of a common thief, worse than a common thief to my
mind. What'll become of her? He'll be caught and sent to gaol for years.
What's she going to do then? It's a pity someone doesn't shoot him--it
would save her from degradation."

The buggy had vanished in the dusk. He turned to his companion. The dim
light from the hut fell full on Harding's face. The doctor whistled.

"Hope I haven't said too much, old chap. I forgot. If you've known her
for years--well, you know what I mean, don't you? I must get in to my
patient. You'll look after the old man? I've given him a draught that'll
keep him asleep. But call me if you want me."

He went into the next hut where Durham lay. Harding stood where he left
him, staring away into the night, in the direction the buggy had gone.
The click-clock of the trotting horses came in a gradually diminishing
clearness, beating time to the refrain which was running in his mind,
the refrain of the doctor's words.

If Eustace were captured there was little doubt what the sequence would
be. A long sentence and his wife branded with the stain of his guilt.
Better if he were dead--better if he were killed, rather than that
destiny should overtake her.

Harding's jaw set firm as his teeth gritted.

The memory of her white, drawn face as he saw her lying on the ground
outside the hut; the memory of her desolate wail for him to take her
away from the horror of her surroundings; the memory of her patient care
of the two injured men, injured, perhaps, by the "rat" who had ruined
her life and his; the memory of her as he had first known her, jostled
one another in his brain.

Better, a thousand times better, if Eustace were dead.

The doctor, looking out of the next hut, saw him still standing staring
into the night.

"How's the old man? Restless?" he asked as he came over.

The voice brought Harding back from the clouds--the thunder-clouds,
towards which he was drifting.

"I'm just going in," he answered.

The doctor followed him to the door. Dudgeon lay breathing peacefully in
a deep sleep.

"You can roll up in that blanket and make yourself as comfortable as
possible--I don't think he'll awaken till the morning," the doctor said
in a low tone when he had crossed to the bunk where Dudgeon lay and
looked at him. "I must get back to my man."

He went out of the hut without waiting for a reply and Harding made no
attempt to follow him, but spread the blanket on the floor and lay down
upo