a dry land.  His thoughts went back to the days when they rode and made love together—­the sunny days, before the clouds gathered.  It was that past which glorified her all at once, not the present—­not Mr Thornycroft’s money—­not the halo of elegance and consequence that again adorned her; he never suspected otherwise for a moment.  And that was why he did not hesitate to book a passage to Australia that very day.

Deb was at Redford when he arrived.  That she would never part with the place again, she had declared on the day that it came into her possession, and she was now establishing herself there, she said, for life.  She had gone through the whole great rambling house, sorting and rearranging the furniture that was in it, adding the cream of the contents of the best shops in town.  She made a clean sweep of the now ‘awful’ fittings of the big drawing-room, replacing them with parquet rugs and divans, and things of the softest, finest and most costly kind; she arranged the morning-room for herself afresh; also the glazed corridor, which became a beautiful art gallery and lounging-place; also the remainder of the long unused rooms.  She called to her all the favourite old servants—­except Keziah Moon, who was happy where she was—­and old Miss Keene to play chaperon once more, with nothing to do but arrange flowers and doze at peace in the lap of luxury.  Deb wanted Jim for her manager, at a ridiculous salary, but he would not take the post; he did, however, procure her an excellent substitute.  She commissioned him to buy her riding-horses—­he “knew what she liked”—­regardless of expense; an English groom was given charge of them when they arrived.  So easily did the magnificent woman slide back into her magnificent ways, for all her good taste and unpretentiousness.

When Claud Dalzell was driven in his hired buggy from the township to her door, his critical eye took in the many changes that the old homestead had undergone with high approval.  Used as he was to far finer houses and the best of everything, he felt that here was as fair a camping-place as even he could desire.  Redford, with a quarter of a million behind it, with this setting of sunshine and spaciousness (missed so much more than he had known till now), inclined—­what a haven of rest and pleasure, after the crowded and fatiguing experiences of his later years!

He was shown upstairs to the big drawing-room.  He hardly knew where he was, with the grass-green carpet and festooned window-draperies and gilding and plate-glass vanished, and these soft-coloured stuffs and subtle harmonies around him.  He could recognise nothing but a few pictures and the old piano, the latter spread with a gem of Chinese embroidery, on which stood a gem of a Satsuma bowl filled with fine chrysanthemums.  It was late in autumn now.

And while he wandered about, examining this and that with the pleasure of a satisfied connoisseur, Deb stood in the sitting-room downstairs, with clenched hands and teeth, staring at his card on a table before her.