s over the station of which he was the
nominal owner, "the rest is easy. I shall return to England with a
plausible story of shipwreck, and shall doubtless be received with open
arms by the dear mother from whom I have been so long parted. Richard
Devine shall have his own again."

To be rid of her was not so easy. Twice he tried to escape from his
thraldom, and was twice brought back. "I have bought you, John," his
partner had laughed, "and you don't get away from me. Surely you can be
content with these comforts. You were content with less once. I am not
so ugly and repulsive, am I?"

"I am home-sick," John Carr retorted. "Let us go to England, Sarah."

She tapped her strong white fingers sharply on the table. "Go to
England? No, no. That is what you would like to do. You would be master
there. You would take my money, and leave me to starve. I know you,
Jack. We stop here, dear. Here, where I can hand you over to the first
trooper as an escaped convict if you are not kind to me."

"She-devil!"

"Oh, I don't mind your abuse. Abuse me if you like, Jack. Beat me if you
will, but don't leave me, or it will be worse for you."

"You are a strange woman!" he cried, in sudden petulant admiration.

"To love such a villain? I don't know that. I love you because you are a
villain. A better man would be wearisome to such as I am."

"I wish to Heaven I'd never left Port Arthur. Better there than this
dog's life."

"Go back, then. You have only to say the word!" And so they would
wrangle, she glorying in her power over the man who had so long
triumphed over her, and he consoling himself with the hope that the day
was not far distant which should bring him at once freedom and fortune.
One day the chance came to him. His wife was ill, and the ungrateful
scoundrel stole five hundred pounds, and taking two horses reached
Sydney, and obtained passage in a vessel bound for Rio.

Having escaped thraldom, John Rex proceeded to play for the great stake
of his life with the utmost caution. He went to the Continent, and lived
for weeks together in the towns where Richard Devine might possibly have
resided, familiarizing himself with streets, making the acquaintance
of old inhabitants, drawing into his own hands all loose ends of
information which could help to knit the meshes of his net the closer.
Such loose ends were not numerous; the prodigal had been too poor, too
insignificant, to leave strong memories behind him. Yet Rex kne