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102 and surprise change into anger as he looked at her.

"What an infernal cheek you had to come! Who sent you?" he asked stormily.

She told him, and added that she had no intention of remaining.

"How old?" She made no reply. His last thrust, as in disgust he strode out, had the effect of a galvanic bakery on her dying body.

Her bedroom was recking with a green heavy scent. Empty powder-boxes and rouge-pots littered the dressing-table, and various other aids to nature evidenced her predecessor's frailty. From a coign in its fastness a black spider eyed her malignantly, and as long as the light lasted she watched it.

The ringing of a bell slung outside in the fork of a tree awoke her before dawn. It was mustering—bush stocktaking—and all the stationhands were astir. There was a noise of galloping horses being driven into the stockyard, and the clamour of the men as they caught and saddled them. Above the clatter of plates in the kitchen she could hear the affected drawl of the Chinaman talking to Lizer. She trod heavily along the passage, preparing the boss's breakfast. This early