During the Christmas holidays, after his neighbour Frank had been jilted by Cecily, he rode away, and returned after a week’s absence.  The Major informed him that Mrs. Chisholm had met with an accident and would be unable to visit Nyalong for some time.  Philip was secretly pleased to hear the news, outwardly he expressed sorrow and sympathy, and nobody but himself suspected how mean and deceitful he was.

At Easter he rode away again and returned in less than a week.  Next day he called at McCarthy’s farm and dined with the family.  He said he had been married the previous morning before he had started for Nyalong, and had left his wife at the Waterholes.  McCarthy began to suspect that Philip was a little wrong in his head; it was a kind of action that contradicted all previous experience.  He could remember various lovers running away together before marriage, but he could not call to mind a single instance in which they ran away from one another immediately after marriage.  But he said to himself, “It will all be explained by-and-by,” and he refrained from asking any impertinent questions merely to gratify curiosity.

After dinner Gleeson, Philip, and McCarthy rode into the bush with the hounds.  A large and heavy “old man” was sighted; and the dogs stuck him up with his back to a tree.  While they were growling and barking around the tree Gleeson dismounted, and, going behind the tree, seized the “old man” by the tail.  The kangaroo kept springing upwards and at the dogs, dragging Gleeson after him, who was jerking the tail this way and that to bring his game to the ground, for the “old man” was so tall that the dogs could not reach his throat while he stood upright.  Philip gave his horse to McCarthy and approached the “old man” with his club.

“Shoot him with your revolver,” said Gleeson.  “If I let go his tail, he’ll be ripping you with his toe.”

“I might shoot you instead,” said Philip; “better to club him.  Hold on another moment.”

Philip’s first blow was dodged by the kangaroo, but the second fell fairly on the skull; he fell down, and Ossian, a big and powerful hound, seized him instantly by the throat and held on.  The three men mounted their horses and rode away, but Philip’s mare was, as usual, shying at every tree.  As he came near one which had a large branch, growing horizontally from the trunk, his mare spring aside, carried him under the limb, which struck his head, and threw him to the ground.  He never spoke again.

After the funeral, McCarthy rode over to the Rocky Waterholes to make some enquiries.  He called at Mrs. Martin’s residence, and he said: 

“Mr. Philip told us he was married the day before the accident, but it seemed so strange, we could not believe it; so I thought I would just ride over and enquire about it, for, of course, if he had a wife, she will be entitled to whatever little property he left behind him.”