"You love him!" cried Dick fiercely.
Instead of answering, Alice lowered her eyes. Stung to the quick—sick and sore at heart—revenge came within her reach in too sweet a form to be resisted.
Never was lie better acted. Dick was staggered. He approached her unsteadily.
"It is a villain that you love!" he gasped. "I know it—a villain and an impostor! But I will unmask him with my own hands—so help me God!"
He raised his pale face upward as he spoke, smiting his palms together with a dull dead thud. Next moment he had vaulted through the open window by which Miles had entered so short a time before—and was gone.
Meanwhile an interview of a very different character took place in Colonel Bristo's sanctum. It ended thus:
"Then you are quite sure that this hundred will be enough for you to go on with?"
"More than enough; fifty would have done. Another Queensland mail is due a month hence; and they can never fail me twice running."
"But you say you are so far up country that you do not send down to meet every mail. Your partner may not have thought you likely to run short."