The silvery sheen of the rising moon glittered on the surface of the pool and lay over the sombre-foliaged bush as Durham came out upon the top of the bluff above the Rider's cave.

From the moment he reached the ridge to find only the marks made by the plunging horse he had raced to get there first. Down the sharp slopes of the gullies, across the dry, rock-strewn bed of the mountain-streams, up the opposite steeps, with never a care for the risks he ran, he kept his horse at its topmost speed, sparing neither spur nor lash to urge it along. There was no time to choose the easy paths, no chance of picking his way; every moment was of value, for he knew how the wounded outlaw would make desperate haste to get to the shelter of his haven.

The gloom of the bush ere the moon rose added to his difficulties. With no landmark to serve as a guide he had to rely absolutely upon his instinctive sense of locality, and kept steadily in the one direction, although that meant riding over the rugged ground, barred by tumbled boulders and thickly growing trees, which formed the almost precipitous sides of the gullies. At any time a fall was possible; he carried his life in his hands and knew it; but the ride was a race against odds, and there was no time to heed.

He was breasting the rise of what he believed to be the last of the ridges he would have to cross, when the laboured breathing of his horse told him it was almost done. Leaning forward in his saddle, he patted it on the neck and spoke to it as a man who has realised the companionship between himself and a favourite horse will do. Responding to the encouragement, it mounted to the summit of the ridge and quickened its pace as it felt it was on level ground again. But where the other ridges had been flat on the top, this one was little more than a razor-back. No sooner was the ascent completed than the descent began. The horse caught in its stride to steady itself, tripped, stumbled, and came down. Durham was flung over its head like a stone from a catapult.

Fortunately he came to the ground on the broad of his back, though with such force that he was momentarily stunned. His horse picked itself up and stood trembling and panting long before he was able to scramble to his feet. Even when he did so his head was spinning and he could barely stand.

With unsteady steps he went to his horse and took hold of the bridle. To attempt to ride it further was obviously out of the question, and he led it slowly down to the bottom of the slope, tethering it securely to a tree in the shelter of the gully. Then, pulling himself together, he set off up the opposite slope on foot.

His head was still swimming from the concussion of his fall, and into it there came the humming he had experienced after his adventure at Taloona. It made him so dizzy that he sank down on a boulder, resting his head on his hands until the humming and throbbing should pass. As he sat there came a sound to his ears which made him start to his feet, forgetful of the giddiness, forgetful of everything save the sound and all that it signified.

Through the silence of the bush came the measured tread of a walking horse.

It was evidently crossing the gully below, for, as he listened, the pace quickened to a trot and then to a canter and then became suddenly faint and muffled.

In an instant Durham read the significance of it. The horse had crossed the gully on to level ground and, urged by its rider, had cantered out of hearing. Exactly such a thing would happen were the gully he had crossed the one which came out on to the level sandy margin of the pool.

The realisation sent a chill through him. The rise up which he was climbing must be the ridge which formed the bluff above the cave. If he were not over it quickly, the Rider would be the first at the cave and Durham's scheme for his capture defeated.

The thought drove the last vestige of dizziness from his brain. He faced the slope and forced his way through the tangled undergrowth until he came to the top and saw the moonlight gleaming on the surface of the pool and illuminating with its silvery sheen the open space at the foot.

There was no sign of the horse he expected to see, and no sound came from the cave. With his carbine ready, he crept slowly and silently down until he was at the mouth. A stray moonbeam fell upon the spot where he had seen the clothes on his former visit. The spot was bare.

He was about to step into the cavern when he heard the distant tread of the horse. Quickly drawing back, he hid himself behind a clump of shrubs which sheltered him, while leaving him a clear view in front up to the line of bushes stretching from the bank to the water's edge. There he waited, while the sound of the horse approaching became more and more distinct.

Presently it was so clear he could hear the snapping of the twigs of the undergrowth as they were trampled down, and he levelled his carbine so as to cover the man immediately he and his horse emerged from the line of bushes. But when the animal appeared, for the moment Durham thought it was riderless. Only when it reached the middle of the open space and was almost directly below him did he see the man, lying forward over the withers, with his arms weakly clinging to the horse's neck and his legs swaying limply as they dangled with the feet out of the stirrups.

Of its own accord the horse stopped. The man painfully pushed himself up until he was able to turn his head and look from side to side.

He was scarcely ten yards from Durham, and the clear light of the moon revealed the face as distinctly as though it were day. The close-cropped hair, fair almost to whiteness, the eyebrows and eyelashes of the same hue; the general form of the face showing above the beard were incongruously, yet elusively, familiar, while the pallor of the cheeks and the anguish of the eyes told of the terrible injury the man had sustained.

He was trying to push himself up so as to sit in the saddle. Only his arms seemed to have any strength, for the legs still dangled limply and the fingers clutched the horse's mane convulsively as the body swayed. The moonlight fell full upon the face, glistening on the beads of moisture which stood out on the skin.

A twinge of pity passed through Durham's heart as he watched the agony of the stricken wretch. The effort to maintain his balance was more than the weakened muscles could stand. A deep groan broke from his lips as his arms gave way; his head fell and he plunged forward, slipping over the horse's shoulder and coming head first to the ground, where he lay in a limp, dishevelled heap.

Freed from its burden, the animal stepped forward and moved to a tree where it had evidently been accustomed to find its feed, for it snorted impatiently and shook itself as it sniffed round the trunk. But Durham had no eyes for it; he was watching, with fascinated intentness, the figure lying motionless on the ground.

Slipping from behind the sheltering shrubs, he approached the man with noiseless steps. There was no sign of life in the figure which lay as it had fallen, but across the lower part of the back the clothes were stained with blood. A bullet had struck him almost on the spine, and the dangling limbs were explained. The shot had paralysed them.

Durham stooped over him. The faintest flicker of breathing showed he was still alive. He lay on his face, his arms out-flung, his legs twisted. Drawing the arms together, Durham slipped a strap round them above the elbows so as to hold them secure. Then he partly lifted him from the ground and dragged him to the mouth of the cave, where he sat him with his back against the rock.

The head drooped forward. In his waist-belt there was a revolver-pouch which Durham, on removal, found to contain a revolver of heavy calibre loaded in all chambers.

Now that he was unarmed and secured, Durham knelt beside him to try and revive him. He gently raised the head and rested it against the stone, holding it steady with one hand while with the other he lifted off the false beard.

As the disguise came away and left the face fully exposed, Durham's heart stood still. With a cry he sprang to his feet, staggering back to stand, with clenching hands and throbbing temples, staring blankly at the white, drawn face upturned to his.

The humming roar was again in his ears, a trembling seized his limbs, his brain reeled and the scene spun before his eyes.

"Oh, my God!" he cried.

Slowly the eyelids lifted and a spasm of pain contracted the pallid face. The glance rested for a moment on Durham as a faint wan smile flickered round the corners of the bloodless lips and the eyelids drooped again.

The sound of his own voice in a hoarse, strained whisper jarred on Durham's ears.

"You!" he gasped. "You!"

The eyes opened once more.

In a weak, wavering tone came disjointed words.

"You said—you—would shoot him—like a dog—and I told you—it would—kill—me if you—did."

As white as his captive, Durham stood dumbfounded.

The feeling of horror which had come upon him when first he recognised the face overwhelmed him. His heart went dead and his brain numbed. All the roseate dreams of his romance turned to dull grey leaden grief to flaunt and mock him.

Like the panoramic vision said to come to the minds of the drowning, the incidents on which his love had dwelt in cherishing delight passed before him. He saw again the sparkling eyes which had filled him with such gladness when first that love had come to him; saw the picture made by the wonderfully graceful form leaning against the verandah at Waroona Downs, bathed in the soft, romantic light of the new-born moon; saw the pleading face turned to him as the gentle voice spoke endearing words to gain a passing favour; saw once more that fleeting, taunting vision on which he had built so much despite the warning to beware of the vagaries of a delirium-swayed brain.

The visions passed. Before him, crippled and ghastly in the last agony of life, lay the author of this diabolical outrage upon every sensibility of his manhood.

A rage of blind, ungovernable fury swept over him. The primitive instinct of revenge, the savage longing to wreak, while there was yet time, a last fierce vengeance on the one who had betrayed him, filled his being. With a cry which ended in a curse he sprang to where his carbine lay, seized it by the barrel, and swung it round his head as he turned back upon his prisoner.

A gasping sigh came from the prostrate form, and the head rolled lolling to one side.

The carbine fell from Durham's hands and he stood motionless, looking down at the figure from which all signs of life had gone.

As quickly as it had come the paroxysm of rage left him.

The man was dying, if not dead, and the hideous riddle of the mystery still unsolved!

He must not die! He must not pass beyond the reach of human knowledge with the truth of that tragic drama in which he had played the leading part unrevealed.

Durham rushed to the pool, filled his cap with water and came back with it. Lifting up the drooping head, he moistened the nerveless lips and bathed the cold temples and pallid cheeks.

"In the—cave—rum."

The whisper was just loud enough for him to hear. Leaning the head once more against the stone, Durham staggered to the cave. A dark heap lay on the ground in the shadow. He struck a match.

Numbed as his brain was by the revelation that had come to him, he shrank back at what he saw.

A pile of woman's clothes; the skirt and jacket which had been impressed upon his memory only a few hours before under circumstances which form, perhaps, the one occasion when a man heeds and remembers what a woman wears; the jaunty hat which had exerted so great a spell upon the masculine population of the district, and beside it, the most horrible of all, a wig of luxuriant coal-black hair from which the subtle perfume that had so often charmed him still floated.

With hands which shook so that he could scarcely hold it, he took the bottle of rum, bearing Soden's label, from the ground beside the clothes, and hastened to the mouth of the cave.

In the cold moonlight the figure lay to all appearances dead.

Durham tore open the front of the shirt and pushed in his hand to feel if the heart still beat.

With the moaning cry of a heart-broken man he reeled back. Then, in a wild fervour born of his soul's despair, he fell on his knees beside the prostrate form and tenderly drew the lolling head to his breast and moistened the blue lips with the spirit.

"Oh, speak! Speak to me! Nora, speak to me and tell me," he wailed.

He reached to take her hands and remembered how he had bound the arms. Quickly he set them free and chafed the limp fingers.

"Rum—quick—drink," came in a wavering whisper, and he poured some of the potent spirit between the lips.

Holding her in his arms, with her head resting on his shoulder, he waited, listening to her faint breathing.

"A little more and—I——"

She was able to raise her hand to steady the bottle which he held. Then her head fell over again and she lay inert.

He turned his face to watch her. In a momentary fit of remorse and grief he pressed his lips to hers.

One of her arms stole round his neck and held him to her.

"Oh, my darling, my darling, how I have loved you," he heard her whisper. "Why did you come to me so late?"

Like a chill of death the words went through his brain.

"Tell me—everything," he whispered.

"Yes—before I die—if I can."

"Who are you?" he said. "What is your real name?"

"Nora O'Guire. I am Kitty Lambton's youngest daughter. I told you her story."

"And Patsy?"

"He was my father."

"Was?"

"Yes. He is at the house—dead—Dudgeon—shot him."

"Who was it robbed the bank?"

"Dad and I."

"And Eustace?"

"No. He was innocent."

A shudder of horror passed over him. The woman whom he had loved with such an abandon, this woman whom he held even then in his arms—he shrank away from her, letting her fall against the stone as the grim, sordid horror of the tragedy she was revealing grew plain before him.

"Ah, don't leave me—don't—don't," she moaned. "Let me die in your arms—let me—oh, I love you, love you beyond all else. I will tell you everything—everything—only still hold me."

"How did Eustace die?" His voice rang hard and pitiless.

"Oh! Give me this one last joy on earth. I am not all bad. Don't deny me now. Hold me in your arms, beloved. I had no faith in man or God till I met you, and you were good to me—in the coach—have you forgotten? Don't desert me—now."

Like a jagged claw rending harp-strings the phrases jarred and jangled every chord within his being.

"Oh, why—why——?" he cried. "Why did you come to this?"

"Hold me and I will tell you."

He knelt by her side, taking her head again upon his shoulder while she clutched at his hand.

"My strength is going—more rum—quick."

He held the bottle to her mouth in silence, loving, loathing, pitying, and condemning.

"Now. Don't stop me. Don't interrupt—only listen."

She lay still for a few minutes, gathering the last of her energy. Presently she began.

"Dad, O'Guire that is, was driven to stealing. Mother too. All the other little ones died but me. Dad trained me. Write to the police in London and ask about Nora O'Guire—there are lots of other names, but they know me under all as Nora O'Guire. Then mother died. She made me swear not to rest till we had revenged her on Dudgeon. We came out, Dad and I, came out to find him. I bluffed the bank."

"But the deeds you had with you—were they forgeries?"

"No. I stole them. From a solicitor's office in Dublin—he probably does not know they are missing. Write to him."

"Where are they now?"

"In the cellar under the house—in a stone jar. His name is on them. The bank-notes are there too. The gold is in a——"

"I have found that."

She raised her head.

"You found it? When?"

"Early to-day. Before I met you."

The head fell back. "I am glad," she said. "You are the first man to beat me—but I love you."

"Tell me how you managed to deceive everyone as you did."

"I acted. Once, for a time, when things got too hot for us, I went on the stage. It threw the 'tecks off the scent. I wanted to stay at it, for I liked it, but mother was mad to ruin Dudgeon, and Dad could not keep straight. So we began again. I wore a wig and made up. You'll find it in the cave."

"I have seen it."

"Oh, if I could only have married you," she gasped. "If I had only met you earlier!"

"But about Eustace," he said quietly.

"Yes, I'll tell you. I went to the bank—like this—and saw Eustace. I slipped into the kitchen and drugged the tea. I knew they all took it. Then Dad and I broke in. It was quite easy. I climbed up the verandah, opened the back door, and let Dad in. They were all dead asleep. We took the keys and cleared the safe. Every place was locked up again and left just as we found it. Dad went out, and when I had locked the back door I went over the verandah again."

"How did you get the gold away?"

"The buggy was in the bush. We whitewashed the horses as a blind. We knew they hated the colour up here. It puzzled everyone."

"But when did you discover this place?"

"Dad knew it in the old days. He and mother used to meet here in secret—there is a way across to the ford—the water gets shallow in one place—it was there Dad shot——"

Her voice caught and she turned appealing eyes to him as she struggled for breath.

"Give me—rum," she muttered, and he rested her head on his arm, while he slowly poured some of the spirit between her lips. For a time she lay so still he thought she had gone, till there came a wavering sigh and she moved her head slightly.

"It was—nearly—over——" she whispered.

"About Eustace?" he said. "Can you tell me now?"

"Yes—I'll try," she answered. "Don't leave me—stay with me till the end, won't you? Give me—your word."

"I will stay," he replied.

The head resting on his arm turned until the eyes looked straight into his. They were filled with the gentle light he had seen in them when, through the momentary lifting of the veil of unconsciousness, he had been enabled to catch a glimpse of her real nature.

"Then I'll tell you—everything," she whispered. "We had to fix suspicion on someone. When I saw him he had no nerve. I offered to shelter him. He agreed, and I let him out of the window, and pretended to go on talking to him all the time he was getting away into the bush. You know what happened then."

"At the bank? Yes. But what became of Eustace?"

"He was at the house. He was there the night you came. He nearly gave himself up. He was coming when he heard you say who you were. So Dad knocked him on the head and put him in the cellar."

"While I was there?" Durham exclaimed.

"Yes. When you went to see to your horse. Then later we had to trick you. Dad put something in the tea like I did at the bank, only it would have killed you all he put in. He wanted to. He wanted to after, and tried to, but I—I wouldn't let him—because I loved you. But I made you sleep that night—Dad had to make fresh tea, and I put the stuff in. We watched you go off on the verandah while you were smoking, and then tied you up. It was hard to make you wake, but we had to—Dad had taken Eustace's handkerchief—we knew you would be convinced if you found it—after seeing me—and we—we shot your horse, and made the others bolt."

"But afterwards? What happened to Eustace afterwards?" he asked as she stopped.

"We had to keep him there, then, because he knew. He was there in the cellar the night you came from Taloona. You heard him cry out. So Dad brought him here and tied him up. He was here all the time you were at the house. The evening after you saw Brennan, when you talked to me on the verandah, Dad came and found him escaping. Dad killed him. He had to. He shammed drunk next day, so that you should not suspect him. There is a short cut from the house, and Dad took it after you left, and got to the ford before you. That's all."

"When Taloona was stuck up——"

"Dad and I," she said. "We didn't know you were there. You hit me, and I—oh, darling, it broke my heart when I saw you fall, but I had to. That is why I took you away to nurse you. I kissed you when you didn't know."

"The other night—when you rode through the town?"

She lay silent and he repeated the question.

"I was—half drunk. So was Dad. We did it out of devilment. They were all such fools—all but you—and you nearly shot me. The bullet grazed my horse. You will see the cut on the shoulder. You nearly caught Dad. He was in the police-station when you got back. He cracked every crib in the place—I wasn't in that."

"Where did he hide?" Durham asked.

"In the yard—where Eustace was—you never looked there."

A convulsive shudder ran through her.

"But to-night—where were you going to-night when I met you?" he asked.

"To kill Dudgeon. Dad only just got home. I could die happy if I only had."

Again her frame quivered, and she was racked with a fierce struggle to get her breath. She lay against him, her head resting in the hollow of his arm, her eyes closed, and her mouth twitching.

"Tell him," she whispered between her panting gasps. "Tell him—I—tried——"

He touched her hands lying limply in her lap; they were icy cold. Her head was growing heavy on his arm and her lips were turning blue. He moistened them once more with rum as her breathing became almost imperceptible.

For a moment her eyes opened and looked into his with an expression of wonderful tenderness.

"Dudgeon is already dead," he whispered gently.

She started and tried to sit up, but could only raise her head.

"Dead," she whispered. "Dead!"

Then, as though the news galvanised her waning strength into one last tumultuous effort, she flung out her arms and sat up, with wide-open eyes staring fixedly into space.

"Dad! Dad!" she cried. "You did—you did, Dad. Oh, thank——"

Her arms fell, her head lolled forward, and her body lurched against Durham as, with a broken, gasping sigh, she collapsed into a nerveless, jointless thing.

He bent his head and placed his ear to her breast above her heart. There was not the faintest throb, and he took his arm from around her. As he did so she rolled over, her face upturned towards the moon, at which her wide-open eyes stared and her mouth gaped.

The Rider of Waroona was dead!

With bowed head and aching heart Durham bent over her.

All the love of his nature which had lain dormant for so long had gone out to this woman, enfolding her, idealising her, until she became to him the completement of his being, the one incentive for all which was noble within him, the mainspring of his life, the lode-stone of his ambitions. To have won her would have been his dearest and proudest achievement; to have had her love would have made existence for him a never-ending stream of happiness and joy.

As a sun new risen from the night she had come into his life, bringing light and warmth and peace where there had been only coldness and unrest. So he had dreamed of her only that morning; so she had appeared to him only a few hours since when, at her bidding, trusting her, believing in her, loving her, he had turned his back on his duty—betrayed.

Resentment at the treachery warred with his love and tinged his sorrow with bitterness. How she had played with him, tricking him, fooling him, outwitting him—and yet loving him.

The memory of the last fond look of lingering tenderness which had been in her eyes ere he told her Dudgeon was dead came to him. Why had he told her that? Why had he not let her die as she was then, with the gentle side of her nature dominating her, filled with the one soft impulse she perhaps had ever known?

The words had slipped from his tongue almost before he knew, and on the instant there had come back to her the overshadowing influence which had warped her life for evil even before she was born.

By his hand she had died; by his words her last moments had been filled with the blackness of insensate hate.

Before the mute condemnation of that self-accusing thought the bitterness which had been in his mind against her dissipated. Whatever ills she had done to him, he had done greater to her. Whatever ills she had done to humanity were the outcome not of her own nature, but of the circumstances and conditions which had governed her from the moment she was born. All that she had said during the last evening he spent at her house recurred to him and a new significance dawned into the words.

She had spoken of herself, pleaded for herself, striven to rouse his sympathy and compassion, so that, within the sombre barrenness of her ill-starred life, one spot there might be where the loving kindness of human charity had fallen and made it bright. He remembered how he had answered her—coldly, sternly, crushing down her awakening soul with the same callous indifference which had always met her. With the pitiless weight of a loveless life, what wonder she was warped, distorted, marred? More sinned against than sinning, he had no right nor will to blame her—only the love she had inspired in him remained, to fill his heart with sadness and drag it down with the hopeless desolation of vain regrets.

For she had gone from him even as she revealed the love she bore him, gone into the darkness by his own act, gone—his throat grew hard until he choked as the thought came to him—gone from a greater degradation he, by the merciless irony of fate, would have had to fasten upon her.

Better, a thousand times better for her, that she should be as she was than that she should have lived to face the doom awaiting her—better for her—and better for him.

It was nothing to him now that the story she had told showed her, by all the laws of humanity, to be unworthy. Black as she had painted herself, the love she had inspired shone through the blackness, revealing only that which lay beyond, the radiant purpose, unmeasurable by human standards, transcending human ken.

He knelt again by her side, taking her cold hands in his and placing them upon her breast, closing the staring eyes, composing the wry-drooped mouth, straightening the twisted limbs.

"Oh, my love, my love," he wailed. "Sleep on in peace. Sleep on till I shall come to you. Wait for me, for I must stay awhile yet to shield and shelter you so that none may know the secret of your life."