At length the day arrived when, having witnessed the satisfactory conclusion of every conceivable business duty and task which could be transacted at Rainbar or Mildool, Mr. Neuchamp took his place in the mail for Sydney, which city he had calculated to reach within a week of the dread ceremonial which was to seal his destiny. The coach did _not_ break down or capsize, fracturing Mr. Neuchamp’s leg in two places. The train fulfilled its appointed task, and the stern steam-giant did not select that opportunity for running off the rails or equalising angles. Something of the sort might have been reasonably expected to happen to a hero so near the rapturous denouement of the third volume, in which, indeed, every hero of average respectability is killed, mysteriously imprisoned, or married. Mr. Neuchamp had undergone trials and troubles, risks and anxieties, losses and crosses; but the season of tribulation was for ever past for him. He had henceforth but to submit to the compulsory laurel crown, to the caresses of Fortune’s favourite delegates, to listen to the plaudits of the crowd, to withstand the whispers and glances of beauty. He was now wise, beautiful, strong, and brave, a conqueror, an Adonis—in a word, he was _rich_! He stood successful, and the world’s praises, grudgingly bestowed upon struggling fortitude, were showered upon the obviously victorious speculator. All kinds of rumours went forth about him. His possessions were multiplied, so that Rainbar and Mildool stood sponsors for a tract of country about as large as from Kashgar to Khiva. The canal was magnified into the dimensions of its namesake of Suez, and a trade was prophesied which would overshadow Melbourne and revolutionise Adelaide. He had contracted for the remount service for the whole Madras Presidency, such a matter being quite within the scope of his immense and high-bred studs. His herds of cattle were to supply Ballarat and Sandhurst with fat stock, and Melbourne buyers were on their way to secure everything he could deliver for the next two years! Ernest Neuchamp of Rainbar was the man of the day; the popular idol. Squatter though he might be, some of Jack Windsor’s grateful utterances had been circulated, and a democratic but strongly appreciative and generous populace adored him. Portraits of Mr. Neuchamp and his faithful retainer, Jack Windsor, contending victoriously with a swarthy piratical crowd, led on by the Count with a cutlass and a belt full of revolvers, appeared in the windows of the print-shops. Heroism and unselfish generosity, like murder, ‘will out.’ Whether accidentally or otherwise, the Morahmee conflict had transpired. I make no reflections upon the well-known inviolable secrecy which shrouds all postnuptial communications. I content myself with stating a fact. Mr. Windsor was now a married man.