away, Bessie."

"I'm not the Bank's servant; I'm yours. Shall I help you get the
furniture ready now?"

"No, not just at once. I am going out to Taloona to help the doctor
nurse Mr. Dudgeon. I only want to take enough with me for a few days.
Mr. Gale will arrange for removing the rest, but I would like you to see
they are all taken."

"I'll see that they're taken, and go with them, too, Mrs. Eustace. I
don't want to stay in a place where everything I do is spied on and made
bad of. Let me come and help you now."

By the time they had packed a small box, Gale drove up in front of the
bank.

"I'll take this down," Bessie exclaimed. "It's not heavy."

Mrs. Eustace followed her out of the room.

At the door she stopped. On the other side of the landing was Harding's
room. She glanced at the closed door.

Stepping over to it, she tapped. There was no response. She turned the
handle; the door was locked.

She did not want to go without a word for him. She opened her bag to see
if she had a scrap of paper or a card on which she could scribble a
line. As she did so, Bessie came up the stairs to ask if there was
anything else she could do.

"No, that is all, Bessie. You might tell Mr. Harding I have gone. He is
asleep at present."

Bessie sniffed, with her nose in the air, as she followed her mistress
down the stairs. Tell Mr. Harding? Tell the man who was, in Bessie's
mind, the person solely responsible for the indignity placed upon her
and Mrs. Eustace of being locked in their own rooms by Constable
Brennan! All the message he would ever receive through her would do him
good, she told herself.

In the office Wallace heard the buggy drive away and caught a glimpse of
it as it passed the door. Mrs. Eustace was sitting beside Gale, looking
up at him and smiling.

The sound of another vehicle driving up to the door interrupted him. He
looked up from his work as Mrs. Burke came into the office.

"Good morning, Mr. Wallace," she exclaimed, "I've looked in as I was
passing, to inquire what is the latest news about the scoundrels. Have
they got them yet? Is there any word of my papers?"

"Have you not heard? Has no one----"

"Heard? Heard what? Heavens about us, man, you're not going to tell me
my papers have been destroyed?"

"Oh, no, I'm not going to tell you that, Mrs. Burke. As the news is all
over the place, I fancied you must have heard it also. I forgot you were
away in the bush. Taloona was stuck up las