More than once, too, there was a line or two on a scrap of paper slipped in Aileen’s letters from Gracey Storefield. She wasn’t half as good with the pen as Aileen, but a few words from the woman you love goes a long way, no matter what sort of a fist she writes. Gracey made shift to tell me she was so proud to hear I was doing well; that Aileen’s eyes had been twice as bright lately; that mother looked better than she’d seen her this years; and if I could get away to any other country she’d meet me in Melbourne, and would be, as she’s always been,“your own Gracey”—that’s the way it was signed.

When I read this I felt a different man. I stood up and took an oath—solemn, mind you, and I intended to keep it—that if I got clear away I’d pay her for her love and true heart with my life, what was left of it, and I’d never do another crooked thing as long as I lived. Then I began to count the days to Christmas.

I wasn’t married like Jim, and it not being very lively in the tent at night, Arizona Bill and I mostly used to stroll up to the Prospectors’ Arms. We’d got used to sitting at the little table, drinking our beer or what not, smoking our pipes and listening to all the fun that was going on. Not that we always sat in the big hall.

There was a snug little parlour beside the bar that we found more comfortable, and Kate used to run in herself when business was slack enough to leave the barmaid; then she’d sit down and have a good solid yarn with us.

She made a regular old friend of me, and, as she was a handsome woman, always well dressed, with lots to say and plenty of admirers, I wasn’t above being singled out and made much of. It was partly policy, of course. She knew our secret, and it wouldn’t have done to have let her let it out or be bad friends, so that we should be always going in dread of it. So Jim and I were always mighty civil to her, and I really thought she’d improved a lot lately and turned out a much nicer woman than I thought she could be.