"After we'd been married a month or so she begged me to sell my bit of a farm in Somersetshire and take her to Australia.
"Accordingly, I got rid of the place that had been in our family for centuries, and having packed up, set off, nearly breaking my old mother's heart by doing so.
"Arriving in Sydney, I took a small house down Bondi way, and made myself comfortable; but I couldn't be idle long, so after properly providing for her happiness there, I said good-bye to her for a while, and came into the Bush. Every time I could get a holiday I'd run down to Sydney, and I believe, in a way, she was glad to see me, though her manner was never anything but cold.
"By-and-by I drifted into Queensland, worked my way north, and then got the management of this place. You must remember that it was almost unknown country out here then, and what with blacks and wild dogs, want of water, and ignorance of the lay of the land, I had troubles enough to drive a man crazy. Before we had been here a year we were very hard pushed for men, and the owner sent me up a young Englishman, who, he said, was anxious to get as far out of the ken of the world as possible. I didn't ask any questions, but made him as welcome as I could. He was a decent enough young fellow, tall, graceful, and very self-contained. Somehow, the hands took to calling him 'Mr. Aristocrat,' and the name fitted him like a glove. He came up with pack-horses, and among other letters he brought me one from my wife.
"'She had grown hopelessly tired of Sydney and the south,' she said, 'and after mature consideration, was coming out to join me in the Bush.'
"I didn't know what to do. We were too rough out here then for any decent woman. But as she had evidently started and couldn't be stopped, we had to make the best of it, and accordingly up she came with the next bullock-teams.
"Poor idiot that I was, I thought it was the beginning of a new era in my life, and certainly for a week or two she seemed pleased to be with me again. But I was soon to be undeceived.
"About a month after her arrival I had reason to go out on the run for a few days, and it was necessary for me to take all the available hands with me. While rolling my swag close to the corner of the verandah, to my astonishment I heard my wife's voice in the room within raised in tones of which I had never thought it capable. She was evidently beside herself with fury, and on stepping into the verandah, I could see that the object of her anger was none other than the young Englishman, 'Mr. Aristocrat.'
"I tell you, sir, she was tongue-lashing that man as I never heard a woman do in my life before, and by the time I had stood there two minutes I had learnt enough to shatter all my hopes, to kill my happiness, and to convince me of her double-dyed treachery to myself.
"She paused for breath, and then began again:—