change the world must first of all show the world that
change is possible, must gather themselves together and go out into the
desert to live their life in their own way as an example to all men. Who,
could do this as the bushmen could, as he and his houseless, homeless,
wandering mates could? If he only could lead them to it, Geisner helping
him! If another chance might be his as the chance had been! Now, life
seemed over. He had a prescience of misfortune. A Queensland gaol would
swallow him up. That would be the end of it all.

He did not think that he was much the same as others, more forceful
perhaps for evil as for good but still much the same. He did not think
that social conditions had been against him, that Society had refused him
the natural life which gives morality and forced upon him the unnatural
life which fosters sin. What did that matter? The Puritan blood that
flowed in his veins made him stern jury and harsh judge. He tried himself
by his own ideal and he condemned himself. He was unworthy. He had
condemned those who drank; he had condemned those who cursed and swore
meaninglessly; he had looked upon smoking as a weakness, almost a fault.
Now, he condemned himself, without reservation. He had sinned and his
punishment had begun. He had lived in vain and he had lost his love. It
never occurred to him that he might play a part before her--he was too
manly. Yet his great longing grew greater as he realised everything. All
the loneliness of his longing spoke in that hoarse whisper:

"Nellie?"

And Nellie? Nellie loved him.

She had held him as a brother for so long that this love for him had
crept upon her, little by little, inch by inch, insidiously, unperceived.
She remembered always with pleasure their school days together and their
meetings since, that meeting here in Sydney two years before most of all.
She had felt proud of him, of his strength and his fiery temper, of his
determined will, of the strong mind which she could feel growing and
broadening in the letters he had sent her of late. She could not but know
that to him she was very much, that to her he owed largely the bent of
his thinking, that to her he still looked as a monitress. But she lulled
herself with the delusion that all this was brotherliness and that all
her feelings were sisterliness. His coming that night, his gift of the
rose, had filled her with a happiness that mingled strangely with the
pain of her fears.

Coming alon