elight fell on his face, I felt a chill come over me. The
likeness was so fearful!--not to the father (that I had been long
accustomed to), but to the son, to the half-brother--to the poor lost
young soul I had seen last night, the companion of desperate men. As it
struck me I could not avoid a start, and a moment after I would have
given a hundred pounds not to have done so, for I felt Mary's hand on
my arm, and heard her say, in a low voice,--

"Cruel! cruel! Will you never forget?"

I felt guilty and confused. As usual, on such occasions, Satan was at
my elbow, ready with a lie, more or less clumsy, and I said, "You do me
injustice, Mrs. Hawker. I was not thinking of old times. I was
astonished at what I see there. Do you think there is anything in it?"

"I sincerely hope so," she said.

"Indeed, and so do I. It will be excellent on every account. Now," said
I, "Mrs. Hawker, will you tell me what has become of your old servant,
Lee? I have reasons for asking."

"He is in my service still," she said; "as useful and faithful as ever.
At present he is away at a little hut in the ranges, looking after our
ewes."

"Who is with him?" I asked.

"Well, he has got a new hand with him, a man who came about a month or
so ago, and stayed about splitting wood. I fancy I heard Lee remark
that he had known him before. However, when Lee had to go to the
ranges, he wanted a hut-keeper; so this man went up with him."

"What sort of a looking man was he?"

"Oh, a rather large man, red-haired, much pitted with the small-pox."

All this made me uneasy. I had asked these questions, by the advice of
Dick, and, from Mrs. Hawker's description tallying so well with his, I
had little doubt that another of the escaped gang was living actually
in her service, alone too, in the hut with Lee.

The day that we went to Mirngish, the circumstances I am about to
relate took place in Lee's hut, a lonely spot, eight miles from the
home station, towards the mountain, and situated in a dense dark
stringy bark forest--a wild desolate spot, even as it was that
afternoon, with the parrots chattering and whistling around it, and the
bright winter's sun lighting up the green tree-tops.

Lee was away, and the hut-keeper was the only living soul about the
place. He had just made some bread, and, having carried out his
camp-oven to cool, was sitting on the bench in the sun, lazily,
thinking what he would do next.

He was a long, rather powerfully-