-or unless I knew that what you did had been in honourable warfare,
I don't think I could bear to speak to you again. Now, I'm going to ask
you if it's true.'

'If what is true? Lady Bridget, I'll tell you the truth if you ask me
for it, about anything I've done. But--I warn you--ugly things
happen--in the Back-Blocks.'

'The Premier said that you were the terror of the natives. He told me
about a gun you have with a great many notches on the barrel of it, and
he said that each notch represented a black-fellow that you had killed.'

'I never killed a black-fellow except in fair fight, or under lawful
provocation. Many a time one of them has sneaked a spear at me from
behind a gum tree; and I'd have been done for if I hadn't been keeping
a sharp look-out.'

'But you were taking their land,' Lady Bridget exclaimed impetuously,
'you had come, an invader, into their territory. What right had you to
do that? You were the aggressor. And you can't judge them by the moral
laws of civilised humanity. They fought in the only way they
understood.'

'Lady Bridget, there are moral laws, which all humanity--civilised or
savage understands. I'm not saying that no white man in the Bush has
ever violated these laws, I'm not saying that the Blacks hadn't
something on their side. I'm only saying that in my experience--it was
the black man and not the white man who was the aggressor. And when you
ask me what made me hate the Blacks--well--it isn't a pretty
story--but, if you like, I'll tell it to you some time.'

'Tell me now,' she exclaimed, 'Oh, Joan ... Won't your notes keep?'

Mrs Gildea had got up, a sheaf of pencils and a reporter's note book in
her hand.

'Yes, for a few minutes. But I've just remembered something I've got to
refer to in one of Mr Gibbs' letters. Don't mind me; I'll be back
presently.'

McKeith seemed to take no heed of her departure; his eyes were fixed on
Lady Bridget; there was in them a light of inward excitement.

'Please go on,' she said, 'I want so much to hear.'

He thought for a few moments, shook the ashes from his pipe and then
plunged into his story.

'I've got to go back to when I was quite a youngster--taken from
school--I went to St Paul's in the Hammersmith Road--just before I was
seventeen. You see before that my father had scraped together his
little bit of money and we'd been living in West Kensington waiting
while he made out what we were all going to do. He wasn't any great
shake