‘You think it will go hard with him, doctor?’ queried she.
‘Can’t say at this stage,’ said the medico, with a professional air of immobility; ‘must run its course. A great deal will depend on his constitution and the nursing. I am glad it was your turn, Mrs. Lilburne.’
‘He shan’t fail for that, doctor, if I keep going,’ said the pale, refined-looking woman.
‘I know, I know,’ replied the man of life and death. ‘But don’t you get laid up, or I don’t know what we shall do. Good morning!’ And the hard-worked physician walked out, and drove off along the dusty track at a pace much above the regulation rate.
‘That Mrs. Lilburne, as she called herself,’ thought he—‘I don’t know whether it’s her right name, or, indeed, whether any of their names are [105] ]really their own—a lot of mystery about nurses in back block hospitals, I’ve always found—but this one is different from the rank and file. I wonder what her history is—must have some sort of past, as the new slang is: husband cleared out from her, or she from him; married before, and forgot to mention it. Talk about lawyers having secrets! we doctors could beat them hollow if we only chose to let them out—which we don’t. We are the real father confessors, if the world only knew. Anyhow, this poor chap is lucky to have Madonna Lilburne to look after him. I’m afraid it’s a poor look-out for him; hard lines, too, when he’s the richest man on the field. Fortune of war, I suppose; can’t be helped.’
The patient had written a comforting letter, as he thought, to his wife. It had, however, quite a different effect. Mrs. Banneret knew her husband of old, and could gauge his every thought and action.
A man averse to speaking of minor ailments, he was always worse than he appeared to be, in consequence of this habit of reticence. He despised the habit of complaint with which men that he knew were in the habit of disturbing the household and their wives. Consequently he fell into the other extreme: delaying the notice which would have procured aid or arrested illness. He had repeated the imprudence, she could plainly perceive. Fever probably had set in. He might be even now in the dangerous stage. How dangerous, how short the interval between it and the last journalistic reference: ‘We regret to [106] ]have to announce,’ etc., she knew well. Had she not seen from the West Australian papers, which she scanned so eagerly, the portentous death-roll, in which she prayed to God—how earnestly who can tell—that her husband’s name might never be found? There was no time to be lost; join him of course she would; was he to die, alone and untended except by unknown, perhaps incapable women, who had been lured to the goldfield by exaggerated reports of easily found fortune—adventuresses, or worse? It was agony to think of his being left in such hands. She read and re-read his letter—perhaps the last he would ever write. Of course he had made the best of it; he always did. But there was much to be done, much to be thought out. The mail steamer sailed to-morrow. She would—she must go to him. The time was short—too short. The Adelaide express would be in time? No! she would get on board—the railway might meet with an accident—a strike was threatened by the employees if wages or privileges were reduced. Heartless wretches! What did they care for sickness and death—the grief of the widow, the orphans left fatherless? It must be admitted that in this hour of misery, almost of despair, her righteous indignation was fervid, glowing, and would have burnt up the Trades Hall delegates like so many priests of Baal had she had the prophetic power.
With but a short interval granted to natural sorrow, action was quickly taken. The children were too young to be left unguarded. But in the city where she, where her mother, indeed, had [107] ]been born, she had many relatives—not a few staunch family friends. They came forward in her hour of need. A cousin, capable and sympathetic, volunteered to supervise the household in her absence. Needful preparation was quickly made. Far into the night she sat and wrote, leaving minute instructions—even farewells, in case she took infection. And at noon on the following day, amid the crowd of passengers on board the Kashmir, bound for Europe via Western Australia, stood Marcia, the wife of Arnold Banneret, lately the Commissioner of Barrawong town and district, but now the largest shareholder in the well-known Reward Claim and—a patient in the fever ward of Pilot Mount local hospital.
Shipwreck rarely occurs among first-class liners like the Kashmir, P. & O., but there is such a thing as a broken shaft. As a rule it is calculable within a few hours when such a marine miracle of speed, comfort, and ordered energy arrives at her destination. Such was the case when the Kashmir arrived at Adelaide.
She was met at the landing by a friend of the family, who handed her a telegram:—