inn, and he made himself more useful to his new master than he had been yet.
The bungalow was some few miles out, upon the delightful woody shores of Rose Bay; they drove on there in the afternoon; and the greenwood dipping beyond the post and rails of the Old Point Piper Road, the lush meadows dipping beyond that, and the azure arm of the harbour seen through the one and above the other, were all a very wonderful change after that terrible plateau of the past four months. Nor had they any feature in common with the detested region of Castle Sullivan. Tom had seen nothing like this up-country. To crown all, the bungalow lay bathed in the richest sunset when they reached it, and Rose Bay deserved that name indeed, for its sunlit waters appeared to be dimpled with wet rose-leaves from strand to strand. It was as though Nature herself were trying to soften that frozen heart and to welcome Tom Erichsen to this haven of peace.
An old man came out to see to the horses, a somewhat younger woman stood in the mellow light upon a wide verandah. Daintree greeted them with an air—almost the first he had permitted himself in Tom’s company. With another, however, he took Tom’s hand and expressed characteristically the hope that the threshold of his house would prove to be also that of a new life for Tom.
“You have left the past behind you, Thomas,” said he, “and all your enemies with it. Rest assured of that. If they follow you here they’ll have me to deal with—I can promise them they have laid their last finger on you. No, there’s a brighter future ahead of you, I trust; and always recollect—I am your friend.”
