Home again! Everything had gone well in his absence. For the twentieth time Arnold Banneret vowed that never again would he leave the domestic Eden for the outer world, how fair soever might be the lure held out by inconstant fortune. The girls were growing up; his boys, like every other man’s boys, needed the occasional parental warning—the guiding hand. His wife’s cheek paled as she traced the still visible track of the robber’s bullet. ‘What was sufficient repayment, what compensation adequate, for such risks? And if——’ but she would not suffer him to proceed with the conjectures of what _might_ have happened. The ‘if’ had remained undeveloped, so there was no use speculating on grisly possibilities.
Sydney was more beauteous than ever, with glorious gardens, and the daily ocean breeze. Say that the noonday heat was at times oppressive, what was it in comparison with the terrible sun-rays of the West—a tent only between the dweller therein and the cloudless, relentless sky? The glorious semi-tropical foliage of the sea-girt city, the lawns so freshly verdurous, the stately pines, the flowering shrubs, the rose thickets, the carefully tended, if somewhat narrow roads, which, winding around the harbour cliffs, open out such enchanting views of sea and shore, earth and sky—specially arranged for the delectation of strangers and pilgrims! The swift-winged yachts and pleasure-boats still floated like sea-gulls above the translucent wave. All these delights and refreshments smote the senses of the home-returning wayfarer almost as freshly as if tasted for the first time.
Then the delicious awakening in the fair, sweet dawn of the early summer, with the certainty that there was now no need for doubt or anxiety touching the family fortunes. A competence, nay, more than a sufficiency for all their needs, was assured. Their luck had turned. No more was it necessary to go stolidly on with the daily work which gained the daily bread. There was not, could not be again, the necessity for calculation as to what liability required to be arranged for—what pressing account to be paid in full, or if not, compromised by payment on account. Such things had been in the past—in that shadowy region now so dim and distant-seeming. No, thank God! and a wave of gratitude passed through his every sense and faculty as he realised that those days and their accompanying sacrifices had passed away for ever. Were they happier now? In his musings by the seashore, at eve or moonrise, he sometimes asked himself the question. The reply was not always in the affirmative. They had been happy—truly, consciously happy, then. If there were difficulties, they had overcome them. If there had been debts and doubts, anxiety never far distant, succour unexpected had come in time of need. The responsibilities of official position had been great—at times almost overpowering, but their very magnitude had stimulated his energies—he had never faltered; strong in the resolve to deal justly, impartially, with the high questions committed to his judgment, he had fought through opposition, misrepresentation, and discouragement, to emerge at last, with the approval of his conscience and the confidence of the heterogeneous workers whom he had ruled for a quarter of a century.