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Marsh proceeded to tell her Nigger’s history as far as he knew it; of how the horse had erpmally become his property.

“I don’t know where he was bred, but a drover named Healey—a rotten brute with horses—owned him five years ago. I bought him because I felt sorry for the poor beast. He was sound enough, but he’d been ridden with a back that was in a hell of a mess, and he was just a bag of bones. Healey was very fond of knocking him over the head, so I knocked Healey over the head one day to show him what it felt like. We had a ding-dong go, but afterwards he sold me the horse. I doctored him up a bit, and then turned him out for a spell, and he came on wonderfully. The finest bargain I ever made. I wouldn’t part with him now for anything any one could give me—he’s the best friend I’ve got.”

Ann promised to come again next day, and to bring him some books to read.

“No more poets,” he warned her. “I’m not strong enough for poets. And no sloppy love yarns. Something exciting.”

“All right,” said Ann.

Holmes had already lent the invalid a few books. Ann knew she might safely commandeer some more from the smoking-room.

In the distance she saw the little girls riding home across the paddocks, and so she rose to go. Dan was moving about in the kitchen at the rear of the cottage, cooking an evening meal.

On her way back to the homestead Ann told herself that she had been quite mistaken in imagining her feeling for Rodney Marsh was in any degree a serious attachment. She liked him—liked him tremendously.