'Ah well--it doesn't matter--As you said--nothing matters now.... Well, I'll go and see Ninnis, and settle about to-morrow.... Then there's money....' he stopped at the edge of the steps leading down to the Old Humpey, looking back at her--'what you'll need for the pa.s.sage--and afterwards--I know what you'll be thinking; but I can arrange for it with the Bank manager at Leuraville.'

A mocking demon rose in her.

'Please don't let yourself be inconvenienced. I only want the bare pa.s.sage money. And directly I get to England I will pay you back.'

His hands dropped to his sides as if she had shot him. His face was terrible. At that moment, she could have bitten her tongue out.

'I don't think--you need have said that, Bridget,' and he went slowly down the steps, and out of her sight like a man who has received a mortal hurt.

CHAPTER 9

If purgatory could hold worse torture than life held on that last evening Lady Bridget spent at Moongarr, then neither she nor her husband would have been required to do any long expiation there. It would be difficult to say which of the two suffered the most. Probably McKeith, because he was the strongest. Equally, he showed it the least when the breaking moment had pa.s.sed. Yet both husband and wife seemed to have covered their faces, hearts and souls with unrevealing masks.

No, it was worse than that. Each was entirely aware of the mental and spiritual barrier, which made it absolutely impossible for them to approach each other in the sense of reality. A barrier infinitely more forbidding than any material one of stone or iron. Because it was living, poisoned, venomous as the fang of some monstrous deadly serpent. To come within its influence meant the death of love.

There was not much more of the day to get through. Husband and wife both got through it in a fever of activity over details that seemed scarcely to matter. He busied himself with Ninnis--first explaining to the overseer as briefly as he could, the necessity for Lady Bridget's voyage to England--a necessity that appealed to Ninnis' practical mind, particularly in the present financial emergency. It surprised him a little that McKeith should not himself see his wife off; but he also recognised practical reasons--against that natural concession to sentiment. On the whole, it rather pleased him to find his employer ignoring sentiment, and he fully appreciated the confidence reposed in himself.

The two men went over questions connected with the journey, overhauling the buggy so that springs, bars and bolts might be in order, seeing that the horses were in good condition, sending on Cudgee that very hour, with a second pair in relay for the long stage of the morrow, when over fifty miles must be covered. There would be another pair at old Duppo's, and, after a day and night of comparative rest, Alexander and Roxalana would be fresh for the last long stage of the journey.

They calculated that under these provisions the railway terminus at Crocodile Creek, might be reached on the eve of the third day. And there were many instructions, and much careful arranging for Lady Bridget's comfort during the journey.

Then there were letters to write, business calculations, a further overdraft to be applied for to the Bank, pending the cattle sales....

Would there be saleable cattle enough to meet demands and expenses of sinking fresh artesian bores--now that the fire had destroyed all the best gra.s.s on the run?

McKeith found no consolation in the prospect of his wife's riches. That only added gall to his bitterness, new fuel to his stubborn pride, new strength to the wall between them.

He sat brooding in his office, when the business letters were written--to the Bank-manager; to Captain Halliwell, the Police-magistrate at Leuraville; to the Manager of the Eastern and Australian Steam Navigation Depot, Leuraville, enclosing a draft to pay the pa.s.sage; to the Captain of the boat advertised for that trip, who happened to be an acquaintance of his--all recommending Lady Bridget to the different people's care--all antic.i.p.ating and arranging against every possible drawback to her comfort on the voyage--all carefully stating the object of her trip to England--business connected with the death of a near relative. Then, after the ghastly pretence of dinner--during which appearances were kept up unnecessarily before Maggie and the Malay boy, by a forced discussion of matter-of-fact details--looking out the exact time of the putting in of the next E.

and A. boat at Leuraville--all of which he had already done, and pointing out to Bridget that she could catch it, with a day to spare.

There was food for the journey too, to be thought of, and other things to talk about. As soon as the meal was ended, McKeith went back to the office, and Bridget saw or heard no more of him that night. He did not come even to his dressing-room. She concluded that he was 'camping' on the bunk in the office, and when her own packing was done, she lay in wakeful misery till dawn brought a troubled doze.

Her packing was no great business--clothes for the voyage, and a big furred cloak for warmth, when she should arrive in England in the depth of winter--that was all.

Everything else--her papers, knicknacks, personal belongings--she left just as they were. Colin might do as he liked about them. She felt reckless and quite hard.

Only one among those personal possessions moved her to despairing tears. It was a shrivelled section of bark chopped from a gum tree, warped almost into a tube.

She placed this carefully in the deepest drawer of her wardrobe. Would Colin ever find it there--and would he understand? All the time, through these preparations, strangely enough she did not think of any possible future in connection with Willoughby Maule. The events of the past few days seemed to have driven him outside her immediate horizon.

When she came out in the morning dressed for her journey, she found her husband in the veranda waiting to strap up and carry out her baggage.

Scarcely a word pa.s.sed between them; they did not even breakfast together. He said he had been up early, and had had his breakfast already, but he watched her trying to eat while he moved about collecting things for her journey, and he poured out the coffee, and begged her to drink it. While he was there, Chen Sing brought in the basket of food he must have ordered for the buggy, and there was Fo Wung too, the gardener, with fresh lettuce and water-cress, and a supply of cool, green cabbage leaves in which he had packed a few early flat-stone peaches, and some Brazilian cherries.

Lady Bridget thanked them with the ghost of her old sweetness, and they promised to have the garden 'velly good--TAI YAT number one' and to 'make plenty nice dishes,' for the Boss during her absence.

While they stood at the French window, McKeith filled flasks with wine and spirits, and packed quinine and different medicines he had prepared in case of her needing them. Then after shewing her the different bottles, he took the supply out to Ninnis to be put in the buggy.

Everything was ready now--the buggy packed, the hood unslung so that it could be put up and down in protection against sun or rain--this last alas! an improbable eventuality. Alexander and Roxalana were champing their bits. Ninnis in a new cabbage-tree hat and clean puggaree, wearing the light coat he only put on when in the society of ladies he wished to honour, was standing by the front wheels examining the lash of his driving-whip. McKeith had given him his last directions. There was nothing now to wait for. McKeith went slowly up the steps of the back veranda, and in at the French window of the sitting room, where Bridget had been watching, waiting. At his appearance, she went back into the room. She stood quite still, small, shadowy, the little bit of her face which showed between the folds of her motor veil, where it was tied down under her chin--very pale, and the eyes within their red, narrowed lids, dry and bright.

'Are you ready, Bridget?' he asked.

'Yes.'

He came close, and took a little bag she was holding out of her hands, carried it to the back veranda, and told one of the Chinamen to give it to Mr Ninnis--all, it seemed to her, to evade farewells. She called him back in a hard voice.

'Colin--I've left my keys,'--pointing to a sealed and addressed envelope on her own writing-table. 'There are a few things of value--some you have given me--in the drawers.'

'I will take care of them,' he answered hoa.r.s.ely.

They stood fronting each other, and their eyes both smarting, agonised, stared at each other out of the pale drawn faces.

'Colin,' she said; and held out her hands. 'Aren't you going to say good-bye?'

He took her hands; his burning look met hers for an instant and dropped. There was always the poisonous wall which their soul's vision might not pierce--through which their yearning lips might not touch.

For an instant too, the hardness of his face was broken by a spasm of emotion. The grip of his hands on hers was like that of a steel vice; she winced at the pain of it. He dropped her hands suddenly, and moved back a step.

'Good-bye--Bridget.'

'Is that all you have to say? All?'

He stuttered, helplessly. 'I--I--can't.... There's nothing to say.'

'Nothing! You let me go--like this--without one word of apology--of regret. I think that, at least, you owe me--courtesy.'

Her tone lashed him. He seemed to be struggling with his tongue-tied speech. When words came they rushed out in fierce jerks. 'I'll say this--though where's the good of talking.... What does it amount to anyway, when you're down on the bedrock, and there's nothing left but to give up the whole show and start fresh as best you can? I'll say this--I've never pretended to fine manners--I leave them--to others.

I'm just a rough bushman, no better and no worse. Apology!--that's my apology--As for regret. My G.o.d! isn't it all one huge regret? No, I won't say that.... Because there are some things I CAN'T regret--for myself. For you, I do regret them. I was an insane a.s.s ever to imagine that I and my way of living could ever fit in with a woman brought up like you. The incompatibilities were bound to come out--incompatibilities of temper, education, breeding--outlook on things--they were bound to separate us sooner or later, I'm glad that it's sooner, because that gives you a chance of getting back into your old conditions before you've grown different in yourself--dried up--soured--maybe lost your health, roughing it through bad times in the bush.... As it is, you'll get out all right--Never fear that I won't see you get out all right.'

'And you?' she put in.

'Me! I don't count--I don't care.... A man's not like a woman. I've always been a fighter. And I've never been DOWNED in my life. I'm not going to be DOWNED this time. I shall make good--some time--somehow.

I'm not the sort of small potato that drops to the bottom of the bag in the big shake-up.'

She winced visibly. He read distaste in her slight gesture, in the expression of her eyes. It was true that the man's pugnacious egoism--a lower side of him a.s.serting itself just then--had always jarred upon her finer taste. He recognised this subconsciously, and his self-esteem revolted at it.

'You needn't be afraid,' he exclaimed harshly. 'If I wanted to hold to my rights, and keep you here with me--what has happened would prevent me--I've got too much pride to hang on to the skirts of a rich wife.

But you won't be harmed.... I don't know yet, but I believe there's a way by which you can win through straight and square--no smirch that you need mind--And if there is--whatever the way of it is, I'll do my best to bring you out all right.'

'You are generous.' Her eyes flashed but her voice was coldly bitter.

'May I ask what you propose to do?'

'There's no use....' he said heavily. 'I told you talking was no good--now. I've got my own ideas....'

'Then, if that's how you feel, the sooner I go the better pleased you will be,' she returned hysterically. 'Oh, I'm ready to go.'

He moved to the steps, not answering at once. Then he said:

'The buggy is waiting, will you come?'