a warning wave of the driver's hand, and a "Sh-h! sh--!" as he motioned
towards the inside of the coach. There they found the Postmaster and the
Little Milliner mere skeletons, and just alive. They were being cared
for by a bushman, who had found them in the plains, delirious and nearly
naked. They had got lost, there being no regular road over the plains,
and their horse, which they had not tethered properly, had gone large.
They had been days without food and water when they were found near the
coach-track.

They were carried into O'Fallen's big sitting-room. Dicky brought the
doctor, who said that they both would die, and soon. Hours passed. The
sufferers at last became sane and conscious, as though they could not go
without something being done. The Postmaster lifted a hand to his
pocket. Dicky Merritt took out of it a paper. It was the marriage
licence. The Little Milliner's eyes were painful to see; she was not
dying happy. The Postmaster, too, moved his head from side to side in
trouble. He reached over and took her hand. She drew it back,
shuddering a little. "The ring! The ring!" she whispered.

"It is lost," he said.

Vic, who was at the woman's head, understood. She stooped, said
something in her ear, then in that of the Postmaster, and left the room.
When she came back, two minutes later, Mr. Jones was with her. What she
had done to him to sober him no one ever knew. But he had a book in his
hand, and on the dingy black of his waistcoat there shone a little gold
cross. He came to where the two lay. Vic drew from her finger a ring.
What then occurred was never forgotten by any who saw it; and you could
feel the stillness, it was so great, after a high, sing-song voice said:
"Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder."