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CHAPTER I.—MAKING UP HIS MIND.

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'Pleasant the snaffle of courtship, improving the manners and carriage;

But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thorn-bit of marriage.'

'WELL, I've warned you. If you like to make a fool of yourself——'

'What then?'

'You'll only repent it once, and that'll be always.'

Jocelyn Ruthven tapped his hand impatiently and irresolutely on the table. If only Mrs. Langdon would have left the room, it would have been so much easier to discuss matters. But no, she sat there sewing quietly, her fair face expressing little but a slight contempt, whether for his weakness or her husband's morality he could not say. Both probably. Emma Langdon had opinions of her own, very strong opinions; she was not swayed by her husband in the very least degree, that he knew quite well. There was a big heap of white work on her lap, and as he watched her needle drawn slowly through it, he knew instinctively that she was condemning him, and for Emma Langdon's approval he would have almost given his life. But she asked more than his life, and condemned him even then. He would only be righting a wrong, only doing his duty, and she would be the last woman in the world to praise him for that. If only he had known her before—if only he had, what a difference it would have made to his life! She judged him harshly, this good, pure woman, who had never known temptation; she righted wrongs with a cruel hand, but she would right them, and that was more than he or Ben Langdon, if left to themselves, would do. Ben was for letting the past take care of itself, while his wife—— Ah, she had a higher standard than either of them. But to do what she said was right.

He looked out of the long French window gloomily. It was July—mid-winter—and a dense white fog wrapped the hills that rose up all round them, shutting them in on every side. Through it he saw dimly the outlines of the tall gum-trees and the wattles, with just here and there a faint suspicion of golden-yellow breaking the gloom. It was mid-winter, but the spring was close at hand; another fortnight, and the wattles would be all in bloom, and the country would be singing to the returning spring—rejoicing—and how could he ever rejoice again if he did this thing and ruined his life, and how could he not do it when the woman he held highest in the world would never so much as look at him again if he did not?

He walked uneasily across the room, and leaned his hot forehead against the cold glass, and then he walked back again. What a peaceful, comfortable home this was! How cosy the room! How bright the firelight! The furniture was not much, of course. What could one expect in a squatter's home in the mountains? But it was so comfortable—a lady's room, a lady's home, so neat, so cosy, so dainty!—never, never, never could he hope for a home like this.

'Come, old man'—Ben Langdon's kindly hand was on his shoulder—'don't make an ass of yourself, and don't let the thing worry you. The old woman there'—his wife flashed a look of unutterable scorn at him out of her bright blue eyes, and he laughed, and repeated the opprobrious epithet—'she don't understand what she's saying. Bless you, it's the way with women. You'll know when you come to my own age. "You do this thing because it's right, and never mind the consequences." Bless you, it sounds very pretty, but when the consequences come along—well, the woman ain't by to see, as a rule; anyhow, she don't give you a helping hand.'

His wife looked at him coldly.

'All I have said, and all I intend to say, is, that if Mr. Ruthven doesn't marry that girl, he will be doing a very wicked thing, and I for one will never speak to him again.'

'A d——d little———'

'Mr. Langdon! She is a good enough girl—not a lady, certainly; but Mr. Ruthven should have thought of that before he—before he took away her character. Now, of course——'

'Oh, d——n it all, Emmie! What a storm about nothing at all! How can you pay any attention to her, Ruthven—a little prude that doesn't know what she is talking about?'

'I know this much, that when a man has—has compromised a woman as Mr. Ruthven has that unfortunate girl, he ought to marry her if she's a princess or if she's a beggar. This girl happens to be a beggar—more shame to him, then! And I thought so highly of him.'

She let her eyes wander to his face with a deeply reproachful look, and Ruthven shivered hopelessly before it. Emma Langdon was the one woman in the world he desired to stand well with. He could not exactly have defined his sentiments to himself. He did not love her, of course—was she not his friend's wife?—and she herself, he knew quite well, would have been the first to shrink back in horror at the bare mention of such a thing. No; he stood at a respectful distance, and raised her on a pedestal and worshipped at the shrine. And she allowed him to. She felt she was a misunderstood woman, a woman with high ideals and more refinement than was to be found among her very limited circle, and she was thrown away upon Ben Langdon. She was proud that she kept that secret to herself and never complained, but she liked Jocelyn Ruthven because she felt that he had guessed it and sympathized with her. She was not appreciated; her husband and his brother laughed and scoffed at her 'high-flown notions,' and took every opportunity of turning them into ridicule; while this other man, Jocelyn Ruthven, thought her a pearl among women, and her lightest wish had been his law. She liked to think it, too. Jocelyn Ruthven, the good-looking young Gold Commissioner at Deep Creek, was at her beck and call; she could turn him round her finger, and her approval was the thing he most desired on this earth. He had fallen a victim when first she met him—four months ago now—and she had been fondly imagining it could go on for ever. She was perfectly satisfied, she wanted no more.

And now this thing had happened. Ben thought very lightly of it, but she had long ago known that Ben's morals were none of the best; he might be good-hearted, but he was certainly rough and rude and lax in his ideas, and she knew—she knew the proper thing was for Jocelyn Ruthven to marry the girl. It was not a desirable match, certainly—the daughter of one of the diggers at Deep Creek—and there was more than a suspicion that Mat Phillips had been an old lag; while her mother—Emmie Langdon closed her eyes and sighed—her mother was certainly a very impossible person. She had come across the ranges sometimes when they were short-handed at Karouda to help at the wash-tub, and it would not be a nice thing to belong in any way to Mrs. Phillips. But, then, he should have thought of that before.

The girl had come across the ranges—followed Ruthven across—and told a pitiful story. And he—he hung down his head, and acknowledged he had not been as circumspect as he might have been.

'Lord Almighty!' said Langdon, when he heard it. 'What the devil did you have anything to do with her for? A man in your position ought to have nothing to do with women—anyhow, the women about the camp. It'll cost you a mint of money to square things.'

'There is only one thing to be done,' said his wife. 'Mr. Ruthven will have to marry her. It's the only honourable thing to do.'

'The devil he will! Now, don't go putting such notions in the girl's head, Emmie. All they want is a good round cheque. There is no question of marriage in the matter. It would ruin Ruthven to do such a thing, and that's a heavy price to pay for a week's folly. The girl don't expect it herself, and she wouldn't be happy in such a position.'

'She does expect it—what else should she expect? and as for being happy, Mr. Ruthven should have thought of that before.'

'The devil fly away with all women!' said her husband angrily; and, as far as Emma Langdon was concerned, that sealed Ruthven's fate.

If she had any influence over him whatever, he should marry that girl.

It was hard for him, she knew, but was it not just as hard for her? She had thought such a lot of him, and now she must give up her friend and be lonely and desolate as she had been before she met him. Of course things could never be the same again between them; but she was ready for the sacrifice, and so he must do his share. All her husband's scornful scoffing only made her the more determined.

She found an opportunity to speak to him alone, and pointed out to him where his duty lay. She was so sad about it all, so sad at the thought of losing him, that she wept many tears over it; she drove him to distraction, but she saw with an inward glow of triumph that she was gaining her point. And when at last she had brought him round, if not to see exactly with her eyes, at any rate to do her bidding, it was too provoking to have her husband trying to upset things. And Ben was so coarse, too; he did not care what he said.

'It is the only honourable thing to do,' she repeated sadly, looking at Ruthven's downcast face; and then she turned and slowly left the room.

She felt she was strong enough now. Her words would prevail, she knew, no matter what her husband might urge to the contrary.

Langdon laughed a little.

'The missus has high-flown notions,' he said. 'I fell in love with her for them, I reckon, way back four or five years ago; but they don't work in, those notions, somehow. Never mind what she says, old man; she'll come round in the end, and we'll square the others somehow. It's only a matter of money, I expect.'

'I'll have to marry her,' said Ruthven gloomily, stirring the fire with his foot.

He had wished Mrs. Langdon away, and now she was gone he only felt the more bound to do what she thought right.

'Don't be an ass! It's all very well for the wife to talk rot; women don't understand things. Think what your life will be if you do. An ignorant, uneducated girl like that, dragged up in a low Bush shanty, what sort of a companion would she be for you? Why, she wouldn't even be a decent housekeeper, and think of the awful old father and mother.'

Ruthven shuddered.

'Lord Almighty! It would be a sin to marry her from all points of view. She'd be as miserable as a bandicoot, and so would you.'

'Nevertheless,' said Ruthven wearily, like a man who had done with the pleasures of this world, 'I'm going to marry her, and we'll have to make the best of it.'

Then Benjamin Langdon of Karouda, a respectable middle-aged gentleman, turned round and swore a volley of oaths that nearly lifted off the parlour roof, and he rose from his chair, and, taking his friend by the shoulders, shook him soundly.

'A fool and his folly, Ruthven! Oh Lord! oh Lord! women are the very devil! And whether the good ones or the bad ones are the worst beats me!'