d proof of that
after the state in which you found her--and how Mr Maule carried her to
her room and left her there after a few minutes. She doesn't remember
anything after that, until she came out of the fever and saw you--with
the face and manner I can well imagine--standing by her bedside.

I am sure that Bridget began to 'find herself' then, and that the way
in which she left Moongarr was one of those shocks which make a woman
touch reality. It may be only for that once in her life, but she can
never be the same again. You have put your brand on your wife,
Colin--that is quite plain to me. She has changed inwardly more than
outwardly.

But she is extremely reticent about her feelings towards you. That in
itself is so unlike the old Bridget, and I have no right to put forward
my own ideas and opinions--they may be quite wrong. Really, the news of
Eliza Lady Gaverick's death, and of Bridget's change of fortune, coming
just at that moment, is the sort of dramatic happening, which I--as a
dabbler in fiction--maintain, is more common in real life than in
novels. I am certain that if I had set out to build up the tangled
third act of a problem play on those lines, I couldn't have done it
better. All the same, I'm very sorry that this change of fortune didn't
come off earlier or later, for I am well aware of how you will jib at
it.

Well, I can tell you, on her own authority, that Bridget never wrote to
Mr Maule as she had promised. She had no communication with him from
the time he left the station until they met on the E. and A. boat. He
joined her, as you know, at the next port above Leuraville. It was
rather canny of him to go there--yet I don't see how, in the
circumstances, he could have loafed round Leuraville without making
talk--though I think it was a great pity he didn't. Of course he had
his own means of communication with the township, and knew she was on
board. No one was more surprised than she at his appearance on deck
next morning. I don't think, however, that she saw much of him on the
voyage. She said that she got a recurrence of the malarial fever off
the northern coast and had to keep her cabin pretty well till they
reached Colombo. Then she asked him to leave the steamer and take a P.
and O. boat that happened to be in harbour--and this he did do.

I am bound to say that Willoughby Maule must have improved greatly
since the time when young Lady Gaverick decided he was a 'bounder.' I
daresay marri