the night Dr Tom was to leave Wanabeen Ned's coach was due.
The doctor and Jim Dennis were standing on the verandah, and saw him tooling his team along at a shambling gallop.
'Funny thing we should be talking about that affair at Potter's,' said the doctor. 'Here's Ned's coach.'
'He'll pull up here, he always does,' said Jim. 'I'll go and get him a drink ready. I feel quite light-hearted now the little chap is better – thanks to you, doc.'
Jim Dennis passed inside, and before he came out again Ned Glenn had pulled up his horses in front of the homestead.
There were no passengers; he merely had the mail and some luggage.
'Hullo, doctor, what are you doing here?' sang out Ned in his cheery voice.
'Jim's youngster has been very ill. I've been here these three days.'
'Eh, Gad! What! the little chap?' exclaimed Ned, as he scrambled down.
'Yes, the little chap; but he's out of danger now,' said the doctor.
'Where's Jim?'
'Gone inside to get you a drink.'
Ned Glenn left the mails, the coach and the horses to look after themselves. His old-fashioned figure glided round the side of the homestead, and when he saw Jim Dennis he said, —
'He's all right, eh, Jim? We can't afford to lose him. There never was such a child.'
'Yes, Ned, he's safe, thanks to Dr Tom; but he's had a tough time of it.'
'And pulled through,' said Ned. 'I hope I'll live to see him on the back of a cup winner for his dad before I peg out.'
CHAPTER IV
JIM'S TROUBLE
Left alone with his son, Jim Dennis watched him tenderly, and Sal looked keenly at him, with dog-like devotion gleaming out of her deep, dull, liquid eyes.
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.
Jim Dennis was a man of few words.
'Leave him with me. I will take care of him,' he said, as he took the little chap in his arms and kissed him.
'I am sure you will manage all right, Jim,' she said; 'and he will be far better here than in Sydney. It is a trying journey, and the coach is such an uncomfortable one. Yes, he will be far better here.'
So Willie remained at Wanabeen, and his mother went to Sydney. It was with a sad heart, and a feeling of bitter disappointment, that Jim Dennis watched her wave her hand in farewell from the box seat of Ned Glenn's coach.
He stood on the verandah with the child in his arms, and remained there until it was out of sight. He saw her talking gaily to Ned, and she did not look back after that one farewell.
A presentiment of coming evil oppressed him. Ought he to have allowed her to go? that was the burden of his thoughts. He hardly knew what he feared. She was his wife, and he trusted her; then what harm could come of it?
He had never seen her from that day, but her face and form came vividly to mind as he looked at his child.
He received letters from her during the first month of her stay in Sydney. He was pleased with them. She was happy, the change was doing her an immense amount of good. She inquired lovingly after him and the child. As the month wore on her letters became shorter, and excuses were made that she had so much to do, and such a short time to do it in, that she must make the most of it, and so on.
In the last letter he received no mention was made of Willie, and he felt it keenly.
Then there was an interval of suspense. He waited a fortnight and no letter arrived. He could stand it no longer, and he wrote to her father asking how it was he had not heard from Maud. Was she ill? Then came the reply that seemed for days and weeks to blot out his life, and he wandered about in an aimless, half-dazed way, heedless where he went, not knowing what he was doing.
'Maud left home to return to Wanabeen a week ago,' wrote her father. 'What can have happened?'
Jim Dennis knew what had happened. His heart told him that she had left him and deserted her child. He did not answer the letter, and another came.
Maud's father wrote to say his daughter was a disgrace to her family. He heard she had gone to England, but he did not know with whom. He advised him to think of her as dead and cast her memory out of his life, as he meant to do.
'She is not worth a thought from such a man as you, Jim Dennis. You are worth a hundred times more than she is. I am sorry for you, very sorry. Can we help you at all with the little one? If so, please say in what way. I wish to heaven she had never been born to bring this disgrace upon us all.'
Jim Dennis wanted no help, and wrote to that effect. 'I will find her out, and the man who has ruined our lives, and then there will be a heavy settling day between us. As for blotting her out of my memory, I cannot do that yet, but the day may come when it will be done. If ever such a day arrives, there will be no mercy for the man or the woman – at present I have some for her.'
It took him a long time to write
