i was four weeks in the adelaide hospital, but of the first days i remember very little. the earliest memory that i have is of waking up and thinking i was in a church. it was night and my eyes opened to the dimness of great high walls. it was almost still, but there was the far-away whispering, as of people at their prayers. i was in great pain and i could hear that i groaned.

immediately a white-clad figure glided up, and something icy cold went on my head. then i felt the prick of a needle and the shadows deepened and everything faded quickly away.

then i was in a great deep pit fighting with a lot of devils; i thought i was being killed, but a grave-eyed man jumped down into the pit and threw me up over the side. i seemed to have a lot to do with that man in those days. he was cold and stern to look at, but when he touched me — his touch was the touch of a lover. he seemed always to be my master, deciding whether he should give me life or death.

then one day — oh day, glorious to remember! — i awakened to spring and sunshine and the smell of beautiful flowers. i was getting better.

the great surgeon who had operated on me — i learnt afterwards i had fractured my skull in falling from the wall — came and sat by my bed and talked very kindly to me. he told me i was going to get quite well and strong again. i had had a very near shave, he said, but there was no reason now why i should not be as well again as i had ever been in my life. he told me i had been a very good patient and he smiled on me like a judge who had forgiven me my sins.

directly i was well enough a lot of people came to see me. first there was the chief commissioner of the police. he gave me all the news. he smiled whimsically and, in mock relief, informed me the special constables had all been disbanded, and he hoped he might never see them again. he was very nice and friendly and told me he would sure be coming to my wedding.

oh, yes — all the world knew i was going to be married, and there would be no church or chapel large enough in adelaide to hold all who wanted to come. then he grinned broadly and asked me if i would like to have meadows for my best man. when i declined laughingly, he got up to go with the final promise that if i couldn’t get anyone else — he’d be best man himself.

then there was sir bartle elkin. he was kind and chatty.

“you know, mr. wacks,” he said. “i don’t suppose i shall ever strike a more interesting study than yourself. all along you have interested me, and right up to the very last, you have given me things to think about and problems to solve. the hallucinations of your delirium, for instance, were most peculiar.

“if you remember, the last image to strike upon your retina before you became unconscious was that of the man you shot. probably at the moment of his falling you would have noted the immediate effect of your bullet on his chest. well, all the time you were delirious that last impression of yours was uppermost in your mind to the exclusion of everything else. the color seemed absolutely to obsess you.

“somehow you confused it with a paste, but it was always red paste you kept referring to. red paste, everything with you was red. the redness of blood was the last thing you saw, and through all your wanderings, through all your delirium, that color was always in your thoughts. everything else was wiped out. it is most interesting to me that this last impression was the only one to survive. i must have another talk about it with you later.”

i was very glad when the great man left — and privately determined in future to give him a wide berth. he would be bringing up to me the very things i wanted to forget.

then there was matthew brickett.

he came in breathing very hard, ponderous, paternal and in his sunday black. he took a solemn interested stare at one of the nurses who was very pretty, and then settled down to a careful scrutiny of my appearance.

“you’re looking better than i should have thought, peter,” he said at length, “but i do hope they’re not giving you anything that isn’t strictly teetotal. it i could see the doctor now for a few minutes i could put him in possession of some facts that would prove absolutely that alcohol is a curse. is he anywhere about, do you know?”

fortunately i was able to say with truth that the doctor never visited us at that time of the day and, much to brickett’s disgust, he had to be content with the delivery of a long homily to the patient in the next bed. the man was almost stone deaf, but he seemed to me very gratified with the attention he was receiving, for he shook old brickett warmly by the hand when at last he got up to go.

then there was lucy. dear little lucy — she came to me without a word and, not minding who saw, flung her arms round my neck. i thought i had never seen her look so pretty. she whispered tenderly to me of the anxious times she had been having, but how all now would so soon be forgotten in the glorious days that were to come. with much blushing, she told me she wanted to be married at once so that she could take me away for a long holiday to get well and strong again.

she said that all that happened that last morning at grange had caused a tremendous sensation in the city, and, directly it was known i was going to get better, over ten thousand pounds had been raised by public subscription to be given me for a wedding present. also mrs. matthew russell, now that her husband was dead, was going back to her people in england and she had made over to me, completely and just as it stood, their beautiful little home at victor harbor. we were to go there, lucy said, for our honeymoon.

i hardly like to remember exactly what my thoughts were after lucy left me, but in the end i know i silenced my conscience by insisting to myself that after all it was only fate again, and that everything was happening just as it had been ordained it should happen right from the very beginning of the world. i was only a pawn, again i told myself, but this time a very happy and a very fortunate one. i made up my mind not to bother any more but just to take what the gods were giving me. i should only live once.