this is my home as well as yours.--But
now listen. You're tired out, run down with the heat and that last
attack of dysentery. Take a good holiday--stay away for three months if
you like. Sail over to Hobart Town, or up to Sydney, you who'er so fond
of the water. And when you come back strong and well we'll talk about
all this again. I'm sure by then you'll see things with other eyes."

"And who's to look after the practice, pray?"

"Why, a LOCUM TENENS, of course. Or engage an assistant."

"Aha! you'd agree to that now, would you? I remember how opposed you
were once to the idea."

"Well, if I have to choose between it and you giving up altogether...
Now, for your own sake, Richard, don't go and do anything rash. If once
you sell off and leave Ballarat, you can never come back. And then, if
you regret it, where will you be? That's why I say don't hurry to
decide. Sleep over it. Or let us consult somebody--John perhaps--"

"No you don't, madam, no you don't!" cried Richard with a grim dash of
humour. "You had me once ... crippled me ... handcuffed me--you and
your John between you! It shan't happen again."

"I crippled you? I, Richard! Why, never in my life have I done anything
but what I thought was for your good. I've always put you first." And
Mary's eyes filled with tears.

"Yes, where it's a question of one's material welfare you haven't your
equal--I admit that. But the other side of me needs coddling too--yes,
and sympathy. But it can whistle for such a thing as far as you're
concerned."

Mary sighed. "I think you don't realise, dear, how difficult it
sometimes is to understand you ... or to make out what you really do
want," she said slowly.

Her tone struck at his heart. "Indeed and I do!" he cried contritely.
"I'm a born old grumbler, mavourneen, I know--contrariness in person!
But in this case ... come, love, do try to grasp what I'm after; it
means so much to me." And he held out his hand to her, to beseech her.

Unhesitatingly she laid hers in it. "I am trying, Richard, though you
mayn't believe it. I always do. And even if I sometimes can't manage
it--well, you know, dear, you generally get your own way in the end.
Think of the house. I'm still not clear why you altered it. I liked it
much better as it was. But I didn't make any fuss, did I?--though I
should have, if I'd thought we were only to occupy it for a single year
after. --Still, that was a trifle compared with what you want to do
now.