"Is it moving, Regie ?" "It's going down," screamed Regie, suddenly.
"That it's not," said Dick, and he shook the child again, and the half-penny flew out upon the grass.

"Thank God," said Dick, and he laid the gasping child on Hester's lap and turned away.
A few minutes later Regie was laughing and talking, and feeling himself a hero.

Presently he slipped off Hester's knee and ran to Dick, who was lying on the grass a few paces off, his face hidden in his hands.
"Make the half-penny fly again, Uncle Dick," cried all the children, pulling at him.
Dick raised an ashen face for a moment and said, hoarsely, "Take them away." Hester gathered up the children and took them back to the house through the kitchen garden.
"Don't say we have arrived," whispered Rachel to her.

"I will come on with him presently." And she sat down near the prostrate vine-grower.
The president of the South Australian Vine-Growers' Association looked very large when he was down.
Presently he sat up.

His face was drawn and haggard, but he met Rachel's dog-like glance of silent sympathy with a difficult, crooked smile.
"He is such a jolly little chap," he said, winking his hawk eyes.
"It was not your fault." "That would not have made it any better for the parents," said Dick.