class="smallcaps">Rachel. Don't let her suffer! Oh, don't let suffering come to her, let me have it all.

Carteret. You have it all? Is that what you think? Suffering is round us all everywhere like the darkness.

[He sits on sofa, covering his face with his hands.]

Rachel [looking round her as if terrified]. The darkness! Will, I'm so frightened—you have been my shelter, my rock, my love. Help me now! Help me! I cannot do without you!

[She stands looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

Carteret [without looking at her]. You need not be so frightened. I will always shelter you—you—and your child….

Rachel. I am going up to say good-night to her—she will be lying awake.

Carteret [as she slowly turns away, puts out his hand, the other still covering his face]. Poor little Rachel!

KIRSTIN.

The Action takes place:—

In Scene 1, at a remote sheep farm in Queensland at the end of the 19th Century.

Scene 2, at Dr Merton's House in Devonshire Street.

Scene 3, the same.

Between Scenes 1 and 2, fifteen years elapse.
Between Scenes 2 and 3, a night.

Scene I.: Outside Thwaite's sheep farm in Australia. A double wooden railing at back runs the whole length of stage, supposed to be continued behind house—L. part of the house is seen—wooden house with veranda. Thwaite leaning against railing smoking a pipe C. Merton R.C. on wooden seat, wooden table beside him C. He is arranging, strapping, etc., a wallet or satchel.

Merton. There now, I think everything's ready. There's one strap more somewhere [looking round]. I must have left it in the house. And then I shall have to say good-bye. How can I thank you, Mr Thwaite, for all you have done for me! [Thwaite, unsmiling, smokes on in silence]. The way you took me in when you found me dying and let me stay under your roof all these weeks—

Thwaite [gruffly]. That's all right.

Merton. You have been endlessly good to me. I shall never forget it, never.

Thwaite. Never's a long time.

Merton. But I mean it, I assure you.

Thwaite. Oh, yes, I daresay, you mean it—yes.

Merton. Good Lord! What an escape! I can't think how it was I didn't die, when my horse pitched me off on to my head and left me senseless. I should have died if you hadn't found me, and no one would have been the wiser.

Thwaite. There's plenty dies over here and no one the wiser.

Merton. I daresay.

Thwaite. There's plenty of others that's alive.

Merton. I wonder you troubled to keep another in the world then, Mr Thwaite.

Thwaite. It was the gal. She would have it we ought to pick you up, but I was in a hurry with some sheep in the cart going to Banooga.

Merton. And they mattered more, of course.

Thwaite. Well, they was alive, you see.

Merton. To be sure—yes.

Thwaite. And you didn't seem to be. But the gal, she thought you were. So I said, 'Well, if there's room for him and the sheep too, I'll take him along—But what'll we do with him next?' 'Well,' she says, 'I'll look after him.' And I says, 'You've your work to do, remember.' You can understand, Mr Merton, that if a man has a sheep farm in this country, that's his job. His sheep must come first. You don't want no dead men along.

Merton. Oh, I quite see that. And no live ones either if they are in the way.

Thwaite. That's about it.

Merton. I must have been most awfully inconvenient.

Thwaite. Well, it was just the lambing time, and Kirstin had to look after the ewes. Lucky it were a healthy season.

Merton [smiling]. And she managed to look after me as well as the ewes.

Thwaite. She knows she's got to get her work done.

Merton. She seems able to do it.

Thwaite. She knows her job. I've kept her at it since she was a little wench.

Merton. It's wonderful, all she can do.

Thwaite [scornfully]. Wonderful? What's there wonderful in it, a strong, healthy gal like that? I'd be ashamed if she didn't know what a farmer's daughter's got to know—about dipping the sheep, washing 'em, and shearing, and breaking a horse, and riding him bareback round the boundary. She'd need to be ashamed if she couldn't. And she can use her eyes and her ears. There's nothing she can't see or hear, that gal. Oh, any woman can learn to work if