,' 
 
 av 
 
 MARION 
 MILLER 
 KNOWLES
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 CORINNE OF CORRALL'S 
 BLUFF
 
 CORINNE OF CORRALL'S 
 BLUFF 
 
 BY 
 
 MARION MILLER KNOWLES 
 
 'bongs from the Hills" (two editions), "Fronds from the Blacks' 
 Spar," "Varbara Hattiday," etc. 
 
 Melbourne: 
 
 W. P. LJNEHAN, LITTLE COLLINS STREET 
 1912
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PR 
 
 CHAPTER I. A Daughter of Neptune I 
 
 II. The Warning of the Sea 14 
 
 III. Powder and Paint and the Sheen 
 
 of Gems 25 
 
 IV. "I'll Brave the Raging of the Skies, 
 
 but not an Angry Father" . 38 
 
 V. The Shoals of Circumstance . . 55 
 
 VI. The Burial of a Ring 64 
 
 VII. In After Years 72 
 
 VIII. Knights in Armour 81 
 
 IX. With the Sunset Glory on the Sea 90 
 
 X. Pearls for Tears, Diamonds for 
 
 Constancy IOO 
 
 XI. Sir Hugh Receives an Answer . . 108 
 
 XII. A Road Encounter 118 
 
 XIII. Betwixt and Between 131 
 
 XIV. The Return of Sir Hugh 
 
 Lowenthal 142 
 
 XV. The Cap and Mask of Any Stage 159 
 
 XVI. Isabel at Home Again 168 
 
 XVII. The Absconding of Martha . . . . 178 
 
 XVIII. In the Shadow of the Sword Rock 188 
 
 1521010
 
 *C%e Advocate Press 
 284 Lonsdale St. 
 SMe I b o u r n
 
 Corinne of Corrall s BlufF 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A DAUGHTER OF NEPTUNE. 
 
 "Her only music was the voice of waves, 
 Her playthings were the shells she found in rocky caves ; 
 Imagination on a seagull's wing 
 
 Flew with her yearning thoughts, and taught her every- 
 thing!" 
 
 Knowing nothing of any country save Australia, 
 but born in a lighthouse, and reared on the rocks 
 with the seagulls, with ancestry behind her whose 
 lives had been precariously spent as fishermen in 
 wave-lashed islands off the coast of France, Corinne 
 Courboules looked a typical sailor's daughter, with 
 her bright, boyish face, wide-opened, frank blue 
 eyes, and lithe, erect figure, of an easy swinging 
 grace, that suggested strength of muscle as of char- 
 acter. 
 
 Sebastien Courboules, it is true, had spent most 
 of his reckless existence on the goldfields, not on 
 
 A
 
 2 CORINNE 
 
 the sea, but when more ill-luck than good had fol- 
 lowed on his footsteps, and the energy of youth had 
 deserted his big frame, the memories of boyhood, 
 ever restless, ever surging over his heart, had sent 
 him coastwards, craving for a touch of salt spray 
 on his face and the familiar voice of the sea in his 
 world-weary ears. 
 
 As a lighthouse-keeper he lived contentedly 
 enough for some years; then his wife died and an 
 only son, Antoine, followed her. Then Sebastien's 
 heart began to wither within him, and he grew tired 
 of the lonely days within the lighthouse ; so, having 
 saved a little money, he "bought out" the owner of 
 the refreshment rooms further up the coast, where, 
 during the summer season, tourists came from all 
 parts for weeks, and even months, at a time, and 
 anyone with business capacities could manage to 
 make a good livelihood out of them. 
 
 The refreshment rooms were situated on the most 
 sheltered part of Corrall's Bluff, and had been 
 strongly, if not very picturesquely, built. On the 
 seaward side the rocks were high, rough and 
 jagged, and, in wild weather, the waves dashed 
 furiously against their bulwarks and flung their 
 spray in glistening fountains within touch of the 
 house itself. In mild weather the hollows inside 
 these rocks were the haunts of admiring families, 
 who did their best to destroy their natural beauty 
 by probing the opalescent pools to drag forth sea- 
 weed and shells and unfortunate shellfish, as well as
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 3 
 
 other trophies of their restless energies. Most of 
 these tourists went in for a regular course of sea- 
 bathing, and on the ravenous appetites thus engen- 
 dered, the Courboules depended for their means of 
 living. They supplied every sort of meal required, 
 and at all hours. As Sebastien grew older and 
 feebler, the bulk of the work fell almost entirely on 
 Corinne. The only coffee palace was over a mile 
 away, and it was the general thing for visitors 
 accommodated there to spend the whole day out on 
 the beach, and patronise "Old Sebastien's" for lun- 
 cheon, afternoon tea, and "soft" drinks. 
 
 So Corinne saw plenty of company of a kind, and, 
 as she was a girl of quick intelligence and very 
 adaptable, she soon picked up a fair amount of 
 education. Her father had not troubled himself 
 much about her "schooling," as she was "only a 
 girl," but he had taught her his own language well 
 enough to enable her to speak it correctly, and with 
 the proper accent, whenever occasion required ; and 
 he had taught her how to read better than any 
 ordinary teacher could have done, and also how to 
 distinguish good literature from bad. She always 
 welcomed the proffered loan of a book from a sea- 
 side visitor with eagerness, though her time for 
 reading was necessarily limited ; and when she had 
 an hour or two at her disposal, she would take it 
 with her, seek out one of her favourite rocky 
 haunts, and devour its contents. Returning, she 
 would breast the wind with wild exhilaration in her
 
 4 CORINNE 
 
 healthy young blood glad to be alive, feeling 
 glorious possibilities awaiting her, wondering how, 
 and when, and where the romance of life would find 
 her, and whether it would be her woman's lot to 
 "love and suffer bitter woe," or "to the uttermost 
 parts of earth to go, unloving and unloved." 
 
 Sometimes she would swim as far out in the 
 threatening waves as she dared, glorying in her 
 strength of lung and limb, and in her capacity for 
 venturing each. Ambition, stirring in her awaken- 
 ing woman's nature, prompted her to seize all of the 
 good of living that she legitimately could. Ambition 
 made her interested in everybody and everything; 
 she wanted to learn all that could be taught from 
 the human and the natural around her. 
 
 For this reason, she listened to the longest- 
 winded yarn without being tired; for this reason, 
 she examined closely every object of nature that 
 came in her way. Though she loved the sea with 
 all the strength of her beautiful young body, she 
 hoped one day to travel away from it far, far inland, 
 into the great world's heart, to see the "life" she 
 had so often heard her father speak of to wan- 
 derers who, like himself, had had their little "day." 
 
 Boys' books of adventure and volumes of travel 
 were her delight breathing, as they did, of dangers 
 to be met with and combated, of the customs of 
 strange peoples to be dared and conquered. Sebas- 
 tien little knew how his daughter's brain teemed 
 with romantic fancies! He was stern and exacting,
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 5 
 
 but expected nothing more from her than domestic 
 duties, performed with filial affection and respect. 
 He did not tell her the curious tales and legends 
 that he told the men, who were never weary of his 
 stories and remembrances of France. But they 
 reached her ears, all the same, and gave colour to 
 the dull routine of the busy days at Corrall's Bluff. 
 
 That Corinne should, and must, marry, was a 
 fixed idea in her father's mind. His shrewd old eyes 
 were ever on the watch for a suitable suitor, and it 
 nettled him more than Corinne knew that she put 
 on her most offhand manner whenever an admirer 
 approached her. The thought of her being left to 
 fight the world alone after his death was becoming 
 more and more of a nightmare to him; yet it was 
 too late to risk the little he had in a business in a 
 more thickly-populated district. It was a consola- 
 tion to him that Corinne possessed at least one 
 suitor who had the power to provide her with a com- 
 fortable home, should she not say him nay. 
 
 Jim Barr was the son of the proprietor of the 
 coffee palace a popular young fellow enough, but 
 rather plain of feature and slow of speech. Corinne 
 never gave him a second thought, and he knew it; 
 but he worshipped her in his quiet way, and never 
 let an opportunity pass of "drawing up" at the Bluff 
 when out driving or riding. He had the usual 
 country store and hotel combined, and assisted his 
 father in between whiles, when business was brisk 
 in the tourist season. He dressed better than most
 
 6 CORINNE 
 
 of the folk about the scattered district, and quar- 
 relled with no man. To Sebastien's observant mind 
 he was "solid and square" the sort of man who 
 made a faithful husband and a good provider. So 
 he always made him heartily welcome, however 
 often he called. But he couldn't force Corinne to 
 admire the big, silent man, strive how he would, and 
 "the courting" progressed very slowly. 
 
 One unusually hot summer Corrall's Bluff was 
 so crowded with visitors from the city that old 
 James Barr had to send two of the "overflow" down 
 to the refreshment rooms to see if "a shakedown" 
 could be made up for them at Sebastien's till he had 
 a vacancy for them. Corinne strongly objected, as 
 she had her hands full as it was, and no practical 
 help but that of a friend's little girl of twelve, who 
 was on a visit to her. However, Sebastien, who was 
 beginning to get greedy after florins, desired her to 
 oblige Barr by managing for a week, and she reluc- 
 tantly fixed up the only private sitting-room they 
 possessed for the young men, who said they were 
 medical students from Melbourne. 
 
 Corinne took very little notice of the strangers 
 for a day or so, apart from attending to their meals, 
 which she served up as daintily as she knew how; 
 then she suddenly became aware that the elder of 
 the two possessed quite a remarkable share of good 
 looks, and, moreover, that his full, dark eyes had a 
 way of looking into hers that was, to say the least 
 of it, embarrassing.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 7 
 
 To find herself blushing under any man's gaze 
 was annoying in the extreme to Corinne; so she 
 promptly gave Hugh Allingham "the cold shoulder" 
 in her own breezy way, and addressed any remarks 
 she felt called upon to utter to his friend, Laurence 
 Hayes, who, though of a less reserved type, never 
 seemed to trouble himself with gazing at her. But, 
 however coolly she treated Hugh Allingham, it made 
 no difference in his very evident admiration for her. 
 To all appearances, he had fallen hopelessly in love 
 with her. When the week ended, he manifested no 
 desire to remind James Barr of his promise to make 
 room for him and his companion, but announced to 
 Sebastien his intention of remaining a month if he 
 saw his way to still accommodate himself and 
 friend, as he had so satisfactorily done so far. They 
 would "give no trouble," he said, and they were 
 willing to pay as much again, in order that they 
 might be allowed to remain in their comfortable 
 quarters. 
 
 "Oh, father, it is unreasonable of you to expect 
 me to bother about them when there is so much to 
 do!" Corinne expostulated; but old Sebastien had 
 taken a liking to the two gentlemanly young fellows, 
 and would not hear of their being turned adrift. 
 
 "Rosalie can stay on as long as she likes, and 
 help you. What is her home? Bah! Her poor 
 mother is only too glad for us to give her her bite 
 and sup. I will pay her a shilling or two, and she 
 will work like the women work in my country, and 
 not grumble. She is fat, she is strong a little
 
 8 CORINNE 
 
 pony. A soft word and a bit of sugar will carry her 
 far." 
 
 Corinne's feet ached at nights to an intensity of 
 pain, and having to stay in the close room where 
 lemonades and ginger-ales had to be served without 
 ceasing was paling the rose on her cheek, and tak- 
 ing the brightness from her eye; but she said no 
 more, and made the best of things as they were. A 
 sea-bath was her means of recuperation when the 
 day had taken too much out of her. To slip away 
 down to the shore when others were turning into 
 bed, and let the waves fling her about as they 
 would, was her chief pleasure, and kept her in health. 
 Sebastien, once so careful that she should not over- 
 work herself, now seemed never satisfied unless she 
 was continually on the move. But she did not feel 
 aggrieved at this change in him ; she put it down to 
 the increasing infirmities of age, which spoil both 
 the temper and the digestion. She knew how he 
 inwardly grieved over the loss of his son, and was 
 at all times very gentle with him. With all her 
 own heart she craved for the companionship, love, 
 and protection of a brother, and often wept in secret 
 over the loss of Antoine; but her nature was bright 
 with the hopefulness of youth, and the poetry in her 
 soul found vent in the constant repetition of the 
 beautiful litanies of her Church. Antoine was an 
 angel ; perhaps he would guard her better so. 
 
 Old Sebastien laid no claims to being at all reli- 
 gious, but in his mellower moods he had talked of
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 9 
 
 days when he had been an altar-boy in France, and 
 had said, not without emotion, that whenever he 
 thought of his mother he saw her always in the same 
 position kneeling before a large crucifix hanging 
 on her bedroom wall. When much agitated, the old 
 man prayed aloud in French; but, alas! when he 
 was enraged he also cursed in French, speaking so 
 rapidly, however, that it was impossible for any 
 but his own countrymen to understand a single word 
 he said which was very fortunate, for him as for 
 his hearer! He liked his daughter to be devout 
 as what man does not, be he pagan or Christian? 
 Still, the fact that Jim Barr was a Protestant did not 
 seem to trouble him. Perhaps he thought, as so 
 many thought in the good old times, that it rested 
 with the wife what the husband was. 
 
 On the other hand, when his daughter did medi- 
 tate on the Sacrament of Matrimony, she always 
 vowed to herself, as to God, that she would never 
 marry any man who was not of her own faith, 
 however much she might love him. This deter- 
 mination had not been implanted in her mind by 
 anything she had heard or even read. She simply 
 drew the logical conclusion from the practice of her 
 religion that there could not be complete happiness 
 where there was not unanimity in everything. She 
 did not know any young men who were Catholics, 
 and she often wondered how they acted, as com- 
 pared with women, in regard to their religious 
 duties. Sebastien had told her there were many 
 bad men in the world "swine, serpents, that the
 
 10 C O R I N N E 
 
 good God keep from thee;" but her ideas as to the 
 various degrees of wickedness such creatures were 
 capable of were, of course, rather vague. 
 
 Laurence Hayes, a fairer, more effeminate type 
 of man than his friend, Allingham, Corinne some- 
 times permitted to have a chat with her, and the 
 exchange of ideas between the two was a pleasure 
 to the girl, for she was quick to note that he was 
 of an altogether superior class to the sort of people 
 who were in the habit of patronising the Bluff. 
 Occasionally he drew Allingham's name into the 
 conversation, and she gathered that the latter, in his 
 own world, was looked upon as being exceptionally 
 talented and successful. 
 
 "I'm not without a decent stock of brains myself," 
 Hayes said ; "but when there's a stiff exam, on, I'm 
 simply not 'in it' with Allingham. He carries all 
 before him and, worse luck, he does not need the 
 kudos half as much as I and other poor beggars do. 
 If I were in his shoes, I'd never be content to moon 
 round Melbourne; I'd be 'off to Philadelphia in the 
 morning!' " 
 
 He sang the conclusion of his sentence with a 
 delightful baritone roll in his voice, which gave 
 Corinne the impression that he was more musical 
 than he had pretended to be. 
 
 "Of what are this clever gentleman's shoes made, 
 Monsieur," asked the girl, mockingly, "that you 
 would like to wear them? Pardon, but I'm curious!"
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. n 
 
 "Of gold, Mademoiselle; of gold," he answered, 
 in the same manner. "But, like the pilgrims of old, 
 he prefers to travel about with the hardest of peas 
 inside them. You, therefore, must never know other 
 than that he is 'bourgeois.' Remember that, and 
 you will do me a great favour, Mademoiselle." 
 
 He looked round hastily, as if afraid that he had 
 been betrayed into saying too much. 
 
 "It matters not to me what your friend is," Cor- 
 inne retorted, with spirit. "It shall not grieve me 
 very much when the time comes for him to go." 
 And a flush crimsoned her soft cheeks. She looked 
 down demurely, that her long, silken lashes might 
 hide the expression in her bright eyes. 
 
 "No?" questioned Hayes, moving restlessly. "You 
 are cruel, Mademoiselle Corinne, for my friend is 
 much interested in you." 
 
 "It is kind, very kind," murmured the girl ; "but 
 it cannot make any difference to me." 
 
 "It might it could!" said Hayes earnestly, and 
 lowering his voice. "I do not want to give him 
 away, but he is greatly attracted by you. He wants 
 to know you ; he wishes you to let him talk to you ; 
 he could interest you, be a true friend to you. Why 
 are you so cold to him? You don't mind my speak- 
 ing to you, though I can't hold a candle to him in 
 looks, or brains, or anything else." 
 
 Corinne laughed softly and exasperatingly.
 
 12 CORINNE 
 
 "You are kind, Monsieur so plain of speech, so 
 kind of heart. Your friend is like the sea when one 
 has crossed its bar." 
 
 "Deep? Allingham deep? I swear I have never 
 heard anyone say that of him before!" He fell to 
 musing, as if the inference drawn from the girl's 
 words was worth thinking over. 
 
 Like the sea the young girl had likened Hugh to, 
 however, he was not to leave Corrall's Bluff without 
 proving that he had fascination. Against her will, 
 the reserve of Corinne was gradually broken down 
 by him how she could not tell. He seemed to be 
 making one last, strong effort to draw her spirit 
 closer to his. She felt the magnetism, and 
 tried hard to resist it, but in the end was 
 completely conquered. And, once the barrier 
 was down, rapid progress was made in their 
 friendship so rapid that Hayes was dumb- 
 founded, and often whistled softly to himself in 
 rueful amazement. For he was not above enjoying 
 "a harmless flirtation" with Corinne himself. He 
 liked her exceedingly well. Besides, though he 
 would not confess to the feeling, he was "not too 
 sure" of Allingham where his feelings were con- 
 cerned. He might not be too honourable where 
 women not of his own station in life were thrown 
 in his path. Yet it would not be safe to remon- 
 strate with him without good cause. Allingham 
 never tolerated interference, and, in his own way, 
 he had treated Hayes "like a Briton." Laurence
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 13 
 
 was longing to return to the city; all he could do 
 was to keep urging his friend to return. 
 
 "A nice kettle of fish it'll be if the poor girl falls 
 in love with him, after all! Hang it all, I feel 
 inclined to turn Socialist, if it were only for the 
 due apportioning of good looks! Who could resist 
 a Greek profile like Hugh's? I wish he'd have kept 
 his handsome nose in his books instead of filling in 
 time here making love to a sailor's daughter. Let 
 the old man catch him at it, that's all ! I wouldn't 
 stir up a foreigner's blood for the best woman 
 living."
 
 14 CORINNE 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE WARNING OF THE SEA. 
 
 There came a day when "out on the rocks, when 
 the tide was low," Corinne Courboules listened, 
 with glad heart-throbs, to Hugh Allingham's pas- 
 sionate avowal of a passionate love. 
 
 He looked very handsome and manly as he knelt 
 before her where she sat in a wave-worn hollow of 
 the rocks. She felt every objection that she had 
 previously gathered together melting before the 
 persuasive flow of his caressing voice a voice now 
 whose every tone was sweet music to her ears. She 
 trembled as she listened, half afraid of the power 
 exercised over her, for he was not only telling her 
 of his love, but of his desire that if she, too, loved 
 him as he hoped and craved, their engagement 
 should be a secret one, for reasons which he was 
 unable to give her then. 
 
 "I tell you this, my darling, before you give me 
 an answer to the question that is tormenting me 
 night and day, because I want you to understand 
 that I have no intention of deceiving you. My des- 
 tiny is in your hands. I swear that if you send me
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 15 
 
 away from you, I shall go to lands where the face oi 
 woman is never seen. My love for you has taken such 
 possession of me that life without your love means 
 misery unutterable! From the first moment I saw 
 you my soul whispered, 'She is here, the one woman 
 in the world for you ;" when I spoke with you, your 
 own voice supplied whatever answer my heart still 
 asked till now, now, Corinne, oh dearest, oh best- 
 loved woman in all the world! I cannot rest any 
 longer till I know from your own sweet lips 
 whether my love is returned. Have you no word 
 for me, darling, darling?" 
 
 Through all the magic enslaving her heart in that 
 beloved voice, Corinne's healthy young brain kept 
 pitilessly clear. She heard other voices bidding her 
 be cautious, be slow to surrender to the tempes- 
 tuous tide. "Why should he desire a secret engage- 
 ment? Secrecy can never be right. I am my 
 father's only daughter; must I withhold the news 
 of my great happiness from him?" 
 
 These and other questions lent more diffidence to 
 her already diffident and modest demeanour, but her 
 gentle maidenliness only made her lover the more 
 ardent in his protestations of undying love and 
 fealty. 
 
 "My little girl, do not be so cold to me! I can- 
 not bear this silence, this hesitation! Ah, if you 
 only knew how I am suffering, you would have 
 some pity for me!"
 
 16 C O R I N N E 
 
 He seized her hands, he looked deep, deep into 
 her beautiful, dark-blue eyes dear eyes that could 
 not hide the joyful tumult of the heart beneath! 
 and his own, brown as a mountain-pool, filled with 
 tender, glowing light, held hers and drew them irre- 
 sistibly, surely, till cheek touched cheek, and the 
 battle was over, Corinne's heart a captive, while her 
 brain still fought to the last, as many a woman's 
 does, in vain, in vain ! 
 
 "My sweet one ! My heart's love !" 
 
 "Oh, the tender beauty of it all !" thought Corinne. 
 This, then, was love ! the love she had read of, had 
 dreamed of so often by this very shore ! Surely the 
 sea that had been her constant companion was also 
 a sharer in her joy? 
 
 She lifted her head from her lover's breast to look 
 at its expanse. It was sullen and grey, and over- 
 head the clouds had darkened. There was a mourn- 
 ful note in the seagull's cry. The air grew colder. 
 
 "There is a storm brewing, my dearest," Ailing- 
 ham said, answering, as he thought, the girl's dis- 
 appointed glance. 
 
 "I do not fear storms," she said, with a smile, 
 "but" wistfully "I love the dear old sea so much, 
 I was hoping it was of one mood with me to-day. 
 But, see, it has sulky lips!" 
 
 "It is jealous," he whispered, kissing the soft 
 masses of gold-brown hair that his embrace had 
 loosened. "It knows perfectly well that you belong
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 17 
 
 to it no longer! You are mine ever and only 
 mine!" 
 
 "No," she whispered back again, ''part of me 
 must still belong to the grand old sea! It is inter- 
 mingled with my very being. I love it so, I could" 
 dreamily she spoke "even lie down in the very 
 heart of it, and so sleep for ever." 
 
 Allingham's face whitened. He gazed at the girl 
 in surprised dismay. 
 
 "Corinne," he said sharply, "you must not speak 
 like that! It is not fair to me to our great love." 
 
 Scared at his tone so new to her Corinne drew 
 a little away from him. 
 
 "I meant no harm, indeed, dear Hugh" she 
 blushed prettily as she pronounced his name "I 
 hardly thought of what I was saying. It" laugh- 
 ingly "seemed to come from me the words, I 
 mean." 
 
 "All the worse," he responded lightly, though 
 there was still a slight frown on his brow. "I hope 
 you will never have any reason to want to make a 
 bed of it." 
 
 "It's you who are jealous!" the girl cried play- 
 fully. "You don't understand us yet the sea and 
 me. Oh, no, you don't !" Then, with a sudden 
 change of tone and a half-sob, she added, "Oh, when 
 you are gone, Hugh, only for it, how miserable, 
 how lonely I will be !" 
 
 B
 
 i8 C O R I N N E 
 
 "My darling, I would never leave you if I could 
 help it! You know that. I have delayed my return 
 to town till my career stands every chance of being 
 ruined. Hayes can hardly bring himself to speak 
 civilly to me, poor beggar ! He is tired of your sea 
 long ago 1 It has lost its first charm for him. We 
 must go up the day after to-morrow; there is no 
 help for it, dear one." 
 
 "I know, I know! I do not want to be selfish, 
 Hugh, nor to spoil your career. You will write to 
 me often, often, won't you, darling? You know I 
 shall live on your letters." 
 
 "I shall write as often as I dare yes, dare, Cor- 
 inne because, in a small place like this, for you to 
 receive letters daily would mean a great amount of 
 unpleasant gossip. You see that, I am sure?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Corinne, colouring consciously. 
 "The Barrs see every letter that goes through." 
 
 "And Mr. James Barr, junior, naturally would 
 be quick to notice that the same masculine hand- 
 writing formed the letters of Miss Courboules' 
 pretty name ! The impudence of that country boor 
 to presume to pay you his undesired and undesir- 
 able attentions! It irritates me almost beyond 
 endurance to see him hanging about the place, and 
 your father treating him as if the blood that runs 
 in his sluggish veins was the bluest of the blue!" 
 
 "It is 'true blue' enough, I think, Hugh," Corinne 
 said reproachfully. "Father says he is a very good 
 young man."
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 19 
 
 " 'A good young man !' " Allingham echoed scorn- 
 fully. "For goodness' sake, dearest, don't use Bible- 
 class expressions like that! Positively, it sent a 
 shiver down my spine." 
 
 Corinne's face clouded. Did other things she said 
 send "a shiver down his spine"? She must study 
 in his absence, she must work hard, so that when 
 he came for her he would have no reason to be 
 ashamed of his wife. After all, it was a relief not 
 to have to go among all his grand friends just yet! 
 Aloud she said: "Bible-class! What's that?" " 
 
 Allingham looked desperately confused at the 
 simple question. 
 
 "Oh, just a gathering of people who are fond of 
 studying the Bible. It is waste of time, though, 
 darling, to be talking of other people when we have 
 so little time left for ourselves !" 
 
 "There are so many questions I must ask, Hugh 
 some day," she added hastily, quick to notice the 
 impatient displeasure in his eyes. "None of them 
 matter much to-day. You don't know how glad I 
 was a fortnight ago when I asked you if you were 
 a Catholic, and you said 'Yes'! It made everything 
 right, somehow." 
 
 Allingham rose abruptly, his face turned from 
 the girl as he assisted her to rise with elaborate care. 
 
 "Of course it would, of course it would! See, 
 your beloved ocean is still wildly jealous! I hope 
 it's in a better humour when we come to-morrow.
 
 20 C O R I N N E 
 
 Dearest, it will have to be evening, next time ! You 
 must manage to slip away without anyone noticing 
 you even Hayes. Let your father think you've 
 gone to bed." With a swift movement he drew the 
 girl into his arms, and held her closely to his heart. 
 "It will be our farewell, darling! How shall I face 
 the grey days afterwards?" 
 
 Corinne never noticed that he did not question 
 how she was to "face the grey days afterwards." 
 Women rarely do take these little mental notes 
 fortunately for the men. 
 
 The lovers returned to the house by different 
 paths sadly symbolical of the future before them. 
 And the sea moaned while the heart of Corinne sang 
 on in her breast. 
 
 That evening, as Hugh Allingham and Laurence 
 Hayes were retiring, the latter, after a preliminary 
 straightening of the shoulders or two, suddenly 
 said, "I say, Hugh, old man, you've been going the 
 pace a bit with pretty Miss Corinne, haven't you? 
 Do you er think it wise to disturb the peaceful 
 tenor of her rustic ways?" 
 
 "Confound you, what do you mean?" and Alling- 
 ham threw down his boots noisily, sufficient warn- 
 ing of a gathering storm. "I hope I can have a yarn 
 to an interesting woman who happens to be good- 
 looking, without your interference!" 
 
 "I don't call it interference to remind a pal that a 
 girl has a heart. I er thought you might have 
 forgotten."
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 21 
 
 "I don't want any of your reminders! I'll be 
 obliged if you keep Miss Courboules' name out of 
 our conversations for the future." 
 
 Hayes heaved a sigh of relief. That looked satis- 
 factory, anyway, he thought. 
 
 "All right, old chap! Must say, though, she's a 
 grand girl, worthy of every respect, and all that." 
 
 "Smitten there yourself, Larry? Come, confess! 
 I'll keep your secret." 
 
 "There's nothing secretive about me," Hayes said, 
 not knowing how hard he was hitting. "Say, 
 Hugh," lowering his voice nearly to inaudibleness, 
 "I wish you had come here under your right name." 
 
 "Don't be an ass! It's my own name, isn't it? 
 It's a relief to drop one of the trio, and it harms no 
 one. Our holiday is over, so what odds?" 
 
 "It makes mystery, and " 
 
 "Mystery be bothered! One would think you 
 were talking of a tuppenny hot-pie !" 
 
 "There are pies, and pies," Larry said enigmati- 
 cally, as he thumped his pillow into the shape pre- 
 ferred. "And" to himself "I wish I had put my 
 finger into yours in the beginning! I don't like the 
 look of things at all." 
 
 Silence in the room for a considerable time. One 
 man murmured a few prayers, for he had not yet 
 forgotten the teachings at a mother's knee. The
 
 22 C O R I N N E 
 
 other planned and schemed, and schemed and 
 planned. Both lay awake long. 
 
 Once, Larry's head popped up from the bed- 
 clothes. 
 
 "Say, what became of that Miss Isabel Who's- 
 This we met at the Dacres' ball?" 
 
 "How the dickens should I know? For Heaven's 
 sake, go to sleep!" 
 
 But "Isabel" had found her place in Larry's 
 memory before he slept. 
 
 When Corinne went to her room for the night, she 
 first reverently knelt down in front of the little altar 
 she had long ago made in a corner by the bedside. 
 A statue of Our Lady, "Star of the Sea," stood upon 
 it, and at each side were tiny vases of fresh flowers, 
 and two tapers burning in the little bronze candle- 
 sticks that had been Antoine's last birthday present 
 to her. She thought of her little brother as she 
 prayed for guidance, and, with tears in her eyes, 
 she asked that he might be permitted to guard her 
 and to warn her in time of peril. Oh ! what would 
 she not have given to be able to lay her head on her 
 mother's breast and tell her all ! It seemed as if it 
 would have been even joy to be permitted to go to 
 her father, and crave his sympathy with all the right 
 of his only child. Would he have withheld it if 
 she had? Something in her heart answered "No." 
 He might be angry, but his anger would not last 
 against her truth and straightforwardness.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 23 
 
 Ah! there was the sting of it! She who had 
 never in her life told her father an untruth, who had 
 never deceived him even in the small, petty ways 
 that are but venial sins she was now obliged to 
 stoop to a deceit that every instinct within her cried 
 out against as wrong as doubly wrong in the lonely 
 position in which she and her father were placed in 
 the world. Knowing her parent's quickness of 
 temper in trivial things, she could imagine in some 
 degree how terrible his wrath would be should he 
 find out that she was acting a double part. She 
 shuddered as she knelt. 
 
 Before she disrobed, she went to her window, and 
 opened it wide longing for the clean, salt breath of 
 the sea to remind her of the happy hours of the 
 afternoon. The storm had gathered and burst 
 earlier in the evening; still the waves roared, and 
 the winds moaned. 
 
 Not even a star greeted her straining gaze. Sad- 
 ness seemed to brood over the waters; the wind 
 wailed but of tragedy. There was no glad mes- 
 sage for her from the sea she loved. Rather did 
 its voice sound as if it expostulated with her heart 
 and prophesied disaster. 
 
 Sighing, she closed the lattice. "Holy Mother, 
 send me pleasant dreams 1 For, to-morrow night, 
 I can but weep and know no rest. Heart of Mary 
 Immaculate, prove thyself a mother to me !"
 
 24 CORINNE 
 
 She slept, and smiled in sleeping, for 
 
 "So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity, 
 That when a soul is found sincerely so, 
 A thousand liveried angels lacquey her, 
 Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, 
 And in clear dream, and solemn vision, 
 Tell her of things that no gross ear oan hear."
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 POWDER AND PAINT AND THE SHEEN 
 OF GEMS. 
 
 "The daffodil scheme is the best, Isabel. The 
 ballroom could suggest spring; green and gold look 
 lovely, I think. And you can well afford to wear 
 daffodil-yellow ; it will suit you to perfection. There 
 will be room for plenty of flirtation corners I'll see 
 to them. We'll send the invitations out straight- 
 away. Thank goodness! that handsome Hugh 
 Lowenthal's back in town 'stewing hard,' Cliff 
 says, though why he should be such a fool to do it, 
 with all his prospects, is a mystery to me." 
 
 "Likes to show he has brains, I suppose." 
 
 "What does the heir to a baronetcy want with 
 brains? He ought to be looking out for a good- 
 looking wife to grace the position someone who 
 would do him credit socially. That proud old 
 mother of his will be hard to please when he does 
 fix upon a suitable 'parti.' Detestable woman! I 
 can't stand her!" 
 
 "She'll have to be invited, all the same. Put her 
 name down, too. I don't mind how much 'frill'
 
 26 CORINNE 
 
 she puts on; I rather like to see her stately impu- 
 dence among a mixed crowd. That's the worst of 
 Melbourne. One has to hobnob with people one 
 wouldn't look at in London ! Oh ! do leave those 
 Carter girls out ! common creatures, always dressed 
 up to the height of absurdity. Whatever put it 
 into your head to ask them ?" 
 
 "My dear Isabel, it's a good thing my head is 
 usually here to assist yours ! How can I leave the 
 Carter girls out of it when Pa has borrowed so much 
 from old Carter? When you marry money, you can 
 afford to be particular!" 
 
 "I forgot. Yes, I mean to marry money, as you 
 term it; but I'll not marry money and vulgarity com- 
 bined, if I can help it." 
 
 Isabel Lascelles put down the list she had been 
 conning, and arose gracefully from the very com- 
 fortable chair she had been seated in. She was 
 tall, with a figure that spoke of Sandow exercises 
 she had a horror of growing fat. She was con- 
 sidered a beauty, though her features were not per- 
 fect. Her complexion owed much to artificial aid, 
 but, as she was an adept at secrets of the toilet- 
 table, no one could successfully point out where 
 nature ended and art began. Her hair was black, 
 her eyes green in some lights, grey in others, but full 
 and bright, though rather too close together for the 
 favourable verdict of a physiognomist. Her head 
 was small and daintily-shaped, and she carried it 
 well.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 27 
 
 "Miss Lascelles always looks so aristocratic," her 
 acquaintances were in the habit of saying; "there 
 is such an air of 'thus far, and no farther,' about 
 her. We shouldn't wonder if she managed to secure 
 a coronet for herself, with her opportunities ; the 
 Lascelles have high-born connections at home, and 
 that is the reason everybody that's anything turns 
 up at their place sooner or later." 
 
 My Lady Isabel was quite aware how well she was 
 equipped for the fray of obtaining an enviable estab- 
 lishment through marriage. She had never neg- 
 lected any of her natural gifts, and she had acquired 
 what Nature had denied, by determined and perse- 
 vering study and cultivation. Even her voice was a 
 perfect example of what could be done for that organ 
 by careful training. In the beginning harsh and 
 unmusical, it was now soft, sweet, and refined; she 
 spoke her English perfectly, and her French met 
 with the approval of the French themselves which 
 is the highest that can be said of it in the way of 
 praise. Massaging, manicuring, hairdressing estab- 
 lishments of the best reputation in the city, all knew 
 Miss Isabel Lascelles. All had a hand in her per- 
 fectly-groomed appearance. Cyrus Lascelles, her 
 father, often wondered "how she did it," for he sup- 
 plied his children with as small an amount of pocket- 
 money as he possibly could; he was always in the 
 toils of the money-lenders. Mrs. Lascelles insisted 
 on entertaining on a lavish scale to "marry off" her 
 daughters. Two had been settled in life owing to 
 her exertions, and now there was only Isabel to "do
 
 28 C O R I N N E 
 
 her duty by" difficult Isabel, who looked even 
 higher than her matchmaking mamma. 
 
 Mrs. Lascelles was a popular woman; she had 
 plenty of worldly tact, and had, many a time, done 
 her husband good service by "getting round" an 
 importunate creditor. Poor Lascelles was a man of 
 the heavy sort ; he saw too little before him, and was 
 lacking in the saving sense of humour, which might 
 have helped him in the tiding over of cares and 
 troubles. He took every reverse to heart, and, 
 being a man who disliked herding with the many, 
 spent a dull and wearisome existence in his own 
 home, resounding 1 with life and gaiety though it 
 usually was. Mrs. Lascelles ruled the household ; 
 he paid the bills when he could and how he could. 
 It was not he who traded on the names of his high- 
 born and wealthy relatives in England, but Mrs. 
 Lascelles ; she found them a great "stand-by" when 
 other things failed. And Isabel was always "going 
 'home' to be presented by the dear Countess next 
 season." 
 
 Hugh Lowenthal was the son of Mr. Lascelles' 
 most-valued friend. He and Hubert Lowenthal 
 had been at Cambridge together, and when the lat- 
 ter had, in later years, come out to Australia, too, 
 the old friendship was renewed, and fanned to com- 
 fortable warmth for herself by Mrs. Lascelles. 
 Hubert Lowenthal was next of kin to the Earl of 
 Poppledene, who had no issue, but he was now in 
 failing health, and the earldom was likely to fall to
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 29 
 
 Hugh, his only son Hugh Allingham Lowenthal. 
 Mrs. Lowenthal, of whom Isabel's sister, Mrs. 
 Lennox, had spoken with such disfavour, was a cold 
 and stately dame of the old school. Stiff black 
 silks, rich black velvets, seemed part of her per- 
 sonality, and one never dreamed of seeing anything 
 but real gems around her long, thin neck and upon 
 her marble bosom. She worshipped the conven- 
 tionalities; rumour whispered that, consequently, 
 her son hated them. Her chief ambition was that 
 Hugh should marry ''a lady of irreproachable birth 
 and noble antecedents." (Poor Corinne!) 
 
 The ball given by the Lascelles was, as the society 
 papers expressed it, ''a flattering and brilliant suc- 
 cess. The brightest constellations of the aristocra- 
 tic world lent it splendour of even a realistic kind, 
 for many magnificent jewels were worn by the titled 
 ladies present." 
 
 There were, truth to tell, but a very few "titled'' 
 ladies in the assemblage; but the few that were 
 there had, of course, to be made the most of, and 
 Mrs. Lascelles was always politic enough to keep a 
 few lady reporters among her acquaintances. "The 
 Countess," as Isabel had nicknamed Mrs. Lowen- 
 thal, displayed her really regal bearing to the best 
 advantage, and no gentleman among the younger 
 generation was more agreeable or debonair-looking 
 than her son, Hugh. It would have been difficult 
 to recognise in him that evening the Hugh Allinp- 
 ham, of somewhat dour aspect, of Corrall's Bluff.
 
 30 C O R I N N E 
 
 No duke newly appointed to a gubernatorial posi- 
 tion could have been more suave in manner or of the 
 "grand air." 
 
 Larry Hayes often looked across the room at him 
 as he gracefully swayed in the dance with some 
 lovely town-bred girl of his own station in life, and 
 wondered what Corinne would have thought could 
 she but have seen him in his own atmosphere. 
 
 Larry was only there through Hugh's kindly 
 offices. To know people of social standing was 
 part of the worldly advancement his friend desired 
 for him. There were no "wallflowers," so he had 
 no difficult or irksome duties to perform for his 
 hostess. He could not have pointed out one 
 decidedly plain or dowdy woman among the lot. 
 Those who were not good-looking had doctored 
 their "skins" so well, had called in so artfully the aid 
 of belladonna for their eyes, and of the pencil for 
 their eyebrows, had their scanty locks so carefully 
 and cleverly added to by silky masses of somebody 
 else's hairs, that they appeared to be charming prin- 
 cesses just taken out, "holus bolus," from an up-to- 
 date fairy tale! 
 
 Isabel gave her sister, Mrs. Lennox, no cause to 
 regret the daffodil-yellow. She held her own, 
 among all, as a model of refined elegance and even 
 beauty. 
 
 Hugh, though his inmost thoughts still enshrined 
 Corinne as a pearl of loveliness from the world's 
 ocean, admired Isabel Lascelles immensely. She
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 31 
 
 had held some indefinable sort of attraction for him 
 ever since he had met her first an attraction that 
 was not in the least like that which Corinne exer- 
 cised over him, but, nevertheless, was one which 
 would always make her an object of interest in his 
 eyes. 
 
 It is indifference that society belles find hard to 
 cope with. Isabel was not accustomed to being 
 treated in any other than a gallant manner by mem- 
 bers of the opposite sex, and, consequently, always 
 received the most marked attentions, provided they 
 emanated from the "elite" quarter, with a most 
 matter-of-fact air as her special right, in a word. 
 
 Larry Hayes thought Miss Lascelles beautiful 
 enough as she stood chatting animatedly to Hugh 
 later on. She wore a shimmering gown, that fitted 
 her well-proportioned figure perfectly, and yet, 
 when she moved, gave the impression of floating 
 sunset clouds of gold. Her dark hair was arranged 
 so that curling tendrils fell around and softened and 
 made girlish her face, which was now uplifted to 
 Lowenthal's with a most alluring expression upon 
 it. She had a jewelled butterfly among her shining 
 tresses, but, at her breast, nothing but cloth-of-gold 
 roses glorious specimens of their kind, sent up that 
 morning by "the Countess" herself. Hugh was 
 gazing into her eyes with the look of tender admira- 
 tion he could always call up at such affairs. Hayes 
 moved restlessly and impatiently as he noticed his 
 attitude.
 
 32 C O R I N N E 
 
 "Poor Mademoiselle of the rocks," he muttered, 
 "you stand 'Buckley's chance' of being remembered 
 up here! Confound Lowenthal! What, in 
 Heaven's name, made him act a double part at the 
 Bluff! It wouldn't matter a hang if he hadn't got 
 hold of the little girl's heart; but I'm jolly much 
 afraid he has, somehow, and not bothered himself 
 about the consequences. Where was he the night 
 before we left, if not courting her in some nook or 
 corner? He awoke me out of a jolly good sleep, 
 coming in as late as he did, and next morning he 
 looked a wreck; while the girl's face was as white 
 as death when he said good-bye, and my farewell 
 pleasantries, I could see, fell on deaf ears. Well, 
 Mr. Hugh Allingham Lowenthal, if you give a fur- 
 ther heartache to that grand little girl of the Bluff, 
 you will have me to reckon with, that's all ! I may 
 be a bit of a fool, and I owe you many a good turn, 
 but I'd be the last, for all that, to make havoc of a 
 woman's life, particularly of one as fresh and 
 unspoiled as hers. She, a Catholic, too!" 
 
 "What's the matter, Larry?" said a voice behind 
 him a few moments after. "You look graver than 
 the honourable judge now confabbing with Mr. 
 Lascelles! Where has your wandering fancy sent 
 you?" 
 
 Hayes looked him squarely in the eyes, whose 
 merry light aggravated him for the first time in their 
 comradeship.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 33 
 
 "To Corrall's Bluff," he answered. "For a 
 moment I was listening to the pretty voice of Made- 
 moiselle Corinne !" 
 
 The smile died out of Lowenthal's eyes in an 
 instant. 
 
 "I knew you were badly hit," he said, striving to 
 speak lightly ; "but not so badly as this ! Lawrence 
 Hayes, medical student, looking on at the most 
 resplendent scene of 'fair women and brave men,' 
 and comparing it and them with old Sebastien's ram- 
 shackle buildings, to the disadvantage " 
 
 "Of the lot!" Hayes ended abruptly. "Between 
 ourselves, Lowenthal, there isn't a woman here that 
 old Sebastien's daughter is not the superior of in 
 beauty and sensibility, anyhow!" 
 
 "Though perhaps not in culture? You are right, 
 Hayes. It is a pity that Fate chained her, like 
 Andromeda, to the rocks, for she has plenty of 
 brains, too. The pity of it is" with a half-sigh, 
 which was not lost on Larry "it's too late now to 
 start her on the high road to a secondary education ! 
 Probably she is happier as she is, and where she is." 
 
 "She'll never stay as she is, and where she is!" 
 Hayes said prophetically. "The old man will not 
 live for ever, and then Mademoiselle's story will 
 begin, and, perhaps, dramatically. Who knows?" 
 
 "It has begun," thought Lowenthal ; "but how it's- 
 going to end is the problem !" 
 
 He felt a twinge of jealousy against Hayes as he 
 sought out his next partner for the waltz just begin- 
 
 c
 
 34 C O R I N N E 
 
 ning. Now, if he were but in Hayes' place, the 
 coast would be perfectly clear for marriage with 
 Corinne Courboules. There would be no one to 
 say him nay ; no stern old father to rouse up like an 
 awakened lion a truly John Bull lion ! No mother 
 to point, with the dignity of all the De Veres, to the 
 long gallery of portraits adorning the corridors of 
 Poppledene. 
 
 He could not deny that his blood bounded at the 
 prospects that awaited him across the seas. He 
 was no democrat, but he felt that he would gladly 
 forfeit all, at times, since he had met the woman 
 who had unconsciously stirred his heart to the wild 
 throbbings of sweet first love. 
 
 He was not so much gratified as nettled by Larry's 
 open admiration of Corinne. To hear him express 
 it in words seemed like a familiarity, a desecration ! 
 Yet it would only lead to discovery of his present 
 plans with regard to the young girl should Hayes 
 be made a confidant of. No, he must "paddle his 
 own canoe," and, above all, he must blind his own 
 relatives to the passionate attachment he had fool- 
 ishly formed for an obscure country girl, who might 
 not even be acquainted with the smallest of the 
 refinements his world exacted. 
 
 Second to an arranged visit to England, to take 
 place when the result of his final examination as a 
 physician was known, and there to take his degree, 
 and find among either the moneyed or titled a wife 
 who might be an ornament in the house of Popple-
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 35 
 
 dene, was, he knew, a union with Isabel Lascelles, as 
 far as the wishes of both parents were concerned. 
 To seek her in marriage would not entirely dis- 
 please, for Mrs. Lowenthal had long recognised in 
 her the qualities essential to social success. 
 
 "To entertain the King in a befitting manner 
 would be an easy feat for Isabel Lascelles," she once 
 had said in Hugh's hearing. "She is the only girl 
 in Melbourne whose every movement shows in itself 
 that she comes of a patrician stock." 
 
 To-night, Hugh thought her right Corinne was 
 beautiful, of course beautiful and graceful, too ; but 
 she lacked the "grande dame" manner that was like 
 murmuring melody to his conservative soul. 
 
 When Corinne spoke, the faint French accent, that 
 lent an added charm to the sweetness of her tones, 
 bewitched him, as did the rosy Cupid's bow of a 
 mouth, which, opening, showed the even rows of 
 "spotless pearls" within. Beside her, he could never 
 be her critic! Away from her, here in this soft, 
 perfumed, enervating air, he was aware of the 
 defects, that were in no wise the fault of Corinne, 
 but of circumstance. Well, it was no use worrying 
 about the future. The girl of his heart loved him ; 
 he alone knew how well. Let coming days take 
 care of themselves. 
 
 So he did his duty to the last, even "sitting out" 
 a dance with the gratified Isabel in the conservatory, 
 and paying compliments that sounded exceptionally 
 ardent in her small pink ears, the while, in the 
 splashing of the fountain, he heard the sea waves
 
 36 C O R I N N E 
 
 lapping on the beach, and in the music of the band, 
 as it sobbed a waltz, the tender pleading of Corinne 
 as he had heard it last among the grim, grey rocks 
 which guarded the shore of Corrall's Bluff. 
 
 In his breast pocket was a letter that day received 
 from her. She never wrote long letters ; for she was 
 afraid poor, modest, humble-minded soul that she 
 might irritate his scholarly sense by making hideous 
 grammatical mistakes. So far, no stern examiner 
 sent forth from the Department of Education could 
 find fault with the missives received by Lowenthal. 
 The latter would have overlooked, maybe, a few 
 errors in spelling for more passionate outbursts of 
 feeling. Her letters tantalised him; they were so 
 short sweet and pure as a flower, but not human 
 as was the woman. He had asked her to express 
 herself carefully, in case of the letters falling through 
 some accident into alien hands, and she had obeyed 
 his injunctions almost too literally. 
 
 "I cannot wait till the season opens without see- 
 ing her again," he said to himself, when the ball 
 was over, and he had assisted his mother to her 
 carriage. "I shall run down for a few days shortly, 
 and make some excuse to old Sebastien. Confound 
 it, I can never look upon the surly old curmudgeon 
 as Corinne's father!" 
 
 Hugh wrote long letters to Corinne long letters 
 full of passion and longing and poetical thoughts. 
 Corinne "lived" upon them, as she had said she 
 would. But, oh, the difficulty of getting them 
 delivered into her own hand! It had been the
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 37 
 
 custom for anyone on their way from the little 
 township to bring the mail to Courboules, and Sebas- 
 tien would at once have grown suspicious if she 
 told him she would like to call at the post-office 
 herself. Besides, there was another way of looking 
 at it. He might hug the false hope to himself that 
 she was going there to chance a meeting with Jim 
 Barr. 
 
 At first she had managed to be out on the road 
 when she knew a neighbour was coming back from 
 the general store, but she soon saw that that plan 
 could not be kept up, for Sebastien's temper in 
 winter time required that she should be within call 
 in the daylight. In the end, she was obliged to 
 bring herself to ask the man her lover so despised 
 to bring her letters himself, and deliver them only 
 when he found her alone. It was humiliating, but 
 there was no other way. She did not tell Hugh 
 not then.
 
 38 C O R I N N E 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "I'LL BRAVE THE RAGING OF THE SKIES, 
 BUT NOT AN ANGRY FATHER." 
 
 The winter had never seemed so long, so intoler- 
 ably dull. Sebastien's rheumatism laid stronger 
 hold upon him than ever, and only for young Barr's 
 company, which was freely given even in his most 
 cantankerous moods, he would have made the 
 gloomy days drearier still for his daughter. 
 
 Corinne and Jim were better friends now than 
 they had ever been during the long period of their 
 acquaintanceship a compulsory friendship on Cor- 
 inne's part at first, but ending in one firmly grounded 
 on respect and gratitude. Jim was so good to her 
 father that her heart would have been indeed an 
 unfilial one did she not show some appreciation of 
 his kindly services. His face had whitened under 
 his tan when he had put into her hands the first 
 letter in her absent lover's handwriting. She felt 
 he knew instinctively that there was some tie 
 between her and one of the summer "visitors," which 
 one she trusted he would never guess,
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 39 
 
 As if aware that his own chance as a suitor was 
 infinitesimal, he drew more into himself as the 
 days went by, and never presumed upon her more 
 genial manner towards him. If Hugh had not taken 
 time by the forelock, and arrived at the Bluff a con- 
 siderable length of time before the tourist season 
 opened, the future might have turned out more 
 happily for Corinne than it did. During the busy 
 time Sebastien would have had enough to do to 
 keep his attention going in another direction, and 
 the same might be said of young Barr. As It 
 turned out, however, the day Hugh Allingham (as 
 he was still to the Courboules) suddenly arrived, 
 there was not one visitor by "the sad sea waves" to 
 divert interest from his actions. 
 
 The change in Corinne on his appearance also 
 gave the situation away. A week before, the old 
 man had commented on her pallor and languor, and 
 wondered why the winter respite had not done more 
 for her physically. Besides grieving over and 
 regretting the necessity of secrecy, she had been 
 studying hard at night, in her own untutored way, 
 while Sebastien slept; and "burning the candle at 
 both ends" did not agree with one who loved to 
 commune with Nature among Nature's works. 
 Swimming was still to her a keen pleasure, but she 
 grew tired sooner than she had ever become before, 
 for her heart was restless where once so tranquil, 
 and the craving for her lover growing so strong 
 that it seemed beyond bearing.
 
 40 CORINNE 
 
 Ah, and when he did come to her on the wings 
 of love, what a transformation ! Roses again in the 
 soft and lovely cheeks; eyes like stars; laughter 
 silvery, sweet and frequent; smiles and dimples; 
 quick, blithe movements. A man may be as old as 
 Methuselah, and as surly as Cerberus, but he is 
 never so blind that these signs can pass unnoticed. 
 
 Hugh Lowenthal, too glad to have the young 
 girl all to himself there was only Rosalie there 
 was less careful than prudence had enjoined, and 
 did not keep the necessary guard over expression 
 and tone when speaking to her that he should have 
 done under the circumstances. He thought it suffi- 
 cient that he had only "run down" for three or four 
 days, and supposed that old Sebastien was content 
 with his assurance that the coast scenery had an 
 overmastering charm for him, "tied as he was to his 
 books." 
 
 But love has an unmistakable language; it needs 
 not words, it does not even need actions. And 
 Sebastien had been well acquainted with the tender 
 passion in his own young days. He watched the 
 two unsuspecting young people intently and 
 grimly. 
 
 "If the young man wanted to marry his daughter 
 well, let him speak out." He didn't care much for 
 him he preferred Jim as a son-in-law but, "if 
 the girl was satisfied, he mightn't stand out against 
 it." So he didn't say anything to Corinne, one way 
 or the other, but complacently waited, and won- 
 dered whether being a doctor in a city overrun with
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 41 
 
 medical men, as he had heard Melbourne was, was 
 "a paying game." 
 
 There was another who watched as intently ; one 
 who had no faith whatever in gentlemanly summer 
 visitors, who came and went without anyone know- 
 ing anything more about them than they chose to 
 tell. Love, though it blinds the many, clears the 
 vision of a few, and Jim guessed at once that this 
 was the man who had won, or was winning, Corinne 
 Courboules' heart. He studied him from a distance 
 as he paid his usual visits to Sebastien, and the more 
 he saw of "Mr. Allingham," the more uneasy he felt 
 at the outcome of the stranger's ardent courtship- 
 for so he looked upon it. 
 
 Barr's honest heart was sore enough with his own 
 burden of unrequited love, but he could have borne 
 its pangs if satisfied as to the prospect of happiness 
 for the woman who filled his thoughts almost to the 
 exclusion of aught else. It was not that he sus- 
 pected Lowenthal of insincerity in his devotions to 
 Corinne, but he thought he read worldly pride, a 
 certain amount of selfishness, and a good deal of 
 fickleness in the man's nature. 
 
 Hugh would have laughed to scorn the mere sug- 
 gestion of Barr as a character reader; but Jim was 
 secure in his own belief that no man could "take 
 him down" when it came to summing up solid 
 worth. He listened with interest to whatever 
 remarks Sebastien passed upon the visitor, and made 
 a mental note of his supposed occupation. He, too, 
 was often "in town,"
 
 42 CORINNE 
 
 The weather, though cold, was fairly fine, and 
 one leaving the house always a half-hour before the 
 other the lovers had many an hour's happy con- 
 verse together in the rocks. There, Corinne would 
 tell of what she had been learning in Hugh's 
 absence ; and he, approving, would laughingly ques- 
 tion and puzzle her, and kiss away the wrong 
 answers which so often stumbled over her pretty 
 lips. There they often stood, hand in hand, watch- 
 ing the tide go out or come in, but never once, as 
 Corinne remarked with a sigh, was the smile of the 
 sunshine upon the deep when they reached it in 
 company. 
 
 "Never mind, we shall see it often in the glorious 
 summer days, when I come again, dearest. It won't 
 be long, Corinne, till I am with you once more ; and, 
 oh, how I shall manage to make that month stretch 
 out! I suppose I'll have to bring Hayes with me; 
 those wretched tourist people will have possession 
 of you. You don't dislike Larry, do you?" 
 
 "Oh, no! On the contrary, I like him very 
 much. I wouldn't care to see a stranger with you, 
 at all. But, Hugh, darling, suppose suppose father 
 wouldn't have you both as boarders again? What 
 shall we do then?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, he will! He gave me a good hint this 
 morning, though, that my next visit was only per- 
 mitted as a compliment ; politely enough, don't fear." 
 
 "Hugh, dear Hugh, if only you would take him 
 into your confidence ! He wouldn't betray you, even
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 43 
 
 for my sake. You don't understand father's nature ; 
 it may be rugged, but it is as strong and grand as 
 his own dear cliffs of France." 
 
 "What you ask is impossible at present, dear one. 
 We have threshed out this subject before. I dis- 
 like secrecy as much as you do, sweetheart ; believe 
 that. I simply can't see my way now to make our 
 engagement public. Corinne" as if a sudden 
 thought had struck him "you wouldn't object to a 
 secret marriage, would you, darling?" 
 
 His tones grew softer and more caressing, and his 
 hand fondled her cheek as he spoke. 
 
 For a moment the girl did not answer. There 
 was no sound but the murmur of the restless waves ; 
 the air was very still. 
 
 Hugh Lowenthal did not bend to look into 
 Corinne's eyes, as was his usual custom when he 
 asked a serious question of her. He felt her form 
 trembling while he waited impatiently for her 
 answer. He was of the exacting type that craves 
 continually for some fresh proof of love from the 
 being beloved. 
 
 When Corinne answered, her words sounded faint 
 and far off, though she pressed his hand closer still 
 against her face. 
 
 "I I wouldn't mind so much if we got ready for 
 it in the right way, Hugh, dearest." 
 
 "In the right way? Whatever do you mean, 
 girlie mine?"
 
 44 CORINNE 
 
 "By goingi to Confession and Holy Communion 
 beforehand," she half-whispered. "Where the church 
 would be wouldn't matter, as long as it was our own 
 church, I know!" 
 
 Could Corinne have seen her lover's face as he 
 heard her words, the whole current of her life might 
 have run in an entirely different direction; but, as 
 they were both leaning against a boulder of rock, and 
 his foothold was on a jutting piece of stone above 
 hers, she could not, without moving from him. 
 
 "Supposing it were easier, as it certainly would be 
 safer, for us to be married by the first Protestant 
 minister to hand, wouldn't that satisfy you till we 
 could go through the ceremony again in a Catholic 
 church?" he questioned. 
 
 "Oh, Hugh! You can't be in earnest! You're 
 only teasing me, you bad boy! Why, of course it 
 wouldn't. You wouldn't dream of doing such a 
 thing, any more than I would!" 
 
 She tried to turn to look up at him, but he held 
 her firmly in place. 
 
 "Don't get so excited, little woman ! In the eyes 
 of the law we would be man and wife just the same. 
 Don't you know that?" 
 
 "The law of the Church is my law first; and yours 
 also, is it not, dear? We are children of the Church 
 from birth to death. I am not learned, but I know 
 that much of my of our religion, darling. Even 
 if you were a Protestant, my answer should be the 
 same. We could not be truly happy if we did the
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 45 
 
 wrong thing first, and the right thing afterwards. 
 And, oh, Hugh, dear, it may be silly of me" she 
 bent her head low and blushed "but I have learned 
 from my missal my own dear, dead mother's gift 
 every word off by heart of that holy and beautiful 
 marriage service; and often it keeps singing", sing- 
 ing, like an angel's chorus in my heart." 
 
 The man's hand was trembling now. 
 
 "You are far too good for me," he said hoarsely. 
 "No angels sing in my heart! But, as you say, I 
 was only teasing you, sweetheart. There is no 
 immediate chance of our marriage yet, unfor- 
 tunately ; and, if there were, you must not set me up 
 on too high a pedestal, or exact too much from me. 
 I am very human, Corinne, and only a man ; neither 
 better nor worse than my fellow-men." 
 
 "But," in a surprised tone, "you don't need to be 
 perfect to do what the Church teaches. I have such 
 a lot to learn about religious customs yet; but, of 
 course, you are well up in them, and it all comes easy 
 to you." 
 
 "Very easy," he said ironically ; but the irony was 
 lost upon Corinne, who was just then inwardly con- 
 templating her own small "iniquities." 
 
 Then he took a small volume out of his pocket and 
 gave it to her. 
 
 'Since your memory is so good, little one, you can 
 learn 'off by heart' some of these love poems in my 
 absence, and repeat them to me sometimes on my
 
 46 CORINNE 
 
 return. I long to hear such words as are in these 
 upon your lips. I am a greedy soul, I'm afraid! 
 Here is one that I shall repeat for you and to you. 
 Listen well, Mademoiselle Corinne, for the senti- 
 ments are mine, dear heart, though the lines are 
 not: 
 
 " 'Ask me not how much I love thee, 
 
 Do not question why; 
 I have told thee the tale, 
 In the evening pale, 
 
 With a tear and a sigh. 
 
 " 'I told thee when love was hopeless, 
 
 But now he is wild, and sings 
 That the stars above shine ever of love, 
 Though they frown on the fate of kings. 
 
 " 'Oh, a king would have loved and left thee, 
 
 And away thy sweet love cast ; 
 But I am thine 
 Whilst the stars shall shine 
 
 To the last, to the last!" 
 
 Corinne listened, and all vague fears died away. 
 Surely life had nothing sweeter than this tender 
 lover's love. 
 
 Hugh Lowenthal returned to Melbourne less 
 satisfied with himself than usual. He knew he had 
 made a foolish move in the first place by posing as a 
 Catholic when anxious to win the friendship of Cor- 
 inne. To tell her the truth now would, in dead 
 earnest, take him off his "pedestal"; and, besides, 
 might she not get hold of some "ridiculous Popish 
 idea" which would bring their little romance to a 
 sudden close? He could not give her up; he would
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 47 
 
 not give her up. "Oh my first, oh my best, I 
 could not choose but love thee!" he murmured to 
 himself. After all, it was not her religion that was 
 the barrier between them, but "the cursed social dis- 
 tinctions" that were an article of faith with his 
 family. 
 
 He fancied that the manner of his friend Hayes 
 was not as heartily genial on his return, but put it 
 down to "good old Larry being out of sorts." He 
 had some difficulty, when the warm weather set in, 
 to persuade Hayes to again accompany him to Cor- 
 rall's Bluff for vacation. However, he prevailed in 
 the end, and the two duly arrived and were installed 
 in old Sebastien's home as weekly boarders. 
 
 It was during this time that small events led the 
 way to more tragical ones. Wrapped in each other 
 more and more with every day, and oblivious of the 
 fact that other people were neither blind nor deaf, 
 Hugh and Corinne, before a fortnight was well over, 
 were looked upon as an engaged couple "or ought 
 to be if they weren't," as one gossip remarked to 
 another and Sebastien was often openly asked 
 "when the wedding was to come off." 
 
 The old man was waiting patiently for the all- 
 important question of his consent and blessing to be 
 asked, and a few weeks glided by uneventfully 
 enough till, one evening, an old "visitor," privileged 
 on account of the number of seasons he had patron- 
 ised the Bluff, was having "a good-night cap" with 
 Sebastien, and, after commenting on the n-umber the 
 season had brought to this favourite resort, said con-
 
 48 C O R I N N E 
 
 fidentially, "Do you think it wise to have such an 
 all-round toff as that handsome, dark fellow flirting 
 with your daughter?" 
 
 "Flirting with my daughter!" Sebastien splut- 
 tered; "my daughter?" 
 
 If he had been an emperor, he could not have 
 drawn himself more erect, aged as he was. 
 
 But garrulous Josiah Evans was never quick to 
 see when he was blundering. 
 
 "Why, yes," he said. "No offence, but I've seen 
 that same fellow often in Collins-street with Lord 
 This and Lady That. I'd know him anywhere. For 
 all you can tell, he may be up to no good. And 
 how's the girl to know? I'd take my young noble to 
 task pretty quick, if I were you." 
 
 Sebastien brooded over these words for days. 
 
 At last, calling Corinne, he questioned her 
 closely, pretending he was anxious to know whether 
 it was through any rebuff of hers that young James 
 Barr was of late ceasing to visit him as frequently as 
 of old. 
 
 "It seems to me, thy father, that thou dost not 
 know a good man from a bad. Pah ! It only needs 
 a black-eyed stranger from the city to come and 
 look at thee, and thou hast more than enough to 
 say! I tell thee thou art no daughter of mine, if 
 thou givest fools reason to talk of thee. By St. 
 Denis, but I'll teach thy handsome friend a bitter 
 lesson if he forget the respect due to thy mother's 
 daughter !"
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 49 
 
 "Oh, father! Indeed, dear father, there is no 
 reason for you to talk like this," began Corinne, her 
 face flushing and paling. 
 
 "There is, were thy ears as quick to hear as mine 
 are. Have a care lest thou art fooled, as wiser 
 women have been fooled before thee!" 
 
 Corinne slipped away, frightened and confused, 
 her eyes opened at last. For the rest of the time 
 Lowenthal was at the Bluff and she herself asked 
 him to shorten the time she was her old cautious 
 self again self-scornful at the humiliating position 
 she was forced to take up; afraid, too, not for her- 
 self, but her lover. Hayes inwardly rejoiced that the 
 length of their stay was drawing to a close. He had 
 only come because of a sense of chivalrous respon- 
 sibility towards Corinne; and he noticed the pecu- 
 liarity that was beginning to creep into old Sebas- 
 tien's manner towards his friend. It gave him an 
 uncanny feeling to see the old fellow's red-lidded 
 eyes fixed on Lowenthal with an inscrutable expres- 
 sion in their cavernous depths, half-hid by thick, 
 shaggy eyebrows. 
 
 As for poor Sebastien, he was to be pitied. A 
 great fear was lying heavily on his heart. After the 
 manner of those who have all their lives long placed 
 little faith in others' vows, especially where young 
 blood was concerned, he was beginning to suspect 
 his own daughter, and put the worst construction 
 on what he could see with his own eyes was the 
 understanding that existed between her and Lowen- 
 thal. The thought that the only child left to his
 
 50 C O R I N N E 
 
 old age was wilfully deceiving him, and bringing 
 disgrace upon him, lent again to the smouldering 
 volcano of his Gallic temperament something of its 
 old fire. When a man of Sebastien's age gets an 
 idea firmly rooted into his brain, no earthly power 
 can drive it out. There was danger ahead for some- 
 one. 
 
 For a few days before Lowen-thal's departure, the 
 old man drank heavily, and Corinne, at her wits' 
 end at such a new phase of her father's character, 
 and shamed to her heart's core at the thought that 
 he might make an exhibition of himself before 
 Hugh, sent an urgent message to Jim Barr to come 
 and help her father to "pull up" before it became 
 common talk that he was a drunkard. 
 
 Jim came at once. 
 
 "I won't leave him till he's all right again," he 
 said reassuringly. "Something must have upset 
 him. I never saw him in this state before." 
 
 To Corinne's grateful thanks for his promptitude 
 in hastening to her assistance Barr appeared to turn 
 a deaf ear. He took Sebastien in hand in the old 
 kindly way, and the girl breathed freely again. 
 Duplicity was getting on her nerves, but when 
 Hugh had gone, perhaps all would go on calmly as 
 before. 
 
 The last day of Lowenthal's holiday proved her 
 busiest for the season. Rosalie was tired out, and 
 could not drag her little feet round as she had done 
 at the beginning, and Corinne was obliged to do 
 double duty.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 51 
 
 Try as they would, the lovers could not get five 
 minutes' conversation together. Their only hope 
 of farewell words lay in their meeting after closing 
 time at the old trysting-place, the Sword Rock. 
 
 Sebastien, seemingly a little better, though he had 
 been moody and irritable all day, went to "lie 
 down" at dusk, which often meant a heavy sleep 
 for hours, and Barr took over the "soft drinks" 
 counter, usually patronised till the last minute. 
 
 Lovventhal slipped away from Hayes at the first 
 opportunity afterwards, and all Corinne was left to 
 do was to watch for a favourable moment when she 
 could steal off unobserved and join him. 
 
 The moment came, and, throwing a light shawl 
 round her head, she made her way carefully along a 
 narrow path above the steeper and less-frequented 
 cliffs a path her own feet had formed in her goings 
 to and fro through the years. So used was she to 
 the way that she could have gone straight to the 
 craggy recess where Hugh awaited her had she 
 been blindfolded. The night was dark enough as it 
 was, and she couldn't see any distance before her. 
 
 Suddenly a hand gripped her arm, and his 
 white beard blown about by the wind her father 
 confronted her. 
 
 She smothered a scream, for his eyes were glow- 
 ing red in the dim light, and, for the first time in 
 her life, fear of him as regarded herself was taking 
 possession of her. 
 
 She tried to speak, to shake off his hand, which 
 was hurting her cruelly, but his grasp was strong
 
 52 CORINNE 
 
 with the strength of frenzy. He was talking thickly, 
 gutturally, and oh, horror! striving to put her 
 backwards over the cliffs into the seething depths of 
 sea below. 
 
 Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, but 
 she strove with all her grand young strength to save 
 herself; while the old man, with the stronger 
 strength of one possessed for a time of a maniacal 
 demon, drove her every second nearer to a terrible 
 death on the water-hidden, sharp-edged shelves 
 beneath, muttering the while in his native tongue: 
 "Thou shalt have a long swim to-night, my daugh- 
 ter, and the sea shall wash thy soul clean!" 
 
 As she stood on the brink of eternity, in a flash 
 Corinne understood all that was working in the poor 
 old man's mind, and she almost felt as if she were 
 being hurled to a righteous doom. Then her senses 
 swam, and she was falling, falling 
 
 When she came to her senses, the cold wind was 
 still blowing on her face, but her head was resting 
 against a strong arm, and someone was forcing her 
 to swallow spirits from a flask. 
 
 "There, there; you are alright now, Miss Cor- 
 inne," Laurence Hayes' deep voice was saying. "No 
 one need know but me, and your father's mad act 
 has already spent itself. He wasn't responsible for 
 his action. He's over there, opposite you, weeping 
 like a child. Don't worry. He'll be all right. I'll 
 give him a soothing draught to-night. Lucky I 
 brought my 'tools' with me. They're not packed 
 yet."
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 53 
 
 "Hugh Hugh down there!" gasped Corinne, 
 her next thought for her lover. 
 
 "He'll be all right," said Larry, somewhat con- 
 temptuously. "He can cool his heels there, for all I 
 care just now. There, now, try to rise with my 
 help. Good girl ! Just caught you in time. After 
 Hugh sneaked off I guessed where he was going, 
 of course; it's no use pretending I didn't I thought 
 I'd go out into the fresh air and have a smoke; 
 'Lucy Hinton' isn't a bad companion when you're 
 left in the lurch. Well, I just happened to be in 
 your tracks accidentally of course the night was 
 so dark and all that, and, to make a long story short, 
 I just arrived in the nick of time to pull you back. 
 Yes, cry, there's a good girl! A real out-and-out 
 weep will do you more good than all my drugs." 
 
 Corinne wept on unrestrainedly against the arm 
 which had saved her wept not only because of 
 natural reaction, but with shame and bitter repen- 
 tance, that she had ever consented to act a lie to 
 please anyone, however loved. Oh, how sordid it 
 all seemed now ! It was as if someone had come and 
 stripped off a rose-hued mantle from a marble figure 
 and revealed, not beauty, but distorted ugliness. 
 
 And perhaps Laurence Hayes felt something of 
 what was passing in the girl's mind, for he soothed 
 her with tender, brotherly words, as if she had been 
 a child. 
 
 "You'll come back to the house with me; and, I 
 say, Mademoiselle, 'make up' with the poor old dad,
 
 54 C O R I N N E 
 
 who'll be sorry enough when he's sobered again. 
 And don't live two lives, even for that jolly blind ass 
 of a Hugh! I know how fond he is of you, but 
 you won't make him any the truer to you by giving 
 in to him. You do what you think is right. You're 
 a Catholic, you know, and that means 'noblesse 
 oblige' to us who have the good luck to be of the 
 grand old faith." 
 
 "But Hugh Mr. Allingham is one, too," fal- 
 tered the girl. 
 
 "Hugh one! By the powers, he's not ! He comes 
 
 of as bigoted a stock as Oh, but it's treason I'm 
 
 talking, entirely. He'll be knocking the head off me 
 for it. It is enough to say that he is not a Catholic 
 worse luck." 
 
 Corinne tottered again, and would have fallen had 
 not Larry put his arm around her and steadied her. 
 In a few minutes, however, she got some control 
 over herself. 
 
 "My father," she said, motioning to Hayes to lead 
 her to where he still sat, moaning in French to him- 
 self. 
 
 Laurence struck a match and showed the old man 
 his daughter. She sank at her father's feet and 
 knelt there. She took his shaking hand an-d kissed 
 it. 
 
 "Father, I have done no wrong. God is my wit- 
 ness. Do you understand? Tell me you under- 
 stand." 
 
 "Mon enfant! Mon enfant!" 
 
 Larry gently led father and daughter home.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 55 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SHOALS OF CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 Father Dalton, the hard-worked parish priest of 
 Port C , was in the middle of his dinner, consist- 
 ing of a scraggy neck of mutton, potatoes, a half- 
 cooked bit of cabbage, and some boiled rice, when 
 his housekeeper told him that a young lady had 
 called to see him. "An' she that tired, poor thing, 
 having walked all the way from the Bluff, that she 
 could hardly keep her feet under her." 
 
 "All the way from the Bluff ! Bless my soul, the 
 poor girl must be starving, too. What name did she 
 give you, Anne? Miss Courboules? Oh, ay! from 
 the refreshment rooms down there." 
 
 He finished hurriedly, and went out to Corinn*. 
 
 "Well, now, Miss Courboules, who'd have 
 thought of your coming such a long way on foot? 
 I hope there's nothing wrong with your father?" 
 
 "No, Father Dalton, thank you. I was just very 
 much troubled in mind over something, and I felt 
 I must come and get your advice, if I had to walk 
 twenty miles more to get it."
 
 56 C O R I N N E 
 
 "Very good, my child. I'll do the best I can for 
 you. Go into the dining-room there, and Anne will 
 make you a fresh cup of tea and give you something 
 to eat. I'll not listen to a word till you're rested." 
 
 Corinne was only too thankful to partake of the 
 simple repast. She was tired out after her long and 
 wearisome jaunt, though to be physically weary 
 gave her a sort of satisfaction, after the mental travail 
 she had been undergoing. She had refused to give 
 more than a few minutes' interview to Hugh Lowen- 
 thal the following morning; she had said she could 
 not bear more; and he, enraged and disappointed, 
 but in full possession of himself as usual, had listened 
 to her brief explanation of the occurrence of the 
 night before, had assured her again of his undying 
 attachment, had promised to write with his usual 
 regularity, and bidden her a fond farewell wilfully 
 blind to the fact that he was still acting an unmanly 
 part. Hayes had scourged him well with his tongue 
 on his return, puzzled and annoyed, from the Sword 
 Rock, and he had taken "the dressing down" quietly, 
 knowing in his heart that he deserved it, saying in 
 justification that he loved the girl, but was not yet 
 prepared to take her into the presence of his rela- 
 tions, because of the "jolly row the pater would 
 make over such a mesalliance." 
 
 Hayes quoted Tennyson at him; that "true 
 hearts were more than coronets, and simple faith 
 than Norman blood," but drew nothing more from 
 him than a muttered imprecation.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 57 
 
 Corinne told the kindly priest the whole story. 
 He listened attentively, and told her that, if she 
 wished it, he would call upon the young man on his 
 next visit to Melbourne, which would be in less than 
 a month's time. 
 
 "But, Father, I have not his full address, even if 
 I could avail myself of your kind offer. He calls 
 for my letters, you see." 
 
 "Ah, that's a bad sign ; a very bad sign ! For all 
 you know, my child, he may be a married man." 
 
 Corinne grew deathly white. 
 
 "My poor child, a young girl can never be too 
 cautious. Half the unhappy marriages are the cause 
 of a woman's too complete trust in a man whom she 
 knows little or nothing about, and half of the 
 wretchedness and sin and misery. It is natural for 
 young people to be attracted by each other, but it is 
 not safe to allow the heart to pass into the keeping 
 of any man, however fascinating, however apparently 
 good, without first finding out who and what he is. 
 You say he had a friend with him? Was this 
 friend, then, so uncommunicative when he found 
 tragedy was averted only through the mercy of 
 Almighty God, who permitted that he should be 
 near enough to come to your rescue? Did he tell 
 you nothing more than that the young man had 
 lied to you when he said that he was a Catholic?" 
 
 "Nothing more that I remember, Father and I 
 wouldn't be likely to forget."
 
 58 C O R I N N E 
 
 "No, you would not, poor, motherless child ! Ah, 
 well, we may find out something yet. I shall make 
 a note of this young man's name." 
 
 The priest took up his note-book and pencil. 
 
 "Laurence Hayes was his name, 'Larry,' his friend 
 usually called him." 
 
 "Larry? Now, there might be some hope of a 
 happy settlement to this unfortunate love affair, if 
 it were a 'Larry' you had to deal with. I've known 
 some fine fellows in the Old Country by the name 
 of Larry with the Hayes belonging to it, too. Now, 
 tell me, why didn't you fix your affections on Mr. 
 Larry Hayes, instead? Sure, there's no knowing 
 why young women act so contrary." 
 
 "We can't help these things, Father." 
 
 "Oh, but you can. Everything has a beginning, 
 and it is easy to check the beginnings. Well, now, 
 you mustn't see this young man any more. No, 
 not any more, till he does the right thing by you. 
 If he wants to marry you, he'll come and ask your 
 father for you. When a man truly loves a woman, 
 my child, nothing has the power to stand long 
 between himself and her, if she loves him in return 
 nothing but Almighty God and His laws. When 
 your busy time at the Bluff is over, you must go 
 away somewhere. Try to persuade your father to 
 go with you. I'll do my best to coax the old gentle- 
 man into agreeing. Write, if you want to write, 
 now, and tell this Mr. Allingham that in duty's 
 name you feel bound to respect the wishes of your
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 59 
 
 father, which forbid the intimacy till he can see 
 his way to make you his wife; and even then, in 
 such event, he must agree to your being married in 
 your own Church and conforming to the usual 
 request. And pray, pray continually for his conver- 
 sion, my child ; and I shall not forget your intention 
 at the Altar of God. Let me know how you get 
 on ; and do not give way to useless repining. Your 
 Heavenly Father didn't put you into this world for 
 nothing else than to make this selfish young man 
 happy. Don't run away with that idea. You may 
 be placed within a wide sphere of action yet. Sure, 
 you haven't properly begun to live your life yet. 
 With the fine physique you have, you were meant 
 as a leader in the van of some of our grand Christian 
 movements for the regeneration of mankind. Ah, 
 believe me, child, there's no man in the world worth 
 breaking your good heart over." 
 
 Corinne thanked him gratefully for his sympathy 
 and advice, and rose to go. 
 
 "Wait now, I'll just get Mike to put the horse 
 in the buggy. He can drive you within sight of the 
 Bluff. And here's a new rosary from Rome for 
 you, that was blessed by the Holy Father himself, 
 and a few little pictures for your prayer-book. Tell 
 your father I'll be soon down to see him. It's time 
 he went to his duty." 
 
 Corinne felt the better for having had the good 
 priest's sympathy and advice. It acted like a tonic 
 upon her despondent spirit, and gave her food for 
 healthful reflection. No, however her lover acted,
 
 60 CORINNE 
 
 she was not to allow the life the great Creator had 
 given her to be wrecked, to allow her spirit to be 
 soured, and her heart to be hardened. She had 
 heard and read that "disappointment in love" 
 blighted many promising lives, and was given often 
 as an excuse for an irritable and fault-finding old 
 maid, and a mean and crusty old bachelor. Man 
 might take it as a sufficient explanation of a narrow 
 life, but would God? 
 
 Oh, how hard it seemed to wake morning after 
 morning, as she did already, with a heavy weight 
 upon the heart and disinclination for performing the 
 duties so cheerfully accomplished, and even liked, 
 before! How she sympathised with those who felt 
 as she did! Yet, it was wrong, her own reason 
 told her, for either her or them to give in to this 
 benumbed feeling, and only perform the daily tasks 
 half-heartedly, and with downcast face. "Lord, 
 give me strength to rise above myself !" she prayed ; 
 "and, Our Lady of Victories, pray for me !" 
 
 Even if she lost the man she loved with all her 
 yearning heart, she would act upon the priest's 
 advice as literally as she could. Nature cried out 
 against her forfeiting through her own act her 
 chance of seeing her lover soon again; but strength 
 was coming to her, a new spiritual force seemed 
 within her since her rescue from the fate which had 
 seemed a cruel certainty. Ah, yes, Laurence Hayes 
 was good and kind and dependable; she wished she 
 had a brother like him. Instinct told her that he
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 61 
 
 had fought for her with his friend to the best of his 
 ability. His bright, boyish face rose up before her, 
 and in her heart she called him friend her friend. 
 Perhaps, some day, she would hear from him; he 
 would tell her all she wished to know. 
 
 After writing and re-writing her decision many 
 times, and copying it over with the greatest atten- 
 tion to handwriting, composition, and spelling, 
 Corinne at last despatched the fateful letter, and ate 
 her heart out for days waiting for an answer which 
 never came. 
 
 Events had been occurring in the Lowenthal 
 household of which she had not the remotest idea. 
 Mr. Lowenthal, Hugh's father, had been found dead 
 in bed one autumn morning, and with the necessity 
 of setting his affairs in order, and preparing to fulfil 
 the wish expressed in the will, that, in the event of 
 anything happening as had just occurred, he was to 
 sell Melbourne properties and the bulk of the house- 
 hold effects, and take his mother to England, where 
 she was to remain if she so desired, and occupy with 
 him their old home in Kent until such time as he 
 succeeded to the Earldom of Poppledene. 
 
 There was now no one between him and Popple- 
 dene but his uncle, and he was a very frail old man, 
 so Hugh, though his heart had not changed towards 
 Corinne, was farther away from a union with her 
 than ever. He did not now consider his mother's 
 opinion as much as he did his uncle's. If his uncle 
 had died before his father, he would have braved his 
 parents' anger and disapprobation, he thought, but
 
 62 C O R I N N E 
 
 he did not care to face the Earl's cold, critical eyes 
 and sarcastic voice. He had never cared much for 
 his uncle. True, it was years since he had seen 
 him. The trip to England was advisable, after all, 
 in more ways than one. He could plan out his life 
 better when he saw Poppledene again and had a 
 serious talk with the old lord. He would not 
 remain long "at home." He would make his 
 mother's home in Kent so comfortable that she 
 wouldn't care about facing the discomforts of a long 
 sea journey again. When he reached Melbourne 
 once more, he would be, to a certain extent, a free 
 agent. In spite of Corinne's prohibition, he would 
 go down to the Bluff and see her again, and "tell 
 the old man a lie or two," if that would ease his 
 silly old mind. At any rate, he could take Corinne 
 an engagement ring this time, and dazzle the eyes 
 of her suspicious and irascible parent with its 
 beauty and value. But he would not go "till the 
 last minute" till his passage was booked, and all 
 was ready for sailing. To write letters was of 
 neither use nor wisdom. An hour's talk to Corinne 
 would do more than all the letters he could com- 
 pose. So he let a few weeks run by, secure in his 
 belief of the girl's complete faith in him. And, to 
 do him justice, he was grieving very sincerely for 
 his father, who, in spite of a constant hauteur of 
 manner, which he never wholly laid aside even in his 
 children's presence, had inspired respect and regard. 
 
 The Lascelles had proved very sympathetic in his 
 bereavement, and Isabel had given up whole days
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 63 
 
 to his mother to assist in the task of consoling her 
 no easy one, for she was of the nature that resents 
 any show of pity in affliction. 
 
 Isabel was wise in the method she adopted to 
 wean her way into the good graces of the poor 
 "Countess." She told her that she had simply come 
 to be useful, to do "the hundred and one irritating 
 and hateful things" one is forced to attend to at such 
 a time, such as answering letters cf condolence, 
 giving instructions to the dressmaker, etc. Mrs. 
 Lowenthal accepted her services because she knew 
 no other young girl of her acquaintance would do 
 the tasks so gracefully and in such an altogether 
 correct fashion. 
 
 "When I am settled in dear old Kent again, you 
 must come and pay me a long visit, my dear," she 
 said one day; "I shall write occasionally to you, and 
 I hope you will not forget to send me a letter now 
 and then." 
 
 Isabel's heart gave a triumphant throb. A visit 
 to England was worth giving up a week's sunshine 
 and gaiety for to say nothing of the irksomeness 
 of being at the beck and call of a very exacting, if 
 highly-polished, noble dame. A few months in the 
 Lowenthals' beautiful Kentish home, and who knew 
 what might come of it? The coronet of a coun- 
 tess, perhaps! 
 
 So she still strained every nerve to win golden 
 opinions from the heir-prospective- to Poppledene 
 and his mother, while far-away Corinne wept her- 
 self to sleep night after night.
 
 64 C O R I N N E 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BURIAL OF A RING. 
 
 "Yes, I'm minding the house, sir, while Mr. 
 Cabooley and his daughter are away. No, I have 
 no idea, sir, where they have gone to, nor" eyeing 
 the handsome stranger suspiciously "why they are 
 away just now, when all the spring cleanin's on the 
 go no, no more than the man in the moon ! Sure, 
 I was never the one to bother the head of me about 
 other people's business; and the old gentleman's 
 always too cute a customer to let on as to his. No, 
 nor I don't know whether they means to come back 
 at all, at all, either! Keep your half-sovereign in 
 your pocket, sir; you may be needin' it more than 
 myself yet ! meanin' no harm ; but the world's full 
 of ups and downs, as poor Tim used to say when he 
 was above ground, peace be to his soul ! I wouldn't 
 want payin' for the truth to be screwed out of me, 
 when you've got it already. 
 
 "They do be sayin' that the place is to be sold up ; 
 but 'tis next door to a lie, for all I know, for some 
 of the folk round the Bluff have nothing to do 
 through the winter but spin yarns. Mr. Barr, up at 
 the Coffee Palace, might be going to run it, along
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 65 
 
 with all his other concerns. Tis Barr's Bluff the 
 district might be called, for he owns near every bit 
 of ground he treads on. 'Tis his son that's sweet 
 this many a day on pretty Miss Cabooley but who 
 wouldn't, says I? Sure, she's the flower of the 
 country, with eyes like the sea itself, that do be 
 speaking a hundred things at once, an' no man 
 knowin' the meanin' ! 
 
 ' Tis to old Mr. Barr I goes every week for the 
 money; those were the only instructions I got, for 
 they knew well 'twas myself would keep the place 
 clean and tidy ! An' if you're tired and thirsty after 
 your walk, sir, seein' it was for nothing, you've only 
 to say the word if you'd like a nice hot cup of tea or 
 coffee. Or is it just a drink of milk and soda you'd 
 be wantin'?" 
 
 But Hugh wasn't "after wanting" anything but 
 the one person he had come so far to see. 
 
 Thanking the caretaker, he turned moodily away. 
 So Corinne had flown off somewhere evidently not 
 anywhere near at hand away from him, no doubt, 
 away from him ! The fancy was not a pleasant one. 
 He kicked a stone away savagely from his path. 
 What on earth had come over Corinne to cause her 
 to be "up in arms" over a few weeks' silence? Her 
 entire nature could not possibly alter in such a short 
 period of time. Women like she was, he acknow- 
 ledged, did not love at will. When they loved, they 
 gave the whole heart, not for once, but for always. 
 He must trace her if he could but, how? It was 
 out of the question that he should go to Barr's.
 
 66 CORINNE 
 
 "Ten to one," if the old man were asked, he would 
 say the same as the caretaker, and be far less civil 
 about it. He would inquire at the baths, instead, 
 and from the red-haired young man so diligently 
 collecting mussels in an "Uncle Tom" handkerchief. 
 
 He met with no information, however. The 
 Courboules had not told anyone where they were 
 going. "The old gentleman was getting very feeble, 
 and it was quite probable he would not open the 
 place again, but lease it, or put it up for sale." 
 
 Hugh spent a day "hanging about" the Bluff on 
 the off chance of hearing news of them, but all to no 
 purpose. 
 
 Baffled at every point, and annoyed to exaspera- 
 tion, he saw there was nothing else for it but to 
 return to town, his one spare day ere he sailed gone 
 for ever! 
 
 He wandered to the Sword Rock, where he had 
 so often met the lovely and trusting girl, and sat dis- 
 consolately in her favourite spot, thinking bitterly 
 at last of the double part he had played, which, it 
 seemed only too likely now, was to darken not only 
 his own life, but Corinne's. 
 
 Yet, why should she not wait till his path grew 
 more defined? They were both young, he and she. 
 Other people had loved as truly, and waited for each 
 other for long and dreary years, with little to con- 
 sole them save the knowledge of each other's truth 
 and constancy. 
 
 With her and him, he hoped, it could only be a 
 matter of one year's waiting. His uncle's hold on
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 67 
 
 life was very frail, and daily growing weaker, his 
 medical adviser had written to Mrs. Lowenthal 
 "the thread might snap at any moment." When it 
 did, then who should dare to dictate to Sir Hugh 
 Lowenthal? 
 
 The mere sound of the title, ringing, as it suddenly 
 seemed, in his ears, served to renew his confidence 
 in the future. He would be superstitious for once, he 
 decided, and look upon this keen disappointment as 
 but a pointing of Fate's finger to the path he was 
 destined to take. 
 
 First, though, as Corinne could not be present to 
 hear his vows of lifelong fidelity and never had she 
 appeared so entrancingly beautiful and desirable in 
 his eyes as now he would make all right with his 
 nagging conscience, and take an oath there, where 
 they two had first known the ineffable joy of love's 
 first kiss, to marry no other woman, to make no 
 other peeress or peasant my Lady Lowenthal ! 
 
 He jumped up, and, putting his lips to the jutting 
 out portion of the grim grey rock, which had so 
 often formed an arm for Corinne to lean against 
 when his own arm was not available, he vowed to 
 his Creator to fulfil to his utmost power all that 
 Corinne Courboules had every right to expect from 
 his honour and regard to fulfil it, whatever the 
 future might hold, provided that her love for him 
 remained unchanged. 
 
 He now felt more at ease in his mind, and looked 
 out calmly over the blue expanse of water, shim-
 
 68 CORINNE 
 
 mering in the sunshine as it had never shimmered 
 in hours more happy. 
 
 The waves seemed to laugh mockingly at him, 
 and each passing seagull's cry was like a shout of 
 derision at his new-made vow ; but he smiled back a 
 challenge to the sea and the birds that Corinne 
 loved, for youth and strength and hope had again 
 begun to glow within him. He turned his back 
 upon the waters, deaf as he had ever been to the 
 language of the sea. 
 
 There was but one more thing he desired to do 
 before returning from his fruitless quest, and that 
 was to bury the betrothal ring which he had brought 
 with him, not so much to please Corinne, whose 
 mind, he knew, was above such baubles, but to 
 satisfy Sebastien's questions and his ideas of the 
 conventional. 
 
 What place were fitter for the rite than the old 
 trysting-spot? In olden days lovers buried their 
 tokens and their letters in a spot only known to 
 both. It was a quaint and romantic conceit, which 
 would be sure to appeal to Corinne. So he chose 
 a crevice deep within the rocks, where tiny plants 
 were rearing their green and dainty heads a sort 
 of fairy garden by the sea. 
 
 He looked at the little green shoots with eyes that 
 grew dim and wistful. They reminded him of the 
 tendrils of love in his absent sweetheart's garden of 
 the soul which he had taught to put forth fragrant 
 leaves towards his. In a moment, the spot seemed 
 doubly sacred to Corinne.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 69 
 
 With the aid of his pocket-knife and a piece of 
 sharp stone, he dug a tiny, but deep, grave for the 
 costly ring holding it a moment in his hand, and 
 watching its valuable pearls and diamonds flash 
 into a dazzling radiance in the slanting gleam of 
 sunshine which had suddenly found out the elfin 
 parterre of the rocks. 
 
 He did not see the pair of human eyes that 
 watched him, nor had he any sense of the nearness 
 of any other human, for his own eyes were "with 
 his heart, and that was far away." 
 
 Before he restored the ring to its little silk-lined 
 casket, he asked himself how long it would be hid- 
 den out of sight of the dear eyes of the woman he 
 loved ! 
 
 A line from a popular Irish ballad flashed across 
 his brain : 
 
 "It may be for years, and it may be for ever!" 
 
 He sighed heavily as he tore a leaf neatly out of 
 his pocket-book, and wrote a few loving words to 
 Corinne upon it, wrapping it around the case, which 
 he then buried, disposing the soil tidily above it and 
 around it, and setting again the tiny plant he had 
 removed. 
 
 "I didn't know it was in me to be so sentimen- 
 tal." he thought, as he hurried back along the beach 
 to catch the boat, "but I suppose it's justifiable 
 under the circumstances, and it may please my dar- 
 ling when she knows." 
 
 That night he wrote a long letter to Corinne, pas- 
 sionately loving and remorseful, and explaining all.
 
 70 CORINNE 
 
 He entreated her to be patient, and to write to him 
 to a given address that of his bankers in London. 
 
 In a fit of absent-mindedness, induced by his many 
 conflicting emotions, he wrote his name in full. He 
 sealed the letter without noticing this, and 
 addressed it with a grimace of chagrin to the care of 
 Barr, senior. 
 
 A few days after he sailed for England. 
 
 Laurence Hayes was among those who crowded 
 to see him off a puzzled and angry, yet loyal, 
 Larry, who gave Hugh the benefit of the doubt as to 
 whether he had gone to see Corinne before he left. 
 For he did not know that the young girl had fled 
 inland to find in new scenes and ideas some panacea 
 for her sorely-wounded heart. Good-natured Larry 
 determined to "run down" himself, and "see how 
 the poor little girl was getting on." 
 
 "Some Friday to Monday would suit admirably, 
 and give me a chance to have a good chat with her. 
 I could put up at old Barr's." 
 
 To keep guard over Corinne seemed, somehow, 
 his bounden duty, and he wondered much why 
 Lowenthal had not already delegated it to him. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the thought of doing so had 
 more than once occurred to Hugh, but, each time, 
 the "green-headed monster" had influenced him 
 against the idea. "Larry was rather an attractive 
 fellow, and hang it, anyway, he didn't want the 
 woman he cared for to make a confidant of any man- 
 friend, however trustworthy."
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 7' 
 
 The "Countess' " face was radiant as the steamer 
 started to plough its way at last through the restless 
 waters. 
 
 She had never been enamoured of Australia "the 
 land of the democrat/' as she scornfully termed it. 
 
 "It has no society worthy of the name, as I have 
 so often remarked," she said to her son, as, a stately 
 figure in her mourning attire, she watched its shores 
 fade from view. "The red blood of the labouring 
 people permeates its laws, and it would never sur- 
 prise me in the least to see a revolutionary flag irt 
 the ascendant there. I am glad to leave it more 
 than glad ; but you seem anything but rejoiced, boy ! 
 standing, as you are, in the attitude of the Flying 
 Dutchman, dour and sombre-browed. One would 
 think you were leaving behind you some treasure of 
 untold value!" 
 
 "I am," Hugh answered gravely "and two graves, 
 also, mother two graves on which the grass has 
 not yet begun to grow."
 
 72 C O R I N N E 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN AFTER YEARS. 
 
 Dr. Hayes was very tired. He had not yet become 
 accustomed to the rough roads of mountainous coun- 
 try in whose centre his practice had been bought. 
 Riding "took more out of him" than he had 
 expected, yet driving was often out of the question. 
 His predecessor, though elderly, had been a man of 
 herculean strength, one who thought nothing of get- 
 ting to horse again when home had just been safely 
 reached after the hard work which had entailed the 
 entire loss of rest and sleep. Old Dr. Norris had 
 been the pride of the ranges. The people of the 
 district had taken a personal pride in his exploits in 
 their service; he had reflected credit upon them as 
 upon himself. 
 
 "Norris and his old black horse, you can't beat 
 'em!" was the universal verdict. "If a man's lost 
 in the bush, he's the first to join in the halloo, and 
 carry everything that may be required with him, 
 too and a bottle of brandy to boot. He's part and 
 parcel of the hills, an' may he never get his grand 
 old neck broke when he's carrying all before him."
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 73 
 
 But when, one morning, "God's finger touched 
 him, and he slept," and brave old Norris and his 
 charger were things of the past, and another doctor 
 took up his residence at 'The Bungalow," doubt and 
 dissatisfaction made their voices heard in the land, 
 and many an old resident preferred to leave his 
 chance of recovery to Providence rather than 
 trust himself in the hands "of one of the raw lads 
 fresh from their first experimenting on unfortunate 
 folks' bodies." 
 
 The new doctor had the "new ways" with him 
 that was anything but in his favour. His manner 
 might be all that could be desired, and his face plea- 
 sant to look upon, but "where would that tall skina- 
 maleen be on a bush track in the dark? And what 
 confidence could the father of a family put in such 
 a bit of a lanky boy? As for his continual preach- 
 ing against so much use of alcohol in emergencies, 
 brandy and whisky had set more men and women on 
 their legs than he would ever have the luck to do !" 
 
 Dr. Laurence Hayes hadn't had much reason, so 
 far, to be enamoured of Musktown. He was "break- 
 ing himself in 1 ' slowly, but surely, and that was some 
 satisfaction ; but his prospects seemed "nil" as far as 
 the making of money was concerned. He wanted 
 to succeed for the sake of his profession alone a 
 profession which, theoretically, he loved; still, he 
 could not live without money, and it was "like draw- 
 ing a tooth" to get his well-earned fees out of some 
 of the people of picturesque Musktown.
 
 74 C O R I N N E 
 
 He sank intp the inviting depths of the wide arm- 
 chair wearily. It had been expressly made for the 
 more corpulent form of Dr. Norris, and, except for 
 his long legs, Larry was almost lost in it a fact 
 which pleased him this winter evening, promising as 
 it did some degree of physical comfort within the 
 glow of the bright flames leaping up the chimney 
 from the big logs piled on each other in the wide 
 fireplace. 
 
 "Upon my word, the want of a congenial com- 
 panion here is enough to make a fellow want to 
 chuck up the whole poverty-stricken business! It 
 seems ages since I had a pal worthy of the name. 
 I'll be driven into matrimony yet !" 
 
 He smiled as he thought of the anxious, match- 
 making mamma on the opposite side of the quiet 
 country street, who lost no opportunity of "trotting 
 out" her four apple-cheeked, but wide-mouthed, 
 daughters, and bidding them play "The Fairy Queen 
 Galop" or "The Maiden's Prayer, with Variations," 
 for Dr. Hayes. 
 
 "Ailsa, Enid, Daphne, or Olive?" Alas! their 
 names were the best of them! 
 
 Miss Mossley, the postmistress, was pretty and 
 intelligent, and he could recall scores more who 
 deserved both adjectives when he brought to 
 mind the many girls he had met and liked through 
 the years. 
 
 After all, among the lot, there was only one he 
 had given a second thought to, and he had lost sight 
 of her this many a day.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 75 
 
 Corinne Courboules, of the beautiful face and fas- 
 cinating accent what had become of her? Had 
 she settled down to the humdrum, hard-working lot 
 of a settler's wife, dead to the best that was in her, 
 as dead to the past? tied, perchance, to a boor? 
 
 He moved restlessly in the cosy depths of the 
 arm-chair as Tennyson's lines chimed in with his 
 fears : 
 
 "Thou shah lower to his level day by day, 
 What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympaihise 
 with clay!" 
 
 Heavens, what a fate! He could not imagine it 
 for the high-souled, lovely girl he remembered ; and 
 yet, and yet women had been known to do strange 
 and unaccountable things when love had failed them, 
 finding too late that they had tied themselves with 
 their own reckless hands to unspeakable degrada- 
 tion and misery. 
 
 "And Sir Hugh Lowenthal reigns alone at Popple- 
 dene ! no bountiful Lady of the Manor to dispense 
 the benefits of his riches. Let me see" musingly 
 stroking his moustache "how long is it since 
 Isabel Lascelles went over to stay with the old lady? 
 By the powers, it's close on two years ! She'll have 
 him yet, sure as a gun ! Serve him right, if she 
 does annex him ; he deserves no better fate, after his 
 treatment of Corinne dear little, lovable little 
 Corinne!" 
 
 Corinne wasn't little, by any stretch of the 
 imagination, but with Larry, as with so many others
 
 76 C O R I N N E 
 
 of his sex, the adjective was a term of endearment 
 which it was always safe to indulge in. 
 
 "For some reason or other, she's been in my mind 
 all day. It seems jolly odd that I never hear tale 
 or tidings of her." 
 
 There was a knock at the door, and old Martha 
 thrust her grey head in. 
 
 "The new nurse for the Sanatorium's here, doctor, 
 and would like to see you before she's driven on. I 
 told her you was dead-beat, an', like as not, you was 
 'avin' a doze, but I can't get rid of her nohow says 
 the matron wrote that she was to see you before 
 she went on." 
 
 "Of course, of course!" shaking himself up 
 "show her in at once, Martha. I'm quite wide awake, 
 I assure you !" 
 
 He straightened himself, gave a pull to his collar, 
 and moved towards the door. Perhaps the poor girl 
 was dismayed to find that she still had so many 
 miles to travel. 
 
 A young girl was standing on the threshold. She 
 was, as he observed with satisfaction his profes- 
 sional instincts rising of fine physique for the work 
 before her, though there was a look of girlishness 
 about her that one associates only with those who 
 are "where the brook and river meet," not with 
 those who have been through the school of hospital 
 experience. 
 
 She was veiled, and he could not see her features 
 distinctly. He placed a chair near the fire for her,
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 77 
 
 and made the usual polite inquiries one makes of a 
 new arrival from the city. 
 
 At the first sound of her voice in answer, he 
 started. There was something familiar in the tone, 
 something that suggested the foreigner or acquain- 
 tanceship with foreigners. Where had he heard it 
 before? He wished she would lift up her veil. Why, 
 in the name of common sense, did women persist in 
 smothering up their faces with such unhealthy 
 coverings? 
 
 A log end flared suddenly, and the flame shone 
 direct on the new nurse's face. 
 
 Larry rose to his feet again, and grasped the 
 mantelpiece with an unsteady hand. 
 
 "Am I can I be mistaken? Are you can you 
 be Miss Corinne Courboules!" 
 
 The young lady rose, and, bowing demurely, said : 
 "Xurse Cora, at your service Miss Courboules, if 
 you will." 
 
 "But but " 
 
 Words failed Larry, as he caught her two hands 
 and shook them up and down in gathering excite- 
 ment. 
 
 "My father died I was alone in the world a 
 kindly priest came to my assistance, and showed me 
 what work was waiting for me in the world. He 
 interested a good woman in me, and, through her, 
 I entered on my career as a nurse. I had much to 
 learn I studied hard I worked hard. But I met 
 with kind people everywhere and now I am here."
 
 78 C O R I N N E 
 
 "Thanks be to God," added Dr. Hayes reverently. 
 "You are the very woman needed up there in the 
 Sanatorium. Between ourselves, Matron has made 
 herself much disliked. You will see why later on. 
 I trust to you to set a good deal right. But it is 
 not only for the sake of the hospital I rejoice! I 
 was lying back here, before you came, almost curs- 
 ing the 'luck' that has dropped me down in such a 
 place. Now, behold, the scene is changed I have 
 an old friend near me if you will permit me to so 
 term you?" 
 
 "Permit you? Oh, Dr. Hayes, if you only knew 
 what a pleasure it was to me to see you here 
 here, where I had expected an utter stranger!" 
 
 Martha, well trained to her service, brought in 
 "some refreshments for the young lady" at this 
 juncture, and, as Corinne, or Nurse Cora, was 
 obliged to speedily continue her journey to the up- 
 lands, opportunity for more than ten minutes' con- 
 versation was not granted them. There were 
 instructions and messages to be taken for the 
 matron, etc., and the time was absurdly inadequate 
 for the indulging in of reminiscent remarks. 
 
 Nurse Cora was soon being borne at rapid speed 
 through the darkness, but in Dr. Hayes' study there 
 was a new light, a new brightness, and life seemed 
 worth living in a tenfold degree ! Corinne ! Cor- 
 inne! and more beautiful than ever. The years 
 had added grace upon grace. Yes, that was it she 
 was "a gracious woman, nobly planned."
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 79 
 
 What an unmitigated donkey Lowenthal had 
 been ! What was Isabel Lascelles, with all her well- 
 bred mannerisms, compared with this fresh-souled 
 daughter of Nature? He could see that she, Corinne, 
 had lost nothing of her former sweet-souled self; 
 she had gone onward, upward, not backward. 
 
 "And I shall have numberless opportunities of 
 seeing her, of speaking to her," Larry thought exul- 
 tantly, "bound as I am to pay my regular visits to 
 the patients up there, and keep the fear of God in 
 marble-hearted Miss Dunraven as well, that she may 
 treat the poor wretches under her care as she is sup- 
 posed to do, by bestowing on them a little more of 
 the milk of human kindness. If all stories be true, 
 she's not fit for her position. The unfortunate 
 victims in the tents seem to have no love for her, 
 anyhow. And good old Father O'Rafferty wouldn't 
 have given her such a lecture for nothing the other 
 day, considering that she should be a Catholic, if 
 she isn't. If looks could have torn him to pieces 
 for his outspokenness over the Pemberton affair, 
 there wouldn't have been much of him left! Oh, 
 well, Corinne will be a match for her, and straighten 
 things up a bit, or I'm no judge of character! It's 
 marvellous to see how that girl has developed ; I 
 can't get over it." 
 
 Dr. Hayes had to exercise much tact and prudence 
 in the renewal of his friendship with "Nurse Cora," 
 for Miss Dunraven was a woman of not only "hard," 
 but jealous, disposition. No one under her could 
 hope for consideration ; she rather liked being feared.
 
 8o CORINNE 
 
 Nurse Cora, however, proved herself too clever and 
 useful a member of the little community on the 
 hills, which boasted the only accommodation for 
 hundreds of miles for consumptives, to be altogether 
 "ridden over," and her splendid health was a valu- 
 able asset when one nurse after another had broken 
 down through alleged overwork, and had "deserted." 
 
 Miss Dunraven, like most of her ilk, was extremely 
 anxious to stand well in both Dr. Hayes' and Dr. 
 Johannsen's opinion the latter visiting from the 
 larger town of Wellbury. 
 
 As far as her establishment went, she had every 
 reason to be proud of its appointments a well-to-do 
 father furnishing it throughout according to her own 
 plans, which were at once modern and scientific. 
 
 "A woman of mind, but not of heart," both medi- 
 cal men had summed her up to be, and had never 
 found any reason why their opinion should be 
 changed. She was wrapped in enough self-conceit 
 to keep herself warm. The pity of it was that a 
 cruelly sarcastic tongue stripped the covering off 
 everybody else.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 81 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 KXIGHTS IN ARMOUR. 
 
 Isabel Lascelles walked slowly down the marble 
 .terrace which lent such beauty to the stately front 
 of Poppledene Manor. The gardens were aflame 
 with bright-hued blossoms, whose congregated 
 wealth of colouring was as skilfully and har- 
 moniously arranged as an exquisite musical 
 symphony. Noble oaks, elms, and beeches spread 
 their well-trained branches in varying tones of green, 
 forming a delightful background to the soft-petalled 
 glory. Here and there quaint arbours, covered with 
 climbing plants and roses, invited to reverie. The 
 air was filled with perfume a languorous stillness 
 breathed everywhere. 
 
 Wherever she gazed, Isabel saw nothing but 
 beauty from the grand old pile of buildings with 
 its "windows richly dight" to the great Gothic gate- 
 way, the carvings of which were black with age, as 
 were the armorial bearings of the Lowenthals on the 
 crown of the arch and past her gaze, further than 
 her eyes could see in the space of a day, was more 
 beauty of landscape and many a nestling village 
 and all was Hugh Lowenthal's, who, as yet, was but 
 her friend.
 
 82 C O R I N N E 
 
 Her mind travelled back to the noble hall, with 
 its groined roof and painted windows, its grim suits 
 of armour, its ancient weapons and trophies of the 
 chase; to the panelled walls, and Gothic casement- 
 windows beyond, set as they were in deep embra- 
 sures, and to the portraits of Lowenthal cavaliers 
 and dames; to the high mantelpieces, with stories 
 carved in "alto relievo;" to her own suite of rooms, 
 a marvel of modern luxury ; and her heart beat high 
 at the possibility still before her. 
 
 She glided rather than walked along. No "vulgar 
 haste" should mar the dignity of her carriage when 
 somebody's dark eyes might be watching and ad- 
 miring her swanlike movements, and finding them 
 appropriate to their beautiful surroundings. 
 
 Oh, to be mistress of these broad and verdant 
 lands ! to hear "My Lady" from his tenants' lips, to 
 queen it over his magnificent mansion in London, 
 now shut up and gloomy, awaiting the day when 
 the arrival of a bride should restore its gaiety and 
 brilliance ! 
 
 Isabel had had "a royal time" since she had come, 
 a welcome guest, to Poppledene. Balls and parties 
 of every description had been given in her honour 
 as soon as the conventional period of mourning for 
 the old Earl had expired. She had been presented 
 at Court by "the Countess" herself, and had borne 
 herself with the grace and ease of "the daughter of 
 a hundred earls." She had had offers of marriage 
 from two younger sons of titled families, and had 
 received invitations from families whose pedigree
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 83 
 
 could be traced back to William the Conqueror. A 
 social success, surely ! Still, she had had, on the 
 other hand, to do much violence to her own natural 
 inclinations in order to become gentle and patient 
 and lovable, in seeming at least, under any and 
 every circumstance not only to retain the affection 
 and regard of Mrs. Lowenthal, but in order to win 
 Hugh's. For, apart from his possessions, Isabel 
 Lascelles had grown to love him for himself alone. 
 
 That she had not yet succeeded in gaining more 
 than a brotherly regard, largely founded upon grati- 
 tude for her kindness to his mother, she was per- 
 fectly aware. But the cold, unornamented fact had 
 lost its power to chill her. He would miss her now; 
 she was fast becoming part and parcel of the place. 
 
 "The Countess" had kept Isabel in England longer 
 than she had ever had the remotest idea she would 
 be kept, failing marriage longer than her constant 
 need of fine attire could possibly have afforded, for 
 the Lascelles' "grandeur" was built up on the quick- 
 sands of debt, and ready money was ever scarce 
 with each and every one of them. 
 
 Constant presents from Mrs. Lowenthal, how- 
 ever given in the delicate way that one lady knows 
 how to give another without causing a feeling of 
 humiliation or wounded pride had enabled her to 
 "manage ;" also, her many lucky winnings at 
 "bridge." we must add ! and she was always beau- 
 tifully and appropriately g<>\vnrl. tlu- chan^r of 
 climate agreeing so perfectly with her naturally 
 healthy constitution that she had less occasion than
 
 84 CORINNE 
 
 of old to resort to artifice for the heightening of her 
 beauty. 
 
 Sir Hugh found it pleasant enough to have a 
 young and attractive face at the tea-urn, a young 
 voice refined and musical about the home, youthful 
 spirits in the chase for both rode out with the 
 hounds. Isabel was a fine horsewoman, and never 
 appeared to greater advantage than when on horse- 
 back. 
 
 A great painter of the day, on a winter visit to 
 the Manor, had painted Miss Lascelles as "L'Eques- 
 trienne," and the picture had already been given an 
 honoured place in one of the famous galleries of the 
 world. 
 
 "Isabel is as a daughter unto me," Mrs. Lowen- 
 thal was never weary of saying, and, often, Sir Hugh 
 caught her faded eyes wandering wistfully from him 
 to the girl, as if she longed with all her heart for 
 their union as man and wife. 
 
 The elder lady was growing very feeble, and clung 
 to Isabel with pathetic regard. She could not bear 
 to hear her speak of Australia, or even of her own 
 people. It was only to Hugh that Miss Lascelles 
 could open her lips on home subjects at all; and, 
 sorry enough for her at times, he usually affected 
 the deepest interest in her relations and friends, and 
 their Melbourne doings. She mostly read the 
 greater part of her many letters to him, and, in a 
 way, he enjoyed the hearing. He corresponded 
 with his old friend Laurence occasionally, but had 
 lost touch with his other University chums.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 85 
 
 From Corinne he had never received a line, but 
 one never-to-be-forgotten morning, not long after 
 his uncle's death, the leaf from his note-book which 
 had enwrapped the casket containing the buried 
 betrothal-ring reached him within a type-written 
 envelope. 
 
 From that unexpected, and, he thought, 
 undeserved, blow his heart had not yet rallied. He 
 was a changed man from that time, his smile rarer 
 and graver, his face lined and saddened, his eyes 
 full of a sombre light, like that on the sea where 
 there are sunken rocks. 
 
 There was no doubt in his mind but that Corinne 
 had sent him the leaflet herself. There was cer 
 tainly no other conclusion to arrive at. 
 
 That he suffered and suffered deeply goes 
 without saying. But, in the lonely depths of that 
 suffering, all that was shallow and selfish in the 
 man was gradually incinerated slowly, it is true, 
 but none the less surely. 
 
 The Hugh Lowenthal that Isabel Lascelles loved 
 with all the love she was capable of feeling for any 
 human being was a decidedly nobler man than he 
 to whom Corinne had given her passionately-loving 
 woman's heart years before. 
 
 Among Sir Hugh's own tenants he was well liked 
 and respected, and many had found the benefit of 
 his medical training. He had seen that all dwell- 
 ings were constructed on a sanitary basis, and any 
 outbreak of sickness was the signal for his appear-
 
 86 CORINNE 
 
 ance among his people as a severer health-inspector 
 than any appointed by the law of the land. But 
 England had no charm for Hugh Lowenthal. He 
 was ever restless in spirit, ever dreaming of return- 
 ing to Australia, of finding Corinne, of seeing for 
 himself what she had made of her life. He could 
 not bring himself to think of her as a married 
 woman; his whole nature protested against the 
 mere idea. As a woman would express it, "some- 
 thing told" him she was still true to his memory. 
 
 He had written letters to her, on his voyage, 
 always addressing them to the Bluff. Where else 
 was an address to find her? 
 
 No answer had ever been vouchsafed him, though 
 his heart had grown sick with longing for a sight of 
 her handwriting, for one word of love! 
 
 Hugh had found the late Earl a thorough aristo- 
 crat, who would have considered his marriage to a 
 plebeian high treason of the deepest dye. Moreover, 
 he had found the old gentleman in that nervous 
 state of prostration when it was required of all who 
 came in contact with his personality that they 
 should do their best to humour his little caprices 
 and whims, and, above all, to do nothing to irritate 
 or worry him. His nephew's return had given Sir 
 Bede great pleasure, and the light of his life's lamp 
 had flared up for a month or two with renewed 
 vigour ere it finally flickered again and went out 
 for ever. 
 
 During the second year of his sojourn in Eng- 
 land, it was out of the question that Sir Hugh
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 87 
 
 should go back to Victoria. But he hoped to do so 
 during the autumn of the following year, and had 
 informed his mother accordingly to her great grief 
 and chagrin. What in the world could a son of hers 
 see in that country of the "bourgeois"! 
 
 As Isabel sauntered along the terraces, a grace- 
 ful figure in her softly-flowing gown of golden- 
 brown, her dark hair picturesquely coiled at the 
 back of her shapely head, she looked all that she 
 desired to be the Lady of the Manor. 
 
 Hugh, strolling out leisurely in the same direc- 
 tion, thought her, as she, hearing his footsteps, 
 turned her face towards him, a charming picture, her 
 eyes shone so brightly, so vividly pomegranate-red 
 were her lips, so delicately ivory her complexion. 
 
 "Do your thoughts run into poems, this glorious 
 day, friend Isabel?" 
 
 "Rather they run 'on' poems, Sir Hugh! Any* 
 thing less than the thoughts and dreams of a Tenny- 
 son were out of place here!" 
 
 "You love this home of ours, Isabel?" 
 
 A flood of carmine dyed the smooth cheeks. 
 
 "I do," she answered almost passionately. "From 
 tower to sward it appeals to me. I would ask noth- 
 ing better of life than to live and die in a home 
 like this!" 
 
 "I think you were meant to dwell in baronial 
 halls," he said lightly, though making a mental note 
 of the intensity of emotion in her words. "Let us 
 hope that some day you will! I am surprised at
 
 88 CORINNE 
 
 your cruel indifference towards that bleating 1 
 mean, pleading of young Hector Beauregard! Lord 
 of wide demesnes he has every chance to be no 
 one in his way but a poor, sickly lad. Do you 
 never mean to marry, Isabel?" 
 
 Again the rich blood mounted to her cheeks. 
 
 " Twere rash to say no, Sir Hugh ! for I am 
 but a woman, and every woman finds it sweet to be 
 wooed and won by the right man. Should I marry, 
 I must wed one who is of 'the finer grain,' or I 
 should be unhappy. If one of your ancestors in 
 there could step off his pedestal, and come to life 
 again, I might 'fall down and worship'! Hector 
 Beauregard is a mere blundering boy." 
 
 "And you a lady of old romance ! wandering all 
 in a garden fair. Prithee, sweet maid, if one of my 
 doughty ancestors were to kneel before thee as 
 would be more becoming for him than for thee 
 and solicit the favour of your little lily-white hand, 
 what would your answer be? I am curious to 
 know!" 
 
 Isabel thought she detected an undertone of 
 deeper meaning beneath the playful words, and 
 answered, curtseying low : "Thy liege lady I will 
 be; and I shall keep the honour of thy glorious 
 name untarnished, and uphold the dignity and the 
 traditions of thy house, while life and strength are 
 left within me!" 
 
 There was something so true and loyal in the 
 girl's soft tones, the words uttered so modestly
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 89 
 
 withal, that Sir Hugh was touched in spite of him- 
 self. 
 
 "I believe you would," he said, musingly, lifting 
 her hand and kissing it, courtier-fashion. "From 
 my soul, I believe you would!" 
 
 And Isabel was more than satisfied. 
 
 "The Countess" had seen her son's lover-like 
 action from her balcony, and rejoiced. 
 
 "It is only a matter of a short time longer," she 
 thought, "and she shall be one of us, as she deserves 
 to be. I must place every difficulty in the way of 
 his going back to Australia that ingenuity can 
 devise. Isabel shall have every opportunity given 
 her for remaining always always with me and 
 with my son."
 
 90 CORINNE 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WITH THE SUNSET GLORY ON THE SEA. 
 
 "Corinne, Corinne ! the gulls are calling 
 From headland and from rocky cave, 
 Where, with a wild and sad insistence, 
 The winds and waters mourn and rave. 
 
 "Corinne, Corinne, the foamy surges 
 
 Reverberating on the shore, 
 Your story tell in organ music, 
 And bid you listen evermore!" 
 
 It was over a month before Dr. Hayes had a 
 chance of an hour's conversation with Nurse Cora, 
 though he saw her frequently when on his regular 
 visits to the patients at the Moritza Sanatorium. 
 
 It would not have been advisable to show more 
 than the most ordinary interest in any of the nurses, 
 and he knew that Corinne had enough common 
 sense not to expect more than the usual civil for- 
 malities and instructions while under Miss Dun- 
 raven's searching, eagle eye. 
 
 But an emergency case some miles down among 
 the rougher labouring classes at Consinjinnie had 
 called for a trained nurse's immediate services, and 
 with much grumbling at what she termed "the con-
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 91 
 
 summate impudence of the common people," but 
 with a wholesome fear of the doctor's censure if she 
 refused aid, the matron sent Nurse Cora, as she 
 was daily proving herself more and more competent 
 and skilful, and, above all, in Miss Dunraven's esti- 
 mation, "quick as a needle in her movements, with 
 an eye to correspond." 
 
 A Cornishman had come to blows with a lodger 
 who had insulted him, and his plucky little wife, in 
 endeavouring to stem the torrent of their blind rage 
 and part the infuriated combatants, was seriously 
 injured. 
 
 The nurse was on the scene long before the 
 doctor, who had been sent for post-haste; and, 
 when he arrived, the place, which had previously 
 resembled a shambles, more than the abode of Chris- 
 tian men and women, was restored to order and 
 cleanliness, and the unfortunate victim of man's 
 ungovernable passions fixed up as comfortably as 
 skilled feminine hands could manage. 
 
 After the doctor's part had been done, and all 
 arrangements made for having the woman taken 
 to the district hospital, he sent away the jinker 
 which had brought Corinne and drove her back to 
 "Moritza" himself, a kindly service he had often 
 performed for other nurses under the like circum- 
 stances, and one which even Miss Dunraven would 
 expect from him as a gentleman. 
 
 Nurse Cora found the change of vehicle much 
 more comfortable, and leaned back against the 
 softer support thankfully, to rest her aching limbs.
 
 92 C O R I N N E 
 
 The road led upward, and was very steep in 
 some parts dangerous so Dr. Hayes let his thor- 
 oughbreds "take it easy," and lost no time other- 
 wise in asking Corinne the many questions he had 
 been burning to ask ever since he had "found" her 
 again. 
 
 The young girl was not quite as communicative 
 as he could have desired on some matters but, as 
 far as giving a graphic account of the minor events 
 which had transpired since she had left the Bluff 
 on her first brief holiday, she was confidential 
 enough. 
 
 "I had never been inland, as you are aware, and 
 though I was a true lover of the sea, and ever shall 
 be, I thought the country town of Silverbell delight- 
 ful. To see hills so vividly green, to wander among 
 the sweet-smelling flowering shrubs and the bushes, 
 to pluck the wild flowers and ferns at will, and, 
 more than all, to see the benefit of the change soon 
 manifest itself in my poor ailing father, was a great 
 pleasure, and one which made some amends for 
 much that was troubling me at the time and cloud- 
 ing my spirits. 
 
 "While my father and I were still away in the 
 country, a letter came from old Mr. Barr offering 
 a good price for our home at the Bluff, and father 
 decided to consider it. It was full time for the 
 season to start when we returned, and, as you know, 
 having, you tell me, called at the rooms during its 
 beginning, we gave the business entirely over to Mr. 
 Barr, and removed some of the household furniture
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 93 
 
 part of which he had 'bought in' and went to 
 live privately twenty miles further down the coast, 
 in a spot that had, some time before, taken poor 
 father's fancy, if not mine. 
 
 "The coast was more rugged, and the sea came 
 rolling in with more grandeur, and he loved to hear 
 the waves thundering on the rocks ; it spoke to him 
 of Brittany, and every day his mind seemed to 
 travel farther back to the days of his childhood. 
 He constantly spoke of the fishing hamlets, and of 
 the many tragedies which used to occur in stormy 
 weather, as also of the great longing which had for 
 years possessed him to return to France, had he had 
 the means. 
 
 "In the fall of the year he began to decline in 
 health considerably, but could not be induced by 
 the doctor to travel inland again while he still had 
 strength. 
 
 ' 'I was bred by the sea, and I want to die with 
 its voice in my ears/ was the answer invariably 
 given, and at last accepted by Dr. Hamilton. 
 
 "He grew very ill. The priest was sent for, good 
 Father Dalton. . He received the last rites of the 
 Church, was much comforted by them, and by Father 
 Dalton's earnest assurance that he would place me 
 with friends and relations of his own till I could see 
 my way through the world more clearly. Then, one 
 calm evening, just at sunset, the end came or, 
 rather, the 'beginning' of the marvellous life to be!"
 
 94 C O R I N N E 
 
 She paused, struggling with her emotions, then 
 resumed her narrative, while the doctor sat sympa- 
 thetically silent. 
 
 "It was the most glorious sunset for that time of 
 year which I have ever seen, or, perhaps, ever shall 
 see. 
 
 "The waters were calm, the winds were still. A 
 steamer was going out, slow and stately, its long 
 trail of smoke rising upward till it seemed to reach 
 the grey border that hung below the red and golden 
 clouds, whose glory streamed on sea and land, on 
 rock and headland, on the masts of dismantled 
 vessels far away, that were outlined against the 
 horizon, and in through the wide casement windows 
 on to the form of my father, who was watching it 
 with peaceful, dying eyes. 
 
 "On the white sails of the yachts coming home it 
 gleamed, and on the smaller boats following in their 
 wake. 
 
 "Lakes, and islets, and hills seemed in that lovely 
 sky, which brought to mind beautiful stories of the 
 Everlasting Country beyond. 
 
 "Father pointed to it with one weak, trembling 
 finger, and said to me in French, They shine 
 through the pitying hearts of Mary the Blessed 
 and her Divine Son!' 
 
 "A pathway outlined itself through all, as if it 
 were indeed leading direct to the shining gates of 
 heaven, which, surely, were not shut, but open 
 opened wide!
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 95 
 
 "After a few moments, half raising himself, he 
 suddenly cried out, clear and loud as he had ever 
 done: 
 
 " 'Antoine ! Antoine ! bientot, bientot !' and was 
 gone." 
 
 Tears choked the filial daughter's voice, but she 
 soon continued her story, for, alas! she was well 
 schooled in self-restraint now, the poor Corinne! 
 
 ''Father Dalton carried out his promise faithfully 
 may God for ever bless and reward him and, as 
 my father had left me enough to keep me from want 
 for a year or two, I was enabled to study and prove 
 by steady application that I was not altogether 
 unworthy of his good opinion and his unfailing 
 kindness. Knowledge I sought greedily, for in it 
 was distraction from other worries. They called 
 me an apt scholar. I only know it saved me from 
 despondency, and a sort of dull despair." 
 
 Laurence could not resist asking after expressing 
 his sympathy sincerely and tactfully "And, during 
 all that sad time, you did not once receive a line 
 from my friend Hugh?" He barely breathed the 
 question, so afraid was he of "making a mess of 
 things." 
 
 "All that time I did not once receive a 'line' from 
 Mr. Allingham," Corinne answered quietly, looking 
 away from the too-expressive eyes. 
 
 "Well, I'm blest if I can fathom him! and I 
 thought I knew his nature pretty well," he began.
 
 96 CORINNE 
 
 But Nurse Cora put up her hand, and smiled, if 
 wanly, at least with ordinary brightness. 
 
 "There is no need to try, is there?" she asked 
 gently. "Ah, Dr. Hayes, believe me, I am quite 
 willing to 'let the dead past bury its dead !' " 
 
 "I'm blest if I am, though!" spluttered the indig- 
 nant Larry, under his breath. "There's a screw 
 loose somewhere." 
 
 After a few moments' silence he asked her did she 
 ever see anything of the Barr family since her 
 father's death. 
 
 "Mr. Jim Barr," he said, teasingly, "would, I 
 know, be loth to drop acquaintanceship!" 
 
 Corinne's pale pink colour deepened to the richest 
 peach. 
 
 "I can't stand Jim Barr!" she said, with sudden 
 and pretty fierceness. 
 
 "Ha, ha, Miss Corinne! Your agitation tells its 
 own tale. Jimmy pardon the liberty! hasn't 
 given up hope yet?" 
 
 "I can't drive any sense into his head," Corinne 
 said testily. "I've snubbed him outrageously in 
 sheer desperation, but he persists in 'turning up' 
 regularly and unexpectedly wherever I am domi- 
 ciled, and pestering me quietly, you know, but none 
 the less aggravatingly. Only for his many past kind- 
 nesses to my poor father and to myself I'd never 
 open my lips to him again. He has altered very 
 much grown so morose and strange is not a bit 
 like the good-natured, manly Jim he used to be!"
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 97 
 
 " 'All for the love of a lady !' " sang the doctor, 
 giving his horses a flick of the whip at last, for they 
 were now on level ground. "Forgive me, Made- 
 moiselle, but I couldn't resist the quotation. If 
 Barr annoys you in any way in future, here or else- 
 where, just let me know, will you?" and he squared 
 his jaw determinedly. 
 
 "Thank you, I will. I own that once or twice, 
 lately, I have felt just a little bit scared of him. I 
 suppose he has got on my nerves." 
 
 "Humph!" grunted the doctor, falling into a few 
 moments' serious reverie. 
 
 Awaking from it, he took out his watch, and 
 looked at the time. 
 
 "Exactly one half-hour in which to talk of plea- 
 sant things! Let us make the most of it, Made- 
 moiselle Corinne!" 
 
 He did at any rate, for Larry was fast falling in 
 love himself with the beautiful and attractive girl. 
 And he was by no means a poor lover, for he had 
 plenty of genuine Irish blood in him, and all the 
 poetry of the true Celtic spirit; and no Pat, talking 
 to his Eily down in the boreen, knew better "how 
 to be improving the time" when lovely eyes, deep 
 and clear, with all the dreams of the sea within 
 t lie-in, were looking into his, and a soft voice, with 
 all the music from unseen fairy harps in its melody, 
 was speaking just beside. 
 
 On his return to Musktown, old Martha put in his 
 hand a letter with an English post-mark upon it. 
 
 o
 
 98 C O R I N N E 
 
 "From Lowenthal, by all that's remarkable!" he 
 thought, and read its contents hastily. They evi- 
 dently did not please him, for he sank into his study 
 chair with a groan, throwing the epistle to the other 
 side of the room, where it stuck fast between the 
 neck and shoulder of a grinning Chinese mandarin. 
 
 "What awful luck! just as things were going on 
 swimmingly for me, too. 'Find Corinne/ indeed! 
 'Even if you have to employ a private detective.' 
 What confounded impudence! 'I enclose a cheque 
 for expenses.' His cheque will go where I'd like to 
 send him ! He only 'wants to know if she's alive 
 and happy.' I've a good mind to write at once, and 
 say, 'Yes, thanks, she's decidedly both, and will be 
 more so when she's Mrs. Larry Hayes !' It would 
 serve His Royal Impudence right." 
 
 But feelings of indignation soon gave place to 
 the cool arguments of reason. 
 
 "The fellow cares just as much for her still, that's 
 very evident. Now, what the dickens kept him from 
 seeing her before he sailed? That's what I'd like to 
 know and must find out. My dear Hugh," apos- 
 trophising the mantelpiece in the absence of the 
 offender, "there'll be no good little, sweet little, 
 lovely maiden's whereabouts traced for you, old 
 chap, till Larry Hayes knows more. Time enough 
 when you've answered the epistle I'll make it my 
 business to write to do a bit of searching then 
 heart-searching only, considering I know 'her 
 whereabouts.' And, my dense young man, lord or 
 no lord, if she satisfies me that her old regard for
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 99 
 
 you is dead, as you deserve it to be, nothing short 
 of her utter disdain will keep me from proposing 1 . 
 'All's fair in love or war,' and, if you're 'a laggard 
 in love/ I certainly can't be. Should she care for 
 you still ah, well, I suppose I'd do my duty by 
 you both ; but it would come jolly hard now !" 
 
 He stared gloomily in front of him. 
 
 Old Martha opened the door. 
 
 "Is that there supper to go stone cold, an' you 
 standin' there like a hen with one leg?"
 
 ioo CORINNE 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PEARLS FOR TEARS, DIAMONDS FOR CON- 
 STANCY. 
 
 Jim Barr had been an unintentional witness of the 
 burial of the ring. He had gone for a long walk on 
 the beach, and, feeling tired, had lain down in the 
 shelter of the Sword Rock to rest, pulling his hat 
 over his eyes preparatory to indulging in what he 
 called "a snooze." 
 
 He had dropped off to sleep, as a matter of fact, 
 and it was Lowenthal's restless movements that had 
 awakened him. 
 
 Always slow to act, Jim did not make his presence 
 known by either cough or yawn, as another would 
 have done, but first "took stock" of the man, whom 
 he at once recognised as one of the summer visitors 
 at the Bluff. Had he not in some instinctive way 
 suddenly begun to associate him with Corinne, no 
 harm to anyone might have resulted. But, in a 
 flash, he remembered the frequency of the letters 
 received in a handwriting which the appearance of 
 this stranger gave him every reason to suppose he 
 might have written.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 101 
 
 What was this well-dressed, aristocratic-looking 
 man doing down there at such a time? Had he 
 come after Corinne, not aware that she was away? 
 There would be no harm in watching him for a 
 while, anyway. 
 
 So he leaned back in the shelter of the rocks 
 again, and never let his eyes wander from Hugh, 
 while he, unobserved as he thought, carried out the 
 little sentimental rite which was to bring joy to the 
 heart of a loving girl. 
 
 The sound of his footsteps had barely died away 
 before the tiny grave was desecrated by a ruthless 
 hand! Jealousy and suspicion scowled from the 
 plain, sun-browned face bending above; and it was 
 not for the sake of the glittering jewels, costly 
 though they were, and worth more money than he 
 could "raise," that Jim Barr resolutely thrust casket 
 and wrapper into his breast pocket, and, sitting 
 down on a boulder below, meditated what he would 
 have been surprised and indignant to hear anyone 
 call villainy. 
 
 Barr had been brought up by the most honest of 
 parents, and would have scorned to steal a penny ; 
 but jealousy sees darkly, and he was more deeply 
 attached to Corinne Courboules than even her 
 father had any idea of. To Barr, the attentions of a 
 man of Lowenthal's type could mean but one thing; 
 and when he had recognised Hugh as the same 
 individual whom the girl had favoured above others 
 during the past season, as also the one over whose 
 attentions there had been "some mysterious row"
 
 102 C O R I N N E 
 
 the night before "Allingham" left, he felt justified in 
 finding out all he could, and in carrying out any 
 plan which might be the means of causing Corinne 
 to forget what could only be flirtation on her part 
 and "deep-dyed wickedness" on the other. 
 
 His eyes, always observant of the shadow of a 
 change in the young girl's expression, had noted long 
 her sudden falling-off in radiance of look and blithe- 
 ness of spirits. There was not the slightest doubt 
 in his mind but that some act of Hugh "Ailing- 
 ham's" was at the root of it. But why had he 
 hidden the ring there which, if really meant for 
 Corinne, surely need not have been buried out of 
 sight in such a lonely spot? A wild exultation took 
 possession of him that even in one small way he 
 was able to thwart some plan of his rival. 
 
 What he should ultimately do with such a valu- 
 able article did not trouble him just then. All he 
 knew was that he regretted from his inmost heart 
 ever having given love-letters from another man to 
 Corinne Courboules, greedy only for a smile from 
 her lips, for a grateful look from her eyes ! He had 
 been to blame, after all. What good had it brought 
 her to have this stranger interest himself in her? 
 As far as he could see, he was steadily breaking 
 her heart. If he wanted to marry her, why did he 
 not say so, like any other honest man, and let the 
 engagement be publicly announced? He did not 
 wonder at her father's hostile attitude even to a 
 friendship between them. Now, if it had been "the 
 other young man," things might have been different.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 103 
 
 He felt that he might be able to bear her loss 
 better had she been wooed and won by the franker- 
 eyed, boyish-mannered younger "fellow." 
 
 Before he himself could possibly make headway, 
 this foolish infatuation of Corinne's must be com- 
 pletely done away with. Who would treat her more 
 kindly, or be more faithful to her, than he James 
 Barr? "Old friends are the best friends" ay, and 
 so were "old lovers" the best of lovers! He hoped 
 to be able to prove it yet. 
 
 He walked along the beach slowly, in the very 
 track of Lowenthal, by the irony of fate, and, deceit 
 being new to him, spent a restless night. 
 
 After the Melbourne mail came in next day, it 
 chanced that he was in the office helping his father, 
 and the letter for Corinne was passed across to him 
 to be re-addressed. 
 
 Some time later, Jim "made up" the bag for the 
 city, and sealed it, his father having been "bailed 
 up" in the store by a garrulous old squatter from 
 some miles inland. After its despatch, he went out 
 quietly "to have a smoke," and by a back way 
 turned beachwards, opening, as soon as he was out 
 of sight of a possible wayfarer, the passionately- 
 worded appeal of Hugh to Corinne, and the explana- 
 tion which was to have removed immediately all her 
 fears, doubts, and anxieties. 
 
 When a woman reads another woman's love- 
 letter to a man she loves herself, a sort of contemp- 
 tuous pity usually mingles with her anger; she does
 
 104 C O R I N N E 
 
 not exactly hate her rival unless she has altogether 
 ousted her from what seemed an assured place in 
 her lover's heart. But when a man reads another 
 man's love words to the woman he cares for above 
 all others, then does Satan have full opportunity for 
 letting his most malignant demons into his soul. A 
 woman has more conceit of her own power to fas- 
 cinate and enthrall ; a man mostly sums himself up 
 as lacking in some one essential which other men 
 appear to have to render themselves pleasing in the 
 eyes of the more exacting sex. And Jim was keenly 
 sensitive to the fact that he was plain of feature and 
 blunt of manner, as well as a stranger to the suave 
 courtesies that come so naturally to a man of pro- 
 fessional education. He could never hope to express 
 his feelings and sentiments as "this town fellow" 
 had done; it was "too much like reading a book," 
 this long and flowery epistle! Every endearing 
 word, too, struck him like a blow, for, above all 
 things, Jim was jealous horribly, dangerously 
 jealous. 
 
 What did he, this Hugh Lowenthal, who had 
 actually had "the face" to "pass himself off" under 
 a different name at Sebastien's, mean by asking Cor- 
 inne, who was of Corrall's Bluff and its people, to 
 "wait" for him while he calmly took ship to the 
 other end of the world there to forget her, in all 
 probability, as soon as he had seen a prettier face 
 among those of his own station in life? 
 
 Jim felt quite virtuous in his determination to 
 stave off such a fate for the young girl. Yes, he
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 105 
 
 would act friend and brother to her in such a crisis 
 of her life, and this extravagantly-written effusion 
 should never reach her. He would find out who the 
 man really was, what his true occupation was, and 
 then, perhaps well, he could judge better what was 
 best to do. 
 
 He was but following the devil's old beaten track ! 
 Every wrong-doer begins by excusing himself to 
 himself with the first false step made, and Barr felt 
 little compunction when he had fairly started on the 
 downward track. 
 
 It did not take him long to trace Lowenthal's his- 
 tory. He came back from Melbourne one night in 
 full possession of the fact that he was heir to an 
 estate and title in England, and had gone "over 
 there" to step into a dying uncle's shoes. 
 
 The information hardened Barr's heart altogether. 
 His first suspicions were correct, he decided, and 
 no good could possibly accrue to Corinne from the 
 intimacy. He was more than ever resolved to 
 destroy the letter, which he always carried about 
 with him wherever he went, in company with the 
 ring. The wrapper he forwarded, as we know, to 
 the address, he was assured, would find him per- 
 sonally. 
 
 By this time, long brooding over the one subject 
 had begun to play havoc with his reasoning powers, 
 and thus Corinne was subjected to a ridiculous and 
 petty persecution, which was often irritating beyond 
 all endurance. His idea that she must accept him 
 in the end, if only as a reward for his perseverance
 
 io6 C O R I N N E 
 
 and faithfulness, became fixed, and he considered it 
 but a natural thing nay, more, a bounden duty 
 to be a sort of watch-dog over her movements, and 
 to keep himself "fresh" in her memory. 
 
 In vain did Corinne resort to devices to hide her 
 address when quitting one place for another. The 
 irrepressible Jim "turned up" solemn and persistent 
 in unwelcome attention every time. If she returned 
 from a day's hard work in lecture-room or ward, 
 and was told that "an old friend from the country" 
 was waiting for her in the reception-room, instinct 
 informed her "the old friend" was none other than 
 James Barr, jun. ; and so it proved in nine cases out 
 of ten. 
 
 Now, as she had told Laurence Hayes, he had 
 quite "got upon her nerves." Truth to tell, the last 
 time she had rebuffed him and with more than 
 ordinary vehemence of tone. He had said, slowly 
 and with sullen anger, that "if he didn't marry her, 
 nobody else should," least of all one of the "gentle- 
 man class." 
 
 Had he talked more fiercely and volubly, Cor- 
 inne would not have taken so much notice of his 
 words, but, little used as she was to the ways of 
 men, there was something in Barr's look and tone 
 that chilled her and frightened her. 
 
 Once, her answer to him had been that his religion 
 formed a sufficient barrier within itself, but he had 
 said immediately that "what she was, was good 
 enough for him," and, anyhow, he "was nothing in 
 particular."
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 107 
 
 She had also tried to be sisterly, poor girl, think- 
 ing to appeal to his better nature, but found that 
 kinder words only served to raise hopes which it 
 would be wrong to encourage even in the slightest 
 degree. 
 
 It was not only for the sake of a strongly-growing 
 dislike to young Barr that Nurse Cora dreaded his 
 constant appearances, unexpected as they always 
 were. It was chiefly because he reminded her of 
 sufferings which she would fain strive to forget. 
 Only her Creator knew what heart-pangs had been 
 hers since she last saw Hugh Lowenthal! There 
 had been long, wakeful nights, when even prayer 
 could not solace her, when words of appeal to God 
 for strength were but dumbly raised, and only 
 Mother Mary, pity me!" formed a prop to sustain, 
 to console, to urge on, to endeavour. Her crucifix 
 and her rosary these were the books which taught 
 her at last self-control and the beauty of self-sacri- 
 fice !
 
 io8 CORINNE 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SIR HUGH RECEIVES AN ANSWER. 
 
 "Running: knee-deep in a field of clover, 
 Laughing- and singing- comes Love, the rover!" 
 
 Past orchards promising a wealth of fruit, past 
 fields covered with corn and clover, past pleasant 
 brooks and hills where artists loved to wander, the 
 lord of Poppledene flew onward, mounted on his 
 favourite horse, "The Corsair" a noble animal, 
 black, clean-limbed, and swift as the steed of an 
 Arab. 
 
 Hugh Lowenthal was angry furious, perhaps, 
 would express his state of mind better and he was 
 riding himself into the equanimity he affected as the 
 only possible state for a being endowed with reason 
 and intelligence. 
 
 He carried a letter with him, each word of which 
 was eating into the vitals of his heart. It was the 
 answer sent by Larry by the first outward mail for 
 London. It was clearly and logically written, yet 
 every sentence cut Hugh deeply. It was the letter 
 of a man unto a man for whom old feelings of 
 admiration had died a natural enough death, hav- 
 ing nothing to feed on to keep up "the sacred fire" ;
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 109 
 
 it was the letter of a man who was not afraid to 
 speak what he apparently considered to be the unflat- 
 tering truth; and worse still it was the letter of 
 a man who was alive with that indescribable, exul- 
 tant feeling which tells him that his chance in love 
 and life is quite as good as, if not better than, that of 
 the man to whom he writes! 
 
 By a noble stream (on his own estate still), full 
 of fish and beautifully clear, Lowenthal paused at 
 length, and, dismounting and tying up his horse, 
 flung himself down on a grassy knoll, and read and 
 re-read this un-Larry-like epistle. 
 
 "By all that's wonderful, the fellow has changed 
 marvellously !" Hugh muttered. "It's not so long 
 since he seemed but the average youth, and easy 
 enough to lead by one like myself. Now we seem 
 to have changed places, and he is actually presuming 
 to lecture me, and, in a sense, to defy me. I'm 
 sorry I ever asked him to find Corinne for me; bet- 
 ter to have given the search into the hands of a com- 
 petent detective myself. But I thought I could 
 rely upon the boy to be more discreet, and, if all 
 came to all, perhaps to act 'John Alden' for me! 
 Fool! fool! Why, he is infatuated with her him- 
 self a contingency I hadn't looked for! And he 
 has the audacity to tell me here that if he finds her, 
 4 as he hopes to do,' he will give her an opportunity 
 to accept or refuse him, unless I can give him him, 
 forsooth! 'a full and satisfactory explanation of 
 my past treatment of her' ! He seems to have abso- 
 lutely no idea that I am not the wrong-doer, but the
 
 no CORINNE 
 
 wronged. I have not a friend left in the world that 
 I care about. Who believes in me, trusts in me, 
 really loves me? Only my mother, after all!" 
 
 He gazed round him moodily. The reeds sway- 
 ing by the river, the murmuring grasses, the bowing 
 wild-flowers, the soft zephyrs that stirred them, 
 whispered one other name "Isabel ! Isabel !" 
 
 "Yes, Isabel," he said softly, answering them as 
 if they were living things. "Poor Isabel !" 
 
 A vision rose up before his mind of the graceful, 
 soft-voiced girl with the changeful eyes and stately 
 manner. 
 
 "I might do worse than marry Isabel," he thought. 
 "Why should I make myself miserable about a girl 
 who probably does not care a straw about me now, 
 whatever she did in the past? I am afraid I am 
 wholly unworthy of my ancestry, in that pride in 
 itself does not help me to forget, much less cease to 
 love, the one woman that seemed to me an embodi- 
 ment of all that was sweet and desirable and beau- 
 tiful of her sex. The whole affair of her long 
 silence is a mystery a mystery I do not like. Had 
 it not been for the return of that leaflet, I should be 
 inclined to suspect someone of meddling or mischief- 
 making. But nothing ever went wrong before ; she 
 received safely the hundreds of letters I wrote her 
 previously. Surely" and his face grew darkly 
 red "she could not have demeaned hers ' by 
 marrying a fellow so much beneath one of her gifts 
 as that young Barr! If she has, then I have been 
 utterly mistaken in her from the first. Well, if I
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. in 
 
 have, I shall not be the first man in the world to rank 
 too high the qualities of a woman." 
 
 He put his hand into his breast-pocket, and took 
 out a small sketch from his pocket-book a sketch 
 of Corinne made by his own pencil while at Corrall's 
 Bluff, and carefully preserved by him ever since in 
 lieu of a portrait. 
 
 He gazed long and tenderly at the noble head, the 
 perfectly-formed and expressive features, then, with 
 a mist dimming his eyes, said aloud : "Truth is writ- 
 ten there, constancy is engraven there ! No, I can- 
 not, and I will not, believe other than that there has 
 been some hideous mistake, and that Corinne is as 
 true to me as when, in the shade of the old Sword 
 Rock, she gave me our betrothal kiss !" 
 
 His thoughts softening towards Corinne, they 
 began to soften also towards Larry. 
 
 "Can't blame him, poor chap, after all. His let- 
 ter is just what any man with a sense of honour as 
 regards the weaker sex would write to another 
 whom he had no reason for supposing to be other 
 than a profligate, though he once called him friend 
 and comrade. Our letters to each other have been 
 too short not confidential enough. I shall answer 
 this annoying epistle of his, and ask him what the 
 devil he means, the while I vindicate myself the best 
 I know how. 'Lit his pipe with my cheque,' did 
 he ? Poor old Larry ! I fancy I see him true to 
 'Lucy Hinton' yet, I suppose getting through the 
 dreary hours in that back-country hole as best he 
 can. There's one thing I envy him the practice
 
 ii2 CORINNE 
 
 of his profession. I feel but half a man in the midst 
 of all this grandeur of hill and stream and valley 
 for it is a grand old property ! and I wish to heaven 
 I could fling aside the burden of a title and take up 
 even a shovel where there is no 'noblesse oblige' but 
 the natural laws of God !" 
 
 Yet, with such a delightful scene as spread every- 
 where before him, a man could hardly wish for wider 
 prospects, for a fuller life. 
 
 But ruined abbeys in the distance, and picturesque 
 cottages dotting the roadsides, bordered with lovely 
 wild-flowers of every hue though they were masses 
 of gold and violet and tender blue did not appeal 
 so much to Hugh as the more unconventional land of 
 Australia. 
 
 On one pretext and another, the chief being her 
 own health, which she insisted was worse than the 
 doctors could be brought to say, his mother had con- 
 trived to delay his departure. Hence the letter writ- 
 ten on impulse to Laurence Hayes. 
 
 Isabel, too, had whispered confidentially that she 
 was certain "dear Mrs. Lowenthal" was in as weak 
 a state as she fancied, and it might not be advisable 
 for him to go so far away at present. 
 
 However, Larry's letter was undoing by degrees 
 all that had been so carefully built up by the two 
 ladies, and Hugh now saw nothing for it but to 
 chance the journey and set his doubts at rest. 
 
 "Old Dr. Barrowclough wouldn't deceive me as to 
 the state of my mother's heart, I am certain. In
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 113 
 
 his good care she will be all right. I need not be 
 away long, whichever way the tide turns for me." 
 
 He fell to dreaming, while "The Corsair" munched 
 on contentedly. This black beauty was by this time 
 quite accustomed to his master's vagaries. There 
 was far more pleasure for him in the lack of know- 
 ledge as to where he was to be taken, when to be 
 stopped, when to be allowed to fly his fleetest, when 
 to be gradually "slowed down." 
 
 And as Sir Hugh Lowenthal was lost to the pretty 
 English landscape round about him, so did he 
 become again the quiet boarder at Sebastien's. 
 Over and over again he lived the happiest moments 
 of his life while Isabel watched in vain "from her 
 turret window." "The Lady Lenora was left for- 
 lorn" while "The Boy-Blue" of fancy "wound his 
 horn." Perhaps she was to be pitied, too ! 
 
 "To doubt her fairness were to want an eye, 
 To doubt her purcness were to want a heart 
 Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love 
 Could bind him, but free Love will not be bound." 
 
 Another letter went to Dr. Hayes that week a 
 letter written in the loneliest fern-hollow of Popple- 
 dene with a fountain pen, and, for the first time in 
 his life, Hugh Lowenthal "\vrote himself" down as 
 he really was, employing no subterfuge to hide his 
 feelings, but baring his heart and soul to this man, 
 whom in his heart of hearts he really loved as a 
 brother.
 
 ii4 CORINNE 
 
 It was because of this that Larry's letter had 
 stung so much. It was because of this that he 
 feared Larry as a rival, should Corinne be alive and 
 unwed. But he did not, this time, allow any feeling 
 of jealousy to actuate him. "You must leave all 
 to her, as I shall leave it," he wrote. "This dear 
 woman whom we both love, shall she not have grace 
 to choose according to her own heart's desire? And 
 when she has chosen, shall we be so graceless as to 
 hate each other? No, Larry, for we are friends and 
 comrades still, and must always be, or there is no 
 truth in man." 
 
 Having despatched the long and eloquently-writ- 
 ten vindication of his acts since he had last seen 
 Corinne, Hugh felt more satisfied, but that feeling 
 of satisfaction did not prevent him from getting 
 secretly ready for his voyage. "There shall not be 
 the long-drawn-out preparations womenfolk delight 
 in," he decided; "my announcement and my 
 good-byes shall speedily follow each other, and 
 mother will make the best of things, as, thank good- 
 ness, no one has a greater power of doing, when 
 required." 
 
 Hugh was both proud and fond of his mother, but 
 a stronger love yet was calling him across the seas. 
 
 Larry received the letter one evening, after a par- 
 ticularly happy hour spent in talking to Corinne, 
 whom he had accidentally met in the little township, 
 and he dragged at his brown moustache disconso- 
 lately as he saw he was no better off than before, but
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 115 
 
 placed again "on his honour" with not only a firm, 
 but a loving, hand. 
 
 In one sense pleased and gratified at Lowenthal's 
 sudden but evidently earnest avowal of affection, in 
 another he was sorely driven. 
 
 "I'm not one of those conceited asses who believe 
 when a woman's nice to them that she must needs 
 be 'in love' with them, but, upon my soul, I believe 
 I could coax her into caring enough for me to marry 
 me if the 'other fellow' was out of the road, and we 
 saw more of each other. It's a temptation, all 
 right ! And, the worst of it is, the dev'l at present 
 whispering in my ear seems to have all the reason 
 on his side; the angel has sentiment and honour 
 alone. Well, Larry, my boy, you've got a chance 
 now to prove whether you've got grit or gruel- 
 water! You've got to steer carefully for honour's 
 sake, and you've got to nip your feelings in the bud 
 for sentiment's sake, and you've got to go gently 
 and suppress yourself for loyalty's sake ; so Heaven 
 only knows what is to become of you, poor wretched 
 omadhaun that you are! 
 
 "There's positively nothing to keep the heart beat- 
 ing warmly in you but one little sentence from the 
 sweet lips that you adore, and that is your own 
 little colleen of dreams saying so fervently but 
 twenty minutes ago: 'I shall never marry a Pro- 
 testant.' Little she knew the creature that 'twas 
 the sweetest music she could have sung or said in 
 the ears of me! Is it disloyalty to a friend to own it? 
 I think not, mine absent comrade. It'll be the last
 
 ii6 CORINNE 
 
 bit of disloyalty to you you'll have to complain of; 
 but, oh, 'twill go hard with me, avick, if I have to 
 stand by and see you marching off with her! 
 
 "He 'will soon be on his way out.' Well, that's 
 a little better, anyway. There's nothing like having 
 a trouble over quickly, if there has to be one. 
 
 "If he wrote all he said he did to Corinne, and she 
 never received it, I'll bet the solemn Jimmy is at the 
 bottom of it! Give a man a motive, and he'll be 
 capable of anything. Jimmy had the 'motive/ all 
 right, so I shall never rest now till I tackle him. I'll 
 frighten the wits out of his Funereal Highness by 
 saying I'll report the theft of the ring that is, if I 
 don't find it where Lowenthal says he hid it. If 
 Jimmy kept back the letter and read it, then it fol- 
 lows, as a matter of course, that Jimmy unearthed 
 the ring. He'd be a fool if he didn't, having entered 
 on a villainous course, I suppose. If he took it, he 
 wouldn't sell it; he has it still. I'll say nothing to 
 Corinne till I run Jimmy to earth. The mere 
 thought of it is exciting, after eighteen months of 
 this monotonous life!" 
 
 He put Lowenthal's letter away carefully, and sat 
 for an hour buried in thought. Many problems 
 faced him, but he was not afraid of them. "Fight- 
 ing Larry" the boys had called him in his college 
 days, and he would fight out this affair till some- 
 thing clearly understandable should come of it. 
 
 While he was thinking, Mr. James Barr, jun., 
 was leisurely getting out of the coach, and making 
 inquiries as to where he could be comfortably
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 117 
 
 accommodated for a night or two, so true is it that 
 "truth is stranger than fiction"! 
 
 "Xurse Cora" would have slept ill that night, after 
 her weekly one-day's outing, if she had known of 
 Jim's nearness. As it was, she slept the refreshing 
 sleep of the good and healthy, and her dreams were 
 only of the far sea-shore, where the waves came 
 tumbling in with joyous glee, and the sun was shin- 
 ing, shining, and her father's voice was calling, 
 "Corinne, Corinne! Come, little one; thy brother 
 waits for thee and thy shells."
 
 Ii8 CORINNE 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A ROAD ENCOUNTER. 
 
 "When Adam delved, and Eve span, 
 Where was then the gentleman?" 
 
 "Martin McNally is here, sir, and wants to know 
 if you'd like him to drive you in his own turn-out 
 to-day, an' give your own hard-worked beasts a 
 rest time they had it, too, poor varmints ! as he's 
 going up to Sannytorum this mornin' himself, an' 
 it your day." 
 
 "Tell Martin I'll be with him in a crack of the 
 whip. As you say, Martha, the poor beasts want a 
 day off." 
 
 "An' so does their master, too!" Martha 
 grumbled, as she hobbled off again. "I never see 
 the like of it in all my born days! It's 'Dr. Hayes 
 here,' and 'Dr. Hayes there,' an' a tooth out in 
 between, an' a broken leg arrivin' just when a body 
 wants a bit of sleep, an' some fool of a girl between- 
 times that has got the hy-strikes for want of her 
 mother givin' her a real good wallopin'. I'm glad 
 he chased the last miss round and round the dinin'- 
 room table while she was yelling blue murder all
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 119 
 
 the while, an' ended her up by a jug o* cold water! 
 She won't take hy-strikes again in a hurry, I'll war- 
 rant! It isn't every good-lookin' doctor has so 
 much common sense. I can see the twinklin* eye 
 of him yet, an' the girl thinkin' he was gone clean 
 mad ! I burned the scones enjoyin' it, but he never 
 knows what he eats, bless him. There never was a 
 gentleman easier to cook for." 
 
 Laurence set off with Martin in high good- 
 humour. It was a fine day, and Corinne at the 
 end of his journey! 
 
 Martin was a companion he liked, for he knew 
 both how to make a joke and how to enjoy one ; and 
 the McNallys and family were always kind and hos- 
 pitable, without forgetting when and where to lay 
 bounds in the familiarity born of constant associa- 
 tion in a bush township. 
 
 The buggy rattled gaily along in great style, and 
 the level portion of the road was soon covered, and 
 the up-hill loomed in sight dark, precipitous. 
 
 A rider had been in their rear for some time, and, 
 at last, as Martin slackened the reins, he came fully 
 into sight. 
 
 "Not from Musktown, that chap?" remarked 
 young McNally. "I saw him get off the coach last 
 night. Must have business at the hospital, too!" 
 
 The doctor leaned forward and looked ; there was 
 something strangely familiar in the figure of the 
 man, who now was preparing to go as slowly up 
 the ascent as they were.
 
 120 CORINNE 
 
 In a flash, recognition dawned upon him. It was 
 Jim Barr, of Corrall's Bluff. 
 
 Fury filled Larry fury and indignation, as well 
 as a sense of coming battle, that made every nerve 
 in his body tingle. 
 
 The enemy was given into his hands! 
 
 He jumped out of the vehicle, saying to Martin, 
 ''I'll have pity on your grand little mare, and walk 
 up the hill. I think I know the young man on the 
 horse, and we'll keep each other company." 
 
 He hurried on, and called, "Barr! Coo-ee there!" 
 
 Barr halted, and gazed in surprise at the figure 
 hastening towards him not too pleased, but still 
 preserving his usual stolidity. 
 
 "Oh, it's you, Mr. Hayes? Didn't know that you 
 lived up in this part." 
 
 "I'm 'part' of it now," said the doctor, "and am 
 just on my way to visit my patients at 'Moritza.' 
 Do you know anyone at the Sanatorium know you 
 must be going up there, of course, unless you mean 
 to get lost in the ranges?" 
 
 "I know one of the nurses," Jim said, shortly, and 
 began to make comments on the state of the road, 
 to turn the subject. 
 
 But Hayes wished to make hay while the sun 
 shone; so, when Jim had dismounted, and the two 
 were walking up the hill together, Martin keeping 
 a discreet distance behind, and scenting, also, 
 "something wrong," he brought Barr back to the 
 point by saying quietly, "It is, of course, Miss Cour-
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 121 
 
 boules whom you are going to see; she has not 
 been here long, but seems to like the wilds very 
 well." 
 
 Jim did not commit himself by more than a grunt 
 or a "Yes," but the doctor talked on till a curve 
 "MeCracken's Elbow" hid him and his unwill- 
 ing companion from Martin's view. 
 
 Then, his face growing pale and set, and his eyes 
 full of a dangerous fire, he suddenly laid his hand 
 with a compelling grip on Barr's arm, and looked 
 straight at him and through him. 
 
 "A friend of mine, Mr. Barr, has empowered me 
 to settle a little account you owe him. It would be 
 to your advantage were it done here, and now!" 
 
 The young man started, first in utter amazement, 
 then with a dangerous look settling on his thick, 
 dark brows. 
 
 "I owe no man anything; and, if I did, I should 
 certainly not account for it to you !" 
 
 There was a sneer in the tone which was not lost 
 upon Hayes, and told him in as many words that 
 he "would have the deil to fight with" before he 
 wrung a confession out of Mr. Jim Barr. 
 
 He squared his jaw, too. 
 
 "There is something which you owe, however, and 
 it is of value enough, my friend, to put you between 
 four very unpleasant walls. Where is the ring you 
 stole, Mr. James Barr, from the cavity in the Sword 
 Rock a ring which is the property of Sir Hugh 
 Lowenthal, now on his way out to claim it?"
 
 122 C O R I N N E 
 
 At the mention of the word "ring," Barr's colour 
 changed to a sickly yellow, and his jaw dropped; 
 but he soon regained his self-possession. 
 
 "I don't know your high-and-mighty friend, Sir 
 Hugh Lowenthal!" he sneered, "and I have cer- 
 tainly never stolen a ring of his. What, man, do 
 you take me for a common thief?" 
 
 Barr approached Hayes menacingly, as a perfectly 
 honest man might have done under the circum- 
 stances, but Larry only glared back at him con- 
 temptuously. 
 
 "You may not wish yourself to be called by the 
 name you try to put on my lips, Barr, but if you 
 say that you don't know Sir Hugh Lowenthal or, 
 rather, who he is, you lie !" 
 
 Barr drew his breath hard, and his features 
 worked convulsively. 
 
 "You are the first man who has called me liar, 
 Dr. Hayes I suppose Hayes is your real name? 
 and but that you are a friend of the young lady I 
 am going to call upon to-day, you'd measure your 
 length before me!" 
 
 "You shall measure yours," said Larry, between 
 his teeth, "if you dare to annoy that lady, either 
 now or in the future, with your persistent and unwel- 
 come attentions ay, unwelcome! No man with a 
 spark of common manliness in him would thus 
 thrust them upon her!" 
 
 Barr did not lose his coolness.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 123 
 
 "At least," he said, with a snarl, returning Larry's 
 look with interest, "I am not a low-down profligate 
 like Mr. Hugh Allingham, who was ashamed to let 
 his high-class friends know what a pretty pastime 
 he was having in breaking a poor innocent country 
 girl's heart ! I am an honest lover, Dr. Hayes, and, 
 as such, have every right to honestly court any 
 woman I care for." 
 
 Had it not been for the theft of the ring and the 
 letter, and the incalculable mischief thereby worked, 
 Hayes would have ungrudgingly admired the young 
 fellow's stand. As it was, he had but one aim to 
 set matters right somehow, and as quickly as he 
 could. 
 
 "I do not question your motive in visiting my 
 friend," he answered, accenting the two last words, 
 "but I demand again, with every right, the ring 
 which, it is my firm belief, you have upon you this 
 very moment! If you do not restore it, I shall 
 accuse you before this man now coming into sight 
 of the theft of it, and, if needs be, bring Miss Cour- 
 boules into the case, too! There is but one other 
 alternative," he said, meditatively, never taking his 
 eyes off Barr, though he heard Martin singing lustily 
 close at hand, and nearly upon them "one other 
 and that is for you to restore it to Miss Cour- 
 boules in my presence, this day, and go your way 
 free forever." 
 
 Barr's fingers had been working in and out con- 
 vulsively while the doctor was speaking, and it
 
 124 C O R I N N E 
 
 would have gone hard with Hayes but for the 
 appearance of the cheerful, ruddy-faced Martin. 
 
 The two men were still facing each other, each 
 grim-faced, determined-looking, deeply in earnest. 
 
 Martin looked at the doctor, and winked mean- 
 ingly, to show his readiness if his strong arm were 
 needed. 
 
 Slowly, however, very slowly, Barr's features 
 relaxed, when the silence had begun to get on each 
 man's nerves, and going up to his horse, and throw- 
 ing his leg over it, he said, with a gruffness born of 
 the hoarseness of rage, "I accept the last-named, 
 and be d to you !" 
 
 In a moment he was out of sight on the mountain 
 road, and Larry climbed into the trap, not knowing 
 whether he had altogether bungled matters and let 
 the fellow escape by some way unknown to him, or 
 to congratulate himself on having brought matters 
 to a successful issue. 
 
 Barr was not a coward, he knew; then why did 
 he give in so tamely? 
 
 "Drive your hardest," he said to McNally. "I 
 want to be at 'Moritza' as soon as that man." 
 
 "We can't do it/' said Martin, regretfully. "That 
 chap knows how to ride, and he'll be at the avenue 
 gates before we're up the last hill. Queer customer, 
 ain't he?" 
 
 "He is," said Hayes, "and I don't want to lose 
 sight of him. Keep your eyes about, Mat, and 
 keep your own counsel,"
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 125 
 
 "Right you are, sir," said Martin. Nothing sur- 
 prised him. He had seen too many "queer cus- 
 tomers" in the ranges, and known of too many 
 "queer" incidents, to feel aggrieved at being "left 
 out of it" for once. 
 
 "I'll bet that pretty nurse is in it," he thought, 
 as he whipped up his horses and flew on. 
 
 Barr was at the Sanatorium before them, as 
 McXally had predicted, and the doctor watched 
 him disappear round one side of the building as he 
 drove up, as usual, to the front door. He deter- 
 mined that if fortune didn't favour him in the see- 
 ing of Nurse Cora on his entrance, he would ask for 
 her, whatever Miss Dunraven thought. 
 
 But good luck was for him, and she was one of 
 the first nurses on duty that he saw as he entered. 
 
 He made a pretext of taking her aside a moment, 
 and told her Barr was probably in the reception- 
 room, and to arrange matters so that he could be 
 present when she went in to see him. 
 
 "Say he wishes to see me too anything!" he 
 enjoined, and went on his rounds as calmly, to all 
 appearance, as usual. 
 
 Corinne, meanwhile, was making a desperate 
 effort to exercise all the self-control she had ever 
 had at command in a trying life, and when a mes- 
 senger came for her, and she was granted the usual 
 grudged permission "to see an old friend for a few 
 moments," she was herself again. 
 
 She went towards the door of the room, then 
 turned back, and, seizing a maid who was passing,
 
 126 C O R I N N E 
 
 sent a message across to the doctor that "an old 
 friend of his was awaiting him in there." 
 
 She waited in the shadow of the corridor till she 
 heard his quick footstep, and then turned the handle 
 of the door and walked slowly in. 
 
 Jim advanced, with less ease in his manner than 
 he had shown at any other time, and the difference 
 in his demeanour comforted and strengthened her a 
 little. 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Barr?" she asked coldly, 
 giving him a limp hand. 
 
 He looked reproachfully at her for her use of the 
 more formal title. 
 
 "Corinne Miss Courboules!" he stammered, 
 looking sheepish, but not to be dreaded. 
 
 There was a light tap at the door, and Dr. Hayes 
 entered. 
 
 Barr at once threw his shoulders back, and was a 
 changed man. 
 
 Corinne gazed at his blazing eyes in terror she 
 could hardly control. What did these two men want 
 with each other? She was not a child, to be so 
 openly guarded by Laurence Hayes! 
 
 "You desire me to remain, Nurse Cora?" the 
 doctor inquired, suavely. 
 
 "I do," she said, audibly enough for Barr to 
 hear. 
 
 Hayes took a seat, but Barr remained standing. 
 Corinne had sunk on to a couch.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 127 
 
 "Mr. Barr has something to tell you, Miss Cour- 
 boules-r-something to confess in my presence, 
 strange as it may seem. He has promised, and" 
 by a happy thought "he is a man of his word." 
 
 He turned courteously towards Barr. 
 
 The young man seemed to swallow hard for a 
 few moments, then he suddenly walked across to 
 where Corinne was sitting, and stood in front of 
 her, all his anger melting into an expression of 
 tender pleading. 
 
 "Corinne, for the sake of the days when we were 
 boy and girl together, tell me have you given this 
 man they call doctor here any right to stand between 
 you and me ? any right to ask that I should render 
 an account to him for whatever wrong I may have 
 done you? Is my patient love for you, my girl, of 
 no avail, after all? Do you turn from an old country 
 friend because he is rough, and uncouth, and ill- 
 mannered, for the sake of a polished gentleman like 
 one you knew once, and who treated you like the 
 cursed scoundrel that he is?" 
 
 His voice, from rising and falling with all the 
 modulations of a genuine passion, now sank to hiss- 
 ing fierceness ; but he never altered his attitude. 
 
 Corinne had half risen, and was clasping and 
 unclasping her hands. 
 
 "By Heaven, this is too much," said the doctor, 
 rising and drawing nearer. "It is you who are the 
 scoundrel ! Are you waiting for me to unmask you, 
 that you treat us to this piece of melodrama?"
 
 128 C O R I N N E 
 
 Corinne looked at him imploringly, evidently 
 desiring that he should hold his peace for the pre- 
 sent, at any rate. 
 
 "Jim!" she answered Barr gently, "I have always 
 told you that I never could love you in return ! It 
 is truer now than even at first. Oh, why do you not 
 believe me?" 
 
 Barr threw up one hand, as if in despair. 
 
 "I cannot believe that you will never care, dear 
 little sweetheart! yes, I must call you that, once! 
 only this once ! I cannot believe that it is all 
 wasted the long, long years I have loved you ; the 
 dear old days when one who is gone would have 
 given you to me gladly, gladly. And why, Corinne? 
 Answer me that, my girl. Because he could trust 
 me, because he knew I would guard your life with 
 my own proud to die, that you might live !" 
 
 Corinne was weeping softly now, and Larry had 
 turned away. This man's love was genuine. Who 
 was he that he should presume to judge him? to 
 even be here listening to him? 
 
 Barr's voice went on, more quietly than before : 
 "I care nothing for the threats of this man beside 
 me nothing, nothing! But I care for this and 
 the answer will be more than life to me. Have you 
 given him a right a right" the word came from 
 him like a groan, and his chest heaved "to con- 
 sider himself your protector the right which is that 
 only of a future husband?"
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 129 
 
 He grasped at the table with his lean, brown hand, 
 that trembled, and the intake of his breathing could 
 be distinctly heard in the tense silence that now 
 reigned. 
 
 So this had been what was working in Barr's 
 mind as he gave the promise which had appeared 
 so easily reft from a conscience-stricken man ! 
 Hayes saw it all now, and the hot blood surged up 
 into his face. 
 
 Corinne, Corinne what would her answer b,e ! 
 Were ever two placed in such a difficult position? 
 "Yes," and she would probably be rid of Barr for 
 ever. "Yes," and, oh, the joy that he might hope to 
 win her from the cruel memories of the past! 
 
 He looked at Corinne, whose eyes, wide open, and 
 dazed in expression, were fixed upon his face; and 
 into that one look he put all the deep, hidden love 
 of his fast-beating heart. 
 
 "Say 'Yes!' Say 'Yes!' those tenderly-passionate 
 eyes commanded her; and, like one under mesmeric 
 influence, her lips formed the syllable both men's 
 ears were striving to hear aright. 
 
 "Yes!" Mechanically she said it; but it was clear 
 enough. "Yes!" 
 
 Barr made an inarticulate sound that smote the 
 doctor's happy heart with pity; and then, suddenly 
 wheeling round, he walked over towards the window 
 on the opposite side of the room. 
 
 Neither Corinne nor Hayes moved. More genuine 
 feeling for Barr was in that deep silence than ever 
 
 i
 
 130 C O R I N N E 
 
 he had been fortunate to gain from anyone in the 
 course of his life. 
 
 Presently his hand went quickly to his breast- 
 pocket. 
 
 Corinne looked at Hayes with a new terror in her 
 eyes. 
 
 He moved a step forward, but Barr was only hold- 
 ing a small parcel in his hand too small to be a 
 weapon of any sort and the doctor guessed intui- 
 tively it was the ring, and a feeling of foreboding 
 crept over him. For the time, he had forgotten 
 loyalty to Lowenthal ! 
 
 Barr crossed over again to Corinne, and put the 
 packet between her trembling fingers. Then Hayes 
 saw that doubled up around what he presumed to 
 be the casket was a letter. Perhaps he might be 
 "in the same boat" with Barr yet; and, after all, was 
 not Corinne justified in saying "Yes" to any ques- 
 tion under such an ordeal as he had unwittingly 
 subjected her to? 
 
 As in a dream, he heard the young man's voice 
 monotonously telling the story of his treachery ; as 
 in a dream, he heard Corinne sob her forgiveness; 
 as in a dream, he saw Barr kiss her hands, one after 
 the other, no less tenderly than he would have done 
 himself, and pass from the room, and out of their 
 lives for ever!
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 131 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 "Oh, a king: would have loved and left thee, 
 
 And away thy sweet love cast, 
 But I am thine while the stars shall shine, 
 To the last, to the last!" 
 
 Dr. Hayes bent tenderly over Corinne, whose face 
 was deathly white now, her arms hanging limply by 
 her side, and her teeth chattering as if with cold. 
 
 "Poor little girl, this has been too much for you ! 
 You are upset and unnerved; and no wonder. I 
 did not dream I was letting you in for such a trying 
 scene! W r e will not discuss it till till you have 
 time during the day to read that letter," pointing to 
 where both it and the casket lay, apparently 
 unnoticed, on her lap. "Rouse yourself, dear, or it 
 will excite comment. Each of us to duty now and 
 with God be the rest!" 
 
 He assisted Corinne to rise, putting the packet 
 and letter in her hand significantly. She secreted 
 them upon her person, and followed him to the open 
 door, but did not look at him. Once in the corridor 
 again, a painful red chased the pallor of her face 
 for a moment, and she half whispered : 
 
 "You understand? You will not think ill of me? 
 Oh, poor old Jim ! Poor Jim !"
 
 132 C O R I N N E 
 
 "I understand perfectly," Larry said. "You 
 simply meant you gave me 'the right' to act for my 
 friend, Hugh Lowenthal. And I want you to under- 
 stand that no word forced from you under such cir- 
 cumstances will be taken advantage of by me. You 
 are so dear to me, Corinne, that I would rather walk 
 in wretched loneliness all my days than that you 
 should have made a mistake, and given up, in pity 
 for me, what you will soon know has always been 
 yours, and is still yours Hugh's unchanged 
 devotedness! There is much to explain, for his 
 sake ; and I will do it as soon as we get an oppor- 
 tunity of meeting otherwise, which may not be for 
 a few days. Write, if you think there is anything 
 you would like to say." 
 
 With a pressure of the hand, he left her, and went 
 outside, on his way to the tents of the unfortunate 
 consumptives, whose only ray of brightness for the 
 day was in his cheery word or joke, and sympathetic 
 smile. 
 
 The bodily sufferings of these poor creatures, 
 shown in their wan, worn faces and hollow eyes, 
 made mental pain seem a very unworthy second; 
 and none noticed that the popular doctor's manner 
 was less bright than usual, save one old Irish gen- 
 tleman, who had come a long distance that day in 
 order to see his suffering daughter a lovely girl 
 who had been the light of her home till the dread 
 disease had stricken her. 
 
 "Sure, 'tis he wants the word of comfort him- 
 self, I'm thinking, Mary; he's the grand man and
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 133 
 
 the kind, but there are tears in his own heart, for 
 all that. There's just something not going right 
 with him, I'll go bail." 
 
 "They nearly worship him here," said Mary, with 
 the weirdly bright smile of those who are consump- 
 tion's early victims. "Dr. Johannsen is quite jealous 
 of him ! Dr. Hayes sees we're looked after properly. 
 Nurse Benton is as hard as stone, and wouldn't give 
 you a drink if it was any trouble to herself to get 
 it; but he's making a real Christian of her, and she's 
 not half bad now. \Ve used to simply hate the 
 sound of her step! We like Nurse Cora, the new 
 one. She's gentle and kind, and never seems to 
 think anything a trouble; she's just lovely to me 
 when I get the home-sickness." 
 
 The "home-sickness!" God help them, poor souls; 
 the "home-sickness" was often more than their tried 
 hearts could bear! Bodily pains were forgotten in 
 that great and terrible hunger. To have to die 
 there was a fate none faced with equanimity. Only 
 to get home before the last ! that was their constant 
 prayer, their craving, their yearning. Home to God, 
 if God willed it, but home to those they loved first! 
 
 The scenery around "Moritza" was magnificent in 
 its grandeur, but scenery, however beautiful, soon 
 palls on the most beauty-loving when away from 
 parents, brothers, sisters, friends. The world is still 
 worldly in these institutions ; and the wealthier the 
 patient, or the patient's "people," the more the 
 attention lavished.
 
 134 C O R I N N E 
 
 Dr. Hayes combated this tendency with all his 
 might, and ensured, as far as possible, the kindest 
 of treatment to all. But, in spite of his strict 
 watch and ward, many abuses went on that should 
 never have been allowed, nor encouraged, by the 
 matron in charge. 
 
 Dr. Johannsen cared little as long as he "made 
 money." He persuaded people in the outlying dis- 
 tricts to send those belonging to them who showed 
 any lung weakness "up to 'Moritza,' up to the fresh 
 air and fresh milk cure," which was, at first, only 
 to cost a moderate sum, but which soon sucked up 
 the hard-earned money of farmer and "cockatoo." 
 
 Once they were there, it was the greatest diffi- 
 culty in the world to have them brought home 
 again. Reports were regularly sent of their gradual 
 improvement, and it came as an overwhelming shock 
 when news had, perforce, to be sent, at last, that 
 death was imminent. 
 
 For every three that recovered at "Moritza," two 
 died. Miss Dunraven had a particular aversion to 
 having deaths occur in the Home itself "it looked 
 so bad !" So, many an unfortunate was sent back in 
 time to free her from what she called "that horrid 
 bother," and reached their destination over rough 
 roads, only to breathe out their gasping life in a 
 few weeks, while she complacently placed another 
 large sum of money to the credit of her banking 
 account. All nurses are not "ministering angels" ! 
 
 "To be a good nurse," Dr. Hayes taught, "a girl 
 needs the constitution of an ox and the heart of an
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 135 
 
 archangel." It is a hard standard to attain, for err- 
 ing mortals the latter part but who shall say it is 
 unnecessary? 
 
 Laurence Hayes loved his profession because he 
 had a heart that was brimful of sympathy for pain, 
 with a corresponding desire to alleviate it. No one 
 of the large human family was common or unworthy 
 in his eyes, and the humblest and poorest woman 
 placed her baby confidingly and gladly in his kindly 
 arms, or trusted herself, with all her aches and 
 miseries and coming trial, to his conscientious care. 
 
 It was always, "Never mind the money, let me 
 see to the trouble first;" and Larry was becoming 
 fast as great an idol in their eyes as the rougher, 
 if heroic-hearted, old doctor who lay in his grave 
 on the hillside, with a granite monument above him, 
 which did its best to tell that it was erected by a 
 grateful people to the undying memory of "one 
 who had never spared himself when anguish called." 
 
 Corinne learned daily with growing pride and 
 pleasure of the esteem and regard in which Dr. 
 Hayes was held, but why she "had done such a 
 dreadful and unmaidenly thing" as to answer James 
 Barr's momentous question in the affirmative, she 
 could not in any degree imagine! 
 
 The recollection made her blush painfully and 
 frequently in the privacy of her dormitory, the only 
 explanation being that, as her own will had, through 
 shock, lain dormant, she had, half-unconsciously, 
 obeyed the strong will of a man whom she liked, 
 trusted utterly, and looked up to as defender and 
 protector. She had lost courage, and become an
 
 136 C O R I N N E 
 
 automaton. She had seen, for some time, Hayes' 
 growing love for her, and something in her 
 had responded. Was she becoming fickle false to 
 the memory of the man to whom she had given her 
 heart years ago on the rocks of the dear old Bluff? 
 Surely not! She was still Hugh's affianced wife. 
 
 She covered her face with her hands, and scalding 
 tears trickled through her fingers. 
 
 Against her breast pressed the letter which once 
 would have brought untold happiness a very 
 delirium of joy. She was not without some degree 
 of the happiness now. It was very sweet to know, 
 after all she had suffered, that Hugh had been true 
 that he was still true, and would be soon coming 
 to claim her. Whatever explanations Dr. Hayes had 
 promised, nothing could do away with that cer- 
 tainty ! 
 
 But she would rather run miles away than face 
 Larry again, after her foolish slip in speech! Perhaps 
 she was mistaken in thinking that he loved her ; his 
 words of tender devotion might have only been 
 prompted by the kindly courtesy and sense of honour 
 which forbids that a woman should suffer while a 
 man can bear pain for her. Of this, at least, she 
 was sure, that Laurence Hayes' character was noble, 
 self-sacrificing, and loyal. 
 
 Had Hugh changed? Was he still the same as 
 when his loved and speaking eyes had last looked 
 into hers? Had he ever regretted the penning of 
 this letter, now stained with her tears, or wished 
 that he had never left behind the token of their
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 137 
 
 secret betrothal? How was she to know? How was 
 she to bear the dreary waiting till he would be face 
 to face with her again, and she should see, in one 
 glance, whether he was still the ideal of her fond 
 girlish dreams? 
 
 And even if he were all that her heart cherished 
 as a memory sweet and glorious, would not the 
 difference in religion between them soon cast its 
 cloud? She could not, would not, marry a Protes- 
 tant; but how was she, with her limited knowledge, 
 to bring about even with Father Dalton's kindly 
 help his sincere conversion? Did she deserve the 
 grace that alone could enable such a satisfactory 
 state of things to be consummated? 
 
 Corinne found much to torture her mind and heart 
 with during the next few days and nights. Hugh's 
 letter was read and re-read, and pondered over 
 incessantly; but, as fast as thoughts poured in in his 
 favour, so did thoughts of Larry. The latter's face, 
 with its manly, tender look, was as frequently before 
 her as his friend's. Was it her fault, she asked, that 
 Hugh's image had grown fainter through the years? 
 God alone knew what agony of mind and heart had 
 been hers after she had thought herself cruelly 
 deserted. She had fought against her love, had 
 prayed day and night that she might forget, and live 
 only for her duty to God and the world. She had 
 not forgotten; still, she had been given strength to 
 live as religion taught her she should live bravely, 
 and not for herself, but for her kind. "Knowledge 
 by suffering entereth," and she had learned very
 
 138 C O R I N N E 
 
 bitter lessons ! Life, even in the sunshine of Hugh's 
 love as a husband, could never be quite the same 
 for her again. Was it her fault? Dear angels of 
 heaven, was it her fault? 
 
 While Corinne agonised in thought and emotion, 
 Dr. Hayes was suffering none the less keenly. What 
 would be the young girl's ultimate decision? It had 
 cost him much to say the words which told her that 
 he would forego his own hopes entirely for the sake 
 of his absent friend, as for her own. No mean advan- 
 tage taken by him should lessen Hugh's chances of 
 recovering what Larry was beginning to see he had 
 so nearly lost. The two lovers of old must meet 
 face to face again ; that was the only test left now. 
 He hoped Lowenthal was well on his way out; 
 delay was heart-sickening for both him and Cor- 
 inne. He was not blind to the fact that he had made 
 considerable inroads into the young girl's affections, 
 so long starved, so long left in drear loneliness. Had 
 Lowenthal never written and told all, had Barr 
 never been forced to confess, he Larry and she 
 might now be preparing for that great Sac- 
 rament which alone gives strength, and solidity, and 
 grace to human love. 
 
 "Lowenthal will marry her in her own Church, 
 all right; but, unless his whole opinions on religious 
 matters have completely altered, he will never 
 become a convert to the faith. 'Lady Lowenthal !' 
 much as I love my beautiful, clever Corinne, I can 
 sooner associate Isabel Lascelles with that title!
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 139 
 
 Confound him, why didn't he take a liking to that 
 stately Madame!" 
 
 Hugh was nearer Victoria than he thought. 
 
 Even now he was standing on the deck of a 
 steamer bound for Melbourne, standing in the moon- 
 light, gazing musingly before him, full of a deep and 
 quiet happiness at the prospect of so soon seeing 
 Australian shores and the old French sailor's 
 "petite Corinne." Time enough to wire Larry when 
 he reached Melbourne. On his reply would hinge 
 everything maybe, his whole destiny. 
 
 Beautiful girls chattered within his hearing, and 
 strove, in innocent, girlish way, to attract the atten- 
 tion of "the Grand Duke," as they had nicknamed 
 him, because of his good looks and exclusiveness ; 
 but all in vain. His thoughts were on the shore of 
 another sea; they were "outward-bound." Had 
 the years brought changes to that lovely face, with 
 the dreamy eyes as full of light and colour and 
 changing expression as the sea, which had been her 
 foster mother? Did the dimples still come and go 
 where the silvery laughter trembled? Were the 
 sweet, confiding, childish ways all gone? the hun- 
 dred and one little natural, graceful movements 
 which had made her every attitude a beautiful and 
 artistic thing? Most of all, had the loving, faith- 
 ful, impulsive nature altered? He could not bear 
 to hear that voice speak coldly, to see those once 
 love-lit eyes turn indifferently away! Ah! but she 
 should not, she could not!
 
 140 C O R I N N E 
 
 Under his breath he sang softly to himself the 
 song that had seemed peculiarly his own since he 
 had repeated it to Corinne on that never-to-be-for- 
 gotten day, in the shade of the Sword Rock : 
 
 "I told thee when love was hopeless, 
 
 But now he is wild, and sing* 
 That the stars above 
 Shine ever on love, 
 
 Though they frown on the fate of kings. 
 
 "Oh, a king would have loved and left thee, 
 
 And away thy sweet love cast ; 
 But I am thine 
 Whilst the stars shall shine, 
 
 To the last, to the last!" 
 
 His days were spent in dreams, while Larry's 
 passed in hard work. Never before had there been 
 so many calls on the young doctor. He gave 
 Martha enough to grumble about that week and the 
 following! 
 
 "Never a bite between his lips, nor a drop of 
 spirits to put the strength into him! It's, 'I don't 
 know what time I'll be home, Martha; I may have 
 to put up at a roadside shanty for the night, or in a 
 Chinaman's hut.' An', like enough, it's on stones he's 
 lying, with only the rug over him, getting his death 
 of cold, all for the sake of them Jenkinses, that 
 have never a good word for him behind his back. 
 Oh ! don't talk to me about a doctor's life being a 
 fine thing, and an easy billet, for I know better. 
 Them as finds it so, just let them up with their tools 
 and an old moke into the mountains, and rough it 
 over hill and up dale, and see how they like it! An'
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 141 
 
 then the comin' horn* after a bad case twenty mile 
 away in Xo Man's Land comin' home in the win- 
 ter, soaked through if they're ridin', an' frozen near 
 to an iceberg if they're drivin' ; comin' home to a bit 
 of Irish stew and a cup of coffee; never a wife's 
 smile to cheer, nor a child's to call 'Daddy.' I'm 
 old and ugly, and not as strong as in my young days, 
 an', when I've bustled off to my bed, who knows 
 how the man eats his heart out, while he's smokin', 
 smokin' till it's time to go out again? He ought to 
 marry, I says ; but, maybe, he has not money 
 enough, poor man. Tis very few as comes in the 
 door with a pound owin', I tell you. He wants a 
 worker for a wife, does the doctor. Not that I've 
 ever heard him say the like but what good would 
 a lady that spends the time playing the planner an' 
 dressin' her hair up be for him? With a wife like 
 himself, the district soon wouldn't know itself; but 
 where's the plucky, clever creature to come from? 
 He never gives a look to no woman, though there's 
 many I could mention, but won't, that's everlastin' 
 settin' their giddy little caps at him!"
 
 142 CORINNE 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE RETURN OF SIR HUGH LOWENTHAL. 
 
 A few lines from Corinne had reached Laurence 
 before the day due for his next visit to "Moritza" 
 had arrived. It was a short letter, but the doctor 
 guessed that many other, probably longer, epistles 
 had been penned and destroyed before this one had 
 been finally chosen. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Hayes," it ran, "I can wait for a fuller 
 explanation of the past till I see Mr. Lowenthal in 
 person ; so, please, do not allude to it, Doctor, till 
 then, unless there is some urgent reason for so 
 doing. I can wait a little longer, as I have already 
 waited so long. Thank you very much for all your 
 goodness to your ever-grateful friend, CORINNE 
 COURBOULES." 
 
 That was all! a tame ending to all the excite- 
 ment and stress of emotion each had been going 
 through. Well, perhaps she was right, thought 
 Laurence. Only Lowenthal could straighten mat- 
 ters out now. The sooner he did, the better. Till 
 he came, Larry must just busy himself in his work. 
 There was nothing left to do either for Corinne or 
 Hugh. Corinne knew the state of his feelings for
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 143 
 
 her; the avowal had been made under different cir- 
 cumstances to that which a glowing Celtic fancy had 
 so often pictured. But that couldn't be helped now. 
 One had to take things as they came. 
 
 If Corinne found that her love for Lowenthal was 
 as strong as of old, and he had to stand by and see 
 their mutual happiness well, he supposed, he'd 
 "have to grin and bear it." It would be "jolly hard 
 luck" to be but an onlooker, but other men had 
 fought similar battles to what his might be, and had 
 conquered. 
 
 He saw Corinne a few times while on duty, 
 through the following weeks, but made no attempt 
 to have a few minutes' private conversation with 
 her. He felt that the understanding between them 
 now was strong enough to bear an equal strain 
 as, indeed, it was. 
 
 Of the two, perhaps Corinne suffered the most. 
 Every thought of Barr brought its stab of pain, 
 because of her father's love for him and the tried 
 friendship of years. She had heard nothing from 
 or of him since that afternoon. And every thought 
 of Lowenthal had its own peculiar sting. Thoughts 
 of Larry were also fraught with a dull pain. "Why 
 should she be the means of causing three good men 
 misery?" she often questioned of herself, and, at 
 times, longed to "flee away and be at rest" where 
 there was but the Love which healeth. Human 
 love brought pain and sorrow, and endless travail of 
 heart and soul. If, she thought, when more than 
 usually depressed, she had chosen the religious life,
 
 144 CORINNE 
 
 how much more at peace would her mind be now! 
 Oh ! but to be with Antoine and her mother ! Safe 
 on the Heart of God! 
 
 A great longing for the sea was upon her these 
 days. Like those who, born upon the hills, can 
 think best in the wind's breath on the hills, she, who 
 had been born amid the surges, and lived 
 within hearing of the myriad voices of the sea, 
 felt she could better wrestle with the coming pro- 
 blem that disturbed her soul in sight of the waters 
 she would never cease to love. 
 
 "I would know myself there," she thought. "I 
 would be better able to see what I should do; and, 
 oh! if I could only hear Hugh's voice again where 
 I so often listened to it, with the old sweet gladness 
 that seems gone forever, I might be able to re-cross 
 the chasm these silent years have made !" 
 
 Yes, there was the trouble she did not dare to face 
 the chasm the years had dug between her and 
 the man who, with an exultant heart, was, doubt- 
 less, on his way to claim the promise given so will- 
 ingly and joyfully "when the heart was young!" 
 
 She did not know that Hugh had already suc- 
 ceeded to his uncle's estates. Her hope was that 
 he would now settle in Australia, and that, if their 
 lives were at last united in matrimony, they would 
 lead some peaceful, ordinary existence not too far 
 from the coast. 
 
 At length, the longing of the poor "sea-bird" 
 expressed itself in a petition to Miss Dunraven for 
 a week's holiday and rest; and, seeing that the girl
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 145 
 
 was rapidly growing pale and thin, and not being 
 willing to lose her valuable services, the matron put 
 on a motherly air, which she could assume at will, 
 and consented to allow her a respite. 
 
 "But why you want to spend your strength on a 
 long journey to town, when only in need of a few 
 days' lying about in comfort, I cannot imagine," 
 she commented, eyeing the girl suspiciously. 
 
 Nurse Cora laughed nervously. 
 
 "I'm afraid you'll think me very childish, Matron, 
 but, truth to tell, I am burning with the desire to 
 taste the salt sea water, and feel the cold sea winds 
 upon my face, and hear the cries of the free sea- 
 gulls in my ears." 
 
 "Humph!" responded Miss Dunraven; "it is to 
 be hoped you won't also be seized with a craving to 
 go to sleep on the cold sea's breast, as well !" 
 
 So, one morning when Larry arrived at 
 "Moritza," he was told that Nurse Cora had gone 
 and gone somewhere seawards. He was alarmed 
 at the news, for he had seen that the young girl's 
 nerves were "playing up with her" of late, and he 
 had been contemplating advising Miss Dunraven to 
 give her a few weeks' outdoor work, in order that 
 the fresh air and change of patients might effect a 
 natural cure. 
 
 Surely Corinne had not returned to Corrall's 
 Bluff! Why, young Barr was the manager of her 
 old home, and all his work in assisting her to get rid 
 
 J
 
 146 CORINNE 
 
 of his importunities would, in such an event, be of 
 no avail! 
 
 Poor Larry felt that women were very hard to 
 understand even the best of them ! 
 
 Why on earth hadn't she let him Larry know 
 in some way? Surely he deserved that bit of 
 thoughtfulness at her hands? 
 
 Ten days only the matron had given her; but n 
 great deal could happen in ten days. 
 
 He racked his brain to think of what the name of 
 the little coast village was where the father and 
 daughter had resided last, but could not recollect 
 it. He looked carefully through his maps, but 
 insignificant places had been omitted from the plan. 
 
 Then he suddenly remembered that Rosalie 
 Coudray, the young girl who had once been such 
 an active assistant of Corinne's at the Bluff, used 
 to write with monthly regularity to Corinne from 
 Shellbeach, a well-known place at many miles' dis- 
 tance from the Bluff, or even from the Courboules' 
 later home, and that it was but natural the poor girl 
 should long to greet again such people as would feel 
 honoured by her remembrance of them, and let her 
 rest where she pleased without question. 
 
 Still, it was risky to go in the direction of the Bluff 
 at all ! 
 
 His surmise as to Corinne's whereabouts was cor- 
 rect. She had flown to her faithful Rosalie's 
 family as fast as train and boat could carry her, and 
 eventually reached them in such a state of weari-
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 147 
 
 ness of body and of nerve as filled their kind and 
 homely hearts with dismay and pity. 
 
 Mrs. Coudray, a bustling, cheerful woman, of 
 French extraction, "fed her up" with broths and 
 nourishing foods, and made her spend her days 
 lying covered up comfortably in an old boat in the 
 sun, on the sea-shore, where the waves sang again 
 for her tired brain and heart the old sweet lullaby 
 that never had failed to soothe. 
 
 "The sea is glad to have you back again, lass," old 
 Coudray said, as he mended his nets, "so bask 
 yourself in the warmth, and listen to its music." 
 
 Corinne did so very thankfully, and the sea repaid 
 her for her love of its beauty and its songs by 
 bringing back the roses to her cheeks and the rays 
 of hope to her eyes. It was the change she had 
 most needed this rest by the sea and its effects 
 seemed miraculous. 
 
 All that had jarred and jangled was replaced by 
 harmony; peace returned, and all her lips had now 
 to say were, "God's will, not mine, be done. If 
 Hugh claims me, even if I have lost some of the 
 love I had in such shining heaps of love's own price- 
 less gold for him, I shall not turn from him. My 
 word is my bond, and I must keep it. But one 
 thing remains after that ; and that is, to do all that 
 is in my power to lead him into the one true fold." 
 
 A quiet tear or two fell often, as she thought of 
 Larry. 
 
 "But he is a good and unselfish man ; a sincere 
 Catholic, and a practical one; he will do his duty, as
 
 i4 CORINNE 
 
 I, with the help of God, shall do mine, and, as he 
 said, 'the rest is with God." 
 
 ,While she was thus communing with herself one 
 glorious afternoon, when the sea was a thing of 
 beauty, that seemed as if it must last forever, Laur- 
 ence Hayes was reading a telegram that had just 
 been given him : "Arrived to-day. Wire where 
 meet. Let know any news immediately." 
 
 A half-hour later a message flashed back across 
 the wires in answer: "She is at Shellbeach. People 
 named Coudray. Prepare her beforehand. Down 
 myself on Saturday." 
 
 This was Thursday. 
 
 That evening Corinne received a wire also: 
 
 "Looking forward to our meeting to-morrow. 
 Hope to find you on the beach near our friends' 
 home, about three o'clock. HUGH." 
 
 Now that her lover had actually returned, the 
 news came as something of a shock, causing emo- 
 tions not alone of pleasure, but of vague fear and 
 uneasiness. Corinne spent half the night on her 
 knees, and, at morn, was calm and recollected in 
 demeanour, no wild beating of the heart signalling 
 the coming of one beloved. 
 
 "You look like a nun to-day, somehow, Miss 
 Corinne," said Rosalie. "If you had the habit on, 
 and the rosary beads and crucifix, nobody would 
 know different!" 
 
 Perhaps Corinne wished she had, for she only 
 sighed deeply in answer, and passed her hand over 
 the girl's crisp brown curls.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 149 
 
 The first part of the day was got through some- 
 how, the midday meal hurried over, and, after 
 assisting in the "straightening up" of the house- 
 hold, Corinne went out to meet the man who held 
 her destiny between his hands. 
 
 When at last they stood face to face, and he had 
 drawn her to his heart, with an ardour all the more 
 passionate for the long starving of the empty years, 
 she knew the truth the truth, at any rate, as con- 
 cerned herself. 
 
 Alas! he was the same handsome, knightly-look- 
 ing "Hugh Allingham" of old, as tender a lover, as 
 loyal ; but she oh ! what had happened to her 
 woman's heart that it could not thrill at his touch, 
 as in the happy, happy days of yore? 
 
 He did not notice the want of fervency in her 
 affectionate welcome, so great was his joy at 
 recovering her, whom he found to be more beautiful 
 still than he had pictured her more beautiful, with 
 a woman's ripe loveliness; more beautiful in a face 
 of such expression as artists give their pictured 
 saints ; more beautiful in a virginal modesty which, 
 restraining, still drew the more deeply from the 
 treasury of his man's worshipping love. 
 
 Hugh's was the voice that murmured with the 
 sea that day ; there was so much to tell, so much to 
 explain, so much to paint of what the future held 
 of bliss for both ! 
 
 Corinne listened silently, starting when he told 
 her of his title and his magnificent estates across the 
 sea starting, ay, and shivering, too! No "Lady
 
 150 CORINNE 
 
 of Burleigh" did she desire to be! no queen over 
 tenants bound by expediency to do her homage. 
 Her tastes were simple, her desire to work with the 
 workers who offered up weariness of body to God 
 as a continual prayer. 
 
 But Hugh was satisfied. To him that afternoon 
 was as a gem of wondrous value shrined in gold. 
 
 He told Corinne that Larry was "coming down 
 from the back-blocks" to join in their happiness, and, 
 as he told her, he put on her finger, with all a lover's 
 glowing pride, the ring which she had hastened to 
 restore to him. 
 
 The cold light of its diamonds seemed to the poor, 
 half-distraught girl to mock her hidden agony, and 
 on its pearls, could he have had eyes to see the 
 invisible, fell the slow tears that cruel torture 
 brings. 
 
 Bound, bound, bound! The waters of the sea 
 boomed the word in on her brain. Yes, she was 
 bound; she could not break of herself the ancient 
 vow of fealty. She could not bring unexpected 
 anguish to this loyal lover's trusting heart. She 
 must "dree her weird," somehow, somehow! 
 
 Hugh stayed at the only place of accommodation 
 Shellbeach afforded, and waited for his old friend 
 Larry with all the impatience born of the joyous 
 desire to tell his love tale's "happy conclusion"; and 
 the doctor arrived on the Saturday night, and 
 listened to it as many a one has to sit calmly and 
 listen to what stings, and stabs, and slashes the 
 heart, the while is given the sympathetic words
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 151 
 
 which are expected, the sympathetic looks which 
 lengthen the time of torture. 
 
 Naturally, Larry thought that Corinne had found, 
 in the first glimpse of Hugh's face, the love return- 
 ing in a flood, which had so long been pent back by 
 strength of will, and that he was forgotten wholly, 
 or put back in the second place, which had been his 
 at the beginning of the romance, and he would have 
 avoided seeing her on the Sunday if he could; but 
 Hugh, blind to all but his own feelings, would not 
 hear of his returning without spending most of the 
 day with them, and he was obliged to face the 
 ordeal. 
 
 During those hours spent together on the sand, 
 as little as possible did Corinne's and Larry's eyes 
 meet, but the latter could not but notice that there 
 was something missing from laugh and tone in the 
 sweet laughter and soft tones he knew now so well. 
 Hugh was happy almost foolishly happy but 
 what was the matter with Corinne? 
 
 That was the problem Dr. Hayes carried back 
 with him to his daily grind upon the ranges. 
 
 In two months the pair were to be married. 
 Corinne would not give in to a shortening of the 
 time, and Hugh gave as confidential reason that it 
 was she wished him to be more acquainted \vith the 
 Catholic faith. 
 
 "I'll humour my darling, of course," he said, "and 
 go anywhere, and through anything, she likes, to 
 please her; but there's very little religion in me, as 
 you know, and I don't really care a hang what
 
 152 CORINNE 
 
 creed I belong to. I believe there is a God, and all 
 that, and that this life isn't all, and I try to do as I 
 would be done by especially of late, since I've 
 gone more among those poor beggars of tenants at 
 Poppledene ; but to be all Corinne's faith would ask 
 of me is entirely beyond me!" 
 
 Larry knew this to be the truth, and speculated 
 much as to its probable effect on "Lady Lowen- 
 thal's" future. 
 
 "The old Countess will go 'off her head/ " he 
 thought, "if he 'turns/ and poor Corinne will have a 
 terrible time of it." 
 
 Poor Corinne was having "a terrible time" as it 
 was, but he was not to know that. 
 
 Larry had one letter from her, in which she told 
 him that Hugh always went to Mass with her, and 
 was reading the books Father Dalton had given her 
 for his perusal. She asked for his prayers for his 
 friend's conversion, and that he would join her in a 
 novena for the same purpose ; and he wrote at con- 
 siderable length back to her, assuring her of his 
 active co-operation in her spiritual work, and telling 
 her how much she was missed up at "Moritza," and 
 how indignant Miss Dunraven had been when 
 informed of her engagement and approaching mar- 
 riage with an English lord. He omitted the 
 matron's sarcastic comments on the fact, but knew 
 that Corinne could easily imagine them, as also the 
 excitement the news must have caused among both 
 nurses and patients at "Moritza."
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 153 
 
 So both the young girl and the man whom she 
 had found she truly loved with a woman's one 
 abiding devotion did their duty day by day, alone 
 and with all their might, in sight of God and man ; 
 and there was nothing to indicate that anything but 
 duty's thorny path would be theirs to tread for the 
 rest of their natural lives, till a week before the wed- 
 ding, when something happened which changed the 
 course of the lives of all. 
 
 Mrs. Lowenthal had been found dead in bed one 
 morning by Isabel Lascelles, and the cable which 
 brought the tidings of his unlooked-for bereave- 
 ment to Sir Hugh filled him with such sorrow and 
 remorse that it took all Corinne's affectionate atten- 
 tion to calm him and restrain its flow. He had truly 
 loved his mother, and had never dreamed that the 
 heart attacks of which she so often complained had 
 been anything to cause alarm. Besides, he had 
 been assured by the family physician that he might 
 take this journey to Australia without fear of his 
 mother's health giving way utterly. It caused him 
 poignant grief that he had not been by to bid her a 
 last farewell. 
 
 He must hurry back to England again, but this 
 time Corinne must accompany him as his wife. 
 This she refused to do, however, but promised to 
 follow in another steamer to that which he proposed 
 to take, and marry him immediately upon her arrival 
 in London. To marry at once, she argued, would 
 seem, in the eyes of his friends, a total lack of 
 respect to his mother's memory.
 
 154 CORINNE 
 
 He finally agreed to this arrangement, sadly and 
 reluctantly enough. 
 
 "I cross the sea again," he said, "for the third 
 time the sea you love, but which to me is always 
 something that allures, deceives, entraps. How 
 many poor wretches trust themselves to its treach- 
 erous bosom, and are drawn pitilessly downwards 
 into its ever-voracious maw? Ah! 'Corinne, how 
 little do either of us know whether a similar fate 
 awaits us, too !" 
 
 Corinne pressed his hand against her cheek. 
 
 "God is on the sea, as on the land," she said. 
 "Even if He does not always say His 'Peace, be 
 still/ to the raging waters, He may say it to the 
 poor, despairing hearts engulphed therein, and give 
 them strength to go through its darkness as calmly 
 into the light of His kingdom as do those who lie 
 on their own home bed, surrounded by their loved 
 ones." 
 
 Corinne parted from Hugh the day he set sail 
 with more loving warmth than she had yet found 
 herself capable of returning him for the wealth of 
 love and tenderness he constantly lavished on her; 
 and Larry, who had hurried down for a day to "see 
 him off" in "The Theseus," gave him more of a 
 brother's grip than he had done for years. 
 
 An unaccountable feeling of sadness came over 
 both as they waved till the ship was lost to view. 
 
 "I wish poor old Hughie did not look so solemn," 
 said Larry, as at last they turned away. "I shan't
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 155 
 
 forget in a hurry that tragical phiz of his as the boat 
 moved outward." 
 
 Nor was he to forget it all his life long, for "The 
 Theseus," new boat though she was, went down, or 
 was supposed to have gone down, oft the coast of 
 Africa, as "The Royal George" went down off Eng- 
 land's coast long years ago. 
 
 The sea had taken him, and never gave him back 
 neither him nor the younger, blither hearts that 
 had passed the hours with merriment and hopes of 
 fuller life in other lands. Search was made in vain 
 for the missing vessel. Many a wife's heart was 
 to leap in vain at the sound of a step like her hus- 
 band's on the threshold, many a mother's eyes to 
 grow dim with gazing for the face of the son or 
 daughter who was never to return. Many and 
 gruesome tales were told of floating bodies seen by 
 passing steamers, but never were the stories proved. 
 Uncertainty shrouded everything connected with 
 the ill-fated boat in mystery, and no whisper came 
 from the relentless sea to tell how brave men died 
 or pious women passed away. 
 
 In the lovely mansion of Poppledene neither mas- 
 ter nor mistress reigned. She who would have 
 taken up its honours gladly, and filled her place wor- 
 thily, was now on her way back to her impoverished 
 and disappointed family, a little the richer for her 
 long visit, because of the legacy left her by the 
 mother of the man she loved, but poor in her double 
 loss ay, a thousand times poorer than Corinne of 
 Corrall's Bluff.
 
 156 CORINNE 
 
 Corinne mourned Hugh sincerely, but not as a 
 widow mourns. The strain upon her every energy 
 had been too great. After the loss of "The 
 Theseus," she fell seriously ill, it is true, but it was 
 more from the after-effects of the previous struggle 
 to be all that was demanded of her by Sir Hugh's 
 high belief in her absorbing devotion for him. He 
 had exacted more from her than he had had any idea 
 of. And then there had been the constant anxiety as 
 to whether his intention to enter the Church was 
 from conviction, not from any mere human desire to 
 give her pleasure, and satisfy her mind. She had left 
 no stone unturned, and had prayed fervently and 
 unceasingly for the great boon. 
 
 "Ah, well, God is good," was Larry's comfort in 
 his letters; "we do not know what grace was given 
 Hugh's spirit ere it winged its flight." 
 
 Corinne's passage had been taken in another 
 steamer leaving a few weeks later. Her "trous- 
 seau" had already been packed. Everyone who 
 knew her pitied her, and would have condoled with 
 her had she permitted. But Corinne returned, as 
 quickly as possible, to the kind-hearted, if humble, 
 folk down at Shellbeach, and in their home the ill- 
 ness came upon her which kept her chained to her 
 bed for many a long day. 
 
 It was well that she was with old and tried friends, 
 for, in her delirium, much of her past struggles with 
 herself were betrayed, and Larry's name came often 
 to her lips. 
 
 He came to see her once or twice, but a great bar- 
 rier seemed to have risen up between them the
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 157 
 
 barrier made by Hugh's untimely death. Corinne 
 felt that she owed it to the dead to pay all tribute 
 to his memory that his wife would have paid under 
 like circumstances, and Larry, never more truly his 
 friend, had the like feeling. They must continue 
 as before, for how long he did not know, but long 
 enough to forbid any breath of reproach to chill the 
 future days. 
 
 Corinne returned to her old profession, though not 
 at "Moritza," and, save the sending of a letter 
 monthly to Dr. Hayes, and the receipt of one 
 monthly from him, life flowed on as monotonously 
 as before. 
 
 But, in due time, when the wills of the drowned 
 of the ill-fated "Theseus" had to be proved, and Sir 
 Hugh's relatives in the Old Country moved in the 
 matter of his, it was found that he had left the bulk 
 of his vast means to "my affianced wife, Corinne 
 Marie Courboules," and the simple sailor's daugh- 
 ter was a wealthy woman. 
 
 A distant cousin lorded over Poppledene beau- 
 tiful Poppledene! but there were other properties 
 in Ireland and in Scotland which were now 
 Corinne's indisputably. 
 
 Then, up went the second barrier in poor Larry's 
 estimation. For what was left for a poor, strug- 
 gling country doctor to do but retire altogether into 
 the background when the woman he loved, and had 
 waited for, was suddenly become a person of riches 
 beyond his counting?
 
 158 CORINNE 
 
 Unconsciously to himself, his letters grew colder 
 and stiffer, and, of course, he reaped the usual 
 penalty where a woman is concerned hers grew 
 rarer. 
 
 He thought she did it purposely. He could not 
 understand that the afternoon of Jim Barr's con- 
 fession had so burnt itself into her memory that 
 maidenly pride alone forbade the slightest advance 
 on her part. 
 
 He man-like thought that, as she was quite 
 aware of his love for her, no reassurance on that 
 point was necessary. This is a world of cross- 
 purposes, or life would flow on more monotonously 
 than it does.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 159 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE CAP AND MASK OF ANY STAGE. 
 
 "In the obscurity of retirement, amid the squalid 
 poverty and revolting privations of a hut, scenes of 
 magnanimity and self-denial are often seen, as much 
 beyond the belief as the practice of the great; a 
 heroism borrowing no support, either from the gaze 
 of the many or the admiration of the few, yet 
 flourishing amidst ruins, and on the confines of the 
 grave." Larry was daily proving this in his life 
 among the dwellers on the mountains. 
 
 The pathos of decent poverty striving to hide its 
 rags and keep up a presentable front is nowhere 
 seen so much as where alluvial mining is carried on; 
 nor is there such ungrudging hospitality anywhere 
 more displayed than among these people that earn 
 a precarious living with such simple tools. At 
 Warren Creek and Blind Tim's Creek, the doctor, in 
 his occasional visits thither only summoned when 
 his services were in urgent demand found enough 
 material for the writing of a dozen books, and 
 wished from his heart that the mantle of a Bret 
 Harte had fallen upon him, so that he might give to 
 the world the many touching pictures which were so
 
 160 CORINNE 
 
 often unconsciously spread before his observant 
 vision. 
 
 "Australia," he thought, "is too often associated 
 in the minds of those interested in her in other 
 lands with the tales of 'old drunks/ and swagmen, 
 and disreputable creatures of the early diggings 
 type, and men turn from the gruesome tales of her 
 male writers to the later-day American fiction, 
 which, even if portraying the human beings of 
 shady antecedents who are to be found in every new 
 country, at least livens the picture with the dainty, 
 poetical but none the less true touches which 
 bring into strong relief the simple beauties of homely 
 characters that keep an angel's shining wings beside 
 them amid penury, disease, and other people's 
 garbage." 
 
 He never sat down, however wearied, however 
 disheartened, now, to bemoan his lot. He had 
 learned to know the place and the people, as it 
 takes years to know ; and his purse was ever open- 
 ing for the wants of the pain-distraught creatures, 
 who rarely knew that the alleviations provided as a 
 matter of course towards their miseries cost the 
 doctor one-third of the money they did. He sent 
 to Melbourne for numberless things which had never 
 been known in that region before, and many an 
 obstinate old man, who had set himself persistently 
 against new ideas and remedies, was won over 
 quietly by never being informed of the treatment 
 followed till he was a happy convalescent once 
 more.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 161 
 
 Martha grew daily more indignant with "the liber- 
 ties he takes with his health, the creature, sitting up 
 at nights over some old brown book, studying, as 
 he calls it, till he can't see out of the two eyes of 
 him and drawing all sorts of queer squiggles on 
 bits of paper, an' usin' bottles of stuff that have 
 queer enough smells to belong to a demon instid of 
 to a Christian gentleman, doctor or no doctor!" 
 
 Yes, Dr. Hayes was studying hard, and experi- 
 menting much. Corinne soon learned that. Oh ! 
 how the nurse's instinct in her leaped how she 
 would have loved to toil beside him, to lend her 
 strength to his, to carry out his plans as only she 
 could! But, to all appearance, he was not anxious 
 for a life-companion, and sometimes her heart grew 
 heavy at the prospect of a second series of sorrow- 
 ful and bitter-sweet memories to darken the glory 
 of the womanhood the Creator had rendered so fit 
 for service for such needs as those which called 
 incessantly to Dr. Larry. 
 
 How much, how well, this unwanted wealth of 
 hers could help him ! What avenues it could open 
 for the benefit of the destitute, sick, and suffering! 
 Why, she had it in her power to build a hospital 
 according to his own design, if she so desired ! But 
 he was too proud to avail himself of either her 
 i stance or her patronage. And the worst of it 
 was that she, too, would have to follow soon the 
 same track over the sea which had proved so ill- 
 fated for poor Hugh Lowenthal his lawyers had 
 written her that her presence in Kent was most 
 I
 
 162 C O R I N N E 
 
 advisable. There was much to see to there, many 
 matters to be straightened out. Rosalie Coudray 
 was to go with her as maid. One of her first acts 
 had been to lavish money and presents on the good, 
 honest family who had ever been ready to welcome 
 and shelter her under their roof; her next, to erect 
 a fitting memorial over the grave of her parents and 
 only brother, Antoine the grave which faced the 
 sea. The inscription was in French, and told that 
 there lay those who had hearkened to the voice of 
 God in the winds and waves of the sea, and prayed 
 that, through His boundless mercy, their souls' 
 barque might now be anchored where all was per- 
 fect peace. 
 
 The design was all that Sebastien would have 
 cared for it to be a plain marble cross and anchor, 
 and a replica, in the same, of his old fishing-boat, 
 which now hung from Coudray's rafters, hoisted up 
 and kept in place by ingenious manipulation such as 
 only an old sailor knows. 
 
 Jim Barr had, long before, disappeared from Cor- 
 rall's Bluff. It was said that even his own father 
 knew nothing of his whereabouts, and for this 
 Corinne continually chastised herself beyond reason. 
 
 She was growing very thin, her friends told her ; 
 it was, they said, perhaps well that she should be 
 obliged to take a trip across the seas. She had 
 not even sea-sickness to dread, being a true daughter 
 of the waters. 
 
 Few thought of the mental anguish that might be 
 hers passing 1 over the same path where one who had
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 163 
 
 loved her so well had fallen, never to rise in this 
 world again. Only her great love of the sea was 
 remembered, and that it would be but second nature 
 for her to trust herself to it. 
 
 But Corinne's fondness for the sea would never 
 again be the same ! To the last day of her life she 
 would hear on stormy nights Hugh's voice upon the 
 wind, his farewell cry in the restless moan and 
 splash of the waves as they beat upon the shore. 
 
 The sea might treat her with tender and infinitely 
 loving regard, and bear her safely round the world 
 and back again ; but it had been cruel and treache- 
 rous to as true a heart as ever beat. It had freed 
 her from a position which it had taxed all her moral 
 and physical courage to endure freed her, yes, but 
 at what a cost! 
 
 The months went on at Musktown with little or 
 no excitement to break the monotony, when, one 
 day, a friend of Larry's chanced to arrive on holiday 
 at the quiet township. He lost no time in finding 
 the doctor out, whose first greeting to him was : 
 
 "Be the powers, but it's 'Splodger'!" 
 
 "Splodger" had received his nickname because of 
 the length of time he had taken in getting through 
 his examinations, likewise for being "a good old 
 plodder." His proper name was Francis Wycherley. 
 
 The two medical men had a "terrific yarn," as 
 they called it next morning, that night, and in the 
 course of it Hayes found that Wycherley had met 
 Corinne, and was informed that she was preparing 
 to go "home" in two weeks' time.
 
 164 C O R I N N E 
 
 "She's fallen off in looks ; got very thin and pale, 
 and lost all her old animation. She hates the idea 
 of going so far, poor girl ! I hear Isabel Lascelles 
 is back with her own people colder, but better- 
 looking than ever. I heard that that ambitious 
 mother of hers was much disgusted because she 
 returned without an earl in tow, or something nearer 
 royalty. Anyway, she only reached home in time 
 to save the place being seized by Jew money-lenders. 
 There were rumours everywhere that Lascelles was 
 going to be sold up. His clever helpmeet could 
 stem the tide no longer, with all her arts and 
 crafts." 
 
 But Larry was not much interested in the Las- 
 celles; the account given of Corinne was too dis- 
 turbing. His heart smote him that he had not 
 written more frequently to her even if but formal 
 letters. Somehow, he had pictured her as in the 
 glow of health again, and, perhaps, in the state of 
 feminine excitement unexpected wealth usually 
 brings to the saddest. 
 
 For "good old Splodger" to notice a marked dif- 
 ference in her appearance meant much, as he was 
 not too observant by nature. 
 
 "Hang her money!" he thought bitterly. "It 
 has come between us like some mocking thing from 
 the grave ! I'll have to have a look at her before 
 she goes, even if only professionally. I wish I 
 could manage to catch a glimpse of her unknown to 
 herself. That would prove a better test than 'hop- 
 ping in' upon her unexpectedly. I'll take advan-
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 165 
 
 tage of 'Splodger' being here, and 'run down' to 
 town for a few days." 
 
 He closely questioned Wycherley as to what her 
 present whereabouts were, saying openly that he 
 wished to bid farewell to her on his own account as 
 well as that of his dead friend, and "Splodger" oblig- 
 ingly and unsuspiciously agreed to act for him in his 
 absence. 
 
 It might, of course, be wiser and ''more respect- 
 able" to wait till she returned to Victoria before 
 seeing her again, but supposing the poor girl's heart 
 was yearning for a kind word, an affectionate look, 
 from the only living one she had the right yes, the 
 right, for had not the avowal of his love, made long 
 ago, given it her? to expect them from, now Hugh 
 was dead. 
 
 And, "ten to one," he argued, "but that Hugh 
 expects it of me, if these things are not hidden from 
 the eyes of his spirit. I have an uncanny feeling 
 that he's near me pretty often," and he thought of 
 the long hours' study at night, when all Musktown 
 was peacefully slumbering, and he worked on, and 
 the strong feeling at times that the comrade of 
 earlier student days was beside him. 
 
 When the feeling was strongest, he would pause 
 in his work, and say a prayer for the soul that had 
 been so unexpectedly summoned before its Divine 
 Judge, and reflect a moment on the uncertainty of 
 life. How often one stumble of his own horse in 
 the dark might have hurried him over the precipi- 
 tous sidlings of the mountains into eternity dread
 
 166 C O R I N N E 
 
 word, even when one has firm hold of faith's saving 
 torchlight ! 
 
 Dr. Hayes was a practical Catholic, and, though 
 he had found on his arrival that bigotry was ram- 
 pant in the district, he had never, for expediency's 
 sake, or for any other, relaxed in any way from his 
 usual pious customs, the ultimate result being that 
 now he was respected by Protestant and Catholic 
 alike. 
 
 As one old resident "put it" and only "an old 
 resident's" opinion is listened to with attention in 
 the ranges "No man, woman, or child, whatever 
 they be or baint in religion, is let go to their Maker 
 without their priest or their minister when Dr. 
 Hayes has their case in hand. He don't forget the 
 soul when he's looking to the body." 
 
 And, even as he contemplated his brief journey 
 to Melbourne, a voiceless prayer ascended that none 
 of those under his care as patients, on hill or in val- 
 ley, might be called to their last account in his 
 absence. 
 
 " 'Splodger's' a good sort, and I must introduce 
 him to Father Rafferty before I go." 
 
 Yes, "Splodger" was, in truth, a good sort, though 
 not what he termed religious in the strict sense of 
 the term, and he was that moment wearing sewed 
 inside the lining of his coat the little badge of the 
 Sacred Heart and the tiny medal which a Catholic 
 wife had put there for him, with a tender prayer for 
 his safe return on her pure lips.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 167 
 
 "Splodger" had "a failing" now and again, but he 
 would rather cut off his right hand than give in to 
 its temptation while away on the holiday, which he 
 had seen was a worry and an anxiety for his sake. 
 
 Martha's wrath burst bounds when she knew the 
 doctor was "off to town on business." 
 
 "More fi/zin' things, more ugly bottles, more 
 dynamite blow-ups! I just know all the stuff that'll 
 follow after him when he's coming back ! I declare 
 to goodness, I'd sooner see him take a fancy to bull- 
 dogs than be everlastin' mixin' up pastes and pow- 
 ders and the like. It's not many women at my time 
 of life as 'ud stand it. I'd like to see the wife that 
 would, that's all ! An' this Mr. Witch that's in his 
 place why, isn't the very name of him enough to 
 turn a woman's hair as white as the driven snow !"
 
 CORINNE 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ISABEL AT HOME AGAIN. 
 
 "She hath grot some added grace, 
 Which softens her once haughty face." 
 
 Mrs. Lascelles had not improved in Isabel's 
 absence. Late hours and continuous planning for 
 society's warfare had left indelible marks on her 
 countenance which "took away" from the pleasing 
 effect of regular features. Her scraggy neck looked 
 a satire emboned in her low-necked evening dress, 
 and her hair never appeared more false in its curled 
 and abundant masses. 
 
 There was much which Isabel noticed and 
 inwardly chafed against in the home "menage" that 
 had never struck her before. She felt "out of gear 
 with the whole machinery," as Larry would have 
 expressed it, but was not conscious that this feeling 
 was in a great measure due to the marked improve- 
 ment which had taken place in her own character. 
 
 Mrs. Lascelles grew irritable under the calm eyes 
 of the daughter whom she herself had helped to 
 train, and longed for a stronger feeling of affinity 
 than the years had seemed to develop.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 169 
 
 "She does not seem like one of us at all now," she 
 complained to Isabel's father, who was heavier and 
 more stolid than of old, and much more weary of 
 existence. 
 
 "No? Why, it appears to me, my dear, if you 
 will pardon my being so rude as to disagree with 
 you, that she seems more like a daughter now than 
 ever before," he ventured, apologetically, pausing 
 to take breath, for he was growing asthmatical. 
 
 And that was, indeed, the poor old gentleman's 
 opinion, for never before in her life had Isabel 
 shown any consideration for his comfort, while at 
 present, to his intense surprise, he found himself 
 being treated less and less like a figurehead, and 
 more like the honoured father of a family for whom 
 he had done his best in his own heavy, hippopota- 
 mus way, giving all, and exacting nothing. 
 
 Isabel had learned many a useful life-lesson while 
 witnessing the invariable courtesy with which Sir 
 Hugh Lowenthal had always treated his mother; 
 and, moreover, she had so accustomed herself to 
 paying the innumerable little attentions uncon- 
 sciously exacted by the poor Countess that they now 
 came as second nature to her where age and feeble- 
 ness were. And there was no doubt of it that Mr. 
 Lascelles would soon have to relinquish the duties 
 which an active wife had kept him up to for many a 
 long year. 
 
 Isabel, so far, was not proving selfish with the 
 money left to her by Hugh's grateful mother. She 
 seemed to find a pleasure in settling the more press-
 
 i;o CORINNE 
 
 ing of the family debts, and in refurnishing the 
 home, which had been theirs so long that it would 
 have been a severe wrench to even the most worldly 
 of them to part from it. 
 
 She persisted in wearing mourning ostensibly 
 for "the Countess," but really for Hugh, whom she 
 mourned with more and deeper sorrow than 
 Corinne, for he only had touched that heart. 
 
 Her pride helped her to hide every sign of deep 
 feeling and hide it most successfully from her own, 
 which is the hardest task of all. 
 
 None knew how her heart throbbed to suffocation 
 at the mere street-boy's cry of " 'Erald, 'Erald !" 
 night after night; nor how she awoke at midnight, 
 or in the heavy darkness that precedes the dawn, 
 thinking she heard someone cry, "News of the 'The- 
 seus' at last!" 
 
 No one would have believed how her heart bled 
 beneath her calm exterior. She even looked hand- 
 somer, more attractive than of old. There was 
 something in the still face and quiet eyes which ever 
 caused a second glance. "More character than of 
 old," people said ; but it was really more soul ! 
 
 "The heart knoweth its own bitterness," and she 
 had drunk her life's deepest draught of misery the 
 day she heard of Hugh Lowenthal's engagement to 
 "a trained nurse." 
 
 It was often a topic of discussion among her own 
 family, and she listened as if perfectly indifferent, 
 but more and more a painful curiosity seized her to 
 be able to see this "Corinne" for herself to gaze,
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 171 
 
 and search in her gaze, for the beauties and graces 
 and charms which had the power to hold in thrall 
 such a one as Sir Hugh Lowenthal. 
 
 But what woman has ever discovered in another 
 woman the cause of a lover's infatuation? It is a 
 problem as old as the hills themselves. 
 
 When she did see Corinne, it chanced to be in a 
 florist's shop. The latter was pointed out to her by 
 an officious lady friend as "the nurse poor Sir Hugh 
 lost his head over." 
 
 Isabel carried away in her mental gallery a pic- 
 ture of a sad-faced, clear-complexioned girl, so lily- 
 fair that the violets at her breast would have seemed 
 too vivid a splash of colour save for the large, deep, 
 wonderful eyes, which, once uplifted, never failed 
 to impress; a tall girl, of perfect physique, but a 
 girl whose expression was wistful, almost forlorn. 
 For it had been one of Corinne's "gloomy" days, 
 when sad memories were all uppermost, and there 
 seemed no one to cling to in the wide, wide world. 
 
 "And this pale girl of the violets might have been 
 my Lady Lowenthal, and queened it over dear old 
 Poppledene ! What would its grand old traditions 
 be to her? Oh! my knight, my dear, dead, noble 
 knight, was I so much less worthy than she to stand 
 beside the gentlewomen of a rarer day, who smiled 
 so often on me from the walls you taught me how 
 to love!" 
 
 "I will never marry," she often whispered to her- 
 self. "If I have been done out of that which would 
 have been most congenial to spirit, heart, and body,
 
 i 7 2 CORINNE 
 
 and am neither betrothed nor wife to the man I 
 loved, I can, at least, be widow to his memory." 
 
 Corinne was growing apathetic. Rosalie, the 
 energetic, was in despair at her listlessness in the 
 last preparations for sailing. She threw up her 
 little fat hands at her, and shrugged her pretty 
 shoulders at her in vain. Corinne didn't care what 
 was got, but let somebody else see to it ; money was 
 no object, but interest and excitement were not to 
 be bought, and she could not simulate them. 
 
 Truth to tell, the girl's heart was breaking under 
 the strain Larry was, with the most honourable 
 intentions in the world, subjecting it to. She was 
 beginning to feel that she was a being fated to go 
 through this world without the sweet solaces given 
 to so many women, and had begun to question as to 
 whether it was not distinctly pointed out to her that 
 hers should be the life of a religious. 
 
 The state of her nerves caused strange dreams to 
 visit her dreams in which she saw herself at the 
 further end of the world habited as a nun, but, ever 
 for rosary, shells instead of beads ! 
 
 "Where the pale moon shines on the shifting sands, 
 Ever and ever a woman stands, 
 The Cross of Christ in her snow-white hands 
 'Domine non sum dignus.' ' 
 
 She knew she had no true vocation; not now, at 
 any rate, while she yearned so strongly for that 
 human love which she had thought was hers while 
 life should last. But, perhaps, when she had crossed
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 173 
 
 the sea, she would have learned much from its 
 familiar voice, and be given strength to work on as 
 she had done through previous years alone, utterly 
 alone ! 
 
 Near the boarding-house where she was staying 
 during the last few days there stretched for some 
 distance a spacious public park. To this she 
 resorted when most despondent, and, choosing the 
 shadiest and most retired spot, gave herself over to 
 the memories of the past, for she had ceased to plan 
 for the future save for the resolve to be as good a 
 steward of her riches as God gave her light to be. 
 She had already delighted Father Dalton's heart 
 with munificent gifts to his parish, but the mis- 
 sionary world of the Church militant was calling to 
 her yet. 
 
 One sunny afternoon, tired out after the morning's 
 compulsory shopping, she slipped quietly out of the 
 house, and went to her favourite seat in the park. 
 It was unoccupied, and she sank on to it gracefully, 
 and watched, through half-closed lids, the delicate 
 tracery made upon the grass by the swaying leaves 
 of sycamore and elm. 
 
 "I shall soon be looking my last here at this lovely 
 embroidery of nature," she thought. "I shall soon 
 be standing on the deck of a strange ship, with hun- 
 dreds of others, as poor Hugh stood that day, and, 
 among all who wave their good-byes, as his friends 
 and I waved ours on that never-to-be-forgotten 
 afternoon, there shall not be one whom I love as he 
 loved me. And why? What have I done that I 
 am treated so coldly? What have I done, unless
 
 174 C O R I N N E 
 
 that one act of folly at 'Moritza' has never faded 
 from his mind? But no, it cannot be that! He 
 said he understood I knew that he understood! 
 He was always generous and manly, and he never 
 thinks an unworthy thought. Oh, Larry, Larry, if 
 it is Hugh's legacy that stands between us, then I 
 would that it lay in the fathomless depths of the 
 sea ! Does he blame me for not telling Hugh my 
 love for him had lessened? No, he would not do 
 that, knowing all as he did, loving Hugh as he did. 
 God knows I did everything for the best. My only 
 desire was to do what was right. And, surely, you 
 knew it, Larry surely you knew it!" 
 
 She leaned her head against the hard back of the 
 seat, and closed her eyes. Slow tears coursed down 
 her cheeks. She looked white, worn, weary, tired 
 out with thinking, with wrestling with problems 
 which would not solve. 
 
 Larry was coming slowly over the grass towards 
 her, but she neither saw nor heard him. The grass 
 deadened the sound of his footsteps, and her eyes 
 were closed. He stood still, a few yards from her, 
 and marked, with deep pain and self-reproach, the 
 inroad the year had made upon her. 
 
 She was not happy ; that was very evident. Was 
 she grieving for Hugh?. Had she loved him the 
 better after all, and had he, Larry, been mistaken in 
 what he had read in those beautiful, expressive eyes? 
 Was he cruel to break in upon her reverie? If she 
 did not love him as he loved her, it would seem 
 sacrilege to encroach on the dominion of the dead.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 175 
 
 But reason could not keep the upper hand with 
 Larry that day ! His heart was fighting for its 
 chance; his heart was throbbing tumultuously at 
 the mere sight of the face he had yearned so long to 
 see. He could not go away now for Hugh's sake, 
 not even for Hugh's sake! 
 
 And, even as his heart impelled him, he moved a 
 step forward; and this time Corinne heard him. 
 
 In a second, all languor, all sadness, all weariness 
 faded from her face. The sweet "La France" roses 
 he knew so well leaped into their place again, the 
 eyes grew like stars in tender, dazzling welcome, the 
 trembling lips grew red and dewy. 
 
 "Oh !" she said, "you here, Dr. Hayes ! I thought 
 you had forgotten me!" 
 
 There was nothing in the words, but, even had 
 there been, the doctor was beyond gathering the 
 sense of them. He only knew they were both 
 there, "under the greenwood tree," and no other 
 near, and that the time was come when he must 
 know his fate, and lose no time in gaining the know- 
 ledge. 
 
 The truest lovers are, however, proverbially 
 "tongue-tied," and Larry was no exception to the 
 rule. 
 
 He sat himself down by Corinne's side, and gazed, 
 and gazed his full of her lovely face, but left to her 
 the embarrassing task of framing polite sayings 
 when the whole being is in a tumult. 
 
 And how well she knew the language of those 
 eyes! those dear eyes, which had so plainly told
 
 176 C O R I N N E 
 
 their tale at "Moritza" ! But if he could not plead 
 his cause with his tongue, what was a poor girl to 
 do? 
 
 Suddenly he cleared his throat, and began to talk 
 rapidly of his work up at Musktown, drawing pic- 
 tures which were meant to show her how poverty- 
 stricken a life it was for a woman to share. And, 
 from that, he proceeded to enunciate vehement 
 opinions as to the want of manliness in any man 
 who, having nothing, tried to win a woman who had 
 not only youth, beauty, goodness, but wealth. 
 
 "Are you trying to convince me of something, or 
 are you trying to convince yourself?" she said, at 
 last, smiling archly from under the brim of her very 
 becoming hat. "If you are trying to convince me 
 that a man who marries a rich woman is not justi- 
 fied in doing so, even if he truly loves her, then you 
 have failed, for I would have but a poor opinion of 
 the man who would let that woman live a lonely, 
 unloved life if she loved him, too, of course ! More 
 than that," she added, with a sudden catch of the 
 breath, which was like a sob, "I would think him 
 cruel more cruel than a torturer, for the body soon 
 succumbs, but the heart, the soul they they must 
 live through it somehow, somehow !" 
 
 "Corinne! Corinne!" 
 
 All that had been so long kept down was in that 
 appealing cry. 
 
 He bent over her, and looked deep into her eyes, 
 now tear-wet.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 177 
 
 "Corinne, you love me; you will be my wife? My 
 darling, my heart's darling!" 
 
 And the whispering, swaying leaves, tracing still 
 their patterns on the grass, sighed softly: "Why 
 didn't you say that before ?"
 
 CORINNE 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE ABSCONDING OF MARTHA. 
 
 Corinne didn't sail on the date arranged. As a 
 matter of prosaic fact, all orders connected with her 
 outgoing were cancelled, for she had entered upon 
 a more important engagement, and other things had 
 to wait. Dr. Hayes did not arrive till some days 
 after the time he had told Martha to expect him, 
 and there was great trouble in consequence. 
 
 For Martha, firmly believing that she had been 
 "made a fool of," and that Dr. Wycherley was step- 
 ping into Dr. Hayes' shoes for good and all, owing 
 to some deeply-laid plot, had given "notice," and 
 had already flown to the only relations she boasted, 
 fifteen miles beyond Musktown. 
 
 "My nerves won't stand it no longer," she had 
 panted to sympathetic Cousin Susannah. "To see 
 another man a-settin' down to Dr. Hayes' favourite 
 supper, an' a-sniffin' at this, an' a-liftin' up of the 
 other; an' then eatin' no more than would feed a 
 dicky-bird, but walkin' up an' down, an' up an' down, 
 an' singin', in a great hoarse voice, little skitherin' 
 bits of songs from the pantymimes ; an' then playin' 
 the violin till the cock crowed in the mornin' well,
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 179 
 
 look a-here, Susannah, it just kind of put the finish- 
 ing touch to my poor brain! So I up an' says: 'I 
 never had naught to do with witches nor witchylees, 
 an' I'm not goin' to stay another night in this here 
 house, an' you can keep your wages for some woman 
 more of the set of yourself. An' tell Dr. Hayes 
 from me, I wouldn't have a-thought he'd have played 
 a faithful servant like me such a nasty trick. The 
 I4th, says he, an' now it's the 2ist!'" 
 "What did he say?" asked Susannah breathlessly. 
 
 "Say? He just looked me up an' down, same as 
 if I'd been only a monkey at the Zoo, an', says he, 
 quite polite-like : 'Where do you feel the pain most, 
 my good woman?' What are you laughin' at? 
 There ain't nothin' to laugh at, as I can see! I 
 could have flung a box-iron at him, I could, to see 
 him a-sittin' down the minute after he said it, an' 
 writin' me a proscription me ! as never knows more 
 of an ache or pain except what he gave me himself 
 in my nerves. 
 
 "I never waited for him to give it into my hand 
 'twas me well knew what it was! I just said: 'I'm 
 goin' right off to my friends now, this very 
 hour; an' there's victuals in the kitchen to be cooked, 
 but they won't be cooked by Martha Muggins ! I 
 don't want no bromide.' 
 
 "An' I was as good as my word, an' went to my 
 room, an' started to pack my boxes. But that 
 weren't all! While I was havin' a bit of a cry 
 soft-like puttin' away the presents Dr. Hayes was 
 always makin' me whenever I did a bit extra in the
 
 i8o C O R I N N E 
 
 place, I smelt the lamb chops cookin' that I'd put 
 away tidy in the meat-safe ; an', thinkin' Dr. Witchly 
 might 'a' gone an' got someone from across the way, 
 just to spite me like for I knew they wouldn't stay 
 I jest crept down the passage, an' peeped in. 
 
 "An 5 there, right in my own kitchen my own 
 kitchen, which I'd made as clean as Hambleton's 
 dairy who was standin' over the fire, grillin' the 
 chops, an' lookin' as cool as a cucumber, but the 
 Witchly man hisself ! No, I'm tellin' you no story, 
 Susannah Carton. There he was an' the impu- 
 dence of the creature, doctor or no doctor he'd 
 actually put on for an apron the clean, red-bordered 
 tablecloth which I lays my own meals on! Did 
 ever you hear the like of that?" 
 
 "He's a married man must be," said Susannah 
 "unless he burned them chops, of course and lamb 
 so dear now!" 
 
 "He didn't burn 'em," Martha owned. "No, they 
 was just done to a turn when he took 'em off, an' 
 the potatoes, too. An' that didn't content him, 
 either! he went and washed up, afterwards, exact 
 same as if he'd been a woman." 
 
 "Laws!" ejaculated Susannah admiringly. "I 
 think I know which one I'd like to work for best! 
 Give me the man as can cook his own chops, I say ! 
 Why, Dr. Hayes couldn't put a hand out in the 
 kitchen without spillin' something, or breakin' 
 something, I've heard you tell, yourself."
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF 181 
 
 "An* bless every inch of him for a gentleman, why 
 should he?" said Martha tartly. "He knows his 
 place and that ain't in the kitchen !" 
 
 Larry laughed immoderately when told the story 
 by "Splodger," who was not without a sense of 
 humour. 
 
 "She needed a holiday, I think," he said. "Poor 
 old Martha ! But she needn't have served me such 
 a disagreeable trick, all the same. How on earth 
 did you manage? Why didn't you get some woman 
 in to cook for you, if you had to 'shy' at visiting an 
 hotel?" 
 
 "I got on famously without the aid of the 'gentler' 
 sex," said "Splodger" placidly. "When Meg's sick, 
 you know, I learn a thing or two in the housekeeping 
 line ! And, as far as calls to the hills went, not a 
 soul came near me. You, or nothing, was evidently 
 the watchword! When I went up to 'Moritza' I 
 was given my meals, of course, an' so didn't have to 
 trouble about them. By the bye, I had a bit of a 
 'go-in' with that Miss Dunraven, the matron ! She's 
 a bit on the cruel side, eh? I saw one or two need- 
 less bits of torment myself; the woman seems to 
 have lost all natural feeling." 
 
 "She never had any," said Larry. "But the place 
 will soon be looked after all right. Corinne's going 
 to buy it." 
 
 "Good!" cried Dr. Wycherley, slapping his knee. 
 "But hasn't she gone away, then?" 
 
 "No," answered Larry, with a smile so illuminat- 
 ing that even "Splodger" rushed to a conclusion.
 
 182 C O R I N N E 
 
 "You don't say so! You lucky beggar, do you 
 mean to tell me you've wooed and won the lovely, 
 plucky little woman yourself ! So that was why I 
 was left alone in my glory so long? Well, God 
 bless you both; and if He makes you as happy as 
 my Meg and me, you'll have nothing to complain of. 
 It's no wonder 'important business' detained you ; I 
 see it all now!" 
 
 "I have cared for her for years," said Laurence 
 "long before she gave a thought to me. She has 
 gone through much in that time, but, please God, 
 none of that suffering shall return ! It will not be 
 my fault if she is not a happy wife. She has to go 
 to the 'Old Country' eventually ; she cannot get out 
 of that, but we hope to go together! There are 
 no near relatives of poor Hugh's that we could either 
 shock or hurt, and I feel perfectly convinced he 
 would not have desired her to go so far alone. We 
 would infinitely prefer that he had left his money 
 otherwise ; I do not intend to handle a penny of it, 
 and Corinne feels as if she but held it on trust, so 
 it is likely to be all spent in charitable purposes." 
 
 "You could buy a practice somewhere else than 
 in this secluded spot later on," suggested Dr. 
 Wycherley. "There is too much hard work for you 
 here, young man though you are." 
 
 "I shall not leave Musktown," answered Larry, 
 squaring his jaw. "I am just 'coming into my own 
 kingdom' of late. Nobody could credit what a battle 
 I had here at first, the people were so antagonistic. 
 I haven't broken them in for somebody else, thanks !
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 183 
 
 No; we intend to stay here, build our home here, 
 work among the people here, and make 'Moritza' the 
 most up-to-date and best-managed place of its kind 
 in Australia! Sounds 'a large order/ doesn't it? 
 'but it's wonderful what can be done with money, 
 perseverance, and ahem ! brains." 
 
 "You won't sally forth after the fair Martha, 
 then, now that things are likely to be so totally 
 changed for you?" 
 
 "Indeed, but I shall!" cried Larry. "Why, I 
 wouldn't lose good old Martha for a hundred 
 pounds, if you gave me that sum this minute !" 
 
 ''I'd cheerfully lose her for the one-hundredth of 
 that," said "Splodger," with a grimace. "But there's 
 no accounting for tastes!" 
 
 And, next day, Larry set off in pursuit of the 
 estimable Miss Muggins, whom he had sorely 
 missed on his return, in spite of the fact that 
 "Splodger" had provided what both termed "a 
 rattling good supper" on his arrival. 
 
 By this time Martha, like "Meddlesome Matty" 
 of the nursery rhyme, had begun "to repent sin- 
 cerely." Susannah's children were many and noisy, 
 and every day was washing-day. Her soul han- 
 kered after the peace and spotless cleanliness of the 
 doctor's villa in Musktown, where, "if she was a 
 slavey of mornin's, she could play the lady in the 
 afternoons," and be treated as either with both 
 respect and consideration. 
 
 "I'd never have a 'down' on them nasty blue 
 bottles again, if I only was back, an' he sittin' there
 
 184 C O R I N N E 
 
 hisself ! Fiddles of nights is worse than any of the 
 other claptrap, an' far more wearin' on the nerves. 
 If he never comes back from town, I'll go sorrowin' 
 all my days after a real kind master, which no one 
 can hold a candle to, try as they will ; an', if he does 
 return well, he ain't one of the hard-hearted sort, 
 an' some of these days I might pluck up courage to 
 sneak in the back way, an' tell him I am real sorry." 
 
 She summoned up all the "Dutch" courage she 
 had when she saw him coming down the hill after 
 her! But when he had really dismounted, and flung 
 the reins of "Darby" to one of the grinning boys 
 watching, she collapsed utterly, and he only found a 
 grey-haired old woman sitting on a broken-backed 
 chair, weeping copiously into a blue apron. 
 
 He stood at the door, with his arms akimbo. 
 
 "So, at your time of life, Miss Muggins, you 
 turned skittish when once you thought you had lost 
 sight of me, and nothing would you do but leave an 
 honest and kindly gentleman, who was doing me a 
 good turn as 'locum,' and flying out to the hills here, 
 to prove, for Heaven knows how many centuries of 
 time, the inconsistency and unreliableness of 
 woman ! Well, you may weep for your sex I I'm 
 ashamed of you !" 
 
 "Oh! Oh! Deary, dear! Deary, dear!" moaned 
 Martha at intervals ; then, as he concluded, lifted up 
 a raw-red face, wet with tears, to say : "It was the 
 fiddle that did it the fiddle, sir screechin' mornin', 
 noon, and night ! an' I couldn't a-bear him a-settin' 
 in your chair, an' eatin' off your dishes, an' you not
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 185 
 
 there an' not knowin' but you'd cleared out an' left 
 me in the lurch, an' him with such a uncanny name 
 as made me think of the black ages an' " 
 
 "That'll do, now!" said the doctor, with a 
 show of sternness, which so upset Susannah's 
 gravity that she had to retire to the little 
 back room to vent it. "Get up this minute, 
 you hard-hearted piece of feminine goods, and 
 make me a decent cup of tea, for I'm 'half- 
 dead with the drouth,' as Darby out there will 
 tell you; an' all for what, I'm asking? To tell a 
 foolish woman that Martin M'Nally will be here for 
 her first thing in the morning 1 , to bring her back to 
 a home too comfortable for her deserts ! Think of 
 that, now ! Isn't it heaping the proverbial coals of 
 fire upon your unworthy head? Two lumps of 
 sugar, please ! Bless the woman, has she forgotten 
 even that much already?" 
 
 The more he scolded, the better Martha liked it. 
 It meant forgiveness utter and complete, for Dr. 
 Hayes never did anything by halves. 
 
 "You'll be well paid out," he remarked grimly, on 
 parting, "for Dr. Wycherley isn't accustomed to 
 washing clothes, however clever he may be at other 
 things, and there's a heap of linen enough to 
 frighten a Commonwealth laundry into epilepsy! 
 Of course, I could call in at old Bess Burrows' on 
 the way?" 
 
 "Indeed, an' you'll not need to do any such cranky 
 thing, savin' your presence, doctor! I wouldn't 
 have the like of that old trollope round my kitchen
 
 i86 C O R I N N E 
 
 for all the gold in the Dividing Range. Cleanin' 
 up after the like of her! I'd like to see myself do 
 it!" 
 
 The doctor laughed long and low to himself as he 
 rode on. 
 
 "Human nature, what a queer thing 1 you are!" he 
 thought. 
 
 All through his long time of waiting for Corinne 
 he had never passed a day without being somewhat 
 enlivened by his experiences among the rough and 
 unlettered, and no priest, at one with his parish of 
 high and low, loved his people, understood his 
 people, better than did Dr. Larry Hayes. 
 
 With Corinne at his side, he hoped to bring more 
 brightness, more comfort, more education, not only 
 of book-learning, but of that "first aid" we ought all 
 to be able to render one another, into the lives of 
 the dwellers in lonely spots. He would not change 
 one district for another, not only because of his 
 affectionate regard for these mountaineers, but 
 because he believed that human nature was "much 
 the same everywhere." 
 
 "Just as one cannot escape the carrying of his 
 cross," he thought, "we cannot escape having to mix 
 with persons whose ideas are so totally different to 
 ours that we jar upon each other whenever obliged 
 to come in contact. We cannot escape 'our neigh- 
 bour'; and, if we do succeed in such a feat well, 
 that way madness lies !"
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 187 
 
 Green hill and valley, never had their prospect 
 pleased him more. In his dreams Corinne rode 
 beside him as rode the ladies of old upon their pal- 
 freys beside their true knights. "We were made 
 for each other," his heart sang, "and it is through 
 the infinite goodness of God that thing's are as they 
 are."
 
 i88 C O R I N N E 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD ROCK. 
 
 Corinne had one sad little rite to perform in the 
 midst of her new-found joy, and this she must do 
 alone. 
 
 The ring which she had worn for so brief a time 
 she felt had never been truly hers. The valuable 
 stones within it, the pearls and the diamonds, she 
 now had taken out by a jeweller and despatched as 
 an anonymous gift to a struggling Sisterhood, which 
 would hasten to turn them into money for the bene- 
 fit of their noble work. 
 
 The circlet itself she would return to the spot 
 where Hugh had first secreted it. She would give 
 one whole day to his memory a day which Larry 
 would never begrudge her and then she would 
 enter with gratitude upon the path which had been 
 so mercifully ordained for her. 
 
 One lovely summer morning she stood once more 
 beside the Sword Rock, which had played so impor- 
 tant a part in her life's story, and knelt down and 
 prayed in its shadow with a fervency which seemed 
 to absorb her spirit into the boundless spaces above,
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 189 
 
 and to bring her closer still to him for whom she 
 pleaded. 
 
 When she arose, she walked over to the waters, 
 which were murmuring in the sunshine that day as 
 sweetly as a clear running brook of the mountains ! 
 
 "I only desire to know one of your secrets," she 
 said sadly, following their flow with her eyes till it 
 reached the line which borders sea and sky. "I only 
 want to know one thing which could make me happy 
 and contented all my days, whatever befell me of 
 unexpected care or sorrow and that is if the dear 
 one now gone, who loved me so much, died with the 
 prayer of a Catholic on his loyal lips !" 
 
 No answer gave sea, or sky, or wind, or bird. 
 
 And she walked along the beach shivering dis- 
 consolately. She had prayed so hard God alone 
 knew how hard that Hugh might be brought to a 
 knowledge of the Saviour's one true Fold ; she had 
 beaten on the door of Heaven with violence, as the 
 Scriptures had bidden in such clear and unmistak- 
 able language. And Father Dalton and numerous 
 other devoted priests and nuns of every Order had 
 offered Mass after Mass for him at her earnest solici- 
 tation. Yet she was not to know never to know "till 
 the sea gave up its dead" whether those prayers 
 had been answered! The Holy Sacrifice could plead 
 on for his soul, it was true but, oh ! the joy it would 
 have been for her poor human heart to find that 
 even here on earth her beloved friend's eyes had 
 been opened to the truths of the Church!
 
 190 C O R I N N E 
 
 On and on her feet led her, and now the rocks were 
 higher, the cliffs steeper. A sharp-edged rock 
 scratched her kid shoe, and she bent down to ascer- 
 tain whether it was cut. 
 
 Thrown up from the sea was the usual mass of 
 miscellaneous waste. 
 
 Rocking to and fro in the waves, she saw a bottle 
 which seemed to be securely fastened at the top ; 
 and, feeling curious, she lifted it out of the water. 
 It had something inside it paper, it appeared to 
 be. 
 
 A sudden thought struck Corinne, which made her 
 feel so faint that she sank down on the wet rock, 
 and waited till her heart beat normally again. 
 
 She kept fast hold of the bottle the while. It 
 was a treasure now. 
 
 It seemed utterly absurd to imagine it might be a 
 bottle thrown from a sinking vessel; and 
 yet and yet such things had happened, and 
 would happen as long as anyone had a 
 loved one to send a message to, be they on the 
 other side of the world ! 
 
 She made a desperate effort to collect her ener- 
 gies, and prayed aloud. 
 
 "I must open it ! Oh, dear Lord, help me to open 
 it! and, if there be no message for me in answer 
 to my prayers, give me at least strength to bear 
 the bitter disappointment." 
 
 She forced the lid off with some difficulty, and 
 very slowly drew out the piece of paper.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 191 
 
 Then, when she at last had the paper between 
 her fingers, she paused again, feeling unable to 
 proceed any further. 
 
 "I must go back to the Rock the Sword Rock," 
 she thought, "before I read it. I shall feel safer 
 there. Oh, I hope and trust Father Dalton will be up 
 to time! It wants but twenty minutes to the hour 
 he said he would come for me." 
 
 We all have had experience of a presentiment 
 which silently proclaims that some event above the 
 common is in store for us, and Corinne had pre- 
 cisely the same feeling which foreshadows some 
 revelation and she was alone, and not equal to the 
 bearing of any sudden shock, for her heart had not, 
 by any means, reached its former magnificent high- 
 tide. 
 
 She made her way back, trembling like a leaf, 
 while the waves continued to murmur lovingly the 
 old lullabies to their adopted child. 
 
 Sitting under the Sword Rock, on the exact spot 
 where poor Hugh Lowenthal had knelt to make his 
 vow, her shaking fingers managed to unfold the 
 paper. 
 
 As soon as she saw the familiar handwriting of 
 her dead lover, her senses swam, and she knew no 
 more. 
 
 Father Dalton found her in a swoon which seemed 
 death-like, and marvelled much as he loosened her 
 neckband, and sprinkled her face with water, till he 
 suddenly caught sight of the words on the paper
 
 192 C O R I N N E 
 
 lying beside her : "Ship going down. No hope. Die 
 as a man and a Catholic. God bless you, my Cor- 
 inne, my darling 1 , my sweetheart ! I hold fast to the 
 Cross and the Faith of our Fathers. May the Sacred 
 Heart of Jesus have mercy on my soul and the souls 
 of these poor shrieking people. HUGH A. LOWEN- 
 THAL." 
 
 With a joyful prayer of gratitude on his lips, the 
 good priest bared his head, and then redoubled his 
 efforts to restore Corinne to consciousness. 
 
 "Poor little girl ! Poor little girl !" he murmured. 
 "God grant it be not too great a shock." 
 
 When he saw her eyelids flickering, he began to 
 speak cheerily. 
 
 "That's right; rouse yourself up, dear child! 
 Good news for you ! news for which we must both 
 thank the good God on our bended knees !" 
 
 "Hugh?" her white lips formed rather than said. 
 
 "Yes, Hugh died as a man and a Catholic 'and a 
 Catholic'! Now, try to grasp that mercy of the 
 Almighty Father's, and it will restore you more 
 quickly than anything which could be got for you." 
 
 Corinne was now in a sitting position. 
 
 "Read it for me, Father!" she begged huskily. 
 
 So the kind old priest read the lines slowly to her, 
 and over and over, so that she could not fail to 
 grasp the full meaning of them ; and at last he had 
 his reward, for a torrent of healthful tears came to 
 her relief, and she was soon able to kneel with him 
 while they recited one of the grand psalms of praise
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 193 
 
 which seem the words of angels, and have the 
 music of the organ divine. 
 
 "There is nothing left to wish for now," she said 
 on the way back, "except to hear some good news 
 of poor Jim Barr." 
 
 Father Dalton sighed. 
 
 "I'm afraid that may not be vouchsafed you, my 
 child! Be content that you never hear from him 
 at all. He loved you very truly, no doubt, and had 
 many sterling qualities, but he was never meant 
 for you ; and all you can do for him is to remember 
 him in your prayers sometimes, and ask that he be 
 sent the helpmeet his peculiar nature needs." 
 
 "Which I do," thought Corinne; "nevertheless, 
 never was there a woman yet, I suppose, who did 
 not wish to hear of the well-being of the man, boor 
 or gentleman, who gave her in full measure the first 
 and best love of his heart!" 
 
 "How pleased Larry will be!" she remarked 
 later. "I must write this very night, and tell him 
 all about it." 
 
 "Yes," agreed Father Dalton ; "and will you allow 
 me to say, my dear young lady, that you are a person 
 who has been most singularly blessed? You have 
 had the sincere affection of three honest men, and 
 you are about to marry the best of the three. Such 
 good fortune does not fall to many in this world of 
 ours, where things go so easily wrong. You are 
 no longer Corinne of Corrall's Bluff, but Corinne of 
 a wider, happier realm!"
 
 194 C O R I N N E 
 
 "I shall never forget the dear old Bluff, all the 
 same," said Corinne, with a tender burst of feeling. 
 "It seems too bad that I have done absolutely noth- 
 ing for it. You shall point me out one day, Father, 
 something which I can put up as a sort of monu- 
 ment of gratitude for happy childhood's days, and 
 the sheltered life of my early girlhood." 
 
 "It shall be a 'living' monument, then," said 
 Father Dalton drily. "Very good, my child ; perhaps 
 I shall hold you to your promise when you least 
 expect it!" 
 
 Larry had to break the news of his approaching 
 marriage to Martha somehow, so he had a photo- 
 graph of Corinne framed handsomely, and hung in 
 his bedroom. He knew Martha's duster would be 
 sure to reach it in time, and then would come ques- 
 tions, the answering of which would be the best 
 "breaking of the news" that he could devise. 
 
 Some mornings afterwards, Martha invaded his 
 study, a big white cloth enveloping her head, and 
 giving her an awesome and Eastern appearance. 
 
 "There's the picture of a good-lookin' young 
 woman in your room ; I just knocked a spider off 
 it! Ain't it the same as came here one night to go 
 up to that Miss Dunraven's as nurse?" 
 
 "The self-same," answered the doctor, a pen 
 between his teeth, and his hand searching for an 
 envelope between the tiny shelves of his writing- 
 desk.
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 195 
 
 "She didn't look the sort to give a big photy- 
 graph of herself to anybody for nothing?" 
 
 "She didn't," agreed the doctor, addressing the 
 envelope rapidly. 
 
 "She ain't on the stage now, is she?" 
 "She isn't." 
 
 "For them hussies' pictures fly about everywhere ; 
 an' no woman as looks up to herself would fret about 
 dustin' 'em! Do you mean it to stay there?" 
 
 "By all means !" answered the doctor, in a startled 
 tone. "You surely weren't contemplating removing 
 that lady's picture? that lady's 'honoured' picture, 
 I should say ! If you want one to hang in the other 
 rooms, I can supply them." 
 
 "Lawks-a-mussy !" came in muffled but dismayed 
 tones from the door. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Miss Muggins?" 
 
 "Oh, sir! oh, doctor, don't be Miss-Muggin' me! 
 I hope as I haven't offended you, but you ain't the 
 sort of a man as likes females' photygraphs hangin' 
 about the place ; an' I jest felt afeard you might be 
 fallin' in with play-actors, like." 
 
 "No, no, Martha ! That lady's portrait has every 
 right to be in my house. She is to be my wife very 
 shortly." 
 
 "Your wife? Oh, oh! Deary me! deary 
 deary me !" 
 
 "Why, what's the matter, Martha? It will make 
 no difference to you!"
 
 196 CORTNNE 
 
 "No differ to me? What young lady with town 
 ways would want me? Oh, why did I ever leave 
 Susannah's !" 
 
 And she suddenly pulled the white wrapping off 
 her head, clapped it to her face, and disappeared. 
 
 "Beef charred to a cinder, vegetables half-cooked," 
 thought the doctor ruefully, even as his smile 
 broadened. "Oh, well, I suppose that's worth 
 bearing for your sweet sake, Nurse Cora!" 
 
 And he bore it so heroically that Martha con- 
 sented to let herself be talked over into promising 
 she "would work, tooth and nail," to carry out all 
 the projects for brightening up, and making plea- 
 sant to behold, the bachelor quarters which had 
 been so bare and unhomely too long. 
 
 "There ain't no woman good enough for you ; but 
 if you've made up your mind to be married, married 
 you'll be ; an' I must make the best of it, hopin' your 
 wife'll make the best o' me." 
 
 "That's true philosophy, Martha, and I've no 
 doubt we shall be as happy as sandboys!" 
 
 And so they were. 
 
 Away on the plains of the Never-Never, Jim Barr 
 toils through drought and flood unweariedly, silent 
 for hours at times, though his mate works beside 
 him. Hard work, steadiness, and reliability fill his 
 purse, but his heart is still empty. He listens atten- 
 tively, to all seeming, to the romances of other 
 men, when rest, a smoko, "a drink," and the camp>-
 
 OF CORRALL'S BLUFF. 197 
 
 fire have made the hearts of these soft and reminis- 
 cent; but he has nothing to say either for them 
 or for himself. 
 
 But the sombre eyes, gazing so intently into the 
 glowing coals, see more and fairer pictures than do 
 they ; and, in the voices of the winds outside, he 
 hears the call of the surges as they dash in upon the 
 rocks at Corrall's Bluff. 
 
 Sometimes he sketches absently while others 
 gossip, but always the same grim cliffs an arm of 
 one of which projects in the shape of a sword. 
 
 Once only he sketched the slight and graceful 
 figure of a young girl looking seaward, as he likes 
 to believe she looks sometimes and thinks, maybe, 
 a kindly thought of him. 
 
 Some day he may return; but that will be only 
 when he has so far forgotten that he can walk 
 unmoved along the beach, and hear the waves she 
 loved murmur as they ever murmured to him of 
 Corinne, the white dream-flower of Corrall's Bluff! 
 
 [THE END.]
 
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