captain's eyes met hers steadily. "He stayed in the bushes, so that
I didn't see his body well. He was masked."

"But you know who it was. Tell me."

Ned Kilmeny was morally certain of the identity of the robber. He could
all but swear to the voice, and surely there were not two men in the
county with such a free and gallant poise of the head.

"I couldn't take oath to the man."

"It was your cousin." Moya was pale to the lips.

The officer hesitated. "I'm not prepared to say who the man was."

The pulse in her throat beat fast. Her hand was clutching the arm of a
chair so tightly that the knuckles stood out white and bloodless.

"You know better. It was Jack Kilmeny," she charged.

"I could tell you only my opinion," he insisted.

"And I know all about it." Moya came to time with her confession
promptly, in the fearless fashion characteristic of her. "It was I that
sent him to you. It was I that betrayed you to him."

India set her lips to a soundless whistle. Her brother could not keep
out of his brown face the amazement he felt.

"I don't wonder you look like that," Moya nodded, gulping down her
distress. "You can't think any worse of me than I do of myself."

"Nonsense! If you told him you had a reason. What was it?" India asked,
a little sharply.

"No reason that justifies me. He took me by surprise. He had come to get
the stolen money and I told him we were returning it to the Fair
association. He guessed the rest. Almost at once he left. I saw him take
the canon road for Gunnison."

"You weren't to blame at all," the captain assured her, adding with a
rueful smile: "He didn't take you any more by surprise than he did me. I
hadn't time to reach for the rifle."

India's Irish eyes glowed with contemptuous indignation. She used the
same expression that Ned had. "He must be an out and out rotter. To
think he'd rob Ned after what he offered to do for him. I'm through with
him."

Her brother said nothing, but in his heart he agreed. There was nothing
to be done for a fellow whose sense of decency was as far gone as that.

Moya too kept silence. Her heart was seething with scorn for this
handsome scamp who had put this outrage upon them all. It was bad enough
to be a thief, but to this he had added deception, falsehood, and gross
ingratitude. Nor did the girl's contempt spare herself. Neither warning
nor advice--and Lady Jim had been prodigal of both--had availed to open
her eyes about the Westerner.