too, something of this exultation; but she nerved herself to look into
the future, and saw it grim and starless. She saw herself the daughter of
the convicted thief, the thief who had only narrowly escaped having to
stand his trial for murdering her lover; the thief who had shifted the
burden of his guilt on to the shoulders of an innocent man, the brother
of her love. Could she ever consent to be Harry's wife after that? she
asked herself with sudden terror. Then she shut out the thought, and her
heart sang: 'He loves me! He loves me! 'and there was joy in that no
danger could destroy.

Detective Downy was in Waddy again on the following morning, his trip to
Yarraman having been taken with the idea of interviewing Joe Rogers in
prison and endeavouring to worm out of him some intelligence that might
assist in the discovery of Ephraim Shine. But Rogers either knew nothing
or could not be persuaded to tell what he knew, so the effort was
fruitless.

After hearing the story of the previous night, Downy sent for Billy
Peterson and questioned him closely; but the boy insisted that he had
told the truth, and was quite positive it was the searcher's voice he
heard. The detective was puzzled.

'You made a close hunt about the house?' he said to Sergeant Monk.

'In every nook and corner.'

'Yet there must be something in this boy's yarn. Shine is certainly in
hiding somewhere near here. If he had made a run for it he must have been
seen, and we should have heard of him before this. There might be a dozen
holes in those quarries into which a man could creep. We must go over