Here he told the tale of his early sin and all that came of it. When he
had finished the story he spoke of Barbara again. "She didn't want to
disgrace you, you understand," he said. "You were at Wandenong; I know
that, never mind how. She'd marry you if I were out of the way. Well,
I'm going to be out of the way. I'm going to leave this country, and
she's to think I'm dead, you see."

At this point Louis Bachelor swayed, and would have fallen, but that the
bushranger's arms were thrown round him and helped him to a chair. "I'm
afraid that I am ill," he said; "call Gongi. Ah!" He had fainted.

The bushranger carried him to a bed, and summoned Gongi and the woman
from the tavern, and in another hour was riding away through the valley
of the Popri. Before thirty-six hours had passed a note was delivered to
a station-hand at Wandenong addressed to Barbara Golding, and signed by
the woman from The Angel's Rest. Within another two days Barbara Golding
was at the bedside of Captain Louis Bachelor, battling with an enemy that
is so often stronger than love and always kinder than shame.

In his wanderings the sick man was ever with his youth and early manhood,
and again and again he uttered Barbara's name in caressing or entreaty;
though it was the Barbara of far-off days that he invoked; the present
one he did not know. But the night in which the crisis, the fortunate
crisis, of the fever occurred, he talked of a great flood coming from the
North, and in his half-delirium bade them send to headquarters, and
mournfully muttered of drowned plantations and human peril. Was this
instinct and knowledge working through the disordered fancies of fever?
Or was it mere coincidence that the next day a great storm and flood did
sweep through the valley of the Popri, putting life in danger and