for a wide field and a wild life; nothing withheld him but pride, the
egotism that would not permit of his abandoning a struggle even with men
so contemptible as these ignorant villagers. But the hunger for humanity
filled him with visions of a new society in which he would be one with
his fellow-men, and then his enemies seemed so pitiful that he knew
himself for fool and blind to waste a care upon them. So he sold the
small property at Mill End, took up his few belongings, and left Chisley
quietly by night, eager to leave all the old life behind him, anxious for
the new.

Standing thus, looking out along the pathway of the Francis Cadman, Done
had reviewed his life almost daily, sometimes broadly and briefly, as
given here--sometimes going into excruciating details of suffering,
shame, terror, and hate; but his eyes were always turned forward.

Done meditated uninterruptedly for nearly an hour. Gradually the
conversation of the group behind him had drifted from his business and
the affair of the previous night to the great absorbing topic of the past
four months--Australia, the land of mad dreams, where the hills were
powdered with precious 'dust,' and the rivers purled over nuggets of pure
gold.

A hand fell upon the young man's shoulder; he turned sharply, angrily,
and beheld the bland face and trim figure of Captain Evan. With the
Captain was a handsome lady in black, who had already created in Jim's
mind a confused impression of massed raven hair and big, innocent dark
eyes that had a trick of floating up from under heavy lids and thick,
long lashes to their greatest magnitude, and then disappearing again like
revolving lights.