"Tom is perfectly well," said the Major. "He still carries on his old chronic flirtation with Mary; and she is as ready to be flirted with as ever."
"Why don't they marry?" I asked, peevishly. "Why on earth don't they marry one another? What is the good of carrying on that old folly so long? They surely must have made up their minds by now. She knows she is a widow, and has known it for years."
"Good God! Hamlyn, are you so ignorant?" said the Major. And then he struck me dumb by telling me of all that had happened latterly: of George Hawker's reappearance, of his identity with the great bushranger, and, lastly, of his second appearance not two months before.
"I tell you this in strict confidence, Hamlyn, as one of my oldest and best friends. I know how deeply your happiness is affected by all this."
I remained silent and thunderstruck for a time, and then I tried to turn the conversation:—
"Have you had any alarm from bushrangers lately? I heard a report of some convicts having landed on the coast."
"All a false alarm!" said the Major. "They were drowned, and the boat washed ashore, bottom upwards."
Here the Doctor broke in: "Hamlyn, is not this very queer weather?"
When he called my attention to it, I remarked that the weather was really different from any I had seen before, and said so.
The sky was grey and dull, the distances were clear, and to the eye it appeared merely a soft grey autumnal day. But there was something very strange and odd in the deadly stillness of all nature. Not a leaf moved, not a bird sang, and the air seemed like lead. At once Mrs. Buckley remarked,—