--as almost everybody else did--and, as far as
the girl was concerned, I think it was a case of love at first sight.
They only knew each other for about six months, and were only 'courting'
(as they called it then) for three or four months altogether, but she
was that sort of girl that can love a man for six weeks and lose him for
ever, and yet go on loving him to the end of her life--and die with his
name on her lips.

"Well, things were brightening up every way for Tom, and he and his
sweetheart were beginning to talk about their own little home in future,
when there came a letter from the 'Madeline' girl in New South Wales.

"She was in terrible trouble. Her baby was to be born in a month. Her
people had kicked her out, and she was in danger of starving. She begged
and prayed of him to come back and marry her, if only for his child's
sake. He could go then, and be free; she would never trouble him any
more--only come and marry her for the child's sake.

"The Oracle doesn't know where he lost that letter, but I do. It was
burnt afterwards by a woman, who was more than a mother to him in his
trouble--Aunt Bob. She thought he might carry it round with the rest of
his papers, in his swag, for years, and come across it unexpectedly when
he was camped by himself in the bush and feeling dull. It wouldn't have
done him any good then.

"He must have fought the hardest fight in his life when he got that
letter. No doubt he walked to and fro, to and fro, all night, with his
hands behind him, and his eyes on the ground, as he does now sometimes.
Walking up and down helps you to fight a thing out.

"No doubt he thought of things pretty well as he thinks now: the poor
girl's shame on every tongue, and belled round the district by every hag
in the township; and she looked upon by women as being as bad as any
man who ever went to Bathurst in the old days, handcuffed between two
troopers. There is sympathy, a pipe and tobacco, a cheering word, and,
maybe, a whisky now and then, for the criminal on his journey; but
there is no mercy, at least as far as women are concerned, for the
poor foolish girl, who has to sneak out the back way and round by back
streets and lanes after dark, with a cloak on to hide her figure.

"Tom sent what money he thought he could spare, and next day he went to
the girl he loved and who loved him, and told her the truth, and showed
her the letter. She was only a girl--but the sort of girl you COULD go
t