Marie was blind. She had known it was coming, and it had tried her, as it would have tried any of the race of women. She had, when she needed it most, put love from her, and would not let her own heart speak, even to herself. She had sought to help one who loved her, and to fully prove the other--though the proving, she knew, was not necessary--before the darkness came. But here it was suddenly sent upon her by the shock of a rifle shot. It would have sent a shudder to a stronger heart than hers-- that, in reply to her call on her dead mother, there came from the trees the shrill laugh of the mopoke--the sardonic bird of the South. As she stood there, with this tragedy enveloping her, the dull boom of a cannon came across the valley. "From Ducos," she said. "M. Laflamme has escaped. God help us all!" And she turned and groped her way into the room she had left. She felt for a chair and sat down. She must think of what she now was. She wondered if Carbourd was killed. She listened and thought not, since there was no sound without. But she knew that the house would be roused. She bowed her head in her hands. Surely she might weep a little for herself--she who had been so troubled for others. It is strange, but she thought of her flowers and birds, and wondered how she should tend them; of her own room which faced the north--the English north that she loved so well; of her horse, and marvelled if he would know that she could not see him; and, lastly, of a widening horizon of pain, spread before the eyes of her soul, in which her father and another moved. It seemed to her that she sat there for hours, it was in reality minutes only. A firm step and the opening of a door roused her. She did not turn her head--what need? She knew the step. There was almost a touch of ironical smiling at her lips, as she thought how she must hear and feel things only, in the future. A voice said: "Marie, are you here?" "I am here." "I'll strike a match so that you can see I'm not a bushranger. There has been shooting in the grounds. Did you hear it?" "Yes. A soldier firing at Carbourd." "You saw him?" "Yes. He could not find the Cave. I directed him. Immediately after he was fired upon." "He can't have been hit. There are no signs of him. There, that's lighter and better, isn't it?" "I do not know." She had risen, but she did not turn towards him. He came nearer to her. The enigmatical tone struck him strangely, but he could find nothing less commonplace to say than: "You don't prefer the exaggerated gloaming, do you?" "No, I do not prefer the gloaming, but why should not one be patient?" "Be patient!" he repeated, and came nearer still. "Are you hurt or angry?" "I am hurt, but not angry." "What have I done?--or is it I?" "It is not you. You are very good. It is nobody but God. I am hurt, because He is angry, perhaps."