ered, and people will wonder who used it. Everything is settled. Trant goes to Europe next mail."
"He wanted to take me with him," said Elsie.
Blake kissed her in a passionate impulse. "Oh! thank Heaven that you were saved from that—though I don't think he would have carried his purpose, my dear; you have too much pluck. You would have got away from him somehow."
"Yes," said Elsie. "I should have got away. I had made up my mind. I resolved that I would appear to yield, and that if the worst came to the worst I would kill myself on my wedding-day. Are you not afraid of him?" she asked suddenly. "Don't think me conceited, but he must have cared for me in a wild, desperate way, to have planned and managed all that scheme of carrying me off. I think he would stop at nothing. He is dangerous and revengeful. He is capable of betraying you, for having foiled his purpose."
"You forget," said Blake, "that in, betraying me he would be betraying himself—not only to the authorities here, but, what is far more terrible, to the society, who would avenge me. No, my darling, don't think any more of that. Trant will go as he had settled. Sam Shehan wants to try ranching in America; and as for the half-castes, they don't count."
"And you?" asked Elsie.
"I have not decided anything yet," he said, "except that my career is ended in Leichardt's Land. I cannot stay here and risk exposure as Moonlight. My purpose is accomplished. I have done my country some service. I shall go now and fight hor it, in another way and another place. And do you think," he added vehemently, "that after this night I could meet you as Frank Hallett's wife?"
She was silent. She knew that she should never be Frank Hallett's wife, but she would not tell him this now.
The first grey faintness of early morning was paling the stars. They were riding along comparatively easy country, skirting the Luya on the road from Baròlin Gorge to the
