On Monday, Hugh, Poss, and Binjie had to go out to an outlying paddock
to draft a lot of station-sheep from a mob of travelling-sheep. As
this meant a long, hard job, the three breakfasted by candlelight--a
good old fashion, this, but rather forgotten lately--and Blake also
turned out for early breakfast, as he wanted to get his drive to
Tarrong over while the weather was cool. Of the women-folk, Ellen
alone was up, boiling eggs, and making tea on a spirit-lamp;
laughing and chattering meanwhile, and keeping them all amused;
while outside in the frosty dawn, the stable boy shivered as he
tightened the girths round the ribs of three very touchy horses.
Poss and Binjie were each riding a station horse to "take the
flashness out of him," and Binjie's horse tried to buck him off,
but might as well have tried to shed his own skin; so he bolted
instead, and disappeared with a snort and a rattle of hoofs over
the hill. The others followed, with their horses very much inclined
to go through the same performance.
After they had gone, Ellen Harriott and Blake were left alone in
the breakfast-room. Outside, the heedless horse-boy was harnessing
Blake's ponies; but inside no one but themselves was awake, and as
he finished his breakfast, Ellen stepped up to the table and blew
out the two candles, leaving the room in semi-darkness. She caught
his hand, and he drew her to him. It was what she had been waiting
for all night. She had pictured a parting, which was to be such
sweet sorrow. Blake had also pictured it to himself, but in quite
a different way.
He was determined to make an end of his engagement (or entanglement,
whichever it could be called), and yet when the chance came he
almost put it off; but the thought of what exposure and disgrace
would mean, if his affairs were investigated, drove him on.
He stroked her hair for a while in silence, and then, with a laugh,
said, "We'll have to give up this sort of thing, you know; it'll
be getting you talked about, and that'll never do."
She hardly knew what he meant. Having lived so long in a fool's
paradise, she could not realise that her world was coming down
about her ears.
"We'll have to be proper in future," he said. "I've had the most
fiendish run of bad luck lately, and it's just as well there never
was any engagement between us. It would have had to come to nothing."
She drew back, and looked at him with frightened eyes. He had great
power over her--this big, masterful man, whom she had looked upon
as her lover; and she could not believe that a little trouble
about money could really make any difference to him. She believed
him able to overcome any such difficulty as that of earning a living
for her and himself.