Nature is so good to us that we are sometimes disposed to think we might have dispensed with art.  In the bush, where doctors can not be had, bones will set themselves; and when doctors do come, but come slowly, the broken bones suit themselves to such tardiness.  Medlicot was brought in and put to bed.  Let the reader not be shocked to hear that Kate Daly’s room was given up to him, as being best suited for a sick man’s comfort, and the two ladies took it in turn to watch him.  Mrs. Heathcote was, of course, the first, and remained with him till dawn.  Then Kate crept to the door and asked whether she should relieve her sister.  Medlicot was asleep, and it was agreed that Kate should remain in the veranda, and look in from time to time to see whether the wounded man required aught at her hands.  She looked in very often, and then, at last, he was awake.

“Miss Daly,” he said, “I feel so ashamed of the trouble I’m giving.”

“Don’t speak of it.  It is nothing.  In the bush every body, of course, does any thing for every body.”  When the words were spoken she felt that they were not as complimentary as she would have wished.  “You were to have come to-day, you know, but we did not think you’d come like this, did we?”

“I don’t know why I didn’t go home instead of coming here.”

“The doctor will reach Gangoil sooner than he could the mill.  You are better here, and we will send for Mrs. Medlicot as soon as the men have had a rest.  How was it all, Mr. Medlicot?  Harry says that there was a fight, and that you came in just at the nick of time, and that but for you all the run would have been burned.”

“Not that at all.”

“He said so; only he went off so quickly, and was so busy with things, that we hardly understood him.  Is it not dreadful that there should be such fighting?  And then these horrid fires!  You were in the middle of the fire, were you not?” It suited Kate’s feelings that Medlicot should be the hero of this occasion.

“We were lighting them in front to put them out behind.”

“And then, while you were at work, these men from Boolabong came upon you.  Oh, Mr. Medlicot, we shall be so very, very wretched if you are much hurt.  My sister is so unhappy about it.”

“It’s only my collar-bone, Miss Daly.”

“But that is so dreadful.”  She was still thinking of the one word he had spoken when he had—­well, not asked her for her love, but said that which between a young man and a young woman ought to mean the same thing.  Perhaps it had meant nothing!  She had heard that young men do say things which mean nothing.  But to her, living in the solitude of Gangoil, the one word had been so much!  Her heart had melted with absolute acknowledged love when the man had been brought through into the house with all the added attraction of a broken bone.  While her sister had watched, she had retired—­to rest, as Mary had said, but in truth to think of the chance which had brought her in this guise into familiar contact with the man she loved.  And then, when she had crept up to take her place in watching him, she had almost felt that shame should restrain her.  But was her duty; and, of course, a man with a collar-bone broken would not speak of love.