gold-stealing, wounding Harry Hardy, and shooting at Trooper Casey.

Harry returned to his work. He made no further calls at the homestead to
inquire after Christina, but heard from Dick that she had not returned to
Waddy, but was staying in Yarraman till after the trial. Mrs. Haddon
expressed an opinion that the poor girl felt the disgrace of her position
keenly, and dreaded to face the people of the township where her father
had been accepted as a shining light for so many years, and where she had
always commanded respect and affection.

As the time for the trial approached Harry found himself hungering for a
sight of her face again. Pride and common-sense were no weapons with
which to fight love. At best they afforded only a poor disguise behind
which a man might hide his sufferings from the scoffers.

The trial occupied two days. The prisoner was defended by a clever young
lawyer from Melbourne, who fought every point pertinaciously and strove
with all his energy and knowledge and cunning to represent Joe Rogers as
the victim of circumstances and Ephraim Shine--especially Ephraim
Shine--who was a monster of blackened iniquity, capable of a diabolical
astuteness in the pursuit of his criminal intentions. The story of the
boy Haddon was absolutely false in representing Rogers as having assisted
in the theft of the gold produced. The boy was a creature of Shine's;
that was obvious on the face of his evidence and the evidence of Miss
Shine and Detective Downy. Shine had had the lad in his toils, otherwise
why had he taken such precautions to shield the man, and why had he given
him warning of the approach of the troopers? Rogers' story was entirely
credible, he said. It was to the effect that Shine had confessed to him
that he had robbed the mine of a quantity of gold and had been robbed in
turn by the boy Haddon, who was his real accomplice. He solicited the aid