He was
not to go to the gold-fields at all. They were horrid places, where
men got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad
language. He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was
riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a
robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course,
she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get
married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes,
there were delightful things in store for him. But he must be very
good, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly. She was
only a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life. He
must be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his
prayers each night before he went to sleep. God was very good, and
would watch over him. She would pray for him, too, and in a few years
he would come back quite rich and happy.

The lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer. He was heart-sick
at leaving home.

Yet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose.
Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger
of Sibyl's position. This young dandy who was making love to her could
mean her no good. He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated
him through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account,
and which for that reason was all the more dominant within him. He was
conscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature,
and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge
them; sometimes they forgive them.

His mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that
he had brooded on for many months of silence. A chance phrase that he
had heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears
one night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of
horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a
hunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedgelike
furrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip.

"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim," cried Sibyl, "and I
am making the most delightful plans for your future. Do say something."

"What do you want me to say?"

"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us," she answered,
smiling at him.

He shrugged his sh