’I don’t know what you mean,’ Hermie said shortly, ’but I can’t help thinking it is rather ridiculous to keep those children sitting there. They ought to be in bed. I am going to bed.’
’To bed—my love—my dear!’ gasped Miss Browne. ’Where is he?’
’Where is who?’ asked Hermie impatiently.
’M-M-Mr. M-Mortimer Stevenson,’ said Miss Browne in a whisper.
’What should I know about Mr. Stevenson?’ she said coldly. ’I presume he has gone home.’
Gone home! All could not have gone well and happily in half an hour! Miss Browne grew quite pale.
Such a sweet half-hour it had been for her! For twenty minutes of it she had thought of nothing but the white light of love that was going to flood Hermie’s life. But during the last ten minutes there had come to her a thought of the material advantages that would accrue to the girl—Stevenson would have four or five thousand a year at his father’s death. It had been very sweet to sit and think of dear little flower-faced Hermie lifted for ever above the sordid cares of wretched housekeeping.
’My love—my dear,’ she faltered, ’I—I am old enough to be your mother. Could you trust me—won’t you——’
But Hermie, with the blind young eyes of a girl, saw nothing outside her window but tiresome Miss Browne, crying a little into her handkerchief (she often cried), stammering out sentences that seemed to have no beginning or end (her sentences seldom had), twisting her fingers about (she never kept them still).
This, when the girl’s excited heart wanted to be away from all voices, all eyes, and go over the strange sensations, with the moon alone for witness.
’Miss Browne,’ she said, making a strong effort not to speak unkindly, ’I have a headache to-night, and want to be alone. Would you be so kind as to keep what you have to say till morning, and tell me then?’
Nothing could have been swifter than the way Miss Browne melted away into the darkness.
It was eleven o’clock before Mortimer reached home, not that Coolooli lay two hours and a half distant from the selection, but that he was trying to ride and ride till the raw edges of his wound had closed together somewhat.
Finally he remembered his father would be waiting up for him—one of the old man’s fixed customs was to be the last one up in his house—and he turned his mare’s head in the direction of the sleeping station. He rode up through the moonlit paddocks and the belts of bush, and wondered a little, as he looked at his home, that the sadness of the place had never struck him before.