this, unless indeed she had gone under more
than one name before she was married. 'I used as a child to dance and
sing under that name.'

'Was it your father's name?'

She smiled as she answered, 'You want to discover all the little mean
secrets of my life at once, and do not reflect that, in so far as they
were mean, they are disagreeable as subjects of conversation. I was not
mean myself.'

'I am sure of that.'

'If you are sure of it, is not that enough? Of course I have been among
low people. If not, why should I have been a singer on the stage at so
early an age, why a dancer, why should I have married such a one as Mr.
Smith?'

'I do not know of what sort he was,' said Caldigate.

'This is not the time to ask, when you have just come to see me;--when I
am so delighted to see you! Oh, it is such a pleasure! I have not had a
nice word spoken to me since I left the Goldfinder. Come and take a walk
in the gardens? Nobody knows me off the stage yet, and nobody knows you.
So we can do just as we like. Come and tell me about the gold.'

He did go, and did tell her about the gold, and before he had been with
her an hour, sitting about on the benches in that loveliest of all
places, the public gardens at Sydney, he was almost happy with her. It
was now late in the autumn, in May; but the end of the autumn in Sydney
is the most charming time of the year. He spent the whole day with her,
dining with her in her lodgings at five in order that he might take her
to the theatre at seven. She had said a great deal to him about her
performances, declaring that he would find them to be neither vulgar nor
disagreeable. She told him that she had no friend in Sydney, but that
she had been able to get an engagement for a fortnight at Melbourne, and
had been very shortly afterwards pressed to come on to Sydney. She
listened not only with patience, but apparently with the greatest
pleasure, to all that he could tell her of Dick Shand, and Mr. Crinkett,
and Mick Maggott, arousing herself quite to enthusiasm when he came to
the finding of the gold. But there was not a word said the whole day as
to their future combined prospects. Nor was there any more outspoken
allusion to loves and darlings, or any repetition of that throwing
herself into his arms. For once it was natural. If she were wanted thus
again, the action must be his,--not hers. She was clever enough to know
that.

'What do you think of it?' she said, when he waited to