"Now you understand the meaning of the scene you witnessed to-night, and you can see in my case the fulfilment of the Church's order, 'Whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder!'"
We walked back to the house together, and he left me at my bedroom door; but though I went back to my bed, had I been offered the gold of all the Indies I could not have slept a wink.
Next morning our horses were run up, and after breakfast we set off on our way again. When we had travelled about a mile, the manager, who was riding a short distance with us for company's sake, led me off the track to a grassy knoll beside a creek bend. Here, under a fine coolabah, I discovered a neatly fenced-in grave.
Beneath the tree, and at the head of the little mound, was a small white board, and on it were these two words,—
"Mr. Aristocrat."
This Man and This Woman
"What matters Life, what matters Death,
What boots of vain remorse?
When days are dead, wherein we lived,
Our hearts should die—of course!"
—Song of the Vain Regret.
First and foremost it must be understood that when men and women cross the Borderland of Discretion into that Never-never Country where wedding-rings are forgotten and family correspondence abruptly ceases, they do so, believing it to be unlikely that they will ever meet any one out of the old life again.