Had he, from neglect, heedlessness, absence, however indispensable, chilled the fond ardour of that lonely heart, cast the priceless treasure into careless or unworthy hands? Who was he, that a girl so much courted, so richly dowered in every way, as Antonia Frankston, should wait till youth was over for his deliberate approval? And yet, if she _had_ delayed but for a short while longer—till _the rain came_, in fact. Ah me! was not all the Australian world waiting with exhausted, upturned eyes for that crowning, long-delayed blessing? Fancy such a reason being proffered in England. Weddings, in that happy land, were occasionally postponed till a semblance of fine weather might be calculated upon, but surely only in this antipodean land of contrast and confusion did any one defer the great question of his life until the _departure_ of fine weather. Antonia was, doubtless, besieged by hosts of suitors, among them this infernal, lying scoundrel of a cad, Hardy Baldacre, besides Jermyn Croker, the Count, Hartley Selmore, and numberless others. Madness was in his thoughts—he would go down, rain or no rain, wet or dry, tempest or zephyr, hurricane or calm. He would hunt for the ruffian Baldacre, and slay him where they met. Nevertheless he must at once answer Paul’s letter, which he did to the effect that, ‘He wondered that his old friends should believe any mere fabrications, unsupported by testimony, to his prejudice. Not that there was anything discreditable about the report, if true; but this was _not_ true. His cousin, with misplaced heroism, had visited him in his solitude; a refined and highly educated woman, as would be apparent to all, she certainly was. But as a _wife_ he had never thought of her, nor could he, if their existence ran parallel for years.’ Having despatched the letter, Ernest felt easier in mind, more removed from that condition the most irritating and intolerable of all, the accusation of wrong without the power of justification. It was hard to resist an almost uncontrollable desire to rush down to Sydney then and there to set himself right with his friends. But, as he ran over the obstacles to such a course, it seemed, on cooler thought, to be unadvisable in every way. First, there was the extreme difficulty of performing the journey: he had not a horse at Rainbar capable of carrying him across to the mail station. When he got there it was problematical whether the contractor was running a wheel mail or not. It would be undesirable, even ridiculous, to find himself a couple of hundred miles from home, stranded on the endless, dry, hopeless plain. To make a lengthened stay in Sydney, should he get there, was not to be thought of under his present circumstances of debt and anxiety. ‘No,’ he said, as he crushed the feeling back with a self-repression more nearly allied to heroism than mere ostentatious efforts of courage, ‘no, my colours are nailed to the masthead, and there shall they hang