‘Yes, Jim.  If there’s goin’ to be fightin’, we must be in it.’

‘Mike,’ said Jim, breaking the thoughtful silence that followed, ’what put into your head the mad idea that I would want to break with you?  God, man, I’d be a desolate, helpless wastrel without you!’

‘Aurora!’ said Mike sententiously.

‘Aurora!’ Jim sat up abruptly, and then sank slowly back upon his pillow again.  It was very curious, but till this moment no thought of Aurora had occurred to him.

Mike blew out the candle, and it was quite half an hour later when he said, speaking as if the conversation had just been dropped:  ’You’ll go all the same, Jimmy?’

‘Yes,’ said Jim, with the emphasis of a man making a resolution.

XII

Aurora!  What would she say?  What would she do?  It was less the thought of his losing Aurora than the picture of her great distress that worried him.  She would be broken-hearted.  And yet go he must, there was no question of that; he had not come to Australia to tether himself to a woman’s apron strings, even though that woman be the brightest and winsomest of her sex—­excepting one.  He smuggled that saving clause in in a cowardly way.  He had carefully masked his treachery even to his own eyes, and yet it was treachery that was in his bones.  Of course, he must assure her that they would meet again:  they were not necessarily parting for ever; but even as these thoughts worked in his mind he was not conscious of any anxiety at the prospect of a lasting separation.  Jim did not realize to what extent the passion for Aurora had fastened upon his blood; he still liked her, there remained a decided tenderness, and he hated the idea of hurting her or causing her grief.  This was the better part of his liking for the girl, but the vehement selfishness seemed to have gone from his love, and without a fierce note of selfishness love becomes as pale as friendship.  She had been a wonder, a revelation, a great glory; she had become merely an attractive, handsome girl, rather exuberant in her affection.  If Done were our villain we could show him unmanly, ignoble, and vile for all this, but not one voluntary impulse went to the making of his present attitude; it was a development entirely foreign to his will, and that much at least must be remembered in the defence of our hero.

Mike put off their departure a day.  He had intended leaving the tools and camp-ware with his mate, but now it was necessary to make arrangements with a teamster to follow them to the new rush with their property.

Done approached Aurora with great misgivings; he expected a passionate demonstration.  There had been no sign of waning affection on her part; on the contrary, she had seemed to grow more devoted to him.

‘Burton thinks this field is pretty well worked out,’ said Jim, as a preparatory announcement.

‘Well, I suppose it is, Jimmy.  Been panning out badly of late?’