That quietly dressed, not quite elderly, not quite young visitor from the old country, who was he? He had a military air, and the stamp which ‘formerly in the army’ invariably impresses on the individual so privileged. The ‘horsey man,’ the abscondu, the aristocratic tourist, on for a hasty inspection, with a view to chance a thousand or two on the Big Bonanza, or the Golden Horn,—they were there. It _might_ turn up trumps—like Great Wolder, which had paid a million and a half in dividends and was going strong still. Others again, who played deeply, and were chiefly undesirable.
As the field increased in population and prestige, the stream of holiday or home-going capitalists made Perth their headquarters. Once there, the ‘Weld,’ an exclusive and fashionable club, naturally attracted notice, and afforded a more or less luxurious home for those who desired to enjoy their sojourn by the waters of the Swan River, and to feel the ocean breezes on a sun-tanned cheek. As an honorary or permanent member, the candidate required to be proposed and seconded by leading members of the club, who were held responsible for his conduct and character, so that it may be imagined that both were subjected to close supervision. It was not, therefore, probable that the black sheep of other lands, much less of colonial families, would find pasture, even in that Terra Incognita, a West Australian goldfield.
There was still, however, one haunting mystery, one problem unsolved, in the solution of which Mrs. Banneret felt more interest than in all the other uncertainties and sensational historiettes put together. Who and what was Mrs. Lilburne? Handsome, strikingly so, indeed—refined—cultured—aristocratic _au bout des ongles_; what strange movement of the hour hand of fate had brought her to the often distasteful work, the dire climatic hardships of a hospital nurse on a West Australian goldfield? Who could doubt her stainless purity who gazed on the banded hair—the calm, brave countenance, equally free from doubt or fear—the sweet, sad eyes which so rarely gave token of the spirit-light which illumined them, at rarest moments, ‘like melancholy stars,’ of which Mrs. Banneret said they always reminded her. Had she lost, by death, by desertion, by treachery, her soul’s idol, to whom she had been vowed in happy, radiant girlhood’s day? What a ‘phantom of delight’ must she then have appeared to her social world—at that entrancing age, when ‘standing with reluctant feet, where the brook and river meet,’ she had so fully realised the poet’s dream!—the dream of all poets that ever strove to paint the delicious embodiment of soul and sense, the flower season of happy, innocent, loveliest girlhood.