More and more the voice and manner of the outlaw altered as he replied with mocking bitterness: "I was Edward Golding, gentleman; I became Edward Golding, forger; I am Roadmaster, convicted of manslaughter, and bushranger."
The old man's state was painful to see. "You—you—that, Edward!" he uttered brokenly.
"All that. Will you arrest me now?"
"I—cannot."
The bushranger threw aside all bravado and irony, and said: "I knew you could not. Why did I come? Listen—but first, will you shelter me here to-night?"
The soldier's honourable soul rose up against this thing, but he said slowly at last: "If it is to save you from peril, yes."
Roadmaster laughed a little and rejoined: "By God, sir, you're a man! But it isn't likely that I'd accept it of you, is it? You've had it rough enough, without my putting a rock in your swag that would spoil you for the rest of the tramp. You see, I've even forgotten how to talk like a gentleman. And now, sir, I want to show you, for Barbara's sake, my dirty logbook."
Here he told the tale of his early sin and all that came of it. When he had finished the story he spoke of Barbara again. "She didn't want to disgrace you, you understand," he said. "You were at Wandenong; I know that, never mind how. She'd marry you if I were out of the way. Well, I'm going to be out of the way. I'm going to leave this country, and she's to think I'm dead, you see."
At this point Louis Bachelor swayed, and would have fallen, but that the bushranger's arms were thrown round him and helped him to a chair. "I'm afraid that I am ill," he said; "call Gongi. Ah!" He had fainted.
The bushranger carried him to a bed, and summoned Gongi and the woman from the tavern, and in another hour was riding away through the valley of the Popri. Before thirty-six hours had passed a note was delivered to a station-hand at Wandenong addressed to Barbara Golding, and signed by the woman from The Angel's Rest. Within another two days Barbara Golding was at the bedside of Captain Louis Bachelor, battling with an enemy that is so often stronger than love and always kinder than shame.