now. Your outfit is not so beautiful as it used to be."

"Don't chaff me."

"Don't be so funereal, then."

Under the Honourable's matter of fact air Sir Duke's face began to
clear. "Tell me, do you think she still cares for me?"

"Well, I don't know. She's rich now--got the grandmother's stocking.
Then there's Pedley, of the Scots Guards; he has been doing loyal
service for a couple of years. What does the letter say?"

"It only tells the truth, as you have told it to me, but from her
standpoint; not a word that says anything but beautiful reproach and
general kindness. That is all."

"Quite so. You see it was all four years ago, and Pedley--"

But the Honourable paused. He had punished his friend enough. He stepped
forward and laid his hand on Sir Duke's shoulder. "Duke, you want to
pick up the threads where they were dropped. You dropped them. Ask me
nothing about the ends that Emily Dorset held. I conspire no more.
But go you and learn your fate. If one remembers, why should the other
forget?"

Sir Duke's light heart and eager faith came back with a rush. "I'll
start for England at once. I'll know the worst or the best of it before
three months are out." The Honourable's slow placidity turned.

"Three months.--Yes, you may do it in that time. Better go from Victoria
to San Francisco and then overland. You'll not forget about my hunting
traps, and--oh, certainly, Gordineer; come in."

"Say," said Gordineer. "I don't want to disturb the meeting, but Shon's
in chancery somehow; breathing like a white pine, and thrashing about!
He's red-hot with fever."

Before he had time to say more, Sir Duke seized the candle and entered
the room. Shon was moving uneasily and suppressing the groans that shook
him. "Shon, old friend, what is it?"

"It's the pain here, Lawless," laying his hand on his chest.

After a moment Sir Duke said, "Pneumonia!"

From that instant thoughts of himself were sunk in the care and thought
of the man who in the heart of Queensland had been mate and friend and
brother to him. He did not start for England the next day, nor for many
a day.

Pretty Pierre and Jo Gordineer and his party carried Sir Duke's letters
over into the Pipi Valley, from where they could be sent on to the
coast. Pierre came back in a few days to see how Shon was, and expressed
his determination of staying to help Sir Duke, if need be.

Shon hovered between life and death. It was not alone the pneumonia that
racked