And yet my mood
is so contradictory. If the marriage WERE broken off and he stood
before me, free, and offered himself!--

Could I bring myself to face our future together with all its
depoeticising influences, its almost certainty of friction? No.
Something deep down inside me says--has always said--"It would be a
mistake; this is not the real thing: we are not suited to each other;
the attraction might even turn to repulsion." Imagine the agony of that!

Life goes on here, all dribble, waste and fret--I cannot concentrate, I
cannot paint--the Wave-fairies won't play--Your Bush gobies appeal more
to my present humour. I feel a sort of nostalgia for the wild--though
my nostalgia is mental, and not from any former association. Do not be
surprised if some day you get a telegram saying that I am coming.'

Another sheet.

'Will was married yesterday. I have just read the account of the
ceremony--I can see it all--the usual semi-smart opulent wedding--palms
lining the aisle, Orange blossom galore. The bride "beautiful in cream
satin and old lace"--Evelyn Mary is simply a LUMP--Pages in white
velvet--The fussy overdressed Bagallay crowd of friends--I hear there
are no "in-laws," And the bridegroom's face--dark, cynical--I know the
sort of miserable smile and the queer glitter in his eyes.--"I
WILLOUGHBY TAKE THEE EVELYN MARY... FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE...TILL
DEATH US DO PART "... There! I'm a blathering idiot to mind...I ought
to be dancing with joy at my escape. Let us end the chapter. The
incident is closed, I'm going for a long tramp by the sea and shall
post this on my way.

Your BIDDY.'

CHAPTER 6

Mrs Gildea was too busy in the next two or three weeks to trouble
herself unduly over Lady Bridget O'Hara's tragic love-affair. She had
to report on the small holders of property in Leichardt's Land and made
a trip for that purpose among the free-selectors in her own old
district. The TWENTY YEARS AFTER letter she wrote about this expedition
for THE IMPERIALIST was one of her best, and for that she was greatly
indebted to Colin McKeith's commentaries.

Old associations with him had been vividly reawakened by this visit to
the home of her youth. She remembered, as if it had been yesterday, how
McKeith, a raw youth of eighteen with a horrible tragedy at the back of
his young life, had been picked up by her father and brought to
Bungroopim to learn the work of a cattle-station.... hitherto his
experience, suc