CHAPTER IX.—FACE TO FACE.

For whatever else this wild girl may have been, she was obviously not a coward. That is the one thing to be said for Missy without any hesitation whatever. Alone, and in the night, she was going to pit herself against an unknown man, who was certainly a villain; yet on she went, with her chin in the air and her arms swinging free. The trees were thickest at the bottom of the low gully. The girl came through them with a brisk glance right and left, but never a lagging step. On the further slope the trees spread out again, and here, on comparatively open ground, she did stop, and suddenly. She could smell the man's pipe in the sweet night air; the man himself was nowhere to be seen.

Missy filled her lungs slowly through her teeth, and emptied them with dilated nostrils. Then she went on, longing in her heart for a moon. In the starlight it was not possible to see clearly very many yards ahead. So far as she could see—and her eyes were good—there was no one in that paddock but herself. Yet a faint smell of tobacco still slightly fouled the air. And this was the very worst part of the whole business; it had brought Missy at last to a second stand-still, and to the determination of singing out, when, without warning sound, an arm was flung round her neck, soft words were being whispered in her ear, and Missy who was no coward felt the veins freezing in her body.

She flung herself free with a great effort, then reeled against the she-oak from behind which he had crept who now stood taking off his hat to her in the starlight.

"I beg your pardon," said a rich, suave voice in its suavest tones; "upon my word, I beg your pardon from the very bottom of my heart! I thought—I give you my word I thought you were another young lady altogether!"

Missy had recovered a measure of her customary self-control. "So I see—so I see," she managed to say distinctly enough; but her voice was the voice of another person.

"Thank you, indeed! You are very generous," said the man, raising his hat once more; "few women would have understood. The fact is, as I say, I took you for a certain young lady whom I quite expected to meet before this. Perhaps you have seen her, and could tell me where she is? For we have missed each other among these accursed gum-trees."

The fellow's impudence was good for Missy.

"Yes, I have seen her," said she, as calmly as the other.

"And where may she be at this moment?"

"In her father's house."

The man stood twirling his moustache and showing the white teeth under it. Then he stuck in his mouth a meerschaum he had in his hand, and sucked silently at the pipe for some moments. "I beg your pardon once more; but I fear we are at cross-purposes," said he presently. He had been considering.

"I don't think it," said Missy.

"And why not?" This with a smile.

"Because I have a message for you, Mr. Stan-borough."

"Ha!"

"A message from Arabella Teesdale," said Missy, who had lowered her tone and drawn the other a pace nearer in his eagerness.

"And?" he asked; but he was made to wait. "Will you have the goodness to give me that message? Tell me what she says, can't you?"

"Oh, certainly!" replied Missy, with a laugh. "I was to say that she had been very foolish, but has come to her senses in time; and that you will never see her any more, as she has thought better of it, and is done with you for good and all!"

There was a pause first, and then a short sardonic laugh.

"So you were to say all that! It isn't the easiest thing in the world to take it in all at once. Do you mind saying some of it over again?"

"Once is enough. You've got your warning; it's no good your coming after 'Bella Teesdale no more. If you do, you look out for her brother, that's all!"

"John William, eh?" The man laughed again.

"Yes."

"I know all about the family, you see. I know all about you too—in a way. I never knew you were 'Bella's keeper, I must admit. She merely told me you were a young English lady, of the name of Miss Miriam Oliver, who landed the other week in the Parramatta."

"So I am," said Missy, trembling violently. Her back was still to the good she-oak, but the man had come so close to her now that she could not have escaped him if she would.

"Now that's very interesting," he hissed, so that the moisture from his mouth struck her in the face. "If I'd been asked who you were, d'ye see, without first being told, d'ye know what I should have said? I should have said that the other week—just about the time the Parramatta came in—there was a certain member of the Bijou Chorus, who answered to the name of Ada Lefroy. And I should have said that Miss Miriam Oliver, of England, was so exactly the dead-spit of Miss Ada Lefroy, of the Bijou Theatre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in the Southern Hemisphere, that they must be one and the same young lady. As it is, I'll strike a light and see." He struck one on the spot. Missy was staring at him with still eyes in a white face. He laughed softly, and used the match to relight his meerschaum pipe, which had gone out.

"Well, if this doesn't lick creation!" he murmured, nodding his head very slowly, to look the girl up and down. "To think that I should have missed you from the town and found you in the country! The swell young lady from Home! Good Lord, it's too rich to be true."

Missy opened her lips that had been fast, and under that she-oak her language would have surprised the Teesdales.

"Come, this is more like," said the other clapping his hands in mock approval. "Now you'll feel better, eh? And now you'll tell me how you worked it, I'm sure."

Missy said what she would do instead.

"Then I must just tell myself. Let's see now: your father—ha! ha!—was old Teesdale's old friend, and luckily for you he'd warned them his daughter was something out of the common. That was luck! And you were out of the common! Hasn't 'Bella told me the things you said and did, till I was sick and tired? Faith, I'd have listened better if I'd dreamt it was you! I remember her saying you brought a letter of introduction, however; and that you must have stole, my beauty!"

Missy cleared her throat. "You're a liar," she said. "I found it."

"You found it! That's a lot better, isn't it? A fat lot! Anyhow, out you came, to pose as my young lady from Home till further orders. And my oath, it was one of the cheekiest games I've heard of yet!"

"I only came out for a lark," Missy said sullenly. "It was they that put it into my head to come back and stay. I couldn't help it. It was better here than in Melbourne. Much better!"

"Morally, eh?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, this is a cleaner life than t'other—what?"

"It is. Thank God!"

Stanborough laughed. (Missy had known him under another name, but she was hardly in a position to gain anything by reminding him of that.) "A mighty fine life," said he, "with a mighty fine lie at the bottom of it!"

"Yes," said Missy slowly, "that's true enough. But I'm a better sort than when I came here, I know that!"

"A better sort, eh? Ha! ha! ha! That's good, that is. That's very good indeed."

But the girl was too much in earnest to heed the sneers. "You may laugh as you like—it's God's truth," cried she. "And Melbourne will never see me no more, nor London neither. Why? 'Cause when I clear out of this, I clear up-country; and up-country I shall live ever after; yes, and very likely marry and die respectable. So you can go on jeering——"

"Stop! Not so fast," said Stanborough. "You seem to have got it all cut and dried; but when did you think of clearing out of this? Suppose you're safe till there's been time for the mails home and out again. That takes three months; you've been here more than one already, and you meant to stop just one month more. Good! very good indeed. Sorry your one month more has gone so quickly—sorry it's only one more night instead. However, that's the misfortune of war. Quite understand? Not another month—another night only—that's to-night—and a little bit of tomorrow."

Missy remarked at length:

"So you mean to give me away; I might have known that."

"Of course I do. Six months hard, that's what you will get." Missy shuddered. Her tormentor watched her and continued: "So that makes you sit up, does it, my dear? She didn't know she was breaking the law, didn't she? She'll find out soon enough—find out what it costs to pass yourself off as another person, in this Colony—find out what the inside of Carlton Jail's like, too! Not go back to town. That was good, that was."

The girl could only pant and glare and wring her hands. More followed in the same strain.

"Nice night, ain't it? Nice breeze coming up to kiss the leaves and make 'em cry! Hark at 'em, tree after tree. There goes this she-oak over our heads! Nice and cool on your face, too, isn't it? Nice wholesome smell of eucalyptus—and all the rest of it. Oh, a sweet night altogether, and one to remember—for your last night out o' prison!"

"You brute!" said Missy, and worse.

He listened patiently, nodding his head at each name. And then—

"All that? Not so fast, my dear, not half so fast, if you please. You're in far too much of a hurry, I do assure you. All that's supposing I do give you away." The man's tone was changed. "But you're going to."

"No," replied Stanborough, "not if you'll clear right out to-night. Do that and I won't say a word to a soul; not even at the farm will I give you away, once you're gone. It'll just be a case of your going as mysteriously as you came; and they may never find out the truth about you; but even if they do, you'll be far enough before they do. Only clear out to-night!"

"And leave 'Bella to you? I'll see you in blazes——-"

"And yourself in quod———"

"I don't care; you're not going to ruin Arabella."

"What if you're too late to prevent it?"

"If I was, you wouldn't be here to-night. You see I know you, too."

There was a pause.

"Do you know what I've half a mind to do?" Stanborough said at length in an exceedingly calm voice.

"Yes; to kill me. But you haven't half the pluck—not you! I know you of old."

"All right, we shall see. I give you the rest of this night to clear out in. If you don't, you may lose me my game; but you may bet your soul, Ada Lefroy, I'll have you locked up before you're a day older."

He shook his fist in her face and went away very abruptly; but in a minute he was back, all eagerness and soft persuasion.

"I have nothing against you, Ada," he began now. "You and I have had fun together. And after all, what have I to gain by getting you locked up? What is it to me if you hoodwink these old people and run your own risk? Why should I want you to clear out to-night? See here, my girl, I don't want you to do anything of the kind. You sit tight as long as you think you can; only go back now, like a sensible sort, and get 'Bella to come along with me, like another."

"I can't."

"You could. It was you who persuaded her not to come. I know it was; so don't tell me you couldn't persuade her that I am all right, and to keep her word with me after all."

"Then I won't say I couldn't I'll say I never will."

"And you mean that?"

"Of course I mean it."

"Well knowing that I shall come and expose you to-morrow, or the next day, or the day after that? By God, it'd be sport to keep you waiting!"

"Then have your sport. Have it! I will never leave 'Bella, that's one thing sure."

"You'd go to prison for her?"

"I'd do anything for any of them."

"Then go to hell for them!"

With that he lifted his clenched fist and struck at the girl's face, but she put up her hands, and only her lip was grazed. When she lowered her hands the man was gone.

And this time he was gone altogether. Missy waited, cowering behind the tree, now on this side, now on that. But there were no more footsteps in the short, dry grass until Missy herself stole out from under that she-oak, and crept down into the gully, with giving knees and her chin on her breast, a very different figure from the bold adventuress who had marched up that same slope a short hour earlier in the night. And the stars were still shining all over the little weather-board homestead, so softly, so peacefully, when Missy got back to it. And in the verandah was the wooden chair in which she would sit to read to Mr. Teesdale, and the wooden chair in which Mr. Teesdale would sit and listen. And Missy glided up and took away their book, which lay forgotten on one of the chairs; and then she glided back, thinking chiefly of the last chapter they had read together. They were hardly likely to read another now. But that was not a nice thought; and the farmhouse lay so still and serene under the stars, it was good to watch it longer; for the little homestead had never before seemed half so sweet or so desirable in the girl's eyes. And these were the only waking eyes just then on the premises, for even Arabella had fallen into a fitful, feverish sleep, from which, however, she was presently awakened in the following manner.

Something hot and dry had touched her hand that was lying out over the coverlet. Something else that was also hot, but not dry, had fallen upon that hand, and more of the same sort were still falling. So Arabella awoke frightened; and there was Missy, kneeling at her bedside, fondling her hand, and sobbing as she prayed aloud. Arabella heard without listening. Days afterwards she took out of her ears two phrases: "whatever I have been" and "bad as I am". These words she put in due season through the mills of her mind; but at the time she simply said:

"Missy! What are you doing? Ah, I remember. Have you seen him? Tell me what he said—what has happened—and what is going to happen now."

"I've seen him and settled him," Missy whispered firmly as she dried her eyes. "What he said isn't of any account. But nothing's going to happen—nothing—nothing at all."