 
 rested, apparently quite contented, underneath the 
 possessive grasp. 
 
 That word describes it — possessive. The grasp was not 
 ardent. It seemed almost unconscious : it was just 
 quietly possessive. The man was smoking — drawing 
 in and sending out great puffs of smoke — and his whole 
 attention appeared concentrated on what the other men 
 were saying. Every now and then, he craned his neck 
 impulsively. I could have fancied that he was bursting 
 to make some statement which should place beyond 
 question his superior knowledge on the moot point, what- 
 ever that might be. I saw that he was restraining himself. 
 I am sure he was not thinking of Dolores. I suppose he 
 had just liked the feel of her hand — men are like that — 
 and his indifference, oddly enough, made me the more 
 angry. I had almost got up to take Dolores away, but 
 stopped myself. 
 
 That would attract undesirable attention. And, after 
 all, such things did happen without there being any harm 
 in them. I had had my own hand taken in that of a man, 
 as we had sat in a dim corner between the dances, and 
 had not particularly resented the liberty. Of course, it 
 all depended on the man : I don't mind owning that I'd 
 as soon have let a centipede with its hundred claws grip my 
 fingers than have allowed the hand of Mr. Phil Wilkins 
 to linger caressingly upon mine. 
 
 Again, without seeking of my own, I caught the gaze 
 of Torvald Helsing, and it flashed through me at the 
 instant that he guessed what I was feeling. He had 
 walked across the veranda, behind the group at the steps, 
 to throw the butt end of his cigar over the railings, and, 
 as he turned back, I read in his face that he too had seen 
 those two hands in contact. His expression did not 
 suggest shock or even surprise, certainly not amusement, 
 but the gravest, kindliest pity. He said not a word beyond 
 asking me, before he took his seat again on the settee, if 
 I minded his lighting another cigar. By a sort of tacit 
 convention we relapsed anew into silence. That was one 
 
 6*
 
 84 SISTER SORROW 
 
 thing I remarked and liked about Torvald Helsing. He 
 had no small-talk. Nevertheless, his silence was com- 
 panionable. I had not been listening, just then, to the 
 men's conversation though I knew it was going on, tense, 
 arresting, broken by the short laughs and questions that 
 punctuate a good story. Suddenly, I heard an ejaculatory 
 gurgling in the throat of Mr. Wilkins. He made a quick, 
 forward movement of his body and excitedly threw away 
 his cigar. But he did not take his left hand off Dolores' 
 hand. 
 
 Mr. Burt seemed to have been relating some remarkable 
 bushranging achievement in which by extraordinary 
 bluff and cunning the criminal had got off scot-free. He 
 wound up on a note of complacent triumph. 
 
 " Well, I ask you if for cool pluck and cleverness that 
 chap takes any beating ? " 
 
 Mr. Wilkins' voice came down on the remark like the 
 brass clapper on a drum. 
 
 " Good Lord ! Well, I should just think so. Why, 
 
 I've gone one better myself " He stopped ; seemed to 
 
 collect himself. It was the first sign he had shown of 
 having slightly exceeded in his potations. He stuttered 
 a little. " I mean — I'd have gone one better. ... I 
 mean, I've seen a chap go — why, a dozen better than 
 that." 
 
 ' It's up to you to tell us how he did it," replied Mr. 
 Burt nettled, and Mr. Hichens gave a curious, interrogative 
 whistle. 
 
 ' Fire away, Wilkins," said Father. Bel's shrill little 
 voice called out : "Oh, please . . . please Mr. Wilkins," 
 and Bee put in pertly from the veranda edge. 
 
 " Look here ! You can take your story out of the price 
 of the chocolate creams that I shall have won from 
 you to-morrow morning, Mr. Wilkins. Don't you forget 
 that bet we made." 
 
 " All right, Miss Bee. But I reckon that it's the earliest 
 bird that'll catch the worm, and I can tell you, Phil Wilkins 
 was never one to lose points through lying in bed. You 
 won't get that chocolate : but I'll not be mean, I'll make
 
 SISTER SORROW 85 
 
 you a present of the yarn. Mind, no dream-hear-say, 
 made-up and written-down inventions from me. I've 
 been right there — on the Spot — see ? " 
 
 All this time, Dody hadn't made a movement or a sound. 
 And all the time, he had kept his hand on hers, without 
 seeming aware of it. He finished the whisky and water 
 that was left in his glass and threw himself back in the 
 chair so that his face was out of the light again. 
 
 XIV 
 
 MR. WILKINS did not jump at once into the drama 
 of his adventure. The Spot — if he had been there 
 — took a lot of leading up to. He didn't seem to know 
 quite where to begin and got a bit involved over the pre- 
 liminaries of how he came to be in that particular part of 
 New Mexico. I can't remember the details or whether he 
 was exploring or prospecting or what. My mind was 
 preoccupied with Dolores Lloyd; the man's strange 
 fascination for her : my own antipathy to him, and also 
 — I frankly confess it — my attraction to Torvald Helsing. 
 I did not, in the beginning, grasp at all the inner significance 
 of that story of Mr. Wilkins', or the possibility of it ever 
 affecting Dody's and my future. I must say, however, 
 that though I couldn't bear Mr. Wilkins' voice and braggart 
 manner, I was caught first by his vivid descriptive touches. 
 Once you got interested you could really almost see the 
 place : and as for the people — especially, the chief actor 
 in the drama — he put himself so completely into the latter 
 that he seemed to get confused, himself, between his own 
 and his hero's identity. I couldn't even at the end make 
 out, the exact part he had played in the affair. 
 
 That villain-hero, who had gone so many better than Mr. 
 Burt's bushranging hero, was certainly, on Mr. Wilkins' 
 showing, a gentleman of incredible coolness and resource. 
 I understood that he had stolen the papers, clothes and
 
 86 SISTER SORROW 
 
 personality of a certain sergeant of the police, who had been 
 sent up to the recently discovered and very rich gold- 
 field which Mr. Wilkins was describing, for the purpose 
 of organizing an escort for the convoy of the gold. As 
 an amateur in fiction, it struck me that the villain-hero 
 must have murdered the sergeant, but Mr. Wilkins slurred 
 over that point, and seemed to imply that the sergeant 
 had died a natural death. There was no doubt that the 
 impostor sergeant must have been an amazingly clever 
 fellow, for no one on the gold-field appeared to have any 
 suspicion that he was not the genuine article. The only 
 person, it seemed, who did not take him at face value was 
 one, Manuel — a Spanish Mexican against whom it was 
 evident Mr. Wilkins had a violent grudge. 
 
 All this was preliminary. I didn't get really interested 
 until after Mr. Wilkins had described the start of a coach 
 — a sort of Cobbs' coach — from the Diggings. This vehicle 
 was to carry the gold and some passengers — mine-owners 
 and lucky diggers, among them, Manuel, and, I concluded, 
 Mr. Wilkins himself — through a very wild country to the 
 nearest township where there was a bank. 
 
 My attention wandered rather during the account of the 
 coach start and the general arrangements. But I did 
 grasp the fact — Mr. Wilkins made a point of this — that 
 the coach was not driven by the regular driver. The man 
 who ran the mail-coach and usually drove it, had been 
 taken suddenly ill with dysentery the night before the 
 start, and his place was filled by a Californian — a digger 
 who had been in the coaching line himself and was accounted 
 a first-rate, rough-country whip. He had never driven 
 on this particular track, but professed himself sufficiently 
 well acquainted with it. Besides, the sick man gave him 
 very careful instructions about the most dangerous part 
 of the road. 
 
 I do wish I could tell the rest of the story just as Mr. 
 Wilkins told it. But I can't. On my theory of the psycho- 
 logical gramophone, it is pretty evident that Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins' vibrations that particular evening didn't suit 
 my memory-instrument, so the record was a faulty one.
 
 SISTER SORROW 87 
 
 Not that that was of much consequence. It's not the 
 actual details of what Mr. Wilkins related as having 
 happened away in New Mexico. They did not matter 
 as far as we were concerned. The thing that did matter 
 and that affected our lives later, was a small incident 
 arising out of the story-telling which took place on the 
 veranda that evening. Anyway, the gold, and the gold 
 escort started all right. The gold, packed in big leather 
 bags, was put in the fore part of the coach — Mr. Wilkins 
 made it all fairly clear. — There was the gold, stacked 
 beneath the legs of the driver and of the sergeant, who 
 was fully armed. The other part of the escort — two 
 half-breed troopers — sat at the back of the coach, also 
 with rifles ready, while the middle space was occupied 
 by the passengers, including Manuel, who sat immediately 
 behind the sergeant and carried pistols and one of those 
 deadly Mexican knives that Mr. Wilkins called a machete. 
 
 He described how the coach went zig-zagging for miles 
 along the side of an enormous canyon which it was im- 
 possible to cross and so had to be headed. That brought 
 them up to the mountains where the dangerous driving 
 began. I don't know anything about the mountainous 
 country of the American Western States beyond what 
 I've read in books, but I know what the difficulty would 
 be in steering a Cobbs' coach through the Ubi Ranges : 
 and this sounded something like that, only on a more tre- 
 mendous scale. Pine forests ; naked rocks ; huge gullies as 
 if slices had been cut out of the earth — canyons he called 
 them. And there were precipices hidden by the trees 
 that you came on, he said, before you had any idea they 
 were there. The most curious thing Mr. Wilkins told us 
 about those gullies and clefts in the canyon-side was that 
 some of them led to very old abandoned mines, which had 
 been worked by that ancient race who had built the buried 
 cities of Central America. He had heard this, he said, 
 from some explorers he had met and from Indian medicine- 
 men. 
 
 Oh yes, the man was interesting in his way, if only 
 because of the strange bits of knowledge he had picked
 
 88 SISTER SORROW 
 
 up, knocking about the world. Though he was not in 
 the least intellectual — and did not seem to have read at 
 all. But somehow you couldn't help jeeling the power 
 behind his flashy vulgarity. 
 
 Certainly, he could tell a story ever so much more 
 dramatically than I'm telling his. 
 
 Mr. Burt or Mr. Hichens asked him whereabouts this 
 gold-mine was that he'd been describing. 
 
 " You wouldn't know. Gave fine promise it did at 
 the beginning, but I've heard it petered out after that." 
 
 " In New Mexico State you said ? " 
 
 " Close on Texas border. Ever been there ? . . . No. 
 . . . Well, of course you wouldn't know the Red Man's 
 Cache Mountains — head of the Great Hawk Canyon." 
 
 To my surprise, Mr. Helsing, who was on the settee 
 beside me, gave a start and a slight ejaculation. But 
 he made no comment — only seemed to be listening more 
 attentively. 
 
 " You may take it from me," Mr. Wilkins went on, 
 ' that it's about the wildest bit of country a desperate 
 fossicker would ever want to go prospecting in. I did 
 once, — myself and a few other desperadoes. We'd been 
 caught by the travellers' tales about the old workings. 
 Six of us there were and we dwindled down to two white 
 men and a couple of half-breeds that in the end burst up the 
 show. Sly, treacherous brutes. Give me a thorough- 
 paced Red-skin devil any day before a half-breed Indian 
 or Mexican." 
 
 There was a note of smouldering ferocity in his voice. 
 He stopped and lit himself another cigar. To do so, he 
 had to take his left hand from that of Dolores'. I could 
 see, in the band of light across the chair-arm, that her 
 fingers groped uneasily and her shadowy form stirred. 
 I heard her make a little whimpering sound and, again, 
 I was almost getting up to take her away, and again kept 
 myself back. Immediately, Mr. Wilkins put his hand 
 on hers once more, as one might do to keep a fractious 
 child quiet. She spoke to him in a funny far-away sort 
 of whisper which made me think she must be asleep and
 
 SISTER SORROW 89 
 
 talking in a dream — I had heard her give that kind of 
 whisper before. I was almost relieved, for, if she were 
 asleep, poor Dody could not know what she was doing. 
 Yet she seemed to have heard all he had been saying for 
 I caught her murmuring voice. 
 
 " Oh ! I can't bear that place. There's danger. I 
 can feel how that man hates you." 
 
 " Eh ! What ! " he exclaimed, half-whispering also, 
 but evidently startled. " What man ? " 
 
 " Manuel, you called him . . . you both hate each 
 other." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins nodded. 
 
 " Well, I allow that if Manuel's and my mutual hatred 
 could have been turned into negotiable Capital and made 
 into an Unlimited HATE Company, I'd be running 
 a bigger show now than Oronga Island cattle-station. 
 See ! ... As for him — well, I knew that if he could have 
 caught me napping, he'd have done for me with that knife 
 of his. He was on the lookout for his opportunity — and 
 by Gosh, he got it — and more besides, a bit sooner than 
 he'd bargained for." 
 
 I was surprised at Mr. Wilkins answering Dody's remark 
 as if there had been nothing out of the way in her speaking 
 to him as she did. I suppose that he was so completely 
 carried back to the scenes he was describing as to have 
 forgotten his present surroundings. But with his last 
 words, the smouldering fury I had noticed before re- 
 kindled, and seemed to bring him to himself. He pulled 
 up suddenly and threw a keen glance at the other three 
 men opposite him, who were smoking their pipes in placid 
 enjoyment. They had not interrupted him, except by 
 a small guffaw at his witticism about the Hate Company. 
 Father's feet were tilted against the veranda railings, 
 and his eyes were on the river watching a small steamer 
 that was crossing the moonbeam track. He observed 
 thoughtfully : 
 
 " I wonder what made Miss Lloyd say that ! " 
 
 So did I also wonder.
 
 90 SISTER SORROW 
 
 XV 
 
 MR. WILKINS gave his brassy laugh. He craned 
 his lean neck uneasily, turning first to Dolores, 
 who made no sign, and then to Father. 
 
 ' Think it was a bit of thought-reading again ? No-o, 
 I guess I gave my hate away in the sound of my voice. 
 Very wrong to hate like that. Don't you ever do it, Miss 
 Bee." 
 
 For Bee had poked an inquisitive head behind Bel's. 
 " Did you really hate him, Mr. Wilkins. — What for? " 
 " That's telling too much, young lady. Besides, it 
 belongs to another story. — Happened later. See ? I 
 reckon I was getting a bit mixed. Phil Wilkins wasn't 
 supposed to be on in that act — 'cept as a spectator. . . . 
 All there though, Hichens, as you say. I believe you, 
 my boy. Phil Wilkins was all there. He most is when 
 things are moving. . . . Well, I must put a shove on now, 
 or I shall keep you in this veranda all night. Here's 
 where the point of my yarn comes in. See ? The superiority 
 in pluck and coolness of my man over yours, Burt. Now, 
 I'll tell you. You see Manuel was the snake in the grass, 
 which my man — that's the sergeant as we'll call him — had 
 got to look out for. And those two knew each other, 
 though they never let on, either of them. In fact, my 
 man had faked himself up real cleverly — clean-shaven 
 — policeman's toggery, gold escort business and the rest 
 of it. I'm pretty certain it wasn't till the very last that 
 Manuel felt sure about him. And, come to that, the 
 other chap could have bluffed Old Nick himself at a pinch. 
 Well — you see Manuel was in a quandary. He couldn't 
 show up my man — the sergeant — see ! — even if he had 
 been certain and able to prove his charge. It was check 
 for him. If he'd tried that on, the other man could have 
 shown him up and ruined him. See ! They were both
 
 SISTER SORROW 91 
 
 playing the same game — both after that haul of gold. 
 Both meaning to capsize the coach and, somehow or other, 
 nab the booty. . . . And, I will say, they were sportsmen 
 both of them. Only my man had far and away the strong- 
 est nerve and the clearest head. You see Manuel was 
 brought up on mescal — that's the Mexican grog, made from 
 the aloe tree — there's nothing in the world plays the 
 deuce with a chap's nerves worse than mescal. Besides, 
 my man had the advantage of knowing his ground better 
 than Manuel. He'd gone over his points, calculated 
 his distances. He'd thought out his plan. He knew what 
 he meant to do. He meant to take a bigger sporting 
 risk than Manuel was game for." 
 
 " And the sporting risk ? " Father put in. " Not 
 hanging for murder, I hope, since you seem to have backed 
 him from the start. You couldn't have known his true 
 character at that time, though." 
 
 " A chap who keeps his eyes peeled can generally make 
 a guess at how much power another chap has got in him, 
 though you can't be sure always of the use he means to 
 put it to," oracularly observed Mr. Wilkins. " As for 
 backing him, it's been pretty often found that Phil Wilkins 
 had the nous to spot a winner." 
 
 " You're lucky," remarked Mr. Hichens dryly, and 
 Father added : 
 
 ' There's a lot in what you say about its being a question 
 on which side a man chooses to put the force he's got in 
 him — and that's as much due to the amount of temptation 
 at the time as to temperament." 
 
 " You've about hit it," said Mr. Wilkins. " Only I 
 should say it's more brains than temperament. No fear 
 of my man being such a fool as to tumble his head straight 
 into a noose. That's where your man made the mistake, 
 Burt. No subtlety about his daring. There was bound 
 to be a halter for him, if his plan failed. Now my man's 
 plan left an opening for doubt. It was bold, it was subtle, 
 it was simple. All big things are simple on the outside, 
 and subtle underneath. Understand ? " 
 
 He pulled hard at his cigar and sent out one or two
 
 92 SISTER SORROW 
 
 uneven puffs. I saw him look down at his empty whisky- 
 glass as if he felt the need of further stimulus. I saw, too, 
 that he was excited. He went on like a runner taking 
 a fresh spurt. 
 
 " Putting it short, there were two chances on that trail 
 of pulling off the job in the way my man had figured it 
 out — that was by making it seem an accident. One 
 chance was certain death if he missed the spot by more 
 than a couple of yards — there was the sporting risk. The 
 other chance was a bit more complicated. At the same 
 time, it was the easiest and the most obvious. . . . No 
 need to go into it now because it didn't come off. Most 
 likely my man would have decided on that plan if he 
 hadn't calculated that, being the easiest, Manuel would 
 be safe to choose it. Nobody would have suspected the 
 first one. Half the chance was his springing it on them. 
 And that's what he did." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins paused a moment to take another puff at 
 his cigar. . . . 
 
 " I guess though that when Bill Hackett — that's the 
 chap who was driving instead of the regular man. Under- 
 stand ? I guess when Bill Hackett had the reins snatched 
 out of his hands, and my man gripped them and turned 
 the horses sideways over the rocks, with the leaders rearing 
 up on their haunches — well, I guess that then, Manuel 
 began to suspicion what he was up against." 
 
 " How about Bill Hackett ? " Mr. Burt asked. " Of 
 course he'd doctored the other driver — that's evident. 
 But was this Bill Hackett a confederate ? " 
 
 Mr. Wilkins seemed to reflect. 
 
 " More likely not. My man wasn't one to put himself 
 in the power of a confederate that he could do without. 
 More likely he staked on Bill Hackett as being a considerable 
 whip and likewise a considerable fool. So when he jumped 
 up of a sudden and swore at Bill for having got off the 
 right trail on to a track some chaps dragging logs had 
 made, there wasn't a man on board who didn't believe he 
 knew what he was talking about. You see that coach 
 had never done the trip before but once ; and the old
 
 SISTER SORROW 93 
 
 driver being laid up, it was easy enough to lose a trail 
 that practically speaking had only existed in the driver's 
 head. There were just as many trails as there had been 
 fossicking parties up in the hills alongside of the big canyon. 
 They'd made tracks dodging the bad places, where their 
 supplies had been brought to the camp. . . . 
 
 " The one that seemed uneasy was Manuel. He did 
 know the lay of the country a bit, but not well enough to 
 have got his bearings properly, and I'm fair certain not 
 any one of them had ever struck the spot my man was 
 heading for. My word ! It was a clever piece of team 
 handling — turning those horses and getting them along 
 by the edge of the canyon, where the trees were so thick 
 you wouldn't have dreamed there was a sheer drop of 
 about a thousand feet to the bed of the gully below. 
 Except just at that one place he was making for. There, 
 came a break — a narrow spur with a broken fall on each 
 side that you couldn't see for the pine forest growing up 
 it — a kind of land bridge, pretty clear of trees in the 
 middle and going along maybe a hundred yards, where 
 it ended against an enormous round rock that stuck out 
 into the canyon and dropped, as I said, about a thousand 
 feet. 
 
 " You see his plan ? He'd calculated fine — studied 
 that bit of ground — counted every foot of it : and if you 
 had been there and had kept your eyes well peeled it's 
 just possible that you might have noticed that a tree now 
 and then was blazed — the merest scrape of the bark but 
 enough to give him the line. And he'd got one or two 
 other little signs. You'd have had to be familiar with 
 Redskin methods to know just what they meant. Well, 
 you understand ? He was going to drive the coach top- 
 speed along that spur, straight into a nick at the edge 
 of a big rock, just so that there'd be a general smash. The 
 leaders falling over the drop and carrying the wheelers 
 and the front part of the coach with them. Likewise, the 
 stack of gold, box seat and himself, and Bill Hackett on 
 top of the lot ! How do you call that for cool forethought 
 and daring ? "
 
 94 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " If you ask me," said Mr. Burt, " I call it general, 
 wholesale murder." 
 
 " Oh no, he wasn't going to commit general murder. 
 He'd figured out all the chances and taken his measures. 
 A few bruises, and maybe a broken arm or leg — that was 
 the worst he expected. He'd provided against accidents. 
 The traces were sliced into strands, as fine as india-rubber 
 bands, in the place where he intended them to give way : 
 and he'd contrived to do a good bit of invisible carpentering 
 on the front axles and the forepart of the coach, so that 
 there wouldn't be much doubt as to the body of it stopping 
 behind — wedged up in the nick of rock. — See ! As for 
 Bill Hackett's risk, I guess he reckoned to save him if 
 he could : and if he couldn't — well, one fool less in the 
 world wasn't of such almighty consequence." 
 
 " How about his own risk ? " asked Mr. Hichens. 
 
 " I guess he knew well enough that depended on himself, 
 and that he'd land all right if he kept his presence of 
 mind." 
 
 Father laughed softly in the way he does when expected 
 to believe an incredible tale. 
 
 " In a drop of a thousand feet ! You mean if he kept 
 his parachute open. For I presume that among his other 
 precautions, your Admirable Crichton had provided himself 
 with that. A parachute would have been of more use to 
 him, wouldn't it ? in the circumstances, than presence of 
 mind ? " 
 
 The other men gave loud guffaws, which seemed to excite 
 and irritate Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 " All right, laugh as much as you please. I haven't 
 told you yet the one important factor known only 
 to himself — then — which was the pivot of his whole 
 scheme." 
 
 Father still gurgled softly in his moustache. I glanced 
 at Torvald Helsing, expecting that he also would be 
 incredulous and amused, but he was sitting up straight, 
 looking very serious and evidently taking in every word 
 that Mr. Wilkins had been saying. 
 
 :< Let's have the factor, old man. I'm sure it will
 
 SISTER SORROW 95 
 
 do you credit and we are ready to swallow it with all the 
 red pepper you like to put in it," said Father. 
 
 Slightly mollified, but with a resentful note in his voice, 
 Mr. Wilkins went on : 
 
 ' Well, you know — I mentioned it before — there was a 
 wonderful civilization in those parts that was dead and gone 
 ages, ages before the Spaniards landed in Mexico. They 
 were builders and miners, those old buffers — gold was 
 of no account to them — they'd dug up such a heap 
 of it." 
 
 " Left any behind, had they ? " asked Mr. Hichens. 
 
 " Not much. I've heard of companies being formed to 
 empty those mines, but I never heard of their paying a 
 dividend. You see they were made thousands of years 
 ago — had got choked up, some." 
 
 ' Thousands of years ago ! " echoed Mr. Hichens 
 derisively. " Why not say millions ! Why not before 
 the Flood ! " 
 
 ' You've hit it, my boy. They were just before the 
 Flood. Ever heard of Atlantis ? " 
 
 " Can't say I have," said Mr. Hichens. 
 
 " Plato," put in Father. 
 
 " I don't know Plato," said Mr. Wilkins, " but I did know 
 a chap called Donnelly — an American. Met him in 
 Colorado. He'd figured out the whole thing — wrote a 
 book about it, he told me. Atlantis was the Flood. At 
 least the Flood swallowed up Atlantis — except for a few 
 bits here and there, and Mexico and all that part was one 
 of the bits. See ! " 
 
 There was a laugh, and that angered Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 ' Look here, you think I'm gassing. Ask Mr. Carfax. 
 He seems to know." 
 
 Father had not laughed. I am sure he was trying to 
 remember what Plato had said. But he hadn't succeeded. 
 I was bursting to tell him, and felt glad that I had refrained. 
 
 " Ask Helsing," said Father. " He's latest from college." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins turned his big shoulders and craned into 
 the shadow which seemed deeper outside the small, con- 
 fusing illumination made by the reflector lamp.
 
 96 SISTER SORROW 
 
 ' That so ! You there, Helsing ? Ain't I right about 
 Atlantis and Mr. Donnelly and the ancient workings ? ' 
 
 " Why, yes, certainly," replied Torvald at once. ' I've 
 read Donnelly's ' Atlantis,' and you can find all that's 
 known about the old Mayan civilization in any book on 
 Central American antiquities." 
 
 " There ! " Mr. Wilkins waved his cigar triumphantly. 
 " He's even got the name of it, and now that I'm proved 
 correct in these particulars, perhaps you'll stop making 
 jokes about parachutes." 
 
 XVI 
 
 " A LL right, Wilkins ! " said Father good humouredly. 
 
 XX. " You're spinning us a first-rate yarn anyway." 
 And Bee and Bel, huddled together on the edge of the 
 veranda, held their breaths in panting interest. 
 
 " Oh ! don't stop, Mr. Wilkins. ... Do go on .. . 
 quick," cried Bel. 
 
 " That's a lovely story," said Bee. " As good as ' King 
 Solomon's Mines '—isn't it, Bel ? " 
 
 " Better, because it's true," stoutly asserted Bel. 
 
 " You've hit it, young 'un. And that's worth to you 
 the box of chocolates Miss Bee isn't going to win. See ! 
 Well, then, it just happened," Mr. Wilkins proceeded, " that 
 the entrance to one of those ancient mines lay underneath 
 that nick in the big rock where the coach capsized." 
 
 " The coach did capsize ? " put in Mr. Burt. " He 
 pulled off his job — your man — did he ? " 
 
 " Yes, he did. I'm coming to that. As I said, there 
 were the ancient workings — the whole of the spur and the 
 inside of that big hummock at the end were riddled with 
 caves, made with men's hands — and, my word, they were 
 cute chaps, those old miners — where the earth and the 
 rock had been excavated and the gold taken away. There 
 was a kind of gallery, partly natural and partly hollowed 
 out, on the face of the precipice. If you had looked up
 
 SISTER SORROW 97 
 
 at it from below, you'd have seen nothing but thick creepers 
 growing over what you'd have supposed to be a mere rock ; 
 for you'd have seen a few spikes of stone sticking up through 
 the green a bit beyond. But you'd never have been able 
 to get near enough to make out what really was there — say 
 
 twenty feet below. And that " Mr. Wilkins paused 
 
 dramatically ; and in the pause one could hear Bee's ecstatic 
 breathing. " That was the gallery — a sort of passage 
 broad enough lor three men to stand abreast in, and big 
 enough for as many stacks of gold as you might want to put 
 there. You see, those ancients knew what they were 
 about. They'd left the outer shell of the rock and made it 
 a sort of wall. — But I couldn't even begin to tell you about 
 those old workings — it would take me all night." 
 
 " You've been there ? " someone asked. 
 
 " I've been there — yes. How could I describe the 
 place if I hadn't ? . . . But it wasn't then " — he added 
 rather hastily. — " I told you Phil Wilkins was just one of 
 the outsiders in that particular show. . . . Yes, of course, 
 he pulled off his job— my man. He'd calculated it all 
 out. The plan went like greased lightning — This way — 
 See ! Coach caught by the hind wheels in that sort of 
 little gully up against the rock hummock. — Driver slewing 
 the horses' heads, tugging at the reins and using the whip 
 for all he was worth. They thought — the others, that the 
 beasts had shied and that he was making a dash round 
 the rock. Then — All over in a few seconds. Horses 
 rearing and plunging ; traces breaking ; front axle giving 
 way. Bill Hackett pitched out. Horses disappearing over 
 the precipice. Leather bags of gold dropping out and 
 disappearing too. Driver likewise disappearing. A regular 
 vanishing trick. Crash in front. Crash behind. Coach 
 overturned, and passengers all tumbling over each other 
 — some of 'em chucked on to the stones, and, to add to 
 the confusion, the two troopers' guns going off and two 
 chaps hit. No serious wounds, but for a good five 
 minutes most of 'em calling out and only thinking of 
 how many of 'em had been hurt. It was a most unholy 
 smash. The wonder was that more damage wasn't done. 
 
 7
 
 98 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Well, after those that could, had picked themselves up, 
 and those that couldn't were being looked after the best 
 way possible, and when some of 'em were able to take 
 stock of what was left, there were no horses to be seen, 
 no gold to be seen : no driver to be seen ; neither Bill 
 Hackett nor the sergeant of the gold escort to be seen. 
 Clean gone, the lot ! Nobody supposed anything else 
 than that they were scattered in little bits at the bottom 
 of the canyon — that is, what hadn't been caught on the 
 trees on the way. And the gold with them." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins made another dramatic pause. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of that ? Wasn't I right ? 
 My man takes the cake ? " 
 
 " It's a marvellous exploit," was all Father said. 
 
 " You don't believe it ? " 
 
 The other men began putting questions. 
 
 " Did they ever find the gold ? " 
 
 " Never an ingot." 
 
 " Nor the remains ? " 
 
 " Of the humans ? Not a shred nor a bone. There were 
 some few bits of horse, identified by the harness, that had 
 caught on some jagged rocks a good way down the fall. . . . 
 You see it was rather a job working on foot up that 
 canyon," Mr. Wilkins added. " It took time to make 
 investigations." 
 
 " How about the leather bags the gold was stowed in ? " 
 Father asked. 
 
 : ' Some chaps who rediscovered the old workings found 
 the bags there in an inside cave with all the gold taken 
 out of them." 
 
 " What you're wanting us to believe is, I take it," said 
 Father, " that your impostor sergeant in planning the 
 robbery counted on his knowledge of those old workings 
 and that when he upset the coach he did it with such 
 mathematical precision that the gold fell into the gallery 
 you described while the horses went clean over the preci- 
 pice ! I presume the villain himself got safely into the 
 gallery with the gold and was able to pursue his operations 
 afterwards. But there's Bill Hackett to be accounted for,"
 
 SISTER SORROW 99 
 
 Father's tone of bland acceptance, took a note of gentle 
 curiosity. ' Did Bill Hackett ever turn up again ? " 
 
 ' I had a long talk with Bill Hackett eighteen months 
 back in Yokohama," said Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 ' The devil you had ! " Father's bland tone changed 
 suddenly. " I say, my friend, did it strike you that you 
 might have been had up as an accessory to the crime ? " 
 
 " Not in Japan. And it would have been a good bit after 
 the fact. No fear ! I should have been safe enough — 
 even in the States. Bill Hackett would have been all 
 right too. He was the dupe. See ? However, I'm not 
 sure that I ought to be mentioning Bill. What he told 
 me was in confidence ; and so far as the story goes, I'm 
 through with it, now I've proved my case." 
 
 "■ Stop a bit," Father interposed. " You can tell us if 
 the thief was ever brought to justice ? " 
 
 Mr. Wilkins laughed. " No, I can't. He may have 
 swung, for all I know. Week after that, I left the country 
 and shipped from Mexico. I'd had enough of gold-mining 
 in New Mexico, and thought I'd see something of the 
 South Seas for a change." 
 
 ' Mr. Wilkins," put in Bee. ' You never said what had 
 become of Manuel. I thought he was going to do some- 
 thing interesting, and he just seemed to fizzle out. Didn't 
 you have anything to do with Manuel after that ? " 
 
 ' If I had, I tell you I'd have put my mark upon him," 
 Mr. Wilkins exclaimed, and there was a note of scarcely 
 repressed fury in his voice. Involuntarily, it seemed, he 
 lifted up his clenched hand as if he were shaking it at an 
 invisible foe, and I noticed that his glance dropped. I 
 wondered if he was thinking, as I was, of the red seam 
 upon his wrist, and I wondered, too, whether Manuel's knife 
 had had anything to do with that. He let the arm fall, and 
 the hand rested again upon the broad arm of his chair, 
 covering once more Dolores' soft little hand, which lay still 
 there. In the interest of the story, I had forgotten the 
 revelation of the lamp's rays and I don't know whether he 
 had gone on holding her hand. I fancy not. Except for 
 the one remark, she had remained silent all the time ; and 
 
 7*
 
 ioo SISTER SORROW 
 
 so she sat now. Her face was in shadow and partly hidden 
 besides, by his forward-slouching shoulder. 
 
 " It's a queer story," said Mr. Burt. " The thing I 
 should like to get at is what became of the gold. You say, 
 Wilkins, that you left the country a week after. But 
 surely the police were informed at once. You said there 
 were two troopers in the coach. And there were the 
 passengers. Their evidence would have been wanted — 
 yours among them. I don't see how they let you get 
 slick away." 
 
 "There were plenty to give evidence without me," 
 replied Mr. Wilkins sulkily. 
 
 " I agree with Burt," Father put in. " It's a very queer 
 story and takes a lot of elucidating. No aspersion on your 
 veracity, Wilkins. I've proved for myself that truth is often 
 stranger than fiction. But here we have four horses, a 
 stack of gold and two humans vanishing into space. No 
 remains found, except some bits of horse and harness and 
 the bags that had held the gold. Wild beasts and birds of 
 prey generally leave bones, and I've never heard of any 
 creature except emus and cassowaries that eat gold. Now 
 what became of the two humans ? Or was it three ? I 
 understand you never saw Manuel again after the upset. 
 That so ? " ' 
 
 Mr. Wilkins answered after a moment or two, still 
 sulkily. " That's so." 
 
 " Then he didn't get back with the coach-load. You'd 
 have known if he had." 
 
 " Doesn't follow. I was knocked unconscious and I 
 stopped unconscious for I don't know exactly how many 
 days." 
 
 " Oh ! " Father ruminated. Mr. Burt broke in : 
 
 " Yet you got out of the country in a week." 
 
 " They carted me off to a doctor. As soon as I had my 
 wits back, I sloped. The truth was I had no desire to be 
 kept hanging round a New Mexican Law Court. I knew 
 something about Mexican Law Courts. Sec ! " 
 
 " The point is," persisted Burt. " Who collared the 
 gold ? Was it your devilishly cool and clever hero ? By
 
 SISTER SORROW 101 
 
 Jove ! I give him the cake, Wilkins. Or was it Bill 
 Hackett ? Or was it Manuel ? Or, what is most likely, 
 were they confederates and shared the plunder ? " 
 
 ' Sorry I can't inform you," said Mr. Wilkins. And then, 
 again to my surprise, Torvald Helsing spoke. 
 
 ' You would know what Manuel's surname was, Mr. 
 Wilkins. Or at least the one he was known by at that 
 time." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins did not answer immediately. Then Torvald 
 Helsing asked : 
 
 "Was it Herrebine? " 
 
 Mr. Wilkins turned sharply round in his chair, half of 
 him, outside the focus of the reflector, giving the impression 
 of a monstrous shadow. But the light caught his eyes, 
 and they seemed to blaze. 
 
 " What the devil ! I . . . I say, where do vow come 
 
 in ! " 
 
 ' Never mind. It's quite simple, as you'll see." Torvald 
 Helsing's tone was dulcet in comparison. " Was Manuel's 
 surname Herrebine ? " 
 
 Mr. Wilkins jerked his body back. The monstrous 
 shadow lessened, and his glowering face appeared to 
 change its shape. He answered, with an attempt at 
 composure : 
 
 " You startled me. I was trying to remember. Yes, 
 I believe that was it." 
 
 " Then I can tell you that Manuel Herrebine was accused 
 of the robbery. A nugget of a peculiar shape, identified 
 as having been part of the gold under convoy, was found 
 to have been in his possession. His defence was that he 
 had been thrown from the coach into a cleft of the rocks 
 which gave access to the ancient workings ; he said that 
 he wandered about the caves for many hours, and, in 
 the course of his wanderings, discovered the nugget and 
 some other gold which he said was secreted in the rocks, 
 and which he assumed to have been hidden by some former 
 miners. He said that he had escaped from the caves by an 
 opening on the other side of the spur and had made his 
 way with great difficulty down the bed of the canyon.
 
 102 SISTER SORROW 
 
 There were weak points in his story — I don't remember 
 the details, but I know it didn't convince the jury 
 that he had had no part in the robbery, and he was 
 sentenced to a term of imprisonment. . . . That's about 
 all I remember." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins burst in agitatedly : 
 
 ■ • How — How in the devil's name did you come to know 
 anything about it ? " 
 
 He had turned again in his chair and was staring at 
 Torvald. 
 
 " It's quite simple, as I said. I happened to be in 
 New Mexico at the time and I read the report of the 
 trial. The account of the ancient workings interested me 
 because I had lately been looking up Mayan antiquities 
 in Mexico proper," Torvald Helsing answered quietly. 
 " As faras I know," he went on, " nothing was found out 
 about the other two men. But, as you say that you had a 
 long talk with one of them in Yokohama — Bill Hackett, 
 wasn't it ? — no doubt, you've cleared up his part in the 
 mystery." 
 
 " Bill Hackett didn't have any of the gold. I am not at 
 liberty to repeat what he told me. I said Bill Hackett 
 was on the square, and you've got to take that from me. 
 So far as he and I are concerned the mystery must continue 
 to be a mystery." 
 
 The "Dictatorial Person" was all to the fore now. 
 
 " Then it lies between Manuel Herrebine — whose cock- 
 and-bull excuse I don't believe a word of — and your 
 impostor sergeant," said Father. " You don't seem to 
 have any doubt as to his guilty motives. And, by the 
 way, Wilkins, how did you contrive to know so much about 
 him ? — If it was through Bill Hackett, that goes to prove 
 they were confederates." 
 
 ' I don't see your reasoning, but you can leave it at 
 that, if you like," retorted Mr. Wilkins. " There's nothing 
 more to be got out of me. — Except this, — I can tell you 
 that Manuel was a liar and a thief and a treacherous 
 scoundrel. Just put me on his track — that's all I ask. 
 Tell me what he's been doing since I saw him last and
 
 SISTER SORROW 103 
 
 where he is now. Just give me the chance to hound him 
 down and deal him out his deserts " 
 
 The concentrated fury in the man's voice made me 
 shudder. He had let himself go and for the moment 
 seemed to have forgotten everything but his hatred and 
 his malevolent desire. I seemed to realize his evil nature 
 in a way that was almost uncanny. But I had a still 
 more creepy feeling when, as though impelled to answer 
 to his demand, Dolores broke in. Her voice came out of 
 the shadow — that far-away sounding and monotonously- 
 pitched voice which I recognized as belonging to those 
 queer other-world moods of hers, when she dreamed dreams 
 and saw visions. 
 
 " / can put you on his track," she said ; "I can tell 
 you all he has been doing since you saw him last. . . . 
 That was when he robbed you — and he tried to kill you. 
 ... I can see him quite distinctly. Oh ! I can't bear 
 his face, he's like a snake. ..." 
 
 And then I seemed to hear ... I know that I feU—~ 
 a shudder go through Dody's body, and her voice changed 
 from its sing-song, level intonation to a terrified shrillness, 
 in which was a sibilant note — I suppose from the association 
 of the snake idea. 
 
 " He's like a snake," she said. " He's got a snaky 
 forehead — flat — going back. His eyes are just slits — 
 black beads — glittering — hard — like a snake's eyes. He 
 has a hooked nose and a little black beard. One of his 
 front teeth shows — yellow — like a fang. ..." 
 
 " That's him— she's got him, by God ! " Mr. Wilkins 
 muttered. He was sitting up staring still, as if transfixed 
 with amazement. I am sure he was too much amazed 
 to have command of himself, or he would have stopped 
 her. But he did not ; and she went on saying again : 
 
 " I can see him quite distinctly. He's in the cave, you 
 are both there. You're looking at each other. You have 
 had your belt torn off with your revolver — you've nothing 
 to fight him with. He's got his knife — I've never seen a 
 knife like that — long and very sharp. . . . And now you 
 spring at him and you've got your hands at his throat.
 
 io 4 SISTER SORROW 
 
 . . . O . . . o . . . . h I " She ended on a shuddering 
 wail. 
 
 But on the instant there came a crash, a blinding flash 
 of light — flaming kerosene was running along the floor of 
 the veranda. I knew in a moment what had happened. 
 Mr. Wilkins had jumped up suddenly and had overturned 
 the small table near his chair on which Clara had set the 
 reflector lamp. The lamp was on the floor, broken, and 
 the oil alight. 
 
 XVII 
 
 WE all sprang to our feet, except Dolores. She was 
 still sitting on the camp-stool against the creepers 
 which overgrew the veranda-railings, apparently uncon- 
 scious of the hubbub and the conflagration. The flare 
 of the oil-stream threw a lurid glow on her face. Her eyes 
 were half-closed, the pupils turned backward and the 
 whites showing. I had seen her look like that in her 
 sleep. 
 
 l rushed up to her, but Bee and Bel were before me, and 
 were screaming in her ear : 
 
 " Miss Lloyd. Wake up ! You'll be burned to death 
 if you don't." 
 
 Bee's sturdy arms dragged Dolores from the camp-stool 
 and down the steps to the garden. Now her eyes were 
 wide open and she stared dazedly around her. 
 
 But there was no time then to study Dolores. Clara 
 ran out shrieking from the drawing-room. All was 
 confusion. The men grasped at every available thing 
 that would smother the flames. Father had pulled off 
 the sofa cushions and was swabbing the stream of fire 
 with them. Mr. Hichens had got a jug of water and was 
 sending rivulets of flame in all directions. Father called 
 for blankets and I rushed to drag mine from my bed. As 
 I passed Torvald Helsing, he seized a 'possum rug that 
 hung over the back of the settee and that no one had
 
 SISTER SORROW 105 
 
 noticed. When I came back he had laid it over the fire 
 and was stamping on it. After that, the men soon ex- 
 tinguished the flames. 
 
 Luckily, no serious damage had been done. Someone had 
 had the presence of mind to tear down the muslin draperies 
 which Dody and I had put up at the French windows, and 
 beyond some charring of the painted lintel and window 
 frames, the woodwork was all right. Had it once really 
 caught, I am afraid the old house would have been burned 
 down. If Mr. Wilkins had wanted to divert attention 
 from any indiscreet utterances she might have made, or 
 from Dody's startling revelations, he could not have 
 devised a more effectual method of so doing. That idea, 
 however, only came to me later. The shock of the fire 
 and the risk we had run drove everything else out of our 
 minds. Then, Clara unexpectedly distracted our attention. 
 She had a queer sort of collapse — Clara, who was usually 
 so strong and so active and who prided herself upon 
 keeping her nerve in all the ordinary vicissitudes of Bush 
 life. She had continued hemming her kitchen rubbers 
 unmoved by any echoes which might have reached her of 
 Mr. Wilkins' exciting tale, and had only run out when her 
 attention was attracted by the curtains catching fire. 
 When Father asked for blankets, she had rushed off in 
 search of them. Nobody noticed that she did not come 
 back, and it was not till the fire was put out that we 
 found her huddled up on a chair on which she must have 
 sunk, with the blankets in a heap at her feet. She was 
 moaning and her two hands were pressed against her side 
 just beneath her left breast. 
 
 Torvald Helsing saw her first. In a moment, he was 
 leaning over her, feeling her pulse and examining her face. 
 He told me to bring brandy at once and made her swallow 
 it. She stopped moaning and seemed to revive. I asked 
 Torvald what was the matter. 
 
 " I think she has had some kind of heart attack," he 
 answered in a low voice. 
 
 Father came presently. By that time, Clara was much 
 better and began explaining in her wandering fashion that it
 
 106 SISTER SORROW 
 
 was only an attack of indigestion — the kickshaws at the 
 hotel had upset her, and had given her heartburn — she was 
 subject to heartburn. She had turned giddy, she said, 
 that morning, for a minute or two, when she had been 
 unpacking the box of house-linen and the giddiness and 
 pain had come on again when she pulled the blankets off 
 her bed. The pain had been like a knife going into her. 
 She declared that she was all right now and wanted to go 
 and see what damage the fire had done. But when she 
 got up she was curiously weak, and sat down again, saying 
 that she would rest a few minutes longer. 
 
 Mr. Burt and Mr. Hichens begged to be allowed to fetch 
 the doctor, or some medicine, or to do anything else that 
 might be of use. But Father and Clara both laughed at 
 the idea of a doctor. The two mining men did what, 
 in the circumstances, was obviously the next best thing 
 and said good-night. 
 
 Torvald Helsing did not go with them. I saw plainly 
 that he was more concerned about Clara's state than Father 
 appeared to be. He asked if he might listen to the beat of 
 her heart, and put his ear to her chest. His face seemed to 
 me graver when he lifted his head. 
 
 " I'm not a qualified doctor," he said, " and it's rather 
 cheek of me to offer an opinion. But I've studied medicine 
 a bit, and I am quite safe in telling you that Mrs. Carfax has 
 been overdoing her heart and ought to take life very 
 quietly for the next day or two. I am sure she had better 
 get to bed as soon as possible." 
 
 I took Clara to her room, Bee and Bel following, and 
 we tucked our poor, old, floppy baby in between the 
 sheets and left her at ease from pain and very drowsy. 
 Father fussed in once or twice. As he was going out 
 again, he said : 
 
 ' He's a good chap, that fellow Helsing, and I daresay 
 he does know something of medicine. He said he felt 
 quite certain Clara ought to be overhauled for her heart, 
 but, as I told him, Clara has never complained in her 
 life of anything but a little indigestion occasionally, and 
 her heart is as sound as a bell. Why shouldn't it be ?
 
 SISTER SORROW 107 
 
 She's always led a healthy Bush life, and people's hearts 
 don't go wrong like that in ten seconds. Of course the 
 sight of that burning paraffin was enough to give her a 
 turn. Beastly careless of Wilkins to jump up like that, 
 upsetting the table and the lamp. And look here, Gasgie, 
 I'm not going to have any more of that confounded thought- 
 reading business with Miss Lloyd. I don't like it and I 
 shall make Wilkins understand that, and just you tell 
 her from me that she's not to do it again." 
 
 I had altogether forgotten Dolores Lloyd and Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins. Going out of Clara's room, which opened on to 
 the little entrance hall, I found Torvald Helsing with his 
 hat and stick, and we stepped on to the back veranda 
 together. He asked me how Clara was and I told him she 
 seemed quite easy and was probably asleep by this time. 
 
 " Did you really mean that her heart is not right, and 
 that she should see a doctor ? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes, I did mean it," he answered rather gravely. 
 " Of course I may be quite wrong, and I have really no 
 means of judging beyond a small amount of medical 
 knowledge and instinct. Nor have I any right to put 
 forward my opinion. But your father says he'll get her 
 to see a doctor, so that you need not worry till you hear 
 what the doctor has to say." 
 
 I thanked him and then we were both silent for a 
 minute as we stood at the head of the steps, with the 
 moon, like an electric lamp in the sky, shining over the 
 dark, conical shapes of the bunya trees on either side of 
 the drive. He was looking at me I knew, and, as our eyes 
 met, the gaze of both of us turned involuntarily, as it 
 were, towards a particularly noticeable star, large and 
 palely luminous and near its setting. 
 
 " Do you know anything about the stars ? " he asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 I told him that I was afraid I had learned very little 
 astronomy at school. 
 
 " I didn't mean that exactly," he said. " They say 
 astrology is the soul of astronomy : and it was the souls 
 of the stars I was thinking about."
 
 108 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " Tell me about the souls of the stars," I said. 
 
 He smiled at me. In the cross lights of moon and 
 stars and of the lamps within, streaming through the 
 open doorway, I thought how spiritual and how kind he 
 looked, and, again, how very blue his eyes — the blue of 
 nemophila flowers. 
 
 " It would take a long time to tell you all that," he 
 said. " Some star-lit evening— perhaps by the sea — I 
 hope that I may have the chance — I think that I shall." 
 
 " Perhaps when — if ever — I am waiting, as you said, 
 on the Island for a steamer to be hailed. — Or perhaps 
 when you come back again here," I answered. 
 
 " One or the other. ... Do you see that beautiful 
 star shining low over the bunyas ? " 
 
 ' Venus, isn't it ? " I said. " I know enough of 
 astronomy for that. Setting, I think." 
 
 " No ; she is late in rising. Venus is the Evening 
 Star now. . . . The soul of that star is lovely and benefi- 
 cent. I could wish that she might be the Ruler and the 
 Watcher over your destiny." 
 
 I did not know what to answer. I asked : " Have you 
 a ruling star too ? " 
 
 " Of course. We all have ruling stars. The orbits 
 of your star and mine must have touched, I think, yester- 
 day. You see," he went on, " I had the feeling yesterday 
 morning that we should meet again soon . . . although 
 I was starting on a voyage several hundred miles north. 
 And I am glad my steamer broke down," he added 
 abruptly. 
 
 " So am I." And when I had made the statement, 
 I tried to qualify it. " At least — " I began and was going 
 on to say that it was better the Princess Maud should 
 have broken down in the Bay than out at sea, when he 
 interposed hastily : 
 
 " No, no. Oh, please don't spoil it." 
 
 A little silence followed, and he added with formal 
 courtesy: "But I am keeping you standing here, and 
 I mustn't do that. Of course I did not like to go without 
 bidding you good night. Your father said he'd see me to
 
 SISTER SORROW 109 
 
 the Ferry Road. Somebody wanted to speak to him and 
 I waited here in the hope of seeing you. Here is your 
 father now." 
 
 Father was stepping round the side of the house, driving 
 Bee and Bel in front of him. 
 
 ' Off with you, young-uns. Go to bed and don't make 
 a noise to disturb your mother," he was saying in a stage- 
 whisper. " What business have you to be mooning about 
 the garden at this hour ? " 
 
 " We were looking for Miss Lloyd," said Bel. 
 
 " She's mooning about the garden, if you like — with 
 Mr. Wilkins," said Bee pertly. 
 
 Father muttered, as he made pantomimic injunctions 
 to quietude : 
 
 " That'll do. Go to bed. You've said good night 
 to Mr. Helsing, you needn't do it again." 
 
 The two girls tiptoed past Clara's door and disappeared 
 into their own room. 
 
 " I'm ready now, Helsing," Father said, but paused as 
 he was leading the way up the drive. " Look here, 
 Agatha, go and rout out those other two. I'm sorry I 
 asked that chap Wilkins. Mind. I'm not going to have 
 any more nonsense. Send Miss Lloyd to her room and 
 tell Wilkins I'll be back before he's got through a cigar. 
 You needn't suggest whisky. I should say he's had 
 as much grog as he can carry." 
 
 Father stalked on. Helsing lingered to shake hands 
 with me. 
 
 ' I hope the Princess Maud won't break down again," 
 I said. 
 
 " May the kindly stars have you in their keeping," 
 was his somewhat irrelevant reply. " Good night," 
 he said. 
 
 I felt the tingling of his fingers against mine for more 
 than a minute after he had left me. 
 
 I found Mr. Wilkins and Dolores Lloyd standing in 
 the veranda. Both looked pre-absorbed, and yet as though 
 something sensational had happened, something critical 
 in their relations with each other.
 
 no SISTER SORROW 
 
 He had an excited air — shoulders jerky and the fingers 
 of his right hand drumming on the coping of the veranda- 
 railings. And he was looking at Dolores, I thought, 
 uneasily from under frowning brows, the square jaw 
 protruding and set as if he had definitely made up his 
 mind on some subject but was not altogether pleased 
 over a decision to which he had been forced. 
 
 I gave him, curtly enough, Father's message. 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Carfax, but it's getting late and 
 I think I won't sit up for your father. I know what it 
 is when fellows get yarning and strolling in the moonlight, 
 so, if you don't mind, I'll go up presently and turn in." 
 
 He bade me " Good night," and added with ungracious 
 contrition : 
 
 " I expect you feel that I've done a pretty considerable 
 lot of damage, and I beg to apologize for the accident. 
 It was an accident, you know. I'd forgotten all about 
 that lamp near my elbow." 
 
 Why should he make such a point of its having been 
 an accident ? Could it possibly not have been an accident ? 
 He looked at the blackened window of the drawing-room 
 and then at the charred opossum rug and sofa cushions. 
 
 " That's about the total," he said. " It might have 
 been a bigger one to make good. I know where to find 
 a new 'possum rug — a real beauty — Tasmanian skins." 
 
 I said that it was quite unnecessary for him to trouble 
 about making good. The rug was of not the least con- 
 sequence. All that mattered was having upset Mrs. 
 Carfax. 
 
 He asked a question or two about Clara : expressed 
 contrition and then I took Dolores' arm and just marched 
 her off. 
 
 I was not in a mood to be over-considerate towards 
 Dolores. Nor was I in a mood either to reproach^her. 
 I had done that already. Besides where would be the 
 good ? So I merely told her that Father had sent Bee 
 and Bel to bed and that he wanted her to go and keep them 
 from disturbing Clara. Then I left her at the door of 
 her room and went to my own.
 
 SISTER SORROW in 
 
 There was something about Dolores that night which 
 perplexed and repelled me. She seemed to be only half 
 there, so to speak, yet, in some ways, she seemed more alive 
 than usual. Have you ever seen one of those plants — 
 I forget the name of them — which grow in the desert 
 and are mere flabby corpses of themselves, until you put 
 them in water. Then, have you ever noticed how curiously 
 they imbibe vitality— the stalk gradually stiffening, the 
 leaves ceasing to be limp, blubber-like lumps, but agitated 
 now by the nerve-tremors, while the flower-petals, stirred 
 by the plant-nerves, fill out and intensify in colour ? 
 But you know that the thing is only temporarily alive 
 by suction, and that when there is no more water you 
 will find a flabby corpse once more. 
 
 Or, one of those exquisitely tinted sea-anemones, fading 
 and drooping when the receding tide has left it dry : 
 reviving when the tide washes over it again. That's 
 even a better comparison. Dolores looked like a revived 
 sea- anemone to-night, shivering softly in the joy of new 
 life, taking on delicate tints, putting forth roseate tentacles. 
 Her eyes were so large and limpid : her cheeks so softly 
 flushed : her ordinarily lymphatic body stiffened and 
 vitalized. 
 
 But it was not a wholesome process of vitalization. 
 It was morbid, horrible. I shrank from the new Dolores. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 I AWOKE early. Sounds in the garden awakened 
 me. When I had put on a dressing-gown and looked 
 over the veranda-railings, I saw that Bee and Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins were playing a sort of hide-and-seek game on 
 the lower terrace among the banana trees on one side and 
 the pine-apple patch on the other. I suddenly remembered 
 the wager. Well, Bee, schoolgirl — hoyden as she was, 
 could quite hold her own with Mr. Phil Wilkins, and I felt 
 that I needn't bother about her.
 
 ii2 SISTER SORROW 
 
 The garden looked delicious. That lower terrace was 
 half vegetable garden, and was divided by a prickly-pear 
 hedge from a grass paddock wherein, now, the two dray 
 horses and the buggy pair were taking their morning run. 
 The middle walk of the lower terrace was trellised with 
 granadilla vines and had a summer-house at the end of 
 it. The terrace above was laid out in rows of fruit-trees 
 and grape-vines. It was through the little alleys of vine 
 that I caught flying glimpses of Bee's corn-coloured plaits 
 and of her black-stockinged legs beneath the linen skirts 
 she had outgrown, and of Mr. Wilkins, in loose tweeds and 
 Panama hat, pursuing her. Presently, out sped Bel with 
 shorter plaits and skirts and longer stockinged legs. The 
 three romped with huge glee, chasing each other round 
 the vegetable beds and among the bananas. It seemed 
 Bee's object to head off Mr. Wilkins from a particular 
 corner guarded by prickly-pears. 
 
 The time was later than I had thought. The sun, 
 well up, was making a diamond road across the river where 
 the moon had strewed opals the evening before. The sky 
 was blue — so blue ! — the blue of Torvald Helsing's eyes. 
 So was the river. Clara's cocks were crowing. Already 
 the ferryman shouted " — o — ver," to his early customers. 
 The bamboos were talking, and all the trees and shrubs 
 and flowers rejoiced in the crisp, warm air. Tingling 
 after a cold bath, I dressed as quickly as I could. Then, 
 passing Clara's door on my way from the bathroom, I 
 heard her and Father talking, and guessed that she was 
 better of her heart-attack. Dolores Lloyd's room was 
 next mine, but I heard no sound there. I would not 
 call her. She would only go after the children into the 
 garden and no doubt fall anew under the uncanny spell 
 of Mr. Phil Wilkins. I thought of all that had happened 
 the evening before. It seemed to me as though some 
 lurking horror hid in the background. . . . And that 
 extraordinary story he had told ! Thinking back over 
 it, the whole tale seemed like a grotesque jig-saw puzzle 
 the pieces of which did not fit properly. Even I, with no 
 knowledge of the country and life he had described, could
 
 SISTER SORROW 113 
 
 see the improbabilities and discrepancies of his story. 
 I asked myself whether, if Father had not opened those 
 bottles of champagne and old port, Mr. Wilkins would have 
 bragged about the hero of that adventure — or have related 
 it at all. 
 
 I had put the last touches to my hair and was regarding 
 myself in the glass with an interest in my personal appear- 
 ance of which I was not ordinarily conscious. For I am 
 sure that I never was really vain. Yet, that morning, 
 remembering the expression in Torvald Helsing's eyes 
 when the previous evening I had caught them fixed upon 
 me, I wondered whether he had admired me. I believe 
 I was considered rather pretty. But it is a fact that 
 notwithstanding this, and in spite of my little fortune, 
 I had received very few proposals of marriage. And 
 those were from absolutely the wrong sort of men. Not 
 one of the men I knew, whom I could ever have thought 
 of as a husband, seemed to want me as a wife. 
 
 I don't take after Father, I have always been told 
 that I am like my mother. A daguerreotype of her stood 
 on my dressing-table — one of those soft-tinted, real looking 
 portraits, which, for all their quaint crudity, I like better 
 than the modern " artistic " photograph. 
 
 Mother wore in her picture the dress of earlyish Victorian 
 days — stiff, fulled-in bodice, open in front over a muslin 
 habit-shirt, with embroidered muslin collar and under- 
 sleeves and an evident crinoline below the long waist. 
 The hair was parted in the middle and drawn down over 
 the ears, exposing the forehead. Fortunately, Mother's 
 forehead was low and broad, and her hair, being curly, 
 rippled in pretty waves above her brows. My hair 
 is the same colour as hers — coppery brown, but it does 
 not wave at all, and I have to help it with curlers, when 
 I want to look particularly nice. Mother had wide- 
 open, sort of innocent eyes, brown, with thick upturned 
 lashes. I can never be quite sure of the colour of my own 
 eyes, but I think they are brown like hers. She had a 
 short straight nose, thin at the point and with nostrils 
 a little cut-up, like the nostrils of a thorough-bred mare. 
 
 8
 
 1 1 4 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Mother's mouth was rather wide, and the lips curved in 
 a charming way. I like Mother's mouth, but I am afraid 
 it was prettier than mine has ever been. And she had 
 a long throat, and her head was well set on, which gave 
 her a high-bred look. Mother was well born. I have 
 always wondered how Father could have chosen a wife 
 like Clara, after having been married to such a woman as 
 my mother. 
 
 Poor Clara ! I don't mean to disparage her : she was 
 very good and kind-hearted : but of course she was quite 
 different from my own mother. 
 
 I was thinking something like this and looking from 
 the daguerreotype to my own face in the glass, when, 
 through the window at the side of my dressing table, I saw 
 Dolores walking down to the garden. She must have 
 gone out very quietly from her room. And again she 
 gave me the feeling of being " only half there." Yet I 
 felt her too, as being more than usually alive. She wasn't 
 mooning in her customary manner but walked slowly and 
 deliberately, with her eyes fixed straight before her, as 
 though she had a purpose in going. Was the purpose 
 Mr. Phil Wilkins ? I did not wait to put my hat on, 
 but ran across the veranda, down the steps, and reached 
 the lower terrace by the middle walk before Dolores had 
 got there. In front of the summer-house, at the end 
 of the granadilla trellis, Mr. Phil Wilkins, Bee and 
 Bel were laughing, shouting and gesticulating to each 
 other. 
 
 Bel was shrieking : " Bee's got it. . . . Bee's won 
 the bet ; " and Mr. Wilkins called out in his turn : " No, 
 I saw it before she'd touched it : and seeing is finding 
 in this game. Understand ? Because Miss Bee knew 
 where it was growing before she made the bet. See ? ' 
 
 Bee flushed, animated, forget-me-not blue eyes sparkling, 
 yellow-brown tails, which had come unbound, flying, as 
 she shook her head, vehemently disputing his interpretation 
 of the terms of the bet. 
 
 " No, no, seeing's not finding. Touching is finding. / 
 touched first. No, Mr. Wilkins, I'm not going to let you
 
 SISTER SORROW 115 
 
 have it." She retreated against the outer post of the 
 granadilla trellis, holding a gardenia bud above her head. 
 A beautiful bud, cream white in its green calyx, torn leaves 
 hanging where it had been wrenched from the stem. As 
 she poised herself so, her full bust heaving, the precociously 
 mature outlines of her young form thrown into relief, her 
 red lips parted, over her white teeth : and her straight 
 features of the heavy classic mould — both the girls had 
 Father's nose — refined by exercise and excitement, Bee 
 gave the effect of a Greek girl-goddess and looked at least 
 two years older than her age. There could be no doubt 
 that she would be very handsome. 
 
 I saw in Mr. Wilkins' eyes that same admiring look 
 which had annoyed me the evening before. He made a 
 dart at the girl, threw one arm round her waist, seized the 
 flower with his left hand — the red scar showed along 
 the side of his wrist, and it struck me the cut must have 
 barely escaped severing the artery — and then audaciously 
 putting his face to hers, he kissed Bee full on the 
 lips. 
 
 " There now, we're quits," he said triumphantly. 
 ' You've paid the forfeit I wanted, Miss Bee, — nothing in 
 the world so sweet as a kiss. See ! I'm ready to pay mine, 
 double measure. You shall have the finest two-pound box 
 of chocolate goodies that I can find in Leichardt's Town 
 this morning." 
 
 Bee swung herself free from the encircling arm : 
 
 ' You can keep your chocolates," she retorted, " and 
 you can have this for your impudence," and she dealt 
 him a slinging blow with her open hand, just missing the 
 side of his face. 
 
 He staggered and put his hand to his cheek, pretending 
 to be severely hurt. Bee took advantage of the move- 
 ment to snatch the gardenia bud from his hands, and 
 tearing it in two, she flung it on the ground and stamped 
 on it. 
 
 ' You won't have that, anyhow," she cried savagely. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins laughed : " You vixen ' Never mind. I'll 
 be even with you some day." 
 
 8*
 
 n6 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " Bee, I'm ashamed of you ! " I said severely. :< And 
 so will Miss Lloyd be, if she has seen you." 
 
 Bee kicked sulkily at the remnants of the gardenia. 
 Dolores Lloyd was crossing from the other side of the 
 garden, through the fruit trees, and was standing now at 
 the steps leading from the upper to the lower terrace. 
 Mr. Wilkins had his back to her and Bee took no notice 
 of her governess beyond a contemptuous toss of her head 
 in that direction. Dolores' face seemed all round dark 
 eyes and she stood quite motionless. 
 
 " Bee, if you are not ashamed of yourself, you ought 
 to be," I said still more severely. 
 
 " It's Mr. Wilkins who ought to be ashamed of himself," 
 retorted Bee hotly. " What business had he to kiss 
 me ? I won't be kissed by stranger-men that I don't 
 like." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins went on laughing : 
 
 " Oh ! I'm a stranger-man, am I ? But I tell you that 
 I shan't continue being a stranger-man. Before long 
 you'll know me very well, indeed, Miss Bee. In the 
 meantime," he added teasingly, " will you accept my 
 humble apologies ? A gentleman can't do more than 
 apologize humbly — can he now ? — when he has offended 
 a young lady. I'll apologize on my knees if that will 
 be any satisfaction to you." He ostentatiously knocked 
 away with his toe some bits of gravel on the path. " But 
 it's very stony here, Miss Bee. I shall hurt my knees. 
 Should you mind if we postponed the kneeling act till 
 we come to a softer place ? " 
 
 Bee vouchsafed no reply, but marched past him chin 
 in air, away through the banana patch. Bel lingered, 
 sniggering, undecided. 
 
 " Here's Miss Lloyd come to fetch you, Bel," I said, 
 and at that Bel scooted through the bananas after Bee.
 
 SISTER SORROW 117 
 
 XIX 
 
 MR. WILKINS was looking after Bee, a little dis- 
 comfited at the moment but with the air of one 
 sure of the future. Now he turned and saw Dolores 
 standing at the top of the terrace steps. 
 
 " Oh ! here's the Little Witch," he said and went up 
 the path towards her. " Come," he said. " Come — I want 
 you. I've something particular to say to you." 
 
 Dolores obediently descended the two or three steps 
 and came to meet him. He took her two hands and 
 turned her sideways, looking into her face in his curious 
 penetrating way. 
 
 " Dolores," he said, " I've been larking with your 
 pupils, and Miss Carfax is very angry with me. But it 
 won't matter to you, because they're not going to be your 
 pupils any longer. Understand ? Look here, now. You 
 know what I asked you last night ? Are you willing 
 to do it ? Eh ? " 
 
 An odd little tremor went through Dolores' frame. 
 It was like the sea-anemone agitating its tentacles in the 
 rising tide. She seemed to expand. 
 
 " Yes. I am willing," she answered. 
 
 " But there's no compulsion, mind. See ! I don't 
 want anybody to say that I've forced you into this. 
 You're going to do it of your own free will, aren't you, 
 Dolores ? " 
 
 " I'm going to do it of my own free will," she repeated. 
 
 " And you're quite happy over it — you're really happy ? 
 Say!" 
 
 " I'm quite happy," she answered. 
 
 " Then that's all right. We've both slept on it and 
 ' Barkis is willing ' on both sides. See here, Miss Carfax." 
 He turned to me. " I suppose you can't make out what 
 in heaven I'm driving at — and that's not a bad way of
 
 n8 SISTER SORROW 
 
 putting it," he added with another laugh, " since they say 
 that marriages are made in heaven. Understand ? ' 
 
 ' I don't understand in the very least, Mr. Wilkins," 
 I answered, trying to speak calmly, for an awful fear 
 had gripped me. " I can only imagine that you 
 are joking : and if so, I think your joke is in very bad 
 taste." 
 
 It struck me as I spoke after the incongruous fashion 
 in which whimsicalities do strike one at moments of almost 
 tragic crisis, that a marriage with Mr. Phil Wilkins could 
 scarcely be described as having been made in heaven. 
 According to my notions at least. Dolores Lloyd's notions 
 might be entirely different. 
 
 It seemed so. I glanced at her. She was gazing at 
 Mr. Wilkins in rapt content. 
 
 ' No, there's no joke about it, I assure you," he said. 
 ' After you went away with Mrs. Carfax last night, I 
 took Dolores into the garden and we had a talk together. 
 I asked her if she'd marry me, and she said, yes, she would. 
 I ask her this morning if she's still of the same mind, and 
 she says, yes, she is. So the thing is settled. We shan't 
 waste time over it. I don't want any botheration about 
 banns and residing so many weeks in a place and all 
 that rubbish. I shall buy a special licence and we shall 
 be married slick off. See ! " 
 
 Literally and figuratively he took my breath away. I 
 could only ejaculate : 
 
 " It's impossible. You must be mad, Dolores. You 
 can't know what you're doing — to bind yourself for 
 life to a man you saw for the first time yesterday ! " 
 
 ' No. You know that isn't true, Agatha," Dolores said 
 firmly. ' I had seen him before yesterday." 
 
 " In a dream. What proof have you of that, even ? 
 It's all imagination." 
 
 ' No," Dolores persisted with a firmness that was strange 
 in Dolores. ' There's no good in telling me that it's 
 imagination." 
 
 ' He has hypnotized you," I said. " That's the only 
 possible explanation."
 
 SISTER SORROW 119 
 
 Mr. Wilkins' face darkened as if a storm cloud had passed 
 over it. 
 
 " Now, Miss Carfax, I don't call it fair to say a thing 
 like that. I suppose you mean that I've been mesmerizing 
 her, like a chap I once saw at a stage-show who got some 
 boobies of boys on a platform and made passes over them 
 and then told them they were lions and donkeys and 
 what not and that they'd got to roar and bray when he 
 told them — made them believe too that castor-oil was 
 champagne and rot of that sort. If that's what you mean, 
 I ask you — when have you seen me making passes over 
 her, or trying to mesmerize her ? . . . I tell you that I 
 wouldn't do it — Not if you was to pay me for it. And do 
 you know why ? It's because I don't like what's at the 
 back of hanky-panky. See ? Because I know enough 
 to feel satisfied that there is something at the back — ■ 
 you can call it the Devil or anything you jolly well please. 
 I'll go so far as to say, whatever the force is, if it's real, 
 I'm scared of it, and if it's mere tomfoolery — well, I'm 
 not taking any in that line of amusement. See ! " 
 
 ' I'm glad to hear what you say, Mr. Wilkins," I answered. 
 
 ' What's more," he went on, " when Dolores marries me 
 she'll have to drop her thought-reading, dreaming, witch- 
 craft business. Going dotty — that's what it comes to. 
 Dolores ! — Dody ! — Dotty ! " He laughed. " I think I 
 shall call you Dotty, for short, my dear. . . . It'll be a 
 reminder. Hanky-panky, strictly under Phil Wilkins' 
 control in our partnership. Understand ? " 
 
 Something — I don't know what — made me say : 
 
 ; ' Are you afraid of Dolores finding out things about you 
 as she began to do last night, Mr. Wilkins ? And is that 
 why you want to marry her — so that her thought-reading 
 may be under your control ? " 
 
 I had touched a raw spot. I knew that intuitively by 
 the look that came over the man's face. And how I blamed 
 myself afterwards for not having followed up that intuition ! 
 For not having made some effort to unravel Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins' complicated past and so have saved Dolores from 
 his baleful influence.
 
 izo SISTER SORROW 
 
 Yet, judging the question dispassionately, I don't know 
 what I could have done at that time to prevent her from 
 marrying him. She was her own mistress and his power 
 over her was immense. One had only to look at her in 
 order to realize that. A sense of helpless disgust came 
 over me and I was turning up the path meaning to let 
 them settle things for themselves as they might desire. 
 But he stopped me. 
 
 " Please don't go yet, Miss Carfax. You know we've 
 got to break the news to your people — Dolores' employers. 
 See ? — and I think the sooner that's done the better. 
 I've got to start off this morning for Koorong — there's an 
 imported bull I'm thinking of buying off a man there. 
 And then there are my arrangements to be made for 
 getting back to the Island — and taking my wife with me. 
 See ? I reckon Mrs. Carfax will be pretty mad at losing 
 her governess. But I'm willing to make good — in reason 
 of course. A month's notice on either side or the forfeit 
 of a month's salary — that's the law I believe in such 
 circumstances. I'm ready to meet any legal obligation 
 incurred by the defaulter— that's Dolores— if you'd be so 
 good as to explain this to your father and your step- 
 mother." 
 
 I answered loftily that I must leave him to make his 
 own explanations and added the warning that it wasn't 
 safe to make insulting propositions to any of the Carfax 
 family. 
 
 He squared round at me. 
 
 " Well now, Miss Carfax, I'm a business man and I don't 
 see what there is insulting in a business proposition. I've 
 always been given to understand that money passing 
 between two parties, for value settled by contract, con- 
 stitutes a business deal. Dolores is paid for her governessing 
 I believe, so this is just as much a business proposition 
 as the cattle-deal I'm wanting to carry through before I 
 start for Koorong to see my imported bull this morning. 
 Your father being a business man likewise, is bound to 
 see the matter in that light." 
 
 1 made no answer. From Mr. Wilkins' point of view the
 
 SISTER SORROW 121 
 
 argument was logical. He came up to me, holding Dolores 
 by the hand, and we three walked up the path together. 
 Dolores between him and me. A desperate impulse 
 seized me. I stopped short and putting my arm within 
 Dolores' pulled her aside. 
 
 " Mr. Wilkins," I said, " I have something to say to 
 Dolores. Please leave us, and let me say it." 
 
 He released her hand and stood still looking at her. 
 " All right," he said. " But Dolores doesn't want me to 
 leave her, do you, Dolores ? " 
 
 She shook her head. " I don't want him to go, Agatha." 
 
 So I had to make my appeal with Mr. Wilkins standing 
 there — his grey eyes glinting at us. 
 
 " Dolores— listen to me — wake up," I cried. " You're 
 in a dream. You don't know the awfulness of what you're 
 consenting to. Wake up. Tell him this marriage is not 
 to be." 
 
 " It is to be," put in Mr. Wilkins. " Dolores does 
 know what she is doing. She sees the advantage to herself 
 of marrying me at once. Wh)' should she remain a sort 
 of servant in Mr. Carfax's house when she can come and 
 be mistress of mine ? You'd prefer being the mistress 
 of my house — which means your own — Dolores, to stopping 
 on here as Mrs. Carfax's governess. Wouldn't you 
 now ? " 
 
 She looked from him to me and back again. Evidently 
 there was a struggle going on in her mind, but she did 
 not speak. 
 
 "Oh, Dody, you know that we have never treated you 
 in the way that he implies," I exclaimed in acute reproach. 
 " You know that you have been my closest friend. I've 
 felt for you as a sister. Dody, I did think that you cared 
 for me." 
 
 " Gagsie — I do — I do," she cried. " But you don't 
 understand. It isn't that I'm ungrateful or that I don't 
 care for you. ... It is that I must do what he wishes. 
 I want to do what he wishes." 
 
 " You hear ! ' he exclaimed mockingly. " She wants 
 to do what I wish."
 
 122 SISTER SORROW 
 
 I took Dolores' two hands in mine and turned her round 
 facing me, so that her back was to Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 " Go on," I said, " do not listen to him. Tell me what 
 you feel. Make me understand." 
 
 " I can't," she answered piteously. " I don't understand 
 myself." 
 
 " That's where it is. You are bewitched. You are 
 obsessed. I told you so, and I tell you so again. And 
 by what ? Just a dream. Dolores! Wake up ! " I shook 
 her as I might have shaken a sleepy child. ' Wake up ! 
 Don't let him force you into what you will regret for ever 
 afterwards. Stand up to him and tell him that the 
 marriage is not to be." 
 
 " It is to be," repeated Mr. Wilkins, and his words 
 sounded like metal dropping. " You have no power, 
 Miss Carfax, to prevent it. None of you have any power, 
 Dolores is of age. She hasn't any parents or guardians 
 to interfere with her. She can marry whomsoever she 
 chooses. And she chooses to marry me. I guess you 
 can tell your friend that's so, Dolores ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is so," she answered obediently. " There's 
 no use in trying to alter it, Agatha." 
 
 " But you don't love him. You can't love him, any 
 more than he can love you. How is it possible in these 
 few hours ? 
 
 " Well, I do seem to have read or heard of such a strange 
 thing as love at first sight," said Mr. Wilkins, forcing a 
 jocose manner. Indeed, it struck me at the moment, 
 that notwithstanding his bluff he had lost something 
 of his assurance. There had been a furtive uneasiness 
 in his look. He came in front of us and took Dolores' hands 
 out of mine. The action incensed me, but I made no 
 attempt to keep her, for I saw that she was ready enough 
 to yield herself to his protection. It was exactly as 
 though she were under a spell. 
 
 " You can take my word that this is a case of mutual 
 and spontaneous attraction," he went on with the same 
 forced jocularity. Then his face hardened and his manner 
 changed. " Anyway it's proved by results, and I haven't
 
 SISTER SORROW 123 
 
 time just now to go further into the question. Dolores 
 and I are satisfied, and that's all that matters. I say, 
 Miss Carfax, I believe your father's looking out for us 
 from the veranda, and there are Miss Bee and Miss Bel ; 
 I shouldn't wonder if they'd been enlightening him a 
 bit, eh ? Come along, Dolores. Let's get through this 
 act. If we've got to face a row, we'll face it, and know 
 where we are. My train for Koorong starts eleven-thirty ; I 
 shall fix up the special licence business on my way to the 
 station — most likely bring the document back this evening 
 in my pocket. Nobody ever said of Phil Wilkins that he 
 let the grass grow under his feet when he'd made up his 
 mind to do a thing. So don't be surprised if we're all off 
 on next week's northern steamer — Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins 
 and the imported bull — bound for Oronga Island." 
 
 XX 
 
 AND he was as good as his word, incredible as it 
 may seem. Naturally, there was a scene. I was 
 not present after the actual bursting of the bomb. Where 
 was the use ? I could do or say nothing so long as Dolores 
 maintained her attitude of blissful subservience. I had 
 never seen anyone under the influence of opium, but her 
 infatuation gave me the idea of drugged beatitude. 
 
 Father was angry at first. I left him raging. When 
 I went back, at breakfast time — summoned by Bee and 
 Bel, who had peeped round corners, and heard snatches 
 of the talk, and were in a state of high excitement — I found 
 that Dolores was not visible — she did not appear at break- 
 fast — and that Father and Mr. Wilkins were amicably 
 discussing, not the amazing marriage, but the delivery 
 of that mob of young cattle at the Narrows, next new 
 moon. 
 
 When Mr. Wilkins had scurried off on his business — 
 having been invited to return and sleep at The Bunyas,
 
 124 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Father remarked that he thought on the whole it might 
 be a good thing for Miss Lloyd, who certainly had a sheet 
 of bark loose, that she should be taken possession of by 
 a strong-minded chap who would make a practical woman 
 of her. He reminded me that he had foreseen this from 
 the beginning, but he confessed that he had not been 
 prepared for such rapid developments. 
 
 I could see, however, that Father was a little troubled 
 over our ignorance of Mr. Phil Wilkins' antecedents. 
 Against that, weighed his undoubted ownership of the 
 station on Oronga Island and his ability to pay cash down 
 for the cattle he had previously purchased. Besides, 
 in those days, to own some thousands of cattle, and a 
 few hundred square miles of territory meant that a man 
 belonged to the squatting aristocracy of Australia. The 
 fact was a sort of patent of nobility in itself. But the 
 man's hints of dark adventure in wild western states made 
 Father wonder — especially that extraordinary adventure 
 of the gold robbery, which, as he said, stuck in his gizzard. 
 He hadn't liked either that suggestion of compounding 
 a felony and of the complicity of Mr. Wilkins' friend. 
 Was it conceivable that he himself had been concerned 
 in the robbery ? But, in that case, surely he would not 
 have told the story. There had been discrepant points 
 in his narrative — that is, if one took it as he told it, from 
 the point of view of a mere spectator. The remarkable 
 dovetailings of coincidence and of far-fetched design 
 with difficulties of execution, were also a little hard of 
 swallowing. 
 
 " I tell you what, Gagsie, I believe the chap was drawing 
 on his imagination just to put a topper on Burt's and 
 Hichens' yarns," announced Father after a minute or 
 two of perplexed pulling of his grizzled moustache. 
 
 Against that, as I reminded him, was the controverting 
 testimony of Mr. Torvald Helsing, who had heard in New 
 Mexico of the affair and of the trial of Manuel, the Spanish 
 Mexican. Too late now to consult Torvald Helsing, unless 
 one actually caught him on the boat. Father shook his 
 head at the idea.
 
 SISTER SORROW 125 
 
 " No. No. ' Mind your own business and let other 
 people mind theirs,' is a motto that I've found useful in 
 life. I've no right to interfere with Miss Lloyd making 
 a marriage that seems good enough — on the outside, at 
 any rate. But it was in my mind to ask Helsing what he 
 knew exactly, when that flare-up happened : and that, 
 and Clara's heart attack put everything else out of my 
 head. . . ." 
 
 " It's queer — the whole thing," Father went on rumina- 
 tively — " this falling in love all of a heap — though I've 
 known such a thing before — nothing impossible in that — 
 and she's a pretty girl, in her way — and he's a well set- 
 up, commanding sort of chap. . . . Then, I don't under- 
 stand that thought-reading business. Clara's quite right. 
 There's something unwholesome in it. — And mind, I'll 
 not have any more of those games with you girls or any- 
 body else — I don't like 'em. Neither does Wilkins himself 
 seem to like 'em. He wouldn't have upset the lamp in 
 the way he did, if he hadn't felt there was something 
 uncanny about the thing. . . . Has it struck you, Agatha, 
 that he seemed a bit frightened of Miss Lloyd's thought- 
 reading ? " 
 
 Yes, it had struck me, and I said so. But though 
 Father had propounded the notion, when it was put into 
 serious words he only laughed and refused to discuss it. 
 
 Father promised to have a talk with Mr. Wilkins and 
 to get all he could out of him as to his past career. 
 
 " And I'll make him tell me what sort of a stable he 
 came out of — parents' connections and that sort of thing," 
 Father wound up with. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins' explanations seemed to satisfy Father, 
 though I never heard exactly what had been his account 
 of himself. To tell the truth, I was so hurt and disgusted 
 with the whole affair that I kept myself apart during the 
 few days afterwards which were the only opportunity 
 I had of doing otherwise. I was too sore and too proud to 
 thrust myself upon Dolores' confidence. She was a terrible 
 disappointment. I felt that the old romantic friendship 
 had come to an end. I hated Mr. Phil Wilkins : and
 
 126 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Dolores as his wife could never be the dear, old Dody to 
 me. 
 
 If I had known then that all I have been telling here 
 was only the prelude to a more absorbingly intimate 
 and still sadder relation between us, I should have forced 
 the situation. But one never does know that what may 
 seem an end may be really a beginning. 
 
 And at the back of me was a lurking hope that before 
 the wedding — the night before, perhaps — there would be, 
 on Dolores' part, some emotional ebullition which would 
 draw us together at the last. But even this chance was 
 denied us. 
 
 But Mr. Wilkins had got the special licence, though neither 
 he nor Dolores would name the day on which they were 
 to be married. He was extremely busy over his own 
 affairs ; so were we all in the preparation of our wedding 
 gifts. Mr. Wilkins took Dolores out shopping with him 
 at the North Side on the few mornings of his stay — seeing 
 about her little trousseau, he said, and buying furniture 
 for the house on Oronga Island. 
 
 Clara spent the day after the fire in bed. She was 
 extremely angry at first when the news of the engagement 
 was told her, and then most despondent. 
 
 But after sleeping on the catastrophe, she bucked up 
 a bit and began to show an interest in the bride's prepara- 
 tions, interlarding homely advice with distracted questions 
 of how she was to find another governess who would prepare 
 Bee and Bel for the Grand Trip ! Alas, poor Clara ! If 
 she too had known ! 
 
 After that day's rest, her heart seemed all right again, 
 and she, in her turn, took Dolores shopping to the North 
 Side in the afternoons. Hers and Father's wedding present 
 took the form of cash. It went against both of them 
 that Mr. Wilkins should provide his future wife with 
 wearing apparel. The excitement of helping Dolores 
 to choose a set of underlinen entirely eclipsed that of 
 choosing the famous lace lappets. That week there was 
 very little heard of the impending Opening and of Father's 
 official duties.
 
 SISTER SORROW 127 
 
 I suppose that Mr. Wilkins thought Dolores safe enough 
 with Clara, but I noticed that he gave her small opportunity 
 for converse with me or with Father. In the evenings, 
 he took her out into the garden, or they sat, lover-like, 
 in a corner of the veranda. 
 
 It was always late when she came to her room, and, 
 since the engagement, we had neither of us seemed to want 
 before-bed talks. One day — it was the day before that 
 on which the northern steamer went out — Mr. Wilkins and 
 Dolores were late coming in to luncheon. When they did 
 appear, Mr. Wilkins looked, I thought, doggedly triumphant, 
 but by no means exuberantly happy, while Dolores had a 
 frightened, excited air. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, 
 and her round soft eyes looked like lamps shining through 
 a dark mist. Mr. Wilkins took her left hand and at once 
 pulled off her glove, showing us a solid gold band upon her 
 third finger. He announced that to avoid fuss and bothera- 
 tion they had been married quietly that morning. Every- 
 thing in order, he airily explained : the knot tied tight 
 enough ; witnesses : certificate and all the rest. He made 
 Dolores produce her marriage certificate, which Father 
 read carefully and passed on to me. I saw that she had 
 signed her name " Sorrow Lloyd." Henceforth, her 
 legal designation would be " Sorrow Wilkins." That in 
 itself seemed to me an evil portent. 
 
 But the thing was done : there was nothing more to be 
 said. 
 
 Our luncheon party was not exactly a cheerful wedding 
 meal, and, but for Bee and Bel and Mr. Wilkins' forced 
 jocosities, it would have been a very silent one. Father 
 was displeased, Clara hurt and cross, chiefly, I do believe, 
 because she had not been able to make the wedding cake. 
 Clara added to her list of practical accomplishments the 
 production of a really excellent plum-cake. She prided 
 herself upon her Christmas and birthday cakes and would 
 explain at length that the secret of their perfection lay in 
 the beating of the eggs and the addition of a wineglassful of 
 rum. 
 
 In the middle of the meal, Mr. Wilkins also announced
 
 128 SISTER SORROW 
 
 that he was going to take his bride immediately to the 
 Belle vue for their last two days in Leichardt's Town, 
 and that he had secured three berths in the northern 
 steamer — a cabin for Mr. and Mrs. Phil Wilkins and a stall 
 for the imported bull, who was to accompany them to 
 Oronga Island. We saw them off from the Wharf, and 
 as the steamer went out, waved our farewells to the old 
 Dolores Lloyd, who would never come back to us again. 
 
 I went home, and, shut up in my own room, wept bitterly. 
 
 I was only now beginning to realize how deeply I had 
 loved Dolores ; how strangely close was the bond by 
 which our lives had been intertwined. 
 
 I could not believe that she had lived with us only a 
 little less than two years. I felt as if she had always 
 been my sister. I wondered if there was any truth in the 
 theory of reincarnation and if she had really been my 
 sister in some former life. 
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 FOR the next two years, Dolores Lloyd — Dolores 
 Wilkins, I ought to call her — seemed to have 
 gone out of my life. So, too, for that matter, had Torvald 
 Helsing. But then he had played so small and brief a 
 part in my existence — a term counted by hours — that I 
 had no right to think of him as belonging to my life at all. 
 
 Yet, in a sense, he did belong to it, even then. For 
 I never lost the remembrance of him. I had the oddest 
 feeling sometimes of his being quite near to me, and I 
 used to wonder at those times if it were possible that 
 he could be remembering me, — thinking of me, — visualizing 
 me, as I visualized him. 
 
 I can write frankly now about what I felt for Torvald 
 in the very beginning. But as I look back into my early 
 Books of Impressions my cheeks grow a little hot, 
 and a whimsical wonder comes over me that I could
 
 SISTER SORROW 129 
 
 have written about him as I did then. The vision of him 
 faded, as was natural under the stress of grim happenings 
 with which he had nothing to do. But the remembrance 
 of him remained. 
 
 Those two years were like an interlude between the 
 acts of a drama when the orchestra plays a new sort of 
 music — arresting, foreshadowing of disaster, yet apart, 
 in its tragic boding, from the previous action of the 
 drama and from the more intense drama which came 
 afterwards. 
 
 Although, if those happenings had not been cast by 
 fate, the course of the drama might have been other 
 than it was. The beginning of them was the discovery 
 that Clara was suffering from serious heart disease, as 
 Torvald Helsing had suspected. 
 
 It was a pity that she got well so quickly from the 
 first attack, because for some months no doctor examined 
 her, and nobody guessed what was really the matter. 
 
 Not that she gave outward sign of things being much 
 amiss. She went on as she had always gone on — fussing 
 over her chickens and her garden, using her arms in a 
 way that was most injurious in her condition of heart ; 
 driving in the old, jolty, one-horse buggy across the river, 
 by the punt-ferry to " pay her visits " and to do shopping 
 on the North Side. For Clara enjoyed clattering about 
 shops and provided matter for much discursive talk 
 over the selection of dress lengths and the concoction of 
 amazing costumes, in which she attended the ministerial 
 dinner-parties and the receptions at Government House. 
 She expended a lot of energy, too, in fruitless search for 
 another English governess who should carry on Dolores' 
 work of preparing the girls for the Grand Trip. Though 
 that seemed to recede further into the distance — or rather 
 to vanish in the dim future of threatening drought and 
 uncertainty in regard to the Nagbar gold-mine. 
 
 As for the governess, Clara was obliged to give up that 
 quest and take the substitute which opportunely presented 
 itself. 
 
 This was a new Girls' School lately opened in the healthier
 
 1 3 o SISTER SORROW 
 
 and cooler district of Koorong, by a certain Mrs. De Gillern, 
 widow of a Belgian officer, who professed all the languages 
 and accomplishments of Dolores Lloyd and added to them 
 an unimpeachable standard of deportment. 
 
 Bee and Bel went there after Easter as weekly boarders. 
 They said that Mrs. De Gillern's way of teaching wasn't 
 interesting like Miss Lloyd's, and her much vaunted " De- 
 portment " they likened to that of the big turkey-cock in 
 the Barolin poultry yard. But they enjoyed the com- 
 panionship of the other girls, and, on the whole, the school 
 scheme satisfied Clara, notwithstanding that Bee and Bel 
 loudly lamented the lost Dody. 
 
 Lost indeed ! During those two years only two letters 
 came to me from Dody, and they were so bald and brief 
 that they could scarcely be considered as letters. 
 
 The first was the longest, but even that was little more 
 than an announcement of her safe arrival at Oronga 
 Island and a very inadequate description of her new home. 
 She said that the house was quite comfortable ; that it was 
 built on a hill in the middle of the Island and they could 
 see Nagbar Peak on the mainland, in the distance, from 
 the front veranda ; that the Bush was quite unlike the 
 Bush at Barolin, and there were no mountains on the Island 
 itself, but that since, as I knew, she could not ride very 
 well and they had no well-broken horses on the station 
 fit for a woman to mount, she had only seen of the country 
 what lay just around the head-station. Besides, she was 
 very busy, for they had not been able to get a good married 
 couple and she was obliged to do most of the housework. 
 There were no neighbours, she said, and they had to 
 send for their mail sixteen miles by water to the nearest 
 township on the mainland. Therefore, I must not be 
 surprised if she did not write often. 
 
 That was practically all. It was a stiff little letter quite 
 unlike Dody, and I had the feeling that Mr. Wilkins had 
 been looking over her shoulder as she wrote. The post- 
 script seemed an afterthought. Perhaps it was dictated 
 by him. It stated that her husband was very kind to 
 her and that she was quite happy.
 
 SISTER SORROW 131 
 
 I wrote several times after this but did not hear again 
 for many months. 
 
 The Bunyas was comparatively quiet after Bee and Bel 
 had gone to school, except at the week-ends which they 
 spent at home. In Leichardt's Town there were the usual 
 gaieties — balls and festivities of sorts, and I went to most 
 of them. So the Season passed. A political crisis was 
 going on, which kept Father late at the House and thus it 
 happened that our own parties, in return for hospitality 
 received, were put off until near the end of the Session. 
 Mrs. Gracchus had ample time to bring up her chickens 
 and have them ready for Clara's dinner to the members 
 of the Executive and their wives. We sent out the in- 
 vitations for a date in August and, for a week, Clara went 
 over every day shopping to the North Side and would 
 come back, bonnet askew, skirts waggling discrepancy, 
 left eye drooping from sheer fatigue and obstinate deter- 
 mination that no labour should be spared to make the 
 feast a success. The cakes that Clara made with her 
 own hands ! — there was to be a small reception after dinner. 
 And the egg-hunts that poor, stooping, short-sighted Clara 
 carried on among the grass tussocks in the paddock and the 
 refuse heaps in the banana patch ! For the Spanish 
 hens had quarrelled with the Brahma-Poutras and flatly 
 declined to lay in the newly-painted fowl-house in their 
 company, defiantly fulfilling their obligations just how 
 and where they pleased. 
 
 It was all terribly tragic. The very day of the dinner- 
 party which never took place, while Clara was beating 
 up the whites of eggs for meringues, she was suddenly 
 seized with a far worse attack than she had had on the 
 night Torvald Helsing and Mr. Wilkins dined at The 
 Bunyas. 
 
 Andy Catt was sent rushing for a doctor and luckily 
 caught one actually at the ferry steps on his way back 
 from visiting an Emu Point patient. He came to Clara 
 at once, and his promptitude probably saved her life — 
 for that time, at any rate. 
 
 It was a very bad attack. The doctor's examination 
 
 q*
 
 132 SISTER SORROW 
 
 proved that Torvald Helsing's fear had been only too 
 well-founded. The guests for the dinner-party were all 
 put off and Clara was kept at first in bed and then on the 
 sofa for several weeks. Even when she got on her feet, 
 all her ordinary occupations were taken from her. Garden- 
 ing, chicken-rearing, cooking — none of these things might 
 she do again. No more shopping expeditions to the 
 North Side, or paying visits in the old buggy. After a 
 while, Father bought a new one with easier springs. But 
 it was still but a buggy ; and in this Clara was driven 
 back to Barolin when the Session ended and the warm 
 weather began. 
 
 She was not a good patient. She had no mental resources 
 and fretted at having to keep her body still. Poor old 
 body, which grew larger day by day and more floppy 
 and unwieldy ! Still, she was happier at Barolin. She 
 could watch the fowls being fed and the chickens growing 
 up : and she could direct Andy Catt in the garden and 
 snip off dead roses, though digging and weeding were 
 forbidden under penalty of death or, at least, severe pain. 
 It was the dread of that pain which kept Clara from killing 
 herself by resuming some of her old activities. 
 
 For myself, I was happier too at Barolin and did a good 
 deal of mooning among the gum-trees in Dody's old way. 
 The volumes of " Impressions " multiplied and at last I 
 had to buy a new tin box to hold my note-books and 
 manuscripts. Alas! many of the manuscripts were rejected 
 ones, — boomerangs, which in their goings and returnings 
 had weighted the Barolin postbag pretty heavily. Some 
 of them, which, in spasms of literary audacity, had been 
 dispatched to London editors, never came back at all. 
 
 Notwithstanding, I have since found use for those 
 Pre-Raphaelite word-studies of Bush life and scenery, so 
 minute in their detail, which I made about this time. 
 
 I had been inspired by the account of Guy de Maupassant's 
 literary apprenticeship to Flaubert — only, / did not burn 
 my early stories as Flaubert made his pupil do. 
 
 I missed Dody — oh, dreadfully ! I realized now how 
 really deep my affection for her had been and how much
 
 SISTER SORROW 133 
 
 I had depended upon her companionship. I was bitterly 
 hurt at her silence and neglect and, after a while, I gave 
 up writing to her altogether. 
 
 Clara got much better during that long summer at 
 Barolin. When the spring came and with it the Session, 
 we made our annual move to The Bunyas. Father was 
 still Chairman of Committees ; but that Session was a 
 short one, ending in a general election in August. 
 
 In the interregnum, Father took us back to Barolin. 
 Clara did the buggy journey well. We had ceased now 
 to feel very anxious about her. The doctor said that, 
 with care, there was no reason why she should not live 
 for many years. 
 
 I remember that second August so well and the wonderful 
 feeling of early spring on the Ubi — the wild raspberries 
 in flower and the white cedars on the river-bank, sheets of 
 mauve blossom, while the Moreton Bay chestnut trees were 
 a blaze of orange. The wattle was all out and the air 
 honey-sweet with the scent of it, and when we rode or 
 drove over the low ranges about Barolin, the Bush seemed 
 an enchanted garden in which all the trees waved feathery, 
 golden plumes. 
 
 They were mustering at Barolin — a mob of cattle for 
 Malpa Downs. Mr. Pringle, the manager there, and 
 his son Harry Pringle had come down from the Nagbar 
 district to take charge of the cattle. I liked Mr. Pringle 
 — a rough, hard-headed old Bushman of whom Father 
 thought a good deal. Harry was a good-looking bush youth 
 and I think that if Bee and he had been both a little older, 
 a serious flirtation might have developed between them. 
 As it was, they only romped — on horseback and off it. 
 
 Mr. Pringle told us that he had met Bragging Phil, as 
 he called Mr. Wilkins, two or three times at Leuraville 
 and Nagbar Diggings, where, occasionally, he delivered 
 fat cattle to the butchers. Mr. Pringle had not seen 
 Dolores. Apparently, she never left the Island and a 
 vague rumour had got about that she was a little soft in 
 the head, as Mr. Pringle put it. She had no friends. 
 The Wilkins' never asked anybody in the district over to
 
 134 SISTER SORROW 
 
 the Island, and the difficulty of getting there made any 
 visit, but a prearranged one, almost impossible. For 
 that, he explained, you had either got to charter a boat 
 from Currawilli — the little township on the mainland 
 opposite the southern end of the Island — and make a 
 long and usually stormy passage — or you had to swim 
 across the Narrows at the northern end, which was only 
 feasible at full moon and new moon. 
 
 Phil Wilkins wasn't popular in the district. Mr. Pringle 
 said, he too was accounted queer and mysterious in his 
 ways — didn't employ district labour — had lately got a 
 sort of overseer from the Wild West in America and one 
 or two odd fish in the way of half-breeds for stockmen. 
 
 I asked Mr. Pringle if he knew anything about Torvald 
 Helsing, and the old man laughed. 
 
 " The gardener crank, you mean — the chap who has 
 rows with Wilkins about a few of the tame blacks he 
 encourages on the Island — says he's studying their manners 
 and customs — Wilkins says he encourages them to spear 
 his cattle. I don't believe that. He's a queer sort of 
 chap — Helsing, but straight. If there is a crooked one 
 of the two, it's Phil Wilkins. Helsing's a bit of a dreamer 
 —though practical too in his own way. I'm told he's 
 rather a toff in his particular line. Calls himself a herbalist, 
 whatever that means, and makes up medicines from plants 
 and roots. The men at the Pilot station swear by him 
 and say they would never send for Hoskins — he's the 
 Health Officer at Leuraville, you know, so long as Helsing 
 was about. All I know about his doctoring is that once 
 when we happened to be in the same hotel at Leuraville 
 and I was down with dengue — a pretty bad bout — he 
 gave me some stuff that cured me of the fever in twenty- 
 four hours : and that's a fine time-limit for dengue." 
 
 Mr. Pringle told me that he believed Torvald Helsing 
 made many trips to out-of-the-way places, getting rare 
 medicinal plants for his garden. He said that a German 
 professor he had met — the same who had stayed at BarSlin 
 and influenced Clara's decision in keeping on Miss Lloyd 
 — had spoken of Mr. Helsing as being fairly well-known
 
 SISTER SORROW 135 
 
 in certain scientific circles. He was a well-born man, 
 it seemed, of socialistic tendencies, and an ardent lover of 
 nature. Mr. Pringle had heard that he sent his products 
 to many countries and that the reports of his experiments 
 frequently appeared in scientific journals. But Mr. 
 Pringle did not approve of Torvald Helsing's employment 
 of Malay and Chinese labour in his garden — he being one 
 of the most fiery advocates of a " white Australia." All 
 this interested me intensely, and I used to try, with subtle 
 diplomacy, to turn Mr. Pringle on to the subject of Torvald 
 Helsing's aims and occupations. 
 
 But the old Bushman did not lend himself to diplomatic 
 methods. Moreover he had never been to Oronga Island, 
 did not care at all about botany and was inclined to jeer 
 at the fads of Danes, Norwegians, Finns and other in- 
 habitants of Northern countries, saying that because they 
 came from near the North Pole, they must needs rummage 
 the earth for things they hadn't got in their own part 
 of the globe. In fact Mr. Pringle was not in sympathy 
 with scientific interests, He preferred to talk about 
 cattle and the prospects of Nagbar Diggings. Father's 
 claim was promising well, it seemed. Mr. Pringle declared 
 that at last they had got straight on to the gold, at which 
 Clara plucked up spirit enough to retort that she wasn't 
 seeing her barouche and pair coming along yet. 
 
 That was the evening before the great tragedy. The 
 men were going mustering next day in the rough country 
 at the foot of Mount Ubi, and Father insisted on leading 
 them. Mr. Pringle tried to dissuade him. I think he 
 offended Father by pointing out that Jack Peters — our 
 stockman — had not been letting himself get stale at 
 rough-riding, this last six months, by sitting in the Chair- 
 man of Committees' comfortable seat in the Leichardt s 
 Land Parliamentary Buildings, and was a better man for 
 the job. Mr. Pringle had no tact. Father was obstinate. 
 He rode off on his favourite stock-horse — a big nasty- 
 tempered brute, splendid on a drafting camp, but not 
 so good at negotiating stony pinches and steep gullies. 
 
 Father headed the mustering party. Bee and Bel, at
 
 136 SISTER SORROW 
 
 the tail of it under Harry Pringle's charge, were allowed 
 by special favour to ride as far as the first spur of Mount 
 Ubi in the men's company, and one of the black boys 
 was to bring them back. 
 
 I watched them from the veranda straggling down through 
 the gum-trees in the home paddock. Father stopping at 
 the Cultivation Patch to give some last order — as was 
 his wont — to Andy Catt, who was with the water-cart, 
 and then spurring his big stock-horse on to the river 
 crossing, beyond which he disappeared through the 
 thickening bush. 
 
 It was the last time — but one — that Father crossed 
 the Ubi River. 
 
 About midday, Clara and I were sitting in the veranda, 
 when we saw Bee and Bel with Harry Pringle cantering 
 fast up the track from the Crossing. I was only surprised 
 at Harry Pringle being with the girls, and it did not occur 
 to me that anything serious had happened. They dis- 
 mounted as usual in the back yard. There was a patter- 
 ing of feet on the bare boards of the passage-way and 
 hysterical wailing sounds : " O — O — Oh ! " which made 
 Clara get up and go to the French window, calling anxiously : 
 
 " Bee — Bel — What is the matter ? . . . Have you been 
 thrown ? Are either of you hurt ? " 
 
 And then with utter want of self-control, Bee rushed 
 forward — her eyes red and swollen : tears raining : the 
 muscles of her throat convulsed — and blurted out between 
 her sobs : 
 
 " It isn't us. . . . It's Father. . . . Oh, poor, poor 
 Father ! " 
 
 Clara stood like a woman transfixed. She could only 
 stammer in a voice so unlike Clara's voice : 
 
 " Tell me the truth — quick — quick — Is he killed ? " 
 
 I shook Bee. " Are you mad, Bee ? " I whispered in 
 her ear. ' Think of your mother " — for Bee wailed on 
 " O—O— Oh ! " 
 
 Harry Pringle had stepped up behind her. Sorrow 
 and consternation were on his boyish face. He looked 
 from me to Clara, and his look was enough.
 
 SISTER SORROW 
 
 37 
 
 " He is dead," said Clara. ..." Don't pretend to me. 
 ... He is dead." 
 
 Harry Pringle gave a despairing nod. ' I can't help it. 
 I didn't mean Bee to come in like this. . . . She's awfully 
 upset — she doesn't know what she's doing. — I wanted to 
 get hold of you first, Miss Carfax — and break it a bit. — 
 Oh, Mrs. Carfax— don't, don't ! " 
 
 I saw Clara clutch at her breast — her face was distorted 
 
 —she gave a shriek — the cry of rending pain. — And then 
 
 she fell. Harry Pringle held out his arms and broke the 
 
 fall a little. But it was all over. When we lifted her up, 
 
 she was gone. 
 
 Those hours and the days that immediately followed 
 were like a frightful dream. They did not seem real. 
 Every minute you felt you must wake up, and standing 
 there, would be Father, just come in from the run, or the 
 stockyard — shirt-sleeves tucked up, shirt-neck open, grey 
 hair rumpled and white moustache and whiskers wet with 
 perspiration — so fine and cheery, calling out perhaps, 
 " Hallo, missus, I'll be cleaned up for lunch in five minutes ; " 
 or, "A good branding tally to-day, Gagsie," or some other 
 bit of station news that brought strong, virile life with it. 
 . . . And then Clara answering — wobbling in at the French 
 window — a shapeless mass, the dilapidated wax-doll face, 
 hung on one side, wistful, welcoming — saying something 
 flat and rather stupid, maybe, but so kind — meaning 
 always so well. . . . The reality, a dream — and now, 
 with a sudden rush, — the awful dream becoming reality. 
 
 Only, on the other side of the wall, the two of them lying, 
 their white biers heaped with flowers, side by side, their 
 forms stark beneath the sheets and the flowers, limbs 
 moveless, eyes closed, lips that would speak never more. 
 
 I don't know how we could have borne the horror of 
 those days if it had not been for old Mr. Pringle. He 
 arranged everything and shielded us from worry in every 
 possible way. 
 
 There were three graves now in the little fenced-in 
 graveyard at the side of the garden, which had been
 
 138 SISTER SORROW 
 
 consecrated when my mother was buried there. — Father 
 lying between his two wives. 
 
 He had made his will about a year before. Mr. Pringle 
 was appointed executor and joint guardian with Clara 
 to Bee and Bel. Practically, everything was left to Clara 
 for her life, to revert to the girls at her death. As she 
 had outlived Father but an hour or two, Mr. Pringle was 
 now the girls' sole guardian and all the power lay in his 
 hands. He was quite the right person to wield it. I grew 
 more and more to like and respect Mr. Pringle and he 
 was particularly kind to me. 
 
 As for my part in Father's will, he bequeathed The Bunyas 
 and its contents to me — to my surprise and satisfaction, 
 for I was fond of the house and glad to possess it. Beyond 
 that, he left me only a small sum of money, a few pictures 
 and some other more or less valuable articles that were 
 at Barolin. Father had put a stiff little preamble to the 
 clause affecting me in his will, to the effect that as his 
 dear and always dutiful daughter Agatha was already 
 amply provided for through inheritance from her mother, 
 and as he wished his daughters to be all as nearly equal 
 in fortune as might be, he had therefore considered, before 
 my claim upon him, the benefit of his widow and his children 
 by his second marriage. 
 
 It was quite fair ; I had never expected even so much 
 consideration. At the time that Father made his will, 
 had all this happened and had his property been realized, 
 it would probably have produced for Bee and Bel each an 
 income perhaps a little less than mine. But Father had 
 not, apparently, reckoned upon his Nagbar gold-mine 
 turning out well, though, indeed, he had always declared 
 it would make him a rich man. Very likely he had in his 
 inmost convictions abandoned the hope. Nevertheless, it 
 was very soon proved that his original belief was justified. 
 
 Six months after his death they had an amazingly rich 
 find. It was really a case of being " straight on the gold ,: 
 this time. There seemed every prospect of Bee and Bel 
 becoming great heiresses. 
 
 I did not mind in the least being out of that show.
 
 SISTER SORROW 139 
 
 Five hundred a year, with The Bunyas to retire to, was 
 enough for me. Only I did wish sometimes that poor 
 Clara had lived to drive about the streets of Leichardt's 
 Town in that Cee-springed barouche and pair. 
 
 Bee and Bel went back to Mrs. De Gillern soon after 
 the funeral. Bee rebelled at this. She thought she was 
 quite sufficiently grown-up to dispense with further 
 schooling. But Mr. Pringle insisted that she should 
 remain with Mrs. De Gillern until her seventeenth birthday 
 — Bel, of course, would go on longer. After that, I think 
 it was his idea that Bee should live with him and Mrs. 
 Pringle at Malpa Downs until she came of age or married. 
 But that lay in the future. Meanwhile Mr. Pringle 
 stayed on at Barolin until he had found the right manager 
 to put in charge of the place. This was soon done, and 
 then we all parted company. Mr. Pringle and Harry 
 took the cattle they had originally come down for, up 
 north, and I installed myself at The Bunyas with Andy 
 Catt and his wife to look after me. 
 
 I had written to Dody on the excuse of such scant 
 information concerning her as Mr. Pringle had given me 
 but neither to that, nor to the several letters I had sent 
 her before, did there come any answer. I had thought 
 that at least she would have written or telegraphed con- 
 dolences upon the double. tragedy which almost immediately 
 followed my letter. The papers were full of it, and, how- 
 ever irregular the mails might be to her home on Oronga 
 Island, it seemed to me that the news must reach her 
 by way of the pilots at the Lighthouse colony or the 
 operator at the telegraph station. I remembered Mr. 
 Wilkins saying that from there you could communicate 
 with all four quarters of the globe if you wished. It 
 was not until I had been settled some time at The Bunyas 
 that I got a letter from Dody at last. 
 
 Yes, she had heard of our sad trouble — had read of 
 Clara's and Father's sudden deaths in the papers, but 
 not till long after the events. Evidently, she had been 
 greatly shocked. Her dismay and her sympathy were 
 real enough. And yet her letter seemed to me strangely
 
 140 SISTER SORROW 
 
 unreal. Again I had the feeling of Mr. Phil Wilkins stand- 
 ing over her while she was writing. 
 
 Dolores used to have rather a gift of penmanship : 
 and, when she chose, could give the most graphic impression 
 of what she wished to convey, by speech and by writing 
 in some quaint turn of words or vivid piece of description. 
 That was when she was in her bright moods and her in- 
 tellectual capacity was at its best. 
 
 Yet this is not quite a true way of describing her mental 
 gifts. She was really at her best, in the imaginative and 
 mental sense, when all her faculties seemed concentrated 
 within, and her outward bodily self appeared a mere auto- 
 maton, like a woman walking in her sleep. It was when she 
 was in this sort of semi-trance that she always told her 
 best fairy stories. 
 
 Now, the sentences of her letter were laboured in their 
 very baldness. Even her expressions of sympathy with 
 our mourning and regret for " Mr. and Mrs. Carfax, who had 
 always been so very good to me," and the few questions 
 she asked about Bee and Bel and my own plans for the 
 future. Her account of herself was vague and not in- 
 spiriting. She was pretty well, she said, and was interested 
 in trying to plant a vegetable garden. But that made 
 her sad, for it always brought Mrs. Carfax to her mind. 
 The soil on this part of the Island, she went on, was not 
 good : they could not afford to have a Chinaman-gardener, 
 and the garden was at the bottom of the hill, near the 
 stockyard, so that she found her task difficult. Terrible 
 north-easterly gales blew over the Island at certain seasons, 
 she said ; and often prevented the boat from crossing to 
 Currawilli for stores and the mail. But Mr. Wilkins, — 
 so she styled him — could always telegraph from the Pilot 
 Station, and he got himself put off in the pilot's boat to 
 the steamer for Leuraville,- — where he went rather often 
 on business— she said. Thus, having so uncertain a mail 
 service made little difference to him. And she herself 
 had so few letters that it did not matter much to her 
 either. Her whole life now was centred in the Island 
 and bounded by the sea.
 
 SISTER SORROW 141 
 
 Three note-paper pages of cut and dried vapidity ! 
 At first I felt cross, then seriously disquieted. What had 
 happened to Dody that she should be so changed ? Was 
 it possible, as Mr. Pringle had hinted, that Mr. Phil Wilkins 
 had scared away her wits ? 
 
 Yet it was not the letter of a person whose mind had 
 gone astray. Not at all. But it made me think of some 
 poor prisoner, preyed upon by loneliness and monotony, 
 whose intellect had become dulled and in whom imagination 
 and desire had been starved to death. 
 
 There was only one touch of natural impulse in the letter 
 — a postscript — it seemed to me a cry of despair. Only 
 a few words written hastily, perhaps just before closing 
 the letter, perhaps when Mr. Wilkins was not looking. 
 
 " Gagsie — Oh, I do wish that you could come and 
 see me." 
 
 Well, why not ? There could be no insurmountable 
 obstacle to my paying a visit to the Island. For a long 
 time I had expected she would invite me to her new home. 
 As for the difficulty of crossing the Narrows, or of the 
 sixteen-mile voyage by boat, surely if Mr. Wilkins could get 
 himself put off in the pilot-boat to a steamer bound for 
 Leuraville, the pilot could equally well signal a steamer and 
 take me on to the Island. Or if it were inconvenient for 
 Dody to receive me at her home, why should she not come 
 and stay with me at The Bunyas ? Either plan was 
 perfectly feasible if she really wished to see me as she said. 
 
 I wrote to her to that effect — a long letter so worded 
 that if Mr. Wilkins read it no harm could be done. I 
 don't know why I got the idea of Mr. Wilkins as a gaoler, 
 but so it was. I wrote very fully and affectionately to 
 Dody, telling her of my inheritance of The Bunyas — of the 
 terms of Father's will and of the probability of Bee and Bel 
 becoming rich young women — explaining that I was now 
 absolutely my own mistress with no home duties to bind 
 me. I posted the letter and awaited an answer. 
 
 To my surprise, the answer came very soon. I was 
 still more surprised at its tenor. I had not expected that 
 my tout for an invitation would meet with so immediate
 
 142 SISTER SORROW 
 
 and welcoming a response. Nor was I prepared for Dody's 
 warm spontaneity. It seemed to me that this time Mr. 
 Wilkins had not been looking over her shoulder. Perhaps 
 he was away. Perhaps having given her permission to 
 receive me, he withdrew all restrictions on our correspond- 
 ence. Not that she gave me any more intimate particulars 
 of her life and relations with her husband. The letter 
 was frankly full of her joy at the prospect of our meeting. 
 
 "I never dreamed that such happiness could be possible," 
 she wrote : and after a few more expressions of like nature, 
 she went on in conventional fashion. 
 
 " My husband asks me to tell you that he will be delighted 
 if you will come and stay with us. He says that he hopes 
 you have forgiven and forgotten any old grudge you had 
 against him. — And you must come, Gagsie — Jor my sake" 
 — this sentence was italicized. " But, he says, you ought 
 to understand that Oronga Island is not civilized and 
 luxurious like Barolin and The Bunyas. It's still quite 
 rough, for he has been too busy with necessary business to 
 worry over head-station comforts. Not to be compared 
 even with Malpa Downs, either. He was over there 
 not long ago, and he heard that Bee was leaving school 
 and coming to live altogether with Mr. Pringle. Bel is 
 coming too for the holidays. Oh, how I wish I could see 
 the girls, but that would be too difficult. Nothing, how- 
 ever, seems to matter beside the joy of being with you, 
 dearest Gagsie, once again. 
 
 " My husband would like you to come by the Princess 
 Maud on her next trip if that would be possible. She 
 stops at Currawilli, and he could meet you there and bring 
 you up the Narrows to our Landing. That will suit him 
 because he has to be in Currawilli then on business." 
 
 This arrangement suited in other ways. Bee and Bel 
 were to travel north by that very boat, and I knew Mr. 
 Pringle had not felt easy about the girls being in the 
 Captain's charge only. Now, I could take care of them. 
 
 Bee was a bit of a handful. She had grown to be very 
 handsome, big and fair, well-featured and of brilliant 
 colouring — and she was inclined to flirt — Mrs. De Gillern
 
 SISTER SORROW 143 
 
 had had trouble over a young gentleman selector at 
 Koorong whose attentions Bee had encouraged. 
 
 But Bee had a very good idea of her own importance, 
 
 and was perfectly aware that if the yield of that Nagbar 
 
 gold-claim continued to increase as it had been doing 
 
 ately, no limit could be set to her expectations of wealth 
 
 in the future.
 
 BOOK II 
 
 THE GAME OF GLAMOUR 
 
 10
 
 WHEN, from a distance, we sighted the port of 
 Currawilli, the sun was not very far above the 
 sky-line. Its beams caught a low mangrove-grown point 
 that jutted eastward, forming one arm of the curved 
 estuary, within which the township lay. 
 
 The reddish rays threw a lurid tinge upon mud-flats, 
 over which a dirty tide was rising and making chocolate- 
 coloured splashes of foam. They gave a queer, alive 
 look to the snake-like roots of the mangroves, the twisted 
 coils of which were dripping slime. 
 
 We had to stand off for some time, partly because of 
 the tide, and partly because of official delays and the 
 taking in of a pilot to guide the boat through the shallows. 
 So it was after eight and the early ship's breakfast was 
 over before we got close into port. 
 
 There was a pier in the middle of the curve, with sea- 
 craft of sorts about it. A row of wooden sheds, signalized 
 by the letters L.L.S.N. Co., lay at the back of the pier 
 and were flanked by small stockyards, in which, now, a few 
 ancient beasts were lowing. For Currawilli did a small 
 trade in the shipment of old and diseased cattle to a 
 boiling-down establishment higher up the coast. 
 
 A straggling street, merging into gum-forest, sloped 
 to the wharf, its most prominent feature a two-storied 
 verandaed building with a tall blue signboard, on which 
 was painted in white letters, " The Currawilli Hotel." 
 Besides the hotel, there were one or two lesser grog- 
 shanties, a general store, and a number of small houses 
 and huts mostly overgrown with ragged creepers and 
 occasionally overshadowed by paw-paw-apple trees or 
 other tropical vegetation. 
 
 147 10*
 
 148 SISTER SORROW 
 
 There was also the residence of a Government official 
 — the port master I think they called him — surrounded 
 by a plantation of fruit trees— mangoes, peaches, bananas 
 and more paw-paws. 
 
 Upon the eastern horizon lay a long, humped line of 
 coast separated from the headlands of Currawilli by a 
 wide stretch of rough-looking sea. This, the Captain 
 of the steamer Princess Maud told us, was Oronga Island. 
 
 A great wooded expanse— there seemed no end to it. 
 The low, rounded shape narrowed in towards the mainland 
 and then was lost in the purple-pink haze that covered 
 earth, sea and sky. 
 
 Mr. Pringle stood on the wharf when the boat came 
 alongside. He did not wait for the plank to be laid, 
 but made a jump which did credit to his sixty odd years. 
 He was lean and long, and hard as nails, and it was a 
 pleasure to see his sunburnt, kindly, humorous face. 
 Prosperous, too, he looked, in township-bushman's rig 
 — light coat over his smart Crimean shirt, dungaree- 
 breeched and gaitered legs, natty tie and brand new 
 cabbage-tree hat, which he nourished as he stepped 
 towards us. 
 
 " Well ! " said he, " upon my word I've got a fine 
 grown-up bunch of young women half belonging to me, 
 to make up for having no daughters of my own." 
 
 We were all three standing by the companion, and, 
 not counting myself in the bunch of young women, for 
 I didn't even half belong to him, I must say that he had 
 reason to be satisfied. Bee and Bel looked smart and 
 charming in their serge frocks and sailor hats — Bel a 
 tall slip of fifteen and a half, promising to be even prettier 
 than Bee, was certainly more refined in manner and 
 appearance. Bee was immensely attractive to men of 
 a certain type. But, for my own part, I admired Bel 
 the most. 
 
 Mr. Pringle gave Bee and Bel each a sounding kiss and 
 shook hands with me. 
 
 " Wilkins is on his way down from the hotel," he said. 
 " Had a late night, I take it, and didn't know the steamer
 
 SISTER SORROW 149 
 
 was sighted. I wonder how you'll like Oronga Island," 
 he added, with a quizzical grin at me. ' I'm glad you're 
 going, for that poor woman, his wife's sake. To my 
 knowledge, she hasn't been off the Island since she set 
 foot on it, nor spoken to any woman except a servant or 
 a black gin. But mind," he went on in a more serious 
 tone, " if you don't like the Island, you've only got 
 to drop me a line or a wire, and I'll fetch you back some- 
 how. . . . Here comes Bluebeard — so just you remember." 
 
 " That's not Mr. Wilkins," cried Bel, spying him on the 
 wharf. 
 
 He had changed so much in these two years and a half 
 that it was not surprising we did not at the first moment 
 recognize him. The change I saw was chiefly due to his 
 having grown a beard which covered, though it did not 
 quite hide, the characteristic chin. Not a becoming 
 beard — unglossy, and cultivated, it struck me, with diffi- 
 culty, to a poor attempt at a Vandyck peak. For the 
 hair was scant, though wiry, and with the same aggressive 
 curl upwards at the straggling ends as had the hair of 
 his head, where it stuck out at the back over his shirt-collar. 
 There were a good many grey hairs in the beard, which 
 took away from its original colour and made me realize 
 that the man was a good deal older than I had supposed 
 on first seeing him in Leichardt's Town. The eyes were 
 just the same, however, with their shrewd piercing glint ; 
 but I was struck by something furtive in their expression 
 and in the way he glanced sideways and behind him when 
 he boarded the steamer, almost as though he were afraid 
 of being dogged by someone he did not wish to meet. 
 
 Bel was the first to greet him. ' Why, Mr. Wilkins, 
 you've gone and grown a beard ! I didn't know you at 
 first. It doesn't suit you. Whatever did you do it for ? " 
 
 " Because I reckon that I am too lazy to shave every 
 morning," he answered curtly, and turned to me. " How do 
 you do, Miss Carfax. Glad to see you up our way. Dotty 
 gave you my message, eh ? " 
 
 " Dotty ! " interrupted Bel, unabashed. " Do you 
 mean Miss Lloyd ? "
 
 ISO SISTER SORROW 
 
 " I mean Mrs. Wilkins ; I call her Dotty — short for 
 Dolores. I always told her, you know, that she went a 
 bit dotty sometimes — up in the air — imagining things. — 
 See ? — You understand, Miss Carfax ? " He addressed 
 me again, " Well ! Forgotten and forgiven, eh ? The 
 slate wiped clean ; and no grudge now against me ? I'd 
 like to be sure of that ? " 
 
 I answered graciously enough — though my inner self 
 girded at having to grant a plenary indulgence forthwith 
 — that I should not be here as his and his wife's guest, if 
 I bore a grudge against him. 
 
 " That's right. All straight, fair and above-board. No 
 eating a man's salt and speaking ill of him behind his 
 back. — That wouldn't be you,Miss Carfax — nor Phil Wilkins 
 neither. Besides," he added with a funny sort of leer, 
 " marriage is like charity, you know — covers a multitude of 
 sins." 
 
 I had nothing to say to that. My conscience smote me. 
 
 " Now we all start fair," he went on, "except you and 
 me, Miss Bee. You owe me a buttonhole, remember. I 
 haven't forgotten — if you have. We've got to square that 
 little transaction. — See ? " Bee laughed, showing the 
 white teeth between her red lips. She was wearing a 
 small posy, in the lapel of her blue serge coat, which the 
 pilot had given to her at breakfast out of a bunch of 
 flowers he had brought for the saloon table. She unpinned 
 the posy and held it to Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 " Very well ! " said she. " Here's your buttonhole. 
 Now we're square." 
 
 " Oh, no, we're not," he cried. " It's a gardenia bud 
 you owe me, not a mangy, little hotch-potch like this." 
 
 Nevertheless he took the hotch-potch and pinned it 
 into his coat, whereupon some boisterous chaff followed. 
 Then Bee said that his only chance of getting a gardenia 
 from her was to come over to Malpa Downs, where she 
 believed there was a plant in the garden, provided, she 
 added, that he asked prettily for it. Mr. Wilkins jumped 
 at the half-invitation. Something was said about bringing 
 me over and also his wife. But at that he cooled and began
 
 SISTER SORROW 151 
 
 to make excuses, whereupon Bee roasted him unmercifully. 
 She was able to give back as good as she got in Bush 
 repartee. I didn't like the way Mr. Wilkins looked at 
 Bee — the same kind of look — only more so — as that 
 which had annoyed me in the veranda of The Bunyas, 
 when the child's precocious charm had been merely a 
 promise of the fuller-blown attractiveness she now possessed. 
 His admiration of Miss Bee was plain enough — too plain 
 to be becoming in a married man. 
 
 Mr. Pringle fidgeted over what he called our traps, 
 and grumbled at the size of Bee's and Bel's trunks, which 
 would have to be strapped to the back of the buggy. He 
 had got the horses harnessed in the hotel yard, he said, 
 and took us along up the street forthwith. 
 
 Some men in the hotel veranda were gathered round 
 a police-sergeant whose horse's bridle was hitched to a 
 veranda-post, and they were asking his news. Mr. Pringle 
 lingered to exchange a few words with him and then 
 followed us to a private sitting-room whither Mr. Wilkins 
 had already convoyed us. 
 
 " Clean disappeared, it seems — Captain Red-Mask and 
 his gang," said Mr. Pringle as he came in. " MacNab 
 had an idea that they had doubled somehow on their 
 tracks, swum the Narrows and got on to your Island, 
 Wilkins. But he's given that up, he says ; and he thinks 
 the Nagbar Range a more likely plant." 
 
 :< MacNab's a fool. What bushranger in his senses would 
 swim the Narrows to get himself caught in a trap on the 
 Island until next full or new moon ! " said Mr. Wilkins. 
 He strolled through a French window on to the hotel 
 balcony as he spoke. 
 
 Bee broke in with eager questions about Captain Red- 
 Mask and the robbery of which the men had been talking. 
 News had come to us on board the Princess Maud at an 
 intermediate port, of the holding up of the gold-escort 
 between Nagbar Diggings and Leuraville, and there 
 had been great excitement over it among the passengers. 
 Bee and Bel were especially interested because a large 
 part of the girls' fortune came from the Nagbar Mine. I
 
 152 SISTER SORROW 
 
 had no shares, and so was able to regard the affair with 
 greater equanimity. 
 
 Not that the loss of the gold was of much consequence 
 to Bee and Bel, though this haul of the bushrangers seemed 
 a particularly big one. It was the clever daring of the 
 robbery and the fact of its being a sequel to others of 
 minor importance — assaults on small parties or on single 
 diggers who had chosen to be independent of the gold- 
 escort. Also the holding up of a new out-back branch 
 of the Leichardt's Land Bank and the sacking of a famous 
 Bush inn on the road from Nagbar up-country, where 
 miners paid in kind as well as in current coin, and where 
 the robbers had done extremely well for themselves. 
 
 All this had been in the papers, but, somehow, we had 
 not paid much attention to it. Bushranging in North 
 Leichardt's Land counts for little outside the affected area. 
 But now that we ourselves had come to the district, it 
 was a different matter. Then, too, there was a touch of 
 romance, savouring of the " Ned Kelly " adventure, about 
 this gang. For one thing, the bushrangers wore masks of 
 a deep red colour and overalls of the same hue concealing 
 the upper part of the figure. For another, they never 
 spoke in English, their road-manceuvres — which usually 
 began by an unexpected lassoing of horses and a simul- 
 taneous covering with revolvers, as the gang sprang from 
 ambush — being conducted by terrifying gesture and in 
 grim silence so far as the attacked party was concerned. 
 Among themselves, the members of the gang made use 
 of brief words of command or signals in a strange tongue 
 which no one had ever heard before. Thus, the rumour 
 got about that Captain Red- Mask and his men were of 
 some foreign nationality — which one it was impossible 
 to say, as none of them had ever been identified without 
 their red masks. 
 
 ' Uncle Pring " — so the girls had always called Mr. 
 Pringle — " are we going along Captain Red-Mask's track ? " 
 cried Bee. " Do you think he's likely to bail us up ? " 
 
 ' I wouldn't answer for his not wanting to bail you 
 up. Can you shoot, Bee ? " said the old man with a laugh.
 
 SISTER SORROW 153 
 
 ' Rather ! " and Bee pulled a tiny revolver out of an 
 ornamental holster that looked like a leather bag hanging 
 at her belt. " I'm a dead cert at short aim." 
 
 Mr. Pringle patted her back. ' I see. No one is going 
 to knock spots off you, Bee. Well, you can put back your 
 doll-gun. Captain Red-Mask has evidently got spies 
 about and he'll know well enough that I'm not worth 
 trying to loot. I never carry even a cheque-book on the 
 road." 
 
 ' Eh ? . . . Same here. Much safer to keep one's 
 money banked." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins had come back from the balcony, and his 
 eyes were going slowly over Bee's splendid figure as she 
 manipulated her toy pistol, lifting her right arm to put 
 it back into the holster and unconsciously bringing the 
 curves of her form into prominence. 
 
 ' I agree that Miss Bee might run a good chance of being 
 bailed up," he went on, " but it wouldn't be for filthy 
 lucre. I bailed her up myself once " 
 
 " And got what for," put in Bee pertly. 
 
 He laughed. " I told you that score isn't cleared off yet." 
 
 She tossed her pretty head with its puffs and curls of 
 yellow-brown hair. 
 
 ' Well, we shall see," he said. " Anyway, Pringle, I'm 
 safe in making you an even bet of five sovs. that neither 
 you nor I will ever be robbed on the road by Captain 
 Red-Mask — as you call him." 
 
 ' What do you call him ? " Mr. Pringle asked shortly. 
 
 ' I ! . . . What d'ye mean ? . . . What should I call 
 him ? ' Mr. Wilkins threw out his bearded chin with the 
 gesture I remembered. He looked suspicious and ready 
 for the offensive, I fancied. But he thought better of it 
 and his chin dropped. ' How about the bet, Pringle ? 
 Are you on ? " 
 
 : ' No, thanks. I'm not taking any. Look here, girls. 
 We're going to lunch at the Half-Way Waterhole, and 
 now I've got to see if I can strap those almighty swags of 
 yours on to the buggy. After that, the sooner we make 
 a start the better."
 
 154 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " All right, Uncle Pring. We're ready. I just want to 
 see what's going on down there. I believe it's the lot of 
 diggers we brought up, making a start too." 
 
 She and Bel pressed past Mr. Wilkins to the balcony. 
 A little crowd of roughs had gathered at the store where 
 they were apparently buying mining implements. They 
 were steerage passengers from the Princess Maud bound 
 for Nagbar. A mixed lot ; some Irish, some Colonials — 
 township riff-raff mostly, but, among them, a few of sturdy 
 physique and bold spirit clearly marked off for adventure. 
 One of these men — the most distinctive — I had specially 
 noticed on the Princess Maud. Bee called out : 
 
 " Oh, Gagsie. There's the Bad Buccaneer. He must 
 be going to the diggings. He's buying a pick." 
 
 " The Bad Buccaneer," as, after my silly habit I had 
 nicknamed this man, was like the pictures of South American 
 desperadoes in certain boys' adventure-stories. He had a 
 cut-throat, villainous look and I could quite imagine him 
 putting a knife into anybody who offended him and 
 making no bones about it. In fact, I should not have 
 been surprised to hear that he was Captain Red-Mask 
 himself, were it not that his presence on the steamer at the 
 time of the gold robbery established an alibi. I saw that 
 he was carrying a sort of bowie knife in a worn sheath 
 hung from the strap that hitched up his breeches. The 
 strap was almost hidden by the loose fullness of his flannel 
 shirt — he wore no coat — of a different pattern from our 
 Store Crimean shirts and of an uncommon hue. Browny- 
 orange, it was : weather stained : something of the Garibaldi 
 shape and open at the neck ; where a silk handkerchief 
 that had once been flame-coloured was knotted with flowing 
 ends. His hat too was different from the " jim-crows " and 
 "cabbage-trees" of our men. A true desperado hat, 
 originally I could see, of very good felt, now, much battered 
 and discoloured, with a curl of the broad brim and slouched 
 jauntily sideward on his head. As for his face ! That 
 would have been less forbidding but for a horrible scar 
 coming down across the cheekbone and losing itself in a 
 stubbly growth of black hair touched with grey. Beaked
 
 SISTER SORROW 155 
 
 nose, cruel mouth, defaced by the scar which had cloven 
 both lips and made a white indented line across them : 
 piercing black eyes, narrowed by drooping lids. But 
 the eyes, as well as the upper part of the face, were shadowed 
 by the slouch hat. He had interested me, that man, when 
 I had seen him from the poop railing as he walked to and 
 fro like a caged beast on the steerage deck. He always 
 walked alone, we had noticed that he kept himself aloof 
 from the other steerage passengers. I watched him now 
 obliquely through the glass window as it stood half-open 
 making a transparent screen between me and Mr. Wilkins 
 on the other side. I suppose it was the general association 
 of ideas that set the memory-wires vibrating. First that 
 look of Mr. Wilkins at Bee — the same kind of look as that 
 which had roused my ire long ago ; then, the talk about 
 the bushrangers and the Nagbar gold robbery, recalling 
 Mr. Wilkins' tale of the gold robbery in New Mexico. 
 Now, too, the appearance of the Bad Buccaneer who 
 seemed the very type of adventurer figuring in that tale. 
 Anyway, I was carried back in a flash, to the veranda of 
 The Bunyas on that memorable occasion of Mr. Wilkins' 
 visit. I could see it all quite plainly — the man led away 
 by his blatant egotism — talking, drinking . . . the woman 
 fallen under his incomprehensible glamour. The revealing 
 ray from the reflector lamp . . . Dody with her hand 
 upon the arm of his chair, drooping, limp, dazed ... a 
 victim to the mysterious influence which obsessed her. 
 . . . Was she still under that obsession ? Was she still 
 the victim of his glamour ? . 
 
 II 
 
 I WAS conscious of Mr. Wilkins stepping back into 
 the room and crossing the window space near to 
 where I stood : then, of a sudden, startled oath, caught 
 in his throat : of his head craning forward past my shoulder 
 and of a quick jerky movement of it back again. I looked
 
 156 SISTER SORROW 
 
 at him. He gave me the impression of a man who has 
 had a shock. His face was livid and there was the gleam 
 of concentrated ferocity in his eyes which I had noticed 
 that evening at The Bunyas. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " I asked, for I felt uncomfortably 
 curious. " You look as if you had seen something you 
 didn't like." 
 
 He gave me a quick glance, pulled himself together — 
 the mask of his face changing like that of a good actor — 
 and said with jerky indifference : 
 
 " Seen something ! I believe you. Beast of a hornet 
 buzzing round this window. I loathe hornets worse 
 than snakes. . . . Look out, Miss Carfax." 
 
 There was a hornet and it was a particularly vicious 
 and pertinacious beast. We both moved into the room. 
 
 " Who d'ye call the ' Bad Buccaneer ' — d'ye mean that 
 brown devil in the yellow shirt ? " 
 
 I nodded : " You noticed him ? " 
 
 " Caught a glimpse of him just as the hornet buzzed in. 
 You do see queer specimens in these batches of diggers. 
 . . . The ' Bad Buccaneer ! ' . . . Good ! . . . You in- 
 vented that ? Oh ! I know the way you have of giving 
 people nicknames — Dotty told me. ... 7 was the Dic- 
 tatorial Person. Well, I reckon I do let the world know 
 what I want, and I get it most times. . . . See ? " 
 
 " Yes. I see." 
 ' Bad Buccaneer ! ' . . . You sure hit the chap off. 
 What about him, eh ? Did he come up with you in the 
 steamer ? . . . Not first-class, I guess ? " 
 
 " No. In the steerage." 
 
 ' Oh ! Know anything about him, do you ? " 
 
 " No — do you ? " 
 
 " Me ! . . . I say, Miss Carfax, you must have a pretty 
 bad opinion of the company I keep if you take that chap 
 for an acquaintance of mine. What put such an idea into 
 your head ? " 
 
 ' Well, you have come across some wild characters, 
 haven't you ? " I answered. " Something — I don't know 
 what — made me think of a story you told us ever so
 
 SISTER SORROW 157 
 
 long ago — about a man who robbed a gold-escort in Cali- 
 fornia or New Mexico — wasn't it ? — and some of the men 
 with him that you described." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins came close to me and his expression changed 
 to one of frank apprehension mingled with appeal. 
 
 ' Look here," he said, " I wish you'd just forget that I 
 ever told you that story. I don't want it talked about. 
 The fact is I never ought to have told it. I knew I'd made 
 a mistake when I'd done it. But I was led on — and the 
 truth was I'd mixed my drinks. That line old port and 
 champagne of your father's with the whisky on tup of 'em, 
 played the deuce with my discretion. — Understand ? " 
 
 I said the idea had occurred to me at the time, there 
 having been several things he had seemed unable to 
 explain in the story, and that I supposed, having got 
 himself into a muddle, he had thought the easiest way 
 of getting out of it was to set The Bunyas on fire. 
 
 He burst into a fit of laughter. 
 
 " Come now, Miss Carfax : you're pretty cute you know, 
 but this time you are overdoing it. What should I want 
 to set The Bunyas on lire for ? I wasn't taking any in 
 Insurance Policies. . . . No." His tone became serious 
 again. ' It's nothing to do with me, my asking you not 
 to rake up that old yarn hereabouts — or any whereabouts " 
 — he added as if the last clause were an afterthought. " I 
 told you Phil Wilkins wasn't on in that gold-escort act. 
 But the deuce of it is, that another chap was. — No harm 
 meant, mind you — he got mixed up unbeknownst as you 
 may put it. He's a friend of mine, that chap — starting on 
 a fresh lay-out, and what he told me about that affair was 
 told in confidence. It would touch him up badly if he ever 
 got to know that I'd wagged a free tongue over it. See ? " 
 
 ' I know who you mean," I said. " Your friend is the 
 man who drove the coach — I forget his name " 
 
 ' Keep it forgotten and you'll oblige me," interjected 
 Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 ' The man you met afterwards in Japan," I said. " I 
 suppose he has come to Australia too." 
 
 " Come to Australia too ! " Mr. Wilkins flared out with
 
 158 SISTER SORROW 
 
 suspicious emphasis on the too. But my blank look 
 disarmed him. " Well, you see I'm here anyway," he 
 added lamely. 
 
 " I expect he is here, somewhere about, too, or you 
 wouldn't be so anxious about my not repeating that 
 story. I wish you'd tell me whether I'm likely to meet 
 him." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins squared his jowl decisively. 
 
 " I'm not giving away any more," said he. 
 
 " I should know if I happened to remember his name," 
 I said teasingly. 
 
 " No, you wouldn't," he retorted. 
 
 Just then, Bee asked from the balcony whether Uncle 
 Pring had come back. But he hadn't. The girls were 
 craning over the railing, their attention divided between 
 the General Store opposite and the veranda of the hotel 
 beneath them, where brisk business seemed to be going 
 on in drinks and Bush yarns. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins did not go out and join them, but he too was 
 giving attention to the Store and its customers. I had 
 noticed during our conversation that every now and 
 then, he had peered sideways over my shoulder through 
 the glass window and I felt certain that he was keeping 
 an eye on the Bad Buccaneer. I had a kind of intuition 
 that it was the sight of that desperado and not of the 
 hornet which had so disconcerted him. I tried hard to 
 catch at an intangible clue which tantalizingly evaded me. 
 
 The group of diggers had dispersed. The Bad Buc- 
 caneer was either completing his purchases in the back 
 part of the Store or had gone on his way, for I saw no 
 more of him. I fancied Mr. Wilkins looked relieved, 
 but, clearly, he was not yet quite easy in his mind. He 
 kept jerking his big shoulders, and his sharp eyes, under 
 their protruding brows, had a concentrated, worried 
 look. 
 
 " Hurry up, girls," called Mr. Pringle at the door. 
 ' The buggy's loaded and waiting : and if the horses 
 knock up under that tarnation lot of baggage, it will be 
 your fault, not theirs."
 
 SISTER SORROW 159 
 
 Bee and Bel cluttered around : collecting veils, gloves, 
 what-not, and giving me cheerful good-byes. 
 
 " Have a drink, Pringle, before you start," said Mr. 
 Wilkins. He went up to a table in the middle of the room 
 where were glasses, a whisky-bottle and a jug of water, 
 ordered anticipatorily, I guessed, by him. 
 
 He did not wait for Mr. Pringle but mixed himself a very 
 stiff peg which he tossed off in a couple of gulps. After 
 that, he seemed more himself. Uncle Pring shook 
 his head, and touched the flask in his breast- 
 pocket. 
 
 " Too early in the day, my boy, for me. I shall take my 
 refresher on the road." He shook hands with me and 
 reiterated his injunction to let him know if I got tired of 
 the Island and wanted a change. I don't think he liked 
 leaving me to the tender mercies of Mr. Phil Wilkins. He 
 screwed up his eyes and looked at the heavens and at 
 some clouds scudding across the blue. 
 
 " I hope you're not in for a north-easter," he said. 
 " Looks a bit like it, I think." 
 
 " No fear," interposed Mr. Wilkins. — " And if a bit of 
 wind did get up, my boat, the Island Queen, is as safe as 
 a house. You're not funking the Narrows are you, Miss 
 Carfax ? " 
 
 " No," I answered with the courage of the ignorant, 
 " I'm looking forward to the trip." 
 
 Mr. Pringle asked what time the Island Queen was to 
 set off, and Mr. Wilkins explained that we should go out 
 on the tide that afternoon, and that he hoped to make 
 the run before the tide turned again. " We ought to get 
 to Oronga Station Landing," he said, " between eight and 
 nine and should be at the head-station in good time for 
 bed." 
 
 " Well, I'm glad my cattle-run is not on an island," said 
 Uncle Pring. " I hope you've got a crew that under- 
 stands a boat." 
 
 On that, after his manner, Mr. Wilkins began to brag 
 about his crew — three first-rate men, he said — two of 
 whom had served before the mast, and the other knew
 
 160 SISTER SORROW 
 
 as much about the sea as he did himself, which upon his 
 own showing, was no inconsiderable amount. 
 
 " You can take my word that Phil Wilkins doesn't put 
 his hand to a job unless he's jolly well sure he can boss 
 his own show," he boasted. ' I've navigated bigger craft 
 than the Island Queen, and in a deal more difficult waters 
 than this old Currawilli Bay — that I can tell you." 
 
 Uncle Pring looked puzzled and as if he would have 
 liked to ask a few questions, but he was too busy getting 
 off, and so let the matter slide. We two, who were bound 
 for Oronga Island, watched the buggy turn out of the 
 hotel yard and afterwards followed its progress from the 
 balcony till it was hidden by the gum-trees. Then Mr. 
 Wilkins told me he had some business to do a little way 
 outside the township. Could I manage on my own for 
 the next few hours ? They'd get me lunch at the hotel, 
 and he would be back in good time for the afternoon tide. 
 
 I assured him with relief that I could manage very well 
 on my own, and he went off, after summoning the landlady, 
 who showed me a bedroom where I was advised to rest. 
 
 Ill 
 
 BUT I didn't want to rest ; and, as soon as I thought 
 Mr. Wilkins would have got well off the scene, set 
 out to explore Currawilli and its environs. 
 
 There was little enough to see. Currawilli was like most 
 Bush townships, and no more picturesque or finished- 
 looking because it happened to be by the sea. With the 
 clearing out of the Princess Maud, stagnation seemed to 
 have settled on the place. I wandered along the shore 
 of the Bay, continually turned back and forced on to 
 higher ground, by mangroves, mud and mosquitoes. 
 
 At last I pulled up at the wharf, where the little life 
 there was, appeared to be concentrated. There I found 
 several boats, one of which was being loaded by three
 
 SISTER SORROW 161 
 
 men who were not at all like the ordinary run of Australians. 
 In fact I saw at once that they were not Australians. 
 
 Two of them were distinctly queer-looking foreigners. 
 That did not seem so odd, seeing that they had the gait 
 and general appearance of sailors ; and sailors of outlandish 
 nationalities are, in North Lcichardt's Land, more in the 
 picture than any other sort of foreigner. 
 
 But again, the scene in the veranda of The Bunyas rose 
 up before me. I remembered Mr. Wilkins' remarks about 
 Mexican half-breeds, of whom, according to his description, 
 two of these men struck me as being typical examples, so 
 much so that after his abuse of the race, I wondered at 
 his employing them. 
 
 Really, I seemed to be haunted this afternoon by that 
 almost forgotten episode. It was as though Mr. Wilkins' 
 sensational and involved adventure-story, of which only 
 certain details had left, at that time, any fixed impression 
 on my mind, was, in some of its human elements, material- 
 izing itself gradually before my eyes. 
 
 These two were short men, bony, of sturdy make, skins 
 reddish olive, hair dull black, straight and wiry, narrow- 
 slitted eyes, black too and cunning : features aquiline : 
 high cheek-bones and retreating foreheads. I had never 
 seen such villainous-looking creatures. But the queerest 
 thing about them was that they were exactly alike. I could 
 not doubt that they were twins. The only differences 
 between them— except in some minor details of dress — 
 being that one seemed a little less gloomily ruffian-like than 
 the other and that the wickedest and gloomiest-looking of 
 the two was pitted with smallpox marks — which perhaps 
 accounted for his more unprepossessing appearance. 
 
 The third man was not at all ruffian-like. American, I 
 felt certain. He had a sort of generic resemblance to the 
 ' Uncle Sam " caricatures — loose-jointed, long, with a 
 little goatee beard and a dry humorous smile. He was 
 evidently the boss of the three, for whereas the other two 
 wore only shirts and trousers, hitched up with a strap, 
 and battered caps on the backs of their heads, he had 
 on a coat over a clean Crimean shirt, and a perfectly respect- 
 
 ii
 
 162 SISTER SORROW 
 
 able soft-felt hat. He was smoking a clay pipe and only 
 occasionally lent a hand to the stowing away of cargo in 
 the fore-part of the boat. This consisted mostly of cases 
 that might have contained groceries, only that they 
 seemed extraordinarily heavy. There were, likewise, 
 variously sized sacks, a keg labelled " Fine Jamaica," and 
 a few miscellaneous packages. 
 
 I knew just a little about boats — for during our times 
 at The Bunyas, we had made fishing trips to the Bay — 
 and I thought I could judge the cut of a sea-worthy craft. 
 When I saw the name Island Queen painted on the bows of 
 this one, I understood, of course, that she belonged to Mr. 
 Wilkins. She was a good boat, strongly built, but merely 
 an open boat with oars, one mast, and sails, at present 
 furled. She seemed to me alarmingly small, and I confess 
 that my soul sank within me at the thought of crossing 
 what appeared the open sea in that frail bark. More 
 especially now, for a breeze had arisen since midday and 
 I saw the two sailors looking up at the sky where mare's- 
 tails were spreading. I was standing on the embankment, 
 near enough to the group to catch any loudish bits of 
 conversation, but not near enough to seem as if I were 
 listening. I saw that the men glanced at me curiously and 
 exchanged low-toned remarks. The American regarded 
 me with considerable attention, and I did not feel at all 
 certain that he approved of me. But still he did not 
 strike me as malevolent. I should have said he was 
 rather a human person. 
 
 " I guess there's going to be a breeze," he said, removing 
 his pipe to expectorate. " I told the Boss we'd better 
 have taken the morning tide. What d'ye make of it, 
 Jiminy One ? " 
 
 I concluded he meant Gemini — the Twins and laughed 
 to myself. 
 
 Jiminy One, the least villainous-looking of the ruffians, 
 scrutinized the heavens. I noted another distinguishing 
 mark. Jiminy One wore sailor's gold rings in his ears. 
 The smallpox-pitted twin also gazed upward and grunted 
 some words in an unintelligible tongue.
 
 SISTER SORROW 163 
 
 " None of that ! " said the American in a low, stern 
 voice. " You fool," he added savagely, and his expression 
 was so fierce that I began to think him less amiable than 
 I had at first supposed. I thought it prudent to pretend 
 unconsciousness of the rebuke, and, with a foot on the 
 embankment and my back to the men, became absorbed 
 in the tying of a shoe-lace. 
 
 " Hoy ... Ho ... ho ... ho ! Dead men below," 
 sang Jiminy One, in a loud falsetto, as he pounced on one 
 of the cases and began heaving it up an inclined plane 
 formed by a plank resting on the bows of the boat. 
 " Lend a hand, Ricky, and stow your gibberish." 
 
 They were an amazing set, I thought. Except for a 
 slightly odd accent, the man might have been an Australian 
 seaman. But why shouldn't he speak in his own tongue — ■ 
 whatever that might be ? 
 
 The American smoked for a few seconds, and when I 
 turned again, I intercepted a side glance at myself. I was 
 the only person near and I hoped that I looked bored and 
 stupid enough not to put them on their guard against me. 
 
 " Going to blow ? " asked the American. 
 
 ' Nothin' to hurt," grunted Jiminy Two sulkily. 
 
 " Well, we got to go, anyway," said the American. 
 " Once tack her across the Bay and she'll be all right. A 
 case of pulling up the Narrows, then, that's all." 
 
 Jiminy Two inspected the inside of his hands and held 
 them, palms outward, to the American. 
 
 " Pulling ! It was that pulling beast you put me on 
 did this for me," he grumbled. " Expect me to handle 
 an oar. I tell you, the bridle has cut clean through my 
 skin and I can't get the (blanked) place to heal. What 
 did you give me that (blanked) brute for ? " 
 
 ' Because he's going to be the best horse we've got and 
 there's not a horse-breaker in the district could have 
 shaped him better than you've done, Ricky, my boy. 
 You're an ornament to your two professions, Jiminy 
 Two, which is as it should be, though I never knew a 
 sailor yet who was as good at managing a horse's mouth 
 as at slithering up a mast." 
 
 11*
 
 1 64 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Jiminy Two appeared insensible to the flattery and 
 continued to inspect his palms with an injured air. The 
 American looked at his watch. 
 
 "I'm off to get a snack and find the Boss," he said. 
 " You two stick here until I come back. No drinks, mind, 
 until we've got her off." 
 
 The American strode away towards the township, and 
 the two men sat down on the edge of the boat and began 
 cutting up tobacco in silence. I thought I had better 
 see after my own lunch, and went back to the hotel, where 
 I found cold salt beef and pickles with bread and butter 
 and jam laid out on the table in the sitting-room and the 
 whisky-bottle keeping them company. I asked for tea, 
 and, being hungry, made a healthy meal : then put my 
 feet up on the sofa and fell asleep. 
 
 The clatter of glass on a metal tray awoke me. Mr. 
 Wilkins had come in and was refreshing himself. He had 
 been riding and looked dusty and hot and as if he had 
 gone some distance. Fatigue or worry had brought lines 
 out in his face and made him appear still older. He 
 was certainly anxious and preoccupied. Yet he looked 
 extraordinarily full of life and magnetism as he stood 
 there showing his more than ordinary height, his bull 
 shoulders hunched ; the lean brown throat, which, poking 
 out from those shoulders, seemed an anomaly, making 
 one think as it did of a bird of prey, and the Adam's-apple 
 moved uncannily up and down as he swallowed his whisky 
 and water. The throat was scarcely shadowed by his 
 sparse beard of wiry hair — virile hair nevertheless. The 
 peaky beard, tilted up, accentuated that odd wedge-like 
 conformation of head and face, the profile-line being 
 sharply diagonal from tip of chin to the bulging ridge 
 of eyebrow, the forehead receding again to the back 
 angle of the head. With the high cheek-bones, his face 
 reminded me again of photographs of mummied Pharaohs 
 and of the Inca type. The steely eyes had lost nothing of 
 their intense gleam. If anything, they were more con- 
 centrated and forceful. Altogether, the man struck me 
 as less blatant than of old, but equally magnetic, and
 
 SISTER SORROW 165 
 
 as having gained in power. Though I hated him, he 
 held me in the grip of his personality, producing in me a 
 keen antagonism, mingled with a kind of admiration, 
 which was pleasurable in its way. 
 
 " I'm sorry to have disturbed you," he said, " but 
 I'm later than I expected, and it's after the turn of the 
 tide. So we've no time to lose. See ? You go and get 
 ready please, while I'm having a snack. They've taken 
 your big packages down to the boat. I'm glad you had 
 the sense not to bring heavy trunks. Those girls' port- 
 manteaus were a caution." 
 
 He began to tackle the cold beef ravenously, before I 
 left him, and was eating hard when I returned from the 
 bedroom with my handbag and cloak. 
 
 It must have been getting on for five when we reached 
 the boat. The three men were waiting, evidently impatient 
 to be off, and Mr. Wilkins quickly settled me in the stern 
 and himself behind at the tiller. The sailors took oars 
 and rowed us out from the wharf, and then set sail. 
 
 At first I enjoyed the freshening breeze and the slightly 
 chopping sea, but, as we got into the Bay, it grew rougher, 
 and, small as was my experience, I soon saw that to cross 
 Currawilli Bay and beat up the Narrows in face of that 
 wind would need some seamanship. We kept on tacking 
 and trying to get to the shelter of a line of long narrow 
 islets, looking almost like a breakwater, with a few palms 
 sticking up on them, which lay lengthwise along the 
 middle of the Bay. As we beat about, I got to look upon 
 that bristling ledge of rock, at one time threatening 
 destruction, at another promising at least a temporary 
 haven — as personifying some double-headed fate of good 
 or evil. 
 
 Nobody talked. Signals passed now and then between 
 the American at the bows and Mr. Wilkins at the tiller, 
 and some short sharp words from one to the other and to 
 the Twins, whose energies were now concentrated upon 
 the work in hand and who sprang like cats to the ropes 
 when the boat lurched dangerously. 
 
 Out there on the wide sea, with the waves growing
 
 1 66 SISTER SORROW 
 
 higher every moment and the boat plunging, dipping and 
 groaning among them like a thing in pain, I felt a sudden 
 sense of terrifying loneliness. Hitherto, I had had a 
 feeling of exhilaration. 
 
 The afternoon was falling : the sky had darkened and, 
 as I watched the men, I saw that the eyes of each of them 
 would search the heavens and then exchange glances which 
 to me were ominous. It seemed a matter of great difficulty 
 to round that bristling point. Once, the boat all but 
 capsized : the sail spooned the sea. Only the sailors' 
 quickness and skill saved it. 
 
 I sat absolutely silent, my nerves tense. Nobody was 
 thinking about me. The American and Mr. Wilkins 
 seemed chiefly concerned about the cargo, and, on directions 
 from his chief, the former began shifting the balance of 
 some of the cases. " Crank," Mr. Wilkins called him. 
 Afterwards I learned that his name was Crankshaw. 
 
 The sailors had unshipped the mast and taken to the 
 oars. Jiminy Two appeared to have forgotten his injured 
 hand. The men were bent double, the muscles of their 
 brawny dark arms standing out and their whole strength 
 given to preventing the boat from coming broadside on to 
 a wave. Yet, with all their struggling, they seemed to 
 make little progress. Once, I glanced behind me at Mr. 
 Wilkins. He too was exerting all his strength on the 
 tiller. I could see the seam on his left wrist : it was like a 
 taut band of grey elastic. His head was poked forward, 
 grim jowl, under the shaggy beard, and lips tightly set : 
 the eyes narrowed to a pin-point gleam. 
 
 He noticed my movement. " Sit still," he thundered, 
 and added more quietly, " It's all right if you keep quiet 
 and don't funk." And then he shouted at the men : 
 " Damn you, you land-lubbers. Put her head at it ! . . . 
 Keep her nose into it ! " 
 
 It got to be a sort of obsession in my mind — the reiterated 
 command : " Keep her head at it ! . . . Put her nose 
 into it ! " 
 
 I don't know in the least how long we were beating 
 ound that point. It seemed to me that we had been
 
 SISTER SORROW 167 
 
 years battling with the waves. I could see plainly enough 
 that things looked black. The men were getting exhausted. 
 Now Crankshaw was rowing too. He brought fresh force 
 on our side into the battle and he was a good seaman. 
 . . . Every one of them was — Mr. Wilkins hadn't boasted 
 unadvisedly : and even in that wild welter, I could not 
 help wondering how he and the others had learnt the trade 
 and thinking what an odd thing it was that they should 
 all be good bushmen too. 
 
 The men muttered and grumbled so far as their strain- 
 ing efforts allowed. Crankshaw, his long arms like iron 
 pistons, labouring at the oar, would sometimes blurt out 
 encouraging calls. 
 
 " Get on a shove, boys. . . . Put your spunk into 
 it . . ." and so on. I surprised a look from him which 
 I am sure he meant to be encouraging likewise — a 
 whimsical, pitying look. And I smiled at him and tried 
 to convey that I had a heart for any fate — which was 
 not true, for I certainly had no heart to be drowned. 
 
 The gloom deepened of a sudden, and all the distant 
 outlines were blotted by a wall of dirty, grey-brown scud 
 racing towards us, while big drops began to fall. The 
 wind had heightened and the boat rocked like a cockle- 
 shell, now on the crest, now in the trough of great, brownish, 
 soap-suddy billows, while all the time that everlasting, 
 " Keep her head at it. . . . Put her nose into it," pitched 
 in imperative key and varied by qualifying oaths, sounded 
 above the rush of water but could not put power enough 
 into the exhausted muscles of the rowers. 
 
 We had beaten past the point. The current was carry- 
 ing us out to the open sea — if we weren't swamped first. 
 . . . And there, tantalizingly on the further side of the 
 reef, lay comparative calm and a strip of shingly beach 
 upon which the surf broke with a crash but more gently 
 than against the rocks. 
 
 Now came a critical moment when the men at the 
 oars seemed unable to second the man at the tiller. A 
 curved brown-grey avalanche reared itself horizontally 
 upon us and the boat's nose refused to turn and to plunge.
 
 1 68 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Crankshaw shouted : ' For God's sake, boys, pull. . . . 
 Head her round. . . . Pull. Damn you ! . . . Pull . . . 
 now together ! " 
 
 Then I saw Mr. Wilkins' great form lurch upward, his 
 arms and hands against the tiller with the weight of his 
 body upon them, his huge shoulders curving round and 
 his grim face poked forward, while his voice, like white- 
 hot steel, hissed through the tumult of the sea. 
 
 ' You infernal skunks ! . . . You've got to turn her. 
 . . . You've got to beach her. . . . Think what you 
 stand to lose." 
 
 A superhuman effort. The boat's nose cut through 
 the end of the threatening wave. For a second we were 
 under the water. Then she righted. In a minute or 
 two the danger was over. We were making the beach. 
 The keel grated on the shingle. We were saved ! 
 
 IV 
 
 ON thinking things over afterwards, it seemed to 
 me characteristic of Mr. Phil Wilkins that he 
 let Crankshaw drag me out of the boat instead of seeing 
 himself to his guest's safety. I was numbed in every 
 limb and could not stand. Moreover, I was soaked 
 through. And now I began to be aware that my teeth 
 were chattering hysterically. 
 
 ' Here, miss. Take a drink and don't be frightened 
 of the stuff." It was Crankshaw who pulled a flask out 
 of his pocket, unscrewed the top and forced brandy down 
 my throat. After that, I was better. But not Crankshaw 
 nor any of them wasted time on me. They got the boat 
 safely beached, and the sailors flung themselves on the 
 shingle. 
 
 It gave me a certain ironic amusement to see Mr. 
 Wilkins, who was standing a little apart, draw out his 
 flask as Crankshaw had done — not for my benefit, but
 
 SISTER SORROW 169 
 
 for his own. He thought of me, however, after he had 
 supplied his own want and came up with a forced access 
 of his old geniality. I think he must have caught my 
 cynical smile, for he held out the cup of the whisky-flask 
 into which he had poured some spirit. 
 
 " Look here," he said. ' It was too much touch-and- 
 go with us for me to consider manners, and you'll excuse 
 me if I thought of your safety before your comfort. Now, 
 I'm going to prescribe for you. A thimbleful of good old 
 ' Three Stars ' will warm you and pull you together." 
 
 ' No, thank you," I answered. " I am already pulled 
 together. Mr. Crankshaw has looked after me." 
 
 He gave his loud laugh. 
 
 ' What ! old Crank a ladies' man ! I wouldn't have 
 thought it of you, Crank. See here, while you're on the 
 job you might tap that rum-keg and give the Twins a 
 dope. It won't do 'em any harm now. . . . And, after 
 that, they can make a fire and we'll boil a billy of 
 tea." 
 
 I don't know whether Crankshaw had in the meantime 
 ministered surreptitiously to his own needs in respect of 
 doping, but I liked the way in which he set to work on 
 the rum-keg and dealt the Gemini each a liberal measure. 
 Mr. Wilkins went on pressing his medicine on me, and 
 when I refused it, drank off the contents of the cup 
 himself. 
 
 ' Well, if you won't, you won't. I daresay the tea 
 will do you as much good. And see — I may as well break 
 it to you at once that we've got to camp here till next 
 tide." 
 
 " I will camp here for a week if necessary rather than 
 put out in that boat on such a sea. Please — please, don't 
 go on to-night," I pleaded. 
 
 He laughed again. 
 
 " There, I knew you were in a mortal funk, though I 
 will say for you, Miss Carfax, that I couldn't have believed 
 a woman would have kept herself in hand in the way 
 you did. Dotty would have gone into hysterics and 
 capsized the boat. She did once, first time I ever had her
 
 170 SISTER SORROW 
 
 out in a North-Easter. I've never tried it a second time. 
 Since then, she has had to stop on the Island." 
 
 He laughed disagreeably. 
 
 " I should have thought that you had influence enough 
 over Dolores to prevent her from being frightened," I 
 said indignantly. 
 
 " Oh ! that sort of thing doesn't outlast the honey- 
 moon — when a man has the bad luck to marry a fool, 
 and you mustn't expect to find two turtle doves cooing 
 on Oronga Island. But Dotty's all right. She's happy 
 enough. You needn't bother about her, Miss Carfax." 
 
 I said coldly that I was glad to hear it, and again 
 begged him not to continue the voyage until the sea was 
 calmer. 
 
 " The wind will have changed, most likely, by the early 
 morning tide," he said. " We've crossed the worst part 
 of the Bay. You'll find that we are really in the Narrows, 
 when we slope across to the shore of the Island from the 
 shelter of this reef. We'll see, however. You may be 
 sure I shan't take any more risks. I never dreamed the 
 wind would get up as it did, and I shan't forgive myself 
 in a hurry for having let you in for such a rough experience." 
 
 It was distinctly a rough experience, though it would 
 have been much worse if the sailors had not had some 
 rations with them. As it was, they made a fire of drift- 
 wood and dead palm branches — there were three or four 
 trees scattered about this reef, which otherwise was just 
 a strip of rock and shingle, and they boiled a billy of tea 
 and fried some salt junk and a kind of johnny cakes which 
 they called flappers. 
 
 That part was not bad. In congenial company one 
 might have played at shipwreck quite agreeably. But 
 all the time I had a painful sense of disharmony, of things 
 hidden, and of underlying stress. In spite of his attempts 
 at joviality, Mr. Wilkins' mood was dour, and I saw plainly 
 that he was inwardly perturbed. He had spells of silence 
 while he smoked and performed the knuckle-tattoo, that I 
 remembered, on his riding breeches. Yet he made a 
 great show of interest in our family arrangements, and
 
 SISTER SORROW 171 
 
 asked a number of questions — not in very good taste — 
 as to the disposition of Father's property and the actual 
 amount of Bee's and Bel's fortunes. He would have liked 
 information about mine also, but I did not give him any 
 satisfaction upon that point. He told me that he was 
 looking out for a sleeping partner who would put a few 
 thousands into Oronga Island and enable him to stock 
 it more fully. In fact, he made a half-joking suggestion 
 that I should become the sleeping partner. Was that 
 why he had permitted Dolores to ask me on a visit to the 
 Island ? The question naturally rose in my mind. 
 
 Mr. Crankshaw moved about impatiently during the 
 conversation, occupying himself part of the time in 
 rigging up a kind of shelter for me with the biggest of 
 the sails, which he slung to a palm near the fire and held 
 down with rocks. He, too, seemed uneasy. I felt that 
 had I not been there, Mr. Wilkins and he would have 
 been discussing our misadventure — or perhaps aspects of 
 the general situation, apart from the shipwreck, of which 
 I had no knowledge. Behind it all, I sensed in a blurred, 
 intuitive fashion, some unexplainable mystery. 
 
 I didn't at all like the manner of Mr. Wilkins' allusions 
 to his wife. There was such a contemptuous note in his 
 voice when he spoke of her, as though she were half- 
 witted : and it occurred to me as highly possible that 
 his treatment of her had unbalanced Dody's delicately 
 poised nervous system. Then I told myself that it was 
 unfair to form malicious conclusions without evidence 
 to support them, and took comfort in the thought that 
 I should not have long to wait before seeing with my 
 own eyes the effect marriage had had upon Dolores. 
 
 By and by, I left the men and retired to my shelter. 
 Mr. Crankshaw had done the best he could for me. He 
 had laid one of the small sails on the shingle for me to 
 lie upon and had rolled up some canvas for a pillow. 
 There were no rugs or blankets. It was not possible to 
 undo my baggage, which was as wet as myself, and I had 
 only my travelling cloak to cover me. I was so tired, 
 however, that I curled myself up in my damp garments,
 
 172 SISTER SORROW 
 
 and not even the roar of the wind and the breakers kept 
 me from falling asleep. 
 
 I awoke chilled to the marrow — my bones aching, and 
 with a feeling of nightmare unreality and a sound in 
 my ears like the chattering of apes, or, as I fancied, in my 
 half-dreaming state, of evil spirits. I sat up and presently 
 discovered that the sound was that of the Twins talking 
 loudly and angrily in that strange tongue of which I had 
 caught a few syllables on the wharf at Currawilli. Only 
 partly awake, and under the spell of that nightmare 
 sensation, my first conscious thought was that the men 
 were plotting to kill me. I must have made some audible 
 sound or movement, for, of a sudden, Mr. Wilkins' voice 
 fell like a blade of cold steel upon the unintelligible dis- 
 putation, as, with a sharp oath, he bade them be silent 
 or else go and have their quarrel out at the other end of 
 the reef. 
 
 The voices subsided, and presently I heard footsteps 
 on the shingle moving further and further away. I reasoned 
 that the voices had sounded from the direction of the 
 boat, and, after a few minutes, during which I held myself 
 together, the other two began to speak in a murmur of 
 which I made out no words. They were talking quietly, 
 and apparently in friendly fashion, concerning some 
 matter which, from their tones, I felt must be of 
 importance. 
 
 My terror had gone and I lay back quite still and tried 
 to get to sleep. But sleep was not to be won. 
 
 In an ordinary way, I suppose one might have camped 
 out within the Tropic of Capricorn, in September, with 
 impunity and even enjoyment, for the nights then are 
 often quite hot. The sea wind, however, and the wetting 
 on the passage had chilled me through and through, and 
 I found myself shivering as with fever and ague. 
 
 I fancy it was about midnight. The gale had lowered, 
 and the sky, which I could see plainly, was now clearer, 
 with brilliant planets and constellations shining on the 
 deep dark blue. 
 
 Peeping round the edge of the sail, I saw that the fire
 
 SISTER SORROW 173 
 
 was burning and longed to go and warm myself at it. 
 I would have done so, only just then Mr. Wilkins and 
 Crankshaw stepped up from the boat and stood for a 
 minute close to my shelter listening, I thought, to find 
 out if I was asleep. 
 
 I managed to control my shivering fit — it's wonderful 
 how you can control your body when you set your mind 
 on it— and kept quite still with my eyes shut. They 
 might have looked right in on my couch, for the sides of 
 the sail did not nearly meet. It was not that I had any 
 idea of eavesdropping or spying upon the men, but I did 
 not care to sit by the fire with them, and thought that 
 perhaps I should drop off to sleep again. 
 
 Crankshaw went to the fire, and Mr. Wilkins walked 
 softly round the shelter, pausing quite close to my head, 
 then rejoined him. They spoke in a low tone to each 
 other and sat down on a rock beside the fire, Crankshaw 
 putting the driftwood together and making a blaze. The 
 smell of their strong tobacco floated in upon me and was 
 soothing to my excited nerves. The two men talked 
 earnestly, Mr. Wilkins being the chief speaker, Crankshaw, 
 I judged, merely throwing in a question or comment 
 now and then. Mr. Wilkins' voice, though pitched low, 
 had a vibrant quality which made it more audible than 
 Crankshaw's, whose words, from their American accent 
 and sing-song intonation, I found harder to distinguish. 
 Not that I was making at first any particular effort to do 
 so. It struck me that Mr. Wilkins was telling Crankshaw 
 about his expedition that morning. I caught bits of 
 sentences here and there — " Came up with the batch close 
 on Blind Man's Gully ... No ... I was off my horse 
 . . . How did he find out . . . That's so ... If he has 
 found out ... I shall know better when ..." 
 
 Oh, how tantalizing it was when they mumbled. . . . 
 Here was the mystery cropping up now. I had no 
 scruples about listening. Was it possible that he meant 
 the Bad Buccaneer ? . . . 
 
 Mr. Wilkins smoked and ruminated. . . . Crankshaw 
 said, " It beats me . . ." Wilkins answered, ' So it
 
 174 SISTER SORROW 
 
 did me . . . staggered me at first. . . . I've worked it 
 out now ... on a system. . . . You've got to get the 
 connecting link . . . that's the thing. . . ." 
 
 Crankshaw spat and muttered. I heard, " Don't 
 call that a right use. . . . Not made for that sort of 
 thing ; " then, in a growl from Crankshaw, something 
 about ..." Devil's tool." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins was knocking the ashes out of his pipe 
 against a rock. As he did so, he raised his voice. " That's 
 my business, Crankshaw, and you're not going to meddle 
 with it.— See ? " 
 
 Crankshaw muttered still. Then, suddenly, " Are you 
 sure it's him ? " Mr. Wilkins answered, " There was the 
 brand. . . . Not likely to mistake that. Looks as if a 
 prison doctor had stitched it up. ..." Then, " Stony- 
 broke and not long out of quod "... and some con- 
 temptuous remark about the women not caring to run 
 after him now. 
 
 Crankshaw said something of which I only caught 
 the words, " No match for you in that line," whereat, Mr. 
 Wilkins laughed in a peculiarly objectionable fashion, 
 and made a jocular remark so coarse that, if my loathing 
 of him and my pity for Dolores had lain somewhat in 
 abeyance these last hours, they became violently positive 
 again. I buried my head in my cloak and stopped my 
 ears. I must have drowsed. When I became conscious 
 of the two men again, perhaps half an hour later, they 
 were still smoking and talking. 
 
 I heard something about a " cache " and " the trader." 
 They seemed to be planning some operation. I supposed 
 it had to do with crossing cattle. Mr. Wilkins was 
 grumbling about the inconvenience of the Narrows and 
 the nuisance of being hampered by the tides. . . . Crank- 
 shaw appeared to be contesting the argument, and said 
 that the Island reach of sea, inside the Great Barrier Reef, 
 was too exposed for their work. . . . 
 
 Now, a name uttered by Mr. Wilkins set me awake 
 and all alive in an instant. " That damned sneak, 
 Helsing. It's as if he'd put himself there on purpose."
 
 SISTER SORROW 175 
 
 What had Torvald Helsing to do with the matter ? 
 Was he back at Oronga Island ? But I strained my 
 ears in vain. They said nothing more about him . . . 
 or at least I could not hear it if they did. The men began 
 to talk of places . . . sea routes . . . markets for some 
 special commodity. I had heard of some of the places. 
 . . . Viti in the Fijis, Port Douglas, some others. Crank- 
 shaw asserted that the Bismarcks were " the surest dump- 
 ing ground " : and added cynically, " They don't ask 
 awkward questions in German New Guinea." 
 
 It seemed a queer medley, and I could make nothing 
 of it except that Mr. Wilkins was a cattle-owner of various 
 side activities. 
 
 The conversation came to a close. Mr. Wilkins said 
 he was going to have a snooze and that Crankshaw could 
 take the watch. Crankshaw went back to the boat, and 
 presently, Mr. Wilkins was breathing audibly. Before 
 long, I too was asleep. 
 
 IT was still dark when Mr. Wilkins awoke me. The 
 fire was a red ash-heap, with a billy of tea steaming 
 beside it, and some broken pieces of salt beef and a couple 
 of flappers from last night's supper arranged on a sheet 
 of newspaper, with some attempt at nicety, for my 
 breakfast. 
 
 The others had evidently finished theirs. Jiminies 
 One and Two were launching the boat, and Mr. Crankshaw 
 began immediately to pull down my sail-shelter and carry 
 it off with my sail-bed. Mr. Wilkins played the host to 
 me, and seemed to have got back his good spirits. 
 
 ' I let you lie as long as I could. You deserved it 
 after the gruelling you had yesterday," he said, and 
 inquired solicitously how I felt after my night's rest. 
 He said he knew I had slept well because I never made
 
 176 SISTER SORROW 
 
 a sound, and he and Crank had been smoking and yarning 
 by the fire till late. 
 
 I let him think he was right and drank the tea grate- 
 fully which he poured out, but I could not tackle the 
 cold beef and flappers. 
 
 " Never mind," he said. " We'll be up at the head- 
 station well by lunch time. You see the wind has gone 
 down, and I've been just cursing myself for not having 
 let you stop at Currawilli last night. But the truth is 
 I'm pushed with work on the Island and hadn't the time 
 to spare. You'll have to add another item to the list of 
 grudges you have against me — which was settled all right 
 yesterday. Clean sheet from to-day — shipwreck thrown 
 in. See ? " 
 
 His bonhomie was less forced this morning : but indeed, 
 I was too much concerned in watching the still heaving sea 
 to trouble myself about his moods. The important factor 
 in my mind was that we had still a good stretch of the 
 Bay to cross before we could reach the shelter of Oronga 
 Island. And I was trying to do a problem in seamanship 
 in my head — which was, why had we crossed the Bay at 
 its mouth instead of beating up the Narrows on the Curra- 
 willi side ? 
 
 Mr. Wilkins explained it later. A question of shoals 
 and currents and other obscure difficulties. He said that 
 the route we had taken had been the recognized route ever 
 since the Island had been peopled and Currawilli in 
 existence. 
 
 Dawn was breaking round the horizon, faint and pearly, 
 when we started. So long as we hugged the reef, the sea 
 was comparatively smooth, and though a tempestuous 
 swell lifted the boat as we got further out, the Island 
 Queen scudded across quickly under a side wind. I had 
 never known any motion more exhilarating. For sheer 
 joy and beauty, give me an Australian dawn before all 
 dawns, the world over. The nearest approach to it is 
 a Japanese dawn in spring. — But that's another story. 
 Soon we were skirting the shore of Oronga Island. Man- 
 groves grew down into the water and, behind them, rose
 
 SISTER SORROW 177 
 
 the forest — part gum, part scrub, with some trees I had 
 never seen before. 
 
 There was no sign of human habitation, except, near 
 the mouth of the Bay, a boatshed with a chimney at one 
 end and an attempt at a garden. Here was one solitary 
 Chinaman, who, Mr. Wilkins told me, fished for bechc- 
 de-mer. 
 
 We were so close to the Island that I could hear the 
 birds in the forest — a raucous chatter of cockatoos, parrots, 
 and crows, with, now and then,, some shriller, sweeter note 
 — the sharp whistle of a bird that I learned afterwards 
 was the dragoon-bird : the cackle and call of scrub-turkeys, 
 which I knew ; the cooing Bub-ul . . . loo-oo . . . 
 Bu . . . ub-ul-loo-00 of a kind of pigeon, and many other 
 bird-notes which became more familiar to me later. It 
 was a wonderful concert — a dawn-psean of wild ecstasy. 
 Then when the sun got higher, it slackened, and, by mid- 
 day, the forest was almost silent. 
 
 But we had reached the landing-place some time before 
 that. I believe the actual distance from the boat-shed of 
 Oronga head-station to the mouth of Currawilli Bay 
 was about twenty miles. It was the stormy, troublesome 
 crossing of the Bay which made the trip difficult in teeth 
 of a head-wind. With favouring breeze and tide, the 
 passage would have been easy and pleasant. As will 
 be seen, however, I had not the opportunity of testing it 
 under such conditions. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins steered the boat into a narrow opening 
 among the mangroves and, after winding about a little, 
 she stopped at a rough little jetty with a padlocked boat- 
 shed beside it. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins helped me out and began to coo-ee angrily. 
 
 There was no sign of any conveyance, and he grumbled 
 to Crankshaw as he pointed to fresh wheel-marks on the 
 cart-track. 
 
 " That fool of a blackboy came down last night and 
 must have gone home again, and Mrs. Wilkins never took 
 the trouble to send him back for this tide." He turned 
 to me : ' You can thank Dotty, Miss Carfax, if you're 
 
 12
 
 178 SISTER SORROW 
 
 kept here to be eaten alive by mosquitoes," he said 
 savagely. " I told her to send the cart down for last 
 night's tide, I didn't tell her to send again this morning 
 if we weren't there, and of course it wouldn't have occurred 
 to her to do it on her own initiative. That's Dotty ! 
 — See ? Well, it didn't take me long to find out that 
 I'd married a born fool." 
 
 I told him sharply that he had no right to speak of his 
 wife that way. 
 
 He only hunched his thick shoulders and answered : 
 
 ' Oh, you'll find it all out for yourself if you haven't 
 done so already. It's my opinion that you've always 
 known Dotty was half an idiot." He stopped short, giving 
 me no time to answer, for the Gemini at the boat were doing 
 something to the cargo that displeased him, and he shouted 
 out to Crankshaw who was stepping towards them : " Look 
 out, Crank. Those blithering lunatics are landing the 
 wrong cases. See after it, will you ? You know the 
 ones that have to go." 
 
 He stopped again, then strode after Crankshaw and the 
 two stood talking together in a low tone for a minute. 
 After that, Crankshaw went to the boat and Mr. Wilkins 
 came back to me. 
 
 He told me to sit down on a log near the track while 
 he went to look for the cart, and presently he disappeared 
 among the gum-trees. 
 
 The mosquitoes gathered like a dense, materialized 
 cloud and made vicious onslaught upon me. Never have 
 I seen mosquitoes in such quantity or of such malignant 
 quality. It was impossible to sit still. Crankshaw came 
 up and grimly commiserated me. 
 
 " They didn't tell you about the ' skeeters ! ' It's a 
 breed that's famous as far as the Solomon Islands. I 
 heard of 'em in New Guinea, and I said I was used to 
 ' skeeters.' But Lord ! if I'd backed a mud swamp 
 I know in Florida State — where not even a nigger will 
 trust his skin against 'em — to beat Oronga Island in 
 ' skeeters,' I'd have lost my money. ... An eye-opener, 
 ain't it, in the insect kingdom ? . . . I tell you what,"
 
 SISTER SORROW 179 
 
 he added. " The only thing is to make a thick smoke. 
 I'll see what I can do." He collected dry twigs and grass 
 into a heap, set it alight and piled on bits of green bark 
 and leaves, which sent out a dense smoke and certainly 
 kept the mosquitoes at a little distance. He philosophized 
 in his drawling voice as he tended the fire : "I reckon the 
 Almighty was done dead sick of creating when He got as 
 low down as the insect kingdom : an' He grew reckless 
 and just snipped up the live stuff he was making critters 
 of, anyhow. Skeeters and cockroaches and fleas and 
 such-like varmint are the snippings of Creation that was 
 left over and taken no account of." 
 
 I laughed at his idea of the snippings of Creation, and 
 we grew quite friendly — Crankshaw and I — with our 
 heads in the smoke — as I sat coughing and sneezing, eyes 
 watering and hands slapping at the mosquitoes. 
 
 I was beginning to like Crankshaw, yet I could not 
 throw off the feeling of something odd and furtive about 
 him too, though he was not ruffian-like as the Twins 
 were, or a brute like Mr. Phil Wilkins. 
 
 Luckily, we hadn't long to wait. There appeared a 
 cart on two wheels with a board across it for a seat, drawn 
 by an old dray-horse and driven by a blackboy, to whom 
 Mr. Wilkins, seated beside him, was using what Crankshaw 
 styled " objurgatory language." My luggage was hoisted 
 on to the dray. Mr. Wilkins took the reins and I mounted 
 beside him. 
 
 " You must excuse a rough sort of conveyance," he said. 
 " We don't run to Cee-springs and cushioned barouches on 
 Oronga Island — haven't even a buggy — what'd be the 
 good ? You couldn't drive across the Narrows in a buggy. 
 ... I say — your poor stepmother — d'ye remember how 
 funny she was about her carriage and those Nagbar 
 shares ? . . . She never got her barouche and pair, did 
 she ? " 
 
 ' No," I answered shortly. I didn't feel like discussing 
 poor Clara with Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 " Sad affair that ? " he went on. " Well, she might 
 have had the barouche by now, I guess. That Nagbar 
 
 12*
 
 180 SISTER SORROW 
 
 mine should be good to Miss Bee for as many coaches-and- 
 fours as she might fancy. I suppose it's all accumulating 
 till she comes of age — that is, if old Pringle hasn't had too 
 much power left him." 
 
 He tried to draw me, as he had done before, about the 
 girls' fortune, but again I was reticent : and in truth, I 
 had as much as I could think of in trying with the strength 
 of my two arms to keep my portmanteau and various 
 belongings from slipping out of the cart as we mounted 
 a stony pinch. 
 
 The drive to Oronga head-station was not a pretty 
 one — sandy soil ; rough, " blady " grass ; long, lean gum- 
 trees mixed with wattle, which was the chief ornament of 
 the landscape, fur it was now in full flower. But even the 
 wattle-bloom was of a poorer quality and fragrance than 
 that of the Ubi country. 
 
 After two miles or thereabouts of progress over this 
 uncaptivating ground, Mr. Wilkins pointed with his whip 
 to the top of a hill we were approaching. 
 
 " There's the house. The chap before me built it. 
 He hadn't any money to waste on trimmings, nor have 
 I for the matter of that. Nor time either. But it's all 
 right. — In fact, it's an uncommonly good house for an 
 out-of-the-way station." 
 
 I thought it the most hideous and uninviting habitation 
 I had ever set eyes upon. After our rambling, creeper- 
 covered, home-like head-station on the Ubi, set in a nest 
 of mountains on a plain watered by the river, I wondered 
 how poor Dody could endure living in this place. A bare 
 rectangular cottage of sawn wood — a Noah's Ark house, 
 its only redeeming feature a veranda, — perched on piles 
 and built upon the crest of a gaunt hill which at present 
 was a blackened waste of burned tussocks of blady grass 
 and scorched undergrowth. All the trees had long been 
 cut down. Only a few bleached skeletons of gums re- 
 mained. From the stumps of some of the felled trees, 
 lank saplings had sprung in places, but these were 
 withered by what I supposed had been a Bush fire. When, 
 however, I remarked sympathetically to Mr. Wilkins
 
 SISTER SORROW 181 
 
 upon the devastation it must have caused, he only 
 said : 
 
 ' Oh, that wasn't a regular Bush fire. You see the 
 mosquitoes breed in those thick grass tussocks, and we burn 
 them every spring. Not that it does any good — they're 
 pretty thick up here. But we burn the grass to destroy 
 the eggs. See ? . . . Nice open situation isn't it ? . . . 
 Commanding view." And as we mounted the hill, he 
 made me turn and look across the Narrows, which lay, a 
 winding passage, between the mangrove swamps fringing 
 the Island and the uprising and much bolder country on 
 the opposite shore. He pointed in a north-westerly 
 direction to a sharp peak cutting the horizon. 
 
 ' That's Mount Nagbar," he said — " close to the Dig- 
 gings. Malpa Downs is on the Currawilli side of it. — 
 Looks nearer than it is. There's going to be bad weather : 
 we always know that by the clearness of Mount Nagbar." 
 
 We passed a stockyard at the foot of the hill. It was 
 near a dreary black waterhole surrounded by she-oaks, and 
 beside it was a forlorn attempt at a garden. Mr. Wilkins 
 told me that the garden had been begun by one of the 
 former proprietors, and certainly it had not received much 
 attention since his departure. A wilderness of weeds 
 enclosed by a broken fence, the only flourishing vegetation 
 three paw-paw trees, which reared their long stems and 
 green feathery tufts of leaf against the sky. One was a 
 male tree, hanging creamy flower-branches : the other 
 two, female with yellow pumpkin-like fruit sticking out 
 beneath the foliage. Near these, was a small cleared 
 patch of depressed cabbage plants, lettuces and so forth — 
 the result of poor Dody's efforts, I supposed — drooping 
 in the sun. 
 
 " Dotty thought she'd grow some vegetables," said Mr. 
 Wilkins. ' But she's too lazy to come down and water 
 them. We don't go in for fancy dishes on Oronga Island. 
 ... No salads, or stuffed tomatoes, or that sort of thing. 
 Your stepmother would have a fit if she could see that 
 garden — I remember your garden at The Bunyas and the 
 hobby she made of it. . . . Well, I told Dotty to warn you
 
 1 82 SISTER SORROW 
 
 what you were in for. And if it's any comfort to you to 
 know it, I've brought over some canned stuff from Curra- 
 willi for your benefit." 
 
 I could not help retorting that I thought he might have 
 done that before, for his wife's benefit. 
 
 " Look here," he exclaimed. " You keep harking on 
 my wife as if you thought I ill-treated her. You ask her 
 — she'll tell you. ..." 
 
 I said nothing. Whipping up the cart-horse, he resumed 
 in a semi-confidential manner. 
 
 " Dotty's a fool, but she's got wits enough to see things 
 the way I want her to when I choose to make her. She 
 knows that she'll reap the advantage of self-denial by and 
 by. She's keen on saving. If you fancy she isn't happy, 
 you're mistaken. Just you ask her, that's all. ... I'd 
 better tell you though — you'll find her changed. Not as 
 plump or as pretty as she used to be. But you needn't 
 imagine I'm starving her. Marriage alters women — 
 makes the fat ones lean and the lean ones put on flesh. 
 . . . However, you'll see for yourself." 
 
 Presently I did see. We approached the house from 
 the back, passing a two-roomed shanty with a lean-to 
 half-way from the stockyard. Here, Mr. Wilkins told me, 
 Crankshaw and the Twins had their quarters. I was 
 accustomed to head-stations that looked like little villages. 
 Oronga Island head-station seemed strangely incomplete. 
 Except the men's hut, there was only a smaller Noah's Ark 
 building, connected with the larger one in front by an 
 unroofed boarded passage, which I took for the kitchen, — • 
 a rough lean-to on each side of it serving as forge and 
 utility-shed. Sliding down the hill was an enormous 
 rubbish-heap — empty bottles, tin cans, ashes, broken pots 
 and pans — all manner of household accumulations, among 
 which a few disreputable fowls — which, as Mr. Wilkins 
 was fond of remarking, would have given poor Clara a fit 
 — and some mangy cattle dogs — were rootling. 
 
 The sun beat on roofs, unshaded verandas and dusty 
 yard. There was absolutely no shade anywhere except 
 on the veranda to the east. The only trees near the house
 
 SISTER SORROW 183 
 
 were leafless skeletons. Scavenger crows flew around their 
 topmost limbs. Upon a lower branch of one, which was 
 like a naked arm outstretched over the fence, a grey bird 
 perched, and at the sight of the cart set up peals of fiendish 
 laughter. It was an ironic touch that almost unnerved 
 me at the moment, though of course I was well accustomed 
 to the kookooburra's note of unholy mirth. 
 
 A woman was standing upon the boarded passage. She 
 looked so small and slender and childlike in her plain short 
 linen dress and with her rather rough boots, and, compared 
 with my mental picture of her, so unnatural, that at first 
 I scarcely believed it to be Dody. She had lost all her 
 pretty roundness and pliancy of shape and gesture. Her 
 hair was limper than ever and more untidy, with its old 
 picturesqueness gone. She had given up her becoming 
 little adornments — smart waistband, lacy frills, a knot of 
 bright ribbon at her throat. And her large dark eyes had 
 a queer, vacant expression. 
 
 I had visioned her flying with joy to meet me. To my 
 astonishment, her attention appeared absorbed by her 
 husband and she did not seem to realize me at all. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins called out to her as we pulled up in the 
 yard : 
 
 ' Well, we've got here at last. Why the devil, Dotty, 
 did you forget to send Dubbo to the Landing in proper 
 time ? " 
 
 ' I didn't forget, Phil ... I thought the tide was 
 later ... I suppose I lost a day again." 
 
 " Lost a day ! " He threw his head back contemptu- 
 ously. " Good Lord ! I wonder what the reckoning'll 
 be of all the days you lose. This is what happens when 
 I'm away, Miss Carfax. She moons about— so miserable, 
 without me — that she's only half there all the time ! 
 That's a devoted wife for you, eh ? Isn't it the truth, 
 Dotty dear ? " 
 
 She did not answer, but gave him such a frightened, 
 helpless and yet adoring look that I stopped in my advance 
 towards her, startled, almost horrified. Yet why should 
 one be horrified because a wife smiles adoringly at a husband
 
 184 SISTER SORROW 
 
 who has been absent from her for a few days, and, in 
 consequence, has no eyes for a once dear and long-parted 
 friend ? It was the way she smiled, her changed appear- 
 ance, the curious expression — or rather want of expression 
 — in her eyes — the uncanniness of it all that made me feel 
 as I did. 
 
 " Aren't you glad to see Miss Carfax, Dotty ? " 
 
 It was as if he were prompting an actress who had 
 forgotten her cue. Immediately, she took it from him, 
 and, as I stepped on to the boarding, met me with arms 
 limply extended. 
 
 " Oh, yes ... I am glad. . . . Oh, Gagsie ! . . . Yes. 
 . . . Oh, I'm very glad." 
 
 We kissed each other. Her lips felt cold against mine, 
 and, as I clasped her, a little tremor went through her 
 frame. 
 
 " Dody ! How thin you are!" I exclaimed. 'Have 
 you been ill ? " 
 
 " I — I don't think I've been ill," she said falteringly, 
 and looked at him. 
 
 " Of course, she hasn't been ill," he put in boisterously. 
 " At least, not just lately. It's the northern climate, 
 and a touch of malarial fever, that has fined her down a bit. 
 You'll get a few pounds lighter too, I'm afraid, Miss Carfax. 
 But you're not so soft and flabby as Dotty used to be. . . . 
 Now then, I suppose you've got Miss Carfax' room ready, 
 Dotty ? " 
 
 "Yes, it's ready, Phil." 
 
 We relaxed our hold of each other, and he took my port- 
 manteau from the buggy and put it down with some 
 smaller things on the boarding. 
 
 " Go along," he said, but she lingered, her eyes still on 
 his face. " Stop a sec," he said. " We want lunch. 
 We're starving, — camped last night on the reef and nothing 
 to eat but the Jiminies' tucker — cold salt junk and 
 flappers. . . . What have you got ? 
 
 " Dubbo shot some wild duck and there's cold crab," 
 she answered. 
 
 " All right. Where's that woman in the kitchen ?
 
 SISTER SORROW 185 
 
 Mrs. Meake — Meek's her name but not her nature," he 
 interpolated with a satiric grin at me. ..." Mrs. Meake, 
 d'ye hear ? " 
 
 A sodden-looking elderly woman with a slatternly head 
 came to the kitchen door and he told her to hurry up and 
 put lunch on the table. Then he shouldered my port- 
 manteau and led the way into the house, Dolores follow- 
 ing like an obedient dog, and I behind her. 
 
 VI 
 
 If" E led us by a small passage which divided two 
 X veranda rooms, one, with a door on to the yard, 
 which was approached by steps and an unroofed platform, 
 the other a pantry, on the shelf of which I saw a number of 
 kerosene lamps in process of being filled and cleaned, and 
 which I guessed Dody had left at the sound of our arrival. 
 Then, into the living room, looking out through open 
 French windows on the front veranda. Here Mr. Wilkins 
 paused and tilted my portmanteau against a dining-table 
 in the centre of the room. 
 
 The table was covered with an inartistic tapestry table- 
 cloth. He sat himself on the corner of it, swung his legs 
 and looked at me with a curious expression on his face, as 
 if he were calculating what impression the place would 
 make upon me. 
 
 I looked round. If this was the parlour in which 
 Dolores spent her days ! Well, I wasn't surprised at the 
 change in her. 
 
 I compared it with our old cedar-lined parlour at Barolin, 
 with its soft-tinted ceiling and hangings ; its matted floor ; 
 the few etchings and an oil painting or two — my mother's 
 property, — which I had now at The Bunyas — the comfort- 
 ably upholstered furniture ; her little rosewood work- 
 table, and piano ; the low book-cases lining the room ; 
 all the journals and books and work lying about ; the
 
 186 SISTER SORROW 
 
 quantity of flowers. Or even the schoolroom — homey ; 
 untidy ; not always an abode of peace, but almost always 
 — in Miss Lloyd's reign at least — of pleasantness. As for 
 this room, Dody had had no hand in its initial arrangement. 
 That was clear. Crude, glaring. The walls were of pine 
 boarding painted a hopeless aniline blue. If only they had 
 left the wood its native yellow-brown tint ! They were hung 
 with coloured supplements of the Illustrated London News 
 and Graphic, roughly framed — " Bubbles " and others of 
 the same period — steel engravings of Frith's " Derby Day " 
 and " The Beach at Margate," portraits of old Queen 
 Victoria and of the then Prince and Princess of Wales. 
 For furniture there was a settle, evidently of Bush manu- 
 facture, with mattress and cushions — the most comfortable- 
 looking bit of furniture in the place ; a cheap mahogany 
 sideboard and a cupboard to match, with glass-fronted 
 upper part, in which were a few books — I noticed 
 " Jorrocks " and " Valentine Vox," and what were 
 evidently sporting and cattle books. On the upper 
 shelves, boxes of cigars, tobacco-jars and pipes. On the 
 lower ones, miscellaneous men's properties. The floor was 
 bare with a few kangaroo and dingo skins upon it. A 
 pipe-rack stood on one side of the mantelshelf. The ceiling 
 was of grey, stained canvas, sagging in places and with 
 brownish-black, velvety-looking masses in the corners, 
 which I soon discovered to be comatose mosquitoes. Over 
 the dining-table hung the brass frame of a hanging kerosene 
 lamp. It was a bushman's room, and not a refined bush- 
 man at that. The only sign of Dolores' occupancy was a 
 writing-table in one of the corners, near a French window, 
 with a set of bookshelves above it, in which I recognized 
 books of Dolores' own that we had packed and forwarded 
 from Barolin with other of her small possessions — photo- 
 graphs chiefly and among them the portraits of Father, 
 Clara and the girls. Facing the blotting-book was a 
 large framed photograph of myself. 
 
 ' Wants a bit of ' arting up ' you're thinking, eh ? ' 
 It was odd how Mr. Wilkins remembered those old phrases 
 which he had heard during his short intimacy at The
 
 SISTER SORROW 187 
 
 Bunyas. ' But I expect it was you who used to do the 
 ' arting up ' business," he went on. " Dotty's not much 
 good at anything practical — doesn't know how to make 
 bricks without a lot of straw. Not that it matters to me. 
 The fact is, I've knocked about the world too much and in 
 too many rough places to care a hang about my inside 
 environment. See ? Besides, I mean to chuck the Island 
 as soon as I've made money enough out of it." 
 
 " Why, you told me you wanted to take in a partner, 
 and now you talk of giving up the place," I said. " That's 
 not an encouragement to me to invest in it." 
 
 ' It don't alter the value of the investment, whether I 
 or a good manager looks after it," he returned. " I didn't 
 mean that I was going to give up the place ; it's too good 
 a thing for me to part with, except at a heavy profit. 
 That, you'd share if you planked down some capital. 
 We'll go into the figures when you've looked round a bit. 
 Now let's come along again." 
 
 He hoisted the portmanteau on to his shoulders once 
 more, and I was conducted through the French window 
 along the front veranda to a bedroom that gave upon it, 
 next the parlour. 
 
 Except for the hideous blue of the walls, it was not an 
 unattractive room. The furniture was rough and sparse 
 but I was glad to see marks of Dolores' taste in the 
 draperies of the dressing-table, the cretonne curtains to 
 an improvised hanging-closet and the pink ribbons looping 
 up the mosquito-net. A pathetic little bunch of wild 
 flowers stood on the dressing-table — a spray of the bottle 
 brush blossoms from the ti-tree, some of the common 
 orchids that grow in the Bush and one or two flowers that 
 I did not know, while on each side of the looking-glass was 
 a branch of wattle. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins left us with the injunction to me not to do 
 any " arting-up " to myself until after I had had some 
 lunch, — which ought to be ready in a few minutes. 
 
 All this time, Dolores had not spoken. Again, her eyes 
 followed her husband as he went out, and her ears seemed 
 to strain for the sound of his retreating steps. Again she
 
 1 88 SISTER SORROW 
 
 reminded me of a cowed animal, whose existence is bound 
 up in the will of its master. I caught her two hands and 
 she turned to me with a sort of reminder of that old look, 
 as of a sleep-walker awakened, which I associated with 
 what Bee and Bel used to call " Miss Lloyd's queer 
 moods." 
 
 " Dody, you arc glad to see me, aren't you ? . . ."I said. 
 ..." You did want me to come ? " 
 
 Her big, empty-looking eyes gazed into mine and I 
 seemed to see some faint quiver in them of life, love, 
 memory. Her features twitched. She tried to speak, 
 but only brought forth an incoherent stammer and leaned 
 her head towards me in the way that a dog does when 
 seeking sympathy. I put my arms round her, and as her 
 form pressed against mine, I could feel her thin bosom 
 heaving with half-suppressed sobs. 
 
 I kissed and petted her. I don't know what I said, but 
 all my heart went out to her in an emotional impulse that 
 surprised myself. I know I told her how I had been 
 thinking about her — how I had written and got no answer, 
 and how shocked I was by her appearance and her 
 indifferent manner. At that she found voice. 
 
 " Indifferent ! ... Oh, oh ! ... But I can't— I can't." 
 
 " Dody, you have been ill. You must have been ill ? " 
 
 " No." The vacant look came back. . . ." He said I 
 had not been ill. No ... I don't think so.". . . And 
 then on my redoubled pleading that she would tell me what 
 was really the matter : " I can't ... I don't know . . . 
 Oh, Gagsie ! — Oh, Gagsie ! " That was all she would 
 say for a minute. Not till the tears began to drop — big, 
 hot tears that seemed wrung from her with pain — did she 
 become human. 
 
 " Oh, Gagsie . . . I've longed for you ... I used to 
 look at your picture until I could dream myself back at 
 Barolin. ... I think," she whispered — " that was how I 
 lost the days. . . . But I always awoke — and it was only 
 a dream." 
 
 ' My poor darling ! . . . Dody, I know you must have 
 been terribly unhappy. Tell me. . . . He hasn't been
 
 SISTER SORROW 189 
 
 kind to you. ... I know it. . . . Dody, you needn't 
 mind telling me anything. I'm like your sister. I jelt 
 inside me there was something dreadfully wrong. I was 
 feeling that I must get to you somehow, when your letter 
 came. And now I'm here to comfort you. I'm here to 
 take you away — if you want to leave him ? 
 
 I talked in a hurried whisper. When I said that about 
 leaving him, she lifted her head and looked at me in sudden, 
 wild apprehension, drawing herself partly away from my 
 arms. 
 
 " You mustn't say such a thing. — You mustn't try to 
 take me away. . . . Leave him ! How could I leave 
 him ? It's his leaving me that I'm afraid of — when he's 
 away longer than usual — like this time. ... I should die 
 if he didn't come back. . . . Oh, you don't think, Gagsie, 
 do you, that he'll go away and never come back ? ' 
 
 I was staggered. Was it possible that she cared so much 
 for him ? Or was it the old, uncanny glamour, which I had 
 hoped marriage would wear off ? I answered her almost 
 irritably — but then, for my excuse, I did not understand. 
 
 " Don't be stupid, Dody. What should he go away 
 altogether for ? He's got his business here. You're his 
 wife. He can't leave you. But I know what it is," I 
 went on, ashamed of my momentary impatience. " You 
 ought to have gone away yourself for a change. You've 
 stayed in this horrible place till you've grown morbid and 
 the mosquitoes have sucked all the life out of you. Oh, 
 dearest Dody, you'll see — now I've come — that you will 
 feel quite different. I mean to rouse you up. ... Now 
 look here." 
 
 The idea had come to me that I would not sentimentalize 
 any more, but that I would be practical, commonplace. 
 
 " Look here, I've got to have something to eat. I'm 
 starving — after having camped out on the rocks and only 
 a cup of billy tea for breakfast this morning. Pour me out 
 some water like a dear, and let me wash my hands and 
 face — I'll have a bath and dress properly afterwards. Be 
 quick ... I believe I hear the welcome sound of a table 
 being laid."
 
 190 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Someone — Mrs. Meake, I suppose — was rattling knives 
 and forks and clattering about on the other side of the 
 partition. How thin the partitions were ! 
 
 Dody poured me water in the basin. 
 
 " Now, get me out my comb and brush — in the dressing- 
 bag — over there." 
 
 She did as I asked, and I saw that my plan was 
 succeeding. 
 
 ' You've still got the same old ebony brushes and the 
 same old dressing-bag," she said, fingering the things with 
 some interest. 
 
 ' Why, of course," I answered briskly. " Everything 
 is the same — as far as i" go. You won't find me altered in 
 the least bit. And I've brought up a heap of stories and 
 things I've written to read to you." I talked briskly 
 while I brushed my hair and twisted it up afresh. " Of 
 course, you know," I added, " it's only / that have remained 
 the same. — You wouldn't recognize Bee now — and as for 
 the old places — Barolin is all shut up, with a manager living 
 in the Bachelor's Quarters — and The Bunyas isn't a bit 
 like what it used to be — and I am very lonely sometimes 
 and miss Father and poor Clara more than I can express. 
 I almost think that I miss Clara most — in one sense. You 
 remember her funny, kind ways ? " 
 
 I spoke purposely of the two who had gone, for I wanted 
 to see how the mention of them would affect her and 
 whether the dumb strings would vibrate in answer. 
 
 She stopped short in the arrangement of my toilet 
 things upon the dressing-table, a little silver box in her 
 hand. Her face worked : the muscles of her throat were 
 convulsed and her bosom heaved again with emotion 
 to which she could not give voice. 
 
 I went on quietly. 
 
 ' Yes, I know how dreadfully grieved you must have 
 been. They were both fond of you, Dody — and you 
 were fond of them." 
 
 The box dropped from her fingers and clattered on the 
 table. Still she had a difficulty in speaking. 
 
 " I . . . didn't . . . realize it," she said slowly, " I
 
 SISTER SORROW 191 
 
 couldn't believe that it was true. Both dead — it seemed 
 impossible — I was so sorry. . . . But ..." She stopped 
 helplessly. 
 
 I waited. — " Tell me," I said. 
 
 ' I can't. ... I don't know how to tell you . . . about 
 some things. . . . You see it all seems like a dream. . . . 
 Nothing real — I mean before I knew — him." The words 
 came now more quickly but in uneven jerks, her utterance 
 like a stream that had been choked and from which the 
 impeding obstacles were partially — not wholly — removed. 
 " As if only a bit of me had been there — as if all the people 
 I knew then were shadows. . . . Except you, Gagsie — 
 you've always been real. . . . But I think I was only 
 half alive then." 
 
 " If you ask me, I think you were much more alive 
 then than you are now," I retorted. 
 
 " Dotty." Mr. Wilkins' voice rang imperiously from 
 the veranda. 
 
 Dolores started and was moving to the door. 
 
 " Wait a moment," I said. 
 
 " I must go. He wants me." 
 
 " All right. I'll follow you in a minute," I said, and 
 hastily finished the superficial tidying of my person. 
 I really was too hungry to think of anything else at the 
 moment. 
 
 VII 
 
 I WAS so hungry that when a plate of cold crab dressed 
 with pickles was put before me, I thought I had 
 never tasted anything so delicious and did full justice to 
 a big helping. Mr. Wilkins ate ravenously and washed 
 down the mouthfuls with whisky and water. He was 
 no longer talkative but seemed to have gone back to his 
 dour, preoccupied mood. Dolores sat at the other end 
 of the table and poured out tea which she and I drank.
 
 192 SISTER SORROW 
 
 She refused the crab and she too sat almost silent. Once, 
 he looked up at her and said crossly : 
 
 " Why don't you eat ? You'd better. I shall want 
 something of you after lunch." 
 
 A rather frightened look came into her face. 
 
 " You'll want me, Phil ? " 
 
 " Yes — in the office ... for some work you know. 
 You're always tired when you do work for me. If you 
 make a good meal, perhaps you'll do it better." 
 
 " No — I don't think so," she answered. " I can do it 
 better when I don't eat much." 
 
 " As you please." He finished what was on his plate 
 and rang a handbell that was by his side. Then he said 
 to me in an apologetic tone : 
 
 ' I expect you'll be wanting to rest a bit and tidy up, 
 and that sort of thing, Miss Carfax. Dotty'll come to 
 you afterwards. Fact is, I've got a lot of business to 
 get through — and not much time for it. I shall have 
 to go away again presently. — Must go through the station 
 accounts — and other things before I leave. — See ? ' 
 
 I said that I quite understood, and that Dolores must 
 on no account let me interfere with their arrangements. 
 My heart rose at the thought of his coming departure 
 and I hoped that it might not be many days delayed. 
 All the time that I was eating my crab, I was hating him 
 worse than ever ; and I was beginning to wonder, even so 
 soon as this, how I could bear to remain at Oronga Island 
 as his guest. 
 
 Mrs. Meake brought in a large dish with three wild 
 duck upon it which looked and smelled most appetizing 
 and which Mr. Wilkins began at once to carve. Next, 
 Mrs. Meake set down two covered vegetable dishes, one 
 on each side of the birds. When Mr. Wilkins had handed 
 me my plate of duck he stooped over the table with chin 
 poked forward, and lifting the covers, stared at the contents 
 of the dishes underneath. 
 
 One was of yams, the other of what looked like fat 
 asparagus but was, I afterwards learned, the young shoots 
 of some tropical plant I had never heard of.
 
 SISTER SORROW 193 
 
 " What the devil ! " Mr. Wilkins shouted. " Dotty, 
 who brought these ? " 
 
 Slie answered hesitatingly. " One of the pilots came 
 over to buy meat. He brought a saddle-bag of vegetables 
 and fruit." 
 
 ' From the Pilot station ! " he exclaimed ironically. 
 " Rot. If you'd ever been there you'd know it grows 
 stone and nothing else. Don't quibble. Of course the 
 stuff came out of Helsing's garden — damn him ! ' 
 
 " Phil," Dolores protested faintly. " Agatha doesn't 
 understand." 
 
 ;< She'll understand soon enough that I'm not having 
 any truck with Mr. Torvald Helsing, and I don't want 
 any of his garden produce, Miss Carfax. See ! " 
 
 I tried to take the rude announcement lightly. But 
 my heart was beating to the tune of " Torvald Helsing 
 has come back. Shall I see him ? " and I was afraid of 
 betraying myself. 
 
 " Well, now that the garden produce is here — and 
 cooked, I hope you won't mind my tasting it," I said with 
 an attempt at a laugh. " I can't resist asparagus — or 
 yams. — Can you, Dody ? " 
 
 She did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on her husband. 
 He had gone back to his seat. Now he pushed the dishes 
 of vegetables towards me, sulkily enough, and I helped 
 myself. 
 
 " That's not real asparagus," he said. " But you'd 
 scarcely know the difference." 
 
 Then to my surprise, after helping his wife to duck and 
 before handing her the vegetables, he took on his own 
 plate a liberal helping of yams and the so-called asparagus. 
 I could not forbear from remarking, "I'm glad to see that 
 your dislike of Mr. Helsing doesn't extend after all to his 
 garden produce." 
 
 Mr. Wilkins' little grey eyes flashed brightly at me 
 from under his protruding brows. 
 
 "Taken my measure, eh! — cowardly bully! selfish 
 brute ! That's all right. ' Dictatorial Person ' was nearer 
 the mark though. When I've got a thing for my own 
 
 *3
 
 194 SISTER SORROW 
 
 I keep it for myself. No outsider butting in to prospect 
 on my property. Not if I know it. See ! . . . Well, 
 you're fairly cute, Miss Carfax, and you'll go on growing 
 cuter if you follow two maxims that have helped Phil 
 Wilkins pretty considerably along life's rough road. 
 One is, ' Never lose an opportunity ; ' and the other, 
 ' Never let a good thing go to waste ' — that don't apply 
 to the bad things. If Helsing's a fool, there's no reason 
 why I should be another." 
 
 " Is he a fool ? " 
 
 Again the grey flash from his eyes was concentrated 
 on my face. " He is a fool about Dotty — two fools together 
 — and in my opinion, he's a fool about most everything 
 else. Used to come riding over when first we settled 
 down here — pretending to help Dotty grow greenstuff 
 for the good of her health — lending her books and talking 
 ridiculous rubbish to her by the yard. . . . Said she was 
 an interesting psychological study. . . . Lord ! what 
 does that stand for ? Hanky-panky ! And you can 
 bear witness, Miss Carfax, that when I and Dotty agreed 
 to marry, I laid it down that if there was to be any show 
 in that line, I'd boss it myself. So one day when I found 
 Helsing holding forth on what he called psychology — / 
 called it something different — I just fired him — that's all. 
 Understand ? " 
 
 I had been listening to Mr. Wilkins in speechless indigna- 
 tion and — I must confess it — another sentiment hard to 
 define mingled with the anger. I had made pretence 
 with the food on my plate, which a lump in my throat 
 would not let me swallow, but when he finished speaking, 
 I answered him straightly. 
 
 ' No, I don't understand. I will not believe that Mr. 
 Helsing was trying to flirt with your wife, if that's what 
 you wish to insinuate : and I don't know how Dolores 
 can let you say such insulting things." 
 
 For, to my amazement, Dolores had sat through all 
 this tirade apparently unmoved, taking now and then a 
 mouthful of the vegetables as if she were hardly conscious 
 of what she was doing.
 
 SISTER SORROW 195 
 
 Mr. Wilkins made the contemptuous movement of his 
 shoulders, which was a lurch rather than a shrug, and 
 laughed loudly. " Oh, Dotty's not troubling herself about 
 my insults. I couldn't insult her ; there's nothing there 
 to insult . . . how can you insult a jelly-fish ? For 
 that's what she seems sometimes. I've often told her so 
 —haven't I, Dotty ? " 
 
 Dolores' lips quivered but she said nothing — only looked 
 up at him in a dazed manner, and then bent her eyes 
 again upon her plate. He went on in the same jeering 
 vein. 
 
 " Dotty didn't mind at all my forbidding Helsing the 
 place. She's a devoted wife — understand ? — Clinging — 
 they do cling — jelly-fish. Pretty, blubbery things, you 
 know, sticking on to rocks. I'm her rock. She's all 
 right so long as she's let grow in a nice little pool on her 
 rock. See ? She don't hanker after the big fishes or the 
 little fishes swimming round. You're not hankering after 
 Helsing, are you, Dotty ? Say." 
 
 She always made a sign of attention when he addressed 
 her directly and obeyed his orders, I noticed, whatever 
 they might be. Now she answered him submissively. 
 
 " No, Phil." 
 
 " There ! You see, Miss Carfax. She's perfectly happy 
 with her own beloved hubby, ain't you, Dottv ? " 
 
 " Yes, Phil." 
 
 " And I don't ill-treat you, do I, Dotty ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course not, Phil." 
 
 " Now I hope you're satisfied with that ? " He turned 
 to me with a triumphant leer. " I told you to ask 
 her." 
 
 I could not say a word. It was horrible. And it was 
 uncanny. The man had actually pitched on a simile I 
 had once made myself. Dolores was like a sea-anemone. 
 Or rather she had been. There was not much sign now 
 of the filling out and beautifying process which came with 
 the flow of the tide. It would seem that the tide of love 
 — or passion — had receded altogether and Dody's pool 
 was dry. Poor sea-anemone ! 
 
 13*
 
 196 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Mr. Wilkins, who had been eating spasmodically while 
 he talked, again applied himself seriously to his helping 
 of wild duck. ' My word ! we could have done with 
 these last night on the reef, couldn't we ? " he said. He 
 ate with great gusto — finished a whole duck himself 
 and all the rest of Mr. Helsing's vegetables. 
 
 My own appetite was gone. I tried to make conversation 
 with Dolores upon ordinary subjects ; but she returned 
 only short replies, and her vacant eyes strained continually 
 towards her husband. So I too relapsed into silence. 
 After luncheon, we sat in the veranda, Mr. Wilkins smoking 
 ruminatively and I admiring the distant view of Nagbar 
 Peak. Suddenly Mr. Wilkins exclaimed : 
 
 ' Dotty, do you know what Helsing has been doing 
 away from the Island all this time ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Did he write to you ? " 
 
 She answered, " Yes." 
 
 " Where's his letter ? " 
 
 She seemed to hesitate. " It was only a little note." 
 
 " Show it to me. I want to see what he says. ... Go 
 and get it, d'ye hear ? " 
 
 She went at once to a room further down the veranda 
 — her bedroom I learned, and presently came out with a 
 letter in her hand, which she handed him. He read it 
 slowly, apparently weighing every word, turned it over 
 and held it close to his eyes as if he expected some secret 
 writing to appear on the blank outer sheet. 
 
 " You didn't answer this ? " he asked. 
 
 " No, Phil. You said I wasn't to write to Mr. Helsing." 
 
 " Good, obedient wife ! " he sneered. " I've no doubt 
 that now he's come back he'd be pleased to do some 
 more psychological studying. But mind, I'm taking 
 none of that." 
 
 " No, Phil," she answered submissively. 
 
 My blood was boiling. I could not keep the indignation 
 out of my voice, though I tried to speak quietly. 
 
 " Do you really mean Mr. Wilkins, that you have 
 forbidden Mr. Helsing to come here ? "
 
 SISTER SORROW 197 
 
 He nodded. " That's it. In case I'm away, Crank- 
 shaw's got his orders. If Helsing shows his face inside 
 my slip-rails, he'll be chucked out for certain, sure. We're 
 both stronger men than he is." 
 
 It was extraordinary, I thought, that in such conditions 
 Torvald Helsing should send a present to his enemy's wife. 
 It argued either that he had no proper pride or that he 
 was deeply concerned about Dolores and would take any 
 means of getting into touch with her. 
 
 But perhaps Mr. Wilkins was only " showing off." 
 There was no calculating on his moods. Anyway, I had 
 better not begin my visit by quarrelling with him. So I 
 said as naturally as I could : 
 
 ' That's a great pity — for me. He promised to show 
 me his garden if I ever came to Oronga Island." 
 
 ' Sorry to disappoint you, Miss Carfax ; but I reckon 
 you won't have that pleasure while you're stopping in 
 my house." Mr. Wilkins got up and walked to the 
 veranda railings. Dolores' eyes turned at his movement 
 like the eyes of a fascinated bird. 
 
 " Dolores," I said. " Have you ever been to Mr. 
 Helsing's garden ? " 
 
 " No," she answered, giving me a quick startled glance 
 and turning her eyes back to her husband. 
 
 " Why," I persisted, " I should have thought you 
 would be certain to go, before — this unpleasantness." 
 
 " There are no quiet horses on the Island — fit for me 
 to ride," she said. " Besides, I didn't want to go." 
 
 I heard a snigger from Mr. Wilkins, who now put 
 Torvald's letter in his breast-pocket and walked to the 
 end of the veranda, where he stood looking northward 
 along the blackened ridge in the opposite direction from 
 the cart track by which we had arrived. Following his 
 eyes, I saw that there was a line of brownish-green where 
 the ridge was divided by a deep gully and where the 
 Bush fire had not gained as much hold as in other 
 places. 
 
 He came back in a minute or two : asked Mrs. Meake, 
 who was clearing the dining-table, whether Dubbo had
 
 198 SISTER SORROW 
 
 gone after some particular horses, and upon being 
 answered in the affirmative, took his seat again. 
 
 I remembered that I had seen nothing of Mr. Crankshaw, 
 and asked what had become of him ? 
 
 " Crank !— Oh ! we don't ' Mister ' him. Sort of head 
 stockman — first mate — all round utility chap. I run the 
 Island with Crank and the two Jiminies and a blackboy 
 or two. Different style I expect from your Ubi stock- 
 keeping, Miss Carfax. But my station hands have got 
 to work out their tucker. Dubbo does ' wood and water 
 joey ' — no married couples lazing in the kitchen for my 
 money. Mrs. Meake's a widder — and all the better for 
 that.— See ? " 
 
 I said : " Oh I " 
 
 ' Crank feeds in his own hut. He's seeing after berthing 
 the boat ..." A pause ; then abruptly : 
 
 ' How soon will you be ready for me in the office, 
 Dotty ? " 
 
 ' I'm ready — whenever you want me, Phil. But I 
 don't know. . . ." 
 
 A perplexed look came on her face. I had already 
 remarked that the little indentation in her forehead was 
 much more noticeable. Her hair did not now droop 
 prettily over her brow. It was thinner, limper and more 
 carelessly dressed. She gave a frightened glance at Mr. 
 Wilkins, but her eyes dropped before his like the eyes of 
 a child who is afraid of punishment. 
 
 ' Well," he said roughly, " what don't you know ? " 
 
 " I don't know if I shall be able . . ." 
 
 ' For sure, you got to try," he said. It was not the 
 words so much as the tone that was brutal. 
 
 I took the opportunity to escape — said I must unpack 
 and dry my wet things . . . that I should be glad to lie 
 down and rest after that, and that they were not to bother 
 about me during the afternoon. I asked Dolores whether 
 there was a bathroom where I could tub. She took me 
 to a small boarded-off compartment of the back veranda, 
 next the pantry. It was entered from the sitting-room, 
 also from the yard, where a rain-tank outside communi-
 
 SISTER SORROW 199 
 
 catcd by a tap through the wall to a zinc-lined bath within. 
 A primitive arrangement, the bath-water running out 
 through a hole in the floor and draining down the hill- 
 side from among the piles on which the house was built. 
 I didn't mind that. Bathing arrangements are generally 
 primitive in the Bush — out-back at any rate : and in the 
 social, if not the strictly geographical sense, one might 
 classify Oronga Island as " out-back." It certainly seemed 
 to me well beyond the bounds of civilization. 
 
 VIII 
 
 I THOUGHT I'd wait until Mr. Wilkins and Dolores 
 were safely transacting their business in the office, 
 wherever that might be, before making my passage to 
 the bathroom, via veranda and sitting-room. So I 
 occupied myself in my room unpacking and hanging my 
 damp clothes in the sun over the railing at my end of the 
 veranda. I tried not to let my thoughts dwell on that 
 poisonous insinuation of Mr. Wilkins' about Torvald 
 Helsing's feelings towards Dolores, but the poison worked 
 all the same. 
 
 As I hung some of my dresses behind the curtains 
 which turned a corner of the room into a wardrobe, I had 
 another demonstration of the extreme thinness of the 
 partitions. The office was evidently back-to-back with 
 my room. I heard Mr. Wilkins and Dolores enter it from 
 the yard and could not avoid hearing also part of what 
 they were saying. 
 
 There was a half-audible murmur from her, to which 
 he answered impatiently : 
 
 " It's no good. I can't wait until to-night. For sure, 
 you've got to try. . . . There's no use in pretending that 
 you can't. . . . You can do anything that I want you to 
 do ; and I mean you to find out this. . . . See ! ' 
 
 Again, there was the weak murmur and again he made
 
 200 SISTER SORROW 
 
 an impatient answer, interpolated apparently with faint 
 protests or suggestions on her part. 
 
 " Rot. D'ye suppose I carry about souvenirs of all 
 the people I've known and all the places I've ever been 
 to. . . . Letters ? I'm not such a damned idiot. . . . 
 It's all bally rot, I say. . . . Come along, don't let us have 
 any more of it." 
 
 The lid of my trunk suddenly fell to with a bang and 
 seemed to reveal to Mr. Wilkins the fact that he could 
 be overheard. There was the sound of a muttered oath, 
 and then he spoke in a hoarse whisper. I caught the 
 words ..." Out of this "... and " prying ears "... 
 and something about " men taking the boat up the 
 Narrows." Then, the stir of movement and sharp closing 
 of the door, and the echo of their footsteps on the steps 
 and across the yard. After that, the house was quite 
 still. 
 
 I had never known such stillness upon a cattle-station. 
 At Barolin, there were always sounds of work and life 
 and activity — horses being run up, cattle neighing, servants 
 about and gardeners at work. I thought it was the 
 having no garden or outhouses, and the fact of the stock- 
 yard being at the foot of the hill, which made the place 
 so quiet. When I stepped timorously on to the veranda 
 in my dressing-gown, there was not a sign of Dolores or 
 her husband — or indeed of any human being, for even 
 Mrs. Meake was both inaudible and invisible. I had my 
 bath and enjoyed it ; and then, feeling clean and now 
 very tired, I lay down upon the bed and went fast asleep. 
 
 When I awoke I found to my horror that it was quite 
 late in the afternoon — past five o'clock. I was awakened 
 by the sound of doors opening and shutting and of a 
 rummaging in a cupboard. It seemed at the back 
 of my bed, which was against the wall of the office. After 
 a minute or two of this, I heard the outer door of the 
 office swing back and the throwing down of some softish, 
 heavy object. Familiarity with the sound and those that 
 followed it, made me guess that the object was a leather 
 valise, and that, presently, it was being strapped on to
 
 SISTER SORROW 201 
 
 a saddle, for I could hear the movements of a horse and of 
 its pulling at a bridle evidently slung to a hook outside. 
 Presently, the person who was departing mounted and 
 rode away. 
 
 I looked out of the French window of my room, but 
 could see neither man nor beast on the track by which 
 we had come, leading up from the Landing. A bushy 
 bauhinia tree — the only attempt at cultivation at this 
 more sheltered end of the house— prevented me from 
 seeing the direction, which I judged, from the sound of 
 the horse's hoofs, getting every moment fainter, that the 
 rider had taken. 
 
 After that, all was silence again. I dressed myself, 
 wondering whether afternoon tea came into the order of 
 things at Oronga Island head-station. Apparently not, 
 for I saw no trace of preparation for it in veranda or 
 sitting-room, both places being quite deserted. Walking 
 round the veranda, at the end opposite that on which 
 my room looked, I passed another bedroom and dressing- 
 room off it, which I took to be those of Dolores and her 
 husband. The French windows stood wide open and 
 I could see everything within. Dolores' room looked 
 neat enough, but the dressing-room was all in disorder — 
 drawers open and clothes lying about. 
 
 I stepped out into the back yard. It was empty also. 
 Thinking that Dolores might be in the office, the door of 
 which was ajar, I mounted the two log steps to the open 
 veranda and looked in. But there was nobody there. It 
 was a small veranda room with a table in the middle on 
 which were station log-books, writing materials, a small 
 copying-press — the sort of thing one usually sees on the 
 office table of a cattle-station, and an iron safe in a corner. 
 A row of shelves along one side of the room held a few 
 books, a pile of old newspapers, cobwebby bottles of 
 Rows' Embrocation, Farmer's Friend, turpentine, and so 
 forth. Also sailors' implements and a lot of odd properties 
 which I vaguely recognized as appertaining to the squatting 
 profession. As I had supposed, a stout pine cupboard 
 backed against the partition between this and my room,
 
 202 SISTER SORROW 
 
 reaching almost to the ceiling. It was closed and appeared 
 to be locked. At the side opposite the shelves, a window 
 looked northward and was shadowed by the bauhinia 
 tree. There were two or three chairs, and that was all. 
 
 Not an inviting-looking room, and, unlike the rest of 
 the house which, if ugly, was kept scrupulously clean, it 
 was sadly in need of a turn-out. A horrible grey spider, 
 big enough almost to be a veritable tarantula, looked out 
 from its web in one corner. I noticed one of the little 
 harmless white lizards which always seem uncanny to 
 me, scuttering among the old newspapers, and, I daresay, 
 if I had looked I should have discovered various other 
 specimens of insect and reptile. But I was glad to leave 
 the place. There hung about it a disagreeable heavy 
 odour mingled with that of stale tobacco-smoke and dregs 
 of spirits. The heavy narcotic smell, I learned later, 
 was due to the burning of Keating' s insect-powder for the 
 stupefying of mosquitoes. There were a few big sluggish 
 grey ones buzzing about, but, on the whole, I saw fewer 
 here than in the other rooms. No doubt the insect-powder 
 had driven the masses away. When I went out, Mrs. 
 Meake was coming along the yard from one of the lean- 
 tos by the kitchen. She seemed almost as sluggish and 
 heavy as the drugged mosquitoes. I asked her if Mr. 
 and Mrs. Wilkins were anywhere about. 
 
 " The master's gone off on horseback," she answered. 
 " I don't think he'll be coming back to-night. He had a 
 biggish valise with him. And I haven't seen Mrs. Wilkins 
 since she went out walking with him after they'd had 
 dinner." 
 
 Mrs. Meake could not tell me in which direction I was 
 likely to find Dolores. ' Maybe the Gully," was all I 
 could get out of her ; and she pointed to the browny- 
 green line I had noticed before, which, some little way 
 off, meandered down the side of the ridge. I made my 
 way among the burnt grass-tussocks, which were now 
 putting forth a few green blades, and, by and by, found a 
 small stony track descending the hill. The Gully was, 
 at its head, a mere indentation in the arid ground, but
 
 SISTER SORROW 203 
 
 it deepened as it went down, and the fringe of undergrowth 
 and of lank gum saplings became thicker. A good way 
 down the ridge, I came upon a small pool and a drooping 
 ti-tree. Probably it was here that Dolores had gathered 
 the blossoms that were on my dressing-table. The pool 
 widened and the track became more defined where the 
 beasts came to drink at the waterhole. I must have 
 walked a good half-mile, and there was no sign of Dolores. 
 I had a feeling, however, that this was the sort of place 
 to which she would come. It was more like the old Dody 
 — this retired little waterhole, hidden by the ridges on 
 either side, and with its poor show of greenery and 
 blossom — than any part of her surroundings I had yet 
 seen. Remembering what Mr. Helsing had told me of 
 the luxuriant tropical vegetation at his end of the island, 
 I could not understand why, about here, the country should 
 be so comparatively barren. But in Leichardt's Land all 
 depends on soil and water-courses. The wonder was 
 that a more fertile part should not have been chosen as 
 a site for the head-station. 
 
 I was rewarded at last by seeing a flake of white between 
 two boulders of rock. An utterly lonely spot. It struck 
 me how easily one might be murdered here and remain 
 for long undiscovered — if there were anybody to murder 
 one. A member of Captain Red-Mask's gang, for instance. 
 
 It was Dolores' dress that I saw. She was leaning 
 in an uncomfortable position, her head tilted back upon 
 the dead limb of a she-oak fallen against the rocks. She 
 seemed to be asleep, but as I drew near, the sleep did 
 not appear a natural one. Her face was of a livid hue, 
 the breathing slightly stertorous, and the eyes partially 
 open, with the pupils turned backwards. I had seen 
 Dolores asleep with her eyes showing the whites like 
 that, upon a few occasions at Barolin. For instance, 
 when she went into what the girls used to call her queer 
 story-telling states. Then she would begin upon her 
 fantastic folk-lore tales, ancient and modern, of nature 
 spirits, undines, nymphs, gnomes, and so forth, until she 
 would appear almost hypnotized by her subject and the
 
 2o 4 SISTER SORROW 
 
 words would flow forth from her semi-consciously, her 
 eyes half closing as if she were speaking in a trance. We 
 should have been frightened if she had not always wakened 
 up at the least interruption and quickly become her 
 normal self. The exercise of her gift never seemed to do 
 her any harm at that time. . . . Was it possible that she 
 had acquired a habit of producing this state as a means 
 of escape from the miserable conditions of her existence ? 
 Was that the explanation of her vacant eyes and strange, 
 preoccupied manner ? 
 
 But then, she had gone out with her husband, and if 
 they had had business to discuss, it could not be so very 
 long since he had left her. Had he anything to do with 
 her being in the state in which I now found her ? Why 
 had they come to this secluded and comparatively distant 
 spot ? Or had she wandered here alone after leaving him ? 
 
 What had he wanted her to do ? I remembered her 
 plaintive protest : "I don't know if I shall be able . . ." 
 and his gruff answer : " For sure, you've got to try." Had 
 he been using her uncanny gift for some purpose of his 
 own ; and if so, what could have been the purpose ? It 
 was all utterly baffling — mysterious. 
 
 IX 
 
 I COULD not say whether these thoughts came to me 
 then or later. They flashed through me somehow. 
 But it was really only a few seconds from my first recogni- 
 tion of Dolores before I was at her side. For my steps 
 were hastened to a frantic rush by the sight of something 
 which filled me with horrified alarm and yet gave me a 
 possible clue to the meaning of the riddle. 
 
 That was the glimpse of a black snake gliding swiftly 
 among the dead leaves and grass at the foot of the rocks 
 upon which the fallen log rested and disappearing into the 
 narrow cleft of a riven boulder.
 
 SISTER SORROW 205 
 
 Was this the reason of Dody's stupor ? Had the snake 
 bitten her ? I felt sure it was one of the poisonous black 
 kind. I screamed at her ' Dody . . . Dody ! " . . . 
 seized her, pulled her by sheer force away from the rocks 
 and fallen trees higher up the ridge along which I had 
 come. 
 
 I never stopped to verify my suspicions of the snake's 
 nature. I was so certain at the moment that she had been 
 bitten. Dragging her along was like tugging at an inert 
 body. Her eyes were wide open now, but they looked 
 glazed and stupid. 
 
 She did not seem to understand me when I told her 
 to show me quickly the place where she had been 
 bitten. 
 
 " Bitten ! " she repeated dully. ..." Where ? . . . 
 What ? " 
 
 " The snake," I cried. " You must know. Where did 
 it bite you ? " 
 
 She still stared vacuously. 
 
 " There's no time to be lost," I said frantically. " I 
 shall suck the bite. . . . Have you a knife ? . . . I must 
 scarify the place. ... Or have you any brandy — ammonia 
 — anything ? " 
 
 All the time I was ripping up her sleeves from the thin 
 arms — looking at her feet, her ankles, her hands — examining 
 her in wild haste as well as I could, she doing nothing to 
 help me, but only staring with her strange eyes and breath- 
 ing heavily. I could find no mark or discoloration, no 
 swelling. Common sense told me that, as we had no reme- 
 dies, the only thing to do was to keep her moving, and to 
 get her back as quickly as possible to where I could give 
 her brandy or ammonia. So I waited for nothing more, 
 but wildly adjuring her, dragged, pulled, pushed, supported 
 her along the track to the head-station. The first few 
 hundred yards seemed interminable. I did not know how 
 I was going to get her up that long ridge. At best, it was a 
 tiring walk, and, thin as poor Dody had become, it was 
 heavy work pulling and goading her along. 
 
 Then, after that struggle at the beginning, I doubted if
 
 206 SISTER SORROW 
 
 it could really be a case of snake-bite. . . . For the stupor, 
 instead of increasing, lightened. She began to walk of 
 her own accord. 
 
 Though she would not speak and was still dazed and 
 queer, gradually, I found less difficulty in making her 
 cover the track. 
 
 Holding her hand, I panted up the last stony pinch, fear 
 and excitement spurring me. As I write, I can see the 
 squat silhouette of the house, perched on the crest of the 
 hill, tinged with reddish light — for the sun was lowering and 
 showing luridly through the supporting stakes in the open 
 space beneath the flooring. It's odd how those bits of 
 memory-pictures stand out and seem to breathe into one 
 the very atmosphere of the past moment. Dody took the 
 pinch of the hill all right. She even ran, at my urging, 
 across the level, leading to the veranda. I did not want to 
 attract Mrs. Meake's attention by taking her through the 
 yard, but rushed her up the veranda steps into the parlour, 
 where I rummaged in the sideboard for brandy. I found 
 it easily and made her swallow it in as large quantities as 
 I could force her to take. She coughed and spluttered, but 
 Mr. Wilkins had evidently trained her to obedience. The 
 next thing was to find ipecacuanha and ammonia. I had 
 seen a medicine-chest on one of the shelves in the office, 
 but it was locked and I could find out nothing from Dolores 
 about the key. There was no great difficulty, however, 
 in prizing the lock with a bradawl, and, inside, I got what 
 I wanted among the usual, labelled, glass bottles. 
 
 Rather an elaborate medicine-chest, I thought ; and 
 there were a lot of small packets and bottles labelled in 
 writing with names of drugs quite unfamiliar to me. But, 
 of course, I only knew the simple ones in the pharmacopoeia, 
 and, anyhow, had no time then to waste on the contents 
 of that medicine-chest. 
 
 I saw when I got back to Dody that the brandy had had 
 a good effect, and I could scarcely believe now that she had 
 been bitten, for, in the ordinary course, poison from a black 
 snake's fang would have been past the power of antidotes 
 by this time. She looked different. Her colour was
 
 SISTER SORROW 207 
 
 healthier, her eyes more alive, her breathing natural, and 
 she spoke intelligently. 
 
 " Gagsie, you think I've been bitten by a snake ? But 
 there was not any snake." 
 
 " Yes, there was," I said. " A black snake ; I saw it go 
 into a hollow in the rocks close by where you were sitting." 
 
 She looked startled and frightened. A good sign. The 
 Dody of old days had had a wholesome dread of snakes. 
 
 " Oh, let me see if I've been bitten. . . . But if I had 
 been," she added, for the first time reasoning with herself, 
 " I should know it, Gagsie, by now." 
 
 " If you'd seen yourself when I saw you down there, 
 you'd have thought certainly that you knew it — as I did. 
 You looked almost in a coma, then. But you're much 
 better. I believe it's all right. If the thing did bite you, 
 perhaps there was not much poison in the fang. Yet it's 
 the bad time of year ; they're worst always in the spring." 
 
 Nevertheless I gave her a teaspoonful more brandy, and 
 some colour came into her face. She seemed perfectly 
 sensible and like herself now. We went into her bedroom 
 and she partially undressed. Again, I could find no mark 
 of a puncture or the swelling and discoloration which must 
 have followed on the bite. 
 
 But when I was helping her on with her bodice, from 
 which she had withdrawn her arms, so that it hung loosely 
 from the neck, I noticed some marks that gave me a 
 shock. 
 
 " What's that ? " I exclaimed. " There's something 
 else that has hurt you ? " And as I looked I cried in 
 horror : "It's the mark of a hand ! " 
 
 For I could see the shape of the four fingers and thumb 
 of two strong hands which had grasped both her shoulders 
 with such brutal violence as to leave deep, reddish-purple 
 patches upon the flabby white flesh. To-morrow they 
 would be frightful bruises. 
 
 In an instant, I understood. Mr. Phil Wilkins' hands 
 had made those marks. I was fierce with anger. 
 
 " Dody," I said, " I must know the truth. Who did 
 that ? "
 
 208 SISTER SORROW 
 
 She looked down at the marks, twisting her neck to do 
 so — turning first to one shoulder, then to the other. There 
 was the strangest expression on her face. No resentment, 
 no sense of humiliation, only the cowed dog's acquiescence 
 in the might of its master. 
 
 " Well ? " I said sternly. 
 
 " My skin bruises easily if it's touched," she answered 
 evasively. 
 
 ' That was a good deal more than a touch. Come, it's 
 no use prevaricating. You must tell me the truth. Did he 
 strike you ? — You know whom I mean." 
 
 Oh, yes, she knew, and I saw that the only way to get 
 anything out of her was to hammer on the imperative note. 
 She responded to that, no doubt, from force of custom. 
 
 " It — wasn't a blow," she said slowly. 
 
 " What then ? What did he do to you ? " 
 
 " He — shook me " 
 
 " The brute ! Had you angered him ? " 
 
 " Yes. ... I didn't mean to," she half-whispered, and 
 glanced round nervously. 
 
 " You needn't be afraid of his hearing you. He's not 
 here. He's gone away." 
 
 " Gone away ! " she cried, in consternation. " Oh, no, 
 Gagsie ! — Not really away ! " 
 
 ' I heard him leave. Mrs. Meake told me he'd gone 
 riding, and she didn't think he'd be back to-night, because 
 he had a valise with him." 
 
 Dody staggered against the bed, the image of helpless 
 despair. 
 
 " Oh, it's true ! He won't be back. . . . Perhaps he 
 won't come back at all." 
 
 " What makes you think that ? " I asked. " Why was 
 he so angry with you ? " 
 
 " Because. . . ." The truth came out in a piteous 
 burst. " Because I couldn't do what he wanted." 
 
 " What did he want ? " 
 
 I nailed her with my eyes. The poor thing quailed under 
 my pertinacious questioning. I had never known before 
 that my will was so strong — now I knew that there was
 
 SISTER SORROW 209 
 
 going to be a contest between such force as I could put into 
 my influence over Dolores and that which Mr. Wilkins had 
 left behind, weakened, possibly, by the reactionary effect 
 of his violence. 
 
 ' I couldn't find — the person — he said I had to follow," 
 she said in slow jerks. " I tried — but everything was 
 dark— there was nothing to guide me. . . . Oh, I don't 
 
 know what I am to do. . . . It's gone from me I 
 
 can't please him any more." 
 
 She wept bitterly. 
 
 I went on questioning her, but more gently now. I 
 couldn't keep up the affected severity. 
 
 " Dody, what do you mean ? Do you mean that he 
 was willing you to find out things ? " 
 
 She bent her head without speaking. 
 
 : ' Do you mean things that you see with what we called 
 your inside eyes — the way you used to see what the children 
 did when they went out riding without you ? " 
 
 Again she nodded silently. 
 
 ' Like that evening when you saw him — Mr. Wilkins — 
 and a man with a knife — in a cave — when he was telling 
 us about the ancient mines and the gold robbery ? " . . . 
 I rushed on excitedly. Memories, suspicions, half-con- 
 victions were beating in on me — clues so intangible that I 
 could scarcely lay hold of them ; yet clues — I was certain 
 of that — to the mystery behind. 
 
 " Dody, don't you remember ? " 
 
 But she was staring at me blankly. 
 
 ' Surely you recollect that evening ? — We were all in 
 the veranda at The Bunyas — you were sitting beside Mr. 
 Wilkins, and your hand was on the arm of his chair — and 
 he put his hand over yours. — Oh, now I am beginning to 
 understand a little. He was talking about a man he knew 
 — away somewhere in Mexico — a man called Manuel. — 
 It's coming back to me — I had forgotten the name. . . . 
 Then you described the man — and his drawing a 
 knife " 
 
 Some dim connection of ideas brought a ripple of terrified 
 consciousness into her face. I soon saw, however, that her 
 
 14
 
 210 SISTER SORROW 
 
 mind had not gone back to that evening before her 
 marriage, but that she was thinking of something different. 
 
 " A knife ! " she repeated. " How did you know ? 
 It's a South Sea Island knife — I'm frightened of it " — her 
 voice sank to a whisper — " I'd like to give it to you to keep, 
 Gagsie — for you to hide in some place, so that I shan't 
 know how to find it. I've put it away now — where I can 
 scarcely reach up to it. But still I do know." 
 
 I could not make out what she meant. The feeling was 
 growing upon me that her brain was unhinged. Again I 
 tried to recall The Bunyas episode to her mind. 
 
 " But, Dody, you must remember how he — Mr. Wilkins 
 — knocked over the lamp and set the place on fire ? ' 
 
 Still, she only gave me that vacant, vaguely puzzled 
 look. 
 
 I went on : "It was when you described the man — a 
 man with a hooked nose — dark — and with eyes like snakes' 
 eyes. Dody, was it that man Mr. Wilkins wanted you to 
 find ? " 
 
 " I don't know — I don't remember anything about that 
 time. I have lost it. ... I lose everything now. ... I 
 can't please him any more." 
 
 She began mechanically to fasten the hooks of her 
 bodice, then suddenly stopped and made a gesture of 
 desperation. " It's no use. I'd lost what he told me, 
 even. You frightened me about the snake and made me 
 forget. He told me I wasn't to speak to you about this 
 afternoon ... I wasn't to tell you anything about him. 
 . . . And he said I was to be quite sure and remember to 
 take my quinine directly I got home. . . . And I'd 
 forgotten that too." 
 
 " Your quinine ! " I exclaimed impatiently. " Oh, 
 what's the good of quinine ? " 
 
 " It's a tonic, he says — and it does make me feel better. 
 . . . When he goes away, he always tells me to be sure and 
 not forget it." 
 
 She went across to the washing-stand and, from a little 
 medicine cupboard above it, took out a glass bottle — like 
 those in the medicine-chest, labelled quinine. It was three-
 
 SISTER SORROW 211 
 
 parts full of pills coated with white powder. She took one 
 of these with some water. 
 
 I had never seen quinine in pills just like these before. 
 At Barolin, we had given it for fever and ague in a powder 
 or in little white tabloids. But it is a drug so commonly 
 used in the Bush that there was nothing at all odd in Mr. 
 Wilkins having prescribed it for his wife. 
 
 And now another doubt came to me. Was I quite wrong 
 in my fancies and suspicions ? And in spite of his brutal 
 manner, could he be, after all, a patient and much-tried 
 husband ? . . . Dody had always been of a peculiar tem- 
 perament ; and living on Oronga Island, from what I had 
 seen of it, seemed to me quite enough to make her much 
 more difficult. 
 
 The quinine certainly seemed to pull her together for the 
 first few minutes after taking it. She was now com- 
 punctious over all the trouble she had caused me. 
 
 " You see it couldn't have been a snake. Perhaps you 
 only fancied you saw it. And if it was, it couldn't have 
 bitten me," she said. 
 
 I admitted that she must be right. I had given myself 
 all that fright and exertion for nothing. I began to 
 realize that the hurried climb and Dolores' weight at the 
 beginning of it, had told upon me. I sank on a chair, 
 utterly weary. 
 
 Soon I saw that she, too, was exhausted. The heavy 
 look had come back. She threw herself across the bed 
 and moaned like a child. 
 
 " Oh, I'm so tired. I don't want to talk any more." 
 
 I got up, lifted her up on the bed and laid her head on 
 the pillow ; then, bidding her rest till dinner-time, went 
 along the veranda to my own room. 
 
 It was sundown, and with the fall of twilight, swarms of 
 mosquitoes, roused from their day-lethargy, buzzed around. 
 Mrs. Meake was stooping over a camp-oven placed near 
 the French window of my bedroom in which were some 
 dark lumps of lighted fuel that gave out a dense smoke, 
 with a heavy, acrid smell. 
 
 " It's grass-tree logs and a sprinkling of Keating," she 
 
 14*
 
 212 SISTER SORROW 
 
 answered, in reply to my question. " Master told me to 
 put it here. It's the best thing to keep away mosquitoes." 
 I remembered that I had not let down the mosquito- 
 curtains of Dolores' bed, and went back to her room to do 
 this. She was asleep already, and breathing with that 
 stertorous sound. After watching for a minute or two, I 
 left her, thinking that sleep was in any case the best remedy. 
 
 B 
 
 x 
 
 UT my fears for Dolores were not ended for that 
 evening. I was sitting in the veranda, with the 
 grass-tree smoke to windward, meditating over the happen- 
 ings of that strange night and day that were past, my mind 
 deeply perplexed and filled with undefined forebodings. 
 And, all the time, there rankled the doubt of Torvald 
 Helsing, instilled by the man I loathed and despised, and 
 which the higher part of me rejected while it yet festered 
 in my lower self. 
 
 I could not have written these words then. But now, 
 looking back, I can own my secret feeling without blushing 
 to myself. 
 
 I sat there watching the sunset sky, over which long wisps 
 of purple-red clouds were sweeping, and looking at the 
 desolate hillside — scorched grass, bleached skeletons of 
 trees, and all beyond, the grey-brown forest ; the cart-track 
 winding down to the Landing, seeming to me the only link 
 with civilization. Mrs. Meake came to say that supper 
 was laid and I went in to waken Dody. 
 
 She was moaning a little in her sleep, and when I 
 succeeded in rousing her, I saw that she was not at all well. 
 She complained of headache and of feeling sick — said she 
 did not want any supper, and, presently, had an attack of 
 vomiting. 
 
 It was slight — not enough to be really alarming. I put 
 her to bed, brought her a cup of tea and, after a little while, 
 she fell again into a heavy sleep.
 
 SISTER SORROW 213 
 
 I had my own supper — chiefly of cold wild-duck and tea 
 — and, curiously enough, was rather hungry, worried 
 though I felt. 1 wondered what I should do if Dolores 
 were taken seriously ill. 
 
 Apparently there would be no possibility of getting a 
 doctor. And there did not seem to be any man now 
 about the place unless it were the blackboy, Dubbo. I 
 could hear nothing of Crankshaw or the two " Jiminies." 
 I asked Mrs. Meake when she came in to clear the table, 
 what had become of them. 
 
 " I couldn't say, miss. They're often away — it's some- 
 thing to do with cattle along the Narrows. I've not been 
 here very long and I am hardly used yet to the ways of 
 this Island." 
 
 She spoke as if she had had some experience of islands 
 in general, and, on my asking her, told me that she and 
 her husband had been employed at Boonji Island off 
 Leuraville, where was the Criminal Lunatic Asylum of 
 North Leichardt's Land. 
 
 This piece of information gave me another shock, 
 though I thought it was all in keeping with the desolation 
 of Oronga Island and the queer company upon it, of 
 which Mrs. Meake seemed a fitting member. 
 
 Poor Dody 1 . . . 
 
 ' We was man and wife to the Medical Staff," Mrs. 
 Meake continued. " But when Mr. Meake died — of an 
 accident — I sort of took a dislike to the Asylum, and so I 
 upped stick and yanned." 
 
 Perhaps I ought to explain that to " up stick and yan " 
 is the blacks' phrase for moving camp. 
 
 I said I wondered at her coming to live on another 
 island. 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind islands," she said. " I'm rather 
 partial to islands. There's not the same coming and 
 going and cooking for visitors and sundowners as there 
 is on the mainland. Besides, Mr. Wilkins gives me good 
 wages, because of its being an island, he said. Before 
 he had me he couldn't get even married couples to stop 
 with him — they were always leaving — stock-men and
 
 214 SISTER SORROW 
 
 all — till he got hold of those outlandish Jiminies. . . . 
 It's the loneliness and the skeeters. But I'm old and 
 tough. Skeeters don't like me." 
 
 Mrs. Meake had a funny way of dropping out a number 
 of sentences very fast in a series of jerks and then of 
 twisting and pulling in her lips as if she were screwing up 
 a bottle, after which she would maintain for a time 
 absolute silence. I learned by and by, that sometimes 
 she maintained this taciturn attitude for days together. 
 To-night, however, she was in quite a loquacious mood. 
 
 I asked her if she did not think that Mrs. Wilkins was 
 in rather poor health. Was she often bad as she had 
 been this afternoon ? Had she been long like this ? 
 
 " I couldn't say, miss. She's been pretty much the 
 same all the three months I've been on the Island. Mr. 
 Wilkins don't seem to think anything of those sick fits 
 of hers. When I said something to him about them, all 
 he said was that they were natural and that she was 
 taking quinine for the shakings. Maybe, I thought, 
 she'd a touch of dengue fever — the mosquitoes carries 
 it : and it takes a long time to get out of the system, as 
 I know — having had it myself on Boonji Island. That 
 was what Mr. Wilkins told me. He said that I needn't 
 bother about her when she went mooning about the 
 paddock by herself. And so I don't. It had always 
 been her way, he said. — Was it, miss ? You used to 
 know her well, didn't you ? " 
 
 I had to admit that in the past Dolores was fond of 
 rambling about the Bush, but that, generally, she had 
 had my sisters or myself to walk with. 
 
 " And she hasn't anybody here, for Mr. Wilkins is 
 mostly out on the run all day — except when he's away 
 altogether. That's what she does when he isn't here — 
 moons like in a kind of dream — you can see for yourself 
 — and never paying any attention to meal-times. She 
 don't think of anything but him ; runs after him — when 
 he lets her — " Mrs. Meake's parenthesis sounded to me 
 significant — " for all the world like a poddied calf. I've 
 seen them calves, when my husband has had a motherless
 
 SISTER SORROW 215 
 
 one to poddy. You know, miss, how they learns them 
 to suck — dipping a ringer in milk and putting it in their 
 mouths and gradually getting 'em to drink by theirselves. 
 There was one my husband couldn't no ways learn to 
 drink out of a bucket. It was always follering him and 
 bleating for the finger, till he took to speaking sharp 
 and giving it a touch of the boot now and then. I wouldn't 
 like to hint that Mr. Wilkins ever do give Mrs. W. a 
 touch of the boot, but he do speak a bit sharp when she 
 follers him. — Not that it makes any difference. She'd 
 take anything from him and be thankful. Fact is, she 
 don't seem all there when he's nowhere near. . . . Kind 
 of infatuation. There was a case at Boonji Asylum, 
 something of the same. A young woman — violent at 
 times she was, but meek as a crushed cockroach to one 
 of the doctors in particular. He'd only got to look at 
 her, and she was just wax in his hands." 
 
 I must have shown that I didn't like the conversation, 
 for Mrs. Meake became at once apologetic. 
 
 " You must excuse me, miss. Of course, I wasn't 
 meaning a comparison — it just come into my head and 
 dropped out. . . . There's a deal of difference between 
 being a criminal lunatic and having, as you may say, a 
 shingle loose, and there's nothing so good for curing that 
 as a pack of troublesome children to look after." 
 
 " A shingle loose ! " The words re-echoed painfully. 
 Poor Clara used to say that sometimes of Dody, but I 
 had thought nothing of it then. " A shingle loose " is 
 such a common expression in the Bush for the mildest 
 forms of eccentricity. I wondered if Mrs. Meake were 
 right and if babies were the natural solution. But Dody 
 had been more than two years married, and I hadn't 
 heard of any sign of one till now. 
 
 I encouraged Mrs. Meake's jerky flow of conversation, 
 starting her off afresh when she showed signs of pausing. 
 It appeared that Mr. Wilkins was more often off the 
 Island— or, at any rate, away from the head-station — than 
 on it. " And the men too," Mrs. Meake said. ' Always 
 mustering cattle at the North End or the South End, or
 
 216 SISTER SORROW 
 
 something like that, or else crossing cattle and taking 
 them to the saleyards at Leuraville. That was what 
 Crankshaw and the Jiminies told her. And to tell the 
 truth " — her voice sank to a confidential whisper — " she 
 was never sorry to see the backs of those Jiminies, for they 
 gave her the creeps. . . . She did not know much herself 
 about station work, she said. Fifteen years she and her 
 husband had been at Boonji Island Asylum : and there 
 was no live-stock there except the prisoners and the 
 few sheep and cows and calves for the milking and 
 killing. 
 
 " Fifteen years with lunatic prisoners gets a body used 
 to ways a bit out of the ordinary," pursued Mrs. Meake, 
 "and of course I don't make any account of Mrs. Wilkins 
 seeming different to other mistresses I've known. None 
 the worse for that, I say." And now Mrs. Meake put 
 the screw on her mouth — definitely this time. She carried 
 away the remains of the supper and I saw no more of 
 her that night. 
 
 I wandered about myself a little after supper, taking 
 my bearings and considering what I should do if an 
 emergency arose. There seemed nothing I could do 
 except to call up Mrs. Meake, who I found slept in a room 
 next the kitchen, out of earshot of the house. Naturally, 
 there wasn't a bell. And Dody and I would be sleeping 
 alone at opposite ends of the main building ! I found 
 too, that there were no keys or bolts to the French windows 
 opening on the veranda. They seemed to be always 
 open, day and night, this warm weather. A midnight 
 marauder might have had free run of the place. I did 
 not like the notion, but consoled myself with the thought 
 that, till full moon, the Narrows would be unswimmable, 
 and that pirates in boats from Currawilli were unlikely. 
 I felt much more afraid of the two Jiminies. 
 
 At first I thought I would sit up all night by Dolores' 
 bedside, but, on consideration, realized that I could not 
 do that every night. And when I went to look at her 
 she was sleeping, still rather heavily but quite quietly, so 
 that there seemed no particular reason why I should
 
 SISTER SORROW 217 
 
 provide the mosquitoes with a sumptuous repast on virgin 
 pasture. I whisked out Dolores' curtains as well as I 
 could without disturbing her, and performed the same 
 office by my own. Then I sat in the veranda again, 
 chewing the cud of my experiences and impressions from 
 the landing at Currawilli until now. 
 
 I was a Bush girl, accustomed to vast solitudes and 
 to Nature in many moods. But I don't think I had ever 
 known anything grimmer and more desolate than the 
 view of that unenclosed, fire-scorched ridge and the chaotic 
 wilderness beyond, as I saw them now by the fitful light 
 of a watery moon half on the wane, which appeared and 
 disappeared from behind dark curtains of cloud. 
 
 If Dolores had had to sit alone with that view night 
 after night, for weeks at a time, it might well have driven 
 her mad. Mosquitoes added on, though it was some 
 relief to spend force in beating them off one's person. I 
 got the feeling of strange goblins of the Wild gathered 
 round that unprotected hill-crest. Once, I had a dis- 
 agreeable start at seeing two — three pairs of big eyes 
 peering at me out of amorphous shadows at the end 
 of the veranda. For a minute or so, I was too frightened 
 to go and see to whom or to what the eyes belonged. 
 Then I laughed hysterically. 
 
 It was only the old carthorse who had brought me up 
 from the Landing and two lean companions, old, patient, 
 weary brutes. They were all three poking their heads 
 over the veranda railings, attracted by the smoke of the 
 smouldering pieces of grass-tree, which gave them a little 
 respite from the assaults of myriads of mosquitoes. 
 
 After that, I undressed and went to bed, feeling sure 
 that I should either lie awake or sleep lightly enough to 
 be roused by the least sound. Instead, I slept soundly 
 till the sun, shining in at the window, awoke me to another 
 day.
 
 218 SISTER SORROW 
 
 XI 
 
 DOLORES was doing her lamps in the pantry when 
 I came out of my room. I really do not think 
 she deserved Mr. Wilkins' reproach that she was a bad 
 housewife. She told me that she was quite well again. 
 I had found already that, whether from fear of Mr. 
 Wilkins or because she did not realize her own state of 
 health, she could not be brought to admit that she was 
 ill. Certainly, she appeared better this morning. The 
 wild fragrance of wattle-bloom, of which she had brought 
 in some branches, the aromatic exhalations from the 
 gum-trees or the wind from the ocean had brightened her 
 eyes and given her even a trace of colour. I soon learned 
 that there was a great difference between the easterly 
 wind straight from the Pacific beyond the Great Barrier 
 Reef and the westerly breeze coming up from the slimy 
 mangrove flats bordering the Narrows. Such modicum 
 of health as Dolores now possessed, I was certain that 
 she owed to her habit of wandering about the Bush during 
 the greater part of the day. 
 
 She made no allusion to her husband or to the events 
 of the previous afternoon. I hoped that my influence, 
 which his presence stultified, was already beginning to 
 take effect. 
 
 It really seemed so : she was so much more normal. 
 I helped her with the small household duties she said she 
 was accustomed to do — cleaning the lamps, arranging her 
 few bits of wild flowers, dusting, tidying and so forth. 
 I made her show me where she gathered the orchids and 
 insisted on being taken to the neglected garden and we 
 watered the melancholy cabbage and lettuce heads from 
 the yet more melancholy waterhole where the leafless 
 trunks of white-barked swamp-oaks looked like a row of 
 ghostly sentinels guarding the black pool.
 
 SISTER SORROW 219 
 
 We walked along the hillside above the watcrhole, and 
 again I was surprised at the unpicturesqueness of the 
 country and vegetation — sandy ridges of ill-favoured 
 gums, and draggled grass-trees, an occasional geebong- 
 tree with its glutinous grey-green berries, or a native 
 plum, but nothing of the tropical profusion of leaf and 
 blossom of which there had been indications along the 
 shores of the Narrows. I noticed too, that there were 
 very few cattle about. Indeed, everything I saw gave 
 the lie to Mr. Wilkins' description of his station as a 
 profitable investment. 
 
 There seemed to be no station work going on. Dubbo 
 the blackboy was milking two or three poor-looking cows 
 in the stockyard near the waterhole, that was all. Of 
 Crankshaw and the Jimmies I saw no sign. 
 
 When I remarked on this to Dolores, she said that she 
 believed the cattle work was done mostly on other parts 
 of the run, but that she hated cattle and had no interest 
 in the work. That I knew of old. I knew, too, that she 
 had never taken to riding. Yet it surprised me to hear 
 that she had not explored the Island— had in fact, never 
 been on horseback since her arrival. 
 
 " Didn't you want to see the sea ? " I asked. " I mean 
 the Pacific Ocean ? " 
 
 She shook her head dully. I couldn't inspire her with 
 any enthusiasm by telling her how I yearned to ride along 
 the real coast and to hear the waves dashing in with no 
 break between these shores and South America, except 
 the groups of small islands in line with the Tropic of 
 Capricorn, on the other side of the Great Barrier Reef. 
 
 I went on questioning her about the Island and, I 
 think, got to know all she knew herself, which amounted 
 to very little. She had been told, she said, that the 
 northern part of the Island was quite different, that a 
 range of hills ran down the middle, and that beyond 
 was scrub — a sort of tropical jungle, I gathered, watered 
 by creeks having their source in the range. It was only 
 about ten miles across from the head-station to the sea, 
 but she did not know at all how I was to get there.
 
 220 SISTER SORROW 
 
 I said I would ask Mr. Wilkins when he came back — 
 or Crankshaw, and that I felt sure they could find me a 
 mount and a side-saddle. I supposed that Dody had a 
 saddle. 
 
 But she shook her head again. — She didn't know. — 
 Phil never wanted her to ride. . . . No, she hadn't felt 
 dull — s he liked to do only what he liked. — And the 
 miserable, perplexed pucker came into her forehead. 
 
 She couldn't tell me anything either about the mails 
 or the arrangements for sending letters from the Island. 
 When the boat went to Currawilli, it brought the mail 
 and the newspapers, but as the boat had been so lately, 
 she didn't suppose it would go again for a long time. 
 Evidently, she was quite indifferent in the matter. She 
 didn't write letters — as I had proved— nor did she get 
 any. There had been nobody for her to hear from, 
 she said, except me, and as I was here, that didn't 
 count. 
 
 It struck me that now her mind was like a slate from 
 which impressions were removed as easily as if a wet 
 sponge had been wiped over them. Some mental process 
 of the kind had been taking place in her during the last 
 two years, by what agency, I could not guess — or rather, 
 I guessed too well. But perhaps it was, after all, purely 
 physical ; a decay of power. 
 
 For when I spoke of Mr. Helsing— assuming that he 
 had described to her his own Selection and the north end 
 of the Island and that he had brought her books and 
 widened her outlook generally, and when I suggested 
 that the cessation of his visits must have been a great 
 loss to her — she gave me the blank look of a child who 
 is unable to put its intelligence back upon past details. 
 I saw that if, at the time, she had felt in any real sense 
 about him, the emotion had left nothing behind but a 
 confused and troubled memory. 
 
 She couldn't remember very well, she said. She forgot 
 things so quickly. It was like her losing the days. . . . 
 Yes, Phil had been angry with Mr. Helsing, and he had 
 been angry with her too. He had said that if she ever
 
 SISTER SORROW 221 
 
 talked to anyone about herself and him again he would 
 leave her. 
 
 That seemed her one poignant anxiety. She repeated 
 again and again : ' I should die if he left me. When he 
 is not here, I get those dreadful feelings. ..." 
 
 I pressed her to tell me about those feelings — but she 
 only shivered and whispered — " I can't. . . . It's partly 
 about the knife — I did tell you — the South Sea Island 
 knife. ... I can't speak of that. I'm afraid. . . . The 
 dreadful feeling would come again and I should lose 
 everything — I should lose myself as well as him — and 
 I should lose you too, Gagsie. . . . But don't ask me 
 now. . . . Perhaps, some time, when I'm not so frightened 
 of things — then I may be able to tell you." 
 
 She looked so strange with the mask-like face and wild 
 eyes, that I too was frightened — frightened that she was 
 going to have the same sort of attack as upon the day 
 before. I turned her homewards, changed the conversation 
 and began to talk about Barolin — about the girls ; about 
 poor Clara's hens and the chickens of Mrs. Gracchus ; 
 about Andy Catt and his wife, and how I had kept them 
 on at The Bunyas ; about the French lessons she had 
 given me and the delightful readings we used to have ; 
 about the beautiful fairy-stories she used to tell Bee and 
 Bel, and myself too, the most interested listener, as we 
 sat on the banks of the Ubi river, under the white cedars 
 and the Moreton-Bay chestnuts. 
 
 I reminded her of how she had compared our native 
 chestnut-trees with the chestnut trees of Auvergne, and 
 of how she had made French history living for us, in her 
 vivid historiettes. From Jules Cesar, of whom the 
 Auvergnois still talked as though it had been but yesterday 
 that he and his Roman legions had fought in that country, 
 to Joan of Arc and the Voices of the Tree. From Roland 
 and Roncesvalles to the Prisoners of the Conciergerie and 
 the Trtcoteuses of the Revolution. . . . There never was 
 anyone like Dody for making you see, literally, the things 
 of the Past. I told her how I had been looking forward 
 to having those readings and talks again : and that I
 
 222 SISTER SORROW 
 
 had brought up some French books because my French 
 had grown very rusty. 
 
 I talked fast — hammering in the little nail-heads of 
 interest which seemed to protrude from her mind occa- 
 sionally. I was on the watch for them, and seized on 
 them at once, giving her no time to think about Mr. Wilkins. 
 In truth, I was hoping with all my might that he might 
 stay away long enough for me to practise to some purpose 
 this form of mental cure. 
 
 For it was borne in upon me, as we walked back to the 
 house, that that was the thing to do. Clearly, the asso- 
 ciations of her marriage were having a most lamentable 
 effect upon Dolores. Therefore, I must try and counteract 
 morbid influences by a system of wholesome suggestion. 
 By talking her back into the old Barolin atmosphere : 
 by reawakening her intellectual faculties. By appealing 
 to the imaginative side of her in its most sane and innocent 
 phases. Thus, following on these lines — provided only 
 that I were not hampered" by Mr. Wilkins' dominating 
 presence — I thought it just possible that I might call back, 
 in some measure, the old Dody whose companionship 
 had been such a delight. 
 
 If the poor thing's limp, impressionable nature were 
 really a battle-ground for forces of good and evil, then my 
 willing might likewise count in the tussle. So, let it be a 
 case of " Pull baker — pull devil ! " Why should not I 
 have a try at the game of glamour as well as Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins ? 
 
 As for my perplexities concerning the limitations of 
 Oronga Island, and the apparent impossibility of establish- 
 ing communication with the outer world, I decided to feel 
 my way and await developments. Also I determined to 
 explore as far as I was able the country round the head- 
 station, which ought to be fairly easy with the aid of a 
 compass and my Bush instinct of locality. Of course, 
 with the command of a riding-horse I could go any distance. 
 What I wanted most was to find the road to the Pilot 
 station, where I could at least cable to the mainland. 
 
 The riding-horse was the difficulty, but I was prepared
 
 SISTER SORROW 223 
 
 to diplomatize to any extent with Crankshaw, or even 
 with Mr. Wilkins, in order to gain that end. I had visions, 
 should things become desperate, of carrying Dody off — 
 giaour-like — at my saddle-bow, and of getting the pilots 
 to put us both off to a south-bound steamer. 
 
 It seemed to me after the third day on the Island, that 
 things might at any moment become desperate. All 
 that time, we three women and Dubbo, the blackboy, 
 were left entirely to ourselves. There wasn't a sign of 
 any other human about the head-station. Dubbo didn't 
 count. Nor, for the matter of that, did Mrs. Meake, 
 who was evidently accustomed to such a state of affairs, 
 and cooked, cleaned and slept, laid the table and executed 
 — or, with an air of philosophic detachment, did not 
 execute — the orders I prompted Dolores to give her. I 
 soon saw that it was not much use to expect any aid 
 from her in the way of sick-nursing. No doubt, her 
 experience with criminal lunatics had made her hard- 
 hearted. Besides, Dolores hated to have Mrs. Meake 
 in the room : and indeed, all she seemed to want, when 
 not well, was to be left alone in the half-comatose state 
 into which she would fall. 
 
 Almost every afternoon and evening, she would be 
 seized with one of her incomprehensible attacks of shivering 
 and nausea, from which she would drop into stertorous 
 sleep and awake better physically in the morning, but, 
 it seemed to me, in a worse nervous and mental condition, 
 than before. 
 
 I worried a great deal over these attacks — having satisfied 
 myself that Mrs. Meake's theories were incorrect — except 
 perhaps as regarded dengue. But I had never known 
 dengue fever show effects, such as these, after a lapse of 
 three months. For, granting that Dody had had fever — 
 which she herself denied — it must have been before Mrs. 
 Meake's arrival. At the same time, I could find no 
 explanation of the symptoms except that they were due 
 to malaria and, in that case, the obvious remedy was 
 quinine, and Mr. Wilkins had done rightly in administering 
 it.
 
 224 SISTER SORROW 
 
 I found a volume of " The Family Doctor " in one of 
 the book-shelves, and the particulars it gave of malarial 
 fever in the tropics, fully confirmed Mr. Wilkins' treatment. 
 I knew that malarial fever was variable and tricky in its 
 manifestations. And, having no understanding of medicine, 
 and not being able to judge of a pulse or take a temperature, 
 I had nothing but my instinct, and Dolores' hot, dry hands 
 and her continual thirst, to tell me that this was really 
 a case of fever. 
 
 So we went on during four days. Each night the camp 
 oven was lighted and the three old station-horses came 
 up to the railings and poked their heads into the smoke. 
 I studied the beasts with a view to future uses, but decided 
 that I might as well put them out of the reckoning. Though 
 I searched the pastures round the hill, I could see no others. 
 This lack of riding-horses on a cattle-station was so extra- 
 ordinary that I questioned Dubbo about it. 
 
 The blackboy showed all his white teeth in a grin. 
 
 " My word ! Plenty bujeri yarraman sit down long-a 
 paddock close — up Narrows where cattle swim, but Boss 
 not let me fetch up that feller long-a Head-station." Which, 
 interpreting the native vernacular, meant that there were 
 plenty of good horses in a paddock near the Narrows 
 Crossing, but that Mr. Wilkins did not allow them to 
 be used for work at the Head-station by the blackboy — 
 which was understandable. 
 
 I did not mind so much on hearing this. For, of course, 
 I could apply to Crankshaw and there could be no possible 
 objection to my riding any of these horses. 
 
 It was on the fourth afternoon, when Dody was lying 
 down and I was returning from an exploring trip on foot, 
 by myself, that, crossing the yard, I saw the meat-house 
 door open and Crankshaw, inside, weighing a piece of 
 salt beef on the scales. I stopped and spoke to him. 
 
 " So you're back, Mr. Crankshaw ? " 
 
 He came to the door and eyed me benevolently but 
 questioningly and, I thought, with a touch of anxiety. 
 
 "That's so, miss," he answered and laughed dryly. 
 " Been hustling along all right ? " he asked.
 
 SISTER SORROW 225 
 
 " Hustling along ! ' I looked him straight in the face. 
 " I've had a good opportunity to hustle, haven't I ? 
 
 " Wal, I reckoned you were some of the hustling sort," 
 he drawled. 
 
 I ignored the remark. " Mr. Crankshaw, I must say 
 that I think this station is run in a most extraordinary 
 manner — so far as the women arc concerned, at any rate. 
 I wonder what my father would have said about leaving 
 three poor women — one of them sick and another a newly- 
 arrived visitor — on a lonely island for four days and nights 
 with only a blackboy to look after them." 
 
 Crankshaw expectorated in the dust of the yard before 
 replying. Then he said : " I guess your father would have 
 allowed that there wasn't any need of white men to boss 
 the show for you, miss. You'd come out on top, whatever 
 almighty mix things had made of themselves, I saw that 
 from the way you stuck it in the boat. I can tell you 
 now — that was a derned close shave of Davy's locker for 
 some of us. . . . Well, I'm real pleased," he added genially, 
 " to see you looking so fit." 
 
 Crankshaw's compliment was clumsily put, but I shouldn't 
 have been a woman if I hadn't felt mollified at the frankly 
 admiring manner in which his eyes summed me up. I 
 had to confess always to a sneaking regard for Crankshaw. 
 However, I waived the point. 
 
 " I suppose you know," I went on, " that Mr. Wilkins 
 rode off without saying a word, the afternoon we got 
 here, and that we've heard nothing of him since ? ' 
 
 " I reckon he told Mrs. Wilkins he was going," Crank- 
 shaw replied. 
 
 " If he did, she couldn't have taken it in ; " and I related 
 to Crankshaw how I had found Dolores lying in a stupor 
 a long way from the house and had thought at first she 
 had been bitten by a snake. " It wasn't that," I said, 
 " for she got better instead of worse, but, at first, I had 
 to drag her up the hill, for she couldn't walk alone, and 
 I can't think how we ever got to the house. I found her 
 by the gully at the foot of the ridge." 
 
 His eyes followed the direction of my finger. 
 
 15
 
 226 SISTER SORROW 
 
 a 
 
 Down there ! " he said. " Well, I've heard that Mrs. 
 Wilkins is fond of rambling about the Bush by herself." 
 
 " She hadn't gone by herself. Mrs. Meake saw her 
 and Mr. Wilkins walking out together. He must have left 
 her there. Mrs. Meake told me he had ridden away, 
 some time before I went to look for her. Why did he 
 leave her like that ? " 
 
 " I reckon only the Boss and his missus can tell us 
 that," said Crankshaw. ' It's on the cards, he wasn't 
 pleased at something she'd done. Phil Wilkins ain't an 
 easy-tempered cuss when anyone crosses his will ! " 
 
 " You mean if Mrs. W'ilkins wouldn't — or couldn't do 
 something he wanted her to do ? " I said at a venture. 
 
 The man looked at me with a puzzled, rather anxious 
 expression on his face. 
 
 ' It 'ud be couldn't not wouldn't," he said, " I'd bank 
 on Mrs. Wilkins making tracks for hell if Phil ordered her 
 to take a message from him to Old Nick. Anyways she'd 
 put in a good try to find the place," he added. 
 
 " I don't think she'd have to go far from the Island for 
 that," I said. At which Crankshaw emitted a dry cackle. 
 
 ' My Lord ! that was cute ! You got me sure. There's 
 no grindstone required for sharpening your wits, Miss 
 Carfax." 
 
 I pulled him up. 
 
 " Mr. Crankshaw, where is Mr. Wilkins ? " 
 
 " I couldn't say where he is at present." 
 
 " But how did he get off the Island ? Did he take the 
 boat back to Currawilli ? " 
 
 " He's crossed on to the mainland . . . got business 
 over Nagbar way and, maybe, at Leuraville." 
 
 " Oh, I wish I had known," I exclaimed in genuine 
 dismay. " I wanted to let them know at Malpa Downs 
 that I had got here safely. Is he going to Mr. Pringle's ? " 
 
 " I couldn't say," Crankshaw repeated. He went back 
 to the weighing machine, took the piece of meat off the hook 
 and returned to the door with it in his hand. But I would 
 not let him pass me. 
 
 " Got to put it in the pot for supper," he said.
 
 SISTER SORROW 227 
 
 " Please wait a minute — I'm a stranger here, and I 
 don't understand your ways. I thought you couldn't 
 swim across the Narrows except at full and new moon ? ' 
 
 " That's the size of it." 
 
 " Well, how did Mr. Wilkins get across — and his horse ? ' 
 
 " His horse didn't ... I took him in the boat. . . ." 
 
 " Then what did he do for a mount on the other side ? " 
 
 " Oh, we always keep a couple of nags over there handy 
 in a bit of a paddock we've fenced in." 
 
 " How long is he going to be away ? " I asked. 
 
 " I couldn't say," reiterated Crankshaw. ..." Maybe 
 a fortnight — maybe three weeks — maybe longer." 
 
 " And you ? Are you going to stop and look after us 
 and the station ? " 
 
 " I guess I'll be there, right enough, at your service, 
 miss." 
 
 I said I was very glad to hear it, and that I hoped he'd 
 be able to send some letters for me to the post. 
 
 " I don't know about that, miss. You see, I'll be single- 
 handed. . . ." 
 
 " Why, where are the other men ? " 
 ' The Jiminies are away — wanted for work." 
 
 " Off the Island ? " 
 
 " Part of the time." 
 
 " Will you please tell me how I am to receive letters and 
 newspapers and when and where I can post my letters ? " 
 I demanded in exasperation. 
 
 ' That's as it happens. Currawilli is the post town, 
 but the Government haven't provided a mail service for 
 the Island." 
 
 " And, in a case of serious illness, how is one to get 
 hold of a doctor ? " 
 
 Crankshaw twisted his lips in a humorous grin and 
 gently stroked his goatee. " There's nary one nearer 
 than Currawilli, and he's generally drunk. They've got 
 Hoskins, the Health Officer, at Leuraville, but, as a life- 
 saver, I'd liefer trust a Colt's revolver. Is it Mrs. Wilkins 
 you're troubling over, miss ? You said she was better 
 and that there hadn't been any snake-bite." 
 
 15*
 
 228 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " She is not at all well and I'm dreadfully worried 
 about her." 
 
 " Wal ! I've been a bit worried about her myself 
 
 sometimes. It beats me, why However, that ain't 
 
 no business of mine. I've been led to conclude, Miss 
 Carfax, that there's no real cause for anxiety. ... If 
 you had ever lived in a fever and ague locality, you'd 
 know it takes quite a long time to get rid of the shakes. 
 Quinine is the only thing." 
 
 " Quinine doesn't seem to do her any good. But there's 
 no use talking about it now. . . . Mr. Crankshaw, I've 
 got several things I want to say to you — but as Mr. 
 Wilkins is likely to be away for so long, and I want to get 
 back to her, I'll say them to-morrow." 
 
 " Very good, miss. I'll be hanging round . . . when- 
 ever you please." 
 
 He swung off in the direction of his hut, carrying the 
 bit of salt beef for the supper-pot, and I went in to see 
 after Dody. 
 
 XII 
 
 SHE was fairly well. The usual attack had not come 
 on that day and she seemed more natural — only 
 very tired ; she had not slept well the night before, and 
 I had hoped she would get some wholesome sleep now. 
 But she had only dozed a little, she said. I did not tell 
 her that Crankshaw had come back, for that would have 
 involved the mention of Mr. Wilkins. I was wondering 
 in myself what had staved off the usual fit of shivering 
 and stupor. Then I remembered that she had taken no 
 quinine that day. It had occurred to me the day before, 
 when she was complaining of her head, that perhaps she 
 had been overdosed. I remembered having been told that 
 quinine in large doses had curious effects, and I had asked 
 Dolores to show me the pills. They were large, but I 
 did not think each pill could contain more than five grains,
 
 SISTER SORROW 229 
 
 which I knew to be an ordinary dose. Sometimes, she 
 said, her husband gave her two, but he told her when 
 she was alone to take only one — which precaution appeared 
 to me quite in order, as the business phrase goes. The 
 pills were coated with sugary powder and I put one to 
 the tip of my tongue. It had all the bitterness of quinine, 
 which is very objectionable to me. I had never, myself, 
 been able to take the drug, as Father used to administer 
 it to fever and ague patients, in a powder. 
 
 This morning, at my entreaty, Dolores had reluctantly 
 agreed to disobey her husband's orders and omit her 
 daily dose. This I hailed as a sign that his influence was 
 slightly less paramount. Now I pointed out that I had 
 been right, and that it would be better for her to drop 
 the quinine for a day or two. But she demurred : "I 
 must not. He said that if I forgot it one day, that 
 wouldn't matter, but I must take a double dose the next 
 day." 
 
 I humoured her. 
 
 " Well, we shall see. That might be a better plan." 
 
 Then, suddenly, with her thin, feverish fingers gripping 
 my hand, she looked at me with fear in her big eyes, which 
 seemed all pupil — dark and soft, and said in a low, 
 frightened tone : 
 
 " Besides, I think the pills keep the other — that 
 dreadful feeling — away." 
 
 " But, Dody, you haven't told me exactly what that 
 dreadful feeling is. You know it can only be fancy — 
 just the fever. Tell me what it is like." 
 
 I coaxed her, but she only shook her head and answered : 
 " I can't. . . . It's indescribable. . . . It's being lost 
 — altogether lost ... a lost soul." 
 
 I could get no more out of her than that. 
 
 " Has it anything to do with the knife ? " I said. " The 
 South Sea Island knife that you hid away ? " 
 
 " Sometimes, but that's different. I'll show you, now, 
 where I put the knife, so that I couldn't get at it — at 
 least not easily." 
 
 She took me by the hand and led me down a few steps
 
 2 3 o SISTER SORROW 
 
 at the end of the veranda outside Mr. Wilkins' dressing- 
 room, where a small gate led from the outside into the 
 yard to where the tank that fed the bath was placed 
 against the house. A few feet above the tank, the pro- 
 jecting shingles of the roof were fitted with a little zinc 
 drain underneath, to conduct the rain-water to the tank. 
 There was a narrow space over the drain, between the 
 shingles and the beam supporting the wall. She pointed 
 up to this. 
 
 " I pushed it in there," she said in a whisper. " I had 
 to climb up by the tank — I don't know how I did it." 
 
 The feat was not a very difficult one, and that 
 she should make so much of it seemed indicative of 
 the state in which she had performed it — delirium or 
 insanity. 
 
 I could discern the glint of steel in the dim aperture. 
 Now, I thought it wisest to take the thing as a matter of 
 course. 
 
 " Yes, I see. That was quite right," I said. " It's 
 always safest to put a dangerous weapon where people 
 can't easily get at it." 
 
 ' Now that you know, I'm so glad I've told you," she 
 said, like a child relieved of a secret burden. 
 
 I wouldn't let her dwell on the subject, but took her 
 back to the front veranda, and we paced up and down it, 
 arm in arm, watching the sunset, while I talked to her 
 about my own life at The Bunyas ; about people she 
 used to know in Leichardt's Town ; about Bee's boarding- 
 school flirtations and Mr. Pringle's rough-and-ready 
 fashion of dealing with them ; about his devotion to 
 Bee, notwithstanding the trouble she gave him, and so 
 on — taking no notice of Dody's silence and lack of 
 interest. Suddenly, she stopped short and pointed down 
 the hill to where the roof of the men's hut showed from 
 the veranda and to curls of smoke coming out of the 
 wide Bush chimney. 
 
 " Look ! " she cried. " They must be back — Crankshaw 
 and the others. Oh, I want to run down and speak to 
 them. They'll know perhaps when Phil is coming."
 
 SISTER SORROW 231 
 
 She was so excited that she would have rushed straight 
 off, had I not checked her. 
 
 " There's no use in your going — it's only Crankshaw, 
 and I've seen him. I spoke to him in the yard before I 
 came in to you, and he told me that Mr. Wilkins won't 
 be back for two or three weeks." 
 " Where has he gone ? " she asked. 
 " Crankshaw didn't seem to know much about him. — 
 He said he'd gone on business Nagbar way, and perhaps 
 to Leuraville." 
 
 Dolores stood still in blank disappointment. And 
 then the puzzled, dazed look came over her face again. 
 
 " I can't remember," she murmured to herself. ' I 
 wish I could remember. ... I lost it all. . . . And now 
 he has gone to find it out himself." 
 
 " To find out what ? " I asked, trying to be patient and 
 sympathetic. " Was it anything that really mattered ? " 
 
 " I don't know," she answered with exasperating 
 vacuity. 
 
 " Then you needn't bother any more about it, Dody 
 dear. To tell you the truth," I went on, " I'm not a 
 bit sorry that Mr. Wilkins is going to be away so long. 
 I should like to make you forget that you are married 
 and at his beck and call — while I'm here, anyhow. All 
 the same, I think it's downright brutal of him to have 
 gone off without making any arrangements for the 
 pleasure and convenience of his guest. But if he thinks 
 I'm going to be kept a prisoner inside the Head-station 
 paddock, he's mistaken. I want to explore the Island. 
 I want to see the sea. I want to study the vegetation. 
 I want to go for riding picnics as we used to at Barolin. 
 See ? — as your husband would say. Crankshaw told me 
 to-day that I'm the hustling sort. Well, I mean to hustle 
 him — and you too." 
 
 She seemed swept off her ground, as I had intended, 
 by my astounding plans. Every sentence or two, she 
 made a frightened little protest. I wouldn't listen to 
 her, wouldn't let her speak — just rattled on, while I walked 
 her up and down the veranda in the gathering dusk.
 
 232 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Darting into my room for a palm-leaf fan, I beat the 
 mosquitoes from both of us and did my best to draw her 
 mind along in the quick current of my own, so that she 
 might feel the force of another will than that of Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins. 
 
 " Yes, I'm going to hustle the lot of you," I said. " I 
 shall talk to Crankshaw to-morrow and find out what 
 horses he's got. I can easily break a quiet one in with a 
 skirt for you, and, as for myself — thank the Lord ! I 
 was brought up a Bush girl and can stick on anything 
 except a regular buckjumper. . . . We might even get 
 as far as the Pilot station. You'd like that ? " 
 
 She shuddered and shook her head decisively. 
 
 " No, I shouldn't. And I can't ride, Gagsie. ... I 
 don't want to. Besides, it's impossible. Crankshaw 
 won't give you a horse." 
 
 " I think he will. Dody, here's a little secret. I've 
 made a conquest of Crankshaw. I fancy that if I ask 
 prettily I shall get what I want out of Crankshaw." 
 
 So in the same strain I continued through supper and 
 afterwards — Nero fiddling while Rome was burning ! 
 That was what it seemed to me. Or dancing on the edge 
 of a volcano. I was gripped by a presentiment of some 
 impending cataclysm. 
 
 In the middle of the night, I was awakened by a piteous 
 calling — a stammering " Gagsie — Gag-sie " close to my bed. 
 
 " Yes, what is it ? " 
 
 I started up. All the winds of heaven seemed to have 
 been let loose into my room. The French window stood 
 wide open : the mosquito-curtains round my bed were 
 blowing outward and swaying. There was enough moon- 
 light for me to make out, through the meshes, a white 
 figure, a face framed in limp, dark hair and a pair of 
 scared dark eyes. This was Dolores. The hand with 
 which she held the curtains was shaking violently ; so 
 too, her figure in the white nightdress, blown also by 
 the winds. She was speaking, but the words she said were 
 broken by the chattering of her teeth.
 
 SISTER SORROW 233 
 
 ' It's — it's — the dreadful feeling. — Oh, hold me, Gagsie 
 — I'm so frightened." 
 
 In a moment I was up and had pushed her into my 
 bed. I shut the window. A sudden gale must have 
 arisen, like that gale which had nearly wrecked us in the 
 Bay — one of the features of Island life I became after- 
 wards familiar with. 
 
 I got back into bed, only to fly out of it once more. 
 Clasping Dody tight to try and stop the aguish trembling, 
 I had felt her face and form cold as death against me. 
 Again, brandy was the only remedy immediately available, 
 and, in a few seconds, I was braving the blast in the 
 veranda and struggling with the French window into the 
 sitting-room which had blown inwards. At last, I had 
 got and brought back the decanter of brandy and was 
 making her swallow some of its contents. 
 
 After a little while, the shaking quieted down and the 
 warmth of my body put some heat into hers. But she 
 did not lose that curious mental terror which I could 
 not understand and which she seemed unable to convey in 
 coherent speech. It found vent in sudden convulsive 
 jerks of her limbs, when she would rear back her head and 
 stare with mad eyes into the dimness of the corners : and 
 then she would clutch me uttering frenzied cries of : 
 
 " Gagsie ! . . . Gagsie ! . . . Hold me. . . . Don't let 
 me get lost. . . . Keep close to me . . . Gagsie. . . . 
 Oh, I'm so lonely. There's nothing — nothing — anywhere. 
 Oh, don't let me get lost. . . ." 
 
 That was always the burden of her cry. . . . She had 
 said the "' dreadful feeling " was like being lost — as if 
 she were a lost soul. 
 
 I never at any time got any different description from 
 her of those strange fits of supernatural dread, but, even 
 then, I dimly grasped the fact, which I understood better 
 later, that this is one of the earlier stages of a special 
 form of insanity. 
 
 For a minute, I, too, was infected by something of the 
 same supernatural dread. Then I took hold of my reason 
 and told myself that the gale had a great deal to do with
 
 234 SISTER SORROW 
 
 the whole situation, and that if I were to let myself be 
 unnerved by things material, I could not hope to combat 
 immaterial terrors. Violent gusts of wind and rain 
 hurtled round the house, and blew bits of gravel and 
 pieces of dead wood against the piles supporting it. I 
 could feel the wind coming up through the boards from 
 the open space below them and lifting the rug by the 
 bedside. 
 
 The canvas ceiling sagged and made hissing noises 
 and the limbs of the skeleton gum-trees outside cracked 
 and groaned as if they were human beings tortured on the 
 rack and the wind were tightening its pulleys. A bit of 
 the ceiling, loosened in a corner, flapped like the wing of a 
 huge bat, and I could have fancied that the whole heaving 
 mass was some noxious creature of the night poised and 
 preparing to swoop. 
 
 By and by, Dody stopped making those shuddering 
 movements and was just moaning softly as she lay in my 
 arms. But every time my grasp relaxed in the least, 
 she stirred uneasily and her own clasp of me tightened. 
 She seemed to cling to me as her one safeguard against 
 attempts to oust her feebly-rooted soul from its earthly 
 tenement. And, in truth, I felt that I was literally 
 struggling for more than her life. That I was holding 
 her by the strength of my arms, the force of my will, 
 the power of my love from being dragged across the border- 
 land of sanity. 
 
 I don't know whether I had really loved Dolores Lloyd, 
 sincerely attached as I had been to her in the old days. 
 Certainly, I had never felt for her anything of this 
 passion of pity and sympathy which now flowed like an 
 on-rushing tide from the innermost fountain of my heart. 
 
 Can one comprehend love at all until the element of 
 sacrifice enters into it ? . . . until by a process of spiritual 
 alchemy it partakes of the nature of Divine Love encom- 
 passing each one of us poor world-children, by whom the 
 higher joy may never be reached save through the gate of 
 pain ? 
 
 Not that I had then any such transcendental idea of
 
 SISTER SORROW 235 
 
 sacrifice in connection with Dody. I was only conscious 
 of that feeling of yearning compassion, so intense that I 
 believe, had the choice been offered me, I would, at the 
 moment, have cheerfully foregone my own happiness for 
 the sake of rescuing my poor friend's distraught and 
 tortured soul from the gruesome prison into which Fate 
 had driven it. 
 
 I found myself petitioning Heaven in the simplest 
 manner — like a child, 
 
 " Oh, God, I do ask you, for Christ's sake, to keep Dody 
 from going mad. ... I do beseech you, for Christ's sake, 
 to take her out of Mr. Wilkins' power. . . . Oh, God, I 
 do beg and implore you that you will be merciful to poor 
 Dody. . . ." 
 
 It was like that. I don't think that I actually said 
 the words with my lips. My tongue seemed tied, but 
 my heart was praying — praying. 
 
 Once or twice, I stopped. I was afraid I had spoken 
 aloud and that Dody had heard. For she was muttering, 
 and I thought she might be praying too. But I don't 
 think that was so. . . . Then I went on again — praying 
 . . . praying. ... I didn't seem to care now whether 
 or not she heard. Nothing mattered. Except the one 
 great thing — that Dody should be saved. And only 
 God could save her. . . . But I might help Him in my 
 small way, down here, I thought, if He would show me 
 how. 
 
 It was all very strange. Afterwards, the strangest 
 part almost seemed that I myself suffered so terribly, I 
 think I must have suffered as much as Dody this night. 
 But that was what I wanted. ... I asked God to let 
 me suffer, if suffering must be the price of salvation. I 
 was willing to pay, I said, even to the dearest thing that 
 I possessed. 
 
 I knew that I was making a vow, and that the vow 
 should be counted as a sacrament. 
 
 My suffering that night must have been a forestalling 
 of the debt I had taken upon myself. Thinking of it 
 the next day, I could not understand the pain. I had
 
 236 SISTER SORROW 
 
 never known before mental agony so acute. I could 
 imagine a mother feeling like that at the bedside of a 
 dying child. 
 
 ... I had never before absolutely shared the pain of 
 another. I had only been sorry for other people who were 
 in trouble. . . . What suffering I had had to bear for 
 myself had been different. This pain seemed in one sense 
 more remote : in another, more utterly present and 
 poignant than the old personal aches of wounded affection 
 — mainly caused by my father's attitude to me — and of 
 hurt pride and disappointed hopes which, some time or 
 other, come into the lot of all young women. 
 
 And then, what made it still more strange was that 
 religion had never been a strong point with me. My 
 mother had died when I was too young to associate it 
 with my memory of her. Or perhaps, she herself was 
 not religious. I don't know. Father was not ; though 
 on Sundays at Barolin, he made a point of reading the 
 Church service and the household was expected to attend. 
 The station hands did or did not, as they pleased, and 
 generally, they did not please. Clara also took rather 
 rough and ready views of Church observances. In fact, 
 nobody would have said that we were a religious family. 
 Still I used to read my Bible occasionally, and said my 
 prayers more or less perfunctorily before I went to bed. 
 Also, I knew by heart certain chapters of the New Testa- 
 ment which I had been made to learn at school. 
 
 A verse or two from one of these stuck in my mind to- 
 night, when the praying fit had exhausted itself and the 
 agonizing anxiety was wearing off. Emotion always 
 brings its own reaction, and I could scarcely even think 
 in sequence as I lay through the small hours listening to 
 the wind dying down and not daring to stretch my cramped 
 arms lest I should awaken Dody. She would drop some- 
 times into an uneasy sleep, but at the least movement 
 of mine would start and begin afresh her piteous moan. 
 
 The New Testament words kept repeating themselves 
 — sometimes a whole verse, sometimes a word or two 
 here and there. . . .
 
 SISTER SORROW 237 
 
 " For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
 against principalities, against powers, against the rulers 
 of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness 
 in high places." 
 
 And then : 
 
 " Taking the shield of faith . . . the helmet of salva- 
 tion and the sword of the spirit. . . . 
 " Praying always. ..." 
 
 I know now, though for a long while I did not know, 
 that I went through a spiritual crisis during those hours, 
 and that for the first time, there came into my soul a 
 glimmering perception of the Eternal Mystery of Love. 
 
 XIII 
 
 THE world had altogether changed next morning. 
 There was no wind now to speak of, and the gale 
 might have been part of an evil dream, but for the evi- 
 dences of tempest in the shape of dead wood, beaten down 
 saplings and debris of sorts cumbering the hillside, which 
 I saw on looking out from the French window of my 
 room. 
 
 But Dody, tying in my bed, made it certain that I 
 had not dreamed the experience of those dark hours. 
 She was like one from whom all the strength had gone 
 out — a white lily dead before the leaves had wilted. She 
 was weak as a new-born babe and, when she spoke, her 
 voice was scarcely audible. But she looked at me with 
 sane eyes which seemed to be asking dumbly what had 
 happened to her, and then stared round in blank wonder, 
 having apparently forgotten the events of the night. 
 
 " Your room ! . . . How ? . . . Why ? " . . . she 
 murmured feebly. 
 
 I did not want her to be reminded of her midnight 
 terror,*now that it had passed.
 
 238 SISTER SORROW 
 
 ' We were both frightened by the wind," I said. 
 
 She followed my glance to the corner of the room, where 
 the strip of canvas ceiling had broken away from the 
 nails that had held it to the beam. 
 
 " Does it often blow like that ? " I asked. 
 
 She answered with more collectedness than she had 
 shown lately, but speaking slowly and faintly. 
 
 " Yes ... I remember one night ... a hurricane. The 
 ceiling came down on my bed. . . . He was crossing the 
 Bay. . . . The boat upset — he was nearly drowned. . . . 
 And I knew it. ... I knew." 
 
 " You knew that he — your husband — was in danger ? " 
 
 ' Yes, — I always knew . . . that was, in the beginning. 
 
 . . . Then, when I had to stop here by myself, I was never 
 
 lonely, for I could follow him where he went. . . . Now, 
 
 I can't — any longer. I am alone — alone." 
 
 It was pitiful, the desolateness in her weak voice. 
 
 " Not while I'm with you. You'll see, everything will 
 be different now," I said. 
 
 She shook her head in mournful despair. 
 
 " It couldn't be different — in that way. He has shut 
 me off. He doesn't want me any more." 
 
 " But why ? — What does it mean ? " I exclaimed. 
 " And if he doesn't want you. ... A woman has got pride 
 and proper spirit. — Oh, Dody darling, why should you 
 . 
 
 ' You don't understand, Gagsie," she said. " It isn't 
 like that at all. . . . It's like — like being one of those 
 dead people who can't exist except by the life that some 
 living person puts into them. And when the life is taken 
 away — bit by bit. ..." She shuddered and covered her 
 face with her thin hands as if to shut out some painful 
 vision. " Oh, it's being tortured — dying by inches — 
 until you've become just a mass of corruption which ought 
 to be put into a grave. The sooner the better." 
 
 My nerves must have been terribly on the stretch, for 
 I laughed — laughed outright. It was all so grotesquely 
 uncanny that I simply couldn't stand it. I had been 
 looping up the mosquito curtains, and now I stopped
 
 SISTER SORROW 239 
 
 short and went out into the veranda. I felt that I must 
 see the sun, and the distant trees, and Nagbar Peak, so 
 that I might know the mainland was really only just across 
 the Narrows, and that on it were Mr. Pringle and Bee and 
 Bel and other healthy commonplace people I knew — 
 people who were free from morbid fancies and had never 
 had to fight the powers of darkness. 
 
 I took in two or three long breaths of the pure, gum- 
 fragrant air and went back to the bed where Dody was 
 sitting up now against the pillows rocking herself to and 
 fro and with her face still hidden. I finished fastening up 
 the mosquito curtains and the sun streamed into the room 
 through the wide-open window. I bent over Dody, took 
 away her hands from her face, holding them in both my 
 own, and spoke with the cheerful authority of a nurse to 
 a sick-brained patient. 
 
 " Now, darling, I'm not going to have you talking any 
 more of that graveyard nonsense — the last remains of 
 dengue or fever and ague or whatever it is that has poisoned 
 your blood. I've got some ideas about curing you that 
 we'll talk about presently. The first things you have to 
 do is to eat some breakfast. Then you're going to bathe 
 and dress and, after that, to lie in a long chair on the 
 veranda and listen to what I'm going to say to you." 
 
 I found that this practical tone was the best to adopt 
 with Dody and all the time, as I saw that it was succeeding, 
 I prayed inwardly to be guided to the wisest way of 
 dealing with her. She ate some breakfast, dressed with 
 my help, and was at last established with books and 
 needlework in the pleasantest corner of the veranda. 
 The air was really delicious this morning. The mosquitoes 
 had been driven away by the storm, which seemed also 
 to have routed out the forest birds, for there were several 
 kinds I did not know flying about the hillside in unsettled 
 fashion, and I heard various notes that were unfamiliar 
 to me. I learned, by and by, that at this time, many 
 strange birds came to, and went from the Island north and 
 southward, and I grew to know the different species. 
 There was the dragoon-bird with its series of sharp whistles,
 
 240 SISTER SORROW 
 
 and one of the honey-eater tribe, the call of which sounded 
 like this — Goo-oo-r-ring-cr-roo-oo. And there was the 
 scolding screech of the drongo-shrike and the soft Bool- 
 loo -oo -loo -loo of a cooing pigeon which I discovered 
 was very fond of the paw-paw fruit and would haunt 
 the deserted garden at the foot of the hill. Of course 
 there were parrots and cockatoos roosting in the dead 
 gum-trees and there was a little brown bird like a thrush 
 with a golden breast, so tame that it actually perched on 
 the veranda-railings and picked up some crumbs Dody 
 made me strew for it. I was so thankful to see that she 
 took an interest in the birds, though, technically, she 
 knew very little about them. She told me that she liked 
 feeding them and that she could imitate some of their 
 notes so that when she sat quiet in the Bush they would 
 come at her call. I thought within myself that maybe 
 these little wild creatures had been in some measure 
 instruments of healing to her disordered mind. 
 
 I encouraged her to talk of the birds as I moved about, 
 myself, doing little odd jobs and keeping an eye on the 
 approaches to the station. 
 
 I told her that I was looking out for Crankshaw and 
 that I meant to have a talk with him about the possibilities 
 of getting about on the Island and I gave her a little lecture 
 about her own inertia much as I used to do at Barolin, 
 telling her that she must " buck up," and show Mr. Wilkins 
 when he came back that he'd got to reckon with a woman 
 who could stand out for her rights. 
 
 " He'll have to reckon with an outraged guest as well," 
 I added grimly. " Oh ! I tell you, Dody, that I shall have 
 a few things to say to Mr. Wilkins when he gives me the 
 opportunity. For one thing, I mean to ask him why he 
 asked me up here if he meant to treat me in this extremely 
 rude fashion. What was his object, my dear, in telling 
 you to invite me ? I really want to know." 
 
 Dody had been growing quite natural while we talked 
 about the birds, and now she responded to my cue, and 
 answered with the guilelessness of one of God's own fools. 
 
 " But, didn't he tell you, Agatha ? Phil said that he
 
 SISTER SORROW 241 
 
 wanted you to invest some money in the station. He told 
 me to try and persuade you." 
 
 " But why me, of all people ? " I asked, secretly amused 
 and thinking to myself that Mr. Phil Wilkins must take 
 me for as big a fool about business, almost, as his wife. 
 " Why not get hold of a practical bushman with more 
 capital to spare than I have and more brains and experience 
 who would help him in stocking and managing the run ? ' 
 
 ' He said he did not want anybody who'd interfere 
 with his management," she answered. " He said you'd 
 be the sleeping partner and that he'd pay you good interest 
 on your money." 
 
 " Very kind of him, I'm sure," I said. " But I don't 
 follow his reasoning. He says he doesn't want to have his 
 management interfered with ; yet he told me that he 
 meant to chuck the place . . . sell it and get rid of it — 
 or else put in a manager and live elsewhere." 
 
 She broke in excitedly, but with a note of terrified 
 anxiety in her voice. 
 
 " Oh, Gagsie, did he say that ? . . . Did he really mean 
 that he might leave the Island ? " 
 
 " He said so. Whether he meant it or not, I can't tell 
 you. Would you like that, Dody ? " 
 
 She looked round upon the forbidding landscape in a 
 vacuous manner. " I — don't know," she said. " There's 
 something about the Island that claims me . . . holds 
 me. . . . I've never thought about the Island apart . . . 
 apart from him. . . ." 
 
 ' Well," I said, " speaking practically, I should be 
 thankful for your sake, if you went away. From what 
 I've seen, I don't consider that Oronga Island, hereabouts 
 at any rate, is a fit place for white men to live in, let alone 
 white women. . . . Only I wish I understood why Mr. 
 Wilkins wants me to back his venture. Is it that the 
 venture has proved beyond him, and that my money is to 
 pull him safely out of his difficulty ? I conclude that he 
 bought the station in the usual way, paying only a small 
 part of the purchase money and the rest on mortgage. Do 
 you know if the bank is going to come down upon him ? ' 
 
 16
 
 242 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Dolores looked mystified. I daresay she didn't under- 
 stand that " the bank coming down " on anyone, meant, 
 then, in Australian squatters' vernacular, foreclosing 
 the mortgage. 
 
 " I don't know," she said. " Phil wouldn't tell me 
 
 that." 
 
 " No," I retorted. " He only tells you that you must 
 save money and do without things you ought to have — 
 a proper riding horse, for example, a piano, a Chinese 
 gardener, and heaps of other — necessities, I call them, 
 not luxuries. And he can't afford to give you a trip South 
 when you need the change so badly, yet he's able to gad 
 about continually himself." 
 
 I spoke angrily and indeed I felt so. But I saw that I 
 had hurt her and was sorry I had let myself go. 
 
 " Never mind, Dody — don't look so scared ; and for 
 heaven's sake don't cry. I'm afraid there are lots of 
 Bush husbands like Mr. Wilkins. Perhaps, he'll see 
 differently when I've given him a little piece of my mind." 
 
 This announcement of my intentions frightened and 
 distressed her still more. 
 
 " Oh no, Gagsie," she cried in her weak voice. ' You 
 mustn't say such things to Phil. You don't understand. 
 He'd think I'd been talking about him— complaining. 
 . I'm not complaining. . . . I — I like the Island. . . . 
 I wouldn't go away if I could. ... I want nothing . . . 
 nothing but him." 
 
 I had struck the wrong track. 
 
 " All right, my dear. ... I won't say or do anything 
 you don't want." 
 
 "And as for riding," she went on with a touch of peevish- 
 ness. " You know I always hated riding. And I told 
 y 0U — there's not a horse on the station I could ride." 
 
 " All right," I said again. " I won't bother you to ride 
 if you'd rather not. I'll only set you a good example ; 
 and I'm going soon to see what Crankshaw can do for 
 me in that line."
 
 SISTER SORROW 243 
 
 XIV 
 
 I LEFT her for a minute to go and fetch something 
 from my room. It was a piece of embroidery I had 
 designed for her to work. Dody used to love embroider- 
 ing my patterns of wild flowers and fruit. This was one 
 I had made out of the orange flowers and small early seed- 
 pods of the Moreton Bay chestnut tree under which we 
 used to sit on the banks of the Ubi. I reminded her of it 
 again and of the stories she used to tell Bee and Bel about 
 the Leichardt's Land breed of fairies and her idea that 
 they used the pods of the wild chestnut for barges in 
 which to float down the river. Dody smiled wistfully. Her 
 forehead smoothed. . . . Nature and fairies . . . these 
 two ideas had always appealed to her. And the embroidery 
 too. She became interested in the stitches I had put in 
 for her guidance, and fingered the skeins of silk caressingly 
 — silk in art shades of golden-yellow, brown and green. 
 She had a delicate sense of colour ; and I now shuddered 
 inwardly as I thought of the effect that crude blue in the 
 rooms she inhabited must have had upon her. 
 
 She had forgotten how to do the stitches. I threaded 
 needles and she plied them under my direction, clumsily 
 at first, but soon with deftness and zest. This was a great 
 encouragement to me, and I decided that I was adopting 
 the right line — a cheerful, practical harking back upon the 
 small daily pleasantnesses of our life together at Barolin, 
 and, so far as was possible, an avoidance of subjects that 
 led up to her first meeting with Mr. Wilkins and the short 
 time preceding her marriage. 
 
 For myself, I was now so absorbed in Dody that the 
 personal considerations by which I had been troubled on 
 first arriving seemed of secondary account. My mis- 
 givings at the prospect of semi-imprisonment on the 
 Island, without letters or news, aggravated by mosquitoes 
 
 16*
 
 244 SISTER SORROW 
 
 and discomfort generally, I put aside as selfish and puerile. 
 Though my soul was filled with abhorrence of Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins and with bewildering doubts and suspicions about 
 him, about the two Jiminies, and even Crankshaw, my 
 anxieties in this respect seemed dim and far away in com- 
 parison with the fierce-gripping conviction that had seized 
 me of Dody's urgent need. When I thought for a moment 
 about my own state of mind, everything melted into that 
 overwhelming sense of responsibility — that extraordinary 
 outrush of devotion to her which had come upon me in the 
 night. I could not understand it. I never attempted to 
 analyse it. One does not analyse a feeling that is strong 
 enough to dominate absolutely, for the time being, all other 
 feelings. It had been borne in upon me, by what super- 
 mundane agency I cannot tell, that this was my job — that 
 I had been brought to the Island to do it, and that help 
 and guidance in the manner of doing it would be given me 
 as I went along. I knew in some strange, inward way 
 that I was meant to save Dolores ; that I was meant to be 
 an instrument of some great White Power pitted against 
 the Black Forces— if only I were strong enough and good 
 enough to respond to the call. I didn't think exactly of 
 God — or of Christ, for could not They have done anything 
 they chose without the need of a poor little instrument 
 such as I was. I thought of a Power nearer earth — a 
 kind of St. George of Australia. One who would compre- 
 hend the limitations of the Bush, the impossibility of 
 procuring things needful, the trouble about the men and 
 the horses and all that. One who would make allowance 
 for my ignorance and helplessness and would understand 
 Dody's languor and her disinclination for the effort of 
 riding to the Pilot station, which all the time was the plan 
 at the back of my mind. 
 
 Yet deeper than any trust in mundane plans was the 
 conviction that I had been enlisted in some mystic way to 
 fight under my St. George, for Dody, against the ruler of 
 the darkness of this world — against a special spiritual 
 wickedness which had its lair in this place. 
 
 I knew, in the way that, I fancy, people know when they
 
 SISTER SORROW 245 
 
 are suddenly converted — when, as they phrase it, they have 
 " got salvation." But though I am putting down these 
 ideas as relating to this particular stage, I could not then 
 frame them in words or reason them out to myself, as I 
 did, by bits, at odd times later. 
 
 While I was showing Dody the stitches in the embroidery, 
 I looked up and saw Crankshaw riding to the house by the 
 north track from the Narrows Crossing. He was leading, 
 with considerable difficulty, a mettlesome chestnut, which 
 had two empty saddle-bags slung across its back, and he 
 was mounted on a fine black horse of a thoroughbred strain 
 and of the racer cut. I had had no notion that Mr. Wilkins 
 owned such splendid horses, and felt a great desire to mount 
 one of them, though I knew that either of them would take 
 some riding. 
 
 Crankshaw did not come round by the veranda, but 
 turned off by the kitchen on his way towards the stockyard. 
 
 Dolores' head was bent over her embroidery, and as she 
 had not seen Crankshaw, I thought it as well to say nothing 
 until I had had my talk with him. So I made the excuse 
 of running down to the so-called garden for a fresh paw- 
 paw fruit for luncheon and begged her to go on working at 
 her flower so that I should see when I came back whether 
 she had remembered the exact colour of our Ubi chestnut- 
 bloom. 
 
 She nodded contentedly, and I put on my hat and ran 
 full-speed down the hill. Instead of going to the stock- 
 yard, Crankshaw had dismounted at his own hut. Both 
 horses were hitched to the posts supporting a bough- 
 shade and he had begun unsaddling them. I slowed to a 
 walk, and presently he saw and came towards me. I had 
 determined to appeal to his evident liking for me, and 
 greeted him affably. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Crankshaw. Those are beautiful 
 horses." 
 
 " Fine," said he. " My word ! I believe you. But they 
 take a lot of riding." 
 
 ' That's just what I was thinking when you rode up. I 
 should like to try the chestnut."
 
 246 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " My Lord ! that 'iid be some cheek ! " he answered 
 with a laugh that was half-contemptuous and half- 
 approving. ' If you was to put your hand out so much as 
 to let him think you were going to touch him, he'd bite you 
 for sure. D'ye know he killed two men before he was 
 broken in — at least, that's what they told me." 
 
 ' You've not been on the Island very long — only about 
 nine months — isn't it ? " I asked. 
 
 " Who tells you that ? " he asked sharply. 
 
 " Anybody might, I suppose — Mrs. Meake — or Mrs. 
 Wilkins." 
 
 " Oh, it's all right," he said. " The Rogue— that's the 
 chestnut — was here when I came, and nobody dursn't 
 mount him until Ricky — that's the pocky one of the 
 Jiminies — lassoed him and did it." 
 
 " I think those twins are the oddest men I ever saw," I 
 said. " What country do they come from, Mr. Crank- 
 shaw ? " 
 
 " I couldn't say." 
 
 " But you've known Mr. Wilkins a long time, haven't 
 you ? " 
 
 ' Phil Wilkins is a queer cuss," was his enigmatic 
 rejoinder. " He gits you somehow." 
 
 ' Nobody need be got if they don't want to," I said. 
 
 " It twists me," Crankshaw went on, " the way he 
 does git hold. Men and women, all alike, — women as much 
 and more'n men. I've seen women go almost mad for 
 Phil — women's always been his weak side. Look you here, 
 Miss Carfax," he added, straightening his neck and putting 
 his funny little goatee into line with his chest, so that he 
 suggested a peculiarly cute and benevolently far-seeing 
 "Uncle Sam." "Just you be keerful. Don't let Phil 
 Wilkins git you." 
 
 " I don't think you need be afraid of that," I answered. 
 ' For one thing, I'm much too angry with Mr. Wilkins to 
 take kindly to his influence." 
 
 ' Angry ! . . . Eh ! . . . Wa'al, I'm not surprised 
 }7ou're a bit huffy. The Boss didn't ought to have run away 
 like that — anyhow, without explaining the circumstances.
 
 SISTER SORROW 247 
 
 It warn't fair leaving you by yourself with — with — " he 
 paused and finished euphemistically — " with things as they 
 are." 
 
 " Why did he run away ? " I asked. 
 
 " It was a sudden business call. . . . Something un- 
 foreseen." 
 
 " I don't see how that could be. He couldn't have got 
 a message since we came here, as there doesn't seem to be 
 any means of communication with the mainland." 
 
 " It might hev been a wire from the Pilot station." 
 Crankshaw's eyes were on the fidgeting horses as he spoke. 
 
 " I don't believe that. Mrs. Meake would have told 
 me." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Meake ! I wouldn't bank on Mrs. Meake, if 
 it was me." 
 
 " I don't mean to. I'd rather bank on you," I declared 
 boldly. 
 
 He looked pleased. " Wa'al now ! " he ejaculated. 
 
 " Mr. Crankshaw, have you many horses as good as those 
 in the paddock by the Narrows Crossing ? " I asked. 
 
 Again he pulled me up sharply. " Who's been telling 
 you about the paddock by the Narrows Crossing ? ' 
 
 " It was Dubbo this time." 
 
 He gave a short laugh. " I reckon, Miss Carfax, that 
 you're a young lady as sees not only in front of your nose, 
 but a good many points round it. And you ain't one to 
 lose information through not asking for it ? " 
 
 " Not when it's about horses. I've been brought up 
 among horses. I love horses, Mr. Crankshaw." 
 
 " We could shake on that," he said. ' So do I." 
 
 " I am perfectly miserable if I can't ride, and I don't 
 mind anything when I'm on the back of a good horse. . . ." 
 
 " I'd rather sit behind 'em with the reins in my hands," 
 he said. 
 
 I was too eager at the moment, in the pursuit of my own 
 objective, to note the significance of his remark. 
 
 ' Mr. Crankshaw, don't you think you could find me 
 a mount ? " 
 
 There was something in Crankshaw's face which showed
 
 248 SISTER SORROW 
 
 me that I might succeed in coaxing him. But just then the 
 Rogue made — for Crankshaw — an opportune diversion. 
 He began stamping and tugging at the tethering rein, 
 drawing his feet together and arching his back in a 
 distinctly vicious manner. 
 
 " You varmint ! None of your buck-jumping tricks. 
 . . . Keep steady, will you ? " 
 
 Crankshaw sprang round to the horse's left side, caught 
 the rein, deftly placed his soft felt hat over the beast's eye 
 and let himself be dragged round for a minute or two by the 
 animal's capers, making as if he were going to mount, 
 then, after a bit, quieted him down with voice and touch. 
 The black horse was jerking its head and stamping too. 
 
 " Look here, miss," Crankshaw flung over his shoulder 
 to me. " These brutes will break their bridles if I don't 
 look out. I've got to take 'm down to the yard." 
 
 " All right, I'll come too," I answered briskly. " I was 
 wanting a paw-paw fruit, and perhaps you'll be so kind 
 as to pull one down for me." 
 
 Crankshaw had his human side. Again he looked 
 pleased. I followed him at a safe distance, for he told me 
 to keep away from the horses' heels. I waited outside the 
 stockyard while he put them into the largest of the yards 
 and then vaulted the top rail of the fence into the so-called 
 garden adjoining. Presently he came out with a luscious 
 yellow paw-paw as large as a medium-sized pumpkin. 
 
 XV 
 
 THERE was a fallen tree near the track, and I invited 
 him to sit down upon it with me. He pulled out 
 his pipe and, without ceremony, began cutting tobacco from 
 a fig that he took from his breeches-pocket into the palm 
 of his hand. I returned to the charge. 
 
 " Mr. Crankshaw, you haven't told me what horses 
 you've got down in the paddock."
 
 SISTER SORROW 249 
 
 " There ain't so many, and none of them fit for a lady," 
 was his curt reply. 
 
 " Depends on the lady, doesn't it ? I don't want to 
 brag, but they did say I was the best woman-rider on the 
 Ubi." 
 
 " That so ? " 
 
 " I can sit anything except the worst sort of buck- 
 jumper." 
 
 " Then you couldn't sit the Rogue, for sure." 
 
 " What about the black horse that you were riding ? ' 
 
 " He's got a nasty mouth and can bolt some if he's 
 startled. No. ... I'd be had up before the coroner if I 
 put a woman on him." 
 
 " Aren't there any others ? Of course there must be 
 lots of horses." 
 
 " None as would do." 
 
 " Mr. Crankshaw, wouldn't you take me down to the 
 paddock and let me see if I can't spot a horse I could 
 ride ? " 
 
 He shook his head. " No use in it." He turned his 
 shoulder grumpily, and became engrossed in rolling the 
 cuttings of tobacco into a lump between his palms. I 
 edged a little closer to him. 
 
 " Mr. Crankshaw, what have I done that you should 
 treat me like a prisoner ? " 
 
 My reproachful tone moved him, for he stopped a 
 second in his rolling of the tobacco. Then he said, with a 
 greater show of ill-temper, " I wouldn't want to make a 
 prisoner of any woman : I don't like 'em well enough — 
 as a rule." 
 
 The qualifying clause was uttered in a different tone, and 
 was accompanied by a furtive side-glance at me. I 
 laughed outright — having, I am thankful to say, a sense of 
 humour. I felt certain now that I could manage Crank- 
 shaw. At my laugh a bricky flush came into his weather- 
 beaten face. He began putting the tobacco into the bowl 
 of his pipe and jabbing it with his thumb. I became 
 brazen in my advances. 
 
 " I wish you could make me an exception to that rule,
 
 250 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Mr. Crankshaw. I'm very sorry you don't like me, because 
 — you know — I did like you. You were so kind to me — 
 getting me on to the reef — and saying I behaved pluckily 
 in the boat — and making such a nice shelter for me that 
 awful night. ... I did hope, Mr. Crankshaw, that we were 
 going to be friends " 
 
 Crankshaw inspected the bowl of his pipe — it was more 
 than full, and I caught another furtive glance at me and saw 
 the red in his face deepening. But there was no other 
 response to my appeal. 
 
 I went on : " However, as you say, there's no use in it, 
 since you dislike me so much. So I'll not trouble you to 
 do anything more for me. Only " — I gave him a challeng- 
 ing smile — " let me warn you that I shall certainly try and 
 do something for myself." 
 
 " I don't know what sort of things " he began, and 
 
 at last he looked me straight in the eyes, and — gave himself 
 away. " I'll allow," he said, " you're the only woman I've 
 struck for some considerable time that it 'ud be any satis- 
 faction to me to " — he seemed at a loss for suitable words, 
 and after a little further manipulation of his pipe, brought 
 out — " to play about with a bit." 
 
 "That's splendid," I said. "We will play about 
 together a bit, and I shall now look upon you as a friend. 
 Mr. Crankshaw, you're going to let me try that black 
 horse ? " 
 
 ' I dursn't. These two horses I brought up to-day 
 have got to be shod — and to spell a day or two and to 
 have a feed or so of corn, so as to be ready for work." 
 
 " Why ? There's nobody on the Island now to do an}' 
 station work." 
 
 Crankshaw was lighting his pipe and took no notice of 
 my remark. He went off on another tack. 
 
 " Wa'al, I might find a horse that 'ud carry you, miss, 
 if you're such a good rider as all that ; and I don't see 
 what harm there'd be in showing you round the Island 
 a bit. There's some rare pretty views on the other side. 
 You wouldn't think it from this, but I've reckoned that 
 the man who fixed up the Head-station here, did it because
 
 SISTER SORROW 251 
 
 of the convenience to the Narrows for working the stock. 
 ... I tell you, though "... as a thought appeared to 
 strike him ..." what's against your riding about on 
 this run is that there ain't a side-saddle in the whole 
 denied harness lay-out." 
 
 " If that's all ! " I cried. " Just you bring me up the 
 horse, Mr. Crankshaw, and I'll show you how I can ride 
 without a side-saddle. I could even do what you'd call 
 a bare-back stunt." 
 
 " You don't say! " with interested admiration. 
 
 " I've done it — when I was a kid. . . . But you leave 
 me to fix up my own saddle. And you'll fetch up the 
 horse, won't you, as soon as you can ? " 
 
 " I can't get it before to-morrow, some time. If I can, 
 I'll fetch 'im then. Or it'll be a 'er most likely." 
 
 "Anyway, you promise? Honest Injun?" 
 
 " That's so." 
 
 " And mind," I said, " we've agreed that we're going 
 to be friends. Let's shake hands on it." 
 
 I held out my hand. He looked 'down at his own 
 stained and roughened palm. 
 
 " I guess I ain't fit to shake hands with a lady," and 
 he added in a burst of candour : " Maybe for more reasons 
 than you are aware of, miss." 
 
 " I don't want to know the reasons ; so you can leave 
 it at that. And I meant what I said," I answered. He 
 gripped my hand hard and let it drop. 
 
 ' Wa'al, if you like to believe I've cavorted through the 
 Decalogue for the good of my health, you're welcome to 
 do so," he said with a grim twist of his lips. 
 
 " One thing I'm certain you've never done — you couldn't 
 round on a pal," I said. 
 
 " No, I couldn't," and he added darkly : " Better for me 
 p'r'aps if I could." 
 
 He was lighting his pipe and had his head down^from 
 me. Now that I had partly done what I'd set out to 
 accomplish and had got the treaty, so to speak, accepted 
 as regards first principles, I began to feel shaky and 
 slightly emotional.
 
 252 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " Mr. Crankshaw," I said, " I'm thankful you're going 
 to be a friend to me. I have never wanted one so much 
 in my life." 
 
 He looked at me commiseratingly over the smoke of 
 his pipe as he drew in and emitted long whiffs. 
 
 "I savvy," he said. "You've been feeling almighty 
 blue and lonesome in this god-forsaken old Island, and 
 it 'ud be beyond reason — woman's reason, if you were 
 entertaining exactly Christian sentiments towards the 
 lot of us. But, as I told you, the Boss ain't altogether to 
 blame for having business sudden on the mainland, 
 and, as I'm here, I'll do my best to show you round, so 
 long as I can, and make things a little more cheerful 
 for you. Don't you go troubling about yourself, Miss 
 Carfax." 
 
 " I'm not troubling about myself, I'm troubling about 
 Mrs. Wilkins. I'm frightfully troubled about her." 
 
 His face changed. He looked worried himself. 
 
 " How's that ? Judging by appearances, I made out 
 that you were easier in your mind this morning, and that 
 you'd both got over that snake scare." 
 
 " It wasn't that. She is better to-day, but she was 
 very ill last night." 
 
 " Fever — shakes ? " 
 
 " Partly — it was worse than that. Mr. Crankshaw, 
 I've had a terrible shock in finding Mrs. Wilkins so changed. 
 You see, she lived with us, and we were like sisters, she 
 and I, and I hadn't heard from her — to speak of — or seen 
 her, going on for three years, until I came here the other 
 day." 
 
 " She used to be different then — before she got 
 married ? " he asked. 
 
 " Different ! Can't you understand for yourself what 
 a change there must be ? " 
 
 " Wa'al, I ain't noticed any perticler change in this 
 nine months or so. But I don't have much truck with 
 the house 'cept when I come up to the office on business. 
 I ain't spoken more than would make a printed page of 
 a dime novel with the Boss's missus. He keeps her to
 
 SISTER SORROW 253 
 
 himself, and I made out that he had his reasons for so 
 doing." 
 
 " What reasons ? " I asked pointedly. 
 
 Crankshaw hesitated a moment, then said bluntly : 
 
 " Well, I guess, miss, that you've suspicioned since 
 you've been here, same as the lot of us — that Mrs. Wilkins 
 ain't quite right in her head. Harmless, poor thing ! 
 but touched, for sure." 
 
 He lifted his finger to his forehead as Mrs. Meake had 
 done. 
 
 I shuddered at finding my secret dread put for the 
 second time into bald words, but I would not admit my 
 own fear. 
 
 " Mr. Crankshaw, you oughtn't to say that. Of course, 
 I see that the fever, or whatever the illness may be, has 
 upset Mrs. Wilkins' nerves most frightfully, and I think 
 it's perfectly barbarous that she shouldn't have had a 
 doctor and proper treatment. If her mind were to 
 become affected, it's her husband who would be to blame. 
 He had no right to marry a delicate, highly-strung woman 
 and bring her to this desolate place. And then to leave 
 her alone as he has done ! No wonder she has been driven 
 into a nervous fever." 
 
 Crankshaw took his pipe out of his mouth and looked 
 into the bowl of it as though he expected to find there a 
 solution of the problem. 
 
 ' I ain't had much to do with what you call highly- 
 strung women," he said. ' But I surmise that sort ain't 
 the right sort for the Bush. The Boss's business — being 
 what it is — he's got to be away a good deal, and an island 
 ain't the mainland, and you can't make it so. Though, 
 mind you, I wouldn't perjure my soul — supposin' I'd 
 got one — in swearing that Phil Wilkins ain't never gone 
 on the spree. It's his nature to. But you've hit it when 
 you said he didn't oughter have married and brought her 
 to this old hell of a skeeter-populated piece of territory. 
 Where I'm clean beat is — what did Phil marry her for 
 at all?" 
 
 He looked into his pipe and added darkly in a half-
 
 254 SISTER SORROW 
 
 mumble — I got to know that Crankshaw had a way of 
 muttering to himself : "I should ha' thought he'd had 
 enough of that kind of job." 
 
 I caught him up — too eagerly. 
 
 " What do you mean by that, Mr. Crankshaw ? " 
 
 He seemed taken back for the moment : then turned 
 on me a blank stare which I suspected to have been 
 manufactured for the occasion. 
 
 " Eh ... I wasn't aware of remarkin' anything 
 special — except that it beat me why Phil married his 
 Missus." 
 
 " To say the truth, I've often wondered that myself ; 
 and I wish you'd enlighten me," I said. 
 
 " That I can't do," Crankshaw answered decidedly. 
 " Phil never told me, and I ain't ever laid claim, Miss 
 Carfax, to being one of those hanky-panky chaps that 
 can read what's in people's minds. But I reckon that a 
 woman's looks are what mostly does the trick, and I 
 guess that Mrs. W. must hev been fair attractive when 
 Phil first came her way. Not my style — but she wur — 
 sort of taking, weren't she ? " 
 
 I answered stiffly that Mrs. Wilkins had certainly 
 been attractive as a girl. 
 
 " Wa'al there ! Y'see, Phil weren't one to pass along 
 the other side when a pretty girl gev him the glad eye, 
 and then it kinder tickles up a chap's vanity, at the start, 
 being shown he's sun and moon and stars and the whole 
 derned universal lay-out to a soft cuddlin' thing he's 
 taken a fancy for. Marriage, though ! That's a stiff 
 proposition, and I should ha' reckoned on Phil making a 
 bolt before the lasso got him." 
 
 Crankshaw put back his pipe and took a long pull, 
 while I waited, like a dog, I thought to myself, watching 
 for scraps of meat. My gorge rose in revulsion, and I 
 hated the idea of discussing Dolores in this fashion. But 
 I was sharp enough to know that anything I could learn 
 would be a help to me in engineering the situation. I 
 was disappointed, however. Crankshaw did not vouch- 
 safe any further hints as to Mr. Phil Wilkins' pre-matri-
 
 SISTER SORROW 255 
 
 monial experiences. With a detached air, he shunted 
 that part of the subject. 
 
 " Anyhow, it ain't my affair . . . but, say, miss — what 
 way was Mrs. Wilkins so bad last night ? Worse nor 
 the shakes you told me. Why was you so scared ? ' 
 
 I couldn't stand it any longer. The mood of appeal to 
 Crankshaw had passed. And I had achieved my main 
 object — the extension of boundaries in both space and 
 sympathy, and could afford to await developments. 
 Besides, I had left Dody too long. 
 
 So I got up, making this excuse and saying that I would 
 tell him more about Mrs. Wilkins' illness when we went 
 out for our ride the next day. 
 
 He looked a little disappointed, a little doubtful. I 
 nailed him to his bond. 
 
 "I'm counting on your promise, Mr. Crankshaw. What 
 time will you be up at the house with my horse ? " 
 
 " I've got to find him," he said grumpily. " 'Twon't 
 be till afternoon at any rate." 
 
 On that understanding, we parted. I saw him, later 
 on, riding the black horse along the North Track to the 
 Narrows, and concluded that he had gone on his quest. 
 
 XVI 
 
 I HAD thought of astonishing Crankshaw by an exhibi- 
 tion of my equestrian powers — straddle-legged or 
 bare-backed, if necessary, but on consideration decided 
 to preserve my feminine dignity as far as was possible. 
 Of course, I had sometimes ridden man-fashion, but, in 
 those days, it was not such a common practice as it is 
 now, and, as I had been taught on a woman's saddle to 
 sit a pig- jump — and even a mild buck- jump, to curb a 
 fierce bolter and to leap a post-and-rail fence, it seemed, 
 on the whole, safest to keep to my sideways-saddle. 
 
 Fortunately, I found, in a corner of the office, a man's
 
 256 SISTER SORROW 
 
 saddle with a high pommel and curved safety flaps — the 
 sort of saddle that new-chums bring out with them, and 
 which looked as if it had not been used for a long time. 
 With some contrivance, I managed to rig a sort of second 
 pommel, which, when Crankshaw saw it, he pronounced 
 a " real smart contraption." He did not bring the horses 
 up on show to the house, but carried the saddle and led 
 me down to the large stockyard where we tried the two 
 he had fetched from the mysterious paddock — he mount- 
 ing first and flapping a blanket against the animals' sides. 
 One of them didn't like it at all — a fiery, rather fractious 
 bay, to which I took a great fancy and felt sure I could 
 manage when he got accustomed to firm, kind treatment. 
 He was one of those nervous, sensitive horses which are 
 fiends under rough handling, but which often respond 
 kindly to a woman's fingers on the reins. I felt sure that 
 when the bay had been broken a bit more, he and I would 
 get on all right together, for he was not a bit vicious like 
 the Rogue, or uncertain-tempered like Crankshaw's black 
 horse, which he positively refused to let me mount. I 
 could see when I expounded my views upon horses to 
 Crankshaw that I went up much higher in his esteem. 
 And, after I had ridden the bay a few times round the 
 big stockyard, he owned that I'd got " the right hang of 
 him," but he said he dursn't trust him yet with the skirt 
 among the trees and would like to quiet him himself a 
 bit first. I agreed, though it looked like coming off my 
 equestrian pedestal, for I reflected that, if by chance I 
 got thrown and hurt I should not be of much use to Dody. 
 The other horse — a beautiful iron-grey mare with an 
 Arab strain — was an absolute contradiction to Crank- 
 shaw's statement that there were no horses on the station 
 fit for a lady to ride. This one had been used to the skirt, 
 I felt sure of it ; and all that Crankshaw had against her 
 was that she was " a good bit of a shier." I took her 
 outside the yard and found she had a canter as easy as 
 a rocking-horse when she settled to her stride, though at 
 first she was troublesome to get in hand. I told Crankshaw 
 that I could not understand why she had not been trained
 
 SISTER SORROW 257 
 
 for Mrs. Wilkins, and said that I would ride her with that 
 object. 
 
 " Maybe if you asked the Boss, he'd tell you he'd got 
 her for the Missus," said Crankshavv, but he didn't look 
 at me when he spoke. " We've only had her for a week 
 or two," he added. 
 
 I asked him where she had come from, but " Somewhere 
 Nagbar way " was all I got out of him. 
 
 What struck me about all these horses was that they 
 had the racing stamp upon them and might have been 
 chosen for their fleetness. That puzzled me. They weren't 
 the breed I was used to in stock-horses. But then there 
 were so many things that were puzzling about the manage- 
 ment of Oronga Island cattle-station. 
 
 From that ride I came home a different being. I no longer 
 felt a prisoner. Crankshaw took me to the Narrows 
 Crossing, about six miles off, through country a little more 
 fertile and picturesque, after the first mile or two, than 
 that about the Head-station. Dropping along a cattle 
 track parallel with the gully where I had found Dody, 
 we came upon a string of waterholes on which were pink 
 and blue lilies, and, growing round about the pools, a new 
 kind of gum — immensely tall and with drooping grey- 
 green foliage. Of course, the wattle was all in bloom, and 
 there were other spring blossoms, too far from the house 
 for me to have become acquainted with them as yet. We 
 passed some patches of scrub, and here were many other 
 forest trees — among them one, the flowers of which gave 
 out a disagreeable cloying scent, which Crankshaw told 
 me was the cockatoo-apple. 
 
 I rode the Arab mare — Zillah was her name — and 
 Crankshaw the fiery bay. It was quite true that the Arab 
 was " a good bit of a shyer." Once, when a bird rising 
 startled her, she would have had me off if I had been 
 riding a little more carelessly. We were cantering over a 
 sandy flat, overgrown with a low grey-green plant, bearing 
 lavender spikes of bloom which interested me, for the 
 horses' hoofs seemed to be treading out spicy herbs, so 
 aromatic was the perfume. 
 
 17
 
 258 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Beyond a few topographical remarks, Crankshaw said 
 little. Most of the time, we rode single-file, and I thought 
 he seemed uneasy in his mind and that he was repenting 
 of having yielded to my flattering importunities. 
 
 I was too happy seeing new country from the back of 
 a horse to worry about that or other things. The flat 
 became forest ; the forest merged into the vivid, unhealthy 
 mangrove green, and beyond, stretched the Narrows like 
 a great inland lake. At one place the mangrove fringe 
 parted, and, on a widish strip of grass and shingle, a stoutly- 
 built stockyard sloped into the water. Inside the fence 
 was a boat-house with log slips and a padlocked door. 
 
 Crankshaw dismounted, let down the slip-rails, and we 
 rode into the yard. He told me this was where cattle 
 were ciossed, and that it was the narrowest part of the 
 straits. Now, at half-tide, I gauged the span at about a 
 mile and a half. I asked Crankshaw why the Narrows 
 passage was never used by coasting steamers. He told me 
 that the deepest channel in the middle was very narrow, 
 with only draught enough at full tide for small craft, and 
 that, even then, it was a ticklish business because of 
 shoals and shifting currents, although, from here, the strait 
 looked big enough for a fleet of ships to sail down it. 
 
 Looking across, I could discern a yard somewhat similar 
 to this one on the opposite shore. At the back of the 
 mangrove fringe, the mainland bush spread in grey-green 
 waves, with Nagbar Peak in the far distance. Somewhere 
 over there, I reflected, lay Malpa Downs. A long ride, but 
 once across the Narrows, it could easily be managed. 
 Oh, if only I could get hold of Mr. Pringle and take counsel 
 with him as to the rescuing of Dody ! But even Mr. Pringle 
 could not force a wife away from her husband against her 
 will. 
 
 We bad dismounted. Crankshaw went to the boat-house 
 and tried the padlocked door, as if to satisfy himself that 
 it had not been tampered with. Then, springing like a 
 cat, one hand catching the eaves, he peered in at a ventila- 
 tion hole under the roof. I followed him to the boat-house, 
 noticing the thick, well-grooved slabs fitting closely into
 
 SISTER SORROW 259 
 
 the joists, and I rather wondered at the care with which 
 the building had been constructed. I should have liked 
 to look inside, but the hole was too high for me to reach. 
 Crankshaw said he had not brought the key of the door. 
 
 I asked Crankshaw if the Island Queen was berthed 
 here, but he said that the Jiminics had had to take her 
 further up the Narrows. He did not seem inclined to be 
 communicative on the subject. Strolling along the shingle 
 to a strip that jutted into the water, I stood at the edge, 
 then involuntarily started back, for close to shore I saw 
 the unmistakable fins of several sharks. 
 
 " It ain't so easy to cross as you might fane} 7 ," said 
 Crankshaw, who had joined me. " Hungry devils, the 
 Narrows sharks. There don't come much flesh this way, 
 except when a mob's being swum across, and then it 
 takes a deal of shouting and splashing to keep the brutes 
 off." 
 
 Looking up the strait, which widened northward against 
 the horizon, I noticed what I knew by the cut of the sails 
 to be a small schooner. Pointing it out to Crankshaw, I 
 saw that he was looking at it with great interest through 
 a pair of field-glasses. Odd equipment for a stockman, 
 I thought at the time, but when he handed them to me 
 I was too much interested in examining the ship to remark 
 upon that. 
 
 He told me, in answer to my question, that he thought 
 the schooner was a guano trader to and from some little 
 islands inside the Great Barrier Reef. He took back the 
 glasses, and presently was again studying the schooner 
 from a rock further up the shingle. After a few minutes, 
 he returned and said we must be getting home, for he had 
 work to do on the Head-station. 
 
 Again he rode ahead of me, grim and meditative. 
 I had meant to talk to him about Dody's illness and to 
 sound him as to the possibility of summoning the Leuraville 
 doctor by cable from the Pilot station. I was beginning 
 to feel, however, that Crankshaw might not be so easy 
 to manage as I had at first imagined, and I remembered 
 what Mr. Wilkins had said about Crankshaw having his 
 
 17*
 
 26o SISTER SORROW 
 
 orders in case — which I did not think was likely — Mr. 
 Helsing put in an appearance at the Head-station. Evi- 
 dently, Crankshaw was deeper in his master's confidence 
 than he wished me to know. 
 
 I said nothing about Dolores, but, in the yard, before he 
 led the horses down the hill, I asked him if he would take 
 me the next day to the ocean side of the island. 
 
 He refused — said he had work to do on the run, but that 
 perhaps he might be able to take me the day after, or the 
 day after that again. 
 
 I begged him, if he were going after cattle, to let me go 
 with him, assuring him that he would find me quite a good 
 stock-hand. He was still peremptory in his refusal — said 
 that he was going too far ; and when I asked him in which 
 direction, he didn't seem to want to tell me until I pressed 
 him, and then he answered glumly : " South End way." 
 
 I urged him no more. The next afternoon, seeing nothing 
 of him about the Head-station, and having watched Dubbo 
 go off with the dray to fetch firewood, I thought I'd put into 
 execution a plan I had conceived in the night. 
 
 I hated the idea of losing a day, perhaps two, in the 
 taming of Zillah for Dody's future use. Crankshaw 
 had said he would keep the Arab and the bay, handy for 
 fetching up, in a little paddock close to the stockyard where 
 the two or three milkers pastured. If I could only run 
 Zillah up, I thought, I might saddle her and go out 
 riding by myself. 
 
 It has to be a very small paddock in which you can run 
 up a fresh horse on foot, and I don't fancy Crankshaw 
 ever dreamed of my doing it. It wouldn't have been 
 possible, as I saw at once, but that, by the greatest luck, 
 the Arab mare was feeding by herself in a narrow three- 
 cornered bit of the paddock, slip-railed off, so that a horse 
 could be easily caught in it without the trouble of running 
 up the whole herd. The slip-rail was down, and I had 
 it put up before Zillah knew that she was trapped. 
 
 The rest was easy. After some frisking round, she let 
 me catch and bridle her. Then I led her up to my end 
 of the veranda, saddled her and rode off without even
 
 SISTER SORROW 261 
 
 Mrs. Meake being the wiser. I had seen first that Dody 
 was tucked in under the mosquito-net for her afternoon sleep. 
 It seemed best to take the road I knew, and so I turned 
 along the track to the Narrows Crossing. Again I can- 
 tered over the sandy flat and sniffed its aromatic fragrance. 
 To-day Zillah made no attempt to shy me off. We were 
 quickly getting to understand each other. 
 
 XVII 
 
 I'M a pretty good bushwoman, and, as I was out to 
 explore, I did not keep slavishly to the track. A 
 little way to the north of it, I struck a rocky knoll where 
 grew the first specimen I had ever seen of the beautiful 
 umbrella-tree of the tropics. A tall slender stem, topped 
 by three or four branches of enormous leaves, dark, glossy 
 green, with a long flower-spike budding beneath and 
 showing crimson at the sheath-tips. 
 
 I dismounted, hitched Zillah to a sapling and climbed 
 the knoll. The tree was much too high for me to do 
 anything but gaze up into the inside of the umbrella and 
 at the drooping bud-spike below it. But, from the rise, 
 I had a fine view of the Narrows lying close below me. 
 The tide was in, and, to my surprise, I could see anchored 
 in the channel, opposite the yard and strip of shingly beach 
 on which I had stood yesterday, the very schooner which 
 Crankshaw had told me was a guano boat. 
 
 Not a sign of guano to outside view. She looked an 
 ordinary small trader, with the South Seas, I supposed, 
 for one or two of the crew were, I saw, South Sea Islanders. 
 A white man, whom I took to be the captain, was standing 
 on the deck. Shifting my position on the knoll, I got a view 
 also of the boat-house and landing-stage and of a ship's 
 boat lying beside it. The Jimmies were on the steps, and 
 Crankshaw was standing with one foot on the land and 
 one on the boat. A South Sea Islander in the boat had
 
 262 SISTER SORROW 
 
 his oars shipped, and there was another brown man at the 
 tiller. 
 
 The Oronga Island men were doing just what they 
 had been doing when I first set eyes on them loading the 
 Island Queen at Currawilli. They were putting into this 
 boat what seemed to me exactly the same cases of grocery 
 that we had brought over from Currawilli, carrying them 
 from the boat-house and pushing them endwise from the 
 wharf into the bow of the boat, where Crankshaw saw 
 that they were carefully placed. 
 
 I don't think any of the men could possibly have seen 
 me where I stood, but instinct made me draw back and 
 crouch behind a rock whence I could still watch all that 
 went on, though I could not hear what was said. The 
 proceedings were conducted swiftly, and, it seemed, almost 
 silently. When it appeared that all the goods had been 
 moved from the boat-house to the boat, the Jiminies 
 reinforced the South Sea Islander at the oars, and the 
 man at the tiller steered back towards the schooner, Crank- 
 shaw remaining on shore. 
 
 I saw him go into the boat-house, and something told 
 me that I had better get back to the Head-station before 
 I ran any risk of his discovering me. I was thinking 
 less of the present awkwardness than of the possible 
 imperilment of future excursions. So I climbed down at 
 the back of the knoll, not waiting even to pluck a small 
 mauve orchid that grew in one place over the rocks, un- 
 hitched the Arab, jumped into the saddle and made my 
 way home as quickly as was possible. 
 
 I dismounted when I got near the house, and led Zillah 
 up the front of the hill to my end of the veranda, where I 
 unsaddled her behind the bauhinia tree. Then I led her 
 down below the brow of the hill, to the stockyard, avoiding 
 the back yard, whence I caught echoes of an altercation 
 between Mrs. Meake and Dubbo over the wood-heap. 
 There was nobody, of course, about Crankshaw's hut, and 
 I turned Zillah into the little paddock, resolving that I 
 would keep my adventure strictly to myself. 
 
 I did not even tell Dody when I rejoined her, but I
 
 SISTER SORROW 263 
 
 thought a great deal. In Shakespearean phrase, the 
 incident gave me pause, and I asked myself some questions. 
 
 Why had Crankshaw told a lie about going to the South 
 End? 
 
 Why had he pretended ignorance of the schooner ? 
 
 What was her traffic with Oronga Island ? 
 
 It was ridiculous to suppose she had landed guano for 
 the fertilization of Mr. Wilkins' run, and there had appeared 
 no evidence of other commodities in exchange for the 
 cases of groceries — if they were groceries ? I couldn't 
 answer one of the questions. It was the mystery of the 
 affair that made me suspicious. Apart from that, there 
 was nothing unreasonable in a trading schooner calling 
 at the station for stores. And then I thought, here would 
 have been an opportunity for posting letters, for naturally 
 she would put in at some port. Crankshaw knew that 
 I was anxious to send letters ashore. I had spoken to him 
 again about it when riding to the Crossing yesterday, 
 and he had assured me that he would let me know of 
 the first chance that might occur, but that at present he 
 saw none. 
 
 It struck me that there might be a dash of the Heathen 
 Chinee's guile about Crankshaw under the mask of his 
 appreciation of my good qualities. I made up my mind 
 that I would be reticent and that he should have a taste 
 of my woman's wiles in exchange. I had made a great 
 step in finding that I could not only ride but catch the 
 Arab mare. 
 
 Crankshaw merely nodded and twisted his lips in a funny 
 sort of smile when I asked him next morning if he had 
 had a good day at the South End. He said that now he'd 
 got a heavy bit of work off his mind it would be a real 
 pleasure to him this afternoon to show me the open sea. 
 
 Even in the conditions, I enjoyed that excursion im- 
 mensely, and I fancy Crankshaw enjoyed it too, for I used 
 my best endeavours to be agreeable to him. 
 
 We rode across the low range — the backbone of the 
 Island — and got into a sub-tropical region of green-shadowed 
 jungle, palms, strange-leaved trees, moist, dank gullies,
 
 264 SISTER SORROW 
 
 still waterholes. . . . Then, stretches of gum and wattle, 
 through which we could canter our horses, and, after 
 that, to sandy downs where the grass was rank and the 
 bread-fruit tree flourished, until the land-line broke, and 
 beyond lay illimitable ocean. 
 
 I could use up much paper — which I won't do — in describ- 
 ing that ride and its glorious culmination — the sight of 
 huge Pacific billows rolling in upon this further strand of 
 Oronga Island. As I reined in the Arab on the cliff-brow 
 and let the sea-breeze play upon my face, I put up a mental 
 prayer that Dody might somehow be got to this shore 
 and that the life-giving ocean wind might have a chance 
 to sweep morbid cobwebs from her fever-ridden brain. 
 
 I did my best when I got back to inspire her with the 
 desire and urged her to practise riding so that she might 
 some day accomplish that sixteen-mile expedition. I even 
 brought her to half -promise that she would try my side- 
 saddle " contraption " and let me lead her on Zillah about 
 the yard until she gained courage enough to guide the 
 mare herself. But each time that I got her to the stock- 
 yard fence and tried to induce her to mount, she went 
 into a fit of nervous trembling and looked so white and 
 wild that, fearing a repetition of the bad attack, I had to 
 abandon the attempt, for that day at any rate. 
 
 So, all I could do was to continue my own experiments 
 and investigations, and these I pursued, mostly on Sindbad, 
 the fiery-tempered bay, with whom I soon came to terms 
 of pleasant understanding. Crankshaw did not make 
 any more difficulties about the rides. For one reason, 
 I told him that I thought very well of the Island as a 
 cattle-run, and was seriously contemplating Mr. Wilkins' 
 proposition that I should become a sleeping partner, but 
 that in order to make up my mind I must be able to go 
 about the country as freely as I pleased. 
 
 Crankshaw looked at me in a puzzled, doubtful way 
 when I made that announcement. I am sure that I fell 
 greatly in his estimation as a woman of business instincts, 
 and that he would have liked to warn me against the 
 investment, if loyalty to Mr. Wilkins and, doubtless,
 
 SISTER SORROW 265 
 
 self-interest had not held him back. I believe that 
 Crankshaw was really rather a stupid man, entirely ruled 
 by Mr. Wilkins. I told him that I wanted Sindbad and 
 the Arab kept in the small paddock, so that I could have 
 one of them saddled without trouble. He said that I 
 might use the horses till the next moon, but that then 
 he guessed they would be wanted. 
 
 From that, I gleaned that Mr. Wilkins would be return- 
 ing — I supposed with cattle — as soon as the Narrows 
 became swimmable for the beasts. Meantime, there was 
 no word of him. He might have been at Timbuctoo and 
 we in a besieged fortress, for all we knew of what was going 
 on outside. 
 
 Nevertheless, the new moon came and grew without sign 
 of Mr. Wilkins. I had now been nearly a fortnight on 
 the Island, and during that time had received no letters. 
 Nor had I been able to send any. I did not mind so 
 much about the Leichardt's Town correspondence, though 
 I reflected upon the large mail at Currawilli Post Office 
 which would be waiting transit to the Island. But I 
 did want to hear from Bee and Bel and Mr. Pringle. I had 
 written Bee a rather disingenuous account of my adventures, 
 for I did not dare to disburthen my heart too freely, ex- 
 perience having taught me that Bee's loyalty and dis- 
 cretion were not to be relied upon. I did not dare either 
 to formulate my fears and suspicions to Mr. Pringle — ■ 
 just at present at any rate. But I made no secret to Bee 
 of my anxiety about Dody's health and my great desire 
 to get her away from the Island, and, naturally, I remarked 
 on Mr. Wilkins' strange absence since the day of my 
 arrival. 
 
 The letter lay in my drawer, for I could not persuade 
 Crankshaw to the longer ride to the Pilot station, where 
 I had hoped to post it. 
 
 I felt pretty sure, however, that he had either been up 
 there or to the mainland just about the new moon, for 
 he was away from the station a day and a night, though 
 he stoutly denied the fact when I questioned him, and 
 told me again that he had been after cattle at the South
 
 266 SISTER SORROW 
 
 End. But, when we were riding together the day after, 
 he let drop one or two incautious remarks by which I 
 saw that he had been getting information as to what was 
 going on in the world ; and also he said that Mr. Wilkins 
 would certainly not be back for another fortnight and 
 that I might count on the use of the horses, any way, for 
 that time. 
 
 He prevaricated and evaded my questions when I tried 
 to find out how he had heard from Mr. Wilkins. After 
 that, like Mrs. Meake, with whom he shared the peculiarity, 
 he relapsed into a fit of taciturnity. But I added a post- 
 script to my letter to Bee, bidding her to write me to the 
 care of the Chief Pilot at Oronga Island Signalling Station. 
 Meantime, I just went on with my course of treatment 
 for Dody, encouraged by a distinct, if fluctuating, im- 
 provement. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 EVERY day was to the good. I knew that I was 
 fighting against time — straining all the power 
 of my will to substitute my influence for that of Mr. Phil 
 Wilkins. Night and morning I prayed to the White 
 Power, who I believed blindly was helping me to save 
 Dody, that Mr. Wilkins might be prevented from coming 
 home. I could see plainly the working of that insidious 
 poison which his presence instilled into her veins and, 
 equally, the effect of its withdrawal. I would watch her 
 moving about in a kind of dream ; sometimes with feverish 
 energy, seeking and not rinding ; sometimes in such bodily 
 weakness that she could hardly drag her limbs along. And 
 I would know that she was missing the morbid vitality 
 she got from him and upon which she depended for her 
 sustenance, unless — oh ! if that were possible— I could 
 succeed in eliminating the poison from her being. That 
 was how I felt about it, but the thing itself I could not 
 understand in the least. I never shall understand the 
 nature of that glamour. From the day Dody first met
 
 SISTER SORROW 267 
 
 the man and talked to me, as we walked to the ferry, about 
 his face being the face of her dream, the thing has been 
 an inexplicable mystery to me. I know that there are 
 such cases and that they are usually ascribed to hypnotic 
 influence deliberately exercised. Yet I can't account for 
 Dody's fascination on that theory. For I am sure that, 
 at the beginning, Mr. Wilkins had no idea of hypnotizing 
 her and that he was, in his way, as much puzzled as I was 
 at the effect he had upon her. 
 
 I would not for the world have reminded her of that 
 dream ; and not till later did she herself allude to it. 
 It did not, in present circumstances, seem to matter. I 
 was conscious at this time of a tremendous exaltation of 
 spirit and purpose as regards my relations with Dody. 
 The fixed resolve that had formed in me during that first 
 night of dread grew stronger instead of waning. I was 
 more determined than ever to do my job. I was putting 
 every bit of my will-force into it. 
 
 And I felt still more encouraged by seeing that at the 
 end of a week there was a very definite improvement. 
 Notwithstanding that she was pitiably weak and nervous, 
 had one or two of her fits of shivering and nausea, and, 
 one night again, a recurrence — though in lesser degree — of 
 her " dreadful feeling," which frightened me most of all, 
 because it was most like insanity. Still she looked more 
 normal and had longer intervals of naturalness. She had 
 put on a very little flesh and her pallor was less unhealthy. 
 
 Except when I went for my rides, I never left her. I 
 tried to keep her mind continually occupied with the 
 past rather than the present. While she worked at her 
 embroidery— the happiest inspiration I had had so far — 
 I talked to her as I had been accustomed to talk at Barolin, 
 read her my stories, and made her read me verses she had 
 written when with us and that she had forgotten, but 
 which I had luckily brought up with me. I took her for 
 walks, trying her strength, and interested her in the 
 spring flowers — orchisses and such like — that since the 
 storm had begun to show themselves among the ashes of 
 the grass-tussocks. She had always loved the simple joys,
 
 268 SISTER SORROW 
 
 and now again, in a dazed, retrospective wa)f, responded 
 to them. It was put into me, too, that I should feed her 
 body as well as her mind — play the sick nurse, though I 
 knew little enough about nursing. I coaxed her with 
 broth and chicken and eggs — all such nourishing food as 
 I could prepare myself or get Mrs. Meake to prepare. 
 I even persuaded Dody to stop off the doses of quinine, an 
 idea occurring to me that the drug, having been taken 
 too long, might have acted injuriously upon her peculiar 
 temperament, and that it would be best now to give 
 Nature a free hand. The result confirmed my notion. 
 She certainly seemed better for giving it up, and also, I 
 welcomed her consenting to do so as a sign that Mr. 
 Wilkins' influence was weakening. 
 
 One morning, soon after the new moon, when Dody 
 and I were seated working in the front veranda, a half- 
 caste boy came riding down by the North track, mounted 
 on a stubby little horse and half-hidden by two bulging 
 saddle-bags slung across in front of him. I saw that, 
 unlike Dubbo, he was not pure aboriginal ; and from the 
 yellowish tinge on his skin, the obliquely set, but true 
 black's eyes, and the straight hair, I guessed that he had 
 a strain of Chinese blood. When I asked him according 
 to Bush formula : 
 
 " Name belonging to you ? " he replied in the black's 
 pidgin-English with a hint of the bland Celestial grin : 
 
 " Me Jacky, belonging white massa longa big garden. 
 Me brought plenty vegetable — plenty yam — pine-apple — 
 mango — my word biijeri that ! Me got 'em letter longa 
 white Missus." 
 
 Dody was in one of her lymphatic moods. She seemed 
 to take no interest in the half-caste boy or the contents of 
 the saddle-bags, which he planked down upon the veranda, 
 and she scarcely looked at the letter which he unwrapped 
 from a dirty bit of red silk handkerchief and held out to her. 
 
 I took it from him. A strange feeling came over me, 
 part joy, part repulsion. That white envelope was like 
 the sudden opening of a prison window, and I was not 
 sure what it was going to let in— sunshine, or storm.
 
 SISTER SORROW 269 
 
 ' Dody, it is from Mr. Helsing, I think. Will you read 
 it? " 
 
 She shook her head: " You open it, Gagsie, and tell me 
 what he says." 
 
 The note was bald and conventional, but, to my mind, 
 the writer's underlying anxiety was unmistakable. 
 And — I confess it — in a queer indefinable way, his solici- 
 tude hurt me. It was dated from 
 
 " The Garden Huts, 
 
 " Oronga Island. 
 " Dear Mrs. Wilkins, 
 
 " I am venturing to send you another little lot of 
 garden produce in the hope that it may come in acceptably. 
 It would be a great satisfaction to me to know if you are 
 well. I have heard nothing of you for so long, and a few 
 lines from you by the bearer would be welcomed 
 
 " With my best wishes, 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " Torvald Helsing." 
 
 Dolores ceased sewing and listened as I read the note 
 aloud, but I saw that her eyes were fixed with an expres- 
 sion almost of greediness upon the fruit Jacky was dis- 
 gorging from the saddle-bags and depositing on the veranda. 
 — Such fruit ! Big green oranges of the tropics, bananas, 
 eherry-guavas, a small, early kind of melon which I have 
 never seen except in Torvald Helsing's garden ; fresh 
 cocoanuts, tomatoes and a kind of native cherry. . . . 
 
 " Oh, the melon ! " exclaimed Dolores. " I had been 
 longing for a melon. I'm always so thirsty." 
 
 " You shall have it in a minute, but first, will you 
 write to Mr. Helsing and thank him ? " 
 
 Her face became full of distress. " I can't — I mustn't. 
 . . . You know he said I mustn't. . . ." 
 
 " Then, I will, for you," I answered ; " and meanwhile 
 you can eat your melon." I got plate, knife and spoon 
 from the parlour, and cut the melon, which was pink and 
 juicy. She began upon it at once. I had brought out a 
 large slice of cake for Jacky, and he squatted down against
 
 270 SISTER SORROW 
 
 the piles of the veranda and proceeded to enjoy himself. 
 I threw him down part of a fig of tobacco and told him 
 to wait there till I brought the answer to the letter. This 
 I wrote in my own room. I did not stop to think much 
 about what I wrote, for I felt it was important that the 
 letter should be dispatched while Crankshaw was out of 
 the way. I remember that I described the situation as 
 fully as I dared and had time to do : I told him of Mr. 
 Wilkins' absence ; of my sense of helpless imprisonment ; 
 of my feeling that Dolores was in a critical condition of 
 nervous breakdown ; also, that I was otherwise alarmed 
 at attacks of illness following upon what I concluded to 
 have been malarial fever. I begged his advice and help 
 in view of possible emergency, explaining that I could 
 get no letters to or from the mainland. And then I asked 
 if he could not meet me somewhere at a little distance 
 from the house to talk things over, adding that I under- 
 stood Mr. Wilkins did not wish him to visit the Head- 
 station, but that I assumed his friendship for Mrs. Wilkins 
 and anxiety on her behalf would enable him to get over 
 that difficulty. I said nothing about myself beyond that 
 I had not forgotten his coming to The Bunyas : and I 
 remained his " sincerely." When I had finished the 
 letter I remembered the one I had written to Bee, and 
 enclosed it, with a postscript, asking him to get it posted 
 at the Pilot station at the earliest opportunity. 
 
 A shilling, a further gift of tobacco and the rest of the 
 cake served to Jacky in lieu of lunch, for which, otherwise, 
 I should have had to ask Mrs. Meake. I handed him the 
 letter, bidding him " murra make haste and give it to Mr. 
 Helsing." He re-slung the empty saddle-bags, led his horse 
 down the hill and disappeared behind the green fringe 
 of the Gully. I do not think Crankshaw ever knew that 
 he had been, this time, to the station : and though no 
 doubt Mrs. Meake guessed the source of our new supply 
 of garden produce, she was in one of her taciturn moods, 
 went mechanically about her business and asked no 
 questions. 
 
 Dolores had a bad attack that night. I could only
 
 SISTER SORROW 271 
 
 suppose that there had been a stirring up of jangled wires, 
 for there was no atmospheric disturbance to account for it. 
 
 This attack was even worse than the last. The 
 " dreadful feeling " again ; the corpse-like coldness and 
 aguish shaking, the frantic appeals to me to " hold her," 
 not to " let her get lost," the former pitiful cry that she 
 was " so lonely ... so frightened . . . that there was 
 nothing — nothing but space," that she was " a lost soul," 
 and would never get back to the world if I did not hold 
 her close. It sounded horribly uncanny from its intensified 
 note of supernatural dread. 
 
 She clung to me, whispering incoherent revelations of 
 her state of mind, her speech broken by frenzied clutchings 
 and fits of violent shivering, in which she lost all control 
 of her limbs. From her vague utterances, I gleaned 
 that she had had an irresistible impulse to use the South 
 Sea Island knife and that she had actually got out of 
 bed and climbed by the tank to its hiding-place, but had 
 found it gone. I had, of course, not told her that after 
 her first confession I had myself taken it away. Nor 
 did I tell her now that it was buried in the Gully, deep 
 under a big stone, where, no doubt, it remains to this day. 
 
 The peculiar association of that knife with these phases 
 of Dolores' illness always puzzled me, and I never under- 
 stood whether she was tempted to use it on herself or 
 upon another person. I do not think, somehow, that she 
 ever had thoughts of suicide. But I shall always believe 
 that had she been quite alone at this time, she would have 
 developed acute homicidal mania. I believe, too, that the 
 " dreadful feeling " she spoke of, as of a lost soul in un- 
 utterable loneliness, was in reality a conscious struggle of 
 her own higher self against some wicked obsessing entity, 
 and that had the evil spirit succeeded in forcing an 
 entrance it must either have shattered the earthly 
 tabernacle or have made her quite insane. 
 
 Once, after a violent paroxysm, she said in a tone of 
 resigned despair, her voice very weak, but so quiet and 
 collected that it really seemed as if that higher self were 
 speaking :
 
 272 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " Gagsie, I know that I am being driven mad." 
 
 Then again the frenzy of terror seized her. 
 
 I held her tight in my arms and talked to her. I told 
 her that no evil would come near her if she could keep 
 her faith in God. The words came to me I do not know 
 how, for I was not given to emotional outpourings. I 
 took much upon myself in what I said, but I was not 
 thinking of myself, only of her dire need. If you have 
 ever had the feeling I had then, of literally clutching back 
 a soul which was slipping over into the Abyss, you will 
 understand what I mean. I said that I believed I had 
 been sent to help her, and that I would never let her go 
 so long as I had strength to hold her. I said that I loved 
 her and that love was the greatest force in all the universe, 
 so that, unworthy as I might be to call it to our aid, I 
 was sure, nevertheless, that no evil power could stand 
 against it. 
 
 All through the paroxysm I held her thus, and while I 
 talked to her, my own soul clung desperately to the Force 
 it had invoked and prayed dumbly to the Lord of Light 
 and Love for protection against the Ruler of Darkness. 
 Gradually, she quieted, and it was as though the emissary 
 of the Black Master departed with the first pale glimmer 
 that precedes dawn. Some faint understanding came to 
 me then of why, in all the creeds of the world — from 
 Horus and the great serpent Typhon : from Ormuzd and 
 Ahriman to Christ and Belial — Light and Darkness have 
 been the synonymous terms for Good and Evil. 
 
 I laid Dody back on the pillow — she was sleeping now 
 the heavy sleep of exhaustion — and got up to stretch my 
 numbed arms and cramped legs. I put on my dressing- 
 gown and went out into the veranda, where I stood watch- 
 ing the soft greyness spread over the shadowy waves of 
 gum-forest, and wondering distractedly what I ought 
 to do — whether I could risk the chance of another attack 
 such as Dody had been through, or whether I ought to 
 take Crankshaw into my confidence and insist upon his 
 getting the doctor. Then I told myself that there must come 
 before long an answer to my letter to Torvald Helsing.
 
 BOOK III 
 
 LOVE THE DELIVERER 
 
 18
 
 THE answer came sooner than I expected. I was 
 standing at the end of the veranda which looked 
 towards the north and was partly sheltered by the 
 bauhinia tree. The birds had not awakened yet : there 
 was not a sound to break the stillness, and I felt utterly 
 forlorn and helpless in that grey unearthly silence. So 
 unearthly, that I gave a violent start when suddenly 
 there came a sound of something large and lithe stirring 
 under the bauhinia branches. Then a sibilant whisper. 
 " Missee. . . . Missee. . . . Bujeri White Mary ! " 
 
 Looking down, I saw a flat browny-yellow face, with 
 eyes like big, jet beads, and glistening white teeth, showing 
 vividly in the half-light, between the veranda-edge and 
 the lowest rail. 
 
 I guessed at once the blackboy's errand. 
 
 " Jacky, you bring-im letter from Mr. Helsing ? " 
 
 " Yowi. Massa tell me, make 'im little fella noise — try 
 and wake up Missee. My word ! Ba'al me been wait 
 long time. Plenty quick Missee wake. Come out before 
 sun jump up. Massa sit down close-up paddock. Him 
 been ride all night before moon go to bed." 
 
 Which I understand to mean that Torvald Helsing 
 must have set off almost immediately after receiving my 
 call, and had been camping near by since moon-set. 
 
 Jacky clambered, cat-like, till he was astride the top 
 rail. I took the letter from him, and, making a sign 
 towards the bed-chamber that he should keep quiet so as 
 not to awaken Dolores, I turned a few paces up the 
 veranda and read Torvald' s letter. 
 
 It was written in pencil on a page torn from his note- 
 book, and began without formal prefix. 
 
 275 18*
 
 276 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " I would rather tell you by word of mouth than in 
 writing of the gratitude and satisfaction I feel in your 
 presence on the Island. I thank you for trusting me. I 
 know that I can help you. Will you show your confidence 
 still further, by letting Jacky guide you to where I wait 
 in the hope of seeing you. You understand why it is 
 best I should not call at the Head-station. There are 
 certain practical points affecting your friend's welfare 
 which I want to put before you. 
 
 " Your servant, faithfully, 
 
 " TORVALD HELSING." 
 
 I turned back to Jacky and bade him wait by the 
 veranda until I was ready. Then, swiftly and silently, I 
 dressed myself in short skirt, thick boots and incon- 
 spicuous hat. Dolores was in a deep sleep. She was 
 breathing regularly and I thought that probably she 
 would not awake for two or three hours. To make matters 
 sure, I wrote a few lines on a slip of paper, which I pinned 
 to the pillow, telling her that I was going out but would 
 be back almost surely by eight o'clock, and begging her 
 not to get up until my return. 
 
 Not a soul on the place was stirring when I set forth 
 with Jacky. No smoke curled from the chimney of 
 Crankshaw's hut, and it was much too early for Dubbo 
 to have left his blanket or to have thought of fetching 
 up the milkers. 
 
 Dawn was spreading thin veils of pearl and opal mist 
 over the distant stretches of Bush. Here, on the hill- 
 brow, the skeleton trees lifted their grey limbs against a 
 soft pinkish flush on the eastern horizon. But it would 
 be some time yet before the sun rose. Over everything 
 lay that mystic hush which heralds Nature's morning 
 symphony. The night's brooding terror had fled away, 
 and earth, cleansed and purified, began presently to stir 
 in half-conscious murmurings like an innocent child 
 waking from sleep. For, almost simultaneously, birds 
 hailed each other, first in tentative, then, in long wooing 
 cries. As day broke, they trilled in a great burst of
 
 SISTER SORROW 277 
 
 treble notes, all the small songsters chorusing, some in 
 cadences familiar to me, others in phrasing that I had 
 only lately learned. The note of one bird sounded in 
 my fancy the syllables of my own name : 
 
 " A . . . ga . . . thd. . . . A . . . ga . . . thd / " 
 
 The accent was curiously human. It was reminiscent of 
 certain quiet rhythmic tones that I had never forgotten. 
 I was conscious of a strange exaltation of heart and soul. 
 Something that was myself — and yet not myself — seemed 
 to be going forth from within me, uplifting . . . leading. . . . 
 
 This feeling was, I think, partly due to the pure clarity 
 of that dawn atmosphere : partly to the sense of spiritual 
 dedication which had renewed itself in me during the 
 night's strenuous vigil. I thought anew of the white 
 St. George of Australia come to deliver a tortured soul 
 from the power of the Dragon, and of myself as a humble 
 instrument vowed to the Deliverer's service. But, 
 through the spiritual exaltation, I felt a stab of very 
 human pain. I remembered that I had vowed also to 
 pay the price of Dolores' salvation. Ah, should I be 
 called upon to sacrifice that sweet, secret hope, which, 
 during these past two years and more, had dwelt in the 
 innermost chamber of my heart, silently guarded and 
 enshrined ? 
 
 I can open the door of that sanctuary now. For now, 
 I know. Now, I understand. Then, I did not know. 
 Far less did I understand. I just walked on blindly with 
 my pain, having, as I truly believed, shut that door 
 behind me. 
 
 Then suddenly I caught myself laughing aloud. For 
 I do thank Heaven that occasionally, and most often at 
 incongruous moments, I am visited by a tricksy sense 
 of humour which has saved me at worst from ridiculous 
 sentimentality : at be^t from taking myself over-tragically. 
 
 It was the sight of Jacky as he stalked ahead with the 
 swift stooping gait of the native tracker, and now, with 
 his flat yellow-black face turned back on me over his 
 shoulder, while he grinned and gesticulated in the 
 inimitable aboriginal fashion.
 
 278 SISTER SORROW 
 
 There was something very funny in the thought of 
 Jacky as my guide along the sacrificial path of destiny. 
 
 We were out of sight of the Head-station buildings, 
 over the brow of the hill and heading the Gully. 
 
 ' Massa make 'im camp long a big fella rock," said 
 Jacky. 
 
 I knew the place. Several times I had walked beyond 
 the paddock fence to the volcanic outcrop of grey boulders, 
 where Torvald Helsing was awaiting my news of Dolores. 
 
 The three biggest rocks — upright, with a horizontal 
 one tilted across two of them — gave the rough suggestion 
 of a trilithon in some prehistoric temple. Smaller rocks 
 lay around, making an irregular circle. A geebong-tree 
 and some thick growth of wattle and coolibar gum 
 sheltered the place. A spring trickled down among the 
 scattered stones, and here were tufts of green grass, at 
 which two hobbled horses were picking. A thin curl of 
 smoke rose beside one of the tall boulders. 1 had the 
 idea of an altar, for there was a flatfish rock in the middle 
 of the circle, at the foot of the trilithon, and a fire, with 
 a billy of water set upon it, burned in a hollow against 
 the flat rock. Torvald Helsing was seated at one end 
 of the stone, his elbows upon his knees, his chin upon 
 his hands, and his head bent, with his eyes on the ground, 
 as if he were absorbed in meditation. 
 
 We had come up quietly, and I suppose he did not 
 expect us so soon. Jacky gave the black's queer guttural 
 call — a sort of click and roll of the tongue and teeth : 
 
 " Yuck . . . ke ! . . . Yuck . . . ke ! " 
 
 Torvald sprang up and saw us. He stood looking at 
 me silently for a few seconds before coming forward. 
 Such a strange expression in his eyes ! I don't know 
 how to describe the look. It was not so much welcoming ; 
 nor even glad. It was as if he h--d been expecting me 
 for a long time and could scarcely believe that I had 
 come at last. 
 
 But a moment later, I said to myself : " This is not 
 because of me. It is because he has been so anxious about 
 Dolores."
 
 SISTER SORROW 279 
 
 He greeted me oddly, never saying a word, but taking 
 my two handb in both of his, laying them on his left palm 
 and covering them with his right, his eyes not leaving my 
 face. I remembered what beautiful eyes I had thought 
 them that first morning, when they had looked into mine 
 at the Bellevue Hotel— so deeply clear : so steadfast : 
 so understanding. They were all that and more, now. 
 
 I was the one who spoke first. 
 
 " You see, I have come." 
 
 " I knew that you would," he answered. Then he told 
 Jacky to go and look after the horses and boil himself 
 a billy of tea — and not to make " too big fella smoke." 
 
 He had dropped my hands. Now he brushed away the 
 dead leaves and twigs from the other end of the flat stone 
 and asked me to sit there while he made me some breakfast. 
 
 I demurred at the breakfast — said I must not stay 
 long — that I had left Dody asleep after a terrible night, 
 and must get back to her — that I ought not to waste time 
 in eating. 
 
 " I shan't want you to waste time," he said. ' But 
 certainly I am going to make you some breakfast, for I 
 see plainly that you need it after your wakeful night and 
 early walk. And while I am getting it, I want you to 
 explain things more fully than you could do in your letter. 
 I can guess pretty well the general trend of things at 
 the Head-station, for I had opportunities some time back 
 of making my own observations. But, remember, I've 
 been away for six months, and the situation seems to me 
 to have become a good deal worse during that time. 
 We've got to talk it out together, — you and I — if we are 
 to be of practical service. . . . You understand ? ' 
 
 As he spoke, he raked out, from a flat stone surrounded 
 by red ashes, some meal cakes that had been baking or 
 heating there — very yellow and light, made, he told me, 
 from ground Indian corn. He piled them on a piece of 
 freshly-cut bark at the side of the fire, and then attended 
 to the billy, which was on the boil. 
 
 I gave him rapidly a few supplementary details to 
 those which I had given him in my letter — I told him of
 
 28o SISTER SORROW 
 
 my slowly-gathering distrust of Crankshaw, of the curious 
 episode of the schooner that I had witnessed at the 
 Narrows Landing : of Mr. Wilkins' inexplicable, con- 
 tinued absence : of the extraordinary way in which the 
 cattle-station was managed— or rather mismanaged, and 
 so forth, to all of which he nodded thoughtfully. 
 
 ' Yes, I've got a very good idea of all that, and of 
 how it must strike you — the puzzledom in your mind, 
 and the shock it must have been to you to see the change 
 in your friend. Perhaps I understand better than you 
 can the kind of life she has lived on the Island. And 
 the various causes, mental and physical, that have brought 
 her to her present condition. I may be able, by and by, 
 to throw a light on some things that seem unexplainable 
 to you. But just now what 1 most want to know is the 
 exact course of these attacks of illness you spoke of — 
 particularly the one you say she had last night. Please 
 tell me as closely as you remember, just as though I were 
 a doctor. Naturally, being a herbalist, I do know a little 
 about medicine. . . . And don't mind if I go on with 
 what I am doing. I said I wouldn't waste time, and I 
 shall be taking in every word you say." 
 
 I soon saw that he was giving his mind absolutely to 
 Dolores' case, though, all the time, he was making billy 
 tea — boiling, mixing, stirring, reboiling and then cooling 
 by pouring the tea from one pannikin to another. 
 Occasionally, he would pause and pull me up on some 
 point, forcing me to perfect accuracy. 
 
 II 
 
 HE stopped me when I touched on the doses of 
 quinine and made me tell him everything I had 
 observed as to the working of this drug. 
 
 " Pardon me — you tasted the pills, you say, and are 
 certain that they were quinine ? "
 
 SISTER SORROW 281 
 
 I told him that I had put one to my lips and had tasted 
 the peculiar bitter flavour and that it had never occurred 
 to me that they were anything else. 
 
 " Of course. There's no reason to suppose otherwise. 
 Quinine would be the natural drug to give. But I have 
 known it to have a curious effect on certain temperaments. 
 I understand that she has been taking it for some 
 time. It would be betbi to stop off the quinine 
 now." 
 
 I said that I had done so, and he nodded approvingly. 
 He questioned me closely as to the night attacks when 
 Dody had come to my room, and I told him everything 
 that had come into my mind about them — then and after- 
 wards : the uncanniness of it all — the sense of super- 
 natural dread ; the fits of deathly cold and shaking ; her 
 clutchings of me and wild appeals that I would save her 
 from being lost in space ; her saying that she knew she was 
 being driven mad. Then her strange terror of the South 
 Sea Island knife and all that had passed concerning it. I 
 said nothing at first about the effect upon myself of the 
 experience, but I felt that he understood. When he asked 
 me what I had said and done in response to poor Dody's 
 appeals and I had told him how I had held her in my arms 
 and had tried to comfort her and how I had prayed desper- 
 ately for help that had seemed to come, he set down the 
 pannikin of tea and put out his hand, clasping mine for a 
 moment as if to ratify a bond of fellowship. 
 
 " I know now," he said ; " I see that you have the true 
 spirit within you." After that he was silent for a few 
 moments. 
 
 Presently he said : 
 
 " Thank you for speaking to me so frankly. I under- 
 stand that you have grasped the fact that the evil is 
 psychical even more than physical in its nature, and that 
 is a great help. You must have had a terribly difficult and 
 painful time, and — may I say it ? — you have come out of 
 it splendidly." 
 
 I brought out some incoherent words of gratitude for 
 his appreciation, saying I did not deserve them. In truth,
 
 282 SISTER SORROW 
 
 I was almost breaking down. He busied himself for a 
 minute or two with the billy of tea, so that I had time to 
 recover myself, and then he held the pannikin of steaming 
 liquid to me. 
 
 " I want you to drink this," he said, " and to take some 
 food as well." 
 
 ' You won't be wasting time," he added with a smile, 
 " if you will eat and drink with a deliberate purpose of 
 gaining strength and real sustenance." 
 
 I took the pannikin from his hands and swallowed a few 
 mouthfuls while he went on talking. 
 
 " That's right. Try to dismiss your anxiety for the 
 moment. It's such a mistake — that which people often 
 make — of taking meals hurriedly and with worried minds. 
 In certain conditions of stress, the taking in of nourishment 
 might be regarded as almost a sacramental act. It's as 
 much a question of feeding the ethereal bodies as the 
 physical one." 
 
 His words sounded strange and yet in a dim way I grasped 
 their underlying wisdom ; and the quiet, gentle manner in 
 which he spoke soothed my nerves and restored my mental 
 balance. For the first time, it struck me that he must 
 be a much older man than I had thought when we met him 
 in Leichardt's Town. His voice sounded graver and his 
 enunciation more rhythmic than I remembered. 
 
 But now, in the simplest, most natural way, he spread 
 out our little meal, joining in it and wishing, I could see, 
 that I should enjoy the food he had got ready. 
 
 I certainly did enjoy it. The scones of Indian corn were 
 excellent. And as for the tea ! Well, I was used to billy 
 tea and I liked it, but this was quite different from any 
 billy tea I had ever tasted. It had an aroma, a stimulating 
 quality that I had never found in ordinary tea, and so I 
 told him. 
 
 " But it isn't quite ordinary tea," he answered. " In 
 the first place, the leaves are of my own growing, and there 
 are two kinds of leaves in it. When you've seen my garden 
 and tasted some more of mine and Ah Wung's concoctions 
 — Ah Wung is my Chinese cook — you'll acknowledge that
 
 SISTER SORROW 283 
 
 we're not bad at blending flavours. Now, I want you to 
 try this with the corn-cake ; it's home-made too." 
 
 " This " was a sort of conserve, not exactly sweet, but 
 of a curious, rich flavour and faint aromatic scent. It 
 was delicious. And I was hungry. I had not realized how 
 much I needed the nourishment. 
 
 When we had satisfied ourselves, he pushed away the 
 remains of our feast and damped out the fire. 
 
 " I don't think we are likely to be disturbed," he said. 
 " But it is as well not to run the risk of any of Mr. Wilkins* 
 men seeing the smoke of a camp fire. . . . I'm glad that 
 we're not yet near the full moon," he added, and I was 
 struck by a significant note in his voice. 
 
 " Because then the Narrows will be swimmable and Mr. 
 Wilkins will be crossing with his mob of cattle. Is that 
 what you were thinking ? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes," he said. ..." I am thinking most of the possi- 
 bility of getting . . . her away." — I noticed that he 
 shirked Dolores' married name — " before Wilkins comes 
 back. There are about ten days in which to make her fit 
 for the ride to the North End." 
 
 " I have been thinking of that too," I said. " And it's 
 what has been troubling me all the time. For one hasn't 
 only to make her body fit. Her mind has to be made fit 
 as well. At present nothing would induce her to leave 
 her husband." 
 
 I told him of my efforts in that direction and of the 
 obstacles on all sides, the principal of them being Dolores' 
 own attitude. 
 
 Then we talked a little about my idea that her very life 
 depended upon the morbid vitality she drew in from Mr. 
 Wilkins. 
 
 He looked graver than ever. 
 
 " Yes, that's the worst part of the condition we have to 
 fight ; and it can't be fought while she remains in her 
 present environment. ... I ... I wish . . ."he began, 
 but stopped irresolutely, then added in a conclusive 
 manner, " No — things must be left as thev are — to- 
 day."
 
 284 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " But there are not many to-morrows between now and 
 full moon," I suggested. 
 
 " I know. . . . But any to-morrow might bring forth 
 some decisive knowledge or event which would change 
 life entirely for her . . . for us all." He paused, and I 
 was beginning to ask if he meant anything special or was 
 merely speaking generally, when he interrupted with an 
 abrupt question. 
 
 " What is your friend's baptismal name ? I have only 
 heard her called ' Dody ' or ' Dotty.' ... I ask," he added, 
 ' because I have a great reluctance to calling her ' Mrs. 
 Wilkins,' which I think you may understand by and by." 
 ' Her baptismal name is Sorrow," I answered. 
 
 " Sorrow ! " he repeated, in surprise. 
 
 I told him the story — as she had long ago told it to me — 
 of Dody's tragic christening and of the later translation 
 of her ill-omened name to Dolores. He seemed deeply 
 impressed. 
 
 " Dolores. . . . Sorrow ! . . ." he repeated, and said 
 thoughtfully : " Pain is the great Educator — the great 
 Expiator. Those born under the star of Sorrow are often 
 forced by destiny into the Mystic Path and maybe shaped 
 by the Higher Powers to heavenly purposes. I have some- 
 times thought it might be so with her. And then, her name 
 of ' Sorrow ' should be turned to ' Joy.' " 
 
 I did not answer. I had no words. He had been looking 
 out past me into the bush vistas, and his eyes seemed larger 
 and were very blue and bright. Now they lowered to my 
 face and he spoke to me directly with a strange solemnity. 
 ' Let us think of your sister Sorrow as one of God's 
 instruments cruelly mishandled by man, whom it is our 
 mission to help in restoring to right and holy uses." 
 
 He had called her my sister Sorrow. Did he himself, 
 then, regard her as something closer, dearer than a sister ? 
 
 Then, as he looked at me, I saw a cloud come over his 
 face, and now his gaze was full of trouble. He exclaimed 
 in a tone of deep distress : 
 
 " I blame rrvyself. . . . Oh, I blame myself terribly." 
 
 " You blame yourself ! " I was bewildered.
 
 SISTER SORROW 285 
 
 " Because I was false to my intuition and to the rule of 
 life under which I had placed myself." 
 
 " I don't understand," I said. 
 
 " It is this way : I had no right to shirk a responsibility 
 which I dimly recognized. ... I should have foreseen that 
 a helpless being might be in immediate danger. That is 
 past, however, but it made the responsibility, when it was 
 brought home to me, all the more urgent. ... I don't 
 want, though, to talk about my responsibility now, but of 
 yours. I take it that we are going to work together for 
 the rescue of Dolores. But — have you reflected that you 
 may be involved in a painful, perhaps a tragic situation, 
 of which we cannot foresee the exact outcome ? Do you 
 understand ? . . . I have no right — no one has any right 
 — to impose upon another a task from which there may be 
 the smallest recoil." 
 
 I put in impulsively : 
 
 " I am not thinking of that at all. I have given myself 
 to the task — if you call it so. . . . I am only thinking that 
 strength may fail me." 
 
 ' The strength will not fail," he answered, " so long 
 as love supports it . . . and you do love this woman ? 
 There is a strong bond between you, having its roots, no 
 doubt, in previous lives, and which is probably deeper and 
 more powerful than you have hitherto imagined ? Tell 
 me, is not this true of your feeling for her ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is true," I said. " I could not understand it. 
 ... I never knew that I cared so much for Dody — cared 
 with that desperate feeling that I would give up anything 
 in the world to save her. Not until one night, here, when 
 I thought she was going mad, and I seemed to be fighting 
 devils who were trying to get hold of her." 
 
 " You were right," he said. " You were fighting devils 
 — a devil which holds all of her but the soul for which you 
 wrestled. ... Go on. . . . You didn't understand the 
 strength of the feeling of which you were capable ? " 
 
 " No. ... It was like vowing myself. . . . Being pre- 
 pared to pay the price for her. ... I did not think I could 
 ever have felt like that . . . because I am not religious. . . .
 
 286 SISTER SORROW 
 
 I don't go much to church. . . . I've never been good at 
 praying and all that . . . and I've never been one to care 
 much . . . about people." 
 
 I stumbled over my words, yet I had to say them. He 
 answered gently : 
 
 " ' People,' in that sense, don't mean the inward 
 reality. Be thankful that you have been able to touch the 
 Heart of Life. That's the only thing that matters. 
 Sacrifice lies there. Because — you know — sacrifice is the 
 whole essence of Love." 
 
 I heard myself repeating stupidly " Of love." 
 
 " Perhaps you hadn't thought of love in its widest, 
 deepest significance," he said. " Perhaps you hadn't 
 thought of it as embracing every human relationship — 
 sweetest, deepest of all, the love of man and woman in its 
 closest sense, but not necessarily limited to that relation- 
 ship." 
 
 He paused a moment or two ; then went on in a rapt, 
 reverential manner and with a rhythmic intonation which 
 seemed to unlock secret springs in my own being : 
 
 " Love is the Root Force of the Universe — the Force by 
 which the very universe is sustained. It is the link between 
 humanity and Divinity, for Love is in itself Divine. Love 
 is One : Omnipotent, Immortal. It is the key to all the 
 gates — of Life and Death ; of Heaven and Hell. But alas ! 
 to know Love in its fullness is to have learned first the 
 beauty of Pain." 
 
 I could not speak. . . . No, I had never learned love in 
 the way he defined it ; and I had always shrunk from pain. 
 But it seemed to me that behold, he was showing me a 
 mystery. 
 
 Ill 
 
 WE were both silent. Then Torvald made a little 
 gentle sound, as though he were tenderly putting 
 aside his exalted mood. His manner changed to one of 
 friendly interest on a lower level. He spoke of Dolores and
 
 SISTER SORROW 287 
 
 asked me when I had first begun to feel affection for 
 her. 
 
 I told him fully and freely about her coming to BarSlin ; 
 about her charm and her many accomplishments ; of which 
 he could have no knowledge from his experience of her upon 
 the Island ; about her fantastic moods and sayings and her 
 uncanny gifts. I told him of the Dream and of her identi- 
 fication of the hero of it with Mr. Wilkins, and of how, from 
 that moment, she had fallen under his glamour, which had 
 resulted in her marriage. 
 
 Torvald put various questions to me about the marriage 
 — when and where it had taken place ? If any of us had 
 been present ? If I knew who had been the witnesses ? 
 If I had seen the marriage certificate ? . . . He said he had 
 a reason for wishing to learn these particulars, but he did 
 not tell me what it was. 
 
 I had seen the certificate — I remembered how Dody 
 had signed her name " Sorrow " — and I gave him 
 all the information I could, which did not amount to 
 much. 
 
 We spoke of that evening when he had dined with us at 
 The Bunyas, and he said on an emotional impulse which 
 thrilled and puzzled me, since, surely, then he had not 
 begun to care for Dody : " That evening — every word you 
 said to me will live with me till I die." 
 
 A moment later he seemed to repent the little outburst, 
 for he stiffened, saying : " Forgive me, I ought not to have 
 spoken like that ; " and turned the subject with some 
 trivial remark upon the two mining guests, whom, it 
 appeared, neither of us had ever seen again. 
 
 I reminded him of the veranda episode ; of Mr. Wilkins' 
 incredible adventure-story, and of the upsetting of the 
 lamp and Clara's heart attack, which had turned our 
 attention from it. I mentioned, too, the curious way in 
 which that story had come back to me the day of my 
 arrival at Currawilli, and I told Torvald of the strange- 
 looking foreigner in the crowd of miners bound for Nagbar ; 
 of Mr. Wilkins' perturbation at sight of him ; of my sus- 
 picion he was that " Manuel " who had been mixed up in
 
 288 SISTER SORROW 
 
 the New Mexican affair and of my certainty that Mr. Wilkin? 
 was afraid of the man, whoever he might be. 
 
 Torvald nodded : ' You mean Manuel Herrebine. 
 I don't know if you remember that I happened to be in 
 New Mexico at the time of his trial ? " 
 
 I remembered well. Now, I asked him to tell me what 
 he really knew about that robbery business. 
 
 ' Only enough, that evening, to raise a strong suspicion 
 in my mind that Mr. Phil Wilkins — Thomas Phillip 
 Etheridge in New Mexico, as I have since learned — was the 
 hero of his own story. Yes, of course it was an amazing 
 blunder to tell that story — but just the kind of blunder 
 criminals do make when they have drunk too much and 
 the ego is rampant. Besides, it was such an unlikely 
 coincidence that anyone present should have known about 
 the matter." 
 
 A ray of light flashed upon me and things pieced them- 
 selves together. I begged him breathlessly to tell me all 
 he could. 
 
 " I can't give you chapter and verse because I haven't 
 got them yet. There's still a mystery about that affair. 
 I believe the three men were confederates — or at least 
 two of them — Manuel and Wilkins. The driver may have 
 been a mere tool under Wilkins' influence." 
 
 A second ray of light flashed, illuminating another 
 puzzle . . . Crankshaw ? 
 
 At the moment, however, I said nothing, and Torvald 
 went on. 
 
 " My impression is that Wilkins got the best part of 
 the haul and that he played traitor to Manuel, who would 
 be out of prison by this time and may have come here on 
 his tracks. . . . That might explain some things you've 
 told me. . . . But all this is new to me. We were talking 
 of that evening at your house and my half-certainty of 
 the truth. I really was almost certain, only I didn't 
 want to let myself think so. . . . You understand a little, 
 don't you ? "... He looked at me pleadingly, but 
 went on with haste before I could answer. " You see the 
 reason of my remorse ? I ought not to have gone away
 
 SISTER SORROW 289 
 
 without verifying my suspicions and warning your father. 
 . . . But there was only that one evening. I was pre- 
 occupied, my horizon to a certain extent blocked, and 
 the jumble of events in that short time had a confusing 
 effect. The fire — Mrs. Carfax's heart attack, though I 
 anticipated no immediate danger from that. And then, 
 it didn't occur to me as remotely possible that Wilkins 
 could want to tie himself to a woman by whom, clearly, 
 he was not attracted. If your half-sister had been older, 
 I might have feared. Or you — But no — the suggestion is 
 an insult. Of course that was impossible." He stopped, 
 gave himself a little shake as though flinging off something 
 unpleasant, and continued : " I should explain, in justice to 
 myself, that the breakdown of the Princess Maud and the 
 delay of even a day were of considerable importance 
 to me, because I had arranged to meet a man I knew 
 — a companion in a scientific expedition to investigate the 
 flora of New Guinea. I was to show him my garden. But 
 he had to make his connection at the Pilot station, and I 
 just missed him. I caught him up, however, on the 
 coast, so it didn't matter so much. . . . Well, when my con- 
 science pricked me, I determined to go back to Leichardt's 
 Town and see how things were going in regard to Wilkins. 
 . . . Then one day I heard of his arrival at Oronga Island 
 with — Miss Lloyd, your sisters' governess, whom he was 
 said to have married suddenly." 
 
 " Yes, as you know, the marriage was very sudden," I 
 answered. " And, still, the why of it is a mystery to me. 
 I wish you could explain that." 
 
 He seemed to be debating within himself, his head 
 lowered, his eyes on the ground, a concentrated expression 
 on his face as if he were working out a difficult problem. 
 I waited in silence, but he did not say anything. Meantime, 
 I was reminded of the passing of time by the sun, now 
 well above the tallest tree-top and striking the upright 
 boulders behind us. I looked at my watch. It was 
 two hours since I had left the house. 
 
 He noticed the gesture and gave me a quick 
 
 glance. 
 
 19
 
 290 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " Yes, I know I must not keep you. But let me consider 
 a minute longer." 
 
 Presently his tense attitude relaxed. 
 
 " I am trying to think out the wisest course to take for 
 the present," he said. " It's all very complicated. — 
 Threads crossing each other ; and I can't straighten the 
 tangle or make certain definite statements which " — he 
 hesitated — " which would put quite another aspect on 
 the situation — until I am certain of the proofs I expect 
 to receive very shortly." 
 
 He stopped doubtfully : and I said " Yes," not under- 
 standing what he meant, but deeply stirred by a look 
 that came into his face — a look that had some strong feeling 
 struggling at the back and which was finding expression 
 against his will. 
 
 " I want to narrow myself to the practical view," he said, 
 " and not to let my thoughts be drawn aside or my judg- 
 ment blinded by — other issues, which I may not follow 
 up— yet." 
 
 He spoke with a shy reserve, but again there was the 
 emotional note in his voice. I was afraid to meet his eyes 
 lest mine should betray that which I wished to keep hidden. 
 
 " I could not even begin to tell you," he said, " what I 
 feel about the wonder and beauty of your presence here. 
 And this consecration of yourself to the end I have so 
 longed to accomplish and which seemed so difficult for me 
 alone." 
 
 I made an involuntary gesture : it appeared to check 
 him. His tone changed to one of extreme diffidence. 
 
 " You are not angry — I do not presume too greatly ! ' 
 
 I said there could be no question of presumption. Only, 
 that I didn't wish him to think more highly of me than 
 I deserved — that I just wanted to help Dody and that I 
 would do anything that he thought best. 
 
 " Then I take it that we have entered into a bond of 
 fellowship — you and I — and are working together for 
 the rescue of Dolores. Tell me that you will trust me." 
 
 " I do trust you, Mr. Helsing. I trusted you from the 
 very beginning."
 
 SISTER SORROW 291 
 
 He smiled — happily, I thought. 
 
 " That is well. And now I want you to trust me a little 
 longer — until you see me again — which will not be for about 
 a week." 
 
 I kept back an exclamation of dismay, but my face 
 must have expressed it, for he added reassuringly : 
 
 " You mustn't think I am deserting you in your need 
 — and hers. I know you have it in your mind that I am 
 allowing very little time for action between now and the 
 full moon — always supposing that Mr. Wilkins chooses to 
 return then. But there's nothing to hinder his crossing 
 the Narrows by boat before and after that time : and we 
 don't know for certain that he has bought cattle and will 
 be swimming them to the Island so soon." 
 
 I admitted that was true. 
 
 " We've got to take chances," Torvald said. " As 
 for my going away, I told you that I was expecting certain 
 information which might alter the whole look-out. I'm 
 going to meet the person who holds that information, at 
 Port Douglas, and I shall take the Northern boat, which 
 will be signalled from the Pilot station early to-morrow." 
 
 I listened breathlessly. He checked me as I was 
 about to speak. 
 
 " Yes, I know that you want to ask me what I expect 
 to hear. But I can't tell you what I don't know myself, 
 and I must beg you to be patient until I am certain one 
 way or the other. Then you shall know everything. 
 Besides, to make it all clear now, I should have to go 
 over the history of my wanderings these last six months, 
 and you haven't time for that — neither have I." 
 
 We both glanced at the sky where the sun had mounted 
 considerably. I got up from the stone. He too rose, and 
 we stood facing each other. 
 
 " Yes, I must go," I said, and asked : " Hew long does 
 it take to get to Port Douglas ? " 
 
 He had mentioned a port on the Northern coast, a calling- 
 place for the principal steamers between Australia and the 
 South Seas and Malay Archipelago. 
 
 ' About two days from the Pilot station," he answered. 
 
 19*
 
 292 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " I have calculated dates and connections, and, if all goes 
 well, should be back in seven days at the latest. I am 
 sorry to have run things so close, but I only knew yesterday 
 that I should have to go. The mail-boats don't fit in 
 for my return, but I can manage it by catching a local 
 coasting steamer from Karrabin, which, as you know, is 
 lower down than Port Douglas. I shall telegraph to the 
 Pilot station from there and Jacky will bring you the 
 message, so that you may know for certain when to expect 
 me. The important thing," he went on, " is to get Dolores 
 into a better state of health. These violent attacks must 
 be prevented if possible — for your sake as well as hers. 
 I am puzzled about them, but I can do nothing now except 
 send you some herb medicine that I shall prepare ; you can 
 give it in perfect confidence that it will do no harm, and 
 I hope it may do a great deal of good — one mixture in 
 daily doses, the other when the attacks come on. I shall 
 write full directions and I shall send Jacky with the stuff 
 before daylight to-morrow. I think it will be safest that 
 he should use his own wits — which are pretty cute — and 
 come up to the Head-station when he can do so unobserved, 
 as he did this morning." 
 
 We agreed that this was best. He told me that Jacky 
 could be trusted to take any letters or telegrams I might 
 wish sent from the Pilot station. " And, by the way," 
 he added, " a Government tug, going back to Leuraville 
 last evening, took your letter to your sister. She ought 
 to receive it to-morrow." 
 
 That had been a lucky chance. It appeared that there 
 were often means of communication of that sort between the 
 Pilot station and Leuraville, and I was the more angry 
 at the difficulties Mr. Wilkins and Crankshaw had thrown 
 in the way of my making use of them. 
 
 Torvald gave me a little further advice as to my treat- 
 ment of Dolores, and then we parted.
 
 SISTER SORROW 293 
 
 IV 
 
 I WALKED back by myself. No one saw me as I 
 came to the house by the front of the hill, with my 
 arms full of wattle and such flowers as I could gather to 
 provide an excuse for my early ramble in case I met 
 Crankshaw. 
 
 But he and Dubbo were evidently at the stockyard or 
 the hut, and Mrs. Meake was occupied in the kitchen. 
 
 I found Dody still in my bed. She had been awake, 
 she said, only a few minutes. I took her along the veranda 
 to her own room. She looked the ghost of even her 
 former sick self and was pitifully weak. When I had 
 put her into her own bed I got breakfast for her from 
 Mrs. Meake and fed her as if she had been a baby. 
 
 She lay all day in a semi-comatose state. I did not 
 leave her, and watched by her that night as well, tucking 
 myself up in my dressing-gown under her mosquito- 
 curtains and dozing by fits and starts while she slept. 
 This was pretty nearly the night through without any 
 more terrors or shakings. In early morning I looked over 
 the railings at my end of the veranda, and there, sure 
 enough, was the faithful Jacky, with his black's grin and 
 oblique Chinese leer — I always thought there was more of 
 the Chinaman than the aboriginal in Jacky — waiting to 
 spring like a cat to the top bar of the railings. 
 
 He produced the two bottles of medicine — one smaller 
 than the other — and a paper with minute directions from 
 Torvald, ending with a few personal words of good cheer. 
 
 I gave Jacky a packet of letters I had written for post, 
 and he went off again long before Dubbo was up and after 
 the milkers. 
 
 It was an inexpressible comfort to feel that I had this 
 link with civilization, though, as a matter of fact, things 
 went better after that, and I had no immediate need of
 
 294 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Jacky's services. He told me that he had camped " good 
 way from paddock, long-a scrub," and that he came along to 
 the Head-station when " little feller moon gone to bed," 
 adding, " My word, that soon big feller, moon ! " and 
 then he had waited among the piles under the house till 
 he heard my step on the veranda. 
 
 I watched the waxing of that moon as though I had 
 been a condemned prisoner, for whom liberation or the 
 death-sentence depended upon its culmination. 
 
 I don't know why, as Torvald had said, we should have 
 felt such intense anxiety over that particular moon : 
 for, as yet, Crankshaw had let out no hint as to when 
 Mr. Wilkins would return. 
 
 I think from his manner and the way he went to and 
 from the Narrows — as though he were expecting something 
 to happen which didn't come off — that he himself was 
 anxious and uncertain. That was the impression he 
 gave me. One afternoon I asked him point-blank when 
 Mr. Wilkins was coming back. He met me at the head of 
 the Gully returning from a canter on Zillah, for I now made 
 Dubbo fetch up the Arab from the little paddock and 
 saddled her myself. Crankshaw, I understood, had been 
 making his usual pilgrimage to the Narrows Crossing. 
 He said he did not know Mr. Wilkins' plans, but he guessed 
 that the Boss might turn up at any time. I asked him 
 then what had become of the Jiminies, adding, at a 
 malicious venture, that I had been thinking they might 
 have gone on a sailing trip. 
 
 On that he turned sharply upon me and demanded 
 ferociously what the Almighty had put that notion into 
 my head. 
 
 I had never seen Crankshaw look ferocious like that. 
 It was the worst kind of ferocity — there was fright in it. 
 I realized dimly that under stress of fear, whether of Mr. 
 Wilkins or of danger to his own skin, Crankshaw might 
 present a rather different aspect from that with which 
 the comic papers endow the traditional " Uncle Sam." 
 I had been feeling uncomfortable about Crankshaw ever 
 since my meeting with Torvald Helsing, when vague
 
 SISTER SORROW 295 
 
 suspicion had crystallized into positive conviction. I should 
 have liked to accuse him straight out of being the man 
 who had driven the coach in Mr. Wilkins' story of the gold 
 robbery in New Mexico ; only that, in the circumstances, 
 I did not dare to risk possible consequences. 
 
 So I parried his rude question with a light retort that 
 as the Jiminies were such splendid seamen and lived close 
 to the sea, it was a natural guess on my part. 
 
 He gave me a queer, doubtful look. By this time, 
 the admiring stage in Crankshaw was past. I am sure 
 that he now regarded me less as an individual female of 
 attractive manners and tendencies than as Generic Woman 
 towards whom he felt a deep-rooted distrust and whom 
 he thought it safest to avoid. 
 
 Poor Crankshaw ! I had long since decided that what 
 he possessed of intellect was neither subtle nor brilliant. 
 Also, that he had no particular force of character. It 
 must be simply that, as he himself put it, Mr. Wilkins had 
 " got him." I shrank from Crankshaw now. In fact, 
 I was rather afraid of him, but, in a way, I was sorry for 
 the man. Apart, however, from Crankshaw and the 
 growing moon, I was feeling in fairly good spirits, consider- 
 ing all things. Dody looked ever so much better, and, in 
 manner and speech, was at times almost normal, except 
 that she still had fits of restlessness, in which she would 
 pace the veranda with her eyes fixed on the mainland and 
 an indefinable, hungry, empty look on her face. Or she 
 would sit silent, her hands unoccupied in her long chair, 
 flaccid, nerveless, amoebic — like the sea-anemone left 
 dry by the receding tide — or, more correctly, like a haschish, 
 or opium victim deprived of the drug that had become 
 necessary to her existence. Or, I might liken the fluctua- 
 tions in her to a slow warfare against noxious elements, 
 in which there were reactions on one side or the other. 
 The encouraging part was that the balance rested with 
 the healthy reactions, the bad ones becoming shorter 
 and less frequent. I saw vistas of hope in the future — if 
 only she could be got away from Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 On the fifth day, the improvement was really marked.
 
 296 SISTER SORROW 
 
 I attributed it altogether to the daily doses of Torvald 
 Helsing's herb medicine, which I gave as he had directed, 
 putting a teaspoonful of the stuff at meals into her tea 
 or other drinks. It was a colourless liquid, and apparently 
 tasteless, for she never detected its presence. I did not 
 tell her what I was doing, for I feared that she would 
 refuse to take Torvald's physic without permission from 
 her husband. I had with some difficulty persuaded her to 
 discontinue the doses of quinine, but she was now sane 
 enough to realize that she did better without them and 
 could not suppose that Mr. Wilkins would offer any objec- 
 tion. Nor, for that matter, did I suppose it either. Having 
 got her to agree to this, I took surreptitious possession of 
 the bottle of pills that she kept in that little cupboard 
 above her wash-stand. But she was vexed, and insisted 
 on my putting back the bottle lest, as she said, Phil should 
 be angry at finding it gone. So I had to leave it at that, 
 and keep a watch upon her moods. I did succeed later 
 in removing the key of the cupboard— she was by way 
 of keeping it locked — and in making her believe that 
 she had herself mislaid it. I did not think that the Record- 
 ing Angel would do other than, maybe, drop the 
 traditional tear over that act of deception. 
 
 But I felt very much worried when the eighth day came 
 and there had been no Jacky with the promised message 
 announcing Torvald's departure from Port Douglas on the 
 return voyage. According to arrangements, the half- 
 caste should have come anyhow, but Jacky 's slavish 
 interpretation of the letter of his orders was all the more 
 proof of that Chinese strain in his blood. He had been 
 told to come over with a message. As there was no 
 message, he did not come. 
 
 I walked down to the Rocks at sunrise and sat on the flat 
 stone, wondering what accident could have occurred. 
 For I was convinced that Torvald Helsing would at any 
 cost keep a promise and must therefore have been un- 
 avoidably prevented from doing so. 
 
 I should have felt more miserable and forlorn, but that 
 Dolores' better health gave me courage. I had actually
 
 SISTER SORROW 297 
 
 persuaded her the day before to mount Zillah and to 
 ride with me a short distance along the northern track. 
 I never left her alone now except when it was absolutely 
 necessary, for I found that when allowed to brood, she was 
 likely to have a relapse. I really felt as if I were keeping 
 a fiend at bay and needed all the strength and vigilance of 
 which I was capable. Perhaps it was a good thing for 
 me in those days that I, too, was not allowed to brood. 
 
 But on the ninth morning, when at dawn I went to the 
 end of the veranda, to my joy I was greeted by the familiar 
 guttural call : " Yuck . . . ke ! . . . Yuck . . . ke ! . . . 
 Then an eager whisper : " Missee . . . Missee ; " and then 
 Tacky 's yellowy-black face rose slowly to the level of 
 the veranda. 
 
 This morning he did not jump on to the top rail, but 
 peered over it and round the corner of the veranda as 
 though he thought he might be seen. 
 
 I asked him whether Mr. Helsing was waiting for me 
 at the Rocks. Jacky shook his head. " Ba'al Massa sit 
 down longa Rocks. My been plant 'im horse there." 
 And to my questions, " Ba'al Massa come back, but me 
 got 'im letter belonging to you. Mine think it one feller 
 letter longa wire. He say when Massa come home." 
 
 Thereupon, Jacky pulled from his breeches-pocket a 
 small parcel wrapped in greasy newspaper. 
 
 Inside, were a telegram in its blue envelope and two 
 letters that had come by post. 
 
 " Pilot bring 'im letter longa Leuraville last night," 
 explained Jacky. I read the telegram first. It was from 
 Karrabin, dated the previous day. 
 
 " Delayed by storm. Hope arrive Pilot station to-morrow 
 night. See you next morning. Torvald." 
 
 That was all. 
 
 To-morrow ! What news would he have to give me ? 
 
 Jacky could tell me nothing more except that at the 
 Pilot station it was known that there had been " plenty 
 big feller storm " up the coast — a local cyclone of which
 
 298 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Karrabin had been the centre. Torvald must have lost 
 connection with the coasting steamer, or perhaps it had 
 been delayed by the cyclone. 
 
 " My word ! close — up Crankshaw been catch me," 
 said Jacky. " Mine been dodge that feller behind tree. 
 Me want 'im yan quick. Plenty mine 'fraid him look out 
 horse belonging to me longa Rocks." 
 
 The half-caste was impatient and frightened lest he 
 should have to make his way back on foot. He told me 
 that when it was scarcely light he had seen Crankshaw 
 riding towards the Narrows Crossing leading one horse 
 and driving two. From Jacky's description I recognized 
 the four horses as Crankshaw's black, The Rogue, Sindbad, 
 the bay and Zillah. My heart fell. Crankshaw must 
 have heard that Mr. Wilkins was with the mob of cattle 
 at the Narrows, or near the Narrows, and had taken the 
 horses to meet him. I had not seen Crankshaw at all 
 yesterday ; and last night in the veranda, watching the 
 full moon sailing in the heavens, had comforted myself 
 with the reflection that he would surely have come to 
 tell me if there were any question of swimming cattle 
 across the Narrows. For, during one of our first rides 
 together, when I had begged him to let me witness that 
 interesting operation, should it occur again during my 
 stay on Oronga Island, he had promised me faithfully 
 that I should do so. 
 
 Well, it seemed clear that Crankshaw was not a man 
 of his word. And apart from that, I felt there was some- 
 thing sinister in his stealthy departure and in his removal 
 of our riding-horses. Now I was helpless indeed. 
 
 I SPENT the day in a state of suspense, expecting at 
 any moment to hear the distant lowing of cattle 
 and the tramp of stockmen's horses. But never had the 
 Head-station been more quiet.
 
 SISTER SORROW 299 
 
 Of course I told Dolores nothing about Jacky's visit. 
 Nor did I tell her about the letters I had received, which, 
 in fact, were as great a worry and shock as had been the 
 news about Crankshaw. I had put them in my pocket, 
 and, being busy with Dody, made no opportunity to read 
 them until the small household jobs we did together were 
 finished and Dody deep in her chestnut-blossom em- 
 broidery on the veranda. Then I went to my own room 
 and opened the two letters — one from Bee in answer 
 to mine and one from Bel to whom I had not written. 
 Bel's I read last. 
 
 Bee's was like herself, flippant and full of animal spirits. 
 She had evidently been enjoying her time enormously. 
 Mustering was going on at Malpa Downs, with the result 
 that the place was full of young men, and that, judging 
 by her account of dances, rides and moonlight flirtations, 
 Bee was proving a pretty handful for her lawful guardian 
 to keep within the bounds of decorum. Mr. Pringle sent 
 a message — written across the last and otherwise blank 
 sheet, and which I read before the rest of the letter, that 
 he was too busy to write, but that he had heard about 
 our shipwreck, and my heroic behaviour, and that he 
 was glad to know I had arrived safely at Oronga Island 
 and was having a good time with Mrs. Wilkins all to 
 myself. 
 
 A good time ! 
 
 Such a version of the case could only have emanated 
 from Mr. Phil Wilkins himself ; and, sure enough, I learned 
 from Bee's letter that Mr. Wilkins must have arrived at 
 Malpa Downs a day or two after he had left the Island, 
 and that he had been there, off and on — most frequently 
 on — ever since. The queer thing was, not that he seemed 
 to have been taking immense pains to make a good im- 
 pression, but that he had succeeded in doing so — on 
 Bee at any rate. 
 
 Had he " got " her too ! 
 
 The way she wrote about him made me feel sick — 
 animal spirits, flirtatious tendencies translated into 
 boarding-school slang. She had never met any " man-
 
 300 SISTER SORROW 
 
 thing '" so fascinating. It was his knowing such a lot 
 about the world and being so absolutely unlike anybody 
 else that made him so frightfully alluring. All the other 
 young men— even Harry Pringle, who was simply mad at 
 her being so taken up with Mr. Wilkins — were " milksop 
 Bushies ' beside him.— He — Phil Wilkins— had a way 
 with him which made you feel he could do anything lie 
 chose to do, even to making a girl fall desperately in love 
 with him against her will. 
 
 Bee's shameless frankness over her love-affairs had been 
 her guardians' and schoolmistresses' best defensive weapon 
 against the assaults of her calf-adorers, and they had 
 used it more than once to track down and get rid of an 
 undesirable fortune-hunter. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins had certainly conquered all Bee's earlier 
 repugnance. The child's instinct had served her better 
 than the woman's knowledge served her now, with the 
 virginal bloom taken off it by schoolgirl amourettes. 
 
 " It was his eyes," Bee said, " that hypnotized you. 
 They forced you to look at him and to think of him, even 
 when he wasn't there, whether you wanted to or not. 
 Now she could understand," she said, " Miss Lloyd having 
 made such a fool of herself the very first day she ever 
 saw him. But, of course, Miss Lloyd was, and always had 
 been, a downright, bed-rock fool. She'd sicken any man- 
 hanging on to him, as she did, like a lump of jellyfish." — ■ 
 I concluded that Mr. Wilkins had trotted out the jellyfish 
 simile to Bee. — " And everybody knew that Dotty was 
 more than half-cracked. " — So Bee had adopted Mr. 
 Wilkins' pet name for his wife.—" No wonder the poor man 
 had been glad to get away from the Island and hand her 
 over to me." . . . And so on. 
 
 I shuddered as I read, and then hated myself for putting 
 an evil construction upon Bee's flirtatious egoism. I told 
 myself that she meant no harm. It was just her tempera- 
 ment, with self-love and flippancy and bad style added on. 
 ■ — Those schoolmistresses couldn't have been what poor 
 old Clara had thought them. But, after all, I reflected, I 
 need not worry seriously about the effect of Mr. Wilkins'
 
 SISTER SORROW 301 
 
 fascinations on Bee. He couldn't marry her, and her 
 fortune was, for the present, strictly under Mr. Pringle's 
 control. 
 
 Nevertheless, disagreeably suggestive pictures would 
 come flashing into my mind. First, of Bee in the veranda 
 of The Bunyas, her full-lipped, pink-checked face lifted like 
 a large cabbage rose-bud bursting into bloom, and her 
 corn-coloured plaits swinging as she swayed herself on her 
 hips and chaffed Mr. Wilkins about poor Dody's buttonhole 
 posy. . . . And the man's look at her, which had so 
 incensed me at the time ! . . . Then the mad race in the 
 garden . . . and the snatched kiss, for which the girl 
 had returned a blow. . . . And the threat in the man's 
 eyes when he had told her that he would pay her out 
 some day. 
 
 Then again, the meeting of the two on the steamer deck. 
 Bee grown up and more demurely but quite consciously 
 provocative. . . . Bee chaffing Mr. Wilkins anew about 
 the buttonhole posy and challenging him to take his forfeit 
 from her at Malpa Downs. Of course he had taken it by 
 this time. Bel's letter, which I hadn't expected, and which 
 was longer than Bee's, put a still more disquieting view 
 of the matter before me. She was a good girl, Bel, with 
 some sense of the fitness of things, and, no doubt, troublous 
 experience of her sister's escapades had made her wise 
 for her years. Bel said she couldn't bear telling tales and 
 wouldn't be double-faced, and that she had warned Bee 
 she should write to me. 
 
 " I do wish, Gagsie," she said, " that you could manage 
 to come over here, if it's only for a few days. I am sure 
 it can't be so difficult as they make out. I know there are 
 always Government launches and things going from 
 Leuraville to the Pilot station, besides the regular steamers 
 that are signalled there : and Harry Pringle would meet 
 you at Leuraville and bring you here. It would be a 
 good thing if Harry did go away for a few days, for I'm 
 sure there'll be a deadly row if Mr. Wilkins stops on and 
 Harry keeps watching him go on as he does with Bee.
 
 302 SISTER SORROW 
 
 I must say it's as much Bee's fault — and I don't suppose 
 you know really what Bee is. I call it disgraceful the 
 way she flirts with Mr. Wilkins — letting him kiss her — I saw 
 him do it. It makes me feel just horrid, though of 
 course I know he is a married man. All the worse, / call 
 it. But, you know, Gagsie, I'm not more than a kid 
 myself and it doesn't seem quite nice for me to preach 
 propriety — especially as none of the others do, except 
 Harry : and he doesn't preach — he swears instead. Uncle 
 Pring only chaffs them about their flirting. But then 
 he's not sharp like Harry, and he's not in love with Bee — 
 at least not in that sort of way — and Harry is. I'd give 
 a lot if Bee would only marry Harry Pringle . . . and 
 then, you see, Uncle Pring has got the mustering on his 
 mind ; and he's out on the run all day and comes home 
 dead-beat in the evening, so that he goes to sleep while 
 the young ones are dancing and laughing in the garden. 
 If you were here, they wouldn't dare, because they'd look 
 upon you as a sort of duenna and know they'd got to behave. 
 Isn't it a pity that Mrs. Pringle died ? — though I must say 
 that I think Malpa Downs is much pleasanter without 
 her. . . . 
 
 " As for being double-faced ! Well, Mr. Wilkins is that, 
 if you like. I've heard him talking to Bee about Miss 
 Lloyd — I always forget she is Mrs. Wilkins — Dotty., he 
 calls her, because he says she's cracked ; and it's perfectly 
 disgusting the way he complains about her — saying all 
 sorts of nasty things. That was one day when he didn't 
 know I was there. I just rounded on him and told him 
 he ought to be ashamed of himself. Then, afterwards, I 
 heard him gushing about his wife to Uncle Pring, telling 
 him he was so anxious about her health because she had 
 had dengue fever and it had left nervous depression and 
 she hadn't got over the shakes yet. He was saying that 
 he couldn't persuade Dolores to go anywhere or to take 
 interest in anything. Not even in riding, though he had 
 bought her a beautiful Arab mare trained to the side-saddle. 
 ... I expect, though, you'll be putting a bit of life into her. 
 That's what he said to Uncle Pring : and that he had just
 
 SISTER SORROW 303 
 
 jumped at the notion of getting you up there, and was 
 leaving you two old friends alone together because he 
 thought it best he should keep out of the way, particularly 
 as he had a thoroughly trustworthy man on the place 
 who would look after you both. 
 
 " Now is all that true, Gagsie ? . . . Because I don't 
 believe a word of it," was Bel's summing up. 
 
 Among her various items of innocently-told gossip, Bel 
 related that one day they had all ridden to Nagbar Goldfield 
 to inspect " Our Mine " (alas, not my mine !), and that 
 Bee and she had been received as if they were royal prin- 
 cesses and the mining men their subjects : and that she 
 supposed they would be millionaires some day if the 
 splendid output went on. She also added that there had 
 been no news of Captain Red-Mask lately and that every- 
 body was saying the escort ought to be doubled for the 
 next lot of gold that went down. " Our Mine " was a 
 sort of little diggings by itself, she explained, and remarked 
 that Mr. Wilkins had seemed very much impressed by what 
 he had seen and was wishing he could " spot the yellow." 
 Several times when the other men at Malpa Downs went 
 mustering, he had ridden over Nagbar way prospecting all 
 by himself, and got tremendously chaffed when he brought 
 in a specimen of iron pyrites and declared it was gold. 
 
 There was only one item of Bel's budget which was 
 pleasant reading. It came at the end. 
 
 " The chief est reason why I want you to try and get 
 over here as soon as you can, is that Mr. Wilkins might 
 feel obliged, out of shame, to go back and see after his wife. 
 For he doesn't show the slightest sign of wanting to leave 
 at present. He came over, he said, to buy some cattle, 
 but I don't think he has bought any yet. This morning 
 at breakfast he said to Uncle Pring that there was no 
 hurry, because it was too late now tc think of swimming 
 them over the Narrows this moon, and that he'd have to 
 wait another fortnight for the next moon. I suppose that 
 means that he is going to stay here till then. I hope not,
 
 304 SISTER SORROW 
 
 but I am afraid it's pretty certain — that is, if Harry 
 Pringle doesn't kick him out of the place, as he says he's 
 bound to do sooner or later. . . ." 
 
 The letter wound up here, after a line of further beseeching 
 that I'd manage somehow to get across. 
 
 I looked at the date. Bel had written only three days 
 before. It wasn't likely that Mr. Wilkins would have 
 changed his mind between this and then. 
 
 VI 
 
 MY heart felt so light that I could have danced back 
 to Dody and told her the cause of my joy — only 
 that it wouldn't have been joy to her. Here were we, 
 safe for this night and to-morrow, more likely for the whole 
 fortnight. Who could tell what might not happen in a 
 fortnight ? I did speculate on the possible effect of 
 reading Dolores Bel's letter. Would jealousy make her 
 frantically eager to go to Malpa Downs and see for herself 
 how double-faced Mr. Wilkins was ? Would it plunge 
 her back into the old terror of his desertion and so tighten 
 his hold ? Or would it turn her against him and enable 
 me to induce her to leave him ? Once get her to the 
 Pilot station and I could so easily take her to The Bunyas 
 as I had often planned. With her in the shelter of my 
 own walls, I could surely back my powers of resistance 
 against any assault on the part of Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 But common sense told me that to make a clean breast 
 would be too risky a business. I might drive her down- 
 right mad. 
 
 Besides, there was Torvald Helsing to be considered. 
 
 All day I was saying to myself, " He will come to- 
 morrow." 
 
 I found it the more difficult to keep to my policy of 
 reserve because Dolores was so extraordinarily well that 
 day : so sane, so comparatively cheerful.
 
 SISTER SORROW 305 
 
 Truly, the herb medicine had worked a miracle. We 
 went for a short walk in the afternoon to a little ridge 
 near the stockyard, where a belt of wattle in full bloom 
 took us back to the Ubi. A soft wind blew from the 
 ocean side, and I thought to myself, " Torvald will have 
 a calm passage to the Island." 
 
 When Dolores was tired we sat down on a log and 
 watched the spring birds on their flight back from their 
 winter migration, and Dody talked as she had not talked 
 since I came to the Island. 
 
 ' I don't know how it is, Gagsie," she said thoughtfully, 
 ' but I feel as if I were waking up from a bad dream. 
 It's as though there had been a black veil over the world, 
 and that 1 could only see through it dimly in some parts 
 and in other parts not at all. A sort of dark, slimy cloud. 
 And now it's lifting — getting thinner, and I can see the 
 blue sky and feel the wind on my face." 
 
 " Dody," I said earnestly, " you feel like that now 
 because the influences that were doing you harm have 
 been counteracted . . . partly through my being with 
 you . . . partly because of . . ." (I did not know 
 how much of the truth it was well to convey) . . . "be- 
 cause of other, stronger influences — for good instead of for 
 evil." 
 
 She gave a little frightened shudder and stammered, 
 " Wh . . . why ? " 
 
 ' I can't give you the real explanation yet. You 
 couldn't bear it. . . . And besides, I've only got a glim- 
 mering understanding of it all myself." 
 
 ' I ... I don't know. . . . The cloud was there. . . . 
 And it has lifted — a little." She spoke like a puzzled child. 
 
 ' That black, slimy cloud — yes, it is slimy and horrible — 
 
 was caused by the bad influences. ... It was part of the 
 
 conditions ... of your life on the Island ... of your 
 
 marriage. ..." I was feeling my way haltingly. . . . 
 
 ' Dody, you never had those dreadful sensations before 
 
 you " I was going to say " met Mr. Wilkins," but 
 
 substituted " before you came here." 
 
 A dull frightened look had been creeping over her 
 
 20
 
 3o6 SISTER SORROW 
 
 face, and her forehead puckered, showing the dent in the 
 middle. 
 
 " You see," I went on quickly, still feeling my way, 
 " the old life at Barolin suited you so much better : it was 
 pure and healthy. Here " 
 
 Again she gave an apprehensive shiver, and I took her 
 hand and held it tight as I went on. 
 
 " Here, you haven't been healthy, Dody, neither in body 
 nor mind. I think the mosquitoes may have brought 
 some poisonous germ which contaminated your blood and 
 caused the strange attacks of illness, and so made it possible 
 for morbid thoughts and feelings to overcome you." 
 
 " Some poisonous germ," she repeated, and there was 
 slight relief in her tone. " You really think that accounts 
 for it all, Agatha ? " 
 
 I answered boldly : 
 
 ' No, I don't. It accounts for it only in the first instance, 
 physically. The true mischief lies much deeper. . . . You 
 see, the main condition of your life is different from what 
 it was when you were a girl." 
 
 " Do you mean that it is my having married which 
 makes things worse ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do," I answered bluntly. 
 
 She was silent for a few moments. Her features worked 
 nervously and a slow flush crept up her neck and face. 
 She kept her eyes from me and seemed to find difficulty 
 in speaking, as she began brokenly, but with passion in 
 her voice : 
 
 " I won't ... I can't believe that. ... At the begin- 
 ning I was so happy. . . . There was no black cloud. I 
 seemed to live in a beautiful dream. . . . Oh, he must have 
 loved me then. . . . Gagsie, you're wrong. It's cruel — it's 
 wicked to say that my marriage has made me bad. Be- 
 cause . . . you see . . ." she hesitated ..." it's not as 
 
 if You see, it's a long time — now, since we lived 
 
 like married people." She bent her head, hiding her face. 
 I pressed her hand against my heart. She began to sob. 
 
 " That's what is the matter. I want him so. ... I 
 can't live without his love. . . . It's like taking away my
 
 SISTER SORROW 307 
 
 life. ... I need him. . . . I'm part of him. ... If I'm 
 cut off, I bleed . . . my heart bleeds. I'm empty . . . I'm 
 starved . . . and then . . . don't you know what it 
 says ? — when the house is swept and garnished the seven 
 devils come." 
 
 ' There was one evil spirit which went out first," I said. 
 
 She gave a strange little cry, and the scared, agonized 
 look on her face made me realize something of what that 
 unhappy soul had suffered. She knew what I meant 
 and answered defiantly : 
 
 ' I don't care. If it was an evil spirit, then I was evil 
 too. For I was his — don't you understand ? The house 
 was his house. I belonged to him. I am happy when I 
 please him. . . but I couldn't please him for very long. 
 I was too stupid. He got tired of me. He went out of 
 the house — and then — one time when he was away for 
 weeks and weeks, then the seven devils entered in." 
 
 " But they are not here now," I said, " the Master of 
 Light has sent St. George, on his white horse with his 
 shining sword, to free you from the powers of darkness. 
 And he has driven out the seven devils, Dody. He has 
 cleansed the house, and the door is shut fast so that no 
 evil spirit may enter in again." 
 
 I know that my words must have sounded strangely 
 fervid. The sense of exaltation filled me. St. George — ■ 
 my St. George of Australia had become so very real to 
 me that Dody's scream of protest called me back as from 
 another world. 
 
 " No, no," she exclaimed. " What do you mean, 
 Agatha, by your St. George ? Now, it is you who are 
 telling fairy stories. — I will not have any St. George. I will 
 not have the door of my house shut. It must be open 
 always — wide open for Phil to come in to me when he 
 chooses." 
 
 " Suppose he doesn't choose," I said grimly. " Suppose 
 he is tired of you, as you said, and is staying away because 
 he doesn't wish to come back. Well, wouldn't you rather 
 be free of him and go away from this miserable place 
 with those who do love you ? — go away with me — to my 
 
 20*
 
 3 o8 SISTER SORROW 
 
 home. I so want you to come, Dody. I want you to 
 live with me and be my sister. I want to make you well 
 and happy — as you used to be at Barolin. I want that 
 more than anything in the world. I'd make any sacrifice 
 for it. Oh, my dear — the world wouldn't be dark, if you'll 
 only let us keep that slimy, black veil lifted." 
 
 She began to cry like a child and took up my hand which 
 was holding hers and kissed it. My appeal must have 
 touched some deep buried chord in her memory, for her 
 sobbing utterances had lost the note of defiance. 
 
 " Oh, Gagsie. . . . Oh, Gagsie, dear. I loved you from 
 the moment I woke from fainting — that first evening at 
 Barolin, when I saw you bending over me — so kind, so 
 sweet. . . . But I never thought you cared for me like that. 
 ... I love you better than I could ever love a sister, 
 only . . . you must not ask me to give up my husband. 
 I can't do it ... I can't . . . I'd be thankful if you 
 could make me better, for perhaps he'd be fond of me 
 again if I were well and pretty and able to do all he wanted. 
 ... I could never be now, what I used to be at Barolin . . . 
 and even there, I always seemed to be wanting something 
 . . . something ... I didn't know what till he came, I 
 think." Her voice fell, " I am sure that it began — that 
 longing — after I had the dream — you remember — the 
 dream of him." 
 
 That dream ! I was glad she alluded to it. Her doing 
 so seemed to open the way to real confidences. 
 
 " Dody, tell me " I began. My own voice fell like 
 
 hers and I was conscious of an awesome thrill, " Have 
 you ever seen the place of the dream ? " 
 
 She shook her head, but slowly and half -doubtfully. 
 
 " It will be the end," she said, as if to herself. " I shall 
 see it at the end." 
 
 " But, Dody, tell me. You don't know — you can't say, 
 can you, if the place is on Oronga Island ? " 
 
 She shuddered. " I am afraid." 
 
 ' Is it because you are afraid of that, that you don't 
 want to ride — to see the sea on the other side of the 
 Island. . . . Are you afraid the place is there ? "
 
 SISTER SORROW 309 
 
 " I am afraid," she repeated dully. 
 
 " Why are you afraid? " I asked. " Have you heard 
 anything that makes you think it's there ? " 
 
 " There was a Lighthouse in the dream — — " she said. 
 ' The Lighthouse stood up against the sky, and there were 
 red rocks. . . . There's a Lighthouse at the Pilot station ; 
 there are red rocks, and bread-fruit trees grow along that 
 shore; I have heard of them all. I don't want ever to go 
 to the Pilot station or to the other side of the Island. 
 I could have gone, when we first came up here. He'd have 
 got me a side-saddle then, and there would have been a 
 horse ; he'd have done anything like that — then." 
 
 Oh, the tragedy of that " then." 
 
 " And you wouldn't go ? " 
 
 " I was afraid. Don't speak of it any more. Gagsie, 
 when I think of the dream, I know. The end will come 
 when I see the place of my dream. . . . Gagsie, let us go, 
 the black veil is beginning to cover the sky and the trees 
 and you too." 
 
 ' Then, in Heaven's name, let us drop the subject," I 
 answered, getting up and helping her to rise from the log. 
 ' And instead of talking about gruesome things while we 
 walk to the house, I shall recite you a bit of genuine 
 Australian poetry which I learnt by heart out of the Bulletin 
 the other day." 
 
 VII 
 
 THE beautiful day with its brightness, for Dody, of 
 sun, sky and mood changed altogether, mentally 
 and atmospherically, not long after we reached the 
 house. 
 
 The sky clouded over and drops of rain began to fall 
 about sunset. Soon the weather had settled into a soft 
 persistent downpour. I thought of Torvald riding through 
 the Bush in the wet, with moon obscured, and camping at 
 dawn by the Rocks to keep his early tryst with me. But
 
 310 SISTER SORROW 
 
 not even the thought of his discomfort could silence the 
 song of thanksgiving which made itself in my heart. 
 
 But now, watching the dark mood gather anew upon 
 Dolores, I regretted my indiscretion in having spoken 
 to her as I had done about her marriage. Physically, she 
 seemed fairly well, but the naturalness of her manner was 
 gone and she was either moving about aimlessly, as if on 
 restless wires, or sat in a languid attitude, weighed down 
 with brooding thought. I gave her the herb dose in her 
 drink at supper, and then — the rain having brought 
 myriads of mosquitoes which made it impossible to work 
 or read in any comfort — I persuaded her to go to bed, and 
 left her, at length, tucked up under the mosquito-curtains 
 dozing off in her first sleep. 
 
 I was very restless too. Something was going to happen. 
 I felt it in my bones, and did not know why the prospect 
 should fill me with vague fear rather than with pleasurable 
 anticipation. For I had put aside the dread of Mr. Wilkins' 
 return, and thought only of my meeting with Torvald 
 Helsing on the morrow. I was certain the rain would not 
 keep him away. 
 
 It dripped heavily from the veranda-eaves and soaked 
 into the ground. A dark grey blanket covered the heavens, 
 drifting and dividing occasionally, so that through a veiled 
 rift one caught the pale gleam of a round watery moon. 
 No one, I thought, would dream of swimming the shark- 
 infested Narrows on such a night. Crankshaw had not 
 come back, and I wondered whether he had crossed to the 
 mainland — and if so why ? since Mr. Wilkins had not 
 bought the cattle — or if he were camping out on the 
 run, or maybe sleeping in the Narrows boat-house, of 
 which he kept the key. It was all very strange and 
 bewildering. 
 
 I walked up and down the veranda, whisking off mos- 
 quitoes and wishing that Mrs. Meake had seen fit to light 
 the logs of grass-tree in the camp-oven. 
 
 Frogs croaked dismally and the curlews in the Gully 
 were making their eerie wail. Otherwise the Head-station 
 was as quiet as though peopled by the dead. Mrs. Meake
 
 SISTER SORROW 311 
 
 had retired to her own quarters, and when I looked out 
 at the back yard the kitchen was all in darkness. 
 
 Presently, I betook myself likewise to my bed. 
 
 Something woke me up suddenly. My travelling clock 
 was striking twelve, but it was not that sound which had 
 aroused me. I listened, nerves tense, eyes wide. The 
 French window was partially open, as I usually had it 
 these warm nights, and, from my bed, I could see the sky 
 still clouded, but the rain had stopped and the scud was 
 driving south. A feeble moon-glimmer came through where 
 the mass had broken slightly and made objects dimly visible 
 in the room. I thought the sound that had awakened me 
 might be Dody moving, and strained my ears to her room. 
 All was still there and the house itself dead-silent. Now 
 I realized that the sound was from outside, and I recognized 
 the soft thud of horse's hoofs on the moist ground — the 
 sound of a horse that had a rider. Someone was riding 
 down the track and was approaching the Head-station at 
 the front. 
 
 I could hear the steps drawing close in that jog common 
 to Bush horses, which is almost faster than a regular 
 trot. I sat up in my bed and leaned forward. The 
 jog slowed, and, through the aperture of the window, 
 I saw the rider pass. His face was turned to the house. 
 The moon emerging from the clouds at the moment 
 showed it plainly to me and I almost leaped out of my 
 bed in horror and surprise. Mr. Wilkins had come 
 back. 
 
 But I didn't get up. Instead, I laid my head on my 
 pillow and listened. What was the use of showing myself. 
 A guest must be under conventional restrictions or place 
 herself in a false position. What could I say to him — if 
 I spoke sincerely — or he to me, that would not be unfitting ? 
 I certainly could not tell him to go away. A man has 
 the right to enter his own house at any time of the night. 
 And he has the right to go into his wife's room. 
 
 That was what Mr. Wilkins did. I heard him stop his 
 horse, and dismount at the little gate in the fence leading 
 into the yard, then mount the steps to Dolores' end of
 
 3 i2 SISTER SORROW 
 
 the veranda. He must have hitched the horse up to the 
 fence. I heard an impatient " Wo-a ! " muffled by distance 
 before he entered his dressing-room. It occurred to me 
 to wonder what kind of horse he had been riding. A 
 big upstanding one, for the man's head and shoulders to 
 show, as they had done, well above the veranda-railing 
 as he passed my room. I can never forget the look of 
 him going by — the great shoulders hunched, the wedge- 
 like head poking forward. How odd ! The man had no 
 hat on — nor coat. I had the flashing impression of 
 shoulders moulded smooth by the wet shirt. 
 
 That was natural if he had been riding through the 
 rain and the sea. In swimming his horse over the Narrows 
 he might easily have lost his hat. Maybe, sharks had 
 scented him. His face had a wild, hunted expression. 
 I heard him shut his dressing-room door. And he must 
 have gone at once into Dolores' room, for immediately 
 her French window giving on to the veranda was shut 
 also. After that, noises were not so distinct. There 
 was the parlour between my room and theirs, as well as 
 the length of the veranda for sounds to travel along. 
 
 Nevertheless, voices reached me — her voice, at first, 
 curiously enough, the loudest. His was pitched low 
 — a hoarse gruff utterance. I had the horrid feeling of 
 an angry beast growling. 
 
 I suppose he was afraid of rousing me, and had hushed 
 her talk. The voices fell, hers becoming a mere jerky 
 murmur. He was moving about, and there were confused 
 noises — not of speech — that I could not make out. . . . 
 Then of Dody murmuring, remonstrantly it seemed, and 
 an angry sentence or two from him. . . . A pause in 
 the voices. More of the muffled talk in the two keys, 
 and presently complete silence. So he was letting her 
 go to sleep again ! 
 
 Then there came sounds once more, quite different. 
 I think he must have been in his dressing-room, for they 
 were less distinct. These were of the pulling open of drawers, 
 the kicking off of boots. ... No doubt he was getting 
 out of his wet clothes.
 
 SISTER SORROW 313 
 
 Whatever he was doing took him about a quarter of 
 an hour. I felt that he was in a hurry. The waiting horse 
 whinnied impatiently. I heard the man swear furiously 
 in his throat — an inarticulate bellow like that of an enraged 
 bull. From the sounds which followed, I judged that he 
 had gone down the veranda-steps into the yard and that 
 he was leading the horse along the back of the house. The 
 next thing I heard was the opening of the office door, and 
 I could now distinguish his movements on the other side 
 of the partition at the back of my bed. 
 
 I could tell that he went to the fire-proof safe, and fancied 
 that I heard the chink of sovereigns and rustle of bank- 
 notes. He was not long in the office. It struck me that 
 he had gone to put away money he had brought home 
 with him — it could not be that he was taking money from 
 the safe. He shut the office door and the steps went 
 again along the yard at the back of the house. Presently, 
 I heard the horse going off down the hill, this time in the 
 direction of the stockyard, and I concluded that Mr. Wilkins 
 had unsaddled and turned it out. 
 
 Afterwards the house was perfectly still. 
 
 I turned my thoughts on myself. My great anxiety 
 now was how to meet Torvald Helsing at sunrise un- 
 discovered. 
 
 I reasoned that Mr. Wilkins would probably sleep late 
 after his night ride. And if he did catch me returning, 
 I should have taken the precaution of gathering an armful 
 of wattle-bloom and could make the excuse of a habit 
 of early morning rambling. 
 
 I had more fear of Crankshaw and the Jiminies, who, I 
 presumed, could not be far behind their master. But 
 the Rocks, where Torvald would be, were off the 
 track to the Narrows. . . . And, in any case, I 
 must take risks, for I was determined to carry through 
 the adventure. 
 
 Having so decided, I dozed off. I had set the alarum 
 of my clock and it woke me with the first streak of dawn. 
 Less than half an hour saw me out of doors. It did not 
 rain now, but the ground was sloppy, and my thick shoes
 
 3H SISTER SORROW 
 
 and rough skirt were splashed and draggled long before 
 I reached the Rocks. 
 
 I saw no curl of smoke from the camp fire this morning, 
 and had it not been for the white horse browsing, I might 
 have thought that my knight had failed me. 
 
 VIII 
 
 BUT no, he was there. Not sitting in meditation 
 this time. He was standing alert and expectant, 
 giving the impression that he had only just arrived. The 
 rain had soaked his light tweed coat ; his moleskin riding 
 breeches were stained with damp. His head was bare, 
 and his felt hat with the slouched brim, daik from moisture, 
 lay on the flat stone drying under the steamy rays of the 
 newly-risen sun. 
 
 To-day there was no dreamy expression in his eyes ; 
 his lips were set and determined. He looked more the 
 man of action than the Idealistic Student. We clasped 
 hands in greeting and each questioned the other. I wanted 
 to know if he had been caught in the cyclone ; if he had 
 been in danger. 
 
 " Well, yes, I suppose we were in some danger," he 
 answered. "But I didn't think of that. What I minded 
 was missing the connection at Karrabin — or rather, fearing 
 I had missed it, for the regular steamer was delayed by 
 the cyclone and I did catch her after all. You see," he 
 explained, " I got a pearling cutter to take me down 
 the coast from Port Douglas to Karrabin, She's a wreck 
 now on a coral-reef where we had to wait for nearly four 
 days until another of the pearling fleet took us off. That 
 was what kept me and why I couldn't telegraph. We had 
 a rather bad passage in a vile old tub to Leuraville, and I 
 didn't reach the Pilot station till two o'clock this morning." 
 
 " And came straight here without food or rest." 
 
 " Of course. Why, I had been resting on the steamer. 
 The one thing I'm really sorry for is that I've got no
 
 SISTER SORROW 315 
 
 breakfast for you. I didn't even wait to pack rations. 
 I only got here a few minutes ago." 
 
 I assured him that breakfast was of no consequence ; 
 and then he was begging for my news. " I've talked 
 enough about myself. I want to know if all is well with 
 you — if she — Dolores — is better." 
 
 " Yes, she is much better. Your herb medicine has 
 done wonders. But I've got something to tell you. 
 Mr. Wilkins came home at twelve o'clock last night." 
 
 To my surprise, Torvald did not seem dismayed. 
 
 " That's all right. Then he's at the Head-station now ? ' 
 
 " I suppose so ; " and I gave him an account of what I 
 had seen and heard. I told him too about yesterday — 
 about Bee's and Bel's letters and the false lulling of my 
 fears. Also of my indiscretion in the talk with Dolores 
 and of the things she had said. " You see," I added, " how 
 difficult it will be to get her to leave her husband." 
 
 " Don't call him her husband," said Torvald sharply. 
 " He is not her husband." 
 
 " But they were married in Leichardt's Town," I said. 
 
 His answer took my breath away. 
 
 " Not legally married — for the simple reason that 
 Wilkins was married already, and that his wife is alive." 
 
 " Mr. Helsing, how do you know this ? " 
 
 " I have seen and talked to his wife— at Port Douglas. 
 Sadie Etheredge — I told you that his real name is ' Thomas 
 Philip Etheredge ' — she was a girl from British Columbia — 
 a good girl, a straight woman, who for some unaccountable 
 reason became infatuated with Wilkins and has continued 
 to care for him in spite of his crimes and infidelities. . . . 
 Didn't the idea of his having been married before ever 
 dawn upon you, knowing the man's character and tempera- 
 ment ? " 
 
 " I didn't know them. How should I ? But I begin 
 to understand now ? " And as I thought of the hurried 
 marriage, I realized the amazing gullibility of us all. It 
 hadn't been Father's responsibility exactly, but, of course, 
 a man of the world would have put pertinent questions 
 before receiving Mr. Wilkins into his house as Dolores'
 
 316 SISTER SORROW 
 
 suitor. And it pleased me too to see that the Idealistic 
 Student was not such an Idealist as I had imagined. 
 
 " But you thought of it ? " I added. 
 
 " That was the first thing that came into my head when 
 I began to realize Wilkins. I used to go and see them, you 
 know, when they first came to the Island — later on, he 
 showed me plainly that my visits were unwelcome. She 
 interested me immensely, and my remorse deepened more 
 and more as I watched and studied her, hoping that I 
 might devise some means of making her lot more bearable. 
 But I soon saw that she was absolutely magnetized by 
 Wilkins, and that such independent life as she possessed 
 was becoming altogether absorbed in his. I knew that 
 for a pure psychic, as she is, association with Wilkins could 
 only mean, for her, ruin of mind and body — of course 
 nothing could in the ultimate sense destroy her beautiful 
 soul." 
 
 I told Torvald of Dolores' feeling of a black slimy cloud 
 enveloping her ; and then I said something about the 
 impossibility of understanding a nature like that of Mr. 
 Wilkins, which seemed to shed forth an atmosphere of evil. 
 
 He answered gravely : 
 
 ' Unhappily there are souls which evolve on the dark 
 side of evolution rather than upon the light side. It's 
 the eternal mystery of Good and Evil. I can only take 
 that as a necessity of the Great Scheme. Some believe 
 that Humanity is expiating on this planet the crimes 
 committed on a dead world, and must wait for redemp- 
 tion'until the Prince of Love has overthrown the hosts of 
 
 it 
 
 Satan. . . . It's the Star-Angels ranged in battle . . . 
 the warring of gods within our solar system. ..." 
 
 His face was all aglow : his eyes themselves stars. Here 
 was, indeed, the Idealistic Student ! I listened, at once 
 awed and, in my ignorance, reverently amused. Torvald 
 was lost in abstractions as big as the very universe. 
 
 Yet, as he went on, the look which he turned upon me 
 seemed to embrace my insignificant self as a vital part 
 of the universe — his universe, at any rate, and that thought 
 made me glad.
 
 SISTER SORROW 317 
 
 " Bringing it down to material science," he said, " there 
 are the two ends of the pole, the two principles of nature. 
 The one force which builds up towards perfection in 
 unity, and the other force which disintegrates — for re- 
 construction. Divinity is very patient — and economical 
 too with its material. Sometimes," he said, " I think 
 that I have a faint, vague glimmering of the Light, such as 
 a kitten might feel whose eyes are soon to be opened to 
 the sun. But I have absolute faith that in some life to 
 come I shall be born with my spiritual eyes open. And 
 so it will be with you too — my comrade." 
 
 He gave me a bright smile and his face changed again. 
 He came down to earth with a constrained laugh. 
 
 ' There ! It was really you who started me on that 
 tack. As for the Satanic element in Wilkins, I'm afraid, 
 if I've any right to say so, that he has a rather broad 
 streak of it. I take him, at his present stage, for a soulless 
 abnormality. There are such people, entirely without the 
 moral sense. You find them in medical and criminal 
 reports ; happily, you don't often meet them in ordinary life, 
 or, if you do, it's a chance that you recognize the type 
 — that of the unconscious, embryonic, black-magician." 
 
 I exclaimed in horror : 
 
 " Embryonic, remember," he said. " I see in Mr. Wilkins 
 the fundamental tendency. For instance, that evil 
 power of attraction he has over some women, over some 
 men too. It's inexplicable on ordinary lines, it's almost 
 laughable, but one can't deny the fact : it crops up all 
 through his dossier, so to speak. One must acknowledge 
 it, just as one has to acknowledge the fascination upon 
 a small bird of a boa-constrictor's eyes. I shouldn't have 
 expected it, though, in the case of Sadie Etheredge. She's 
 under his influence still in a way — has hopes that he 
 still may come back to her, reformed. She shrinks at 
 doing anything that would injure him and yet believes 
 in punishment as a means to his salvation. But I had 
 the greatest difficulty in getting the proof I wanted out 
 of her." 
 
 ' The proof ! ' I echoed stupidly. He was talking
 
 318 SISTER SORROW 
 
 with rapidity and excitement, the excitement of a boy, 
 it appeared to me, who had done some meritorious deed 
 that he had not dared to hope he could accomplish. My 
 mind foundered in trying to follow him. It was all so 
 unexpected, so surprising. 
 
 ' I have the attested copy of their marriage certificate, 
 and of other papers convicting him of various evil deeds," 
 Torvald said. " Evidence sufficient for the immediate 
 taking out of a warrant against him on the charge of 
 bigamy — and worse." 
 
 " There is worse ? " I asked. 
 
 He gave a shrug of distaste. 
 
 ' I told you the man was an abnormality. It's not 
 a savoury record, and I think you had better leave it at 
 that. But this makes things easier for us, if the mischief 
 that has been done is not too deep-seated," he added. 
 ' The trouble will he in freeing a woman who does not 
 want to be freed." 
 
 I detected a faint bitterness in his tone : and it hurt 
 me. He wanted Dolores to be free. Not only in name 
 and in fact, but in spirit and essence as well. 
 
 He waited, seeming to expect some comment from me. 
 But I could make none. I had lost my values for the 
 moment. The perspective of the picture had shifted. 
 I could not grasp the true balance of things. 
 
 " You are wondering how I learned all this, and how I 
 got on to Wilkins' — we'd better keep to the name we know 
 — and Sadie Etheredge's tracks," he said presently. " But, 
 you know, I've been wandering about the world the last 
 six months with this object in view. I got the friend 
 I mentioned to you to look after my garden and my 
 medicine-distillery for me, while I made this matter my 
 business instead. That was the only way I could see of 
 reparation for the harm I might possibly have prevented — 
 the only way of fulfilling the vows I had neglected to keep " 
 
 ' Vows ! ' He read my astonishment in my face and 
 answered gently. 
 
 " No, of course, you wouldn't understand what I mean 
 by ' vows.' Some day I'll tell you of a community, — of
 
 SISTER SORROW 319 
 
 an order of knight-errantry, — that best describes it,— 
 which exists, like many another secret society, in the world 
 to-day. It is an order something on the model of certain 
 orders of chivalry in the Middle Ages, when powers of 
 darkness were believed in as very real things. The members 
 of the order are pledged solemnly to the help of all souls 
 in distress from spiritual attacks by the dark forces, 
 pledged to try and liberate such persons kept in durance 
 of Satan." 
 
 I gave an involuntary cry, for again, he had put into 
 words the subject of my secret thoughts and prayers. 
 But he did not quite understand how deeply I was affected 
 by what he said. I had not told him enough about those 
 night-watches with Dody to make him realize that fully. 
 He looked a little confused. 
 
 ' I daresay, you think it rather ridiculous," he said, 
 ' to talk about knight-errantry and mediaeval orders of 
 chivalry as applying to us, now, near the twentieth century. 
 But it is true : and I am not joking. Do you not see for 
 yourself that there are still the old dragons, even in the 
 Australian Bush : that there are still women held under 
 devils' spells : still captive souls needing liberation from 
 monstrous tyranny ? Why not a Perseus, or a St. George ? 
 Why not a modern Sir Galahad, a Siegfried, a Lohengrin ? 
 And others too, among us — humble followers of the old 
 knightly tradition ? It doesn't seem to me so very strange 
 or so wholly unreasonable to believe that the same motives 
 may actuate a small number of men to-day, as made the 
 knightly ideal of many men in the past." 
 
 No, not when he spoke like that and looked like that — 
 standing straight, his arms folded across his breast, his 
 head erect, with a wonderful light in his blue eyes and his 
 yellow curls crisped by his damp ride to the semblance of 
 a golden casque. No, not difficult for an uplifted fancy 
 to see here the reincarnation of a Sir Galahad or a 
 Lohengrin. Or, in his splashed, bushman's riding garb 
 a suit of shining mail, while a light whip he carried might 
 have stood for the knight's sword, symbolic of his chivalric 
 mission.
 
 320 SISTER SORROW 
 
 IX 
 
 IT was only for a minute. Now he was laughing again 
 shyly at his own heroics. 
 
 " Rodomontade and bombast ! I ought to be ashamed 
 of making such a fool of myself. And keeping you standing 
 here in the wet grass ! But the sun's coming out fine and 
 my hat should be dry by now." 
 
 Arms uncrossed. Crimean shirt and splashed moleskins 
 instead of shining mail. A stoop to the flat stone for his 
 hat, and a shutting of it down upon the golden casque. 
 Now, he was the backwoodsman once more. 
 
 Does it seem mere visionary nonsense— rodomontade, 
 as he called it, — this talk of knightly vow and chivalric 
 mission ? That may be. But it sounded real and beautiful 
 to me — there, where I heard it in the Bush of Oronga Island. 
 And true as the man himself, standing amongst the old 
 grey rocks, which made me think of a prehistoric temple. 
 
 But while I looked at him, idealizing him, heart and 
 imagination thrilling to his words, a wild instinct of self- 
 preservation pulled me up, and bade me face the truth. 
 
 He had done all this, he was saying these things, he was 
 feeling like this, not for me but for Dolores. His mission 
 was to free Dolores from the power of Mr. Wilkins. He 
 thought of nothing else, because he loved her. Yes, he 
 was right. Her name should not any longer be Sorrow. 
 It should be changed to Joy. 
 
 " I could tell you a great deal — I want to tell it you," 
 he said. " How I fell upon clues and followed them up 
 and at last got hold of Sadie Etheredge. First, it was 
 reported that she had gone to Melbourne and I was thinking 
 of hunting her up there, when I got news, — the day before 
 I saw you here last, — that she was in Port Douglas. . . . 
 But that story must be held over for the present. It 
 doesn't much matter : and in some ways, perhaps it is as 
 well, that you shouldn't hear it until I've got Dolores and
 
 SISTER SORROW 321 
 
 you safe in my garden — my Garden of Healing, as that 
 medicine-friend of mine calls it." 
 
 ' Do you mean that you are going to take us tu your 
 own house ? " I said. 
 
 ' If you have no objection. I couldn't, of course, ask 
 you to be my unwilling guest," he answered. " But you 
 know it was always understood that I was to show you 
 my garden ... if you ever came to Oronga Island. — You 
 see," he went on, " we must get her away as soon as possible 
 from the Head-station. I thought at first of her staying 
 at the chief pilot's house. But he lost his wife about 
 ten days ago — the only woman at the Pilot station. And 
 there would have been this drawback. Whatever was 
 going on, she'd hear of, and there may be — I don't hide it 
 from you — painful happenings. You'd both be more 
 secure — more comfortable in my garden cottage. And I 
 could help her to get stronger, so that she'd mind less being 
 put off in the pilot boat to the Leichardt's Town steamer. 
 . . . The steamers can't come in very close and it might 
 be a roughish pull if the weather were bad." 
 
 His plan, diffidently as he put it forward, seemed the most 
 practical that could be suggested : and so I told him. 
 The difficulty lay in first broaching it to Dolores and in 
 the initial step of getting her away, now that Mr. Wilkins 
 had returned. 
 
 " Not so difficult as you think," he replied. " I'm going 
 up at once with you to the house, and I shall see Mr. Wilkins. 
 I am in a position to bring pressure to bear upon him. 
 They made me a magistrate after Wilkins' predecessor left 
 the Island : and for some reason he himself has not become 
 one. That gives me power to enforce a warrant. He 
 could not stand up against a bigamy charge." 
 
 I said that I was afraid of the effect of that charge upon 
 Dolores. The shock might make her very ill, or upset her 
 balance altogether. 
 
 " I think it is possible that such a shattering revelation 
 might break his power over her, and restore her to herself," 
 Torvald said thoughtfully. ' But I shall do my best to 
 see Wilkins privately : and you must help me in shielding 
 
 21
 
 322 SISTER SORROW 
 
 her as far as we can. I daresay there'll be some bluster 
 at the start;" and he smiled rather grimly. " Wilkins 
 sent me a message that he would horsewhip me if I ever 
 again appeared inside his sliprails. However, I am not 
 unprepared for such a contingency." 
 
 He drew a small automatic pistol from its holster beneath 
 his coat — a deadly, little weapon it looked : and something 
 in his face assured me that he was capable of using it if 
 occasion required. 
 
 He examined the pistol and put it back again with a 
 slight laugh. " I'm not a bloodthirsty person," he said. 
 " The shedding of blood, whether human or animal, is to 
 me an abomination. I would not shoot at man or beast 
 unless I were compelled for right's sake or in self-defence. 
 We shall be guided by circumstances when we reach 
 the house." 
 
 " You are really going to the house ? " I said, bewildered 
 anew, by this fresh presentation of himself. 
 
 " Do you imagine for an instant that I would let you go 
 back there alone ? " he said in surprise. " What else is 
 there for me to do ? Don't you see that the whole position 
 is altered ? I have no hesitation under present conditions 
 in invading the sanctity of Mr. Wilkins' domestic hearth." 
 
 The sneer was not like Torvald Helsing, I thought, but 
 it made me feel him as very human. 
 
 " Come," he said, " we ought to be getting on there. 
 I'll unhobble my horse. I wish I could put you on him and 
 save you the walk, which couldn't have been agreeable 
 this morning. But I never doubted you would come. 
 It would not have been you to have failed in faith or 
 right action." 
 
 I declined the mount, and when he had taken off the 
 hobbles, we walked on together, he leading his horse. 
 
 By and by, we came to the sliprails into the paddock, 
 and he let them down, putting them up again after we 
 had passed through, with a jesting remark as to his en- 
 croachment on Mr. Wilkins' property. 
 
 I exclaimed, " Oh, I do wish that it were possible for 
 you to put us both on horseback — Dody and me — and
 
 SISTER SORROW 323 
 
 take us away to-day to your Garden of Healing. She is 
 strong enough, 1 think, now, and it would be so much better 
 to give her no time for thinking. Mr. Helsing, don't 
 you think it could be managed ? " 
 
 He stopped short and I was puzzled by the expression 
 of his face as he looked at me. 
 
 " But no, it's not possible," I added, remembering the 
 obstacle. ' Crankshaw has taken the riding horses." 
 
 " I thought of that when Jacky told me he had seen the 
 man with them," he answered. ' But I've made the best 
 arrangement I could. Ryan — that's the chief pilot — lent 
 me his wife's side-saddle, and Jacky is bringing it with her 
 quiet riding-horse. He was to be at the Rocks by ten 
 o'clock." 
 
 That was good. I began to plan feminine details for 
 Dolores and myself. He interrupted the flow of my 
 thoughts. We had reached the head of the gully and were 
 following it down so as to avoid the northern track and 
 in order to approach the house under the shelter of the hill. 
 
 " I want to ask you something," he said hesitatingly, 
 his voice deepening, his eyes avoiding mine — he might 
 have been a shy schoolboy. ' You couldn't guess how it 
 jars— the formal address— from you. Perhaps I am asking 
 what you would not care to grant and in that case I shall 
 understand and shall only beg you to forgive my pre- 
 sumption." 
 
 He was stumbling painfully. I could not bear to hear 
 it. 
 
 " You mustn't speak of presumption. You know there 
 could never be any question of that," I said in all sincerity. 
 
 " Thank you — thank you. . . ." His face lightened and 
 his diffidence left him. He spoke eagerly. 
 
 " Let me say this. . . . You will understand better 
 then. It is the custom in our order to use baptismal names. 
 That implies community of interests higher than the 
 material ; of ideals held in reverence ... of fellowship in 
 the mission of help to which we are vowed ..." 
 
 I interrupted. " But I am not of your order." 
 
 " If not in the letter, nevertheless in the spirit," he 
 
 21*
 
 324 SISTER SORROW 
 
 answered. " We are fellow-workers, you and I ; we have 
 devoted ourselves to the same object. We are going 
 with the help of greater Powers to rescue the soul and 
 body of our sister, Sorrow ; we pray that we may be instru- 
 ments for her new baptism into a happier, fuller life." 
 
 I bowed my head. There was a lump in my throat. I 
 could not speak at first. He waited. At last I said : 
 
 " I understand how you feel. I think I feel the same — 
 about her. She is the bond between us. I want her to be 
 happy. I want you to be happy too — I will gladly call you 
 Torvald if you wish it ; and you shall call me Agatha." 
 
 " Thank you — Agatha," he said. He pronounced my 
 name lingeringly and it seemed to me with a peculiar 
 sweetness in his accent. 
 
 I held out my hand to him to ratify our compact and we 
 walked on, hand in hand, like children bent upon a mutual 
 quest. He did not give up my hand till we came to the 
 stony crossing of the gully, near where I had found Dody 
 that first day. Then we began to mount the hill, he still 
 leading his horse, to the Head-station. It was extraordinarily 
 quiet, except for the birds still sending up their paean to 
 the sun, and they made a full and varied chorus. . . . 
 But I did not think of them now. There was not a human 
 creature to be seen — nobody in the veranda, nobody in 
 the yard, of which I got a side view as we came close to 
 the house. I saw the hoof-marks on the wet ground, in 
 front of the veranda where Mr. Wilkins had ridden past 
 in the night. But there was neither sound nor visible sign 
 now of Mr. Wilkins, of his horse, of Crankshaw, of the 
 Jiminies or the other horses — not even of Dubbo and the 
 milkers. 
 
 X 
 
 WE rode up to my corner of the veranda. The 
 French window of my room was partly open as 
 I had left it. All the other windows upon the veranda 
 were closed. Torvald hitched the white horse to a veranda-
 
 SISTER SORROW 325 
 
 post and we mounted the front steps. I softly opened 
 the door into the parlour. It was just as when I had looked 
 into it before going to bed. Mrs. Meake never attended to 
 her morning sweeping and dusting till it was nearly time 
 to lay the table for breakfast. Leaving Torvald, I walked 
 through the boarded passage across the yard, which was 
 still empty, though I could see Mrs. Meake through the 
 open kitchen window doing something at the oven. She 
 was apparently going about her morning work with, as usual, 
 leisurely placidity. It did not seem as if she were aware 
 of her master's return. 
 
 I took care she should not see me, but went quietly to 
 Torvald and we both stood for a minute or two watching 
 and listening. No sound came to us through the partitions 
 dividing Dolores' room and the bathroom from the parlour. 
 Then we walked along the veranda past the French windows 
 of Dolores' room which were tight closed, and round the 
 corner of the veranda where that of Mr. Wilkins' dressing- 
 room was open. We could see the disorder of the room — 
 the splashed damp garments, lying on the floor, the drawers 
 of the dressing-chest pulled out. Looking in cautiously, I 
 noticed that the small connecting door to Dolores' room 
 was standing ajar. It opened inwards, hiding the bed, 
 and the impression I got was of empty dimness. No, 
 not empty. I heard the sound of breathing — slow, laboured 
 breathing, very slightly stertorous, the faintest echo of 
 Dolores' breathing in some of her attacks. That was how 
 I recognized it. I beckoned to Torvald to approach. He 
 heard it too. We listened quietly, then tiptoeing across 
 the disordered dressing-room to the door, I peered round 
 it, so that I could see the bed. It, too, was all disordered. 
 Dolores was lying there alone, knees hunched up, absolutely 
 motionless, except for her breathing. But for this, I should 
 have thought she was dead. 
 
 I called to Torvald to come in. There was no hesitation 
 now. He bent over her, lifted her so that she lay straight, 
 her head on the bolster. He put his ear to her heart : 
 examined her as a doctor would have done. Then he said 
 to me in an imperative tone :
 
 326 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " You must get me things quickly. First, the small 
 bottle of medicine which I sent you for the attacks. . . ." 
 
 I waited for no further instruction. In two minutes, 
 the herb medicine was in his hand. He tried to force 
 some drops down her throat, but she seemed past swallow- 
 ing. He called for hot bottles— hot blankets— hot water- 
 mustard — to make an emetic. 
 
 '' Or, stay — you told me of a medicine-chest in the 
 office. Can you bring that to me at once." 
 
 I ran down the steps at the end of the veranda where, 
 in a queer, subconscious way, I noted how the ground had 
 been trampled by the impatient hoofs of Mr. Wilkins' 
 horse, then across the yard to the kitchen window, where 
 I called to Mrs. Meake and told her to get boiling water 
 immediately. Now, across again to the office, where, 
 to my surprise, I saw among the fresh litter of papers 
 and different things on the table, the medicine-chest 
 standing open. 
 
 Mr. Wilkins must have gone to it in the night, got out 
 what he wanted and been too hurried or careless to close 
 and put back the case. I saw that the little squat bottles 
 of ordinary drugs with printed labels were all in their 
 places, but the trays and other receptacles had been turned 
 over and the packets and phials labelled in handwriting 
 had disappeared. For the first time a suspicion of the 
 horrible truth burst upon me and turned me sick and 
 cold. Why had I never dreamed of that ? But I could 
 not wait to think or even to feel. When I rushed back 
 to Dolores' room carrying the chest for Torvald, I found 
 him standing in front of the little cupboard over the wash- 
 ing-stand. The doors of it had been wrenched open and 
 the contents were disclosed — the usual small paraphernalia 
 of toilet appliances and simple remedies, eau-de-cologne, 
 skin-lotions, seidlitz powders, and suchlike — which one 
 would naturally find in a woman's bedchamber. Torvald 
 was scrutinizing the bottles and pots. He turned to me. 
 
 ' Do you know where she kept the quinine pills that 
 you said she had been in the habit of taking ? " 
 
 ' The bottle was there," I answered. " She wouldn't
 
 SISTER SORROW 327 
 
 let me take it away, and I locked the cupboard and made 
 her think she had lost the key herself. Did you break 
 the cupboard open ? " 
 
 " No. I found it open like that. The bottle is not 
 there," he answered curtly. He now examined the things 
 in the medicine-chest, and appeared to find what he wanted, 
 for I heard a sigh as of relief. In a minute, however, I 
 had gone for the hot water and the other things he had 
 asked for. Fortunately, Mrs. Meake had the big kettle 
 almost on the boil. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " she asked. " Has Mrs. Wilkins 
 got the shakes again ? " 
 
 I replied, without giving particulars, that Mrs. Wilkins was 
 ill, and made the woman get the stone hot-water bottles 
 and set them ready for filling while I measured out mustard. 
 
 " Do you know if anybody came back by the Narrows 
 Crossing last night ? " I asked. 
 
 Mrs. Meake gazed at me in stupid wonder. ' Back by 
 the Narrows Crossing ! No, I've seen none of 'em . . . 
 heard nothing. I was dead-tired and slept like a log. 
 Are they back ? " 
 
 " I saw hoof-marks by the veranda," was my evasive 
 answer. " Now the kettle, please. . . . I'll fill the bottles. 
 Do you run for my india-rubber one that's hanging by my 
 bed — quick." 
 
 By the time she was back, I had the bottles filled, to 
 which she added the india-rubber one. We carried them 
 and the hot water together to the door of Dolores' room, 
 and I sent Mrs. Meake away, telling her to make the coffee 
 and set the table as usual for breakfast, adding that she 
 need not trouble about serving me further, as I would let 
 her know if I required anything more. 
 
 She went off, stolid and taciturn, and, seemingly, totally 
 uninterested. I don't know whether she noticed Torvald's 
 white horse tethered to the veranda-post. Probably not, 
 as she did not pass that end of the veranda. I never 
 thought of it at the time, though I was anxious that 
 Torvald's presence at the Head-station should not be 
 realized sooner than was necessary. Of all phlegmatic,
 
 328 SISTER SORROW 
 
 unsympathetic servants, I have never seen the equal 
 of Mrs. Meake. But it was as well, in the circumstances, 
 that she should not be officiously helpful. 
 
 For the moment, every nerve was strained, every 
 faculty concentrated on Dolores. Torvald scarcely spoke, 
 but he acted vigorously. I did not learn till afterwards 
 the conclusion he had himself come to. We were as 
 doctor and nurse : he giving quick, short orders, I obeying 
 them unquestioningly as best I could. For, except with 
 Clara, which hardly counted, I had had little experience of 
 even ordinary sickness, and in those days in Australia 
 girls did not go in, as they do now, for " First Aid " lessons 
 and elementary nursing training. It became clear to 
 me, however, that he believed Dolores had been poisoned. 
 I reasoned out to myself, as no doubt he did also, that she 
 must for a long time past have been the victim of a slow 
 process of poisoning. What the poison was, he had no 
 means of ascertaining just then, and, indeed, I am not sure 
 that, had he had the means at hand, his medical knowledge 
 would have been equal to the test. All that is of little 
 matter now, and these thoughts more or less entered 
 my mind afterwards. At the time, I forgot Mr. Wilkins. 
 I forgot everything but the one supreme interest, as I 
 watched Torvald's grim efforts to fight the creeping coma. 
 
 I could not describe the methods he used, for I under- 
 stood so little about what he was doing. There seemed 
 to be drugs in the medicine-chest that partly, or wholly, 
 served his needs. I saw that he gave hypodermic injec- 
 tions, of strychnine, I think, and something else. These 
 seemed, of the earlier remedies, to produce the best effect. 
 Later, he told me that his own herb-extract had been 
 Heaven's inspiration, for it proved to be absolutely the 
 right antidote to the poison. But I don't think he knew 
 that in the beginning ; moreover, its effects did not become 
 marked until consciousness had been to a certain extent 
 restored. Dolores' heart had almost ceased to beat ; 
 her face was livid, her body deathly cold. We packed her 
 in hot blankets, stimulated respiration as in the case of 
 a person who has been nearly drowned ; he administered
 
 SISTER SORROW 329 
 
 ether — how the sickly smell of it comes back to me ! 
 did everything which, under the limitations, human skill 
 and ingenuity could devise. Time went : we neither of 
 us took count of its passage. Hanging on the flicker 
 of an eyelid, the slowing or augmentation of pulse-beat : 
 the rising or falling of body temperature : the fluctuation 
 of faint, laboured breaths, we were too wrought up to 
 take in anything else. Apart from a vague underlying 
 apprehension, of which I was conscious, that Mr. Wilkins 
 might at some moment reappear, we wasted no speculation 
 upon him or his crew. Like the brooding powers of dark- 
 ness themselves, they had vanished. He had done his 
 devilish work and had fled. The " Why " of it all was 
 an enigma of a piece with the root enigma of Evil. 
 
 For myself, of necessity less technically absorbed 
 than Torvald, I seemed to be in a dream, and there was 
 something uncanny in the absolute quietude of the Head- 
 station. No sounds but those of the birds and, occasionally, 
 of a movement or whinny from Torvald's tethered horse, 
 or a muffled echo of Mrs. Meake's stolid activities. At the 
 beginning of the day, when the clatter of breakfast things 
 came through the partition, Torvald turned and said to 
 me in an urgent undertone : 
 
 ' I beg that you will go and eat and drink something. 
 It is important. You will want all your strength, and I 
 can't have you fail me for need of it — Agatha." 
 
 The note of personal appeal stirred me inexpressibly. 
 I obeyed, leaving him alone for a few minutes with the 
 motionless form on the bed. Mrs. Meake's hot coffee 
 and scones took away for a little time the unreal feeling 
 which I knew was due to fatigue and strain. I brought 
 Torvald some coffee, and he swallowed it in eager gulps, 
 eating too in the same way, which showed me that he must 
 have been fasting for a considerable time. 
 
 The same thing happened when Mrs. Meake set lunch 
 in the parlour. He made me go and eat, and then I 
 got him to make some sort of meal also. About three 
 of the afternoon, the critical stage in Dolores' condition 
 passed. She opened her eyes, gazed about her half-con-
 
 330 SISTER SORROW 
 
 sciously, closed them again and sank into sleep. She was 
 in a perspiration by now and the breathing was easier 
 and the pulse better. Torvald heaved a deep sigh of 
 relief. He had been giving her at regular intervals doses 
 of the herb-medicine. After the last dose before she went 
 to sleep, he said with a look of triumphant satisfaction : 
 
 " I believe she will be safe now, if we can keep her in 
 a natural sleep. And I believe, too, that my mixture has 
 saved her. I must have been guided in some intuitive 
 way when I sent it you." 
 
 He was very weary. Now that the strain had relaxed 
 I could see how weary. He sat down, with his head 
 drooped and his chin on his hand, in that attitude of mental 
 self-communion. I could tell by his concentrated expres- 
 sion that he was thinking deeply. 
 
 It was then that the white horse gave one of its whinnies, 
 recalling us both to the fact of its existence. 
 
 " He's been tied up there all the morning, and must 
 be hungry and thirsty," I said, " and there doesn't seem 
 to be a soul about the place to have noticed or done any- 
 thing for him." 
 
 Torvald got up. "I will go and see. . . . Poor old 
 Warrior. . . . And there's Jacky waiting by the Rocks 
 . . . unless he has had the sense to come up here and 
 scout. . . . You'll not be afraid of my leaving you alone 
 with her for a little while ? I think she will go on sleeping. ' ' 
 
 He was absent for half an hour. I heard him unhitch 
 the horse and lead him away, and later there came peculiar 
 sounds from the direction of the Gully — a call like that 
 of a sea-bird and its answer. Soon after that he came 
 back. 
 
 XI 
 
 HIS first care was for Dolores, who was sleeping. I 
 knew that the danger was past, both by his face 
 and by her quiet breathing. Also by the more normal 
 colour and feel of her skin.
 
 SISTER SORROW 331 
 
 ' She will do now," he said. ' I am intensely thankful. 
 It has been a critical business. Now I feel that I can 
 breathe." He set the French window of her room wide 
 open and also that of Mr. Wilkins' dressing-room, so that 
 a free current of air came through. I asked him if he 
 had seen anyone or heard any news. 
 
 " I have seen no one but Jacky," he answered. " Did 
 you hear me call to him and his answer ? I was a little 
 afraid it might frighten you ; it's a signal I've taught 
 him — the cry of one of the Island birds. . . . Jacky has 
 brought the Pilot's quiet horse and side-saddle," he said. 
 " But, of course, one cannot tell when Dolores will be 
 fit to ride. . . . This place is fatal to her," and he added 
 so fiercely that it startled me: " I'd rather risk carrying 
 her off in my arms in front of my saddle than let her 
 stay here an hour longer — if only it were possible to get 
 her away." 
 
 " Perhaps it may be possible to-morrow," I suggested. 
 
 " I think I shall try, at any rate," he answered. Our 
 eyes met. We knew that that same thought was in both 
 our minds, but an instinctive shrinking kept us from putting 
 it into words. He moved from me to the window and 
 stood looking out. I saw a shudder go through his frame. 
 
 " It's too horrible," he said to himself. ..." And I 
 might have saved her that — at least if I had not been 
 a blind fool. . . . Merciful Heaven ! " he exclaimed, 
 suddenly turning upon me. " If it had been you ! " 
 
 I tried to speak, but could only have made some hysterical 
 sound. The room seemed to dance and crumple up into 
 dark chaos. All the horror of the whole situation came 
 over me and turned me sick and faint. I felt myself 
 swaying. 
 
 In a second he was at my side, gently lifting me by the 
 shoulders from the chair in which I sat by Dolores' bedside 
 and drawing me from the room. 
 
 ' Hush ! ' he whispered. ' You mustn't wake her. 
 You're done up — you must rest. I shall watch by her 
 now. It's all right outside. Jacky is scouting round, 
 though I'm not afraid that devil will turn up. I'm going
 
 332 SISTER SORROW 
 
 to take you to your room — I know which it is — and you'll 
 promise me that you'll lie down and not get up again 
 until I call you." 
 
 I had no strength nor desire to gainsay him. Dody 
 was safe. He was there. No need to worry any more. 
 I did as he bade me, lay down on my bed and fell into the 
 land of dreams. 
 
 It was dusk when the sound of voices aroused me. They 
 were men's voices coming through the partition at the back 
 of my bed. I had started up in terror — for the moment 
 I did not know of what, until, out of the blur, last night's 
 happenings shaped themselves in my mind. 
 
 A superior sort of man was speaking with an accent of 
 deferential authority, and in a voice rich and burly : 
 
 " Yes, I know you're a magistrate, Mr. Helsing, and of 
 course I can talk straight to you. And you say you've 
 got a warrant out against Wilkins — for bigamy. . . . Well, 
 I don't know anything about that. I hadn't hardly heard 
 Wilkins was by way of being married ... or it slipped 
 out of my head, for there seems to have been talk round 
 about Nagbar Diggings of his courting a rich young lady 
 staying at Malpa Downs. . . . Well, my warrant was 
 issued at Nagbar . . . here it is." 
 
 There was a pause. . . . Then, in the same voice : 
 
 " Two counts you see. For robbery of the gold-escort 
 between Nagbar Diggings and Currawilli, the fourteenth 
 of August last. Likewise for the murder of one Manuel 
 Herrebine at Nagbar Diggings the night before last. The 
 charge is laid against Philip Wilkins, alias Captain Red- 
 Mask. What d'ye think of that ? You wouldn't have 
 expected that we'd spotted Red-Mask ! " 
 
 " No," Torvald answered. " But as I happen to know 
 something of Philip Wilkins' antecedents, I'm not at all 
 surprised to hear that he's Captain Red-Mask. In fact, 
 the idea had occurred to me." 
 
 " Well now ! If that's so, you're the first it had occurred 
 to," put in another, rougher voice. "It looked like one of 
 them blooming mysteries that there's no laying hold on 
 anyhow."
 
 SISTER SORROW 333 
 
 Torvald asked how they had managed it, and the first 
 voice replied : 
 
 " We caught one of those Mexican twins — the Jiminies, 
 they call them. My word ! if I was taking stock in a 
 criminal job I wouldn't be such a fool as to choose half- 
 breeds for confederates. It's a known fact that no half- 
 breed ever has an ounce of spunk. It isn't in the nature 
 of half-breeds, no matter what's the special blood mixture. 
 This Jiminy chap turned Queen's evidence — gave away the 
 whole show." 
 
 " And the show ? " Torvald asked quietly. " I've been 
 cruising in the East," he added, " and don't know much 
 about Captain Red-Mask's exploits. I had barely got back 
 to the Island at the time that he held up the gold-escort 
 the other day." 
 
 " That was his biggest haul," said the police officer — as I 
 inferred him to be. " A cleverly -planned job, it was. We 
 always suspected that he'd got away somehow by the 
 Narrows and that there had been a boat waiting, for we 
 couldn't make out how the gang could have carried all 
 that gold on horseback and got so quickly out of reach 
 if they'd made for the range inland. Notwithstanding 
 that Wilkins seems to have a fine breed of horses he'd been 
 keeping close about on the Island — a bit of a racing strain 
 crossed with the weight-carrier. ..." 
 
 I thought, as I listened, of Crankshaw's powerful black 
 horse with the sensitive racer's head, of The Rogue, of 
 Sindbad — all of them magnificent beasts. . . . And also of 
 that fine upstanding horse I had not seen, mounted on 
 which Mr. Wilkins' head and big shoulders had topped 
 the high veranda-railings. 
 
 The other man took up the tale. 
 
 " All the same, they must have gone like greased lightning 
 for the Narrows. And they knew to an ace-pip the point 
 they were making for. Now we know how the trick was 
 done." 
 
 " You see," went on the first man, " Wilkins had made 
 dug-outs — hiding-places — caches, our Jiminy called 'em — 
 in the yards, both sides, where the cattle were swum across
 
 334 SISTER SORROW 
 
 at full and new moons — dug-outs deep in at the back of 
 the boat-sheds where nobody would ever expect to find 'em. 
 We ain't much on digging in — cave-dwelling and that like 
 — down here in 'Stralia, but they seem to have got the 
 idea out in America. The one they used most is on this 
 side — back under the boat-house which they kept locked. 
 I've just had a peep into it. That's where they hid the 
 ' Red-Mask ' toggery and the plunder, until there comes 
 along down the Narrows a little trading ship with a small 
 draw of water. The gold was carried off in that — a guano 
 trader she signalled herself to the Pilot station when she 
 had to report. Then she sailed up, quite innocent like, inside 
 the Great Barrier Reef, and up to the Bismarcks, off New 
 Guinea, where the gold was dumped." 
 
 I listened all ears. Now I understood. Torvald must 
 have understood too, for I had told him the episode of 
 the " guano trader." 
 
 " The captain of that guano-boat was in the know, of 
 course. We'd had him under observation for a bad lot. 
 A blackbirder— as big a scoundrel as ever sailed across the 
 Arafura Sea. We wanted to trap him under the Kanaka 
 Slavery Act, but could never get the blind side of him. I 
 tell you, sir, there was some brain in that business." 
 
 Torvald must have asked about the rest of the gang. He 
 spoke rather low, but the other two were excited, and the 
 one with the burly voice was evidently proud of his own 
 astuteness. 
 
 " There were three of 'em besides Wilkins — Crankshaw, 
 as he calls himself, though we've reason to believe it's 
 not his right name, and these two Jiminies. We've 
 cornered the lot now. They're on the Island somewhere. 
 Crankshaw and the other Jiminy swam across, we know, 
 and we've tracked Wilkins to this house. From what 
 you say, he must have come here hot from Nagbar 
 and got off again as sharp as he could, taking incriminating 
 documents and things with him. Looks like it from the 
 way things in here are bashed about. We can't wait to 
 search the place, but I'd like to ask Mrs. Wilkins a few 
 questions."
 
 SISTER SORROW 335 
 
 " I've told you that's impossible," Torvald said sharply. 
 " I came here this morning and found the station almost 
 deserted and Mrs. Wilkins very ill. She has been suffering 
 from bad attacks of malarial fever, and I assure you that 
 it's only through some slight knowledge I happen to have 
 of medicine that I've pulled her through to-day. She's 
 sleeping now, and her life depends on that sleep not being 
 disturbed. You'll understand that I brought you in here 
 to talk things over quietly in order that she might not be 
 awakened." 
 
 The chief spokesman made a kind of apology and 
 moderated his tone. But he hummed and hawed a little 
 over the refusal, seemed to be asking questions and, I 
 gleaned, wanted to know if there had not been someone 
 besides Mrs. Wilkins sleeping in the house who would 
 have heard Mr. Wilkins arrive. Torvald told him that 
 Mrs. Meake, the servant, slept in a room adjoining the 
 kitchen and had said she heard nothing. He added that 
 there was a young lady friend staying with Mrs. Wilkins, 
 who, he understood, had been quietly in bed all 
 night." 
 
 " You'll excuse me, Mr. Helsing," the police officer said, 
 " but could I see this young lady ? " 
 
 Torvald said that he did not think it at all likely I 
 could throw any light upon the subject— that my room 
 was at the further end of the veranda from Mrs. Wilkins', 
 and that, even if I had heard sounds of Mr. Wilkins return- 
 ing, his late arrival would have seemed quite natural to 
 me, because I knew that he was expected and that he 
 could only swim his horse over the Narrows at low tide. 
 Torvald said, too, that I had been terribly anxious, as 
 he had himself been, about Mrs. Wilkins' serious illness, 
 and had worked all day with him in close attendance 
 upon her till I had fainted. And I had gone to my bed 
 to rest. He said he could not call me up. " Moreover," 
 he added, " it appears to me more important that you 
 should follow Wilkins' tracks and prevent him from 
 getting off the Island than that you should waste time 
 here in searching for useless clues."
 
 336 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " That was true enough," the head man admitted, and 
 the other man said that they were waiting for their black- 
 boy to report on the tracks. . . . 
 
 The black tracker must have put in an appearance just 
 then, for the two men went out into the yard, and presently 
 I heard them ride off. 
 
 XII 
 
 TORVALD came round by the veranda to my room 
 and knocked at the French window. 
 
 " I know all about it," I said, when I went out to him. 
 " I couldn't help hearing everything you said through 
 the partition at the back of my bed." 
 
 " I'm glad of that," he answered. " For there will be no 
 need for me to repeat what the police officers told me — 
 there were two, and they are after Wilkins. . . . I'm 
 afraid it has been a shock to you ..." and he scrutinized 
 my face. 
 
 I told him that nothing I heard now in connection with 
 Mr. Wilkins could be a shock to me, and I asked him what 
 he was going to do. 
 
 " I have been thinking that I will do as I said," he 
 answered, " take you both away from here this very night." 
 
 " But how — in Dolores' condition ? It would kill her." 
 
 " The horror to her of those men coming back with 
 Wilkins a prisoner, and of her learning the truth in that 
 way, is far more likely to kill her — or to drive her out 
 of her senses," he said. " The actual present danger is 
 past now. It's her weakness that is the worst trouble. 
 I would carry her most carefully in front of me on my 
 horse. I once carried a very sick man for a longer distance 
 and over a far worse road, in front of me, on my horse, 
 in the same way that I would carry her. The risk in that 
 case was greater. But it was the only thing to do and 
 he recovered. She will recover too. I can look after her 
 better in my own place, give her the right medicines
 
 SISTER SORROW 337 
 
 and guard her against molestation. You heard what the 
 sergeant said about asking her questions. She must not 
 be asked questions. She must be kept out of this business, 
 and you also. You must say nothing of what you heard 
 last night. There is no need that you should be drawn 
 in if we are wise and reticent." 
 
 I understood. Here again was a new revelation of the 
 Idealistic Student as a prudent man of the world. 
 
 We went to look at Dolores. She was sleeping as 
 quietly as a child, though she looked almost like a dead 
 person — so wan and white. 
 
 Torvald took me back to the veranda, and there we 
 discussed arrangements. He was very clever in devising 
 what Crankshaw called cute contraptions. Having rum- 
 maged the saddle-room, he got a broad pack-saddle which 
 he fitted up with stirrups and a padded seat across the 
 front, made of cushions and blankets, something after 
 the fashion of the pillion. I watched him and Jacky 
 adjusting the contrivance upon his own white horse, 
 which was a strong, sagacious-looking beast ; and I 
 wondered if Torvald had ever done that before for a 
 woman. Rolls of blankets which he strapped on the 
 forepart and along the sides of the saddle made a further 
 support for the living burden he was about to convey 
 into safety. 
 
 We packed food, various restoratives — in fact, every- 
 thing we could think of for alleviating the discomforts 
 and danger of the journey for Dolores. These we stowed 
 in a pair of saddle-bags to be slung on Jacky's horse, with 
 clothes as well for Dolores and myself. Other necessaries 
 I rolled in a valise which I strapped to these on the off-side 
 of the pilot's wife's saddle. 
 
 Mrs. Meake looked on with her customary stolidity. 
 I satisfied such curiosity as she showed by telling her that 
 Mrs. Wilkins was extremely ill and that Mr. Helsing, 
 who had come unexpectedly, and who had himself a good 
 deal of medical knowledge, considered it imperative that 
 she should be placed at once in the care of a proper doctor. 
 Therefore, we had decided to take her at all risks to the 
 
 22
 
 338 SISTER SORROW 
 
 Pilot station, where she would be put off to the next 
 steamer southward and nursed back to health in my house 
 at Leichardt's Town. 
 
 I fancy Mrs. Meake's respect for my authority went 
 up when she heard I had a house of my own at Leichardt's 
 Town. The tale was quite a plausible one to be told 
 the police officers if they should return. Besides, it was 
 perfectly true, only that we had said nothing about staying 
 at Torvald's garden. 
 
 I remember his once saying to me that he had a great 
 prejudice against untruthfulness as destroying the moral 
 and spiritual values. But, he added, that there were 
 conditions in which to tell a lie became a necessity for 
 the preservation of another, and that then the only thing 
 to do was to tell a good lie and to stick to it, taking the 
 consequences upon one's own head. 
 
 But when I looked at Dolores, I trembled at the prospect 
 of that twenty-mile, night ride through the Bush, and the 
 shuddering dread assailed me that she might not live 
 through it. 
 
 I asked Torvald if he did not think it might be wiser 
 to wait till the next day and why he chose the night time 
 for our journey. 
 
 " It is bright moonlight," he answered, " and the dis- 
 advantages of heat and glare will be avoided. Also, she 
 is under the influence of drugs that have an arresting and 
 sedative effect, and she may sleep the whole way and be 
 unconscious of bodily discomfort. But, of course," he 
 said, " what I am most anxious for, is that she should not 
 have the truth sprung upon her while she is in her present 
 condition." 
 
 I asked him if the police had thought they would find 
 Mr. Wilkins easily. 
 
 " Not if he has a sufficient start," Torvald said. ' The 
 impression is that he must have some hiding-place on the 
 ocean side of the Island — some little inlet where the trading 
 ship could lie unnoticed by passing vessels. . . . They 
 told me," he went on, " that there were only three other 
 ways by which the gang could escape now from the Island.
 
 SISTER SORROW 339 
 
 The first way of escape would be by swimming back across 
 the Narrows, where, as Wilkins must know, they would fall 
 into the hands of the police. The second way would 
 be from the South End of the Island to Currawilli — the 
 Island Queen is not at the Narrows boat-house, and it is 
 possible that she may have been sent to the South End. 
 Then there is the third way of escape from the Pilot station, 
 on which it is most improbable they would venture. The 
 police have telegraphed to Currawilli and have put the 
 pilots on their guard. There still remains the possibility 
 of escape from the ocean side of the Island — a more 
 dangerous business unless there were a vessel standing 
 by to pick the men up. Against that, as an immediate 
 resource, one sets the fact which has been ascertained, 
 that the ' guano trader ' was recently signalled so far 
 north as to put practically out of the question that she 
 can be anywhere near the Island for some time yet. There- 
 fore, you see, it is more than likely the police will look in 
 here again to-morrow." 
 
 I followed Torvald's reasoning and agreed that it was 
 best we should go at once. Before starting, we ate our 
 last meal in Mr. Wilkins' house. Then the horses were 
 brought round to the front veranda and packed. I was to 
 ride the quiet hack of the pilot's dead wife. I must confess 
 that it seemed a poor exchange for Sindbad or Zillah, and 
 I thought of all my wasted trouble in breaking them to 
 docile manners. When all was ready, we wrapped Dolores 
 in blankets as she lay, and, very tenderly, Torvald carried 
 the mummy-like bundle to the veranda. He had given 
 her a morphia injection and she was absolutely inert and 
 unconscious. 
 
 It was an anxious business getting her on to the cushioned 
 saddle. Torvald mounted, brought his horse close to the 
 veranda-rails, and received the pitiful burden in his arms 
 when Mrs. Meake and I together hoisted it gently towards 
 him. Mrs. Meake, strong, capable and unflustered, was of 
 great use in that emergency. Her experience at Boonji 
 Island Asylum had no doubt taught her something about 
 the lifting of patients, and there was no fear of her being 
 
 22*
 
 34o SISTER SORROW 
 
 upset by sympathetic nervousness. Dolores might have 
 been a log of wood for all Mrs. Meake seemed to care. I 
 have never been able to understand Mrs. Meake's apathetic 
 attitude, and could only come to the conclusion that the 
 Boonji Island Criminal Lunatics, or the late Mr. Meake, 
 were responsible for her queer insensitiveness. Anyway, 
 I was grateful to her at the last, for my part in the removal 
 of Dolores would have been physically impossible without 
 her assistance. 
 
 Shall I ever forget that ride ! Every bit of the way is 
 fresh in my memory as the most vivid reality, and yet, 
 looking back, it is like a dream. 
 
 The moon was shining so brilliantly that I could almost 
 have read by its light, and the shadows of trees and rocks 
 were so black and distinct that one might have fancied 
 them crouching monsters waiting to spring upon us. I 
 remember the curious sensation of seeing Jacky ride straight 
 through one of these illusive forms as, after having let down 
 the slip-rails of the paddock- fence and put them up behind 
 us, he trotted past along an opening in the Bush to take 
 up his position in front again. 
 
 We followed the blackboy closely, Torvald and I 
 keeping abreast of each other wherever the track 
 allowed. 
 
 Dolores' form in its blanket swathing, lay limp, slanting 
 against Torvald's breast, his left arm encircling it, her 
 head upon his left shoulder. A strip of blanket secured 
 her to him, forming a sling under her arms and round his 
 left shoulder, thus leaving his right arm free. 
 
 The sling must have eased the weight a good deal. For 
 the first few miles he rode buoyantly, his lean, straight 
 figure erectly poised, and I realized how very strong and 
 muscular he was, notwithstanding his apparently slender 
 build. But, later on, his shoulder drooped and I saw 
 plainly that the strain was telling on him. Most of the 
 way, the horses walked, but when the ground was flat 
 and smooth enough we would venture on a gentle canter, 
 which got us more quickly over the road.
 
 SISTER SORROW 341 
 
 Road ! There was no road. Only a rough track, often 
 so faint that an accustomed bushman might easily have 
 lost it. 
 
 The aspect of the country varied a good deal as we went 
 on, even allowing for the deceptive shadows. In some 
 parts, it was fairly open, our way leading through grassy, 
 lightly-timbered glades. In others, the gum-forest was very 
 dense ; and in still other parts, we found almost tropical 
 jungle, where were monstrous growths of twisted limbs, 
 gnarled trunks and immensely large fleshy leaves. This 
 jungle was pitchy dark and dangerous going where the 
 overhead branches spread so thickly that the moonlight 
 was unable to pierce through. . . . Sometimes we would 
 come upon belts of trees, slender of form, and of silvery 
 foliage that caught and diffused the moon's rays. Many 
 of the lighter trees bore white starry blossoms and gave the 
 idea of young radiant spirits of earth clothed in leaf and 
 blossom. In parts of the jungle, snake-like withes of 
 creeper hung over the track from the lower branches of 
 great trees and showed peculiar orchid-like blossoms. 
 Here, luscious, heady scents mingled in the air with the 
 damp, woody smell of rich earth and the nip of acrid and 
 aromatic odours from shrubs and herbage. 
 
 Was it any wonder that I seemed to be riding in a dream ? 
 After we left the jungle, the track passed over open ridges 
 honey-sweet with wattle-bloom. Beyond, as we neared 
 the sea, came new features of the landscape. Different 
 kinds of vegetation, silhouettes of bread-fruit trees and 
 coco-palms ; more umbrella-trees and the poisonous 
 pool boo-long of the blacks, from whose evil effects only 
 natives are immune. Torvald told me this as we rode 
 along, and many other things about the vegetation, to 
 while away the time during our necessarily slow progress. 
 At last our nostrils breathed in salt whiffs from the 
 ocean.
 
 342 SISTER SORROW 
 
 XIII 
 
 WE had been riding, I fancy, about four hours. The 
 moon was dipping westward, and here, near the 
 edge of the land, where the sky spread out, vast and un- 
 encroached upon, shone the constellations — a glorious 
 galaxy. The Southern Cross : Aldabaran, the Scorpion, 
 gleaming Sirius and, in particular, one beautiful planet, 
 low in heaven, very large, soft and luminous. . . . 
 
 Torvald suddenly turned his head towards me and 
 pointed to the star with his right hand. 
 
 " See, she is the morning star now — the ruler of your 
 destiny, as I told you. I am glad she shines on you to- 
 night. She was the evening star that night in Leichardt's 
 Town when you and I looked at her together— do you 
 remember ? " 
 
 Yes, I remembered. How strange that that should have 
 come into his mind ! For he had been riding on for 
 some time, in silence, his face bare to the moon, and a 
 strained, weary look upon it. He was clasping Dolores, 
 shielding her with tender care from the jar of every jerky 
 movement of the horse, and his whole attention had seemed 
 to be concentrated on her. Yet he must have been thinking 
 of me. 
 
 " We are nearly there," he said. "lam sure you must 
 be thankful. . . . Look. Now you can see the Lighthouse." 
 
 Through the fringe of scantier growth, I saw a great 
 headland outlined against the sea — a double humped 
 promontory, bare, except for a few bread-fruit trees and 
 palms, dark, gloomy and impressive. At the edge of the 
 first hump a few small wooden houses showed in the 
 moonlight and some tall telegraph-poles rising above, 
 with wires cutting the sky. The second hump of the 
 promontory seemed all bare, black rock in ridges and 
 isolated boulders, which stood out at the extreme end and
 
 SISTER SORROW 343 
 
 were lashed by the sea — I could distinguish the foamy 
 patches and hear the intermittent sound of breakers. On 
 the highest point of this hump stood a lighthouse with a 
 revolving lamp. 
 
 " That's the Pilot station," Torvald said. " My place 
 is a couple of miles lower down." 
 
 The track rounded through the fringe of bush which, 
 as we went, thickened again into scrub. But before we 
 entered the scrub, I had noticed that the shore was broken 
 into intricate lines of rocky headland, curving bay and 
 jagged inlet. I was too dazed and tired, however, to take 
 in more than its general conformation. 
 
 Jacky trotted gaily ahead, and Torvald's horse pricked 
 his ears and walked with freer step. The dead woman's 
 hack — being, as I had discovered, of a sulky disposition — 
 jibbed at finding her head turned from the Pilot station, 
 so that I almost lost sight of Torvald in the winding 
 track. I picked him up waiting for me at a gate in a 
 fence which was closely netted to the middle slab — I 
 supposed to keep out ground animals. 
 
 Inside the gate, the scrub was partially cleared and 
 cultivated. After a few minutes, I saw on a slight rise 
 the dark outline of a house — or rather a collection of 
 one-storied huts, for there were several squat buildings 
 with space between them. 
 
 From the central and largest one, two dark shapes, 
 one of whom carried a lantern, came out and ran down 
 the veranda-steps. The one with the lantern was an 
 elderly Chinaman : the other an equally elderly half-caste 
 woman. I learned, by and by, that these two were Jacky 's 
 father and mother, now united in lawful wedlock. 
 
 But, of course, to me at the moment, they were mere 
 walking figures. I sprang from my saddle and went to 
 Dolores. Torvald had both arms round her now and she 
 was making little inarticulate moans, but otherwise, 
 seemed still unconscious. 
 
 " The journey is well over," Torvald said. ' Better 
 than I thought possible. But I'm afraid we dare not 
 hope that there won't be bad after-effects. ... I can't
 
 344 SISTER SORROW 
 
 get down," he added, " until Dolores is safe in someone's 
 arms. No, not yours, Agatha. You must please keep 
 to one side. Take the lantern, if you will. You can 
 trust Ah Wung and Imba entirely." 
 
 He called the two and gave them directions, and I 
 took the lantern from Ah Wung, who then received Dolores 
 in his strong, capable arms. He might have been a nurse 
 from the way he held her. Imba, too, had the nurse's 
 touch, as I saw from the manner in which she rearranged 
 the blankets over Dolores' feet. They carried her on 
 to the veranda and stood waiting while Torvald dis- 
 mounted. His limbs were so cramped from keeping the 
 same posture and from supporting, in a great measure, 
 Dolores' weight across his knees, that he had difficulty 
 in dismounting. His legs almost collapsed under him 
 when he put them on the ground, and he could only just 
 •stagger to the veranda edge. 
 
 In a few minutes, however, he conquered himself by 
 a manifest effort of will, stamped his feet, shook his lean, 
 compact frame, and, stepping forward, gave some low- 
 voiced instructions to the half-caste woman, who hastened 
 off to obey them. Then he went up to Dody, whom Ah 
 Wung was carrying while I supported her feet by his 
 side. Torvald felt her pulse, looked carefully at her 
 face and smiled at me exultantly. 
 
 " She has borne it wonderfully," he said. " I'm not 
 afraid about her now." He readjusted her position 
 slightly and told Ah Wung to carry " the sick Missis " 
 inside. 
 
 Now, he turned to me as I stood on the veranda-steps, 
 took Ah Wung's lantern from me, and, with grave, old- 
 fashioned courtesy, led me by the hand to the threshold 
 of his doorway. 
 
 " Welcome to my house," he said. 
 
 Hanging kerosene lamps had already been lighted in 
 the living-room and in a bed-chamber opening off it, the 
 door of which stood open. Ah Wung waited, holding 
 Dody's form in his arms as a nurse might hold a baby 
 for whom the cot was being prepared. Through the
 
 SISTER SORROW 345 
 
 door of the bed-chamber, I saw Imba carrying in a mattress 
 and bedding, and Torvald went himself to help her. 
 
 I looked round the room in which I stood and which 
 appeared to serve the general purpose of study, parlour 
 and dining-room. It was many-windowed, long and low. 
 Walls, flooring and ceiling were of planed slabs of wood, 
 golden-brown in tint and so smooth that the lamp-light 
 was partially reflected upon their surface in flickering 
 patches of shine and shadow which gave a confusing 
 effect. I got the impression of space, bareness, extreme 
 hygiene and of a certain masculine homey-ness. A few 
 South Sea Island grass mats and some other mats of 
 pelican -skins lay about. Otherwise, there was no floor- 
 covering or upholstery or hangings of any sort. 
 
 But there were plenty of cane chairs — deck lounges 
 and straighter-backed ones, with cushions, while some 
 had peculiar feathery rugs, grey and white splotched with 
 brown and black, which were made from the downy breasts 
 of certain sea-birds. And there were substantial wooden 
 tables, large and small, on which lay magazines, books and 
 various articles which I did not take into my mind at 
 the time. It was the books which gave the room such 
 a pleasant look. All round the walls were low wooden 
 shelves well filled with volumes, and I noticed a few pictures 
 on the wall, the subjects of which I didn't try to make out. 
 
 Torvald had set a chair for me, and from where I sat 
 I could see him in the sleeping-room helping Imba to place 
 a second mattress on a low wooden bed and to spread 
 the sheets and blankets. In a few minutes, the bed was 
 ready and Dolores, now half-conscious, was laid upon it. 
 
 Imba and I were left to arrange her for the night. She 
 was very weak, but opened her eyes and looked around 
 in vague wonder without moving her head. She seemed 
 a little frightened, I thought, at the half-caste woman and 
 the strange surroundings, but was reassured immediately 
 by the sight of my face. She just murmured " Gagsie," 
 and, heaving a relieved sigh, nestled luxuriously into the 
 pillows. Torvald came in with some sort of gruel in a 
 cup, and I held her up while he fed her by spoonfuls like
 
 346 SISTER SORROW 
 
 a baby. She swallowed the food contentedly, and when 
 we laid her back, fell straightway into natural sleep. 
 
 "All is well," he said to me. "You may rest now 
 with an easy mind — and you need rest, Agatha." 
 
 He would not let me sit by Dolores. He said that Imba 
 should watch, that she could be trusted — had nursed 
 patients through dengue fever and other serious ailments. 
 He himself was going to camp in the parlour. 
 
 Then he showed me to a fragrant little guest-chamber 
 entered from a veranda at the back, and adjoining, though 
 not directly communicating with, the room into which 
 Dody had been put, and which I assumed to be his own. 
 Dawn was breaking by this time. From the veranda I 
 saw the sea, open, limitless, with a mysterious rim of 
 faintly luminous pink between it and the horizon. I saw, 
 too, stretching out some way north-eastward, high and 
 black against the sky, the humped promontory with the 
 Lighthouse upon it, and as the moon sank behind the hump, 
 there flashed out the revolving lamp of the Lighthouse for 
 an instant and disappeared. 
 
 Oh, the heavenly sweetness of that dawn upon the sea 
 and the dewy garden with its thousand blended odours ! 
 And the music of cooing doves who had begun their morn- 
 ing love-song ! 
 
 My heart was so full that I could have wept had I been 
 alone. I did weep, when Torvald had bidden me good- 
 night at my door, and Imba, whom he had sent, had left 
 me. But whether I wept from happiness or sorrow I could 
 not tell. 
 
 XIV 
 
 I UNDRESSED and got into bed as Torvald had told 
 me, but the sun was well up before I dropped asleep. 
 It was quite late in the day when Imba woke me, bringing 
 a breakfast tray with steaming cocoa, eggs, the delicious 
 yellow meal cakes which I knew already and delicate 
 preserves that were new to me.
 
 SISTER SORROW 347 
 
 My first question was about Dolores. 
 
 " Sick Missee sleep, eat breakfast. . . . Soon sick 
 Missee altogether all light," she said. I noticed that 
 she had acquired something of the Chinese pidgin-English 
 and inability to pronounce the letter " r." 
 
 And while on the subject, let me say that Imba is the 
 one Australian black or half-caste whom I have known 
 trained to be a really capable domestic worker. This no 
 doubt was due to Ah Wung. Never was there a more 
 excellent cook and handy-man or a more faithful servitor 
 than Ah Wung. But he was not such a vara avis as Imba. 
 Give me a good Chinaman for a servant in preference to 
 one of any other nationality ! 
 
 Imba brought me a chit from Torvald telling me that 
 I was not to hurry over getting up and dressing in order 
 to be with Dolores. He had seen her, he said, and had 
 found her, though still extremely weak, amazingly better 
 than he had expected. He asked me to let him see me 
 before I went to her, when he would explain his reason 
 for wishing to keep us apart a few hours longer. 
 
 I obeyed him literally, as I would have obeyed him in 
 any directions he might have given concerning Dolores. 
 
 So I bathed and dressed in leisurely self-indulgence, 
 enjoying the orderliness, almost luxury, of this bachelor 
 establishment which was in such curious contrast to the 
 roughness and inadequacy of Mrs. Meake's management 
 and ministrations at Oronga Station. 
 
 I did not leave my room until Ah Wung came to tell 
 me that lunch was ready and Mass' Elthin' — the nearest 
 he and Imba got to Torvald's name — was waiting for me. 
 
 I followed Ah Wung to the parlour, along the veranda 
 which went all round the central building. I now saw 
 the plan of the homestead — the middle hut and the two 
 hut-annexes. One of these I gleaned was the kitchen and 
 Ah Wung's and Imba's quarters. The other one was 
 " where Mass' makee velly fine medsin " — Torvald's 
 laboratory, I supposed. . . . But he himself showed me 
 all that afterwards. 
 
 Also, at the further end of the Selection, a good way
 
 348 SISTER SORROW 
 
 from the dwelling-house, the compound, in which the 
 Malays and Kanakas whom Torvald employed in his 
 garden, had their humpeys. I may mention here, that 
 these Eastern labourers to whom Mr. Pringle took such 
 exception, were seldom seen near the Garden Huts. 
 
 Torvald was very kind and courteous — a little formal, 
 I thought, as he did the honours of his table : but perhaps 
 that was natural since I was, he said, the first white woman 
 — with the exception of the pilot's late wife — who had 
 broken bread in the Garden Huts. 
 
 Speaking literally, it was a good deal more than the 
 breaking of bread, I was puzzled as to how Ah Wung could 
 possibly have got together so many dainties in the short 
 time. Then I reflected on Jacky's errand with the side- 
 saddle and the quiet hack and concluded that Ah Wung 
 must have been warned to prepare for visitors. 
 
 I knew that Torvald was a vegetarian or almost so. 
 I have seen him eat some kinds of fish and of course eggs, 
 but never what is called butcher's meat — but he explained 
 now that he had no intention of imposing his own regimen 
 on his guests. 
 
 Truly, I fared sumptuously. We had turtle soup 
 served in the carapace, prepared in special native fashion 
 by cooking the turtle in its shell on red-hot stones in a 
 hole in the ground. Thus all the rich succulence of the 
 turtle is preserved. Dolores must soon grow strong and 
 fat, I thought, if she were to be fed on diet such as this. 
 After the turtle, we had roasted eggs of the scrub turkey 
 and a vegetable course of sweet yams : also the heart of 
 a certain palm dressed with cocoanut and native ginger — 
 a glorified sort of cabbage. Broad beans too, with a nutty 
 flavour, that grew on a tree : then a curry. A dream of 
 a curry — Ah Wung's speciality, Torvald said. Fruit to 
 end with, one of that early variety of flesh melon, sweet, 
 small figs, the colour of an orange, and another fruit some- 
 thing like a strawberry outside, but hot and spicy within. 
 
 A poetic repast such as one might fancy appropriate to the 
 gold-brown parlour, with its wide windows and broad 
 veranda where the spaces between the posts were framed
 
 SISTER SORROW 349 
 
 in leaf and blossom. Great yellow and mauve trumpets of 
 allamanda and thumbergia : creamy clusters of strong- 
 scented hoya : starry blooms of jessamine and quantities 
 of other flowers which I cannot name nor count. 
 
 I asked Torvald why this corner of the Island was so 
 different from anything I had seen at the cattle-station. 
 It seemed almost like a transformation scene. 
 
 " Ah, you must remember," he said, " that I free- 
 selected the finest piece of land to be found, in my opinion, 
 anywhere along the coast. By and by, when I take you 
 round, I will show you how the ground slopes down to 
 two small water-sheds into which the alluvial deposit of 
 ages has been swept. I built my huts on the little ridge 
 in the centre so that I might have air and view. When I 
 took up the land the two valleys were dense scrub — you 
 might have called it primeval jungle, and they were the 
 haunt of migratory birds — hosts of them which I have 
 done my utmost to keep here. Then from the ridge 
 downwards, I've got all kinds of soil, and could grow most 
 tropical products if there were enough of space. It's just 
 ideal ground for an experimental medicine-garden. And, 
 you see, in the twelve years that I've had the place, I've 
 cleared and burned, and dug and transplanted and, from 
 one cause and another, the soil is extraordinarily fertile." 
 
 Twelve years ! He had been there longer than I had 
 thought, and my second impression that he was a man 
 in the prime of his 3 T ears, was strengthened anew. 
 
 We talked of the garden and his work in it, during most 
 of the time that Ah Wung was waiting upon us. When 
 the Chinaman had left us with the dessert and coffee, 
 Torvald told me, in answer to my questions, that he had 
 been at the Pilot station that morning and that there was 
 no news by wire or otherwise of the police party or of Mr. 
 Wilkins. He said there was an idea that Mr. Wilkins 
 and his gang had had a boat secreted in some inlet on the 
 ocean side of the Island and had got away either to join 
 the so-called guano-trader or to take refuge on one of 
 the coral islands, which are numerous between the main- 
 land and the Great Barrier Reef, till they could signal her
 
 350 SISTER SORROW 
 
 on her return voyage. He added shortly that he sincerely 
 hoped this might be the case. I guessed from a word 
 or two he dropped that he had been given details, cabled 
 from Leuraville, of the murder of Manuel Herrebine, but 
 when I asked him about this, I saw that he wished to 
 evade the subject. He seemed anxious also not to discuss 
 Mr. Wilkins' doings or motives. Indeed, he told me so 
 presently and gave me a reason that seemed strange to 
 me then. 
 
 " I don't want those vibrations to find the faintest echo 
 here which would set the mental and spiritual wires 
 jangling and destroy the effect of soothing harmony 
 from which I am hoping so much," he said. 
 
 I did not grasp quite what he meant. I had not learned 
 anything about mind-currents and spiritual telepathy, in 
 the scientific sense. For me, at that time — except in certain 
 moods of exaltation — such things had not got past the 
 region of imaginative conjecture. I looked at him, and 
 found his blue eyes extraordinarily clear and luminous, 
 gazing at me while his grave smile had a touch of 
 whimsicality. 
 
 " If you think of it, everything comes to be a question of 
 vibrations — " he said. ' Matter, mind, spirit. The law 
 governing vibrations is the law governing the universe 
 and setting the boundaries of each realm of it. The reason 
 why dead people can't make their living friends see them, 
 is because the dead vibrate at an inconceivably higher 
 rate than the living. That's the ' great gulf fixed.' It's 
 the same with notes of music, and with colours. Red, 
 the ray of the savage, ultra-violet of the saint. Why, 
 each of our moods, means a different rate of vibration. . . . 
 
 " But you've read about rays and rates of vibration. . . . 
 What I wanted to convey is, that some persons are in- 
 finitely more susceptible than others to the power of 
 vibrations. Dolores for instance, and you, yourself. Only 
 you don't altogether understand that yet. You will in 
 time." 
 
 Again I looked at him, and now, the touch of whim- 
 sicality was gone and his eyes, though they were gazing
 
 SISTER SORROW 351 
 
 intently at my face, seemed to be looking through me 
 and beyond me, as if at some entrancing vision. I suppose 
 that he was thinking of Dolores, for he said : 
 
 " That's why I was so anxious to get her here. She is 
 so sensitive that she responds to a touch, a thought. 
 It's for this reason — lest she should ask questions — revive 
 old conditions — that I rather wished }'ou should not see 
 much of each other to-day. You don't mind, do you ? " 
 
 My own vibrations must certainly have been jarred. 
 
 " I am under your orders," I said — perversely. I 
 was sorry in a moment for I saw that I had pained him. 
 
 ' Oh no. . . . Not under my orders ! You know that 
 it is you " — He stopped suddenly and flushed. 
 
 " I mean that I have perfect confidence in your judg- 
 ment," I put in hastily. 
 
 " No, I don't want you to feel like that either," he said. 
 " I should like you to feel that we are both merely instru- 
 ments — but you do feel like that ; you said so before — 
 instruments of a wise and beneficent Power : and that we 
 are working in unison and in faith, not only in each other, 
 but in the Plan at the back by which events are being 
 shaped for our good — our sister Sorrow's — yours — mine." 
 
 I did not answer. Oh, surely, something must have 
 been very wrong with me that morning. I seemed to see 
 everything askew. It was selfish, unreasonable of me 
 to mind his absorption in Dolores. Wasn't that the 
 condition of the bond, the price I had to pay ? . . . 
 
 There was a pause, during which we both played with 
 the fruit on our plates. One had the feeling of a nasty 
 tumble from some scarcely attained height. 
 
 At last I said : 
 
 ' Did you talk much to Dolores when you saw her 
 this morning ? " 
 
 He flushed again, unaccountably. 
 
 " You are thinking, did I put my precepts into practice ? 
 Yes, I was very careful to keep my own mind off painful 
 subjects. You see, I might call my visit, a professional 
 one. You trust me, I know, as ' the physician in charge.' " 
 
 " Absolutely."
 
 352 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " Notwithstanding that I'm an unqualified one," and he 
 smiled, but became grave again immediately. ' I assure 
 you that I am giving a great deal of thought to this case, 
 but I am afraid it's more in my line than in that of the 
 Medical Officer at Leuraville. He wouldn't understand as 
 much about it as even I do with all my limitations." 
 
 " Why do you say ' afraid ' ? " 
 
 " I shall try to verify my conclusions as far as I am able, 
 before I say much about them," he answered. " That 
 would be setting up troublous vibrations again," he added 
 with a little laugh. " I talked to Dolores mostly about 
 the garden," he went on — " about how I wanted her to 
 get well enough to lie out of doors in a little corner near 
 the boathouse, down on the sea-shore — I'll show it to you, 
 presently. She's looking forward to being carried there 
 to-morrow. She is as interested as a child, and we pushed 
 her bed nearer to the window so that she can have a view 
 of the sea. She's quite placid and looks — well, you'll see 
 for yourself. I'm going to take you to her for a few minutes 
 before we go out. She looks what is really a fact, for the 
 moment at any rate, as if she had shed the painful past 
 like a worn garment — veritably, as if she had been dipped 
 in the waters of Lethe." 
 
 XV 
 
 AND it was true. That was the amazing thing. 
 Talk of evil enchantment ! Some white magician 
 must have woven a counteracting spell and laid a healing 
 hand on my poor, stricken Dody, perhaps last night in the 
 land of dreams. 
 
 I could scarcely believe that it was the woman we 
 had dragged out of the jaws of death only yesterday, 
 when I went into her room through the door communicating 
 with the parlour. . .■{ 
 
 Torvald opened the door, holding aside aMouble fold of 
 tapa which he or Ah Wung had nailed over it. The tapa
 
 SISTER SORROW 353 
 
 was a South Sea Island chief's state robe, of sufficient 
 thickness to deaden sound, for it was made of the bark of 
 a certain tree, pulped and pressed together. 
 
 This piece of tapa was stained a beautiful yellow and 
 painted in a bold barbaric design, as they all are, according 
 to taste or totem. 
 
 Torvald remained in the parlour. Dolores was alone, 
 but, outside in the veranda, Imba was preparing some 
 garden stuff for Ah Wung, and Dolores was watching her, 
 with, as Torvald had said, the interest of a child in new 
 surroundings. As she lay in bed propped up by pillows 
 and against a background of veranda-creeper, garden 
 foliage and silvery blue sea, she looked as I had never seen 
 her look, except occasionally when she had been very 
 happy out of doors at Barulin. I was utterly startled at 
 the change in her from that miserable bewitched creature, 
 haunted by insane terrors, who had come to my bedside 
 at the Head-station. Now, she seemed so innocent, so 
 flower-like, so untouched by any contaminating influence. 
 Her skin had the creamy whiteness that one sees in the 
 petals of a magnolia blossom : her eyes were pure and clear 
 as the eyes of a babe : her soft dark hair was brushed simply 
 back from her forehead, and there was very slight trace 
 of the little indentation that betokened trouble. No 
 puckering of brows ; no distressed expression. The 
 pretty lips were parted in a placid smile over her small 
 white teeth. Yes, she did give the impression of having 
 been washed, physically, mentally, spiritually — bathed 
 actually and metaphorically in the waters of oblivion. 
 
 She gave me a welcoming look — all care-free. 
 
 "Oh, Gagsie. . . . Isn't it beautiful? It's like the 
 Garden of Paradise," she went on, " and I keep thinking 
 that any minute, down there, coming out from the trees, 
 I shall see the Fair}' of the Garden." 
 
 " Well," I said banteringly and pointing to the half- 
 caste woman who was sitting on the edge of the veranda, 
 shredding the inside of a cocoanut. ' There's your fairy 
 for you. I'm sure Imba is a very good fairy." 
 
 Dody looked at me wistfully. 
 
 23
 
 354 SISTER SORROW 
 
 " No, I didn't mean that. I like Imba, but she's only 
 a native woman, and Ah Wung is just a Chinaman — he 
 was here too a few minutes ago. . . . Still, they are rather 
 like people in a book, aren't they — different from most 
 black gins and Chinamen ? . . . But it's the garden — 
 and the air, and the sort of unreality of everything that 
 makes me feel as if I were living in a fairy story and that I 
 shall wake up and find it gone back into the ground like 
 Hans Andersen's ' Garden of Paradise.' . . . And I keep 
 wondering — if this is real — how I got here without knowing 
 anything about it." 
 
 " You were wrapped up in a magic blanket — it's hanging 
 over your door now — and carried here on St. George's 
 white horse while you were asleep," I said lightly, but 
 I know that my voice trembled, and in truth, seeing her 
 like this — so white, so pathetically simple, so cleansed — 
 I was overswept by a wave of emotion that softened 
 all the hard criss-crossness, the nerve-irritation, the 
 bitterness, of which I had been conscious a little while 
 before, and made me put my arms round her and kiss 
 her with my whole heart in the kiss. She nestled to me 
 and the weak arms tried to clasp me too, but failed from 
 weakness. 
 
 " Oh, Gagsie ... I do love you. . . . You're like a 
 dear, dear sister." 
 
 " That's just it," I said and began to cry over her, so that 
 I could hardly bring out my words. " I'm your sister, 
 who loves you and is taking care of you." 
 
 " Somebody else is taking care of me too," she said. 
 " But it's so curious, I seem to know him quite well, yet 
 I don't know him and when I try to think who he is, 
 everything gets dark, as if the light had been put out." . . . 
 
 " Don't try to think," I interrupted. " There's nothing 
 you need to think about — except that everything is all 
 right and that I'm here, and that fairy stories are real 
 sometimes." 
 
 " Oh, no," she protested : and the idea seemed to 
 worry her. " Not real in the sense you and other people 
 would call real. You don't know as much about fairy-
 
 SISTER SORROW 355 
 
 stories as I do, Gagsie. They are real, but only to oneself, 
 and you can live in them for quite a long time — I used to 
 when I was a little girl — but you have to come out of 
 them sometimes, and then you feel as the Prince did when 
 the Garden of Paradise vanished into the ground and he 
 stood all cold and alone in the falling rain." 
 
 I was afraid to argue with her, or even to agree with her 
 — nonsense as it all was ; I felt that Torvald was right and 
 I had perhaps stayed already too long. 
 
 Happily, just then Ah Wung's bland yellow visage 
 appeared round the corner of the veranda. He was 
 bringing a bowl of that celestial turtle-soup, with some 
 new kind of corn -bread and fresh fruit. 
 
 I watched Dolores start on her meal and then left her, 
 saying that I was going to look round the garden and 
 choose a place to which she could be carried, if she were 
 well enough, next day. 
 
 I couldn't even begin to describe Torvald's garden in any 
 real sense. It was "some" garden, as the Australians 
 say. If I tried to give an adequate idea of its value to 
 science and medicine, these pages would become a botanical 
 catalogue, and, indeed, I had no full appreciation, until a 
 considerable time later, of Torvald Helsing's fame in his 
 own line of research. Since then, I have compared his 
 garden with the great Perideniya Garden in Ceylon, where 
 there are specimens of almost all the useful and beautiful 
 plants known between Cancer and Capricorn, and it seemed 
 to me that Torvald's garden resembled it on a miniature 
 scale. 
 
 Yet not such an extreme difference, after all. Torvald's 
 Selection was about a thousand acres in extent. 
 
 As for the topography of it, he had described accurately 
 the two watersheds with a rounded ridge in the middle, 
 on which the homestead was built. The undulations and 
 irregularities of the ground added not only to its picturesque- 
 ness but to the variety of trees and plants he could grow 
 upon it. Landwards, to the north and west, it was sheltered 
 by the fringe of dense scrub, in which were many valuable 
 native trees and through which he had cut the entrance- 
 
 23*
 
 356 SISTER SORROW 
 
 road, besides burning and clearing it in places. This 
 scrub, merging gradually into a forest of tall grey gums, 
 some of them three hundred feet in height, clambered up 
 a peculiar range of hills, called from its shape the Boomerang 
 Ridge, which curved south-eastward to the sea. There 
 were gullies in the ridge, bringing rain-water down and 
 adding to the richness of vegetation and variety of soil. 
 For some bits of the ridge were stony, and there was a 
 sandy stretch — a spring glory, as I soon found — -full of a 
 certain kind of rock orchid and of a particularly large 
 and sweet-scented lily. In the gullies, too, were patches, 
 like blazing fires, of flame-trees, their gorgeous red flowers 
 bursting into bloom, and with flocks of honey-eating birds 
 twittering in the branches and sending up a hymn of praise 
 to the sun. Nearer the sea, I found an enormous milk- 
 wood tree, verily a milch-cow to the nesting birds. 
 
 The seaward side of the Selection — except for pieces of 
 scrub here and there, lay all open, but for its own natural 
 defences. Here, the force of the waves had fretted the 
 land into curious shapes, which made me think, as I looked 
 down upon it from a slight height, of the sharp-toothed 
 upper jaw of some amphibian monster — bristling tusks of 
 granite, projecting from scabrous folds of rock, with 
 jagged dents and chasms between. There were small 
 rounded headlands to which clung a few battered palms. 
 Beyond them, tiny bays of sand, rock-strewn, and ending 
 where the cliff above seemed to have made a plunge for- 
 ward into the sea and to have broken off in baby islets, 
 scattered along and forming a natural breakwater. 
 
 I counted many such islets, some quite barren, others with 
 a little vegetation ; some connected with the land by granite 
 causeways, which, in their turn, cloven and hollowed 
 by the sea, showed tunnels and passages through which 
 the waters foamed and swirled. One islet, much larger 
 than the rest, was partially cultivated and had some 
 biggish trees in the middle. Out of the fissures in its 
 rocks, grew coco-palms— seedlings, Torvald told me, 
 washed there from the distant South Sea Islands. He told 
 me, too, that many strange fishes and sea reptiles had their
 
 SISTER SORROW 357 
 
 homes in the hollows of the rocks, and pointed to a deep 
 channel where terns reared their young. He said he kept 
 this larger islet as a breeding-place and that no one but 
 himself ever passed through a gate which spanned the 
 rock bridge — part natural, part artificial — connecting it 
 with the garden. A few hardy shrubs grew out of the 
 clefts in this bridge, and some pandanus palms. But it 
 will be understood that in this first walk with Torvald, I 
 got but a cursory view of the chief features of the coast. 
 
 I realized, however, that the difficulty of finding a land- 
 ing-place made Torvald's garden practically inaccessible 
 by sea and that he was safe from the only likely marauders, 
 bank clerks and business men from Leuraville, who some- 
 times in holiday times made fishing parties in a cutter or 
 steam launch round about the Pilot station, or an exploring 
 boat-load from some passing vessel. There was one spot 
 where it was possible to land — a little inlet, where Torvald 
 kept his own boat and which was approached by a narrow 
 passage between two islets. Even that was dangerous to 
 sailors who were not acquainted with the currents and the 
 position of submerged rocks. It was rarely used, Torvald 
 told me, for he did all his business from the Pilot station. 
 His stores were landed there from Leuraville, and the 
 goods he sent away shipped from there likewise. He made 
 few excursions by water, for during his twelve years of 
 residence upon Oronga Island, he had thoroughly explored 
 the neighbouring coast. 
 
 Torvald had taken me over the annexe hut, which 
 contained his laboratory, a spare sleeping-chamber, places 
 for drying plants, making medicinal preparations and 
 otherwise carrying on his trade. For I found out by degrees 
 that his work was much esteemed by experimental chemists 
 and that he supplied many in different countries with the 
 fruits of his labours. 
 
 Then he showed me some of the botanical wonders of 
 his garden, passing by Ah Wung's vegetable plot and all 
 the trees, shrubs, fruits and flowers that he considered 
 merely of ordinary account, in order to point out rare 
 specimens which he had found on the Island, or had
 
 358 SISTER SORROW 
 
 brought from different parts of the world. There were 
 plants of curious properties with which he was experiment- 
 ing. Among them was the pituri of the blacks, and he 
 told me that he had discovered a method of extracting 
 from it some hitherto unknown property. I saw also 
 various strange growths brought from the jungles of Java, 
 that he was rearing in the heavy moist atmosphere of his 
 gullies. There were many plants, the names of which I 
 had read, but which I had never seen actually growing 
 before. 
 
 It was after this that he brought me to the seashore 
 and the little bay in which were the boat-house and the 
 landing-stage, where he hoped to carry Dolores on the 
 morrow. 
 
 XVI 
 
 THE ground sloped down easily to it from the house, 
 and trees grew almost to the water's edge, several 
 of them in flower and filling the air with sweet balsamic 
 fragrance. There was one large-leaved tree, so tall that 
 no black even had ever climbed it, where all the birds of 
 the tropic forest seemed to congregate. Now at midday, 
 they were mostly silent, but none the less were they busy 
 nesting, making love, seeking food, darting hither and 
 thither, in and out amid the flowers and the greenery. 
 Pasture ground there was for every variety, and most 
 delectable nourishment. Syrup of the bean-tree blossoms, 
 of the melaleuca and the yellow gin tree — for the humming- 
 birds and honey-eaters. Bark insects for the insect- 
 eaters — food for all species. . . . Torvald knew how 
 Dolores loved to watch the birds, and here was provided for 
 her a plentiful source of amusement. 
 
 I chose the spot where her long cane chair should be 
 placed and from which she could see, not only the tree 
 birds, but the sea birds too, swooping, circling, poising, 
 chasing each other. It was a grassy plateau, where there
 
 SISTER SORROW 359 
 
 had been a landslip, ever so long back, from the headland, 
 which jutted out, closing in the bay. The little promontory 
 must once have stretched much further out, and a succession 
 of rocky islets, like a broken reef, had no doubt formed 
 part of it and had been torn off in some prehistoric con- 
 vulsion. Once, too, it had been well covered with soil, 
 for there were still a few stunted trees sticking forth from 
 the fissures in the rocks and showing roots that were thick 
 and aged. The cliff rose very high behind the plateau, 
 so that it was sheltered from the westerly sun, and a wild 
 fig tree grew close by with trailer vines bearing sweet- 
 scented white flowers hanging from its lower branches. 
 
 A strip of sandy beach below, curved with the bay, 
 narrowing where it wound round the headland, to an ever- 
 shrinking band as the rising tide washed up almost to the 
 base of the precipice. In its broader part, the beach had 
 treasures of shells and coral strewn upon it. There was life 
 too. The shore plover laid her eggs in the sand : and now 
 there was a beach curlew, getting crabs for its dinner, which 
 did not move till we were close upon it. I remarked to Tor- 
 vald upon the tameness of these wild birds, and he said it 
 was because he never allowed a gun to be fired or a trap laid, 
 and that so, finding themselves unmolested, the birds 
 came, year after year, to nest at the breeding season and 
 had not learned to regard humans as destructive animals. 
 
 I thought of Dolores lying there and drawing strength 
 for her enfeebled body and peace for her bruised mind 
 from the salt sea and perfumy land and from the multi- 
 tudinous life of whirring wings, calling sea-birds, cooing 
 doves, insect murmurings. Torvald and I agreed that 
 it might be best to let her find her real self in solitude 
 with Nature for her nurse. Here, though alone, she could 
 never feel lost and lonely. 
 
 In this spot, the only link, it seemed, with the world, was 
 the boat-house, a few yards away, built at the foot of the 
 cliff, with wooden slips for launching the boat and a 
 small landing-stage. Torvald showed me his boat — rather 
 smaller than the Island Queen, drawn up within the shed, 
 and said that one day when the sea was smooth he would
 
 360 SISTER SORROW 
 
 take me for a row among the islets and show me a wonderful 
 coral garden which lay a mile or two down the coast. That 
 coral garden and a point in the range called Palm-Tree 
 Peak, where one got a magnificent view of the ocean rollers 
 beating on the shore, were, he said, the show spots within 
 easy distance of his boundaries. For the last, he would 
 borrow again, he said, the horse and saddle of the pilot's 
 late wife. 
 
 I mourned Sindbad and Zillah, and we laughed over 
 my futile efforts to obtain a satisfactory mount. Our 
 talk was homelike, unembarrassed — nothing very personal : 
 yet, all through, I was conscious, in an interior way, of a 
 very deep personal note. It thrilled in Torvald's voice, 
 and in my heart. We talked almost only of Dolores. . . . 
 And yet. . . . 
 
 We walked down the sand and shingle as far as the 
 waves would let us, to get a better view of the Lighthouse, 
 which just showed beyond the headland. 
 
 I saw then that there was a further bay on the other 
 side of the point, where the cliffs rose higher, giving an 
 impression of gloomy picturesqueness, but it was impossible 
 to get more than a glimpse of it owing to the intervening 
 rocks. Torvald said that it was dangerous in that further 
 bay, not only on the shore, because of the possibility of 
 being cut off unawares by the tide, but also in the water, 
 because there was a current which would draw any swimmer 
 or any boat into a whirlpool between two of the islets 
 opposite, where there could be no escape from de- 
 struction. 
 
 " There's been volcanic action here," he said, " as there 
 has been in several places up the coast. Of course, we 
 know that the land once extended to the Great Barrier Reef, 
 and who can tell how much further ? It's quite evident 
 that many of the islands between this and South America 
 are the tops of submerged mountains, mostly volcanic. 
 I judge that there's a crater, deep down, about this spot, 
 with an outlet that would account for the strong current 
 and the whirlpool. Nothing that goes into it is ever seen 
 again."
 
 SISTER SORROW 361 
 
 He told me that a blackboy trying to swim across to 
 the islets had been lost in this way two or three years ago. 
 " And there's a story of a boat with sailors from a ship- 
 wrecked vessel," he said, " that tried to put into the 
 Island by that channel. The boat was dashed to pieces 
 and not a single body was ever found." 
 
 He pointed to a widish opening which I should have 
 thought would have been the natural exit from and entrance 
 to the boat-house bay. 
 
 ' Yes, it looks all right," he said. " And that's just the 
 danger to anyone who did not know the liabilities — though 
 now, we have put warning buoys outside, so that it's 
 pretty safe from the sea, and, of course, our own boat 
 going out would take the right opening." 
 
 He pointed again, indicating a zigzag course through 
 the patches of rock, bare but for a seedling palm sticking 
 up on one or two of them. 
 
 " There's a little belt of pretty coral there," he went on, 
 ' and some queer fishes and things to be seen in the deep 
 water, which is as clear as a looking-glass in some places. 
 When we make our expedition to the real coral garden, 
 I'll show you it all — and also how easy the right passage 
 is when you know it. I don't make it generally public," 
 he added with a laugh, " because I'm not hankering after 
 casual visitors from becalmed sailing-vessels." 
 
 We turned our steps again. I wanted to go round the 
 headland and explore the next bay, but Torvald would not 
 let me. Already the sea had crept nearly to the next base 
 of the cliff, and he said that if we ever got to the bay, 
 we should certainly be kept there till next tide. 
 
 I have often thought to myself that things might have 
 happened very differently if I had gone round the headland 
 that afternoon.
 
 362 SISTER SORROW 
 
 XVII 
 
 THE plan proved a success, Dolores, still marvellously 
 better, was carried out next morning to Boat-House 
 Bay and established in a long deck chair on the grassy 
 plateau. She remained there the whole day, deeply 
 interested, as I had felt sure she would be, in the sea, in 
 the birds, in the shells that Imba picked up from the 
 beach and brought her, in the flowers that I gathered and 
 put in water on the basket-table by her side. 
 
 She lay there, quite content, drinking in the peace 
 and beauty around her, living in a fairy-story as she 
 phrased it, and apparently with only a vague and partial 
 remembrance of her former life. She sometimes spoke 
 of Barolin, but the years in which she had known Mr. 
 Wilkins seemed to have been blotted out. 
 
 It was evident that she preferred to be left alone. She 
 was making her own pictures and there was room for me 
 in most of them. But Torvald she did not seem able 
 to place. He was the link with painful memories and 
 the sight of him with me troubled her. I noticed that 
 when he went up to her, or she understood that she was 
 a guest in his house, she would look at him with a distressed 
 expression in her eyes and the little hole would show in 
 her forehead — always a bad sign. I am sure she had a 
 puzzled feeling about her blurred recognition of Torvald 
 and her inability to fix him exactly in her mind. But she 
 asked no questions. I. fancy that in a subconscious way 
 she was afraid of being awakened from her happy dream. 
 
 So we two kept more or less out of her sight, leaving 
 the immediate attendance upon her to Imba and Ah 
 Wung. Their presence did not appear to disturb her and 
 no doubt she accepted them as the necessary background 
 to her fairy-story existence. 
 
 It was pretty to watch her playing with her shells and 
 her flowers like a happy child, and to hear her trying to
 
 SISTER SORROW 363 
 
 imitate the cries of the birds and to attract them to her. 
 Sometimes they would come quite close to her chair and 
 even, if she were very still, perch upon the arms and the 
 back of it. Then if anybody by some accidental sound 
 or movement drove them away, she would bid us almost 
 pettishly not come near and frighten the dear things who 
 were making friends with her. 
 
 Thus we left her a great deal to herself, and the times 
 when she was alone with Nature were those of her most 
 marked improvement. Torvald was pleased to see this. 
 That was part of the cure he had designed for her. For 
 the rest, he administered soothing herb draughts and Ah 
 Wung fed her with the most nourishing concoctions he 
 could devise. 
 
 She went on like this for several days. All was well, 
 Torvald assured me. 
 
 One afternoon, I asked him if he thought she would 
 recover her memory. 
 
 He considered a few moments before answering. 
 
 " Yes, I think certainly she will. But I hope she may 
 not do so for some time yet. . . . You see," he added, 
 " it would simplify matters if she were to remain as she 
 is until all this terrible business is settled." 
 
 After what Torvald had said of his reluctance to discuss 
 the subject of Mr. Wilkins, I had not liked to question 
 him, but he now began to speak of it all more freely. 
 He told me that the news from the Pilot station continued 
 much the same. That there were no further developments 
 on the mainland and that the police were in occupation 
 of the Head-station at Oronga Island, and had not dis- 
 covered Mr. Wilkins' hiding-place. They kept a watch 
 still round the South End and were hunting the coast, 
 but were of opinion that he and the other two men had 
 escaped from the Island. 
 
 We were walking in the garden one afternoon. Torvald 
 had been showing me the Malay quarters, and was now 
 taking me to see a deadly upas tree, brought from Java and 
 growing in one of the tropical gullies running down from 
 Boomerang Range. We had left Dolores in her usual place
 
 364 SISTER SORROW 
 
 under the cliff. She had been particularly silent and 
 dreamy all day and had said that she wanted to talk to 
 her birds by herself. Torvald told Imba to keep watch 
 over her and seemed perfectly satisfied that she should 
 have her way. But I did not feel altogether happy 
 about her mood to-day. She seemed to me restless and, 
 for the first time, I fancied there were slight symptoms of 
 returning memory and of the old baneful glamour. That 
 had been the reason of my question to Torvald and his 
 answer brought only half relief. 
 
 I told him this and we discussed the trivial symptoms 
 I had noticed, but he did not regard them seriously. He 
 spoke then of the devilish attempt on Dolores' life, which 
 haunted me always, but which I had been trying to put 
 from me as one puts away some past danger too horrible 
 to bear much thinking about. 
 
 He said that, apart from the psychological aspects of 
 the case, we had to consider the process of slow poisoning 
 which had been going on for a long time and the effects of 
 which could not at once be eliminated from the system. 
 The last violent dose, for which strong remedies had been 
 used, he looked upon as having had on the whole beneficial 
 results in clearing out the poison ; but, he added, he had 
 not expected that the wonderful improvement which had 
 set in, could continue in quite the same phase or at the 
 same rate. 
 
 I asked him if he knew what the poison was, and he told 
 me that he strongly suspected it to be a ceriain alkaloid 
 preparation of curare, the South American arrow-poison. 
 
 He said that taken internally in small doses, it kills 
 gradually, while a very large dose may prove fatal in a 
 few hours. Equally, if injected subcutaneouly, a large 
 dose causes death at once. 
 
 I could not understand why — if Mr. Wilkins, knowing 
 himself pursued, desperate, and no doubt furious at finding 
 Dolores so much better, had determined that night to 
 murder her straightaway — he should not have chosen 
 the surer method of hypodermic injection, seeing that 
 he had the apparatus in his medicine chest, but Torvald
 
 SISTER SORROW 365 
 
 said it would have been difficult to obtain a solution 
 quickly and that he would naturally have taken the means 
 easiest to hand. Torvald also told me, that those curarinc 
 preparations have never been properly investigated and 
 that he doubted very much whether any reliable post- 
 mortem test could be made. Another thing he told me 
 was that this particular preparation has an extremely 
 bitter taste and that I might naturally have supposed it 
 to be quinine. 
 
 Whether Torvald was right or not I cannot tell, but 
 I think it highly probable that he was. It cannot be 
 anything but conjecture, for Mr. Wilkins had been wise 
 enough to carry off all that there was of the drug. 
 
 We were both engrossed in our talk. Afterwards, 
 I reproached myself bitterly for that absorption. 
 
 We did not reach the upas tree. There had been loitering 
 — we had sat down for a little while and time had passed 
 more quickly than we knew. Suddenly, we became aware 
 that the sun was dipping behind Boomerang Ridge and 
 that the short Australian twilight was upon us. 
 
 It would not have mattered in ordinary circumstances, 
 for no part of the Selection was bej^ond a short walk to the 
 Cottage. But I became uneasy about Dolores and felt 
 that we ought not to have left her for so long. Ah Wung 
 would now be deep in his cooking pots, and Imba — well, 
 for all her Chinese training, Imba was but a half-caste 
 of the Bush. So, too, was Jacky, to whom was sometimes 
 entrusted the watching of Dolores. 
 
 As it happened, Jacky was not on the scene that day. 
 He had " gone out Bush," after a way he had when the 
 aboriginal cravings asserted themselves to hunt wild meat 
 for himself and, incidentally, to procure a kangaroo-tail 
 for Ah Wung's soup. 
 
 Torvald and I laughed over Jacky's and Imba's in- 
 eradicable partiality for wallaby steak and iguana cutlets, 
 as we went briskly back by an upper track that headed 
 the gullies. Somehow, though we stepped hurriedly 
 and my mind was preoccupied, I shall never lose the feel- 
 ing of that walk. The atmosphere of emotion — though
 
 366 SISTER SORROW 
 
 outwardly we were both sufficiently matter-of-fact ; the 
 whiffs of exotic fragrance as of some dreamy joy that 
 was far away but wondrous sweet : and close by, the acrid 
 pungency of some spicy shrubs against which my dress 
 brushed. 
 
 I remember too the reddish purple veil that seemed to 
 be falling from the sky upon us, here in the shadow of the 
 hill, but that lightened into golden glints through the 
 trees on the lower slopes of the garden. Turning down- 
 ward, we saw the sun a great flaming ball poised magnifi- 
 cently for an instant above the topmost peak of the ridge. 
 Its reflection went before us to the sea as we walked quickly 
 past the Huts to the shore where we had left Dolores. 
 
 The garden was very still except for the nature sounds — 
 the cries of the birds settling for the night, the beat and 
 backwash of the surf on the beach and the distant boom 
 of waves breaking against the further rocks of the islets. 
 We saw no one about the Huts except Ah Wung, of whose 
 blue smock I caught a glimpse between the kitchen and 
 the vegetable plot. Imba I presumed was with Dolores. 
 
 I was a little out of breath and moderated my pace 
 when we got near the boathouse. Torvald was in front 
 of me making for the grassy patch under the cliff beneath 
 the big figtree. I saw him disappear behind the tree. . . . 
 A pause. Dolores' birds, fluttering among the branches, 
 made a many-toned chattering and whirring of wings. I 
 saw Torvald emerge from the shadow of the tree, and 
 run swiftly down to the beach . . . stand for a moment 
 gazing wildly over the sea, then dash round the headland 
 to the further bay. 
 
 He must have seen or heard something which the cliff 
 hid, and the noise of the birds drowned for me. 
 
 I ran forward. In a minute I had reached the grassy 
 plateau. Dolores' chair was there — but empty. They 
 always carried her in her chair to the Huts. If she was 
 not out here, why did the chair remain ? ... Or was it 
 possible that she had felt strong enough to walk-up the 
 little rise ? 
 
 No, it was very unlikely that she had done that.
 
 SISTER SORROW 367 
 
 XVIII 
 
 THESE thoughts darted at me without seeming to 
 penetrate my consciousness. It did not occur 
 to me that by going to the Middle Hut, I could at once 
 ascertain the truth. My sole instinct was to follow 
 Torvald. 
 
 The tide was just beyond the turn. I found no difficulty 
 in getting round the headland. The beach turned sharply 
 back. I was in a gulf rather than a bay. Why did that 
 idea of a shape like an " S " come to me ? The point 
 closing in the gulf, was a mere knife-edge cliff that rounded 
 back on itself. Beyond it, the lighthouse, perched on its 
 hillock of red-brown rocks, stood up against the red sky. 
 . . . And all the water beyond, was purple-red. And 
 there were clouds like great angels in wine-coloured 
 robes low down in the sky. ... I thought their feet 
 touched the sea. . . . 
 
 Where had I read that ? . . . 
 
 Here, round the headland, there were only little stretches 
 and hollows of sand between upstanding rocks which had 
 been broken and honey-combed by the sea. . . . The sand 
 hollows were full of beautiful shells and pieces of coral, 
 and in the tiny pools among the rocks, I saw lovely sea- 
 polyps spreading out flower-like tentacles of opaline hues. 
 I was treading carelessly, not looking at anything but 
 Torvald's figure which was moving, ahead of me. Some- 
 thing caught my foot and I found it nipped by a crab's 
 claws. I shook myself free and, in doing so, turned, 
 facing the direction whence I had come. And then my 
 heart stopped beating for an instant. It was as though 
 I stood frozen on my track. I saw standing out, on this 
 side, from the headland I had just rounded, a curious 
 rock, shaped like a double white-ants' nest. . . . Two 
 peaks — the colour of the red clay that the white-ants'
 
 368 SISTER SORROW 
 
 nests on the Ubi are made of — only granite instead of 
 clay. Two little peaks with a cleft in the middle, and out 
 of the cleft a single bread-fruit tree growing. . . . Almost 
 withered. . . . The leaves brown, hanging in a bunch, 
 the stem slanting out against the purple-red sea . . . 
 spiked roots broken off and splintered. 
 
 The tree of Dolores' dream. 
 
 I knew now ... I remembered where and how I had 
 read the words. In one of my diary volumes of long ago 
 ... by the light of a guttering candle, as I sat on the 
 floor of my old bedroom at The Bunyas with the tin 
 box that I had dragged from under the bed open beside 
 me. . . . 
 
 Yes, now I knew. 
 
 The rock shaped like a big double white-ants' nest. 
 . . . The one withered bread-fruit tree— slanting. . . . 
 The beach with little patches of sand where there were 
 beautiful shells and bits of coral and lovely sea-anemones 
 like flowers in the pools. . . . The cliff curving in the 
 shape of an " S." The lighthouse standing out on a hump 
 in the sea against the sunset sky. The clouds that " made 
 me think of angels in wine-coloured robes . . . and I 
 thought their feet touched the sea.". . . And all the 
 water purple-red between the shore and the tiny 
 islands lying out to sea. . . And on the water a boat. 
 
 I saw the boat too. 
 
 It takes time and many words to convey all this, but the 
 realization of it came to me as a picture illuminated 
 by a lightning flash. I was not conscious of observing, 
 even of remembering. It was just that I saw— I knew. 
 
 Yes, there was the boat squat in its foreshortening, 
 for it rocked endways to sideways with a curious motion. 
 One man in it was stooping over the oars, rowing with 
 effort. He was bareheaded. I could see that his shirt 
 clung in wet tatters to his big, bony shoulders. I recog- 
 nized the long lean throat twisting round as he turned 
 his head, looking back. I recognized the diagonal line 
 of profile. 
 
 He saw me and he laughed. I can imagine a fiend
 
 SISTER SORROW 369 
 
 laughing like that. He lifted his oar and pointed to 
 something in the water, and, as he did so, the boat began 
 to whirl round and he fell to rowing again with desperate 
 energy. 
 
 The thing in the water billowed up white — a woman's 
 dress. 
 
 I thought no more of the boat — of Mr. Wilkins, but 
 sprang, stumbling over the rocks, calling " Torvald . . . 
 Torvald." 
 
 He had disappeared. I seemed to have lost him in 
 those frenzied moments of recognition. 
 
 I think I was going to jump into the sea and swim to 
 Body's rescue — I knew I was a good swimmer — when I 
 heard Torvald's voice from out of the water. 
 
 ' No ... for God's sake . . . keep back. . . . The 
 current." 
 
 Then I understood. He was swimming with mighty 
 strokes in a desperate race with Death. He must seize 
 Dolores before she was caught in the treacherous current 
 which would draw her to the whirlpool and to inevitable 
 destruction. 
 
 The hackneyed phrases, at which one smiles sometimes 
 as one reads them, are true sometimes. They are not all 
 mere hyperbole. A minute of such suspense is verily an 
 eternity. As I stood then at the sea's brink, I seemed to be 
 standing on the edge of Space — upon the brink of Nothing- 
 ness — the Universe, for me, merged in the fate of those 
 two whom I loved best on earth. 
 
 The little billow of white, rocked, diminished . . . sank 
 under the water almost as Torvald stretched his hand to 
 clutch it. My whole being strained to him — soul . . . 
 heart . . . body. My feet were in the waves. ... I 
 would drown with my Beloved if I might not save him. . . . 
 
 He too had sunk beneath the sea. . . . 
 
 Then he rose, one arm supporting something that showed 
 white amid dark streamers of floating hair. With the other 
 arm, he struck out frantically for the shore. 
 
 Now, across the stretch of lurid sea I saw the boat 
 whirling in circles, ever narrowing — a maelstrom of foamy 
 
 24
 
 370 SISTER SORROW 
 
 water. I saw the man in the boat, mad with despair, 
 drop the oars and stand up with arms outstretched, 
 screaming for help. 
 
 The boat whirled faster . . . tossed . . . dipped . . . 
 overturned. . . . 
 
 And the screeching of startled sea-birds drowned the 
 man's last blasphemous appeals to Heaven. 
 
 XIX 
 
 THERE have been short periods in my life which 
 stand out as a timeless nightmare, in which I 
 lost count of days and hours, in which existence narrowed 
 itself into a single, supreme anxiety. This was one of 
 those periods— when Dolores lay between life and death 
 after Torvald had rescued her from the sea. 
 
 I lived by her bedside, except during the short intervals 
 when Torvald forced me to leave her and take some sleep. 
 
 He himself watched by her bedside also, tending her a6 
 the most capable and devoted doctor might have done. 
 In truth he was doing for her far more than would have 
 lain in the power of any ordinary physician ; for he was 
 using — as I realized even then — occult means of healing 
 beyond the scope of medical science on the material plane. 
 He was drawing down vivifying magnetism from the 
 Custodians of the Life Forces. 
 
 I used to watch him in wonder, thinking to myself how 
 much he must love Dolores, He would sit for long times, 
 holding her feeble hands in his, palm to palm, thumb 
 against thumb, his eyes fixed upon her in a strange in- 
 seeing gaze, his lips moving in some rhythmic utterance 
 that did not sound like the prayers of any ritual I knew, 
 his whole vital energy concentrated in the effort to impart 
 strength to her. 
 
 Sometimes, he would breathe softly upon his hand, 
 and then lay it upon her forehead or upon one of the nerve-
 
 SISTER SORROW 371 
 
 centres of her body. Sometimes he would make slow, 
 sweeping movements over her with both hands, and some- 
 times touch her with the tips of his lingers, from which 
 I am certain — had I possessed the eyes to see it — the 
 odyllic fluid must have streamed. 
 
 Reasoning to myself, it seemed to me that I also must 
 have in me vital energy which might augment that which 
 he bestowed and which I longed to transmit to Dolores by 
 the joining of our hands. 
 
 He seemed to read my thought, for he turned to me, 
 saying : 
 
 " You can help her, as you did before, with your prayers." 
 
 And I would pray, blindly, passionately, but it troubled 
 me to feel that now I was without the sense of spiritual 
 exaltation which had upheld me before. 
 
 Torvald took my hands gently away, once, when he 
 found me holding Dolores' hands in the manner I had seen 
 him hold them, and drew me from her side through the 
 French window to the veranda. 
 
 " I want you to look at the green things and to breathe 
 in the wind from the sea," he said. " Imba will watch for 
 a few moments ; " and he signed to the half-caste, who was 
 squatting on the veranda-edge, to take my place. 
 
 We stood together on the veranda-steps, but the sea-breeze 
 blowing on my face, seemed to irritate rather than soothe 
 my spirit. 
 
 I asked Torvald a little bitterly whether my magnetism 
 might not be of as much use to Dolores as my prayers. 
 He shook his head, smiling : in a half-amused, comprehend- 
 ing way. Immediately, I felt ashamed of my pettishness 
 and exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know. I am nerve-ragged. But I've got 
 plenty of life-force in me all the same. I'm tingling with 
 electricity." 
 
 He laughed outright now in a soft, deep ripple of mirth. 
 When he laughed like that — and he did sometimes even 
 in his gravest moods — his face became extraordinarily 
 bright and almost boyish. He took my two hands in his 
 and seemed to be considering my physical and mental 
 
 *4*
 
 372 SISTER SORROW 
 
 condition. His touch slowed and quieted the fretful 
 vibrations. 
 
 " Yes, plenty of life-force," he said. " And you're 
 tingling, as you say, with electricity. But not quite the 
 right sort of current to turn into a very frail vessel. The 
 charge would be too strong for the receptacle." 
 
 I withdrew my hands, feeling puzzled, disconcerted. 
 
 " Currents ! Charges ! You talk as if there were an 
 assortment of taps ready to turn on for all emergencies." 
 
 He laughed again, very kindly, still a little amused. 
 
 " That's about right, I think ; but one has to learn how to 
 control the currents before one is allowed to turn on the taps." 
 
 " And I haven't learned to control — even myself." 
 
 " None of us have learned that : it's a more difficult 
 lesson than the use of higher forces for the benefit of 
 another person." 
 
 I turned my face away. The blood rushed to it in a 
 sudden sense of humiliation. A personal note in his voice, 
 the look of compassionate understanding in his eyes brought 
 a swift wave of remembrance. It made me think that he 
 knew something of which I had hoped he was unaware, and 
 which I had been trying vainly to forget. I was sure that he 
 did know. More — that at this moment he was remembering. 
 
 I had never been sure how soon Torvald became conscious 
 after having collapsed on the beach when, with a last 
 struggle, he had brought Dolores into shallow water and I, 
 wading knee-deep, had dragged her insensible form to the 
 shore. 
 
 But I had let her lie ! Where was my professed devotion, 
 my offered self-sacrifice ! I did not even make sure that 
 she breathed. All my thoughts in those agonized moments 
 were for Torvald, who I believed was dead. 
 
 There was a jagged wound on his head, made by a 
 sharp rock. His face was grey-white ; his eyes were closed. 
 He had not the look of a drowned man, but when I felt 
 his heart, there was no beat in it. His hand dropped 
 back, when I lifted it, like the hand of a corpse. 
 
 Well, this is the thing that had happened and which I 
 had hoped frantically ever since he was then unconscious of.
 
 SISTER SORROW 373 
 
 I had put my arms around him and held him against my 
 breast. I had raised him to me — close — close. I had not 
 felt the chill of his wet, cold body, for in my heart there 
 was radiant heat. And I had said wild words to him— 
 words which, as I turned away from Torvald's eyes on the 
 veranda this morning, it overpowered me with shame to 
 recall. 
 
 But there had been no shame in me when I kissed his 
 lips and told him that I loved him, there on the beach, as 
 he lay like a dead man in my arms. 
 
 For then it was as though the whole world had melted 
 away. As though I had never come back from the edge 
 of Nothingness, whence I had watched him sink with 
 Dolores under the purple-red waters of the Bay. I had 
 felt only that we were together once more, he and I, alone, 
 on the brink of the Abyss. Vows, obligations, renunciation 
 counted for nothing any longer. 
 
 And as I had held him to me, my lips on his, I had felt 
 him move, I knew that he lived. His eyes had opened for 
 an instant and looked into mine, before they closed again. 
 . . . Had he been conscious of my kisses ? . . . This was 
 the doubt which ever since had haunted me. And now, 
 looking at him, as he stood with eyes averted, on the 
 lowest of the veranda-steps — I on the veranda above him— 
 I knew by his face that my doubt was solved, that my secret 
 was no secret to him, and that he was deeply troubled and 
 perplexed. He was standing bareheaded, the rings of his 
 yellow hair stirred by the breeze ; emotion in his face. 
 What a man he looked, I thought. A man of action as 
 well as of ideals. A most true and perfect knight. . . . 
 Was it strange that I should love him ? One needs must 
 love the highest when one sees it. ... Of the men I have 
 known in all my life, he was, and must ever be, the highest. 
 
 But how could I remain in his house, a cause of pain, 
 and no doubt of self-reproach, for he was too chivalrous 
 not to blame himself ? Equally, how could I go, while 
 Dolores lay between life and death ? While these thoughts 
 racked me, he turned suddenly, and our eyes looked into 
 each other for an instant. There was such a strange
 
 374 SISTER SORROW 
 
 expression of mingled feelings in his — of emotion struggling 
 with something yet stronger : of impulse battling against 
 determination : of pleading. Once, he turned suddenly, 
 made a half-movement towards me and began to speak, then 
 checked himself and again turned away. 
 
 I could bear it no longer. The door of my room was open 
 behind me, and I crossed the veranda and took refuge within. 
 There I remained until I heard him leave the Middle Hut. 
 Ah Wung told me when I came out that he had been 
 called to the Pilot station. 
 
 We met later at Dolores' bedside. He was very grave 
 and preoccupied. The touch of boyishness had totally 
 disappeared. His manner was formal, and we avoided all 
 subjects which did not concern the sick-room. I under- 
 stood. 
 
 It was at this time that Dolores' illness reached its most 
 acute stage, for pneumonia set in and it became necessary 
 to summon the medical man from Leuraville. Torvald 
 had already discussed this step with me, and then the 
 necessity had been avoided. I knew that he had no 
 great opinion of the Health Officer in question, and I relied 
 far more upon his own treatment. I knew, too, how anxious 
 he had been to avoid publicity or scandal for Dolores and 
 for me in connection with the charge against Mr. Wilkins. 
 
 But now that Phil Wilkins was dead, that consideration 
 was not of such great importance. Torvald told me that 
 none of the criminals were now alive except Jiminy Two, 
 who had turned Queen's evidence. 
 
 Crankshaw and the other " Jiminy " had been shot in an 
 affray with the police, who had discovered them in a 
 hiding-place on the coast. Mr. Wilkins had escaped and 
 had contrived to reach Torvald Helsing's garden. I never 
 learned the particulars of his last meeting with Dolores. 
 No one knew them but herself, and, mercifully, with that 
 tragic finale to her association with Mr. Wilkins, the 
 memory of it was entirely washed out from her mind. 
 Torvald and I could only form our own conclusions, and 
 we were forced to believe that Mr. Wilkins had at the last 
 tried to complete his evil work. Whether he had deli-
 
 SISTER SORROW 375 
 
 berately resolved to drown the one witness of his escape 
 in Torvald's boat, and had used his hypnotic influence — 
 if indeed it were hypnotic, or something deeper and subtler 
 still — to that effect, or whether Dolores had fallen under 
 the old glamour at sight of him, and had herself rushed 
 into the water and been left by him to perish, it was 
 impossible to tell. 
 
 The thing that impressed me most was the literal fulfil- 
 ment of Dolores' dream. The absolute reality of that 
 dream never came home to me until I myself saw and 
 recognized the scene. Dolores' own recognition of it 
 may have had something to do with her going into the 
 water, but that, too, it is impossible to say. 
 
 The whole story of the dream is a mystery which most 
 people would scout as impossible and declare to be an 
 hysterical invention. Yet the fact remains that there 
 exists incontrovertible evidence of the fulfilment of certain 
 dreams. Other-world connections do come off sometimes. 
 People have dreamed prophetic dreams ; and there have 
 been portents of calamity strangely justified by events. 
 
 Dolores' dream was one of these. And, at that, I must 
 leave it. 
 
 XX 
 
 I KNOW that in this story there must be many loose 
 links and unknotted threads. I cannot help that, 
 for I have written only what I saw and heard and felt 
 myself. I can't begin to explain the workings of Mr. 
 Wilkins' mind. That would be far beyond my powers of 
 psychological analysis. As Torvald put it, the man was 
 a soulless abnormality, He can't be judged by ordinary 
 reasoning. It has struck me, however, that with all 
 his cunning he did some very stupid things and that he 
 seems often to have been carried away by some freakish 
 impulse or unwise decision of the moment. 
 
 I set aside his telling that Mexican story, which was his
 
 376 SISTER SORROW 
 
 initial blunder. And I fancy his sudden resolve to marry 
 Dolores was mainly due to a blind instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion. He was taken aback by and afraid of her uncanny 
 gift and wanted to get it under his personal control, perhaps 
 with a vague, grabbing idea of making use of it for his 
 own benefit. I am certain that he was never the least 
 bit in love with Dolores. I am also certain, from all 
 I gleaned later about the Malpa Downs visit, that he 
 began by being physically attracted to Bee and ended in 
 being madly in love with her. I believe that he murdered 
 Manuel Herrebine and finished the slow murder of Dolores 
 by that last quick stroke because they both stood between 
 him and the possession of Bee. 
 
 And the extraordinary thing is, that Bee was fascinated 
 too. I found that out from Bel, who declared that it was 
 almost a case of Miss Lloyd over again, and that if Mr. 
 Wilkins had stayed much longer at Malpa Downs he would 
 have got Bee completely into his power. 
 
 I don't know quite about that. If Bee suffered, she 
 contrived to hide her suffering, at any rate from me. 
 
 Bee had pluck, plenty of it. She could not have been 
 her father's daughter and not have shown grit. I know 
 that when the truth came out she was utterly horrified and 
 shamed, but she stood her ground and turned a smiling 
 face to her little world. There was this good to her in 
 it, in that the experience cured her tendency to amatory 
 escapade, and not long afterwards she married Harry 
 Pringle. 
 
 However, that's some way ahead. I've got off my trail. 
 And now I must go back to the Garden. 
 
 I did not oppose Torvald's judgment in sending for 
 Dr. Hoskins, the Leuraville Health Officer, who came 
 and stayed at the Garden Huts, off and on, as his Port 
 duties permitted, until the crisis was past and Dolores 
 was on the road to recovery. 
 
 During that time, I nursed Dolores under his direction, 
 Torvald also doing his share, mainly of night work, when 
 I took some hours of sleep. 
 
 I had very little real companionship with Torvald
 
 SISTER SORROW 377 
 
 in those days. Of course, neither of the small expeditions 
 we had planned came off, and my walks in the garden 
 were confined to the paths close to the Huts. Though the 
 constraint in our ordinary daily intercourse wore off to 
 some extent, I was always conscious of a feeling at the 
 back of his mind concerning me which troubled and ham- 
 pered him, and I saw that he preferred to avoid our being 
 much alone together. 
 
 He need not have made that evident. I only wanted 
 to keep out of his way. There were times when I found 
 the situation almost unendurable ; and when I saw out 
 at sea the smoke of a coasting steamer, bound south, I 
 would have given all I possessed to be on board her, on 
 my way to my own house. 
 
 But that was impossible. 
 
 There were times, too, when Torvald's kind and watchful 
 care of me hurt like a knife in my heart. But it was so 
 unobtrusive that I could make no remark when I found 
 that in some little delicate detail he had studied and pro- 
 vided for my comfort. Mentally, as well as physically. 
 It was not surprising, perhaps, that he should procure 
 for me the food I preferred, though often he must have 
 guessed by instinct alone what I liked. Nor that every 
 morning I should find on the table, outside my door, a 
 basket of fruit and flowers that was a subtle blend of the 
 colours, scents and flavours secretly dear to me. Nor that 
 he should rig up a South Sea Island mat outside the 
 veranda, just at the angle to screen the early sunrays from 
 falling on my window and waking me too soon. In a 
 hundred little ways like that he showed me that I was much 
 in his thoughts. . . . That might have been the natural 
 attitude of a host to his guest. Or he might want to make 
 up to me as best he could for — Ah ! there the stab came, 
 and the sense of deep humiliation ! But it was more 
 strange that he should know so accurately what I needed 
 as pabulum for the mind. In his choice of the books he 
 used to lay beside the fruit and flowers outside my door 
 he seemed to have divined my very innermost moods ; 
 the spiritual dissatisfaction I felt : the sense of failure
 
 378 SISTER SORROW 
 
 in high motive : the inability to rise above my small 
 personal self. He seemed to understand it all and to 
 be trying to show me in this course of reading that there 
 was nothing to be hopeless about in them. That they 
 were all stages leading to a larger growth and that " divine 
 discontent " is not to be railed at or shrunk from, but 
 should be welcomed as the first step on the ladder which 
 every soul must climb in fulfilment of its immortal destiny. 
 
 Torvald's books opened out a fresh world to me and 
 gave me a new conception of Life and the Beyond-Life. 
 In my ignorant arrogance, I had rather fancied myself 
 as a young woman of original ideas and varied reading. 
 Knowing Torvald had already quenched such egotistic 
 notions. 
 
 And now I saw myself brought down to my native 
 level — conceited, bad form, slangy, provincial, swathed 
 in ignorance as a chrysalis in its cocoon. How could I 
 ever have dreamed of writing books — of achieving anything 
 above the common herd ? 
 
 I was shy of speaking to Torvald about his books, but 
 I thought all the more. I thought a great deal : I learned 
 a great deal that I couldn't write about here. And I have 
 to remember that what I learned then and even long 
 afterwards was like a sun-gleam piercing through a narrow 
 slit and illuminating the motes of dust in my mind till 
 they themselves became a revelation of potentialities of 
 existence utterly beyond my ken. 
 
 Before long, the time came when Dr. Hoskins' attendance 
 ceased. Dolores was able to lie on her long chair outside 
 the veranda and to be interested in feeding her birds and 
 watching a pair of Malay boys at work among the flowers. 
 She never was carried now to the sea-shore or placed 
 where she could see Boat-house Bay. We had dreaded her 
 return to full consciousness lest she should awaken also 
 to tragic realities. But we saw, with thankfulness, that 
 this was not the case. The gap in her memory was the 
 same as after her removal from the Head-station. All 
 that had happened to her from the day of her first meeting
 
 SISTER SORROW 379 
 
 with Mr. Wilkins until now was washed out from her mind. 
 It seemed, truly, as though she had fallen under evil 
 enchantment and that the spell had been completely 
 broken by the man's death. 
 
 Her thoughts went back immediately to BarSlin. She 
 talked as if she had left it only yesterday — asked after 
 Bee and Bel and was concerned at not being able to give 
 them their lessons. I invented a story of her having 
 been ill with fever and taken away for change, which 
 she accepted simply as a child. With Torvald and the 
 garden she seemed to have kept some vague association, 
 but did not worry even about that. She was very sweet 
 and tractable in those days of early convalescence and 
 regained strength more quickly than might have been 
 expected. 
 
 Torvald was busy superintending spring operations 
 in the gullies where he grew his most valuable plants, and 
 spent long hours, likewise, in his workshop, so that at 
 this time we had very little of his company. 
 
 It had been decided that I should take Dolores to The 
 Bunyas as soon as she was well enough to be put off from 
 the Pilot station — for her the most trying part of the 
 voyage. 
 
 Till the last evening, I did not know whether Torvald 
 was coming with us. 
 
 He had made all the arrangements. The steamer was 
 expected next morning and the Captain had promised 
 to come as close as possible to shore and to wait for the 
 pilot-boat in which we were to be put off. 
 
 Everything was packed : we had all three dined together, 
 and Dolores went early to her room. When I came out 
 to the veranda after seeing her into bed, Torvald was stand- 
 ing by the steps, and he came up to me and asked if I 
 would go with him into the garden and let him tell me 
 something that he wished to say to me. 
 
 We walked side by side to a little terrace with a natural 
 rock parapet, and here we halted and stood looking out 
 over the islets and the sea. 
 
 We were both silent.
 
 380 SISTER SORROW 
 
 The murmur of the waves lapping the rocks, the sleepy 
 cries of nesting birds, the soft whirring of winged insects, 
 the many voices of falling night — all beat on my heart in 
 one multitudinous wail of yearning regret. 
 
 Was this then to be the end ? . . . Was my sacrifice 
 accepted ? . . . Was that wondrous and beautiful mystery 
 of which Torvald had shown me a far-off glimpse, to pass 
 away, for ever unknown, out of my life. 
 
 Instinctively it seemed, we turned to each other. I saw 
 in the half-light, his eyes gazing into mine, very bright 
 and earnest, and he said, as if in answer to my questioning : 
 
 " Love must claim its own, even though it be still 
 unworthy. ... I do not dare to hope that you love me 
 yet, Agatha, but I want you to understand that I am 
 waiting — longing — for my wife." 
 
 Unworthy ! . . . Torvald unworthy ! 
 
 Oh, dear Heart of my Beloved — so reverently humble 
 before the sacred altar of Love ! 
 
 I kneel there by your side. Now, as then — and 
 always, I pray to the Great Giver of Love Immortal 
 that I may be worthy of my Beloved. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey.
 
 Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. 
 
 are pleased to announce new Novels for the Autumn of 1916 by the following 
 LEADING AUTHORS, particulars of which will be found in the ensuing pages 
 
 lucas malet 
 baroness von hutten 
 b. m. croker 
 m. e. braddon 
 h. de vere stacpoole 
 madame albanesi 
 gabrielle vallings 
 mrs. campbell praed 
 dorothea conyers 
 peggy webling 
 berta ruck 
 kathlyn rhodes 
 douglas sladen 
 mrs. belloc lowndes 
 curtis yorke 
 maravene thompson 
 helen prothero lewis 
 frankfort moore 
 m. p. willcocks 
 dorothy ;black 
 g. b. burgin 
 mrs. baillie saunders 
 una silberrad 
 h. b. somerville; 
 edgar jepson 
 isabel clarke 
 f. bancroft 
 
 and 
 
 R. W. CAMPBELL 
 
 Author of " Private^Spud-Tamson/' 
 
 I
 
 New 6/' Novels 
 
 Magpie 
 
 By BARONESS VON HUTTEN 
 
 Author of "Shanow," "Pam," etc. 
 
 No living novelist has written such charming stories of 
 children as the Baroness von Hutten. Who is there that, once 
 having made the acquaintance in her pages of Pam, will deny 
 her the most completely sympathetic knowledge of childhood, 
 with its own strange and wistful outlook on the world. In 
 the present book she tells the story of the child Mag Pye, the 
 daughter of a gentleman, broken in fortune by his own failings, 
 who has married a pantomime girl. How the child grows 
 up in the Chelsea Workmen's Dwellings and how she fares, 
 with her joys and sorrows, under her unworthy father's vicis- 
 situdes, is related in the author's most characteristic manner. 
 
 Sister Sorrow 
 
 By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED 
 
 Author of " Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land," etc. 
 
 The scene of the novel is laid in Australia— at Leichardt's 
 Town and on Oronga Island, off the northern coast. The inci- 
 dents are sensational and deal with a prophetic dream and its 
 fulfilment. 'Sister Sorrow,' otherwise Dolores Lloyd, a young 
 Welshwoman, is governess to the Carfax girls. Agatha Carfax, 
 their half-sister, tells the story of Dolores Lloyd, for whom she 
 has a very deep sisterly friendship. The two women meet 
 simultaneously the two men who affect their lives, one of whom 
 Dolores recognises as the hero of a fateful dream, which she has 
 told to Agatha. 
 
 2
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 Damaris 
 
 By LUCAS MALET 
 
 Author of "Sir Richard Calmady," etc. 
 
 The above long novel, which is the fruit of many 
 years of thought and work, will in all probability prove to 
 be the author's best and most important work of fiction. 
 
 The scene of the novel is laid in Northern India, where 
 the father of Demaris, General Verity, a famous soldier of 
 the Mutiny, occupies a distinguished command. 
 
 The descriptions of Indian life and scenery are de- 
 picted in vivid language. 
 
 The Eyes of the Blind 
 
 By M. P. WILLCOCKS 
 
 Author of " Change," " The Wings of Desire," 
 "The Power Behind," etc. 
 
 Miss Willcocks' new novel is the story of one who re- 
 gained his eyesight after an operation with most disconcerting 
 results. We are often told that it is folly to be wise if 
 ignorance is bliss. In this novel we are asked whether, if 
 blindness means happiness, one should therefore shrink from 
 the light. It is a story more intense in its drama than her 
 recent books, since, like " Wings of Desire," it deals mainly 
 with West Country types, and, like "The Wingless Victory," 
 it is a novel of temptation and of the love that conquered 
 after a hard fight. Miss Willcocks has gone back to the old 
 simple things that are as old as man and woman, though 
 here, too, there is the interest of opposing social and religious 
 atmospheres, and here again many of the " saints " are but 
 whited sepulchres. 
 
 3
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 The Head Man 
 
 By F. BANCROFT 
 
 Author of "The Veldt Dwellers," etc. 
 
 Like the earlier novels by this writer the present book 
 is a convincing story of South African life. It is a fragment 
 of life as it was and is lived in that country, the space of time 
 covered in the narrative being considerable. The story, which 
 opens shortly after the Boer war and closes with the annexation 
 of South West Africa in the present war, deals with the fortunes 
 of a family. The young English widow of a Boer farmer in her 
 need makes the desperate bargain with a Boer that he is to 
 work as her partner for ten years, and her daughter, who 
 will at the expiration of that period be seventeen, is to be his wife. 
 What is the result of this compact must be left to the author 
 to tell, but the end is not reached without many exciting 
 complications. 
 
 Hearts and Sweethearts 
 
 By MADAME ALBANESI 
 
 Author of " Foppies in the Corn," etc. 
 
 In her latest book Madame Albanesi has provided 
 a plot which is full of dramatic and romantic incidents 
 centreing round a little child's claim to an old title and 
 big estates. The story is set in the present strenuous 
 time, and Madame Albanesi just lightly touches on the 
 changes which war has wrought inevitably in our lives, 
 our thoughts, and our outlook for the future. It is 
 a novel with a delightful hero and a loveable heroine, 
 and should command popularity.
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 The Reef of Stars: 
 
 A Romance of the Tropics 
 
 By H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 Author of "The Blue Lagoon," "The Pearl Fishers," &c. 
 
 The title under which this novel was previously 
 announced, namely, "Treasure: A Romance of the South," 
 having been already used, the author has had to substitute 
 the above title. 
 
 The story opens at daybreak in Sydney, where Houghton, 
 the penniless wanderer, meets Macquart, the ragged, penniless 
 ex-convict, with a fortune in his head. The streets of Sydney 
 rise up before the reader, who hurries along, fascina'ed, in 
 the company of Houghton, Bobby Tillman, Curlewis, 
 Macquart, and the inscrutable Screed, on the business of 
 fitting out a treasure-hunting expedition to search for the 
 gold cache known to Macquart. The story of the search, 
 of the finding of Agala, the girl with the corsets of brass, 
 of the great thorn maze of New Guinea, and of how the gold 
 literally seizes the villainous Macquart, make up a romance 
 of love and adventure fresh and fascinating, and filled with 
 the light of youth and morning. 
 
 Miss Braddon's last novel. 
 
 Mary 
 
 By M. E. BRADDON 
 
 Author of "Lady Audley's Secret," &c. 
 
 A posthumous full length story of this delightful novelist, 
 who enjoyed the unequalled fortune of holding a first place 
 in the public estimation for half a century, during which 
 period she gave pleasure to millions of her readers. This book, 
 which was written mainly before the war, is Miss Braddon's last 
 novel, and deals with the things that do not change. Mary, be- 
 trayed and deserted by a brilliant adventurer, passes through 
 storm and calm to the shelter of a good man's love 
 although for a time she thinks herself unworthy of him. 
 
 5
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 Boundary House 
 
 By PEGGY WEBLING 
 
 Author of "Virginia Perfect." 
 
 Peggy Webling's new book is a tale of London 
 life, beginning in the seventies and ending three or 
 four years ago. Although the plot is more pronounced 
 than in her former novels, it is essentially a study of 
 different characters, the scenes being laid in a little 
 shop in Bayswater, a mysterious house on the river, 
 and a Kentish village. The author has devised, as 
 usual, a quaint and original background for her story 
 of love and grief and joy. It is a home of toys, and 
 the master of the toy-makers, cunning old Fob, is 
 the central figure — an old riddle for the reader to 
 solve. 
 
 The Alternate Life 
 
 By CURTIS YORKE 
 
 Author of "Disentangled," "Her Measure," &c. 
 
 This is a romance of a man and a girl who found 
 out how to meet in dreams, though they were separated 
 by thousands of miles. In these dreams they grew 
 better acquainted with one another than they could 
 ever have done in the few opportunities they had 
 had for actually meeting. Dreamland and real life are 
 cleverly mingled in this story, which has the advantage 
 of being distinctly unusual.
 
 New 6s. Novels 
 
 Given in Marriage 
 
 By B. M. CROKER 
 
 Author of "Her Own People," "In Old Madras," "Lismoyle," 
 
 etc., etc. 
 
 A new novel of Indian Hills and English plains. 
 Mrs. Croker has practically made the particular field of 
 Anglo-Indian life, which forms the subject of so many of 
 her novels, her own. 
 
 Bindweed 
 
 By GABRIELLE VALLINGS 
 
 "Bindweed" is the first story by a new writer, who, 
 as a great-niece of Charles Kingsley and a cousin of Lucas 
 Malet, has inherited not a little of the genius of the family, 
 with great powers of constructing a realistic scene. 
 The author deals with the operatic world in Paris 
 and London. It concerns the training of a young prima 
 donna, and her connection with a distinguished singer 
 who interests himself in the development of her voice. 
 Incidentally the book touches on peasant life in a French 
 country village, and has a strong plot which turns 
 graphically on certain aspects of French character among 
 the underworld of Paris. 
 
 A story of sunshine, love and happiness. 
 
 Persuasive Peggy 
 
 By MARAVENE THOMPSON 
 
 Author of "The Woman's Law." 
 
 This is a delightful novel. Peggy is a bright, active, 
 charming, beautiful, clever, wilful and original heroine. 
 The account of her performances after her marriage makes 
 entertaining reading. It is a humorous and stimulating 
 story, wholesome and tonic. Peggy's stubborn husband has 
 a time of it — all for his good and improvement; and each 
 improves the other but not with conscious motive ; the two 
 are real mates. 
 
 7
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 A Friend Indeed 
 
 By F. FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 Author of " I Forbid the Banns," etc. 
 
 Mr. Frankfort Moore's readers will find in his new 
 novel much more plot than they have become 
 accustomed to associate with his stories ; and for the 
 working out of his scheme on a broad scale he has intro- 
 duced some of the strongest characters he has yet drawn. 
 The hero, on the strength of his friendship for a somewhat 
 weak companion, the son of his employer, endeavours 
 to exculpate him for an offence which would have brought 
 about his ruin, and alienation from his family and the 
 charming girl to whom he has just become engaged. He 
 is successful, but only at the sacrifice of himself. 
 
 The Trading of 
 Gannymede Bun 
 
 By DOROTHEA CONYERS 
 
 Author of "The Strayings of Sandy," {14th Edition), etc. 
 
 The hero of this story, Gannymede Bun, was formerly 
 a clerk in a London store, when he receives an unexpected 
 bequest from an aunt. He has always longed to ride and 
 live in the country, and he resolves to speculate his capital 
 in horses with a view to increasing his inheritance. He 
 goes over to Ireland, where he makes plenty of good 
 friends, notwithstanding his odd language and other 
 peculiarities, and he falls in love, His relatives try, but 
 are not successful in their endeavours, to prove him mad.
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 Lilla : a Part of her Life 
 
 By Mrs. BELLOC LOWNDES 
 
 Author of " Good Old Anna " {$th Edition), &c. 
 
 As in "Good Old Anna," the scene of Mrs. Belloc 
 Lowndes's new story is laid in England during the War. 
 It is a poignant, searching study of a human heart and 
 conscience, and the problem which Lilla has to solve is at 
 once the most balanced and the most dramatic which can 
 be presented to a modern woman. " Lilla : a Part of her 
 Life," will appeal to every woman who looks forward to 
 love, who loves now, or who has loved in the past. 
 
 The Girls at His Billet 
 
 By BERTA RUCK 
 
 Author of "His Official Fiancee" {lijh Edition), &c. 
 
 This is a " modern-to-the-minute " love-story; that of 
 a pretty, high-spirited but artless "flapper" and of the 
 young New Army subaltern, who is billeted at her 
 house and whom she nicknames The Incubus. Her own 
 romance is bound up with those of her sisters, mischievous 
 Nancy and highly-conscientious Evelyn. A Zeppelin raid 
 that ends well, a packet of letters to a lonely soldier, and 
 a side-car elopement are incidental to the story, which is 
 told in her own style by the youngest of the girls.
 
 New 6s. Novels 
 
 The Man with a 
 Square Face 
 
 By DOROTHY BLACK 
 
 Author of "Her Lonely Soldier." 
 
 If you want a quite new type of story, read this. 
 There is a breeziness about it that is indescribably 
 fascinating, and the subtlest, most delightful sense oi 
 humour. One of its greatest charms is its unexpected- 
 ness : one never knows what is coming next. The heroine, 
 as a girl, longs for something to happen ; when she 
 grows up, things happen so fast that she prays that 
 they may stop happening. The story is very breezy and 
 original. 
 
 Love and the Whirlwind 
 
 By HELEN PROTHERO LEWIS 
 
 (Mrs. JAMES J. G. PUGH) 
 
 The scene of this striking novel is laid in Wales, a 
 wild and beautiful setting. The story is intensely drama- 
 tic. The earlier portion deals with the adventures of a 
 beautiful girl, in the home amidst the mountains, of the 
 Vychan family : a mad mother and two lawless sons. 
 Both brothers fall in love with their beautiful guest, and 
 it seems as if no power in heaven or earth could stem the 
 whirlwind of disaster that ensues. We watch the 
 characters swept along to tragedy by what appears to 
 be a resistless Fate. 
 
 IO
 
 New 6/- Novels 
 
 Rose Lorraine 
 
 By DOUGLAS SLADEN 
 
 Author of "The Tragedy of the Pyramids." 
 
 Mr. Sladcn's new novel is pure romance. Miles Coverdale, 
 a typical public-school and university man, great at sports, but 
 not trained for any profession, although he has to earn his own 
 living, is wondering how he shall do it, when the war breaks out ; 
 and he enlists and wins a commission and rapid promotion. 
 The heroine, Rose Lorraine, is the beautiful daughter of a man 
 who has gambled away his property and has become gatekeeper 
 to one of his boon companions. Rose has been looked after and 
 educated by an uncle, but on leaving school she returns to live 
 at her father's lodge. This delightful story is chiefly concerned 
 with the wooing of Rose by Miles, but the course of his love 
 runs anything but smoothly. 
 
 The Mark of Vvaye 
 
 By H. B. SOMERVILLE 
 
 Author of "Ashes of Vengeance," (4th Edition), etc. 
 
 The scenes of this story are laid chiefly in Brittany at the 
 end of the 15th Century ; and it deals with conflicts, both of 
 wills and weapons, which arise from marriage by trickery of a 
 Breton lady, Yvonne de Vvaye, to her family's most bitter 
 enemy and the murderer of her brother. It also introduces the 
 plots of the Breton nobles to depose Pierre Landais from his high 
 position in the Court of hautes as the chief favorite of the last 
 Duke of Brittany. 
 
 The Inheritance 
 
 By UNA L. SILBERRAD 
 
 Author of "The Mystery of Barnard Hanson," &c. 
 
 Miss Silberrad's unquestionable gifts of writing a story of 
 engrossing interest are displayed to the fullest in her new 
 novel, the publication of which is promised during the present 
 season.
 
 New 6/- Novels 
 
 The Lure of the Desert 
 
 By KATHLYN RHODES 
 
 Author of "The Will of Allah," "The Desert Dreamers," &c. 
 
 This is the story of an Englishman, who, having Arab blood 
 in his veins, shakes off the shackles of western civilization and 
 responds to the call of the desert, which appeal he finds it imposs- 
 ible to resist. The charm of desert life has formed a background 
 for many of Miss Rhodes's popular stories, and in the present 
 one the reader is made to realise much of its wonderful 
 fascination. 
 
 The Potter's House 
 
 By ISABEL C. CLARKE 
 
 Author of "The Lamp of Destiny," &c. 
 
 Miss Clarke's new novel is concerned with the early days 
 of the War, and its effect upon her little group of characters is 
 related with skill and discernment, and is typical too of those first 
 anxious weeks. And it is the War, which incidentally completes 
 the spiritual awakening of her heroine, Gillian Driscoll. Some of 
 the earlier chapters contain charming descriptions of Italy, and 
 of life in Rome in the spring of 1914. 
 
 The Distaff Dreamers 
 
 By Mrs. BAILLIE SAUNDERS 
 
 Author of "Litany Lane," " The Mayoress's Wooing,'' &c. 
 
 A picturesque, quaint and charming story of London life, 
 with an ancient and largely demolished city church, St, Ursula 
 Distaff's, Watergate Stairs, as the centre round which this comedy 
 is played. The hero, who is a prosperous architect, belongs to an 
 old city family. He is a devoted Anglican and believes that he 
 has a vocation for celibacy, but owing to the reported death of his 
 cousin in Flanders, he learns that he is heir to the estates, and 
 consequently realises that unless he can find a member of some 
 collateral branch, it will be his duty to marry in order to perpetu- 
 ate the ancient line of his family. How the author develops this 
 situation must be left for her to tell in her own words. 
 
 12
 
 New 6s. Aove/s. 
 
 Esther Lawes 
 
 By EDGAR JEPSON 
 
 Author of "The Lady Noggs," &c. 
 
 In " Esther Lawes " Edgar Jepson tells the realistic 
 romantic story of a young English governess in the house 
 of a West-Indian planter. The West-Indian life and 
 its effect on the sensitive girl are fully described; 
 and the book is full of local colour in its true atmosphere. 
 It rises to the romantic height in its treatment of the birth 
 and growth of her passion for the formidable hunch-back, 
 the enemy of her employer's family and the virtual ruler of 
 the strange district in which they dwell. 
 
 The Girl Who Got Out 
 
 By G. B. BURGiN 
 
 Author of "The Shutters of Silence," &c. 
 
 The scene of this new novel which is laid partly in 
 England and partly in Canada. The heroine, in pursuance 
 of a promise to her dying father, and to improve her own 
 impoverished fortunes, "gets out" of England in order to 
 put right the moral and physical tone of a young " waster " 
 who is going to the dogs. How she persuades him to try 
 his fortunes in a new land and " find himself " in primeval 
 solitudes, is told with all Mr. Burgin's customary vivacity 
 and charm. Everyone expects the heroine to marry him, 
 
 but what happens to the heroine is the rest of the 
 
 story. 
 
 Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. are pleased to announce that they will 
 
 publish shortly a new book by R. W. CAMPBELL, 
 
 author of "Private Spud-Tamson." 
 
 13
 
 ■■ 
 
 I LATEST 6/- NOVELS. | 
 
 ■ ■ 
 
 Each in crown 8vo, cloth gilt. 
 
 An Undressed Heroine 3r d Edition 
 
 By MABEL BARNES-GRUNDY 
 
 Author of "Candytuft," &c. 
 
 Good Old Anna. 4th Edition 
 
 By Mrs. BELLOC LOWNDES 
 
 Author of "The End of Her Honeymoon." 
 
 Proud Peter 4th Edition 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS 
 
 Author of "No New Thing," &c. 
 
 The Bars of Iron 48th Thousand 
 
 By ETHEL M. DELL 
 
 Author of "The Way of an Eagle," &c. 
 
 Twilight 
 
 By FRANK DAN BY 
 
 Author of "The Heart of a Child," &c. 
 
 In cloth, with picture wrapper in colours, 
 2s. net. 
 
 Lismoyle 
 
 By B. M. CROKER 
 
 Author of "In Old Madras," "The Company's Servant," &c. 
 
 '* As delightful a book as Mrs. Croker has ever written. She has the happy gift of 
 telling a story so that she holds the reader enthralled from start to finish. Mrs. Croker is 
 always at her best when she sets her scene in Ireland." — Field. 
 
 14
 
 HUTCHINSON'S 1/- net NOVELS 
 
 FOR 1916 
 
 Each in cloth, with pictorial wrappers 
 
 NEW VOLUMES 
 
 39 SHARROW Baroness von Hutten 
 
 58 HIS OFFICIAL FIANCEE Berta Ruck 
 
 66 MEAVE Dorothea Conyers 
 
 67 SANDY'S LOVE AFFAIR S. R. Crocket 
 61 INITIATION Robert Hugh Benson 
 
 68 THE RETURN OF RICHARD CARR 
 
 Winifred Boggs 
 
 69 THE GREAT AGE J. G. Snaith 
 
 70 LONELINESS Robert Hugh Benson 
 
 71 THE THREE SISTERS May Sinclair 
 
 72 A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS Baroness Orczy 
 
 73 THE CHILDREN of the SEA H.deVereStacpoole 
 
 74 ODDSFISH Robert Hugh Benson 
 76 THE CAP OF YOUTH Madame Albanesi 
 11 A DULL GIRL'S DESTINY Mrs.Baillie Reynolds 
 
 78 A RASH EXPERIMENT Mrs. B. M. Croker 
 
 79 WHAT SHE OVERHEARD Mrs. B. M. Croker 
 
 85 THE COURTSHIP OF ROSAMOND FAYRE 
 
 86 THE PEARL FISHERS H. de Vere Stecpoole 
 
 87 BIRD'S FOUNTAIN Baroness von Hutten 
 
 88 THE LAD WITH WINGS Berta Ruck 
 82 THE WOOD END J. E. Buckrose 
 84 THE DEVIL'S GARDEN W. B. Maxwell 
 
 Each in crown 8vo, cloth, with pictorial wrappers 
 
 ELLEN THORNEYCROFT 
 
 FOWLER 
 
 5 A Double Thread 
 
 TOM GALLON 
 
 ROBERT HUGH BENSON 
 
 55 An Average Man 
 
 46 Come Rack ! Come Rope ! 
 
 DOROTHEA CONYERS 
 
 4 The Strayings of Sandy 
 
 MAUD DIVER 
 
 36 Lilamani 
 
 6 Tatterley 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 7 A Spirit in Prison 
 
 15
 
 HUTCHINSON'S I/- Net NOVELS— ow. 
 
 Each in crown 8vo, 
 
 BARONESS VON HUTTEN 
 
 54 Maria 
 9 The Lordship of Love 
 IO The Green Patch 
 
 JEROME K. JEROME 
 
 47 Paul Kelvxr 
 
 FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 12 I Forbid the Banns 
 
 BARONESS ORCZY 
 
 13 Petticoat Government 
 
 14 The Elusive Pimpernel 
 
 15 A True Woman 
 45 Meadowsweet 
 
 cloth, with pictorial wrappers 
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 
 
 16 The Three Brothers 
 
 ALLEN RAINE 
 
 18 A Welsh Singer 
 
 OLIVE SCHREINER 
 
 19 The Story of an African Farm 
 
 KATHERINE CECIL THURSTON 
 
 20 Max 
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 
 
 1 1 The Confessions of a Ladies' 
 Man 
 
 ALREADY ISSUED 
 
 Each in crown Svo. with pictorial paper covers 
 
 A SPINSTER 
 
 23 The Truth about Man 
 
 F. BANCROFT 
 
 52 Time and Chance 
 48 The Veldt Dwellers 
 
 DOROTHEA CONYERS 
 
 42 The Arrival of Antony 
 
 FRANK DANBY 
 
 50 Concert Pitch 
 
 26 Let the Roof Fall In 
 
 WALTER EMANUEL 
 
 Bubble and Squeak 
 
 COSMO HAMILTON 
 
 57 Adam's Clay 
 
 LUCAS MALET 
 
 38 Adrian Savage 
 
 ARTHUR MORRISON 
 
 28 Green Ginger 
 
 W. B. MAXWELL 
 
 64 General Mallock's Snadow 
 37 Mrs. Thompson 
 
 44 In Cotton Wool 
 
 KATHLYN RHODES 
 
 75 Sweet Life 
 
 62 The Will of Allah 
 
 BERTA RUCK (Mrs.OHver Onions) 
 
 65 Khaki and Kisses 
 
 H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 31 The Ship of Coral 
 40 The Order of Release 
 
 Mrs. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 49 Monte Carlo 
 
 RALPH STOCK 
 
 53 The Pyjama Man 
 
 CYNTHIA STOCKLEY 
 
 32 Virginia of the Rhodesians 
 ALSO 
 
 GERMANY'S GREAT LIE 
 
 Exposed and Criticised by DOUGLAS SLADEN 
 
 WILHELM LAMSZUS 
 
 The Human Slaughter-House 
 
 KEBLE HOWARD 
 
 34 "Chicot" in America 
 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF FREDERICK THE GREAT, King 
 of Prussia ; and THE LIFE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT 
 By Heinrich von Treitschke. Edited by Douglas Sladen. 
 
 16
 
 HUTCHINSON'S 7d. NOVELS 
 
 A new series of successful copyright works of fiction, 
 printed in clear readable type on good paper, and 
 tastefully bound in art cloth, in foolscap 8vo, with 
 designed title page and frontispiece on art paper and 
 wrapper in colours 
 
 NEW VOLUMES for 1916. 
 
 61 
 
 THE SHIP OF CORAL - 
 
 . 
 
 - 
 
 H. de Vere Stacpoole 
 
 "3 
 
 CANDYTUFT— I MEAN VERONICA- 
 
 Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
 
 114 
 
 A WELSH SINGER - 
 
 - 
 
 Allen Raine 
 
 "5 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF SARA - 
 
 - 
 
 E. Everett-Green 
 
 116 
 
 HEART FOR HEART - 
 
 - 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 117 
 
 THE NECROMANCERS - 
 
 - 
 
 Robert Hugh Benson 
 
 118 
 
 PETTICOAT LOOSE - 
 
 - 
 
 "Rita" 
 
 119 
 
 TORN SAILS ... - 
 
 
 Allen Raine 
 
 120 
 
 LOVE DECIDES 
 
 - 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 122 
 
 HALF A TRUTH - 
 
 - 
 
 " Rita " 
 
 123 
 
 MADEMOISELLE CELESTE - 
 
 - 
 
 Adele Furguson Knight 
 
 124 
 
 AT LOVE'S COST - 
 
 - 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 125 
 
 THE HOUSE CALLED HURRISH - 
 
 " Rita " 
 
 126 
 
 NONE OTHER GODS 
 
 - 
 
 Robert Hugh Benson 
 
 127 
 
 THE HOUSE OF SILENCE - 
 
 - 
 
 E. Everett-Green 
 
 128 
 
 PAID FOR .... 
 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 130 
 
 THAT STRANGE GIRL - 
 
 - 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 131 
 
 THE VACILLATIONS OF HAZEL - 
 
 Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
 
 132 
 
 LOVE AT ARMS - 
 
 - 
 
 Rafael Sabatini 
 
 133 
 
 CONCERT PITCH - 
 
 - 
 
 Frank Danby 
 
 134 
 
 ADRIAN SAVAGE - 
 
 - 
 
 Lucas Malet 
 
 135 
 
 NELLIE 
 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 
 VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED. 
 
 MADAME ALBANESI 
 
 ROBERT HUGH BENSON 
 
 
 49 Poppies in the Corn 
 
 
 28 
 
 47 
 
 The Conventionalists 
 The Dawn of All 
 
 MABEL BARNES-GRUNDY 
 
 
 66 
 
 A Winnowing 
 
 
 60 The Third Miss Wenderby 
 62 Patricia Plays a Part 
 32 Hilary on Her Own 
 
 M. 
 
 E. BRADDON 
 
 101 Our Adversary 
 
 17
 
 HUTCHINSON'S 7d. NOVELS 
 
 VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED— continued. 
 
 M. E. BR ADDON— continued. 
 107 Miranda 
 15 Beyond these Voices 
 41 A Lost Eden 
 
 G. B. BURGIN 
 
 65 The King of Four Corners 
 
 ROSA N. CAREY 
 
 18 Mollie's Prince 
 2 My Lady Frivol 
 76 Life's Trivial Round 
 
 MARY CHOLMONDELEY 
 
 3 Prisoners 
 
 DOROTHEA CONYERS 
 
 102 The Arrival of Antony 
 
 68 Aunt Jane and Uncle 
 
 James 
 
 69 For Henry and Navarre 
 
 B. M. CROKER 
 
 63 The Serpent's Tooth 
 91 In Old Madras 
 
 FRANK DANBY 
 
 73 Let the Roof Fall In 
 
 ALPHONSE DAUDET 
 
 84 Fromont Junior and 
 
 Risler Senior 
 
 SIR A. CONAN DOYLE 
 
 79 Sir Nigel 
 
 EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN 
 
 86 Miss Mallory of Mote 
 
 JUSTUS MILES FORMAN 
 
 23 The Stumbling Block 
 
 ELLEN THORNEYCROFT 
 
 FOWLER 
 
 88 Place and Power 
 
 MRS. HUGH FRASER 
 
 42 A Little Grey Sheep 
 
 18 
 
 TOM GALLON 
 
 39 Meg the Lady 
 
 CHARLES GARVICE 
 
 90 Gold in the Gutter 
 
 94 Linked by Fate 
 
 109 Where Love Leads 
 
 98 Love the Tyrant 
 
 104 A Girl of Spirit 
 
 108 Nell of Shorne Mills 
 
 SARAH GRAND 
 
 96 Babs the Impossible 
 
 H. RIDER HAGGARD 
 
 40 Fair Margaret 
 
 A. G. HALES 
 
 99 Little Blue Pigeon 
 
 COSMO HAMILTON 
 
 7 1 The Princess of New York 
 103 A Sense of Humour 
 
 HENRY HARLAND 
 
 17 The Royal End 
 
 ANTHONY HOPE 
 
 45 The Indiscretion of 
 
 the Duchess 
 
 BARONESS VON HUTTEN 
 
 52 Kingsmead 
 
 '•IOTA" 
 
 44 A Yellow Aster 
 
 VIOLET JACOB 
 
 46 The Sheep Stealers 
 
 JACK LONDON 
 
 95 South Sea Tales 
 
 JEROME K. JEROME 
 
 8 Tommy & Co. 
 75 They and I
 
 HUTCHINSON'S 7d. NOVELS 
 
 VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED-continued. 
 
 GASTON LEROUX 
 
 93 The Mystery of the 
 
 Yellow Room 
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 
 
 4 The Under Secretary 
 56 Confessions of a Ladies' 
 
 Man 
 1 1 The Gamblers 
 
 A. W. MARCHMONT 
 
 78 A Dash for a Throne 
 
 W. B. MAXWELL 
 
 29 Seymour Charlton 
 
 F. F. MONTRESOR 
 
 13 Into the Highways and 
 
 Hedges 
 
 14 At the Cross Roads 
 
 F. FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 74 I forbid the Banns 
 
 DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY 
 
 7 A Rising Star 
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 
 
 21 The Thief of Virtue 
 
 RICHARD PRYCE 
 
 27 Jezebel 
 
 ALLEN RAINE 
 
 77 By Berwen Banks 
 
 MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS 
 
 I Thalassa 
 10 The Man Who Won 
 
 H. GRAHAME RICHARDS 
 
 85 Lucrezia Borgia's One 
 
 Love 
 
 RITA" 
 
 106 Calvary 
 
 RAFAEL SABATINI 
 
 no The Shame of Motley 
 
 58 The Trampling of the 
 
 Lilies 
 
 MRS. BAILLIE SAUNDERS 
 
 20 The Mayoress's Wooing 
 43 The Bride's Mirror 
 70 Lady Q 
 
 MAY SINCLAIR 
 
 33 The Helpmate 
 
 34 The Divine Fire 
 
 80 The Combined Maze 
 
 H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 112 The Order of Release 
 
 J. A. STEUART 
 
 59 The Eternal Quest 
 
 MRS. K. C. THURSTON 
 
 26 The Gambler 
 87 Max 
 
 MRS. WILFRID WARD 
 
 100 Horace Blake 
 
 PERCY WHITE 
 
 25 Park Lane 
 
 53 Love and the Poor Suitor 
 
 M. P. WILLCOCKS 
 
 30 Wings of Desire 
 
 AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON 
 
 (Author of "St. Elmo") 
 57 The Speckled Bird 
 
 DOLF WYLLARDE 
 
 22 A Lonely Little Lady 
 
 EMILE ZOLA 
 
 105 The Monomaniac 
 
 81 The Ladies' Paradise 
 72 The Mysteries of 
 
 Marseilles 
 83 A Love Episode 
 
 19
 
 HUTCHINSON'S 6d. NOVELS 
 
 A Series of COPYRIGHT NOVELS by the 
 leading Authors clearly and well printed 
 
 OVER TEN MILLION SOLD 
 
 WITH ATTRACTIVE PICTORIAL COVERS IN COLOURS 
 
 NEW VOLUMES FOR 1916 
 
 420 A NAMELESS SIN Charlotte M. Brame 
 
 421 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE Baroness von Hutten 
 
 422 LITANY LANE Mrs. Baillie Saunders 
 
 423 THE DUKE'S SECRET Charlotte M. Brame 
 
 424 LADY BRIDGET IN THE NEVER-NEVER 
 
 LAND Mrs. Campbell Praed 
 
 414 DRAGOONING A DRAGOON 
 
 E. Livingston Prescott 
 
 425 MIRANDA M. E. Braddon 
 
 426 THROWN ON THE WORLD Charlotte M. Brame 
 
 427 SOME HAPPENINGS OF GLENDALYNE 
 
 Dorothea Conyers 
 
 428 HER MEASURE Curtis Yorke 
 
 429 A DARK MARRIAGE MORN Charlotte M. Brame 
 
 430 THE GREEN PATCH Baroness von Hutten 
 416 THE GARDEN OF DREAMS 
 
 H. Grahame Richards 
 
 431 CAPTAIN CORBEAU'S ADVENTURE 
 
 Mrs. Hugh Fraser 
 
 432 THE HEIRESS OF HATTON Charlotte M. Brame 
 
 433 LET THE ROOF FALL IN Frank Danby 
 
 A List of HUTCHINSON'S FAMOUS SIXPENNY NOVELS, 
 
 nearly 300 Titles, will be sent on application] 
 
 20
 
 " It is a book of monumental industry, as full of knowledge 
 as an egg of meat, and with much illuminating thought." — 
 Glasgow Herald, 
 
 The Causes and 
 Consequences of the War 
 
 By YVES GUYOT 
 
 Late French Minister of State, &c. 
 In one large volume, cloth eilt, 10/6 net 
 
 Translated by F. APPLEBY HOLT, B.A., LL.B. 
 
 At the present day M. Yves Guyot holds an unique position. 
 He is not only the doyen of political economists but he is one of the 
 best known, the most independent and clear headed publicists in 
 Europe. M. Guyot has long been a staunch friend to England 
 and he was one of the very few Frenchmen who publicly supported 
 us during the critical period of the Boer War. 
 
 In his latest, and in some respects, his most important book he 
 has employed his extensive knowledge of European history, diplo- 
 macy and political geography to account for the causes of the 
 present war. Without exonerating the ruling classes in Germany 
 from their guilt in devising the war, he shows how historical events 
 have made it possible if not inevitable. 
 
 The book has made a great impression in France and is recog- 
 nised as one of the most valuable and reliable contributions that has 
 appeared in connection with the subject. It is a book that no 
 public man, nor indeed anyone interested in current events, can 
 afford to neglect« 
 
 Times Literary Supplement says: — " There is no denying or 
 questioning the novelty of his treatment of some parts of a well- 
 worn theme, or of his conclusions. M. Guyot's service is to bring 
 to the discussion of post-war problems unusually wide knowledge ; to 
 study the aspiration of the many ethnic groups, which the Central 
 Empires have crushed, and to which this struggle has brought new 
 hopes. All may profit by his remarks even if they disagree with his 
 conclusions. We should do much less than justice to it if we 
 failed to recognise its richness in suggestions, its wide outlook, and 
 the generous spirit animating it." 
 
 21
 
 The Elephant 
 
 By AGNES HERBERT 
 
 Author of "Two Dianas in Somaliland," "Two Dianas in Alaska," 
 
 " Casuals in the Caucasus,'' " The Life Story of a Lion," 
 
 " The Life Story of a Moose,'' etc., etc. 
 
 In one large handsome volume, doth gilt, with coloured frontispiece ana 
 other illustrations by WINIFRED AUSTEN, 6s. net. 
 
 Children of to-day are keenly interested in Nature, and 
 "The Elephant" is one of those biographies of individual 
 animals which have the happy faculty of imparting knowledge of 
 nature to boys and girls while being also attractive to older 
 people. Those who are acquainted with Miss Herbert's books 
 on sport and travel, and with her realistic life stories of " The 
 Lion" and "The Moose," will not be surprised to find her 
 writing with knowledge and experience of the greatest of all 
 beasts. 
 
 Miss Herbert's animal books have been described by one of 
 our most distinguished critics as "Nature poems." Uplifted 
 by its style, imagination, and insight, the poetic account 
 of the baby elephant and his life in the wonderful wilder- 
 ness possesses infinite charm. 
 
 10th AND CHEAP EDITION. 
 
 The Soul of Germany 
 
 By THOMAS F. A. SMITH, Ph. D. 
 
 Late English Lecturer in the University of Erlangen. 
 Author of " What Germany Thinks." 
 
 In cro. 8vo cloth, 2\6 net. 
 
 " The picture he draws might pass for caricature if 
 recent events had not attested its fidelity to fact. This 
 illuminating book, derived from the pain-begotten wealth 
 of twelve years' experience, should be on the shelves of 
 everyone who desires to identify the German of Lou vain 
 and Dinant with the German of Germany." — Morning Post. 
 
 22
 
 " This will surety be one of the comparatively few war 
 books which contemporaries will read and re-read and hand 
 on to posterity.*' — The Times. 
 
 'Neath Verdun 
 
 By MAURICE GENEVOIX 
 With an Introduction by ERNEST LEVISSE. 
 Translated by H. GRAHAME RICHARDS. 
 
 In Cloth, 6s. net. 
 
 Of this extraordinarily interesting narrative, 
 The Times said : " This will surely be one of the 
 comparatively few war books which contemporaries 
 will read and re-read and hand on to posterity. 
 Hundreds, nay, thousands, of subalterns saw much 
 the same things that M. Genevoix saw, and went 
 through equally ripening experiences. But if they 
 were compelled to describe it all on paper the 
 result in the great majority of cases would be simply 
 a mass of material like unsmelted ore. Few, if any, 
 would show the magic touch of this young lieutenant. 
 The book is la verite vraie. There is no fine writing 
 in it, and yet it is all finely written. The French 
 soldier is shown in his weakness as well as in his 
 strength — nervous, impressionable, capable alike of panic 
 and of heroic self-abnegation. He is gay, good- 
 humoured, and witty on the surface, but, like his British 
 comrade, shy about his deepest feelings." 
 
 23
 
 AN IMPORTANT WORK 
 
 Through the 
 Serbian Campaign 
 
 By GORDON GORDON-SMITH 
 
 With a Preface by the Serbian Minister in London. 
 
 With Maps and 32 Illustrations on art paper. 
 In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 121 6 net 
 
 The author is the well-known war correspondent, 
 and the only correspondent, English or American, who 
 went through the whole of the late Serbian campaign 
 from its commencement to its close at Corfu. He 
 had special facilities afforded him, and is able to tell 
 the story of the heroic struggle in all its details. For 
 the first time we get a complete narrative of the 
 operations of the Serbian army, and a resumJ of the 
 events which led up to the final crushing attack. The 
 author is a most capable writer, and his book makes 
 fascinating reading, the various battles and the great 
 retreat being finely described. The author experienced 
 the hardships of the retreat, and walked over 160 
 miles, several times narrowly escaping losing his life. 
 The illustrations are unique, as they were taken by a 
 friend who shared his experiences. 
 
 24
 
 Carmen 
 
 By PROSPER MERIMEE 
 
 Newly translated by A. E. Johnson 
 
 WITH \6 PLATES IN COLOUR 
 74 ILLUSTRATIONS IN LINE 
 
 And Decorations, End Papers and Cover Design. 
 BY RENE BULL 
 
 Illustrator of the successful book on "The Russian Ballet"). 
 
 In one large handsome volume cloth gilt and gilt top, boxed, 2 Is. net. 
 
 Edition de Luxe, limited to ioo copies, signed by the Artist and bound in 
 parchment gilt, 42s. net, in box. 
 
 No character in fiction has achieved more world-wide 
 celebrity than the fated heroine of Prosper Merimee's classic 
 tale. It is upon that story that the libretto of Bizet's brilliant 
 opera is based, but the latter varies in many essential points 
 from the original tale, which is even more swift and dramatic 
 than the sequence of events seen upon the stage. 
 
 Amongst modern illustrators few have achieved a greater 
 popularity than Mr. Rene Bull, whose brilliant series of illus- 
 trations to " The Arabian Nights," " Omar Khayyam," and 
 ' The Russian Ballet," is now capped by a fine set of drawings, 
 in colour and black and white, depicting the vivid incidents 
 of " Carmen." The setting of the tale — Spain of more than 
 eighty years ago — has provided an admirable opportunity 
 for the artist's sense of the picturesque, and Mr. Rene Bull's 
 series of illustrations (comprising sixteen in colour and several 
 score in black and white) realize the scene in a manner that 
 has never been achieved before. 
 
 Mr. A. E. Johnson has made an entirely new translation 
 of the original French, and adds an interesting note upon the 
 differences between the original story and the operatic libretto 
 constructed therefrom by MM. Meilhac and Halevy. 
 
 25
 
 Indo-China and its 
 Primitive People 
 
 By CAPTAIN HENRY BAUDESSON 
 
 With 60 Illustrations from photographs by 
 the author 
 
 In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 16s. net. 
 
 In the course of his travels Captain Baudesson carefully 
 observed the curious customs of the Moi and Chams, the 
 uncultured people of Indo-China, among whom he dwelt 
 for many years. The author not only describes their rites 
 and habits, but he endeavours to show the origin of their 
 ceremonies with those of civilization. The story of these 
 travels is presented in vivid language and is full of local and 
 picturesque colour. The reader is initiated into the life of 
 the jungle, in which, day by day, the hardy pioneers lived. 
 Tigers and elephants were frequently encountered during the 
 journey of the mission, and many members of the expedition 
 were wounded by the poisoned arrows of the natives, while 
 jungle fever and malaria made havoc among them. 
 
 POPULAR POCKET NATURE BOOKS 
 
 In small volumes (7} 
 rounded cor 
 
 Toadstools and Mushrooms 
 
 of the Countryside 
 
 By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. With 
 8 coloured plates and 128 other 
 illustrations. 
 
 Astronomy 
 
 By G. F. CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S. 
 With 8 coloured plates and 358 
 illustrations. 
 
 Birds of the Countryside 
 
 By FRANK FINN, F.Z.S. With 12 
 coloured plates, 1 18i!lustrationsfrom 
 photographs, and numerous outline 
 drawings. 
 
 Eggs and Nests of British Birds 
 
 By FRANK FINN, F.Z.S. With 20 
 coloured plates, and many other illus- 
 trations, both coloured & uncoloured, 
 of all the British Birds' Eggs, repro- 
 duced from actual specimens. 
 
 in. by 5 in.), richly gilt, 
 ners, 5s. net. 
 
 Pets and How to Keep Them 
 
 By FRANK FINN, F.Z.S. With 107 
 illustrations, mostly from photo- 
 graphs, including 12 coloured plates. 
 
 British Fresh-Water Fishes 
 
 By SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, 
 Bart. With 24 beautiful coloured 
 plates. 
 
 Wild Fruits of the Countryside 
 
 By F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., 
 F.S.A., etc. With 36 coloured plates 
 by the Author, and 25 illustrations 
 from photographs on art paper. 
 
 Our British Trees and 
 How to Know Them 
 
 By FRANCIS GEORGE HEATH 
 With 250 illustrations. 
 26
 
 38th Year of Issue. 
 
 The Year's Art, 1917 
 
 Compiled by A. C. R. CARTER 
 
 A concise epitome of all matters relating to the Arts of 
 Painting, Sculpture, Engraving, and Architecture, and to 
 Schools of Design which have occurred during the year 1916 
 together with information respecting the events of 1917. 
 
 Crown Svo, cloth, 5s. net. 
 
 Over 600 pages, with illustrations. 
 
 In the Morning 
 of Time 
 
 By CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS 
 
 Author of " Red Fox," etc. 
 With eight fine illustrations 
 
 In large crown Svo cloth gilt, 6/ - net. 
 
 The stories of this author, dealing with the adventures of 
 animals, of which "The Red Fox" is, perhaps, the best known, 
 have for a long time enjoyed great popularity. In the present 
 work Mr. Roberts gives us a story of a man in primeval times, 
 and he introduces descriptions of the strange scenery and monstrous 
 fauna of the time. This story bids fair to be one of the most 
 successful of Mr. Roberts' works of fiction. The interest of the 
 volume is enhanced by the addition of the striking illustrations, 
 which excite the imagination. 
 
 27
 
 Francois Villon 
 
 His Life and Times 
 
 1431—1463 
 
 By H. de VERE STACPOOLE 
 Translator of Villon's Poems. 
 
 hi cloth gilt, 6s. net, 
 
 Mr. Stacpoole's life of Francois Villon is the first attempt 
 at a biography of the great French poet of the middle ages. 
 Here we have for the first time set forth in English the 
 affair of the Pet au Diable, the University life of the old 
 University of Paris, the character of Thibault D'Aussigny, 
 the Ogre of Menning, and much more that will come as a 
 surprise to those who fancy that they know all about Villon. 
 Mr. Stacpoole demonstrates a fact that every other writer 
 on the subject has ignored, the fact that between the two 
 Testaments there is a difference as vast as the difference 
 between body and soul. The difference between a 
 mind heedless and ribald and the same mind devel- 
 oped through experience and adversity. 
 
 The story of the life of Villon holds the mind like a 
 novel, from the first pages, when we find ourselves in 
 the strange old University of Paris, to the last where 
 Villon disappears into the unknown. 
 
 28
 
 A MOST INTERESTING AND INSTRUCTIVE 
 BOOK FOR THE PRESENT TIME 
 
 A Woman in the 
 Balkans 
 
 By MRS. WILL GORDON, F.R.G.S. 
 
 In demy 8vo cloth, with many illustrations, I2s. 6d. net 
 
 This work will undoubtedly make a wide appeal at the 
 present moment. It is a vivid and interesting account of the 
 Author's travels in Balkan lands, their history, peoples and 
 customs. Serbia, past and present, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the 
 wild mountainous regions of Montenegro and Albania, Bulgaria, 
 Turkey, are all described in a lively spirit of adventure and 
 interest. Roumania, the romantic land with its gay, intelligent 
 Latin race, is also very fully depicted. Many reflections on the 
 social life of the capitals, the political problems, the War, the 
 ideals and aspirations of the people, are indulged in ; while 
 sketches of the leading men, past and present, and meetings 
 with some of the Rulers of these countries, their private lives 
 and interests, are dealt with. The Young Turk, what he has 
 brought his country to, the women of Turkey and their position, 
 are also lightly sketched in. 
 
 A BOOK EVERYONE IS READING 
 
 With the Zionists 
 in Gallipoli 
 
 By LT.-COLONEL J. H. PATTERSON, D.S.O. 
 
 Author of 
 "The Man-Eaters of Tsavo " and "Iq the Grip of the Nyika " 
 
 In crown Svo, cloth, with Maps 6s. net 
 
 While in Egypt the author was placed in command of a mule 
 corps composed entirely of Jews for service in Gallipoli ; his book 
 is a record of the work of the corps there, but it is also a vivid 
 description of the fighting generally. It is a story of actual 
 happenings as he saw them, and he does not hesitate to criticise 
 freely the way in which the campaign was attempted to be carried 
 out. Written in a bright and attractive style, the book is excellent 
 reading, as well as being most instructive, for it is the first book 
 of the kind to be published. 
 
 29
 
 Deeds that Thrill 
 
 The Empire 
 
 TRUE STORIES OF THE MOST GLORIOUS ACTS OF 
 HEROISM OF THE EMPIRE'S SOLDIERS AND SAILORS 
 DURING THE GREAT WAR 
 
 WITH A FOREWORD BY THE EARL OF DERBY, K.G. 
 
 With over 700 Original Drawings by Leading 
 Artists ; and many Fine Coloured Plates. 
 
 WRITTEN BY WELL-KNOWN AUTHORS 
 
 Volume I Now Ready. 
 
 In demy 4to, 440 pages, 462 black and white illustrations and 12 
 
 coloured plates, bound in handsome cloth gilt and gilt edges, 
 
 1016 net, and in various leather bindings. 
 
 Volume II is in the press. 
 
 In this work is given full authentic accounts in vivid and popular 
 language of glorious acts of individual heroism which have been recognised and 
 gained decorations, but which need to be fully recorded to bring them home to 
 the heart. These undying stories of valour among officers and men from every 
 part of the world and in all branches of the British service have been written 
 in almost every case exclusively for this publication, from information sup- 
 plied by the heroes themselves or by eye-witnesses, and have been obtained 
 with infinite difficulty involving great labour over a long period of time- 
 This finely illustrated record of the magnificent gallantry of the Sons of the 
 Empire on the Field, on the Sea and in the Air, will constitute "a monument 
 to keep alive the memory of high deeds." 
 
 The work is superbly illustrated throughout, and printed on the best British 
 Art Paper. Many fine Coloured Plates are included. The artists are leading men 
 in their particular branch and working from authentic descriptions they have 
 by reconstruction enabled us to visualize the scenes of these heroic deeds and 
 give them reality. Amongst the artists are such favourites as W. S. 
 Bagdatopulos. J. Bryan, Allan Stewart, Charles Dixon, R.I., G. Soper, D. 
 C. J. de McPherson, Lacey Maurice Randall, J, H. Valda, Ambrose Dudley and 
 Montague Dawson. 
 
 30
 
 Tens of thousands of women workers will want this book. 
 
 Lloyd George's 
 Munition Girls 
 
 By MONICA COSENS 
 
 In crown 8vo, paper cover, //- net. 
 
 A book written from the inside by a munition worker. It tells of 
 the everyday experiences and tasks of a lady who has become a shell 
 maker and of the conditions under which the work is done. There are 
 many side-lights, both humorous and tragic ; it is not only instructive 
 but most interesting reading. 
 
 The most remarkable man of the day. 
 
 From Boundary-Rider 
 to Prime Minister 
 
 Hughes of Australia 
 
 By DOUGLAS SLADEN 
 
 Author of "Germany's Great Lie," etc. 
 
 With an Introduction by the Rt. Hon. Andrew Fisher, 
 High Commissioner and thrice Premier of Australia. 
 
 In crown 8vo, paper cover, with portrait. 220 pp., I/- net. 
 And in cloth, 2\- net. 
 
 The book contains chapters by Mr. Hughes himself on 
 "Compulsory Military Training" and "Labour in Power." 
 
 A useful and timely book which should sell in its thousands. 
 
 Practical Hints for 
 V.A.D. Nurses 
 
 By MRS. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 Author of " London," " Monte Carlo," etc. 
 
 In foolscap, paper cover, 6d. net. 
 
 The author, as a lecturer on nursing, has found that such a book as 
 this is needed by the many thousands who are taking up nursing. 
 It gives the essential information and instruction without waste of words. 
 The author is the wife of a doctor — the popular author of "The Blue 
 Lagoon, "etc. — and is herself a very successful writer, so it will beunderstood 
 that this little book is not only well presented but thoroughly reliable. 
 
 31
 
 HUTCHINSON'S 
 
 History of the Nations 
 
 A popular concise, pictorial, and authoritative 
 
 account of each Nation from the earliest times 
 
 to the present day. 
 
 Edited by WALTER HUTCHINSON, M.A., F.R.C.S., F.R.A.I., 
 
 BARRISTER-AT-LAW. 
 WRITTEN THROUGHOUT BY EMINENT HISTORIANS 
 
 In 4 Handsome Volumes. 
 
 The price per volume in various bindings is as follows : 
 
 Cloth, richly gilt & gilt edges, 10/6 net I Half Red Persian, richly gilt&siltedges.1 3/0 net 
 Half Green Morocco do. 12/6 net ! Full Morocco do. 16/0net 
 
 THE SCHEME OF THE WORK. 
 
 The history of each nation is treated separately, and not merged 
 into a general historical abstract, as is the case of many so-called histories of 
 the world. By this method the interest of the subject is maintained, and it 
 is rendered more useful as a work of reference and eminently more readable. 
 
 THE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The whole work contains 51 coloured plates and about 2,900 beautiful 
 illustrations, besides 65 historical maps. A large number of the 
 pictures are from drawings specially prepared for the work by some of our 
 most eminent living artists. Many of the best known historical paintings are also 
 included. Never before has a historical work been illustrated on the same 
 extensive scale. The volumes form a wonderful gallery of art of all ages. 
 
 THE CONTRIBUTORS. 
 
 The best and most widely known authorities have supplied the text for the 
 various sections of this work, and their united contributions constitute a most 
 valuable permanent book for study or reference. Among those who have 
 written for this work may be mentioned Prof. Flinders Petrie, D.C.L. , Litt. D. , 
 
 LL.D., Ph.D., F.R.S., F.B.A., Prof. H. A. Giles, M.A., LL D„ Sir 
 
 Richard Temple. Bart., C.I.E., F.R.G.S., Leonard W. King. M.A., F.S.A.. 
 Prof. J. P. Mahaffy, M.A., C.V.O.. D.D., D.C.L., Prof. J. S. Reid, M.A., 
 LL.M., Litt.D., Edward Foord, Dr. Israel Abrahams. Prof. Joseph Henry 
 Longford, Prof. David Samuel Margoliouth, M.A.. D. Litt. . Arthur Hassall. 
 M. A. , and Dr. Henry Thomas. 
 
 32
 
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