The voices drew nearer through the pines; there was Harkness mounted, with a led horse, and Theodore Bethune on foot. Rigden turned abruptly to the girl.
"There are just two more things to be said. None of them know where he is, and none of them know my motive. You're in both secrets. You'd better keep them—unless you want Toorak to know who it was you were engaged to."
The rest followed without a word. It might have been a scene in a play without words, and indeed the moon chalked the faces of the players, and the Riverina crickets supplied the music with an orchestra some millions strong. The clink of a boot in a stirrup, a thud in the saddle, another clink upon the off side; and Rigden lifting his wideawake as he rode after Harkness through the gate; and Bethune holding the gate open, shutting it after them, and taking Moya's arm as she stood like Lot's wife in the moonlight.
XI
BETHUNE v. BETHUNE
"I don't want to rub things in, or to make things worse," said Theodore, kindly enough, as they approached the house; "but we shall have to talk about them, for all that, Moya."
"I'm ready," was the quick reply. "I'll talk till daylight as long as you won't let me think!"
"That's the right child!" purred her brother. "Come to my room; it's the least bit more remote; and these youths are holding indignation meetings on their own account. Ah! here's one of them."