it, but he could
not go away and leave both men to Mrs. Eustace to nurse.

It was at this juncture that Mrs. Burke put her threat into execution,
and drove over to Taloona in a big old-fashioned waggonette with Patsy
perched on the box and a store of blankets inside.

"I've come to do my share of the work," she told the doctor. "They
stopped me from coming before--I was turned back by a trooper a mile
from the house. But I'm tired of waiting for word how the poor fellows
are, and have just come to take one of them away with me."

She had driven right up to the huts, and the sound of her voice
penetrated both. Old Dudgeon, striving to sit up, stared at Mrs. Eustace
with gleaming eyes.

"That devil," he muttered. "It's her voice. I'd know it in a million.
Keep her away! Don't let her come near me, or I'll----"

"Hush, you must not get excited," Mrs. Eustace said, as she gently
pushed him back. "No one is coming in here. I'll see to that. I'll shut
the door and bolt them out."

In the other hut the patient's eyes also gleamed, but with a different
light. The forced inaction, the solitude, the wearying monotony of lying
still, to one accustomed to a life full of incident and action, was more
than trying; but when, as was the case with Durham, there was urgent and
engrossing work to be done, the compulsory delay aggravated the evils of
the injury he had sustained.

Through the long hours he chafed against the helplessness which
prevented him from following up the clue he had already obtained, but
still more did he chafe against his inability to renew his acquaintance
with the woman who had fascinated him.

He was anxious to make headway in her estimation so that he would have
some understanding, however slight, with her when the recovery of her
papers and the winning of the reward gave him the opportunity of
offering her marriage. His impatience bred many fancies in his mind.
Daily he pictured to himself the danger of someone else becoming his
rival in her affections.

Were he free to see her he did not fear defeat; but while he was lying
helpless at Taloona anything might be happening at Waroona Downs.

That morning the doctor had told him it would be weeks before he would
be well enough to resume work if he did not make more rapid progress. He
had poured out professional platitudes against the folly of fretting and
worrying against the inevitable, but neither his platitudes nor the
soundness of his reasoning co