But he came back and never mentioned Ailleen's name, and set
out again for the gold-fields still without mentioning her name; and
then, while he was away, there came to her brief shreds and echoes of
gossip, all circling round Ailleen, and all tending to prove that she
was striving to wed young Dickson--and Barellan, as Mrs. Taylor added
with scorn--and to forget the comrade of her childhood.

Tony had now come back again, and Mrs. Taylor wondered, as she saw him,
whether he had heard any of the stories she had heard about Ailleen's
change. He told her all about the rich patch of gold-bearing gravel they
had struck in the creek, and the way they had worked it out so as to be
able to get to Birralong for Christmas, but only to find themselves
stranded almost before their holidays began, and with all the work to do
over again, to say nothing of the finding of a new claim.

"And you are starting out again to-morrow?" she said.

"Yes; and we shall stay out till we find another patch. Palmer Billy
swears he can trace out the mother-reef of the alluvial, and that it
will be rich enough to make us all station-owners and able to run horses
for the Melbourne Cup."

"And if you don't find it?" she asked.

"Then--well, I reckon we'll try the northern fields. Palmer Billy and
Peters have both been up there, and they say there are tons of gold to
be had if one only has the capital to go on. But I don't fancy we shall
go there. Palmer Billy is too fly to talk about a reef if there is
none. We'll strike it, you see, and come home with a team-load of
nuggets."

"You'll be rich then, Tony," she said.

"Yes," he answered, with a laugh.

"Richer than young Dickson of Barellan," she added, watching him
closely.

"I dare say," he answered, half impatiently.

"And then--I suppose you'll get married?" she said softly, but with her
eyes still fixed on his face.

"Oh, _my_ troubles," he exclaimed.

"I suppose it will be Ailleen?" she went on.

He got up from where he was sitting.

"Reckon I'll have a smoke," he said. "I brought the old man a plug of
new stuff Marmot was cracking up. I'll just try it and see how it goes."

He walked away to get the tobacco, and Mrs. Taylor sat where she was,
under the verandah just in sight of the corner of the paddock where a
small patch was railed off from the rest, with a white-flowering
passion-vine growing luxuriantly over the slim fence which surrounded
it. She looked across at it with