There dawned at last a day hotter and longer than any the summer yet had sent. With break of morning banks of clouds were rolling out of the South into an empty sky. The sun sulked overhead, showing a fitful face, and the air rose steaming from the ground. Little winds came out of the South, blew brief nervous breaths, and like silly spendthrifts wore themselves to death. Before evening was come, the men and women of Surprise had stood again and again in their to eye the sky, to snuff the air, and to declare the rains must break before morning.  
In the teeth of these warnings, when afternoon wore out to evening, and dark came down to the day, when in the high sky not one star could find a porthole to look through, Power rode down to Pool. Kaloona, as well as Surprise, had read the signs of the heavens, and Power judged the storm would burst before dawn. Dark had fallen [Pg 283]half-an-hour when he guided his horse among the trees by the river.
 
He drew on the edge of the clearing in the timber, and from his seat in the saddle looked across the open. Through the of the hut, in a long bright beam, the light came to divide the dark. Molly sat upon a box in the doorway against a background of light. Black she seemed, and around her was a radiance of light, and outside the light waited the steaming dark. She sat in a reverie, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, and when the sounds of the horse reached her, she gave no sign other than calling out, "Is that you, Jim?"
 
"Yes, Molly." Power took the saddle from his horse, and came into the eye of the lamp. The hut was empty when he glanced inside. "Alone to-night, Molly? Are they over at the ?"
 
"No, they went to Surprise this morning. They reckoned to be home by dark. I thought you might be them. Maybe Dad is soaked. Mum takes a drop times, too."
 
"They had better be back soon if they mean to be back dry. The rains are here at last." A mutter of thunder began very far away. "Listen!"
 
Power took off his hat and tossed it on the[Pg 284] table in the hut. His dress was a shirt wide open at the neck, and his sleeves were rolled up above his elbows. But the night grew hotter moment by moment. Molly, on the box, kept her chin in her hands and stared out into the dark, and he felt no more talkative than she. He leaned back against the doorpost. As he did so a second mutter of thunder began very far away. The trees were wrapped from sight in the dark. Not one star peered from the sky.
 
"What's the matter, Molly? Have we left you too long alone? Your little tongue has gone to sleep, thinking there was no more use for it to-night." She did not answer, and he thought she shivered. He down this time and sharply. "What's making you shiver, child? You have not a touch of fever, have you? You had better wrap up quick and get away from the open."
 
"It isn't fever."
 
Something in her voice made him stoop down until they were face to face. "What's the matter? You are changed to-night."
 
"Aw, nothing is the matter."
 
She would not look round, and must stare on into the dark. Power sat on his heels on her right hand. He lit a pipe and waited for the strange mood to pass away. He was damp with , and the sultriness of the night[Pg 285] rested on him like a weight. Then he heard a voice.
 
"The old dog died to-day."
 
"Bluey?"
 
"Yes, Bluey."
 
"Bad luck for Bluey. He was very old."
 
"I reckon I shall miss him."
 
"Did you bury him?"
 
"I couldn't find the . I chucked him in the trees over there. Dad can fix him to-morrow."
 
"Is that what you have been thinking of all to-night?"
 
She ignored him again. The light from the doorway showed every line of her perfect profile, and by putting out a hand he could have touched the hair lying about her brows. Though he looked upon her beauty every night, he never found it grow less wonderful; but now he discovered with a curious sense of shame that he it with the calm born of dying passion. He would never see again so rare a work of art as this casket, but alackaday! he had opened the lid, and the delicate thing was empty.
 
"Jim, I was glad when you came along. It made me feel queer to leave the old dog stretched out over there. Do you reckon it true[Pg 286] folk sometimes feel in their bones what is to happen?"
 
"What have you got in your head, child?"
 
"Maybe I am talking moonshine; but I can't get the notion off me that I won't be long following the old dog."
 
"Don't talk nonsense, Molly."
 
She her shoulders in the brief fashion he found so charming. The of thunder came a third time from the distance, louder and enduring longer than the claps which had sounded before, and on the echo of this final a breeze sprang up, and wooed the hair upon her forehead and laid a kind breath against his cheek. Power looked in the track of the storm and saw only the black sky. He began to doubt if the burst would wait for midnight. He wanted to rouse the child into better spirits, but himself must first summon courage to shake off the oppression of the night. Now she was speaking again—to herself as much as to him.
 
"Maybe it isn't hard to die. The old dog was curled round quiet and easy when I found him. Sometimes when I get fair sick of hearing mum and dad and of doin' the same old things, I think it easier to be dead than to start to-morrow." She broke without warning into low, charming laughter. "When we have sat a few weeks [Pg 287]inside there with the rain coming through every crack of the roof and each of us fair tired of looking at the other, we'll reckon it a better game to be dead than alive."
 
"Wise men say there is another life to be lived when this one is done with, Molly."
 
"I've heard that story before, Jim. There was a parson round our ways once with a pack-horse. He reckoned there was more business when we had done with this place. I got him talking, for I hadn't seen a feller for a month. But I expect there isn't too much in the tale. What do you think, Mister?"
 
"Why Mister again?"
 
"Jim."
 
"If there is, let us hope we make less of things next time."
 
"Phew! it's hot. See the lightning. You will have a wet skin to go home in. No, I don't want to die yet. Some things don't happen too bad. I'd be sorry not to ride a horse again or to go fishing or to hear the birds. It isn't too bad of a morning when the sun first comes over the plain, and it isn't too bad to hear the noises in the scrub of a night." She stopped to smile. "And I don't want to say good-bye to you fellows."
 
"So you like us just a little bit after all?"
 
For the first time she gave up watching the[Pg 288] dark and looked round at him out of grave eyes. He was startled at their solemnity and wondered what she was going to say. She laid a hand upon his arm.
 
"Jim, you and me are near come to the end of things, aren't we? You aren't always to kiss me now as you was. I reckon soon you will be quite through with me."
 
"Molly!"
 
"Yes, it is true."
 
He said nothing, but presently he moved beside her and put an arm about her. She was staring into the dark again, and he laid his check against her cheek, and they looked together in the direction where the storm was rolling up.
 
"It is time to talk about things, Molly, and there is nobody to disturb us. When the rains come, this riding to and fro will have an end. What is to become of us all—tell me, child? Time never stops, you know. Life never stands still. And it looks, doesn't it, as if a man or woman can never go back, can never stay still even, but must go on? A long while now three m............