tea in the kitchen, how much he had counted on seeing her, how he had
hungered for her, deep down, during all the nightmare week. He felt too
ashamed to go to the Homestead to look for her; then it occurred to him
that she would be across the clearing.

And he met her, half-way. She was coming along in the dull glow of the
dying fire, the pickaxe over her shoulder. She looked different to him;
perhaps his eyes were distorted, perhaps the fire-glow making leaping
shadows caused the difference; but she walked heavily, wearily, without
the thrilling, young spring of swift movements that made her such an
exhilaration to him. He wanted to run across the clearing, lift her in
his arms and charm away the tiredness; swiftly on top of that emotion
came the realization that she was walking wearily partly because she had
been doing his work, partly because her spirit was heavy and sick. He
felt sick with himself for having hurt her; he resented the misery his
conscience was causing him: swiftly he found himself resenting the
ungainliness of her figure which, in his morbid mood, seemed his fault
too. He hated the unconscious reproach she gave him as she came along,
stumbling a little, carrying the pickaxe.

He had finished his last spot of whisky at noon and had not slept since;
he was worn and tired and frayed, even more than she was. He was acutely
uncomfortable for want of soap and water and food.

He dashed across the space between them, his eyes blazing madly, and she
looked up, hearing his steps, seeing the blaze of his eyes, the
tenseness of his clenched hands.

"Damn you--damn you!" he cried, "playing the blasted Christian martyr.
Walking like that, to make people think I've made you tired!"

She stared at him, and her eyes filled with tears. She had got to the
stage of longing to see him so much that she did not care whether he
were drunk or sober. Then the ridiculousness of playing a role in the
Bush at ten o'clock at night, struck her, and she laughed--a rather
cracked laugh. He came close to her, all flaming with hate. He noticed
the blue shadows under her eyes, smelt the fire on her clothes. She
recoiled from the whisky on his breath, which, from association with
her childhood's horrors, always reduced her to a state of unreasoning
terror.

"Oh blast you--too fine to come near me, are you? You were damned glad
to pick me up, anyway--and so you ought to be, with your drunken old
scab of a father!"

She, in her