The Rider of Waroona Part 35

"Now do you know it?"

"Charlie's writing!"

Her eyes, after one rapid glance at it, were raised to his.

"You recognise it?"

"I recognise the writing, yes. It is his. Do you wish me to read it?"

"If you have not already done so."

She took the letter from him. As she read the first sentence she raised her eyes, filled with piteous anguish, to his.

"Oh, Fred!" she exclaimed. "Oh, what is this? Where did you get it?"

Without waiting for an answer she looked at it again. Her face went as white as the paper, a violent fit of trembling seized her, and she sank to her knees beside the table, burying her head on her arms.

"Oh, Fred! Fred! Why--why did you let me see it?" she moaned.

"Is it not yours?" he asked in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"Mine?"

She was on her feet, facing him, with eyes that blazed through the tears which filled them.

"You believed that? You believed I had this when--that I had read it when we were at Taloona? You believed that?"

"It was given to me by one of the troopers, who picked it up where you had been kneeling when you attended to Durham's wound. The man said it was either yours or mine. I knew it was not mine, so I took it to give it to you. I should have given it at once, but I forgot it at the moment. When I read it----"

"Go on," she said in a hard voice as he paused.

"When I read it I----"

Her eyes disconcerted him; he could not bring himself to say to her face he suspected her.

"When you read it--you believed it was mine," she said steadily.

"For the moment, yes; I had no alternative. Then--later--I was uncertain."

"Uncertain of what?"

"Uncertain whether it was yours. At first I intended to hand it over to Brennan, as Durham was too ill to understand. Of course, that would have made it public, and you--well, you would have been suspected, at the least, of complicity in the robbery. I could not believe that of you--could not, even with this in my possession. I came back to Waroona in the morning intending to see you and hear what explanation you had to offer before taking any further steps. But you were not at the bank, and when I got there I was done up."

The steady look in her eyes never changed.

"Go on," she repeated.

"I ask you now--what explanation have you to offer?"

"Please finish your story first," she replied. "Then I will tell you mine."

"I have little to add. I could not bring myself to give up the letter until I was sure it was really yours. Lest anyone else should see it, I hid it where no one could find it. But when I came down from my room again, Mr. Wallace told me you had been in and had gone back to Taloona.

So I kept it until I could be sure."

"Sure of what?"

"Whether--you had had it."

She laid it on the table in front of him.

"Take it," she said. "Do what you will with it. I am sorry you showed it to me. I would rather not have seen it. How it came where it was found I do not know. Until to-night I did not know it existed."

She met his glance openly, frankly, proudly.

"And you believed it was mine!" she added.

"I had no alternative--until I saw you," he answered.

"You have had that letter for weeks; I have been here three days. Yet you only come to me now--when I have asked you to come."

"I dared not see you--lest----"

"Lest you discovered me to be even a greater traitress than you had already learned me to be," she said in measured tones. "I cannot blame you. The fault was mine. I have given you ample reason why your faith in me should have ended."

"That is not true," he exclaimed. "I could not bring myself to believe you had acted so. But it was horrible enough as it was. It was because I had not lost faith in you that I hid the letter so as to prevent anyone else seeing it. By doing so I was not acting as I should have acted towards the Bank."

"I never had it, never. I wish I had not seen it, for it"--her voice lost its hardness as she spoke--"it is the last straw. Whatever else I knew my husband to be, I held him innocent of that crime. When you and all the others suspected him, I would not, could not bring myself to believe it. But now----"

Her voice caught and she turned aside, sinking into a chair where she sat with averted face and bowed head.

"No wonder you did not wish to see me again," she added presently, as he did not speak. "What am I now? The wife of a thief, an outlaw, one who was almost a murderer. Oh, leave me! I should not have sent to you.

Leave me. There is nothing for me now but death or degradation."

"You must not say that, Jess, you must not say that," he said in a strained voice as he came and stood beside her. "Whatever he may have done, you are not affected by it. Appearances cannot well be blacker against him than they are at present, but you must still remember you are not responsible for his ill-deeds. No one here, least of all myself, blames you. Besides, he has not yet been convicted."

"Not after that letter? There can be no doubt after that. He must have had it with him when he was at Taloona, and dropped it."

"But it was opened, torn open, when the trooper found it. If Eustace had dropped it, surely it would have been sealed up."

She glanced at him quickly.

"Do you still suspect me?" she exclaimed.

"I should not be here if I did," he answered quietly.

"Oh, I don't know what to think," she said. "I would rather you had come to tell me he was dead than to show me that hideous thing. Better if he were dead, far, far better, than that he should live to end his days on the gallows or in gaol."

She was voicing his own thought, a thought which had been with him for many days.