e Gulf way that I've always been a bit sorry I
didn't stop and look into. But rations were short and the Blacks
bad.... However, that's neither here nor there, now. Gold mine or not,
I'm positive that I shall be a rich man before many years have
passed--all the richer for a true mate to stand by me.'

'Yes, of course,' she said hastily--'I wasn't thinking of that--whether
you were rich or not, I mean.'

'I know you weren't. All the same, I suppose your grand relations would
consider me a presumptuous boor for daring to lift my eyes to you. And
yet, if I could make you love me, it wouldn't count for a blade of
grass that your father was born in a castle and mine in a crofter's
cabin.... Only--you know too--' he became timid and hesitant
again--'you know it isn't that I don't feel you as far above me,
almost, as those stars in the sky....'

'Oh don't, don't, Mr McKeith. It isn't true, you know. I've told you
how I despise all that--all the life I've led.'

'Yes, I know. There's not such a difference between us when we stand as
we are now, right on the bed rock. You're like me in having a strain of
working-folk's blood in you. It's Nature you're hankering after--God's
sweet air and the breath of the gum trees and freedom for your soul.'

'Freedom for my soul! How strange that you should understand.'

'I understand better than you might think. You want more than freedom
to make you content. You want a kind of bondage that is the truest
freedom--Love--a strong man's love, a strong man's worship. And that's
what I'd give you, Bridget. Are you angry with me for saying it?'

'No.' She turned her face straight to him without any shadow of
embarrassment. 'Mr McKeith, I'm too honest to pretend that I didn't
half expect this. I felt you were beginning to care for me, and I was
wondering whether I ought to let you go on.'

'Whether you ought to let me! As if you would be able to hinder it!
Why, you couldn't stop me loving you. You might as well try to dam up
the river Leichardt with this little hand I'm holding.'

She would have withdrawal it, but could not.

'No, no. It isn't strong enough--this tiny, trembling hand, which I
could break to bits in mine if I wanted to. And could you prevent me
from taking you in my arms--you wee great lady--and carrying you right
away--away, out into the Bush where I'm on my own ground and where not
one of your swell men folk would have a chance to find you.'

'I don't think any one of t