G. B. Lancaster

“ Then Lew went out and beat up the township to do last honours to Charlie Deland. And when all was done, and he stood with her on the deck of the dirty little Gunyah watching the last crates of bananas and the last bales of cotton swing inship, he felt some pride in his management of affairs. For sixty of the townsfolk had followed Charlie and the girl and Lew to the little barren cemetery beside the sea, and there had been no unseemly jubilation such as had been confidently expected. ”

“ By all his manhood, by all the pity and the chivalry deep-sunk in him somewhere, he wanted to go in there and to take the girl in his arms and to give her such comfort as living, breathing tenderness could give. ”

“ For the first time Lew regretted it. He stared at the girl, and his lips went suddenly dry.
The girl drew herself up. Lew was a tall man; but her long-lashed, dark eyes met his levelly.
"You are Mr. Holderness?" she demanded.
"Yes." Lew was reaching out for his wits rapidly.
"And you know where my brother is?"
"I—I—yes."
There is some doubt as to whether the body still constitutes the man when the soul is taken from it. Lew did not care to hazard an opinion concerning the resting-place of Charlie Deland's soul. ”

“ Life has a way of springing her tests on men and then sitting back to see how they take them.
The very ring of his feet lifted the eyes of the men in the bar, and Tommy Ives turned with the usual joke that had worn cruelly threadbare in these last months.
"Goin' to shout us, Lew? Mine's a gin cocktail."
"Yes." Lew pulled himself up on the counter and grinned at them with his eyes lit. "Yes. Make you all drunk if you like. Fill up, Joe. And if there's a man here who's been to the Thursday Island pearling-beds just lately, I'll make him blind drunk." ”