No! again, no! The rebellious blood rushed to her brow, as she vowed to forget, to despise, to trample under foot, the memory, false as a broken idol, to which she had been so long, so blindly faithful. And as all men save one—for even in that hour of her wrath and misery she could not find it in her heart to include her father among the reprobate or despicable of his sex—were alike unworthy of a maiden’s trust, a maiden’s prayers, why not confide herself and her blighted heart to the custody of this one, who, at least, was frank and unhesitating in proffering his love and demanding her own? Mr Hardy Baldacre had not thought it expedient to delay bringing matters to a climax, fearing that highly inconvenient truth, with respect to the fair Augusta, might arrive at any moment. With well-acted bluntness of sincerity he had adjured Miss Frankston to forgive his sudden, his unpremeditated avowal of affection. ‘He was a rough bushman,’ he confessed, ‘not in the habit of hiding his feelings. On such a subject as this he could not bear the agony of anxiety or delay. He must know his fate, even if the doom of banishment, of just anger at his imprudence, went forth against him. He expected nothing else. But if, before condemning him to go back to his far-off home (little she knew of its peculiar characteristics) a lonely, despairing man, she would only give consideration to his claims, rashly but respectfully urged, she might deign to accept a manly heart, the devotion of a life that henceforth, in good or had fortune, was hers, and hers only.’ Mr. Hardy Baldacre had an imposing, stalwart figure, by no means unfashionably attired, and Nature, while unsolicitous about his moral endowments, had gifted him with a handsome face. If not in the bloom of youth, he had not passed by a day the matured vigour of early manhood. As he bent his dark eyes upon Antonia and poured forth his not entirely original address, but which, heard in the tones of a pleading flesh-and-blood lover, sounded a deal better than it reads, Antonia felt a species of mesmeric attraction to the fatal and irrevocable ‘yes,’ which should open a new phase of life to her and obliterate the maddening, hopeless, endless past. _For one moment_, for one only, the fate of Antonia Frankston wavered on the dread eternal balance. She fluttered, birdlike, under the fascination of his serpentine gaze. Her words of regret and courteous dismissal refused to find utterance. At length she said, ‘I must have time to consider your flattering but quite unexpected offer. You will, I am sure, not press for an immediate answer. I will see you again. Meanwhile let me tell you that I value your good opinion, and shall always recall with pleasure your very kind intention of to-day.’