When it was bruited abroad throughout Pilot Mount, and to the West Australian world at large, that Nurse Lilburne had gone to Perth to meet her husband—_had_ indeed met him on the incoming _Carl Schiller_, and was returning to resume her position at the Pilot Mount hospital,—also, after putting everything straight, to give up her appointment, and probably ‘go home,’ great was the excitement, general the regrets, sincere indeed the sorrow which was openly displayed by her more intimate friends and fellow-workers. Never would they get such another Matron—so wise, so tender, yet so firm, and clever too as an organiser. She had redeemed their hospital from comparative confusion and chaos; now it was as well managed as any of the metropolitan ones. The Health Officer, the Inspector General, the great doctor M‘Diarmid, _every one_, had said so. And now, when it was the pride and joy of ‘the field,’ here was her husband turning up from nobody knew where, and, of course, to take her away with him. It was most discouraging.
As for the local press—a journalistic flood of wonder and admiration, congratulation and grief, poured over the bars and lodging-houses, the hotel parlours, the stores—the churches even, and flowed and surged, and eddied, throughout the wide regions of ‘the field’ and its dependencies. The name and fame of Nurse Lilburne, the modern revival of the ‘lady with the lamp,’ had spread far and wide. The fever-stricken miner, the inexperienced tourist, the youthful governess, the toil-encumbered matron, all owned to deep debts of gratitude, all joined in a chorus of congratulation and heartfelt thanksgiving. ‘Heaven had had mercy,’ said the devout. ‘It is the Lord’s doing.’ ‘First man ever I knowed to come back from where _he’s_ been,’ said South Sea Jack.
It had not generally transpired, nor had it been thought necessary to advertise the fact of his detention at so evil-reputed a locality. It was generally supposed that pecuniary losses had resulted in his trying to redeem his fortunes in South America, whence he had now returned, having at length fallen upon a ‘bonanza’ in silver. The environments of the country not being favourable to the habitudes of a refined Englishwoman, it had been decided that she should make a home in Western Australia.