"Michael!"
Her arms went out to him with the quick gesture he knew. Michael moved to her and caught her in his arms. No moment in all his life had been like this when he held Sophie in his arms as though she were his own child. His whole being swayed to her in an infinite compassion and tenderness. She lay against him, her body quivering. Then she cried, brokenly, with spent passion, almost without strength to cry at all.
"There, there!" Michael muttered. "There, there!"
He held her, patting and trying to comfort and soothe her, muttering tenderly, and with difficulty because of his trouble for her. The tears she had seen in his eyes when he said she was a sight for sore eyes came from him and fell on her. His hand went over her hair, clumsily, reverently.
"There, there!" he muttered again and again.
Weak with exhaustion, when her crying was over, Sophie moved away from him. She pushed back the hair which had fallen over her forehead; her eyes had a faint smile as she looked at him.
"I am a silly, aren't I, Michael?" she said.
Michael's mouth took its wry twist.
"Are you, Sophie?" he said. "Well ... I don't think there's anyone else on the Ridge'd dare say so."
"I've dreamt of that smile of yours, Michael," Sophie said. She swayed a little as she looked at him; her eyes closed.
Michael put his arm round her and led her to the bed. He made her lie down and drew the coverlet over her.
"You lay down while I make you a cup of tea, Sophie," he said.
Sophie was lying so still, her face was so quiet and drained of colour when he returned with tea in a pannikin and a piece of thick bread and butter on the only china plate in the hut, that Michael thought she had fainted. But the lashes swept up, and her eyes smiled into his grave, anxious face as he gazed at her.
"I'm all right, Michael," she said, "only a bit crocky and dead tired."
She sat up, and Michael sat on the bed beside her while she drank the tea and ate the bread and butter.
"Tea in a pannikin is much nicer than any other tea in the world,"
Sophie said. "Don't you think so, Michael? I've often wondered whether it's the tea, or the taste of the tin pannikin, or the people who have tea in pannikins, that makes it so nice."
After a while she said:
"I came up on the coach this morning ... didn't get in till about half-past six.... And I came straight up from Sydney the day before.
That's all night on the train ... and I didn't get a sleeper. Just sat and stared out of the window at the country. Oh! I can't tell you how badly I've wanted to come home, Michael. In the end I felt I'd die if I didn't come--so I came."
Then she asked about Potch and her father.
Michael told her about the ratting, and how Paul had had sun-stroke, but that he was all right again now; and how Potch and he were thinking of putting him on to work again. Then he said that he must get along down to the claims, as Potch would be wondering what had become of him; and Paul might be down there, having heard of the colours they had got the night before.
"I'll send him up to you, if he's there," Michael said. "But you'd better just lie still now, and try to get a little of the shut-eye you've been missing these last two or three days."
"Months, Michael," Sophie said, that dark, strange look coming into her eyes again.
They did not speak for a moment. Then she lay back on the bed.
"But I'll sleep all right here," she said. "I feel as if I'd sleep for years and years.... It's the smell of the paper daisies and the sandal-wood smoke, I suppose. The air's got such a nice taste, Michael.... It smells like peace, I think."
"Well," Michael said, "you eat as much of it as you fancy. I don't mind if Paul doesn't find you till he comes back to tea.... It'd do you more good to have a sleep now, and then you'll be feelin' a bit fitter."
"I think I could go to sleep now, Michael," Sophie murmured.
Michael stood watching her for a moment as she seemed to go to sleep, thinking that the dry, northern air, with its drowsy fragrance, was already beginning to draw the ache from her body and brain. He went to the curtain of the doorway, dropped it, and turned out into the blank sunshine of the day again.
He fit his pipe and smoked abstractedly as he walked down the track to the mine. He had already made up his mind that it would be better for Sophie to sleep for a while, and that he was not going to get anyone to look for Paul and send him to her.
She had said nothing of the reason for her return, and Michael knew there must be a reason. He could not reconcile the Sophie Dawe Armitage had described as taking her life in America with such joyous zest, and the elegant young woman on the show-page of the illustrated magazine, with the weary and broken-looking girl he had been talking to. Whatever it was that had changed her outlook, had been like an earthquake, devastating all before it, Michael imagined. It had left her with no more than the instinct to go to those who loved and would shelter her.
Potch was at work on a slab of shin-cracker when Michael went down into the mine. He straightened and looked up as Michael came to a standstill near him. His face was dripping, and his little white cap, stained with red earth, was wet with sweat. He had been slogging to get through the belt of hard, white stone near the new colours before Michael appeared.
"Get him?" he asked.
Michael had almost forgotten Paul.
"No," he said, switching his thoughts from Sophie.
"What's up?" Potch asked quickly, perceiving something unusual in Michael's expression.
Michael wanted to tell him--this was a big thing for Potch, he knew--and yet he could not bring his news to expression. It caught him by the throat. He would have to wait until he could say the thing decently, he told himself. He knew what joy it would give Potch.
"Nothing," he said, before he realised what he had said.
But he promised himself that in a few minutes he would tell Potch. He would break the news to him. Michael felt as though he were the guardian of some sacred treasure which he was afraid to give a glimpse of for fear of dazzling the beholder.
The concern went from Potch's face as quickly and vividly as it had come. He knew that Michael had reserves from him, and he was afraid of having trespassed on them by asking for information which Michael did not volunteer. He had been betrayed into the query by the stirred and happy look on Michael's face. Only rarely had he seen Michael look like that. Potch's thought flashed to Sophie--Michael must have some good news of her, he guessed, and knew Michael would pass it on to him in his own time.
He turned to his work again, and Michael took up his pick. Potch's steady slinging at the shin-cracker began again. Michael reproached himself as the minutes went by for what he was keeping from Potch.
He knew what his news would mean to Potch. He knew the solid flesh of the man would grow radiant. Michael had seen that subtle glow transfuse him when they talked of Sophie. He pulled himself together and determined to speak.
Dropping his pick to take a spell, Michael pulled his pipe from the belt round his trousers, relighted the ashes in its bowl, and sat on the floor of the mine. Potch also stopped work. He leaned his pick against the rock beside him, and threw back his shoulders.
"Where was he?" he asked.
"Who--Paul?"
Potch nodded, sweeping the drips from his head and neck.
"Yes."
Michael decided he would tell him now.
"Don't know," he said. "He wasn't about when I came away."
Potch wrung his cap, shook it out, and fitted it on his head again.
"He was showin' all right at Newton's last night," he said. "I'd a bit of a business getting him home."
"Go on," Michael replied absent-mindedly. "Potch ..." he he added, and stopped to listen.