and they all left her standing alone in the garden.

Then she laughed a little oddly to herself, and stood picking to pieces
the wet leaves of a geranium, looking after the three. After a little
she came slowly over to us. "Well," said I, feigning great irony, "all
loves must have their day, both old and new. You see how they've
deserted you. Yet you smile at it!"

"Indeed, my lord and master," she said, "it is not a thing to laugh at.
It's very serious."

"And what has broken the charm of your companionship?" I asked.

"The mere matter of the fabled Bunyip. He claimed that he had seen it,
and I doubted his word. Had it been you it would not have mattered. You
would have turned the other cheek, you are so tame. But he has fire and
soul, and so we quarrelled."

"And your other lovers turned tail," I maliciously, said.

"Which only shows how superior he is," was her reply. "If you had been
in the case they would never have left me."

"Oh, oh!" blurted Mulholland, "I am better out of this; for I little
care to be called as a witness in divorce." He rose from his chair, but
I pushed him back, and he did not leave till "the cool of the evening."

The next morning, at breakfast-time, a rouseabout brought us a piece of
paper which had been nailed to the sandal-tree. On it was written: