Far away from the sunny sheep runs, in a hospital behind the turmoil of warring nations, lay one who knew Broonah well, and whose thoughts were constantly wandering there and to Murrawang. Through a wonderful and adventurous span he looked back, it seemed, through a man's life; indeed, the old scenes at Broonah and Murrawang seemed to belong to another and far-distant age--some of them dimly remembered, but amid them all there was one picture that was vivid still--the face of a girl. Had she forgotten him? Was she married or dead--or waiting? Lovers they had been long ago--so long ago that he hardly hoped ever to see her again. They were merry days on Broonah, sweet, enchanting hours on old Murrawang, that they had known together. He was young then, wild and devil-may-care, but the favored son of a wealthy squatter. He thought lightly of his possessions in those happy times, and less perhaps of the girl who had kindled the love fire that had never died. The weary years on a lonely island, when he saw no one, heard no voice but his own and the storm wind's and the sea bird's, when he had sunk to the level of a ravening beast, made her appear to him as a creature almost divine. And now, grown old for his years, a wreck of his former self, who could never run and romp and ride again as in the old days, the memory of her brought tears to his eyes.
An officer, lightly wounded, with a bandage across his forehead and his arm in a sling, came sauntering through the ward, chatting now to a nurse and now to a wounded soldier, and stopped at last beside his bed. The officer was Captain Clyde Morey, of Bynaaban. The other was Egbert Rhea, of Murrawang.
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