and she has cut her forehead terribly
against the table.'

'It doesn't hurt. It isn't anything,' said Mrs. Boulte feebly. 'That
doesn't matter. Tell him what you told me. Say you don't care for him.
Oh, Ted, won't you believe her?'

'Mrs. Boulte has made me understand that you were that you were fond of
her once upon a time,' went on Mrs. Vansuythen.

'Well!' said Kurrell brutally. 'It seems to me that Mrs. Boulte had
better be fond of her own husband first.'

'Stop!' said Mrs. Vansuythen. 'Hear me first. I don't care I don't want
to know anything about you and Mrs. Boulte; but I want you to know that
I hate you, that I think you are a cur, and that I'll never, never speak
to you again. Oh, I don't dare to say what I think of you, you man!'

'I want to speak to Ted,' moaned Mrs. Boulte, but the dog-cart rattled
on, and Kurrell was left on the road, shamed, and boiling with wrath
against Mrs. Boulte.

He waited till Mrs. Vansuythen was driving back to her own house,
and, she being freed from the embarrassment of Mrs. Boulte's presence,
learned for the second time her opinion of himself and his actions.

In the evenings it was the wont of all Kashima to meet at the platform
on the Narkarra Road, to drink tea and discuss the trivialities of
the day. Major Vansuythen and his wife found themselves alone at the
gathering-place for almost the first time in their remembrance; and
the cheery Major, in the teeth of his wife's remarkably reasonable
suggestion that the rest of the Station might be sick, insisted upon
driving round to the two bungalows and unearthing the population.

'Sitting in the twilight!' said he, with great indignation, to the
Boultes. 'That'll never do! Hang it all, we're one family here! You must
come out, and so must Kurrell. I'll make him bring his banjo.'

So great is the power of honest simplicity and a good digestion over
guilty consciences that all Kashima did turn out, even down to the
banjo; and the Major embraced the company in one expansive grin. As he
grinned, Mrs. Vansuythen raised her eyes for an instant and looked at
all Kashima. Her meaning was clear. Major Vansuythen would never know
anything. He was to be the outsider in that happy family whose cage was
the Dosehri hills.

'You're singing villainously out of tune, Kurrell,' said the Major
truthfully. 'Pass me that banjo.'

And he sang in excruciating-wise till the stars came out and all Kashima
went to dinner.

That was the be