sound. A man came quickly towards her. "I am Carbourd," he said; "I
could not find the way to the Cave. They were after me. They have
tracked me. Tell me quick how to go."

She swiftly gave him directions, and he darted away. Again there was a
rustle in the leaves, and a man stepped forth. Something glistened in
his hands--a rifle, though she could not see it plainly. It was levelled
at the flying figure of Carbourd. There was a report. Marie started
forward with her hands on her temples and a sharp cry. She started
forward--into absolute darkness. There was a man's footsteps going
swiftly by her. Why was it so dark? She stretched out her hands with a
moan.

"Oh! mother!--oh! mother! I am blind!" she cried.

But her mother was sleeping unresponsive beyond the dark-beyond all dark.
It was, perhaps, natural that she should cry to the dead and not to the
living.

Marie was blind. She had known it was coming, and it had tried her, as
it would have tried any of the race of women. She had, when she needed
it most, put love from her, and would not let her own heart speak, even
to herself. She had sought to help one who loved her, and to fully prove
the other--though the proving, she knew, was not necessary--before the
darkness came. But here it was suddenly sent upon her by the shock of a
rifle shot. It would have sent a shudder to a stronger heart than hers--
that, in reply to her call on her dead mother, there came from the trees
the shrill laugh of the mopoke--the sardonic bird of the South.

As she stood there, with this tragedy enveloping her, the dull boom of a