He decided instantly that she knew her own business better than he did, and that his desire, both natural and conventional, not to leave a woman to see a drunken man to bed, was not going to help her.

“Shut your door up tight, please,” she said.  “He may not go to sleep for a long time.”

He nodded, looked at her to show her that he had begun to take her seriously, and turned away with Jerry, rather astonished to find himself dismissed so coolly from the scene.  She turned to Louis, forgetting Kraill.  Jerry, who adored Marcella, became very voluble on the subject of Louis; Kraill listened mechanically to all he was saying as they crossed the paddock.

It was one of Louis’s bad nights; he had been drinking both whisky and squareface.  A letter from his mother, saying how she was longing to see her grandson, had roused him to great deeds.  His fall after such resolutions was always the more bitter; always it needed more than usual justification; always Marcella was the scapegoat.  She had forgotten Kraill in the intensity of her misery until, worn out by his ravings, Louis fell asleep.  She knew, then, that he was safe for the rest of the night and she crept out silently into the cool cleanness of the garden, closing the door softly.  Only his loud, stertorous breathing came to her with mutterings and groans.  The moon had risen and little mist-wreaths walked in and out among the wonga-vines on the fence:  Marcella’s golden flowers with which she had planted the clearing all round the house—­nasturtiums, sunflowers, marigolds and eczcoltzias—­shone silvery and ethereal.  The smoke from the dying fires rose in thin white needles, plumed at the top:  out in the Bush a dingo barked shrilly and some small beast yelped in pain.  Andrew stirred and she tucked the clothes round him, kissing his brown, round arm and fingers, wishing he were awake so that he could be crushed in her arms and let her bury her aching head on his wriggling little body for an instant—­he was never still for longer.

She sat down on the edge of the verandah, her arm round the post; her eyes were aching; she felt too tired and helpless to go on living and yet the relief of having got Louis to sleep was really very great.  She was trying to decide to write to Dr. Angus, asking him to give her some sort of sleeping draught she could give Louis when he had one of his bad times; she had forgotten that, in a week’s time, all the money would be spent again and they would be happy for another period:  but to-night’s misery, more and more each time, was beginning to shut out pictures of a peaceful to-morrow, a vindication of faith.

A faint sound behind her made her start in horror, afraid lest he had wakened.  But it was Kraill who was standing quite still looking down at her.

“Does this sort of thing happen very often?” he said with an air of intimate interest that reassured her.

“I’d forgotten about you,” she said jerkily.  “I’m so sorry—­if I’d known you were coming I’d have arranged for you to stay at the Homestead to-night.”