Part 4 (1/2)

”No. You've been awfully good about that. You're pretty rough on a fellow, all the same!”

”I don't think I am at all.”

”Oh, yes, you are, Moya!”

For her tongue was beginning to hit him hard.

”You needn't raise your voice, Pelham, just because there's some one coming.”

It was only the Eureka jackeroo (or ”Colonial experiencer”), who had the hardest work on the station, and did it ”for his tucker,” but so badly as to justify Rigden in his bargain. It may here be mentioned that the manager's full name was Pelham Stanislaus Rigden; it was, however, a subconscious peculiarity of this couple never to address each other by a mere Christian name. Either they confined themselves to the personal p.r.o.noun, or they made use of expressions which may well be left upon their lovers' lips. But though scarcely aware of the habitual breach, they were mutually alive to the rare observance, which was perhaps the first thing to make Rigden realise the breadth and depth of his offence.

It was with difficulty he could hold his tongue until the jackeroo had turned his horse adrift and betaken himself to the bachelors' hut euphemistically yclept ”the barracks.”

”What have I done,” cried Rigden, in low tones, ”besides lying as you heard? That I shall suffer for, to a pretty dead certainty. What else have I done?”

”Oh, nothing,” said Moya impatiently, as though the subject bored her.

In reality she was wondering and wondering why he should have run the very smallest risk for the sake of a runaway prisoner whom he had certainly pretended never to have seen before.

”But I can see there's something else,” persisted Rigden. ”What on earth is it, darling? After all I did not lie to you!”

”No,” cried Moya, downright at last; ”you only left me for two mortal hours alone on this verandah!”

Rigden sprang to his feet.

”Good heavens!” he cried; and little dreamed that he was doubling his enormity.

”So you were unaware of it, were you?”

”Quite!” he vowed navely.

”You had forgotten my existence, in fact? Your candour is too charming!”

His candour had already come home to Rigden, and he bitterly deplored it, but there was no retreat from the transparent truth. He therefore braced himself to stand or fall by what he had said, but meanwhile to defend it to the best of his ability.

”You don't know what an interview I had in yonder,” he said, jerking a hand towards the store. ”And the worst of it is that I can never tell you.”

”Ah!”

”G.o.d forgive me for forgetting or neglecting you for a single instant!”

Rigden exclaimed. ”I can only a.s.sure you that when I left you I didn't mean to be gone five minutes. You will realise that what I eventually undertook to do for this wretched man made all the difference. It did put you out of my head for the moment; but you speak as though it were going to put you out of my life for all time!”

”For the sake of a man you pretended never to have seen before,”

murmured Moya, deftly a.s.suming what she burned to know.

”It was no pretence. I didn't recognise him.”

”But you do now,” p.r.o.nounced Moya, as one stating a perceptible fact.