We had a quiet, comfortable meal, and a smoke afterwards. Then Jim and I took a long walk through the Hollow, so as to tell one another what was in our minds, which we hadn’t a chance to do before. Before we’d gone far Jim pulls a letter out of his pocket and gives it to me.

“It was no use sending it to you, old man, while you was in the jug,” he says; “it was quite bad enough without this, so I thought I’d keep it till we were settled a bit like. Now we’re going to set up in business on our own account you’d best look over your mail.”

I knew the writing well, though I hadn’t seen it lately. It was from her—from Kate Morrison that was. It began—not the way most women write, like her, though—

So this is the end of your high and mighty doings, Richard Marston, passing yourself and Jim off as squatters. I don’t blame him—(no, of course not, nobody ever blamed Jim, or would, I suppose, if he’d burned down Government House and stuck up his Excellency as he was coming out of church)—but when I saw in the papers you had been arrested for cattle-stealing I knew for the first time how completely Jeanie and I had been duped.

I won’t pretend that I didn’t think of the money you were said to have, and how pleasant it would be to spend some of it after the miserable, scrambling, skimping life we had lately been used to. But I loved you, Dick Marston, for yourself, with a deep and passionate love which you will never know now. which you would scorn and treat lightly, perhaps, if you did know. You may yet find out what you have lost, if ever you get out of that frightful gaol.

I was not such a silly fool as to pine and fret over our romance so cruelly disturbed, though Jeanie’ was; it nearly broke her heart. No, Richard, my nature is not of that make. I generally get even with people who wrong me. I send you a photo, giving a fair idea of myself and my husband, Mr. Mullockson. I accepted his offer soon after I saw your adventures, and those of your friend Starlight, in every newspaper in the colonies. I did not hold myself bound to live single for your sake, so did what most women do, though they pretend to act from other motives, I disposed of myself to the best advantage.