The Black Opal, Katharine Susannah Prichard [i have read the book a hundred times txt] 📗

wraith fled. Sophie took his face between her hands.

“Oh, my dear,” she murmured, her eyes straining on his face, “I do love you⁠ ⁠… and I will love you, more and more.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Potch said. “I love you enough for both of us.⁠ ⁠… Just think of me”⁠—he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it gently⁠—“like this⁠—your hand⁠—a sort of third hand.”

When he came back from the mine in the afternoon Potch went to see Sophie, cut wood for her, and do any odd jobs she might need done. Sometimes he had tea with her, and they read the reviews and books Michael passed on to them. In the evening they went for a walk, usually towards the Old Town, and sat on a long slope of the Ridge overlooking the Rouminofs’ first home⁠—near where they had played when they were children, and had watched the goats feeding on green patches between the dumps.

They had awed talks there; and now and then the darkness, shutting off sight of each other, had made something like disembodied spirits of them, and their spirits communicated dumbly as well as on the frail wind of their voices.

They yarned and gossiped sometimes, too, about the things that had happened, and what Potch had done while Sophie was away. She asked a good deal about the ratting, and about Jun and Maud. Potch tried to avoid talking of it and of them. He had evaded her questions, and Sophie returned to them, perplexed by his reticence.

“I don’t understand, Potch,” she said on one occasion. “You found out that Maud and Jun had something to do with the ratting, and you went over to Jun’s⁠ ⁠… and told them you were going to tell the boys.⁠ ⁠… They must have known you would tell. Maud⁠—”

Potch’s expression, a queer, sombre and shamed heaviness of his face, arrested her thought.

“Maud⁠—” she murmured again. “I see,” she added, “it was just Maud⁠—”

“Yes,” Potch said.

“That explains a good deal.” Sophie’s eyes were on the distant horizon of the plains; her fingers played idly with quartz pebbles, pink-stained like rose coral, lying on the earth about her.

“What does it explain?” Potch asked.

“Why,” Sophie said, “for one thing⁠—how you grew up. You’ve changed since I went away, Potch, you know.⁠ ⁠…”

His smile showed a moment.

“I’m older.”

“Older, graver, harder⁠ ⁠… and kinder, though you always had a genius for kindness, Potch.⁠ ⁠… But Maud⁠—”

Potch turned his head from her. Sophie regarded his averted profile thoughtfully.

“I understand,” she said.

Potch took her gaze steadily, but with troubled eyes.

“I wish⁠ ⁠… somehow⁠ ⁠… I needn’t ’ve done what I did,” he said.

“You’d have hated her, if you had gone back on the men⁠—because of her.”

“That’s right,” Potch agreed.

“And⁠—you don’t now?”

“No.”

“I saw her⁠—Maud⁠—in New York⁠ ⁠… before I came away,” Sophie said slowly. “She was selling opal.⁠ ⁠…”

“Did she show you the stones?”

“That’s just what Michael asked me,” Sophie said.

“Michael?” Potch’s face clouded.

“She didn’t show them to me, but I know who saw them all⁠—he bought them⁠—Mr. Armitage.”

“The old man?”

“No, John.”

After a minute Sophie said:

“Why are you so keen about those stones Maud had, Potch? Michael is, too.⁠ ⁠… Most of them were taken from the claims, I suppose⁠—but was there anything more than that?”

“It’s hard to say.” Potch spoke reluctantly. “There’s nothing more than a bit of guesswork in my mind⁠ ⁠… and I suppose it’s the same with Michael. I haven’t said anything to Michael about it, and he hasn’t to me, so it’s better not to mention it.”

“There’s a good deal changed on the Ridge since I went away,” Sophie remarked musingly.

“The new rush, and the school, the Bush Brothers’ church, and Mrs. Watty’s veranda?”

“I don’t mean that,” Sophie said. “It’s the people and things⁠ ⁠… you, for instance, and Michael⁠—”

“Michael?” Potch exclaimed. “He’s wearing the same old clothes, the same old hat.”

Sophie was too much in earnest to respond to the whimsey.

“He’s different somehow⁠ ⁠… I don’t quite know how,” she said. “There’s a look about him⁠—his eyes⁠—a disappointed look, Potch.⁠ ⁠… It hurt him when I went away, I know. But now⁠—it’s not that.⁠ ⁠…”

As Potch did not reply, Sophie’s eyes questioned him earnestly.

“Has anything happened,” she asked, “to make Michael look like that?”

“I⁠ ⁠… don’t know,” Potch replied.

Answered by the slow and doubtful tone of his denial, Sophie exclaimed:

“There is something, Potch! I don’t want to know what it is if you can’t tell me. I’m only worried about Michael.⁠ ⁠… I’d always thought he had the secret of that inside peace, and now he looks⁠—Oh, I can’t bear to see him look as he does.⁠ ⁠… And he seems to have lost interest in things⁠—the life here⁠—everything.”

“Yes,” Potch admitted.

“Only tell me,” Sophie urged, “is this that’s bothering Michael likely to clear, and has it been hanging over him for long?”

Potch was silent so long that she wondered whether he was going to answer the question. Then he said slowly:

“I⁠ ⁠… don’t know. I really don’t know anything, Sophie. I happened to find out⁠—by accident⁠—that Michael’s pretty worried about something. I don’t rightly know what, or why. That’s all.”

The even pace of those days gave Sophie the quiet mind she had come to the Ridge for. There was healing for her in the fragrant air, the sunshiny days, the blue-dark nights, with their unclouded, starry skies. She went into the shed one morning and threw the bags from the cutting-wheel which had been her mother’s, cleared and cleaned up the room, rearranged the boxes, put out her working gear, and cut and polished one or two stones which were lying on a saucer beside the wheel, to discover whether her hand had still its old deftness. Michael was delighted with the work she showed him in the evening, and gave her several small stones to face and polish for him.

Every day then Sophie worked at her wheel for a while. George and Watty, Bill Grant and the Crosses brought stuff for her to cut and polish, and in a little while her life was going in the even way it had done before she left the Ridge, but