More than one cigar was needed to allay the old man’s overstrained nervous system. Long they sat and talked, and saw the moon rise higher in the star-gemmed sky, casting a broader silver flame across the tremulous illumined deep; while between Ernest Neuchamp and the old man again stood a shadowy, diaphanous, divinely-moulded form, turning into an elysian aroma the scent of Paul’s cigars, and echoing the secret gladness of each thought, which in that hour of supernal loveliness and unutterable joy flowed from the bared heart of Ernest Neuchamp. * * * * * On the next morning Aurora in person must have attended to the proper arrangement of the dawn, the breakfast-hour, and other small matters which, apparently trivial, tend unquestionably to that due equilibrium of the nervous system, without which comfort is impossible and exhilaration hopeless. Thus, Miss Folleton, having slept well, appeared renovated and just becomingly repentant. Antonia was severely happy, Mr. Neuchamp calmly superior to fate, and Mr. Frankston so hilarious that his daughter had to interpose more than once. That ambrosial repast concluded, Antonia departed for town in the carriage, and straightway delivered up Miss Folleton to her rejoicing relatives, who had suffered anxiety in her absence. Hers was an impressionable, shallow nature, recovering easily from moral risks and disasters—even from physical ills. Her appetite reasserted itself; her love of life’s frivolities, temporarily obscured, brightened afresh; and long before the legend of the debts, the daring, the disappearance of the Count von Schätterheims had been supplanted by newer scandal, her cheek had recovered its wonted bloom, her step its lightness in the dance, and her mien its touchingly dependent grace. In due time she had her reward; for she captured, after a short but brilliant campaign, consisting of an oratorio, a lawn party, and three dances, an immensely opulent northern squatter. She looks fair and pure as the blue sky above her, as she rolls by, dressed _à merveille_, in the best-appointed carriage in Sydney. But for happiness—who shall say? In the meanwhile, unlimited pleasure-seeking and universal admiration supply a reasonable substitute. CHAPTER XXX Mr. Neuchamp, having now occasional leisure to reflect, discovered that he was provided with an extensive and valuable property which he _had_ partly come to Australia to seek, and with an affianced bride, whom he had not at all included among his probable possessions. As for the great project of Colonial Reform, which had stood out grandly dominating the landscape in the future of his dreams, with the solitary exception of the conversion of Jack Windsor, he could not aver that he had accomplished anything.