Robbery Under Arms [104]
but when I saw in the papers that you had been arrested for cattle-stealing I knew for the first time how completely Jeanie and I had been duped.
I won't pretend that I didn't think of the money you were said to have, and how pleasant it would be to spend some of it after the miserable, scrambling, skimping life we had lately been used to. But I loved you, Dick Marston, for YOURSELF, with a deep and passionate love which you will never know now, which you would scorn and treat lightly, perhaps, if you did know. You may yet find out what you have lost, if ever you get out of that frightful gaol.
I was not such a silly fool as to pine and fret over our romance so cruelly disturbed, though Jeanie was; it nearly broke her heart. No, Richard, my nature is not of that make. I generally get even with people who wrong me. I send you a photo, giving a fair idea of myself and my HUSBAND, Mr. Mullockson. I accepted his offer soon after I saw your adventures, and those of your friend Starlight, in every newspaper in the colonies. I did not hold myself bound to live single for your sake, so did what most women do, though they pretend to act from other motives, I disposed of myself to the best advantage.
Mr. Mullockson has plenty of money, which is NEARLY everything in this world, so that I am comfortable and well off, as far as that goes. If I am not happy that is your fault -- your fault, I say, because I am not able to tear your false image and false self from my thoughts. Whatever happens to me in the future you may consider yourself to blame for. I should have been a happy and fairly good woman, as far as women go, if you had been true, or rather if everything about you had not been utterly false and despicable.
You think it fortunate after reading this, I daresay, that we are separated for ever, BUT WE MAY MEET AGAIN, Richard Marston. THEN you may have reason to curse the day, as I do most heartily, when you first set eyes on KATE MULLOCKSON.
Not a pleasant letter, by no manner of means. I was glad I didn't get it while I was eating my heart out under the stifling low roof of the cell at Nomah, or when I was bearing my load at Berrima. A few pounds more when the weight was all I could bear and live would have crushed the heart out of me. I didn't want anything to cross me when I was looking at mother and Aileen and thinking how, between us, we'd done everything our worst enemy could have wished us to do. But here, when there was plenty of time to think over old days and plan for the future, I could bear the savage, spiteful sound of the whole letter and laugh at the way she had got out of her troubles by taking up with a rough old fellow whose cheque-book was the only decent thing about him. I wasn't sorry to be rid of her either. Since I'd seen Gracey Storefield again every other woman seemed disagreeable to me. I tore up the letter and threw it away, hoping I had done for ever with a woman that no man living would ever have been the better for.
`Glad you take it so quiet,' Jim says, after holding his tongue longer than he did mostly. `She's a bad, cold-hearted jade, though she is Jeanie's sister. If I thought my girl was like her she'd never have another thought from me, but she isn't, and never was. The worse luck I've had the closer she's stuck to me, like a little brick as she is. I'd give all I ever had in the world if I could go to her and say, "Here I am, Jim Marston, without a penny in the world, but I can look every man in the face, and we'll work our way along the road of life cheerful and loving together." But I CAN'T say it, Dick, that's the devil of it, and it makes me so wild sometimes that I could knock my brains out against the first ironbark tree I come across.'
I didn't say anything, but I took hold of Jim's hand and shook it. We looked in each other's eyes for a minute; there was no call to say anything. We always understood one another, Jim and I.
As we were safe to stop in the Hollow for long spells at a time we took a good
I won't pretend that I didn't think of the money you were said to have, and how pleasant it would be to spend some of it after the miserable, scrambling, skimping life we had lately been used to. But I loved you, Dick Marston, for YOURSELF, with a deep and passionate love which you will never know now, which you would scorn and treat lightly, perhaps, if you did know. You may yet find out what you have lost, if ever you get out of that frightful gaol.
I was not such a silly fool as to pine and fret over our romance so cruelly disturbed, though Jeanie was; it nearly broke her heart. No, Richard, my nature is not of that make. I generally get even with people who wrong me. I send you a photo, giving a fair idea of myself and my HUSBAND, Mr. Mullockson. I accepted his offer soon after I saw your adventures, and those of your friend Starlight, in every newspaper in the colonies. I did not hold myself bound to live single for your sake, so did what most women do, though they pretend to act from other motives, I disposed of myself to the best advantage.
Mr. Mullockson has plenty of money, which is NEARLY everything in this world, so that I am comfortable and well off, as far as that goes. If I am not happy that is your fault -- your fault, I say, because I am not able to tear your false image and false self from my thoughts. Whatever happens to me in the future you may consider yourself to blame for. I should have been a happy and fairly good woman, as far as women go, if you had been true, or rather if everything about you had not been utterly false and despicable.
You think it fortunate after reading this, I daresay, that we are separated for ever, BUT WE MAY MEET AGAIN, Richard Marston. THEN you may have reason to curse the day, as I do most heartily, when you first set eyes on KATE MULLOCKSON.
Not a pleasant letter, by no manner of means. I was glad I didn't get it while I was eating my heart out under the stifling low roof of the cell at Nomah, or when I was bearing my load at Berrima. A few pounds more when the weight was all I could bear and live would have crushed the heart out of me. I didn't want anything to cross me when I was looking at mother and Aileen and thinking how, between us, we'd done everything our worst enemy could have wished us to do. But here, when there was plenty of time to think over old days and plan for the future, I could bear the savage, spiteful sound of the whole letter and laugh at the way she had got out of her troubles by taking up with a rough old fellow whose cheque-book was the only decent thing about him. I wasn't sorry to be rid of her either. Since I'd seen Gracey Storefield again every other woman seemed disagreeable to me. I tore up the letter and threw it away, hoping I had done for ever with a woman that no man living would ever have been the better for.
`Glad you take it so quiet,' Jim says, after holding his tongue longer than he did mostly. `She's a bad, cold-hearted jade, though she is Jeanie's sister. If I thought my girl was like her she'd never have another thought from me, but she isn't, and never was. The worse luck I've had the closer she's stuck to me, like a little brick as she is. I'd give all I ever had in the world if I could go to her and say, "Here I am, Jim Marston, without a penny in the world, but I can look every man in the face, and we'll work our way along the road of life cheerful and loving together." But I CAN'T say it, Dick, that's the devil of it, and it makes me so wild sometimes that I could knock my brains out against the first ironbark tree I come across.'
I didn't say anything, but I took hold of Jim's hand and shook it. We looked in each other's eyes for a minute; there was no call to say anything. We always understood one another, Jim and I.
As we were safe to stop in the Hollow for long spells at a time we took a good