d got to take his supreme possession of her as a
matter of course; had allowed the joy of it to be blunted by depression
and irritability over sordid station worries. He remembered with
piercing remorse how often he had neglected the trivial courtesies to
which he knew she attached importance. How he had been prone to sullen
fits of moodiness; had been rough, even brutal, as in that episode of
the Blacks.... Brutal to her--this dainty lady, his fairy princess! ...
And now he had lost her. She was gone back to her own world and to her
own kin.

If only he had yielded to her then about the Blacks! If he had curbed
his anger, shown sympathy with the two wild children of Nature who were
better than himself, in this at least that they had known how to love
and cling to each other in spite of the blows of fate! He had
horse-whipped Wombo for loving Oola, and swift retribution had come
upon himself.... That he should have lost Bridget because of the loves
of Wombo and Oola! It was an irony--as if God were laughing at him. He
set his teeth and laughed--the mirthless laugh which had startled
Harris.... Well, whether it were automatic or planned retribution on
the part of the High Powers, the trouble could be evened up and done
with. 'I was a damned fool,' he said to himself; 'and I've been taught
my lesson too late for me to benefit by it. Except this way--I'm not
going to be DOWNED for ever. I'll go through my particular piece of
hell, on this darned old earth if I must, and then I'll wipe the slate
and come out on top of something else that isn't love. There's
possibilities enough along the Big Bight to satisfy most men's
ambition. And it's not much odds any way, so long as SHE isn't
seriously hurt.'

With that summing up of the matter, he seemed to gain stoic energy. Now
he went back to his dressing room, and pulled out to the veranda a
couple of worn portmanteaux. Into these he put a variety of personal
belongings. Among them, pictures from the walls, and old photographs in
frames that had been on the dressing table. It was significant that
none of these were portraits of his wife. The portmanteaux he dragged
along the veranda to the side of the steps leading down to the front
garden. Then, instead of returning to Lady Bridget's room, he attacked
an escritoire in the parlour in which he had kept family and private
papers, and which flanked her Chippendale bureau. He brought out
another collection--notebooks, papers, bundle