Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/219



OM McNAIR has come back to God's country once more, this time bringing a wife with him, the late Miss Katherine Dowling. Tom has had a bit of hard luck in the East, but says he will be all right soon. Good luck to the newly-weds."

To Clare Hamel the news of Tom's marriage had come as a crushing blow. Even his accident paled into insignificance beside it. And she got small comfort at home.

"I never did think you'd land him," her mother said. "He's too slippery. But this girl won't hold him either, if that's any comfort to you."

It did comfort her, vaguely.

"Why won't she, mom?"

"She's a Dowling. She's cold," said Mrs. Hamel, turning a pork chop with her fork. "And she's hard; they all are. Not that Tom's any feather bed," she added.

Hope, which had been dead in Clare, lifted its head again. Her mother had a fund of good common sense. Tom would live with this girl for a while, tire of her, and then

It was mid-June when Kay and Tom McNair came home, and the hot summer of the semi-arid country was well advanced.

Except on the high peaks where the snow lay the year round, the white patches up above in the range which had persisted through May had already disappeared. But although the snow was gone the creeks were still full. They came roaring down from their mountains turbulent and free, only to be captured, turned into conduit, high-line ditch or low-lying trench and fed to the thirsty land. Then, their youth thus spent, their joyousness departed, depleted by their travail of grain and grass, they moved on sedately on their two-thousand mile journey to the sea, carrying