‘It is hard to hide anything from those divine eyes,’ he said gravely.

‘I have guessed rightly?’

’Believe me, if I ever make confession, it shall be to one quick in sympathy and merciful in judgment as you are.’  There was a strain of deep emotion in his voice, and as he reached towards her she gave him her hand, and he pressed her slender fingers gently and gratefully, continuing with feeling, and in the manner of one whose superior years gave him the privilege:  ’Lucy, you are as good as you are beautiful, and in all sincerity I say I have never seen a woman one half as beautiful as you appear in my eyes at this moment.’

He had given the girl an impression that she was helping him, that her sympathy was precious.  In her innocence she was deeply stirred, and yet glad at heart.  She was silent for some minutes, and then said: 

’Do you know, I think you sometimes underestimate Mrs. Macdougal’s sensibilities.’

‘In what manner?’

’I think you hurt her without being conscious of it.  Her sense of humour is not keen, and I know she is pained when you least suspect it.’

A ghost of a smile stirred about Ryder’s mouth.  ’I would not pain her for the world,’ he said.  ’She is a kindly little woman, and her hospitality is charming; but you must admit she is droll.  What are my faults?’

‘Forgive me if I seem to be treating you as a pupil.’

’There is no one on earth to whom I would rather go to school.

’Well, then, you must not laugh at Mrs. Macdougal.

’But, really, is one expected to take those extravagantly romantic poses seriously?’

‘They are meant seriously.’

’The eyes and sighs, the pensive melancholy, the little maladies, the mysterious missing family?  You must not tell me this is not burlesque.’

’I am sure you know it is not.  Mrs. Macdougal has dreamed so much rubbish, and read so much more, that all this humbug has become part of her nature, and one has to be a bit of a humbug one’s self and humour her out of kindness In her girlhood there was no escape from the loneliness and stupidity of the Bush but in dreams.

‘My manners have been abominable.  I shall mind them now.’

The evening of that day was spent in the garden before the homestead.  The day had been hot—­there had been Bush-fires.  The smoke hung about, and the big moon floated like a great round blood-red kite above the range.  Ryder was sitting by Mrs. Macdougal on the garden-seat; Lucy played with the children on the grass till it was their bed time, when the three romped indoors together.  Mrs. Macdougal turned her eyes upon Ryder timidly, expecting the usual change in his demeanour.  She had used all her little arts on this man—­the foolish, simple devices with which she had bewitched the captain of the Francis Cadman, and with no more guile in her soul.  Suddenly she discovered the danger, but not before he had turned her comedy into a tragedy.  He overawed her, dominated her; she dreaded him, and yet adored him as a splendid hero of romance.