Madge was seated in one of these comfortable chairs, and she divided her attention between the glowing beauty of the world outside, which she could see through a narrow slit in the blinds.  But she did not seem greatly interested in her book, and it was not long before she let it fall unheeded to the ground and took refuge in her own thoughts.  The trial through which she had so recently passed had been a great one, and it had not been without its outward result.  It had left its impress on her beautiful face, and there was a troubled look in her eyes.  After Brian’s acquittal of the murder of Oliver Whyte, she had been taken by her father up to the station, in the hope that it would restore her to health.  The mental strain which had been on her during the trial had nearly brought on an attack of brain fever; but here, far from the excitement of town life, in the quiet seclusion of the country, she had recovered her health, but not her spirits.  Women are more impressionable than men, and it is, perhaps, for this reason that they age quicker.  A trouble which would pass lightly over a man, leaves an indelible mark on a woman, both physically and mentally, and the terrible episode of Whyte’s murder had changed Madge from a bright and merry girl into a grave and beautiful woman.  Sorrow is a potent enchantress.  Once she touches the heart, life can never be quite the same again.  We never more surrender ourselves entirely to pleasure; and often we find so many of the things we have longed for are after all but dead sea fruit.  Sorrow is the veiled Isis of the world, and once we penetrate her mystery and see her deeply-furrowed face and mournful eyes, the magic light of romance dies all away, and we realise the hard bitter fact of life in all its nakedness.

Madge felt something of all this.  She saw the world now, not as the fantastic fairyland of her girlish dreams, but as the sorrowful vale of tears through which we must all walk till we reach the “Promised Land.”

And Brian, he also had undergone a change, for there were a few white hairs now amid his curly, chestnut locks, and his character, from being gay and bright, had become moody and irritable.  After the trial he had left town immediately, in order to avoid meeting with his friends, and had gone up to his station, which was next to that of the Frettlbys’.  There he worked hard all day, and smoked hard all night, thinking ever the secret which the dead woman had told him, and which threatened to overshadow his life.  Every now and then he rode over and saw Madge.  But this was generally when he knew her father to be away from Melbourne, for of late he had disliked the millionaire.  Madge could not but condemn his attitude, remembering how her father had stood beside him in his recent trouble.  Yet there was another reason why Brian kept aloof from Yabba Yallook station.  He did not wish to meet any of the gay society which was there, knowing that since his trial he was an object of curiosity and sympathy to everyone—­a position galling enough to his proud nature.