“Here’s Mrs. Peck—­my good friend, Mrs. Peck—­who will be a warrant how often I used to be a speaking of you, and a wondering what made me give up writing.”

“That I will,” said Mrs. Peck, who felt this little bit of romance was quite in her line.  “Many’s the time I’ve heard him speaking about you and the children.”

“Take another drop of brandy, Mrs. Peck,” said her newly-found friend.

“Thank you,” said she; “it’s better brandy than we used to get at Bendigo, but really I am in too much trouble just now to enjoy it, and I won’t take no more nor the single glass.  It’s a bad world and a sad one, and I seem to have more than my share of trouble.”

“Dear me!  Mrs. Peck, I am sorry to hear that; and I am sure I wish I could do anything to help you,” said Smith.

“I don’t like imposing on people that I haven’t no claims on, but I am in great need of twelve pounds just for a little while.  I have an annuity, as I dare say you heard at Bendigo.”

“Yes, I heerd on it,” said Smith, who appeared indisposed to contradict or doubt anything that Mrs. Peck said.

“But we have been tried with the sickness and doctors’ bills—­Peck and me—­and I am very backward with the world just at present.  If anybody could lend me twelve pounds for two months, they’d get principal and interest handsome.  You being an old friend turned up, and me knowing you so well at Bendigo, makes me bold enough to ask you for this little temporary assistance.  I would deposit an order for the money with you if you will be so good as to advance it.”

“Certainly, Mrs. Peck, I am not the one to be backward when a friend is in need, and I know it will be safe enough to be paid.  Susan, it is perfectly safe.  Mrs. Peck had money regular every quarter, to my knowledge; and if she wants the money now, it shall be paid down on the nail.”  And Smith told out the twelve pounds into Mrs. Peck’s hands, and received an order for repayment on Mr. Talbot, which was not to be presented for two months.

Mrs. Peck was overjoyed at her unexpected good luck in meeting with this returned digger, whom she had known very well at Bendigo under another name, and where he passed himself off as the husband of another woman.  She perceived that now he had found his wife in Adelaide, doing very well in business, he would rather that she heard nothing of his own little infidelities, particularly in the first days of meeting, and his probable loss of the money he advanced was not too high a price to pay to purchase silence.

Everything had turned out most propitiously for Mrs. Peck, so far.  The information from Mr. Dempster showed that all her objects of interest were collected in one spot, and this recognition of Smith put into her hands the means to get to them while Mr. Phillips was absent.  She was flushed with hope and confident expectation when she made her purchases of some articles of ready-made clothing, and took out her passage in Melbourne in the ‘Havilah,’ to prosecute her plans for revenge on Francis and advantages to herself.