"Too late for what?" he was constrained to ask.
"To save my father!"
A sigh of exquisite relief escaped him. He thought it was of another danger she was about to speak. The change of expression in his countenance was a sufficient answer, and for a few brief moments she was silent, almost overcome with grateful thought.
"I am bewildered," Richard said, pressing his hands across his face. "What brought you here?"
"I came to save my father--to save you."
"Then you know--"
"All."
"All!" echoed Richard, shrinking from her. "Do not shrink from me, dear," she said. "Yes, I know all about my father's danger and yours. Do not look upon me so strangely, Richard. Is it not happiness that we have met before any evil is done? Be thankful for his sake, for yours, for mine."
He did not reply, but he came closer to her, and then she told him rapidly what had occurred to her since he left Melbourne. In as few words as she could relate the story, she told him of Milly's death, of the letter the poor girl had given her, and of the horror which possessed her when she read of the plot Jim Pizey and his comrades had laid to trap her husband--
Richard stopped her there. "Anything about a murder?" he asked. "No," she answered; "only mention of the circumstance that they had set a trap for him and had caught him."