"May I ask what you have learnt this morning?"
"Your frauds on the man who befriended you."
"My obligations to the man whose life I saved. Your way of putting it is prejudiced. Of course you gave him your version as to who I am?"
"My version!" exclaimed Edmonstone scornfully. "I told him that you and the bushranger Sundown are one."
Again Miles swiftly changed his key; but it was his words that were startling now.
"You are mad!" he said, pityingly—"you are mad; and I have known it for weeks. Your last words put your delusion in a nutshell. You have not a proof to bless yourself with. You are a madman on one point; and here comes the man that knows it as well as I do!"
In a whirl of surprise and amazement, not knowing for the moment whom or what to believe, the Colonel pulled up the blind and leant through the window. The Australian stood facing his accuser with an impudent smile of triumph. For once he stood revealed as he was—for once he looked every inch the finished scoundrel. If the Colonel had wavered for an instant before drawing up the blind, he wavered no more after the first glimpse of the Australian's face. He settled in his mind at that instant which was the liar of those two men. Yet something fascinated him. He was compelled to listen.
Robson was coming in at the gate.
"You are the very man we want," laughed Miles, turning towards him. "Now pull yourself together, Doctor. Do you call our friend, Mr. Edmonstone here, sane or not?"
"You said that he was not," said Robson, looking from Edmonstone to Miles.