I just looked at her, and turned my head away. I felt as if I’d make a fool of myself if I didn’t. All the depth down that I’d fallen since I was shearing there at Boree rushed into my mind at once. I nearly fell down, I know. I was pretty weak and low then; I’d only just come out of the doctor’s hands.

I was passing along with the rest of the mob. I heard her voice quite clear and firm, but soft and sweet, too. How sweet it sounded to me then!

“I wish to speak a few words to the third prisoner in the line—the tall one. Can I do so, Captain Wharton?”

“Oh, certainly, Miss Falkland,” said the old gentleman, who had brought them all in to look at the wonderful neat garden, and the baths, and the hospital, and the unnatural washed-up, swept-up barracks that made the cleanest gaol feel worse than the roughest hut. He was the visiting magistrate, and took a deal of interest in the place, and believed he knew all the prisoners like a book. “Oh! certainly, my dear young lady. Is Richard Marston an acquaintance of yours?”

“He and his brother worked for my father at Boree,” she said, quite stately. “His brother saved my life.”

I was called back by the warder. Miss Falkland stepped out before them all, and shook hands with me. Yes, she shook hands with me, and the tears came into her eyes as she did so.

If anything could have given a man’s heart a turn the right way that would have done it. I felt again as if someone cared for me in the world, as if I had a soul worth saving. And people may talk as they like, but when a man has the notion that everybody has given him up as a bad job, and has dropped troubling themselves about him, he gets worse and worse, and meets the devil half-way.

She said: “Richard Marston, I cannot tell how grieved I am to see you here. Both papa and I were so sorry to hear all about those Momberah cattle.”

I stammered out something or other, I hardly knew what.

She looked at me again with her great beautiful eyes like a wondering child.

“Is your brother here, too?”

“No, Miss Falkland,” I said. “They’ve never caught Jim yet, and, what’s more, I don’t think they will. He jumped on a bare-backed horse without saddle or bridle, and got clear.”

She looked as if she was going to smile, but she didn’t. I saw her eyes sparkle, though, and she said softly—