he poor beast
will be tired, too, and hungry. Wait, wait, Mr. Durham, I'll send old
Patsy----"

"Oh, no, don't trouble. I'll just take the saddle off and turn him into
the yard. It's Brennan's horse and had a feed before we started."

He was out on the verandah before she could leave the room.

When he returned, Mrs. Burke was watching a bent and decrepit-looking
old man laying the cloth. He gave a furtive glance at Durham as he
entered the room.

"Go on with your work, Patsy, go on, and don't dawdle. Don't I tell you
Mr. Durham is both tired and hungry? Never mind looking at folk. Go on
now."

Patsy mumbled an inaudible reply as he stooped over the table.

"You must bear with him, Mr. Durham," she said as soon as the old man
had left the room. "He's been so long with the Burke family he feels
he's entitled to know everyone who comes into the place. You see what a
fragile old creature he is--and he's all I've got in the place if some
of those scoundrels come and attack us."

She jumped out of her seat and paced from one end of the room to the
other.

"Sure I was a fool," she exclaimed. "I ought to have asked Brennan to
come out. He's half Irish, leastways he's Irish born in Australia, and
he'd have understood."

"I don't think you need be afraid, Mrs. Burke," Durham said quietly.
"You're not likely to be troubled."

"Oh, you don't know. You're a great strong man and able to fight a dozen
maybe. But a lonely woman--haven't they got my papers, and won't they
think that there's a lot more in the house and money too, maybe, and
jewels? And what is there to keep them from robbing the place and
burning it down over our heads, with only that poor old fool out there
and a poor weak woman like myself to face?"

He looked at her as she paced to and fro, her handsome figure moving
with the grace of a Delilah and her wonderful eyes flashing a greater
eloquence than her tongue, as her glance from time to time caught his.

"You need not be afraid," he repeated. "Those responsible for the
robbery of the bank will not be anxious to appear anywhere in public for
some time."

She stood in the centre of the room where the full glare of the lamp
fell upon her.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, "I don't know. I would not trust them.
Besides----"

"Besides what?"

"Well, I was thinking that nobody knows who they are for certain, and
what difference would it make to them, or to any of us, if they rode
down the main street