ds rankled in Mahony all the way home.--Trust Purdy for not,
in anger, being able to resist giving him a flick on the raw. It made
him feel thankful he was no longer so dependent on this friendship as
of old. Since then he had tasted better things. Now, a woman's heart
beat in sympathetic understanding; there met his, two lips which had
never said an unkind word. He pushed on with a new zest, reaching home
about dawn. And over his young wife's joy at his safe return, he forgot
the shifting moods of his night-journey.

It had, however, this result. Next day Polly found him with his head in
one of the great old shabby black books which, to her mind, spoilt the
neat appearance of the bookshelves. He stood to read, the volume lying
open before him on the top of the cold stove, and was so deeply
engrossed that the store-bell rang twice without his hearing it. When,
reminded that Hempel was absent, he whipped out to answer it, he
carried the volume with him.

Chapter II

But his first treatment of Purdy's wound was also his last. Two nights
later he found the hut deserted; and diligently as he prowled round it
in the moonlight, he could discover no clue to the fate of its
occupants. There was nothing to be done but to head his horse for home
again. Polly was more fortunate. Within three days of the fight Ned
turned up, sound as a bell. He was sporting a new hat, a flashy silk
neckerchief and a silver watch and chain. At sight of these kickshaws a
dismal suspicion entered Mahony's mind, and refused to be dislodged.
But he did not breathe his doubts--for Polly's sake. Polly was
rapturously content to see her brother again. She threw her arms round
his neck, and listened, with her big, black, innocent eyes--except for
their fleckless candour, the counterpart of Ned's own--to the tale of
his miraculous escape, and of the rich gutter he had had the good luck
to strike.

Meanwhile public feeling, exasperated beyond measure by the tragedy of
that summer dawn, slowly subsided. Hesitation, timidity, and a very
human waiting on success had held many diggers back from joining in the
final coup; but the sympathy of the community was with the rebels, and
at the funerals of the fallen, hundreds of mourners, in such black
coats as they could muster, marched side by side to the wild little
unfenced bush cemetery. When, too, the relief-party arrived from
Melbourne and martial law was proclaimed, the residents handed over
their fire