She evaded his question, and in a flash he thought he saw the reason for the journey and became very tender and considerate of her.  They made plans immediately; he was like a child being taken out for the day.  He kept telling her how delightful it was not to be kept on a lead; and she could have told him how delightful it was not to be at the controlling end of a lead.

They left Andrew with Mrs. Twist; Marcella was very quiet during the drive in to Cook’s Wall, though for some moments she was almost hysterically gay.  Just beyond the station was a gang of navvies and a camp; the railway was pushing on to Klondyke; great Irishmen and navvies from all parts of Australia, drawn by the phenomenal pay, sweated and toiled under the blazing sun making the railway cutting.  The sound of rumbling explosions came to them as the rocks were blasted:  she watched the men running back with picks over their shoulders; she loved to see their enormous bull-like strength as they quarried the great boulders.

They stayed at Mrs. King’s, and went to a theatre the first night.  Louis grew more hungry for England every moment as he came into touch with civilization.  Marcella sat in a dream; the music that would once have delighted her to ecstasy was muted; the people were things moving without life or meaning; she answered Louis every time he spoke to her, but her mind was drawn in upon itself by a gnawing anxiety.

The next day, leaving Louis to his own resources, she and Mrs. King went out.

He was a little inclined to chaff them about their air of mystery, but, taking Marcella’s tiredness and whiteness into account, he was expecting them to say they had been buying baby clothes, though it was rather unlike Marcella to keep anything secret.

Her tragic face and Mrs. King’s eyes, red with weeping, froze the gay words on his lips when they came in just before lunch, where he was playing a slow game of nap with some of the boys in the kitchen.

They went upstairs to their old room.  When the door was closed she said to him:  “Louis, I’ve been to a doctor.  He says I’m not well.”

“I knew it.  I told you, didn’t I?  You want a change, my dear,” he said anxiously.

“I’m afraid it’s rather more serious than that, Louis,” she said gravely.  “He seems to think it—­it may be—­cancer.  Oh, I wish they’d call it something else!  I hate that word.  It’s such a hungry word.”

She was feeling stunned, and very frightened.

“But Marcella, it’s ridiculous!  For one thing, you’re too young—­”

“That’s what the doctor thought.  But he says it’s been known—­in textbooks, you know.  A girl of eighteen that he knew had it.  I’m to see two other doctors to-morrow.”

He began to pace about the room.  Then he laughed a little shrilly.

“Oh, it’s a silly mistake.  Doctors are not infallible, you know!  He’s brutal to have suggested it even.  Oh damn these colonials!  No English doctor would have told you.”