nless in the hot, still air, he watched the two eager little
mortals before him add their quota to the miracle of life.

Chapter III

Polly had no such absorbing occupation to tide her over these empty
days of waiting; and sometimes--especially late in the afternoon, when
her household duties were done, the children safely at play--she found
it beyond her power to stitch quietly at her embroidery. Letting the
canvas fall to her knee, she would listen, listen, listen till the
blood sang in her ears, for the footsteps and knocks at the door that
never came. And did she draw back the window-curtain and look out,
there was not a soul to be seen: not a trace of the string of
prosperous, paying patients she had once imagined winding their way to
the door.

And meanwhile Richard was shut up in his room, making those dreadful
notes in the Bible which it pinched her heart even to think of. He
really did not seem to care whether he had a practice or not. All the
new instruments, got from Melbourne, lay unused in their casings; and
the horse was eating its head off, at over a pound a week, in the
livery-barn. Polly shrank from censuring her husband, even in thought;
but as she took up her work again, and went on producing in wools a
green basket of yellow fruit on a magenta ground, she could not help
reflecting what she would have done at this pass, had she been a man.
She would have announced the beginning of her practice in big letters
in the STAR, and she would have gone down into the township and mixed
with people and made herself known. With Richard, it was almost as if
he felt averse from bringing himself into public notice.

Only another month now, and the second instalment of interest would
fall due. Polly did not know exactly what the sum was; but she did know
the date. The first time, they had had no difficulty in meeting the
bill, owing to their economy in furnishing. But what about this one,
and the next again? How were payments to be made, and kept up, if the
patients would not come?

She wished with all her heart that she was ten years older. For what
could a person who was only eighteen be supposed to understand of
business? Richard's invariable answer, did she venture a word, was not
to worry her little head about such things.

When, however, another week had dribbled away in the same fashion,
Polly began to be afraid the date of payment had slipped his memory
altogether. She would need to remind him o