owever mistaken; no, you shan't
run away with any false ideas. It was one for him and two for myself! He
had the whip-hand of me, and let me know it; if I gave him away, he'd
have given me!"

"If only you had let him! If only you had trusted me," sighed Moya once
more. "But you do now, don't you--dear?"

And she touched his coat, for she could not risk the repulse of his
hand, though her words went so far--so very far for Moya.

"It's too late now," he said.

But it was incredible! Even now he seemed not to see her hand--hers!
Vanity invaded her once more, and her gates stood open to the least and
meanest of the besetting host. _She_ make advances to _him_, to the
convict's son! What would her people say? What would Toorak say? What
would she not say herself--to herself--of herself--after this nightmare
night?

And all because (but certainly for the second time) he had taken no
notice of her hand!

When found, however, Moya's voice was as cold as her heart was hot.

"Oh, very well! It is certainly too late if you wish it to be so, and in
any case now. But may I ask why you are so keen to save me the trouble
of saying so?"

Rigden looked past her towards the station, and there were no more high
lights in the verandah; but elsewhere there were voices, and the
champing of a bit.

"If you go back now," he said, "you will just be in time to hear."

"Thank you. I prefer to have it here, and from you."

Rigden shrugged his shoulders.

"Then I am no longer a free agent. I am here on parole. I am under
arrest."

"Nonsense!"

"I am, though: harbouring the fugitive! They can't put salt on him, so
they have on me."

Moya stood looking at him in a long silence, but only hardening as she
looked: patience, pity and understanding had gone like so many masts,
by the board, and the wreckage in her heart closed it finally against
him in the very hour of his more complete disaster.

"And how long have you known this?" she inquired stonily, though the
answer was obvious to her mind.

"Ever since we met them on our ride home. They showed me their warrant
then. The trooper had done thirty miles for it this afternoon. They
wanted to take me straight away. But I persuaded Harkness to come back
to dinner and return with me later without fuss."

"Yet you couldn't say one word to me!"

"Not just then. Where was the point? But I arranged with Harkness to
tell you now. And by all my gods I've told you everything there is to