him
returned. He became so engrossed in the contemplation of the problem
that unnoticed the sun went down to leave the young crescent moon
shedding a fitful light over the silent bush. Unnoticed, also, were the
sound of footfalls as Mrs. Burke came out on to the verandah.

For a time she stood watching him. Had he turned quickly he might have
seen in her eyes something of the expression for which he had looked so
often. But reading the riddle of the robberies was too enthralling a
subject, and so he missed his opportunity, for when she crossed to the
hand-rail against which he was sitting, every suggestion of the
expression had gone from her face.

Standing where the moonlight fell upon her, she leaned against one of
the verandah posts without speaking. It was then he saw her, and from
within the shadow he feasted his eyes upon the beauty of her face and
form so clearly outlined against the soft-toned evening sky.

"Brennan has gone?" she asked, suddenly turning towards him.

"Yes. Brennan has gone. And this--this is my last evening here," he
answered in a low voice. "To-morrow I resume duty."

He waited for the remark he hoped she would make, but she merely looked
away over the silvery haze of the bush apparently unmoved, nay, even
uninterested in the announcement he had made.

"Don't you ever feel compassion for the poor creatures you are chasing
to their doom?" she asked presently.

"Why should there be compassion for them?" he asked in reply.

"Don't you ever feel it? Don't you ever stop to wonder if only they are
to blame?"

"I am merely concerned in what they have done. Until they have placed
themselves in antagonism to the laws of society, I have nothing to do
with them. When they violate the law, then I am bidden to track them
down so that they may be made to answer for the wrongs they may have
done. It would assist neither them nor myself were I to lose myself in
compassionate consideration of things I know nothing about."

"But surely--you must sometimes feel sorry for them--must pity them in
their misfortune?"

"There are too many who deserve pity, Mrs. Burke, for me to waste any of
mine on people who only injure others. All my pity and sympathy go to
the victimised, not to the victimisers."

"It seems so hard, so merciless, so hopeless," she said after a few
minutes' silence.

"Have you any compassion for those who stole your papers? Would you have
them escape capture and punishment, and so