However, it was distinctly patent to all the inquiring or admiring minds of Pilot Mount that the oracle, in the case of Nurse Lilburne’s antecedents, was at present dumb, nor could cries or lamentations extract an answer. To Mrs. Banneret once, indeed, she relented so far as to say, ‘Some day you will know, if to any one I may show gratitude for true friendship and womanly sympathy. In the meantime think of me only as Nurse Lilburne. For your husband I have only done what I would have done for the humblest miner. And may God grant that some day I may be counted worthy to receive payment in kind!’
So they parted on the last day of the Bannerets’ sojourn on the great ‘Last Chance’ goldfield, as it was now called,—famed throughout all Australia as the wonderland of that Far South land which had given so many wonders and surprises to the old world, and to the country which had founded it; which a hundred years from its birth, in peril from starvation, from conquest, from criminal surroundings and ignorant misrepresentation, had established an export trade of many millions, and borne sons who fought shoulder to shoulder with Britain’s best troops in defence of the Empire.
Mrs. Banneret was not the only person on the goldfields who was interested in the story of Nurse Lilburne’s life. So attractive, so exceptional a personage could not long remain in such a community, where the men outnumbered the women in the ratio of at least a hundred to one, without being admired, flattered, besieged, indeed, by importunate suitors who were only too willing to condone her past—whatever it might have been. But to all such approaches she was adamant. She quietly put them by, not coldly or haughtily, but with a nun-like aloofness, as if all matters unconnected with her duties were not only impossible of acceptance, but even of consideration. Even the most ordinary civilities, such as a seat in a buggy or pony cart to the Polo Club matches, or the races connected with the club formed for the encouragement of that fashionable game, were quietly declined, even though proffered by the president, a married man, whose wife had always been most friendly and sympathetic. Jim Allerton, whose tandem was the admiration of all beholders, implored her to honour him by accepting a seat to the ground—the day being brilliant, with a cool breeze—the occasion certain to be historical in years to come; such an opportunity would perhaps never occur again: the Governor of West Australia, with his wife and daughter, were to be present. She smiled graciously, and confessed that she could not have refused such an offer—once upon a time—but now—he must excuse her. Jim retired heartbroken, so he said.