ur room is next to the office, as I daresay you've
discovered. And you'll find Colin there I suppose, with your friend the
Police-Inspector.'

'Don't call that man Harris my friend. We've had one or two scraps at
each other already. He was pleased to take it for granted that I'm what
he calls a "new chum," and didn't like my shewing him that I knew
rather better than he does what police administration should be in
out-of-the-way districts.'

Lady Bridget nodded. 'Then we're both under ban of the Law. I DETEST
Harris.... Good-night.' And she flitted through the French window
without giving him her hand.

The station seemed in a state of unquietude till late into the night.
The lowing of the tailing-mob in the yard was more prolonged than
usual. And the horses were whinnying and answering each other down by
the lagoon as though there were strangers about. Lady Bridget, lying
awake and watching through her uncurtained windows the descent of the
Southern Cross towards the horizon, and the westward travelling of a
moon just out of its first quarter, could hear the men's voices on the
veranda of the Old Humpey--that of Ninnis and the Police Inspector;
Maule seemed to have retired to his own room.

McKeith was evidently busy upon preparations for his absence from the
station. He must have been cleaning guns and pistols. There were two or
three shots--which startled and kept her in a state of tension. At last
she heard the interchange of good-nights, and the withdrawal of Ninnis
and Harris to the Bachelor's Quarters. Finally, her husband came to his
dressing-room--not along the front veranda, as would have been usual,
but by the back one, through the bathroom. Even this deviation from
habit seemed significant of his mood--he would not pass her window. He
moved about for a time as if he were busy packing. Then came silence.
She imagined him on the edge of the camp bed, so seldom used, smoking
and ruminating.

Whiffs from his pipe came through the cracks of the door between the
two rooms, and were an offence to her irritated nerves. She had grown
accustomed to his tobacco, but, as a rule, he did not smoke the last
thing at night. He had seemed to regard his wife's chamber as a
tabernacle, enshrining that which he held most sacred, and would never
enter it until he was cleansed from the grime and dust of the stockyard
and cattle camp, and had laid aside the associations of his working
day. That attitude had appealed to all t