for the specks of gold which more ambitious miners had allowed
to slip through their fingers. The woman had certainly called herself
Mrs. Caldigate, and had been called so by many. But she had afterwards
been called Mrs. Crinkett, when she and Crinkett had combined their
means with the view of buying the Polyeuka mine. She was described
as an enterprising, greedy woman, upon whom the love of gold had had
almost more than its customary effect. And she had for a while been
noted and courted for her success, having been the only female miner
who was supposed to have realised money in these parts. She had been
known to the banks at Nobble, also even at Sydney; and had been
supposed at one time to have been worth twenty or thirty thousand
pounds. Then she had joined herself with Crinkett, and all their
money had been supposed to vanish in the Polyeuka mine. No doubt
there had been enough in that to create animosity of the most bitter
kind against Caldigate. He in his search for gold had been uniformly
successful,--was spoken of among the Nobble miners as the one man who
in gold- digging had never had a reverse. He had gone away just before
the bad time came on Polyeuka; and then had succeeded, after he had
gone, in extracting from these late unfortunate partners of his every
farthing that he had left them! There was ample cause for animosity.

Allan, the minister, who certainly had been at Ahalala, was as certainly
dead. He had gone out from Scotland as a Presbyterian clergyman, and no
doubt had ever been felt as to his being that which he called
himself;--and a letter from him was produced which had undoubtedly been
written by himself. Robert Bolton had procured a photograph of the note
which the woman produced as having been written by Allan to Caldigate.
The handwriting did not appear to him to be the same, but an expert had
given an opinion that they both might have been written by the same
person. Of Dick Shand no tidings had been found. It was believed that he
had gone from Queensland to some of the Islands,--probably to the Fijis;
but he had sunk so low among men as to have left no trace behind him. In
Australia no one cares to know whence a shepherd has come or whither he
goes. A miner belongs to a higher class, and is more considered. The
result of all which was, in the opinion of the Boltons, adverse to John
Caldigate. And in discussing this with his client, Mr. Seely
acknowledged that nothing had as yet come to li