“My employer was a pleasant, genial man, my fellow-labourers were good fellows; I could have been happy, or, at least, contented with the life, hard as it was, if I could but have forgotten; if I could even for a day have lost the awful hunger and thirst for you; if I could have got you out of my mind, the memory of you out of my heart—­but I could not!”

He paused, looking straight before him; and gazing up at him, she saw his face drawn and haggard, as if he still thought himself separated from her.  Then, as if he remembered, he looked down at her and caught her to him with a sudden violence that almost hurt her.

“But I could not; you haunted me, dearest, all day and all night!  Sometimes, when the men were singing round the camp fire, singing and laughing, the sense of my loss would come crushing down upon me, and I’d spring to my feet and wander out into the starlit silence of the vast plains and spend the night thinking of all that had passed between us.  At other times, a kind of madness would catch hold of me, and I’d join the wildest of the gangs, and laugh and sing and drink with the maddest of the lot.”

She drew a long breath of comprehension and pity, and hid her eyes on his breast.  He bent and kissed her, murmuring penitently: 

“I’m not fit to kiss you, Ida.  I did not mean to tell you, but—­but, I can’t keep anything from you, even though it will go against me.  One night the drinking led to fighting and I stood up to a son of Anak, a giant of a fellow; and we fought until both of us were knocked out; but I remember him going down first, just before I fell, I went from bad to worse.  The owner of the run—­it was called Salisbury Plain—­spoke a word of warning, and I tried to pull up, tried to take to the work again, and forget myself in it; but—­ah, well, dearest, thank God you would not understand that you cannot know what a man is like when he is at odds with fate, and is bed-fellow with despair!”

“Do I not!” she murmured again, with the fullest understanding and compassion.  “Do you think he is worse than a woman.  On, Stafford, there have been times, black times, when I learned to know why some women fly to drink to drown their misery:  and our misery is as keen, yes, keener than yours.  For we are so helpless, so shackled; we have nothing else to do but think, think, think!  Go on, dearest!  I seem to see you there!”

“Thank God! you could not!” he said, huskily.  “The black fit passed for a time, and I settled down to work again.  One day there was an attack upon the farm by the blacks, as they are called.  I was fortunately at home, and we managed to beat them off and save the stock.  It was a valuable one and my employer, thinking too highly of my services, made me a present of half the value.  It was a generous gift, a lavish one, and altogether uncalled for—­”

“Oh, Stafford, do you think I don’t know that you risked your life, as plainly as if I had been told, as if I had been there!” she said, her eyes glowing, her breath coming faster.