'Well,' said Jim, smiling, 'a couple who disagree as pleasantly as you do can't go far wrong in marrying.'
'The customers at a decent family hotel would expect it, I think,' Mary added soberly.
'Jonathan Prator married his wife a week 'r two back, an' he's skitin' about it,' grumbled Ben.
So Jim remained for the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Kyley, which was quite a public ceremony. He was Ben's best man, and he gave the rosy bride the prettiest brooches, rings, and bangles he could buy in Ballarat, and left, the blushless couple to the enjoyment of their honeymoon with his warmest blessing. Mary nearly smothered him in a billowy hug as he was trying to thank them for their goodness.
'Leave a kind word for my poor girl,' she said, 'and the minute she comes back I'll write you.'
'Tell her I shall be a miserable devil till I hear of her dancing jigs on Mary Kyley's bar counter again,' said Jim. 'And tell her she wrongs me when she says there is nothing of her in this heart of mine. She is an ineradicable part of it.'
Done found the Peetrees working a fairly profitable mine at Blanket Flat, a sort of tributary field to Jim Crow, and situated about three miles distant from the original rush. Harry stood in with Done, and the two pegged out a claim and set to work; but Jim did not derive the satisfaction he had expected from this return to his friends and his familiar pursuits. His weakness clung to him, and he was subject to pains in the head. His missed Mike more than ever now, and permitted the idea that he had blasted Aurora's happiness to worry him a good deal. He remembered the blithe heartiness of the girl in the early days of their acquaintance, and the image of the pale, worn face he had last seen haunted him with an abiding reproach. He could not enjoy the life, the scenes, and the companionship that had delighted him, and believed the capacity would never come back to him.
He had been on Blanket Flat less than a fortnight when one morning Harry thrust his head into the tent.
'Blowed if there ain't a lady here to see you, Jim!' he said.
'A lady?' Jim's first thought was of Aurora. 'Don't you know her?'