what my job is, and if it was known that I'd given
away the fact that a secret service agent was in Sydney I might even get
shot as a spy," he said earnestly, and at last, in a maze of worry, she
gave way.

The night before Melbourne she gave him her father's signet ring--a
heavy gold thing that Andrew had given her just before he died, telling
her it must never leave her possession. He seemed very pleased with it,
and told her laughingly that if they could not afford to buy a ring she
would be married with that as a temporary measure.

CHAPTER XII

It was a wet, miserable day when they drew alongside at Port Philip.
Louis took the communal eight shillings, Marcella kept sixpence for
luck. He went ashore before most of the passengers; she waited on board
for her uncle.

When he came he was not at all what she had expected him to be. To begin
with, he was very chilly--a queer, nervous man who told her he had not
been in Melbourne for ten years and found great changes. He seemed to
live so much alone that he was frightened to talk to anyone. His hands
were hard with labour, but he told her casually that he had a sheep run
bigger than Yorkshire and a hundred thousand sheep. His wife had been
dead for five years: his house was run by his three daughters.

"We live seventy miles from a station, and fifty miles from the nearest
neighbours," he said, looking at her doubtfully. "You don't think you'll
be lonely? It's a hard life--I had no time to tell your aunt the many
disadvantages, for she said you'd started when she cabled."

Marcella saw quite well that she was not wanted and felt immensely
relieved that there was no necessity for her to go to Wooratonga.
Haltingly and stumblingly she asked him for the money, without telling
him Louis's chain of lies at all. He took little notice of what she
said. Money means very little in Australia where things are done on a
large scale. Looking immensely relieved he said it would no doubt be
much happier for her to go to stay with her friends--and how much money
did she want?

Marcella thought ten pounds--she really did not know. But he laughed at
that and, taking her along to his bank, gave her fifty pounds. It seemed
a lot of money to her, but he waved her thanks away, telling her a long
tale about catching fresh-water oysters in the creek near his homestead.
He seemed frightened of the traffic, frightened of the people.

"I'll be very glad to get back," he said, as t