g, arm in arm with him, she had been thinking of him, even
while she spoke earnestly of other things. Would she ever see him again,
she wondered with a sinking of the heart, would she ever see him again.
Never had he thought or care for himself, never would he shrink from fear
of consequences if it seemed to him that a certain course was "straight."
She would not have him shrink, of course. He was dear to her because he
was what he was, and yet, and yet, it pained her so to think that she
nevermore might see him. Seldom she saw him it was true, only now and
then, years between, but she always hoped to see him. What if the hope
left her! What should she do if she should see him again nevermore?

The kaleidoscope of her memories showed to her one scene, one of the
episodes that had gone to make up her character, to strengthen her
devotion: the whirring of a sewing machine in a lamp-lit room and a
life-romance told to the whirring, the fate of a woman as Geisner's was
the fate of a man. A romance of magnificent fidelity, of heroic sacrifice
illumined by a passionate love, of a husband followed to the land of his
doom from that sad isle of the Atlantic seas, of prison bars worn away by
the ceaseless labour of a devoted woman and of the cruel storm that beat
the breath from her loved one as freed and unfettered he fled to liberty
and her! She heard again the whirr of the machine, saw again the
lamplight shine on the whitening head majestic still. For Ned, while he
lived, no matter where, she would toil so. Though all the world should
forget him she would not. But supposing, after all, she never saw him
more. What should she do? What should she do? And yet, she did not know
yet that she loved him.

They walked along, side by side, close together, through the dull weary
streets, by barrack-rows of houses wrapped in slumber or showing an
occasional light; through thoroughfares which the windows of the shops
that thrive, owl-like, at night still made brilliant; down the long
avenue of trim-clipped trees whereunder time-defying lovers still sat
whispering; past the long garden wall, startling as they crossed the road
a troop of horses browsing for fallen figs; along the path that winds,
water-lapped, under the hollowed rocks that shelter nightly forlorn
outcasts of Sydney. She saw it all as they passed along and she did not
see it. Afterwards she could recall every step they took, every figure
they passed, every tree and seat and