mittee. She even discovered likeable qualities in Bolton and Allison, who were at least devoted backers of their political party, and able to admire the work she was doing for it. Her favourite on the committee was the lawyer, George Rhodes, who was doing fine work digging into the past history of the enemy and bringing into the clear light of day the things it most wished to have buried forever. But Valerie liked working with all of them. She liked the mysterious change that was wrought in people who were working for a common cause, the sense of fraternity that developed among them.
But even in this exhilarating hustle the thought of Dane lay slumbrous ever at the back of Valerie’s mind, and when at the end of five weeks she got a letter from him she was amazed at the feeling it roused in her. It came to the office with the mail from the steamer about five o’clock, but when she saw it was seven closely written pages she had to put it aside till she should be finished for the day. And that was not till half-past ten that night. Then by the light of two candles she read it in her room. It was a delightful letter, intimate and impersonal, saying nothing and everything. And it filled her with questions as to what she was going to do with herself and him when he came back.
As he had given her no address she wondered if he were about to return, but at the end of a week she wrote to him care of the Sydney Bulletin, wrote as impersonally as he had written to her, of the progress of the campaign and the humours of the day. Then she began to look for the Australian mail, but she heard no more of him till, well on in August, Father Ryan mentioned casually one morning at breakfast that Dane had been a passenger with him on the steamer from Auckland the day before.
