ile Hut,
and took me off my horse and put me in front of him."

Banks came to the door, carrying a tray with a cup of tea and some food.
"Here ye are, Miss Alleyne; ye're a born stockman, an' a prospector,
an'--God bless you, miss, _you've brought the rain as well_."

For as the rough, hairy-faced stockman began to speak, a low rumbling
sound of thunder smote the silence of the night, followed by a loud
appalling clap, and then another, and another, and presently a cooling
blast of wind came through the open door, and stirred and shook the
Venetian blinds hanging outside. Banks almost dropped the tea-tray, and
then darting outside, dashed his cabbage-tree hat on the ground, and
began to dance as the first heavy drops of the coming deluge fell upon
his head.

In less than ten minutes, Harrington, with silent joy in his heart, was
standing at the doorway, watching the descending torrents of rain--that
rain which to his bushman's heart meant more than all the gold which lay
beneath the earth. He had, as it first began to fall, rushed into his
wife's bedroom, and kissed her and the terrified children.

"The rain has come, Myra, thank God," he said, and then he added
quietly, "I have more good news for you in the morning."

Mrs. Harrington said she was quite aware of the rain having come--the
disgusting noise of the thunder had made the children scream. Had Miss
Alleyne come back? And brought the cows? His other good news could keep
till the morning.

Harrington turned away from her with a feeling of dulled resentment.
_He_ knew what the girl had suffered, and his wife's heartlessness cut
him to the quick.

As he stood watching Banks and the black boys filling every available
tank and cask on the station from the downpour off the roof, Nellie rose
from the couch on which she had been lying, and touched his arm timidly.

"Don't you believe in God's goodness _now_, Mr. Harrington? See, He has
sent the rain, and He has granted my daily prayer to Him that I, too,
might help you. And Banks says that this is not a passing thunderstorm,
but that the drought has broken up altogether--for see, the wind is from
the south."

Harrington raised her hand to his lips. "I have always tried to believe
in God and in His mercy, Miss Alleyne."

"Not always, Mr. Harrington," she said softly. "Don't you remember when
all the Big Swamp! mob were bogged and dying, that you said that if
He would not hear the moans and see the agonies of