her brother's.

His face now showed compassion. He stooped and kissed her cheek. And it
seemed to me at that moment that she could not be gladder than I.

"Agnes," he said, "can you forgive me?"

"He was only a stock-rider," she murmured, as if to herself, "but he
was well-born. I loved him. You were angry. I went away with him in the
night ... far away to the north. God was good--" Here she brushed her
lips tenderly across the curls of the child. "Then the drought came and
sickness fell and... death... and I was alone with my baby--"

His lips trembled and his hand was hurting my arm, though he knew it
not.

"Where could I go?" she continued.

Glenn answered pleadingly now: "To your unworthy brother, God bless you
and forgive me, dear!--though even here at Winnanbar there is drought
and famine and the cattle die."

"But my little one shall live!" she cried joyfully. That night Glenn of
Winnanbar was a happy man, for rain fell on the land, and he held his
sister's child in his arms.

THE PLANTER'S WIFE

I

She was the daughter of a ruined squatter, whose family had been pursued
with bad luck; he was a planter, named Houghton. She was not an uncommon
woman; he was not an unusual man. They were not happy, they might never
be; he was almost sure they would not be; she had long ceased to think
they could be. She had told him when she married him that she did not
love him. He had been willing to wait for her love, believing that by
patience and devotion he could win it. They were both sorry for each
other now. They accepted things as they were, but they knew there was
danger in the situation. She loved some one else, and he knew it, but he
had never spoken to her of it--he was of too good stuff for that. He
was big and burly, and something awkward in his ways. She was pretty,
clear-minded, kind, and very grave. There were days when they were both
bitter at heart. On one such day they sat at luncheon, eating little,
and looking much out of the door across the rice fields and banana
plantations to the Hebron Mountains. The wife's eyes fixed on the hills
and stayed. A road ran down the hill towards a platform of rock which
swept smooth and straight to the sheer side of the mountain called White
Bluff. At first glance it seemed that the road ended at the cliff--a
mighty slide to destruction. Instead, however, of coming straight to the
cliff it veered suddenly, and ran round the mountain side, coming down
at