My dear, my dear, so you want to know why I am an old maid?

Well, nobody asked me to marry them, I suppose that must have been it.

No? What? You think I must have been pretty. Pretty, was I pretty?

They said I was then, dear, but you see there wasn’t another lady within fifty miles, and that made the difference, just all the difference. You ‘ve a pretty little girl, Hope—it wasn’t fair to have called you Hope, it’s such an unlucky name—but if you’d been young when I was they’d just have raved about you.

Had I lovers, dear?

Of course I had lovers. Every woman who isn’t downright repulsive has, I think. Willie Maclean doesn’t come here to see me, does he? Ah! I thought—

There, never mind, there’s no harm done. It’s thirty years since the men used to ride across the ranges just to stay the night at Yanyilla, and I don’t think it was wholly for your grandfather’s society they came. Of course I had lovers. It’s so long ago I can tell you about them now; but mostly, dear, I don’t think a woman should tell. She gets the credit of it, I know, but she ought not to, and I do think there are many things a nice woman, I mean a good woman, keeps to herself.

Oh yes! I had lovers, like every other girl, but there was only one I cared about—and I cared—I cared—I believe I care still, for all I lost him three and thirty years ago. I used to look forward to dying and meeting him in heaven, dear, but I was young then, and after I passed thirty, and began to go down hill, I got to know that he’d never recognize in an old woman the girl he loved on earth. It troubled me sorely, sorely, for he was only thirty when he died, but afterwards I thought we must have been put into this weary world for some good purpose, and surely if there is a great God he won’t let me waste my life for nothing. I have tried to do my best, but somehow my life has been a failure all round; I ‘m not much use to anybody. They say love doesn’t last, but I think they are wrong; I know it has lasted me all these years, and the thought of seeing him again—well, well, you will think an old woman foolish, dear, but it makes my heart beat like a young girl’s. Suppose—suppose I should not be quite all he thought me; suppose he should have changed.

Why, Hope, you’re smiling at my foolishness, but isn’t that the way every woman feels when she’s in love; and I ‘m in love still, after three and thirty years, God help me, and a woman in the main is always the same, whether her hair is golden, or whether it ‘s grey and she hides it under a cap.

But this isn’t telling you my story, is it, child?

Not that there’s much to tell. You know Yanyilla. You know what a station was like in the old days. They have been described over and over again. But Yanyilla was always a nice place. A hundred and eighty miles from Melbourne is a good way even now in these railway days, and it was much further when we had to do the whole journey by Cobb’s coach. Oh, we were very much out of the world, and at first I used to feel lonely. My father—well you know pretty well what kind of a man your grandfather was, so it’s no use my trying to gloss over his character—and your grandmother, ah, my poor mother, I was always fond of my mother, but she had a hard life, and it made her fretful and not much of a companion for a young girl. She thought the world was a hard place for a woman to live in, and the sooner I found it out and indulged in no vain hopes the better for me. I thought then, rather vaguely to be sure, that she was wrong, and I know it now. But she is dead long, long ago, and perhaps she too knows it. Then there was my brother Ben, your father, Hope, he was always a dear good boy, but he was so much younger than me, I don’t suppose he ever thoroughly understood it all.

The homestead was just on the slope where the hills ran down into the plain country. Away to the west and north stretched the dull grey plains far as the eye could see, and behind us to the east and south were the ranges; dull and grey too, I used to think when first I went there, but I changed my mind afterwards. When the sun shone he transformed all things, and the sun shone very often in those days—he does so still maybe, if only I could see with the same eyes—and I loved those ranges. I liked to steal away on a hot day into the deep fern gullies, where the tall green tree-ferns were high over my head, and the dainty maidenhair grew among the rocks and stones at my feet. And someone else loved those gullies too—it’s all part of the story, dear, the same old story which comes to every woman at least once in her life.

The boundary between Yanyilla and Telowie was among those ranges, and Paul Griffith was the overseer at Telowie. I met him once or twice at musters at our place, and then we met again once or twice by accident in the gullies, where he was looking for stray cattle and I was gathering ferns. It was only once or twice it was by accident, afterwards it was by design. I can’t tell you now exactly how we made the appointments without putting it into so many words; but you are a girl, I dare say you will understand thoroughly. Ah! he was so good-looking, my Paul, so tall and fair and strong, and he had such kind blue eyes. Ah dear, ah dear, how different my life might have been!

Well it went on and on all through the months of August and September, and each time we parted the parting grew harder, and each time we met it was—I can’t tell you—just heaven to me, I think. Then one day—shall I ever forget it?—he told me that he loved me, but he told me too how poor he was, far too poor to ask my father for me; for though we were very poor ourselves, my mother had a way of always saying that never should her daughter be as badly off as she had been, so he knew and I knew it was hopeless to think of our being engaged. He said he ought not to see me again, and he would go away; but I cried then, I could not help it, the world seemed such a dreary place without him. Then—it was my fault, I suppose it generally is the woman’s fault—he took me in his arms and called me his little girl, and kissed me again and again. He ought not to have kissed me if we were to part, he ought not. You know the old couplet:

     “Take hands and part with laughter,
     Touch lips and part with tears.”
 

And so it was with us, but it was not his fault I loved him, I loved him with all my heart, and I wanted to be kissed, and those kisses have cost me—no matter what they have cost me—I know now they were worth it.

But we could not make up our minds to part I was young and so was he, and first I made him tell me he loved me better than anything on earth, and then I laughed and said if it was only his poverty that stood between us, I would wait for him all my life. I wondered afterwards at my boldness—it did seem terribly bold, but there was nothing else to be done—it seemed the only thing, I believe it was the only thing, as I should have found it so utterly impossible to take my mother into my confidence, and so you see, my dear, we two embarked on that most foolish of all things, a secret engagement. But the fault was not his, it was mine entirely. He wanted to go and tell my father all about it; it would be better, he said, to be open and above board, and he didn’t think my father would mind much; but I wouldn’t let him.

I can excuse myself even now, for I was young, and I felt I could not stand my mother’s perpetual moan. She would have spoiled my Eden with her prognostications of possible evil. We met in the nearest gully whenever we had the chance, and after all it was not so bad. Now I look back on those two months of spring as the very happiest of my life. If anything went wrong at home, and things did go wrong very often, for my father was sure to be drunk once a week, and my mother’s misery made me unhappy, I always consoled myself with the reflection that Paul would understand, that Paul would pity and comfort me. And he never failed me, not once, my darling, not once.

Then there came upon me a new and unexpected trouble, one I might have foreseen had I been a little older and known something more of the world’s ways. Stanton of Telowie owned all the country for miles back, and consequently was a well-to-do man. I do not think he was a very reputable man, though he was my father’s great friend and boon companion. My mother, usually so hard on men who drank ever so little, and, as she said, led my father astray, would never blame Dick Stanton. It was for my sake he did it, she said, and I don’t know now whether she was right or not; he sold out and went to England thirty years ago, and I have never heard of him since. But I do know Paul Griffith, his overseer, hated him with a bitter hatred, and what Paul did I did. I was not a bad-looking little girl, and he may probably have meant to be kind, but it was not his kindness I wanted. Like many another man in those days, he wanted a wife, and this my mother dinned into my unwilling ears morning, noon, and night.

“But, mother,” I said at last, driven to bay, “how do you know he wants me?”

“My dear,” she answered, “do you think I have lived all these years in the world for nothing? What do you suppose the man comes here twice a week for?”

“To see father,” I answered hotly, “and I hate him for it. Why can’t he let us alone? He comes, and it’s always ‘Another bottle, Hope; open another bottle for Mr. Stanton.’ I hate him, mother, I hate him.”

“Oh, Hope,” she went on unheeding, “it would be such a great thing for you. He’s worth at least three thousand a year, and he’s head over heels in love with you. Think what it’d be, child, never to be worried about money again,” and she sighed; my poor mother, she had been worried about every conceivable thing, and more especially this weary money, all her life, and she never expected to be free from care again.

“Think what it ‘d be like to be tied to a brute like Dick Stanton all your life!” But she only shook her head and said again, “he was so much in love with me I could do what I liked with him;” and then she added, that if I did not know what was good for me, she, my mother, did, and she would take care my interests did not suffer. It was her duty to look after them as my mother, and she would. Oh! that little word “duty”! It seems to me all sorts of petty cruelties are committed in the name of “duty.” And after that Dick Stanton never came to the house, but I, more unwilling than ever, was sent for to entertain him. Even now I don’t know whether he really cared, or whether it was simply that he wanted a wife, and I was the only decent-looking girl within reach. And I hated him for it with all my heart, and at last, as things got worse, for my mother had told him that my coldness was all shyness on my part, I was so miserable and perplexed I cried my heart out in the gully, and Paul came and found me and got the whole truth out of me. How angry he was! I can see him now walking up and down talking to himself, and I dried my eyes and began to think things were not half so bad, since I had thrown all my cares on him.

“But Paul,” I said, with an attempt at a smile, “you know after all it’s very foolish of me to make such a fuss. They can’t make me marry a man I don’t want to. And I hate him, I hate him. You just don’t know how I hate him.”

“My darling,” he said, sitting down on a log and drawing me towards him, “how am I to help you? I can’t have my little sweetheart’s life worried out of her in this way. Hope, I had better go to your father and tell him all about it.”

“And that would end it all effectually,” I sobbed. “Mother would say I was too young to know my own mind. She would say once you were away I would forget you, and she would get Dick Stanton to—to—”

“Give me the sack,” said Paul bitterly. “Who knows; perhaps it might be best for you. I ‘m not bringing you much happiness, dear.”

“Yes, yes, yes; what should I do without you, Paul? I wish I had not told you! You know—you must know—you’re all the happiness I have in my life.”

“I ‘m sure,” he said, kissing me fondly, “you make all the brightness in mine. But what am I to do to help you?”

“Just nothing. As I said before, they must give me a say in the matter before they marry me right out.”

“My colonial oath! Here ‘s a nice deceitful piece of baggage! Upon my word, Miss Hope! So you ‘re the shy little girl who’s quite overcome if a fellow so much as looks at her!”

He was standing on the rise of the hill close above us, and how he had come there without our seeing I ‘m sure I don’t know, except that lovers always are caught sooner or later, and I suppose it was our fate. I ‘d rather almost anybody than Dick Stanton had caught us though; for he was a vindictive little wretch, I always felt, and whether he cared for me or not he would not like to find himself cut out by his own overseer. We two sprang apart guiltily, and I saw my lover’s face grow red and angry, but not as dark and threatening as the one above me.

“So Mr. Griffith,” said our unwelcome third party, “it’s you who ‘ve been poaching on my manor. What the devil do you mean by it, sir?”

Paul, I saw, was too angry to trust himself to speak, only he waved his hand to me as if he would have sent me home; but I was too frightened to go. I was not twenty remember, and it seemed to me the two men were on the brink of a violent quarrel, and vaguely I hoped my presence might restrain them. I was wrong, I know now; I ought to have gone, and perhaps—who can tell? But there—all the misery of our lives is just summed up in thinking whether we might not have acted differently. And so I took no notice of Paul, though I saw he wanted me gone, and I stayed. Then Dick Stanton, seeing Paul did not speak, for the moment lost all control of himself, and raged and stormed and used such language as I had never heard in my life before, and I was well accustomed to bad language; for my father, when he had pretty well got to the bottom of the brandy bottle, didn’t care much what he said, but he never spoke as Dick Stanton did; oh, never. He was a gentleman at least, my father. Paul stood it just for a minute; I think he was too dumb-founded to speak, and then he made one step forward and caught the other man by the neck—he was so tall and strong, my sweetheart—and shook him as if he had been a child. It was Dick Stanton’s turn to look surprised then, and at first he swore harder than ever; then all at once he looked up in Paul’s face and burst out laughing.

“What the devil are we quarrelling about, Griffith?” he said, and his voice sounded amiable, though I never would have trusted him.

Paul was still very angry, and only made some unintelligible reply, and Stanton went on with a smile which I thought rather forced.

“I say, Griffith, old chap, you needn’t cut up so blessed rough. It’s me who ought to cry out, I think. I go courting a girl; I’ve made that plain enough in all conscience. All the country round knows it, and her father and mother go dinning it into me that she ‘s awful fond of me, but she ‘s young and she ‘s shy—oh so shy!—and the first time I come across the ranges I find this—this—”

I really think he was too angry to think of a word to call me, for he skipped out my name altogether, and went on, “and there I find her cuddled up in your arms.”

“She has a right to choose,” said Paul, a little sullenly.

“And she has chosen. Just my blooming luck all over.”

“And seeing she has chosen,” said Paul, still angry, “suppose you leave me to see her safe home.”

“And what’ll papa say, Miss Hope? He’d rather have the rich squatter for a son-in-law than a poor roustabout, I ‘ll bet.”

“It’s no business of my father’s,” I said hotly, and then he laughed sneeringly.

“By Jove! Dan Forde ‘ll have something to say to that, or I ‘m very much mistaken. Just you wait till to-night,” and he turned away and ran up the hill to where, I suppose, he had left his horse. Some one must have told him to come and look for us, of course; he ‘d never have come to that lonely gully, and on foot, too, else; but to this day I don’t know who it was.

Paul comforted me all he knew; but still I went home very frightened, though I wouldn’t let him come with me. I did not quite believe Dick Stanton would be quite so mean as to carry out his threat and tell my father, and if he did not, I was glad, now that it was all over, that he should understand how unwelcome were his attentions to me.

That night he came round as usual, and as usual I was sent for to pour out their brandy for them, and to make myself pleasant to the guest. He did not say anything to make me feel uncomfortable, indeed he was almost kind and I had never liked him better, only I saw in his eyes he had not forgotten the meeting of the morning and did not mean that I should either. Presently they began to talk about the race meeting. We always had a race meeting at Yanyilla once a year, just about the beginning of November. I forget whether there was a cup in those days, but I know all the people about were quite as much excited about the Yanyilla meeting as you are now about the cup. The township was on our run, only three miles away, and took its name from the station, and the paddock we used as a race course was just within sight of the house. We always took great interest in the races, more especially those for the station horses, which were all supposed to be grass-fed, and therefore, when my father and his friend got on the subject of the entries, I felt quite safe and breathed quite freely for the first time that evening.

“I ‘ve entered Boatman for the Yanyilla Steeplechase,” said my father, “but I ‘m blest if I know who I ‘ll get to ride him. The beggar’s an awful powerful brute, and all the boys are afraid.”

“And grass-fed! Surely not. He can’t do much harm.”

“Oh, he ‘s a brute, I must confess,” said my father, “and no mistake; but he’s all there, and if I can get anybody to risk it, I ‘ll put the pot on him.”

“You think he’s good to win, then? Can he beat my Vixen?”

“Beat her! He ‘ll beat any horse this side of the Dividing Range, once he gets started with the right man on his back. But there’s just the difficulty.”

“Now, I ‘ll find you a man to ride. He thoroughly understands horses, I ‘ll say that for him, though I have no cause to love him. He ‘ll ride for you, but I don’t believe Boatman is as good as Vixen.”

“I ‘ll lay you anything you like he is, if only I get the right man up.”

“Done with you, then. You shall have the right man, that I promise. Mind, you said anything I liked. You won’t go back on your word?”

“Anything to within half my kingdom,” laughed my father, who was getting a good way down his bottle, or I ‘m sure he never would have agreed to what Dick Stanton asked.

“That’s settled, then, for I suppose you don’t count your daughter near half your kingdom,” said Stanton, and he looked at me as if he would have said, “See how I pay you out. Then if Vixen beats Boatman I marry your daughter out of hand; that’s the arrangement, isn’t it?”

To this day, in spite of after events, I don’t believe he was in earnest, for no man could seriously want to marry a girl who had just shown him as plainly as possible she was in love with another man. I think he just wanted to torment and frighten me by showing me his power, as part punishment for my behaviour of the morning. But I didn’t think so at the time. For the moment astonishment took my breath away, and then, when I found my voice, I vehemently protested.

“No! no!” I cried, “I will never marry you! Never! never! I hate you! If you only knew how I Hate you!”

And the two men only laughed at me. My father was more than half through his bottle, or he would never have shamed me so, but the other man was sober enough, he knew what he was doing, and I think was pleased to move me, for usually I would not look at him. I think sometimes now it was the sight of my helpless anger made him carry the joke so far.

“Well, well, you shall have her if you’re first past the post,” said my father, leaning back in his chair, and laughing heartily, “but I ‘m thinking there ‘ll be two Vixens over at Telowie then, and I know which I ‘d rather have the riding of.”

“Oh! trust me. Gently does it. Ride her with the snaffle, with just a touch of the spur now and then, just to show her you mean business,” and he looked me full in the face and laughed, as if he were taunting me with my helplessness.

If I shut my eyes I can see them now, for all it is so long ago. The long, low, poorly-furnished room, badly lighted by one colza oil lamp, the head of a dingo and two brushes crossed, over the mantelpiece, the only attempt at ornament, and the two men seated at the table, the decanter between them, gambling away my life and happiness. Maybe it was only in jest; I try to think so now, but the consequences were so fatal, there must have been just a spice of earnest in it even then, at least on Dick Stanton’s part. But not on my father’s. Even now I pray that my father was not in earnest.

The more I protested, the more determined they grew, till at last my mother came in to see what all the laughter was about, and promptly sent me to bed, and the last thing I heard as I made my escape through the door was Dick Stanton’s mocking voice calling, “Well, we needn’t fear but there’ll be plenty of entries for the Yanyilla Steeplechase, once the boys get to hear that Miss Hope Forde is to be the prize.”

My mother followed me to my room. I think she, too, was a little angry, but she wouldn’t allow it to me, she only scolded me for stopping in the parlour so long.

“You ought to know better at your age,” she said. “It was wrong and foolish of you to stop when you saw they were getting excited.” My mother always glossed a disagreeable truth over to herself in that way. She never said, “Your father has had too much to drink,” though he had at least once a week, but it was always, “Your father is excited,” or “over-tired.” My poor mother; I have learned to pity her for those deceptions that deceived nobody, since I have grown older and wiser. Still, that night she was hard on me. Perhaps because she felt I had been hardly dealt with, and she had nobody else to vent her anger on. That is the way with some people.

“Don’t be silly, now, and cry,” she said, for I had flung myself down on my little bed, and was vainly trying to suppress the sobs that would come, “It’s not the least good in the world to cry. You shouldn’t have stopped so long. It’s entirely your own fault. You have nobody to blame but yourself. There, there, for heaven’s sake, child, don’t cry like that, they ‘ll have forgotten all about it to-morrow morning, when their heads are clear. I don’t know what was the matter with Dick Stanton, I never saw him so excited.”

I could have told her, but I held my peace, and she went away, and I cried myself to sleep.

But the matter was not forgotten next day, for my father told us, as if it were a huge joke, that he had bet me against a hundred pounds that Boatman could win the grass-fed steeplechase.

“So you see,” he said, laughing at the recollection, “it cuts both ways. If I lose I get my daughter comfortably settled in life, and if I win I ‘m at least 100L. to the good.”

I looked at my mother appealingly, but she only shook her head. My father was not a man whose whims could be lightly crossed, and she would not let me even try. Ashamed! oh, child! I was never so ashamed in my life! I hung my head all day and was afraid even to look the servant maid in the face. I felt she must despise a girl whose own father held her so lightly, And Paul, there ‘s where the hardest part of all came. How was I to tell my lover what my father had done? And how was I not to tell him, for I knew that Dick Stanton was not the man to keep such a wager to himself; he would bruit it abroad, if it were only for the sake of angering his rival. I was ashamed, ashamed, ashamed. It seemed to me I could never hold up my head again, and oh, how was I to meet Paul! I thought of nothing else for the next two days, and I had not a chance of seeing him or telling him, for posts were not in those days. And so, though he was only ten miles away, I had to wait two whole days before I saw him again. Then we met in the gully under the shade of the tree ferns. I remember now how the sunlight, coming through their great fronds, made a pattern as of dainty lace work on my white dress, and I studied that pattern carefully, and tried to make out what it reminded me of, though I heard quite plainly a man crushing through the bracken. That is just like a woman though, she longs and longs, and when at last the longed-for hour has come, she is frightened at her own temerity, and half wishes herself back again. I was not often afraid to meet Paul, but I was to-day, and I never looked up till I felt his arm around me and his dear voice in my ear.

“Why, my little girl, my little girl, what is the matter with my little girl?”

Then I told him, with my face hidden on his broad shoulder, I told him, and he was very angry. I knew he would be, but I had not realized how angry, and I was fairly frightened.

“Oh, Paul!” I could only gasp, “Oh, Paul!”

He swore an oath when he saw that I was trembling, and recovered himself a little. Just occasionally, I think, a woman likes the man she loves to be thoroughly angry, and if he does swear then she accepts it as a relief to her own feelings as well as his. So I did not mind Paul swearing, seeing that he was not given to that sort of thing. I felt he was entirely in sympathy with me, and was glad of it.

“What a fool I have been,” he said, “what an utter fool. I might have known there was something up when Stanton came to me so confoundedly civil all at once. He made me a sort of apology for his rudeness to you the other day, congratulated me on my good luck in winning you, and then finally suggested that I should ingratiate myself with your father by offering to ride Boatman for him in the grass-fed steeplechase, and of course—”

“You said ‘No!’ Oh, Paul! you said ‘No!’”

“No! darling, of course I said ‘Yse.’ What else could I say? And I wanted to please your father. How could I know—that—that—what the fellow was up to.”

“But now, Paul, you won’t ride him, now you do know, will you, my dearest?” And because I was afraid he would, I put my arms coaxingly round his neck and tried to draw his face down to mine. It did not want much trying, he was always ready enough to kiss me, my dear love, but he shook his head when I tried to dissuade him from riding Boatman.

“After all, sweetheart,” he said, “I really think I’m the proper person to ride the grey. If you’re to be the prize, well it can’t make any more talk, my riding, and, of course, it will give me a sort of right to you.”

“But—but—you mustn’t ride Boatman, you mustn’t—you mustn’t—you mustn’t. He baulks, and he runs down his fences, and he pulls, and—and—oh, my darling! you mustn’t ride Boatman!”

“What a list of crimes,” he said, smiling at my vehemence. “Still, I have ridden a horse or two in my life, and I’m inclined to think I ‘m equal to this one. He can beat anything, your father tells me, this side of the Dividing Range. I had a trial this morning, and I ‘m inclined to think the old gentleman hasn’t put too high a value on him. Boatman’s an out-and-outer, once one gets on good terms with him. And there ‘s the difficulty no one can manage him.”

I knew then it was little good my speaking; dearly as he loved me, nay, for my sake even, he was determined to ride Boatman. And after all, looked at from his point of view, I think he was right.

Stanton’s Vixen was the only horse in the running, the only one in the least likely to win, and if I was to be the prize, as my father insisted, not once but twenty times, then, indeed, it was very necessary that our horse should be well ridden, and I knew, and he knew, nobody could do that so well as Paul. Then I don’t know what dark presentiments filled my mind, but something told me he should not ride in that race, something told me all was not fair and above board, and with all my strength, with all my powers of persuasion, I tried to stop him. I coaxed him, and he only stroked my hair fondly, told me I had nice dark eyes and pretty hair, and said if I made myself so sweet and dear, it only showed him all the more clearly I must be won by fair means or foul. Are you smiling, Hope? Ah, my dear, it is three-and-thirty years ago, and the remembrance of days like those is all I have. Then I stormed and raged, every unkind term I could think of I heaped on him, and that is like a woman too, I think—when all other means fail she tries anger.

Did he think, I asked, I was so slight a thing as to be bought and sold in that manner? Did he think that my father could give me away in that way, as if I were a horse or a bullock; and then, of course, just as I would have given anything to be dignified and grand, I spoiled it all, for my voice failed, and I burst into tears.

He was good to me! oh, he was good to me! He would not give up his point, but he comforted me, and he was good. Once I had fairly started I could not stop; all the pent-up misery of the last three days seemed bound up in those tears. Heaven knows never had woman greater cause for tears, though I only dimly felt it then, and never since have I cried as I cried that day. Paul was frightened at first, I think, for he said nothing but, “Poor little girl, poor little girl,” and held me closer than ever, but he would not give in, and at last, tired out, I could only sob.

“Must you ride him, Paul, must you ride him?”

“I must, my darling. I really think it is the only thing to be done, both for your sake and my own. It was a brutal thing to do, but it was none of my doing, and when Boatman passes the winning post with Paul Griffith up, why that settles everything, doesn’t it, my sweet?”

Ah, yes, that would have settled everything; and as he stood there beside me, so tall and straight and strong, I made up my mind my tears were idle tears, and it would all come right in the end. And before I went home we were both more than half convinced that there was likely to be more good in my father’s foolish wager than at first sight appeared, and we two would turn it to our own advantage. Paul, indeed, was jubilant, once he had got over his anger. He had come to tell me he had got the offer of the managership of a station across the border in Riverina. He would take it at the end of the year; there was a house a lady could live in—and—well—would I go? After he had won—fairly won—the Yanyilla Steeplechase, should he go to my father and ask for the wife he had won?

And he was so confident, so happy, so certain of success, how could I fail to be happy and confident too? I went............