hink it is done with, Charley. You have lived it down."

Seaforth stretched out his hands and drew her to him. "God bless you,
my dear, but you are wrong," he said, "All I had was yours two years
ago."

It was some little time later when a creaking wagon swung round a bend
of the road, and the bronzed rancher on the driving-seat laughed softly
to himself as he saw Miss Townshead sitting demurely but with downcast
face on one end of the cedar, and Seaforth, who appeared suspiciously
unconcerned, at least six feet away. That was not just how he had seen
them when with the soft dust muffling the rattle of wheels he and his
team came out of the shadows which hung athwart the bend. The wagon
was old and weather-scarred, the harness rudely patched with hide, but
it is possible there was room in the life of strenuous toil the bushman
lived for the romance that brightens everything, and he shouted a
mirthful greeting to them as he whipped his team. Then as the wagon
jolted on out under the sombre archway into the brightness of the sun
there came drifting back to them the refrain of a song. It was one
sung often in the bush of that country at the time, and the two who sat
listening in the green stillness that sunny afternoon grasped the
verity that underlay its crude sentimentality. Shorn of its harshness,
by the distance the voice rang bravely through the thud of hoofs and
rattle, of wheels, and there was in the half-heard words and jingling
rhythm what there was in the sunshine and scent of steaming earth, the
life and hope of the eternal spring.

Seaforth laughed a little as he stretched his hand out to the girl, but
the light which shone back at him from her eyes was softer than that of
mirth.

"I think that man knows what we know," he said. "Come out into the
sunlight. The world is not what it was an hour ago."

They were plodding down the dazzling road, one on either side of the
dusty bicycle under the open sky when he spoke again.

"All this makes me sorry for Harry."

"Yes," said the girl reflectively, for she saw there was more to follow.

Seaforth bent his head. "He has so little now. Hallam has beaten us
all round, and Harry's face takes my sleep away. Everything he hoped
for has been taken from him, and he is lame, you see."

Nellie Townshead glanced at him swiftly. "One would scarcely notice
it. You have something in your mind, Charley."

Seaforth's face was troubled as he answered her. "It