In the dining-room of the bank Wallace, Harding, and Mrs. Eustace sat.

"I have no alternative," Wallace said. "My instructions are peremptory on the subject. If, after investigation, I considered the suspicion against your husband as well founded, I was to request you to leave the bank premises without delay."

"You believe my husband stole that money?"

"I believe your husband stole that money, Mrs. Eustace."

"You may live to change your opinion, Mr. Wallace. My husband is as innocent as I am. He has acted precipitately, I admit, and more than foolishly in going away as he has done; but that does not prove him guilty."

"I am afraid I cannot discuss the question with you," Wallace replied evenly. "I can only carry out my instructions. I have told you what they are, and what my opinion is. I am sorry to inconvenience you, but I have no alternative."

"Do you wish me to leave at once?"

"Scarcely to-night; but I must ask you to get away as soon as you can."

For a space there was silence.

"I would like to speak to Mr. Harding, if you don't mind," she said presently.

"Then I will leave you, for I have been steadily travelling all last night and to-day till I arrived here, and shall be glad to get to bed," Wallace answered. "Any arrangement you can make, Harding, to assist Mrs. Eustace, I shall be pleased to hear about. You will quite understand, Mrs. Eustace, that in asking you to vacate the premises the bank is merely actuated by ordinary considerations and is in no way acting vindictively or harshly."

She inclined her head slightly in response, but otherwise made no sign as Wallace left the room.

For some time after he had gone she remained silent, Harding waiting for her to speak. Raising her head, she looked him steadily in the face.

"I suppose I ought to call you Mr. Harding now," she began, "but I can't, Fred, I can't."

"As you wish," he said.

There came another silence, the woman unable to trust herself to continue, the man fearing to begin.

"How life mocks one," she said, half to herself. "Surely it is punishment enough that I should have to turn to you in my distress, humiliating enough even to satisfy your desire for retribution. I do not blame you, Fred. I deserve it all. I treated you vilely."

"Is there any necessity to refer to that now?" he asked. "I told you the curtain had been rung down for ever upon that. I have no wish either to punish or humiliate you. I don't think that I have given you reason to believe that I do. If you think there has been any reason, I can only say you are mistaken."

She started impulsively to her feet and stood in front of him, holding her hands to him.

"Fred, I must say it. I cannot bear this longer. It may make you hate me—detest and despise me, but I must say it. If you had only shown resentment or anger or spite for the way in which I treated you, it would not have been so hard to bear. Oh, don't you see? Don't you understand? Oh, isn't there one scrap of pity left in you for me? I was trapped into marriage, Fred. I never loved him, never, never! He—oh, have some pity on me, Fred, some pity."

She sank into a chair and buried her face on her arms on the table as she gave way to a storm of weeping.

To the man it was agony to see her, anguish to hear her, more bitter after the confession she had made and while the grip of suspicion still held him. Scarcely knowing what he did, he stepped to her side and laid his hand gently upon her head.

"I have pity, more than pity for you, Jess," he whispered. "Don't think——" He caught his breath to check the quiver in his voice, and so remembered. "I beg your pardon—Mrs. Eustace I should have said," he added as he drew back.

With hands close clenched behind him he stood. The love he fancied he had stifled had burst through the restraint he had placed upon it; the injury she had inflicted upon him, the wrong she had done, the cause for resentment she had given him were alike forgotten. The lingering suspicion alone prevented him from taking her in his arms to soothe and comfort her in her distress. Fighting against himself he stood silent, and the woman, aching for someone on whom to lean, shivered.

"What am I to do?" she moaned. "What am I to do?"

He, thinking only of her, took the words to refer to her present difficulty.

"I think it would be better if you went away," he said gently. "I do not think it will be easier for you to bear if you are here when—should anything else come to light."

"You mean if—if he is arrested?"

"Yes."

She lifted up her head and turned a tear-stained face towards him.

"Have they found him? Have they? Is that why—why I am asked to leave the house?"

"No, Mrs. Eustace. A new manager will be appointed, and the house is wanted for him."

"But I will not leave Waroona," she exclaimed, as she stood up. "I dare not leave it—till I know. If he—suppose he did do it—and wants to find me?"

"I should advise you to go right away," Harding said, still speaking gently. "You will do no good by remaining here where everybody knows what has happened, whereas if you go away you will be able to put all the worry of it away from you."

"I will not go."

She spoke with a fierce emphasis, the more pronounced because she felt that the course he suggested was the one she ought to follow, and resenting it because, by following it, she would pass out of his sight, and perchance out of his life for all time.

"I can only advise you," he said. "The new manager may be here in a day or two, and the bank will——"

"Oh, I'm not going to stay in this house," she interrupted. "I will be out of here to-morrow; but I will not leave Waroona."

"You will make a mistake if you do not, I think, but it is for you to decide."

She sat down again, clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap.

"If I go—will you—will you write to me?"

"No, I cannot do that," he answered at once.

"May I—write to you?"

"I should be sorry if you did."

She raised her eyes and again looked at him steadily in silence, looked until he turned away.

"How hard you make it, how hard!" she said at length. "How am I to know what is happening if I go away? I am sure you are expecting his arrest. Why did those two troopers go off so mysteriously this afternoon? They did not go to the railway. I watched them from upstairs. They rode the other way."

He did not reply.

"Will you answer me this one question? Do you believe I know he is the thief?"

"If there is anything that I can do to help or assist you in your present difficulty, Mrs. Eustace, I shall be only too pleased to do it. But I cannot discuss the robbery with you."

For the first time there was a tone of sternness in his voice.

"Then I take it that you do," she said. "I only want to tell you this. I still do not believe he did it. I know he is—he is not as you are. I have tried to shield this from you. I did not want you to know—then. Now I have told you. I did not know he was going to run away. I did not know he had gone until Brennan came to arrest him. But I can understand why he went. He knew the bank would suspect him at once, knew that there was a black record against him. It was cowardly of him, cowardly to leave me here alone. But he has gone, and I do not think I shall ever hear from him or see him again. That is why I want to remain here. If I go away, I may never know; if I am here, I shall be able to find out. But don't think that I know either that he intended to run away or where he has gone. At least have that much faith in me."

"I did think so," he said quickly. "Now I do not."

"Thank you," she said softly. "I know how difficult it is for you to say even that. You cannot discuss the matter, but—don't think harder of me, Fred, than you can help."

She turned quickly and hurried from the room. She had scarcely closed the door when she reopened it.

"Constable Brennan is asking for you," she said. "Will you go in?"

She pushed the door wide open and Brennan came forward.

"Is Mr. Wallace here?" he asked, as soon as he had seen the door close.

"He has gone to bed—he is rather tired out after his journey. Is it anything particular?"

"One of the troopers has just ridden back. When they reached Taloona they found the place on fire. The sub-inspector was outside with his head smashed, and Mr. Dudgeon, with a bullet through him and his hands handcuffed behind his back, lying on the floor of the hut. They saw the glare of the fire through the trees and only galloped up just in time to get the old man out. He's in a bad way, Conlon said, and so is the sub-inspector."

"Wait till I tell Mr. Wallace," Harding exclaimed, as he rushed from the room.

Outside in the passage, Mrs. Eustace faced him.

"Fred, what is it? I heard—who is killed?"

"Nobody, I hope. I'll be back in a moment."

He dashed up to Wallace's room and hammered at the door.

"Hullo, what's the matter now?" Wallace cried, as he answered the knock.

"Come down to the dining-room. Brennan is there. One of the troopers has come back. Taloona is burnt and both Dudgeon and Durham injured."

When they reached the dining-room they found Mrs. Eustace with Brennan.

"I can be of use. I know how to nurse. I've learned how to give first aid. Let me go out and attend to them till the doctor comes. He is twenty miles away, and they may bleed to death before he can get there. I've got some bandages. I'll fetch them," Mrs. Eustace was saying.

She turned as Wallace and Harding entered.

"Tell them, Brennan, while I get the things," she added as she ran out and upstairs.

"It's wicked to think of her wasted on a scoundrel like that," Brennan exclaimed. "You heard what she said, sir? I know she's the only one in the township who understands what to do till the doctor comes. We've sent a man off for him, and they're getting a party together to go out and fetch the sub-inspector and the old man in. She's offered to go too. It may save their lives, for, from what Conlon said, they're badly hurt, both of them."

"Has the gold gone?" Wallace asked.

"I reckon so, though there's no saying until we hear what has happened. But it looks like a bad case of sticking the place up and trying to murder the inmates. Hullo, there's Mr. Gale calling. He's got his buggy. There's a seat to spare if either of you like to go."

"You'd be of more use than I should, Harding," Wallace said.

"Yes, I'll go," the younger man replied.

Mrs. Eustace came running into the room, her arms full of bottles and bandages.

"I haven't stopped to sort them out—I'll take all I've got," she exclaimed breathlessly.

"I will put them in the buggy while you get a cloak. I am coming with you," Harding said, as he took the articles from her and carried them out to Gale's buggy, which was drawn up outside the bank.

"You had better bring them here; it's quieter and more roomy than any other place in the town," Wallace said to Brennan when they were alone.

"If they can stand the journey," Brennan said under his breath. "I've told Conlon to ride back and let us know; I'll have to stay here."

"Then I'll tell Harding."

He reached the front door as Harding was returning, after having packed the things Mrs. Eustace had given him in the buggy. At the same moment Mrs. Eustace tripped down the stairs and ran across the hall.

"You had better bring them here," he began when she turned quickly towards him.

"Bring them here? Mr. Wallace, do you want to kill them? If they are badly injured it would be fatal to move them this distance. I will send word back at once, but if the doctor comes before you hear, send him on. Now, I'm ready."

She went out with Harding at her side.

"I am so glad to have you with me," she said softly. "It is good of you to come."

He helped her into the buggy without speaking, though the clinging touch of her hand thrilled him. He had known her as a light-hearted girl, full of frolicsome impulses and mischievous tricks, and had loved her with a passion that kept her ever before him. He had seen her when that love-lit image had been veiled by the gloom of seeming disillusion. He had seen her striving to sacrifice herself in order to shield the man who had blighted her life, and he had seen her as a man loves best to see the woman he reveres, throw aside the conventional reserve for him to learn the innermost secret of her heart. But never had he seen her as she appeared to him at that moment and later, when they arrived at the scene of the outrage, cool, clear-headed, capable, thinking only of the sufferings of others, cheering them with tactful sympathy, tending them with gentle care, the while her own soul was down-weighted with care and sorrow.

Throughout the ten-mile drive little was said, each one of the three instinctively refraining from all reference to the subject which was uppermost in their minds, and failing to maintain even a desultory conversation on more commonplace topics. Gale drove his pair at a hand gallop all the way till the road swerved from the straight and through the dim mystery of the starlit bush an angry red glow showed among the trees.

The last of the homestead, now an irregular heap of smouldering ashes over which stray lambent flames flickered and danced, served to shed sufficient light to show where two still figures lay under the shelter of Dudgeon's rackety old buggy, thrown over on its side. The trooper's horse, tethered to a tree, pawed the ground impatiently as it champed its bit, while its master, with a carbine on his arm, paced slowly to and fro. As the galloping pair swung into sight he faced round sharply and brought his carbine to the ready, till he recognised Harding.

"Are you the doctor? You're badly wanted," he exclaimed as Gale reined up beside him.

"Quick. Help me out," Mrs. Eustace said as Harding leaped to the ground. She ran lightly over to the two figures. Through the rough bandage the troopers had tied round Durham's head a red stain was spreading. Dudgeon lay with glittering eyes staring vacantly. His right leg was bandaged, but more than a stain showed upon it.

She knelt down beside the old man, and as with deft, quick fingers she untied the bandage, she looked up at Harding.

"Bring me that packet of cotton-wool, the little leather case, all the bandages, and the bottle with the red label, at once. Tell the trooper to fetch the others."

By the time he returned she had the handkerchief the trooper had bound round the old man's leg loosened.

"Open the case and give me the scissors," she said without a trace of excitement or nervousness in her voice.

She slipped a rent in the trouser and held the edges back, revealing a punctured wound out of which a red stream gushed. In a moment she had a wad of cotton-wool rolled and moistened it from the bottle with the red label, placing it with a firm light touch on the wound.

"While I hold this, cut the trouser leg right down," she said, and Harding, his own nerves steadied by the calmness of hers, did as she bid.

The trooper came over with the rest of the articles, and while she watched what Harding was doing she told him, quietly, how to prepare a lotion and bring it to her.

Gale came over as soon as he had secured his horses.

"Will you go down to the men's huts and see if there is a bunk where we can put him?" she said, looking quickly at Gale.

"Why didn't you think of that?" Gale exclaimed as he glanced at the trooper. "You ought to have taken them there at once."

"You had better go too," she added to the trooper. "Bring something back with you, a door or a table or anything that will do to carry him on."

Left alone with Harding, she never ceased until she had the wound stanched, cleansed, and properly bound up.

"There is brandy in that flask, Fred. Mix about a tablespoonful in three times as much water."

He brought her the stuff in a pannikin, believing it was for herself.

"Raise his head gently," she said, and slowly poured the mixture between the old man's nerveless lips.

Without a pause she turned to Durham and had the ugly wound on his scalp laid bare. Snipping the hair away from it, she lightly touched the bruised skin surrounding the jagged cut.

"I'm afraid the skull is fractured—I hope the doctor will soon be here," she whispered, as she busied herself with the cotton-wool and red-labelled bottle.

By the time she had Durham's head bandaged, Gale and the trooper returned, carrying the door from one of the huts.

"There are two huts with a single bunk in each, and one with four," Gale said.

"Use the two with the single bunks," she said. "When are the others coming from the township?"

"They're coming along the road now," the trooper answered.

"Run and see if they have any blankets with them. If not, send someone back at once for some."

But there was more than blankets in the buggy that came up at breakneck speed. By the veriest chance the doctor had been within a mile or so of Waroona and had come away at once, bringing with him such articles as he knew would be wanted. He hastened over to the two wounded men just as Dudgeon gave utterance to the first sound he had made since the troopers had dragged him out of the burning homestead.

The doctor bent over him, rapidly examining the bandage round the leg. He stood up and turned to Durham.

"Who put on those bandages?" he asked sharply, as he looked up.

"I did, doctor. I plugged the bullet-hole with an iodoform wad and stopped the bleeding. I put a pad on Mr. Durham's wound, but I fancy his skull is injured."

"Where were you going to send them?"

"There are two single-bunk huts at the men's quarters. I was going to have them taken there on that door until you came."

"We will take them there at once."

Under his directions the two were lifted and carried away to the huts and made as comfortable as was possible in the rough timber bunks. With Mrs. Eustace and Harding to assist him, he found and removed the bullet from the old man's leg and quickly operated on Durham.

"I don't know what they would say in some of the swagger hospitals, if they were asked to trepan a man's skull under these conditions," he said as the operation was finished. "But he'll pull through, and thank you, as the old man will when he knows, for saving his life. Aren't you Mrs. Eustace?"

"Yes," she answered.

"I hardly had time to notice who you were before. You're a brave woman. For your sake I hope your husband gets away."

The blood surged to her face, and then left it pallid. The shadow of her sorrow had been forgotten during the strenuous moments she had gone through; the tactless remark brought it back upon her with cruel emphasis. She turned aside and slipped through the door at the back of the hut while the doctor, oblivious to his blunder, went out at the other.

Harding was about to follow her, when one of the troopers appeared at the door through which the doctor had gone. He held a letter in his hand.

"I found this where the lady knelt when she tied up the sub-inspector's head—I fancy it's either hers or yours."

On the flap of the envelope Harding saw the bank's impress.

"It probably is hers," he answered as he took it. "I will give it to her at once."

There was no sign of her as he passed out of the little door at the back of the hut and, believing she had gone round to the other, he turned to go back when, in a limp and dishevelled heap, he saw her lying on the ground against the wall of the hut.

Her upturned face was white and drawn as he stooped over her.

"Jess!" he whispered. "Jess! Are you ill?"

She made no response, and he placed his arms gently round her and lifted her till she lay in his clasp, her head drooped on his shoulder.

The movement revived her sufficiently for her to know what was happening.

A long-drawn sigh escaped her lips and she essayed to stand alone.

"No, Jess, no. Lean on me. You must get back home and rest. You have overdone it," he whispered.

"Fred! You!"

The arms that had hung lifeless wreathed round his neck, the head that had dropped on his shoulder nestled close and the white face upturned.

"Oh, take me away, Fred, take me away from this horror—anywhere, anywhere, so that I may be with you."

"Hush, Jess, hush. You must not talk like that," he whispered, the strength of the grip with which he held her and the soft tremor of his voice giving her the lie to his words.

"Darling, I must," she answered. "Give me freedom from the misery that man has brought into my life. Oh, you do not know what it has been and is still. You heard what the doctor said."

She shuddered as she recalled the words.

"The tactless fool," he muttered, resentment rising against the man who had not hesitated to add another twelve hours' work to an already arduous day when the call of suffering reached him.

"No, he only said what others think. I know, Fred. I can feel it. Mr. Gale was the same. They all are."

"You must not think that—you must not," he said. "And you must not stay in Waroona. You must go away."

Her arms held tighter.

"I will never go, never, while you remain. Don't despise me, Fred, don't think ill of me. I know what I am saying. I am on the edge of a precipice. If I go over, I go down, down, down, an outcast, and a—a——"

"Don't," he whispered hoarsely. "Don't talk like that."

"Who would care?" she added bitterly, "even if I did?"

It was no longer merely support that his encircling arms gave her as they strained her to him.

"It would break my heart," he whispered simply. "I am one who would care."

Unconsciously he bent his head, unconsciously she raised hers, until their lips met, and in one passionate embrace the intervening years since they had been heart to heart before passed as a dream, and only did they know that despite all the barriers which had been raised between them they were bound by a tie beyond the reach of custom, circumstance, or force.

With that knowledge uplifting and upholding them, they drew apart.

"You must go and rest now, Jess. You have need of all your strength to face what lies before you," he said gently.

"I don't mind what it is—now," she answered.

"Then I will go and ask Gale to drive you back. I will give you all the news when I return in the morning."

"Are you staying?" Gale exclaimed directly he saw him. "I've harnessed up, so if you and Mrs. Eustace——"

"I'm staying, but she will come back with you—the experience has been rather trying for her."

"Trying?" Gale exclaimed. "She's the noblest woman I've ever met. I don't care what's the truth about the bank affair, but there's not a man in Waroona who won't reverence that woman when he hears what she has done to-night."

"I'll tell her you are ready," Harding answered.

"Where is she? Down at the huts? I'll drive down for her."

She was standing talking to the doctor when Harding returned.

"I'm more anxious about the old man," the doctor was saying as Harding came up. "He'll want very careful nursing, so if you could undertake it, you'll lift a weight off my shoulders."

"I will be ready to come out to-morrow if you want me," she answered. "Send word by Mr. Harding when he comes in—he is going to stay here to-night. You will bring me word, won't you?" she added, turning to Harding. "Is Mr. Gale driving back?"

"He is coming now to pick you up—here he is," Harding replied as Gale's buggy and pair swung into sight.

He helped her in and wrapped a rug round her.

"Don't be late in the morning—I shall be anxious to hear if the doctor wants me," she said as Gale turned his horses and drove off.

"She's a splendid woman that," the doctor said as he stood looking after the buggy disappearing in the dusk. "Pity she's tied to such a rat as that chap Eustace. I suppose you know him?"

"I am in the bank," Harding answered.

"Oh, are you? Then perhaps I've put my foot in it?"

"I don't think so."

"Have you known him long?"

"Eustace? No, only since I've been in the branch—about three weeks."

"I should have judged you had known her for years."

"I have, but I have only known her husband since I have been here."

"Knew her before she was married?"

"That is so."

"Then tell me, why did she want to marry that rat? I've only seen him once, but that was more than enough. Smoke! Women are regular conundrums. There's that one, as true and big-hearted a creature as ever breathed—look at the pluck she showed to-night—and yet she goes and throws herself away on a miserable crawler who can't even respect the trust his employers placed in him. What does it mean to her? Just think of it—the wife of a common thief, worse than a common thief to my mind. What'll become of her? He'll be caught and sent to gaol for years. What's she going to do then? It's a pity someone doesn't shoot him—it would save her from degradation."

The buggy had vanished in the dusk. He turned to his companion. The dim light from the hut fell full on Harding's face. The doctor whistled.

"Hope I haven't said too much, old chap. I forgot. If you've known her for years—well, you know what I mean, don't you? I must get in to my patient. You'll look after the old man? I've given him a draught that'll keep him asleep. But call me if you want me."

He went into the next hut where Durham lay. Harding stood where he left him, staring away into the night, in the direction the buggy had gone. The click-clock of the trotting horses came in a gradually diminishing clearness, beating time to the refrain which was running in his mind, the refrain of the doctor's words.

If Eustace were captured there was little doubt what the sequence would be. A long sentence and his wife branded with the stain of his guilt. Better if he were dead—better if he were killed, rather than that destiny should overtake her.

Harding's jaw set firm as his teeth gritted.

The memory of her white, drawn face as he saw her lying on the ground outside the hut; the memory of her desolate wail for him to take her away from the horror of her surroundings; the memory of her patient care of the two injured men, injured, perhaps, by the "rat" who had ruined her life and his; the memory of her as he had first known her, jostled one another in his brain.

Better, a thousand times better, if Eustace were dead.

The doctor, looking out of the next hut, saw him still standing staring into the night.

"How's the old man? Restless?" he asked as he came over.

The voice brought Harding back from the clouds—the thunder-clouds, towards which he was drifting.

"I'm just going in," he answered.

The doctor followed him to the door. Dudgeon lay breathing peacefully in a deep sleep.

"You can roll up in that blanket and make yourself as comfortable as possible—I don't think he'll awaken till the morning," the doctor said in a low tone when he had crossed to the bunk where Dudgeon lay and looked at him. "I must get back to my man."

He went out of the hut without waiting for a reply and Harding made no attempt to follow him, but spread the blanket on the floor and lay down upon it.

Until that moment he had entirely forgotten the letter the trooper had given him. As he lay back it suddenly recurred to him. He sat up and put his hand in his pocket to make sure it was still there. As he did so the old man stirred, and Harding waited to see whether he was going to wake.

He remained with his hand in his pocket until Dudgeon's breathing showed he was again soundly asleep. Then, momentarily forgetful of the reason why he was holding the letter, he drew it out, took it from the envelope, and opened it.

The writing was only too familiar, even without the peculiarly formed initial which was Eustace's particular sign.

He sat like one paralysed, his eyes reading and rereading the words which changed to mockery all the revived faith in her. His brain grew numb. Like a man upon whose head an unexpected blow had fallen, he was only half conscious of what had happened. Even as he read and re-read the letter he failed to gather all that it meant, all that it revealed. The very simplicity of the situation stunned him.

Then through the darkness of his mind there came, in one lurid flash, clear as a streak of lightning in the night, the full significance of it.

Eustace, having made his escape, had sent the message to her!

The scene in her boudoir the night before; the vision of the horsemen coming from the range; the face of the man with the yellow beard at the window, all passed before him. While he and Brennan were dashing across the yard, she or Bessie had found the note.

So it had come into her possession, and it must have been in her possession while she was talking to him after Wallace told her she must leave the bank; must have been in her possession while she drove with him to Taloona, and, for aught she knew, was in her possession when he found her lying senseless outside the hut.

He sprang to his feet, crushing the damning sheet in his hand.

While she clung to him, and he held her in all the fervour of his re-awakened love, she must have believed the message he had read was still in her keeping.

The sordid duplicity, the rank treachery of it seared and scorched.

Forgetful of the sleeping man whom he was there to watch, forgetful of everything save the bitterness of his betrayal, he paced the floor with rapid, raging steps.

He had been fooled, heartlessly, callously fooled. The bitterest thoughts he had ever had of her were all too gentle in the face of this final revelation. She was false to her finger-tips, a syren in cunning, a viper in venom.

At the door of the hut he stopped to stand staring out into the dark in the direction whither she had gone.

The last echo of the click-clock of Gale's trotting horses had died away; the bush lay mysterious and motionless under the silent veil of night; no sound came to him save the heavy breathing of the wounded man asleep in the hut; but through his brain, with the deadening monotony of numbing drumbeats, there throbbed the mocking, taunting words, "Fooled! Fooled! Fooled!"