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Updated: June 11, 2025
"Funny how Nellie rode over to-day, just as you were talking about her, wasn't it?" he asked, as he came up beside her. Ailleen looked at him without answering, and, with his glance averted, he went on "I think she's a bit gone, don't you? Fancy her talking like she did. I thought you "
There had been a community of interests between them from those days of irresponsible childhood; and when, in later days, Ailleen lost her mother, and her father developed the state of health which made him more and more delicate every year, the community of interests grew, for whatever her troubles were, Tony was always ready to share them; and he was the only boy who made no protests about her being friends with all the others, and treating them all on a level when circumstances were kind enough to put some entertainment in her way.
At noon Ailleen, sitting on the verandah of Barellan, caught the scent of bush-fire smoke floating on the faint breeze. She rose and walked to the end of the verandah, where she could obtain a view in the direction whence the wind was blowing. Over the tops of the trees she saw smoke rising rapidly.
Dickson, resenting Tony's appearance at the station, as well as the way Ailleen behaved towards him, also hurried over. "A horse has knocked the rail over," Ailleen exclaimed, as she took Mrs. Dickson's arm. "Let me help you," Tony said, as he took the other. The blind woman stood motionless, with closely compressed lips and eyes that stared in their sightless fixity.
Scarcely had he heard the sound than through the haze of the smoke the horse, ridden by a girl, came into sight. Instinctively he reined up, and the thought flashed through his brain that it might be Ailleen. The horse and its rider dashed out of the smoke, the horse with its neck stretched out, its eyes starting from its head, its tongue hanging out and blood-flecked foam on its nostrils.
Ailleen, staring in astonishment at Nellie's face, could only again exclaim "Nellie!" "Don't 'Nellie' me," the other retorted. "I know all about it. I made him tell me what it all meant. You fancy you can do what you like with him, but I'm boss in this act. He's got to do as I tell him, or else I go and tell his mother something that'll make him sit up.
Ailleen looked into the open eyes, sightless and expressionless, and felt a twinge of pity for the lonely heart who spoke so fondly of her boy the boy who had spoken of her to Ailleen, and said that she was ill-tempered, fretful, and worrying. She, guileless herself, had sympathized with him, never doubting that some truth existed in his words.
"You are always my friend," she answered softly, but without raising her eyes, and with a barely perceptible movement away from him. The arm that was ready was around and restrained her, and her hand he was clasping was pressed to his breast. "More than that, Ailleen." She turned her head quickly, and looked at him with a flash in her eyes as she disengaged her hand and stepped away.
"Thank God you came," she said, as he caught her in his arms and held her. "Darling, darling!" he whispered. "Ailleen, you are mine now." "I always was," she answered, as she clung to him. "Oh, why have you been so long in coming? I thought you had forgotten." "You sent me away the day I came, and they said " "Tony!"
"I will wait till you go back." She stood still with her face towards the house as Ailleen returned, and then, as she heard the girl's footsteps on the verandah, she turned and walked to the clump of trees, disappearing under their shade through the little gate in the fence. Closing the gate after her, she stepped forward, holding out a hand slightly in front of her. "Well?"
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