"No. This is a sort of hotel. We are staying here until we find a home."
"It was impossible to stay there; there was only one room in the hut."
"Wasn't it always like that?" she asked as though trying to recall something.
"Where you came from when you came to the hut."
"How funny you are. You know I always lived there."
"It must have been so, and yet--" she put her hand to her head.
He watched her. Would she remember, or would he have to wait? That it would all come back to her some day he was certain, and then--
She was at the window, looking into the street. Lin Soo's shop was nearly opposite, but he was not visible.
A dark man walked rapidly along, and was about to enter Lin Soo's when a cab horse slipped and fell. This attracted his attention. He turned round with the intention of going to assist the driver, but the horse struggled to his feet unaided.
As the man looked across the road the woman at the window gave a faint cry. Glen was at her side in a moment.
"That man, the dark man, looking this way. I've seen him before. Who is he? Do you know?" she said in an agitated voice.
"Have you seen him before? Do you know him? His name is Craig Bellshaw. He lives at Mintaro, a big homestead, some miles from the hut, the home we left," said Glen.
The fear, or whatever it was, passed. She smiled. No, she did not know him, nor had she heard the name.
"Perhaps you knew someone like him?" Glen suggested.
She shook her head. She did not remember.
Much to Glen's surprise he saw Bellshaw go into Lin Soo's shop. He came out again in about a quarter of an hour, hailed a passing hansom, and drove away.
Why had he gone into the Chinaman's? It was about the last place Glen would have expected to see him in. He told Bill what had happened. They could make nothing of it, but it made a deep impression on them.
Craig Bellshaw was uneasy. The face on the water troubled him; it haunted him as he walked about. He left Sydney suddenly and returned to Mintaro, where he arrived unexpectedly. He found everything going on as usual. Garry Backham had put a man in charge of the shanty at Boonara, and returned to his duties until such time as Bellshaw came back.
"I met Bigs in Sydney," said Bellshaw. "He told me you went into his place the day he left, and handed it over to you. I suppose you came back when he had gone?"