CHAPTER XV
And even as Ess installed herself as sick nurse at the Ridge there was being enacted over at the township another sick-bed scene, which was still closer bound up with the threads of her own life.
Mrs. Durgan was sinking fast. The doctor had been called in hot haste, and the woman’s child was born, and died, and the mother walked with faltering steps on the very brink of death.
She still lay in the bedroom of the house next the police station, and the trooper’s wife was still attending her. The doctor had told her that the end was very near, that there was not the slightest hope, and that he must go now. So he left her there, and went out and strapped his instrument case to the saddle, and mounted and rode down the quiet dusty street, to carry himself and his skill and his instruments for long miles across parched plain and hardly discernible tracks, to where some other sufferer was patiently waiting the relief he rode so hard with.
And although the lake-level plains, with the mirage gleaming on the horizon, and the pleasantly cool trees and bushes all looking innocent and peaceful enough, there was no doctor, whoever tended the wounded under fire or carried a stricken soldier back into the friendly shelter of the trenches, who faced a greater risk or took more chances with his life than this rough out-back doctor in the wide-brimmed hat and the red-dusty clothes.
If the horse he rode put its foot in one of the rabbit holes that riddled the plains; if he dismounted to walk and stretch his saddle-weary limbs, and the horse broke away and left him; even if he strayed off the track, which was so faint that a man who was not a bushman would examine the ground for it in vain, the patient out there might wait and wonder why the doctor hadn’t come when he promised, and suppose that some more urgent case had detained him. And if the doctor were missed in time, and the black trackers laid on, and no rain came to wash out his tracks, and no dust storm blew over them and hid them, he might be found alive – or dead. But in a country where the sheep tanks are the only water within hundreds of miles; where the same tanks are merely holes scooped in the plain, with nothing to mark them until you are right on them; where an ordinary paddock is ten miles across, and you may walk forty miles round the fence and see no soul, and have to cross into the next paddock and repeat the walk; where the sun is beating down like iron flails; where the ground underfoot is hot enough to burn the soles of the boots off the heat-rotted stitches; where every drawn breath dries the moisture out of a man’s body, the man who is lost and without water does not walk far or live long.
So a doctor in the back country has to be a bush man who can find an unerring way by dark or light, a rider who, when his own horse is knocked up, must be able and willing to sit any half-broken brute he can pick up, or at a pinch swim a flooded river “running a banker,” with whirling tree trunks and drowned bullocks to add to the hazard, as well as a man brave enough to count life and death risks as nothing worth the counting; who on every round he makes must ride, with his own life in the hollow of his hands and the strength of his knee-grip, to keep the flame of life alive in other people; and, lastly, a man who has body strength and endurance to sit in the saddle, to ride, to walk, to drive, or to swim through a long day; on again through the night, and, if need be and the case is urgent enough, to take the road and start over again. A doctor is a doctor, but in the outside country he is a great deal more – or he is a great deal less.
So the doctor left Mrs. Durgan, first, because he could do no more for her, and second, because at the end of some of those long miles there was someone else he could do perhaps everything for.
And Mrs. Dan Mulcahy saw him go and went back to the death-bedside to do her little best to carry out his orders and ease the sufferer over the end – as women so often have to do in the outside country.
Mrs. Durgan was lying still, breathing noisily, and white to the lips, that were tinted pale blue. Only her fingers were never still, and plucked at the coverlet and twisted themselves ceaselessly. Mrs. Dan wiped the perspiration from the damp forehead, and moistened the tight-drawn lips, and took her seat beside the bed.
Now and again she slipped noiselessly from the room and pushed a pot on the fire, or pulled it back and threw a billet of wood on. And when the trooper, her husband, came in, bringing the sergeant with him to dinner, she served the meal, and took her own with her, and went back to the sick room and closed the door, so that the murmur of voices should not disturb the woman.
And presently the sick woman opened her eyes and lay looking steadily at the roof over her, and Mrs. Dan saw the light of reason again in the eyes that had looked blank as the shuttered windows of an empty house for days and nights on end.
“She will recover consciousness just before the end,” the doctor had said. “Give her a spoonful of this, and she may speak and tell all she can before she goes.”
The trooper’s wife moved quietly, but very quickly, to the door, and opened it and beckoned to the two men, and laid her fingers on her lips as a sign for silence. And the two rose and slipped the boots from their feet, and in stocking soles crept into the room and took their stand behind the screen that was placed close beside the bed, and between it and the door, while Mrs. Dan brought the medicine and held it to the woman’s lips.
“Drink this,” she said gently. “It will help you and make it easier.”
The woman swallowed. “I’m goin’, ain’t I?” she said calmly; and Mrs. Dan whispered “Yes,” for in “the outside” men and women are more used to the thought of facing death than the people of the cities are, and there is not held to be the same need to lie to them and cheat them about their end.
“The baby?” asked the woman.
“It died,” said Mrs. Dan.
“Died?” said the woman. “Dead – he’s …” she caught back the word. “Seems like I bin sayin’ that a lot o’ times,” she said. “I remember now – he’s dead, an’ how he was – killed.”
The two men behind the screen exchanged swift glances, and the sergeant busied himself with the pencil. And Mrs. Dan knew what they were doing, and she thought of Steve, and how her husband believed his guilt even against his own wishes, and she could hardly bring her tongue to frame the questions that would bring the guilt home to the man who had been a friend to her and hers, or declare him innocent and free.
“You saw it done?” she said at last. “Can you tell me who did it?”
The woman slowly turned her eyes – the strength to turn her head was gone from her, even as the strength to speak was going like running water.
“You sure I’m goin’?” she asked, and again Mrs. Dan said “Yes.” “No mistake – no hope,” persisted the woman, and Mrs. Dan shook her head. “Please tell me if you can,” she said, “before it is too late. You haven’t long now, and you may lift the guilt from an innocent man.”
“I’m glad o’ that,” said the woman, “for I’m goin’ where I s’pose I’ll pay for it. I killed him myself.”
The horror of the thing gripped the trooper’s wife like a hand on her throat, shutting off her speech. Then she thought of Steve, and joy lifted the hand. “You did it yourself?” she repeated clearly, so that behind the screen there could be no mistake.
“Yes,” said the woman. “Gi’ me another sip from that bottle, an’ I’ll tell you.” Mrs. Dan gave her the sip – and wiped her lips.
“I heard him comin’ that night,” said the woman, speaking clearly, but with gasping efforts. “I went to let him in – an’ I gave him the rough o’ my tongue. He spoke back – an’ said he could go’n find another woman – who’d speak decent to ’im. It made me mad – an’ the child comin’ an’ all. I picked up the broom beside the door an’ hit ’im an’ knocked ’is ’at off, an’ hit ’im again… He fell off the steps, an’ when I went to pick ’im up, his head lolled, limp an’ slack-like, same as I’ve seen a rabbit’s when its neck was broke… His neck was broke, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Dan, mechanically, “his neck was broke.”
“Ah… I knowed I was right,” said the woman, with curious complacency. “Well, I didn’t … break it … did I? I only hit ’im light like… He broke it hisself, didn’t … he?”
And those were the last words she spoke.
“Did you get it all down?” asked Mrs. Dan, eagerly, when she came again to the next room.
“We got it all,” said the sergeant. “You might read this through and sign it, if you think it’s same as you heard.”
Mrs. Dan read it, and signed her name beneath the sergeant’s and her husband’s, and bundled him out forthwith to send a telegram away to headquarters.
“And tell everybody you meet,” she commanded. “God forgive me, if it’s a sin to feel glad, with the poor creatur lying there in the next room, but if it is I can’t help it. When can we get word to – to Thunder Ridge, Dan? I want them to know first minute they can. They was all so sure it wasn’t Steve Knight. And who was right about that same – me or you?” she finished triumphantly.
“You were right,” said Dan, soberly, “an’ it’s meself was never so glad to own it.”
“I’ll have to ride out to the Ridge and call the men in,” said the sergeant. “It’s been an out-an-out wild-goose chase, hasn’t it? Wonder what that thick-headed fool wanted to bolt for, and make all this fuss.”
“An’ wasn’t it a wise man he was to bolt?” said Mrs. Dan, defiantly, “when my own husband, that knows him well, went firing off his pistol at him, an’ believed up to the minute the poor woman spoke that it was Steve that did it. I’m a policeman’s wife myself, an’ well I know the police would have held him guilty an’ helped to hang him if you’d caught him, an’ the woman hadn’t had the strength an’ the wits to speak the truth with the last breath out of her lips.”
“Well, well,” admitted the sergeant, “it looked black enough, I’ll admit, an’ I suppose some men have swung for less evidence.”
When the sergeant brought the word to Thunder Ridge, there was no one about the place except the cook, Aleck Gault, and Ess. Aleck had been moved over to the house and into Ess’s room, while she took possession of her uncle’s camp bed in the outer room, and sent him off to sleep in the bunkhouse with the men.
When the sergeant rode up, he saw Blazes, and told him the news, and Blazes came over to the house hot foot to retail it.
Ess met him at the outer door, and seeing his wild excitement, motioned him to caution. “Aleck is asleep,” she said. “He had rather a bad night, and I don’t want to disturb him.”
“The John ’Op sergeant ’as just brought word, Miss – ’e didn’t do it – the woman’s confessed. Ain’t that great? We’ll ’ave ’im back in no time mark my words. An’ won’t we give ’im the Long Yell, neither – ”
“But who didn’t do what, and who’ll be back?” interrupted Ess.
“Eh, wot? Why, Steve didn’t. We knowed it all along, o’ course, but there’s the cussed Johns chasin’ ’im over the ’ills, an’ a warren out to arrest ’im – an’ wot for? Wot for? For a thing ’e’d no more to do with than I ’ad. It’s a cussed shame. It’s a disgrace to the country.” Blazes was beginning to work himself into a violent passion. “Who the – I mean who are they to go chivvyin’ a man? I’ll go ’n give that sergeant – ”
“Wait a minute, Blazes,” cried Ess. “You haven’t told me anything about it, except that Steve didn’t do it.”
Blazes dropped his rage and apologised, and then gave her the whole story. It was a little confused, and Ess walked over and interviewed the sergeant herself.
When Aleck woke she gave him his broth, and quietly asked him if he could hear some good news without getting excited.
But the words had barely left her lips when Aleck struck in, “About Steve? They’ve caught the man who did it? Tell me quickly, please.”
“His wife did it herself,” said Ess. “It was more or less an accident. They quarrelled, and he fell off the steps and broke his neck. The woman confessed to striking him, and then she died.”
Aleck dropped back on the pillows he had raised himself from. “Lord, Miss Ess, if you only knew how good that sounds to me.” His face was glowing and his voice thrilled with pleasure. “I’ll see him soon. He’ll come the minute he can, especially if he hears I’m hurt. Steve – Lord – Stevie lad, won’t I shake the hand off him.”
“You must be quiet and not talk too much,” warned Ess. “You know it’s bad for you to get excited.”
“Tell me everything about it, please, then,” he pleaded, “every scrap. I’d rather have had this than – ” he broke off and tried to steady his voice, and Ess saw a suspicion of tears in his eyes. His emotion moved her to the heart, and she turned and pretended to busy herself about the room, telling him all the particulars the sergeant had given her.
“Thank you,” he said. “You mustn’t mind me getting worked up like this over it, please. I’m an awful kid about Stevie, you know. I feel as if I could howl like a kid, though why Heaven knows – ’tisn’t anything to howl about, is it? This leg must be weakening my intellect.”
Ess noticed the flush of fever in his cheeks, and tried to calm him. “It’s no good,” he declared; “I’ve got to talk, or I’ll bust. You imagine if it was Ned that had been blamed for this, and what you’d feel like if you heard he was cleared of every suspicion of it. Well, Stevie’s more to me than a man is to a girl – yes, I know you’ll grin at that, but you don’t rightly know what men are to each other out here. He’s my mate – we’re mates, and good mates. The marriage service says something about the pair forsaking all to cleave to each other. But it doesn’t say a man must forsake his mate. They’d have to alter the marriage service for us out here if it did – a man with a mate wouldn’t stand for it.” He went on talking and laughing excitedly, till at last Ess said, “Aleck, I’m sure it’s bad for you to talk so much. Now stop, or I’ll go away and leave you to talk to the flies.”
He laughed happily. “All right, Miss Boss, I’ll dry up. But I’d like to write a note to Steve – no, never mind though, he’ll understand without that, and he’ll be here just as hard as a horse can hammer across the Toss-Up track when he hears I’m crippled. And don’t you worry about me being excited. ’Tisn’t near as bad for me as lying here fretting my soul to fiddle-strings wondering if he was all right, and if he’d need me and I couldn’t go. I was going to clear out and join him, and help him get away, too, soon as he was fit to travel.”
“Fit to travel?” said Ess, slowly.
“Yes,” said Aleck. “Soon as his wounds healed up.” He stopped abruptly and looked at her. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that. He said not to, and we agreed it might worry you for nothing.”
Ess felt a curious sense of sickness stealing over her. She remembered again the haggard look in Steve’s face.
“When was he hurt?” she asked as steadily as she could. “And what – was it anything serious?”
“He fell just after he left here,” said Aleck, “and he cut himself, and I fancy cracked a rib or two. Nothing much if he could have laid up and had the things tended properly. But he’d no bandages and little water – he’d to be careful about going near water you see, knowing the trackers would be watching there – and the things got inflamed and so on. And scrambling about on his feet didn’t help.”
So he had been wounded and suffering when she met him, Ess thought, and he had never said a word, and – and she had struck him – struck her whip across his face. She shivered. Then she remembered that woman in the hut and hardened her heart. “But wasn’t someone looking after him?” she asked. “You know you said he was in good hands.”
“Yes,” said Aleck, “I fixed that.”
“You —you fixed it?” she said breathlessly. “How did you – who was it – ”
“Steady, steady, Miss Ess,” said Aleck. “I’m talking too much. I shouldn’t have said as much, perhaps. But do you know,” he went on, looking curiously at her, “I was ass enough to think once – you don’t mind my saying it to you? I wouldn’t to anyone else – that you were rather fond of Stevie and – well, I was surprised when I heard about you and Ned.”
“I was – fond – of him, Aleck,” she said a trifle jerkily. “But – well, you know I’m to marry Ned.”
Aleck grunted.
“Was it a girl was looking after him?” she said, trying to speak carelessly.
“I’d much rather you didn’t ask me anything about that, Miss Ess,” said Aleck. “I shouldn’t have spoken of it at all, perhaps. I’ve no right to speak of what is really Steve’s business. You mustn’t mind my saying so.”
“Of course not,” she said.
After a little she said, “Aleck, if Steve comes he’ll be able to look after you, so I think I’ll go down to Coolongolong for a bit. Mr. Sinclair has often asked me, and I’d like to go – I’ve never seen it yet. They tell me they have a bit of irrigated land, and a garden, and some green trees. I’m dying to see something cool and fresh and green again.”
Aleck was tempted to object strongly, but he caught a glimpse of her face, and suddenly saw that she was looking pale and worn.
“Good notion,” he said briskly. “I’m all right now, and Steve’ll see to me all right. When will you go?”
“Well, when do you think Steve will be here?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” said Aleck. “Soon as he hears he’s clear, I suppose. When did that woman confess to it?”
“This morning,” said Ess. “The sergeant came straight out.”
“Then Steve would most likely hear late to-night,” said Aleck. “He’d have to go down to the township and get a horse, and he’ll be over to-morrow morning, I expect.”
“Mr. Sinclair is to be up to-night or to-morrow morning,” said Ess. “So I think I might go back with him.”
As soon as she could she went off and feverishly packed a few things. She was in a panic at the thought of meeting Steve, and determined if possible to steal away before he came.
Perhaps he would not come. Surely he would be ashamed to meet her after their last meeting. But she remembered again – and flushed with a little spark of anger again at the memory – his mocking speech and laughter at their parting. Very likely he would come, if only out of sheer bravado. She clenched her hands angrily, and wondered if it would not be cowardly to run away from him, although if she stayed it would be difficult, if not impossible, to treat him as if nothing had ever happened, and others might remark her behaviour if she deliberately avoided speaking to him, as she felt she would have to do.
She hesitated long, and fought the thing out with herself, and finally decided that she would wait till he came, would treat him with indifference, and make it very plain to him that he was nothing and less than nothing to her, and then go down to the station, and so get away.
She went back and told Aleck that she had decided to wait until she could hand over her nurse-ship.
CHAPTER XVI
As it happened, they were all very near having to wait in vain for Steve to come to the Ridge. He was not down into the township until a couple of days after it was known how Durgan’s death had come about, and when he did make an appearance, everyone remarked how bitter and cynical he was over their congratulations. They noticed, however, how desperately ill and worn he looked, and when it was known that he had seen the doctor, and was suffering from wounds and a resulting touch of fever, his odd manner was put down to that.
As a matter of fact, it was Steve’s heart and mind that were feeling hurt more than his body, although that was still painful enough. The doctor had told him that the ribs were not broken, but severely bruised, that he had had a very narrow escape of serious trouble from the inflamed and festering wounds on his chest, but that these were beginning to heal nicely now. He went to the police station, and met with the heartiest of welcomes from both Dan and Mrs. Dan, and Dan asked him bluntly why he had not gone over to the Ridge.
“Don’t think I’ll go there,” said Steve, indifferently. “I’m thinking of taking the coach down country to-morrow. I’d like to see Aleck Gault first, though, and I might wait here and send him a note to come in and see me.”
“But haven’t ye heard?” said Dan, in astonishment “Aleck is laid up wid a broke leg. We all heard it a couple o’ days back, an’ niver thought to be after mentionin’ it, seem’ it’s stale news it was.”
“Aleck’s leg broke,” said Steve. “That’s a different matter. I’ll get a horse to-night and ride over.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” said Mrs. Dan, emphatically. “You’ll get a buggy and drive, or get someone to drive you, with that side an’ chest o’ yours.”
Steve laughed at her. “I don’t sit in the saddle on my side and chest, Mrs. Trooper Mulcahy,” he said. “What’s the difference to ride or drive? And, anyhow, I’m itching to feel a horse under me again.”
“It makes the difference that you might get trouble wi’ those wounds again,” said Mrs. Dan. “You said yourself that the doctor wanted you to go to bed wi’ them.”
“And I told him to go to his granny,” said Steve. “As if I cared a curse for all his blood-poisoning threats. What’s the odds to anyone if I do get poisoned, or anything else?”
“Steve,” said Mrs. Dan, looking hard at him, “what’s the matter wi’ you these days? You’re hard as a flint an’ bitter as aloes. It might be crossed in love you are.”
Steve winced, but he laughed loudly.
“I am,” he said; “I’m a disappointed man. I’ve found out I’m up to the neck in love with yourself, you dear. Come on now – will you mount and ride and run away with me?”
“Ye impident scoundril,” cried Dan; “it’s meself that’s sorry I didn’t shoot ye through the liver whin I’d the chanst.”
“I’ll reserve that offer, Steve,” said Mrs. Dan, lightly. But her sharp eyes had noted Steve’s flinching at the word of being crossed in love. “Danny,” she said, “run away for a bit. I want Steve to have a chance to make love to me nicely.”
“Faith, it’s little enough givin’ av chances he needs. But so be it happens I have to walk down the street a piece. I’ll be back in tin minutes,” and he rose and went. “What’s the little woman afther now, I wonder?” he said to himself. “If she hasn’t wheedled an’ coaxed the boy into somethin’ or out av it in tin minutes, it’s meself doesn’t know her.”
“Steve,” said Mrs. Dan, the moment they were alone, “tell me right out what’s the matter with you.”
“Well, the doctor said it – ” Steve began, but was interrupted quickly. “If it’s something you can’t or won’t tell, Steve, say so an’ we’ll drop it. I can see it’s a girl. Now?”
Steve dropped his bantering tones. “Yes – it’s a girl. And what then? There’s many to tell you that’s no new thing with Fly-by-Night.”
“It’s a new thing for Fly-by-Night to be breakin’ his heart over one,” said Mrs. Dan. “Who is she, Stevie? Can you tell me?”
“No, I can’t,” he said. “You always told me, didn’t you, that I’d find her some day – the girl I’d be ready to sell my soul for? Well, I’ve found her – and lost her.”
“Lost her?” repeated Mrs. Dan. “Is she dead?”
“Dead? No.”
“Married then?”
“No, nor married.”
“Then don’t be a fool,” said Mrs. Dan, scornfully. “A race isn’t lost till it’s won, I’ve heard, and a girl isn’t lost till she’s married or dead – and sometimes not even when she’s married – if you read the Divorce Court cases.”
“If I know anything about women, I’ve lost this time,” said Steve.
“It’s the man that thinks he knows the most about women that’s usually the easiest fooled about one woman,” said Mrs. Dan, quickly. “So don’t be a fool, Steve; go an’ make the girl have you. You’ve quarrelled, I suppose?”
“You might say so,” said Steve, grimly; “and we both said some fairly nasty things. And I’ve a bitter tongue if I lose my temper badly.”
“I’ve no patience wi’ you,” said Mrs. Dan; “it isn’t the bitter things a man says that a girl minds so much – it’s the sweet things he doesn’t say. Go and say as many of them as your tongue and your sense – or your lack o’ sense might even be better – will let you, and she’ll forget the bitter things fast enough. Could you forgive her what she said?”
“I don’t know,” said Steve, slowly. “She doubted me and refused the word of honour I offered her. I couldn’t go to her, and that standing between us.”
“And if that’s not like a man,” cried Mrs. Dan. “He’d see a girl eat her heart out because she won’t eat her words, and he’d eat his out rather than eat humble pie.”
“She’s engaged to another man,” said Steve.
“I’ve no doubt,” said Mrs. Dan, serenely; “and just as quick after you broke wi’ her as she could do it, I’ll wager.”
“It was pretty quick after,” Steve admitted.
“She must have loved him a lot,” said Mrs. Dan, drily. “Can’t you see it, Steve? Jealousy is a woman’s greatest weakness, and she counts on it being the same with a man, and tries to play on it. And mostly she’s not far wrong. Take my advice, Steve, and the advice of one woman about another is the only advice worth having – if it’s honest, which maybe isn’t often, I’ll admit. Go to her and ask her to forgive you.”
“But, confound it all,” cried Steve, “I’ve nothing to be forgiven for. She’s altogether wrong about what she blames me for.”
“The more reason for you to ask her to forgive you, then,” said Mrs. Dan, coolly. “If she thinks she has anything to forgive, she’ll be glad o’ the chance to show her generosity; and if she knows she hasn’t, she’ll be the more glad.”
Steve laughed. “You’re a philosopher, or a cynic, Mrs. Dan.”
“I’m both,” she said promptly. “I’m a woman, so I must be both the others – or a fool. The men don’t leave us any other choice nowadays.”
“That’s a nasty one on the men,” said Steve.
“It’s the truth, and that’s apt to be nasty on the men,” returned Mrs. Dan, and then after a little pause she went on more softly, “You got me a little angry, Steve, wi’ your foolishness. Only get a woman angry, and you’ll get the truth from her, if it’s nasty enough.” She crossed the room to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Promise me, Steve, you’ll give her a chance to make it up.”
“I’d make it up fast enough if I had a hint she was willing to,” said Steve, earnestly. “But she’d never make it up believing what she does of me. Well, I’ve been a fool often enough, and now I’m paying for it.”
“The worst of a man being a fool,” said Mrs. Dan, “is that other people that can’t help it have to pay for his foolishness as well. When will you see her again?”
“I’m going up to the Ridge to-day,” said Steve, evasively. Mrs. Dan had no hint who the girl was, and he did not mean to drag Ess into it if he could help it. “I must see poor old Aleck first thing. He’ll be expecting me.”
Steve rode over to the Ridge that night, and met with a boisterous welcome from the men who were in. He was in little mood for this, and cut it as short as he could by going off to see Aleck Gault, although it was with consternation that he heard Aleck was over at the house, and was being nursed by Ess.
He walked across, and met Ess waiting at the outer door.
“You will find Aleck inside,” she said quietly and coldly.
“Thank you,” he said gravely, and stepped into the room and on into the bedroom.
“Hello, Aleck.” – “Hello, mate,” she heard, and marvelling at the apparent coldness of the greeting, she slipped out and strolled across to the Ridge, and sat down and looked long into the darkness. She felt herself trembling with excitement, and again and again had to force herself to stop thinking what the greeting would have been like between her and Steve if this thing had not come between them. She was angered and ashamed by her rioting thoughts, and tried to remind herself she was engaged to another man. She tried, too, to spur her anger against Steve by recalling the incidents of the night at the dogger’s hut, but the chiefest of these that haunted her were his drawn cheeks and sunken eyes, and the memory of that blow she had struck him.
She rose at last and walked back, and as she entered Aleck called to her to come in. Steve was standing by the chair he had risen from, and when she came in Aleck said, “Look here, Miss Ess, you’ll have to make Steve stop here. Says he’s not fit for work, and talks about not loafing here, and rot like that. I’m not going to put up with this wholesale desertion of nurses. Miss Ess is going down to Coolongolong, you know, Steve. You wouldn’t leave a chap to the tender mercies of Blazes, would you?”
“I hope you will stay,” said Ess. “I have told Mr. Sinclair that I was going to pay the visit he’d asked me to so often. I shall probably go to-morrow night. I – I hope your hurts are better. I only heard of them a day or two ago.”
“They are nothing much really,” he said; “I’ll get over them easily enough.”
He laid a slight emphasis on “them,” and Ess glanced at him. “You get over things quickly and easily,” she said, and could have bitten her tongue out for the words before they had well left her lips.
“I have that reputation,” he said easily, “and I find that a man can’t easily escape that. There are usually plenty of ropes ready for the bad-name dog.”
“What are you gassing about?” broke in Aleck. “Who’s talking of dogs and bad names? Tell Miss Ess you’ll stay, or she’ll be chucking up this trip. And I’m sure she needs it. She’s getting yellow as a duck’s foot.”
“Thank you,” said Ess, trying to laugh and speak easily and lightly. “You’ll get a dose of nasty medicine for that, or a short allowance of tea, that you always insist on having such quantities of.”
“Of course, I’ll stay if I’m needed,” said Steve. “How long will you stay down there?”
“I’m going for about a week, but I may alter my plans, of course,” said Ess.
Then Steve said good night and went.
When he came to breakfast next morning he found Ned Gunliffe at the table. Ned stared hard at him, and Steve returned the stare coolly. “I hardly expected to see you back here,” said Gunliffe, scowling.
“No?” said Steve, carelessly. “Possibly not. But you see a man sometimes gets more than he expects in this world.”
“And sometimes what he deserves,” said Ned, sneeringly.
“And sometimes what he deserves, as you say,” returned Steve, significantly, and went on with his breakfast.