She folded her hands, puckered her forehead, and passed into a reverie
about him. Combining with her intense admiration, there was a great
horror of all this reckless courage. He would not have been so
foolhardy years ago. It was against the principles that he had once
laid down as limiting the risks that a brave man may run. It indicated
a change in him, a change that she had never pondered on till now. She
thought of him fighting the wind on top of their rick, and of several
other incidents unchronicled by the press--of his going with the
police at Old Manninglea when there was the bad riot, of his joining
the Crown keepers when they went out to catch the poachers, of his
wild performance when Mr. Creech's bull got loose. Goring bulls,
bludgeoning men, tempest and flood--wherever and whatever the danger,
he went straight to it. But it was not fair to her and the babes. His
thrice precious life! And she grew cold as she thought that an
accident--like a curtain descending when a stage play is over--might
some day end all her joy.
Then she thought once more of that dark period of their dual
existence; and it was the last time that she was ever capable of
thinking of it seriously and with any real concentration.
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