The moon was shining, though not very brightly, light fleecy clouds were driving rapidly across the sky, so they could see the lights in both the old house and in the lower windows of Archie’s own dwelling. They fired guns and coo-ee-ed, and presently Bob and Winslow rushed out to bid them welcome.
Diana went bounding away to meet him.
“Oh, daddy, daddy!” she exclaimed, “what a time we’ve been having! but mind, daddy, it wasn’t all fun.”
Bob could not speak for the life of him. He just staggered in with the child in his arms and handed her over to Sarah; but I leave the reader to imagine the state of Sarah’s feelings now.
Poor Craig was borne in and put to bed in Archie’s guest room, and there he lay for weeks.
Bob himself had gone to Brisbane to import a surgeon, regardless of expense; but it was probably more owing to the tender nursing of Elsie than anything else that Craig was able at length to crawl out and breathe the balmy, flower-scented air in the verandah.
One afternoon, many weeks after this, Craig was lying on a bank, under the shade of a tree, in a beautiful part of the forest, all in whitest bloom, and Elsie was seated near him.
There had been silence for some time, and the girl was quietly reading.
“I wonder,” said Craig at last; “if my life is really worth the care that you and all the good people here have lavished on me?”
“How can you speak thus?” said Elsie, letting her book drop in her lap, and looking into his face with those clear, blue eyes of hers.