"My cousin 's dead."

"John Stanesby?"

"John Stanesby."

"And Heyington 's yours?"

"And Eastwood too."

"Good Lord!"

There was silence for a moment. Then Turner said again:

"You can marry Gladys Rowan now."

"Yes."

Then he added, as if as an afterthought, "If she 'll have me."

"No fear of that," said Turner with a sigh. Then he turned to his old
chum, and stretching over laid a kindly hand on his arm, "I congratulate
you, old chap."

"Thank you." And they rode on in silence, the one man thinking bitterly
that if ever he had cherished a spark of hope of winning the woman he
had loved he must give it up at last, the other trying to realise the
good fortune that had come to him.

And an hour ago he had been as this man beside him--only one little hour
ago!

"How far do you reckon it to the head-station? Fifty miles?"

"Fifty? Nearer eighty I should say."

"Then I guess I 'll put up at your place. How far's that?"

"About ten miles."

"All right. Lead on, master of Heyington."

To refuse a man hospitality in the bush--such a thing was never heard
of, and, though Stanesby said no welcoming word, it never occurred to
Turner to doubt that he was more than welcome.

"It's right out of your way."

Turner stared.

"Good Lord! What's ten miles, and we haven't met for years. I must say,
old chap, you don't seem particularly pleased to see an old chum."

"I--they ain't so plentiful I can afford to do that. No, I was thinking
of going in to the station with you."

"Right you are, old man, do you? Only we'll put up at your place for the
night--my horse's pretty well done--and go on in the morning."

Stanesby said nothing, only turned his horse's head slightly to the
left. Save the red bluffs away to the east there was nothing to mark the
change of direction. There was no reason apparently for his choosing one
direction rather than another.

They rode in silence, these two who had been college chums and had not
met for years. Possibly it was the one man's good fortune that raised
a barrier between them. It was not easy for Turner to talk of present
difficulties and troubles when, as Stanesby said, he was going to "cut
it all"; it was not easy for him to speak of bygone times when the other
man was going back to them, and he would be left here without a prospect
of a change. And Stanesby said nothing, he could only think of the great
difference between them; and yesterday there was nothing he wo