And the Horace Gages and Elsie were going too, and the party was to break up.
They would meet no more till Parliament opened next month and Leichardt's Town gaieties had begun, and Elsie had, as she said, with her little laugh, got through her jam-making. Ina and Lord Horace were coming down to meet the Waveryngs, who were to turn up some time in the winter. All the while Elsie was thinking of Blake's strange words, seeing in fancy the dark, dangerous eyes which already imagination pictured too often for her heart's peace. What had he meant by saying that his life was wild and precarious—he whose life seemed so steady and safe, who had just been elected member for Luya, who was going through the usual Leichardt's Town routine, and who would be at Tunimba for their picnic in the spring? Why was he afraid of loving her? Why should she not love him? Why might he not open to her that world of new emotion, of which in very truth she had even now caught a faint glimpse? Why?—Why?
The night sounds mingled, with her thoughts and increased the dreamlike feeling. There was the strange pouring-water sound of the swamp pheasant, the little sweet guggle, like water trickling, and there were uncanny gr—rr—s and swishes of wings and harsh screeches as the horses' tread startled the waterfowl in the creek, and the wombats and opossums from their tree-lairs. And then from the scrub came the dingo's howl, weird and melancholy, and the curlews were wailing in the Boomerang Swamp. The horses' hoofs sounded pat-pat on the dry grass, and how curious the shadows were of the riders as they went by, like the dream shadows of the fairy story. A wild sense of irresponsibility came over Elsie. She almost laughed aloud at her fancy. She imagined a masked and armed horseman on a coal-black steed dashing into their midst, and bearing her away, away into the black depths of the scrub; away into an unknown life; away from all that was prosaic and commonplace, to a land of intoxicating surprises, of daring deeds, and love rapture. And somehow
