"God knows!" he said, and turned away.

It was almost more than he could bear to go and leave this little
girl alone to face so terrible a thing. "God help me!" she moaned,
hurrying back, but not looking at the hot, low-hanging sky. "Help
me, God! God, help me, help me!"



CHAPTER XXI When the Sun Went Down


Such a sunset!

Down at the foot of the grass hill there was a flame-coloured sky,
with purple, soft clouds massed in banks high up where the dying
glory met the paling blue. The belt of trees had grown black, and
stretched sombre, motionless arms against the orange background.
All the wind had died, and the air hung hot and still, freighted
with the strange silence of the bush.

And at the top of the hill, just within the doorway of the little
brown hut, her wide eyes on the wonderful heavens, Judy lay dying.
She was very quiet now, though she had been talking--talking of
all sorts of things. She told them she had no pain at all.

"Only I shall die when they move me," she said.

Meg was sitting in a little heap on the floor beside her. She had
never moved her eyes from the face on the pillow of mackintoshes, she