"Let me go with you, Elsie. I'll be company for you. It is so lonely to go by yourself. I don't like you to go alone."
"No, Maggie, I will go alone, and see whether I cannot shake off my headache. I would be no company for you. I would make you miserable. Besides, if father comes home to lunch he would miss you; one of us must stay at home."
"Very well, Elsie; but do not stay long."
Maggie did not like to see her sister go away alone. She felt that the headache was an excuse, and that there was deeper trouble. She was so sorry for her, and wished she could help her. If she could only send a message to Alec and bring him back, all would be well. She knew instinctively that Elsie and Alec loved each other, but were at cross purposes somehow. A word on either side would set things right. But how was it to be said? She did not know.
Pat brought the horse to the end of the verandah, and Elsie jumped on, with the help of a block of wood, which stood there for the purpose. Maggie held her sister's hand caressingly, and said, with a tear in her eye, "Come back soon, Elsie; I shall be wearying for you till I see you."
Elsie went across the flat, over the bridge, and up the ranges. The breeze was cool and strong. She felt better already. The rapid motion banished thinking, but when she got to the steeper hills she fell back on her troubles again. Higher and higher she went, until she came to big boulders, fern-trees, and scrub. It was difficult to go up, but how would she get down again? She did not care. Up! up! away! as near the throne as she could, to pour out her soul to her Heavenly Father, and tell Him her trouble, and confess her fault.
At last, after the horse had scrambled and struggled by zigzag ways up some of the roughest hills of Victoria, he stopped, fairly exhausted, on a small tableland, surrounded by great rocks, some flat, some piled in huge fantastic shapes, like ancient ruins, with spaces left for doors and windows. To the south there was a gigantic valley, and all round the hillsides were masses of stone, which had evidently been carried there in icebergs in some forgotten age, and stranded on this high sea beach. Stunted shrubs and wild oats drew a scanty subsistence here. A dingo was playing with her cubs at the mouth of her lair, unconscious of human presence; a tiger-snake was sunning itself on a mossy stone; lizards were darting to and fro; an eagle was wheeling in mid-air over its nest of ragged sticks in a shattered tree that had braved many a storm; and white clouds came flying past like ships in full sail.
Elsie noted all these things as the horse stood motionless for ten minutes. She urged him to go on, but he refused to move. She coaxed and petted him, but he would not make a step forward.
"Poor fellow!" she said, "I have pushed you too hard; I was not thinking where we were going; a climb like this was too much for you; I'll give you a rest."
She jumped off his back, and tied the reins to the stirrups. He then began to nibble at the short, dry tufts of grass which shot up in hollow spots where drops of moisture had oozed out.