and Harris had been obliged to go out by himself on the
man-hunt. He did not know the country at the head of the gully, where
he concluded that Wombo was hiding, and lost himself in the gidia
scrub. Thus, he was in a very disagreeable temper, when he at last
arrived at the Bachelors' Quarters.

To Lady Bridget the day passed, and all the seemingly distant noises of
it, like a phantasmagoria of vision, sound, impressions--the echoes of
station activity; the Chinamen's pidgin English as they weeded the
front garden; Tommy Hensor's voice when he brought the cook a nestful
of eggs some vagrant hen had laid in the grass-tussocks, the men going
forth with the tailing-mob--and at intervals the scorching recollection
of that hinted scandal concerning Colin and Mrs Hensor of which Maule
had told her.... Horrible... unbelievable... and yet....

Then, after a long while, with lucid breaks in the dreamy stupor, she
heard the roar of Ninnis' incoming mob of wild cattle from the range.
She could even wonder whether he had been able to muster that herd of
five hundred or so for the sale-yards. She knew that her husband was
counting upon the sale of these beasts--probably at 6 pounds a head--to
enable him to fight the drought, by a speedy sinking of artesian bores.
She felt herself reasoning quite collectedly on this subject, until the
roar of beasts turned into the roar of the mighty Atlantic, breaking
against the cliffs below Castle Gaverick.... She saw the green
waves--real as the heaving backs of the cattle--alive, leaping.... And
she herself seemed tossed on their crest... she saw and felt the cool
embrace of the wave-fairies she had once tried to paint for Joan
Gildea's book.... Oh! she had never fully appreciated the strength of
that now inappeasable longing for the Celtic home, the Celtic
traditions which had been born in her. She had never known how much she
loved Castle Gaverick... how much she loathed the muggy heat, the flies
and the mosquitoes now brought by last night's rain, the fierce glare
beating upon the veranda, the sun-motes dancing on the boards....

The appearance late that evening of Mrs Hensor, who having heard the
mistress was ill, had come down partly from curiosity, partly from
genuine humanity to see what might be amiss, was the next thing that
roused Lady Bridget from her fever-lethargy.

'Maggie told me you'd been out in the rain last night, and had caught
cold, and I thought Mr McKeith would wish me