'No, Lance!' she said, and as she spoke she raised her eyes heavenward, moist with tears of tenderest sympathy, as the thought rushed across her brain of his lonely and desperate condition, abandoned by _her_ as by all the world. 'We Chaloners keep faith. I am your plighted bride, and I am ready to fulfil my vow, my promise to the living and to the dead. But you must bear with a woman's weakness and consider how little time I have to prepare. What would they say at Wychwood, I wonder?' 'We're in Australia, Stella, and not in England--don't forget that,' he answered, the frown again darkening his countenance. 'I hope we shan't see the old country for many a day. We must learn to forget old ways and fashions.' 'I can never do so, wherever we may wander,' she answered, with quiet emotion. 'I don't like to hear you speak of it as a thing of course, and I wish you would call me Estelle, Lance, not Stella. You never used to do so.' 'Very well, Estelle,' he said, 'I won't do it again, if it bothers you. Stella's a common name out here; that's the reason, I suppose. And now, as we're at the hotel, we'd better say good-bye. I won't come in the morning. It's no use making people talk; they're ready enough, without helping them. You and that Miss Graham can get away with old Dayton to-morrow. It's the way everybody up here travels, and nothing's thought of it. I'll write the moment I get down. Most likely I'll be in Melbourne as soon as you.' They parted with a simple hand-clasp, she gazing into his face as if to read the signs of a spirit worn and wearied with the worldly injustice. His face was calm, and betrayed no emotion other than deep regret at the departure of a friend. He tried to throw into the parting words the sentiment which the occasion demanded, but it was patently an effort, and had not the ring of truth or tenderness. 'He _is_ changed,' she told herself, as she moved forward across the verandah of the hotel and sought her bedroom. 'How changed, I could hardly have imagined. But who would not have been altered by the frightful experience he has gone through! I must try and make him happy, as some poor recompense for all his sorrows.' Could she have noted the dark and evil expression of her companion's face, as he lit his pipe and strode savagely along the path to his solitary hut, heard the foul oaths with which from time to time he essayed to relieve his feelings, or the vows of vengeance upon her for her coldness, she would have deemed him changed indeed. CHAPTER XXIII