“The sun is going down behind the great rock tower,” Aileen says, as if she hadn’t heard him. Perhaps she didn’t. When people have a lot on their minds they’re half their time thinking their own thoughts. “How all the lovely colours are fading away. Life seems so much like that—a little brightness, then gray twilight, night and darkness so soon after.”

“Now and then there’s a star; you must admit that, Miss Marston,” says he, cheerful and pleasant again; he was never down for long at a time. “And there’s that much-abused luminary, the moon; you’ll see her before we get home. We’re her sworn votaries and worshippers, you know.”

We had to ride a bit to get home with any kind of light, for we didn’t want father to be growling or kicking up a row with Warrigal that we left to look after him. But a few miles didn’t matter much on such a road, and with horses in such buckle as ours.

The stars came out after a while, and the sky was that clear, without a cloud in it, that it was a better light to ride by than the moon throws. Jim and I sometimes rode on one side and sometimes the other; but there was old Rainbow always in the lead, playing with his bit and arching his neck, and going with Aileen’s light weight on him as if he could go on all night at the same pace and think nothing of it; and I believe he could.

When we got home dad was grumpy, and wondered what we wanted riding the horses about when there was nothing to do and nothing to see. But Warrigal had made him a spot of tea, and he was able to smoke now: so he wasn’t so bad after all. We made ourselves pretty comfortable—Aileen said she’d got a good appetite, for a wonder—and we sat chatting round the fire and talking away quite like old days till the moon was pretty high.

Father didn’t get well all at once. He went back twice because he would try to do too much, and wouldn’t be said by Starlight or Aileen either when he took a thing into his head; then he’d have to be nursed and looked after day and night again just the same as ever. So it took near a month before he was regularly on his pins again, and going about as he did before he was hit. His right arm was a bit stiff, too; it used to pain and make him swear awful now and again. Anyhow, Aileen made us that comfortable and happy while she was there, we didn’t care how long he took getting well.