said, and caught his hand.

"She _was_ fine," he answered simply. Yet Moya's hand had no effect. He
looked at it wistfully, but let it go without an answering clasp. And
the girl's pride bled again.

She hardly heard his story after that. Yet it was a story to hear. The
villain had not been a villain of the meaner dye, but one of parts,
courage among them.

"There have been no bushrangers in your time," said Rigden; "but you may
have heard of them?"

"I remember all about the Kellys," said honest Moya. "I'm not so young
as all that."

"Did you ever hear of Captain Bovill?"

"I know the name, nothing more."

"I am glad of that," said Rigden, grimly. "It is the name by which my
unhappy father is going down to Australian history as one of its most
notorious criminals. The gold-fields were the beginning of the end of
him, as of many a better man; he could not get enough out of his claim,
so he took it from an escort under arms. There was a whole band of them,
and they were all taken at last; but it was not the last of Captain
Bovill. You have seen the old hulk _Success_? He was one of the
prisoners who seized the launch and killed a warder and a sailor between
them; he was one of those sentenced to death and afterwards reprieved.
That was in '56; the next year they murdered the Inspector-General; and
he was tried for that with fifteen others, but he got off with his neck.
He only spoilt his last chance of legal freedom in this life; so he
tried to escape again and again; and at last he has succeeded!"

The son's tone was little in keeping with his acts, but the incongruity
was very human. There was Moya beside him in the moonlight, but for the
last time, whatever she might say or think! And her mind was working
visibly.

"Why didn't the police say who it was they were after?" she cried of a
sudden; and the blame was back in her voice, for she had found new
shoulders for it.

Rigden smiled sadly.

"Don't you see?" he said. "Don't you remember what Harkness said at the
start about my fellows harbouring him? But he told me that evening--to
think that it was only last night!--as a great secret and a tremendous
piece of news. The fact is that my unhappy father was more than
notorious in his day; he was popular; and popular sympathy has been the
bugbear of the police ever since the Kellys. Not that he has much
sympathy for me!" cried Rigden all at once. "Not that I'm acting
altogether from a sense of filial duty, h