u can
scarcely understand--I think no woman could--what it is to feel utterly
beaten."

"Still," said Alice Deringham, with a little flash in her eyes, "I
don't think you ever quite felt that, and now you will have everything
you hoped for again?"

Alton's fingers closed suddenly as he looked down on the gleaming hair
and whiteness of the neck beneath it, for the girl's face had been
turned from him. "No," he said slowly. "I wanted so much, you see."

"And yet you once seemed to think there was nothing impossible to the
man who was resolute enough--and I fancied you were right," said the
girl. "Still, the things one used to admire occasionally lose their
value."

She glanced at him a moment, and was afraid to look again. The man's
face was very grim, but she had seen what was in his eyes, and waited
almost breathless, until he stooped and laid his hand upon her shoulder.

"Will you look up and tell me that again?" he said.

Alice Deringham was never quite sure whether she looked up or not, but
she felt her cheeks glowing and the man's hand tighten on her shoulder.
"I--I can't," she said.

Perhaps her voice betrayed her, for Alton had evidently flung restraint
to the winds. "Then," he said, with the quietness which she knew was
most often a mask for his vehemence, "I have something to tell you."

It cost Alice Deringham an effort she remembered all her life, but she
shook off his grasp, and stopped him with a little imperious gesture.
"No," she said, "you must listen. Go back to the rail."

Alton stood a moment irresolute, the veins on his forehead swollen and
passion in his eyes. Then he stretched out his hand with a little
laugh, and Miss Deringham knew that unless she used all her strength
that tale would never be told. She rose up, and stood looking at him,
very statuesque and cold now in the long trailing dress. Alton let his
hand drop and bent his head.

"I am only a bushman, and I am sorry," he said. "Now you will sit down
again."

It was evident that he had put a stern restraint upon himself, but the
girl knew that he would listen.

"I have a confession to make," she said quietly. "You will remember
the sale of Townshead's ranch, but you do not know I kept back the
message Miss Townshead sent you."

Alton laughed a little. "Nothing would convince me of it. The man who
should have brought it was not sober. He told me himself."

Alice Deringham had not anticipated this, and the man's