monds and pearls; villain as he was, he held himself at her mercy,
but he was not going to kneel to her for that. He saw a woman who had
heard the truth from very few men, a nature grown in mastery as his own
had inevitably shrunk: it was worth being at large to pit the old Adam
still remaining to him against the old Eve in this petted darling of the
world. But false protestations were no counters in his game.

"Miss Bouverie," said Stingaree, "you may well suppose that I have borne
you in mind all these years. As a matter of honest fact, when I first
heard your name this evening, I was slow to connect it with any human
being. You look angry. I intend no insult. If you have not forgotten the
life I was leading before, you would very readily understand that I have
never heard your name from those days to this. That is my misfortune, if
also my own fault. It should suffice that, when I did remember, I came
at my peril to hear you sing, and that before I dreamt of coming an inch
further. But I heard them say, both in the hall and outside, that you
owed your start to me; now one thinks of it, it must have been a rather
striking advertisement; and I reflected that not another soul in Sydney
can possibly owe me anything at all. So I came straight to you, without
thinking twice about it. Criminal as I have been, and am, my one thought
was and is that I deserve some little consideration at your hands."

"You mean money?"

"I have not a penny. It would make all the difference to me. And I give
you my word, if that is any satisfaction to you, I would be an honest
man from this time forth!"

"You actually ask me to assist a criminal and escaped convict--me, Hilda
Bouverie, at my own absolute risk!"

"I took a risk for you nine years ago, Miss Bouverie; it was all I did
take," said Stingaree, "at the concert that made your name."

"And you rub it in," she told him. "You rub it in!"

"I am running for my life!" he exclaimed, in answer. "It wouldn't have
been necessary--that would have been enough for the Miss Bouverie I
knew then. But you are different; you are another being, you are a woman
of the world; your heart, your heart is dead and gone!"

He cut her to it, none the less; he could not have inflicted a deeper
wound. The blood leapt to her face and neck; she cried out at the
insult, the indignity, the outrage of it all; and crying she darted to
the door.

It was locked.

She turned on Stingaree.

"You dared to loc