A good many years ago, Bridget was told, there had been a rush to the place, but the gold field turned out not so good as had been expected, and it was only lately that the discovery of a payable reef had brought the digging population back again.

From one direction came the whirr of machinery, and there was in the same quarter a collection of white tents and roughly put up humpeys.
Otherwise, the township consisted of a long dusty street cutting the sandy plain and, out of the two score or so of zinc-roofed buildings, twenty were public houses.
Lady Bridget had been very silent all day.

To Colin's anxious enquiries she answered that it was enough to take in so many new impressions without talking about them.

Through the crude blur of these impressions her husband stood out definitely, a dominant influence.

She seemed to be only now beginning to feel his dominance.