There was a kind of breathlessness everywhere, but for me the excitement had worn off. I was not as happy as I had been in the first flush of discovery.

A stranger came to the house and was closeted a long time with Lynx.

Adelaide told me that he was her father’s lawyer and that he was going to England on Lynx’s business.

It was said that Lynx was now a millionaire. This was probably true, but he wasn’t satisfied. I wondered if he ever would be.

Once I said to him: “You are very rich now.”

He admitted it.

“You too, my dear. Don’t forget you have your share in our good fortune. Didn’t I say it was a triumvirate?”

“How rich?”

“Do you want figures?”

“No. They would mean little to me. But I believe it is rich enough.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That now you might give up this feverish activity and leave others to work for you.”

“Other people never work for you as you work for yourself.”

“Does it matter? You have enough.”

“I’m going to get all the gold out of that mine, Nora.”

“You are insatiable … for gold.”

His eyes gleamed.

“No,” he said.

“I shall know when I have enough. I need to be very rich.”

“And then?”

“And then I shall do what I have always planned to do. I have waited a long time, but now I see the fulfilment in sight.”

He said no more then, but he alarmed me a little because there was a hardening of his lips and I knew that the thought of revenge was in his mind.

Revenge on the man who had had him sent away over thirty-five years ago! Did people harbour feelings of revenge for so long? A man like Lynx did, I knew. It worried me because I knew that there was no happiness to be found in revenge.

The months went by and Christmas had come once more. We had the usual celebrations in the English style: the hot meal in the burning heat of the day; the plum pudding steeped in brandy; the mock mistletoe. I remembered the last Christmas when the Lambs had come and been turned away. I wondered what had happened to them now and remembering the relentlessness of Lynx on that occasion I was apprehensive. At the beginning of January, the lawyer came to the house o these councils, but I noticed that afterwards there was a triumph in Lynx’s eyes; and I guessed it had something to do with his dreams of revenge.

One evening he asked me to play a game of chess with him and when I went to him, the door to his studio was open and he called to me to come in.

“Come here, Nora,” he said; and when I went to him he put his hands over my eyes; then he turned me round until I was facing the wall.

Then he took his hands away and said:

“Look!”

It was a portrait of me in my riding habit, my top hat slightly to one side, my eyes wide and the colour in my cheeks.

“All my own work,” he said.

“When did you do it?”

“Is that your first question? I show you a portrait of yourself and all you say is ” when? “

“But I did not sit for it.”

“Did you think that was necessary? I know every contour of your face, every fleeting expression.”

“But you have been so busy.”

“I have still had time to think of you. Tell me, do you like it?”

“Isn’t it rather flattering?”

“It’s as I see you.”

“I’m glad I look like that to you. I don’t to myself.”

“That’s how you are when you look at me.”

“But why is it hanging there?”

“It’s a good place for it … the best in the room.”

“But the other picture was there.”

He nodded and I saw it then, with its face to the wall.

“But when you sat at your table you could look straight at it.”

“Now I look straight at this.”

“Is that what you want?”

“My dear Nora, you are not showing your usual good sense. Should I put it there if I didn’t?”

I went close and examined it. It did flatter me. Had I ever looked so vital? Were my eyes so large and bright? Did I have that rosy flush?

“It’s as I see you,” he had said.

“So now you will look at my picture instead,” I commented.

“Yes.”

“And Arabella …”

“She is dead.”

“I see. that’s why you have hung me up there. When did you learn that she was dead?”

“Morfeli—he’s the lawyer who has been to England on business for me—went to Whiteladies. He came back with this news.”

“I see.”

“Do you, Nora?” he said; I believed he was on the verge of confidences, but he changed his mind and suggested we play our game of chess.

The heat was intense—far greater than last summer. The grass was dried up and there was anxiety about the sheep at the station; some of the workers died of the heat; but at Nora’s Hill the gold yield continued to be spectacular.

I had seen so little of Stirling since the discovery that when I came face to face with him on the stairs one day I complained of this to him.

“We’re busy at the mine, Nora.”

“You always are,” I retorted.

“Sometimes I wish I hadn’t found it for you.”

He laughed.

“Where are you going now?”

“To sit in the summerhouse.”

“I’ll join you in five minutes.”

It was pleasant to be with him, I told him when he came.

“It’s a mutual pleasure,” he answered.

“I wish there need not be this mad rush for more and more gold.”

“The mine has to be kept going.”

“Couldn’t you sell out now that you have your fortune?”

“I think that’s what my father will probably do, in due course.”

“Do you think he ever would? The more he gets the more he wants.”

Stirling rose at once in defence of his father, as I expected him to.

I wouldn’t have had it otherwise.

“He will know when the moment comes to stop. He’s making us all rich, Nora.”

“Yet what have these riches brought us? Things are the same—except that I see less of you.”

“And that’s a hardship?”

“The greatest hardship.”

He looked at me with a happy smile. I thought: He loves me. Why does he not say so? Now is the time. They have their gold; they can stop thinking of it. Let us give our minds to more important things.

“It’s too much to hope,” I said, ‘that you would share this feeling.”

“I told you when you came out here that you would receive frankness and be expected to give it. You know very well it’s not too much to hope for.”

“Then I’m gratified. Only I must say you don’t make much effort.”

“I’m constantly making efforts which are foiled.”

“Well, don’t let’s waste the little time we have for talking together in discussing lost causes. How rich is your father now and how rich does he want to be?”

“He has plans. He wants to see them fulfilled. That’s how he looks at it.”

“He confides in you.”

“He always has.”

“And you know more than anyone what is in his mind.

“I think I do. I believe he is going to England.”

“Going to England!” I had a picture of him on the lawns of Whiteladies.

“And we shall stay here?”

“I don’t know what his plans are for us.”

“His plans? Should we make our own?”

He was staring ahead of him, a puzzled expression in his eyes. I thought: Lynx has said something to him. There is something I don’t know.

I wanted him to tell me that our future was together. I wanted him to ask me to marry him at once. It was important. I had a feeling that there was a danger in delay. I loved Stirling. I wanted the future to be as I had so often imagined it. I knew exactly what I wanted—and I wanted it now. Now! I thought. We should go to Lynx and tell him. I would say it.

“Stirling and I are going to be married. I am going to belong here for the rest of my life.” And the three of us would go to his study and drink a glass of champagne as we had on that other occasion; and I would make them realize that this was a far more worthy object of celebration than that other. My happiness would be shared with Lynx as well as with Stirling. I would say to him: “The three of us belong together.” I would make him give up his ideas of crazy revenge. So even when I was thinking of marriage with Stirling, it was Lynx who was uppermost in my mind.

Stirling was smiling at me and I was sure that he loved me.

“Now,” I wanted to say.

“Now is the time.”

But he said nothing. I knew that he wanted to tell me that he loved me but that something was restraining him.

And that moment passed.

It was a week later before I was alone with Lynx. The heat was more intense than ever. Even Adelaide felt it and rested in the afternoons.

We longed for the nights but when they came they were so hot that it was impossible to sleep.

We had played our game and sat over the chess board on which my defeated king was held by a knight, a bishop and an aggravating pawn.

I said: “There is something afoot.”

“How would you like to go to England?” asked Lynx.

Alone? “

“Certainly not. We should all go—you, myself and Stirling.”

“And Adelaide?”

“She would stay behind to hold the fort here—unless she wished to go, of course.”

“She is allowed free will?”

He laughed at me.

“The asperity of your tone tells me that you do not altogether relish the idea of visiting your native land.”

“For what purpose?”

“To complete a little business.”

“Revenge?”

“You could call it that.”

“You are very rich now.”

“Rich enough to do everything I have ever dreamed of .. > apart from one thing.”

“And what puts that out of your reach?”

“Time. Death.”

“Not even you are a match for such adversaries.”

“Not even I,” he admitted.

“Are you in the mood for confidences?”

“Are you in the mood to receive them?”

“Always … from you.”

He laughed with pleasure.

“My dear Nora, my dearest Nora, you have done a great deal for me.”

‘l Know. i discovered gold for you. “

“And perhaps more important … I hope more important … my youth.”

That’s a little enigmatic. “

“Perhaps one day you will understand.”

“One day? Why not this day?”

He was silent, raising one eyebrow in the familiar gesture which used to intimidate.

“We’ll see,” he said. He leaned back in his chair and regarded me seriously.

“You know my lawyer has been to England where he has completed certain business deals for me. There has been a little buying, a little selling of certain shares. But I’ll not bore you with the details. This has put me into a position with regard to certain people which gives me a great deal of gratification.”

I said quickly: “Does it concern Whiteladies?”

“You’re a clever girl, Nora. Do you know that the only way in which I was able to live through that most terrible period of my life was by dreaming of myself at Whiteladies … not a humble drawing-master but the owner. I saw myself sitting at that table in the hall. You should see that hall, Nora. It’s grand. It’s noble. The ceiling is carved with the arms of the family; the family motto is engraved there. Service to Queen and Country. Elizabeth was the Queen referred to and the decorations are Tudor roses in honour, of course, of the royal house which gave the family its home after turning the pious white ladies out into the countryside to starve or beg. The walls are panelled; the great fireplace is of stone and there are seats carved out of that stone on either side of it. There are suits of armour there in which the men of the family lived up to their motto. There is a dais at one end and a table on it. Kings and queens have dined at that table. wanted to dine at that table. I made a vow, Nora. I was going to be master of Whiteladies. I was going to take my revenge on the man who ruined my life. I knew there was one thing he cared for beyond all else … more than his wife or his daughter. Whiteladies!p>

So I said: One day I will take it from him. I will marry his daughter and sit at that table where kings and queens have sat. I will look over that hall and say: “Whiteladies is mine.”

“But he’s dead now. So is his daughter. And she was married, you told me. She married the fop whom you so despised.”