No creepers clung to it and wooed it with their grace; no fluttering muslins, fashioned by women's hands, blew about its plain windows. In the wide garden that encircled it trees grew, and handsome shrubs, but the flowers seemed to know themselves for strangers there, and came not. Mortimer's eyes went to the twin hill, half a mile away.
How often had he raised a house on that! Not a grim, plain one, like this his home, but a large sunny cottage, with wide verandahs and large bright windows, and a garden where all the sweet flowers in the world ran mad.
Near enough the big house for the old man, left to himself, not to feel lonely; far enough away for Hermie to be unquestioned queen, and free as the winds that blew.
Oh, the happy hours he had wandered on that farther hill, raising that happy home to receive his love! There had even been a moonlight night or two when he had furnished it—furnished it with deep chairs and wide sofas and delicious hammocks, all for the little light-haired girl who worked so hard on that wretched selection to nestle into and rest. He had begun to work harder and give deeper thought than was his wont to the management of the station; there would be plenty of money for an income, he knew, but he wanted even more than plenty; he wanted the little hands that had always been so afraid to spend sixpence, to revel in the joy of flinging sovereigns broadcast. He had been waiting—waiting to tell her, it seemed for years—waiting till she was just a little older and a little older.
But the long frock to-day had told him she was a woman, and he had rushed to know his fate; and now all was over.
He put his saddle in the harness-room, and turned the horse out into the moonlit paddock. He went in through the side door, down the wide hall where the lamps still burned for him, and into the dining-room.
His father was sitting at the big table drinking very temperately at whiskey and water, and reading a paper.
'I'm sorry to have kept you up, dad,' Mortimer said.
'That's all right,' said his father, 'it's not often you do it.'
'No,' said Mortimer.