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326 "You loved me," she repeated, as if the assurance brought her comfort.

"You knew it," he cried. "Did I not tell you so the night of the corroboree? I told you that I loved you when you were bound to another man—I waited for that; so that there might be no faintest glimmer of hope for me; no possibility of temptation."

"For either of us," she added, deliberately.

"Elsie," he exclaimed, "it is not possible that you can love me now that you know everything?"

She was silent for a few moments. When she spoke it was in a changed tone.

"Tell me how it was that you became Moonlight."

"By an accident; the discovery of this place. Some good people say that there is no such thing as fate. Do you believe them? One would find it hard to think that a beneficent Providence led me here. It was one of those strange chances which seemed almost an impossibility. Why should I, of all people in the world, have stumbled upon this inaccessible spot?"

"How was it?"

"We were travelling overland to Leichardt's Town. I had heard of this wild bit of country, and of the reports of gold, and Trant had fallen in with Pompo, who agreed to pilot us. I must tell you that Trant has an extraordinary influence over Pompo. He can hypnotize a little, and used to be fond of trying it with the Kabyles. He tried it on Pompo, who firmly believes that Trant is Debil-debil incarnate. Perhaps that has shaken his belief in the Blacks' Debil-debil, and reconciled him to our invasion of the sacred Bora grounds."

Blake laughed. Elsie laughed too, but so drearily. Neither spoke for a few moments. He was watching her intently. "You have had a bad time," he said abruptly. "You are much thinner, and you are terribly pale; and your face is so sad, so unlike the face of that bright, beautiful, unconscious Elsie whom I met at the creek-side not so many months ago. You have suffered."