She did so very simply.
"They must have been the same men I heard of in the Port," he said, breathing hard. "M'Laughlin, the trooper, told me about them ... and that I had best look out for them up here. There was no telling what they might do, he said—a desperate pair—would stop at nothing. I am not sure that I'd better not send Johnson back to tell him that they've been here and that—"
"You would not do that, Donald?"
"Why not?"
His voice, the suppressed rage of it, was a shock to her.
"A man cannot leave his home in safety with these sort of men about ... and it is the duty of every honest man to deal as he would be dealt by. You're a clever woman, and no harm has come to you by them ... but there are other women who might not be so clever."
"But they were not bad men, Donald; one of them was sick, and the other—"
"It would be a good thing too, being new in the district, to stand well with the police," he continued doggedly, "and if they were here, those two, they would either make back for the Port, or the Wirree, or try to get to Middleton's. If they're on foot, as ye say, they could not go fast, and M'Laughlin with horses could catch them up in a day or two. Which way did they go?"
Mary turned her head away. A sick feeling of grief and disappointment overcame her. His eyes covered the averted curve of her face and the line of her neck.
"Which way did they go?" he asked, thickly.