Now and then we managed to get a talk with Starlight on the sly. He used to meet us at a safe place by night, and talk it all over. He and his mates were doing well, and expected to be ready for a start in a few months, when we might meet in Melbourne and clear out together. He believed it would be easy, and said that our greatest danger of being recognised was now over—that we had altered so much by living and working among the diggers that we could pass for diggers anywhere.

“Why, we were all dining at the Commissioner’s yesterday,” he said, “when who should walk in but our old friend Goring. He’s been made inspector now; and, of course, he’s a great swell and a general favourite. The Commissioner knew his family at home, and makes no end of fuss about him. He left for the Southern district, I am glad to say. I felt queer, I must say; but, of course, I didn’t show it. We were formally introduced. He caught me with that sudden glance of his—devilish sharp eyes, he has—and looks me full in the face.

“’I don’t remember your name, Mr. Haughton,’ said he; ‘but your face seems familiar to me somehow. I can’t think where I’ve met you before.’

“’Must have been at the Melbourne Club,’ says I, pulling my moustache.‘Met a heap of Sydney people there.’

“ ‘Perhaps so,’ says he. ‘I used to go and lunch there a good deal. I had a month’s leave last month, just after I got my step. Curious it seems, too,’ says he; ‘I can’t get over it.’

“ ‘Fill your glass and pass the claret,’ says the Commissioner. ‘Faces are very puzzling things met in a different state of existence. I don’t suppose Haughton’s wanted, eh, Goring?’

“This was held to be a capital joke, and I laughed, too, in a way that would have made my fortune on the stage. Goring laughed, too, and seemed to fear he’d wounded my feelings, for he was most polite all the rest of the evening.”

“Well, if he didn’t smoke you,” says Jim,“we’re right till the Day of Judgment. There’s no one else here that’s half a ghost of a chance to swear to us.”

“Except,” says I.

“Oh! Kate?” says Jim; “never mind her. Jeanie’s coming up to be married to me next month, and Kate’s getting so fond of you again that there’s no fear of her letting the cat out.”

“That’s the very reason. I never cared two straws about her, and now I hate the sight of her. She’s a revengeful devil, and if she takes it into her head she’ll turn on us some fine day as sure as we’re alive.”