A new voice broke upon his ear:
"You are wrong; I know!"
His lowered gaze fell upon the motionless figure of Dick Edmonstone, who was standing quietly in front of him.
XIV
QUITS
FOR the second time that night Miles felt instinctively for his revolver, and for the second time in vain.
The younger man understood the movement.
"A shot would be heard in the road and at the lodge," said he quietly. "You'll only hasten matters by shooting me."
At once Miles perceived his advantage; his adversary believed him to be armed. Withdrawing his hand from the breast of his overcoat slowly, as though relinquishing a weapon in the act of drawing it, he answered:
"I believe you are right. But you are a cool hand!"
"Perhaps."
"I have only seen one other as cool—under fire."
"Indeed?"
"A fact. But I'll tell you where you come out even stronger."
"Do."
"In playing the spy. There you shine!"
"Hardly," said Dick dryly, and this time he added a word or two: "or I should have shown you up some time since."
The two men faced one another, fair and square, but their attitudes were not aggressive. Miles leant back against a tree with folded arms, and Dick stood with feet planted firmly and hands in his pockets. A combat of coolness was beginning. The combatants were a man in whom this quality was innate, and one who rose to it but rarely. In these circumstances it is strange that the self-possession of Dick was real to the core, whilst that of the imperturbable Miles was for once affected and skin-deep.
"Will you tell me," said Miles, "what you have heard? You may very possibly have drawn wrong inferences."
"I heard all," Dick answered.
"All is vague; why not be specific?"
"I heard that—well, that that woman was your wife."
Miles felt new hope within him. Suppose he had heard no more than that! And he had not heard anything more—the thing was self-evident—or he would not have spoken first of this—this circumstance which must be confessed "unpleasant," but should be explained away in five minutes; this—what more natural?—this consequence of an ancient peccadillo, this bagatelle in comparison with what he might have learned.
"My dear sir, it is nothing but an infernal lie!" he cried with eager confidence; "she never was anything of the kind. It is the old story: an anthill of boyish folly, a mountain of blackguardly extortion. Can't you see?"
"No, I can't," said Dick stolidly.
"Why, my good fellow, they have come over on purpose to bleed me—they said so. It's as plain as a pikestaff."
"That may be true, so far as the man is concerned."
"Don't you see that the woman is his accomplice? But now a word with you, my friend. These are my private affairs that you have had the impudence——"
"That was not all I heard," said Dick coldly.
Danger again—in the moment of apparent security.
"What else did you hear, then?" asked Miles, in a voice that was deep and faint at the same time.
"Who you are," replied Dick shortly. "Sundown the bushranger."
The words were pronounced with no particular emphasis; in fact, very much as though both sobriquet and calling were household words, and sufficiently familiar in all men's mouths. The bushranger heard them without sign or sound. Dick waited patiently for him to speak; but he waited long.
It was a strange interview between these two men, in the dead of this summer's night, in the heart of this public park. They were rivals in love; one had discovered the other to be not only an impostor, but a notorious felon; and they had met before under circumstances the most peculiar—a fact, however, of which only one of them was now aware. The night was at the zenith of its soft and delicate sweetness. A gentle breeze had arisen, and the tops of the slender firs were making circles against the sky, like the mastheads of a ship becalmed; and the stars were shining like a million pin-pricks in the purple cloak of light. At last Miles spoke, asking with assumed indifference what Dick intended to do.
"But let it pass; of course you will inform at once!"
"What else can I do?" demanded Dick, sternly.
Miles scrutinised his adversary attentively and speculated whether there was the least chance of frightening such a man. Then he again thrust his hand into the breast of his overcoat, and answered reflectively:
"You can die—this minute—if I choose."
Dick stood his ground without moving a muscle.
"Nonsense!" he said scornfully. "I have shown you that you can gain nothing by that."
Miles muttered a curse, and scowled at the ground, without, however, withdrawing his hand.
"The case stands thus," said Dick: "you have imposed on friends of mine, and I have found you—not a common humbug, as I thought all along—but quite a famous villain. Plainly speaking, a price is on your head."
Miles did not speak.
"And your life is in my hands."
Miles made no reply.
"The natural thing," Dick continued, "would have been to crawl away, when I heard who you were, and call the police. You see I have not done that."
Still not a word.
"Another, and perhaps fairer, way would be to give you a fair start from this spot and this minute, and not say a word for an hour or two, until people are about; the hare-and-hounds principle, in fact. But I don't mean to do that either."
Miles raised his eyes, and at last broke his silence.
"You are arbitrary," he sneered. "May I ask what is the special quality of torture you have reserved for me? I am interested to know."
"I shall name a condition," replied Dick firmly—"a single condition—on which, so far as I am concerned, you may impose on the public until some one else unmasks you."
"I don't believe you!"
"You have not heard my condition. I am in earnest."
"I wouldn't believe you on oath!"
"And why?"
"Because you owe me a grudge," said Miles, speaking rapidly—"because it is in your interest to see me go under."
"My condition provides for all that."
"Let me hear it, then."
"First tell me how you came to know the Bristos."
Miles gave Dick substantially the same story that he had already learned from Alice.
"Now listen to me," said Dick. "Instead of squatter you were bushranger. You had been in England a day or two instead of a month or two, and you had set foot in Sussex only; instead of masquerading as a fisherman you wore your own sailor's clothes, in which you swam ashore from your ship."
"Well guessed!" said Miles ironically.
"A cleverer thing was never done," Dick went on, his tone, for the moment, not wholly free from a trace of admiration. "Well, apart from that first set of lies, your first action in England was a good one. That is one claim on leniency. The account you have given me of it is quite true, for I heard the same thing from one whose lips, at least, are true!"
These last words forced their way out without his knowledge until he heard them.
"Ah!" said Miles.
An involuntary subdual of both voices might have been noticed here; it was but momentary, and it did not recur.
Dick Edmonstone took his hands from his pockets, drew nearer to Miles, slowly beat his left palm with his right fist, and said:
"My condition is simply this: you are to go near the Bristos no more."
If this touched any delicate springs in the heart of Miles, their workings did not appear in his face. He made no immediate reply; when it came, there was a half-amused ring in his speech:
"You mean to drive a hard bargain."
"I don't call it hard."
"All I possess is in that house. I cannot go far, as I stand; you might as well give me up at once."
"I see," said Dick musingly. "No; you are to have an excellent chance. I have no watch on me: have you? No? Well, it can't be more than one now, or two at the latest, and they keep up these dances till dawn—or they used to. Then perhaps you had better go back to the house now. Button-hole the Colonel; tell him you have had a messenger down from town—from your agent. You can surely add a London agent to your Queensland station and your house in Sydney! Well, affairs have gone wrong on this station of yours—drought, floods—anything you like; you have received an important wire; you are advised, in fact, to start back to Queensland at once. At any rate, you must pack up your traps and leave Graysbrooke first thing in the morning. You are very sorry to be called back so suddenly—they are sorrier still to lose you; but Australia and England are so close now, you are sure to be over again some day—and all the rest of it; but you are never to go near them again. Do you agree?"