The Rider of Waroona Part 32

"I suppose his gold was taken?"

"Every atom of it, sir. We found the spot where it had been dug up under the ashes of the house. But that doesn't seem to trouble him very much.

All he wants is to have the men who stuck up the place caught and hanged."

"How did Mrs. Eustace come in?"

"Mr. Gale drove her in, sir. He's been to and fro most every day."

"But he didn't meet the man on the white horse?"

"Yes, sir. It was Mr. Gale who brought me word of it. He said he thought it must be Eustace, and asked if he would be justified in shooting him if he met him face to face. Mr. Harding asked the same thing."

"Of course, you told them no."

"Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I said it might be the best thing for Mrs. Eustace, seeing what the conviction of her husband meant for her, but that it might mean a charge of murder if it were done."

Durham sat silent for a time.

"Come out for me to-morrow, will you, Brennan?" he said presently. "I can't wait for the doctor. This has got to be dealt with promptly, unless we are to lose the game."

When Brennan had gone, Durham sat on the verandah alone. Now that he had taken hold of the case again, all the fascination his work had for him returned. He became so engrossed in the contemplation of the problem that unnoticed the sun went down to leave the young crescent moon shedding a fitful light over the silent bush. Unnoticed, also, were the sound of footfalls as Mrs. Burke came out on to the verandah.

For a time she stood watching him. Had he turned quickly he might have seen in her eyes something of the expression for which he had looked so often. But reading the riddle of the robberies was too enthralling a subject, and so he missed his opportunity, for when she crossed to the hand-rail against which he was sitting, every suggestion of the expression had gone from her face.

Standing where the moonlight fell upon her, she leaned against one of the verandah posts without speaking. It was then he saw her, and from within the shadow he feasted his eyes upon the beauty of her face and form so clearly outlined against the soft-toned evening sky.

"Brennan has gone?" she asked, suddenly turning towards him.

"Yes. Brennan has gone. And this--this is my last evening here," he answered in a low voice. "To-morrow I resume duty."

He waited for the remark he hoped she would make, but she merely looked away over the silvery haze of the bush apparently unmoved, nay, even uninterested in the announcement he had made.

"Don't you ever feel compa.s.sion for the poor creatures you are chasing to their doom?" she asked presently.

"Why should there be compa.s.sion for them?" he asked in reply.

"Don't you ever feel it? Don't you ever stop to wonder if only they are to blame?"

"I am merely concerned in what they have done. Until they have placed themselves in antagonism to the laws of society, I have nothing to do with them. When they violate the law, then I am bidden to track them down so that they may be made to answer for the wrongs they may have done. It would a.s.sist neither them nor myself were I to lose myself in compa.s.sionate consideration of things I know nothing about."

"But surely--you must sometimes feel sorry for them--must pity them in their misfortune?"

"There are too many who deserve pity, Mrs. Burke, for me to waste any of mine on people who only injure others. All my pity and sympathy go to the victimised, not to the victimisers."

"It seems so hard, so merciless, so hopeless," she said after a few minutes' silence.

"Have you any compa.s.sion for those who stole your papers? Would you have them escape capture and punishment, and so lose for ever all hopes of recovering those papers?"

"I don't know."

There was a note of sadness in her voice, a note almost as unfamiliar as the brevity of her reply.

"To what compa.s.sion is the man ent.i.tled who struck me down?"

"You don't know--you don't know what made him do it. He may have been forced to do it for the sake of his companion, to save both of them."

"Save himself and his companion from what? From capture while committing an outrage and a robbery. I do not see where any reason for compa.s.sion comes in, Mrs. Burke."

"And you would show him none?"

"None," he answered fiercely. "I look upon that man, whoever and wherever he may be, as a menace to mankind. He is unfit to be at large."

"If you saw him, you would shoot him?"

"If I saw him I should try and capture him and hand him over for trial."

"But if you could not capture him? If he were escaping from you?"

"Then I would shoot him--shoot him like a dog, and be satisfied I had done my duty."

He stood up as he spoke and came into the moonlight, his face hard set, his eyes gleaming.

She raised her hands and held them out towards him with so impetuous a gesture that he drew back.

"I hope that you may never meet him--never--never," she said in a low voice which vibrated with emotion.

"Why?"

Durham rapped out the question in a savage staccato.

"Because I--oh!" she exclaimed, as she shuddered. "It is so horrible to think of, to think that you who--when you were delirious, Mr. Durham, you used to talk--you used to say things so full of tenderness and sympathy that I wondered--wondered whether you were then your real self or whether your real self was the man you are now--hard, stern, pitiless, relentless. It was because of that I asked you if you ever felt compa.s.sion for those you chase to their doom. I would rather remember you as the man I learned to know when you unconsciously revealed to me your other nature. It is only as that I care to remember you. But if you met that man and killed him--oh, how could I bear to think of you as a murderer? It would kill me!"

"I should not be a murderer. I should be carrying out my duty--a duty I hope I may never be called upon to perform, but one which I should not shrink from performing if I were called on by circ.u.mstances to perform it."

For a s.p.a.ce there was another silence between them, until he remembered she was standing.

"Will you not sit down?" he said quietly. "Let me bring you a chair.

This is my last night here," he said, when she had taken the chair he brought. "Do not let us talk about that wretched side of life. I want, before I go, to thank you for all the goodness and kindness you have shown to me. You have been----"

She made an exclamation of impatience.

"You have nothing to thank me for, Mr. Durham. Surely there is nothing deserving of thanks in doing what one could to relieve unmerited suffering. I only had--compa.s.sion."

"It was more than compa.s.sion. It was the----"

"Now, please. You will only annoy me if you say any more about it. If you had had a skilful nurse, you would have been cured long ago; it was my foolish blundering which delayed you so long."

"Your blundering? If everybody would only blunder as you have, Mrs.