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264 You'll not see me again now. I shall not be here to-morrow. Perhaps you will never see me again. I shall make arrangements for leaving this country as soon as may be. I take my fling to night."

"What are you going to do?" she said, still in that dull voice. "I don't understand. Make me understand."

"Make you understand!" he repeated, and laughed. "Yes, I'll make you understand. You know I promised you, the day before you are married. I shall not leave the country till then. Then I shall have the satisfaction of knowing, at least, that you will thank Heaven I had honour enough not to make you my wife."

Again they were silent for a few moments, and the hellish uproar went on, and seemed to them far away. And now somebody else was speaking on the other side of the wattle-clump. It was a voice Elsie recognized as that of Sam Shehan, the stockman. She knew his surly tones. She had been listening to him just before she had spoken against him to Trant. She only caught the concluding words, "All right. I'd better slope now. We shall be there with the horses."

"They're safe planted?" It was a voice she knew too—and yet she could not be sure—it was low, and the whisper was so gruff.

"Down by Holy Joe's waterhole, the old place. What about the Captain. It can't be that he funks this job?"

"Funks! No. It's damned sentiment."

They passed on. Elsie had drawn herself from Blake's arms. She had been recalled to the world. And yet her brain was bewildered. Was it Trant who had spoken? What had he meant? The phrase had struck her, "damned sentiment." Perhaps that was the connection of ideas which made her think of Trant. He had applied it to Blake.

She looked at Blake, and she saw that he, too, had pulled himself together and was standing watchful and alert, and with a set determined look upon his face. "What does it mean?" she asked. "That was your stockman. He is