‘“No. I don’t know. Yes—perhaps. I think I can,” she said in a strange voice, not a bit like her own.
‘“Then get away the moment you get to bed—don’t stop to take anything with you, but make straight for the cross-roads. Inside the trees you’ll see a buggy with a boy. Stay with him till I come. It will be there till daylight and long afterwards. Will you come, Carry?”
‘“If I don’t come I shall be mad, or locked up, or dead,” she said, with such a miserable look on her face that I could hardly help kissing her and comforting her before them all.
‘Now, the old woman helped us, without wanting to, for she says, “Carry, you’re looking like a washed-out print frock; do, for gracious sake, go to bed, and sleep away your headache. She’s not been well lately, Mr. Windsor, and she’s flustered like at seeing strangers, not but what you’ve behaved most gentlemanly.”
‘“I’m afraid she’s thinkin‘about her wedding-dress or her veil, or something,” says I. “I wish I could stay and see how she looks to-morrow, but I can’t, and business is business.”
‘Poor Carry was off before this, with just “Good-night all,” which made Homminey look rather glum. I ordered another round, saying I must be off; but when it was drunk and paid for, I stayed half an hour before I shook hands, most hearty, and walked out.
‘The moment I turned the corner of the garden-fence I started off, and ran that mile up to the cross-roads as if all the blacks on Cooper’s Creek was after me. Just as I got to the trap I overtook a woman, with a large bundle, labouring along. It never could be—yes it was—Carry!
‘I first kissed her and then scolded her. “Never a woman born,” I said, “that could do without a bundle. Why didn’t you leave all that rubbish? ain’t you good enough for me as you are?”
‘“Oh, John,” says she, “would you have me come to you in my—in my one frock? Nonsense! every woman must have a little dress.”
‘“Suppose you had been caught?”