'No; it is known only to those who took part in it, and no one but yourself knows that I was one of them.' 'No, but some suspect it. My father and Murdoch both do. They were talking about it this morning. They don't know whether to be glad or sorry. Mason paid well for the use of that inner room, but of late custom has fallen off in other respects. During the last two days we have taken twice as much as we were doing before, so that I think things will be about even. They were asking me about you, and if I knew anything of your history; but, of course, I could tell them nothing, because I don't know anything myself.' 'I don't think any of us know much of each other's antecedents,' Ned said. 'For anything you know I may be either an escaped convict or a duke in disguise; for anything I know you may be the daughter of the man you call your father or you may not. You may be a lady of rank, who has, from a spirit of adventure, come out here. You may have been brought up in poverty and misery in some London slum. It is certainly not the rule here in the diggings to ask people who they are or where they come from.' The girl had turned suddenly pale. She was silent for a moment when he ceased speaking, and then said-- 'It is not very civil of you to suggest that I may have been brought up in a slum.' 'I was merely putting it generally,' he said. 'Just as I suggested that I might be an escaped convict for aught you knew.' Truscott and Murdoch had indeed noticed with some uneasiness that the girl had seemed inclined to be much more friendly with Ned than she had been with any one else since they had come out. On the journey across the plains they had travelled so much faster than the majority that there was no opportunity for forming many intimacies. Since they had been in California they had seen with great satisfaction that she had strictly followed out the line they had impressed upon her, that while civil to all she had treated them with the most absolute impartiality, showing no preference of the slightest kind. The rough compliments paid to her were simply laughed away, and, if persevered in, those who uttered them found that they had no further opportunities of conversation, and that they were completely ignored the next time they came to the bar. The interests of the two men were so strongly concerned in the matter that they watched her closely, and were not long in noticing that whenever Ned presented himself at the bar she would in a very short time come across from her place behind to speak to him, sometimes only exchanging a word or two, at others, if business happened to be at all slack, chatting with him for some minutes. That day, when as usual they sat down to dinner together, Truscott said: 'You seem to be taken with that young fellow who chucked Wyoming Bill out the other day. I should not encourage him, or it will be noticed by the others, and that will do us harm.'