The Rider of Waroona Part 53

Already the news of the Rider's end was common property. When Mrs.

Eustace came to him in the little sitting-room, it was of that she spoke.

"Oh, who was he, Fred? Bessie heard that Mr. Durham had refused to tell anyone but you. Is that so? Surely I may know. Surely I am ent.i.tled to so small a satisfaction as that?"

"I do not know who he was," Harding replied. "Durham came to us late last night, too late for me to come and tell you, but he mentioned no name. He said something I would have liked to have been able to repeat to you at once, but it was too late. So I have come as early as this.

Durham asked me specially to come. He said--he hoped you----"

She drew herself up as he paused, clasped her hands, and pressed them to her breast.

"What is it, Fred? You have some--something terrible--to say," she said in a whisper.

"Not terrible, Jess, but it is sad. Durham said he hoped you would find some consolation in it. So do I. So do we all. The Rider, whoever he may have been, confessed. He said Eustace was innocent."

She remained quite still, without a sound, staring at him.

"The bank was robbed by the Rider and another, Durham said, but Eustace was not one of the two. He was absolutely innocent. We have wired to the general manager to say so."

"Fred, I don't believe it. I can't believe it. Why did he run away if he were innocent? I will never rest until I know who the man Mr. Durham shot really was. Where is Mr. Durham?"

"He has left Waroona, Jess. He told Brennan he could only report personally to his chief the truth about the man. Brennan thinks he was someone connected with one of the big families, and that is why the name is not made known."

"But I insist on knowing. Was he shot? Is it true, or is it some hideous blind? I will know, Fred, I will know!"

"Durham was too much cut up when he came to us last night, Jess, for it to be a blind. A tragedy it may be, but not a blind."

"But who was the man? Whoever he was he killed Charlie, killed him, Fred. They have no right to hide his name. Besides--how do we know he was shot? Durham said so, but where is the body?"

He shook his head.

"Jess," he said, "it is sad enough. What the mystery is I cannot say, but if it has cleared Charlie's name----"

She sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands.

"Oh, that will not bring him back!" she sobbed. "What will that do now?"

He bent over her, with his hand on her shoulder.

"I know," he said, "I know how bitter it is, how hard."

"I said they would find him innocent when--when he had gone," she exclaimed.

"The Bank wants to make what amends it can," he said softly. "Will you let----"

"Oh, don't ask me," she moaned. "I know what you would say. Do as you think best."

"Then I will arrange it?"

She bent her head in answer.

"I should have gone away," she said as she rose and walked across the room. "You were right. I should never have stayed, never, never!"

"Don't think me cruel, Jess," he said; "but there is something more I must tell you. Have you heard about Mr. Dudgeon?"

She nodded.

"Oh, yes," she answered. "Poor old man. He was here yesterday. He----"

"He came to the bank," he said, as she was silent. "He left something in my charge, Jess, and made me promise you should have it at once if anything happened to him. It was his will. He has left everything to you."

She turned quickly.

"Fred--Fred----" she gasped as she held out her hands and groped in the air.

He caught her as she swayed.

For a time she lay in his arms, finding a woman's relief in a flood of tears. Not until she grew calm did he speak.

"You must go away to-morrow," he said softly. "Go away and rest where you will not be hara.s.sed by all the memories which cling around this place. Promise me you will."

She raised her head and looked him in the face through her tears.

"Fred, you know why I cannot leave. Even now, with all this tragedy over me, with him--lying over there--he whom I suspected and blamed--don't think ill of me; but my heart would have been broken but for you."

He drew her to him again, held her close to him, kissed her upturned lips.

"I will leave too," he whispered. "I will come after. Will you promise now?"

"Yes," she answered simply.

When he returned to the bank, Brennan rode up at a gallop.

"Oh, a terrible thing has happened!" he cried as he came into the office. "Waroona Downs has been burned to the ground in the night and both Mrs. Burke and old Patsy burned to death in their beds. I warned her that one of these days that drunken old man would do some damage, but she wouldn't listen to me. Now there's the place in ruins and ashes.

It must have burned out hours ago, for there's not a spark left, only the remains of the two lying charred to cinders."

Coming on top of the other news circulating amongst the townsfolk, the destruction of Waroona Downs, with its two inmates, exhausted the local capacity for wonder.

The whole towns.h.i.+p followed Eustace from the bank, forgetting their earlier condemnation of him now that his innocence had been declared, and being only anxious to testify their sympathy with the woman who had suffered so much in their midst. They would have turned out _en ma.s.se_ and escorted her some miles on her way to the junction when she set out from Waroona for the south, but word was pa.s.sed round that she wanted to go away in silence, un.o.bserved.

Three months later Harding followed her. There was no staying the towns.h.i.+p then. He was the last of the active partic.i.p.ants in the tragic mystery to leave the place, and it was an open secret he was going to join the one for whom they all felt deeply. So they made up in his send-off for the restraint they had exercised upon themselves when she bade the town a silent farewell.

The memory of that festivity still lives in the local annals, and ever, as a stranger asks for the story of the Rider, the send-off of the banker is the conclusion of the tale. In vain the stranger may ask for particulars as to who the Rider was.

The charred ashes of Waroona Downs had no tongue wherewith to tell what happened the night fire came to wipe the homestead from the earth.