305B
 
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 Hearts 
 Importunate 
 
 By 
 
 Evelyn Dickinson 
 
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 New York 
 
 Dodd, Mead 6? Company 
 Mdcccc
 
 Copyright 1899 
 
 by 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
 
 Hearts Importunate 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IT was a spring afternoon in New South "Wales 
 a so-called " spring " in a lean year, when the move- 
 ment (if movement there were any) of the vexed 
 and tormented earth was backward rather than 
 forward. The old dry grass stood sparse and 
 bleached in soil that was scorched by the sun and 
 the frost of rainless years, and showed no shoot of 
 vernal green ; and the unchanging hoary-hued gums 
 seemed older even than their wont, more metallic, 
 more remotely prehistoric. The wide flats of Bur- 
 rabindar sheep-run lay iron-bound in the grip of 
 drought. 
 
 The sun fell toward the land-line, as it falls night 
 after night in weeks and months of cloudless Au- 
 stralian weather, through depths of rose and prim- 
 rose, and the hills that lay eastward rocky, thinly- 
 grown with eucalyptus caught the splendid glow 
 of the west, and gave it back with lesser warmth. 
 A man came riding slowly through the paddocks, 
 facing the light. He leaned down from his saddle 
 to draw back the bolt of a gate, which refused to 
 act. He dismounted, fastened the horse, and set to 
 work in rectification with a pocket-knife. This 
 done, he walked along with his hand on the bridle 
 l 
 
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 2 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 and his eye searching everywhere, that nothing 
 might escape notice which a squatter needs to note. 
 Ralph Hazell was newly-born as squatter three 
 months only of age with no trained sub-conscious- 
 ness to ease his undertaking. He was a tall man, 
 with fine shoulders and an admirable length and 
 proportion of limb ; he held himself well, so that a 
 certain stoutness, which was so far deplorable rather 
 as a prophecy than a fact, did not mar the dignity 
 and manliness of his figure. He wore a short 
 pointed beard, dark-brown and lustrous, and under 
 his strong brows his pale-blue eyes were clear and 
 penetrating. 
 
 A group of buildings came in sight a quarter of a 
 mile distant among the trees, and his way lay to- 
 ward them, with an indifferent look upon the west- 
 ern sky, as of one already dull to its evening custom 
 of magnificence. Suddenly, from the bare bough 
 of a near gum-tree, a pair of chubby jackasses burst 
 into immoderate, wild laughter, and, filling the 
 air with a violent duet of guffaw and chuckle, they 
 mocked the sun in its going, as they had mocked it 
 in its coming. " Ho-ho-ho-ho, ha-ha-ha-ha! ho-ho- 
 ho-ho, ha-ha-ha-ha! br-r-r r-r-r!" shrieked the 
 birds, repeating several times their hideous utter- 
 ance, with each other and against each other, with 
 odd guttural interspersions, the whole effect hoarse, 
 hysterical, harsh ; an effect as of crude mechanical 
 cries, as of the clang of an inferior bell, yet dry and 
 short as breaking wood, which leaves no wave 
 within the ear ; in a high degree derisive, yet en- 
 tirely unmirthful. The squatter stood listening at-
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 3 
 
 tentively. It was his habit to time his home-com- 
 ing, that if possible it might meet their song, for 
 his heart was as full of bitterness as the Dead Sea, 
 and his brain fermented with swarming moments 
 of self-contempt and heavenward rage. So that, 
 sore and weak to boyishness, his soul was soothed 
 by the concert of defiance. The discord ended in 
 guttural sobs, and the birds, the incredible authors 
 of it, sat at peace upon their bough. In the silence 
 which followed, the long-drawn, melancholy " A- 
 a-ah ! " of a carrion-crow lamented that the world 
 should be of such a sort. Hazell, with his arm 
 through the reins, moved toward the homestead. 
 Full in the rays of the setting sun, a lady sat on 
 horseback, looking at him ; her hat hung at her 
 side, her head was crowned with a glory of rippling 
 and coiling gold, on which the ruddy light fell, red- 
 dening, burnishing, till it glowed as though the 
 very wine of life ran through it. Hazell caught his 
 breath sharply ; after the desolation of sound, such 
 royal abundance of colour was like a blow upon his 
 nerves, and, having struck, it held him like a spell. 
 So for a moment he was transfixed, staring, till the 
 habit of civility asserted itself, and he remembered 
 that he was on his own ground, where she, however 
 unapproachably brilliant, was guest. In response 
 to his hurried and clumsy, salute, she made inquiry, 
 the explanation brief, neat, polite, in the way of 
 good English speech : 
 
 " Is there any one in the house, do you know, from 
 whom I could beg a cup of tea ? I have had a long 
 ride longer than I intended."
 
 4 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 Her voice restored his self-command. 
 
 " I hope," he answered, " that some one awaits my 
 own needs. But however that may be, you are 
 welcome to whatever can be found there." 
 
 " I am afraid you are the new master of Burra- 
 bindar." 
 
 " I believe I am. But why afraid ? " 
 
 "Because I am a trespasser if there is such a 
 thing as trespass in the Bush." 
 
 "As the youngest and the least of Bushmen, I 
 assure you there is no such thing. Besides " 
 He hesitated. He wished to give effect to his 
 thought that the coldest of front-doors an Edin- 
 burgh front-door would open cordially to so glad 
 a presence; but the restraint of her fine features 
 guarded their beauty from the vulgar assault of 
 compliment. " Please come in," he concluded. 
 
 The wide wooden verandah of the house was 
 empty of all but a hammock and a canvas water- 
 bag ; not even a chair offered invitation. The 
 centre door stood open, but black the windows 
 were dull with blinds. The deadness of it gave 
 the visitor pause, for there is question of man and 
 woman even when hospitality admits no doubt. 
 
 " Really, I don't know," she said. " Why should 
 I trouble you ? " 
 
 He read her mind, and answered it. 
 
 " My housekeeper loves a new face," he urged. 
 
 " A drink from the creek would do for me very 
 nearly as well," she replied. But she yielded, and 
 rode on, explainiEg : " I knew the former people of 
 this station, and have often been here before. I was
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 5 
 
 aware that they were to leave it, of course, but I did 
 not realise, until I saw you, that you were already 
 in their place." 
 
 " Only a fortnight," he said. 
 
 It was easy for him to fall a little behind, and 
 his bewilderment at her appearing sank into won- 
 der, and thence to pleasure that her face and form 
 were not unworthy the magical crown of hair. 
 The ivory paleness of her cheek took its tone har- 
 moniously from the gold which set it, the vigour of 
 her splendid growth showed in her grip upon the 
 saddle, and its suppleness in the play of her hand 
 upon the reins. Watching her in three-quarter 
 profile, he called her, in his mind, superb, a demi- 
 goddess, and in his memory of the moment, while 
 life retained it, he saw her always as a radiant con- 
 trast in the grey-green Bush, somewhat as he had 
 seen the great white orb of Venus when she hung 
 low in the grey-blue tropical night. 
 
 " You are no stranger to these parts, I see," he 
 said, smiling. " You make for the back entrance 
 as straight as a swagsman." 
 
 She assented inaudibly, ignoring his question. 
 
 There were extensive out-buildings, and a China- 
 man was at work in an acre of vegetable garden. 
 The enclosing fires of the outside oven smoked 
 thinly, and one could see the beams of an open 
 shed, thick with roosting fowls. No human being, 
 except the yellow gardener, was in sight. Hazell 
 shouted several names, but no one answered, and 
 he turned to his companion, laughing through an- 
 noyance.
 
 6 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 " Would you believe," he asked her, " that I have 
 a housekeeper, an underling girl, and a stableman, 
 to my sole service, and that this is nearly my dinner 
 hour ? I am much minded to cashier the lot of 
 them." 
 
 " Don't, if I may advise. Domestic help cometh 
 from afar in the Bush. Some diverting trifle has 
 drawn them off, either up the creek or down the 
 creek you know how we measure direction. They 
 will reappear in moderately good time, I don't say 
 properly repentant, but serviceable once more." 
 
 " Meanwhile, will you not get down ? " 
 
 He laid a detaining hand on the bridle of her 
 mare. His manner was alert, easy the entirely 
 impersonal manner of the modern Englishman of 
 the world, who, as it were, puts at the command of 
 the person he wishes to oblige, himself, a well-oiled 
 and ingenious machine, which asks no questions, 
 and takes no notice, is merely clever and obedient. 
 But Hazell's was a personality full of force, which 
 convention might train and veil without in any way 
 abating. His companion felt the stir, the insistence 
 of his magnetism, and whether or not it was pur- 
 posely directed toward herself, she resisted it. 
 
 "I would rather stay here. You will have to 
 grope your way to the water-bottle. I refuse to 
 break my neck in unknown territory." 
 
 "You won't vanish while I am away on your 
 service ? " 
 
 " No. I am too thirsty." 
 
 He disappeared into the black doorway, leaving 
 his horse to stand. The short, sub-tropical twilight
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 7 
 
 was on the land, and the look of the house, dark 
 with its shading verandahs, was that of unrelieved 
 night. A bull-frog croaked raucously in the still 
 air. The eastern sky showed the flush of the rising 
 moon. Footsteps sounded near, and a lean, mean- 
 looking little man, soiled from Bush-tramping, 
 carrying billy and swag, came in the guidance of 
 the Chinese gardener, and they placed themselves 
 decorously a few yards away, the celestial looking 
 at her with smiles. She greeted him by name- 
 Soy Ching and he asked, on behalf of his compan- 
 ion, if the master were in. 
 
 As a goddess might present herself to one of in- 
 ferior race, she replied friendly, adding that it must 
 be satisfactory nowadays to be free from children 
 tramping over the beds. 
 
 "Yelly ni', chillen," he answered equably. 
 
 " And velly ni', no chillen ? " 
 
 " Allee same, velly ni', Missie Fletchee." 
 
 "Everything all the same to you, Soy Ching, 
 wise man that you are." 
 
 The dusty tramp, who from the moment of see- 
 ing the rider had stared intently, as though fasci- 
 nated, started forward and peered yet more keenly 
 on hearing her name as rendered in pigeon, and 
 she made a shield for herself against the annoyance 
 by putting on the sailor-hat which hung from her 
 arm. 
 
 The master appeared at the house-door, and 
 alleged his doings in a cheerful voice. 
 
 " There is an excellent fire in my sitting-room," 
 he said, " and the kettle is alive with bubbles, and
 
 8 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 ray tea, I assure you, is something specially good." 
 Then, perceiving the men, his tones changed to that 
 of military question. "What do you want, Soy 
 Ching ? Is this a mate of yours ? " 
 
 " He say he water mollow morning ; tucker to- 
 nigh'," replied the Chinaman sweetly. 
 
 " How do I know what he will do to-morrow ? I 
 don't want sundowners on my place." 
 
 The tramp came forward with plausible and 
 fluent speech. 
 
 " Sundowner ? 'Ow, in Gawd's name, sir, 's a 
 man to foller any other trade in such a season has 
 this? Everything's that burnt up, there's no 
 chance. They turned me orf my last job, down the 
 Lachlan, becos there was nothing left to do on the 
 river but wait for death an' blue ruin." 
 
 Hazell eyed the speaker's ferret features without 
 sympathy. 
 
 " Thanks, I need no story," he said, and turned 
 impatiently to Soy Ching. "If you really want 
 help, you must see to him. Tell Mrs. Brock, when 
 she comes back, that he is to have some tucker, 
 and get his tucker's worth of watering out of him 
 in the morning. I think " the squatter reverted 
 to his guest in his former voice " that kettle must 
 be boiling over, and you know you must really 
 wait for the moon now." 
 
 " I asked only for a drink of water. "Well, I 
 yield," she said reluctantly ; and evading his hand, 
 she dropped lightly from the saddle. 
 
 Hazell signed to the Chinaman to look to the 
 horses, while the tramp stood still staring at the
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 9 
 
 lady, and even rounded quickly to follow her with 
 his eyes as she went before the master into the house. 
 She walked, thought her host, with the true goddess 
 step, and he noted further that, after what had prob- 
 ably been a long time in the saddle, there was no 
 stiffness in her movements. Having at length ac- 
 cepted his invitation, moreover, there was no affec- 
 tation of hesitation, for she went without direction 
 into the large room on the right of the central pas- 
 sage. He had lighted a lamp, and fanned the log- 
 fire to brightness with the big bellows which lay on 
 the hearth ; a small square table was set for a sol- 
 itary diner, and at one corner, for the visitor's use, 
 he had put a great cup and saucer. He pushed for- 
 ward a spacious armchair in shabby leather, from 
 whence she watched him and his surroundings with 
 the fresh, unfatigued perception of one who lives 
 much among familiar things. Evidently the room 
 was the general living- place of a lonely man, who 
 used it for most purposes. It was orderly, but all 
 things were ugly, and she recognised various arti- 
 cles of furniture, old and worn, as having belonged 
 to the former family. A second table, long and 
 solid, stood between the windows piled with news- 
 papers, mainly unopened, the postal harvest of 
 months. An old-fashioned writing- bureau occupied 
 a recess on one side of the chimney. The glass of 
 its upper cupboard was broken, and the books be- 
 hind were crowded in disarray upon the shelves. 
 The mantelpiece was packed with cigar-boxes, and 
 littered with pipes. A couple of swords in scab- 
 bards, crossed with a couple of rifles, were the only
 
 10 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 ornament of the walls, and gun-cases, fishing-rods, 
 riding-whips the usual accessories of a sportsman 
 stood in the angles, and lay about the floor. A 
 worn square of carpet, and a few cane-seated chairs, 
 completed the inventory. 
 
 Hazell prepared tea and bread-and-butter for his 
 visitor, quick and careful, without speaking. Evi- 
 dently he was of those who give their whole atten- 
 tion to the thing in hand. His visitor noted the 
 determination of his expression, the thinness of his 
 hair about the brows and crown, his heavy wedding- 
 ring. The service complete, he seated himself op- 
 posite. 
 
 "What am I drinking? Young Hyson? Im- 
 perial tips ? Something surely very costly ? " she 
 asked, as she sipped slowly. 
 
 " Something I import myself something whose 
 name and source I give to no one. I am consist- 
 ently selfish ; if I care for anything, I keep it to 
 myself. Are you sure this is all I can do for 
 you?" 
 
 " More than enough. I asked for water, and you 
 give me tea and bread-and-butter in a dish that is 
 quite sufficiently lordly." 
 
 " Diana softens," thought Hazell, with some relief 
 of mind. "Is she perhaps really rather Helen?" 
 He ventured a question : " Have you far to go ? " 
 
 " Fourteen miles or so." 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 " I hope so. Oh, I know the road ! " 
 
 " And I am to eat my dinner comfortably, and 
 think of you cantering lonely through the Bush ? "
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 11 
 
 "There is no need for you to think of me at 
 all." 
 
 Her voice was expressive as well as clear. Hazell 
 bowed stiffly, for it was suddenly colder ; and, as 
 though she recognised her own ungraciousness, she 
 added : 
 
 " I live at Wamagatta, Mr. Hazell. My name is 
 Fletcher. We shall probably meet some day, when 
 you come to call on Mrs. Bolitho." 
 
 He bowed again. 
 
 " I know the name of Bolitho of Wamagatta," he 
 answered ; " but I do not intend to pay visits of 
 ceremony, and there is certainly little to attract vis- 
 itors of ceremony to these quarters of mine." 
 
 He put out a hand to emphasise the ugliness of 
 his surroundings ; the firelight shone on his wed- 
 ding-ring. 
 
 " You might, I allow, be of a less sternly utili- 
 tarian appearance ; but your wife, perhaps " 
 
 " My wife ! I have no wife ! " he interrupted her, 
 so loud, so violent, that she looked at him in amaze- 
 ment, and silence fell upon them. 
 
 The harshness and passion of his face froze apol- 
 ogy at its conception, and it is surely barbaric to 
 roar one's resentment for an unwitting touch upon 
 however sore a wound. 
 
 She moved as if to leave the chair ; her strange 
 host recovered himself with a pang of shame, and 
 his voice was warmly cordial as he interposed : 
 
 " Don't stir yet, I beg of you. The moon is still 
 worthless, and in this half-and-half sort of light 
 riding is not very safe."
 
 12 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " I am used to the Bush in all lights, and at all 
 seasons." 
 
 " I cannot say as much ; but in a year or two, if I 
 stick to the saddle as I have been doing lately 
 Do you like the Bush, Miss Fletcher ? " 
 
 " For many reasons, I love it." 
 
 " The pungent, tonic smell of it ? " he suggested. 
 
 " Yes, and its great extent, and its glorious lone- 
 liness no towns, no human beings; its exquisite 
 cleanliness. I think it must be the cleanest place in 
 the world sun-dried, wind-swept." 
 
 There was enthusiasm in her words. He saw it, 
 wondering ; but for the second time he felt it im- 
 possible to offer her flattering speech on his own 
 ground, in his own house, and in a matter-of-fact 
 way he commented : 
 
 " I should have expected towns and human beings 
 to possess charm for you." 
 
 " I hate them. It is rarely as, for instance, when 
 I ride too far, and am in need of refreshment that 
 I can see any good in strangers." 
 
 " And the world so many millions, you know 
 must be chiefly strangers, however large your circle." 
 
 " Mine is particularly small ; but has one not a 
 right to one's own individuality ? I am at least con- 
 sistent ; being without desire for what is called or- 
 dinary society, I live in the Australian Bush." 
 
 " You are a strong individualist ? " 
 
 " I think I am." 
 
 " Then, pardon me if I make a request of you. 
 Take off your hat again just for a moment." 
 
 "Why, Mr. Hazell?"
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 13 
 
 " Don't be annoyed with me ; I mean no offence 
 I ask it with all respect. Please take off your 
 hat." 
 
 "But " Miss Fletcher hesitated; his tones, 
 his attitude, were indeed entirely respectful. "I 
 fail to see why I should do so," she concluded. 
 
 " Because, if you like, I want payment for my 
 tea. We are not friends ; you dislike strangers I 
 avoid them. Consider this house an inn ; I want 
 payment for my tea payment in gold." 
 
 " It is much too dear. Silver would be ample." 
 
 "You cannot judge; that is very special tea. 
 The Tsar himself would be glad to drink it ; it is 
 worth guineas by the pound." 
 
 " But my consumption was of such a tiny fraction 
 of a pound." 
 
 She was laughing ; he waved his own arguments 
 aside. 
 
 " I urge no more ; you are too keen for me. I 
 throw myself on your charity. The position, I 
 own, is preposterous; but of whom may one ask 
 the preposterous, if not of an individualist? To 
 give a stranger pleasure, please take off your hat." 
 
 His personality was strong upon her as he stood 
 before her, and, though absurd, his request was 
 harmless, and his manner made it decently colour- 
 less. She complied, rising to her feet as she did so, 
 and turning toward the door as if to show that the 
 inspection must be brief. Firelight and lamplight 
 fell on the magnificent masses of her hair, and the 
 rich pagan glow of it filled his brain and stirred his 
 pulses as wine would do. He drew a deep breath,
 
 14 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 as though he inhaled its brilliance, then followed 
 her quickly. 
 
 " You are right ; I am overpaid," he said. " I 
 offer you something by way of change a pair of 
 Albanian pig-tusks, an ounce of the precious tea ? 
 There is so little of mine that has any exchange 
 value." 
 
 Soy Ching waited in the moonlight attendant on 
 the drooping horses. The air was keen and cold, 
 and there was a sparkle on grass and trees. 
 
 "Frost again," said the squatter. "How long 
 may one expect it in these parts ? " 
 
 " You may expect anything you like. There are 
 no clear limits to the seasons in this country. It 
 may rain every day for three months, or the heav- 
 ens may be as brass for three years. Do you pray 
 for rain in your religion, Soy Ching ? If so, you 
 should pray now ; you will have no garden left by 
 the summer." 
 
 The man smiled as usual. Miss Fletcher took 
 the mare from him, and led her aside to a small 
 heap of wood ; the docile creature stood while her 
 mistress, with the skill of much practice, sprang 
 into the saddle and settled herself there, closely as 
 a hand to its glove. Hazell looked on, admiring. 
 
 " You need no help of mortal, I see," he said ; 
 " but, still, may I not at least come with you to the 
 end of the run ? " 
 
 " Four miles, I think ? Certainly not. Good-bye, 
 and many thanks." 
 
 As she rounded toward the moonlight in the 
 creek, she caught sight of the meagre figure of the
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 15 
 
 sundowner, who lolled against the shed where the 
 fowls roosted, and watched her. "Was there a grin 
 about his face ? It was a wretched little face, with 
 small eyes, near-set to a long narrow nose a de- 
 testable, peering, inquisitive face. She touched the 
 mare with her heel, and started her on a smart trot 
 across the bed of the low stream, among the gleam- 
 ing trunks of the gum-trees. Roused by the ring 
 of hoofs on a stony spot, a jackass sleeping on a 
 bough was stirred to laughter, and as Miss Fletcher 
 sped away, and Hazell stood observing her, the 
 lonely grey-green Bush was waked by the familiar 
 mockery: " Ho-ho-ho-ho, ha-ha-ha-ha! ho-ho-ho-ho, 
 ha-ha-hca-ha ! br-r-r r-r-r ! "
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE Beulah district lying for many miles round 
 the post-town from which it took name was genu- 
 inely interested and concerned to hear of the death 
 of Emily Fagan (by reason of which the master of 
 Burrabindar had been unattended and waiting for 
 his dinner). The girl's story had been highly ro- 
 mantic, and her end was such as to command a 
 common regret. She was the only child of Peter 
 Proudfoot, who kept the largest general store in 
 Beulah, and had grown wealthy upon it. He was 
 by birth of a singularly concentrated temperament, 
 which had been heightened by the circumstances of 
 his breeding, for he had been born a native of the 
 most exclusive county in Scotland, and trained in 
 the extreme rigidity of the Free Church. Compul- 
 sion of the usual kind to make a living had led 
 to his establishment in Australia, where he married, 
 unequally, a lively girl of the soil ; but he con- 
 tinued primarily a citizen of Killinot and a member 
 of the Disruption. His wife died young. The un- 
 married women of Beulah and the district had been 
 deeply moved by the forlorn state of baby Emily. 
 But Peter Proudfoot's widowhood had been unas- 
 sailable, and truly the child lacked little, for his 
 fatherhood was as concentrated as the rest of him. 
 As she grew, the neighbourhood delighted to see her 
 winsome smile and her yellow ringlets, alive and 
 
 16
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 17 
 
 running over with life, among the unromantic de- 
 tail of the store ; and when it was discerned later 
 that she possessed a singing- voice of notable strength 
 and sweetness, all those whose position placed them 
 above envy were anxious that this should be thor- 
 oughly cultivated, for the glory of Australia and 
 the pleasure of the world. Mrs. Bolitho of "Wama. 
 gatta in particular made a personal request and 
 proposal to Peter Proudfoot ; if he would suffer the 
 child to begin her musical training in Sydney, she 
 herself would defray the cost of a finishing trip to 
 Europe. But song, and the platform, and the devil- 
 tempted career of the artist, were utterly repugnant 
 to him, even had they not necessitated the loss of 
 his dear one's society. His consent was not to be 
 had, and except at a rare local concert, in some 
 ballad of the moment, or at Sunday- worship, in the 
 poor melody of the metrical psalms, the world was 
 none the happier for her rich gift. It was well 
 known how one bad night, driving through the 
 street, Miss Fletcher had stopped her horses a long 
 time to hear Emily singing Scotch songs to her fa- 
 ther in the verandah, how, at length, she had left the 
 carriage and gone impetuously to tell him that such 
 a voice was no private property, either of his or 
 hers ; that to withhold it from the ears and hearts 
 of their fellow-creatures was no less than an irrepa- 
 rable wrong. Proudfoot had replied firmly in the 
 manner of his particular biblical eclecticism, and 
 Miss Fletcher had lost her temper. Nothing on 
 earth was so selfish, so utterly and irresponsibly 
 selfish, she told him, as a selfish father ; no sins so
 
 18 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 certainly went home to roost as those of parents to 
 their children. Then she drove off at a great pace, 
 and the dark verandah had given no sign for the 
 edification of the curious loafers in the dark street. 
 
 The following summer Proudfoot sat alone in his 
 darkness, and Emily, immeasurably distant by 
 twenty miles, sang to her husband at the door of 
 their two-roomed hut. She had, on the whole, been 
 indifferent about her proposed musical training ; the 
 applause of crowded opera-houses and diamond pres- 
 entations from Emperors were attractive but re- 
 mote, and to be won in any case by long and weari- 
 some study. Now, here in Beulah there was the 
 flowing interest of the shop, and the admiration of 
 the local youth, most admiring of whom was Lau- 
 rence Fagan, and most dangerous ; for he consum- 
 mated his Irish charm of face, figure, and tongue by 
 his unrelieved ineligibility as a poor papistical bound- 
 ary-rider on the station of Mr. Snowe of Burrabin- 
 dar, and in his connection Emily was not indifferent. 
 
 Again Peter Proudfoot said " No," and seemed to 
 consider the matter closed ; but pairing takes pre- 
 cedence of parentage, and Emily, with her lover's 
 help, arranged for herself a convenient absence in 
 the direction of Sydney, and returned from it, ready 
 to be forgiven, in the name of Fagan. The Beulah 
 district, which loved the girl, and, like all districts, 
 loved romance, looked for the reconciliation which 
 would surely come at least, with the end of the 
 year ; but there was a sudden onset of illness, vio- 
 lent and short. No nurse or medical aid was nearer 
 than sixteen miles ; convulsion had followed con-
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 19 
 
 vulsion unchecked, and the poor premature baby 
 had given no cry, and the racked and tormented 
 mother found rest only in death. Ralph Hazell had 
 seen the girl more than once as he rode his rounds, 
 and he regretted the cruel quenching of so blithe a 
 spark of life; with civil intention, therefore, he 
 rode to the burial, on the afternoon of the second 
 day following Miss Fletcher's visit. 
 
 On the stony hillside, drenched with unclouded 
 sunlight, now, even in the springtime, almost bare 
 of grass, and strewn with the dry, dead litter of 
 boughs, leaves, tree-trunks, among which sparsely 
 grew the gaunt colourless gums, stood about fifty 
 people, unheroic figures, in the awkward attitudes 
 of Britons on occasions of emotion, in the ugly 
 clothing of our custom, ^ever, probably, from the 
 beginning of things, had so large a crowd of human 
 beings assembled there, unless it had been of black- 
 fellows in corroboree, who, indeed, except that from 
 habit the eye expects an utter solitude in the Bush, 
 would have been harmonious with its wildness. All 
 round, at varying distances, horses and vehicles 
 stood awaiting their owners, storekeepers' wives 
 from Beulah, in garb of countrified mourning. The 
 parched selectors with their wives and families ar- 
 rived by the cartful from remote places, wearing 
 their everyday garments, mostly of print, faded by 
 washing from the bright colours preferred in bright 
 lands. A score of unconnected men, boundary- 
 riders, stockmen, station hands, a miner or two, in 
 leather gaiters and shabby tweed jackets, lounged 
 about, wearing their soft hats, keeping an ashamed
 
 20 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 eye on the centre of the group, the rough-cut grave. 
 Across this, on a hurdle, lay a pine coffin, smothered 
 in splendid violets and boughs of golden wattle. 
 Here, in an accent of Ulster, not without emotion, 
 the Presbyterian minister spoke and prayed ear- 
 nestly, and Larry Fagan, thrown at full length upon 
 the stony soil, wept and sobbed without control. 
 Gradually the whole company present seemed ab- 
 sorbed in watching him, drawn from their own 
 sensibility to the easier and less painful observation 
 of his, so that sorrow was displaced by sympathy. 
 Hazell noticed this, in his shrewd way, and ad- 
 dressed the dead girl mentally : " Positively your 
 last appearance on the public stage, Emily. The 
 concern of the living is with the living pass on ! " 
 He smiled bitterly as he thought thus, and doing 
 so, as though a wave of feeling had welled against 
 his nerves and compelled him to recognise it and 
 follow the line of it, he looked across the grass and 
 saw Miss Fletcher. She was dressed for riding, in 
 a black habit ; her hair gleamed through the dark- 
 ness of the veil which hid her head and face. Her 
 eyes were directly upon his, and he knew that she 
 had seen his smile and resented it. A little elderly 
 lady leant upon her arm. The service ended, and 
 the audience scattered slowly, with lingering, 
 doubtful glances at the grave and the widower, 
 whom, it seemed, they left to the minister, as best 
 fitted to deal with the unconventional. A station- 
 hand, acting as sexton, came for\A r ard with his 
 spade, stared at the flowers, and referred his per- 
 plexity also to the minister.
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 21 
 
 " Be I to earth in these pretty blooms, sir ? I 
 call to mind a buryin' I 'tended River End way : 
 the posies was laid atop, a finishin' to the mound, 
 like, and it took my fancy greatly." 
 
 The voice in which he spoke was peculiarly shrill 
 and grating, being the intended modification of its 
 ordinary tone to the compliment of a whisper. It 
 reached Larry's ears with irritating effect, and rais- 
 ing his spoiled, swollen face, by one swift move- 
 ment he jerked himself, turning on his arm, into the 
 grave, and crying out, " Do as ye plase the way ye 
 earth me in wid her ! " he fell on the cofim among 
 the flowers, and lay clutching the irresponsive 
 wooden walls. The air was pierced with his reso- 
 nant woeful keen. 
 
 The sexton scratched his head ; the minister 
 pleaded soothingly : " Fagan, my dear brother, it 
 is the Lord's will ; submit yourself to Him. Him- 
 self hath done it." 
 
 The mourners, arrested on their way, and in their 
 arranging of reins and traces, gazed back with a 
 thrill of interest. Hazell, his eyebrows raised, 
 tapped his boot with his whip. Miss Fletcher shiv- 
 ered and moved as if to hurry to where a groom in 
 plain clothes held her horse. The elderly lady de- 
 tained her. 
 
 " I am the oldest person here, let me speak to 
 him," she exclaimed ; and leaning on her compan- 
 ion's arm, she limped slowly to seat herself on the 
 upturned gravel, just above the distracted figure. 
 " Leave me for a moment, my dear." 
 
 Seizing the instant, Hazell stepped quickly to
 
 22 HEAKTS DIPOKTUNATE 
 
 meet Miss Fletcher as she drew away. He felt that 
 she wished to avoid him, but as though his feet of 
 their own accord took him to her, his mind being 
 unwilling, he planted himself before her, raised his 
 hat, and found nothing to say, except, after hesita- 
 tion, and vaguely : 
 
 " This is a sad scene." 
 
 " It seemed to me that you were so fortunate as 
 to find amusement in it," she answered coldly. 
 
 " I feared you would see and misunderstand," he 
 replied eagerly, as though it were now his tongue 
 which ran away with him. " I confess I smiled, 
 but it was at my thoughts. I often laugh to my- 
 self at the irony of life. It seems the only thing to 
 do." 
 
 " Men may laugh, but women must weep," was 
 the dry response. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; that is by no means invari- 
 able. There are many women who laugh while 
 men well, while men go heart-broken I know it." 
 
 Her temper took fire at the sudden flicker of his, 
 and she answered warmly : " That is not my expe- 
 rience. To go no further, think of the story before 
 us to-day." 
 
 " I hear a man weeping, at all events." 
 
 " Yes, and you will hear his wedding-bells a few 
 months hence. I know his kind. The louder they 
 lament, the sooner they rejoice." 
 
 " Unfair a mere statement ! " Hazell replied an- 
 grily. 
 
 Miss Fletcher turned upon him, looking straight 
 into his eyes.
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 23 
 
 " Emily Fagan's whole being was sacrificed to 
 the selfishness of men," she answered, speaking 
 slowly, as if to steady her voice. " The girl was a 
 born artist. She sang as the birds sing, as the 
 morning stars sing, and the most joyous, the only 
 proper life for her would have been to sing for the 
 whole world. Her father, masking his selfish need 
 of her in a cloak of his petty Puritan prejudice, for- 
 bade it. That fathers in our, as we call ihem^free 
 days should have such powers ! He disapproved 
 he disapproved ! Who are you or I, what was he 
 or any other individual, to approve or disapprove 
 to dispose finally of a human being's life ? " She 
 paused, as if her thoughts came too thick for 
 speech. 
 
 "The girl disposed of herself in her marriage, 
 from what I hear," said Hazell quickly. 
 
 " Does any girl, inexperienced, swayed on the 
 uncomprehended waves of blind feeling, dispose of 
 herself ? You might as well say the raindrops dis- 
 pose of themselves, when they trickle down guid- 
 ing ways to the river and are borne to the sea. 
 This young man, who indulges his grief to-day as 
 he indulged his love yesterday, urged and coaxed, 
 and besought and practically compelled her to 
 marry him. He had nothing to give her but him- 
 self and his two-roomed shanty, and the absorbing 
 interest of making ends meet on thirteen shillings 
 a week, minus his beer-money ; whereas she had 
 been accustomed to all the comforts of her comfort- 
 loving class, and all the diversion of the little town. 
 But that naturally would not strike him."
 
 24 HEAKTS IMPOETUNATE 
 
 "Love levels all things," interrupted Hazell; 
 " that is always conceded." 
 
 "It does not, unfortunately, level a taste for 
 drink," replied Miss Fletcher. " It did not prevent 
 Larry Fagan from enjoying himself in Beulah one 
 Saturday a couple of months ago, so that when he 
 came to drive Emily home again, road, rut, stump, 
 creek were all very much the same to his convivial 
 eye, and by and by the cart was upset, and Emily 
 was bruised and shaken, and there there is her 
 grave ! " 
 
 Miss Fletcher spoke in an undertone, because of 
 the nearness of the man she condemned, but never 
 had Hazell heard such passion in a woman's voice ; 
 her face, too, pale, and with features sharpened, 
 seemed through her veil to burn with flame. She 
 concluded bitterly : 
 
 " But all who know the story are full of pity for 
 the widower, and they find it rather an added 
 pleasing excitement of their nerves that the guilty 
 father sits to-day at the receipt of custom as usual, 
 with unmoved face, as though he had never had, 
 nor ever ruined, a daughter. Oh, a splendid story ! 
 It might almost make a play ! Will you not smile 
 again, Mr. Hazell, at what you are pleased to call 
 the irony of life ? " 
 
 " As neither you nor I are responsible, and neither 
 you nor I can help, I think it is better to smile as I 
 do, than to bay the heavens as you do." 
 
 " A man, I notice, can always compound for his 
 own sins, past, present, or future, by amiable toler- 
 ance of the sins of other men."
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 25 
 
 " Have women no sins ? " 
 
 " I dare say, but I seem scarcely to see them ; 
 my horizon is darkened by the mountainous pile of 
 men's." 
 
 " Is that so ? I dare say it is big enough, but as 
 you sneer at me, Miss Fletcher, because I have the 
 misfortune to be a man, I will, with your permis- 
 sion, smile at you 
 
 " Because I am a woman ? " 
 
 "No," snarled Hazell through his teeth; "but 
 because, whereas your horizon is darkened by a 
 theoretical impersonal wickedness of all men to all 
 women, my whole noontide is for evermore black 
 Avith the practical treachery of one woman to me ! " 
 
 " What do you know of my experience ? " Miss 
 Fletcher asked him abruptly; and then, through 
 his own disturbance and preoccupation, he saw that 
 she checked herself, and froze into rigidity, as if 
 she were struck by sudden pain. 
 
 Halting, irregular steps broke the silence that 
 followed as they turned together to see the little 
 elderly lady, leaning on her stick, limping toward 
 them. 
 
 " Avis, my dear, will you give me your arm ? " 
 she asked briskly, and winked away a tear from 
 her eyelid, and put on a pleasant worldly manner 
 as she added : " Surely this gentleman must be Mr. 
 Hazell?"
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " ONCE more I deplore my own gregariousness, 
 and repent in mental sackcloth ! Not three weeks 
 settled here, on the extreme tail-hairs of civilisation, 
 and I find myself promised to visit neighbours. It 
 needn't, however, be done." 
 
 So Hazell reflected as he sat in his sitting-room at 
 half-past six in the morning, polishing his favourite 
 gun. He was an early riser : India had made him 
 so, he said ; but he did not wish to be exacting to 
 his household. By means of a spirit-lamp he could 
 make himself a great cup of tea, wherewith to en- 
 joy his first pipe ; and he liked to spend a quiet 
 hour or two cleaning and mending his sporting 
 tackle, looking to his dogs and horses, and occup} r - 
 ing himself generally with dirty and interesting 
 work of an Englishmanly kind. About seven o'clock 
 he expected to be supplied with a firkin or so of 
 boiling water (for India had made him chilly) with 
 which to remove the traces of his toil, and then 
 came breakfast ; and then the long solitary riding, 
 which seemed, when he thought of the future, to 
 fill the whole vista of his life. 
 
 Mrs. Brock, who had kept squatters' houses before 
 this, considered that he had strange ways. The 
 early rising she could understand there are hardy 
 dwellers in the Bush who begin their day at four of 
 the clock and daily hot water, though inconvenient, 
 26
 
 HEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 27 
 
 he had a right to demand, for his pay was good ; 
 but that a lonely man on the Mia-Mia Plains should 
 dine every night in a velvet coat, black trousers and 
 pumps, that he should sleep iu the afternoon, and 
 sit up till one or two every morning, these things 
 were unnatural and un-Bush-like. But it was known 
 quite certainly, though it would have been difficult 
 to say how, that he had been a soldier, and among 
 the crash of authorities there abides at all events 
 in domestic things that of arms ; and further, his 
 temper was hot, though his judgment was just ; and, 
 finally, he was eminently a masterful man, whose 
 servant must obey, or serve elsewhere. So Hazell 
 settled down in his own fashion, composed of Eng- 
 land and India and individual, to works and days at 
 Burrabindar. 
 
 A triumphant hen appeared in the verandah, 
 striding and darting her head in the zigzag course 
 of her species, clucking hideously. " An egg, I sup- 
 pose," thought Hazell ; and it occurred to him to 
 seek and secure it, for he liked eggs ; and though he 
 had taken over, with the rest of the live stock of the 
 station, an abundance of poultry, nothing had come 
 by reason of them so far, except an enormous sack 
 of maize from Peter Proudfoot. The morning was 
 delightful, as far as atmosphere could make it so. 
 The newly-risen sun, clear as crystal, struck straight 
 upon the frost, and the ground glistened, and the 
 gum-trees, and the bare boughs of the fine mulberry- 
 tree at the side of the house, and the deep bed of 
 violets, rich with bloom, which ran round the edges 
 of the verandah. The tall, strong figure of the pro-
 
 28 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 prietor, erect and impressive, even in the ugliness 
 of gaiters, knickerbockers, jersey, and coat, all of 
 the thickest, oldest, and most worn, oil-stained, mud- 
 stained, and frayed, stood a moment without the 
 open French window, surveying what had once 
 been a garden, which he intended should be a gar- 
 den again. The land proximate to the house was 
 neglected and barren, till it hardly differed from the 
 flats of the run ; the flowers and flowering trees of 
 it had died away to no more than the bed of violets, 
 a few belated roses, and a straggling oleander. The 
 ground was dry, burnt by heat and cold, grassless, 
 obstinate-looking never anywhere was there less 
 promise of a gracious and tender vegetation ; but 
 from some care in watering, and the shelter of their 
 place, the violets were superb. Straw had been put 
 about the roots of the roses, and the coming spring 
 and summer should be given to trenching and plant- 
 ing ; and failing the rain, so much desired, so long 
 due, the earth should be tapped at whatever cost for 
 her hidden supplies. Hazell was resolved upon per- 
 fection in every part of his estate. Surely the whole 
 energy, the whole determination, of a brave man 
 might do this ! 
 
 The egg lay in the straw under the rose-bushes. 
 It was pocketed, and the squatter walked to the 
 back of his premises to survey the hens. " A good 
 hundred of them, and not another of the pack, I 
 dare say, doing her duty," he told himself, and con- 
 cluded that he did not understand fowls. Such a 
 supply of maize and pollard, such an extent of run, 
 such a pother of pecking and clucking and hurrying,
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 29 
 
 and never an egg for his breakfast. Mrs. Brock 
 was so entirely in externals what a mature widow 
 should be, that her interior was no doubt suitably 
 wise and skilful, and above error as above pecula- 
 tion. Yet Hazell knew that one should beware of 
 widows. It might be well to write to Sydney for 
 the standard book on poultry-keeping, for the mas- 
 ter should know every detail of all that concerns 
 him. Yet the advice of some practical person is 
 surely, in all circumstances, the best value : one can 
 question, and get replies. Mrs. Bolitho, for instance, 
 an intelligent and vivacious woman of long expe- 
 rience, probably knew everything to be known 
 about fowls. Hazell frowned, and shook his head 
 impatiently, angry to find himself on the verge of 
 temptation. He poked about the wood-heap on the 
 chance of discovering another egg, then made his 
 way to the kitchen- garden, where Soy Ching was 
 watering. The industrious creature was alone, and, 
 in his native way, carried a large can on each end 
 of a long thin pole, which lay across his shoulders, 
 thus, bending forward, he poured a double stream 
 upon the rows of vegetables. His master watched 
 him a moment, then recollecting, called : 
 
 " Where's your mate ? Is he taking a holiday ? " 
 As though warned of his employer's habits, and 
 waiting for inspection, the mate, the ferret-faced 
 tramp, came from behind an out-house, where he 
 stood basking in the sun, and advanced full of 
 words : 
 
 " My intentions is quite straight, sir ; but a 'oli- 
 day is forced upon me, for 'ow kin a man work, sir,
 
 30 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 when 'is 'ands is all disabled with Bathurst burrs ? 
 It's work I desire, and am ready for ; but where I 
 come from last week, where I was doin' a bit o' 
 shearin', the fleece is alive with burrs, and I 'ad to 
 give 'em best, I 'ad, with my pore 'ands real ter- 
 rible and 'elpless, and I started to tramp to see 
 what the Bush 'd bring forth " 
 
 " Why do you offer to undertake work ? " inter- 
 rupted Hazell, looking sternly into the narrow-set, 
 shifty eyes before him. 
 
 " They was on the mend, sir, Gawd's trewth they 
 was, till I started to use 'em, carryin' cans for John 
 there, which made 'em start again crool, all cramped 
 like, for the burrs is in 'em still, and I reckon now 
 my best plan will be to let 'em fester out, and then, 
 if you're convenient, sir, I'd be pleased to make up 
 arrears o' work." The man held out a pair of curi- 
 ously-blotched hands unsightly, the fingers stiff- 
 ened, and continued plausibly: "You may call 
 yourself lucky, I kin assure you, sir, if you don't 
 never 'ave no trouble with these said burrs on the 
 run. There ain't no reason for their haction, like 
 the wind wherever it listeth, so that no man sayeth 
 where it cometh, or whence it goeth, and bringin' 
 down values to nothin', and eatin' their way, times, 
 right into the sheep's skin " 
 
 " If your hands are likely to be long in healing, I 
 don't see what good you can do here. The nearest 
 infirmary is the best place for you." 
 
 " You bein' a newcomer, sir, it's unknown to you 
 that infirmaries and such like ain't everywhere to 
 'and like the old country, but I might tramp a mort
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 31 
 
 o' miles, and then where would I get the ticket to 
 get in ? Now, what I was wishin' to say to you, 
 sir, since yesterday, that it'd be a favour and a kind 
 hact, and which you'd not repent, for me to stay on 
 here, where I am known to you." 
 
 " Known to me ! But that is exactly what you 
 are not, my man, except as a fellow with an ex- 
 traordinary gift of the gab." 
 
 " I 'ave been on the station three days with good 
 be'aviour, and that is not the case with any other 
 where I might tramp, for what can a man do in my 
 place but sundownin' ? and a new place every 
 night, and not able to earn my tucker for my pore 
 'ands, which is painful to the feelings." 
 
 Hazell disliked the speaker instinctively, but he 
 was just in his dealings. Inflamed wounds need 
 rest, and a few days' rations were of small cost, and 
 there was the trending to be done. He stood con- 
 sidering. The man watched his face, and read the 
 doubt of his mind. 
 
 " Luke Rennard is my name, sir, from Southamp- 
 tonshire ; bred to farm- work, and come out 'ere six 
 years since to better myself." 
 
 "I don't ask you any questions," said Hazell 
 shortly. 
 
 " It's Gawd's trewth, sir, what I tell you, as the 
 lady could answer who was with you the first 
 evenin' the lady with the 'air, sir, on 'orseback." 
 
 The watchful eyes were rewarded by seeing a 
 distinct pause as of the whole body of the master of 
 Burrabindar, who asked slowly : 
 
 " The lady ? Do you mean Miss Fletcher ? "
 
 32 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " I do mean 'er. I knew 'er when she were a 
 tiny mite. I knew 'er agin as soon as I see 'er, 
 though I 'adn't no reason to expect 'er bein' 'ere at 
 the Antipodys, as they say, and it did surprise me" 
 
 Hazell turned away, closing the subject. 
 
 " I shall consider that you owe me a week's work 
 when you can do it, and after that we shall see." 
 
 He strolled thoughtfully among Soy Ching's 
 careful furrows. 
 
 Really, the odds were not great, either way, in 
 having an extra man upon a station. What harm, 
 if so disposed, could he do ? No money lay about 
 for stealing, because coin is of little use in the 
 Bush, and with books or plate, marked sheep, or 
 branded horses, a thief could not get far uncaught, 
 nor make much of an exchange. Besides, if Miss 
 Fletcher did really know him, and would to some 
 extent vouch for him Again the call at Waina- 
 gatta seemed likely ; again, angrily, he put the idea 
 aside. What voucher did he want with an odd 
 employe ? If the rascal worked, he might stay ; if 
 idle, he should go that was all. 
 
 " You likee lettuce ? " inquired Soy Ching, draw- 
 ing near, seeing that his master prodded with his 
 stick in one of the trenches. 
 
 " Oh, very much oh yes ! I like some sort of 
 salad all the year round, please. Put in some more 
 when these are gone." 
 
 " Next after lettuce, japolikee," Soy Ching cor- 
 rected blandly. 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " Velly ni', japolikee."
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 33 
 
 " I don't know it. You needn't try any Chinese 
 vegetables. From the look of these trenches, I 
 should say they would do very well for asparagus." 
 
 "Allee same, japolikee," replied the gardener, 
 smiling broadly. " Winter lettuce, same place japo- 
 likee." 
 
 " I hope japolikee is better than it sounds, as it 
 seems there is some rule about it ; but, remember, I 
 want asparagus too," Hazell insisted. 
 
 "Allee same, japolikee," replied the Chinaman, 
 unmoved. 
 
 Hazell went indoors, wondering if there was a 
 grammar of pigeon-English, which he might order 
 with the work on poultry-farming. On every side 
 his attempted conduct of affairs seemed met with 
 tiny deadlocks. They must be broken. He was 
 resolved to know every particular of the estate. 
 People who had lived here a long time and em- 
 ployed Chinamen from the beginning would per- 
 haps know the meaning of this japolikee, which was 
 all the same. All the same, this pigtailed John 
 was right, devil take it ! His natural love for his 
 fellow-creatures and craving for their society was 
 none the weaker that he had renounced them all in 
 rage and come away here, to the very edge of hu- 
 man things, to occupy his life in practical imper- 
 sonal detail. It was intolerable ! It should not be 
 so ! He handed in his egg, took over his hot water, 
 and relieved the rapid congestion of his brain by 
 the parboiling of the rest of him. 
 
 As he sat at breakfast, clean and glossy, neatly 
 clothed in brown tweed, Mrs. Brock came in. ac-
 
 34: HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 cording to her morning custom, assumed a chair 
 near the door, and inquired his wishes for the day. 
 Her mien was perfectly reassuring, perfectly appro- 
 priate to her profession of housekeeping. Her 
 well-established stoutness was that which is ex- 
 pected in women of mature age ; her liberal chins, 
 smooth bands of hair, fat voice, and small grey 
 eyes, marked her as a suitable person to have the 
 care of an unrelated male. 
 
 " There is no post to-day to come back for, so I 
 shall ride to the top of the run, Mrs. Brock, and 
 look to the men at the fencing there. I shall not 
 be home, I expect, till about dinner-time. Please 
 give me a few biscuits and a pinch of tea and sugar 
 in my sandwich case." 
 
 Thus Hazell delivered himself, above the ruins of 
 porridge, ham, and the egg. 
 
 " One of your long rides, to be sure," said his 
 housekeeper soothingly. " And what do you fancy 
 for your dinner ? " 
 
 " Is there anything available besides mutton ? " 
 
 " To be sure, there's not such a great variety," 
 said Mrs. Brock cheerfully. " If we were sending 
 in, indeed, it's not beef day in Beulah ; and a fowl 
 you had yesterday " 
 
 "Well, there are worse things than mutton," 
 Hazell acquiesced, stretching an arm for the honey- 
 jar. 
 
 "Unless, indeed, it were the guinea-fowl that 
 strayed in this morning. Joe caught him, in prime 
 condition, as I judge. Could you fancy a guinea- 
 fowl, now, do you think, Mr. Hazell ? "
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 35 
 
 " No difficulty at all. But did you not say it had 
 strayed here, Mrs. Brock ? " 
 
 " There's no one else I know keeps guinea-fowls 
 but Mrs. Mum ford, the manager's wife at Brooksby 
 (you would have seen her at the funeral yesterday, 
 Mr. Hazell, a very nice little lady in a black beige 
 not that you would notice its being beige, of 
 course but they drive a flea-bitten grey), and the 
 birds are terrible for wandering which is my 
 drawback to them. You may have noticed that 
 there are none about the place the turkeys are 
 plague enough, goodness knows ! fully one person's 
 work to catch 'em. Of course, if it had come all 
 these miles from Brooksby, it might ha' come 
 further " 
 
 " But have I any right to eat Mrs. Mumford's 
 poultry ? " 
 
 " As to right, I couldn't say, I'm sure ; but the 
 bird, not being marked or in any way acknowl- 
 edged, is here in Burrabindar, and, nicely roasted, 
 is excellent eating. I'm partial to it myself." 
 
 " That decides me, then, Mrs. Brock. Legally I 
 am 'no doubt safe ; morally, if I deteriorate, you 
 will deteriorate with me ; and if at any time Mrs. 
 Mumford should come along full of inquiry, we will 
 confess and pay her the market value." 
 
 Hazell brushed his waistcoat free of crumbs, and 
 went to the mantelpiece to choose a pipe. 
 
 " There's no objection, I suppose, to my having 
 the buggy into Beulah to-day, Mr. Hazell, if you've 
 no other intentions for Joe ? " 
 
 " "Well, I had meant him to help in the garden, as
 
 36 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 that new vagabond is of no use for the present ; 
 but, of course, Mrs. Brock, if you really want 
 him " 
 
 "There's several things required from Proud- 
 foot's, Mr. Hazell." 
 
 " Oh, quite so ! It should be pleasant for driving 
 not too much wind." 
 
 " I wonder," thought Hazell, as he took his way 
 to the stables, " how many other curious creatures 
 will go to-day to gape at Proudf oot in his cage ? 
 cage, I dare say, of silent pride and awful suffering. 
 I don't grudge him the price of another sack of 
 maize. It may go as an offset to being nine days' 
 meat for human gadflies. Behaved badly ! Very 
 likely." 
 
 A strong, showy grey horse was waiting saddled 
 by the stable-door. He threw his leg over it, and 
 started quickly across the creek, in what for the last 
 few days he had called to himself Diana's Track. 
 Suddenly he spurred the animal to a canter, crying 
 aloud : 
 
 " Behaved badly, did he ? I tell you there are 
 times when a man has a right to behave badly ! " 
 
 Hour after hour, under a hot sun in a cloudless 
 sky, he rode through the run, for the most part at 
 the brisk walk in which Australian horses excel. 
 His course was devious, hither and thither, now to 
 inspect a mob of drab sheep scattered on a hillside, 
 and, from their colour, hard to be seen by an un- 
 practised eye; now intent on new lambs, which 
 greatly taxed his unskilled observation ; or dis- 
 mounting to help an awkward ewe which had fixed
 
 HEAETS IMPOETUNATE 37 
 
 herself in an impossible attitude, with her head 
 thrown back, and was prepared to die so. He went 
 off at a tangent here and there to see if the troughs 
 were supplied with rocksalt, and once he secured 
 the horse and spent some time with his tomahawk 
 about a grove of sapling gums undesired, vigorous 
 things which were pushing with all their might in 
 a half-cleared flat. It was his rule to pass nothing 
 that he could do himself, and it was only by slow 
 degrees and after noon that he reached the furthest 
 end of the run, where three men were setting a 
 wire fence to subdivide a large paddock. Except 
 for a few sunburnt children playing among the pigs 
 and poultry round a selector's hut, he had seen no 
 being of his own kind since leaving the homestead. 
 His way had been through stretches of pale scorched 
 grass, over dry and rocky hillsides, down deep, steep 
 gullies where the watercourse was dry and all alike 
 grown thinly with the grey eucalyptus. The colour 
 of the whole was extraordinarily dead and monot- 
 onous, and accentuated, rather than relieved, by the 
 occasional bloom of a wattle-bush. Here and there 
 the deadness of the scheme came to its climax in an 
 extent of dead timber, ring-barked years ago, stand- 
 ing gaunt and ashen, a weird vision of dry bones. 
 The wild, sunny silence was broken only by the 
 strange, detached notes of the Bush birds the 
 sharp quaver of the leatherhead, the chord of the 
 magpie, the lament of the carrion-crow, the mad 
 scream of the white cockatoo and now and again 
 a flock of paroquets, brilliant as jewels in their 
 glistening red and green, made a brief flight and
 
 38 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 much chatter from tree to tree. The untiring sun 
 had parched it all, bleached it all, drained it all, ex- 
 sanguine, and it was lonely beyond the dream of 
 the misanthrope. 
 
 Hazell chose a comfortable hollow at the side of a 
 creek, and collecting a few of the abundant fallen 
 twigs and boughs, with a tinder of the spicy leaves, 
 he made himself a fire and boiled his little billy. 
 He ate his biscuits, drank his tea, and lay down for 
 his midday sleep. It was a long one, and the light 
 was well to the west when he raised himself, chilly 
 and ill at ease, as sometimes a child from its morn- 
 ing nap, to take up the interrupted day. His pur- 
 pose seemed exhausted, his resolve inadequate, his 
 interest fallen ; his veins were dull with unconquer- 
 able melancholy, and the blackest care was his sad- 
 dle-companion. This he thought was the way he 
 had chosen out of all possible ways for his life to its 
 close : to ride solitary, year by year, through a wan 
 wilderness, to and from an unlovely solitary home, 
 where no one cared where there was no one who 
 could care ! No one was to blame ; it had been an 
 unhurried, voluntary choice, the purchase of this bit 
 of wilderness, neglected by former owners, cursed 
 by overmuch sunshine, which would need a sane 
 and strong master's entire thought and energy that 
 it might be made, after its fashion, fair. He had 
 thought of it as a healthy masculine work, worth 
 the doing, and by its difficulty likely to be absorb- 
 ing to the mind, and by its strangeness likely to 
 create new spirit within him. The old spirit that 
 of the keen soldier, the pleasant, prosperous man of
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 39 
 
 the world had become so full of pain and revolt, 
 so weary within him, that it had seemed best to let 
 it die, and though half his bodily span was already 
 measured, to raise another from its ashes and begin 
 again. But, if spirit were immortal, if its change, 
 to be radical, must be attempted earlier, or if in his 
 case it had been so forcibly and harshly moulded 
 and welded to one figure that it could never be- 
 come otherwise, then, to what purpose Burrabindar 
 and the struggle of it ? 
 
 The endless silence which had appeared so heav- 
 enly soothing to his longing when England and 
 Anglo-India gossiped of his name and his disgrace, 
 the solitude for which he had been so greedy, that 
 he might avoid the falseness of women, the contact 
 of happier men these were growing intolerable. 
 Why study the habits of fowls and the breeding of 
 sheep by day, if by night one sat brooding, brood- 
 ing, alive in the past, till far into the morning? 
 Better to have stayed among one's own kind, and 
 to have lived all down in human society, which so 
 soon forgets ; then the forgetting would have been 
 of his story, not of himself; now himself was 
 blotted out, but doubtless, when needed to point a 
 moral, the talk remained. In any case, moreover, 
 why this great estate ? Would it not have been 
 better to lounge out his rest of years on some sand- 
 fringed islet, lost in equatorial seas, where the lithe 
 brown people laugh to the silvery rustlings of the 
 palms, where needs are few, and languor loses count 
 of time ? If one is only to brood, and brood, and 
 brood, with hours of defying the lightnings, better
 
 40 HEAETS IMPOETUNATE 
 
 to do so in luxury and ease than with the strain and 
 burden added of a harassing career. If one did 
 really forget, in the complexities of the fowl-run 
 and the pig-paddock, then welcome farming, and 
 well spent thousands that have made one a farmer ! 
 But if one's sub-consciousness is fixed on memory, 
 and it is only one's thinnest surface that is moved 
 by these hateful meaningless creatures, then 
 "Hold up, miner! No dozing!" Though, why 
 not doze ? What should one hurry home for ? The 
 guinea-fowl for one, and the eternal evening by the 
 fire ? Click ! "Was that the sound of billiard-balls ? 
 Surely the sound is unmistakable. And yet, bil- 
 liard-balls here in the Bush ! What a fool one is ! 
 Drowsy Miner stumbles again, and the pannikin 
 rattles within the billy as they hang at the saddle. 
 A drifting mind reverts to a green cloth, and films 
 of tobacco-smoke curling about shaded lamps, and 
 the comely figures of well-set-up men, cheery from 
 the mess. 
 
 Five miles to the homestead from this line of she- 
 oaks, and the evening chill falling earlier, surely, for 
 surely the sun was setting earlier, if that could be 
 in the spring! The jackasses his own particular 
 jackasses will have done their laugh by the time 
 he reaches their bin, but the laugh will have been 
 there ! Indeed, he may hear it elsewhere, for there 
 is no lack of birds to mock, and no lack of folly for 
 them to mock at. How could she? Oh! how 
 could she ? He who loved her so ! Whose heart 
 had been consumed with tenderness and worship, 
 whom she knew to be her slave ! And they asked
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 41 
 
 him why he would not speak? He would never 
 speak. If she who knew him could bring so foul a 
 charge, he would scorn to meet it. " Ha-ha-ha-ha, 
 ho-ho-ho-ho, ha,ha,ha ! " There it comes the sun- 
 set laugh faintly from a distance, through the 
 cold, still air, where at hand a couple of fat birds 
 take it up, and fill one's brain with it, which is to 
 fill one's world. And so another day is over. Now 
 to eat guinea-fowl, and make good blood and muscle 
 to keep one going through another brooding night, 
 and on to another aimless morning aimless, except 
 for fencing and fowls and such excellent things. 
 Why eat ? Why do anything ? Why not die and 
 so forget ? 
 
 As midnight wore to dawn, Hazell came to a de- 
 termination with himself. This was his twentieth 
 evening as the master of Burrabindar. If by the 
 twenty-first no human fellowship had stemmed and 
 changed the clanging torrent of his thoughts, he 
 must go mad. Of course there was his gun; it 
 would do him the final service, but he had been so 
 far too proud for death, and he was not willing to 
 yield now. It might be that he could not bear the 
 life, however mitigated there had always been a 
 joke against him that he would rather hob-nob with 
 a drummer-boy than go alone but he would not 
 give it up so soon. She might hear, and guess him 
 beaten she ! Oh, that vixen, that splendid hunt- 
 ing Diana, who dazzled him with her crown of gold 
 and withered him with her rage against the sins of 
 men to women if she could only know that all the 
 sins of all the men to women were not equal to the
 
 42 HEAETS IMPOETUNATE 
 
 injury of that woman her, his wife to him, him- 
 self! 
 
 He was stiff with sitting. He left his chair and 
 kicked together the embers of the sinking fire. His 
 face was pale, and his brows knitted over his fierce 
 light eyes ; his hair, ruffled with impatient hands, 
 showed its thinness about the temples, and his head 
 was sunk from its fine customary poise. Yet a 
 shrewd spectator, understanding something of the 
 workings of the soul, might have noted, within the 
 worn and weary body, the virility of his passion, 
 and the sanity of his control of it, and might have 
 foretold victory, whatever his foe, if he would fight 
 on.
 
 CHAPTER IY 
 
 " A HANDSOME man ; and all my life I own it 
 I have felt more tenderly than not toward a hand- 
 some man." 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho was sitting in her drawing-room, 
 president at the table of afternoon-tea. She ad- 
 dressed herself to Avis Fletcher, who stood com- 
 paring skeins of silk with an elaborate embroidered 
 design, which for convenience of light and height 
 was pinned to the window-curtain. 
 
 "That is a side of you which I never under- 
 stand," she answered, " and I cannot believe it true. 
 It is not like the rest of you; it is a gross in jus- 
 tice." 
 
 " That," replied Mrs. Bolitho, " depends on whether 
 beauty is real or imaginary. If it is real, then it 
 has a real value, and the injustice would be to ig- 
 nore it, which is philosophy. But, as a matter of 
 solid fact, when I was a girl I know I should have 
 thought things very unjust if my good looks had 
 not met with a great deal of consideration. What 
 do you say, Spencer ? What do you think of the 
 Tightness or wrongness of admiring a pretty 
 woman ? " 
 
 She turned to the third person in the room 
 an old man of huge frame, thin and round-shoul- 
 dered with the weight of years, who sat in an arm- 
 chair by the fire, and watched it with drowsing 
 43
 
 44 HEAKTb IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 eyes. He roused himself at her question, and an- 
 swered, in the bluff, brisk tones of bygone fashion : 
 
 "What's that, eh, my dear? Think about a 
 pretty woman ? Of course, I always made a point 
 of thinkin' about a pretty woman as much as pos- 
 sible." 
 
 " Oh, of course you did," said Avis quickly, " and 
 I should have abominated you in those days. As it 
 is, I like you only because " 
 
 " Because the hair is grey, and his teeth are out, 
 and his claws are blunt, and there is a far-off ring 
 about the loudest of his roaring. I know, Miss Avis 
 I know." 
 
 There was regret in the old voice, and the hearers 
 of it paused an instant in respect, in answering 
 sympathy, and because the inevitable is ever met by 
 silence. Life had meant strength and gaiety and 
 gallantry for Spencer Bolitho, but at eighty -two 
 there comes quietness, and the veil faces one. Often 
 in the past it has flapped with the winds of destiny 
 till we seemed almost to touch it ; often the tides 
 of fortune have swirled us almost to its turn before 
 they receded with us, and we were drawn into a 
 safer current. 
 
 The master of "Wamagatta, one of the halest and 
 the least thoughtful of men, looked into the flaming 
 logs before him, and saw them dark with the com- 
 ing mist. Leaning on her stick, his wife left her 
 chair to bring a cup of tea, and stood by him, say- 
 ing nothing, carefully arranging a spoon and a piece 
 of cake in the saucer, and devoting a minute to the 
 careful balancing of the whole on his gaunt knee.
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 45 
 
 He was twenty years older than she, and for twice 
 that length of time they had lived together ; but 
 all her romance lay about him, and she grudged its 
 passing away. It is often so, surely, with the wives 
 of handsome, older men. One expects however 
 much one regrets, one does not resent the death of 
 the aged, who at their best are delightful figures of 
 reminiscence ; but they stand, in all their dryness, 
 the sole embodiment of all the bloom and the beauty 
 of life for the women who have loved them who 
 for love's sake and of keen sympathy have in many 
 ways aged with them, and grown graver than their 
 years whose hearts are often still fresh, and their 
 fancy unwearied. 
 
 " You will not go to Sydney, then, Avis ? " said 
 Mrs. Bolitho, returning to the tea-table. 
 
 " I will not, though I foresee years of correspond- 
 ence before I can get silks of the exact tones I want. 
 'Country orders faithfully executed,' indeed! I 
 wish I could draw up a few shop advertisements ; 
 there should be some show of truth about them." 
 
 " But the world, my dear Avis, loves to be de- 
 ceived. No one would go near your shops." 
 
 " I assure you, aunty, I would be judicious. In- 
 stead of ' Country orders faithfully executed,' I 
 would say, ' Approximations from stock in hand at 
 increased values for the benefit of country custo- 
 mers.' There is a grandiose ring about that which 
 would attract many ah ! and not the rustic only, 
 believe me. Yet such an announcement would 
 morally cover the action of the tradesman who, 
 when you write to him, ' Have you the pink pearl
 
 46 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 trimming of the bonnet of the latest fashion ? ' re- 
 plies in this style of Ollendorff, * No, but I have the 
 blue Ugly of the bathing-wife of old Brighton,' 
 which he sends you, which you probably accept and 
 wear, and your friends in admiration try to secure 
 the like." 
 
 "Ah, she can't talk at all, Miss Avis," said Mr. 
 Bolitho, and rose slowly. " I must have my after- 
 noon walk round. I suppose you won't come with 
 me, young lady, as you are puttin' out your fine 
 eyes with that nasty needlework ? If there's any- 
 thin' I hate, it is to see a charmin' woman doin' 
 needlework." 
 
 " No, I shall not come. If there's anything I 
 hate, it is to be called a charming woman, or any 
 kind of woman qua woman," replied Avis. 
 
 " It's a thing, my dear, you're likely to have to 
 put up with very frequently in the course of your 
 life," answered the old gentleman dryly, and patted 
 her cheek with his big bony hand as he passed with 
 the stiff short steps of age out of the room. 
 
 "I wish there were no men and no women," 
 cried Avis ; " only a kind of intelligent and slightly 
 materialized angel." 
 
 " My constitution is not adapted for that kind of 
 world," answered Mrs. Bolitho, " and I should find 
 it dull. Taking them all round, I like men, and, as 
 I said before, I like them handsome." 
 
 " I reject the temptation of good looks ; it leads 
 only to folly. Here is this newcomer at Burrabin- 
 dar, of whom you know nothing, except that he 
 must have more money than wit to buy that great
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 4T 
 
 neglected run-to-waste property, and you definitely 
 commit yourself to liking him because his appear- 
 ance pleases you. He seemed to me more than 
 usually full of the usual male fallacies and fatuities, 
 and I can't think why you insisted on his promise 
 to come here." 
 
 " I am not like you, Avis ; I find my fellow-crea- 
 tures the best of books, and they afford me the 
 change and excitement which I need, which used 
 to be so dear to me used to be, I say." A ripple 
 of vivacity ran over Mrs. Bolitho's face, making 
 her a generation younger. " Wouldn't I go to 
 Sydney if I had no leg, and no Spencer, and no 
 conscience ! Haven't I been through the Cup week 
 here and in Melbourne in the flourishing old times, 
 when money flowed like water? Right through 
 the whole programme all the garden-parties, all 
 the dinner-parties, every dance of all the balls, from 
 first to last, and come up smiling at the end." 
 
 " Oh, you're made of mercury," Avis laughed. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho continued in the liveliest fashion : 
 
 " And when I was in Europe, didn't I do more 
 than any New Yorker? Rome, Paris, Constanti- 
 nople, the Kremlin, the Waters of Hercules, the 
 Jungfrau. And for two months of a London sea- 
 son I never flagged, though I nearly died of the 
 stuffy heat, and when I had time to think of it, 
 for longing for a breath of my native Bush. There 
 was one great and never-to-be-forgotten day ; you 
 know all about it, I know. But it is my one claim 
 to fame my record day, when I began as soon as 
 the doors opened with the Royal Academy. I
 
 48 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 went through all the rooms faithfully with the cata- 
 logue. When I got to the sculpture, I was seized 
 with a sudden rage of toothache, and rushed round 
 to a dentist in Savile Row, and had the offending 
 member out. I remember how unwilling the man 
 was; I remember how I insisted. It was Derby 
 Day, and I could not afford to spoil my first Derby 
 for the matter of a molar. Well, it was out. I 
 tore back to the hotel, and put on a brand-new 
 frock. I can see it now ; it was of cream-clouded 
 muslin, with an exquisite fawn-coloured sprig, and 
 a bonnet and parasol in fawn-cream to match. I 
 met the two Bolithos at Hatchard's such a party 
 of us ! and off we set to Epsom. Lord ! the first- 
 comer we tooled, I forgot the hole in my jaw ; the 
 first glass of champagne and I could have given 
 every grinder in my head for the joy of it all. 
 Back we came, and dined with the Budleigh Boli- 
 thos, and went to Berlioz's 'Faust' at Covent 
 Garden ; and at midnight, strung up to the wildest 
 pitch of excitement, unconscious of any fatigue 
 whatever, I went off to the Clancarries' dance with 
 the only survivors of our party of twenty May 
 Moneypenny and her husband." 
 
 " When I hear that story," said Avis, " I feel 
 bruised from tip to toe, as though I had been half 
 an hour on a buck-jumper. Tell me you got to bed, 
 and calm my mind." 
 
 " I did get to bed about half-past three Spencer 
 had been snoring there for hours ; he had been 
 dead to the world since dinner and I slept like a 
 new-born baby. Ah ! those were good days ! "
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 49 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho's keen brown face sparkled, and the 
 little stray hairs that escaped from the level of the 
 rich iron-grey roll that semicircled her head seemed 
 to curl more crisply as she spoke. When interested 
 or amused, she seemed for the moment much as 
 she had ever been in her youngest days, a little 
 slim brown woman, of a most captivating vivacity 
 and a most unwearying wit. 
 
 " Well," said Avis, " I am quite twice your size, 
 and my movements are proportionately slower. 
 An elephant cannot fly round like a mouse." 
 
 " But he should do what he can. Is it the men 
 of Sydney you object to ? " 
 
 " The men and the women and the whole business 
 of pleasure. I object, and I do not object. What 
 is called society does not amuse me, that is all. 
 Really, auntie, by this time, is there any need to 
 say this again ? " 
 
 " My dear," answered Mrs. Bolitho, with a change 
 to seriousness, " you should not let one injury spoil 
 your whole life." 
 
 Avis winced as though she had been struck ; her 
 face altered. For a few seconds she had no con- 
 sciousness ; then, speaking almost at random, 
 "How can you judge?" she asked. "What are 
 you judging from ? " And she added hastily : " I 
 admit no injury." 
 
 Her companion continued very earnestly : 
 
 " Do you know, I think strength shows itself chiefly 
 in power of recovery. I think life means recovery." 
 
 " Nevertheless, all things die," answered Avis, 
 with returning self-command.
 
 50 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " Yes, as they lose vitality, recuperative energy. 
 My dear, there should be no weakness about you, 
 except, perhaps, the weakness of too much force. 
 Oh, my dear, when I look at you, I see what I have 
 always longed to be I, a little black runt all my 
 days. How I have longed at night when I went to 
 bed that I might wake up in the morning and find 
 myself big and fair and golden splendid, like you 
 are ! Why, it's pure gold that you have in your 
 veins, the most precious and ductile of metals, yet 
 you are daunted at the outset." 
 
 " How daunted ? " Avis interrupted. " Am I not 
 happy in my own way ? Have I not health and 
 many interests, and new pursuits whenever I tire of 
 old ones ? " 
 
 Mrs. Eolith o broke in with an expressive wave of 
 her hand : 
 
 " Yes, yes ; you ride and read and spin and sew 
 and fiddle, and you cling to the Bush and make a 
 religion of your love for it ; but you are not first 
 nor last a rider nor a reader, nor any of the other 
 things, and you are cramping and starving your 
 heart deliberately." 
 
 " I cannot think what you mean by talking to me 
 like this. Starving, when I have you and Uncle 
 Bolitho and the children to care for I Cramping, 
 when I am continually learning something fresh ! " 
 
 " Dear child, you love us all, I know it ; and as 
 for your accomplishments, soon there will be no 
 end to them. You have grown by the width of a 
 whole temperament since you came to us eight 
 years ago. All the more reason that you should
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 51 
 
 not shut yourself away from your fellow-creatures 
 and the world they live in. There are scholars, 
 Avis, and there are saints, and there are stupids ; 
 but you are none of the three. You cannot do 
 what you were born to do in a library, nor in a 
 convent, nor in what Elspeth calls a * hidie-hole.' " 
 
 " I am only an ordinary being," Avis put in ; but 
 she left the window and walked restlessly about 
 the room, jerking a skein of silk held by the end in 
 either hand. 
 
 " I know what you are. I have been studying 
 human nature for the last twenty years, ever since 
 this lameness put a stop to my careering about. 
 Oh ! the human documents that have been offered 
 for my reading in this room ! And I see now, look- 
 ing back, that my comment upon almost all of 
 them amounted to this, 'Forget it, and go on.' 
 There was your stepfather, Eddy Bengough: he 
 had much to say for himself at one time ; but when 
 he came here with your mother after their mar- 
 riage, it seemed to me that he had gone on to his 
 heart's desire. The truth is this : I think every one 
 ought to marry. People have told me, people at 
 home in England, that it is because I am of a new 
 country, where life is comparatively simple and re- 
 duced to its elements." 
 
 " I agree with them," said Avis shortly. " Rules 
 are made for the rule, for the rank and file, not for 
 the exception. Civilization develops and protects 
 the exception." 
 
 " Maybe ; but my opinion holds good for an over- 
 whelming majority, as the newspapers say. The
 
 52 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 mass of people ought to marry. Men and women 
 were made for each other. I look upon an unmar- 
 ried person as an unfinished thing. Not that I 
 would have a woman go man-hunting not for all 
 the joys of the most joyous marriage, not to escape 
 the gloom of the gloomiest celibacy. What I say 
 is this in the style of that lovely proverb, ' Don't 
 'ee marry for money, but go where money is' 
 never run after a husband, but go where husbands 
 are to be met. Now, they are not, Avis, to be 
 found here in this particular bit of Bush." 
 
 "Prince Charming might ride this way," said 
 Avis scornfully. 
 
 " He is more likely to be in his proper place at 
 Court. My dear, I want you to go to Court." 
 
 "And take my stand in the anxious ranks of 
 ladies who await the throwing of his handkerchief. 
 Gods and little fishes ! " 
 
 " It is Prince Charming you are speaking of. He 
 sues on bended knee." 
 
 "I suppose he does not remain there perma- 
 nently ? And then, to quote your beloved Thack- 
 eray, when he gets up he goes away. I will quote 
 my beloved Shakespeare, and prefer to endure the 
 ills that I have, rather than fly to others that I 
 know not of. And while I am on the quotation 
 tack, auntie, there is an excellent saying which be- 
 longed to Hannah at Uncle Tom's : 
 
 " ' Was well, 
 
 Would be better, 
 Took medicine, 
 And died.' "
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 53 
 
 " Score to you, my dear." Mrs. Bolitho laughed. 
 " Why have I never heard that before ? But no, I 
 will not be put off with epigrams. I am quite seri- 
 ous. You must some time think of your own future. 
 What does it promise ? You stand here, as it were, 
 between the living and the dead ; between the two 
 dear children, who are living enough, thank Heaven ! 
 and Spencer and me, who are each, even as Job, a 
 dry tree. What will you do when we are gone ? I 
 am sure Caradon and Pheenie would be glad to 
 have you here. No ? I know, of course, you 
 would say no. Will you go home to England ? 
 Will you take up a selection, or try a small place of 
 your own ? Will you go to Sydney ? Well, then, 
 what will you do ? " 
 
 Avis was silent. Mrs. Bolitho persisted. 
 
 " It's not even, you know, as though you were 
 making friends for yourself, who would receive you 
 gladly into their houses. You hold yourself aloof 
 from the Railtons, and Paultons, and Snowes. 
 They pipe, and you do not dance ; they smile, and 
 you yawn ; they beckon, and you do not come. 
 There is no offence like this. If you were poor and 
 mean-looking, they could call you shy or jealous ; 
 being what you are, they call you haughty, they 
 fear you contemptuous, and they dislike you ac- 
 cordingly. An aristocracy, whether of birth or in- 
 tellect, is critical and captious, and appreciates the 
 stimulus of a difference ; a democracy resents it. 
 To the mass of mankind the unpardonable sin is to 
 be different. I have said it before, and you must 
 forgive my saying it again, I cannot bear the
 
 54: HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 thought that one who has so much should deliber- 
 ately bring upon herself a future in which she may 
 have so little." 
 
 Avis made no answer. She did not seem to hear 
 her. Her face was very pale, and her lips were set 
 till the wave was passed out of them ; her eyes were 
 introspective. Once or twice she stopped in her 
 swinging walk through the room, looked into the 
 fire, looked through the window, then went on 
 again, jerking the skein of silk, as though she were 
 alone. Her companion watched her, anxious to fol- 
 low the working of her mind, disturbed by the dis- 
 turbance her words had brought about. 
 
 "Is it so important?" she asked; but the girl 
 gave her no heed, and at length she took her stick, 
 and went to her, laying a detaining hand gently on 
 the strong young arm, and saying: "My child, 
 you have two mothers, you know, for I have no 
 daughter, and you must let me speak to you as 
 though you were really my own. I feel, you know, 
 as if you were, for the dear woman you belong to 
 is so far away." 
 
 Avis answered her wildly : 
 
 "You don't understand. The world is not the 
 same to me as to other girls." 
 
 She tried to pace on again in her walk, but Mrs. 
 Bolitho held her with a touch so gentle that she 
 stayed for it. 
 
 " Eight years, Avis eight years," she urged. 
 
 " Or eighteen or eighty ! " cried Avis scornfully. 
 
 "But a death-wound should heal with you in 
 eight years."
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 55 
 
 " Grant it healed there are differences. No, 
 auntie, you are wise and sweet ; dear auntie ! " She 
 softened suddenly, and rested her hands on the little 
 black silk shoulders so far below her own, and 
 looked affectionately into the small brown face. 
 " Dear auntie, let me go my own way. I am con- 
 tent here ; I can breathe. There are no prying 
 eyes in the gum-trees, and no jealousies in your 
 house. This for the present, and for the future, it 
 must take care of itself. When the sap rises in me, 
 and I want to go forth and do silly things spend 
 mad days like your first Derby Day ; start across 
 the Continent on a bicycle Hajji or Pilgrim shall 
 gallop it out of me, and I will come back and spin 
 to you. Don't shake your head. After all, what is 
 your alternative ? The incessant dressing, the 
 eternal smiling, the insatiable jealousies, the im- 
 measurable weariness of living among a lot of peo- 
 ple who don't care one halfpenny for one, whom 
 one never wants to see again." 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho laughed. 
 
 " Oh, you can talk, my dear talk so well. And 
 only I to hear you ! " 
 
 There was a sound of voices outside. With a fine 
 gesture of mock resignation, Avis pointed through 
 the window to the drive, where the huge, stooping 
 figure of Mr. Bolitho walked slowly in conversation 
 with Ralph Hazell, broad, erect, in his prime of 
 strength.
 
 CHAPTER Y 
 
 " ME. HAZELL tells me he comes by your invita- 
 tion, my love, but I tell him we are always happy 
 to see our neighbours most happy, I'm sure. Do 
 you drink tea, sir, in the afternoon, or will you take 
 somethin' stronger ? " 
 
 Mr. Bolitho brought in the newcomer to his 
 wife, and the great frame, for all that the younger 
 was a big man, stood large above him, aged though 
 it was. In spite of the cordiality of the hostess, 
 the visitor showed a shade of embarrassment as he 
 seated himself. Miss Fletcher, standing near the 
 fire, had so contrived that, without actual rudeness, 
 she had met him only by a bow. He felt that, as 
 much as she was concerned, he was to come no 
 farther, and with a little inward burst of blasphemy, 
 
 he asked himself " Why the d had he come at 
 
 all ? " yet he was delighted to be there. The room 
 was charming. It had the comfort of a place 
 meant for everyday life, and a grace that was in- 
 tended for the pleasure of guests. A warm smell 
 of violets was in the air ; there were good water- 
 colour drawings on the walls ; the furniture, for the 
 most part of fine French walnut, was something out 
 of the common in design ; the old-fashioned silver 
 of the tea-service was radiant with careful tend- 
 ance. Hazell's experience of station-houses was not 
 so large that he could know how far this in taste 
 
 56
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 5T 
 
 and delicacy was above the greater number of them. 
 But comparatively with his own unlovely home he 
 felt himself in a palace. 
 
 " No, I had no difficulty in finding my way," he 
 answered to a question from Mrs. Bolitho. " I have 
 a general sense of direction it is quite a sixth 
 sense, you know ; I have found it very useful in 
 many circumstances. Prowling round on the 
 chance of meeting a boar, now, for instance, in the 
 Himalayas, in an uncommonly dark hour before 
 dawn, several of us would have been permanently 
 accounted for, if it had not been for my instinct of 
 direction. Have you ever done any pig-sticking, 
 Mr. Bolitho ? " 
 
 Hazell was nervous, and talked rapidly. 
 
 " A little in Queensland, sir ; my experience of 
 countries is limited to England and Australia. In 
 my days a West Countryman who had no particular 
 curiosity as to foreign ways stayed mostly at home." 
 
 " Indeed, you have everything in the West Coun- 
 try to keep you there mild climate, lovely scenery, 
 keen sportsmen. I remember a first-rate day with 
 the Devon and Somerset " 
 
 " Do you indeed, sir ! " Mr. Bolitho broke in 
 heartily. " I foresee that you and I will be great 
 friends ; many's the run I have had with them, and 
 after the fox with the Dartmoor and the North 
 Cornwall. Lord ! who'd think it now ? It takes 
 all I know to keep me on an old quiet horse in a 
 great stock-saddle with great knee-pads ; my grip is 
 about gone." 
 
 "Don't be unreasonable, Spencer! You have
 
 58 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 gripped enough in your time. In his wild days, 
 Mr. Hazell, before I had him under my wing, my 
 husband was a noted steeplechaser." 
 
 "Have I come among centaurs here?" asked 
 Hazell, with a smile. " Miss Fletcher also seems to 
 be past mistress of the horse." He spoke of her 
 that he might openly look toward her. In the quiet 
 colouring of the room her hair made a spot of splen- 
 dour, as the sun will do in the murk of a London 
 sky in winter. He noticed that it grew low on her 
 forehead, wavy from the roots, and that she wore it 
 brushed so loosely back that it rippled over the edge 
 of her ear. He could not take his eyes from it. 
 She glanced indifferently and made no comment. 
 Mrs. Bolitho hastened in politely asking him to 
 name his favourite sport. 
 
 " I am best with a gun," Hazell answered. 
 
 "Eh? what's that you say gun? Then you 
 have come to the wrong part of the world, I fear, 
 sir. No game worth the name here, sir poison the 
 rabbits and 'possums, and pay so much a scalp for 
 kangaroos and wallabies, and all the rest of 'em. 
 Killed anyhow. No, no game ; but Miss Fletcher, 
 now, is just uncommon clever with a pistol ; she can 
 give most people fifty in a hundred and beat 'em in 
 a canter." 
 
 " I hope I may some day have the advantage of 
 being beaten. Miss Fletcher seems to do every- 
 thing well." 
 
 " Miss Fletcher is a restless creature, and spends 
 her time learning new things," answered the lady 
 in question impatiently.
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 59 
 
 Hazell took her hint and changed the talk to 
 himself. 
 
 " That's what I am trying to do every minute of 
 the day just now to learn new things ; I own I 
 find it hard. Your Bush, Mrs. Bolitho, is a strange 
 language to me, and I have been thinking lately 
 that I am too old to attack it." 
 
 " My husband, having spent one fortune at home, 
 came out here to make another, when he was, I sup- 
 pose, about your age, Mr. Hazell but few things 
 are harder to guess than the age of people one 
 meets. I have long ago given up dogmatising on 
 the subject. Look at me ! I dare say you have 
 actually written me down a hundred ! Well, I as- 
 sure you I am a mere sixty-one, a warm-blooded, 
 lightsome sixty-one." Mrs. Bolitho laughed, sighed, 
 and laughed again, and added : " It is perhaps the 
 chief good of advancing years that one can say ex- 
 actly what one wants to say." 
 
 " I never knew you do otherwise, my love," said 
 Mr. Bolitho, catching the last sentence. " I gen- 
 erally take a crawl about the place, sir, for an hour 
 or so, to get an appetite for my dinner ; will you 
 accompany me ? " 
 
 Hazell wondered and admired, and was filled al- 
 ternately with hope and despair as he made a slow 
 round of the homestead of Wamagatta. It was one 
 of the largest and most highly-beautiful and im- 
 proved estates in the colony. For a mile or two in 
 all directions about the house the grass-land had 
 been cleared to absolute cleanness and smoothness, 
 large gum-trees, chosen for their size and kind, being
 
 60 HEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 left at intervals, so that, allowing for diiference of 
 herbage and colouring, the effect was somewhat that 
 of an English park. North and west of the house 
 a thick, long double row of pines protected ten 
 acres from the fierce dry winds that blow from the 
 interior of the continent, and these acres were so 
 arranged by Mr. Bolitho's wish that fruit and flow- 
 ers, shrubs, playgrounds, and vegetables, were close 
 upon and among each other. Great mulberry-trees 
 and fig-trees flourished along one side of the tennis- 
 court ; the trellised vine-walks on the other side 
 divided it from the rosary, beyond which was the 
 orchard. In clear view from the drawing-room 
 was a plantation of oleanders and wattle, and a line 
 of laburnums and peach-trees, the latter planted en- 
 tirely for the sake of their bloom. Near the veran- 
 dah was an abundance of carnations, violets, mi- 
 gnonette, and other hardy, sweet-smelling flowers, 
 which could bear the severe frosts of the winter and 
 yet be kept alive by careful watering during the 
 summer. But Hazell knew that pleasure-grounds 
 were a small part of Australian farming compara- 
 tively of no more importance than the icing to the 
 cake. A permanent water-supply and a couple of 
 clever Chinamen were really all that was needed for 
 them. The spacious stone dwelling-house, the ex- 
 tent of the outbuildings and stables and steading 
 generally, added to his recollection of such of the 
 run as he had already seen in his coming, its clear- 
 ness from timber, the efficiency of its fencing, and, 
 turning to his host, he said at length, with a smile : 
 " Like the Queen of Sheba, I have no more spirit
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 61 
 
 in me. It is my hope to do all with Burrabindar 
 that may be done with any station whatsoever ; but 
 when I think of it, and look at this by Jove ! " 
 
 " You are quite right, sir. I am infernally sorry 
 for you with Burrabindar. Fact is, David Snowe, 
 who had it before you, shockin' drinkin' man 
 whole place goin' to rack and ruin for the last ten 
 years. Nothin' goin' in all goin' out. Ten years ! 
 Ay, fully that, and ten years in the Bush, sir, where 
 we deal with miles, not acres, as we do at home, 
 and it takes us all we know to keep up with things 
 fences and suckers, and all that. Had his ex- 
 cuses, though. David Snowe, only son, fine young 
 fellow as ever I saw, swept away crossing a creek 
 flood-time foolhardy. Snowe never held up his 
 head afterward except to drain his glass ha, 
 ha!" 
 
 " They said I got it cheap," pursued Hazell ; "but 
 when I think of the thousands that ought to be 
 spent on it, I am disposed to call it dear." 
 
 " Don't take Wamagatta as a standard, or you 
 may run to a million. "Why, this must be nearly as 
 old as I am. It was a fine place when I came out 
 first with an introduction to Major Bullpet, my 
 wife's father his place my wife his only child." 
 
 Hazell bowed. " But you have gone on improv- 
 ing," he said. 
 
 " Yes, oh yes, certainly. But you see, sir, I had 
 the advantage of marryin' not only a very charmin', 
 but a very clever and practical woman. Never was 
 very clever myself ; very little good at Greek and 
 Latin ; best in the pigskin, you know. But Mrs.
 
 62 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 Bolitho, born Australian, born Bush-woman, she 
 knew and she understood, and she loved every stick 
 of the place. Always ridin' over it from her child- 
 hood with her father, and bein' very intelligent 
 those were the days to make the money, too. By 
 gum ! I'll say we don't swear these times by 
 gum ! the money came in then." 
 
 " As it will never do again, I imagine." 
 
 " Never, sir. Wool will never again fetch one 
 and sixpence a pound unscored. If it should, you 
 could set fountains to play on the lawn of Burra- 
 bindar, and build yourself courts for royal tennis. 
 You will like to see the stables, of course ? " 
 
 They were of brick, and could have held twenty 
 horses. At the moment seven or eight were stalled. 
 
 "Two of these are Miss Fletcher's," said Mr. 
 Bolitho ; " been in all the winter, and this sort of 
 dry spring they are likely to stay in. She likes 'em 
 high fed." 
 
 "I recognise the chestnut," said Hazell, as a big 
 bright animal turned a full and lively eye upon him 
 from the rack. He saw the sunset again, and the 
 hatless rider with her golden head. " Tall horse 
 plenty of power." 
 
 " Blood and bone, both, sir ; carry a man sixteen 
 stone ; gave twenty-five pounds for her three years 
 ago ; takes a fence like a bird." 
 
 " This is an Arab." Hazell moved to the next 
 compartment. 
 
 " Cert'nly can't mistake the shoulders. Missy 
 has a craze for a mount with brains. Hajji she 
 calls him ; says he knows everythin' ; says Arabs
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 63 
 
 know twice as much as "Western-bred horses. 
 Would make a first-class polo pony, Hajji ; but 
 ladies don't play polo yet." 
 
 " I remember a ladies' match in India." 
 
 " You surprise me ! Was it any good ? " 
 
 " There was fine riding, but rather much of hum- 
 bug, settling this and that hair coming down, and 
 so forth. Perhaps the ladies felt that a few details 
 of the kind were expected of them as ladies. It 
 struck me at the time, I remember, that if they 
 could have forgotten they were ladies, they might 
 have played polo." 
 
 Mr. Bolitho had no mental turn for hair-splitting. 
 
 " Lady should never forget herself," he replied 
 off-hand. "Pretty woman never looks so well, 
 though, as on horseback, in my opinion. That's 
 Mustang, my old hunter, in the end stall, only horse 
 I ever mount nowadays ; paces like velvet, steady 
 as time, understands me. Good boy, Mustang, 
 good boy ! The stranger, I take it, is your own, 
 Mr. Hazell ? Fully up to your weight, I should 
 say. The rest are the drivin' horses. Gettin' dark, 
 isn't it ? I like to be in before the light goes, if 
 you don't mind." 
 
 As they neared the house, they were met by de- 
 lightful voices, the artless noise and unmeasured 
 laughter of children, and the mixed chiding and 
 cooing of an attendant adult. 
 
 " Oh, Boyah ! Boyah ! what a beautiful Boyah ! 
 Avis's own Boyah ! And a naughty, wriggling 
 Boyah, too ! Must he get down, then ? Yery well, 
 then, Dot shall have the fairy story told all into
 
 64: HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 her own ear, the right ear, the curly-wurly ear. 
 Boyah mustn't hear a word of it because he can't 
 keep still." 
 
 Delicious tones, sweet, warm. Hazell paused in 
 the verandah to hear them, and his hand gripped the 
 railing, for it was the hand of a sore-hearted, for- 
 lorn man, outside all the exquisite abounding ten- 
 derness of the life of his kind. 
 
 " Rer-rer-rer-rer ! " the gay, rude exhibition of 
 extreme youth found utterance. 
 
 " Aunty Avis ! deah Avis ! I can't hear the story 
 if Boyah makes such a noise." 
 
 " Rer-rer-rer-rer ! " again, and a roll of bangs and 
 thumps. 
 
 " No, I see," said soft reproof ; " Boyah must 
 spend his good-night hour with the pigs, then Dot 
 will be able to enjoy her fairy story. There was a 
 story about a cobbold a cobbold who stole the 
 cheese that was put in the trap for the mouse, and 
 brought it every morning to the poor prisoner in 
 the dungeon who had no food no food at all, poor 
 prisoner! and kept him alive. Dot can hear the 
 story to-morrow, when Boyah will be with the 
 pigs, hearing nothing but ' whomph.' Never mind, 
 Dot will have a song : 
 
 " ' Song of a merry maid weeping, mum, 
 
 Whose eye was sad, and whose mouth was glum ; 
 Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb, 
 For she wanted a tale of a fairy.' " 
 
 Hunting Diana fooling like a mere Dryad, 
 voicing the sheer, surging, thoughtless joy of being ! 
 The two men looked through the uncurtained win-
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 65 
 
 dow and saw in the firelight the three at play. 
 Miss Fletcher, sitting on the armchair, was swing- 
 ing up a chubby little girl out of the reach of a 
 chubbier, smaller boy, whose fatness was insecurely 
 supported on broad white legs, whose upturned 
 head displayed a mat of yellow hair. 
 
 " My grandchildren orphans, I am sorry to say," 
 Mr. Bolitho explained hastily, and led the way in 
 upon them. 
 
 Miss Fletcher ceased her fooling immediately, 
 and Dot was sent to find Mrs. Bolitho. 
 
 " She has an antipathy for me," thought Hazell, 
 and sat silent before Diana, making dumb advances 
 of the hand to Boyah, who sang on " Rer-rer ! " and 
 beat upon the floor with the handle of a broken 
 paper-knife, and gave no heed to the silly grown-up 
 person, who, like all grown-up persons, laid himself 
 out to gain attention the moment he appeared. 
 
 " Not wanted, of course. Oh, the old days twenty 
 years ago, when I was welcome anywhere ! Very 
 good. I'll go back to my sty and stay there," 
 thought Hazell, and fixed his rejected hand in his 
 jacket-pocket. Mrs. Bolitho, however, flouted the 
 suggestion. 
 
 " What ! Let a stranger, a squatting neighbour, 
 moreover, leave us at this hour and go back unfed 
 to his own place ! It be would high treason to 
 Australian hospitality ! One can see you are a 
 poor, stiff-necked, stuck-up Englishman ! You will 
 sleep under this roof to-night isn't that so, Spen- 
 cer?" 
 
 She raised her voice.
 
 66 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " Most cert'nly, my dear, most cert'nly," said Mr. 
 Bolitho vaguely from the dark corner of the sofa, 
 where he sat with his head sunk on his great chest, 
 dozing again. 
 
 Hazell objected with a smile that he had no 
 change of clothes, and was still so stuck-up and 
 stiff-necked that he could not be comfortable during 
 an evening in ladies 1 presence, wearing the rough 
 suiting of the day. 
 
 " I like your civilisation," cried the hostess ; " but 
 I can satisfy it. Do you think there has been a 
 household of men of hospitable Australian men, 
 mind you for the last half-century, and that de- 
 cent threadbare black male garments are not to be 
 found in it ? My husband will not offer you his, 
 he is such an elephant ; but there are some that will 
 fit you. Do you doubt my eye, Mr. Hazell ? You 
 have never been a little small creature, who looked 
 curiously and enviously at every one of more stature 
 than yourself. I can tell to the half of an inch how 
 many inches you boast above mine." 
 
 A tall old woman, witch-like, lean, with a colour- 
 less, wrinkled face, appeared unceremoniously at 
 the door, and cried in a high Scotch tone that it 
 was time and mair that the bairnies cam' awa' to 
 their beds. 
 
 "To be sure, Elspeth. Say good-night a nice 
 lady and gentleman good-night, Dot and Boyah, 
 and go like good dears. Mr. Hazell, you needn't 
 kiss them if you would rather not." 
 
 " I am afraid they would rather not kiss me," he 
 replied, with unusual intelligence.
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 67 
 
 But Dot came immediately with childish coquetry 
 and hitched herself on to his knee, and looked at 
 him searchingly, and composed her wide mouth 
 into the form proper to osculation. 
 
 " Rer-rer-rer ra-a-ah ! " yelled Boyah, caught up 
 from the rug and borne away, naughty, impolite, 
 full of protest at the exchange from warmth and 
 movement and impunity to the ordeal of the bath 
 and the nothingness and silence of the nightly 
 sheets. 
 
 "Your whiskers are soft," was the unexpected 
 declaration of Dot. " I like your whiskers. 
 Grandpa's hurt me." 
 
 Elspeth strode across and swept off the child, 
 whose hands were making free with the visitor's 
 short beard, and he was thankful for the insuffi- 
 ciency of the light, which could not betray to Miss 
 Fletcher his ridiculous youthful blush. She, how- 
 ever, did not look at him. She followed the chil- 
 dren, and Hazell's pale-grey eyes followed her as 
 she did so. Mrs. Bolitho noted them both, and her 
 spirits mounted within her, for here was arising (or, 
 she told herself, she was more mistaken than she 
 had ever been in her life) a human struggle of the 
 most interesting sort, in which her generalship 
 might find full scope. The constraint of one who 
 was evidently a man of the world, the following 
 glance, the rare attraction of Avis anywhere, but 
 particularly here in the lonely Bush had Provi- 
 dence perhaps sent this man in answer to prayer, 
 since the girl would not go to Sydney ? 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho set herself to study him in the quiet
 
 68 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 half-hour before the dressing-bell. They talked of 
 many things, and she led him skilfully in many 
 high- and by-ways, that he might betray himself, 
 write himself legibly out for her reading. She led 
 him with a clear conscience. She dealt with men 
 from the social point of view, in which they are the 
 regiment and women the commanders. She had 
 heard it argued in the modern scientific fashion 
 that the sexes are much the same, that what is 
 suitable for the one is equally so for the other, that 
 in like conditions they will behave alike, but she 
 scorned the hypothesis. Men were men, and 
 women were women, and they were twain. She 
 had loved and married Spencer Bolitho with a 
 difference ; she had ruled him through forty happy 
 years with a difference ; and she believed in wak- 
 ing all other men to whatever end with a dif- 
 ference. 
 
 Ralph Hazell answered to her treatment fairly 
 well. There was nothing of modern scientific in 
 him. He yielded up to his hostess the personal 
 detail of Rugby schooling and subsequent service 
 of the Queen, of intimate acquaintance with the 
 home counties and the West of Ireland and the 
 Bengal Presidency, and of London from the stand- 
 ing of Kensington Gore and the Junior United 
 Service Club. He acknowledged a strong love of 
 sport, combined with some taste for letters and 
 general information ; he wore flannel on principle 
 and drank ale by preference. She made a host of 
 inferences that were surprisingly true. He had 
 never known the want of money, which had come
 
 HEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 69 
 
 to him through commerce of a high kind, probably 
 no further back than his father, so that his purchase 
 of a great stretch of wilderness bespoke perhaps the 
 land-hunger of the Briton, perhaps she knew not 
 what, for the treatment by difference failed before 
 a mysterious barrier raised steadily by one who 
 was neither a child nor malleable. His hair, alas ! 
 that dark-brown hair which Dot had found so silky, 
 was thinning at the temples, might be from the 
 ardours of Bengal, might be from the wearing of 
 years, might be from the something which lay be- 
 hind the bar. It was not likely, she reasoned, to 
 be disgrace which had brought him so far from the 
 joys of pig-sticking and the comforts of the Junior 
 United Service Club ; his face was firm and proud, 
 and there was no turning away in his eyes. A love 
 affair, then ? Oh ! masses for his soul and the 
 woman's if it had been a love affair gone wrong, 
 for the force of his personality was immense she 
 felt it on the further side of the room, she told her- 
 self, as if it were a thunderstorm. Was he a 
 widower, and was that the brow of grief ? Mrs. 
 Bolitho was intensely interested ; she could not tell. 
 " Some day," she thought, " I must have the bar 
 down, and if I am swept away well, I am. Mean- 
 while, I like him." 
 
 " I should say your fowls were over-fed," she ad- 
 vised aloud, for he had begun to unfold his tale of 
 present trouble. " Too much corn is a mistake. I 
 don't know your Mrs. Brock, but I expect I know 
 her sort. It is astonishing how liberal some people 
 like to be with other people's property."
 
 TO HEAETS IMPOETUNATE 
 
 " I've noticed that before now. But I am in 
 difficulty with regard to all these new things, and 
 Mrs. Brock knows my depth of ignorance ; she may 
 resent suggestion." 
 
 " Helpless, unimaginative man ! Quote me. Tell 
 her that my fowls are laying as if it were the 
 height of summer. As a matter of fact, their con- 
 duct is nothing to boast of ; but I have always con- 
 sidered that Heaven looks upon the motive of a 
 speech far more than upon the mode of it." 
 
 " What casuistry ! " said Hazell, laughing. 
 
 " Good word, ' casuistry,' " replied his hostess. 
 
 The black clothes fitted tolerably, and Hazell 
 trusted to the indifference of Diana's brown eyes 
 not to see that the bottom button of the waistcoat 
 remained undone ; but, indeed, if she saw, she was 
 welcome to see. He made no pretence of being 
 young ; he drank ale by preference. He had fin- 
 ished with woman forever, and this was a kittle red 
 filly as ever champed upon the bit. When he had 
 thought of her in those terms he apologised sud- 
 denly, commenting upon himself that he had degen- 
 erated during the last year or two, that once on a 
 time it had been his pride that his inmost thoughts 
 of a gentlewoman had been those of a gentleman. 
 He looked round the bedroom when his dressing 
 was finished ; its comfort and simplicity touched 
 him to a feeling of homeliness that had grown 
 strange to him, and he realised how he had missed 
 it. Home is like health : when we have it we are 
 unconscious of it, and we know its value by its loss. 
 Some young man had slept here, he thought very
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 71 
 
 likely he of the slimmer waist whose clothes he 
 now wore ; young certainly, for the picture of hon- 
 our was a large photograph of some pretty empty 
 girl of the diaphanous, willowy type, so dear to 
 muscular ladhood in search of contrast ; young, for 
 on the high wooden mantelpiece lay in faded 
 leather case two big expensive meerschaum pipes 
 and a cigar-holder, all elaborate in design one 
 broken and carefully mended with a heavy silver 
 band. Meerschaum and stage-loveliness, thought 
 Hazell with a kindly scorn. Oh, the happy phase 
 when such things are desirable ! Was the fellow 
 dead, he wondered, or only gone away to grow 
 older ? The dinner-bell sounded. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho said nothing in disparagement when 
 she saw that Avis had chosen her favourite and 
 oldest dress of what she called the " family evening 
 order." After all, nothing could spoil her shape 
 and stature, nothing could dull her colouring ; and 
 this old trailing robe of black velvet, with large, 
 loose sleeves, all embroidered with golden silk, be- 
 came her admirably. Hazell gave her more than 
 apology as he faced her at table. He drew a long 
 breath as their eyes met ; then, in deference to her 
 curious, quick glance of resentment, he bent over 
 his soup and tried to talk no more. 
 
 " Something I said about Larry Fagan that fun- 
 eral day annoyed her, I suppose," he thought ; " or 
 else it's Dr. Fell again." 
 
 The courses of the dinner were few and plain, 
 but good enough to be enjoyed by a healthy diner, 
 and the wine and the service were beyond reproach.
 
 72 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 Mr. Bolitho, sitting at the head of the board, with 
 his head sunk on his chest, said little ; his hour 
 came later with the port the hour for an old 
 man's monologue of anecdote. He left the custo- 
 mary exchange of table-talk to his wife, and Hazell 
 met her more than half-way, pricked by a sudden 
 vain-glorious resolve to show himself a man of the 
 world, not to be despised in any neighbourhood. 
 Surely it was insufferable that the chance of a 
 pleasant evening in this wild land should be spoilt 
 for him by the hostility of unreason, however hand- 
 some. He refused beer ; he said as he took it that 
 he thought burgundy the best all-round wine. 
 
 "My son Caradon is a devoted polo-player," 
 Mrs. Bolitho told him presently. " The team meets 
 quite near Beulah, in one of the Wamagatta pad- 
 docks." 
 
 " I have given up polo. I don't care to have 
 pony murder on my conscience. I want a weight- 
 carrier nowadays." 
 
 " Most remarkable thing," said Mr. Bolitho, wak- 
 ing up, " how long I was able not only to ride but 
 to race only steeplechases, you know myself, 
 considerin' my size. I was always uncommon thin, 
 never an ounce of fat on me. That's one thing, and 
 the rest was just hands, as it always is in racin' 
 hands, and a feelin' for the horse ; always knew 
 what he could do. Extraordinary thing the hun- 
 dreds of thousands that have been thrown away 
 because the jockey had no feelin' for the horse ! " 
 
 "Caradon will be sorry you don't ride. He 
 thinks polo every man's duty," said Mrs. Bolitho.
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE ?3 
 
 "Was that his room where I dressed this even- 
 ing?" 
 
 The bright elderly face clouded. 
 
 " No," she said " no. My eldest son is married. 
 There is plenty of room for him and her and theirs 
 here, but I fear a mixed menage. I am sorry he is 
 not here to-night. They dine with us once a 
 week." 
 
 " There is something patriarchal, it seems to me, 
 about Bush life," said Hazell. 
 
 " Ah ! the wide spaces, the close family intimacy, 
 the building up of the family," answered his hostess 
 quickly. 
 
 " Yes ; and I always think it a good life." 
 
 " High thinking and plain living books by the 
 cartload, and mutton by the month. Dear auntie, 
 the best of life is good anywhere, but I am afraid 
 that all that most of the Bush has to boast of is the 
 plainness and the mutton," said Miss Fletcher. 
 
 " My mutton is rather bad," said Hazell to her. 
 
 " Well, it's wool you have come for, isn't it ? " 
 said Mrs- Bolitho, laughing. 
 
 " I admit it. Sometimes I think a little long- 
 ingly of Highland, or Welsh, or Southdown." 
 
 " You will add Tasmanian to that when you 
 have proved it," said Miss Fletcher briefly ; and, 
 compelling Mrs. Bolitho's attention, she rose and 
 left the room. 
 
 The host offered cigars, but excused himself, say- 
 ing that he enjoyed his wine. 
 
 " In my young days, sir, and in the country, 
 smokin' wasn't so fashionable as it is now. I like a
 
 74 HEAETS IMPOETUNATE 
 
 cigar very well now and then, but I like my glass 
 of port better without it. You smoke, of course ? " 
 
 Hazell allowed it, and in the shelter of the spicy 
 cloud he spoke from his curiosity. 
 
 " Your niece, I take it, is English, Mr. Bolitho ? " 
 
 " My niece eh, what ? I beg your pardon ? " 
 
 " Miss Fletcher." 
 
 " Ay, ay, to be sure ; very natural, the mistake. 
 No relation whatever ; just her kind affectionate 
 way of speakin' of Mrs. Bolitho and myself. 
 Mother in England ; English to be sure. Married 
 again ; most charmin' and very superior woman ; 
 husband great friend of ours. Miss Fletcher's been 
 livin' with us for several years a matter of seven 
 or eight, I believe." 
 
 Hazell bowed. " Striking-looking woman," he 
 murmured. 
 
 "Eh! what? For her health, I'm told. Most 
 cert'nly she's been very well since she came thin 
 slip of a girl when she came. You don't drink, 
 then?" 
 
 " I smoke, sir." 
 
 " Quite so. Things change. My sons, like you, 
 take their tobacco and their coffee or their whisky. 
 Oblige me by ringin' that bell near you ; your coffee 
 shall be brought to you." 
 
 " May I ask how many sons you have ? " 
 
 "I had three, sir; I have, unfortunately, only 
 two. My poor son Eichard died in Queensland, 
 where he was managing a station dysentery ; his 
 wife, poor thing, followed him within a year ; his 
 children you have seen. But for them, Mr. Hazell,
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 75 
 
 I think Mrs. Bolitho would have gone too." The 
 brave old voice faltered very little ; the wearing of 
 eighty years had blunted the force of sorrow, and 
 the jauntiness of bygone fashion would ring in it 
 to the end. 
 
 After a decent pause Hazell learnt that Eldred 
 was a captain of artillery, quartered in Jamaica. 
 One or two stories followed of an old and florid 
 style, and suddenly the host fell asleep. The guest 
 finished his coffee and his cigar, and waited awhile 
 politely. The white military moustache and 
 whisker remained sunk on the big hollow chest, the 
 heavy breathing told of depth of slumber. 
 
 Hazell thought of the lady of the house and her 
 sparkle, of the adopted niece and her glow, and he 
 rose softly and walked on tiptoe through the open 
 door and crept along the passage, guided by voices. 
 The drawing-room was open, the floor was firm ; 
 without a creak he gained the threshold and stood 
 looking in. Mrs. Bolitho sat by a small table on 
 which, between her and himself, was a lamp, and 
 she read aloud from a newspaper. Near the fire, on 
 a high oak chair, sat Miss Fletcher spinning. Her 
 handsome ivory face was bowed, thoughtful, as 
 though her mind were given to her work or to what 
 she heard ; her long white fingers moved deft and 
 steady about the yarn, and flamelight caught the 
 beading on her shoe as it played quickly on the 
 treadle. The wheel passed evenly, murmurously. 
 She sat in perfect and most satisfying repose of 
 head and feature, and the noble width and curve of 
 her classic shoulders, her long easeful limbs, the
 
 76 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 absolutely rhythmic motion of foot and hands, 
 deepened and vivified that stillness. 
 
 The little quaint machine screened her, separated 
 her, to his fancy, from all the other world ; the 
 veil-like revolution of the wheel, the dreamy whir 
 of it, set her apart, beautiful, mysteriously femi- 
 nine. He could have knelt before her worshipping 
 the incomprehensible, the different ; he could have 
 knelt for years ! But she looked up, as though his 
 force constrained her, and saw him worshipping. 
 He came forward on the impulse and stood before 
 her. 
 
 "You make the fairest scene I ever saw," he 
 said ; and though he tried to smile conventionally, 
 the adoration was in his eyes. 
 
 She answered only by an involuntary tremble of 
 the steady fingers on the yarn, but for the moment 
 there was peace between them, a mutual peace of 
 honey sweetness.
 
 CHAPTER YI 
 
 HAZELL was gone soon after sunrise the follow- 
 ing morning. A note on the breakfast-table, civil 
 in thanks and excuses, pleaded a suddenly remem- 
 bered engagement with the Beulah stock and share 
 agent. Mrs. Bolitho was disappointed for her 
 own sake only as of an absorbing game, not for 
 Avis's sake, for the pair had agreed admirably dur- 
 ing the evening, saying little to each other, because 
 Hazell had taken a hand at picquet with herself, 
 and played respectably, while the spinning-wheel 
 had known no intermission. The keen sense of the 
 elder woman had felt the strong currents passing 
 between them ; she had noted the involuntary 
 straying of her partner's eyes, and she had exulted 
 silently that, if he were as honest as he seemed, the 
 tide of life should flow so fast. For his disappear- 
 ance, nothing is surprising in the relation of man 
 and maid ; he might, being arrived at years of dis- 
 cretion, have taken fright at his own advance in 
 emotion, and so taken flight, or the appointment 
 might be real. Avis, for her part, seemed to have 
 risen with a satisfactory reference, though of avoid- 
 ance, to him. She was dressed, as she would say, 
 for domesticity ; but on an average of five morn- 
 ings in the week she would appear in her riding- 
 skirt, ready for the exercise of which, unlike most 
 of those who live in the Bush, she never wearied. 
 
 77
 
 78 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 It was as though she had considered the probabil- 
 ity of a ride with Hazell, and had mentally de- 
 clined it. 
 
 " I never saw anything healthier," thought Mrs. 
 Bolitho, but she spoke no comment, and taking for 
 granted the excitement which each had felt in the 
 other's presence, she, with a quiet mind, left them 
 to the anti-climax of absence. 
 
 Avis withdrew after breakfast to her own quar- 
 ters, two rooms at the end of the long low house, 
 which was built round three sides of a square. Her 
 parlour, boudoir, den, as she named it, according to 
 the moment's point of view, showed as strange a 
 medley of taste, pursuit, changing fancy, as was 
 ever presented by a lady in her chosen place. 
 Reader, spinster, horsewoman, embroiderer, violin- 
 ist were evident. On the writing-table, which of- 
 fered so little free space that evidently not much 
 was written there, stood several photographs of a 
 grave, noble-looking woman like Avis, yet not like 
 her, but plainly her mother ; a stout, elderly man, 
 kindly, wearing the white tie of old fashion in Holy 
 Orders, appeared more than once. On the walls 
 were photographs of horses, of Italian and New 
 Zealand scenery, and a couple of fair water-colour 
 sketches representing each an English country 
 house of the beautiful and healthy sort. There 
 was nothing tawdry, nothing shabby, but disorder 
 reigned unquestioned. 
 
 Avis took her violin from its case ; it was in the 
 Mazzini style, and there was a pleasing doubt that 
 it might be an original. She tuned it carefully, set
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 79 
 
 a sheet of music on the tall stand, and began to 
 play a study. She had worked steadily at fiddling 
 since she began it four years before, trying to make 
 up by hard practice for the disadvantages of adult 
 learning. She had a firm sweep with the bow, and 
 her ear was excellent, and she had reached the 
 point when she was glad to play for her own sake ; 
 but it seemed this morning that she lacked patience. 
 A few bars went badly ; she repeated them, and 
 they were worse; she passed them, and a string 
 broke, and she put the whole thing away without 
 any tenderness such as one expects from a violinist, 
 and sat down to the writing-table. Pushing things 
 together, pens and pencils, skeins of silk, envelopes, 
 scissors, she cleared a space for a blotting-pad and 
 rushed upon a letter : 
 
 " WAMAGATTA, K S. W., 
 
 " September 12. 
 " DEAREST MAMMA, 
 
 " It is early in the week to start my talk with 
 you, but I meant to devote this morning to the 
 fiddle, and somehow the fiddle is intractable, and I 
 must soothe my wounded artisthood by the most 
 soothing thing I know, next to your presence. 
 You will be here in the winter, but this is only the 
 spring, the opening spring ! so you are a long way 
 off. Nothing suits me so well as a gallop in the 
 morning. It seems to give me mental balance for 
 the day, and Pilgrim is going beautifully just now. 
 She knows not only what I want, but what I am 
 going to want. It was the greatest success naming
 
 80 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 her Pilgrim people always call her him, and when 
 I am particularly insistent with my she, they turn 
 upon me, or half turn, to tell me that a pilgrim is a 
 male, and then they are not sure, because they seem 
 to have heard of females going to Lourdes and so 
 forth, and I see it in their faces. Not that I see 
 many strange faces, thank goodness ! There was 
 one here yesterday, that man Hazell whom I men- 
 tioned to you before. Aunty Bolitho evidently 
 likes him extremely ; I cannot tell if I do or not. 
 He is fine-looking, but has curious light-grey eyes 
 eyes with a kind of white light in them, which 
 seem to scrutinise one with a kind of cold fierce- 
 ness. I should guess him to be another of the 
 countless bird-of-prey men, though he has the man- 
 ners of a gentleman, and Dot took a fancy to him 
 a good sign, I always think. I hear vaguely that 
 he has been a soldier. Could Colonel Bengough 
 look him up and find out anything about him ? 
 Our solitary Army List is not to be found. Kalph 
 Hazell, age about forty-five ; has served in India. 
 
 " I must have up Sadouski from Sydney for my 
 violin, and put in fourteen lessons of as many hours 
 as he likes. Mrs. Bolitho is so good in letting me 
 have anybody to teach me anything. They enjoy 
 it too ; it is a capital holiday change for them, and 
 this is a nice house to stop in. Of course she may 
 refuse, that I myself may be driven down to Syd- 
 ney. She was begging me yesterday, almost with 
 tears, to go there and mix in general society, in- 
 stead of wasting my youth and spoiling my life 
 here in the empty Bush."
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 81 
 
 Avis stopped, and looked straight before her out 
 of the window. The park-like land, with its scant, 
 whitened herbage, its occasional large, colourless 
 hills, stretched away to meet the sky. In the dis- 
 tance there was a small wooden hut ; a neat iron 
 fence crossed the foreground. " The empty Bush," 
 she repeated aloud, and her clear brown eyes grew 
 fixed and desolate. She dropped her pen, and got 
 up to pace the room, the fingers of one hand play- 
 ing with her watch-chain. Her face was as pale as 
 ivory; her eyelids showed a delicate redness, as 
 though she had not slept the night before ; her lips 
 were firm set in a vivid line. Words crowded be- 
 hind them, but none escaped ; the trouble, of what- 
 ever nature, was locked in by all her strength. 
 Presently she sat down, and, catching up the pen, 
 wrote on vehemently : 
 
 "She does not understand; at least, I never 
 know how much she knows not all, I think. No 
 one understands but you, mamma ; and here I can- 
 not bear those who might know or get to know. 
 Remembrance of that year after is one of the inde- 
 structible things. I could not live through such 
 another. This man Hazell may know. Darling, 
 you have never said one unkind word, never even a 
 reproachful word to me. You knew there was no 
 need of it." 
 
 She stopped again, and drew one of the photo- 
 graphs nearer, and looked at it earnestly, then 
 went on :
 
 82 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 '"I have your dear face by me, full of nobleness 
 and tenderness and wisdom. I think you must be 
 the ideal mother, who knows, who never condemns, 
 who heals and shelters. And I am writing what 
 will be cruel words to you ; for how you care for 
 me ! Perhaps I will not say them, darling. In any 
 case, I will send another proper letter later, when 
 this mood is over and the mail is in, and I have 
 yours to answer. Let me write to you now like 
 this, because you are the only one to whom I can 
 speak so, and because, though I do not often do it 
 why, I think it is only the third time in all these 
 years the memory is in my heart continually ; it 
 dies not, is not quenched. How could it be ? Yet, 
 honestly, I did not deserve it not all of it. Many 
 girls have been as foolish, as headstrong, as self- 
 centred as I was. They have longed for excite- 
 ment and adventure ; they have been swirled away 
 on the torrent of youth, just as I was ; but retri- 
 bution did not come to them as it came to me. 
 Honestly, mother dearest, I did not deserve it ; not 
 all of it." 
 
 She hid her face in her hands, tearless, shivering 
 as though an inward force shook her. Her attitude, 
 the expression of her whole body, was that of deso- 
 lation. The splendid lines and vigour of lines, the 
 richly-crowned head was shadowed with despair. 
 She sat silent under it, motionless except for the 
 occasional shiver, as at some unbearable thought. 
 A travelling-clock in a leather case ticked on the 
 mantelpiece ; a fire of logs gave forth a little stir of
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 83 
 
 sound. Outside, in the untempered flood of sun- 
 light, the magpies crooned their brief harmonious 
 chords. 
 
 Sounds broke the stillness. Heavy, clumsy little 
 feet in strong boots came rapidly along the passage, 
 and the door was beaten hastily. " Opy ! opy ! 
 opy ! opy ! " the hoarse imperious tones of Boyah 
 explained the matter. She paid no attention. The 
 hammering fists grew angrier. " Opy ! opy ! " he 
 cried again. She raised her head. " Go away ! " 
 she said harshly ; but he bawled on, unaccustomed 
 to neglect, making so much din that she sprang 
 up and did open to a dirty little figure in a muddy 
 pinafore, with grimy features and a dusty mat of 
 yellow hair, who fell forward on the floor, picked 
 himself up, and turned upon her indignantly. 
 
 "Go away, Boyah. You must not come here 
 unless I ask you ; and it is your sleeping time," she 
 said, standing forbidding in the way. 
 
 He did not know the strange stern voice and the 
 dreadful countenance where he had expected wel- 
 come and adoration. He looked puzzled, then 
 frightened ; then his pudgy lineaments puckered 
 themselves in dismay, and with a whimper he 
 turned to trot away. Something in the helpless 
 chubby hands outspread, something of piteousness 
 in a child repulsed, smote Avis at heart. She 
 darted after him, caught him violently up, and bore 
 him back into her parlour. He burst into loud 
 cries. She sat him on her knee and dried his eyes, 
 and smoothed and dusted his dress ; then, putting 
 the short pudgy arms round her own neck and
 
 84 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 pressing her face to his and rocking herself with 
 him to and fro, she said to him passionately : 
 
 "Boyah must forgive Avis. Avis was unhappy 
 oh, so unhappy ! She had forgotten Boyah in 
 her own black thoughts ; but she loves him loves 
 him loves every toe of him, and he must love her 
 just love her blindly, always the same always 
 the same, Boyah Boyah ! For oh ! no one in the 
 world, I think, has so much need of love as poor 
 Avis!" 
 
 And the child was good, and bore with her with- 
 out remonstrance, though her tears ran down his 
 cheeks and fell upon his pinafore, for the strange 
 woman was gone, and his lifelong friend and wor- 
 shipper had come back to him.
 
 CHAPTER YII 
 
 HAZELL found himself relegated to the bedroom 
 of the dead son for purposes of sleep, whereas he 
 had never felt more broadly awake. As we know, 
 he kept late hours habitually; but the compara- 
 tively early time of eleven by the clock did not ac- 
 count for the fact that his whole consciousness was 
 surging tumultuously, and he, the mysterious in- 
 tangible self that dwells within and sits apart, was 
 tossed by it helplessly, as a row-boat on a chopping 
 sea. He opened the window and began to smoke a 
 pipe ; the air was frosty, the sky was dark and 
 starry, and in the east he fancied he could discern 
 the first lightening of a coming moon. 
 
 " Confound it all ! " he cried to the storm of his 
 nerves, " I might be five-and-twenty. This is what 
 comes of living in solitude. For the last six months 
 I have had no human intercourse, except with a 
 lonely pastoralist or so like myself, and a quiet little 
 family dinner completely upsets me. Most ridicu- 
 lous ! I must go out more or I must not go out at 
 all, and as I have done with women, it had better 
 be not at all. I shall be off to my bachelor camp 
 the first thing to-morrow morning, and stay there 
 till I get used to it. One can get used to anything." 
 
 Hazell was no psychologist. He could enjoy, he 
 could suffer, he could rebel, and because he had 
 strength to be silent, he expected of himself strength
 
 86 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 enough to destroy. But destruction, to be effectual, 
 must be scientific, not emotional. A second and a 
 third pipe were smoked, and the waning half -moon 
 rose coldly behind the gum-trees, and the smaller 
 stars paled out, and calm reigned all around, and 
 still his soul was vexed within him. The spinning- 
 wheel whirred softly before his mind's eye, and 
 Diana of the golden head sat separate and ab- 
 sorbed behind it, and without word or look she 
 drew his inmost being toward her as the sirens 
 drew the sailors. 
 
 " Good God ! what's it all about ? " he asked him- 
 self, desperate, revolting. " What do I want ? To 
 marry her ? " He smiled grimly. " I have had 
 enough of marriage, I think. To love her, or for 
 her to love me ? But these are the passions of life 
 with which I have finished. And she a stranger of 
 whom I know nothing, except that she has furious, 
 irrational opinions, whom I guess to have the tem- 
 per of the devil. Am I always all my life to be 
 ensnared by physical beauty, and stirred to ecstasy 
 by a sheaf of splendid hair ? I take my own point 
 of view entirely; there is hers. Would she be 
 likely, with her wit and her youth, to care for me, 
 going on to fogeydom ? And if she did, would it 
 be fair ? What have I to give her in return for so 
 much I, a beaten and battered man, who has come 
 off worst in the duel of the sexes ? As if she would 
 not naturally choose some shaveling some fellow, 
 at any rate, who wasn't going bald, who could get 
 his waistcoat-button fastened. What do I want, 
 then ? What is it all about ? Well, I want peace
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 87 
 
 in which to do some decent and manly work before 
 I die. I think that is practically all I want." 
 
 But the turbulence within continued, vague, vio- 
 lent that imperious troubling of the waters of soul 
 and body which conies with the birth of love. For 
 the world must go on it lives but to go on. And 
 the flood-tides of soul and body fret and swell and 
 sink against the walls of circumstance and conven- 
 tion, as we have watched the line of a rough sea 
 against a solid pier. After some hours of sleep 
 Hazell was his own again, but the recollection, and 
 indeed the weariness remaining, determined him to 
 flee temptation. He scribbled a note of apology, 
 went out softly, saddled his horse, and started, he 
 was not sure whither. His excuse had not been 
 quite sincere. True he had written to ask the stock 
 and station agent to come to Burrabindar that 
 morning, but there had been no answer. There 
 was no pressing call for him at home, only the long 
 call of a great neglected stretch of land for all his 
 energies for years. He rode slowly on the main 
 road of Wamagatta, fixing his attention on the ex- 
 cellent detail of all he saw everywhere round him, 
 and once again his spirit died in him. " Put it up 
 for sale and go free," temptation whispered. " Put 
 a bullet through your brains in a quiet spot and 
 hope for a fresh start." " No, I will not die for her 
 worthless sake. She shall never have that satisfac- 
 tion. I will live and prosper, and she shall know 
 it." 
 
 When he reached the parting of the ways he 
 turned his horse toward Beulah, and the sunlight
 
 88 HEAETS IMPOKTIINATE 
 
 was yet cool upon the earth as he gained the High 
 Street of the township. It had begun to call itself 
 a town, for its population was increasing rapidly, 
 and it boasted several buildings in brick and stone ; 
 there was, moreover, a second street, and Mr. Bo- 
 litho had lately endowed this municipality with a 
 small park well planted with young trees, sprinkled 
 with seats and noble with a drinking-fountain. 
 Mostly, of course, the houses were of wood, roofed 
 in grey corrugated iron, and their verandah roofs 
 coloured in red and white stripes, which is so char- 
 acteristic of Australia. The chief store was kept 
 by Proudfoot, grim father of dead Emily. It con- 
 sisted of a long barn-like structure in clay, what in 
 other countries would be called adobe ; its princi- 
 pal windows, making no more display than of a 
 few sacks of grain and some harness, looked to the 
 street; but "Alexander Proudfoot, General Mer- 
 chant and Importer," painted above, invited cus- 
 tomers to enter and ask indefinitely. Hazell 
 glanced doubtfully at the Exchange Hotel, before 
 which stood a waggon and team, the drivers squat- 
 ting on their heels smoking. He glanced at the 
 post-office, and debated whether he should enter 
 there for letters which might be awaiting the course 
 of the post. He thought also of stopping at the 
 bank on the chance of a talk with the manager, and 
 finally he dismounted and hitched the reins to the 
 pillar before Proudfoot's door, where he would find 
 a man in disgrace who had known sorrow. Long- 
 lipped, iron-faced, with grey hair brushed straight 
 back from his forehead and touching his collar at
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 89 
 
 the back, the general merchant stood at his desk 
 busy with books. He looked up as the squatter 
 entered. 
 
 " I saw in the paper lately that you were ad- 
 vertising new saddles from England. I want a 
 saddle to try. I am not quite satisfied with those I 
 have," said Hazell. 
 
 " Oh ay, ye can see them," was the answer, in 
 broad Lowland Scotch, and the iron-faced one left 
 the desk. 
 
 They inspected the stock together, and a choice 
 was made. 
 
 " Burrabindar ? Oh ay," said the Scotchman, as 
 though the matter was closed, but Hazell was not 
 going to be got rid of so easily. 
 
 " If you know as much about all the rest of your 
 business as you know about pigskin, I am not sur- 
 prised that report calls you a rich man," he said 
 courteously. 
 
 " I luik to a' things mysel'. It's the best way," 
 was the answer, and though the tone was dry, 
 there was acknowledgment within it. 
 
 " Do you understand the weather, after all your 
 years here ? " inquired the customer. " Have you 
 any hopes of rain ? " 
 
 " Muster Hazell, I leave the weather to the Lord, 
 whose it is," was the answer. " I hae seen nae guid 
 come o' latter-day propheseein', and indeed it's well 
 so. If the puir folk who hae come to this country 
 could ha' foreseen a' they would have to bear from 
 drooght and flood, and the hoping and fearing and 
 ruin after a', the maist o' them would hae left it
 
 90 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 and gone elsewhere. That is my opeenion. But 
 it's an ill season for you to arrive, a stranger." 
 
 " I hope for something kinder than ruin, any- 
 how," said Hazell. 
 
 " Oh ay. We must all hope. It's juist the breath 
 of life," said the elder man. 
 
 Looking at him sharply, the younger wondered 
 what he hoped for. 
 
 " I dare say," he said, speaking aloud to his own 
 thoughts, " if one could trace it far enough, one 
 would find that when we cease to hope we come to 
 an end." 
 
 Proudfoot made no direct reply. He inquired 
 leisurely : " Wull ye tak' a drenk ? I've some grand 
 whisky yon." 
 
 "Thank you; I never drink in the morning. 
 Besides, to-day it happens that I've had no break- 
 fast." 
 
 " That's ill," said the storekeeper, with greater 
 warmth ; " a man should tak' his breakfast." 
 
 " I made an early start. I think of calling in at 
 the Exchange Hotel." 
 
 Proudfoot hesitated. " It juist happens the day 
 that there's a kirk in a mull at the Excheenge," he 
 said ; " the proprietor, Meister Dale, has been taken 
 wi' a fut, I am informed. They'll no do ye verra 
 well there the day. 'Tis a peety, now, and ye a 
 stranger, I think." 
 
 " I'll go home, then, and eat the better lunch," 
 said Hazell. " I'm not fastidious." He raised his 
 whip in salute and moved away. 
 
 Proudfoot hesitated again. " Gin ye're no fastee-
 
 IIEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 91 
 
 dious," he said, always in the same deep, dry tones, 
 "I hae a fine ham in cut, and they'll sairve ye 
 within in a meenity. It's ill to begin the day with- 
 out food." 
 
 {'You're very kind," replied Hazell, shaking his 
 head, and moved on out, as though there were no 
 more to be said in the matter ; and then he thought 
 of the cheerless instalment at Burrabindar, and sud- 
 denly turned back into the store. " Thank you ; I 
 accept," he said impulsively. 
 
 Proudfoot led the way through the long shop, and 
 by a covered wooden passage at the back into his 
 own house. He showed his guest into a sitting- 
 room, furnished with mahogany and horsehair, with 
 a bookcase full of grave volumes, and a rack of long 
 clay pipes. 
 
 " Be pleased to tak' a seat," he said solemnly. 
 u Jessie'll no be long, and if there's anything ye 
 require, ye'll say the worrd to hairr, for I maun 
 back to ma wairrk." 
 
 Hazell waited for his breakfast in a mood of much 
 amazement. Why in the world had he chosen to 
 accept hospitality from the man who supplied him 
 with harness and poultry-feed a man, further, 
 whom he had never to his knowledge seen till that 
 morning ? He laughed at himself, pelted himself 
 with scorn, and was much minded to escape forth- 
 with to the Exchange, and brave the discomforts 
 of the " kirk in the mill." Meantime, he read the 
 names of the books in the case. "Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica," Kobertson's " Church History," Scott, 
 Carlyle, and such-like ; glanced at the immense pile
 
 92 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 of Weekly Scotsmans, and found it easy to under- 
 stand that the daughter of so serious a household, a 
 daughter with the artistic temper, should escape 
 from it, even to the boundary-rider's hut. By and 
 by he was supplied with a repast of excellent in- 
 gredients ham, oatcake, tea, marmalade, and so 
 forth, which he consumed unsparingly. As he rose 
 from the table, and sought in his pocket for a cigar, 
 the merchant returned. 
 
 " Upon my word, I do not know how to thank 
 you ! " said Hazell, warmed and fed and cheered. 
 " But I have proved before this the generosity of 
 your countrymen." 
 
 " We wait till we hae't to be generous wi', that's 
 a'," replied the old man ; " and 't wad ha' been a 
 peety for ye to hae gone to the Excheenge Hotel 
 the day." 
 
 " Were you ever at Burrabindar ? " 
 
 " Na, I was niver there." 
 
 " If you ever feel like a twelve-mile ride " 
 
 " Ma wairrk keeps me a' the week, Meister Ha- 
 zell, I thank ye ; and on the Lorrd's day I rest and 
 am thankful." 
 
 " If you know as much about everything as you 
 do about ham and saddles and marmalade, I should 
 be glad of your advice on many points, I fancy. I 
 am, unfortunately, so much of a beginner as to be 
 at the mercy of the first comer. There's a tramp- 
 fellow, for instance, living at my expense this very 
 minute because his hands, he says, are all sore with 
 Bathurst burrs. What do I know about Bathurst 
 burrs?"
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 93 
 
 Hazell was lingering for the sake of talking. 
 Always the same. Ccelum non animum mutavit 
 had it not been a joke that he would rather walk 
 with a drummer-boy than alone ? 
 
 " Bathurst burrs ! I know them fine, but I niver 
 heard o' their incapacitating a man f rae his wairrk. 
 A tramp, you say ? " 
 
 "A tramp; arrived with sore hands, begging 
 work, then begging off work, and showing his 
 wretched paws as reason why I should keep him for 
 nothing." 
 
 " Oh ay, they're artful, and the maist pairrt will 
 do anything but wairrk. I have heard many ill 
 things of Bathurst burrs, which are one of the 
 Lord's plagues in New South Wales, but I niver 
 heard o' their depriving a man o' the use o' his 
 hands." 
 
 " I think," said Hazell, " I'll send him off. And 
 now I'll make for home." 
 
 They went to the house-door together. The 
 squatter looked at the brazen horizon, and sighed : 
 
 " I've only been a few months in the colony, but 
 I'm fairly sick of waiting for the rain." 
 
 " There's always hope," said the storekeeper. 
 
 " Always, eh ? " said Hazell, with a queer twinge 
 of weakness and yearning. 
 
 " Always, Meister Hazell, for the hearrt as well as 
 for the hairrvest." 
 
 The squatter held out his hand, and they parted. 
 As he rode he wondered at the dissonance between 
 the aspect and the act of the general importer to 
 the Beulah district. Was it possible that benev-
 
 94 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 olence and loving-kindness flourished in so horny a 
 case ? And whence the reputed hundred thousand 
 pounds of sterling worth, if free breakfasts were 
 offered to customers ? Would he, perhaps, clear the 
 cost of his ham and marmalade through the next 
 gallon of whisky ? Somehow Hazell thought not ; 
 rather that the old purveyor had liked him. Why, 
 must be for ever unknown, for he would never guess 
 that the breakfast and the friendly words had been 
 given in tenderness to the man who carelessly, cu- 
 riously, courteously, attended the funeral of the er- 
 rant daughter. No human creature, unless he had 
 been another Lowland Scot in like circumstances, 
 could have understood his feeling toward his only 
 and beloved child, lost, dead, unrepentant, unfor- 
 given. In all the district, for the moment, there 
 was not one who did not condemn him as an un- 
 natural father. A neutral newcomer was welcome 
 in the circumstance, and when he showed to the 
 sharpened sense of the sore-hearted something of 
 dejection and discouragement of his own, when, 
 moreover, he had stood bareheaded at the girl's 
 grave that grave in his soil Proudfoot would 
 have given him greater things than a breakfast. 
 
 Riding briskly, Hazell overtook the stock and 
 station agent on his way to Burrabindar, and in the 
 course of talk, recurring in his pertinacious way to 
 the subject of the burrs and the loafer, he met with 
 the same incredulity. 
 
 " Might be," said Tunliffe, " but I never heard of 
 it, not in these parts. Large country, New South 
 Wales larger than France, they say; plenty of
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 95 
 
 room for different things to happen, but I take that 
 kind of excuse with a grain of salt myself." 
 
 Rennard was found idling, as usual. The inevi- 
 table pipe was in his thin, shifty mouth, and he spat 
 and conversed fluently as he watched Soy Ching 
 among the vegetable beds. The Chinaman worked 
 ceaselessly, his lean, supple body bending and 
 swerving at need ; the pipe, not in his mouth, but 
 stuck in the back of his leather waist-belt at his 
 spine, ready for the dinner-hour. 
 
 " Put us to shame, they do, these yeller fellers," 
 said the stock and station agent. " Don't know 
 what the country'd do without 'em ; we'd either not 
 have a green thing to eat, or else have to pay six- 
 pence a bite for it. I'd not say it to every one, Mr. 
 Hazell, but you've been in nigger-lands, they tell me 
 I'd work the whole of New South Wales with 
 coloured labour if I'd my way." 
 
 "Don't stand for the Legislative Assembly, if 
 that is your opinion," returned Hazell, with a laugh, 
 and proceeded to interview Rennard. 
 
 The man could give no good account of himself. 
 
 "Burrs it was, and Gawd's trewth," he said. 
 "Why 'is pore 'ands was not no better yet was 
 more than he knew. It was labour he wanted 
 honest labour, and to which he had been born, and 
 any one who knew Luke Rennard could swear to it 
 that he didn't shirk " 
 
 " You must go and see a doctor," Hazell told him. 
 " I'll give you a letter, if you like, to Mr. Middle- 
 mass in Beulah ; and, meantime, off you go, and 
 make room for a pair of hands that are of some use."
 
 96 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 The tramp showed his teeth, and a sinister light 
 came into his ferret-eyes. 
 
 " I can speak for myself to a doctor, or any one 
 else when I choose," he replied insolently, " and I 
 don't want none o' Miss Fletcher's dodges played 
 on me. I knows where yer been this last twenty- 
 four hours, Mr. Hazell, and I can see it'll suit her 
 well enough to get me out o' the district, but I 
 ain't so easy got rid of, and I've a tongue in my 
 'ead, I 'ave, as I kin use, if my pore 'ands do fail 
 me. / knows all about 'er, and 'er father as turned 
 her out o' doors becos she wasn't fit to stay in no 
 clergyman's 'ouse " 
 
 The Chinaman worked on unheeding. Tunliffe, 
 the agent, stood in amazement, and Hazell, white 
 with anger, sprang upon the mean creature who 
 spat this extraordinary venom, and cut him heavily 
 across the back and shoulders with his riding-whip. 
 
 "Get off my land, you hound!" he ordered 
 fiercely. " Let me catch you here again, and I'll 
 horsewhip you first, and summon you for defama- 
 tion afterward. Tunliffe, you are a witness." 
 
 Rennard yelled with pain, and as the squatter re- 
 leased him, he fell in an abject heap upon the 
 ground, chattering like a monkey. 
 
 " Get up and go ! " thundered Hazell, standing 
 over him, his nostrils wide, and his pale eyes black 
 with the dilatation of their pupils. " Get up and 
 go!" 
 
 Rennard, chattering, eyed the whip, and shrank 
 closer together upon the ground. Hazell moved 
 away, and lowered the threatening weapon. The
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 97 
 
 tramp leapt beyond his arm's reach, and stood still 
 eyeing him. 
 
 " And, mind you, you go a marked man ! " cried 
 the squatter, in tremendous tones. " Every police- 
 inspector for fifty miles round shall hear of you ! " 
 
 At the word, Rennard turned and fled, running 
 low, with bounds and jumps, like a terrified animal, 
 and was lost to sight among the trees of the pad- 
 dock. The Chinaman, sitting unconcernedly by the 
 trenches, was busy clearing away small leaves and 
 suckers of celery. If he had noticed at all what 
 was taking place, he had already ceased from any 
 interest in it. The agent's amazement was too great 
 for speech; he gazed round-eyed, alarmed at the 
 passion of the big man beside him, and Hazell, see- 
 ing this, drew a deep breath, and made an effort for 
 composure. 
 
 " I am glad," he said, "that only you and I, Mr. 
 Tunliffe, were here. John hardly counts. You and 
 I know how to respect a lady's name, and this as- 
 tounding incident will never be heard of again. 
 Now, shall we go and look at those wethers ? "
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE drought continued. September was more 
 than half over, and the outlook in the country was 
 as bad as it had ever been known to be, even in a 
 land of alternate drought and flood. For the mo- 
 ment in the Beulah district there was no lack of 
 water in the creeks, and Rennard's place had been 
 taken by a man who journeyed to and from creek 
 and garden with a cart and horse, fulfilling the re- 
 quirements of Soy Ching. Hazell knew himself 
 comparatively fortunate, for he could still enjoy his 
 daily parboiling, and still the tub on the shelf in 
 the bath-room was daily supplied for the ensuing 
 douche. Elsewhere, matters were different. From 
 far west came families driven out by water famine ; 
 from further north came true stories of households 
 which could get drink, but had ceased to wash, and 
 on all sides the failing live-stock crawled feebly 
 about paddocks as bare as a desert, or starved in 
 paddocks where scorched, sapless herbage stood 
 white and valueless in the hard-baked soil. It 
 seemed as though three years of insufficient rain 
 were about to culminate in unrelieved ruin for a 
 pastoralist community. 
 
 For Hazell, the worst of all the long-drawn agony 
 was the enforced inaction. Not only was there 
 nothing to be done, but there was nothing to do. 
 If he had been a millionaire he could not have fed
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 99 
 
 and watered 50,000 sheep, with cattle and horses, 
 scattered over a run twelve or thirteen miles long 
 and about half as broad. Given the labour, the 
 necessary fodder was unprocurable, even at famine 
 prices. Every homestead in the colony wanted hay 
 and corn for such animals as were indispensable for 
 draught and carriage, for consumption, and these 
 were poorly kept at excessive cost. The man who 
 had a precious field of capricious Lucerne grass was 
 the only man who was making money. 
 
 Hazell rode among his dying flocks, growing 
 weaker day by day, and heard with despair the 
 opulent triumph of the carrion-crows. His lambs 
 died as they were born, and the exhausted ewes 
 died with them. Sick with the stench of the bodies, 
 which polluted all the wide, sunny air, he had them 
 raked together and burnt a pitiable loss ! He had 
 scores of the weakest shot or knocked on the head 
 for the sake of their fleeces, that some trifle might 
 be saved from the general destruction. Live sheep 
 might be bought anywhere for leagues about at a 
 few pence a head. 
 
 Burrabindar, as we know, had been neglected for 
 years past, and carried very little first-rate stock, 
 only a small number of rams and ewes required 
 artificial feeding. There was nothing to do but 
 look on. The improvements to the property for 
 which the new master was so anxious were out of 
 the question. One cannot burn off dead timber 
 when a chance spark may cause a fire miles long, 
 nor plant ornamental trees in ground as dry as tinder 
 and as hard as a solid rock. And day after day the
 
 100 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 unwelcome sun arose punctually, and shone as 
 brightly as he could through every possible minute, 
 as though his were the most desired of presences, 
 and departed in glory. And night after night the 
 frost was keen on the bloodless earth, and daily 
 and nightly each was more injurious. 
 
 One morning a visitor arrived at eight o'clock, 
 expecting breakfast ; he was a small, dark fellow, 
 young, and bright-eyed, with a pleasant, careless 
 manner Caradon Bolitho. 
 
 " Thought you'd be getting pretty sick of this, 
 new-chum, and all alone," said he in a friendly way. 
 " Thought I'd come over and be neighbourly." 
 
 Hazell apologised for the deficiencies of his bill 
 of fare. There were neither eggs nor butter, and 
 the milk was of the poorest quality. 
 
 " Oh dear me, I know all about it," said Caradon. 
 " I've lived through this kind of thing before. Of 
 course, we're better off at Wamagatta better pre- 
 pared, you know, plenty of tanks and dams ; and 
 my mother took possession of a little arm of the 
 Tunga River twenty years ago, and made it into a 
 private stream of our own. Great idea, that, of 
 hers. Dare say the authorities will kick up about 
 it some day. These frosts beat me, though. Spring 
 frosts are damnation to the pastoralist, neither more 
 nor less. We are bound to lose heavily, in spite of 
 all our precautions, and as for you why, it's rough 
 on you, I must say." 
 
 " Well, there's only myself to suffer." said Hazell. 
 
 " That's good as far as it goes," replied Caradon. 
 "But, if I may say so, I think a man is happiest
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 101 
 
 married. Keeps him steady, makes him work in a 
 more definite way, you know. I wouldn't be single 
 again." 
 
 Hazell bowed. Fresh supplies were brought for 
 the visitor's consumption, and he fell upon them 
 with fine appetite. 
 
 " I hope you mean to be one of us and do your 
 duty in the colony," said he as he ate and drank. 
 " We always allow ourselves great hopes of a new- 
 comer. You'll be asked to join several things 
 Boards and Councils and so forth, of course ; and 
 I am here, among other reasons, to invite you to 
 become a member of the Polo Club. Polo is my 
 hobby that and sheep-breeding." 
 
 " I am too heavy for the one, though not, I hope, 
 for the other," said Hazell, smiling. 
 
 " Well, you're heavier than I am, certainly," said 
 the young man, looking at his host critically. " I 
 turn the scale at ten stone." 
 
 " I don't own to more than fifteen," said Hazell 
 jocularly. 
 
 " I knew a man a Sydney man who rode fif- 
 teen stone and did some of the best play I have 
 ever seen in my life," answered Caradon earnestly ; 
 " but you'd soon be down to thirteen if you'd ride 
 over regularly to our practices and play them hon- 
 estly through." 
 
 " On a motor-car ? I am a quiet old stager now- 
 adays. The rushes of life are over for me." 
 
 " They say, Mr. Hazell, that you have been a sol- 
 dier." 
 
 Hazell bowed, admitting it.
 
 102 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " My brother Eldred is a gunner." Hazell bowed 
 again. " Have you ever seen any active service ? " 
 
 " I always had the bad luck to miss it," said Ha- 
 zell, and got up and stood before the fire. 
 
 Caradon, full of curiosity, felt that he could not 
 press further, but he looked with admiration. The 
 figure was grand in spite of the coming heaviness ; 
 the face was strong and manly ; he gave the im- 
 pression of one who had seen the wide world and 
 was not afraid of it. 
 
 " I have come here to be quiet and useful and get 
 old with dignity," said Hazell, in his quick way. 
 
 " Well, there isn't much adventure in these set- 
 tled parts," Caradon admitted. " Bushranging and 
 gold-fever and fights with the natives are all over, 
 as far as we are concerned. We get up a bit of 
 sport now and then, a day after brush-turkeys or 
 so, but it's a calm life enough, unless you call 
 droughts exciting. Yery good spiced beef, I must 
 say." 
 
 They rode about the run together, Caradon talk- 
 ing cheerfully, full of anecdote and information. A 
 wild weak fancy awoke in HazelPs mind to ad- 
 vertise for a " colonial experiencer," on the chance 
 of securing the companionship of such another in- 
 telligent chatterbox, who might save him from 
 many stormy hours of thought. The fancy was 
 checked at birth. He drew his new friend's atten- 
 tion to a gully at hand, where a little water ran 
 steadily. 
 
 " Do you see this ? It puzzles me," he said. " A 
 month ago this was dry. For a week or so past
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 103 
 
 there has been a small, brisk stream in it. I can 
 hear of no drop of rain for miles. I have seen no 
 trace of mist on the hills behind, and yet there is 
 water here where there was none." 
 
 "It's the same with us. It's one of the odd 
 things in this country of mine that strangers call so 
 all-round odd. Sort of thing people write to the 
 papers about every dry season, I believe." 
 
 "Well, but the reason ?" 
 
 "No one rightly knows, of course. Never do 
 rightly know any reason for anything, it seems to 
 me at least, scientific people never do." 
 
 "Why, no," said Hazell, laughing. "I have 
 often noticed that one advantage of being a man 
 of science is that you can say you don't know any- 
 thing about anything without being considered an 
 ass." 
 
 " Ah, good ! " cried Caradon. " I shall carry that 
 to my mother. She loves a smart saying. But 
 seriously, Mr. Hazell, they say, some of 'em, that 
 it's the extreme contraction of the ground, the 
 shrinkage, you know, because of the shocking dry- 
 ness, and there's always water somewhere, it seems, 
 and it is forced up. Do you see ? " 
 
 " I see ; thanks." 
 
 " They give other reasons, too, but this is about 
 the simplest of them, and you will notice in the 
 summer another queer habit of our water-courses : 
 they'll run free in the morning and evening, when 
 the sun isn't so powerful, and about noon they go 
 slow, not half the size. Why, I hear there's a neat 
 little gully full of water on Brooksby burst out
 
 104 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 lately where there hasn't been a sign of moisture 
 within the memory of the oldest inhabitant." 
 
 They ate their sandwiches together, and Hazell 
 promised to become a vice-president of the Polo 
 Club, and to spend a day shortly at Wamagatta in 
 the entertainment of its manager ; but the latter 
 lamented to his wife that an agreeable companion 
 and an experienced sportsman seemed inclined to 
 stand aloof from local things and bury himself in 
 his arid hermitage. 
 
 " Close as death about himself, too, and yet one 
 can see he would be interesting if he only would," 
 he added. 
 
 "I suppose he is sure not to dance," said the 
 wife, a languid Victorian, who worshipped Terpsi- 
 chore by nature and nationality. 
 
 " I'll put any money on it he doesn't," was the 
 reply. 
 
 The weekly services at the little district church 
 saw nothing of the master of Burrabindar. He 
 spent Sundays in his sitting-room reading many 
 newspapers, writing a few letters, and, from old 
 habit, dipping into one or more of the various 
 books which he had once studied with a view to 
 self-improvement, or to advancement in the profes- 
 sion he had once adored. Hazell had entered 
 Kugby late in his boyhood, and his early years had 
 been divided between French and German schools. 
 He knew both languages well ; he had a smattering 
 of Kussian and of one or two dialects of Hindo- 
 stanee ; musketry and military commissariat had 
 attracted him, and he had delighted in the war
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 105 
 
 game. No man of his standing had been more re- 
 solved on advancement, nor better prepared for it, 
 yet here he was, arms and men alike laid aside, 
 awaiting the long pleasure of Nature. 
 
 " It might be a siege, it might be solitary con- 
 finement on parole, but it might be worse ; it might 
 be that year over again ! " he wrote one Sunday, in 
 a letter addressed to Thomas Hazell, Esq., of Ha- 
 zell and Co., Colonial Brokers, Fenchurch Street, 
 E.G. 
 
 One day he took his unwilling horse up and 
 down and along the steep stony hills that formed 
 his eastern boundary. The gum-trees, starved out, 
 showed lines of dead white leaves among the green- 
 grey forest monotone. Here and there a wallaby 
 bounded far and fast at his approach, or a kanga- 
 roo-rat sprang wildly up as from under him, and 
 startled the animal he rode. All day heavy clouds 
 had brooded southwest in the sky, and he had 
 fancied occasional lightning flashes among them, 
 but he noticed them almost without hope, so often 
 had they gathered in such fashion and broken away 
 fruitlessly. It is the tantalisation of drought that 
 great curtains of moisture float and hang continu- 
 ally over longing heads, only to disappear. An un- 
 seasonably warm wind had swept the land for two 
 or three days before, but it had sunk and left the 
 air extraordinarily still. Hazell reined in his horse 
 for some time, looking at the scene around him 
 and below. Great plains on which the trees grew 
 gradually fewer, till an invading brown desert 
 stretched supreme, lay to the west. In the dry at-
 
 106 HEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 mosphere human sight went far hills twenty miles 
 distant seemed within an hour's ride ; the gleam of 
 a creek showed from leagues away. The landscape 
 was almost colourless, even the sky whitish; a 
 patch of the spring green of England laid down on 
 any part of it would have stood out in contrast as 
 sharp as a lighthouse in the night. 
 
 He stood at the extreme end of the run ; his own 
 homestead was lost to sight in the low spurs of the 
 range northward ; southward he could distinguish 
 the little wooden home of Mrs. Mumford, whose 
 guinea-fowl had strayed to serve his table. Of hu- 
 man life on any side there was not a glimpse ; so 
 solitary might Adam have stood on the hills of 
 Eden surveying his inheritance, but Adam in a 
 garden bounded by rivers, and this man in a wilder- 
 ness of dry bones. He was tired. In determina- 
 tion to reach the highest and utmost edge of Bur- 
 rabindar, he had ridden some time into the after- 
 noon. He dismounted, loosened the girths, and 
 tethered his horse to a convenient trunk; then, 
 having eaten his spare lunch, he lay down to sleep. 
 He ft woke to so strange and awful a sunset that he 
 seemed to be dreaming still. South and west a 
 tenth of the heavens displayed a wild extravagance 
 of splendour and menace ; a massed purple black- 
 ness supplied a background to hard billows of in- 
 tense dark blue, which lay upon it in higher relief ; 
 below, between the cloud line and the land line, 
 was a glorious vaporous veil of every shade of 
 golden and orange brilliancy, lit by the hidden sun 
 above, and flying columns of cloud black, brown-
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 107 
 
 ish, bronzed or gilded, as from their position their 
 waves caught the light or not; the rays of the 
 buried fire streamed off in all directions up the sky, 
 and down upon the earth, and seemed to hurry to- 
 ward the hill on which he stood, amazed, admiring, 
 half in dread. As he questioned what to do, what 
 spot might be the safest to avoid the onslaught 
 which must immediately come, he saw small whirl- 
 ing objects against the shimmering transparency of 
 veil, and a roar of distant wind reached his ears. 
 The whirling things increased in size ; big boughs 
 and then whole trees flew agonised across the veil. 
 The roar grew louder, mixed with sharp sounds of 
 cracking and a general stir of breaking substance. 
 The little wooden house of the manager of Brooksby 
 was struck, and the roof carried off, and closed out- 
 buildings were overturned, like leaves or cards, by 
 the unseen violence that passed over them. A few 
 tiny human beings, running out like ants, fell and 
 lay like shreds or seeds upon the ground. A cold 
 storm-breath gained himself and made him clutch 
 his hat, and then the veil, no longer glorious, but of 
 mist and rain, rushed upon him and blotted out the 
 scene of ruin. He dragged the horse, hurrying as 
 fast as it would follow, down the lee side of the 
 height, and they stood together in the shelter of a 
 limestone boulder while the outer edge of the cy- 
 clone swept the ridge, and the forest swayed and 
 snapped above, and a solid sea of water drenched 
 them. 
 
 The worst was over in a minute. The circle of 
 destruction had but touched him ; he waited shiver-
 
 108 HEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 ing, blinded by rain, confused by wind, till the day 
 was past and the short twilight gave early place to 
 a night of settled downpour. He started home 
 slowly, letting the horse for the most part take its 
 own way. No longer danger, but discomfort re- 
 mained, the discomfort of clothes soaked in water, 
 heavy and cold on the body, of a saddle soft and 
 slippery, of unavailable tobacco in a sodden pouch. 
 The two creeks that crossed his road were running 
 fairly high, but so far there was nothing like flood 
 on Burrabindar, and, inasmuch as he could judge in 
 the gloom, and infer from the trend of the storm, 
 his property had escaped serious damage. 
 
 The drought was over : rain fell in solemn-sound- 
 ing torrents.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HAZELL devoted several following days to the 
 demands of fever, the poll-tax of Anglo-Indians. 
 While the rain roared around, he lay alternately 
 tossing and prostrate in his dark, lonely room, from 
 which the wide verandah-roof shut out the sight and 
 the light of the low grey sky. He physicked him- 
 self from choice, but also from necessity, for no 
 medical aid could have been called across the 
 turbulent water-courses which raged between him 
 and Beulah, even if the horse or the cart of the 
 most robust practitioner could have surmounted the 
 deep vertical inches of mud, the intervals of bog, 
 the boughs, tree-trunks, and other obstacles which 
 strewed what in fair weather was a tolerable Bush 
 road. 
 
 When he again stepped out, somewhat feeble, 
 into the sunshine, the soil was brown where it had 
 been white, and a sheet of tender, pervading green 
 lay over the whole face of it. The pastoralist 
 future was no longer a hope, it was a certainty. 
 Loss there would be, even to the half of the flocks ; 
 but it could be borne. Life, insistent, unconquer- 
 able, eternal, was warm in the gently -reeking earth, 
 was triumphant in the chord of the magpies, the 
 screech of the cockatoo, the lowing and bleat- 
 ing of the cattle in the yards. Convalescent, with 
 that dulness of the brain and that stir of the emo- 
 
 109
 
 110 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 tions which accompany returning health, as though 
 with greater weakness one's body took the perilous 
 path of least resistance, Hazell felt himself also 
 warm, and the spring was in his veins also. The 
 past was not forgotten, but it might come to be un- 
 noticed ; the old line of life, of thought, of circum- 
 stances, was neither broken nor cancelled, but a new 
 line might run unhindered by its side the substance 
 to its shadow. Reviving energy swept to and fro in 
 him, the light fluid mass of it taking shape from time 
 to time of Avis Fletcher. She visited his thoughts 
 like a ghost. Now she would stand radiant with 
 a promise of joy, like a golden figure of dawn in a 
 virgin world ; now she galloped before him on a 
 flying horse, a vision of achievement or of fame ; 
 now she sat spinning, spinning, and the calm of 
 sweetest peace, of evening rest, was the essence of 
 the song of her wheel. 
 
 Suddenly he -remembered the odious shriek of 
 Rennard. It had escaped his memory in the cares 
 of the immediate days, in the depressing illness, but 
 it came back to him with an intensity of wonder 
 and suspicion, with amazement that he should have 
 forgotten a thing so outrageous. The accusation 
 was horrible ! Was there foundation for it, how- 
 ever slight ? or did it spring entirely from the ma- 
 lignancy of a low creature balked in an attempt at 
 fraud, with perhaps a criminal record for his past, 
 which he feared might be known by her whom he 
 claimed to know ? Hazell pondered. He could not 
 put the question by. He answered it in every con- 
 ceivable way with indignant repudiation, with in-
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 111 
 
 genious substantiation. He considered her from 
 fresh points of view, critically examining each de- 
 tail of which he was in possession. There were her 
 dignity, her beauty, her noble, if mistaken, enthusi- 
 asm of sympathy for the poor dead girl Emily, and 
 for the sufferings of her sex. Hazell knew, as all 
 men know, that woman has fair cause of complaint 
 against man and against society. He knew that it 
 was required of her to be an exquisite kind of para- 
 dox good and pure, steadfast in her constancy, and 
 yet abundant in a piquant sauce of coquetry and 
 wiles ; and should the one part predominate, she is 
 heavy, unattractive ; and should the other, she is 
 light, unworthy. To be fascinating the reason of 
 her being she must maintain unstable equilibrium. 
 Man, were he asked to do this, would refuse the 
 endless effort. Miss Fletcher's expressions on the 
 subject of her sex were easy to be understood, 
 Hazell decided, and to be written down to the ac- 
 count of that undying protest of youth against 
 whatever seems to it wrong. And yet, why her 
 seclusion on the fringe of civilisation ? There was 
 no hint of present ill-health ; no threat of lung or 
 other disease. Why had she left her English home ? 
 and why, here, did she avoid her own kind, who 
 would so willingly make her life delightful with all 
 that women are supposed to value ? The world 
 abounds in men who ask for nothing so much as an 
 occasion of petting and enjoying beauty. Had she 
 not, then, against this world some private cause of 
 passionate resentment? If so, did this Eennard 
 know it? Hazell reviewed the circumstances of
 
 112 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 their first meeting. He could remember no sign 
 that she had remarked the man. He recollected the 
 refinement of her surroundings, and the recollection 
 baffled him, for he could associate nothing discred- 
 itable with Mr. or Mrs. Bolitho. He thrust aside 
 suspicion; it returned, it embittered his days of 
 gathering strength, for the realm of guess is as 
 wide as the mind that begets it, and contains no 
 certainty but vexation. He felt that he must see 
 her soon. He told himself that his large experi- 
 ence of women would judge her unerringly. A 
 meeting, a few searching looks, a little well-directed 
 observation, would show him the kind of person he 
 dealt with. But, again, why ? Oh, maddening fix- 
 ity of an active mind brooding through lonely days ! 
 Oh, detestable and unchivalrous curiosity ! In any 
 case whatever, how did it concern him ? Was it not 
 enough that he had met with kindness in the house 
 where she lived? And what was the manner of 
 man who had accused her ? A human ferret, a rat, 
 for instant dislike and extrusion. So Hazell strug- 
 gled with the unruly kingdom of his thoughts. 
 
 The local newspaper set forth a polo match to be 
 played on the coming Saturday between the teams 
 known as Beulah and Blowye. The ground of the 
 first named was to be the place of meeting. A 
 newly-elected vice-president owed some courtesy to 
 the society ; it might be a good opportunity to make 
 his first public appearance in the neighbourhood. 
 Miss Fletcher, from her love of horsemanship, might 
 be among the onlookers, and he might meet her on 
 neutral ground.
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 113 
 
 Although the sun had reigned undisputed with 
 increasing heat for more than a week, the roads 
 were still heavy with mud, and he drove in a sulky, 
 supplied with great-coat and rugs against the chill 
 of the evening, and told himself he was an old 
 fogey as he did so. 
 
 A broad, cleared paddock was given up to the 
 game. It was rather high ground, and the flat 
 surface was sufficiently dry and in order for its 
 purpose. A small crowd of onlookers held one side, 
 with a mixture of vehicles and riding-horses dis- 
 orderly, unpicturesque ; a small, dingy British 
 crowd. On the other side rough grooms held smart 
 polo ponies, and coats and bundles of polo-sticks 
 lay together about the fence. It was a brilliant 
 afternoon. The white shirts of the players ready 
 for play gleamed on the field, and as he drew nearer 
 his eye took a sense of something golden, which 
 quickened the blood in his veins, and unconsciously, 
 from long habit of control, he steadied his fingers 
 on the reins, and brought his thoroughbred to a 
 walk, looking elsewhere at the low eastern hills, 
 at the lower line of the township until he had 
 driven slowly up behind the small group of people. 
 There had been no need, for the moment, of closer 
 attention. What he came to see was there. Miss 
 Fletcher sat with Mrs. Bolitho in a light buggy, and 
 watched the match. Except themselves, he knew 
 no one there, but he felt that all knew him. Had 
 there been any doubt as to the name of the broad- 
 shouldered, soldier-like stranger who appeared in so 
 small a community, his sulky, long identified with
 
 114: HEAETS IMPOETUNATE 
 
 Burrabindar, would have told them who he was, 
 and he noticed a little stir among the several ladies 
 under a score who for a moment faced him, be- 
 hind, more interesting than the fight before them. 
 
 Miss Fletcher wore a cream-coloured cloth jacket 
 and a blue silk tie, and there was a blue band round 
 her sailor-hat. Hazell perceived that Caradon Bo- 
 litho, slim and wiry, in a blue cap, was playing 
 " back " against the Eeds of Bio wye playing by 
 far the best of any man on either side. The famil- 
 iar cries, the familiar thud and beat of galloping 
 feet, bore him away to India and past days of just 
 such delicious excitement. So had he shouted, so 
 had he hustled his adversary and swept the ground, 
 and stooped and reached and made brave, risky 
 strokes for the joy of the doing and the praise of 
 one whose praise had it ever been really his ? A 
 curse rose in his throat ; the surging in his brain 
 blinded his eyes. " Fool ! " he thought furiously. 
 " Fool to come here ! Get home with you ! " 
 
 A rider came cantering past him on his way to 
 replace a broken stick from his reserve supply. 
 " Time " was called, and Hazell recovered calmness 
 to find Mrs. Bolitho looking round from her carriage 
 and smiling on him. Handing the reins to his man, 
 he went to speak to her on foot. She was among 
 the foremost of the spectators, and as he stepped 
 between the vehicles, the whole district, as it were, 
 had a good view of the new squatter, a person pre- 
 sumably of some wealth and without encumbrance, 
 who had come to make his home among them. 
 Marriage is, it may be said, more highly esteemed
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 115 
 
 in a young country than in an old, or it may seem 
 so, because general conversation turns upon it more 
 candidly. He was an interesting possibility, an 
 object of conjecture to every woman present, and 
 there was not one who did not conjecture something, 
 contrive something, weave something in her mind 
 as he stood beside the ladies from Wamagatta. 
 Mrs. Bolitho gave him her hand, but Miss Fletcher, 
 who sat beyond her, met him only with a bow ; yet 
 he smiled, as it were, involuntarily, and remained 
 smiling, with an occasional glance at her while he 
 gave some account of his late illness to Mrs. Bolitho. 
 She had seen that kind of smile many times on 
 many faces, all of them masculine. It is a weak 
 smile, self-conscious, with an impression on the fea- 
 tures that they had had to yield to it, yet that there 
 has been joy and satisfaction in yielding. 
 
 " I've known men twice as bad as myself," said 
 he quickly, in words which bore no reference to his 
 expression of countenance. " One poor chap in par- 
 ticular I remember, who used to get attacks from 
 time to time. Half an hour after the fever was on 
 him he would be so prostrate that he could not rise 
 from the bed or ground or wherever he happened 
 to be lying. I remember one day, when his syce 
 was out " 
 
 Two young women slight, supple beings in well- 
 worn riding habits came up to speak to Mrs. Bo- 
 litho. They had small, thin faces, brown, indeter- 
 minate, of a quaint and impertinent sort. They 
 held out tiny flexible hands in shabby gauntlets. 
 In lands where riding is a necessity ornamental gear
 
 116 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 is not expected. Hazell was introduced to the Miss 
 Railtons of Brooksby; but the play began again, 
 and he turned to watch it. 
 
 " Ah ! Red three has made a mistake," he ex- 
 claimed. " That was a fine run of his down the side, 
 but he had plenty of time to take a pull and make 
 a shot for goal, instead of smacking the ball be- 
 hind." 
 
 "You are speaking of my brother," said the 
 younger, Annie Railton. " They say he is a better 
 horseman than hitter." 
 
 " Often the case," Hazell agreed, and then added 
 politely : " You are all such horsemen in this 
 country ! " 
 
 " So you must think, I'm sure," put in her sister, 
 May. " Here you see us, your neighbours on one 
 side, for the first time, in habits ; and did not Miss 
 Fletcher, who is a kind of neighbour on the other, 
 ride over to welcome you before any one else ? " 
 
 The girl laughed maliciously, and looked point- 
 edly at Avis, to whom she had so far said nothing. 
 Hazell saw her start very slightly, and with the 
 instinct of shielding her, he rushed in with a re- 
 tort: 
 
 " How did you know that ? Were you also be- 
 leaguered and thirsty in the home paddock of what 
 was supposed to be an empty house ? If so, why 
 didn't you come in, too ? Your charity is not equal 
 to Miss Fletcher's, or shall I say your menage ? " 
 
 The girl tossed her head. 
 
 "I don't know about charity," she answered, 
 " but I shan't tell you how I heard it. One hears
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 117 
 
 everything in the Bush somehow everything there 
 is to be heard." 
 
 She raised her voice in emphasis, and looked at 
 Avis again pointedly. 
 
 Avis looked back attentively. Her complexion 
 was not of the kind that changes easily, and there 
 was neither flush nor pallor to show that she was 
 in any way affected ; but Hazell, as though in mys- 
 terious sympathy with her, felt the sudden bound 
 in her veins, and his eyes caught the flicker of a 
 pulse in her throat between the collar and the ear. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho, aware immediately of what is known 
 as feline amenity, descended swiftly on the girl who 
 had introduced it. 
 
 " Pray, how do you know that you hear every- 
 thing ? I think it most likely that there is a great 
 deal more you do not hear and never know anything 
 at all about." 
 
 " For instance," put in Hazell, still conscious of 
 the beating pulse, "there's that wonderful thing 
 they will never discover that cosmo veil which 
 would revolutionise the whole of human movement, 
 which would be the most marvellous discovery 
 known to history. You've heard nothing of that, 
 of course." 
 
 " Cosmo veil ? " May Railton repeated doubtfully ; 
 then hastily : " How could I have heard of a thing 
 they will never discover ? or you either, Mr. Ha- 
 zell? You are making fun of me. Of course, I 
 don't mean that kind of thing at all. I mean that 
 what people don't want known about themselves 
 comes out, sooner or later."
 
 118 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 " I quite think it does," said Mrs. Bolitho, in the 
 frankest of indifferent tones ; " and the moral of the 
 matter is this : Whatever you have done good, 
 bad, or indifferent stick to it. The world takes 
 one mostly at one's own valuation." 
 
 " Unluckily for those who suffer from insufficient 
 self-confidence," Hazell agreed with her. "And 
 there are such." 
 
 Inwardly he wrote down Miss May Eailton as a 
 poisonous social insect, and wondered if it were 
 just possible that some of her venom was meant for 
 him. Yet it was surely not possible ; her reference 
 had been distinctly to Miss Fletcher. 
 
 "Are you one of the self-depreciators, Mr. Ha- 
 zell ? " asked her sister. 
 
 " I leave the matter to you and to time and to 
 the revelations of the Bush," he replied solemnly. 
 "As a newcomer, I am greatly obliged to you 
 both. On your authority, I shall refuse to answer 
 any questions concerning myself; it would be su- 
 perfluous." 
 
 " Bravo, back ! "Well played ! " cried Avis, in a 
 clear, ringing voice, looking at the field. 
 
 " Is that my Caradon ? I am an unworthy 
 mother ! What did he do ? " said Mrs. Bolitho. 
 
 "A splendid back-hand er on the near side 
 placed the ball perfectly. Goal ! Bravo ! " 
 
 " I suppose you are not coming to the Bachelors' 
 Ball next week, Miss Fletcher ? " 
 
 A big man of jovial air, accompanied by an 
 equally well-nourished wife, came up and saluted 
 the party in detail in hearty tones.
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 119 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I think not, Dr. Middlemass." 
 
 May Railton demanded suddenly, in a tone that 
 was shrill with excitement : 
 
 " Did you ever go to balls in Southampton shire, 
 Miss Fletcher ? " 
 
 Hazell saw his Diana wince, and under her veil 
 her face became strange ; in the colour of her cheek 
 and that of her hair, which usually blended in the 
 most satisfying way, there seemed a startling dis- 
 cordance, and the brown eyes with their lines of 
 curling lashes, and the straight brow above, seemed 
 to have grown on the instant much darker, and 
 hard in their effect. 
 
 Instinctively Hazell moved round to her side of 
 the carriage. 
 
 "My God!" he cried inwardly; "if I could 
 break that Railton girl across my knees ! " 
 
 But the pause was short no more than might be 
 explained by astonishment at so unexpected a refer- 
 ence before Avis answered steadily : 
 
 " Sometimes." 
 
 Mrs. Middlemass seemed to wait upon the word, 
 and her husband also, through his professional 
 good-humour, gave a shrewd ear, and both the 
 Misses Railton were in a breathless gasp of attend- 
 ance. Mrs. Bolitho looked round on them all in 
 amazement. Her quick mind made a pictorial 
 group of the scene. The keen inquisitive little 
 sisters in shabby riding-habits, excitement blended 
 of fear and spite in their little indeterminate coun- 
 tenances; the comfortable, prudent citizen couple,
 
 120 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 who loved a current tale, but were not prepared to 
 dare anything for the truth of it ; and Avis, vivid, 
 detached, so quiet, though so intensely living, sud- 
 denly more than ever a creature apart, a mark 
 for arrows winged by malice. By her side, too, 
 most noticeable of all, stood the stranger, erect 
 and easy, the mature knight plainly at her serv- 
 ice. 
 
 " They are playing again," said Mrs. Bolitho, to 
 change the position, to relieve Avis, to get time to 
 think. Hazell cared nothing further for the polo. 
 The play had lost its interest in comparison with 
 the bitter social by-play which he recognised, hated, 
 and resented as a man who had lived among it and 
 suffered from it. 
 
 A society is no doubt best, but there are hours 
 when one pictures the superior advantages of an un- 
 communicative, armed individuality, wherein one's 
 will should be the law and alien 'comment capital. 
 Hazell, from dire experience, was quick to perceive 
 the stings of drawing-room talk, and having come 
 in search of Avis with inquisitorial purpose of his 
 own, he found himself her involuntary liege and 
 henchman. "Who should say but that there were 
 lies concerning her, as there had been lies concern- 
 ing him ? He glanced at her. He felt her nailed 
 to a cross of seemly endurance. 
 
 " An excellent sport," he said pleasantly. " But 
 it has this fault to an onlooker ; the interest does 
 not necessarily culminate toward the end. One 
 would often enjoy it most if one left half-way 
 through."
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 121 
 
 Miss Fletcher turned to him. The fixity of her 
 features startled him. She answered still steadily : 
 
 "Every public thing is more or less tiresome, 
 don't you think? And polo is a time game; like 
 life, the best of it is often at the beginning, but if 
 one does not wait for the end, though there's noth- 
 ing to be got by doing so, the world calls one a 
 coward." 
 
 "The world is a hass; but there is one thing 
 which seems certain to a stranger, Miss Fletcher : 
 that you need never mind anything its hass-hood 
 may chance to say." 
 
 "Why?" The attitude of either was conven- 
 tional. A line drawn upward from the wheel 
 would not have touched him, her arm was well 
 within the curve of the rail, yet their minds, drawn 
 forcibly together, met in an exquisite satisfaction, 
 lie spoke in an uncontrollable desire to uphold, to 
 praise, to cherish, saying anything that came first ; 
 she answered anything that had a coherent sound, 
 and for the moment she trusted herself to him 
 against the world as one has seen a child's head lie 
 in a protecting hand, as one has felt the sweep of 
 the wind in our sail urge on our waters. 
 
 " Why ? " she asked, with a smile of relaxation 
 and content. 
 
 " When a woman has beauty and wit and courage 
 and freedom, what can hurt her ? Who would hurt 
 her?" 
 
 " Every one can be hurt except those who can- 
 not feel, and loss of feeling is nothing else than 
 death."
 
 122 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " Well, I am glad I am not dead yet." 
 
 " Are you ? It is not a race, you know, it is only 
 polo." 
 
 "So much the better; one may get one's goal 
 earlier." 
 
 " Or several goals ? " 
 
 His face clouded. " There is always one that is 
 best," he cried. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho rounded on them as though she had 
 taken for granted their interest in the field. 
 
 " Poor Caradon ! game for Blowye ! " she cried, 
 and looked them through with an intelligent flash. 
 
 " I am proud of being vice-president," said 
 Hazell, with great determination and questionable 
 logic. 
 
 "You are certainly loyal," replied Mrs. Bolitho, 
 with a laugh. " The ladies take it in turns on these 
 occasions to quench the public thirst, Mr. Hazell, by 
 billy-tea made in the corner near the sticks." Her 
 eye sought that of Avis, found it, and continued : 
 " You will make acquaintance with all the rest of 
 the company over your cup. I am an old woman, 
 and evening damp does not suit me. Miss Fletcher 
 is very good to me, and will drive me home straight 
 away." 
 
 " The sun sets," said Hazell, looking at Avis. 
 
 The elder lady's face was caught in a spasm of 
 laughter. "It will rise again," she said reassur- 
 ingly. " Would you mind putting my shawl round 
 my shoulders ? " 
 
 Avis had her hands full of whip and rein. She 
 meant to bow in farewell, but as their eyes met
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 123 
 
 with a shock to her, she could not so much as 
 smile. Words were impossible ; how could she 
 bear to leave him ? Yet let her fly to the utter- 
 most parts of the earth, so that they never met 
 again.
 
 CHAPTEK X 
 
 EALPH HAZELL had begun a new chapter in the 
 book of his life, and he wrote it in words as clear, 
 as emphatic, as single of purpose as though it had 
 been the first chapter of all. The letters were 
 luminous with hope, the page was ornate with ro- 
 mance. Europe and the complications and elabora- 
 tions of it, India and the highly-coloured symbol- 
 isms, the worn ambition of it, were nothing to him ; 
 Australia held his whole treasure, and it was the 
 promised land. The Bush was no longer a desert 
 bringing forth the grotesque ; it was a virgin coun- 
 try, whose pallor was the delicacy of the dawn, 
 whose monotony best awaited enrichment, wherein 
 dwelt one man and one woman, and the woman be- 
 yond praise. She had no fault ; she had no flaws ; 
 like the Parthenon, she convinced at first sight of 
 her perfections, and surely, surely she was his ! 
 There are moments which admit of no mistake. 
 Such had been these when he stood by her side, and 
 their souls had flowed into each other, like rivers 
 that meet. Come change, come death, come any- 
 thing, she had been his then ; either could have put 
 out a hand and said, " Let us go," and the other 
 would have companied obediently to the end of the 
 world. It was overwhelming, it was a dream of 
 Olympian beauty, but it was true, and he accepted 
 it. Hazell's eye was as single as his heart was 
 
 124
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 125 
 
 strong; when he was fixed nothing shook him; 
 when he yielded he gave everything. He had no 
 doubt that she gave equally. It was as though 
 they had stood together on the bank of a great 
 stream, and with fingers interlocked had plunged 
 into it together ; henceforward, swimming or drift- 
 ing, their course was one. It was himself she 
 loved, and not his past, not his fortune, for she 
 knew nothing of either of them; it was herself 
 he loved, for his ignorance of her circumstances 
 was no less than hers of his; but love takes the 
 place of all wisdom, and the man who has been 
 widely called the wisest declared wisdom to be a 
 loving spirit. 
 
 HazelFs pen served him but unwillingly, and he 
 sent no letter. Business arose and kept him to his 
 bounds for a full week, but he bore it tolerably ; the 
 hours flew, if the minutes lagged, the glare of happy 
 certainty remaining with him. When he could pre- 
 sent himself, there should be words enough, utter- 
 ance, publication, establishment of any kind she 
 pleased ; some regard for the world, through all his 
 disdain of it, urged him to mark her for his own as 
 soon as possible. Some respect for its hideous pos- 
 sibilities suggested that the sooner the better he 
 should be generally known as her guard and hench- 
 man. They had a common grievance, it seemed, 
 when he thought of the unexplained insolence of the 
 Railton girl, against the vile tongue of the world ; 
 but he thought of it little, there was so much else 
 brighter to engage, for instance, his evenings, when 
 he encouraged a vision of the spinning-wheel, in the
 
 126 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 hands of the golden worker, murmuring at his fire- 
 side ; or his mornings, when he fancied her comrade- 
 ship riding radiant through the grey scene. He 
 checked his thoughts, however, making virtue of 
 necessity, and worked for Burrabindar in these days 
 with an exuberance of energy and imagination. It 
 must be worthy of her. He went throughout the 
 house, projecting alterations ; he captured wander- 
 ing men, putting them to burn off timber ; he re- 
 viewed his stock, picturing a series of prize rams 
 Golden Fleece I., Golden Fleece II., and so on. He 
 made inquiries for a second Chinese gardener, that 
 there might be beautiful surroundings for her when 
 she came. Never was man more sanguine. When 
 the jackasses laughed at sunset, he laughed with 
 them. Mrs. Brock noticed a difference in him; 
 the sternness of his look had softened and the some- 
 what mechanical cheeriness of a well-mannered 
 man showed a sparkle of genuine gladness. 
 
 On the eighth day he found himself at liberty to 
 ride forth and take heaven by force. He dressed 
 with especial care. His coat and gaiters were al- 
 most new, his horse, the youngest and most showy 
 in his stables, had been lately clipped. He went by 
 way of the township, partly that he might spend 
 his morning no otherwise than on the road to Avis, 
 partly that he might submit his head and beard for 
 the trimming of the barber. He tried to ride 
 slowly, but the grey was high-fed and responded 
 smartly to the impatience of his mood ; miles were 
 as nothing : he was in Beulah before the sun was 
 high. The barber had no other customer ; his in-
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 127 
 
 considerable lunch required so little preparation 
 from the staff of the Exchange Hotel that it was in 
 process of digestion by noon three hours at least 
 before that of polite intrusion. It was ceremonious, 
 his purpose at Wamagatta, not the usual Bush visi- 
 tation. Time hung on his hands. There was a bil- 
 liard-room, but the marker was away. There was 
 a bank-manager, but he was occupied. There was 
 neither court nor market in process ; a duller resi- 
 dential hole could not be dreamed of. Hazell 
 drifted idly into the general store, where the iron- 
 faced importer stood as usual at the desk. 
 
 "I liked that saddle," said the squatter pleas- 
 antly. " It fitted me well, for a ready-made affair. 
 When you get in any more, you might let me have 
 another like it." 
 
 Proudfoot made a solemn note of the suggestion. 
 
 " Ye've been ill, I hear," he said. 
 
 "You hear everything, of course. Every one 
 hears everything in country districts. Different 
 look about things to-day from the morning when I 
 ate your breakfast." 
 
 " There's just as different a look about yerseP, 
 Mister Hazell ; you're not the same man." 
 
 Hazell laughed. 
 
 " I took your advice and hoped." 
 
 " Do ye always take advice sae kindly ? " 
 
 "A man of my size is naturally weak-minded, 
 easily influenced either way ; but though a prophet 
 had counselled it, I don't think there would have 
 been much kick left in me, if I had had to watch 
 my stock starve for many weeks longer. I had cut
 
 128 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 down half my she-oaks for them as it was ; sheep 
 seem able to eat anything." 
 
 " Ay, even airth even their ain lambs." 
 
 " I don't know why, but a cannibal sheep seems 
 even more monstrous than a cannibal man. No one 
 has ascertained, I suppose, if the taste of his own 
 species is as delicious to a sheep as to a man ; but 
 grass must be very insipid afterward. That little 
 package is for Wamagatta, I see. I am going there 
 shall I take it?" 
 
 " Na, na ; no need. A waggon-load will be awa' 
 to them the day " 
 
 Proudfoot paused. Hazell chose a cigar from his 
 case very leisurely, cut the end of it, prodded it to 
 make it draw well, lighted it carefully, and passed 
 it backward and forward under his nose, inhaling 
 the smoke critically. 
 
 " As ye're for Wamagatta, ye might tak' a word 
 to Miss Fletcher," said the Scotchman in a tone of 
 peculiar dryness. The cigar ceased to move. " I 
 doot she's no over-fond o' adveece, for she's a head- 
 strong leddy, but it's a true word. Tell her, from 
 Alexander Proudfoot, she has an enemy in the 
 deestrict wi' an ill tongue." 
 
 " Who is it ? " asked Hazell quickly. 
 
 " A puir creature enough, but for the malice o' 
 him, and but for the love o' the human heart 
 hearin' evil o' their nabors." 
 
 " A man, then ? " 
 
 " Ay. A daunderin' wastrel, a sundowner by's 
 luiks." 
 
 "A rat, a mere ha'porth of manhood, with a
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 129 
 
 crafty gallows face, all blotches ? " asked the squat- 
 ter vehemently. 
 
 " The verra mon ! " answered Proudfoot. 
 
 " I guessed it. He calls himself Luke Rennard. 
 It was he who loafed a week at my expense because 
 his hands were inflamed with burrs. I told him to 
 go. He replied with some scurrile insolence about 
 Miss Fletcher. I laid my whip across his shoul- 
 ders and sent him flying. Does he scatter his ac- 
 cusation broadcast ? Where is he ? " 
 
 " I dinna keer where he is. He spoke openly and 
 with many details during a nicht or twa in the 
 Swan with Two Necks. Now, there is no reason, 
 Master Hazell, but quite the contrary, that this 
 man's licht word should be taken against a leddy 
 weel known and respectit in the town; but she 
 has beauty, Master Hazell, and she's prood and su- 
 peerior, and bides aloof, and there's those that canna 
 forgie mon or woman that bides aloof. If ye're a 
 friend o' hers " 
 
 "I hope I am," Hazell interrupted. "At all 
 events, I shall see to it that this scoundrel is brought 
 to book. I feel, you see, in a measure responsible 
 for him, as it was on my land she came in contact 
 with him, and I have a special hatred for slander 
 and gossip of every degree. I would make the 
 ninth commandment as vital as the seventh, Mr. 
 Proudfoot, and it should be held as much every 
 man's duty to hunt down a backbiter as it now is to 
 disclose a murder. I believe, indeed, that there 
 have been more broken hearts from false witness 
 than from murder."
 
 130 HEAKTS IMPOETUNATE 
 
 A family drove up the street in a one-horse cart 
 and stopped before them. The father got down and 
 advanced on the general store, three or four chil- 
 dren, aged from two to seven years, presided over 
 the reins and the jaded steed. HazelPs cigar went 
 out. He threw it away, chose another, and puffed 
 hastily, without refinement of savour. "A kittle 
 pair," thought Proudfoot; and as the squatter 
 mounted his shining grey, and took the street at an 
 impressive trot, he added to himself: "A braw 
 pair." For, inasmuch as they had stood together in 
 good sympathy by the grave of his daughter, the 
 old man hoped that they might walk together in 
 full sympathy while life should last. 
 
 HazelPs expansive mood had received no check. 
 His purpose was quickened to a yet sharper point 
 by confirmation of Avis's need of a champion 
 against an envious and false world. A few hours, 
 perhaps less, and he would have the right to hunt 
 the lion, or spear the windmill, or sue the libellous 
 for her sake, and his heart was glad at the prospect. 
 Chiefly, however, his mind was in possession of one 
 image, which had occupied it since its first impres- 
 sion her face in its moment of softening, its extra- 
 ordinary sweetness, and its ivory set in gold, with 
 eyes that drew his soul from his own keeping at 
 this particular mental stage the image was entirely 
 sufficient. 
 
 The sun was hot, the day superb, with light 
 southerly airs, cool, which stirred the odour of the 
 wattle-trees, blooming in their fairy way wherever 
 they had leave to stand. Wattle is not necessary
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 131 
 
 for stock-breeding; its value is aesthetic and ro- 
 mantic a value which is small in the eyes of him 
 who clears the primeval forest for a living. The 
 lover in his gloriousness, giving tribute to its loveli- 
 ness, resolved to spare it generously, and to plant it 
 liberally in groves above the house, because its 
 crown was golden like her own ; more, he gave a 
 kindly thought to the cockatoos as they screeched 
 at intervals above him, because they also had a yel- 
 low crest such was the youthful extravagance of 
 his mood as he rode to bliss. 
 
 Avis awaited his coming in a mood compounded 
 of a score of moods, as stormy as complex. She 
 knew he would come ; she was thankful it had not 
 been sooner. Yet she was no nearer readiness to 
 meet him than on the evening after their parting, 
 when she had been driven as devious, as powerless, 
 as a rudderless vessel on a jumbled sea. Had he 
 spoken definitely on the polo-ground, she would 
 have given herself to him without an instant's ques- 
 tion; but there had been a week of thought, and 
 she was in a fever of indecision. Sometimes in its 
 progress she had felt as though she could never feel 
 anything again ; her nerves lay numb with exhaus- 
 tion. Then, again, memory, conviction, pride, re- 
 morse, resentment, longing, would recommence their 
 furious concert, till she thought her reason would 
 give way. She loved him that was a fact for facing, 
 if one can be said to face an avalanche, before which 
 flight is the only wisdom ; and she hated herself 
 for loving him, for she had never permitted herself 
 an instant's contemplation of the possibility of lov-
 
 132 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 ing any man self-respect, justice, forbade it. That 
 some man should one day love her hopelessly to 
 torment, even to death, that she had imagined in 
 exalted moments, and it had seemed a fair thing ; 
 but herself to love like this, this was degradation, 
 this was horrible ! She would not do it ; there was 
 an end of the matter. But she did, and it was only 
 a beginning ; for what was she, the heir of all the 
 ages of pairing and mating, to decide that the long, 
 long thread of life, begun, let us say, no further 
 back than Eden, should come to an end in her ? 
 Life laughed at her in her brain, in her veins, and 
 the argument was never closed. If most men were 
 bad, this man was good if one had cursed, another 
 might come to bless, and one could not gallop for 
 ever through the Bush, and when one had learned 
 to spin and to play the violin, and to shoot at a 
 mark and to grow roses, occasionally there came a 
 vision of years when new accomplishments might 
 pall, and friends might cease for fewness, and the 
 colour should fade and desire fail yet what right 
 had she to take him ? The question was intoler- 
 able in its bitterness, and its lash to her pride 
 pride of a woman young, well-endowed in birth 
 and brain and person, and apt for all the joy of be- 
 ing, who knew herself " not as other girls." If he 
 understood, would he not turn from her, though it 
 might be with a broken heart ? Or, understanding, 
 if he claimed her still, in the rush of passion, and 
 reproached her later ! Death would be easier. Yet 
 she would have drunk her cup of happiness ; she 
 could die when the reproach came. Here appeared
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 133 
 
 the tempter, whispering that, husband or lover, 
 Hazell need never know who was there to tell 
 him ? It was an old story, and vague at its clearest, 
 the right of it in the unwavering keeping of one 
 only, her very nearest. Hazell had forsworn the 
 world who should tell him ? Silence would do 
 him no wrong. No other man had ever had her 
 love, so that for him the unwasted, cumulative 
 volume was deep enough and sweet enough to en- 
 rich, to satisfy, to atone, though he were as hungry 
 as the sea for the river. She asked nothing con- 
 cerning his own past. He wore a wedding-ring, 
 but he had said with violence that he had no wife ; 
 they were therefore free, and whatever lay behind 
 to his account, she wrote it off boldly, and his his- 
 tory for her began with their meeting. Society 
 
 would declare But society was a rotten fabric, 
 
 built of shams, elaborately buttressed up with hum- 
 bug, existing only for its dear existence's sake 
 what honest soul believed in it ? Society ! Heavens ! 
 how tiny is its kingdom, and how artificial its ap- 
 paratus, when one faces the great world of seed- 
 time and harvest, of sun and stars, of the earth- 
 quakes that break the mountains, of the millions of 
 swarming things that have their being in a sum- 
 mer ! Yet to us, born in and of it, human society 
 is more real than the earthquake. 
 
 Avis Fletcher could no more pass its moral limits 
 than, while she lived among her own kind, she 
 could get beyond its recognition. She felt it im- 
 possible that she should go to the man she loved 
 under what her own society would consider false
 
 134 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 pretences. There must be no shadow between 
 them; yet what if the substance must be relin- 
 quished with the shadow ? If he shrank from her ? 
 He would not shrink. He was welling toward her 
 on the crest of the wave ; he had shouldered up and 
 stood beside her against the world tiny enough, 
 but the world for all that. But if she were not 
 worthy of him ? Had she any right to give him 
 anything short of the best a woman might be ? 
 Was he not deserving of the choicest ? and, much 
 as she had to gain, would she not give most truly 
 by denying herself to him, him to herself ? But 
 the denial would kill her. Oh, that such a 
 dilemma was hers ! How had she sinned in the 
 sight of Heaven that it had decreed to her so in- 
 tolerable a fate ? 
 
 The days passed, the nights in alternate anguish 
 and torpor, with odd, brief periods of unresisted 
 sweetness when she drifted in the memory of his 
 eyes, his smile, his worshipping, protecting pres- 
 ence. Yisions of Death, always in tempting con- 
 trast to the young, the strong, the keenly living, 
 visited her, and places of flight, of new beginnings 
 in another country, thoughts of home and her 
 mother's tenderness; yet all the time, like some 
 water-plant, whose head upon the surface waves 
 and tones with a thousand airs, the heart, the 
 foundations of her nature, were fixed and rooted 
 far down immovably in the being of the man she 
 loved, about whom, among a million doubts, she 
 had no doubt at all.
 
 CHAPTEK XI 
 
 ON the eighth morning, when HazelPs expectancy 
 kept him in perpetual motion, nature, rebellious at 
 prolonged excitement, consigned Avis to prolonged 
 and dreamless sleep. The machinery of the body 
 is arranged for work, and if it be good sound ma- 
 chinery it will at least make an effort to do its work 
 well, in spite of a distracted soul. Mrs. Bolitho, 
 creeping in with muffled stick to inspect the sleeper 
 at about the hour of Hazell's early lunch, was met 
 by a beautiful, bright brown glance of surprise and 
 apology, and saw with joy that the haggard face 
 was haggard no more, the blue lines erased, the 
 roundness restored. Avis arose full of the content 
 of health, pleased to be alive and to play about in 
 the bath, and because the sun was shining, and be- 
 cause the climbing Marechal Mel along the veran- 
 dah was a wonder of leaves and flowers, and because 
 the air was warm with the odour of blooming stocks. 
 Yesterday's struggle was dim with the distance of 
 ages unreal ; her attention refused it ; the real 
 things were about her in spring luxuriance. To 
 breakfast on bananas and cream, and wander in the 
 orchard, and make a raid on the kitchen, and claim 
 to make the butter ; to visit the stables, with a store 
 of apples and sugar and a following of children ; to 
 swing the children and herself under the orchard 
 trees till all were weary with laughter and move- 
 
 135
 
 136 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 ment these were the real things. Dull care was 
 gone ; nay, was it ever there ? Avis had sought 
 her bed a wreck, and risen from it a romp, rich in 
 the power of sleep. 
 
 Fortunately the poise of the "Wamagatta house- 
 hold was not so rigid that a romp should upset it. 
 The haleness of its master, who had yet to learn the 
 meaning of the word nerves, the light-heartedness 
 of its mistress, who thought cheerfulness the first 
 of Christian virtues, were more resentful of illness 
 and a sad countenance than of over-hilarity and 
 roguish pranks. When Avis had hidden his news- 
 paper, crowned his hoary head with fresh vine- 
 leaves, given over the library and its contents to the 
 rigs of an armful of puppies, and betaken herself 
 beyond reach of vengeance, the old man inquired 
 of his wife what the men of New South Wales were 
 thinking of that so much mettle went unyoked. 
 
 " 'Pon my word, my dear, though I always pre- 
 ferred a little woman, I think if I had met missy 
 here before I met you I think Gad, I do ! she 
 would have run me to earth." 
 
 " The one unforgiveable quality in a woman, so 
 far as I know you, my dear, is that she should have 
 nothing to say for herself," replied his wife. " Now, 
 little women, in a general way, have the most to 
 say, though one would hardly think their tongues 
 would be comparatively so much smaller that they 
 should move comparatively so much faster." 
 
 There are brains of moderate nimbleness which 
 make exhausting efforts to follow flights quicker 
 than their own ; there are others of slower pace
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 13Y 
 
 which rest unmoved by any temptation. Mr. Bo- 
 litho had never in his life attempted to understand 
 the gyrations of his wife's wit ; he admired from a 
 distance, himself in unconnected darkness, as might 
 be a spectacle of fireworks. 
 
 Caradon, the manager-son, put in an appearance 
 at lunch-time, ready with his weekly account of 
 stewardship. Of his wife, who was with him, her 
 mother-in-law said always that she was the plainest 
 good-looking girl of her acquaintance. She was 
 languid with a superabundance of slender inches, 
 her eyes and features unremarkable, her colouring 
 curiously dead, her voice slow and soft. She was 
 cool, she was graceful, she was an artist in the mat- 
 ter of her own clothing. Good money from good 
 silver mines had given her every advantage of edu- 
 cation and travel. By arrangement with her hus- 
 band before marriage, they visited Sydney twice a 
 year, and treated themselves invariably to the Cup 
 week in Melbourne. With such assistance, she en- 
 dured without complaint the monotony of Wama- 
 gatta. The weekly visit to headquarters in this in- 
 stance was lively with a detail of welcome news. 
 
 " We have got Naboth's vineyard at last, sir," 
 said Caradon loudly to his father. 
 
 "Eh, what? Naboth's vineyard? Ton my 
 honour, my dear!" returned the old gentleman 
 briskly. 
 
 " Spencer," cried his wife, " we may die contented. 
 But when, Caradon how did you manage it ? " 
 
 " Old Puddick is dead at last, mother that's how 
 it is ; and Crawley, knowing, of course, that we had
 
 138 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 been coveting the land for years, offered it to Ahab 
 (you observe I don't say to Jezebel, ma'am) before 
 putting it into the market." 
 
 " Bravo ! " cried Avis. 
 
 " If I were called Jezebel by my eldest son," said 
 the mistress of the house, " he or I should die 
 probably he ; but you may thank me, all of you, 
 and I hope you know it. How much civility do you 
 suppose you would have met with from a grasping 
 old cantanker like that if I had not given him cut- 
 tings of all my best roses ! " 
 
 " Bow bow bow to the mother-in-law elect ! " 
 sang Josephine, the daughter-in-law, with mild 
 irreverence, and bobbed her husband's head as she 
 did so. 
 
 " Reverence your lord, Pheenie," the young man 
 demanded, continuing : " Of course, mother dear, 
 we all recognise you as the goddess, not the ma- 
 chinery, at Wamagatta ; but, notwithstanding the 
 cuttings, I guess it occurred to our friend Publican 
 Crawley that he would get a better price from 
 Ahab than out of the world that bids at mar- 
 kets." 
 
 "There wasn't an improvement in the whole 
 640 acres," said Avis, " unless you call a slab hut in 
 tatters, a score of shallow old gold shafts, and a plot 
 of old unpruned run-to-flower-and-wood peach-trees 
 ' improvements.' " 
 
 " Crawley called them so," said Caradon dryly. 
 " He didn't seem to think that land values had de- 
 preciated lately, nor that a square mile on the top 
 of a ridge, approached by a bridle-track mostly per-
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 139 
 
 pendicular, was otherwise than a desirable residen- 
 tial spot." 
 
 " I doubt Crawley's been too sharp for you, my 
 boy," remarked his father. 
 
 " Well, sir, I don't say that ; but I knew that if I 
 let pass this long-wished-for opportunity of getting 
 in the vineyard and squaring off the run to the top 
 of the ridge, I need never approach Mrs. Bolitho 
 any more. I remembered that the property was 
 not entailed ; that I was rather old to learn another 
 trade, and that Pheenie's silver was not what it 
 used to be. Cold rice, Avis, please, and a bit of 
 the angelica ih it." 
 
 " What's the figure, my boy ? " said Mr. Bolitho. 
 
 "No business at the lunch-table, Spencer. I 
 don't allow it," interrupted his wife, seeing that 
 her son was minded to cherish his secret and play 
 the tease. " Digestion before everything. Naboth's 
 vineyard is ours. Yes, Pheenie, I will trouble you 
 for the cream ; my heart is that light that nothing 
 will lie heavy on it." 
 
 "The gentility of Aunty Bolitho!" said Avis. 
 " Heart, indeed ! " 
 
 " Put no money on the lightness of any portion 
 of my maternal inside till she has heard the figure," 
 said Caradon, longing to refuse it. 
 
 " So lucky there is no entail," said Mrs. Bolitho, 
 in a meditative way ; " we can afford to make an 
 effort now and then." Her son shook his fist at 
 her. " Spencer, we must begin clearing at once, 
 before the weather gets too bad ; I should like to 
 see a dozen men there."
 
 140 HEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 " Three went up to-day with a horse and chain," 
 said her son calmly. 
 
 " Spencer, it appears we keep loafers about the 
 place waiting for the gum-trees to grow up " 
 
 " Caradon is armed at every point. Such mush- 
 room pride must die," said Avis. "Caradon, I'll 
 race you on Hajji up to the heights of Naboth's 
 vineyard this afternoon, for a couple of pairs of 
 driving gloves." 
 
 " Done ! Hajji ! Hajji fresh against my poor 
 Digger is hardly fair, but I'll take you for the 
 honour of my sex," replied Caradon. " What days 
 are these when woman enters the 'field against 
 man ! " 
 
 "Always been the same, but when Atalanta 
 stoops to pick up the wedding-ring, man wins in a 
 canter ! " It was one of Mr. Bolitho's oldest and 
 best jokes, and he brought it out in his bluff est and 
 best manner. 
 
 Every one smiled. The reception of the invaria- 
 ble joke is the finest test of the place of age in af- 
 fection. 
 
 " It's a stoop for Atalanta," said Avis. " As the 
 only unmarried person present, I say it boldly. No 
 one please amend that she stoops to conquer." 
 
 " As the only unmarried person present, you are 
 the only one who can't give an opinion on the wed- 
 ding action," said Josephine, softly drawling. 
 
 " Hath not a spinster eyes ? Do you suppose I 
 haven't watched her?" returned Avis. "The fe- 
 male head at the altar hangs abased." 
 
 " Silly convention ; no meaning in it," said Mrs.
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 141 
 
 Bolitho. " The wedding-ring is applied to the nose, 
 by which every poor married woman is led. I 
 speak from experience, and I dare you, Spencer, to 
 contradict me." 
 
 " Eh, what, my dear ? Talk so fast, all of you " 
 
 " Spare my father's conscience, mother, please. I 
 remember the pair of you all my life, and the way 
 of you. Ever seen a big blind beggar being borne 
 along home by a small, broad, vigorous dog ? Seen 
 the beggar trot, nearly pulled over by the dog? 
 Dog forging ahead for all he's worth. There, 
 ladies, you have seen the matrimonial progress of 
 my parents." 
 
 " My stick, Pheenie, I beg ; it has fallen by your 
 chair. I have lunched," said Mrs. Bolitho, and rose 
 from the table with dignity. 
 
 They went out to the verandah. Caradon re- 
 sumed the almost incessant pipe, his father the al- 
 most incessant nap. 
 
 " If I were asked to define man," said Avis, " I 
 should say that he is a creature which takes its 
 leisure in narcosis." 
 
 " It's a survival of chivalry," said Mrs. Bolitho 
 " a voluntary handicap in the race with women's 
 wit." 
 
 "Rather, it's assumed to deaden the pangs of 
 conscious inferiority," said Avis. 
 
 "Avis," remarked Josephine deliberately, "you 
 really will be an old maid. No man will marry a 
 girl who knows his inferiority." 
 
 " He naturally prefers one who has to learn it," 
 she answered, laughing.
 
 142 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 Caradon hung on to his amber tube with a con- 
 descending smile, hiding, as often before, some fear 
 of the golden damsel who had such winged words 
 for the young not of her own sex. 
 
 " I think, Avis," said Josephine in her penetrat- 
 ing, unhurried tones, " that you honestly dislike all 
 men under seventy." 
 
 " The mass of men under seventy shall combine 
 to make that impossible," said a strong, mellow 
 voice quickly, coming from the house behind them, 
 and Hazell appeared, masterful, smiling, gladness 
 in every line of him. He looked at Avis, and drew 
 a deep breath, as though to inhale the perfume of 
 the air, and then moved round briskly, greeting all 
 but her. He could not bring himself to offer his 
 hand, when his arms were straining to embrace her 
 before all the world, nor, now that he saw her again 
 and their eyes had met, was there need for the mo- 
 ment of any gesture. She stood without the small- 
 est stir. Her heart seemed still within her, as 
 though with its wild leap at the sound of his voice 
 it had gone to his keeping, leaving her inert. Yet 
 she also smiled, as though at the ordinary pleasant 
 words that passed about her ears, an unconscious 
 smile of softening, with the eyelids drooping over 
 unseeing brownness, and the features which her 
 friends would know as keen or proud or eager, 
 tender with unreasoned content. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho, attentive to them both, made a men- 
 tal bow of relinquishment and subsided into her sat- 
 isfaction. The mountain had come to Mahomet; 
 the man to Avis. "And may I be whipped,"
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 143 
 
 thought the vivacious lady, " if ever I saw a pair 
 more seriously in love ! " 
 
 There was some talk of stock inevitable in a 
 sheep-breeding community and Hazell acquitted 
 himself well, sufficiently interested in the prospects 
 of shearing and the proposed planting of salt-bush 
 as a cheap and drought-proof fodder. The master 
 of the house awoke, and recognising his guest 
 chiefly as a man who knew Cornwall, entered upon 
 a description of a steeplechase of his youth, to which 
 Hazell was sympathetic. 
 
 " What about our race ? " inquired Caradon, as 
 time passed ; and it was agreed that the four younger 
 people should hie to Naboth's vineyard when forti- 
 fied by the afternoon cup of tea. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho entered upon Avis changing her 
 clothes for riding, and put her arms about her 
 fondly. 
 
 " Don't break your neck, dear child ! " she cried. 
 " Don't break your neck. Enjoy your ride, and 
 come back safe to your old Australian mother. 
 Kiss me, darling ! " 
 
 The two embraced with an enthusiasm which 
 they made no pretence of explaining. There were 
 tears in Mrs. Bolitho's eyes as she watched the party 
 off ; she felt as though her girl were at the altar. 
 
 Hazell's patience was tested by the race. Two 
 only were in the lists, and he had not come to talk 
 conventionalities to indifferent persons, and he 
 found himself full of anxiety lest some dire thing 
 should befall Diana in her wild career. The Arab 
 was superb, as wise as a human being, that he could
 
 144 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 see ; but if he and his rider should yield themselves 
 to the fever of the chase ? The miles were rough, 
 uphill and downhill, with gates to open and creeks 
 to cross, and, he heard, a monstrous rocky height 
 by way of finish ; and it was all very well for men 
 to risk their skulls in polo and such-like, but a lady 
 this lady it was insane. He chafed inwardly. 
 He dismounted at the starting-point, insisting on 
 an examination of girths ; and though he knew she 
 would await him at the end, he saw the two off to- 
 gether with fear and envy. 
 
 " We meet at Puddick's rail," said Avis in fare- 
 well. 
 
 " She'll win," Josephine declared as they followed, 
 cantering leisurely. " Hajji is perfectly fresh, and 
 Digger couldn't touch him anyhow. I never race 
 too like hard work." 
 
 " You don't like hard work ? How far is Pud- 
 dick's rail?" 
 
 "Three miles or so scarcely more. You have 
 to make its acquaintance, of course. It has rather 
 a gruesome story attached to it, which, I suppose, 
 will cling to it forever." 
 
 "Tell me, please," Hazell returned, glad of a 
 topic to hand. 
 
 "Well, Puddick was an old fellow who had a 
 life-lease of these particular 640 acres which Mr. 
 Bolitho has so much coveted. It belonged to 
 Crawley, the publican, Swan with Two Necks, in 
 Beulah. I dare say you know it. As a matter of 
 fact it's rather an open secret hereabouts, as these 
 sort of things are he had done a bit of * dummy-
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 145 
 
 ing ' for Crawley in the early days of the Robert- 
 son Act. You may have heard of it." 
 
 Hazell had heard. 
 
 " Did Crawley, then, own land as well as a tavern ? " 
 
 " Crawley began as a squatter, I believe he be- 
 gan as a kind of gentleman, but many things con- 
 trived to ruin him, principally, I dare say, the sort 
 of taste that makes a public-house attractive. Any 
 way, he sold any rood he had ever possessed except 
 this, that he had promised to Puddick for his life ; 
 and Puddick somehow wouldn't die, and we used 
 to think my father-in-law would go first, without 
 seeing his heart's desire Wamagatta square up to 
 the Northern Road " 
 
 " Watched pots," suggested Hazell. 
 
 " Yes ; and the wretched creature had some hor- 
 rible complaint, for which, they say, he would have 
 no advice, which caused him constant pain, and it 
 appears he could get relief only by hanging over 
 something, with his waist what in me would be 
 Avaist pressed against something. And there he 
 would stay day after day, head and arms hanging 
 down on one side, legs on the other, with the sun 
 beating on him. I've often seen him dreadful 
 grotesque kind of figure ! " 
 
 " By Jove ! if that rail could speak ! " said Hazell. 
 " Did he live alone ? " 
 
 " Quite alone. Had a cow and some fowls, and a 
 horse and cart, and no other visible means of sup- 
 port. So many people in the Bush are like that 
 human orchids, Mrs. Bolitho says live on air and 
 sunlight, and very little else that one can see."
 
 146 HEAETS IMPOETUNATE 
 
 " I value the suggestion," said Hazell. " I can 
 work out a chain of enlightenment. Orchid : lily 
 of the field ; Solomon's lilies, which toil not, neither 
 spin small selector. I have often wondered lately 
 whether it was not my duty as a magistrate to ar- 
 rest on a charge of vagrancy stationary personages 
 with no visible means of subsistence." 
 
 " I am sure it's not your duty. You are not in 
 your crowded Old World. People have a right 
 here not to subsist, if they don't want to. It would 
 be more for the public welfare if you had the rail 
 destroyed. Puddick's ghost will haunt it." 
 
 " When I have seen it not before, please. My 
 experience does not contain a ghost. I will cer- 
 tainly order a bonfire." 
 
 " There will certainly be a ghost. I can imagine 
 it. Some close cloudy night, when the morepork is 
 rasping one's nerves to madness, old Puddick will 
 be seen hanging over the broken fence, stiff, black 
 fingers spread out pointing downwards, not a move- 
 ment about him dead to the world. I have seen 
 the poor wretch so heaps of times. Ugh ! I can 
 see him now ! Suppose we gallop." 
 
 They found the gates open that lay in their way, 
 the racers having relied on their following. Hazell 
 was relieved that Avis had not thought fit to jump 
 the fences. The ridge of hills lay dark and high 
 between them and the sunset, and they mounted 
 slowly, the horses, surefooted and practised, climb- 
 ing laboriously, with many a slip, and much hollow 
 and ringing sound of stumbling hoofs up the rocks, 
 the riders gripping closely, and swerving sometimes
 
 HEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 14T 
 
 almost to the saddle to avoid over-reaching and out- 
 standing boughs. 
 
 "Kather rash, racing," said Hazell the wooer 
 anxiously. 
 
 " That's the fun of it," said Josephine the wan 
 carelessly. 
 
 As they went, the lover resolved that, if merciful 
 Heaven had preserved his lady through such peril, 
 an opportunity of private speech should be his, 
 though he had to lead her openly by the bridle to a 
 decent distance. It was an added difficulty that the 
 other two were married, and as such could not 
 politely be left together ; but there are moments 
 when politeness fails. Hazell's eager heart urged 
 his tired grey against the studied restraint of his 
 hand, and once or twice he was fain to stop and 
 await his leisurely companion, whose fancy, matri- 
 monially fixed, roamed only at leisure. No man- 
 gled corpse lay in their way. They gained a small 
 green clearing, somewhat small in surrounding 
 hillocks, where a small slab hut of the most 
 neglected sort lay among traces of what had once 
 been a garden. The bark roof hung in unbroken 
 strips, a grove of fruit-trees, years untended, was 
 thick in leaf ; clumps of white irises bloomed freely. 
 A little way before the open door a remnant of 
 fencing supplied the rail palliative for Puddick's 
 anguish. A waste of ring-barked gum-trees stood 
 around, and occasional columns of smoke of varying 
 volume, rising with flame that showed itself in 
 quivering waves against the sinking sun, declared 
 the work of Caradon's men among the timber.
 
 148 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " The ghost has taken them," Hazell exclaimed, 
 seeing no human thing. 
 
 " It has left Hajji, though," said Josephine, point- 
 ing to the left. " Miss Fletcher won't be far. Oh, 
 there's my husband on the other side ; they are 
 stoking stumps fascinating work, so dirty ! " She 
 turned to the right. 
 
 " Are we to stoke stumps too ? " 
 
 " Of course. It's a joy that never palls, and, un- 
 like most joys, it's productive of good. I haven't 
 burnt off for an age." 
 
 " Full moon to-night ; we can make it an oppor- 
 tunity to wait for her coming," said Hazell artfully, 
 imagining a long forest solitude with Avis. 
 
 " Yes ; we can go back round by the road," she 
 answered. 
 
 He paused a moment. She strayed toward her 
 husband. 
 
 He seized the chance and made for the point 
 where a dark figure was busy among mounting 
 smoke. At last, there would be a quarter of a mile 
 between them and the world. At last ! 
 
 Avis, her habit caught up, stood feeding with 
 smaller wood a great smouldering stump, from 
 which the large trunk, dead long ago, had burnt 
 and fallen away, and lay, also smouldering at the 
 break, in the smash of its branches. He halted 
 Glaucus by Hajji, and advanced to her on feet that 
 felt no touch of earth. 
 
 " Who won ? " he asked her, in a voice that 
 thrilled. 
 
 "Hajji, of course," she answered, without any
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 149 
 
 sign of surprise, as though she had expected him. 
 " Please help me, Mr. Hazell. This kind of iron- 
 hard stump will take a dozen lightings and eat up 
 half an acre of sticks a most obstinate kind. I 
 want to bank it up with really solid logs, and keep 
 the fire in till it gets right under. Then it's pretty 
 safe. Do you mind hauling about heavy logs ? " 
 
 " I don't mind anything," he answered, but he 
 wished her to look at him. Hers was a splendid 
 figure, pliantly stooping. The thick wave of her 
 hair, dropped sweeping over the rim of a crisply 
 curled ear, was beautiful to see, but he wanted the 
 fulness of her eyes, that he might hold them while 
 he told her what he had come to tell. Temporis- 
 ing, he followed her directing finger, and grappled 
 with a mighty limb of the fallen tree, lugging it 
 bravely into desired position well up to the stump. 
 
 " Short of a deluge of rain, that is safe," said 
 Avis. "Another one of the same kind, if your 
 charity goes so far, for this great gum here. The 
 men don't know as much about burning off as I do 
 newly imported Irish loafers, I dare say; they 
 have gone down to the station for supplies of some 
 sort, I believe. Fancy knocking oif work for the 
 night with half your fires bound to go out in the 
 course of it ! Paid labour, of course " 
 
 " Labour must be paid," said Hazell, rushing in to 
 interrupt the baffling flow of her words. " What 
 else is it for ? All men want payment of some sort. 
 Do you remember the first evening about sunset, 
 with the moon due much as it is now when you 
 came into my bachelor loneliness and drank my
 
 150 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 tea ? I asked payment then. Now you set me to 
 cart about logs for you much harder work. I 
 want higher payment!" His voice startled her; 
 she looked at him. an instant. The glance swept 
 him headlong into declaration : " Then a sight of 
 your golden head was more than enough ; now 
 oh, now, I am asking for your golden self ! Avis ! 
 Avis ! yourself, Avis ! " 
 
 There was nothing in the world for Avis but his 
 voice and its deep vibrant call, and his palm out- 
 stretched impulsively. Quicker than thought was 
 her action ; without a word she gave her hand into 
 his, and he clasped it as though his life lay in it, and 
 shouted " Ha ! " Then, drawing closer, urged : 
 
 " For ever and ever, Avis ! Look at me and say so." 
 
 She paused a moment, then turned her face to 
 his, pride in the freedom of the gesture, and told 
 him, clear and sweet : 
 
 " For ever and ever, Ralph ! " 
 
 Her head upon his shoulder was lighter than a 
 dream kiss ; the clasp of her fingers round his was 
 as tremulous and close as a child's might be. She 
 yielded to the strain of his embrace most exquis- 
 itely gentle the unique, warm, snowflake gentle- 
 ness of a woman who loves and surrenders. He 
 lost consciousness and drifted into the unreasoning 
 flood of triumphant being. 
 
 " But the others ! " she cried, recollecting, disen- 
 gaging herself. 
 
 " They've done it themselves," he answered, keep- 
 ing her hand tight. 
 
 " Not in my sight ! "
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 151 
 
 He looked round. "They're entirely absorbed 
 with their fires, and the light is failing." 
 
 " All the more reason to work ; we can't stay 
 here indefinitely." 
 
 "But we can stay with each other?" he an- 
 swered, coaxing, boyishly; "that's for ever and 
 ever. Avis, you've the most charming name in the 
 world Avis ! " 
 
 "Havel, Ralph?" 
 
 " Except mine, when you say it." 
 
 " I want to save that other stump. Draw up an- 
 other log for me." 
 
 " Hang the logs ! I've so much to say to you." 
 
 " No please there's ever and ever to say it in." 
 
 He laughed joyously, dropped her hand with an 
 air of blind obedience, and went away a few yards 
 to attack a fallen trunk that was quite beyond one 
 man's power to move. 
 
 " How ridiculous you are ! Let me help you ! " 
 she cried, and placed herself at the opposite end. 
 
 Between them, straining every nerve, the timber 
 rolled a foot forward. 
 
 " I won't allow you to work like a galley-slave," 
 he objected. " I've loved you from the first mo- 
 ment I saw you, Avis." 
 
 " For goodness' sake, Ralph, have you no lower 
 tones in your voice ? " 
 
 " Yes, but I want to shout. I want all the world 
 to know that you are mine." 
 
 " I could not live with Stentor." 
 
 " When all the world knows it, I will spend the 
 rest of my time whispering it to you."
 
 152 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " What a wasted life ! " Avis laughed, but the 
 derision quavered. " If we could find a couple of 
 strong sticks, we might lever this thing along ; you 
 don't realise how quickly night falls in this coun- 
 try." 
 
 "There are all the fires, and there will be a 
 moon, Avis." 
 
 " And it's a snaky time of year, and the old wood 
 is the chosen place of any amount of dangerous 
 reptiles just getting warmed up. No, no, Ralph. 
 Well, then, just one. Honour bright one! Do 
 you call that ' one ' ? Now, be sensible, or I shall 
 call for the others to help." 
 
 The threat subdued him, and he consented to go 
 away far enough to cut a pair of sapling gums for 
 leverage. A faint shriek from Josephine inquired 
 if they were ready to descend. Avis, laying violent 
 hands upon herself, went across the clearing, and 
 submitted the ardour of her partner as a forest- 
 clearer, while the air was full of the laughter of 
 jackasses, and the redness of the sunset died away. 
 
 " They have done far more than we have," she 
 told Hazell, coming back reproachful, " and I am 
 not at all sure what they think " 
 
 " Let 'em think. When this brute is alongside 
 that stump, they can hang diminished heads. But 
 you are never going to do such navvy's work again, 
 Avis ! Did you hear the jackasses ? I used to dis- 
 like them. Use makes them quaint and jolly. 
 Here's your rod. Now, then are you ready ? 
 Ahoy! ahoy!" 
 
 The trunk was in place. Hazell addressed his
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 153 
 
 damp forehead with his handkerchief; his com- 
 panion, sitting on the conquered stock, panted and 
 fanned herself with her hat. Darkness had fallen 
 and the evening chill. All around them played the 
 fires some small and low, as of a camp, as if to 
 boil the pot ; others, as they might be beacons, flar- 
 ing high with deep-piled boughs, roared about great 
 standing trees with cracks and snaps, and a con- 
 tinual under-sound of crepitation. The light shone 
 on the golden head of Avis. 
 
 " Avis Paradisea ! " said Hazell. " Gold was the 
 colour of the gods wasn't it ? I have been rack- 
 ing my brains lately for my small classical recollec- 
 tion. I have the gold fever, so appropriate to this 
 country. Haven't they a term of endearment 
 among the Greeks * chrysion ' ? " 
 
 " You foolish fellow ! have you been thinking 
 about my hair ever since that first night ? " 
 
 Her voice, surcharged with tenderness, failed a 
 little under its burden, and shook between tears 
 and laughter. She longed to be alone, free from 
 adoring eyes for half an hour, that she might realise 
 her happiness, adjust her mental balance, decide 
 her future method and manners. No thought more 
 serious crossed her mind, no doubt in moral or 
 social ethics ; she felt her heart bounding away 
 with her reason that was all. She named him a 
 foolish fellow, and her tone refused to convey dep- 
 recation of his folly. 
 
 "That first night!" he repeated. "Yes, that 
 first night." 
 
 The sense of it returned to him the rattle of the
 
 154 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 jackasses, the apparition of the horsewoman, the 
 trifling hospitality and its return, the setting off of 
 Diana through the moonlit Bush. At the end of 
 the train came a memory of the tramp who had 
 watched her, and Proudfoot's message concerning 
 him flashed into his mind. He turned to her sud- 
 denly, and asked : 
 
 " Do you happen to remember anything in your 
 childhood in your country of a farm-labourer called 
 Luke Rennard ? " 
 
 The question struck her like a blow, and changed 
 the excitement of her mood from joy to fury ; wave 
 met wave, and the meeting was the convulsion of 
 the eager. All the hundred-head anguish of the 
 past week, all the suffering of her girlhood, all her 
 rage and grudge against man as man rushed back 
 upon her, and she sprang to her feet to avenge the 
 insult to cast it off : to cast him off. 
 
 "Go! "she said "go!" 
 
 It was all she could say. Her eyes blazed in her 
 white face ; her outstretched arm flung him away 
 to the uttermost. 
 
 Hazell started forward. 
 
 "What have I done? Why," he asked, be- 
 wildered, Avis ?" 
 
 " Dare to call me Avis ! Nevermore Avis to you ; 
 I defy your insult. Did you think because I had 
 kissed, I was so easy to kiss ? Ah, I could kill 
 you ! " 
 
 " I have done nothing ; I meant nothing I swear 
 it before God ! " He watched her features vary- 
 ing in the agony of struggling passions. He strode
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 155 
 
 to her, and tried to take her hand. " Avis ! " he 
 pleaded. 
 
 She shrank away from him. 
 
 " Why, I love you ! " he said. 
 
 She found words : 
 
 " You love me ! Go ! " 
 
 " I will not go. Why should I ? What is this 
 Rennard to you ? Tell me ; I insist." 
 
 " You insist on my telling you now now al- 
 ready ? Is it to humiliate me ? But I will be 
 humiliated no further than by my one act I am. 
 Oh, I never dreamed, not when I hated man most, 
 a man could be so shameless. You came you 
 came to kiss, and I kissed you" she could not 
 speak for a second " and you cannot wait a day to 
 insult to insist. I would have told you in time. 
 Is there so much hurry? Oh, the immeasurable 
 meanness of you ! Now you shall never know any- 
 thing from me, for I hate you." 
 
 Her sentences came abrupt, poignant, concen- 
 trated. 
 
 "Why damnation! Are my ears playing me 
 false ? Just now you kissed me ! " 
 
 She faced him superbly. 
 
 " I did. I have acknowledged it already I 
 kissed you; and I could brand you with one of 
 these burning sticks brand you as a coward be- 
 cause I did so ! " 
 
 Hazell flung up his arms, a gesture of despera- 
 tion. The riddle was beyond him, but there was 
 no mistaking the hatred of her face, which seemed 
 in its whiteness, as the fires played their intermit-
 
 156 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 tent light on it, to stab him out of the darkness. 
 The crackling of the consuming wood filled up the 
 pause after her words, and a rising wind blowing 
 to them across the clearing brought the sound of 
 whistling. Caradon Bolitho beguiled his toil by 
 the touching cadences of " Home, Sweet Home." 
 The strain mocked Hazell. His mental palace of 
 contentment was falling in ruins under this inex- 
 plicable onslaught; ungovernable resentment rose 
 in him. 
 
 " It seems to me," he said, " that women are sub- 
 ject to demoniac possession." 
 
 " They are ! " she cried, with an upward jerk of 
 her head, and a flash that promised vengeance 
 " they are ! and under it they give their reason and 
 their hearts to men, who break and bruise, abuse 
 and affront ! " 
 
 " I never yet abused nor affronted any woman," 
 said Hazell savagely ; " but I may do it still I 
 may do it here and now." 
 
 There was a slow grinding sound among the 
 trees. She looked up quickly, then with both hands 
 pushed him from her violently, and leaped back 
 herself, just as the long, ashen, barren shaft, un- 
 branched and straight, fell heavily between them, 
 and its broken base, twenty feet away, sparked 
 merrily and flickered. She put her hands before 
 her eyes an instant, as though to shut out a dread- 
 ful thought made visible. Hazell's broad chest 
 heaved. He stood with feet apart and folded arms, 
 scowling above his fierce light gaze. 
 
 " Why didn't you let me die ? " he snarled.
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 157 
 
 She almost screamed. 
 
 " No, no ! Not a second time the visitation of 
 Heaven though you were as you are a greater 
 one than he ! But go ! " 
 
 With a hissing noise and a shower of ruddy 
 sparks, flame and smoke burst forth from the high 
 open mouth of a hollow tree not far behind, the 
 effect that of a grotesque chimney on fire; small 
 tongues licked the bare, jagged arms and the main 
 trunk, wherever any softer remnant of bark gave 
 food for them. A glittering rain of tiny particles 
 fell about Avis, blown toward her. Loose hair 
 blew about her temples, and the tendrils of it flick- 
 ered ; she seemed ever to attract light, and in love 
 or hate to give it forth. He looked at her, fasci- 
 nated by the proud beauty of her, repelled by her 
 inexplicable insolence and cruelty, dismayed be- 
 yond endurance, balked, smarting, wounded, and he 
 felt a ring of forbidding spread from her to him, as 
 though the very air stiffened to cast him off. 
 
 " Thank God, I know this first ! " he cried bit- 
 terly, and moved away a step. 
 
 " If God had cared for me, I should never have 
 known you at all ! " she answered ; then, her voice 
 echoing with wild, training reproach : " Oh, God ! 
 what have I done that I should yield and suffer 
 again ? " 
 
 Hazell paused at the pain of the words, and 
 stepped toward her. As he did so she felt his pur- 
 pose, and turned upon him pitilessly. 
 
 " Will you never go ? Will nothing rid me of 
 you ? I tell you, if you realised how I loathe the
 
 158 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 sight of you, you would rather sink into the earth 
 than stand where I can see you ! " 
 
 Conviction stung him, blood rushed hotly to his 
 cheeks and brow, he clenched his fists, he gnashed 
 his teeth at her, and strode away, stamping upon 
 the ground. She heard his horse retreat ; she sank 
 down, crouching lower and lower involuntarily, she 
 knew not why, for blankness had come upon her 
 mi .id and insensibility upon her body.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 IN a world subject to the form of time, the hu- 
 man heart, with its inveterate need of something 
 that abides, conceives and establishes certain insti- 
 tutions, which have an unquestioned Tightness, an 
 essential prerogative. They take precedence of all 
 ordinary concerns. When they are mentioned there 
 is silence, as before a dealing of Providence, or ad- 
 miring acquiescence. These institutions vary with 
 race, with circumstance, but they exist in every 
 community, in every heart. Such are the spring 
 cleaning of middle-class, the baby of all-class house- 
 holds, the tobacco-cult of all mild men, not other- 
 wise indispensable, the preserving and proper de- 
 struction of foxes, the game of whist, the Australian 
 shearing. "We could not do without them. In mo- 
 notonous lives they are the supreme event ; among 
 perplexing mental changes, the fall of governments, 
 the growing assumptions of women, their inflexibil- 
 ity affords a consoling restfulness ; even the greater 
 sorrows of the soul, loss, anxiety, become secondary 
 before the dignity of these; for there may be a 
 vacant chair at the family table, nevertheless, all 
 chairs must be purified from the slow stain of 
 winter ; there may be a threat of suspended banks, 
 foreclosing mortgages, nevertheless, sheep must be 
 shorn. 
 
 Hazell found comfort in this last, which may not 
 
 159
 
 160 HEAKTS IMPOKTHNATE 
 
 impertinently be named the Australian feast of ob- 
 ligation. In the brutality of mental shock, in the 
 tearing and rending distraction of his mind, in the 
 violence of conflicting passion, he would have been 
 shaken to pieces, broken up, but for the imperious 
 call to shear his sheep. That he was new, not only 
 to the function, but to the sublime importance of it, 
 that he was alone in his obedience, discounted its 
 healing value, for full appreciation of a faith comes 
 but by birth in it what Frenchman could feel fit 
 reverence for the criterion of the Marylebone Cricket 
 Club ? A mere bachelor, who can assure no discom- 
 fort other than his own, is deprived of the moral sup- 
 port that comes of a household disarranged, domestic 
 appointments swept aside for some great yearly due. 
 But the feeling of it was in the air. Always latent, 
 the full force of it had spread invincibly downward 
 from far northern parts, where sheep are shorn in 
 earlier months in June, in May to his own dis- 
 trict, where their fleecing was a custom of the 
 spring. It reached him through his self -absorption ; 
 one word was hissed by every tongue, one word- 
 stock shear with varying modification. Shears, 
 shearing, shearers, shearing-shed, shearers' hut, 
 shearers' cook, and so forth, appeared in every sen- 
 tence ; the sentence came into being for its sake. 
 Shearing-time is the apotheosis of the sibilant in 
 English speech; philologists will guess how the 
 island continent sizzles. Social life was suspended. 
 The males of each station ate silent breakfasts in 
 the dimness of the dawn, and went forth, solemnly 
 preoccupied, in religious haste, to spend days of in-
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 161 
 
 definite length on the shearing-floor. They went, 
 it seemed, for years, or for ever. No bride might 
 ask of her husband's return ; if not in anger, then 
 in sorrow, he would have answered with the ques- 
 tion, How could he tell it at shearing-time ? The 
 women, uneasy, superfluous, their habits disre- 
 garded, abode beleaguered at home, no means of 
 leaving it, save on foot under miles of blazing sun ; 
 there was none for them ; every hand on the run 
 which might otherwise have brought in a horse or 
 harnessed him was engaged in some connection of 
 shearing. The townships lay deserted, newspapers 
 unread, church congregations wore their best in the 
 true sanctuaries, wooden sheds throughout the Bush, 
 where lines of lean, hard-mouthed men, bent double 
 week after week, performed the annual sacrifice, 
 and the odour of sheep rose steadily to heaven. 
 
 Uninitiate though he was, Hazell's interest grew 
 as he watched his fleeces fall. His impulse to leave 
 the country was stayed, at all events, till after the 
 shearing. Not likely he would find an instant pur- 
 chaser for Burrabindar, and how could flocks be 
 left in wool? He remained spending days half- 
 nauseated in the seething shanty watching the end- 
 less procession of terrified merinos driven in brown 
 and bulky, driven out white and poor, and he asked 
 himself from time to time if it were worth so much 
 toil, so much agitation, that one solitary man, who 
 cared not whether he lived or died, should draw in- 
 terest on his capital ? As the month went on, he 
 felt that he had been standing on a greasy floor for 
 ever, watching struggling quadrupeds, that all the
 
 162 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 globe of earth beyond the floor was subdivided into 
 pens of swarming plaintive creatures, protesting at 
 exploitation. They baa'd at him in his nights ; 
 sleepless or restless in his dreams, he wrought with 
 endless enumeration of seething herds, and in the 
 intervals of counting sheep he cursed women evil 
 enigmas, Dead Sea apples, which lured the senses 
 and became ashes in possession ; and he cursed men, 
 fools of men who could do neither without them 
 nor with them. He nailed his attention to the 
 sheep, passing a frightened, bleating multitude 
 passing. To attempt the riddle of Avis was to lose 
 reason ; to touch on his present desolation was to 
 touch a wound too exquisitely sore to bear it. Fair 
 quality of wool it was, they told him, not very long 
 and rather dry, but, considering the season, better 
 than might have been expected. Dry, was it ? he 
 commented, for the reek of yolk was in his nostrils, 
 everything stunk of it, it tainted the food set before 
 him. He ate hardly anything ; his clothes began 
 to hang loosely on him. Yet his case was better 
 than that of Avis, upon whom shearing made no 
 demands. The days were long past when the head 
 station at Wamagatta was perturbed for the yearly 
 ceremonial. Caradon might torment his wife with 
 irregular doings; overseers under Caradon might 
 drudge in the cause of the required 100,000 fleeces, 
 but it was enough for the owner of them to ride 
 slowly on his old horse twice a week to the shed, 
 and even then to note things chiefly with an eye to 
 a comparative past. At any time, moreover, though 
 she claimed the full name of Australian for her sym-
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 163 
 
 pathies, Avis had never taken the point of view of 
 the true sheep-breeder ; she would doubt if God had 
 made so many sun-drenched miles with a view to 
 the British colonist ; she would extend a warm pity 
 to the free, leaping kangaroo and wallaby, the poor 
 comical 'possum and padamelon, all exterminated 
 with so high a hand. She would wonder whimsic- 
 ally if the sum total of happiness of a few thousand 
 grumbling human beings and a few million striped 
 sheep balanced that of uncounted marsupials, rodents 
 and birds slain in their interest. But she had more 
 sense than to press her fancy ; she was aware of a 
 person whose income was derived elsewhere, by no 
 effort of her own, by means, probably, no more 
 altruistic. But to hold one's self aloof from the 
 spirit of the feast was verily to fall on silence ; Avis 
 fell there. Nothing hindered, morning after morn- 
 ing she sat silent in her room, her violin in its case, 
 her horses in the stables ; in the afternoon she would 
 generally sleep heavily; in the evening a book 
 cloaked the emptiness of her thought. She was not 
 conscious of much suffering, yet in after years she 
 looked back, recognising a season of intolerable 
 misery. Her face was thin, her eyes and voice were 
 dull almost to stupor. Mrs. Bolitho watched her 
 anxiously. Something serious had happened, but 
 the girl so near to her was shrouded from her im- 
 penetrably, by her silence, as by Athene's mantle. 
 Question seemed impossible. Josephine spoke of 
 having found her on the eventful evening alone and 
 apparently asleep upon a log, when the moon rose. 
 She pleaded fatigue : she had hauled about too many
 
 164: HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 heavy trees, she said ; she refused dinner, and went 
 to bed. 
 
 Hazell was clean gone, mysteriously, not to say 
 uncivilly gone to his clearing, of course ; but a 
 man so much in love would make some sign, unless 
 he had been dismissed ; one could have sworn that 
 Avis would accept him. Caradon told his wife of 
 a vague rumour of an unpleasant charge against 
 Miss Fletcher, of something which happened long 
 ago in England, and can one say how such things 
 come about? It may be that the birds of the 
 air carry the matter ; it was generally known in 
 the whole district by people to whom she had 
 never spoken, or even seen, that Hazell would have 
 married her, but for the rumour rumour which, 
 said some, she had refused to explain, which, said 
 others, she had admitted and he had withdrawn, 
 leaving her to insufferable chagrin. 
 
 There was an English mail day when Avis had 
 nothing for the post-bag. Mrs. Bolitho limped to 
 her sitting-room and demanded at least her weekly 
 letter to her mother. 
 
 " Is it Saturday, then ? " asked Avis, who was 
 lounging with listless hands along the arm of an 
 easy-chair. 
 
 " Yes ; be quick, dear child ; a post-card ! What 
 would your mother think ? " 
 
 " I had forgotten ; the days are so like each 
 other." Avis made no motion toward the writing- 
 table. 
 
 " At once, Avis ! The boy is waiting for the bag. 
 You must be ill, dear child ! "
 
 HEAETS IMPOETUNATE 165 
 
 " Oh no, not at all ; but sometimes lately I have 
 thought I was dead. Eeally, I think I must be 
 I am so stupid." 
 
 " My dear, you're bilious. I know the feeling. 
 No one has suffered more than I from liver and all 
 the mental appurtenances thereof. But at least 
 tell your mother." 
 
 " She wouldn't understand it." 
 
 " Then I must tell her myself." 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho wrote a hasty line, while Avis stared 
 dully through the window. " Here, you'll like to 
 read what I have written, I dare say." 
 
 Avis took it carelessly, and while without inter- 
 est she followed the words which told of a brief 
 and unimportant but quite absorbing ailment, her 
 friend prepared a private sheet, with the forcible 
 statement : 
 
 " Our child is altogether upset by what I take to 
 be a very sore love matter. She is not like herself 
 at all. I must get her away for change ; but she is 
 hard to stir, and I, you know, cannot move about 
 as I should like. Avis takes things badly. You 
 know her best ; I need not tell you. Could you 
 not hasten your visit here ? Indeed, I think she 
 wants you. There are some things for which a 
 good mother is the only help." 
 
 When the boy had gone, Mrs. Bolitho returned 
 to find her charge indifferent as before. 
 
 " Avis ! " she said sharply, " nothing but the death 
 you talk of so foolishly, or some serious incapacity, 
 could account for your conduct, or excuse it. 
 While you have your reason and your right hand,
 
 166 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 your letter to your mother should go. I am 
 ashamed for you to have to say such a thing. 
 Think if you had a daughter of your own." 
 
 " Too remote to contemplate," was the unrespon- 
 sive answer. 
 
 " Rubbish ! Think of her anxiety. Are you hu- 
 man?" 
 
 Avis seemed to listen with an effort. 
 
 She replied, " I dare say not," and remained star- 
 ing at the grass outside. 
 
 " I have sent for Dr. Middlemass. You must be 
 suffering from incipient softening of the brain." 
 
 " Oh, well, he can say so, then." 
 
 " And meantime, you are intolerable in the house ! 
 I could put up with death, but I cannot stand 
 death's head. I -won't have you here ; you will go 
 with Caradon and Pheenie to the Melbourne Cup." 
 
 " Oh, I think not." 
 
 " If they will take you, that is. I won't have you 
 here. I want something cheerful at Wamagatta." 
 
 " I can stay in bed if you would rather not see 
 me ; or isn't there an empty hut somewhere on the 
 place? You could send me rations, you know, 
 aunty." 
 
 " Avis, are you out of your mind ? " 
 
 " Well, aunty, I rather hope I am." 
 
 When the doctor came, he found his advice re- 
 quired for Mrs. Bolitho, not Miss Fletcher. The 
 ways of women are wonderful. Whether a strictly 
 masculine education, a practical manner of life out- 
 of-doors bread-winning, such as may be the custom 
 for them in years to come, will radically change
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 167 
 
 them, or that their action can be classified and fore- 
 told, reckoned with, it is impossible to say. Thus 
 far in our experience it appears to arise out of the 
 exigencies of the moment, treated from an entirely 
 private and original point of view. Its fruit is often 
 magical ; its root is deep in mystery. It was years 
 since Mrs. Bolitho had called medical aid for herself 
 she was not apt to despond because of a small 
 indisposition, and professional travelling expenses 
 are high. Without good cause, certainly, she would 
 not have summoned a valuable public servant from 
 Beulah. No doubt Mrs. Bolitho was ill she was 
 in bed, a place she detested except for purposes of 
 sleep ; and the professional countenance, after a 
 visit to the patient, over a cup of tea with the anx- 
 ious husband, was grave. 
 
 " We must keep up her strength, feed her well, 
 but carefully, Miss Fletcher," said the man of heal- 
 ing. " Most lowering thing, neuralgia." 
 
 " So I believe, doctor, so I believe. Pain on the 
 nerves, I'm told. Now, what I say is, What are 
 nerves ? Never felt a nerve in my life." 
 
 " If all men were like you, what would become 
 of us f " asked the doctor, speaking for his confra- 
 ternity. 
 
 The silence of Avis was much disturbed. She 
 forsook it to wait assiduousty upon her old friend, 
 recumbent from neuralgia in the always damaged 
 leg, unsolaced in recumbency, from neuralgia in the 
 generally strong eyes. Twice a day Avis used to 
 read to her for an hour or so, and she would make 
 efforts at conversation, for an invalid may not mope,
 
 168 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 as also for the benefit of the bereaved husband, for 
 an old man may not be ignored at his own table. 
 Moreover, as some hand must hold the reins though 
 the team be docile and the road smooth, the order- 
 ing of the household fell to Avis. Mrs. Bolitho, 
 fearful lest confinement to the house and sick-room 
 should affect the health of her nurse, ordered Pil- 
 grim to be brought round every morning, and in- 
 sisted that he was ridden, and further, it was un- 
 derstood that as soon as strength and circumstances 
 allowed, change of air should be tried for the clam- 
 orous nerves. Miss Fletcher was not questioned 
 about her softening brain, nor was any physical 
 tonic offered to her ; her treatment by Mrs. Bolitho 
 was entirely mental, and objective at that. The 
 girl grew no worse, she mended somewhat. One 
 morning she took suddenly to a romp with Dot 
 and Boyah on the bedroom floor, and it seemed to 
 the neuralgic eyes watching them that years and 
 sorrows fell from her as she laughed. That after- 
 noon the eyes were better, able to cope with print. 
 "When the careful nurse argued the point, the pa- 
 tient became fractious and enigmatical. " There 
 are limits," she said decidedly, " beyond which mar- 
 tyrdom will not go ! " Avis pondered the words, 
 for one would say, speaking generally, that mar- 
 tyrdom qua martyrdom knows no limit, but dis- 
 cussion is the darling of keen minds at rest ; the 
 sharpness of the words was soon lost in her dull 
 preoccupation. 
 
 Dr. Middlemass declared himself puzzled at the 
 long-continued neuralgia in the limb.
 
 HEAETS IMPOETUNATE 169 
 
 " There may be further bone mischief," he said 
 dubiously. 
 
 " They told me, all the people who tormented me 
 for my good, that it would get no worse," said the 
 sufferer. 
 
 " That was a considerable time ago, Mrs. Bolitho. 
 They would not be so very far out, even if, which 
 I hope is not the case, there were some new devel- 
 opment." 
 
 " My dear, you will make no hesitation, I beg 
 most certainly go down to Sydney and see Dr. 
 Farintosh. Sorry I can't offer to go with you. 
 Missy will go." 
 
 It was a consultation in Mrs. Bolitho's room. 
 There was no secret in the matter. Continuous in- 
 visible pain on the part of Mrs. Bolitho, continuous 
 inexplicative and non-cure on the part of the Beulah 
 physician, any one might hear all there was to be 
 said on the matter. We all have legs, and so long 
 as they are outwardly whole, we may all talk about 
 them. Missy was of the party. 
 
 " Of course," she said, " wherever you like, 
 aunty." 
 
 " My child, you hate Sydney, and with all respect 
 for ingenious learning and excellent intention, doc- 
 tor, I have no opinion of the faculty of healing." 
 
 " We have to put up with this sort of thing," said 
 the doctor blandly, addressing the company ; " we 
 can only do our best. Dr. Farintosh's best will 
 certainly be better than mine." 
 
 "There is nothing better, when anything is 
 wrong with one, than a good bed. Avis hates Syd-
 
 170 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 ney, and the northeasters will be in their glory. I 
 won't victimise her for an off-chance." 
 
 " If the odds were a thousand to one, we'd take 
 it, aunty. I don't care for any town, but I do care 
 that you should be out of pain." 
 
 "Pheenie is away; who is to look after you, 
 Spencer ? It is out of the question." 
 
 " Nonsense, my love ; Elspeth will do me. I have 
 great confidence in Elspeth." 
 
 " Telegraph to May Comarty to come and stay 
 here," said Avis. " Uncle Bolitho likes her." 
 
 "Avis, they are shearing on the Laggan Eiver ! " 
 
 " All the more reason," said the young woman, 
 " that May should be glad to get away." 
 
 "Well, perhaps," the invalid conceded, "if she 
 would send me a telegram every day, saying how 
 you were, Spencer, and you would promise to write 
 me a few lines every day, with your own hand " 
 
 Then it was settled. Mrs. Bolitho was borne 
 elaborately from her bed to the railway, and went 
 off to Sydney in a sleeping carriage. She bore the 
 journey excellently ; her only difficulty was at the 
 end, when she had to be lifted up the steps of the 
 hotel.
 
 CHAPTEK XIII 
 
 IT was several years since Avis had been in a city, 
 and Sydney is a large place, with much stir in its 
 streets. Trams rattle and whistle, omnibus-drivers 
 announce their destination in a loud nasal snarl, 
 clocks strike, electric bells ring, newspaper-boys are 
 shrill, and it is a happy haunt for the professional 
 loafer. Beyond the confusion of noise to ears 
 habituated to the silence of the Bush, beyond the 
 effect of comparative suffocation common to all who 
 come from air unlimited to air closely contested, 
 Avis suffered much from the observation of her 
 fellow-creatures. Wherever she went, eyes followed 
 her with a tribute of curiosity, admiration and 
 envy, which would have been dear to many women, 
 but was painful to her. Sixty-eight inches of superb 
 humanity, borne with the goddess step, are an un- 
 common feast for the gazer of either sex. Feminine 
 heads on all sides wrought according to fashion 
 confessed the desirability of red or yellow as a pig- 
 ment; but an indescribable something, a shade, a 
 blending of complexion, declared our heroine fault- 
 lessly golden, without compliment to a moment's 
 mode, declared her birthright among so much pre- 
 tension, and Avis, shy, resentful, threatened herself 
 with the adoption of a black wig, and dulled her 
 brilliant features with a close-meshed veil. But 
 
 171
 
 172 HEAETS IMPOETUNATE 
 
 Artemis walks alone in safety the loafing and the 
 staring can do her no harm. 
 
 Dr. Farintosh came and spoke of sciatica : the 
 sudden onset, specially elusive pain, the dark 
 colouring of a sufferer who admitted the consump- 
 tion of cream with trembling, pointed safely to 
 sciatica. Electric baths were indicated. It is the 
 redeeming quality of an agonising complaint that 
 it is fantastically intermittent. There were days 
 when Mrs. Bolitho was entirely free from it: a 
 victoria, easy of entrance, was hired, and the ladies 
 went about Sydney to divert themselves. No 
 doubt the elder of them was very cheerful, very 
 well amused ; no doubt the younger looked with 
 indifference or dislike upon a world that looked so 
 much at her, even though youth and the passion of 
 vigorous life would now and again surge in her 
 veins and call upon her to enjoy. If sometimes it 
 seemed that it could not be a hostile world where 
 so many smiled upon each other, if sometimes she 
 asked herself why it should not be happy wherein 
 was so much sunshine, so many flowers, such a 
 spread of blue waters, the answer seemed to be in 
 an evil fate upon herself. She should have been 
 named Tantala, not Avis. Sydney the beautiful 
 was still lovely round them, not yet spoiled and 
 faded by the over devotion of the sun ; the gardens 
 of its villas were still green and glorious with 
 flowers; there was still something of coolness in 
 the nightfall, but it was all unprofitable to her 
 mood. She longed, in violent gusts of longing, for 
 the deep lanes of Southamptonshire, for the pipe of
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 1T3 
 
 the blackbird at sunset, for the blossoming trees of 
 spring, for the old grey street of the county town, 
 rich in memories, fair in design, tender with moss 
 and lichen. If one's weird is for all one's life, then 
 would one rather dree it among one's own people, 
 and the cathedral chime that told one's hour of 
 birth may fall soothingly upon sad ears, and the 
 distracted soul shall dwell more easily in an old 
 than in a new garment of circumstance. 
 
 The sickly northeast wind blew every afternoon 
 from the Pacific, but Avis made no complaint : she 
 felt the summer southerly from the English Chan- 
 nel. When the city clock struck, her recollection 
 was haunted by a sweet faltering utterance of " Life 
 let us cherish " floating over sacred precincts. 
 Those who worked the harbour ferries wondered 
 that so fair and proud a figure, always alone, 
 always with an air of complete detachment from 
 her surroundings, should make consecutive journeys 
 backward and forward in their craft, journeys of a 
 few minutes taken by most persons with hurried 
 purpose. To Avis they were the most convenient 
 way of pasturing her homesick eyes upon the 
 grand ocean-going liners berthed upon the quays, 
 superb ships, with the mystery of far travel about 
 their massive hulls hulls which continually cut the 
 waters washing Southamptonshire. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho, for all her watching, missed many 
 details of her companion's actions, but she under- 
 stood the importance at such a moment of a strong 
 domestic claim. Avis would not leave her ill and 
 lame in a hired chamber, not though all vessels set
 
 174 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 seaward every day for happier lands, not though 
 easeful death, ever tempting to the strong and the 
 young, offered relief from pain. " Avis would not 
 leave me," she thought firmly ; " and time is every- 
 thing, and her mother will be here ; and, finally, 
 whatever has happened, I cannot believe that that 
 man, in love, will let her go." A fortnight passed. 
 The weather was hot and enervating ; society was 
 quiet under it, took its pleasure on its incomparable 
 harbour, talked of flight some whither cooler. 
 
 On the afternoon of an important cricket match, 
 whereby the few courted sunstroke for the diversion 
 of the many, the reading-room of the Sutherland 
 Hotel was empty. Avis went in and turned over 
 the journals ; she found little to interest her. Hav- 
 ing no taste for cricket or for yachting, having no 
 anxiety concerning the money market, and a hearty 
 hatred for politics of all kinds, she knew not what 
 to read. She lighted upon a periodical of flaring 
 exterior, registered under the name of the Live Un. 
 Its weekly cartoon was usually clever and offensive ; 
 it dealt familiarly with every phase of colonial life 
 from the standpoint of vulgar irreconcilability. 
 What it upheld, what it admired, no man might 
 say, but any man might be sure, week by week, of 
 finding some spiteful word flung where he thought 
 it due. Avis, out of patience with public excite- 
 ment about cricketers, betook herself to its pages to 
 find some poignant belittlement of the national 
 game. A paragraph in this column called particu- 
 larly social caught her attention and held it : 
 
 " Goodness knows, we are sufficiently accustomed
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 175 
 
 to male English riffraff in this country dissolute 
 lordlings and remittance men pepper the land 
 thickly enough but it has been reserved for the 
 day of the New Woman to introduce to the hupper 
 suckles of Sydney the female ne'er-do-well who has 
 left her country for her country's good. Who, ex- 
 actly, is the gorgeous person with the aureolined 
 head who has a passion for harbour ferries and is 
 known among her friends as the Bird of Paradise ? 
 When matrons of well-established position use their 
 influence to foist such upon our hospitable com- 
 munity, it is time some one made a stand. If we 
 are to continue to respect the Yolumnias of the 
 Squattocracy, they must behave according. A fine 
 figure does not excuse everything. Men of doubt- 
 ful character are bad enough, but woman 
 
 What is society coming to ? " 
 
 There was no one to see. Avis rent the Live Un 
 to pieces, and for a few minutes she trod the soft 
 carpet of the reading-room with the raging step of 
 genuine tragedy. Then she returned to her chair 
 and reasoned with herself, setting down in order 
 arguments for her comfort. It was a small com- 
 munity always agog ; and that life must indeed be 
 private which could escape notice. The Live Un 
 was notorious even in her own Bush retreat ; she had 
 known those who had winced and cursed under its 
 poisonous attack. Had she thought the worse of 
 them ? Who would think the worse of her ? who 
 would think of her at all next week when there 
 was another victim ? The season was dull, yet the 
 scandalmongers of the press must deliver their tale.
 
 176 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 For the moment she supplied in her own person the 
 straw for their bricks. Who was the author ? It 
 was not likely that the stones of the capital were 
 crying about her of their own accord. She was not 
 a batsman making runs ; it was not likely that her 
 story was known by cablegram. She was not an 
 Australian artist making her debut at St. James's 
 Hall. A private hand had dealt the blow ; a pri- 
 vate hand likely a shabby one in need of a few 
 shillings for a new glove. May Railton could so 
 easily communicate with the social column of the 
 Live Un, and, under protest, every clubman in New 
 South Wales read the paper, and his wife heard the 
 news of it somehow. Ralph Hazell was not by this 
 time with his reassuring shoulder. There was a 
 moment for Avis of the anguish of defeat, as though 
 the battle of life were hopelessly ended to her dis- 
 comfiture ; then a new spirit awoke in her, and, 
 well or ill, she defied slander, defied sorrow, defied 
 the world, and she resolved in an instant to fight 
 it with its own weapon, by her own strength. 
 
 The " aureolined head " was as high as ever, the 
 fine figure as erect, as she crossed the main hall of 
 the hotel on the way to her room ; and it seemed to 
 her that the porter stared at her unduly ; and the 
 clerks at the various desks, and the sellers at the 
 stalls, recognised her insolently as the Bird of Para- 
 dise of the Live Un, but she brushed their glances 
 off as though they had been flies upon her sleeve. 
 The race is to the swift, and the battle to the 
 strong, she told herself, and felt herself both. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho was sleeping, resting after the morn-
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 177 
 
 ing's electric bath. At the stroke of four Avis 
 came to her sofa with a smile and a cup of tea. 
 
 " Come, aunty nap over ! Such a splendid after- 
 noon ! Do you know, I was thinking that if you 
 felt equal to it, we might drive out together to the 
 cricket ground and see the end of the match." 
 
 It was the first word on Avis's part of a deliber- 
 ate demand for society, and the demand was sus- 
 tained. "With astonishment, but deep content, Mrs. 
 Bolitho's consent was given as it was asked. "With 
 due respect on both sides to the sciatica, it was de- 
 cided that Miss Fletcher should enter immediately 
 upon acquaintance with Sydney such of it as re- 
 mained to endure the usual summer infliction of 
 merciless sun, intolerable winds, paralysing dust- 
 storms. Avis accepted the dulness of the season ; 
 it would be lively enough, she said, for a Bush- 
 woman. The place was emptying fast, but there 
 would surely be enough people left to divert an up- 
 country cousin. 
 
 The arguments rang genuine. The curious hard- 
 ness of her face and tone might be accounted as 
 due to effort after mental recovery ; drawing-room 
 distraction was probably her own prescription for 
 heartache. They changed their quarters. They 
 were hospitably received by a wealthy widow, Mrs. 
 Wenban, five and forty years ago an adored school- 
 mate of Selina Bulpett, now the owner of a luxuri- 
 ous villa on the sloping shore of Bourke's Bay, with 
 a ravishing view of the blue harbour, whose waters 
 swept her garden wall. Mrs. Bolitho's circle was 
 so select that it could be as extensive as she pleased.
 
 178 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 In other days, when she spent part of each year in 
 the capital, she had known every one who figured in 
 the social game of play. Lately, though her rare 
 arrivals were always respectfully chronicled, she 
 had confined her visiting roll to those peculiarly of 
 her own class, old-established pastoralists who pos- 
 sessed town houses. They were people of compara- 
 tively quiet life in a gay community, who gave 
 scant attention to the rapid rise and fall of the new 
 wealthy, nor much sought even the important ac- 
 quaintance of shortlived official rank. Governors 
 come and go, the squadron changes, the Bench of 
 Justice varies, but even in a colony there is some- 
 thing of aristocracy taken root in the soil, secure of 
 its place, bearing responsibility. No house could 
 have been better for Avis's purpose than that 
 known, fantastically, after the fashion of a city of 
 villas, as Gaza, no household more convenient. 
 The "Wenbans were above gossip, above the highest 
 swell of its foul sea. Mrs. Wenban had one son, 
 Robert, a born scientist, who, at his father's death, 
 had declined cattle-farming and sold his station, and 
 now devoted himself to physics and his laboratory. 
 His laboratory was his club, his bicycle was his rec- 
 reation. As his mother would not leave her own 
 country, he waited contentedly till he should be 
 free to establish himself in the old world, where in- 
 struments of precision are manufactured and there 
 is a stimulating atmosphere of the men who use 
 them. He had a guest with him, James Outram, 
 Englishman, doctor of science and medicine, master 
 in surgery, whom he had met and liked in London,
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 179 
 
 who, being poor and overworked, had lately trav- 
 elled out as ship's doctor for the benefit of the 
 voyage. 
 
 All the Sneerwells of Sydney might have blated 
 the disgrace of Avis Fletcher, and the inhabitants 
 of Gaza in Bourke's Bay would have been none the 
 wiser ; but Avis heard them in the air, and she pre- 
 pared for the fact that others might hear them 
 also. Her whole habit of mind was for the mo- 
 ment changed. Hitherto she had had to combat 
 the bitterness of her own heart, and she had done 
 so for the past eight years in mental fashion, amus- 
 ing herself, working off her energy, working out 
 her natural love of excitement by enthusiastic 
 learning of some new thing. Now, she felt, the 
 struggle was with human beings, and she thought 
 to meet them best by human weapons. She made 
 to herself friends of two men's faith, buying it with 
 the current coin of sex in her case of the most 
 brilliant metal splendidly cast. From the first 
 evening, when she sat at dinner between Eobert 
 Wenban and James Outram, she gave her whole at- 
 tention to the bewilderment and distraction of 
 both. Neither had any chance to withstand her ; 
 whatever element might otherwise be wanting for 
 their enslavery (for the chance was small that she 
 would represent the well-beloved to each) was sup- 
 plied by the natural rivalry of two upon whom her 
 graciousness fell impartially; and one man was 
 quiet and languid, swept off his feet by vivacity, and 
 the other was in the final stage of convalescence, 
 when the chosen line is usuallv that of least resist-
 
 180 HEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 ance. Mrs. Bolitho, looking on, could scarcely rec- 
 ognise her adopted daughter as an enterprising and 
 skilful flirt. Mrs. Wen ban, full of good works, her 
 hands busy with flannel for the South Sea Island- 
 ers, her heart bearing tenderness for the unfortu- 
 nate, had nothing to recognise in the clothed and 
 fed. Avis was not careful to excuse herself in the 
 matter, though, had she been taxed with her mis- 
 doing, excuses lay there threefold. If all the world 
 was shortly to be against her, she must make to 
 herself followers and henchmen ; life was intoler- 
 able. If she was not to betake herself to easeful 
 death, she must have diversion. These were men 
 now, since by Adam came sin in her microcosm 
 also, then upon the sons and brothers of Adam 
 should revenge be taken. Let them suffer indeed, 
 the more the better ! So she smiled on Dr. Out- 
 ram, who rowed her about the harbour, and she 
 smiled on Mr. Wenban, who hired her a bicycle and 
 gave her lessons in the art of riding it. As a pas- 
 time, Avis found men most interesting, and she 
 wondered that she had never tried them before; 
 moreover, the game was extraordinarily easy. A 
 woman moves upon the foundation of sex as a good 
 swimmer in deep water, with absolute confidence. 
 She felt she could do no wrong. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho, after ten days of growing astonish- 
 ment, in which she had formulated every conceiv- 
 able explanation of the new behaviour, could con- 
 tain herself no longer. 
 
 "My dear," she said, "I really must ask you: 
 what are you doing with these two men ? "
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 181 
 
 Avis answered coolly : " I am doing unto others 
 as they have done to me." 
 
 " Do you care about either of them ? " 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 " The young one, Dr. Outram I say nothing of 
 Robert Wenban, who is old enough to take care of 
 himself, if a man is ever that Dr. Outram is poor ; 
 he could not possibly marry." 
 
 "I don't want him to marry." 
 
 " Do you want to break his heart ? " 
 
 " Suppose I do. I am there for my pains, as the 
 French say ; men's hearts don't break. They crack 
 and crack and make a lot of noise, and then they 
 recover to the normal. I assure you, aunty dear, I 
 have no more pity for men than for mosquitoes." 
 
 She caught a trumpeting insect in her hand as she 
 spoke and flicked its corpse away with a finger. 
 
 " My dear, you are talking of half the world." 
 
 Avis was lying in a long chair with her feet up 
 before her. Ibsen's plays were on her lap. She 
 stared at the paper cover of her book and meditated 
 an answer which did not come. 
 
 " Do you get your ideas to-day from that extra- 
 ordinary Norwegian ? " 
 
 " I get from him nothing but a general notion 
 that more is laid upon life by moral philosophers 
 than it can bear. Now, aunty, you have preached 
 sex to me all the years I have known you, and all 
 these years I have ignored it. Well, it seems to me 
 that the world is reasonable and accountable and 
 moral enough outside of sex. As long as I look 
 upon my fellow-creatures merely as fellow-creatures
 
 182 HEAKTS IMPOKTUKATE 
 
 called arbitrarily men and women, but really all the 
 same, my actions are sensible and humane and ac- 
 cording to rule I walk on firm land. But the mo- 
 ment I plunge into the sea of sex, I find a whirl of 
 opposing forces, an anarchy of jealousy and ma- 
 noeuvre and prejudice and every kind of emotion, 
 big and little. The sex world is everlastingly at 
 war, essentially anarchical. I recognise no moral 
 law in it. It is base. ' Him that uttered nothing 
 base' was a mooning old bachelor " Avis 
 laughed, frowned at her own shoes and concluded : 
 " Leave me alone, aunty dear. I have become what 
 is called a woman ! " 
 
 " A woman should be everything that is good," 
 said Mrs. Bolitho sharply, at the end of her wits. 
 
 "Why?" said Avis. "How? It is a literary 
 fiction. The men who write books, being men, are 
 each in love with some woman, who has every vir- 
 tue because she has a dimple in her cheek, or be- 
 cause she has a soothing way with him ! " 
 
 " Women write books too." 
 
 " Yes ; and they, as women, keep up the fiction." 
 
 " What do you call Mrs. Wenban and her beauti- 
 ful life?" 
 
 " She is old ; she has ceased to be a woman, and 
 returned to the moral plane." 
 
 " I am thoroughly annoyed with you ! " 
 
 " Of course you are ! Some day, perhaps before 
 long, I also shall return, and then you will like me 
 again." 
 
 " And in the meantime ? " 
 
 'In the meantime," Avis interrupted, with a
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 183 
 
 careless laugh, " another mosquito ! " She clapped 
 her hands together, and humanity was free of a 
 pest. 
 
 Eobert Wenban presented his tall, thin figure and 
 pallid face. 
 
 " Miss Fletcher," he said solemnly, " do you think 
 it too hot to try the theatre to-night ? I hear of a 
 farce that is extremely laughable " 
 
 " It's never too hot to laugh," she answered, and 
 the brilliant look of pleasure, the look he was want- 
 ing to see, was turned upon him. 
 
 " Then, may I get three places ? " He moved his 
 eyes reluctantly and addressed Mrs. Bolitho. 
 
 " Yes, but no stairs, remember, and remember, 
 both of you, it is to be a farce that is understood. 
 No tragedy."
 
 CHAPTEK XIV 
 
 CAEADON BOLITHO and his wife, returned from 
 Melbourne were visiting a frivolous couple named 
 Newbiggin a couple of their own age and mind, 
 through whose trim little cottage on Eock Point 
 there passed all the talk of the City. It was a cot- 
 tage with a double coach-house a cottage of gen- 
 tility ; and, in the opinion of Josephine, it was the 
 cheeriest halting-place in Sydney. A large house 
 has strong attractive power, if only that of mass, 
 but a little house, generously conducted, draws 
 visitors like a magnet. It is easy to slip in by a 
 little gate that bars only a yard or two of gravel 
 walk ; and the nervous, the carelessly dressed, have 
 nothing to fear from the linear perspective of a 
 small drawing-room, where the window-light, more- 
 over, is comfortably low. 
 
 Dora Newbiggin had callers all day long. The 
 front-door was generally open, and the road was so 
 near to the front-door that to " drop in for a mo- 
 ment " was hardly otherwise than going on about 
 their business, and the lazy might sit silent for an 
 hour with an unsmoked cigarette, and the lively 
 might make music on various instruments or listen 
 to it, and the hungry one or the thirsty was sure 
 of excellent refreshment, and it was asked of him 
 or of her only to be civil and unceremonious, and 
 to take nothing too seriously. 
 
 Keen, open-eared young sparks, diners-out, club- 
 
 184
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 185 
 
 men, Caradon Bolitho and Jack Newbiggin knew 
 that rumour was abroad concerning Avis, but they 
 were accustomed to the Athenian malice of their 
 capital, and heard it with a shrug and an explana- 
 tory acknowledgment of our heroine's beauty, and 
 it was not till the dart of the Live Un that they 
 became serious. It happened that the household 
 was breakfasting together. 
 
 " Let it be understood," said Pheenie, " that this 
 establishes no precedent. Had I known that the 
 three of you were up and down, I would have taken 
 another bath or gone back to bed to put in another 
 half -hour, anyhow. I might as well be in my own 
 house, if anything is expected of me at breakfast- 
 time." 
 
 Jack Newbiggin was reading the Live Un. 
 There was no subscription for it at the Den, but 
 somehow its flaring cover appeared there invari- 
 ably, and it was read with shrugs, or chuckles, or 
 indignation, without malice, but as a matter of 
 course. Jack encountered the particular paragraph, 
 whistled with consternation, and threw the journal 
 over to Caradon, who, having also read, flushed 
 angrily, declared the matter past bearing, swore to 
 thrash the editor, and passed the print to his wife. 
 She took the matter more calmly, finished her 
 coffee, brushed a crumb of toast from the lace of 
 her morning-gown, and said coolly : 
 
 " Well, you know what the Live Un is. I don't 
 see that we can do anything." 
 
 " Can't do anything ! when it's my mother and 
 my adopted cousin ! Something must be done ! "
 
 186 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " What, pray ? There is a mystery about Avis." 
 
 " Bunkum ! Some fellow in England jilted her 
 when she was in her teens, and she has chosen to 
 sulk about it ever since, that's all." 
 
 " Chosen to sulk at a distance of twelve thousand 
 miles, and the back-blocks at that ! " 
 
 " None of your Melbourne airs, Pheenie. To my 
 knowledge you've never been within a hundred 
 miles of the back-blocks in your life." 
 
 Caradon resented depreciation of Wamagatta. 
 
 " Her health, wasn't it ? " said Dora Newbiggin 
 artlessly. 
 
 "Health? Well, perhaps," drawled Pheenie. 
 " Certainly New South Wales agrees with her. She 
 rode twenty miles on a hired horse, a notorious 
 puller, in a black northeaster the other day, and 
 spent the evening listening to German chamber 
 music. My health wouldn't bear that, I know." 
 
 " Oh, these red-headed people ! " said Jack New- 
 biggin ; " they've the deuce and all of ' vim ' in 'em. 
 And look at her shoulders ! there's lungs for you ! " 
 
 " It was her lungs," said Pheenie faintly. 
 
 "Confound her lungs! What are you driving 
 at ? " demanded Caradon, wrathful. " Do you mean 
 to infer that Avis is a shady character, and that my 
 mother either does or does not know it ? " 
 
 " My dear husband, I never could infer anything 
 satisfactory," answered his wife. " I gave up the 
 attempt long ago; but your 'cousin's' honour is 
 my own." 
 
 " Of course," said Dora ; and as she took her time 
 to read the paragraph, she wondered, repeating her
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 187 
 
 " of course," whether the honour of the adopted 
 cousin of a friend's husband could be said to be 
 one's own. On such a scale, it seemed to her, were 
 established vendetta and its responsibilities. 
 
 " Sydney will be all agog with it," said Caradon. 
 " My mother and Avis will be stared at wherever 
 they go." 
 
 "They'll be none the wiser," said Pheenie. 
 " They wouldn't lay a little finger on the Live Un." 
 
 " See what comes to us of touching pitch," said 
 Jack remorsefully. " And you can't do anything, 
 you know, Caradon ; you can only leave it to the 
 grand ignorance of the Yolumnias of the squattoc- 
 racy splendid mouthful that ! " 
 
 " ' Aureolined ' is abominable! I should mind 
 that part," observed Dora. 
 
 "You are not Avis," answered Pheenie. "I 
 know myself the superb disdain of one's fellow- 
 creatures that comes of being thoroughly well 
 dressed, but I imagine it to be nothing at all com- 
 pared with the disdain of being thoroughly hand- 
 some. I remember a bicycling journeyman parson, 
 Oxford classic, who spent a night at "Wamagatta. 
 Avis chose to be particularly shabby that evening, 
 and as mum as a mute. But the poor young man 
 gazed at her hungrily as long as she vouchsafed to 
 show herself to his eyes, and then confided to me 
 (to me, who am nothing if not modern) that he felt 
 as if he had been introduced to Olympus." 
 
 " Who wrote the thing, that's what I want to 
 know ? " fumed Caradon. 
 
 " You may want. Are you going to walk with
 
 188 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 me to my place of business this morning ? " returned 
 his host, who was a member of the Junior Bar, not 
 yet in great request. 
 
 " My place of business to-day is the office of the 
 Live Un ; and my business there is to break every 
 bone in the editor's vile body," returned the other, 
 full of rancour. 
 
 The gate clicked, and a damsel in spotless print, 
 scarlet-hatted, rustling with starch, overflowing 
 with lively words, entered upon the breakfast-party 
 and presented them with plans for the day. 
 
 The Wenbans and the Newbiggins lived on dif- 
 ferent planes, and guests at Gaza saw but little, ex- 
 cept by special effort, of the guests at the Den. 
 Caradon said of his mother during the following 
 days, when the social air was full of conjecture and 
 resolution about Avis, that she lived in a fool's par- 
 adise, than which there are certainly many worse 
 places of residence, and if permanence could be in- 
 sured for it, no man would live elsewhere than in 
 his favourite folly. Pheenie reflected considerably. 
 She had a thorough knowledge of the world she 
 lived in, and of her own power as a young matron 
 without fear or reproach, and she decided that its 
 benefit should be given to Avis, as to one who had 
 been entertained by her own mother-in-law, an ad- 
 mirable woman, with sons to whom she was devoted, 
 whose happiness would never have been endangered 
 by an undesirable proximity. Pheenie did not, 
 however, like the position, and would have given 
 much to know the true facts of it. 
 
 A week later the inhabitants of the Den found
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 189 
 
 themselves bidden to dine at Gaza. The Wenbans 
 were lazy in hospitality, and when they gave din- 
 ners, it was on a large scale, which betrayed effort 
 and insured infrequency. Pheenie was curious to 
 see who had been brought together to do honour to 
 Mrs. Bolitho and Miss Fletcher. Fourteen persons 
 awaited the butler's announcement in the big draw- 
 ing-room. Besides the house-party, the Newbig- 
 gins, herself and her husband, there were present 
 Sir Osbert Wavertree, an English baronet, com- 
 manding H.M.S. Mollyhawk, of the squadron, and 
 his daughter; Judge McKinnon, of the Supreme 
 Court, a widower, shrewd and humorous; and a 
 couple known generally as the Jimmy Winches, 
 being an Australian barrister in large practice and 
 his young wife, pretty, a little malicious through 
 emptiness of head, not above a moderate flirtation. 
 The hostess and the Wavertrees excepted, there 
 was no one among them to whom Avis wasn't for 
 the moment, if no more, a chief interest. To Mrs. 
 Bolitho she was a sick child ; to the men of the 
 house she was a rising sun, whose dazzle filled the 
 world ; to the guests, in varying aspect, she was the 
 victim of the Live Un ; and she knew it all, and 
 prescribed for herself accordingly. She knew that 
 they would all look at her ; looks, therefore, should 
 be invited, compelled, lest they should seem to be 
 feared. She dressed herself in silk brocade, col- 
 oured like a rich red orange, with a necklet a val- 
 uable family ornament, of gold, enamelled in green 
 and red, said to be true Kenaissance work round 
 the ivory of her throat. She came in last upon the
 
 190 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 company, wearing a smile carefully practiced before 
 the mirror a smile in which there was no human 
 emotion whatever; a smile that was merely bril- 
 liant. Mrs. Bolitho, to whom the dress and manner 
 were entirely new, thought, in delight, " How splen- 
 did my girl looks ! " Pheenie, intensely critical, 
 with her long-handled eyeglass, saluted a success- 
 ful audacity. Mrs. Jimmy Winch pursed her lips, 
 and made an instantaneous mental conclusion in 
 favour of the aureoline hypothesis. Dora Newbig- 
 gin was puzzled, and said to herself, " No wonder 
 they talk ! " Miss Wavertree, an amateur in paint- 
 ing, made a step forward, and whispered impul- 
 sively to the Judge at her elbow, " Oh, what a lovely 
 Titian creature ! Why can't I do portraits ? " The 
 men accepted her, staring from all points like a 
 mob of cattle accepted her variously, in regard of 
 their previous conception, as the female regnant 
 triumphant. Avis felt it all, and despised every one 
 of them. " Monkeys ! slaves of the eye ! " she 
 called them behind her unaltered smile. " A large 
 doll would attract you all equally. The fellow- 
 being nearly desperate, the other human soul, eter- 
 nal, limitless, lonely, is nothing to you. Even the 
 handsome body would fail to stir you if it were 
 shabbily clothed, but you are all respectful and ad- 
 miring because I fitted it with costly yellow, and 
 submitted my distracted head to a hairdresser." 
 The anger was unfair. She had accomplished her 
 purpose ; their scattered purpose did but acknowl- 
 edge the power of concentrated will. We know, 
 however, that justice is not of earth.
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 191 
 
 Mrs. Wenban beamed upon the company as they 
 filed away before her, and her companion, the 
 baronet, answered her smile of contentment, saying 
 whimsically : 
 
 " Wonderful what pretty things they are, pretty 
 ladies." 
 
 His hostess looked at him in perplexity. 
 
 " A sailor, you know, is particularly susceptible," 
 he continued. "The long weeks afloat with the 
 ugly sex. I have been cruising lately round the 
 islands, and I feel very grateful for an invitation 
 to eat an excellent dinner among such charming 
 human beings." 
 
 " Your daughter is not the least charming of 
 them," said Mrs. "Wenban kindly, looking at the 
 well-grown young woman with the blooming cheek 
 who had just taken her seat between Caradon and 
 Robert. 
 
 " Her father likes to think so," he replied. " Our 
 boasted English colouring bears any setting. But 
 there is a distinctly Australian complexion per- 
 haps I should call it distinctly of Sydney which I 
 find very agreeable. A faint uniform tone. 
 Whether pink or brown, shows through a clear 
 opacity, if I may be allowed a paradox. The skin 
 is beautifully clear and uniform, the tint singularly 
 delicate. It comes, I fancy, from the damp heat of 
 your climate, which perhaps lowers vitality while 
 it preserves tissue. Do I talk nonsense ? " 
 
 " I have an epicure in ladies' looks here," said 
 Mrs. Wenban, leaning across him to Mrs. Bolitho. 
 " What shall I do with him ? "
 
 192 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " Tell him to survey the house," was the quick 
 answer, as she glanced over the table, of which the 
 low-lying decorations in lilies, orchids, and passion- 
 flowers made no hindrance to sight or conversation. 
 " There is a selected variety of loveliness. I have 
 heard that Sir Osbert is given to epigram ; he will 
 find none that will include so much variety." 
 
 " And yet," said Judge McKinnon, her compan- 
 ion, " men are apt to say that women are all alike." 
 
 " You take my words out of my mouth," said 
 Mrs. Bolitho. " A sign that age advances. Twenty 
 years ago not even the flippancy of the Bar could 
 have got in a sentence before me." 
 
 " I apologise ; but I knew the observation had to 
 come," said the Judge, " and you Bush people get 
 very leisurely in your ways. A month in Sydney, 
 now " 
 
 " And you would do as I always do when my 
 dinner-mate has a bright hazel eye you would 
 wait for the champagne to cross swords with her." 
 Sir Osbert finished his sentence. 
 
 " Keally, between you two," the Judge objected, 
 " it is I who must feel superannuated. I had best 
 retire from the board and the Bench together." 
 
 " You believe in the eye ? " asked Mrs. Bolitho. 
 
 " The eye for the wits and the mouth for the 
 heart, madam ; that is my rule of conduct." 
 
 " Oh ay. And in the jurisdiction of courts-mar- 
 tial it doesn't matter, except to your own pride, how 
 often it misleads you," said Judge McKinnon. 
 " Things are rare and easy for you service men. Of 
 what use for a man in my position to be opinioned
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 193 
 
 in the matter of an eye or a mouth ? Pinioned is 
 he by the respectable stupidity of good men and 
 true; pegged down, I tell you, by the myriad 
 woodenhead of the public ! " 
 
 " Nothing for nothing, Mr. McKinnon," said Mrs. 
 Bolitho ; " they can't make you retire. Sir Osbert 
 may no doubt does bluster and stamp upon his 
 quarter-deck ; but his days are numbered." 
 
 " True," said the Captain sadly ; " and there will 
 remain no outlet to me except an occasional letter 
 to the Times. Eheu fugaces ! Let us look at the 
 young people ! I grudge them no whit of their 
 advantages, and yet I would that my veins were 
 still elastic enough to bound in due appreciation of 
 that golden head down there." 
 
 His look led theirs to Avis, graciously accepting 
 the marked attention of her host, and the continual 
 observations of the dark shrewd face of the English 
 surgeon, and the comment of those who pleased. 
 
 Pheenie, regarding her at her ease across Jack 
 New biggin's shirt-front, drawled to him softly : 
 
 " The Live Un would say that its worst informa- 
 tion was confirmed." 
 
 " Tremendous, isn't she ? " he murmured back. 
 " What a header Wenban has taken ! " 
 
 "Dress," said Judge McKinnon, in a moment's 
 pause in the general conversation, " is a very great 
 force." 
 
 " Dressmakers," said Mrs. Jimmy Winch foolishly, 
 " are a very great fraud." 
 
 " Why, I wonder, do we British men so neglect 
 it ? " said Dr. Outram in strong, rapid tones.
 
 194 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 " "We not only neglect it, we contemn it utterly," 
 said Mr. Winch. 
 
 " The innate vanity of your sex," said Avis softly 
 to Caradon. " You think of yourselves as of beauty 
 unadorned adorned the most." 
 
 Eobert Wen ban heard her, and aimed his voice at 
 her as he turned to Miss Wavertree. 
 
 " Yet any man of us here, I suppose," he said, " is 
 entitled to wear some distinctive dress, more or less 
 handsome, in sign of something that he has done or 
 does. The Judge has robes and a wig, Sir Kobert 
 has his uniform, and my friend Outram is a popin- 
 jay in yellow and scarlet as a London Doctor of 
 Science, and purple and scarlet as something else. 
 Myself, I am a humble Bachelor of Arts, authorised 
 to hang a hood of rabbit's fur round my shoulders." 
 
 " To say nothing of the cherry stuff gown and 
 the engaging little fee-bags," said Kewbiggin. 
 
 " Leave me out ; I've no feathers of dignity," said 
 Caradon. 
 
 " What, not your polo cap and shirt ? " said Avis. 
 
 " If you come to that, there's cricket and f oot- 
 ball," he said. 
 
 " Quite so : and the fox-hunter's pink, and golf 
 buttons and coats, and Why, I believe the cy- 
 cling clubs have some distinguishing bit of finery," 
 Dora Newbiggin contributed an apposite mite of 
 information. 
 
 "The fact is," said Miss Wavertree, "that you 
 men, in dress as elsewhere, have all the rights, and 
 we women have none ; but we have also no limits, 
 and so we assume what we please."
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 195 
 
 " It shows the little value of rights," said Mrs. 
 Bolitho ; " a fee-bag in Court, a cricket cap in the 
 field. Give me privilege ! " 
 
 " Madam," said Sir Osbert, " I am sure you have 
 always had it. I should like to say, however, that 
 Judge McKinnon and I feel the highest reverence 
 for the uniforms we wear, because they are not our 
 own ; they are Her Majesty's." 
 
 " Which proves the rule ! " said Mrs. Bolitho com- 
 placently. 
 
 " In praise of privilege ! " cried Dr. Outram. " I 
 should protest if I heard it from a man, but from a 
 lady I am a Radical, I suppose, and Mrs. Wen- 
 ban calls one a materialist and everything that is 
 most upsetting, but I feel there must be privilege 
 for a lady." 
 
 Miss Wavertree laughed that she appreciated the 
 liver-wing of the chicken, and took it always with- 
 out any self-reproach, but never, in her own soul, 
 saw any reason for its being given to her. 
 
 "The whole question of chivalry," said Robert 
 Wenban. 
 
 " Speaking for Bolitho and myself, we decline the 
 case," said Jack Newbiggin. " I made shift to learn 
 the language of law, but I refuse to undertake that 
 of chivalry." 
 
 " I have always understood that law and chivalry 
 are opposed," said Miss Wavertree. 
 
 " Why, of course," said the Judge. " The law in 
 chivalry is woman's will." 
 
 " Which claims the character of fools," said Mrs. 
 Bolitho.
 
 196 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " A maxima cfiarta" suggested Sir Osbert. 
 
 " They're too clever for me to-night," Mrs. Winch 
 complained to her host. " Why do you ask ordi- 
 nary people to meet them ? " 
 
 " What do you like to talk about ? " he asked 
 her. 
 
 " Little things scandal, cricket." 
 
 " I am so sorry," he said gravely ; " we never talk 
 scandal at my mother's table, and, for my part, I 
 take no interest whatever in cricket." 
 
 " A duffer at it, were you ? " she returned. " Let 
 us talk about people, then. How long have you 
 known Miss Fletcher ? Who is she ? " 
 
 " An Englishwoman," he answered. 
 
 " I could tell that by her allowance of bone," re- 
 plied Mrs. Winch coolly. " We Cornstalks are often 
 tall, but we don't run as massive as they do in the 
 old country. I suppose you know all about her ? " 
 
 Wenban bowed. His thoughts were too much on 
 Avis to like speech concerning her. He was a shy 
 man in a shy mental state. Moreover, he knew al- 
 most nothing about her. 
 
 " I love England. What part of it does she come 
 from, do you know ? " persisted Mrs. Jimmy Winch. 
 
 Wenban considered, then remembered. 
 
 " The South, I believe ; Southamptonshire I think 
 I have heard. Won't you try that curry ? I know 
 it of old." 
 
 " Thanks ; I never eat hot things," answered the 
 young lady, and turned away to Outram, who sat 
 on her right, asking : " What part of England do 
 you come from ? "
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 197 
 
 " From the monstrous heart of it London," he 
 replied promptly. 
 
 "Are you globe-trotting, then?" she continued 
 idly. 
 
 "No, I think not." 
 
 " Going to settle out here ? " 
 
 " I am afraid not." 
 
 " What are you doing, then, if one may ask ? " she 
 laughed. 
 
 " I am banqueting in heaven, I rather fancy," he 
 replied slowly. 
 
 " Is that the curry ? " 
 
 "No, the angels." 
 
 He made her a little bow, and looked all round 
 the table, his eye pausing, as Mrs. Winch expected, 
 for an instant at Avis. 
 
 " And the old ladies ? " she asked. 
 
 " I like them best of all," he answered, and lis- 
 tened to Avis, who was telling Judge McKinnon 
 across the table that she had often thought of re- 
 viving Bushranging in her own person. 
 
 " You'd be taken directly," said Caradon. 
 
 " I can ride," said Avis. 
 
 " Yes, but you've also got to hide." 
 
 " There are unsurveyed districts, in the north of 
 the colony, absolutely wild," she answered ; " and I 
 can shoot. I picture the dismay of the lumbering 
 coach-loads commercial travellers, children going 
 between home and school, and such-like, when I 
 bail them up." 
 
 " She is extraordinarily unfeminine," said Mrs. 
 Jimmy Winch to the man on either side.
 
 198 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 Outram, resenting the criticism, threw it boldly 
 into the midst of the company. 
 
 " It is suggested that the Bushranger's vocation 
 is unfeminine," he said. "Will any one present 
 define * unfeminine ' ? " 
 
 Mrs. Winch was accustomed to better treatment 
 than this. She knit her pretty eyebrows, and 
 looked at her husband, who answered shortly : 
 
 " Definitions are often, I think, merely vexatious. 
 There are certain things one knows instinctively by 
 common-sense ; the meaning of ( unfeminine ' is one 
 of them." 
 
 " I delight in definitions," said Outram stoutly, 
 " and I take upon myself to define common-sense 
 as the lowest common intellectual factor. I ask, 
 however, for the meaning of ' unfeminine.' " 
 
 " If you would make it feminine" put in Pheenie, 
 "I would reply, among other things, me." 
 
 Every one present turned upon her, and found no 
 cause for cavil in the small quaint face, the long, 
 slight frame in elegant tones of fawn-colour and 
 lilac. 
 
 " Every lady would say the same," observed Jack 
 Newbiggin. 
 
 "I am not so sure of that," answered Miss 
 Wavertree, laughing. "I don't accept the adjec- 
 tive without knowing the mind of him who applies 
 it. There are a lot of men who, in their inmost 
 hearts, mean by feminine foolish." 
 
 " I mean charming," replied Jack. 
 
 " You mean goose ! " retorted his wife. " You 
 married me ! What do you think, Judge ? "
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 199 
 
 The great man considered. 
 
 " If she will only be beautiful," he answered 
 slowly, " she may do anything, and it will be right." 
 
 " Jupiter nods ! " cried Mrs. Bolitho, with a ma- 
 licious tap of her fan upon his arm. 
 
 " Rhadamanthus, rather," said Avis softly, to no 
 one in particular. 
 
 " I am certain Joan of Arc was beautiful," put in 
 Sir Osbert, " and Grace Darling ; and we know that 
 Nell G wynne was." 
 
 " I protest ! " said Mrs. Wenban earnestly. " I 
 don't discuss Joan of Arc, though I cannot think a 
 woman's place is a battle-field ; and I could not im- 
 agine any one caring what that noble creature 
 Grace Darling looked like; but Nell Gwynne " 
 
 " I brought her in as an antithesis, with apology," 
 said Sir Osbert. 
 
 " What has her beauty to do with it ? " continued 
 Mrs. Wenban. 
 
 "Speaking as a mere man, everything," an- 
 swered the Baronet mildly ; " but I drift into deep 
 waters." 
 
 Mrs. Wenban, with the obstinacy of the gentle, 
 persisted : " You were talking about beauty making 
 things right." She looked at the elder men indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 " The Bench gives judgment on evidence, noth- 
 ing more," answered Judge McKinnon with a 
 shrug, and helped himself to iced gooseberry-fool. 
 
 " Do you mean," said Mrs. Bolitho, enjoying the 
 argument, " that you would take beauty as excul- 
 patory evidence ? "
 
 200 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " For the men," he answered. 
 
 " And against the women ? " 
 
 " Well, now, ask yourself," he said deprecatingly. 
 
 " Excuse me, Judge. It is the men who must be 
 asked," cried Mrs. Bolitho, with indignation that 
 was touched with sincerity. " Do you mean that 
 beauty in women makes right in man and wrong in 
 her at one and the same time ? " 
 
 " I often sympathise when I have to condemn," 
 he replied ; " but really my position these young 
 people our old friendship, Mrs. Bolitho, and the 
 excellence of the fool ! I leave these deep waters 
 to Sir Osbert." 
 
 " Allow me to bring my seniors back to the point 
 unfemininity," said Outram sternly. 
 
 " Whatever a man likes for herself," said Dora 
 ]STewbiggin; "divided garments, crossed legs, a 
 good dinner and a cigarette, freedom of speech, 
 power of the purse " 
 
 " Masculinity in that ? " said Dr. Outram. 
 
 " Yes," answered Dora, and added softly: "All 
 the comfortable things of life." 
 
 " Who's the goose now ? " demanded her husband. 
 " What about the trenches at Sebastopol, and the 
 outposts of the Indian Empire, and " 
 
 " Personal feeling appears perpetually in this ar- 
 gument," Outram declared. " Is it that you are all 
 hopelessly unscientific, ladies and gentlemen, that 
 you cannot keep to impersonal facts ? " 
 
 Sir Osbert Wavertree and Mrs. Bolitho ex- 
 changed a glance of enlightenment. " You say it," 
 she told him with a smile, and he leant forward,
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 201 
 
 his pleasant, grey-bearded face twinkled with 
 humorous lines, as he claimed the company's atten- 
 tion. 
 
 "Dr. Outram, and fellow-diners, the reason is 
 exactly there. Masculine, feminine, are the most 
 personal and relative facts of conditions. Elimi- 
 nate the personal, and who cares if another is 
 masculine or feminine ? The world might well be 
 of one sex. We must all disagree here. I want a 
 feminine to my masculine, and if she be only 
 feminine to me, then, whatever her qualities, she is 
 my type of womanhood. If she be not the feminine 
 of me, then what care I how feminine she be ? 
 May I propose a toast, Mrs. "Wenban? and you 
 ladies can also drink it mutato nomine: 'The 
 feminine of me ! ' " 
 
 " You and I are drinking to our past," said Judge 
 McKinnon, as he set down his glass. 
 
 Mrs. Jimmy Winch, not greatly concerned for 
 her husband's health, had eyes to notice that two 
 men drank to Avis, who for her part just tasted the 
 wine, as unresponsive as civility allowed. 
 
 " You might as well have spared my poor little 
 remark," said Mrs. Winch to the surgeon, with some 
 sharpness. " You got no definition, only general 
 fireworks." 
 
 "Very good fireworks, some of them," he an- 
 swered ; " that is my excuse." 
 
 The ladies left the room, Avis going last, slowly, 
 with Mrs. Bolitho on her arm. Sir Osbert and the 
 gentlemen of the house watched them along the 
 hall in their striking contrast : the faultless figure
 
 202 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 in its golden audacity, the train of rich-hued silk 
 unrolling stately in its wake; the little limping 
 form, keen with points of diamonds, its little brown 
 hand clutching and sparkling on the knob of the 
 supporting ebony. 
 
 Sir Osbert turned to his host, who stood by him. 
 
 "I shall thank you henceforth for a valuable 
 memory," he said, and as he spoke he made a note 
 of the man's expression " The feminine of Robert 
 Wenban, in Robert Wenban's opinion ! " 
 
 Avis led Mrs. Bolitho to a comparatively cool 
 seat by an open window, and herself went out to 
 the verandah, drawing a deep breath. It was a 
 stifling night. The air was dense with moisture, 
 and a fallen wind stirred languidly from the north- 
 east ; the savour of it was soft and tropical, and 
 mingled with the heavy scent of a flowering creeper 
 that grew along the parapet a savour of abundant 
 vegetation, drawn from the long low shores of the 
 harbour. The wave of Bourke's Bay lapped lazily 
 on the sandy fringe beyond the garden wall ; ships 
 at anchor in Port Jackson showed their lights ; a 
 siren wailed piercingly. The sky was dark, the 
 stars of it shining ineffectually through the vapour. 
 
 Avis felt nothing except a need of air, to brace 
 her for the coming struggle, but the tepid fluid 
 round her was scarcely such that it should edge the 
 mental Excalibur which alone she feared would 
 stand her in stead. "Weary of the dull safety of her 
 fortress, she had ventured into the open field. 
 What were her arms ? Warning shots had whizzed 
 close to her ; she saw the face of her fellow-crea-
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 203 
 
 tures, that of a hostile army. What was her de- 
 fence against them ? What definite gain had she 
 set before herself to fight for ? She caught her 
 own reflection in a glass door curtained within, at 
 an end of the verandah. She saw herself vaguely 
 big and imposing, full of colour. "I have to de- 
 clare myself their equal ; ah, and better than most," 
 she told herself. 
 
 The siren screamed as one might imagine a 
 demon in pain, and the sound ran through her like 
 a sudden despair. " Oh, if it were flesh and blood 
 that is against me ! " she cried in her heart ; " but 
 it is principalities and powers, the spirit of high 
 places ; the laws that are unwritten and unspoken ! " 
 Her arms rose and fell again to her side, expressive 
 of her mood. The great vague figure on the win- 
 dow moved likewise. " Alas, poor Titan women ! " 
 she thought, " defying the Gods of convention ! " 
 Again as often, uncalled, undesired, there came the 
 recollection of a stalwart shoulder squaring up by 
 her own, bringing a compelling sense of strong 
 service, of warm sympathy, of a strange sweet 
 union of souls. The enemy was upon her. Mrs. 
 Winch, pink-robed, dainty, a little disdainful, came 
 out to her, leading a company the servant with 
 the coffee-tray, Dora New biggin plying a large 
 fan, Miss Wavertree, talking rapidly in a pleasant 
 voice about the heat. 
 
 " Did you think you were to have it all to your- 
 self outside ? " said Dora. " There we were, the 
 whole pack of us, gathered about the window like 
 the historical witches at Calcutta, and Paula Winch
 
 204 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 suggested that we might find ourselves cooler in 
 the verandah." 
 
 Avis took her coffee and smiled upon them all. 
 
 " We ought to have underground chambers this 
 weather. I can't think why we don't," she said. 
 
 " There's a trifle of air stirring," called Mrs. 
 Winch, looking back within. " Pheenie, I think 
 it's better outside, really." 
 
 Pheenie appeared irresolute. 
 
 " Don't talk to me ! " she said. " As if I didn't 
 know your Sydney northeasters. They take all 
 the curl out of my hair and my spirits together. 
 No, if I am to be damp, I prefer my own dampness 
 to that of the atmosphere." 
 
 Mrs. Winch laid a constraining hand upon her, 
 saying : 
 
 " Leave the drawing-room to the dowagers for 
 their nap." 
 
 " It's the mosquitoes I mind," said Miss Waver- 
 tree, flapping round herself with a palm-leaf. 
 
 "Oh, do they bite you?" asked Mrs. Winch. 
 " They don't like all English people ; they don't 
 seem to touch Miss Fletcher." 
 
 " Oh, are you English ? " cried Miss Wavertree, 
 turning to Avis eagerly, glad, as is the way of her 
 kind, to find a compatriot ; glad also of an oppor- 
 tunity for speech with the splendid Titian creature. 
 
 They were a singularly equal pair, of about the 
 same age, birth, education, each of more than or- 
 dinary good favour, only so different that they 
 might be the better friends ; and Miss Wavertree 
 advanced in friendly salute, which Avis would fain
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 205 
 
 have returned in like spirit, but she knew it could 
 not be. She measured distance and engaged an 
 adversary's blade. 
 
 " Yes, I am English," she answered quietly, put- 
 ting down her empty cup ; " but I have been out 
 here so long that mosquitoes are tired of me." 
 
 " And you never give them a rest, like most of 
 us do, by going home for a trip, do you ? " said 
 Mrs. Jimmy Winch. 
 
 Pheenie regarded the young lady critically. She 
 would act second to Avis, but the quarrel was none 
 of hers, and the lines of attack and defence were 
 unknown. She took a seat and waited. 
 
 " No, I have never been home since I came out," 
 said Avis, smiling. 
 
 " And is that long ? " inquired Miss Wavertree, 
 very amiable, very much interested in her radiant 
 countrywoman, full of admiration also for the gold 
 necklet with its lovely red and green enamel. 
 
 " Eight years." 
 
 " Dear me ! Surely you are sometimes home- 
 sick." 
 
 " One is everything by turns." 
 
 Mrs. Winch grew impatient. The combatants 
 were not advancing at all ; they were saluting at 
 the greatest possible length. She must force the 
 stranger to attack. 
 
 " Didn't I hear some one say that you two belong 
 to the same county ? " she said. 
 
 Pheenie and Dora Newbiggin exchanged glances. 
 They appreciated the position keenly. They knew 
 enough of England to understand the clannishness
 
 206 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 of the county, the divine right of inquiry given to 
 Miss Wavertree by the announcement of such kin- 
 ship. Paula Winch had forced the wrist of Avis, 
 and she stood suddenly inviting in tierce. Miss 
 Wavertree feinted gladly. 
 
 " Oh, do you really belong to Southamptonshire ? " 
 she asked. " Then you must know our old place, 
 Wavertree. Bere is our village and station and 
 post-town and everything." 
 
 Avis passed the feint, accepting it. 
 
 " I remember," she said ; " pond with lots of yel- 
 low irises, and main street mostly chequered 
 houses." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " cried Miss Wavertree joyfully ; 
 " such a dear place ! I am so glad you know it. I 
 dare say we know some of the same people, too. 
 What is your part ? Anywhere near mine ? " 
 
 Full lunge and hit. Mrs. Winch smiled. Mrs. 
 Newbiggin leaned a little forward with parted lips. 
 Mrs. Caradon Bolitho seemed to grow more limp in 
 her chair. 
 
 Avis took the hit, and acknowledged it fully. 
 Standing firmly erect and smiling as before, she an- 
 swered in clear tones, scorning evasion : 
 
 "I belong to the other side of the county, the 
 west. Coleminster is our town. Do you remem- 
 ber the cathedral chimes ? They play every three 
 hours except when service is going on. They be- 
 gin with ' Life let us cherish.' " 
 
 A passion of homesickness swept over her as she 
 spoke ; the smile died out. The gas-lit verandah, 
 the steamy, tropical night, the heavy odours, the
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 207 
 
 four young women in bright array faded, and in- 
 stead sweet faltering notes from old, old bells 
 floated about an exquisite Gothic spire, which rose 
 straight from a broad lawn, faultless with the care 
 of centuries. In the great elm, greening with 
 spring, the pairing rooks cawed. For an instant 
 she was entirely detached from her surroundings ; 
 then she saw sympathy beaming from Miss Waver- 
 tree's charming eyes, and warm words declared : 
 
 " I love those chimes, too." 
 
 Avis was conscious of a swift impulse toward 
 friendship ; then, recollecting, she hid herself be- 
 hind the new non-committing smile, and went on 
 with the tale expected of her : 
 
 "I will introduce myself. You will know the 
 name of my uncle, Mr. Wilbraham of Wilswick ; 
 my mother and my stepfather, Mr. Bengough, live 
 at his place, Wilsdean. My father, who is dead, 
 was Vicar of Coles wick, where I was born. Do all 
 these names mean anything to you ? " 
 
 Avis spoke lightly, but she watched Miss "Wa- 
 vertree's face, and the other three watched them 
 both. Miss Wavertree looked puzzled, hesitated. 
 
 " Of course I know your uncle," she said ; " one 
 of the kindest of the bluff old Tory squire school, 
 and and " She paused. "Are you, then, the 
 absent daughter of that very, that particularly 
 handsome Mrs. Bengough of Wilsdean ? I have so 
 often seen her driving about the lanes when I have 
 been staying with the Wigans." 
 
 She seemed speaking to cover her thoughts. Her 
 face flushed slightly ; the poise of her head became
 
 208 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 a little stiff. She looked at Avis, still erect and 
 smiling, with an expression in which distress, depre- 
 cation, politeness to a fellow-guest were mingled 
 yet distinct. There was no unkindness ; no further 
 question. The three who watched them were im- 
 pressed chiefly with a sense of Miss Wavertree's re- 
 gret. 
 
 " Thank you so much, Miss Fletcher, for so kindly 
 telling me about yourself. Your mother is so de- 
 lightfully handsome and regal-looking, and so good / 
 every one in the county knows that she is as good 
 as she is handsome." 
 
 Miss Wavertree bowed slightly, Miss Fletcher 
 bowed slightly, the one a little more pink, the other 
 a little more pale, but, except for the throbbing out 
 cry in the throat, apparently unmoved and at her 
 ease. 
 
 Dora and Pheenie exchanged a glance of agree- 
 ment "There is something!" Then said Dora 
 aloud, with a puff of protest : 
 
 " The northeaster is entirely gone." 
 
 "Bet you two to one in shillings," drawled 
 Pheenie, " that we have a southerly within a quar- 
 ter of an hour." 
 
 " Done," said Dora. 
 
 A stick tapped on the tiles, and Mrs. Bolitho 
 joined them, saying : 
 
 " I will not have a horsy daughter to my house ! " 
 
 " Oh, we all know," said Mrs. "Winch impudently, 
 " it is a patent of nobility as things go in a new 
 country, of course to be allowed inside Mrs. Boli- 
 tho's house."
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 209 
 
 " You have never been there, my dear, have you ? " 
 said the elder lady dryly ; and Dora laughed. 
 
 Miss Wavertree, still with a troubled expression, 
 pulled a spray of ficus that grew on a verandah 
 pillar. Avis fanned herself leisurely and took a 
 seat. 
 
 " Oh, not me ! not frisky young matrons ! " said 
 Mrs. Winch, and looked at Avis. 
 
 " True," said Mrs. Bolitho, following the look, 
 " one frisky old dowager is enough for one house, 
 and I have had to mate her with a golden statue of 
 a girl to make the balance right." 
 
 Mrs. Winch tossed her head. 
 
 " Our conversation has been so interesting," she 
 said. "Miss Wavertree knows all about Miss 
 Fletcher's people at home, and all about herself, 
 and they have become, as you see, the greatest im- 
 aginable friends at once." 
 
 Now, Miss Wavertree at a little distance, stand- 
 ing gracefully by the parapet, was plucking at the 
 spray of ficus with an absent and troubled profile, 
 and Miss Fletcher, sitting down several yards nearer, 
 wore her fixed smile of absolute indifference. Dora 
 and Pheenie exchanged another glance, which 
 meant " Brat ! " Mrs. Bolitho, seizing the main facts 
 by intuition, turned to the young Englishwoman 
 with her most encouraging air. 
 
 " Are my old friends yours, then ? How pleas- 
 ant for us all ! But Sydney is a place where there 
 is no time to make new friends ; you must come to 
 us at Wamagatta, Miss Wavertree, and we will all 
 talk over everything English that we know."
 
 210 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 Miss "Wavertree's answer remained unheard, for 
 the southerly blast struck the house at that instant. 
 Every door, wide open for air, slammed like a gun- 
 shot, every window strained and rattled ; the trees 
 in the garden roared and rustled wildly ; the har- 
 bour lights were blotted out in a storm of dust ; 
 the temperature fell immediately several degrees 
 as the fierce, cold wave swirled over the land. 
 Further diversion was caused by the appearance of 
 the men, and in a moment the verandah was empty 
 of all but dust and Avis, who lingered, bracing her 
 bare neck to the wind. Dr. Outram, missing her 
 among the company of ladies, stepped out to advise 
 her against a chill. Her answer startled him. 
 
 " Do I look like illness of any sort ? Yet some- 
 times in the midst of life one may wish one's self in 
 death."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE shearing was over at Burrabindar. The 
 wool teams were away with the wool-bales; the 
 wool-shed was empty; the denuded sheep were 
 given back to their spacious monotony of sunlight, 
 wherein to forget their helplessness, their wounds 
 and their alarms. In the twilight of his common- 
 room, deep within the verandah, the open windows 
 wired against mosquitoes and darkened with fold- 
 ing blinds, Hazell sat and cleaned his weapons till 
 they might have been shown in the shop of a Bond 
 Street gunsmith, and when their radiance defied 
 improvement, he whiled away the days in devising 
 a bag of double canvas by means of which a wall 
 of water might keep his butter from relapsing into 
 oil as soon as it had been reclaimed from milk. He 
 was an ingenious fellow, and could sew like a 
 sailor ; but the work was dreary, dreary. Sitting 
 thus, one hot morning, when the ferocious sun, only 
 four hours up, had raised the shade temperature to 
 85, and the flies buzzed triumphantly in the in- 
 vigoration of it, he heard a slow step on the un- 
 carpeted passage, and a dry voice saying : 
 
 " Oh ay ! I'll find him." 
 
 The unexpected figure of Alexander Proudfoot, 
 clothed in dusty black alpaca, appeared at the door, 
 with an unsmiling request. 
 211
 
 212 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " Muster Hazell, may I request the favour of a 
 breakfast ? " 
 
 A human being one might say a friend ! The 
 squatter welcomed him, gave him the great arm- 
 chair, turned down his own shirt-sleeves in compli- 
 ment to a guest, and went out to the kitchen at 
 the back, to order the opening of a tin of Finnan 
 haddies. 
 
 "Ye might hae been awa'," said the visitor, as 
 they ate together, " wi' the maist o' the sheep farm- 
 ers o' the distreect ; but there was nae word o' yeer 
 passing through Beulah lately, and I thocht I'd 
 reesk it." 
 
 " Sydney attracts me very feebly," answered Ha- 
 zell. "My friends so far as a fogey of my age 
 can be said to have any friends left are not on 
 this side of the world, and I have seen so many 
 cities. But I suppose the countryside is empty ? " 
 
 " Juist aboot that. They're all awa' to the me- 
 tropolis, to discoont their wool sales by hotel bills." 
 
 " Better wait a bit. The crop this year is light. 
 Yes, indeed ; I know little enough about my neigh- 
 bours, and care less, but I had fancied one or two 
 days lately, when I was up the run, that the world 
 seemed even quieter than usual. Shows what fancy 
 will do." 
 
 " I'm not sae sure. There's a feeling in the air 
 when things are brisk, why not when they are 
 dull?" 
 
 " Three leagues from the nearest station-house ? " 
 
 " And why not ? I'm no great believer in dis- 
 tance and space and such-like human leemits.
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 213 
 
 There's something in the human soul, Muster Ha- 
 zell, that's above and beyont the leemits o' the hu- 
 man body. Do ye remember the words o' Carlyle 
 Thomas Carlyle and though I'm not altogether 
 o' his opeenion in many ways, there's no gainsayin' 
 that he had the speerit o' the Lard in vayrious mat- 
 ters : ' Is not the dead, the dear, the distant, while 
 I love it and mourn it and look for it, as truly here, 
 in the real sense, as the ground I stand on ? '" 
 
 Hazell started involuntarily as one touched inti- 
 mately, and stared a little, wondering to himself if 
 all Scotsmen were born dominies, or divines, or 
 philosophers ; then replied, English fashion : 
 
 "I am a man of action. I am afraid Carlyle is 
 out of my beat." 
 
 " It's a guid thing, action," answered the general 
 merchant sententiously, "and while we're in it, 
 there seems to be naething else worth considering ; 
 but when the time comes, as it comes to the maist 
 active o' us a', that we canna act, then we find that 
 the real life is in the things thocht, and the only 
 comfort is there ; and the man that has given a 
 new hope to his fellow-man has done mair than he 
 who gave him chloroform." 
 
 " Well, well ; may be. Hope, of course the hope 
 of recovered health would certainly encourage one 
 to bear the surgeon's knife ; but then, if one had no 
 hope, Mr. Proudfoot, what about the advantages of 
 chloroform ? " Hazell smiled bitterly, and changed 
 the subject. " What about the advantages this mo- 
 ment as ever is of tobacco ? " 
 
 "I never smoke before night."
 
 214 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 "A strange house a day out!" Hazell urged, 
 rising to get his cigar-case. 
 
 " Na, na ; I cannot change a' ma ways at once." 
 
 Proudfoot shook his head. 
 
 " All right ; and I'm off my own smoke lately. 
 It's a craving some men outgrow, you know out- 
 wear, perhaps. How one used to enjoy one's weed ! 
 Nowadays, I find that I get the craving for it, or 
 for something, and when I have lighted up, I don't 
 care for it. As often as not, lately, I haven't even 
 felt the want of it. Time was, I was a champion 
 smoker. Some fellow should invent some new drug 
 or weed, but I suppose one can wear through any- 
 thing." 
 
 Standing with his back to the empty fireplace in 
 the seasonable simplicity of a white silk shirt, white 
 trousers and belt, the comparative slimness of his 
 broad form was evident to the shrewd eyes that 
 watched him. The tobacco hunger plainly was 
 not the only thing he had lost during the late 
 months. 
 
 " Oh ay, with a hope," answered Proudfoot. 
 
 " What a f ellow you are for hope ! The first day 
 I ever saw you, when you treated me to that break- 
 fast we're quits now you hammered in hope 
 hope for rain." 
 
 " When I was young," replied Proudfoot, " I lived 
 to preach thrift, because I had so sair a need o't 
 maseP. Now I preach hope for the verra same 
 reason." 
 
 " The thrift answered well." 
 
 " I hae nae mair doot o' the return o' ma hope
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 215 
 
 than I hae o' the soundness o' the investments that 
 are come o' ma thrift," replied Proudfoot ; and his 
 grey face as he spoke was extraordinarily long and 
 narrow and solemn, and his little blue eyes were 
 fixed on HazelTs with the hardness of metal. 
 
 " Well," said Hazell cheerfully, " I wiU begin to 
 hope for heaven. Would you like a turn on the 
 run ? You know what you'll see white grass, grey 
 gums, sun on your head about 140, few new fences, 
 newly-shorn sheep at intervals. I've a quiet blue 
 roan that'll carry you without fidget, or I could 
 even drive you a mile or two, if you don't mind 
 being bumped." 
 
 " I have had enough outdoor work for the mo- 
 ment, Muster Hazell. But perhaps I keep you ? " 
 
 " Not at all. I am killing time just now, waiting 
 to get the smell of lanoline out of my head after a 
 month of the shearing shed. Waiting, by God 1 I 
 don't know what I am waiting for. Death, prob- 
 ably, like most of us the wrong side of forty." 
 Hazell shouted, and stared at the opposite wall with 
 wild eyes. 
 
 "Why mak' it foorty ?" said Proudfoot dryly. 
 
 "Why not? A fool or a physician then, you 
 know. Now, a fool thinks of little ; a physician 
 naturally thinks of death. I will have a cigar. I 
 have a dozen or so left of a particular brand. My 
 brother, Mr. Proudfoot, who lives in London, is a 
 connoisseur in cigars gets information about par- 
 ticular sales. Thanks to him, I got a hundred from 
 the effects of a certain Sir John Pennyquick who 
 went bankrupt superb Havanas, extra big, fra-
 
 216 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 grant as the spicy isles. I keep them for high days 
 and holidays." 
 
 Hazell went off to his bedroom, where they lay 
 within lock. 
 
 The visitor nodded his long head conclusively, 
 and his graven wrinkles softened. So great was 
 the tenderness of the well-hidden heart that it ex- 
 ploded into a soliloquy of extraordinary rapture. 
 
 " He's verra winsome," he said slowly ; and then, 
 recovering control, added : " But I canna cheeange 
 a' ma ways at once." 
 
 More or less, Hazell talked all day. In the king- 
 dom of the blind, as we know, the one-eyed man is 
 ruler, and he was cheered and happy in the society 
 of the general importer, who was an excellent 
 listener, interested to hear of what lay beyond his 
 own experience, and considerate of his host as he 
 might have been of an admired and valued son. 
 Hazell had no idea how closely he was watched, nor 
 how, as he talked of boar-hunting in India and 
 pigeon-shooting at Monte Carlo, and the probable 
 policy of Russia in the East, and the future of 
 coloured labour in Australia, he was revealing him- 
 self as sore and broken without any definite hope 
 whatever. The gay gallant who had ridden forth 
 from the general store weeks gone by, with his face 
 toward Wamagatta, with a war-cry of champion- 
 ship for Miss Fletcher, had given no sign of exist- 
 ence since ; and the lady had left the neighbour- 
 hood, and was, by the testimony of the newspapers, 
 distracting herself ostentatiously in the capital. 
 Proudfoot had the faculty of minute and careful
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 217 
 
 observation common to those whose ears and eyes 
 are exercised upon their fellow-creatures rather than 
 upon literary matters. He had been sure during all 
 these weeks that something had gone wrong in the 
 relations of these two, and his visit to Burrabindar, 
 an extraordinary effort, was undertaken from sheer 
 human kindness toward the man and the woman 
 who had stood by his daughter's grave. 
 
 As the fierce day waned, and the insufferable sun 
 shot in level blaze through the bamboo blind, he 
 delivered himself of what he had come to say. 
 First asking that his buggy might be made ready, 
 and expressing himself benignly in wishes for the 
 New Year and the wool-market, he took a parting 
 cup of tea, beloved of Australians, and stirring it 
 for the sake of the sugar, beloved of Scotsmen, he 
 remarked with a casual and detached air, and his 
 gaze upon his spoon : 
 
 " Have ye heard any word further o' yon wastrel 
 Rennard him wi' the Bathurst burrs ? " 
 
 Hazell answered gruffly, " No." 
 
 " Aweel. I hear maist things. If I had a shill- 
 ing, sir, for every unnecessary word that is spoken 
 in my shop, every word, I should say, that is no' 
 relevant to the business o' buying and selling, I 
 should be rich beyont the dreams o' avarice. As I 
 was saying, it appears yon is in the distreect once 
 again. Where he lives I dinna know ; but he fre- 
 quents that they ca' Paddy's Market, Saturdays, in 
 Menheniot, and the Bushman's Arms, also in Men- 
 heniot, when the marketing's accomplished, and juist 
 talks at lairge."
 
 218 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 Proudf oot sipped his tea. Hazell flapped his fore- 
 head with his handkerchief, resentful of the flies 
 that crawled over him without haste or rest, as 
 though he were mere butcher's meat. 
 
 " Menheniot," he said between the flaps, " where 
 exactly is that ? " 
 
 " Twenty-five miles on the Great North Koad." 
 
 "Bum sort of a jumble, nomenclature of new 
 countries. Beulah to Menheniot, twenty miles." 
 
 " I have heard," said Proudfoot, rising, " that the 
 town received its name from a manservant w r ho 
 came from Cornwall wi' Muster Bolitho, forty year 
 gane." 
 
 " I was born," said Hazell, " in Kent, which peo- 
 ple nowadays are apt to regard as a suburb of Lon- 
 don. By Jove ! For a Kentish autumn morning 
 this blessed instant ! " He flicked his head sav- 
 agely, then spoke loudly and abruptly : 
 
 " I tell you, I should be afraid to be too near that 
 ruffian Rennard. I am twice his size, probably 
 twice his weight; if I touched him I might kill 
 him!" 
 
 " I'm no saying," returned Proudfoot, unmoved, 
 " that he wouldna desairve it ; but the worst one 
 may not be punished unheard. If ye chanced to be 
 near him, ye should hear him firrst, Muster Hazell 
 hear him firrst." 
 
 HazelFs eyes flashed intelligently ; a keener look 
 came upon his face. " Saturday, Paddy's Market," 
 he repeated. 
 
 " At noon a berra warrm hour this time o' the 
 year."
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 219 
 
 Proudfoot got into his buggy and took up the 
 reins in both hands. He fixed a solemn look in 
 parting upon his host, a look of overwhelming length 
 and gravity. 
 
 " I hear," he said in his deep tone, " that yon 
 Rennard is wanted at hame wanted, as they say, 
 for some misdemeanour of his youth. I gather he is 
 here to escape the law ; the ijit blethers in his cups. 
 There should not be much trouble in silencing his 
 tongue when he's sober. Muster Hazell, I thank 
 ye for a friendly day." 
 
 " I did not know," said Hazell to himself, " that I 
 had a friend on the continent." 
 
 He caused Mina to be saddled, and cantered about 
 the bare, hot paddocks for an hour, going hard, try- 
 ing to think of nothing, conscious of a new little 
 warmth within him ; hugging it, clinging to it, and 
 hope springing up round it without his reason, 
 without his will. He required of Mrs. Brock a hot 
 bath before dinner (" As though, to be sure, it was 
 not mad enough this weather to boil one's self to 
 rags once a day ! " she complained to the kitchen). 
 He ate his dinner with appetite, and with his coffee 
 allowed himself yet another of the few cigars re- 
 maining from Sir John Pennyquick's store ; and by 
 eleven o'clock be had disposed himself in the ham- 
 mock within the wired end of the verandah for his 
 night's sleep. Soon after the following sunrise he 
 was on his way to Menheniot. 
 
 Paddy's Market is an institution of which, as the 
 name conveys, anything may be expected anything 
 irregular. Articles of every sort, representing the
 
 220 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 whole indoor or outdoor furniture and personal re- 
 quirements of the countryside, were presented there 
 not all at once, not every market-day as a matter 
 of course, nor with any sort of order, but as they 
 might be available and superfluous. Fowls and 
 sucking-pigs, honey, harness, a suit of clothes, a cow 
 or a collie-dog, a dozen of empty bottles and jam- 
 jars, a setting of eggs such things were sold by 
 auction in the sunlight, before an audience of 
 country people, townsfolk and Chinamen, sprinkled 
 with a few of the wealthier and professional classes, 
 who came to look on, sometimes to snatch a bargain. 
 The business was done in a bit of enclosed ground 
 at the back of the Bushman's Arms ; a large shed 
 giving shelter to a stall or two, and a few perishable 
 reserves of stock, and a pen or two placed here and 
 there held the complainant bestial that was offered 
 for purchase. 
 
 Hazell put up his horse at the inn ; his lunch had 
 been taken on the way a few miles short of the 
 township, and he was ready with his best attention 
 for the coming of Rennard. The cut of his clothes 
 a white suit much worn the trimness of his 
 beard, his erect bearing, his pith helmet, marked 
 him among the small crowd where the standard of 
 dress and of deportment was of the most slovenly ; 
 where the lean, dry men slouched forward at the 
 shoulder, and the lean, dry women slouched forward 
 at the hip. Leanest and driest were the Chinese, 
 joiners and gardeners, a small colony scattered in 
 the small assembly, and incomparably the most 
 amiable of countenance. It needs alcohol, or the
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 221 
 
 near prospect of it, to make our Briton jovial, under 
 whatever sky. Tall and parched, short and parched, 
 Rennard was not among them, and Hazell stood 
 patiently to watch the sales. 
 
 The auctioneer, a brisk person in a tweed suit, laid 
 aside his coat and took his stand on an empty box, 
 which raised him above the others' shoulders, and, 
 receiving from a hidden hand a couple of pair of 
 fowls, he held them by the legs and asked a bid. 
 The usual useful mongrel sort of the poultry-yard, 
 they met with no demand. The auctioneer raised 
 his voice. Enthusiasm and emphasis were his style, 
 in which he might have passed muster before any 
 jury: 
 
 " A shillin', a shillin', a shillin' a pair ; prime lay- 
 ers or first-class for the table a shillin', a shillin', a 
 shillin', one shillin' actually goin' for one shillin'. 
 Who'll bid ? who'll bid ? One and three yes, one 
 and three, and three, and three ; and six, and six 
 goin' for one and six prime layers or first-class for 
 the table. It's no price at all ! Who'll bid? One 
 and six ! Are ye don-ne ? " He waxed wild, and 
 in a burst of generous championship raised the 
 wretched birds aloft that all might see their ad- 
 vantages. They screeched and reared their hang- 
 ing heads. He shook them at the apathetic audi- 
 ence. A woman near nodded for another three- 
 pence ; he caught it and continued in the same high 
 scream : " And nine, and nine, and nine one and 
 nine. Are ye don-ne ? " 
 
 A further waggle of the unhappy creatures 
 brought to the point the stableman of the Royal
 
 222 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 Hotel, who bore off the whole four at a shilling 
 apiece for the consumption of his mistress's cus- 
 tomers. Ducks followed, and turkeys ; sucking- 
 pigs were bravely handled by the auctioneer, and 
 added their cries to his before being knocked down 
 to a singularly stout countryman, at four and six- 
 pence apiece. The heat was intense ; moisture 
 streamed down the auctioneer's face as he forced 
 his voice till it rang as hard as blows on wood, 
 forced it unsparingly, as though from a sense of 
 what was due to his trade, for the company was 
 small, and no other tongue strove against his. The 
 eye of him worked as hard as the tongue ; it swept 
 his audience with unfailing perception. Never did 
 a wavering spirit falter to a decision without his in- 
 stant apprehension and declaration of it ; or was it, 
 rather, Hazell wondered, sometimes that he seized 
 and publicly bound the unwilling, nailing them to 
 a bargain for which they had no desire, but lacked 
 courage to repudiate. Hazell could not decide. He 
 followed the group to a side-pen where a shabby 
 horse stood on sale. Its coat was rough, its head 
 hung dully, its mouth gave evidence of hard-rein- 
 ing, and yet, ungroomed, ill-fed, it was a fairly good 
 animal, better bred than would appear at a glance, 
 for horses in bad years are more plentiful than feed. 
 The auctioneer mounted his box. 
 
 " Make me an offer," he cried, " for a capital hack, 
 sound wind and limb, six year old, and only want- 
 ing a little feeding to be as handsome and free-go- 
 ing a mount as any man needs. Broken to single 
 and double harness, easy pacer, not a vice about
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 223 
 
 him ; and you wouldn't find him in the market, I 
 can tell you, if there were more grass in the pad- 
 docks. Make an offer! Come, ladies and gentle- 
 men, make an offer. Sire the great Euritanius, as 
 any one can see who knows the distinguishing 
 marks of that splendid creature, so highly esteemed 
 in the district. Goin' without reserve ; an unpar- 
 alleled occasion. Make an offer 1 Handle him 
 yourselves, gentlemen, examine him at your pleas- 
 ure, and make me a handsome offer ! " 
 
 With a grin, one of the louts bid ten shillings. 
 The auctioneer took it with a shrug. "Ten shil- 
 lin's ! ten shillin's ! This is not serious, ladies and 
 gentlemen a Kuritanius goin' for ten shillin's! 
 "When the years o' plenty come again you'll be 
 sorry to remember that you let such an opportunity 
 slip." 
 
 " I'd take the loss for the years o' plenty, mister ! " 
 some one commented shrilly. 
 
 " Ten shillin's, ten shillin's fifteen ? Thank you. 
 Fifteen shillin's a Euritanius, not a vice about him 
 and all his best years before him fifteen. Twenty ; 
 a pound, a pound, a pound goin' for a pound a 
 pound. Twenty-five I am glad to see that there 
 is a little respect for breed left in this company. 
 Thirty, thirty shillin's we're slow, ladies and gen- 
 tlemen ; but these are the days o' bicycles, no one 
 can hurry for anything but a wheel. Thirty-five 
 thirty-five, thirty-five shillin's. Are ye don-ne? 
 Ye're never done ! Two pound, two pound, two 
 pound a Euritanius ! Are ye don-ne ? Goin', goin' 
 at two pound goin', goin', gon-ne ! The horse is
 
 224: HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 yours, sir, for the ridiculous sum of two pound. I'm 
 glad, I must say, that I'm not a horse-breeder these 
 times." 
 
 Hazell thought that he was glad too.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THERE were dry men, little men, lean men, in the 
 yard of the Bushman's Arms, but no Rennard yet, 
 and the mercury stood at 104 in the shade, the 
 bone-dr}'- shade. There was a maid of a pale but 
 lively countenance, the elaboration of whose yellow 
 hair spoke a desire to please the opposed sex. She 
 had given a glimpse of these advantages from a 
 side- window of the inn. Doubtless she presided at 
 the bar. Her tea might be drinkable, and it must 
 be wet. Moreover, every detail of the neighbour- 
 hood must be in her recollection. Hazell sought 
 her in an interior which hummed with flies and 
 reeked stalely of beer and tobacco. 
 
 " Terrible bad day," he said blandly, and took off 
 his helmet with a slight reference to herself, and an 
 underlying purpose of wiping his forehead. 
 
 " Oh, hot ! " she replied, with the disdain of her 
 species toward the creature man. 
 
 " And dry ! " he added amiably. " Really, one 
 doesn't know what to do this sort of weather. If 
 one indulges one's thirst, one is drinking all day 
 long, and not a bit the better for it ; and if one 
 doesn't drink, one gets through an amount of actual 
 suffering. I don't say one isn't wiser to suffer " 
 
 " Oh, /'m nothing of a drinker," said the maid 
 offhand. " But it ain't my business to discourage 
 them that is." 
 
 225
 
 226 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " Of course not. Could you make me a particu- 
 larly good pot of tea, do you think strong and 
 fresh, lots of milk, first boiling of the water, five 
 minutes' drawing and take a cup of it with me 
 yourself ? " 
 
 Hazell smiled insinuatingly. She relaxed to toss 
 her head, and answered : " You do seem mighty 
 particular, but I dare say I could do that j and the 
 water don't take long to boil to-day. Set down 
 and have a look at the piper, and mind the bar, 
 wown't yer ? " 
 
 Having given her no promise, Hazell uncon- 
 scientiously leant out of the side-window and kept 
 his eye on the yard and the market till she returned 
 with his teapot and upbraided him. 
 
 "My word, you're keen on that old auction!" 
 she cried. " A sharp feller might clear the whole 
 plice out while you're watchin' it." 
 
 " The fact is," said Hazell, unabashed" please 
 (I am, as you say, most awfully particular) let me 
 pour out my own tea and yours too; I'm an 
 old traveller, and remarkably knowing in tea 
 the fact is, I am here to-day on the chance of 
 meeting some one. There, is that how you like 
 it ? / like it immensely. Here's to your health, 
 Miss " 
 
 " Bishop's my nyme, for the present" she replied, 
 with a tossing head, but a relenting mouth. 
 
 "For the present only, I'm quite sure and a 
 short present, I should say," he answered. " Does 
 he live in these parts ? " 
 
 " Oh my, no ! Sech a set about 'ere ! He's a
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 227 
 
 Sydney boy. Travels for a Sydney firm. Men- 
 heniot's a howl, that's what it is ; nothing goin' on 
 from one year's end to another. I couldn't live 'ere 
 for anythink you could nyme. I like a little life 
 where /live." 
 
 " Of course. I dare say you see a rough selection 
 one way and another out of the Bush ? " 
 
 " My word, yes ! Downright turn yer sometimes. 
 But this mornin' a man come in with a bungy eye 
 and stood where you're standin', tryin' to look 
 sweet at me with the other. If anythink mikes 
 me sick, it's a bungy eye." 
 
 "A bungy eye?" repeated Hazell, polite but 
 vague. 
 
 " Yes. Stung by a fly, yer know. I do despise a 
 man that lets a fly stay long enough on him to sting 
 him ! I turned the laugh on him, though. There 
 was a lot of 'em in 'ere. ' Come again when you've 
 got two eyes to make yerself pleasant with,' I told 
 J im!" 
 
 Hazell smiled, but though bent on conciliation, 
 he put in a word for the honour of his sex : 
 
 "Rather a hopeless task, though, flicking away 
 flies in the Bush, Miss Bishop. You shouldn't be 
 too unmerciful. Why, it might happen to me, you 
 know ! " 
 
 " It might, but it don't happen to smart boys," 
 she answered ; " and you don't want much to turn 
 yer in the summer. 'Tain't all beer and skittles in 
 my perfession, / can assure yer. Sech a row as I 
 had 'ere, too, this mornin' ; reg'lar circus it was. 
 This is my first breakfast ; I couldn't touch a thing
 
 228 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 before, not ever so. Quite upset me, I know. If it 
 hadn't a-been for that, I mightn't a-been so quick 
 with the fool with the bungy eye." 
 
 " Tell me about this circus," said Hazell, helping 
 himself to a third half-pint of tea. 
 
 " It was a selector from seventy miles and more 
 out back ; been 'ere before for the night, and put 
 his horse up each time. The boss was out this 
 mornin', and I had to give 'im his bill. * Eighteen- 
 pence for the horse ! ' says he as soon as he see it. 
 ' Why, it was ninepence last time ! I shan't pay 
 anything of the kind!' 'And didn't your horse 
 'ave a bob-tail last time ? ' says I ; * and hasn't he 
 got a long tail this time ? It's our rule : we always 
 charge double for a long-tailed horse, because he 
 eats double (swishes away the flies with his tail, yer 
 know, while he gryzes ; and with a bob 'e's kept 
 goin' most of the time lookin' round and bitin' at 
 the flies). It's our rule,' I says. ' I don't care 
 a ' I wouldn't repeat it ; it wasn't language for 
 a lady's ears what he said. It did upset me, I know ! 
 Had to get in McDally the constable before he'd 
 pay and go. I couldn't make 'im without the boss 
 to back me up. Oh, they're a set, the men about 
 'ere ! " 
 
 " Poor Miss Bishop ! " said Hazell sympathetic- 
 ally, and looked at the girl critically, calling her in 
 his own mind a bloodless, boneless, bodiless being, a 
 bundle of nerves under a straw-coloured frizz. And 
 he felt sorry for her and for the Sydney boy who 
 travelled for the Sydney firm sorrow which merged 
 into a moment's rage at civilisation, with its preser-
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 229 
 
 vation of the unfit. " Poor Miss Bishop ! " he re- 
 peated. "And I am aiding and abetting you in 
 tea-drinking, which I am sure is bad for you." 
 
 " My word ! It's better than soft drinks ; you do 
 get so sick of them, and they upset yer so ; and what 
 is there left ? It's no use your advisin' me to tyke 
 to sperits. I wouldn't, not if it was ever so. I see 
 enough of that with men, let alone women, which is 
 a fat lot worse. When they hoffer me, I generally 
 says tea it's the best, after all." 
 
 " An iced lemon-squash, through a straw, is very 
 safe and very good," Hazell suggested. 
 
 "Now, I arsk yer," returned Miss Bishop, ready 
 with her scorn for the creature man "really, I 
 arsk yer : ice, this sort o' heat, and Menheniot and 
 lemons ! 'Tain't often we get them up 'ere." 
 
 " Ale would be good for your nerves a couple of 
 glasses a day as a prescription." 
 
 " Oh, ale. If you knew as much about ale as I 
 do " 
 
 "Australian faith in tea is not to be shaken. 
 "Well, well ! Do you, by chance, ever see a fellow 
 called Rennard about here ? " 
 
 " That beauty ? Is that yer man ? Oh yes ; I see 
 him fast enough hear him, too, worse luck ! Does- 
 n't bring much to the house but low talk ; and I 
 can't abide bad language, as I told yer. Any think 
 mikes him drunk." 
 
 " Where does he come from ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know, and I don't believe any one 
 else knows, either. I don't believe he knows him- 
 self. Got a humpy in the Bush somewhere, I sup-
 
 230 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 pose. Comes to Paddy's Market sometimes, he 
 does. Says he comes from England. Pity they 
 didn't hype him there when they'd got him, / say. 
 Oh, I don't have much opinion of the superior 
 animal, I can assure you." 
 
 " So it appears. Well, Miss Bishop, between you 
 and me, I don't know that I have, either. You 
 couldn't hazard a guess if Eennard will come in to- 
 day?" 
 
 " No, I couldn't. I haven't seen him. I don't 
 keep a fond look-out for his sort. Is Tie yer man ? " 
 
 " He's my man, for the moment." 
 
 " Something to his advantage p'raps not ?" 
 
 "Not decidedly not." 
 
 "In the police?" inquired Miss Bishop, with a 
 keen eye on Hazell's imposing figure, which inter- 
 ested her. 
 
 " In sheep," he answered, smiling, and wondered 
 how he could pass away a little more time wait- 
 ing. 
 
 It occurred to him to ask for a clean, quiet bed- 
 room, where he might take his nap, trusting to her 
 kindness to call him if the vagabond of his search 
 should visit the hotel. 
 
 She led the way to a tolerable upper chamber, 
 and withdrew to the shrill refrain, " Where is my 
 wandering boy to-night ? " 
 
 " To such base uses even a hymn may come," 
 thought Hazell ; and then the sorrowful egoism that 
 embittered his days rushed upon him again. " There 
 isn't a woman in the world, I suppose, who thinks 
 of me as her wandering boy, and well, I suppose
 
 HEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 231 
 
 I am too old to care for the tenderness of a Miss 
 Bishop ! " 
 
 Flies buzzed continuously. The untiring voice 
 of the auctioneer below inquired still, "Are ye 
 don-ne?" and the various live-stock made their 
 presence known each in idiom. Hazell put the 
 pillow to the foot of the bed, and lay down with 
 the top of his head toward the window. He spread 
 a handkerchief over his face, tucked his hands up 
 his sleeves, refused to think of Avis, asked himself 
 what he lived for, and fell asleep instantly. 
 
 He awoke to a smart rapping on his door. 
 
 " He's 'ere, if yer want him," cried the high tones 
 of Miss Bishop ; " and I haven't any time to waste, 
 for the bar's full ! " 
 
 Daylight was failing. All times in the Bush are 
 times for tea; but tea-time in chief was at hand, 
 and half a dozen customers were seeking from the 
 Bushman's Arms the refreshment of tough chops 
 and tasteless eggs and inferior bread, and a boil- 
 ing solution of tea a barbarous food, cooked with- 
 out judgment, taken without enthusiasm. Hazell 
 thought of all the conspicuously worst meals he 
 had ever made, and hesitated for a minute between 
 the recollection of a supper shared with Greek 
 shepherds, a supper of sour bread, hard goafs-milk 
 cheese and resinated wine, and the anticipation of 
 the fare of the Bushman's Arms this sultry even- 
 ing. It was only for a moment. As he went 
 downstairs and smelt the frying meat, he gave the 
 palm of demerit to the Bushman's Arms. Some 
 laughter, of the quality known as horse-laughter,
 
 232 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 invited him to the part of the house where a couple 
 of fellows were hoisting a tipsy stock-rider into the 
 sorry saddle of a shabby steed. The intended rider 
 was unable to give them any assistance, and was 
 unwilling indeed to do anything but hinder them. 
 
 " Lemme go yer all ! " he screamed, with an in- 
 effectual feint at the publican, a stout man who 
 looked on with an indifferent smile. " He owesh me 
 money ! A quid I give 'im down't tell me ! Drunk 
 a quid ! Lemme go yer all ! " 
 
 " You've got all you'll carry, my wanderin' boy," 
 remarked a bystander ; " and if your animal tykes 
 you safe to-night, he'll owe yer nothing, and mat- 
 ters '11 be square all around. How's that, boss ? " 
 
 The publican laughed. 
 
 " Dick Hurly doesn't get another drop this side 
 o' next time," he answered. " ' Alf a pint more, and 
 the load 'ud be more than any high-bred animal 'ud 
 carry. He's jest on the turn o' the scale ; I can see 
 it with my eye." 
 
 It was not much that Dick Hurly saw with his 
 eye, of which the appearance was glassy. He was 
 a sinner past middle age, and presumably past re- 
 form. He wore a long greyish beard, and his 
 clothes were well advanced in neglect. 
 
 " Lemme go ! " he shrieked hoarsely ; and as his 
 grooms propped him in the saddle, he lurched to 
 either side. 
 
 " Give 'im a start ! " cried a squeaking voice from 
 the window of the bar. " He'll be all right once 
 he gets started." 
 
 This seemed to be accepted as a fact, though an
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 233 
 
 unaccustomed person, seeing the performance for 
 the first time, would have named it offhand man- 
 slaughter. A handy whip of raw hide was applied 
 smartly to the back parts of the horse, and feeling 
 the instant motion, the knees of the drunken rider 
 gripped the leather with the force of old habit, and 
 off he went homewards. His reins hung loose, and 
 his head rolled from side to side, as his body lurched 
 more slowly, also from side to side, alarming to 
 behold ; but the trained knees did their work. The 
 horse knew his way and the ways of his master, 
 and bore him along at a free canter into the soli- 
 tudes of the Bush. 
 
 " Happy man, Dick Hurly ! He will awake to- 
 morrow to find himself by his own fireside. Near- 
 est thing I know of to a wishing-carpet. Interest- 
 ing characteristic ! " said a stranger at Hazell's 
 elbow. 
 
 He turned to find himself addressed by a thin 
 personage whose yellow face was not much differ- 
 ent in tone from the suit of tusseh-silk with which 
 he veiled his emaciated body and indicated himself 
 a seasoned dweller in hot climates. 
 
 A bell rang clangorous. 
 
 " My repast," said the stranger ; " is it also 
 yours ? " 
 
 Hazell's heart warmed to a prospective com- 
 panion, and they went in together. Rennard was 
 not in the low-pitched, dingy room which offered 
 them " tea." Three or four rough men sat silently 
 at a long table spread with a soiled cloth, and 
 presenting a group of eggs in cups, a couple of
 
 234 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 saucers of jam, black with flies, a large dish of 
 chops, a pile of thin slices of greyish bread. Hazell 
 took a seat, pulled his beard, and sighed. The stran- 
 ger in yellow silk answered the sigh. 
 
 "No one can say the Australians live to eat." 
 
 "But they must have a very strong desire to 
 live," answered Hazell, smiling. 
 
 " A good sign," was the reply ; " and, for that 
 matter, I believe the lower orders of a nation are 
 always about a century behind the upper classes in 
 their diet." 
 
 " Only a century ! How many eggs should a man 
 consume who has taken little since breakfast and 
 hopes to ride about five-and-twenty miles before 
 midnight four ? " 
 
 " * An apple, an egg and a nut,' " quoted the 
 stranger, "well, if he isn't a liver-man and calls 
 this his dinner." 
 
 "Poor fool! he does so." 
 
 " Then he may have half a dozen." 
 
 Miss Bishop waited on the company. She came 
 behind Hazell and whispered : 
 
 " Here's yer tea ; I made it on purpose, jest the 
 syme." 
 
 He pressed the rough, skinny little hand which 
 gave him the cup with a smile of genuine gratitude. 
 She passed on with a relenting toss to the yellow 
 man, saying : 
 
 "Doctor, I put yer sugar in as usual five lumps." 
 
 He nodded, and took his measure of fluid and 
 explained to Hazell : 
 
 " I've all kinds of vices. I consume at intervals
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 235 
 
 every known narcotic. I hate the sight of my fel- 
 low-creatures whom, being as you heard just now, 
 in physic, I see ever at their least pleasing yet I 
 retain ineradicably one amiable failing a love of 
 sugar." 
 
 " Alas ! I have lost it. But I've heard that it is a 
 natural craving in a hot climate." 
 
 " One hears one hears one is always hearing ! 
 Hot climates sugar may be the food of hell, as 
 music is of heaven ! yet more likely there will be 
 none there, not a grain, only the well-developed 
 craving for it." 
 
 " You've a pretty wit of your own," said Hazell, 
 eating his eggs one after the other without even a 
 pretence upon the greyish bread. In an ordinary 
 way he would have been keen to talk to his sar- 
 donical companion, but this evening he was bent on 
 an important quest. He beckoned Miss Bishop to 
 his side, and, asking for more tea, asked also where 
 Rennard was. 
 
 " In the bar. Didn't yer see him ? Oh, well, 
 he's syfe enough till closin' time. When he does 
 come in, he don't go till he's obliged. You needn't 
 hurry yerself." 
 
 " Doctor," said Hazell suddenly, " did you ever 
 know of a man's hand being incapacitated by 
 Bathurst burrs?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, certainly seen several cases of it, one 
 only lately. There is not such a plague of burrs 
 about here as in some parts, so you don't, luckily for 
 you, hear so much of their ingenious devilry. (I 
 say you I don't know anything about you, sir, of
 
 236 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 course.) No doubt whatever the devil reigns in 
 Australasia has always reigned. British colonists 
 ousted him a bit, and he takes all kinds of ways of 
 tormenting them before their time. Bathurst burrs 
 
 distinctly one way " 
 
 " I did that man one injustice, why not another ? " 
 The words seemed to ring in Hazell's ears as 
 though they had been spoken. They clashed 
 through his brain as though the drums and cymbals 
 had clashed unexpectedly in an orchestra. His 
 heart stood still a minute; perspiration poured 
 down his face. He got up abruptly, murmuring 
 " Heat," and went out into the street to be alone, to 
 steady himself. 
 
 If there were really some terrible thing behind 
 her Avis some unspeakable thing ! In such case, 
 what right had he to interfere, to come here after 
 this brute who brayed it forth ? He was not her 
 husband, sworn to fight her battles. He was no 
 busybody, to stir mud, to make mischief ; he was 
 no Quixote, to espouse the cause of ladies in general. 
 Should he go back and leave it untouched back to 
 that darkness, to that life which was no life? He 
 leaned on a paddock fence, gazing unseeing into a 
 dim field, bareheaded, a big white figure under the 
 starlight, and thought and thought and thought. 
 No ! he could not go back thus. He loved her so. 
 A spasm of pain seemed to contract his heart, and 
 his face worked in the kindly darkness. His eye- 
 lids felt hot, as though tears were coming. He 
 stretched out his arms along the fence, and bowed 
 his head, and the long line of dry wood cracked and
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 237 
 
 shook in his grasp. " No evil that any mortal could 
 do should keep me from her ! " he said in himself. 
 " If she had blood on her soul, I should love her ! " 
 
 From this stage it was no far cry to a final 
 wherein he decided that it was for him, of all the 
 world, secretly or openly to do her service. It 
 was inconceivable that she could wish a wretch 
 like Rennard to chatter of her concerns, good or 
 evil; therefore he should be silenced. Truly or 
 falsely, he should talk no more. Hazell himself 
 would ask nothing either way ; from herself only 
 would he hear anything about herself, but Rennard, 
 if necessary by a wrung neck, should be bound over 
 to keep the peace. 
 
 With this resolution he went back to the inn and 
 the bar once more, not in vain. The miserable little 
 figure of Rennard, distinctly more miserable-look- 
 ing than when he had seen him last, sat in a corner, 
 with shut eyes, sucking a glass of beer on a small 
 table before him. Hazell, stalwart and command- 
 ing, stepped up to him and rapped the table sharply, 
 his ringed finger sounding to attract attention. 
 
 " Luke Rennard ! " he said sternly. 
 
 The man started and looked at him with blink- 
 ing eyes, frightened, cowering instantly, as though 
 with a habit of fear ; then, recognising, he stam- 
 mered : 
 
 "What cher want with me, Mister Hazell, 
 please ? " 
 
 The squatter wondered, looking on so poor a rag 
 of manhood, what he did want with him. There 
 was no obvious connection between Avis Fletcher,
 
 238 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 without spot or blemish, and this dirty, quailing 
 vagabond, peering with cunning little eyes from a 
 blotched and pallid face. The whole physical scale 
 of humanity lay between them. The name of the 
 one should not be mentioned to the other, nor here, 
 ever, in such a place as this. While he hesitated 
 the man broke into a resentful moan : 
 
 " If it's my pore 'ands agen, they've never re- 
 covered from them burrs, and not a stroke of work 
 'ave I done these months past. Stiif with 'em, I 
 am, and a sort o' dead feelin' all up my pore arms. 
 Gawd's treuth it is ! Sometimes it's as much as I 
 kin do to get my boots on. P'raps it'd be a kind 
 hact if you'd give me that letter you spoke of to a 
 'orspital, sir?" 
 
 Wanted in England ! If England got him, she 
 would not, indeed, get much. Oh, magnificent 
 fiction of the law, that all men are equal ! Equally 
 responsible ; effectual for good or evil ; worthy of 
 extradition action ; educable citizens ! Yet the 
 tubercle bacillus may slay the son of Anak, and 
 the son of Anak would do well to put his heel on 
 the tubercle bacillus. Should Hazell slay here? 
 should he not ? At the counter behind, the smooth 
 tones of the strange doctor asked for a match for 
 his cigar. 
 
 " Doctor," said Hazell suddenly, " here's a patient 
 who says he has burred hands. Will you look at 
 him a minute, to oblige me ? " 
 
 " Will you be answerable for my five shillings ? " 
 returned the physician sardonically, and puffed and 
 inhaled his potent Trichinopoly leaf. " Kooney
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 239 
 
 and Australians at the bar, I call you to witness 
 that this big gentleman in white duck owes me 
 five shillings ! " 
 
 The speaker came forward and took in his own 
 Eennard's unsightly fingers. He looked at them 
 carelessly, smoking slowly ; then more carefully ; 
 then laid down the cigar and stared keenly into 
 the rogue's face ; then, brisk, energetic, interested, 
 said: 
 
 " There will be a light in the coffee-room, let us 
 go there ; " and half urging, half supporting the pa- 
 tient he led the way, followed, according to a ges- 
 ture, by Hazell. Rennard answered a few ques- 
 tions and submitted his arms and features to close 
 inquisition. Setting down the lamp, the doctor 
 dismissed him. 
 
 " Go and get yourself a whisky-and-soda, and tell 
 Rooney to charge it to Dr. Beeby." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and took up his cigar. 
 
 "Well," said Hazell, "burrs there ?" 
 
 "Burrs? Oh, very likely burrs and blains of 
 several kinds. That, sir and I forgive you my 
 five shillings for the scientific surprise of it is a 
 well-marked instance of one of our pathological 
 mysteries. I've met with it before in China and 
 Singapore and the South Sea Islands, but never yet 
 on British soil, though it is found, not very rarely, 
 in this country. We must shut him up, poor devil 
 lepra maculo-anaesthetica." 
 
 " Please explain." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. The man's a leper." 
 
 Hazell's pale eyes were lit with horror.
 
 CHAPTER XYII 
 
 ONE afternoon in the month Mrs. Wenban de- 
 voted nominally to the reception of her friends. 
 She was socially " at home." In fact, she was more 
 often to be found in her own house on any other 
 day, for her life was so full of deeds of kindness that 
 a free space was run in her engagement-book, and 
 when found, as certainly once a month, she would 
 hail it joyously and go forth to do something inter- 
 esting, unconscious, till she returned to find re- 
 proachful pasteboard, of the polite awfulness of her 
 act. Thus it was a day or two after her dinner- 
 party. A drawing-room missionary meeting at 
 Government House, conducted by the Bishop of 
 Mgronesia, attracted her strongly. The sickly 
 northeast wind blew heavily, exhausting enough, in 
 Mrs. Bolitho's speech, to take the spring out of a 
 flea; but missionary enterprise was dear to Mrs. 
 Wenban : she went forth to be melted and to hear 
 spiritual statistics. It was Mrs. Bolitho who re- 
 mained on guard, sitting in a bamboo chair in the 
 darkened library in a draught in a garment of gauze, 
 as she told Avis, who sauntered in about tea-time 
 with a complicated expression of countenance. The 
 young lady smiled vaguely, and proceeded to speak 
 upon her own point of view : 
 
 " What a bore it is, aunty, that things occur 
 
 240
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 241 
 
 take place happen come to a crisis ! Wamagatta 
 is the best nothing much happens there. Let us 
 go back to it." 
 
 " Verily I was contemplating it, my dear. I am 
 longing for a sight of my old Spencer ; but may I 
 ask what in particular has, in journalese, even- 
 tuated?" 
 
 " I have just refused to become Mrs. Robert Wen- 
 ban." 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho considered a moment. " I wonder 
 if that was wise of you, my dear." 
 
 " I wonder myself, aunty. Marriage, you know, 
 is the proper calling of woman, and I am hardly 
 likely to get a better billet in the matrimonial 
 world." 
 
 " A refined and affectionate man, who may make 
 a name for himself in science," said Mrs. Bolitho. 
 
 " Plenty of money, too," said Avis. 
 
 " And such a lovable mother-in-law ! One in a 
 million ! " said Mrs. Bolitho. 
 
 " And such a reverential and measureless devo- 
 tion for myself as, upon my word, made me feel 
 ashamed." 
 
 " Oh Avis ! " 
 
 " Oh yes, aunty, I know. I may be sorry for it 
 some day, but it was of no use. He begged me to 
 take time to consider. I did take time five min- 
 utes. I went to the heart of the matter. I tried 
 to imagine him kissing me ; and then something 
 uprose in me and hit him mentally, of course. It 
 was of no use. I said to him: 'I like you im- 
 mensely I am fond of you, indeed ; I could live in
 
 242 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 the house with you for ever, but I couldn't possibly 
 be your wife.' " 
 
 " And then, of course, he said what I am going 
 to say that the other thing would come." 
 
 " Yes, but it wouldn't. I know myself. "When I 
 am good, I am a lamb, and when I am not good, as 
 they say in the nursery, I am a perfect Turk. I put 
 it to him that I couldn't embitter his life and his 
 mother's declining years by bringing myself, a 
 ramping and a roaring Turk, into their inmost 
 bosom. And the dear man is about broken-hearted. 
 What a contrarious world it is ! I thought I should 
 enjoy breaking male hearts; I don't at all. So 
 please let us go back to Wamagatta, where there 
 are none to break." 
 
 A servant announced Miss Wavertree. 
 
 A few minutes were spent in explanation. There 
 was the necessary setting forth of Mrs. "Wenban's 
 absorbing regard for missions ; there was the an- 
 nouncement of the visitor's intended departure for 
 a cooler altitude, by reason of which, with reference 
 to her recent repast, she had to call at once or 
 never. 
 
 A happy thought occurred to Mrs. Bolitho to 
 secure a companion for Avis in case of her return to 
 the uneventful loneliness of Wamagatta. 
 
 "Will you not come to me, my dear, a little 
 later ? " she invited, in her most cordial manner. 
 " We are hot, of course, in my part of the colony, 
 but we are dry, which is what you want after Syd- 
 ney, and all the colony is hot in the summer, except 
 the mountains, where you may have weeks of driz-
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 243 
 
 zle. My house is really comfortable ; not the case 
 with Bush houses in general, and we would do our 
 best to amuse you. I feel that you two girls should 
 have much in common, and ought to be better ac- 
 quainted." She included both in a genial glance. 
 
 Miss Wavertree hesitated. Her courtesy was 
 severely taxed. It had been her hope that she 
 would not meet Miss Fletcher when she called. 
 She was greatly attracted by Mrs. Bolitho, as the 
 correct and high-minded of her sex are invariably 
 attracted by a charming elderly woman whose 
 position and repute make her entirely " safe." One 
 knows so exactly where one is with a discreet 
 matron whose present vouches for her past, whose 
 age vouches for her future. Miss Wavertree felt 
 that she could be quite devoted to Mrs. Bolitho, 
 and, further, she had a great wish to see something 
 of Bush ways comfortably. The invitation tempted 
 her, but, like the correct and high-minded of her 
 sex in general, she had a horror of any female of 
 her class who was not quite nice quite nice. It 
 was improbable that she would have found herself 
 in the same house with Miss Fletcher in England. 
 She was sure she would never have been expected 
 to make of her a personal friend in England. Helen 
 Wavertree was nothing if not strict in her princi- 
 ples. She could not relax them because she hap- 
 pened to be in New South "Wales ; there was far 
 too much of that kind of relaxation, she had heard. 
 
 She coloured slightly, and looked distressed. 
 
 " I should like it of all things, dear Mrs. Bolitho, 
 thank you," she said ; " but I have arranged to stay
 
 244 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 at Banal with Mrs. Lefanu, who has taken a cot- 
 tage there. And then there's papa, who is on 
 guard, poor thing, and cannot get away from his 
 ship. I don't like to be too far from him." 
 
 She did not glance at Avis, who watched her, 
 hard as carven wood. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho persisted. She understood it all, but 
 she persisted. 
 
 "Later on, then," she said. "We expect Mrs. 
 Bengough any time next year. You know her. 
 You must come to us when she is at Wamagatta." 
 
 " I should love to meet dear Mrs. Bengough," said 
 Miss Wavertree impressively ; " I have such an 
 admiration for her. She is so good, and so ex- 
 ceedingly good to look at." 
 
 " Aunty," said Avis, getting up from her seat, " I 
 can't have this. My mother wants no one but me 
 when she comes this side of the world ; or if she 
 does, I can't share her with any one so absorbing 
 as Miss Wavertree." 
 
 There was a pause. The visitor's pretty cheek 
 was rosy. Had her tenderness been less engaged, 
 Mrs. Bolitho's natural malice would have enjoyed a 
 so well-bred perplexity. Avis, whose complexion 
 never betrayed her, maintained an advantage and 
 pressed the attack. She continued : 
 
 "I am sure Miss Wavertree will understand, 
 among all the rest of the virtues, family affection." 
 
 Without haste or awkwardness, civilly yielding 
 the visitor to whom the visitor was due, the heroine 
 of this tale disappeared through open Indian cur- 
 tains which hid a room beyond.
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 245 
 
 Miss Wavertree struggled for self-possession, but 
 she was plainly disturbed, distressed ; she knew 
 herself right, but she would rather for the moment 
 have been wrong. She watched the curtains wave 
 an emptiness; she listened to the soft retreating 
 steps, and spoke genuinely, nervously in apology : 
 
 " I never saw any one walk so well." 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho replied seriously : " I assure you her 
 soul is as noble as her body." 
 
 Miss Wavertree looked perplexed. Words rose 
 to her lip; doubts checked them there. Could 
 rumour be altogether wrong ? Was this clever old 
 lady deceived ? why this unending separation 
 from an adored mother ? Impulsive by nature, 
 question rushed to the brink ; training held it there. 
 In a long minute of silence her face showed half a 
 dozen states of mind. Finally the most stable of 
 them found utterance : 
 
 " I should so like to like her," she murmured. 
 
 The whole mental action was clear to the 
 shrewd mother-wit before which it was deployed, 
 and the character of the player was equally evident 
 to one who had a fine intuition about her fellow- 
 creatures. She resolved on a crucial blow. 
 
 " Miss Wavertree," she began, " I am going to 
 pay you a very high compliment, to take you into 
 my confidence. But first you see, I am lame 
 please ring the bell for me. Thanks. And now 
 look through those curtains and make sure that 
 Avis is nowhere behind them." 
 
 The answering servant was told, in case of 
 further callers, that Mrs. Wenban was out and Mrs.
 
 246 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 Bolitho engaged, and the two ladies settled them- 
 selves for undisturbed statement. The elder had 
 made up her mind, and when she made up her 
 mind she acted accordingly ; it was her rule, the 
 habit of her life. Yet here for a moment she 
 faltered ; she felt as though she were about to give 
 away, on her own responsibility, something that 
 was not hers a most jealously guarded something. 
 Surely silence was still the only policy for Avis and 
 those who loved her. Yet there is a time to speak, 
 and there are men and women to whom it is meet 
 and right to speak. The airy frivolity of summer 
 bonnet and frock, the expensive frothiness of mod- 
 ish clothing, the candour of the intelligent face, of 
 English bloom and pinkness, the pleasant, ingenuous 
 hazel eyes fixed tentatively on her, contrasted reas- 
 suringly. Now was the moment to make a friend 
 for Avis on both sides of the sea. 
 
 " Is your chair so comfortable that you can give 
 me your whole attention ? If not, change it. I 
 make no stranger of you. Young people are no 
 strangers to me. I have had three young men of 
 my own, and two daughters-in-law, and one 
 daughter of my heart, Avis Fletcher. But I am 
 going to speak to you as one gentlewoman to an- 
 other. That, Miss Wavertree, is the preeminent 
 advantage of gentle birth ; it is a common ground 
 of mutual understanding on which those who meet 
 for the first time who never meet at all can treat 
 each other with entire ease and satisfaction. My 
 discursive tongue ! They say one has the age of 
 one's heart, if it were that of one's tongue ! Well,
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 247 
 
 youth is excellent, but age has its compensations. 
 Youth ought to be silent in the judgment-hall ; age 
 ought to speak. I take upon myself now to bring 
 my adopted niece before the bar, and have her 
 tried by her peer. There are one or two men who 
 would say she was peerless. I don't submit her to 
 their judgment, but to yours." 
 
 " Do you think I can properly judge ? " 
 
 Miss Wavertree was half afraid of the demand 
 that might be made of her. 
 
 " Who better ? I take it you are much of an age 
 (Avis is five-and-twenty). You were born of the 
 same soil, the same social class, in the same sur- 
 roundings; your people know each other. Your 
 early trainings must have been identical, precept for 
 precept : to take your morning bath ; to be true and 
 just in all your dealings ; to maintain a decent re- 
 serve, even in your bedchamber. You smile at my 
 leap-frog style of talk. I cover a great deal of 
 ground by it, and mean no disrespect to my subject. 
 So far, then, you might be sisters, but you are not. 
 Avis Fletcher had has a mother who is all a 
 mother should be ; you " 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho paused. Helen Wavertree answered 
 her as was expected : 
 
 " I cannot remember my mother at all, but I have 
 a father who is the most lovable of men." 
 
 " So I should suppose just that beautiful quality, 
 lovable ! Well, Avis Fletcher had a father who was 
 a curse to every life that came near his own. In 
 whatever household he had lived, it would have been 
 an unhappy one. Oh, the fiction that ' homes are
 
 248 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 happy ' ! In my experience, every second household 
 is torn and embittered by the sheer bad temper of 
 some member or members of it. jSTo place like 
 home ! Half the population of the British Empire 
 is thanking Heaven that there isn't ! I speak only 
 for the British. I think our tempers are worse than 
 most. I believe the temper of the Rev. Markham 
 Fletcher you knew his name and I dare say his 
 fame to have been one of the worst imaginable. 
 He was carping, spiteful, ungenial, suspicious, and, 
 moreover, at times insanely violent." 
 
 " I have heard of his violence," said Miss Waver- 
 tree. " Report said all sorts of dreadful things 
 that his fits of passion grew upon him till he died in 
 one ; broke a bloodvessel, and died of rage at meet- 
 ing his wife unexpectedly in a field. She had left 
 him some time before." 
 
 " I believe that to be quite true. I believe her 
 life was a long martyrdom. I have been told that 
 he was remarkably handsome, with that particularly 
 suave and deferential public manner which is fre- 
 quently the other side of a private manner which 
 would disgrace a hog! I have often noticed it. 
 The girl married him, I suppose, in an access of girl- 
 ish priggish ness, and repented it ever after. I be- 
 lieve him to have been also what is called a bad 
 man. This of itself would have been terrible 
 enough to the bride, who thought, no doubt, that 
 she had wedded the Church Incarnate ; but it was 
 his uncontrollable and unappeasable humours that 
 made Coleswick Vicarage hateful and dangerous 
 for his child. If I had any choice between a sweet-
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 249 
 
 tempered felon (undiscovered !) and an ill-tempered 
 righteous, I would take the first ; yes, my dear, and 
 so would any woman of experience ! When we all 
 come to answer for our sins, we British, you will 
 see that those for which we get the blackest marks 
 will not be drunkenness, nor hypocrisy, nor grasp- 
 ingness of which foreigners, in their little unprej- 
 udiced way, accuse us so persistently but our 
 domestic bad temper will be judged to have caused 
 the greatest amount of unhappiness, and ruined the 
 highest number of fellow-creatures' lives. Well, 
 this is a hobby of mine ; my Spencer was always 
 one of the most amenable of born beings. * I will 
 not know a wicked person,' said David foolish, 
 hasty fellow ! / will not know, if I can help it, an 
 ill-tempered one ! Life is not long enough. Pardon 
 again for my discursiveness; women of the old 
 school were never trained to keep to the point. I 
 imagine the child's house a parson's house, more- 
 over, with the brute never certainly off the premises 
 except on Sundays ! And recollect that she is his 
 child as well as her mother's. Recent physiology 
 states, I read, that we are a quarter father and a 
 quarter mother, and an eighth of each grandparent. 
 Avis, then, was a quarter and an eighth (old Major 
 Fletcher was notorious) of imperiousness, violence, 
 vengef ulness, gall ! And the days were dull and 
 the winters were dark. She was an only child. 
 No stranger was allowed inside the door. No 
 noise, no piano, no laughter suffered on the prem- 
 ises. Picture it! I dare say, at seventeen, you 
 were spending your winters in Italy, and your
 
 250 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 springs in London. Avis was almost always at 
 Coleswick. The excellent uncle, Mr. Wilbraham 
 of Wilswick yes, of course, you know him was 
 nothing if not an English squire squire-parson. 
 Neither London nor Eome attracted him from his 
 beer and his beeves and his rulings as rural dean. 
 Country vicars, of course, cannot leave their work ; 
 and had Mr. Fletcher had the wealth, he would not 
 have had the will to give his irreconcilable daughter 
 change of scene and fresh companionship. The 
 mother did what she could ; her love could soothe, 
 but nothing could make here a happy home for a 
 passionate, excitable girl. And then a flattering 
 yeoman youth fell in love with the girl's beauty and 
 vitality, and cast great eyes at her. Her father, 
 hearing of it, forbade her to speak to him forbade, 
 of course, with many imperious additions ; and she, 
 having known the youth from her childhood, and 
 being, moreover, as I tell you, a good part Mark- 
 ham Fletcher in the matter of naughtiness, dis- 
 obeyed, and entered on a course of deceit that has 
 all but destroyed her whole life. Remember, she 
 was yet a child, in the seething stage. "When one 
 does not go, one is borne ; standing with expectant 
 feet not reluctant, most expectant on the thresh- 
 old of womanhood. The whole thing, I am con- 
 vinced, was chiefly bravado. The fellow wasn't her 
 equal (a fine figure enough !) ; and she used to meet 
 him at "Wilswick in the empty Rectory, which her 
 uncle, you know, being squire, occupied no longer. 
 Falsehood grew apace mischief likewise. I be- 
 lieve the unhappy child was miserable indeed before
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 251 
 
 the end. You will say, What was her mother do- 
 ing all this time ? I can answer that : she was at- 
 tending to her duty as a Vicar's wife in the house 
 and the village ; and you must understand, I must 
 impress upon you, that her position was most diffi- 
 cult. The father maddened his child roused all 
 that was worst in her. I have heard of the mean- 
 est cruelties : how he killed her cat and sold her 
 horse, and she hated him. Scenes were frequent ; 
 they never met without disagreement. The child's 
 nature must suffer. It was best they should be 
 apart as much as possible, and Avis was the spoiled 
 darling of Wilswick Manor. Her continual ab- 
 sences were attributed to visits there. Certainly 
 she always went in that direction. And more: 
 have you never noticed, perhaps in yourself, that at 
 a certain age both boys and girls are apt to become 
 estranged from their family hostile, unTn.ana.ge- 
 able ? No one can control them ; no one of their 
 closest relatives. They are Ishmaels from the 
 circle. It is only a phase, but they should spend it 
 among strangers. I believe it is part of the de- 
 mand of each young life for a way of its own. I 
 delay unwarrantably, Miss Wavertree ; but I have 
 put my prisoner before the bar without her knowl- 
 edge or consent, and I must state her case as fully 
 and as fairly as possible. I see you are trying to 
 follow me. Your face tells me you are true-hearted 
 and straight. Well, my dear my dear the end 
 came. The yeoman, Joe, broke his neck hunting 
 or somehow, and Avis fell insensible when she heard 
 of it. Poor Avis ! I heard the tale with tears, and
 
 252 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 I tell it again with tears. Miss Wavertree so 
 young ; I believe, from my soul, so unfairly taken 
 advantage of ! Think of yourself at seventeen ! 
 The wild thing that I was then ! Her father drove 
 her out of the house within the hour. I cannot 
 dwell on this part of it ; you can fill in the details 
 for yourself. God judges him. Her mother fol- 
 lowed her, of course, and nursed her, and held her 
 back to life; and the county rang with it the 
 country, to some extent, rang with it. The South- 
 amptonshire Wilbrahams and the Fletchers of 
 Fletcherstown ! Such a scandal ! You know the 
 rest, and can guess what you don't know. There 
 was no forgiveness possible for Avis in England ; 
 but she has found life possible, I am glad to think, 
 in a new country my own country. Yes, my dear 
 yes, yes ! But one does rather enjoy a weep, you 
 know ; after all, it is a great luxury, when not of 
 the hopeless sort. Nothing hopeless about Avis 
 Fletcher herself ! The only hopeless thing is this 
 malice and empty venom of the gossip, and the un- 
 quenchable love of the vulgar, of the masses, for 
 what is evil and of bad report, and their joy in the 
 pillorying of any human being of whatever kind." 
 
 Helen Wavertree was not of the melting sort; 
 but she was holding a hand of Mrs. Bolitho's with 
 one of her own, while with the other she addressed 
 her handkerchief to her tears. 
 
 " Do you think Avis would be friends with me ? " 
 she whispered. " It is nothing to be one of the just 
 persons who have never needed repentance."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 "EXPECT us Saturday. LUCIA BENGOUGH, 
 R.M.S. Senegambia, Albany." 
 
 Thus ran the telegram received by Avis the fol- 
 lowing morning. Mrs. Bolitho's responsibility was 
 over. Her scheme had answered, and her letter of 
 demand had brought the mother forthwith across 
 the world, and however the crisis should turn, it 
 would lack nothing of skilful treatment. Avis was 
 transformed with happiness. She forgot the Live 
 Un and the world's malice ; she forgave Miss 
 Wavertree, who came, humble and discreet, and in- 
 trigued for friendship ; she was so tender to Robert 
 Wenban, that his sore heart conceived a shred of 
 hope ; she put away for the first time with some 
 success the thought of Ralph Hazell. At last she 
 was to have at hand, in close intimacy, one to 
 whom she really belonged, who knew all and loved, 
 as a matter of course. In the few days of eager 
 waiting she realised as never before the sweetness, 
 the value of the family tie, the comfort of its mat- 
 ter-of-courseness. To be wayward, to have sinned, 
 to be creditable, to be glorious, to be loved none 
 the less, none the more, for either, but because one 
 belongs ; to be loved as a right without need for 
 gratitude or effort ; to be understood without ex- 
 planation, or taken for granted, restfully, without 
 
 253
 
 254: HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 being understood this is the only satisfactory 
 background from which to contest the battle of 
 life. It is the universal need, and he has a fair 
 quarrel with fate who goes without it. 
 
 The Melbourne express brought Avis her dear be- 
 longings, a party of four, of whom at first she 
 recognised but one, and acknowledged only two. 
 A glimpse into a window of the train, and she 
 sprang into the corridor and a compartment off it, 
 where her mother's arms awaited her. No words, 
 properly so-called, passed between them ; there 
 were little sounds of full meaning ; there was an 
 impatient discord of an interfering hat, and a 
 golden head snuggled into a cordial circle of arm 
 and shoulder, and one heart was safe in the eternal 
 shelter, and one was warm with the eternal sacri- 
 fice. 
 
 The man in attendance waited patiently. He 
 was a little dry man, past middle age, of a youthful 
 spareness of figure, whose head was thick with fair 
 curly hair, scarcely touched yet by the frost of 
 time, which had lined his face, clean-shaven. His 
 wife had done wrong, in his eyes, once only during 
 their lifelong knowledge of each other when in 
 her " access of girlish priggishness " she had mar- 
 ried the Reverend Markham Fletcher. The one 
 wrong having been amply rectified, now six years, 
 all else was right, and he maintained toward her an 
 attitude of attention, silent and satisfied. He 
 handed their smaller baggage through the window 
 to a porter, and continued to wait sympathetically. 
 No mortal could pass in the space of a railway car-
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 255 
 
 riage two such Homerically-inoulded ladies, but 
 Sydney was the terminus ; there was no reason for 
 hurry. He sat in a corner and kneaded his grey 
 travelling-hat. Presently Avis raised her head and 
 looked into her mother's benign face. 
 
 " Oh, how beautiful you are ! " she cried. 
 
 Benignity was moved to laughter. The daugh- 
 ter was pushed away a little, as limits allowed, and 
 answer was returned : 
 
 " But, my darling, you are magnificent ! " 
 
 Mr. Bengough, in his soul, agreed with both, and 
 permitted another closure with the utmost amia- 
 bility. Prudence, however, had her rights. 
 
 " How do you do, Avis ? " he interposed dryly. 
 " The authorities will want to swab down the roll- 
 ing-stock in a minute." 
 
 His stepdaughter gave him her hand indiffer- 
 ently. By degrees they reached the corridor, where 
 a spotless nurse stood bearing a spotless bundle. 
 
 " Darling," said Mrs. Bengough, in her soft tones, 
 Irish, like her colouring, " I must introduce you to 
 your brother." 
 
 It awoke Avis from her emotional ecstasy. She 
 had known, of course, that there was a brother, 
 born to the great surprise of all whom it concerned, 
 and the great content of his parents the crown, as 
 they said, of their old age but she had realised it 
 very little. In her own mind she was still her 
 mother's only child, and she felt no throb of kin- 
 ship, only a mild impatience at the presence of the 
 paltry unknown, who meant nothing to any one at 
 such a time as this.
 
 256 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " Thomas Edward," said Mrs. Bengough, and the 
 nurse presented a healthy little round of flesh, of 
 which the lineaments were composed in sleep. 
 
 " Oh, I remember," said his sister. " Thomas 
 after Uncle Tom, and Edward after you, step- 
 father." 
 
 " The hose is really coming," observed Mr. Ben- 
 gough, and the ladies really moved out and walked 
 along the platform before him. The crowd had 
 cleared away, and he had a full view of them of 
 his own Juno and HazelPs Diana. In height and 
 scale they differed little ; in complexion, in feature, 
 and expression very much. Juno's hair, always 
 abundant, once blue-black, was now iron-grey ; her 
 features were the heavier and more generous, and 
 mellowed by experience into an exceptional dignity 
 and mildness, in contrast with which he noted the 
 eagerness, the essential pride of the younger traits, 
 more strictly aristocratically handsome; but in 
 each alike, allowing for the variance of years, the 
 colouring was rich, blooming in the fine cheek of 
 the one and the lips of the other. 
 
 They went together to a hotel, where Mrs. 
 Bolitho awaited them with unstinted welcome. 
 Mrs. Bengough pressed her hands and looked at 
 Avis, and pressed them again, saying, in an un- 
 steady voice : 
 
 "If there is any peculiar quality in a mother's 
 gratitude, a mother's blessing ! " 
 
 The sea of feeling was in springtide that day. 
 
 But a private explanation was necessary, and 
 must be made quickly, as Spencer Bolitho's desert-
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 257 
 
 ing wife had a purpose of immediate return to her 
 conjugal duties. Without set statement, by a mar- 
 vellous mutual understanding, A vis's guardian 
 women manoeuvred that they should be left alone 
 together; and it seemed good to Mr. Bengough, 
 after long weeks of the confinement of travel, to 
 move about. Avis, also, though reluctantly, 
 thought it best herself to fetch her properties from 
 Gaza, and the pair departed in a cab. The con- 
 federates turned to each other instantly. 
 
 " Tell me, why did you send for me ? " said the 
 mother. 
 
 " She was breaking her heart for a man she had 
 refused, for no reason that I know of, after having 
 apparently made up her mind to accept him with 
 every sign of joy. If ever I saw two people in love, 
 I saw them then Avis and Ralph Hazell." 
 
 " Ralph Hazell ! She wrote of him to me, ask- 
 ing about his former life a splendid story. Oh, I 
 am so thankful ! Is he the man who is to make 
 my child's happiness ? Oh, I am so thankful ! " 
 
 " A splendid story, is it ? Well, I felt it was. 
 Not often am I deceived in my judgment of char- 
 acter. I knew there must be a story, and I was 
 sure it would do him honour. I liked him the mo- 
 ment I saw him." 
 
 "I must thank you for this too, then." Mrs. 
 Bengough's glance glistened. 
 
 " Not yet, my dear not yet ! I am sorry to say 
 many times lately I have felt that the last state of 
 her might be worse than the first. You know her 
 enthusiastic nature not that she confided in me, of
 
 258 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 course, directly, but I did not need words ; she was 
 as deep in despair as in love. The man was clean 
 gone, retired to his station like a wounded animal 
 to its hole, whence no female, of course, could de- 
 cently try to lure him. You don't know the mean- 
 ness to which she reduced me. I had to get her at- 
 tention away from herself, and herself away from 
 Wamagatta. A twinge of my old foe, sciatica, 
 gave me the idea how. I feigned a bad attack of 
 it. I knew the horrible thing so well that there 
 was no difficulty about it ; and first I demanded 
 nursing, and second her care here in Sydney, where 
 I came to consult the profession." 
 
 " And the profession did not find you out ? " 
 asked Mrs. Bengough, smiling and wondering, be- 
 ing for her own part altogether incapable of such 
 subtle audacity. 
 
 " The profession ! " cried Mrs. Bolitho. " Their 
 pigs are all in pokes ! But if by any chance my 
 poke had been found transparent, I should have 
 changed my medical man." 
 
 " At least, let me pay his bill," protested Mrs. 
 Bengough, laughing. 
 
 "My Avis is cheap at the price," replied the 
 other wickedly. "She seems to you all right, 
 then?" 
 
 " I see nothing wrong so far." 
 
 " She is much better, outwardly ; but when the 
 excitement of your coming has worn away 
 
 Their subject entered upon them as they spoke. 
 
 " Mamma," she said, " I sent Eddy Bengough for 
 my trunks, after all. It wasn't in nature to leave
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 259 
 
 you when I have only just got you. Mrs. Wenban 
 will be delighted to see Eddy Bengough, and if any- 
 thing is forgotten, I can but fetch it." 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho saved her friend's countenance. 
 " What a way to speak of your stepfather ! " 
 
 "What in the world am I to call him ? I never 
 can decide. He used to be Cousin Eddy; then 
 Uncle Eddy ; he is always Eddy to everyone. It 
 will not matter how old he grows or how many 
 honours and acres he possesses, he makes no claim 
 for awe. A middle-aged man should be bald, or 
 baldish, or his hair, if thick, should be grey ; then, 
 as regards the figure of him, there are certain con- 
 tours for maturity ; but * Edward Bengough, Esq., 
 M.P., D.L., J.P., B.A., of Wilsdean Manor,' and 
 fifty-two years of this world, doesn't carry a pound 
 more, I should think, than he did at twenty-two, 
 and very few hairs less, and these of a childishly 
 light brown. Of course, every one knows him as 
 Eddy. I dare say the baby will." 
 
 Mrs. Bengough yielded the point of her husband's 
 appearance. She had served a long and most bitter 
 apprenticeship to the arts that make for peace, and 
 she never contested trifles. This, for other than a 
 despot, is the prime condition of rule in the greater 
 things of life. 
 
 During the fortnight which followed she had 
 scope for her powers of combination and meliora- 
 tion. Avis, as we know, was her only daughter ; 
 Eddy had every moral, mental, social and legal 
 right to her whole attention. Thomas Edward's 
 claim might almost be called divine ; it was neces-
 
 260 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 sary to blend these diverse demands, focussing them 
 in herself into a centre of home. It was possible, 
 for each loved her, but perplexing, for each needed 
 her, and that exclusively a dilemma, though a flat- 
 tering one. Mrs. Bengough had to allow that Avis 
 for the moment came first, and she relied on the 
 good training of Eddy to admit it without resent- 
 ment ; as for her enforced neglect of Thomas Ed- 
 ward, his mother had lived a full half-century in 
 the world, and she had learnt some common-sense. 
 Yet there were moments when she could have shed 
 a self-reproachful tear at the thought of it. Eddy 
 and Avis, however, were very happy out of doors 
 on horseback, risking their necks by gallops through 
 the deep scrub that covers the cliff and waste lands 
 round Sydney. Such hours could be given unques- 
 tioned to the youngest born. In the elder born, 
 watching her with regard to Mrs. Bolitho's report 
 of her, she did remark a change, not satisfactory. 
 Her moods were unequal, her words, without pro- 
 voking cause, often hard ; she was restless, yet re- 
 fused any plan for the future. The happiness of 
 their meeting was evidently not all-sufficing. Mrs. 
 Bengough awaited a fit moment to introduce the 
 name and story of Hazell, but for the first week it 
 did not offer ; it must be skilfully done, no creak- 
 ing of machinery, no haste, no unsteadiness of voice, 
 and there must be a clear space of time for it, of 
 which circumstances did not at first allow. 
 
 One evening Miss "Wavertree called, bringing her 
 father, and stayed long, informal and very friendly, 
 making it plain that, with Avis's goodwill, she
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 261 
 
 would like to come to close and lasting terms. 
 Mrs. Bengough made an extra thanksgiving at the 
 bedtime after that visit ; she recognised that South- 
 amptonshire was once more possible for her exiled 
 daughter. Impossible that Helen Wavertree had 
 not heard the old story ; obvious that personal lik- 
 ing outweighed it. To all appearance the liking 
 was in a fair way to be mutual, for our heroine 
 lacked no sort of human capacity, and could appre- 
 ciate all the better for long deprivation a comrade 
 of her own sort and size. The young women dis- 
 cussed the cathedral town of Coleminster, its holes 
 and corners, its chimes and canals, till Avis's speech 
 failed her for homesickness, and the other broke the 
 silence by exclaiming : 
 
 " But athletics are the fashion now at home ; not 
 art in particular. Anybody can get a Murray and 
 rave about styles of masonry. You must play golf 
 before you come home. I don't say croquet." 
 
 " "When you come to "Wamagatta you must teach 
 me," was the reply ; and all seemed smooth, worthy 
 of a special thanksgiving. 
 
 There were other callers ; there was a dinner at 
 the Wenbans', and a dinner of some fellow-passen- 
 gers from the Senegambia, and a moonlight evening 
 in a launch upon the harbour, and at last came an 
 evening of enforced quiet. Eddy Bengough's youth 
 was not wholly trustworthy, and his stepdaughter 
 was an unsparing horsewoman ; he returned fairly 
 knocked up from a rough ride, nearly forty miles 
 long, which, for her, only quickened the pleasure of 
 a hot bath. He betook himself to a long chair in
 
 262 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 the verandah. They sat watching the street below, 
 and the silvery gleam of harbour at the end of it, 
 and talked peacefully, dropping lazy phrases among 
 the softened cries of the city, the clang of tram- 
 bells, the whistle and shriek of the traffic of the 
 port. Their faces were indistinct to the other, the 
 languor of the hot night was in the attitude of each. 
 
 " "Wamagatta will brace you both up," said Avis. 
 " It's a bleached desert this time of year, and I'm 
 sure I don't know what on earth you are to do 
 there, but you'll be away from these northeasters." 
 
 " By the way," said her mother softly, " you men- 
 tioned in one of your letters a newcomer who had 
 taken a station near there a Mr. Hazell. You 
 fancied he had been a soldier ; you asked if Philip 
 Bengough knew anything about him." 
 
 One of the bamboo chairs creaked violently. 
 
 " Did I ? " returned Avis abruptly. 
 
 " Philip had a great deal to say when I asked 
 him. Mr. Ilazell's name and doings seem well 
 known in India, and to any one connected with the 
 service in England. I was immensely interested. I 
 should like to meet such a high-minded man." Mrs. 
 Bengough turned to her husband, who was lying 
 quite flat in his chair and smoking a cigar at the 
 sky. " Eddy, you were much interested, too. You 
 said you had read about it in the papers ; tell us the 
 story." 
 
 " Such a long story," said Eddy lazily. 
 
 " So well worth telling," said his wife. " Come, 
 dear, you can do justice to a tale when you care for 
 it."
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 263 
 
 "Oh, a very fine fellow, indeed," said Eddy. 
 " Phil got quite enthusiastic over him seemed to 
 think we ought to know all about it. I must say 
 there are not too many men of his sort. Well, it's 
 a terribly long story. I shall cut it down as much 
 as possible. Hazell, rich fellow, very keen soldier, 
 Captain in the Fusilladers, most devoted to his wife 
 Miss Bettingham (Katie Bettingham, daughter of 
 Bettingham of Jubbelpore), pretty little thing, most 
 shocking flirt. Love-match on his part, money- 
 match on hers. Hazell, a by-word for devotion to 
 her, couldn't see daylight where she was concerned. 
 Flirted under his nose. He thought it all right : 
 just lay down and let her walk over him. Talk of 
 the whole province. Colonel's wife did suggest 
 something to him once something mild about 
 pretty girls and temptation ; Hazell blazed at her 
 till she shrivelled up and cried for mercy, and sent 
 his wife home in the very same ship as the particu- 
 lar man about whom the good lady had warned 
 him. Lots of men talked about it ; they said she 
 manoeuvred to get sent home with this particular 
 man, Major Corthorn, Fusilladers. Sick-leave, both 
 of them, he and she. Hazell lived like a monk 
 when she was gone went nowhere, played polo, 
 got up cricket among the men, studied Russian, 
 went nowhere ; Phil, quite eloquent about it all, 
 said there never was such a sober grass-widower. 
 It appears that Hazell had letters from his wife 
 regularly from Ilfracombe chiefly, where she was 
 staying with her sister, she said, for the bracing air. 
 Hazell got a sudden attack of fever rather worse
 
 264 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 than usual, and all in a minute got leave himself, 
 urged by fever and desire to see his wife ; didn't 
 cable happy surprise for her rushed off and took 
 ship to join her. Not well on board, not well in 
 Plymouth ; stayed there two nights ; wired to wife. 
 First day better, rushed on to Ilf racombe. No wife 
 there; no one there; no one been there for long 
 time. Mrs. Hazell and her brother had been there ; 
 Indian letter every week, lately forwarded to Tenby 
 and then to London; wire forwarded to London 
 only day before ; postal limits for forwarding al- 
 most reached. So much from the post office. Ha- 
 zell followed on to London address, quiet hotel, 
 South Kensington; no one there. Telegram re- 
 ceived by Mrs. Hazell yes and left instantly ; no 
 address given : brother with her. Hazell, anxious, 
 wired to his wife's home; answer, 'Not there.' 
 He got alarmed. No suspicion yet of her true 
 character, but suspicion growing when he found 
 that her brother and sister were both at home with 
 their parents, neither having stayed away anywhere 
 with his wife. She had been 'with friends' at 
 Ilf racombe. Nonplussed. Private detective ; found 
 at Brighton ; Major Corthorn daily visitor, staying 
 in nearest hotel. But found, she refused to meet 
 her husband! No explanation was given; she 
 simply refused to meet him. She did once vouch- 
 safe to write that he knew why she refused, and 
 would soon know that she knew also. Hazell al- 
 most mad ; attacks of fever into the bargain ; mad- 
 der yet when the notice came of her intention to 
 file a bill in divorce against himself on account of
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 265 
 
 some woman in Plymouth. Most audacious thing 
 ever heard of really the most audacious! Phil 
 knows a man who was in Hazell's confidence at the 
 time says that never was any mortal so torn by 
 rage, despair, incredulity, desire for revenge, futile 
 longing for the woman he loved still ; and very ill, 
 too, with fever and sorrow mingled. Says that one 
 night it took three of them to hold him, and he 
 ought to have been in a strait-jacket. His policy, 
 of course, as they all said, was a counter-charge ; 
 the proofs of her misdoing were as large as they 
 well could be, but a counter -charge he wouldn't 
 bring it. Would you believe it? He wouldn't 
 bring it!" Eddy warmed with his subject, and 
 sat up, addressing Avis vehemently. "The man 
 wouldn't say a word, wouldn't answer to deny the 
 most preposterous and abominable accusation ever 
 made against a devoted husband either too proud 
 or too generous ; said she might bring a charge of 
 murder against him personal cruelty was all one 
 with it she was his no longer. She had never 
 existed as he knew her she didn't exist! There 
 was no action to meet. Then, again, he would say 
 that he had loved her ; that his name was still hers, 
 and should not be dragged through the dirt by 
 cross-examination; least said, soonest mended. If 
 she wanted to be free, this was the best way for her 
 freedom to come to her. A charge against a man 
 who had already suffered the worst that could be 
 suffered a charge of any sort could not toucli 
 him. Nothing moved him. Case came on no de- 
 fence decree nisi Major and Mrs. Corthorn.
 
 266 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 They say Hazell would sit for hours staring before 
 him, only shouting at intervals, ' How could she ? ' 
 They thought his reason would go thought he 
 would go all to pieces; but strong man, pulled 
 through at great cost, though; gave up every- 
 thing; sold out; passed his old friends in the 
 streets disappeared. Finally, I suppose, has be- 
 gun life again this side of the world, and may 
 better luck attend him. I should like to meet him. 
 I hope things will make amends." 
 
 Eddy paused and lay down again. 
 
 " I hope so, too," said his wife earnestly. 
 
 Avis said nothing. She was able to keep silent ; 
 that was all her strength allowed, and it was all 
 that her strength could do. The city below and 
 the sky above were blotted out by the surge in her 
 eyes, and in her ears the roaring pulse cut her off 
 from the rest of the world. All was tumult.
 
 CHAPTEK XIX 
 
 THE hours of the night told themselves forth ruth- 
 lessly in the wakeful ears of Avis. Whether they 
 came faster or more slowly, she could not decide ; 
 sometimes the interval between one quarter and 
 another seemed but a few minutes ; sometimes the 
 chime so tarried to her listening that she felt she 
 must have missed at least one striking of it. The 
 trams ceased, the cabs ceased, the post office clock 
 and the moon were left in possession of the city. 
 All slept, it seemed to Avis, but herself and them. 
 Partly she dozed herself, or, rather, lay between 
 sleeping and waking, as they do whose fine habit of 
 oblivion will not be wholly denied by even the 
 most stirring emotion. But, keen or dull, every 
 nerve of her dwelt on Hazell and his story. It 
 drew her to him as his magnetism would have drawn 
 her had he been there ; the world held nothing but 
 him. A sense of him permeated her as the ether 
 permeates the earth, and pulsed through her with 
 the universal pulsation. Memory, lately stifled, 
 took its revenge, and she could have groaned aloud 
 with the pain of longing. The tale of his wrong 
 worked, fermented, in her brain. His pride had 
 been as great as her own, his suffering equal, and 
 the scandal which had goaded him to madness, and 
 the despair to which he had all but succumbed, and 
 the courage of his new start in life, commended him 
 
 267
 
 268 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 to her, tied them in a bond of brotherhood that was 
 almost more than loverhood. But his magnanimity, 
 his nobleness, divided them for evermore. He had 
 been blameless, devoted; he had accepted blame 
 and a public record for broken faith. He had dis- 
 dained vengeance when it lay, even according to 
 law, under his hand. She looked into her own 
 heart of the past, and saw there her own cries and 
 yearnings for vengeance. She looked back to the 
 beginning and saw her own temerity, selfishness. 
 He was nobler than she ; he was too noble for her. 
 His wife must be a woman without blemish, on 
 whom no shadow had fallen, whose uprightness was 
 as his own, whose spirit was unclouded. It was 
 well they had parted ; yet, that it should have been 
 for her to grieve him, to deny him, to turn his ris- 
 ing hopes to bitterness and darken his days once 
 more ! It would be so easy to sacrifice her own 
 pride, she thought, swayed by opposing mental cur- 
 rents; so easy to forget her own prejudice and 
 dignity ; because he wanted her, to give herself up 
 to make him happy. The sweetness of the imagina- 
 tion possessed her. She went to the table and sat 
 down to write a word by which she bid him come 
 if he could ; then she plunged into a sea of in- 
 toxicating fancy : no more struggle, nothing but 
 satisfaction in his arms ! Again temperament and 
 training forbade the dream. It was not for her to 
 bring him comfort. There must be no more disap- 
 pointment for him. Found worthless, he had 
 spoken of that other woman, Katie, as dead. If he 
 knew her, Avis Fletcher, would he not also find her
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 269 
 
 worthless and look upon her as dead ? But, with- 
 out his full knowledge, she would never summon 
 him, never accept him, never go to him. There 
 should be no more deceit, no more terrible awaken- 
 ing; better for both a never realised joy. She 
 could love him without sign, and die faithful, proud 
 that he had ever loved her. 
 
 The inoon sank, the warm dawn took possession 
 of its due breadth of earth, the flagship gun boomed 
 the night was over. 
 
 Only one night! Mrs. Bengough saw its true 
 duration in her daughter's face. Years were 
 marked there when they met, and she saw their 
 traces with dismay. 
 
 And all that storm had arisen from the hearing 
 of a name ! Were those the blue shades of pity or 
 the lines of longing ? How might both be ban- 
 ished ? The mouth was frozen into hardness her 
 father's mouth at his most implacable. By fault of 
 character or of circumstance, was there no noontide 
 of gladness for her ? 
 
 They spent a silent day. Eddy was the smallest 
 of speakers, and had, besides, been advised in his 
 bedchamber of the conditions round him. He 
 rested, and left this matter, as most of others, to his 
 wife and to time. Thomas Edward was fractious 
 with the heat ; his temperature was somewhat 
 raised, and he kept his crib with cooling drinks. 
 Avis was too weary to know if there was talk or 
 not. " Let me not see the sun ! " Avas in her mind, 
 and she abode all the long summer day within 
 doors in a darkened room. A complaint of heat, a
 
 270 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 decent pretence of reading, enabled her to shut out 
 the intolerable glare. The sun ruled the sky, ruled 
 the city, hated and feared of all men. Lucia, too, 
 resented his brilliancy, thought of persuading her 
 dear one home to England, where there is green for 
 tired eyes and soft misty airs for soothing. Nature 
 should mourn with us when we weep ; when we 
 pipe to her, she will always dance. 
 
 Suggestions were made by one or other for an 
 evening excursion, but all were half-hearted, made 
 by each of the party in turn with reference to the 
 other two, with a pious pretence about them ; and 
 evening found them again on the verandah out of 
 their rooms, with the serene moonlight upon the 
 movement of the street. 
 
 Avis drowsed in her chair a whisper woke her. 
 She saw her mother, sitting at Eddy's side, point 
 with a finger of delight to something within, where 
 the baby lay in his cot, and she presumed a glimpse 
 of him in a peculiarly ravishing attitude. Eddy 
 smiled, took possession of the finger and the hand 
 belonging to it, and held them in i'ond tranquillity. 
 The daughter awoke to her isolation the woman 
 to her desolation. She was not one yet to look 
 on happiness through other eyes. She got up and 
 went in. 
 
 Lucia sighed to her husband : " If only we Eng- 
 lish were not so reserved with each other ! " 
 
 Eddy answered along his pipe : " Well, we are, 
 and, personally, being English, I'm glad of it. 
 Don't see how one could live in the house with peo- 
 ple who gabbled about everything they felt."
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 271 
 
 " I think we should often suffer less if we could, 
 or would, only speak." 
 
 " I think some of us would suffer a deuced lot 
 more ! Besides, my dearie, surely you know by 
 this time that lots of things actually perish in si- 
 lence, whereas they'd be green bay-trees if one 
 talked about 'em." 
 
 " Always two sides to every question my poor 
 Avis!" 
 
 " Terrible business, these early love-stages," said 
 Eddy. " Wonder why they couldn't have been ar- 
 ranged to get here straight away ! " He stroked 
 with his thumb the hand he held, and, looking into 
 the room again, remarked contentedly : " Funny 
 little pink paw of babsy's ! " 
 
 They both gazed at the pink paw and beheld in 
 it all loveliness. 
 
 Avis came back with a secular air, saying : 
 
 " We've had a nice lazy day ! But I've put it out 
 of our power to do such another to-morrow. I've 
 just telephoned to Dr. Outram to take us all out to 
 Parvaporta hospital and show us over. He is to be 
 here at half -past four with a victoria and two riding- 
 horses. I shall ride both ways, and you, mamma, 
 will drive. You, Mr. B., will ride one way and he 
 the other, and you will drive the other way and he 
 the one, as you please. You have full liberty of 
 choice within these limits, and the elder lady of the 
 party, who has no more love for the pigskin, will 
 be properly attended. As for the younger lady, 
 with any sort of a mount but a buck-jumper, she 
 can attend to herself."
 
 272 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 Parvaporta lies some miles south of Sydney, on 
 the ocean shore, in the wild moors that stretch very 
 sombre, very solitary, swept by all the wild winds 
 that swoop upon the land from the sea. The scrub- 
 grown soil reaches its arms of low cliffs round a 
 beautiful blue semicircle of waters, which bear into 
 them from the east, and neither hill nor tree pre- 
 vents its endless bath of air and sunshine. A small 
 jetty accommodates the resident officer's boat ; a 
 tiny, narrow, white road lengthens out, miles long, 
 toward the city. Otherwise Parvaporta lies alone 
 a hospital, and nothing more ; cut off deliberately 
 from human society, a spot appointed for the war- 
 fare of man with microbe. The white buildings of 
 it are dazzling in colour and cleanliness, within and 
 without, and, one-storied, verandahed, branch from 
 a centre. Looked at from above, from a balloon, 
 they might seem half a white starfish thrown up 
 from the ocean. 
 
 Avis wore a white veil ; but Dr. Outram, trained 
 in observation and more than ordinarily observant 
 of her, noticed the sadness and fatigue upon her 
 face noticed them resentfully. As a man deeply 
 interested, he resented interests of hers that were 
 beyond him ; but he acknowledged inwardly that 
 it was best so. Had her fancy been disengaged 
 and her mood of the melting kind that afternoon, 
 he would have presumed upon it to offer her his 
 great ambitions, his considerable powers of realising 
 them his poverty. The average feminine woman 
 presents to man an approbative smile, an encourag- 
 ing question, an appreciative comment ; she makes
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 273 
 
 social things easy for him. Avis made things easy 
 for no man ; but whereas her commanding vitality 
 attracted him, her imperious temper protected her 
 against his attack. 
 
 This afternoon she was not imperious ; she was 
 indifferent, withdrawn, gentle. Robert Outram re- 
 alised that he could never offer her anything. In 
 what touches the material, he had always known 
 her use and expectation to be richer than his own ; 
 he saw now that the emotional touch also was not 
 for him. He rode by her side in silence. His 
 horse was quiet ; so ordered for Eddy's sake, who 
 had regard to his own stiff muscles. The accom- 
 panying carriage, following a little behind, gave 
 them no conversational aid ; they avoided each 
 other's dust, that was all. 
 
 Outram remarked upon the curious dry vegeta- 
 tion of the sandy seaboard the ti-trees, the epacris, 
 the grotesque stunted banksias, which seem to the 
 unaccustomed eye to have been devised as a back- 
 ground for the demon scene of a vast pantomime. 
 
 Avis hoped he was taking in a store of heat 
 to fortify him against London fog, and recom- 
 mended New Zealand as a revelation in vegetation. 
 The northeaster blew them along, the sunlight was 
 consuming. The fence of the hospital enclosure 
 came in sight, and the white gate with the name 
 painted large upon it. 
 
 " I wonder how my friend Benmonica likes his 
 billet," said Outram, with an effort. 
 
 " Benmonica ! What a curious name ! " 
 
 " A Jew, of course ; three years my senior at
 
 274 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 Bart's. Clever fellow with a phthisical tendency. 
 He came here for his health. Lucky to get this, 
 though it seems a little remote." 
 
 "Everything is remote in Australia, outside the 
 cities. But you can make your life where you 
 please," answered Avis. 
 
 " Of course, and I believe he does good work 
 here. The place is a model of what such places 
 should be ; and there is the sunshine, and that mag- 
 nificent blue sea " 
 
 " Oh yes," said Avis ; " one could be very happy 
 here, I'm sure." 
 
 As she spoke she resumed in her memory the im- 
 pression of days of an awful desolation of sunshine. 
 As he spoke, Outram realised a little what that 
 desolation might be ; for the born Briton, born 
 among the tender melancholy of brooding mists and 
 soft rain, there is no sorrow so uncomforted as that 
 under a glare of tropical sun. 
 
 The Bengoughs drove up, and the party gained 
 entrance to the hospital. Dr. Benmonica, a frail 
 figure with an eager air, took them round his 
 wards. He was an enthusiastic hygienist, sceptical 
 as to the good of drugs, coquetting with the here- 
 sies of homoeopathy and hydropathy. He con- 
 fessed to a longing for the strong intellectual fric- 
 tion of the Old World, but declared that " Practice 
 College Practice College is the only school for 
 real learning." Practical were the details of the 
 hospital, and most complete. Cleanliness and util- 
 ity everywhere ; light and air and water ; beds and 
 boards and nothing else to speak of ; no harbour-
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 275 
 
 age anywhere, so far as human foresight could pre- 
 vent, for the most insinuating germ. 
 
 " I don't wonder that people like to be ill in their 
 own homes among their own familiar dirt," said 
 Avis to Outram. " It's enough to make one die of 
 despair, all this blazing cleanliness ! Isn't it a pen- 
 ance in convents and such-like places to sit opposite 
 to a white wall and do nothing a penance that re- 
 sults in idiocy? I'd rather be in my own dear 
 cabin, on my own well-known rags, with my own 
 dear pigs and fowls running in and out, stifling 
 with my own peat smoke, and unresistant to my 
 own fleas " 
 
 "You have not only yourself to consider," he 
 answered, laughing. 
 
 " I am no socialist," she replied. 
 
 " You are a heathen Chinee," he returned. 
 
 As the visit drew to an end, Benmonica addressed 
 Mrs. Bengough on a sudden thought : 
 
 " There is a fellow-countryman of yours a fellow- 
 countryman here ; admitted yesterday to the lazaret, 
 I am sorry to say. Would you like to see him? 
 Nothing distressing yet, though the mind is evi- 
 dently dulling a little from the general tendency of 
 the disease." 
 
 Lucia Bengough was known for deeds of kind- 
 ness. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! Let me see him, then. Where 
 did you say he was admitted ? " 
 
 "He is in the lazaret the leper lazaret. We 
 don't allow visitors there except by special desire. 
 It stands apart, you know,"
 
 276 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " How dreadful ! I never thought to come so 
 close to leprosy. Have you many sufferers there ? " 
 
 " This man I forget his name makes the eight- 
 eenth, and the fourth white man in." 
 
 " Let me see, Lucia," Mr. Bengough interrupted, 
 " you say positively, Dr. Benmonica, that there is no 
 risk of infection ? " 
 
 " As far as our experience goes in these circum- 
 stances, or I would not suggest your visit." 
 
 " There can be no object in your going," said 
 Outram to Avis. He shrank from the idea of near- 
 ness between herself and a leper. 
 
 " If it's safe for my mother " she answered. 
 
 " To the best of our knowledge and belief, I sup- 
 pose it is safe," he answered. " But you must re- 
 member that we know practically nothing about 
 the disease, except that it is slow, dreadful, and in- 
 curable. There are terrible sights even there in 
 that white row of cells." 
 
 His artifice succeeded with her. Avis liked ter- 
 rible sights no better than most of us do. 
 
 " Stay with me here, then," she said, " and let us 
 ask the matron to give us some tea." 
 
 The Bengoughs went with the medical officer 
 across a dividing paddock to the department char- 
 acterised by Outram as the white row of cells, which 
 stood in an enclosure always carefully locked a 
 line of neat, one-storied cottages, with the inevitable 
 verandah to the front, upon which all the rooms 
 opened. The lazaret looked over an exercise ground 
 of a few acres of scrub to the unbounded stretch of 
 the Pacific. The rooms were comfortable, assigned
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 27T 
 
 in ones and twos to each patient, and there was a 
 common room where they could meet while strength 
 or inclination permitted. Humanity and refinement 
 had arranged their surroundings, but their impris- 
 onment was absolute. 
 
 " First-class misdemeanants for life," said Eddy 
 dryly. 
 
 "Did these men sin or their parents?" Lucia 
 returned. 
 
 Dr. Benmonica answered her: "I have often 
 asked myself that, thinking of my damaged lungs. 
 But I assure you they are not unhappy. They 
 grumble, of course sick people, and other people, 
 always do that ; but their finer sensibilities are 
 dulled." 
 
 They caught sight through a window of a sufferer 
 whose head and face were muffled. A lad, quite 
 young, came out, hearing voices, and nodded to 
 them. His hands were hidden ; the skin of his fore- 
 head was curiously roughened and reddened. He 
 claimed attention for his pots of flowers and ferns ; 
 said he had felt much better lately. 
 
 " Only seventeen a sad case," said the con- 
 ductor. 
 
 " How do they get it ? " murmured Lucia, deeply 
 moved. 
 
 " How, indeed ! " answered the doctor, with a 
 shrug. 
 
 They passed along the verandah. 
 
 " Here is our man outside," said Dr. Benmonica, 
 and pointed to a small figure under a broad Panama 
 hat which sat in the open, half-way between the
 
 2T8 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 buildings and the sea, as if to catch the full hot ray 
 of the sinking sun. 
 
 The basking man took no notice of the sounds of 
 their approach ; he sat motionless among the boronia 
 bushes. Benmonica shook him by the shoulder, 
 saying, " Visitors for you ; " and a stiff hand was 
 put slowly up to push the hat back from a blotched 
 and wizened face. 
 
 " Visitors from Southamptonshire. They tell me 
 you came from there," said Mrs. Bengough sweetly, 
 smiling and trying to recognise him. 
 
 The patient knew her after a dazed moment, and 
 started up, showing an agony of fear. 
 
 "'Ere's more of 'em!" he shrieked. "They'll 
 cop me at last ; I know they will. Mrs. Fletcher, 
 ma'am, don't 'ee say you've come for me. Gawd's 
 treuth, I never touched the stack, nor the barn 
 neither. But appearances was again me, and I took 
 my refuge in flight. I 'ave tried to keep myself re- 
 spectable, Gawd's treuth I have, in this far country, 
 till my pore 'ands was all spoiled by Bathurst burrs, 
 and not out yet, nor like to be, by what they tell 
 me. Is it like I would lay a match to a stack or 
 barn ? Is it like I would do such a thing, and me 
 country-bred and knowing the ruin of it ? I was 
 never near to Copping's that night, which I could 
 prove, only a pore man 'as no money for the law, 
 nor friends. You was always good to the poor, 
 Mrs. Fletcher." 
 
 Lucia fell back a little under the hysterical on- 
 slaught, disconcerted, dismayed. Her husband came 
 a step nearer, and drew her arm within his own.
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 279 
 
 " What is all this ? " she asked. " I can't remem- 
 ber this man. There is nothing to be alarmed about, 
 my poor fellow. I don't even know your name ; 
 but if I did, I would do you no harm. What is it ? " 
 
 He told her abjectly, and shivered in the blaze 
 of the sun, maundering on about his " pore 'ands " 
 and the burrs, and having been in Coleminster for 
 the yeomanry meet on the very day the barns were 
 burnt. Recollection came to her a vision of burn- 
 ing barns and red smoke rising in an August mid- 
 night sky, and a memory of a great local outcry. 
 But it was long ago ; harvests had come and gone. 
 She put aside the miserable statement, wishful only 
 to soothe. 
 
 " That is all over years past, Rennard," she said. 
 " No one thinks of you any more, and I shall say 
 nothing about you, I promise you, nor tell any one 
 where you are. I am here only on a visit. I am so 
 sorry about your hands ; but if they can be cured 
 anywhere, it will be here, and you have such com- 
 fortable quarters. I am so glad to see you in such 
 a beautiful place. This is Mr. Bengough, of Wils- 
 dean. You remember him ? " 
 
 He peered at all in turn, unreconciled, shivering 
 still, and squeaking incoherently about Copping, 
 who had sacked him unjustly, and Hazell, who had 
 done the same, and their deserts, if such were to 
 be had. Then, turning insolent, he screamed that 
 if his visitors didn't want him, he didn't want them, 
 and wasn't afraid of no man. He had kept himself 
 respectable on both sides of the sea, he had, as all 
 who knew him could say ; and that was more than
 
 280 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 could be said for all as made quite another appear- 
 ance. 
 
 Lucia turned away to her companions, saying : 
 
 " We can do no good." 
 
 "His nerve is gone," answered Dr. Benmonica. 
 " I meant well ; he has had visitors already to-day, 
 and is over-excited." 
 
 They moved away; but she lingered a minute, 
 looking at the superb field of ocean, deeply blue, 
 and the long waves of exquisite green which broke 
 in a foam of snow upon the glistening border of 
 ivory sand. 
 
 "A lovely prison indeed," she said at length, 
 " and peace here to the end." 
 
 Avis and Dr. Outram had been entertained with 
 tea at their desire, and the matron, who gave her 
 leisure to her garden, had taken them outside to 
 see her rock-lilies. But the mind of Avis ran on 
 disease ancf death, as is the way with visitors to a 
 hospital. 
 
 " You must have seen a great many ways of 
 dying," she said to the matron. "Which is the 
 least dreadful, do you think ? Which would you 
 choose for yourself, if you could choose ? " 
 
 The answer was a shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 " Upon my word, I don't know ; they are all bad 
 when you come to the point." 
 
 " Is there no such thing as a peaceful exit, then ? " 
 
 " Oh, for old people. I don't say " 
 
 " A little revolver shot in due season ; that is one's 
 only chance of neatness and tidiness and decency." 
 
 " Neatness, tidiness, decency ! " repeated Outram,
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 281 
 
 laughing ; "as if Nature cared about any of them ! 
 Nature has no nose Nature has no eye Nature 
 has no sense of decency. If you want all these 
 highly artificial attributes, there is much to be said 
 for the non-natural revolver shot ; but, in kindness 
 for your friends, choose your time and place for it. 
 Let it be in a cold country, and say in the snow 
 no decay, no flies ! " 
 
 " Ugh ! " said Avis ; and then it seemed as though 
 indeed some kind of charge had struck her. 
 
 She was conscious of a violent shock, of a reeling 
 of the world round a tall man in white, whose 
 glance, light-grey and very penetrating, was on her. 
 
 He came quickly up, walking with a yellow man 
 in yellow clothes, whom she did not see at all. 
 
 Outram, noting the change in her, thought it a 
 sudden realisation on her part of the horrors of 
 death, and sought about for a lighter topic for 
 their talk. Before he found it, the yellow man 
 was speaking: 
 
 " We saw the patient, matron, and all the rest of 
 them. I shall remember your permission to come 
 again. Most interesting cases particularly that of 
 the New Liverpool postmaster." 
 
 Outram's attention was gained in a moment. 
 The joy of "cases" absorbed all three. Hazell 
 raised his hat suddenly, as though he had just 
 recognised Miss Fletcher as an acquaintance. She 
 seemed to herself rigid in space, but to an onlooker 
 and for the moment there was none such she 
 bowed very distantly. 
 
 " I am coming to see you," said Hazell quickly.
 
 282 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 Avis felt as though he came closer, as though his 
 concentrated will pressed on her ; but force always 
 failed with her, and she was roused to antagonism 
 as relentless to herself as to him. 
 
 "Why? "she replied. 
 
 He felt the resistance, the impalpable barrier be- 
 tween them. He hurled himself against it boldly. 
 
 " Why ? Because the something whatever it is 
 I have no notion ; I am absolutely at a loss to con- 
 ceive what it may be the something which in your 
 judgment, in your feeling, rose up and divided us, 
 the mystery that holds us apart, this is in the keep- 
 ing the sole keeping of an unhappy man who 
 lies there just there in the leper-house, in a living 
 grave ! It is buried with him. I dare you to dig 
 it up ! It has never existed. I am coming to claim 
 you!"
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 IT was close on Christmas-time. Picnics and 
 family parties were the custom of the season. Syd- 
 ney was full of Bush people ; stations were full of 
 Sydney people. The population of the colony was 
 presumably no greater than usual, but every place 
 in the colony seemed much more full of it. 
 
 Caradon Bolitho wrote to Hazell in pure friendli- 
 ness, inviting him, if he had nothing better in view, 
 to join the large party at Wamagatta. 
 
 " My mother always says it takes a multitude to 
 do such evil as the eating of plum -pudding in such 
 weather. You couldn't possibly eat yours alone. 
 Come and make one of our big circle round our big 
 dish." 
 
 Hazell, however, did not go. He had but one 
 purpose at Wamagatta, which must be effected 
 within the hour of his getting there, and it was be- 
 yond his limit of civility to disturb harmony, and 
 perhaps leave again incontinently within the hour, 
 at the festive time. He asked Dr. Beeby, with 
 whom, in sheer hunger for humanity, he had ar- 
 ranged a queer friendship, if he could neglect his 
 practice and spend a day or two at Burrabindar. 
 
 " My practice ? Certainly, if you like. I am no 
 slave to my practice." 
 
 " Illness postponed till after the New Year mostly, 
 I dare say ? " 
 
 283
 
 284: HEAKTS IMPOBTUNATE 
 
 " Couldn't say that, though there's something in 
 it. Oh no ! There's another fellow in my part, a 
 rival serious rival no medical qualification what- 
 ever. I assure you, they really prefer him to me. 
 He drenches them without fear, you see." 
 
 " Ever kill them ? " 
 
 " "Why, yes ; but so do I. We run each other 
 very close. I have so bad a reputation for myste- 
 rious experiences and private vices that I have al- 
 most the charm of a medicine man ; but, then, he is 
 so liberal with his flavourings, and has such a grand 
 scale of quantity in his prescriptions." 
 
 So Dr. Beeby spent Christmas Day in Hazell's 
 hammock, beatific with morphia, unconscious of 
 heat, flies, thirst, of the throbbing shriek of the 
 cicada, of the irritating darkness of the room. 
 
 The squatter looked at him ruefully as he dined 
 alone, wondering whether he had gained much of a 
 social kind from the lank presence in tusser-silk 
 which lay so unresponsive. He forced himself to 
 think of his pastoral prospects. The season was 
 magnificent : there were water and grass in abun- 
 dance ; the stock were in fine condition ; Soy Ching 
 was in great content. 
 
 Hazell ate his turkey with tolerable satisfaction ; 
 then came the pudding, flaming in brandy, to the 
 alarm of the insect contingent. Mrs. Brock brought 
 it in herself with a smile. 
 
 " And there's the ring and everything proper in 
 it," she said, with pure self-approbation. 
 
 " Beeby, you bilious object, wake up and take 
 your chance of matrimony ! " Hazell shouted.
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 285 
 
 The doctor raised his emaciated head to shake it, 
 and perceived the position. 
 
 " The luck of the tribe and the tent to yourself," 
 he answered ; " my kingdom is of dreams." 
 
 Hazell swore aloud, cut the pudding, and found 
 in his slice the bachelor's button. The discovery 
 affected him sorely. He flung the offending morsel 
 over the recumbent doctor into the garden, and on 
 an extraordinary impulse went to the bureau to 
 write these hasty words : 
 
 " DEAR MRS. BOLITHO, 
 
 " An anxious man addresses himself to your 
 uncommon penetration, and ventures to ask you a 
 question very important to him. When can he best 
 come to your house to see Miss Fletcher alone ? A 
 candid reply to this will tell me much. 
 
 " Yery truly yours, 
 
 " RALPH HAZELL." 
 
 It was the most hasty note he had ever written 
 in his life. Mrs. Brock appeared with the cheese, 
 and was astounded by his request that a special mes- 
 senger be despatched at once to Wamagatta. 
 
 " But, dear me, it couldn't be done on Christmas 
 night, not ever so ! " she answered. " They're all 
 keeping Christmas, and only myself and Passiflora 
 in the house, and she's going out directly your table 
 is cleared to a tea and bit of a dance down the 
 Creek. Unless it's Soy Ching, who's nothing to 
 boast of on a horse, smoking his pipe at the kitchen- 
 door, there isn't a creature handy. It couldn't wait 
 for the post till after to-morrow, I suppose ? "
 
 286 HEAKTS IMPOBTUNATE 
 
 Hazell laughed with vexation, and waved the 
 matter aside. 
 
 " And the doctor," said Mrs. Brock ; " won't he 
 eat pudding, neither ? " 
 
 " No ; he's worse than Soy Ching, he won't even 
 smoke a pipe for the occasion. He'll want about 
 a quart of hot milk presently. But he's waking 
 up." 
 
 " And did you get anything, Mr. Hazell ? " in- 
 quired the creator of the pudding archly. 
 
 "Nothing," he replied promptly, and reflected 
 afterward with much self-scorn that the kitchen 
 would miss the button and grin over his poor lie. 
 
 He burnt the letter, and in a rage shook Beeby 
 out of the hammock, demanding of him some sort 
 of melody for his own heaviness. 
 
 " I asked you here for Christmas, man," he said, 
 " not for the Commination Service or the Dies irce ! 
 At least, let us have some ghost stories." 
 
 The doctor demanded hot milk, and thus fortified, 
 delivered himself of his experiences in witchcraft 
 and black-fellows' magic till his host was shy about 
 going to bed. 
 
 The New Year came. When the gaieties of it 
 might be presumed overpast, and an unrelated 
 call was decently possible, Hazell summoned up his 
 courage, invoked his gods, and set out to storm the 
 fortress of Diana's heart. 
 
 He reached Wamagatta about five o'clock on a 
 burning afternoon, and found Mrs. Bengough only 
 at home. It was a rebuff, but he disregarded it, 
 and asked to see her. She received him in a sit-
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 28T 
 
 ting-room at an end of the house which looked 
 southeast, and so lay in shadow. The room was 
 new to him, but its proper tenancy flashed into his 
 mind, and tingling nerves and leaping pulse ac- 
 knowledged the intimate atmosphere of Avis. He 
 glanced round. Her violin, her spinning-wheel, 
 her heaped-up writing-table, her assortment of 
 riding-whips, her mother ! He bowed with a full 
 heart, and his habitual briskness of speech was ex- 
 aggerated to abruptness in the words : 
 
 " So very good of you to see me. I feel one has 
 no right to make any social appearance when a hot 
 wind is upon us ; but I started early, before the un- 
 speakable thing got up and smote us." 
 
 " The goodness, surely, is on the part of those 
 who brave it," was the answer, in soft penetrating 
 tones, and the lady rose in stately cordiality to 
 greet him. 
 
 Soft silk, cream-coloured, fell about her in pleas- 
 ant folds, a silver belt confined it easily at the 
 waist, the neck was worked in silver thread, the 
 complexion unalterably fresh, the iron-grey masses 
 piled above the luminous brown eyes, made Juno, 
 stepping downwards on the hill of life, fair to see. 
 The warmth of her hand-clasp touched him yet 
 further. Here was no stranger, here was sympathy 
 and understanding his mother as well as hers 
 the eternal mother, whom one meets sometimes in- 
 corporate, to one's comfort. 
 
 " The drawing-room gets the western sun, and I 
 fled from it," she said. " The others, braver than 
 I, have gone out to amuse themselves by taking
 
 2S8 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 honey from the tree. They said the hill would 
 protect them from the worst of the blast. For my 
 part, the buzzing of bereaved bees would add the 
 last straw to this horror of heat. I have an Eng- 
 lish prejudice that a wind should be cool and a tree 
 shady." 
 
 "A prejudice," rejoined Hazell, "which is, I 
 think, one of our very happiest, as Englishmen. I 
 rank it in value with that of the blessed inexperi- 
 ence of youth that all women are angels. I may 
 say this without offence ? " 
 
 She smiled. " We have both learnt worse," she 
 answered. " I hope you drove under cover ? " 
 
 " I did nothing so sensible. I rode a tiresome 
 beast a new purchase who raised my temperature 
 most unnecessarily by treating me to his particular 
 vice." 
 
 " A powerful horse to have any vice left in him 
 to-day. It was a hundred and six degrees in the 
 verandah at lunch-time. What is this vice ? " 
 
 " One quite new to me. The perverse creature, 
 without any warning, lays his head back, so that 
 no bit has any effect ; and, in fact, there's nothing 
 left to pull at or take effect upon ; and so he bolts, 
 blindly. Luckily it was on the road, and the road 
 was clear, and after a couple of miles he quieted 
 down. I must ride him with a martingale. They 
 told me so when I bought him, but I thought my 
 I call it fourteen stone, Mrs. Bengough, would 
 damp his ardour sufficiently." 
 
 " You should not risk your life." 
 
 " Oh, there's no one to whom it matters very
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 289 
 
 much," he answered cheerfully, above the incurable 
 longing. 
 
 Children's voices came in at the open window. 
 
 " Our successors are playing under the grape- 
 vines, getting an appetite for their tea," said Mrs. 
 Bengough, smiling happily in recognition of her 
 son's unmodulated yell. "They are bound in 
 honour not to go beyond the shelter of the trellis ; 
 indeed, there's plenty of room for more than three 
 such atoms of humanity glorious, long, thick 
 vines!" 
 
 " I hope they are allowed to eat the grapes ? " 
 
 " In limits ; there are stones. My daughter eats 
 enough for all of them. I should be ashamed to 
 guess how many pounds she disposes of in a week." 
 
 " Oh ! As a matter of fact, Mrs. Bengough, it 
 was your daughter I came to see to-day. I want 
 her to eat my grapes ; I want her to dispose of me. 
 I have spoken to her already not altogether un- 
 successfully, I tell myself ; but something came be- 
 tween us. I am a stranger to you ; you may not 
 even have heard my name. Your favour would be 
 of the greatest service to me, but I am afraid I can- 
 not hope to have it on so short notice." 
 
 A flush flickered on the face of each as their eyes 
 met. His words were impetuous, and the strong 
 magnetism of the strong man mantled round her as 
 he leaned toward her, his hands opening in in- 
 voluntary request. A sense of sympathy fell in- 
 stantly upon him as she answered graciously, with 
 kindling look : 
 
 " I knew it, Mr. Hazell, and you are not so
 
 290 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 much a stranger to me as you think. I have heard 
 your name in England. My husband's brother is a 
 soldier. May I say that what I heard commanded 
 my respect ? Men make the world so hard for 
 women! Perhaps you realise this. More likely, 
 though, you acted nobly from a noble nature, un- 
 consciously. Perhaps I should ask your pardon for 
 mention of what must be painful to you, but you 
 have come so near to me when you approach my 
 daughter " 
 
 "I understand, I understand," he said hastily, 
 turning away his head. " And that is over. Until 
 I met your daughter, I thought it never could be 
 over." 
 
 " I trust it may be quite forgotten. Most of us, 
 Mr. Hazell, have something to forget." She paused 
 a moment, then continued firmly : " Life has been 
 very bitter for my Avis, but I believe indeed, I do 
 believe that she is all the worthier for its bitter- 
 
 He interrupted the earnest, touching speech 
 angrily : 
 
 "Oh! I couldn't teU you how worthy I think 
 her ! It's not only her beauty, though I am but 
 mortal, and that is much. Do you suppose have 
 you any reason to suppose she cares for me at 
 all?" 
 
 " Ought I to answer you, I wonder ? " 
 
 His expression was almost fierce in its demand. 
 
 " She did not tell me ; but, speaking only for my- 
 self, I do suppose she cares." 
 
 " Ha ! " he exclaimed, with a deep breath, and
 
 HEAETS IMPORTUNATE 291 
 
 leaned back in his chair and looked about the room. 
 His face relaxed into a blissful smile. 
 
 Avis Fletcher's mother observed him closely. 
 
 "Mr. Hazell," she began, gently urgent, "we 
 cannot make the past of those we love, but I think 
 we love them as they are." 
 
 He interrupted her again. He spoke from his 
 own point of view. 
 
 " There is no past ! " he said obstinately. " There 
 is only a future in which I want her for my own. 
 If she will not share it, then" he clenched his 
 teeth " there is no future nothing ! " He paused, 
 adding : " Nothing but a dead grind from day to 
 day ; the sort of thing I have lived through lately." 
 
 She said, as if to herself : "A fiery pair ! " 
 
 " I have been a soldier, madam. I can stand fire." 
 
 Quick feet came along the passage, and Avis, in 
 a white dress and shady hat of white, showed her- 
 self in the doorway. 
 
 " Well, mamma dear, we got pounds of honey, 
 and only one man was stung," she began. " You 
 don't deserve it, but I ran you off some in my pan- 
 nikin, and you can go and eat it instantly, in the 
 drawing-room, and make yourself thirsty with gum- 
 sugar." Then, perceiving Hazell, who stood to 
 meet her, the playful words ceased, and her colour 
 changed. He bowed, and suggested, with a laugh, 
 awkwardly : 
 
 "Shall we shake hands?" 
 
 "With my mother's guest, in my own sitting- 
 room," she answered stiffly, and gave him a stiff 
 hand. " Come and eat your honey, mamma."
 
 292 HEARTS IMPO11TUNATE 
 
 Hazell plunged into the midst of things. 
 
 " Stay a minute, Miss Fletcher. I have come to 
 see yourself. I cannot go away without a private 
 word with you." 
 
 " I have no private words for any one," she an- 
 swered chillingly ; and her mother recognised her 
 father's passion in the instant dilatation of her 
 nostrils and her hardening line of mouth. 
 
 " Hear mine, then, please," he persisted. 
 
 She turned from him, proud and obstinate. 
 
 " Mother, this gentleman and I have had private 
 words already more than once, and I have finished 
 with him. This is persecution." 
 
 " Oh, Avis, hardly that, I think ! I will leave 
 you both a moment." 
 
 Gentleness never failed with Avis, and she yielded 
 to her mother's gentle tone and glance and let her 
 go alone, but took her own place standing by the 
 window, and waited facing him, hostile and im- 
 patient, for what he had to say. He looked at her, 
 desperate, and his heart burst into rough speech : 
 
 " Avis, I can't live without you ! " 
 
 " You have managed it so far." 
 
 " It isn't life. It never can be life again for me 
 unless you share it." 
 
 " Good heavens, Mr. Hazell ! How many more 
 times must I refuse you ? " 
 
 " You did care ! I swear you did ! I could not 
 be mistaken ! I think of it continually your arms, 
 your kiss. No woman could so stultify herself in 
 an instant ! " 
 
 "Yarium et mutabile semper!" answered Avis
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 293 
 
 mockingly. Then rage at the forced recollection 
 rose within her. "I am bound to answer you 
 nothing ! As I told you then, I tell you now : 
 Go!" 
 
 He would not stir. 
 
 " What is there between us ? Is it my wretched 
 past ? " 
 
 " No, you know it is not ! Your wretched past 
 is creditable glorious. Do we not honour you for 
 it, all of us?" 
 
 Her mockery cut him, but he stood firm ; every 
 mood of hers bound him further, every minute 
 spent with her, seeing her, with her influence upon 
 him, knitted his soul closer to hers. 
 
 " What is it, then ? " he cried. " I say there is a 
 bond between us at this moment a bond of body 
 and spirit, that nothing while we live can ever 
 break that is what there is between us ! " 
 
 Avis started as though he had struck her. She 
 flung her right hand toward him as though she 
 flung off all reserve, and answered him wildly : 
 
 " My own past is a gulf that I will never over- 
 step ! " 
 
 He came nearer. "J overstep it, blindly and 
 boldly ! You are not some one else's wife ? " 
 
 Shaking with the fateful meaning of the words, 
 she gave him up her secret : " JSTo, I am not, and 
 the world said that was my shame ! " 
 
 " The world shame ! It's you I want, love 
 will have ! " he cried, and stepped forward to seize 
 her. 
 
 She shrank back quicklier yet.
 
 294 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 " You don't understand ! Why do you make it 
 so hard for me ? The world was right. I ought 
 to have been some one else's wife. I was a child ; 
 he died " 
 
 His eyes flamed. He stood a minute weighing 
 her words, then : 
 
 " What do I care for that ? I have been some 
 one else's husband." 
 
 He caught at her hands, but she drew them 
 away, putting them up beseechingly. 
 
 " Ah, but I care for you ! " she answered in a 
 voice that thrilled with passion, and her golden head 
 sank. "Leave me." Her voice broke. "Never 
 come here, or I must go elsewhere. Look the 
 other way when we meet. It was impossible un- 
 less I told you, and now I have told you, I will 
 never willingly see you again." 
 
 She steadied herself an instant by the window- 
 frame, as though she must cling to something, then 
 escaped his reach, passing into the inner room. He 
 could not follow. He stood staring at the empti- 
 ness, across which the potent voiceless chords, tense 
 and painful, held him fast to her. 
 
 " Avis ! " he cried, " Avis, hear me ! Don't leave 
 me!" 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 " The man is dead, you say," he cried. " That 
 saves me from killing him." 
 
 Still silence. 
 
 " Well, then, I write it here at your table, Avis, 
 with your own pen. I love you; to me you are 
 pure gold within and without. You love me; I
 
 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 295 
 
 will worship you. There is no past for either of 
 us. Come to me only come soon. I cannot tell 
 you what the waiting is." 
 
 She gave no sign of hearing. He left the writ- 
 ing, and went quickly out of the house.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A HUMAN being of high vitality, without absorb- 
 ing pursuit, whether of bread or fame, without strong 
 personal demand on affection or service, standing 
 alone, stemming in proper person the purposeful 
 flow of Nature, must ask at bitter intervals, "Why 
 was I born ? I fulfil no end. "Without offspring of 
 brain or body, why should I live ? As well to die 
 at once." 
 
 Avis Fletcher recognised herself as indispensable 
 to no one, nor was there anything she did which 
 another could not do as well. She felt no call to 
 ride barebacked for the delight of large audiences, 
 nor to spin clothing for the simple savage. Mrs. 
 Bolitho loved her, but she had sons and sons' wives 
 for her declining years. Her mother loved her oh 
 yes, in her most unreasoning moments she had no 
 doubt of her place with that wise and tender woman 
 but her mother's life was rounded and complete 
 with a husband whose look would follow her as she 
 moved about a room, a baby boy who reproduced in 
 his own blooming hazel and brown the eyes and 
 curls of his approving father. Avis, her first-born, 
 represented to her only the heavy trials of a past 
 best forgotten more, was only a trial still. Hazel 1 
 loved her, but Hazell must learn through sorrow to 
 forget her. Nothing but distress came to him also 
 through her. Avis told herself that it was her fate 
 to bring sorrow continually to her nearest and dear-
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 297 
 
 est. She wished them gone, that in absence it might 
 touch them more lightly ; but when they had gone 
 and left her, what should she do ? 
 
 Life stretched before her, rayless a long reach 
 of futile activities, of fruitless regret. She had not 
 known till now that hope of final right adjustment 
 had been at the bottom of her heart, that in her 
 blackest moments the possibility of rectification had 
 given a saving glimmer. Now that she had sent 
 her lover from her for ever, she felt herself entered 
 for the first time into steady despair. Years would 
 blunt the edge of it, of course, and she would ride 
 gradually more slowly under the gum-trees, with 
 calming pulse and shortening mental outlook, and 
 one day her place would know her no more. But it 
 seemed a long route to an inevitable port. 
 
 Avis seriously debated the advantages of a by- 
 path. Would it not be really a relief to all con- 
 cerned to know her permanently gone where the 
 wicked would cease from troubling, where she also 
 would cease from troubling those she loved ? There 
 was, on the other hand, their agony of shock, their 
 grief which in such circumstances is, perhaps, the 
 greatest that her own agony should have been 
 found unbearable. Yet why should she live on till 
 her gold grew grey and her firm tissues shrank ? 
 The end was inadequate. She balanced the points 
 at issue coolly. Sad, beautiful words haunted her : 
 
 ' Oh, but thou dost not know 
 
 What 'tis to die I ' 
 ' Yes, I do know, my lord : 
 
 Tis less than to be born : a lasting sleep,
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 A quiet resting from all jealousy, 
 
 A thing we all pursue. I know, besides, 
 
 It is but giving over of a game 
 
 That must be lost 1 ' " 
 
 The fancy pleased her. The simple melody rang 
 in her ears. The argument almost persuaded her. 
 Giving over of a game that must be lost. "Why 
 not ? There would be no disgrace in it. "We praise 
 those who play a losing game, but they do so with 
 a hope, though it be only by the last stroke, of 
 some glorious retrieval. She had nothing to re- 
 trieve. 
 
 Her mood, which she thought her own secret, 
 was better understood than she guessed, though it 
 so dulled her perception that she found nothing 
 strange in the fact that she was seldom alone. Mr. 
 Bengough rode with her continually, and his silence 
 was amazingly friendly. "When he spoke it was 
 usually with some suggestion of interest calculated 
 to set the mind roaming to far countries or absorb- 
 ing policies, and though he seemed to give little atten- 
 tion to his companion, he was ever ready with the 
 cheerful, unasked offices of a man whose polite 
 training has been that of a woman he delights to 
 please. In the sultry evenings he would drag her 
 forth with him, each with a gun, to find the dread- 
 ful, elusive morepork, whose low, ceaseless cry 
 rasped listening nerves to rawness. The owl, of 
 course, was never found, but Avis slept the better 
 for the search. 
 
 Her mother and Mrs. Bolitho demanded her wits 
 in planning out a tour among the South Sea Islands,
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 299 
 
 and they read aloud from books about them, de- 
 bating their attractions with those of Japan, show- 
 ing extraordinary liveliness in the discussion. Mrs. 
 Bolitho, who could share in no prolonged excur- 
 sion, would declare her jealousy of the project; 
 Mrs. Bengough, without a sign of shrinking, would 
 assure her of the consoling care of Thomas Edward 
 in their absence. The place was full of guide-books. 
 Eddy wrote for an analysis of cocoanut-milk and 
 bananas, which, he stated, provided all that was 
 necessary for the support of life in tropical heat. 
 
 Avis did not know how good they were to her. 
 Her stepfather was greatly bored by aimless so- 
 journ in the Bush in the month of January, but he 
 made no moan; he understood perhaps chiefly 
 from his wife's contemplated parting from Thomas 
 Edward that much was at stake, and he had not 
 so completely as most men of his age forgotten his 
 own youth and the throes of it. But he found the 
 days monotonous. If he was to be roasted alive, he 
 would rather see something new for his pains. The 
 South Sea Islands, though hotter, would be pref- 
 erable, and there was nothing like travel had he 
 not proved it ? for a mind diseased. 
 
 They decided finally, one day at lunch, to leave 
 Sydney for Fiji a week later. Avis, still debating 
 the pros and cons of her own violent death, agreed 
 to the trip. Elucidating circumstances might arise 
 in it fever, a fall overboard; anyhow, for the 
 moment it was pleasing them. 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho, in her genial way, sent for a bottle 
 of special wine to drink luck to the voyage ; her
 
 300 HEAETS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 husband framed the toast, and added well-known 
 details of well-known heroism with the glass. 
 
 " One just one, and no more, at luncheon, sir. 
 That's what it is to be an old fellow. I remember 
 the days when I could take a bottle of port this 
 time of day and go about my business none the 
 worse for it." 
 
 " I never shared your powers, Mr. Bolitho always 
 had a miserable weak head. Tea suits me best," 
 said Eddy Bengough. 
 
 " Head, sir ? Like a rock ! Steady as my hand ! 
 Once only, in my recollection, did I take I won't 
 say, you will observe, too much, because I confess 
 I generally took what you young fellows nowadays 
 would call too much but more than I could carry. 
 It was a December day, most bitin' cold. "We were 
 huntin' the Devon and Cornwall. I had made an 
 early start, almost before it was light, and had rid- 
 den nine or ten miles to the meet at Black Wilmin'- 
 ton ; and ridin' and knockin' about and kickin' our 
 heels all the morning, by one o'clock we found our- 
 selves " 
 
 "Why, here's Caradon! It's not his day ! Can 
 he want lunch ? " interrupted Mrs. Bolitho, as her 
 son appeared on the verandah. She had heard the 
 tale a thousand times before. Avis and the Ben- 
 goughs also must know every point of it. " Come in, 
 my dear," she continued. "What will you have?" 
 
 The young man, in coat and breeches of white 
 linen, entered through the window and bowed to 
 the company, wiping his brown face. 
 
 " I'm too hot for contact," he said. " Tea, please,
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 301 
 
 mother biggest cup you've got. I don't mind 
 about eating anything. I see you take tea, Mr. 
 Bengough." 
 
 "Old Bushman," was the answer. 
 
 " Yes. Thanks, mother. I say, do you people 
 here know anything about Hazell Hazell of Burra- 
 bindar?" 
 
 The name, so near their thoughts continually, 
 startled them all but the old host. Involuntarily, 
 fearfully, Mr. Bengough glanced at Avis, whose 
 hand clenched itself round the fork she held. 
 
 "Well," resumed Caradon, getting no reply, "I 
 take it you don't know. It seems he's lost." 
 
 " Lost ! How can he be lost ? Do you mean 
 Bushed ? " demanded Mrs. Bolitho hurriedly. 
 
 " Bushed ! Come to grief somehow disappeared. 
 Went out as usual yesterday morning, riding that 
 brute Marzipan (brute that smashed up Farren, you 
 know) without a martingale. Didn't come home to 
 dinner nobody's business, of course. Didn't come 
 home all night no fuss made by any one : had been 
 known to stay somewhere all night before this, and 
 turn up in the morning to give an account of him- 
 self. This morning, about nine o'clock, one of the 
 riders discovered Marzipan, saddled, reins broken, 
 taking his ease in the Jericho paddock, about a mile 
 and a half from the house. No sign of Hazell. 
 Horse quite cool. Nothing to show how long he 
 had been there, nothing to show anything. Search 
 began. Four men out. One of them sighted me in 
 our run Currajing Paddock and came up to ask 
 if I knew anything. I came on here."
 
 302 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " God bless my soul ! Why, anything may have 
 happened ! " said Mr. Bolitho, keenly interested. 
 
 His wife glanced at Avis, who looked bleached 
 and stony. The tone of her hair was discordant 
 with her face ; her eyes were toward her plate. 
 
 " Sunstroke ? " queried Eddy. 
 
 "Not likely," answered Caradon. "Oh no! 
 That brute Marzipan " 
 
 "Mr. Hazell is a fair horseman, surely?" said the 
 soft, penetrating voice of Mrs. Bengough. 
 
 " Good enough," replied the young man, " but 
 not good enough for Marzipan without a martin- 
 gale. He's the most eccentric brute got a trick of 
 laying his head back on his shoulders, and bolting 
 for all he's worth. Farren had him before feather- 
 weight, Farren ; smashed up. Heavy-weight, Ha- 
 zell ; thought his weight might handicap him a bit." 
 
 "There are worse tricks than bolting with a 
 heavy-weight," said Mrs. Bengough. 
 
 " Depends on what part of the country you are 
 in," replied Caradon, regardless of Avis. " Burra- 
 bindar is only half cleared, and when you can't 
 steer, and your horse is going anything over 
 twenty-six miles an hour " 
 
 "Yes, yes, most certainly! By Jove! most 
 likely some bough crack your skull for you, clean as 
 a whistle!" said Mr. Bolitho. "Yesterday, you 
 say, my boy ? " 
 
 " Yesterday, sir." 
 
 Silence fell on them, while Caradon drank a third 
 cup of tea. His mother for once had no word for 
 the occasion. As her husband said, anything might
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 303 
 
 have happened ; the circumstances a bolting horse, 
 rough forest land, a heavy man, long hours of de- 
 lay, a fierce sub-tropical sun formed for each one 
 of them a mental picture uniformly disastrous for 
 Hazell. Into the mind of Avis's mother there 
 flashed a fearful recollection, that of a summer 
 afternoon in the drawing-room of an English 
 vicarage, where a beautiful sullen girl sat unregard- 
 ing, and a tall, thin clergyman, his aristocratic 
 features grey with nervous shock, threw himself 
 into an armchair and asked for brandy. He had 
 seen, he said, a young man carried home dead, his 
 head hanging horribly. He shuddered as he 
 named the fellow. A restive horse, he said. The 
 girl rose with a cry which still rang in her mother's 
 ears, and fell to the ground. There was no cry to- 
 day. The girl was a woman, and had learnt 
 silence. She rose from her seat. Her mother rose, 
 too, and with a face of awful tenderness, hurried to 
 her. Avis needed no help to-day ; her step was 
 firm. She passed them all like one answering a 
 call in her sleep, her dark eyes to the front. Per- 
 haps the past urged her. She went out ; she shut 
 the door behind her. 
 
 Mr. Bengough, watching them both, rose too, 
 and took his wife's arm gently. At his touch her 
 countenance changed, and, before them all, tears 
 rained down her cheeks. 
 
 " My word ! what have I done ? What's wrong 
 with Avis ? " Caradon exclaimed. " Does she care 
 for Hazell ? I fancied Pheenie fancied she had 
 refused him."
 
 304: HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 " Oh, hold your tongue, dense son of mine ! " his 
 mother addressed him, almost screaming. " You 
 have done mischief enough for one day ! " 
 
 " It couldn't be again, Lucia," said Eddy firmly ; 
 " the gods don't do such things." 
 
 " Oh, Eddy, who shall say ? " she answered him 
 wildly. " The ways of death and the ways of life 
 repeat themselves innumerably ! " 
 
 Mr. Bolitho looked from one to the other. 
 
 "I beg of you all I don't understand, I am 
 afraid. "What's come to us all ? Is this poor man 
 dead?" 
 
 " Spencer ! Don't you see ? For Avis's sake we 
 pray not ! " cried his wife. 
 
 The old gentleman considered a full minute. 
 
 " Ay, ay 1 Is that so indeed ? Dear me ! dear 
 me ! Poor girl ! poor girl ! Most shockin' news 
 for her. Caradon, my dear, it seems to me you've 
 blundered very considerably." 
 
 " Well, sir, I really didn't think of her at all," 
 was the reply, given in gloomy protest. " I be- 
 lieved she had refused him months ago." 
 
 " Don't harp on that, for goodness' sake ! " said 
 Mrs. Bolitho. " Is there nothing in the world but 
 asking and having ? " 
 
 "I'd leave her for a while I would indeed," 
 Eddy advised her mother. "She won't do any- 
 thing till she knows the end, either way. You 
 have nothing to suggest that she cannot suggest for 
 herself. I'll go round soon and ask her to ride out 
 with me and look about a bit." 
 
 Caradon, lighting his pipe, was heard to mutter
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 305 
 
 some statement about women and the modes of 
 them. Mrs. Bolitho leaped upon him. 
 
 " "Women, forsooth ! And are men so different ? 
 What if some one rushed in blurting that Pheenie 
 had broken her neck ? " 
 
 He turned upon her furiously. 
 
 " Mother ! " he roared, " there's no doubt where 
 I get my blundering tongue from ! " 
 
 A yell from the verandah informed them that 
 Thomas Edward was awaking from his midday 
 nap. Mrs. Bengough stepped out to take him up 
 and kiss him. Her husband, glad to escape from 
 the heavily-charged atmosphere of the went, came 
 with her. Suddenly, with his gaze on the white 
 grass-lands beyond, he exclaimed : 
 
 " There goes Avis ! She has forestalled me. I'll 
 bet you anything she goes to search for Hazell ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bolitho limped from within and approved. 
 
 " A splendid girl ! I'd have done it myself ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bengough, watching the rapid figure going 
 into the distance, thought a dozen issues out, and 
 feared at all of them. The elder woman guessed 
 her fears. She touched her hand imperatively, say- 
 ing: 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Bengough, there's only one thing to 
 do. Drive over with your husband to Burrabindar, 
 and wait for her. I shall be here you there. Our 
 Avis may defy the world ! "
 
 CHAPTEK XXII 
 
 Avis went to her room and put on her riding- 
 dress. She provided herself also with a flask of 
 strong brandy and water, a trustworthy pocket- 
 knife, matches, and a couple of large silk handker- 
 chiefs. She had to prepare for unknown needs. 
 She moved with extraordinary quickness and pre- 
 cision ; her senses seemed sharpened to a fine point 
 a far-distant sight, small, clear, as through opera- 
 glasses reversed, of Hazell, lying helpless, dead or 
 injured, in the desolate Bush. It was a sight, an 
 hallucination, a delusion, perhaps, which absorbed 
 her whole being. She could say no word, stir no 
 muscle, think no thought, that did not bear upon it, 
 lead her to his relief. She went to the stable where 
 Hajji awaited her pleasure. He received a me- 
 chanical caress. He was no longer her darling ; he 
 was merely the best means for her purpose, and she 
 was vaguely conscious of satisfaction that he and 
 no other was in the stall. She saddled him, and 
 started away at a free canter through the Wama- 
 gatta paddocks, making for the spot, eight miles 
 away, where they touched a narrow projecting slip 
 of Burrabindar. Not that he would be found there, 
 but that it would be so much to tread his own 
 ground so much the nearer ! 
 
 The afternoon was intensely hot. Her khaki 
 habit was heavy upon her ; the leaves of the white 
 
 306
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 307 
 
 box-trees were ashen in the glare. No cloud flecked 
 the depth of burning blue above. The sheep were 
 gathered in any trifle of shade ; the bloodless herb- 
 age was of a waxen white. Only here and there 
 a disgusting iguana, scuttling round a trunk, was 
 brisk in the general torpor. 
 
 Avis looked to neither side. Her face was pale 
 in the shadow of her hat, with introspective eyes 
 and drawn nerves about the lips and nostrils. She 
 thought intensely, but it was one thought Hazell 
 lying helpless. She was driven irresistibly ; but it 
 was not consciously love or anxiety which drove 
 her, rather a cord was fastened closely round her 
 heart (she felt its constriction), which drew her 
 ruthlessly toward him, wherever he might be. 
 Misunderstanding, anger, bitterness had no more 
 existence ; to go to him, that was all. Who shall 
 say that a magnetism had not compelled her into 
 his presence on the evening when they met first ? 
 That a tie had not stretched between them there- 
 after through all their disagreements, and that now 
 one inner self, in dire necessity, stripped of social 
 accidents, did not grapple the other to him with 
 hooks of steel ? 
 
 Once on Burrabindar, perplexity intruded. The 
 news of his disappearance had given no clue of di- 
 rection. He might be fallen on any spot in all his 
 sun-drenched leagues. There were creeks which 
 might hide him among coarse grass and rocks ; hill- 
 tops that might hold him up to the brazen sky ; 
 flats, badly cleared, where a solitary searcher might 
 wander at length among a confusion of timber.
 
 308 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 She had no knowledge of his customary round, nor 
 any notion but the roughest of the lie of his land, 
 nor any idea of what work he might be at the mo- 
 ment particularly overlooking. But her horse was 
 tireless ; her eye was trained by years of riding 
 through gum-forest. Every sense was sharpened, 
 and there was the strange constraining cord which, 
 as though his hand held it, must guide her rightly. 
 
 Impatient of gates, she took the boundary fence, 
 glanced round, gave a premonitory cooee, and 
 strained to catch a reply. By and by an answering 
 cry reached her. She followed it, and found a 
 rider searching like herself. There were three 
 others out, he told her had been out since morn- 
 ing, soon after the grey was found and the alarm 
 given. All the paddocks within five miles of the 
 house had been examined. The other men were 
 now following the several creeks to the confines of 
 the run ; there remained the further ridge yet un- 
 explored. He would take the one end of it, if she 
 would perhaps take the other, and they might meet 
 along the top. 
 
 Suddenly she remembered to have heard Hazell 
 say he liked the view from the extreme spur of the 
 range. She raised her whip toward it. 
 
 " Yes, I will go there," she said. 
 
 " It's a climb, but your horse is fresher than 
 mine," he said. 
 
 He told in the tavern afterward that she spoke in 
 a voice like a knife, and sat her animal in one piece. 
 
 It was a new experience for Hajji ; always be- 
 fore, harmonious though they were, there had been
 
 HEAKTS IMPORTUNATE 309 
 
 between him and his mistress a consciousness of 
 two pieces, mutually appreciative, giving and tak- 
 ing, with demand and response. To-day he was 
 the instrument of an inflexible purpose. He had 
 merely to obey. He accepted the position: he 
 bounded like a wave with her across the burning 
 grass, and tried the hillside cheerfully. 
 
 The sun sank as they climbed, spreading his usual 
 cloudless transparency of crimson, and the leather- 
 heads quavered to each other in the tree-tops. No 
 coolness fell upon the earth, which breathed out its 
 own heat, and lay impervious in it. 
 
 Hajji's neat feet made many a slip among the 
 loose stones ; his sides heaved without undue ur- 
 gency, yet he knew his best pace was required of 
 him. There was no yielding in his rider; still 
 steady demand. But Avis felt her quest was nearly 
 over ; dead or alive, her lover, her beloved, was 
 close at hand. Up the weary limestone slabs, steep, 
 slippery, clinging to the pommel, swerving from 
 the boughs, her glance about her everywhere, pre- 
 cautionary, but the magic cord still drawing at her 
 heart ; up to the top, arid, wind-swept, grown only 
 by a poor small gum and native cherry, with rough 
 soil, marked by sheep-walks and their traces, with 
 sharp stones piercing through the thin layer of 
 mould, with an enormous view to the wide air, the 
 horizon-bounded pastoral ! 
 
 Hajji stood quivering with trembling legs. Avis 
 looked along the ridge running northward ; it was 
 serrate and irregular, heaped with boulders, a series 
 of small summits of the unkindliest and most brist-
 
 310 HEAKTS IMPOKTUNATE 
 
 ling sort. Way along them was taken on the small 
 foothold of their abrupt sides, or over their rugged 
 heads ; and wherever available depth of earth gave 
 place for roots, impeding trees grew and stretched 
 stunted arms for the discomfiture of rider or 
 walker. 
 
 A horse accident here ! Must she not find him 
 dead? She cooeed loud, repeatedly; silence an- 
 swered. The cord tightened ; its constriction rose 
 to her throat, and every fibre of her body became 
 tense. Her eyes seemed to strain with it, and felt 
 colourless in her head, as though the veins of her 
 brain were empty. She knew that her irides were 
 pale and her face white ; a chilly pricking sensation 
 ran under her hair. Invisible girders propped her 
 up stiflly in the saddle, and unconsciously she 
 rounded Hajji to the line of the ridge, and, stum- 
 bling, he picked his path where there was none. A 
 few slow yards, and he stopped short, terrified, 
 planting his forelegs wide, jarring her violently. 
 Before them from behind a heavy wall of slab, a 
 man's brown riding-boots, scarred, motionless, pro- 
 jected, horribly incongruous. Life stood still in 
 her a second, then she slipped down and tottered 
 forward, holding to the slabs, realising nothing, 
 forced to meet the horror, whatever it might be. 
 Hazell lay hatless, his eyes closed, grey-visaged, 
 his beard and temples hideous with rusty stains. 
 With a dreadful cry she sank upon his breast and 
 entered into darkness. 
 
 Such things are out of time. Presently some one 
 enfolded her, and a tremulous, dim voice said:
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 311 
 
 " You ! " It was her lover's voice ; it pierced her 
 darkness. Death, was past then, and they were to- 
 gether in the beyond. She did not stir ; there is 
 no hurry, one thinks there. Presently shaking 
 hands crept about her face and neck, weak and un- 
 skilful. The sunset chill touched her brow, vivify- 
 ing ; with a pulse of agony, life returned to her 
 from its suspense. She raised her head to find it 
 bare, with its golden growth mantling her shoul- 
 ders, and his fingers in it ; and out of the shrunken 
 grey, his eyes alive upon her, and the stained beard 
 quivering with a smile. She flung her arms up, 
 circling the wounded head, and her cry rang out : 
 
 " Are we not in the for ever and ever, Ralph ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said feebly ; " oh, yes ! " And again 
 his arms enclosed her gently. 
 
 As they waited in the darkness, his confused and 
 aching head pillowed softly, his cold hand clasped 
 in hers, his broken leg propped at the least ago- 
 nising angle, they agreed to part no more. While 
 he should be ill, as he must be, she must care for 
 him ; if he were to die twenty-four hours' pain 
 and fasting bring the strongest to some thought of 
 death she could spare no other moment of his dear 
 society. The understanding made in few words, 
 for his shaken brain was unready, they waited even 
 happily. 
 
 In course of time there came relief, and the long 
 torture of getting him down the hillside and so 
 home. As the dawn broke, he was free of surgical 
 attendance. He turned his exhausted face toward 
 Mrs. Bengough, and, looking at her imploringly,
 
 312 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 sought words to ask for what was in his heart. She 
 brought her daughter with a smile, and took a 
 hand of each and placed one in the other. So, 
 through deep waters, Ralph and Avis Hazell en- 
 tered into the haven where they would be. 
 
 THE END.
 
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