Make it twenty."

Hawker after a little consideration nodded--then the other nodded--then
they whispered together again. Something out of the common this must
be, that they, not very particular in their confidences, should whisper
about it.

They looked up suddenly, and Lee was standing in the doorway.

Hawker and he started when they saw one another, but Lee recovered
himself first, and said,--

"George Hawker, it's many years since we met, and I'm not so young as I
was. I should like to make peace before I go, as I well know that I'm
the chief one to blame for you getting into trouble. I'm not humbugging
you, when I say that I have been often sorry for it of late years. But
sorrow won't do any good. If you'll forgive and forget, I'll do the
same. You tried my life once, and that's worse than ever I did for you.
And now I'll tell you, that if you want money to get out of the country
and set up anywhere else, and leave your poor wife in peace, I'll find
it for you out of my own pocket."

"I don't bear any malice," said Hawker; "but I don't want to leave the
country just yet. I suppose you won't peach about having seen me here?"

"I shan't say a word, George, if you keep clear of the home station;
but I won't have you come about there. So I warn you."

Lee held out his hand, and George took it. Then he asked him if he
would stay there that night, and George consented.

Day was fast sinking behind the trees, and making golden boughs
overhead. Lee stood at the hut door watching the sun set, and thinking,
perhaps, of old Devon. He seemed sad, and let us hope he was regretting
his old crimes while time was left him. Night was closing in on him,
and having looked once more on the darkening sky, and the fog coldly
creeping up the gully, he turned with a sigh and a shudder into the
hut, and shut the door.

Near midnight, and all was still. Then arose a cry upon the night so
hideous, so wild, and so terrible, that the roosting birds dashed off
affrighted, and the dense mist, as though in sympathising fear,
prolonged the echoes a hundred fold. One articulate cry, "Oh! you
treacherous dog!" given with the fierce energy of a dying man, and then
night returned to her stillness, and the listeners heard nothing but
the weeping of the moisture from the wintry trees.

* * * * *

The two perpetrators of the atrocity stood silent a minute or more,
recovering themselves. Then Hawker said in a fierce whisper,--

"You clum