She understood what the life of this child meant to the man who had been kind to her when all others had deserted her. Her heart bled for him in his trouble, and she would willingly have given her life to spare him pain.
Jim Dennis gazed long at the child's now peaceful face. As his little head lay pillowed in peaceful slumber on one arm, the features of the sleeping boy recalled many memories.
It brought back thoughts of a woman he had loved and married, and who left him when Willie Dennis was but an infant. It was a cruel, heartless blow she struck him, and he meant some day to 'settle' an account with the man who had robbed him.
It was the old story. The life at Wanabeen was lonely and Maud Dennis was city bred. Jim Dennis had deceived her in nothing when he married her. He told her of the solitary life he led, and painted his home in anything but glowing colours. He would rather have risked losing her than deceive her.
Maud fancied she loved him, probably she did then, and said life with him would be worth living anywhere. Jim Dennis believed her, married her and took her home to Wanabeen.
For a time all went well. Then the loneliness commenced to tell upon her somewhat frivolous nature. She pined for the city, the pleasures of Sydney life, the shops, the gaiety, the dances and picnics, the admiration of men and the thousand and one other attractions that are all in all to some women. Jim Dennis saw she felt lonely and it troubled him. He was absent on the station the greater part of the day, it could not be otherwise in his life. He thought when the child was born it would cheer her and render her life more tolerable.
He was grievously mistaken. Maud was not a woman to make a devoted mother. She was too selfish, and little Willie was rather a 'bore' to her.
With a great trouble at his heart, Jim Dennis saw this, and he felt he must do something to relieve the strain. He asked her if she would like to go to Sydney for a few months for a change. Maud was delighted at the prospect, but asked, much to her husband's astonishment, what would become of the child.
'Take him with you,' said Jim. 'You cannot leave him here.'
'Surely you can find someone to mind him. I shall not be able to enjoy myself in Sydney if he is there,' was her unfeeling reply.