He walked away to get the tobacco, and Mrs. Taylor sat where she was, under the verandah just in sight of the corner of the paddock where a small patch was railed off from the rest, with a white-flowering passion-vine growing luxuriantly over the slim fence which surrounded it. She looked across at it with eyes that were dim and moist; but it was not the memory it recalled that made her emotion come welling up. The look that had been in Tony's eyes as he turned away, the change that had come over his face as she asked her purposely pointed questions, and the recollection of the fair face of Ailleen and the crafty meanness of Dickson's, all combined to stir her feelings.
"The wretched selfish creature!" she muttered to herself. "The—the—beast!"
But she carefully refrained from making any further comment on the matter to Tony during the remainder of the time he was at the Flat; and when he rode away the following morning, full of enthusiasm for the discovery he and his digger companions were going to make, and promising general happiness to everybody as soon as he returned with his team-load of nuggets, as he expressed it, he had no idea that she attributed his gaiety and light-heartedness to a spirit of bravado which sought to hide the real state of his feelings. But her intuitions had struck the truth. When the thought of it forced his attention, or when a reference such as she had made to Ailleen revealed it to him in spite of himself, Tony winced under the sting of the girl's bearing towards him. Ordinarily he flung himself into his work with the more ardour; he had gone into the reckless gamble with Gleeson because as he neared Birralong it came to him that the gold he had found was useless to him in the face of Ailleen's coldness—useless, that is, for the purpose he had at first desired it, for the purchase of a home to offer to her.
The question Mrs. Taylor had asked him, and the introduction of Dickson's name before the mention of Ailleen, re-awakened not only the smart he was suffering from, but also a suspicion which had come into his mind—a suspicion that Dickson and his wealth were not entirely dissociated from Ailleen's change of manner. As he rode away from the Flat, setting out on a journey which might lead him to riches greater than those of his rival, Tony for the first time in his life wished for closer sympathy between some of his brothers and himself, so that he might have made a confidant of one, and enlisted his help in ascertaining whether matters between Ailleen and Dickson really were as he feared. But there was neither bond nor sympathy between him and the home-staying members of the Taylor family. He was vainly trying to recall any one of whom he could make use in that respect when there rode out upon the track in front of him young Bobby Murray. Here was the one person in the district he would care to use, for he had ample assurance of Bobby's admiration for him, and had, on his part, done many a good turn for the youngster one way and another. He coo-eed and waved his hand, and Bobby, looking round, turned his horse and rode to meet him.
"I was just riding in to have a yarn with you," he called out as he came near. "I was hurrying to catch you before you started, for they said you were off to the diggings before midday. I want to join your party, if you'll have me."
"Want to join us, do you? Why, what's in the wind now?" Tony asked in surprise.
"Oh, I don't know. I'm full of the selection, and they all say you're going to strike it rich again, so I thought it was a good business to join in with you, if you want another in the party."
"Well, we don't," Tony replied. "You see, we're broke as it is, and we have to get even our stores on credit, and if we don't strike anything, it will be enough for us to do to clear our own score. But if we have another to help to eat the stores, they won't last us any longer, and there'll be a bigger tally to settle."
"I'll pay my own share, and a bit over if need be," Bobby said quietly.
"You will?"