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Show jA FELON'S LOVE, j 1 W. KESFIELD. I vice, ceased to offer to call upon Mrs. Baynes. "The woman is queer, or a great invalid," in-valid," he remarked. "Her husband suits me well enough, and she does your needlework. Why worry about her? 'Leave well alone' Is my advice." ad-vice." Mrs. Hall found it extremely convenient con-venient to have a woman upon the station, sta-tion, even If she did choose to remain invisible. As Tom Baynes had at first stated, his wife was not quick at her work, but was a wonderfully skillful needlewoman, and she saved Mrs. Hall many a weary hour's darning. One evening in the middle of April, some five months after Tom Bayne3' arrival, he was sitting in the kitchen with some of the men. when a swags-man swags-man carrying a bundle slung on a stick walked up to the door and asked for a night's lodging. "Looking for a job, mate?" asked one of the men, as he glanced up from his game of euchre. "Yes." "What lay are you on?" "Knockabout "Knock-about hand." "New chum?" "Ay; not a very old one anyhow, governor." "How long have you been out?" "Only a few months; but I'll answer an-swer your questions better after I've got outside a square feed and a pot of tea, I'll be bound. I've come a goodish step today." "Here you are, mate!" interrupted Tom Baynes, placing a plentiful supply sup-ply of bread and meat in front of him. "Sit down and tackle that, and never mind their jaw." The men laughed and went on with their game, until the stranger, having satisfied hiB hunger and lighted a pipe, seemed more inclined for being put through his paces. "Any chance of a job here?" he presently inquired of the company in general. "Yes, I should think there ought to be," answered one. "You had better go up to the house and see the boss in the morning. He is pretty short-handed short-handed since German Charlie and Big Jack went off to Sullivan's to blow their cheques." Baynes was sitting on a bench on one side of the hearth, resting his chin on his hands, and looking moodily into the flickering log-fire. "Where have I seen your face before?" be-fore?" asked the stranger suddenly. "Somewhere, I'll swear." "I don't remember ever having seen you," replied Baynes, scrutinizing the other's features; "indeed I am sure I never have. What may your name be?" "Mine's Bob Luke. What's yours?" "Luke!" echoed the cook, with a start. "Yes, Luke. Anything wrong with it? You seem to know the name somehow some-how perhaps you know something against it?" "No," said Baynes, I never knew anybody of that name. It was not that I am subject to a stitch sometimes some-times which takes me suddenly. Know anything against it? Ha, ha! How could I? Why, I never even heard of it!" 'I thought perhaps you might, that's all," rejoined the new-comer. "There was a man called Luke a relation, too, of mine and he got into trouble, but his character was cleared from the charge. It makes a man touchy who happens to bear the same name; and when I saw you start I thought perhaps per-haps you'd heard about it, and and what may your name be?" "Mine? My name's Tom Baynes. I'm a Londoner, and a new chum, too, like you." (To be Continued.) Dut she Is very - with her needle. If I might go up the house and fetch the things she will set to work at once." "Time enough for that when she is well enough to see Mrs. Hall," returned re-turned the squatter. "Women like to chat together over that sort of business, busi-ness, I always find." "There is something very odd about that young chap, with his soft voice and his shy manner," Mr. Hall thought as he walked on to the shed. "His wife suffers from bad eyes, too, yet she can do needlework has a nervous complaint, and evidently is not anxious anx-ious to be invaded. I wonder what Pshaw it's only my fancy, I suppose!" A few weeks passed by, and shearing shear-ing was a thing of the past. The station sta-tion hands had settled down into their ordinary routine of work, and the extra ex-tra men who had been employed during dur-ing the busy season had passed on to And similar jobs elsewhere. "It is very strange," remarked Mr. Hall one day to his wife, "that one never sees Mrs. Baynes. What can really be the matter with her? He tells me that her eye-sight is eo bad that she cannot bear the light." "That is odd," replied his wife, "for, If her eyesight is so bad, how in the world does she manage to hem these handkerchiefs so beautifully? I never saw better work in my life." "Well, that is curious!" interposes Jack Hall. "And shutting herself up too so persistently in Baynes' hut makes no end of gossip on the station. A fellow asked me yesterday when I was over at Bumberra whether it was true that we had a maniac shut up here. If gossip of that sort is the talk of a place fifty miles away, we shall soon be getting a fine name for ourselves our-selves here at Redmount." "Oh, as for gossip, you'll find that everywhere!" remarked his father. "And, after all, Tom Baynes is the smartest cook I've had for many a day, and a pleasant enough fellow, too, now he's got over that shy sort of manner which he had when he first came up." "Perhaps he is jealous of the other men, father," suggested Mary slyly, "and does not like them to look at her." "That's possible," replied Mr. Hall. "I remember a man on board ship once who kept his wife locked up in her cabin for three months, and carried all her meals in to her himself." "What a brute!" cried Mary. "Do you mean to say he never let her out tt all?" "Only at night-time in fine weather, and then he marched her up and down the deck for only an hour or two. Even on these nocturnal occasions she was so thickly veiled that nobody could get a glimpse of her features." "Perhaps she was a 'pig-faced lady' that he had married for her dollars," said Jack; "or she might have committed commit-ted some crime, and he was helping her to escape. A murder perhaps-Good perhaps-Good gracious, Baynes, how you made me jump!" CHAPTER VI. As Jack Hall was speaking, Tom Baynes happened to be passing the open door with an armful of plates CHAPTER V. The sun had barely risen when the smoke from the huts showed that Red-mount Red-mount had once more awakened to the labor of another day. The delicious delici-ous scent of the wood fires as the flames rose In the fresh morning air proclaimed pro-claimed that tea was being made to be served out preparatory to the two hourB' work that had to be got through before breakfast-time. Men stumbled out of their huts, towel and soap in hand, and straggled down to the creek to wash the "cobwebs" "cob-webs" out of their sleepy eyes. "Mornln', Doctor," cried one, as he passed the kitchen door. "Good hand at plum-duff, Doctor?" inquired another. "We'll see what you're made of on Sunday, mate. None of your stickjaw, mind. Haw, haw!" And bo on, each one having some rough, good-natured greeting for the "new chum." Thomas Baynes, the cook, was a smart, dapper-looking fellow, about the average height, but slim, and he went about his work with a rapidity and style that created a good impression impres-sion at once. In appearance he was dark almost to swarthiness, hut this had evidently been produced by exposure ex-posure to the sun. His boyish-looking face and youthful figure would certainly certain-ly never have led any one to suppose that he was a married man; and, as many of the men remarked on first catching sight of him, he had "gone in for double harness pretty early in the day." The doctor, as the cook is generally styled on a station, proved himself to be as punctual as he was competent, compe-tent, and as the clock struck seven he rang the great bell outside the hut which called all hands to their meal. Up they came, running and skylarking, skylark-ing, from the shed, hungry as wolves, and eager to see what sort of a hand the "new chum" was likely to turn out. "Blessed if those scones ain't tiptop," tip-top," remarked a bearded stockman with his mouth full. "You keep at that, youngster, and we Bhan't fall out. We 'eard as 'ow you were a married man what's yer name? Tom? Well, all I can say is, you've took the plunge pretty early. Why, you ain't got no whiskers yet. How old are you?" "Twenty-three," replied Tom Baynes, Bay-nes, his face flushing at being made the subject of a general scrutiny. "Twenty-three! Well, you don't look it." "Never mind, Tom you'll grow old fast enough," shouted another. "You musn't mind Black Dick's talk he don't mean 'art what he says." "Where's the missus?" inquired the man who rejoiced in the name of Dick. "She is tired," replied Baynes. "She is never strong at the best of times." "That's bad news. We was in hopes of 'aving a few quadrille-parties and slch like when we 'eard a lady was coming up to jine us. 'Owever, you give 'er my werry kind respects and tell 'er as 'ow I'll call in some time this afternoon and drop a card," continued con-tinued the man, who had a high opinion opin-ion of his own witticisms. Thus, with some coarse jests and chaff, the meal passed off, and as the men strolled back to the shed the general opinion seemed to be that the youngster knew what he was about, and was a better cook than the dirty old fellow who had preceded him. Soon after they had departed, and while Baynes was engaged in washing up tin plates and pannikins, Mr. Hall looked into the kitchen. "Getting on all right, Tom?" he inquired in-quired cheerily. "That's a good job. Roguish lot of men up here at these times, but they mean no harm you'll soon get used to them. You think you'll manage the work, eh? There are a good number of mouths to feed." "I am not afraid of the work, sir," replied Baynes, "and think I shall get on all right with the men. They all seem good-tempered enough." As he spoke Mr. Hall fancied he detected a curiously sad tone in the man's voice, and he thought what a soft, gentle voice it was compared with the rough tones of the ordinary bush hand. "Your wife is she pretty well this morning after her long Journey?" he asked, scrutinizing him rather sbrply. "Yes, sir, thank you," replied Tom, stooping down, as he answered, to pick up a cloth he had dropped. "Mrs. Hall wil'. look in and see her," continued the master of Redmount, "some time in the course of the morn- and dishes, and these he suddenly let fall with a crash upon the ground. "Dear me," cried Mrs. Hall, "how dreadfully careless of you, Tom! How are we to replace them? What could you have been thinking about?" "I am so very sorry, ma'am," he replied. re-plied. "I must have slipped on something some-thing I really don't know how;" and he leaned up against the veranda-post, looking as though but for that support he would have fallen down. "Well, there don't look so scared, man!" said Mr. Hall good-naturedly. "Pick up the pieces why, the lad looks quite frightesed. There are worse accidents than that at sea ay, and on shore, too, for the matter of that!" Baynes did as he was told, but he had turned white to the very lips. As he walked away with the broken crockery in his cook's apron, he repeated re-peated to himself "Ay, and on shore, too, for the matter mat-ter of that." After a few months Mrs. Baynes' retirement re-tirement ceased to excite much curiosity. curi-osity. She was an idiot, she was too ugly to face the daylight, she was anything any-thing that could possibly be suggested whenever her name was mentioned; but Baynes was voted by all hands to be an obliging fellow and a capital cook, so the men soon ceased to worry him about his wife. One day Baynes asked permission to be allowed to repair and occupy an old hut which stood in a bit of neglected garden upon the hillside some two hundred yards or more from the men's quarters. Mr. Hall told him he might do as he pleased, so, with the assistance assist-ance of one of the men, he took possession pos-session of the place, and very soon managed to make it snug and comfortable. com-fortable. Thither he removed his few goods and chattels, including Mrs. Baynes; but at what hour he made the exodus was never known, for the first intimation intima-tion the station had of his having left hie old quarters was the smoke issuing from the chimney of the renovated hut early the next morning. Mxb. Hall had, by her husband's ad- in." "Thank you, sir," answered Baynes; "but T would much rather that is, she would rather not she is in such a very nervous state, and her eyes trouble her so much, that if Mrs. Hall would excuse her, perhaps she may grow stronger with rest and care, and then "Oh, very well!" said Mr. Hall, turning upon his heel. "When she Is feeling better will do as well, only my wife thought she might help her a little lit-tle with some needlework and such things; hut if her eyes are so bad "They are not so bad as all that," Baynes remarked hurriedly "only sometimes. I am sure she will be happy hap-py to undertake any needlework Mrs. Hall wants doing. She is not quick, |