e had so recently passed had been a great one,
and it had not been without its outward result. It had left its impress
on her beautiful face, and there was a troubled look in her eyes. After
Brian's acquittal of the murder of Oliver Whyte, she had been taken by
her father up to the station, in the hope that it would restore her to
health. The mental strain which had been on her during the trial had
nearly brought on an attack of brain fever; but here, far from the
excitement of town life, in the quiet seclusion of the country, she had
recovered her health, but not her spirits. Women are more
impressionable than men, and it is, perhaps, for this reason that they
age quicker. A trouble which would pass lightly over a man, leaves an
indelible mark on a woman, both physically and mentally, and the
terrible episode of Whyte's murder had changed Madge from a bright and
merry girl into a grave and beautiful woman. Sorrow is a potent
enchantress. Once she touches the heart, life can never be quite the
same again. We never more surrender ourselves entirely to pleasure; and
often we find so many of the things we have longed for are after all
but dead sea fruit. Sorrow is the veiled Isis of the world, and once we
penetrate her mystery and see her deeply-furrowed face and mournful
eyes, the magic light of romance dies all away, and we realise the hard
bitter fact of life in all its nakedness.

Madge felt something of all this. She saw the world now, not as the
fantastic fairyland of her girlish dreams, but as the sorrowful vale of
tears through which we must all walk till we reach the "Promised Land."

And Brian, he also had undergone a change, for there were a few white
hairs now amid his curly, chestnut locks, and his character, from being
gay and bright, had become moody and irritable. After the trial he had
left town immediately, in order to avoid meeting with his friends, and
had gone up to his station, which was next to that of the Frettlbys'.
There he worked hard all day, and smoked hard all night, thinking ever
the secret which the dead woman had told him, and which threatened to
overshadow his life. Every now and then he rode over and saw Madge. But
this was generally when he knew her father to be away from Melbourne,
for of late he had disliked the millionaire. Madge could not but
condemn his attitude, remembering how her father had stood beside him
in his recent trouble. Yet there was another reason why Brian kept
aloof