sness of the ill-advised freedom
he had taken with the child, he turned on his heel, and strode up into
the bush.

"A queer fellow," said Frere, as Mrs. Vickers followed the retreating
figure with her eyes. "Always in an ill temper." "Poor man! He has
behaved very kindly to us," said Mrs. Vickers. Yet even she felt the
change of circumstance, and knew that, without any reason she could
name, her blind trust and hope in the convict who had saved their lives
had been transformed into a patronizing kindliness which was quite
foreign to esteem or affection.

"Come, let us have some supper," says Frere. "The last we shall eat
here, I hope. He will come back when his fit of sulks is over."

But he did not come back, and, after a few expressions of wonder at his
absence, Mrs. Vickers and her daughter, rapt in the hopes and fears
of the morrow, almost forgot that he had left them. With marvellous
credulity they looked upon the terrible stake they were about to
play for as already won. The possession of the boat seemed to them so
wonderful, that the perils of the voyage they were to make in it were
altogether lost sight of. As for Maurice Frere, he was rejoiced that
the convict was out of the way. He wished that he was out of the way
altogether.

CHAPTER XVI. THE WRITING ON THE SAND.

Having got out of eye-shot of the ungrateful creatures he had
befriended, Rufus Dawes threw himself upon the ground in an agony of
mingled rage and regret. For the first time for six years he had tasted
the happiness of doing good, the delight of self-abnegation. For the
first time for six years he had broken through the selfish misanthropy
he had taught himself. And this was his reward! He had held his temper
in check, in order that it might not offend others. He had banished the
galling memory of his degradation, lest haply some shadow of it might
seem to fall upon the fair child whose lot had been so strangely cast
with his. He had stifled the agony he suffered, lest its expression
should give pain to those who seemed to feel for him. He had forborne
retaliation, when retaliation would have been most sweet. Having all
these years waited and watched for a chance to strike his persecutors,
he had held his hand now that an unlooked-for accident had placed the
weapon of destruction in his grasp. He had risked his life, forgone his
enmities, almost changed his nature--and his reward was cold looks and
harsh words, so soon as his skill