All unheeding of this careless but not inaccurate criticism, the lovers sauntered on. As they cleared the outskirts of the town, Estelle said, 'Now you must show me your hut. I _must_ see the place where you have lived your lonely life, poor fellow. How I used to pity you, when I thought of it.' 'There it is, on that rise--this track leads up to it. It's such a miserable hovel, I hardly like you to see it.' 'Nonsense! you forget I've been to Growlers' and Ballarat, and know all about diggings. Why, it's the regular thing, like a shooting-box or a bothy in the Highlands. Everybody does it. Better men than you (I was going to say) live in huts. Why, this is quite a grand hut! What fine broad slabs, and a big padlock too. I thought the miners were so honest?' 'Sometimes,' he said; 'not always.' They walked into Ballarat Harry's hut. Estelle sat herself down on a three-legged stool by the side of the still smouldering fire, and gazed into the pile of ashes on the hearth. Here, for so many a lonely evening, had he sat and smoked and thought--ah! with what bitterness--of a lost home, a forfeited birthright, of a father's curse, which, harmless as thistledown at first, had commenced to be so fatally prophetic. It _was_ hard. Fate had been against him--against them from the beginning. But she would make up to him--as far as woman's love might repair the wrongs of destiny and the cruelty of man--for this dreadful episode of his life. 'Oh Lance--dear Lance!' she said; 'how you have lived through it all I can hardly imagine.' 'If I had not had the thoughts of you to keep me up,' he said, looking at her with eyes of bold admiration, 'I might have given in. But I kept always saying to myself, _she_ will reward me, Stella will be mine when we meet, and all the past will be forgotten--and you _are_ mine,' he said, as he took her hand in his and made as if to exact the betrothed lover's accustomed tribute. But again a shrinking feeling of denial--for which she could not account--possessed her whole frame. She drew back shuddering. 'Pray, don't let us have any nonsense of that kind,' she said; 'there will be plenty of time by and by. At present, I feel as if I had so much rather hear all about your trial and the cruel unjust sentence which ruined you, and of your life in those dreadful hulks; I always wonder how you managed to escape.' For one moment the flash of his eyes in stern displeasure reminded her vividly of bygone days and their lovers' quarrels at Wychwood. Then he spoke, in a voice studiously free from irritation-- 'I got out through the help and managing of Tessie Lawless--a girl that cared a deal more for me than you do, if that's the way you're going to treat me. You've forgotten our old Wychwood days, I suppose. Well, as you'll have to leave to-morrow, or next day at furthest, for Melbourne, and we go different ways, we mustn't fall out, must we? I can wait. So we'd better talk over this journey.'