G. B. Lancaster

“ There is no pain that a true woman will not suffer for the man she loves—except the pain of being forgotten. If she wishes it you must give her this year, Ranald, so that she may have it to remember through all the other years,”
The boy moved his head restlessly. “I can’t, I can’t. I don’t even know how much I care now. Darrick, there’s no perspective left. There’s just one year slap up against my face, an’ a blank wall behind it. I just want to get away. I will get away. ”

“ Darrick. I am going back to the house, and you need not come with me.”
“Wait.” Darrick had thought out his moves whilst Ranald slept. “Wait! There is more in this than you think. No woman ever really knows a man. And you did not answer me.”
She looked him straight in the eyes. “Because I love Ranald I honour him. I would sooner see him dead than dishonoured, But you needn’t say such things to me, you know. Ranald couldn’t be dishonourable.”
“There is no man living who is not tempted to be so at times,” said Darrick, very low. “Listen. Ranald went to Brisbane this morning. ”

“ Darrick did not answer. He turned, hiding his face on the arm crossed over the chimney-shelf. Outside, the wind howled, with a rise and fall like the thunder of reef-tortured waves, and once the thin cry of a dingo on the trail shrilled through the roar. Then Darrick spoke—slowly.
“I will go with you. And—you will get your people to tell her?”
Ranald’s laugh was weak from exhaustion. He crawled near the fire, stretching his hands to the blaze.
“How should they? I haven't told them. No one knows, an’ I don’t mean any one to know. I can’t stand pity, an’ Il won't. ”

“ A saint dies in his bed, an’ a sinner dies in his boots, I suppose. Well, I choose the boots——”
“My dear fellow, you’ve got the wrong end of that stick. The world is chock-full of men who choose the boots—I do, myself. But to live in this world it isn’t always necessary to damn your soul for the next.” ”

“ You can sling that talk, Darrick. Are you coming?”
Despite his hot blood Ranald carried his youth cleanly, and his honour with pride. Darrick knew, and temptation shook him where he stood. In a very few months he could make of Ranald a thing such as his friends would not speak with any more. Then he would bring him back. And later, when Darrick should come alone to Nancie—before she had forgotten—— his skin burnt with a sudden flush of shame at his thought.
“No,” he said. “I won't take you. That life would break you in half a year, Ranald, It’s hot chillies and vinegar to any man ”

“ Darrick knew that over-well. And the savage part of him desired payment for this from Ranald Macdougal. He lied again.
“A man is a coward who would get a woman to help him through pain. Ranald knows that. He will write. And when I come back I will tell you—tell you all.”
Two letters Darrick forced Ranald to write from the sin-swept little backwash, where he played in a Chinese gambling hell with the flotsam that drifts in and out of the beach-towns throughout the Pacific. The boy was drunk when the third mail-boat came in, and by the fifth Darrick went home. ”