'Jim, I'm glad of it; I mean that I'm glad it happened this way, not your way,' said Nix.
'It is better so,' said Jim. 'He will have a heavy settling day when he is called before his last Judge.'
'Sometimes I have thought he was not Rodney Shaw,' said Ben Nix,'but someone very like him.'
'Who knows?' said Jim. 'That's strange. I have thought the same thing.'
Jim Dennis rode back to Wanabeen.
During his absence Dr Tom had arrived and done all that lay in his power to ease the dying woman and render her last moments free from pain.
The messenger sent to Barragong had missed Willie Dennis, who was on the way home.
When Jim Dennis arrived at Wanabeen and entered his house he saw his son standing by the bedside holding his mother's hand. To violently pull him away was his first impulse, but Dr Tom stopped him by saying in a low voice,—
'She is going fast, Jim. Be very quiet.'
Peacefully and quietly the woman who had wronged and been wronged passed away, with Willie's hand in her own.