of his marriage, would visit Calypso Downs
occasionally and give her news of him; also that they could correspond
by the same medium.

Thus matters stood between them for some months, till Kate, wearying to
meet the cold, calculating Ballantyne, adopted the device of riding over
late every Sunday afternoon to Mulliner's for the mail, instead of her
father sending over one of his black boys.

But instead of meeting her with kisses, Ballantyne terrified her with
savage reproaches. It was madness, he said, for her to run such a risk.
By and by he would be in a better position; at present he was as poor
as a rat, and it was best for them to be apart. And Kate, thoroughly
believing in him, bent to his will. She knew that her father was, as
Ballantyne thoughtfully observed, such a violent-tempered old man that
he would cast her off utterly unless he was "managed" properly when he
learnt of her marriage.

"And don't come down this way from Mulliner's," added the careful
Ballantyne. "There's an old mail tin, about a mile or so away from here,
near the worked-out alluvial patch. You can always drop a letter in
there for me. Haughton's such a good-natured ass that he'll play Mercury
for you. Anyway, I'll send him to look in the tin every Sunday night."

That, so far, was the history of Mr. and Mrs. Ballantyne.

*****

"Another duffing crushing," muttered Haughton, as he stooped and placed
his hand into the bucket of quicksilver under the nozzle of the retort
pipe. "What between a reef that doesn't pan out five pennyweights to the
ton, and a woman that pans out too rich, I'm sick of the cursed place."

As he stood up again, and, hands on his hips, looked moodily into the
fire, a woman came down the rough path leading from Ballantyne's house
to the battery. Walking quickly across the lighted space that intervened
between the blacksmith's forge and the fire, she placed a billy of tea
on the brick furnace-wall, and then turned her handsome black-browed,
gipsy-like face up to his. This was Nell Lawson, the woman who had
"panned out too rich."

"Here's your tea, Dick," she said.

"Thanks," he said, taking it from her, and then with a quick look over
towards the battery, "I wish you wouldn't call me 'Dick' when any of the
hands are about; Lawson might hear of it, and I don't want you to get
into any trouble over me."

The black eyes sparkled, and the smooth olive-hued features flushed
darkly in the firelight as she grasped