sure you come back to supper, Mr Ellis,' she said. 'I really don't
know what you must think of me,--I've been talking all the time.'

'Oh, I've enjoyed myself, Mrs Head,' I said; and Andy hooked me out.

'She'll have a good cry and be better now,' said Andy when we got away
from the house. 'She might be better for months. She has been fairly
reasonable for over a year, but the Boss found her pretty bad when he
came back this time. It upset him a lot, I can tell you. She has turns
now and again, and always ends up like she did just now. She gets a
longing to talk about it to a Bushman and a stranger; it seems to do her
good. The doctor's against it, but doctors don't know everything.'

'It's all true about the children, then?' I asked.

'It's cruel true,' said Andy.

'And were the bodies never found?'

'Yes;' then, after a long pause, 'I found them.'

'You did!'

'Yes; in the scrub, and not so very far from home either--and in a
fairly clear space. It's a wonder the search-parties missed it; but it
often happens that way. Perhaps the little ones wandered a long way and
came round in a circle. I found them about two months after they were
lost. They had to be found, if only for the Boss's sake. You see, in
a case like this, and when the bodies aren't found, the parents never
quite lose the idea that the little ones are wandering about the Bush
to-night (it might be years after) and perishing from hunger, thirst,
or cold. That mad idea haunts 'em all their lives. It's the same, I
believe, with friends drowned at sea. Friends ashore are haunted for a
long while with the idea of the white sodden corpse tossing about and
drifting round in the water.'

'And you never told Mrs Head about the children being found?'

'Not for a long time. It wouldn't have done any good. She was raving
mad for months. He took her to Sydney and then to Melbourne--to the best
doctors he could find in Australia. They could do no good, so he sold
the station--sacrificed everything, and took her to England.'

'To England?'

'Yes; and then to Germany to a big German doctor there. He'd offer a
thousand pounds where they only wanted fifty. It was no good. She
got worse in England, and raved to go back to Australia and find the
children. The doctors advised him to take her back, and he did. He spent
all his money, travelling saloon, and with reserved cabins, and a
nurse, and trying to get her cured; that's why he's droving now. She was
restl