The Rider of Waroona Part 25

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.

"No one saw me go, and I am now safe where they will never find me.

Stay there till you hear from me again. A friend will bring you word. Ask no questions, but send your answer as directed. You must do everything as arranged, or all is lost. Whatever you do, don't leave till I send you word. I am safe till the storm blows over.--C."

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 hors.e.m.e.n coming from the range; the face of the man with the yellow beard at the window, all pa.s.sed 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 d.a.m.ning 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!"

CHAPTER XI

MRS. BURKE'S REBUFF