our happiness before his own."

She breathed a short sigh. "Thank you, Jack, I feel better. You're
wonderfully good to me, dear old boy. Tell him--tell him I'll marry him
as soon as ever I can get ready! I must get a few things together first,
mustn't I?"

Jack laughed a little. "You look very nice in what you've got."

"Oh, don't be silly!" she said. "If I'm going to live at
Wallacetown--Wallacetown, mind you, the smartest place this side of
Sydney--I must be respectably clothed. I shall have to go to Trelevan,
and see what I can find."

"You and Adela had better have a week off," said Jack, "and go while
Fletcher is busy there. You'll see something of him in the evenings
then."

"What about you?" she said, squeezing his arm.

"Oh, I shall be all right. I'm expecting Lawley in from the ranges. He'll
help me. I've got to learn to do without you, eh, little 'un?" He held
her to him again.

She clasped his neck. "It's your own doing, Jack; but I know it's for my
good. You must let me come and help you sometimes--just for a holiday."
Her voice trembled.

He kissed her again with great tenderness. "You'll come just whenever you
feel like it, my dear," he said. "And God bless you!"

CHAPTER VI

THE WAY TO HAPPINESS

On account of its comparative proximity to the gold mine, Trelevan,
though of no great size, was a busy place. Dot had stayed at the hotel
there with her brother on one or two occasions, but it was usually noisy
and crowded, and, unlike Adela, she found little to amuse her in the type
of men who thronged it. Fletcher Hill always stayed there when he came to
Trelevan. The police court was close by, and it suited his purpose; but
he mixed very little with his fellow-guests and was generally regarded as
unapproachable--a mere judicial machine with whom very few troubled to
make acquaintance.

Fletcher Hill in the role of a squire of dames was a situation that
vastly tickled Adela's sense of humour. As she told Jack, it was going to
be the funniest joke of her life.

Neither Hill nor his grave young fiancee seemed aware of any cause for
mirth, but with Adela that was neither here nor there. She and Dot never
had anything in common, and as for Fletcher Hill, he was the driest stick
of a man she had ever met. But she was not going to be bored on that
account. To give Adela her due, boredom was a malady from which she very
rarely suffered.

She was in the best of spirits on the evening of thei