"Not half so well."
"And you thought I could forget!"
"I thought nothing. I only came to you in my scrape."
After years of imprisonment he could speak of this life-and-death hazard as a scrape! She looked at him with admiring eyes; her personal triumph had put an end to her indignation.
"My poor Lea! I wonder how much she has heard? I shall have to tell her nearly all; she can wait for me at Melbourne or Adelaide, and I can pick her up on my voyage home. It will be no joke without her until then. I give her up for your sake!"
Stingaree hung his head. He was a changed man.
"And I," he said grimly—not pathetically—"and I am a convict who escaped by violence this afternoon."
Hilda smiled.
"I met Mr. Brady the other day," she said, "and I heard of him to-night. He is not going to die!"
He stared at her unscrupulous radiance.