And she heard his voice again, incisive, imperious, yet melting her very heart within her as he told her the simple history of this terrible episode in his life. He might have been hung!--he did not tell her that.
She stole away from her cousin, and walked up and down the long alleys of the conservatory, pale and pa.s.sionate with her fierce indignation.
Would they indeed have dared to hang him? And if they had--oh, if they had!
Some thirty miles away Mr. Dalrymple was riding by his own short cuts through the bush, with his peaked cap drawn over his eyes. His beautiful horse, tall and stately like himself, with glossy dark coat, and a white star on his forehead, paced with long strides through saplings and brushwood, swinging his head slowly up and down on the loose rein with a rhythmical movement that betokened ease of body and content of mind.
His master gazed heedfully at the brilliant parrots flashing about with long, rushing darts over his head, and at the myriads of wild flowers crushed and trampled under foot. He wore a sprig of epacris in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and carried a sheaf of delicate orchids with their stalks tucked under the saddle in front of him.
He hummed a Strauss waltz as he went along through the sunshine and shadows of the waning day, and thought of the time when he would go back to Adelonga and carry that girl with the sweet eyes away in his arms, on the wings of just such a dreamy measure, into the only realisable Utopia of this world.
And perhaps he was more glad of his life than he had ever been since the day when he so nearly lost it--caring not much whether he did so or not.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.