“Muvver!” said the lady addressed. She wriggled ecstatically, and grasped a handful of Wally’s hair, to his extreme agony. A fresh effort of memory came to her. “Dad,” she said, half inquiringly, and drummed her heels upon her bearer’s chest.
At the back of the house the little kitchen garden stretched to the brush fence. Beyond came a narrow, timbered paddock, and then the deep green of the scrub—the unbroken curtain that had fallen behind the baby on Wally’s shoulder more than a year ago. They came out of the back door and stood looking towards it doubtfully.
Then from the scrub they saw Mrs. Archdale coming slowly. No one might say what dreadful pilgrimage had led her into its silent heart. She stumbled as she walked, bent as though her body had given way under the stress of agony of mind too great to be borne. Even across the shining grass it was plain that she did not know where she walked—that all that her eyes could see was the dark maze of the Bush, where a little child had wandered, and called to her. A fallen log lay across her path, and she sat down upon it, burying her face in her hands.
“Oh, Wally, go and tell her,” Norah said. “I’m such an idiot—I’m going to howl again. Let me have Babs—I’ll bring her.” She followed Wally slowly down the path, with Babs patting her tear-stained cheek gently, saying, “Poor, poor,” in a little crooning voice.
Mrs. Archdale raised her head as the swift steps came to her across the grass, and looked at the tall lad for a moment without recognition. Then she collected herself with an effort that was pitiful in its violence, and smiled at him.
“Why, you’ve got back!”
Wally nodded, seeking desperately for words. His brown face was flushed and eager.
“I——” he said, and stopped. “We——. Mrs. Archdale.” Words fled from him altogether, and he pushed his hat back with a despairing gesture. “I’ve got something to tell you; and I’m such a fool at telling it.”
“Nothing wrong?” she asked him swiftly. “Not little Norah?”
“No—nothing wrong. Everything’s all right; everything’s perfect!” he told her. He put out a lean, boyish hand, and gripped hers strongly. “We saw you—coming away from the scrub.”