Page:Coo-ee - tales of Australian life by Australian ladies.djvu/115

 MRS. DRUMMOND OF QUONDONG. iii

voice I knew so well. ' Life there has one advantage — you have no time to think.'

'H'm,' said the stranger, as the cab drove on, and evidently speaking aloud unconsciously, — 'got a crumpled rose leaf somewhere,'

I should not have had courage to go to their hotel next morning without some excuse ; but, meeting: Mr. Drummond, he sent me there with a message about a missing trunk that had turned up ; but I did not see her, she was in her room, and I had to give the message by deputy. It did not seem as if I had gained much by my wild ride. It was almost a pity I had not shared poor Sepoy's fate, I thought bitterly, as I turned away from the door.

It was now ten, and at eleven they were to go ; and long before the first bell rang I was down at the steamer. I must see her again ; and though but a little while past I had felt that the game was hardly worth the candle, I would have swum twenty flooded rivers now, rather than miss that last look. At the wharf I met Hope, who had come down, he told me, with Mrs. Creek. ' Had a narrow escape, I hear,' he said. ' Must be more careful another time, my lad. One might find a worse fellow if one tried very hard.'

I thought the Drummonds would never come ; and as I was roaming restlessly about, consumed with an anxious fear that I should not have time to speak to her, I came suddenly on Mrs. Creek, talking, and not in a suppressed tone, to a friend. She stopped abruptly as I came up ; and though the phrase ' over-